I started writing my training blog on October 29th 2011 and tracking the user visits with Google Analytics since December (statistics shown on right). Total of 54 posts about my physical fitness. Resistance is certainly not futile but I am still assimilating the Treeniblogi2 to my renewed, WordPress and Markdown driven blog.

There are multiple reasons why I am doing this, but the biggest reason is psychological. Physical fitness is part of me.

To embrace it you have to live and breath it.

If you want to something be part of you, it can’t be something separate. To me Treeniblogi2 has filled it’s purpose as a stepping stone for keeping track of my activities and as a place for reflection. I will continue to post training entries but the format for those is yet undecided.

Scan Agile 2012 conference was held on Thursday 8th of March. Great day which really made a difference. Here’s a small summary of the talks I went to.

Venkat Subramaniam

While I had the pleasure of meeting Venkat Subramaniam fall 2011 through a Sysart Hotspot event and knew about his excellent presentation skills, I was skeptic about the refactoring topic. Would I benefit from yet another one short refactoring lesson? In short, I did benefit. The approach was on the motivation of refactoring, not on the how part. Nothing really new, but repetition is the key for learning.

Make it work, make it better

He also pointed out a book called On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by Zinsser which is said to apply both natural and programming languages. I just ordered it.

Joseph Pelrine

Joseph talked about Cynefin. While interesting I felt the talk could have delivered more by giving examples and advice on applying the Cynefin.

Apply, inspect and adapt

Kati Vilkki

Kati talked about creating a continuous improvement culture. Feedback loops, safety to fail and empowerment were among the topics covered. Loads of good of information.

When did you feel full of energy in your work life?

Chris Matts

Chris is a funny guy who said that if we get only one thing out of the talk, let it be this:

Protect revenue

The talk was in the rough stages and perhaps I wasn’t the main audience for it. However, the searching for examples and producing a model an “Olaf” with “Bob” for understanding the system was something which will stay in my head for a long time.

Marko Taipale

Marko showed four cases of fuckups. Queues and visualization were the main points I got out of it.

Reidar Wasenius

20 minutes of Aivobic from a funny PersonalBrainer. See the following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-9efXeMuRI.

Summary

Like many others have said, the best thing which I got out of Scan Agile 2012 was the encouragement and enthusiasm. 60 minutes was too long for most of the talks. Perhaps we’ll see shorter ones next year?

Afterparty with free drinks was great of course.

Talviklassikko hockey game between IFK and Jokerit on Saturday ended 3-2.