It's been a while since I wrote on techonomics.se. Here, however, an attempt at a post worth reading. My friend Karl Wackerberg has discussed his views on "to get himself up, on dreams and happiness" . Karl does with a score of that happiness means to burn in order to achieve something is what real happiness means. I agree with Charles on this.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow has classified different degrees of needs and aspirations of people have in a very famous hierarchy of needs (Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow% 27s_hierarchy_of_needs ). Maslow hierarchy of needs categorizes our needs according to:

• Physical: Sleep and food
• Security
• Love and belonging to a group
• Confirmation (esteem)
• Self-realization

The Charles Wackerberg talking about, to let yourself go and fulfill dreams, means according to Maslov approach to step up the stairs. Moving from food on the table for shelter or to move from affirmation of others to self-realization.

The last time in my life has included many challenges that have put me to the test. Those of you who know me know I'm on exchange studies in Sydney. Australia is a brand new country, to which I had no accommodation and expectations. Finding accommodation and food for the day is not very difficult. Since my girlfriend Sofia is also on the trip have not love been a problem. Sofia is the world's best and together we have done everything! The least trivial point, the tip of the iceberg, is self-realization. Self-realization for me is to reach and surpass my goals (continious improvement as it is called in Operations Management). Since I came to Sydney, but expectations are my goals consisted of managing today's challenges, which largely consisted of school work. I am now in the middle of a semester in which the exam period just started. The past week has consisted of submissions by the two huge projects. A research project in the course Applied Marketing Research and a web development project in the course Web Applications Engineering. These projects have really put all of me to the test and been true challenges.

Research work on an Australian theater company

X is a theater company in Australia. The activities of X consists of theater productions throughout the country (including the Sydney Opera House), and education programs for adolescents. The business is classified as a "non-profit" and our mission was to generate more donations to the company by investigating motives, traits, knowledge (etc.) of the organization's private donors. This was done in different ways by different groups in the course. My group was one of two groups that did qualitative research. Our method consisted of a focus group of current donors. I was moderator of the group consisting of donors of between $ 250 and $ 10 000. Data means that a dialogue with the group and try to answer our research objectives by following a query Guide formulated. This was a big challenge for me because English is my second language. Other factors that influenced where the Australian is not the easiest dialect to interpret, the theater is not my major, and that participants in the group were older and more authoritative than me and very important for X. In spite of this focus group was very good. We have managed to answer all the research objectives and in particular found that the company should use volunteers as well as expand to improve its relationship with donors by giving them greater involvement (Involvement).

An additional challenge of the project was to bring together the work of the research. The group has been very multicultural. I have represented Europe and my friends have come from different parts of Asia. Group morale was very high and I have learned a lot about how other cultures look at work. Compared with other groups I've had is my experience that Asian team members are committed to the group and work hard (but may not have the same high quality of English). This is also something we've looked at a lot in another course I've read in parallel, international project management.

The report, a total of 92 pages, which is much more extensive than my candidate's work in Industrial Management. In relation to this I would say that the most recent research (the X) was a lot better level that I am very pleased! Notably, the work was done by fewer people, for half as much time and gave a better result. The explanation is spelled organization and guidance that has been incredibly good at UNSW! (For confidential reasons I can not publish the report on techonomics.se).

MovieDB

MovieDB Web Application Project

Overall, I read four courses simultaneously during my six months in Australia. Turn away from the research I've read a course in web development. This course was at the masters level as the other courses I've read. My background as a civil engineer is in the field of Industrial Engineering and Management, which includes a lot of economics and business. However, I have a lot of experience in computer science and programming.

The project MovieDB in Web applications-engineering was to develop a movie database. MovieDB includes accommodations for four different types of users (administrators, spectators, cinema owners and production companies). Spectators can just as Facebook availability of other onlookers as friends, chat with them and create a network. Friends can recommend movies to one another, comment and rank. Viewers can also make appointments tickets on performances in movie theaters. The system plots the nearest cinema to an audience with the help of Google Maps which allows users to quickly decide. Production can see statistics on how different users rank the company's movies, add movies to the system, and so on.

The task has been incredibly time consuming and annoying. I and my group has studied 7-22 every day for the past five weeks and just finished in time. We have learned new techniques that are busfärska on the market. These techniques include Hibernate, Spring, Spring Security, Google Maps, Statisic charting, etc.. I've got two new friends from Denmark and France who have been fantastic to work with.

Interested in our project? The project report was written by me on a day prior to the submission (the first time I've written a report on the day before delivery) and can be found here: Final-project-report-moviedb-group-13-eu . The application is not on the internet yet but will soon. Looking for someone to the latest technologies in web development? Send an email!

Is it worth it?

I went to Australia to take it easy. Everywhere I've read that study, the rate is low and that Australians take each day as it comes. This is wrong, incredibly wrong. In all cases with the courses I have ever read! The past six months have been incredibly challenging and probably the richest event in my life. I have played Australian football, snorkeling in the barrier reef, met incredible people from different cultures and learned a great deal more than the corresponding six months had given me in Sweden! I talked to my father last week when it was as tough and whined on our project. I received a comment like:

"Why do you whine, that's exactly what you want"

Yes, he's right. There are challenges that make us stronger. I love challenges.

My next challenge

First Quit my courses in a good way

Second Learn to surf properly (not just stand in one second)

Third Buy a car and do a road trip in Australia which include finding full-time jobs to survive (the plan is to pick the fruit).