And a (non-virtual) role change

May 1st I arrived back in Denmark after spending a year in the US assisting with assembling and training the GREAT team that we have there now as well as working with some truly skilled and passionate partners (you know who you are). I must say it’s been a great learning experience as well as a very exciting time – both for EPiServer but also for me personally.

Now, that I’m back in the old world again it seemed like a good time to try a new angle at producing great software – and as luck would have it I was offered to try on the shoes as product manager. Even though I’ve always had a deep passion for coding I’d love a chance to really influence the future of creating great web sites in a way that only a product manager at EPiServer can do it.

I believe that the most important job for any software product company is to create software that solves real problems that people in their markets have. This is the key factor that more than anything should be driving both the development and sales process – solving real problems for real people. And of course solving the problems in a carefully designed and planned manner so the solutions adapts to the users needs and skills – and not the other way around. Too many times have I seen countless examples of technology and features in various products (in all industries) that are there for no other other reason than adding a feature – but not solving any real problems. Flashy as some of it may seem it’s still essentially useless. The consequence: development time that could have been spend solving problems wasted, and users confused with features that doesn’t make sense.

Luckily EPiServers history shows that we have been very successful in solving real problems. And I believe that’s why so many web sites, editors, developers and marketing people use our entire product portfolio as their platform of choice today. But of course we can still do even better. Especially with YOUR help. I want to learn how you use EPiServer CMS. And even if you don’t use it – tell me how you manage your online content and which problems we could solve for you.

Yo, Halo Reach Beta Peeps

A long time ago I wrote about shotcodes and for that purpose I even put a shotcode on the web site linking to this web site. It would finally seem like I now get my 15 sec of fame, since Halo Reach supposedly have used a graphic with some similarity to my shotcode in the game (see the computer terminal to the right here). After Zoidberg25 “cracked” this in the Bungie forums I’ve gotten a certain amount of visitors looking through my blog for hidden clues – or maybe even an ARG.

Although I appreciate all traffic and every single visitor to my blog is very welcome, I feel that I should probably come clean. I can deny any and all rumors that this blog is part of an intricate scheme to hide secret game codes or Easter eggs. Or maybe not. Feel free to read through every single post and comment – look for hidden codes and clues (remember that the classical Substitution Cipher is always a popular way to hide secret stuff in plain view. While you are trying to crack this one, feel free to click the links and read what my sponsors have to say. And if the adds generate enough revenue I might even buy that silly game of yours and see what all the fuzz is about (if I actually manage to clean the dust off my Xbox 360).