I got a Masters in Human Centered Informatics in summer 2006. Shortly after handing in my thesis, I got employed at my thesis-partner company – knowentia – which is a relatively small consultant company, basing its services on a self developed IT-system. This means that the company has difficulties in defining its role. Is it a consultant company, or an IT company? Or a combo?

The services are based on giving the customers, which are medium-large, and large companies, and professional organisations an overview over the members’/employees’ competencies. And based on this, where they have holes in their competencies. Together with close relations with education suppliers it gives value for the company.

My job is to be a business developer. I deal with talking to clients – big and small. I try to relate to their business field and understand how they act on their market. With the knowledge I have about the rest of the industry and our services we build a model together that both the client and I can see sense and value in. Then our tech people take over and ensure the system and services. If the system requires further development for the client, I’m drawing the outlines and handle the contact with our developers, who are an external IT-supplier.

All in all, the job is about creating relations between the client’s business area and the services we can provide. It’s about see possibilities and navigating in an often political universe. It’s both difficult and exciting.

On Human Centered Informatics, my focus was especially on ICT and Learning – and also in the divide between human understanding and technology. A topic I have gained a wide understanding of, and on second thought use every day. In general, I find a use for many of the things I did on the university. Although there’s far between pulling out Luhmann, Habermas, and Latour on client visits.

I’m working at a software company in Århus called CCI Europe. I started here January 2nd 2006, two months before handing in my thesis. My work is about helping clients begin using the programs we develop. Since the clients are big newspaper conglomerates, it means I travel the world to educate and arrange workshops. It is a very challenging, colourful and exciting day, where you need to stay on your toes professionally, but also keep a cool head. There is much to learn, and here it is a great advantage to have developed an ability to absorb new knowledge fast, to dare step up and present something, and to know that discussion is a part of any good learning process.

While studying, I was one of those shopping around a lot. I thought everything was exciting, and it made it tough to choose. Until I found a thread in what I had done. I discovered that what really interests me is the way the computer is part of and affects our everyday lives – in an extreme amount – and yet we forget that it is affecting us. That underscores the importance of not just letting the development of IT to people with a technical background. Since then, my focus has greatly been on learning and collaboration and how IT can contribute to this in a constructive way. A question, which, naturally, is about what the systems can do, but is equally as much about what you choose to do with them.

The most awesome about the studies were probably the work style. Project work is both fun and motivating and at the same time it helps keeping the feeling of relevance in the sea of theories found in the academic world. Cooperating with companies gives a feeling that what we learn can be useful. And project work very much resembles the world you enter afterwards.

Immediately after handing in my final thesis mid 2007, I got employed as a business consultant at Projectum, which is a relatively small consultant company based out of Værløse, with an office in Aalborg where we currently are three employees. Projectum, a certified Microsoft Partner, focuses in all sorts of counselling, education, and development services related to Microsoft’s project management technologies, including primarily Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Portfolio Server as well as Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft SQL Server.

My job as a business consultant spans widely from need assessment and implementing project management solutions with clients over educating project managers, project participants, and system administrators to developing specific add-on services for Microsoft Project. When a client shows interest for Microsoft’s project management solution my task is to present the solution and later – if all goes well – to arrange a workshop with the client to define the specific configuration of the environment and then implement that solution. Following the implementation is the education of the daily users, as I work as project leader on the task, since I must make sure that what the client wants and needs matches with what is delivered.

Apart from the interesting tasks mentioned above, I take part in Microsoft Office Academy, which is a continuing education course offered by Microsoft to newly employed in the business. The purpose of the academy is to gain basic knowledge about Microsoft products through gaining Microsoft certifications, primarily within the Information Worker competence. Personally is means that I’m certified in .NET development, Windows SharePoint, and Microsoft Project Server.

For my thesis, I worked with knowledge sharing, collaboration and communication between specialist teachers, now I work with knowledge sharing, collaboration and communication between project leaders and project participants along with reporting to various interested parties in a project organisation, like the leadership, directors, investors and such. Several of the problems I met during my studies are also problems I encounter in my current job, like resistance to change and changing practices. I feel that my Master in Human Centered Informatics has outfitted me well for my current job, since I among other things, work with analysing IT-related problems and developing concrete solution proposals.

At O'mega Kommunikation I primarily work with project management on big web projects. This part of the job consists of planning and completing the project together with our designers and programmers. Further, the contact and relation to the client is a major part of the job, since the projects serve as a basis for long term client relationships. Further still, I educate the customers in using our CMS (Content Management System).

Other than project management, I have the responsibility for planning the production as well as controlling external partners. This involves an economical responsibility, as it is my job to make sure that the individual people have something to do in order to keep the economic basis secure.

To secure the future of the department, it is also my job to keep management informed about eventual trends that could change our work routines as well as advising abut organisation and employee development.

On Human Centered Informatics my primary interest was how technology influences the individual’s work routines as well as organisational development with deployment of new technologies. That’s why I spent a lot of time studying communication and organisation development, which has proven quite useful in my current position. The most important part I got from Human Centered Informatics is definitely the ability to see technology, society, and individual as a whole, and the ability to analyse the individual parts from an understanding of the whole.

Immediately after finishing my Master in Human Centered Informatics, I was employed as an Application Consultant in Danfoss IT-S. The contact with Danfoss was created through my internship, where I was assigned to a new project called SmartWorker. After the internship, I was informally offered a job if the project took off. Luckily, it did, so while writing my thesis, I could sign a contract so I could start in Danfoss august 2006.

The purpose of SmartWorker was to secure a better, more efficient degree of use of various software systems, primarily Microsoft, which was being used at Danfoss. At Danfoss IT they wanted to try a new approach to education and teaching, without actually being able to put words on how they wanted to change the employees’ work processes.

Therefore, the first task in my internship was to create and describe a concept for teaching and learning theoretical approach for the project.

Following that, the first training course had to be described and developed. The course was named “Team Collaboration – Organizer”. Starting from use of MS Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) they wanted to support the collaboration between geographically separated teams. This process happened in a form of “joint venture” between Danfoss, Microsoft, and an external consultant company that had experience with educating for instance the Danish Military in the use of WSS. The concept and training course caused Danfoss to adopt the approach of starting with the users’ needs and work practices to ensure relevance for the participants when designing training courses.

Because SmartWorker is a new approach within Danfoss, I have needed many different aspects of my education, and I’ve been happy that it’s been so general, even if it was that exact property that during my education was a source of frustration, since you didn’t actually specialise in an area.

I’ve worked a lot with learning theories, human-computer-interaction and E-learning becomes an increasingly bigger part – including reflection. Engeström and Corporate theory has helped me get a bigger understanding of the political game, which also happens in a big organisation – why do people act like they do, and what’s the goal.

Even if Human Centered Informatics was a lot less “geeky” than I feared, the basic knowledge I brought into the corporate world secured that I am capable of communicating in the field between user and specialist, since I know what questions within what areas I need to ask to secure consensus between the two very different groups.

Just four days after getting my thesis pre-approved, I had a job at Team Online A/S. The company offers a social pedagogic IT-system that pedagogues and other personnel at daycares use for their daily documentation, information, and communication. The system is developed by the company’s own developers, and is constantly evolving in cooperation with the clients – which is the perfect arrangement to hire a Human Centered Informatics graduate – someone who can talk to, understand, and translate the client’s needs, so the developer can enhance the system in the best possible way.

My work at Team Online A/S has first and foremost been about helping clients with the implementation process – meaning to get the IT-system well integrated into the organisation and letting the system get the best possible welcome in the workplace. Often, our clients have never used IT before, so it can be a challenge. I have the opening contact with the clients, where I hold an introductory meeting with them, but it is also me who later teaches them how to use the system, aids them in creating information pamphlets for the employees, and afterwards helps them with support when they call Team Online A/S with questions or problems.

Besides going to the clients and helping them with the implementation process, at home I’ve been given free reign to refine the training material and education concept. This has cause a total restructuring of both materials and concept, where the learning process of the clients has become central. Although I’m simply using the same education concepts we’ve learnt and used through out the education, like in the 1st semester lectures, the project has both lifted the department’s work and results. At the same time, I am about to start an experience network for our clients, so they can profit from each others’ experience with having an IT system as part of their work.

In many ways, you can say that I have a big responsibility in my job, despite only having been employed for less than a year. The reason is that I have a lot of gold nuggets with me from my education that I could base my daily work on. Insight in learning theory and organisation theory, methods and techniques for analysing the client’s formal and informal work processes and thus their needs, communication techniques and methods, qualitative and quantitative research methods, and not least the ability to turn theory into practice.

Nykredit is one of the leading financial companies in Denmark with activities ranging from mortgages to bank, pension, insurance to real estate activities. Nykredit Koncernudvikling og –IT handles – as the name implies – the internal business and technical development in the company, as well as everything IT, from internet banking to internal IT systems.

My work as an IT-Consultant consists of two pats. Administration and project work. I’m a system administrator on a larger system sued by estate managers from both Nybolig and Estate. Administration is basically about making sure the system runs optimally and that error are taken care of as well as participating in planning, developing, and testing improvements to the system. I’m not coding/programming myself, but I make sure that the communication between users and developers of the system works – in rough terms.

The project work is of a more varied character. As project work happens across the organisation, with many different interested parties, with many different backgrounds, it is necessary to talk and understand several “languages”. Of course, this is where I think having a Human Centered Informatics degree is a huge advantage, as this specifically is about the field between man and machine, user and developer, and hard and soft values.

I work at the publisher Systime i Århus (en del af Gyldendalin Århus (a part of Gyldendal) that publish educational material for the youth educations. I’m employed as IT-editor with responsibility for IT-development with the publisher, including publishing e-books, pay-to-use websites (e-keys), updating Systime’s blog and more.

I primarily work with web development – where web 2.0, RSS, blog, wiki, open source, CMS, LMS, e-learning, user generated content, and Second Life are important terms at the moment. My role is to be project leader on the development – I don’t program personally, but I make sure that external suppliers are kept busy. My job consists of coming with inspiration and ideas for further development and to realise these in practice.

Through the education at Human Centered Informatics my primary interest has always been the use and development of the Internet. At Human Centered Informatics I’ve gained a human approach to IT-development that is indispensable today. Both in relation to collaboration about the development, and to be able to understand the user’s needs. To be able to understand both project work and to be able to make concrete user tests and evaluations is necessary.

And graduates from Human Centered Informatics are needed! In my experience, a lot of people have discovered that successful IT-development isn’t just about programming – but equally about the soft values. And here Human Centered Resources graduates are unique. The job opportunities, in other words, are really good.

I completed my Master in Human Centered Informatics at Aalborg University in 2003, and soon after got a job as webmaster at Syddanske Medier in Esbjerg and Kolding. In 2006 I returned to Aalborg where I got employed as webmaster and project leader at Nordjyske Medier in the New Media department.

My job is a mix between daily coordination/practical development and maintenance of our web services, as well as project management in relation to the longer development projects. Pretty much all projects start off in groups with people of different backgrounds working together. Here it’s a great advantage that Aalborg University focus on group work, because the experience I got during my studies I have used a lot here at Nordjyske. Like how to hit a deadline, personal responsibility, and important discussions during the process.

For my job it is also imperative to have an understanding of the users’ different starting points. Nine out of ten northern jutlanders uses at least one of our media each week, which means that on the web front, we always need to pay attention to communication as well as functionality. At Human Centered Informatics I had the opportunity to learn both including as part of a project we chose to write. User friendliness and think-aloud tests are tools that I took from Human Centered Informatics and use very often. In the same way, the insight into how and why people react to different computerised interfaces and how you with that knowledge can lay out websites so they primarily are based on the user’s starting point than the system developer’s. I my eyes, this insight keeps getting more important as all, young and old, encounter a rising number of digitised interfaces on a daily basis.

I got my master in Human Centered Informatics autumn 2006 and I am currently working as an internal consultant in Danske Bank. More accurately, I work in the part of the company that develops and supports the tools used internally in the company. Meaning I’m part of developing what you don’t see when you for instance visit a local branch of Danske Bank, yet keeps the company working. The projects within this part can affect all the companies and subsidiaries in the corporations, from Danske Bank to Home and from Finland to Ireland. Normally I’m attached to the “Documents & HR” department where I work on IT-systems for supporting the work in the human resource area and for the general administration og information connected to the employees. It is therefore IT-systems used for everything from employee interview to granting access permissions on the various IT-systems of the company.

My official title is “Business Developer” as one of my crucial jobs is to be part of developing Danske Bank as a business in my area of the company. Despite not having worked here very long, I would like to add that one of my proudest tasks as business developer is to be able to wonder about and question the wishes, attitudes and so on that I encounter in the projects. Not to dispute them, but to gain a good insight in why things are what they are. A business developer needs to be able to do this to be able to communicate it on to other parties in a project.

As business developer, my role in a project will often be that of the communicator. A project usually begins with a person or department has a wish, where an IT-system can be developed to that basically fulfils that wish. The business developer is there from the beginning of the project and must among other things “ripen” the wish so what it will actually take to realise it becomes clear. It is central here that you as a business developer has a good dialogue with those proposing the wish and get a good understanding of what exactly they are missing. At the same time you need a close collaboration with the IT developers who have the technical knowledge that is needed to reach a solution. The business developer follows the project in varying degrees all the way from the ripened idea to the implementation with the users.

I feel that Human Centered Informatics has equipped me for the role as communicator. During the education I’ve been “trained” in analysing complex problems and areas and create concrete solution proposals. At the same time the education has given me enough insight in IT-development to be able to collaborate with my colleagues with more technical backgrounds. To be able to make complex topics more concrete and to be in dialogue with both users and IT-developers is some the most central and useful I have from my education.

Further the project work at Human Centered Informatics has prepared me for being part of the various teams that’s used everywhere in the job market. Finally the internship semester and the good opportunities to collaborate with companies gave a good taste of what it’s like in “the real world”.

I recently started in my first full time Master related job at the Danske Banks IT-development house in Århus. I’m employed as a business developer which among other things covers the following tasks: assessing the basis of an idea (do we even begin the project, is an IT-system needed?) research and documentation of the users’ needs (research, interviews, workshops), visualisation of the IT-solutions, advocate user friendliness, test-coordination, teaching, organisational change and more. It is a lot of the same tasks that we met at Human Centered Informatics, both in education and in projects.

Some of my projects on the education were focused on need assessments, where we worked with applying and developing concrete methods for interviewing IT-users and to document their needs. This was often based on creative workshops, with a lot of posters post-it notes and felt-tip pens. On the later semesters I worked more with IT-development methods, different paradigms in this and organisation changes. This was closely linked with my internship and later student job.

Throughout the education a lot of us were often frustrated at out profile: what can we do and can anyone use us? Often this frustration was tied to a lacking concrete skill like “I’m a Word expert”, but it’s my experience that these skills are “easy” to learn – what is hard, that is what the 5 years give, the ability to analyse, to understand the core of a problem and then develop and apply a solution strategy. With these skills you can be a part of many contexts and environment and learn the concrete skills needed for that specific company.

You can read more about me and my work at Human Centered Informatics here »

Since September 2005 I’ve been employed at NNIT A/S, at first as IT-client consultant and now as application consultant.

NNIT A/S is a subsidiary of Novo Nordisk, and therefore also the primary client in PharmaIT department that I am employed in. Daily I’m working with an R&R (Research and Development) team with three IT-systems to support the clinical trials of Novo Nordisk. That set extremely high demands to security and valid data/IT-systems also called GXP critical IT-systems.

My role is technical consultant around these IT-systems, but with main responsibility for one of them. As such, I am a technical link between client and IT-supplier and must make sure that the IT-systems always live up to the specified demands, both technically and from the user. It is very demanding tasks that require great patience for thoroughness and discussion as I remember it from Human Centered Informatics. Therefore I benefit greatly from the great width the education has given me as well as the ability to keep an eye on small, to some, meaningless things.

For my final thesis I wrote about design and system development, but on earlier semester I had touched all four core areas, making me a first class IT fighting machine! Further the freedom and study method been a giant plus on the education, meaning the ability to move freely within theme boundaries with room for that wacky idea as well as cooperating with companies which always gave the relevant twist for the project.

Since I completed my education autumn 2003 I’ve worked with product development at RTX Telecom which is in Nr. Sundby. Among other things, I took part in the development of the first wireless telephone (DualPhone) that could call via Skype. My tasks were writing manuals and coordinate illustrations and printing, making installation CD-ROM and a product homepage with customer support.

Today I work as an IT Consultant at Jyske Bank iin Silkeborg. As a consultant, my job is about improving and revising the programs the financial advisors in Jyske Bank use to serve their customers. In our department we have the responsibility for the account systems (barebones it means that we make sure the customers’ money can be deposited and withdrawn on their accounts and that everything is registered correctly). It’s a lot more complex than it sounds, but people’s eyes usually start to go blank when I explain what I actually do.

Usually we work in group based projects consisting of both consultants and programmers. The popular (and rude) story is that consultants tell the programmers what needs to be done, and then the programmers do it. Reality is not quite like that, but the consultant does have the responsibility for designing the systems (functionally and cosmetically) and make plans for testing. I work closely with experienced bankers, engineers and computer scientists, and even though this definitely gives a complex knowledge sharing in the projects, I do not doubt that my education has equipped me well to absorb new knowledge and communicate with many different types of people. As a human sciences graduate it’s a different and more “concrete” world to enter where 2+2 is always 4.

I can, however, say that I’m happy that I chose to be a Human Centred Informatics graduate – I use it every day!

As a business developer you are attached to several projects where you serve as the link between the business and IT-development through the entire development process that’s characteristic of the projects in Danske Bank. With “business” they mean the organisation that is the real core activity – banking. Together with colleagues in the project team we work with analysing business related problems, specify the solution and test and implementation of the final solution.

Basically it is not IT that defines a project at Danske Bank. More it’s a need from the business that needs fulfilling. IT, however, is so widely used in the business that the solution often is based on IT-development.

In Danske Bank they work after a model resembling the Rational Unified Processes model. It has chronological phases like idea ripening, pre-analysis and implementation as the second to last point – and all have a checkpoint that must be approved before moving on to the next phase. Danske Bank has big demands for documenting processes and decisions.

As a Human Centred Informatics graduate from Aalborg University, you’re well equipped to do the job as business developer. When the business demands a product, functionally, and services a project is launched in the Koncern Service Center. The proudest job of the business developer is then to make sure that the wishes and needs the business has and the final product or services match up. This includes analysing the proposed wishes – with a goal of turning these into concrete demands for the product so the project team can work from these. You need to figure out what the real need is and how this can be met.

I work in the Branch and Card Solutions department which is the part of the development organisation than handles development for branches and debit cards. For example the system in the register or issuing and administration of Dankort. Currently we’re working on integrating the freshly bought Finnish bank’s many card systems to the platform of Danske Bank. This is a project lasting about a year, with a high business priority.

I can warmly recommend Danske Bank as an employer – especially in relation to Human Centred Informatics. If you have further questions, or maybe want a job, then drop me a line

Thorbjørn Munck - tmun (at) danskebank.dk