Meet the Digital Norseman

Hello, my name is Preben Ormen and I am the Digital Norseman. I am an expatriate Norwegian currently living with my family in Canada where I work as an information technology consultant with a large international professional service firm.

You can learn more about my business background from my professional biography.

The Digital Norseman provides a forum for thinking, learning and sharing experiences with a unique blend of commentary and reflections on business, information technology, history and culture. All this with a particular emphasis on analogies to the old Norse, who we also know as the Vikings.

A metaphor to steer by

The Digital Norseman is a metaphor for thinking about and relating to the world around us. Think of this site as a virtual longship for voyaging across time and place.

A voyage is about sharing thoughts and experiences - in our case, some business, some pleasure and a little of both all mixed up.

I continue to learn from the old Norse who voyaged before me. They wrote to share their thoughts and experiences as I write now. Their medium was analog: a rock, the hide of a deer, a pole in a lodge. Mine is digital. Thus - the Digital Norseman.

"Vidfarne"

The name of my virtual longship is "Vidfarne" which means "he who has fared wide and far". And that is what this site is all about - to reach across time and space.

"Chase Your Dream"

Any self respecting voyager - real or virtual - must have a motto, a rallying cry to inspire and motivate. Mine is: "Chase Your Dream". I believe the old Norsemen did exactly that. I know I do, and I am always looking for new dreams and better chases.

A little business

On the business side, my professional life currently revolves around making sense of enabling technologies to my clients. This means I spend a lot of time thinking and learning about various aspects of information technology, primarily how to select and implement systems and packaged solutions.

Unsurprisingly, project management is central to the success of these endeavors. The old Norse had their own challenges. They traveled vast distances and overcame incredible obstacles. They knew a thing or two about organization and how to get things done. So there's your link.

A little technology

Putting enabling technologies - whatever they might be - to good use involves more than just a successful system implementation.

Finding the sensible "enablers" in the first place, requires us to understand the fundamental strategic issues and challenges facing your business. Then we need to find the right tools.

As Piet Hein will have us know: "It is difficult to predict, especially about the future". Competent strategies build upon a blend of knowledge of, and experience with, the fundamentals of your particular business, the present and future trends influencing you and, you guessed it, good management of your project.

After two business degrees and 20-plus years as a professional service provider in the areas of accounting, general business management and information technology, I have picked up some ideas about what works and what doesn't. I'll be sharing some of that.

A little fun

But all life is not work. Lest we forget, we're supposed to have some fun somewhere, sometime. My own outside interests have centered around outdoor activities like camping, fishing, hunting, canoeing, archery, target shooting, and sailing. I love woodworking and now that our family have our own house, I have discovered gardening. There is not nearly enough time for all of this, but I dabble as best I can...

"Navigare necesse est"

The sea was important to the old Norse. They made incredible voyages in their longships, and these maritime traditions carry through to this day in Norway - and in Scandinavia in general.

Seamanship is kept alive and well in a large Norwegian fishing fleet and merchant marine. Going off to sea has been an age old dream for many a young soul; a promise of escape into adventure. Many do not venture, but most do dream. And everyone over there seems to own a boat of some kind at some point in their life.

It wasn't a Norseman who said : "Navigare necesse est. Vivere non est necesse." But he would have understood exactly what it meant: Sailing is a necessity, merely living is not.

Messing about in boats

My own seafaring endeavors are modest by most comparisons to those of my ancestors, but I am working on it. Currently I am on my third sail boat, a 26 footer restoration project for local gunk holing. With the second, a Westsail 32 named "IBIS", our family of three went on a two year cruise from Vancouver, Canada to Mexico.

We set sail into the North Eastern Pacific Ocean from Neah Bay early one October morning. The day was grey with a good breeze and a lumpy sea left over from a not-quite-spent gale. To this day, this stands before me as one of my life's defining moments. All our planning and preparation was about to be put to the test. No more ifs, buts or maybes. Our dream was becoming reality - the chase was over. We were standing out for a 6-7 days passage before us to San Francisco. Or so we thought. It took ten, but that is another story.

Its not the ships, its the people in them

Despite the technology available to us here in our time, I can well empathize with the old Norse in their longships as they pushed out to sea from their northern shores.

They voyaged in open vessels some 70 plus feet long with 30-40 men onboard, most of them seasoned from many a journey across the same waters as lay before them. We went to sea with 32 feet of covered decks. With a small diesel, yes. With a GPS, yes. But still, we were only two adults and a child. And none of us very experienced at that.

On an open ocean in a small boat, technology can do only so much. In the end, its your skill that matters most. That was true then, and it remains true today.

Sailing is an ageless skill

What we shared with the old Norse across the 1000 years between us, were the wind and the weather and the waves before our bow. Little by little, their skills became our skills. What worked for them, worked for us. Some things travel well across time and ocean.

I think the analogies between our times and those of the old Norse are more numerous than we might think at first. And that is what I want to explore with you: The past making itself felt in mysterious ways, so to speak. Besides, what are literary devices for, if not to spice up otherwise dry subjects?

Change is a permanent condition

We may think we experience a higher rate of change than people before us. I am not so sure. I am struck by how many generations down through history have experienced major social, technological or climatic changes. Changes which must have presented profound challenges to the people of those times. Their lives were not static.

When I come across a letter or personal account which has survived the ravages of time, I am always impressed how close the narrator seems. There may be a thousand years between us in time. But we are closer, much closer than that in spirit. I can learn from their struggles. And I think many of their thoughts and experiences are relevant right to this day.

To sum it up: to change is to grow.

Come aboard

I am hooked on learning and am very much a practitioner rather than a scholar, an artisan rather than an artist. I pretend nothing but that I am a curious animal with an inquisitive mind. This site - the Digital Norseman and the virtual longship Vidfarne- is about reflecting upon what I have learnt and what I care about personally as well as professionally. By sharing my thoughts and impressions, I extend my invitation to join in an exchange of ideas on a voyage towards mutual growth and enlightenment.

So, come aboard then, pilgrim, into my virtual longship and join me in a quest for new dreams worth chasing.

The Digital Norseman
"Chase Your Dream"


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