Category: Out of the Box

I felt inspired today as I drove north on the roads of Sweden following cancellation of my flight to the UK in Wednesday this week thanks to Iceland’s volcano.

So there was cancelled many activities: a speaking engagement at BCS Guildford, a visit to my family, a couple of days at Infosec, the list goes on.

So here I am instead staying at a hotel halfway to Funasdalen to visit my Swedish family. I normally just take the drive in a single day, but with a baby in the car and alone it made sense to make it more fun!

It was a spontaneous decision. My husband sent me the link of this hotel. Whilst sitting on the ferry to the mainland I copied it into my browser on my iPhone to get their home page. I copied their phone number into my phone and made the booking for a single night. Then I copied the address into my GPS which told me 3.5 hours to get there and which roads -as if I didn’t already know 😉 all in 7 minutes.

I love my iPhone! It really beats the days when I’d be leafing through my Michelin Guide and the paper road map, when I lived on the continent. I wonder if the Michelin Guide gone mobile yet? It doesn’t look like it on their site.

Last Sunday here in Sweden was a 80km race over the frozen lakes between Sigtuna (north of Stockholm) and Stockholm on ice skates. It’s called the Viking-race 🙂

And as per tradition my Viking husband was out there with a total of 4000 skaters taking part. To get a true flavour of what this all about check out this link (http://www.vimeo.com/9451904) it is quite impressive. A really well done piece of work, congrats to the author!

And for those of you that know this Viking man in my life personally will see that he is there somewhere. You will recognize him from quite far because of his very nice skating style 🙂

Today 1st January 2010 this blog is three years old, and at the end of 2009 I expanded authors to this blog to include esteemed colleagues in the realm of information security and privacy. I hope that you will enjoy the richness that they will surely add to “Virtual Shadows, the privacy blog” in 2010. Authors added since my last post are Jack (USA) and Martin (Sweden). Jack I see has already added his bio, as has David (Australia), more are to come 🙂

In reflection, and for myself, 2009 has been a good year for my publishing: the book “Virtual Shadows” was published in January. What’s more in 2009 I have been busy publishing articles: in March (Right for Privacy) and May (Talk Differently) with the BCS ITNow, September with FUMSI (Get to Know Your Plumbing), November “The Hindu” (Being invisible online is no longer an option) and December ISSA (A Simple Guide to Data Privacy). Check them out if you feel for some bedtime reading 😉

What’s more my writing has been somewhat influenced by the MBA I am studying with Henley School of Management during the last 1½ years. I have been inspired and driven by my studies, the dynamics of how we communicate and are sharing information on ourselves is changing not only how we reach out and network in our private lives but also within and outside of the organisations boundaries, both physical and logical.

The blog has suffered a little in 2009 as I was busy also preparing for my daughter who was born in September. She is quite beautiful and has added a new dimension of richness to my life.

Hence, it has surely been a beautiful year for myself, both professionally and personally. I am looking forward to an amazing 2010, and I am looking forward to sharing this year with you, regular visitors to Virtual Shadows and with the newly formed Virtual Shadows research team!

Happy New Year!