Kia Höök is a professor in Interaction Design at KTH in Stockholm Sweden, director of the Mobile Life Centre and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. We talk about her early research career, and her experiences securing a large amount of research funding with some colleagues then co-leading a large research centre, building a culture, and managing relationships with industry partners. She also talks about how her year-long sabbatical gave her time and space to reflect on the challenges of success and to reconnect to what is important, to re-set her own rules and to re-think how she wants to engage as an academic.

"You end up in a situation where everything you do you do in order to be able to work more…and that is not a good life.”

“All of that stuff that you get worked up about, is it really that important, or even if it is important, can I have a different attitude.”

“It is about finding your core, knowing yourself, slowing down, and being more empathic with other people.”

She talks about (times approximate) …

 [Research background]

1:57 Evolving research foci from information searching to social navigation to affective computing – carving out new research areas

8:57 Developing the proposal for 10 years funding for the Mobile Life research centre

[Shaping and running a research centre]

11:27 Learning how to interact with industry to win their funding support, what are their drivers, who to speak to

15:57 Learning how to manage a large research centre, learning the hard way – IPR, growing a research group, sharing the funds among the four leaders, the challenges of cross-fertilisation across the four groups

19:07 Reflections on wishing they had shared research methods across the groups more and thoughts on what they could have done instead

23:17 Strong culture based on seminars, the Swedish Fika – the ‘enforced socializing’ every week -, joint trips

25:07 The challenges when some of the four leaders leave and the changes in dynamics

27:28 The challenges when some of the key company partners are no longer there and contributing matched funding; now knowing what to look for to see something going on with industry; being able to shape relevant research agendas

29:32 Practical suggestions for how to work with industry partners, e.g., needing to communicate what the research means, connecting the dots for them (“what are we seeing that they should care about, translating that”), making everyone work for 3 months with a partner and having people from the partner sit in the research centre, joint workshops

34:12 Lessons on managing people, building a culture – the challenges of having researchers from different disciplines, putting together teams based on competences and personality and creating safe creative spaces

36:40 Moving from being a researcher who can control the research to being the vision person - scaling up the vision, seeing the connections, … but then losing contact with the reality of the research

[The sabbatical experience – reconnecting with what is important]

40:34 The amazing invigorating sabbatical experience, time for reading, writing, connecting with the passion, sitting under a tree talking philosophy – “reconnecting with why we are doing this”, why it is important

44:22 Not only reconnecting with research, reading etc but reconnecting with herself; time alone, being lonely, unraveling strong personal ‘survival’ rules that were about being productive and efficient to function managing a household and work

46:35 “You end up in a situation where everything you do you do in order to be able to work more”

47:09 “And that is not a good life, you don’t live to constrain yourself in this way. It is not helping your creativity.” But taking time to get down from this, crash landing in Florida

48:27 “I actually do believe that one can change” - now recognising the emotional state and what might be an alternative emotional state she could transfer herself into … feeling collected, slowing down, listening to very small signals in your body, the benefit of Feldenkrais at work

51: 27 “What you have to remember is that all of that stuff that you get worked up about, is it really that important, or even if it is important, can I have a different attitude”

52:00 Being leader, the worked-up Kia did not spread a good work environment around herself – strong bodily signals you give off – so trying to listen to the alternative self that is more collected

54:21 Being flattered as an academic with invitations, awards etc but not being able to do all of it, needing to make choices, have new rules now about what to say yes and no to

56:39 “You have to know why you are doing it so if you do it because you are flattered and because it’s a notch on your belt or are you doing it because you are actually learning something important or you are communicating your research or whatever. So I have to think about that.” Making people email her so that she think first before replying/agreeing or not

57:42 Other changes – putting effort into the book she is writing, accompanied with the kind of exercises that connects her to what she is writing about, trying to do things she enjoys

59:00 Conflict of caring for students, keeping promises and looking after her needs, needing to promise less

1:00:21 Also needing to think about what the organization tells us we need to do to be a success and taking a stance about what is important, and what is enough funding

1:03:19 Risk of being flattered by recognition for your work, by prizes, “but if you don’t have a core, if you don’t know why am I doing this research, what is it that I am changing in the world that I actually believe is good” … “it is about finding your core, knowing yourself, slowing down, and being more empathic with other people ... it is a much slower way to success but one I do believe in … If you don't have your core, then it doesn’t matter if you get to be the ACM distinguished whatever, that is just shallow”

1:06:02 Hard to get recognized internationally when you are in Sweden, longing for that recognition, now not taking that so seriously

1:07:27 The struggle that comes along with the success, the sick leave because of stress, the colleagues who aren’t always supportive or happy for successes, the gender aspects

1:12:28 End

Related Links

Mobile Life Centre http://www.mobilelifecentre.org

The first iphone was released June 29 2007.

Fika: https://sweden.se/culture-traditions/fika/

Lars Erik Holmquist http://blog.siggraph.org/2012/07/qa-with-siggraph-2012-mobile-chair-lars-erik-holmquist.html/

Oskar Juhlin http://www.mobilelifecentre.org/people#oskar-juhlin-

Annika Waern https://katalog.uu.se/empinfo/?id=N13-228

Barry Brown http://www.mobilelifecentre.org/people#barry-brown

Welcome to Changing Academic Life. I'm Geraldine

Fitzpatrick and this is a podcast series where academics

and others share their stories, provide ideas and provoke

discussions about what we can do individually and collectively to

change academic life for the better.

My conversation today is with Kia Höök, a professor in

Interaction Design at KTH in Stockholm, Sweden, and Director

of Mobile Life Center. We start off talking about her early

research career, and then go on to talk about some of the

experiences she's had in co-leading this large research

center, in building cultures, and managing relationships with

industry partners. She's also just come back from a year long

sabbatical. And she talks about the profound effect it had on

her, giving her time and space to reconnect to what is

important, to reset her own rules, and to rethink how she

wants to engage as an academic. We ended up going over the hour

today. But it was also interesting, I didn't want to

cut anything out. If your time is limited, you can go to the

changing academic life webpage. And as always, there are notes

there with rough timestamps so that you can navigate directly

to specific sections that you might be interested in. But if

you do have the time to listen to the whole thing, treat

yourself, it's well worth listening to.

Kia, thank you very much for your time, and on a Saturday.

[Kia: Thank you]. And I've been looking forward to having this

chat since we met in May, and you made some comment about your

sabbatical that you're on and how it was really making you

stop and reflect on lots of issues. So I'm really excited to

get to those things. But maybe first, just for a bit of

context, I see that you finished your PhD in 96. When was I? -

98. We're around the same time. And you did it in some

information retrieval, helping people sort of search large

online spaces, major spaces, and then you moved into some more

effective social navigation and more into effective computing.

So you had lots of evolutions in your research focus.

True that, true that. So my thesis was using intelligent

user interfaces. [Geri: And this was in a computer science

faculty, was it?]. Yeah, yeah, it was in a computer science

faculty. And it was in the early days, we didn't really have

internet. Oh, we did have internet, but we didn't have the

massive amounts of data that we have now. So machine learning

was around and so on. But it wasn't really possible to do the

stuff that people do now. And a lot of AI at the time was rule

based. And I was kind of disappointed in what it could do

and wanted to bring a more sort of humane, human computer

interaction, sort of angle to it. And that's what I did with

my thesis. That work, their community, the AI community and

intelligent user interfaces, it's a really good community in

that they cite one another properly. So I'm still getting a

lot of citations for that work. But personally, I got very

disappointed in AI, very disappointed. And I felt like

they, it's not doing what they promise that it's going to do.

And so this is where I came up with ideas around social

navigation. You have to understand this is 1996. So

there weren't any recommenders around or there was a little bit

of stuff like that. But I don't think we've had understood at

the time, what it meant to have loads of people doing stuff

leaving traces on the internet that we can harvest and use. So,

this is why I did the social navigation stuff because I felt

like, if you put people in there and their judgment or what they

find interesting, that's the way to build proper intelligence. So

this is what social navigation was to me.

Did you feel brave at the time doing some of this brand

new area, brand new approach? Or scared?

I was working at the Computer Science Institute here

in Stockholm, SICS. And there were 100, about 100 researchers

and they're all hardcore computer science. And when I

said 'Well, I don't care about your algorithms and your,' you

know, 'I think that we need to put people here, because it's

people making choices and it's their choices that we are

interested in.'. I was, you know, they had ways of talking

about me as 'Oh, it's the humanities people,' you know,

with a little sneer and now of course you go like 'Wow', you

know, that's still hardcore, if you compare to the stuff I'm

doing today. It was still, you know, it was really computer

science what I was doing. But at the time, yeah, I was a bit

brave. But I think as a lot of young researchers, I was angry

and passionate. And so I was just like, this is not working,

we need to make it work. And looking at what people actually

do, not what they say they're doing, but how they actually

search for stuff. They don't search in that objective manner.

They don't use hierarchical menus to figure out stuff. They

actually just go to someone else and ask, 'So how did you do

this?', and then they use that as part of their solution. So

for me, that was a path into taking more seriously what it

means to be human.

And you continue that as well. So moving into the

effective community, and again, at a very early time, with

people who're looking at those issues.

So it was the same in a way, the same thinking. I was

like, okay, so it seems like people are following the advice

of other people when they search for information or when they do

stuff. And not only does this make them figure out what to

find, and what to do, it also makes them feel more secure.

It's an emotional process. It's like, if you're citing this and

this author, and everybody else also seems to be citing an

author. If I do that, then I'll be more secure, I'll feel more

that I'm doing the right thing, that I'm not lonely and what I'm

doing. And the same thing on the internet like I can, if I see

that other people have been here, they've done stuff they

seem to be doing these things, then that is what people are. We

look for other people, for guidance and for culture and for

rituals and for, you know, stuff. So step by step, I sort

of saw social navigation as an emotional process also. And then

when you read up on emotion, what that is, it's not this

little organ in your brain that affects your thinking only. It

is everything. It is your body. It's your movement, it's your

hormone levels, it's your thinking, it's your sociality.

It's your survival. It's also what makes life. And so step by

step it allowed me to become more and more human. My

research.

And also moving more towards the design orientation

as well in connecting with the human.

But I think as a computer scientist, I was trained as a

computer scientist. And as a computer scientist, the way you

prove that something works is by building it. And so in that

sense, most computer science researchers are designers, of

sorts. And I was interested in interaction, and of course, I

built the systems to sort of prove that social navigation

works, and you can use it on food reps, the recipes, or you

can do this, or you can do that. Affective interaction works. You

can you can build this, you can build that. And so that is a

designerly approach, but it's perhaps not, it wasn't at the

beginning, it was not industrial design, it was not with a care

for aesthetics, it was very much more like the computer science,

existence proof. I can build this thing, therefore, it is

possible to build this thing.

Whereas now you've evolved more to bring in these other

aspects.

Yeah. Because it becomes obvious, of course, that it

matters. If you care anything about bodies and emotions and

what we are, then you know that they need to care about the

whole and the aesthetics of stuff.

So you're coming to the end of it, a 10 year long

research center called Mobile Life. [Kia: Yeah]. And that was

funded by the Swedish

the government, through an organization called Vinova.

So that seemed quite innovative for the time as well.

How did that come about?

So we were four research leaders, Lars Erik Holmquist,

Oskar Juhlin, Annika Waern and myself. We were all at the time

working with quite innovative new stuff around various topics

around mobile apps, ubicomp, pervasive games. Always a bit

far out. And I'm still amazed that we got the funding, because

what we said in that proposal that we made and we started

writing in 2004. This is a long time ago. We said, well, we

think that the world is going to be populated with lots of mobile

and ubiquitous services. And they're not going to be about

work, they're going to be about fun, playfulness, enjoyment, the

good life. Games and so on. And a lot of older gentlemen around

us, and 'we can't apply for that, you're not,'. Because the

first thing that that industry will make money out of is, of

course, the professional applications on the mobile. But

we persisted against the advice of a lot of people. And then we

got the money.

Before we just start chatting together and start

realizing that there was potential here that led to the

proposal writing.

We had other funding together before. And then there

was this guy Boster Dahlbom, he had sort of told us, 'You need

to work together,'. He was sort of, he had, at the time, he had

a position where he had a little bit of an overview of Sweden and

what was going on. And so he had this idea that, if I put these

people together, that they're going to be strong enough to

survive in a world that otherwise it's very much

computer science driven or, you know. So that was amazing for

us. Very important.

So it was a huge proposal writing effort?

Yeah. So 2004, we wrote a pre-proposal, and we succeeded

with that, so we got some funding to actually write the

full proposal. And then we wrote the full proposal, we had to

have industry funding in equal amounts as what we were asking

for. [Geri: That's a big challenge.] It was really hard.

So I learned quickly how to interact with industry to make

them commit to a huge thinking like that. We learned together.

It was an interesting journey in that sense.

So what sort of arguments did you learn to make the

industry.

So first of all, you have to understand the company you're

approaching, you have to understand what it is that they

make money out of. You have to be serious about that, you know,

you have to go and say, 'We're doing this research, and it's

remote from what you're doing. But if we do this, and this,

then you might actually have use of us in your strategies', and

so on. So you have to understand what they're doing. Both at

large scale, but also locally, what makes the guy you're

talking to what is it that that person's success is about? So

like, what would they benefit from personally in their career

by associating themselves with you. So companies like Ericsson,

for example, in Ericsson research, you need to do

patterns, and you need to show off results, to have demos and

so on. You're not so interested in writing papers. It's nice if

you have some papers, but that's not. So what we had to do is to

figure out how can we serve that purpose?

So how do you find out what they need? Because if we're

in academia, we don't often have insight into industry and what

are their drivers? And what's important to them?

Yeah, a lot of talking. So Sweden is a small country. So we

do know a lot of people. So you have to talk to people a lot and

try to figure out stuff. And also I remember drawing one

hierarchical map after another. So this person is the boss of

that person, who's the boss of that person. Therefore, I need

to talk to the one on top and the one at the bottom in order

to squeeze the middle management because they are tight on money.

And so they want, you know, they're actually sitting on the

budget.

Being very strategic then?

Well, I learned to, or we learned to be strategic, I don't

think we were. And we also learned to be bold, and to not

only be servants to them, but to say, 'Look, we think the world

is turning, it's going in this direction. And we know you can't

afford to do a lot of research in that direction. But we will

do it. And we will get government funding to do it. If

you engage with us in this way.'

And you can benefit then in this way.

We'll take the risk, we'll take high risk. Like we were

saying, 'Well, there will be many, many mobile services'. You

have to remember this is 2004.

Yes. So three years, three years before the smartphone,

first iPhone came out?

Yeah, I think 2008, I think the iPhone came so it was like

four years before and we were saying, well, Java is not going

to work, is it? You know, and this and that so and so we said,

well, let's pretend it's already happened, what then? So we were

trying to be, I usually say eight years into the future for

them to listen to us strategically. Or I was also

talking at the time about sensors. There will be many

sensors that are on your body and in the environment. And

these apps will be thriving of these and you know and of course

these people, you know, people at Ericsson research they know

these things, they're also in the future, but they might

benefit from having us do some of the stuff they wouldn't dare

to do inside the organization. So, yeah, so that's how we

worked.

So that sounds like a big learning curve. [Kia: Yah, it

was]. And then when you got the funding, and was it 10 years

upfront?

It was divided into contracts of first two years and

three years, three years and two years.

So having to show outputs at the end of those periods to

get the next period. So you ended up with the center with

what about 30 people and a large number of, a number of large

companies?

Well, you know, funding attracts funding. So we ended up

being after a while, like 45-50 people actually working in the

center, some of them paid by industry, sitting with us, some

on other grants, some on the Mobile Life funding, you know,

so it grew to be, at its peak, it was like 45-50 people maybe

sitting in the

So what were your other learning curves then around

managing that? Because that's a huge, that's, nothing in your

PhD training actually prepared you for that.

Now, there's a lot of stuff you learn, and you learn the

hard way. And I wish I'd figured out some of it earlier, but you

have to learn everything from strange things, like doing IPR

agreements. What is an IPR agreement? What is IPR? [Geri:

Intellecutal property?] Yeah, intellectual property rights. So

when you have a collaboration like that with industry, you

have to have something regulating what happens, if we

do a patent, who will own the patents and who will be able to

make money on it. So stuff like that. But the management growing

research group, I had, for some reason done that a couple of

times before, [Geri: On a smaller scale or a similar

scale?] I was, in year 2000, I was the head of a lab at SICS,

there was about 25 people. So and I think my career has been

like that. I start something that where I think, 'Oh, this is

going to be small and lovely, will be seven people, seven is

great. Seven plus minus two, that's perfect.' And then boom,

something happens. And then it grows to be bigger. So I have

done it before. Tried to return a couple of times to smaller

groups. So with this, we grew to be a big group. And we had

decided, and I don't know if that was good, and it's still

difficult, we decided that the four of us would be equals. So

we would work

democratic, and dare I say 'Scandinavian' in its approach?

Yeah. And that is, of course, not an easy decision. So

we decided that we would in order to minimize conflicts

between us, that we would divide the money very carefully, like

equal parts. We would also, if we pulled in funding together,

you know, if there was a reason that people said, well, we want

to give you more funding, because you're Mobile Life, then

we would also divide that funding by four, you know. So we

worked according to that principle. The bad thing about

that is that we then built our groups to be four groups, rather

than looking for cross fertilization always between the

groups.

Were you're physically located together?

Yeah. So what I saw, what I hoped would be happening, and

what's happening is that, of course, the people further down

are PhD students, and so on. They would talk to one another,

and they would benefit from the fact that they were sitting in

the same office, and we had seminars and intellectual

discussions and so on. They also benefit from seeing us

quarreling over intellectual academic topics. So that was

good, but I think I don't know how we should have done it. But

I think we could have benefitted a bit more, if we had borrowed

methods from one another.

What research methods? Have you got any specific

examples or so?

Oskar Juhlin was working way more from you first do some

kind of ethnographic study, and then you use that as a basis for

your design process. And he had a very, very interesting way of

sort of figuring out who to study. So he would study ralley

So you said you're not sure what you could do, could have done,

drivers in the north of Sweden, or he or people driving their

bikes, bikers and what they found interesting or something

like that. You know, and then he used that to really carefully

hone maybe a few design ideas that he would then implement. So

the first part of his process I was not using. The other part, I

think I had perhaps the strongest skill in the design

side. So we could have worked differently. With Lars Erik,

he's always been fascinated by technology. He's like, what I

want is for people to come up to a demo I've done and say, 'Oh,

that's cool, cool tech'. And so he had a stronger technology

driven, like, you take some technology and you feel it, you

touch it, you interact with it until you figure out what you

can do with it. And then he also used some cool methods to

combine with that technology understanding. I could have

benefited from his tech savvy. And then Annika, she was

interacting with these live action role playing people,

strange people, very interesting people, people that would show

up in the office looking like vampires, or acting in role or

whatever. So that added this wonderful atmosphere to Mobile

Life where it felt unpredictable, you got to your

office, and there would be stuff happening. That was super

interesting. And her interest in those marginal practices, are

not marginal, because it's a big movement, but that was super

interesting as well.

but any thoughts of what you could have done? Because you're

all complementary in very interesting ways.

So at the time, we were younger, we needed to build our own

research careers, we needed to build our own CVs, we needed to

have our own research groups, our own PhD students, and so on.

I think if we had reserved some of the funding for projects that

were joint, and we did a little bit, but not enough. If we had

had like, a little pile of money, where we said, well, you

can only get this money, if you collaborate with this, you know,

across the groups or something, then that would have been, you

know, it's always about money, resources. It is.

It is, because we need to employ people to do the work.

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's not like we did not influence. Of course we

did, but

And the very fact that you're talking about the work

that they did, and appreciate what strengths and complementary

areas. It's just an interesting tension, isn't it, around the

ways in which we're recognized as individuals? [Kia: Yeah.].

And that can work against actually maybe doing much more

interesting research that isn't immediately identifiable as

belonging to one person or another.

Yeah. And working together has enormous benefits. But it

also means compromising. And I've since then read up, and I

didn't find any literature at the time. But I've since then

read up on. And there's this paper by somebody, I can't

remember the name of. He talks about eight mistakes you can

make when you build a center. One of them is to allow

professors to go off and do their own thing. You have to

make them commit to working together. It's like you have to.

That's the only way that they will get out of the comfort zone

and do something they wouldn't have done otherwise. And I think

we were committed to an extent. But maybe we could have done

even more. Even more.

Did people come to join seminars?

Oh, yeah, yeah. We had a very, very strong culture very

much like you come to the seminars, and we had the, you

know, the Swedish fika. So it was coffee break. So we had one

enforced fika every week on Wednesdays, where everybody had

to come [Geri: And drink coffee.' and drink coffee, and

sit around and socialize. We call it the enforced

socializing. And it's so funny, because I would walk through the

center, this is an open office landscape. I would walk through

the center and say, 'Okay, now it's three o'clock, and it's

Wednesday.'. It's enforced socializing, you come down, and

people were 'yeah, yeah, but I just need to', you know. And

then they would come. And then I couldn't make them leave,

because they would like to blah, blah, blah, blah, you know,

talking about their research. And so these things are super

important. So we did that, we did joint trips, we would hold

full day meetings at a partner location, we would hold the

meeting at Ericsson or Nokia or whatever, you know, so we really

worked hard on making this one center. I can tell you, if you

want to, I can tell you some of the issues with being four.

Research. Strong. People. What you want to do as an academic is

to work with people who actually want something. You want to do

something. You want to change the world. You're trying to do

something. I want those strong people around. But anybody who

is like that is going to be hard to work with.

You said before about the fights and arguments that you

have intellectually.

Yeah. Which is lovely. I love that. But it's also

painful, of course. But I think the mistake we made was, we

assumed that the four of us would be there for 10 years. And

I remember, because we had academic advisors and Tom

Rodden, who I know you talked to, in your podcast. He said,

'You should have written up a rule for what happens if one of

you guys leave. How do you then distribute the power between you

Did you have to justify to the funding body as well, any of

and figure out what to do?'. And we didn't. And that was stupid.

Of course, strong people with strong wills and amazing careers

will at some point, maybe look for another job. So the first

one to leave after five years was Lars Erik Holmquist. He got

a really good job at Yahoo, Yahoo labs. And he, of course

wanted to take this step, you know, to Silicon Valley, to see

some of his stuff go from academia out there, you know. So

that was absolutely fine. And it was good for the center to see

some of our work get out, you know, so we were happy. Sort of.

But of course, then we were only three, right. And then, a year

or two later Annika got an offer to be, Annika Waern got an offer

to be a professor in Uppsala, Uppsala University, and she had

been commuting from Uppsala to here to Kista for, what, 25

years or something. So she was like, I really want this and

there are not that many professor's chairs that pop up.

And so then she left and then there were only two of us, me

and Oskar, you know. At the time, Barry Brown had joined the

center. So then we included him and we tried other younger

people. But that is, you know, it's, we weren't prepared for

the changes in dynamics. Four people who've agreed already

when they applied, versus a group of people where it's not

clear why you bring in somebody new or not, you know, so that

was a hassle.

those changes there account?

No, that was fine. And we kept being super productive. It was

just that I think we were unprepared.

So were there other changes that happened? Because

that is a long time to be running a same overall research

agenda. I know the details of the research changes all the

time. What were the other big changes that happened over that

time?

So one of the big problematic things is that some

of the companies we were working with and depending on died. Sony

Ericsson.

Yes. And when you have to provide matching funding.

Exactly. And it's not you know, and the funding body, the

government funding body Vinnova said, 'No, you have to come up

to that level. So we don't care, if Sony Ericsson has left you,

because they're dying, you still have to get the money'. So then

we have to bring in a new partner or make the the existing

partners raise their funding. So we had, we always had a little

bit more than we needed from industry. So it was fine. But it

was for me when I was the head of the center. This was super

scary. It was like you go like 'Oh, my' [Geri: Sleepless

nights?] Yes, definitely. And it's like you can feel it. Now

afterwards, I know what to look for, when they stopped

communicating. When they stop coming to your workshops, when

they stop being super interested, then you know,

something is going on, you know. Either it's a reorganization of

the thing, or the company is going a bit downhill. So I

learned how to follow also the media, you know, follow what is

going on with these companies and which ones are rising and

which ones are going down and why. So, yeah.

So it also sounds like a lot of your time wasn't spent

directly in research, but facilitating the research

center.

Yeah. So I was the head of the center for the first years

and then Oskar took cover for a couple of years. And then it

was, we were supposed to sort of take turns, but then as Annika

and Lars Erik left, I got it back again. And so it's double,

because you also get to shape a lot of things when you're a head

of the, because then you interact with these companies

and you can see how that makes your research more honest and

more relevant. You can't go off on crazy stuff without thinking

about what does this really mean for you know, are we really

pointing to some relevant future here? So to me that was useful,

but it was also a lot of work, a lot of work.

What were some of the basic ways that you would

recommend people to work with companies, if they're in

research partnerships, given your experiences

So we had, when you're working in industry, if you're

working in a big company or a small company, interacting with

researchers is your second priority always. So my

Even though we think we're the center of the world,

We think we have some really clever things they should

be, you know, coming [Geri: Knocking at your door.] knocking

at the door saying, 'Can I have it?', you know? And no, they did

not always. And we're also as academics were sometimes really

bad at communicating what our stuff means. Connecting the

dots, if you see what I mean. So let's take Ericsson as an

example. So this is a company providing the infrastructure for

the net. So and we were doing applied research into user apps

and stuff. Why should they care about that? What is it that we

were seeing in building all these apps and interactive maths

and lights and whatever? What is it that we were seeing that they

should care about? Translating that, making sure that you can

you somehow relate to what they're doing, without

necessarily knowing exactly what they are doing, because they

can't tell you. Because it's secret, some of it. So we had a

bunch of ways of doing this. One was we made everybody in the

center work for three months with one of the partners at some

point during their

As an internship or as a secondment?

And that was easy with companies like Microsoft

Research, because they do that. So that was no big deal. But

with some of the other companies, this was a bit of a

like, oh, okay, so we get somebody work with us. [Geri:

What do we do with them?], you know, but that means that they

sign a contract with that company, allowing them to see

the inside, knowing all the secrets. They might not be able

to tell you all of it when they come back. But they have that

with them in their understanding. So that was one

way of making sure that our contacts were close. We're also

trying the other way around, you know, to get people from

industry to sit with us, halftime or something like doing

PhDs, and so on. So we had that a few times, which is harder,

because the research process is so slow.

Yeah, we operate on different time cycles.

Yeah. So that was difficult, but. And then the

other thing we did was make sure that we had joint workshops

regularly. Then we wouldn't [Geri: What would be regularly?

6 months?], like every project, and we would have seven, eight

projects in the center. Every project would have one or two

per year. Different smaller groups. And so and they would

always have a bunch of people that from the different industry

partners, who were assigned to that particular project, so that

we wouldn't overload one person within the company with all of

these contacts and workshops and stuff. But we tried to sort of

always try to look for other people in your organization that

we could work with, so. And a lot of work was done in those

workshops. And then you're doing these trips together, because

when you do a trip together visiting, we visited Japan,

Silicon Valley, India, and now the recent trip was around

Europe.

And this is together with researchers and with the

representatives from the companies?

Yeah, exactly. So you traveled together, you see stuff

together, and then you talk about it together. Then you

understand a lot about our strategies, the way they talk

about it, when they find something interesting, you will

'Ah, so this is what they're thinking'. So you have to be

super open to all of these influences. And you have to

figure out how to find those people within the organization

that are interested in that, interested in communicating and

shaping strategies and visions for their company.

And given how they're always changing, as you said,

that's an ongoing process for the sounds of it then, because

you're always needing to feel that who's currently there or

was.

Yeah. And I talk about it now as if, oh, working with

companies, but it's not working with companies, it's working

with certain individuals. That is what we're doing. It's the

same as with academia. [Geri: Relationship building.] Yeah.

There's this certain people that are open and curious and

interested and questioning your thinking in interesting ways.

And those are the ones you want.

What about managing people within the center? That's a

large number of people. What were your big lessons about

people management, growing people, building a culture?

So the center was always and still is extremely

interdisciplinary. And that is hard work. So whenever you build

something, for example, and we have built, that's been our

thing that we do build stuff that actually works, and that we

put it out with people. When you build something, the person

being the software engineer would say, 'Well, I'm the one in

charge of what we're going to build, because I know what the

technology is going to be'. And then you have the industrial

designer where you know, 'I'm doing the design' and then you

have the behavior scientist person said 'Well I did the

studies, I know what should be in the system'. And then you

have, you know, so. So all of that you had, we had to learn

how to be respectful without backing off entirely, you still

have to do that, you know. So there was a lot of work just

trying to put together these themes. Teams that would be able

to build and do more than they would do individually. And that

is not only about competence, it's also about personality. And

it's about fostering a way of talking where you feel safe,

creative and dare to be open about your little ideas that

might feel like really stupid, and you're the youngest one on

the team. So always been sort of encouraging and open. And

helping, you know, going like, 'Oh, all of that stuff you said

is no good. But this thing that oh, let's go with that. You

know, that's interesting'. So, but then, of course, sometimes

it doesn't work.

So do you have explicit discussions about how to work

together? Or is it more by role modeling?

No, a lot of, I actually would, whenever there was one of

those, for example, one of those interdisciplinary problems, I

would look up the person who I felt was not listening to the

other competencies. And I would say, 'Look, you have to try and

understand where they come from. Their field, and what they're

bringing. And you need to back off this part of the design

work. But this part, you need to step up.' You know, so I would

do that explicitly. Yeah.

Good, it sounds like you've got antennas out all over

the place. Antennas out into industry and what's happening

there, keep track of that, antennas out internally see

what's going on and where to step in?

Yeah. And then you have to, because, yeah, you go from I was

a researcher who had had a group and so on, but where you can

control the research topic very narrowly to stepping up to

having a vision of a, you know, a grand scale, like, where is

the world heading? And where do I want it to head? And how can I

defend that we are going to do enjoyment and playfulness. And

that that is important in itself. Yeah, that this is not,

it's not about doing a game so that you can learn math, it's

doing a game so that you can enjoy the game. And if we don't

take that seriously, we're not going to learn anything about

design. And we might later use it for, you know, teaching math

or whatever. But that's not what we're doing.

And so being able to scale up to that kind of level, visionary

level, and understand what that vision means for redrawing the

map of industry, you know, the ecosystem of who, which

industrial sector will thrive off, which like, I remember when

we sort of say, well, look, now it's Internet of Things. And

this was in 2010 / 2011. And you go like, ah, that means that we

need to have slightly different partners. And this is where we

brought in IKEA. We also want wanted to bring in Hennes &

Mauritz, but we failed. But anyway, consumer products are

going to be connected. What does that mean? Well, it means that

IKEA will be looking for collaborations with Google or

Samsung or something. And we have companies that are super

interested in that. And so what if we, you know, so that level

of reasoning, I think, again, as an academic, that there was

nothing in the research methods or anything that you could use

to do. But you have to do it, if you don't have a vision.

Can you have a vision? Can you be operating at that level

of always trying to keep track of a vision and being sensitive

to where the world is heading as well as be involved in the

details? Or do you need to let the details and hands on

research go?

I let it go a bit. And I felt in the periods when I was

leading the center, I felt like it was okay for a year or two.

And then I started to feel like I was losing contact with the

reality.

So you still need some contact with the reality of the

research in order to feed the strategic vision as well?

Because it's in the projects. So like, if you take

for example, Internet of Things, everybody was talking about

that. And we were setting up big seminars, and there was a huge

interest in our research in that area. But it was not until I

really worked in one of the projects and understood that

this is not about how many sensors we can put up, because

that's the first thing we think that says, oh, there's going to

be a lot of sensors and a lot of data. No it's about the other

thing. It's the actuation. What is the system doing in the

world? Because the sensors you can add, if you know what you

could use them for. But it's not like you have a bunch of data

and it's all neutral. And you just find patterns in the data

and then boof, the services will come out of that or the

activation will come out of that. You have to think the

other way around.

So this is bringing your same sensitivities is what you

brought to your PhD topic just played out in multiple ways.

Yeah. And so then and that feeling I did not get until we

were actually building, I was in a system where I realized that

none of us is able to think backwards, you know, it's just a

chicken and egg problem, none of us is really good at going the

other way around, you know, from activation to what do we then

need. So, stuff like that you have to be in contact with the

actual physical work.

So you just almost literally returned from a

sabbatical just a couple of weeks ago, from a year long

sabbatical. Where I imagine you had time to reconnect to some

research and thinking as well, do you want to talk us through

that experience?

Yeah. So it was really that this feeling that I had lost

contact again, entirely. And we've been doing some super

interesting work in my project within the Center on some

aesthetic design, designing with the body, and emotion and

sociality and aesthetics. And I'd been allowed to be part of

that project, like half a day a week, the rest of the time I had

to do all this management stuff, but at least I've done some

stuff. And I was so much longing to understand properly what is

this? What is it that we've done? Why is it so interesting?

And why is this theoretically and methodologically and in

terms of how it addresses me as a person? Why is it so

interesting? I need to become deeper and more reflective and

understand this. So I was

And you can't do that in half a day a week.

No, can't. So then I got this opportunity and it's just

amazing, I just feel so privileged that I was allowed to

do it. And I still had to do work for stuff at home, you

know, so I would work like two, three hours a day, maybe with

stuff at home. But the rest of the time, I've been reading and

writing and analyzing real data. And ah, amazing.

Just seeing the difference in your face and body, it

clearly is energizing. And what's exciting?

Yes, it's so good. And it's also because I passionately

believe that this is going to save the world. This research

topic is that shit. It's what we should be doing all of us. So,

no, it was really, really good. So I started my sabbatical by

going to Richard Shusterman, who is a philosopher and works in

Florida. And I met him before and invited him to the CHI

conference to give a talk and so on. And he was really nice and

said, 'Yes, yes, you're welcome'. So we would sit under

a tree, at the campus talking philosophy for hours talking

about, you know, knowledge and the meaning of life. And what it

is. And it's just, it was so invigorating, it was just making

me grasp again, why are we doing this? Because you can become a

bit dirty on the inside, a bit blacking your soul when you're

compromising with what you think industry wants or what the

society wants or what your funder wants or whatever, that

you're delivering, delivering, delivering, and then

reconnecting with that. No, this is actually important. A

research is important, for real, for real people.

And being able to think that through more deeply as

well, what that means.

Yeah. That was just amazing. So I spent the spring

there in Florida with him. And then I went home for the summer

because I have family and I had a second granddaughter that I

wanted to welcome. Yeah. But I pretended as if I was away. So

I, you know. [Geri: Did you not go into the office?] No, I did

not go into the office. And then during the autumn, I was in

Santa Cruz with Katherine Isbister at UC Santa Cruz.

When we met in May, you said things were changing or you

realize some things and you want to make sure you make these

changes.

Yes. So also not only reconnecting with research and

reading and so on, but also reconnecting with myself. And in

my case, I feel like those are so tightly connected. You know,

I do research on what I passionately feel myself is

important to me. And so when I went to Florida, I decided I'm

not going to try and socialize and get any friends. I'm going

to try to be all alone so that I can meet myself, which was

awful. I had a lot of anxiety attacks and yeah, and I felt

lonely and so on. And I'd never lived alone. I met my husband

when I was 20. So I never lived alone. So I was living alone for

two months, which I know is not very long. But yeah, anyway,

what that helped me do was also to unravel some of the very,

very strong rules I'd set up for myself, in order to survive as a

center manager, I had to set up a bunch of rules, like, you

always have to go to bed at 10 o'clock in the evening, and you

have to not work after nine, because otherwise you can't

sleep. You have to sleep. You have to get up in the morning,

you do this and that, but yeah. Or you, the other stupid rule I

had was, I'm not allowed to be creative in my free time.

Because then it might be used up all my creativity.

All your creativity, your limited resource.

And what else? I had a bunch of these things. I was

also, you know, I had, since I have kids, now they're grown up,

and I have grandchildren. But managing a household and

working, I had set up all sorts of rules about how to be

efficient, like, never go up the stairs without taking something

with me and never go down the stairs without. So I had all

these things.

These were just implicit rules in your head or had you

actually articulated them?

Some of it was explicit, very explicit.

Cause some of them don't sound bad, like getting enough

sleep, it's [Kia: It's a good thing.] it's a good thing.

But you end up in a situation where everything you

do you do in order to be able to work more.

Right. So it was more the orientation of the rules, or the

motivation for them.

That it was so, it was, I was punishing myself. And if I,

for example, happen to spend a couple of hours like with you

now, I could have spent these hours reading something

important. And then I would punish myself for having allowed

myself the luxury of a fika with Geraldine.

So what would punishing be? Just in your head beating

yourself?

Yeah, beating myself. And that is not a good life. You

don't live to constrain yourself like that. That is not helping

your creativity or your ability to be a human being. So, but it

took me a while to get down from this activity level where I

didn't even have time to reflect on it. So I crashed landed in

Florida, like 'boom', you know, no meetings. I was like, 'Oh,

what do you do, then?' Oh, actually going down to the beach

for a bit doing yoga. Oh, you know, stuff like that. Because I

used to do yoga, but in order to survive the stress, not because

I enjoyed it.

Yeah. It's really interesting that things that are

ostensibly good things like yoga, like sleeping, when

they're framed all about being able to maintain the machine,

the working machine to produce in academia. It's unbalanced.

[Kia: It's unbalanced, yeah.] So how did you create such a

different sense of you? And a different relationship to the

rules or no rules?

Yeah. So I'm not sure I've still succeeded. But I actually

do believe that one can change. I know a lot of people who are

like, ya, I know, you know, you have certain personality traits

and those are the way they are and people would refer to

themselves as extrovert or introvert or whatever. I think,

yes, that might be partly true, but you can also change, you can

change. But it has to start from a core emotional, subjective and

intellectual experience. So it's not about setting up a different

rule as, you know, it is really about recognizing the emotional

state I get in when I start doing this, like, 'Oh, now I

have to go to sleep. Because otherwise I won't be able',

yeah. What is that state? And then what is the other emotional

state that I could transport myself into?

What would be an alternative to that?

So for me yeah, and I don't know if I'm going to succeed. So

it feels really scary to talk about this. But when I was in

Florida, and later in Santa Cruz, I found a way to actually

do my yoga exercises and to enjoy myself to actually spend

weekends without working or and to feel very much collected and

this is also because the research topic was some

aesthetics, which is about slowing down and listening to

very, very small signals in your body. And in your thinking, to

daring to, to feel like right now I can feel I'm breathing a

bit too much up in my lungs, too high up and I have a little pain

here somewhere in my chest. I don't contract. You know, so you

don't feel that, if you're not, if you're all up in your head

and you will have to run from one thing to the other. 'Oh!' So

we've been doing at work we've been doing as part of that

project we've been doing Feldenkrais exercises at work,

spending an hour laying out on the floor doing very, very small

movements and remember

To learn to read the body, reconnect to the body?

Otherwise you can't design for that or with that. So you

have to know yourself in order to. So those Feldenkrais

exercises, sometimes I came running to them going 'aaah!'.

I have to relax, [Kia: I have to relax now!] I have to

relax and then I have to go.

One hour, oh, my God. Let's get going! And then I would do

the exercise. And then afterwards, I complete

reorientation, because what do you have to remember is all of

that stuff that you get worked up about. Or that is, is it

really that important? Is it, you know? Or even if it is

important, can I have a different attitude about it?

Yeah, have a different attitude about it.

And I've learned that, I think. And so I feel, I also

feel like this gives, if we're talking about leadership, the

other key, the worktop one, did not spread a good work

environment around herself. I did not make my PhD students and

others secure and happy and creative.

In what way, saying you didn't do that?

Because I, these are strong bodily signals that you give

off, right? [Geri: So you're dripping stress around.] I'm

dripping stress around myself. This other person that I tried

to be now the one that is allowing herself to listen, and

be collected and enjoy, [Geri: Listen to who?] To listen to the

other alternative self, because I don't believe in one self, I

believe that there are many different selves. And you can

craft and hone the ones you like. So this one needs to be

there. Because when I am, when I meet people properly with that

person, then that gives them energy. And yeah, we're human.

We're human. We're, it's what I say what I look like, my eyes,

my face, all of that is what you pick up. You have that. It's

super interesting to meet you. Because you have that calmness

around you, makes people want to be with you.

Thank you. It often doesn't feel like that inside. I

can really relate to the, all the things going on in your

head.

Yeah, but there's something about you that makes me feel

like, yeah, with her, I'm okay, I'm safe if I'm around her. And

that's what I want to be as well. I want to be like that.

And I think it's so important when we're in

positions of leadership or management or working with

people, that we do influence just by our presence and how we

are in our bodies and our heads. And often we're too much in our

heads and not. [Kia: Yeah] So it was very important to you to

create the space to reconnect with that. [Kia: Yeah] Do you

think you could have done it within everyday life continuing

at work? Or did you really need to step out?

I think I needed to step out. Yeah, I was working in that

direction already before, but I needed to step out. Because the

other thing that is problematic for me, I don't know how you

respond to these things, but you get so flattered. As an

academic, somebody comes and says, 'Well, Kia, do you want to

give a keynote, in India?' And you go like 'Oh, India, yay, of

course I do.' And then and then you look at your calendar, you

go, 'Oh, hang on.' [Geri: What was I thinking?]. Yes. Or in my

case, it's this, you know, Sweden is a very small country.

So just because I enjoy giving talks and so on, and I have this

political and value based strand to my work, I've been invited

into political settings, I have been an advisor to the Minister

of Infrastructure. And I've been in something called Almedalen.

And it's a week, every year where politicians meet, and so

on and so on. I've done a lot of stuff like that. And it's super

flattering because it's close to the powers. And it allows me to

influence.

Influence, yes. It's about things you care about as well.

Yeah. But I can't do all of it. I have to make choices. And

same thing with media. And because, again, because it's a

small country, I'm female, and professor at KTH. They have, I

would say, one person per week contacting me, wanted an

interview. And so I had to make up rules and say, 'No'.

So these are good rules. [Kia: I hope so.]. So this is

how will you decide, which things you will say 'yes', to

which things not?

So maybe again, I put up a bit too strict rules again, but

so I'm saying 'no' to everything to do with media. Unless they

interviewed me about some aesthetic design. I say 'no' to

giving talks to industry, and keynotes, and unless it is about

some aesthetic design. I tried to focus only on academic

settings for a while. I'm sure I will get back to working with

industry, but I've done it for 10 years, it's time for me to

take a step back and become more academic again.

And you can only do so much. As you said, when you can

say 'yes' and then you look at your calendar. 'Oh, how do I

squeeze that?' [Kia: Yes.] Because it's not just the travel

to India, and being there to do the talk. It's the preparation

beforehand, it's the, you know.

You have to know why you're doing it. And so if you do it,

because you're flattered and because it's a notch in your

belt. Or are you doing it because you're actually learning

something important in India, or you are communicating your

research in a good way, you know, whatever, you know, so I

have to think about that. So I make people who phoned me, I

make them email me so that I can think before I answer.

That's nice. So you create that pause. [Kia: Yes.] That's

very good.

Sometimes I don't even answer my mobile phone, I have a

message where I say, email me.

So that you don't, you're less likely to react, you can

actually respond, you can take some time to think.

I like the very thought through reasons for why you wouldn't do

things and recognizing that it could change.

Yeah. It will change. I know it will change.

Rolling it back and making more reasonable choices. What

other changes are you making? Or have you made?

So going deeper into this academic, during my sabbatical

what I did was, I wrote this book, which is not yet finished,

but anyway. Yeah, so I need to work on that and I need to put

some effort into that I'm not so sure. I'm going to write that

many books. It's a big thing for me. I'm Swedish and my English

skills are okay, but they're not, you know, it's hard for me

to do these things. So some thinking that I need to put some

effort into this book, because it might be the only one I

write. And so keeping my eyes on that and making sure that that

is also accompanied with the kind of exercises like

Feldenkrais and yoga, whatever that reconnects me with what I'm

writing about.

So you're scheduling particular times that are

designated book writing or how are you managing that?

Yeah. Now, people are sort of putting stuff in my calendar

that is squeezing those weeks. [Geri: Cause now you're back.]

Yeah. No. But yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. And also

trying to keep, you know, do the stuff that I enjoy, like

horseback riding and yoga, whatever. Yeah.

So are then in your diaries explicit things that you

block out? [Kia: Yeah, there are.] So I hear the little

tension between having created the space for yourself while

you're on sabbatical to think and to be and to do the things

that you want to do for different motivations, and then

coming slipping back into everyday work.

So the big conflict for me has always been that I care

about other people, and that they get what they need from me.

So my PhD students and my colleagues and so on, if they

asked me for stuff then I need to deliver, and I always

deliver. That's another sort of ethical rule that I've always

had. Like, if I promised to do something, I will do that. No

matter what. And me, myself has always been lost on that list of

priorities. And I don't think I can change all of it, because I

enjoy being with other people. And I enjoy delivering when I've

said that I'm going to deliver. So the only thing I can do is

promise less, right?

Yes. But also you've talked about putting yourself

last on the list of priorities. But you also talked before about

if you're not looking after yourself well, other people are

affected. So in some ways that's actually saying you need to put

yourself first on your list of priorities so that you can be

there for the other people.

Yes. And I'm a little bit better at it now, maybe. But the

other thing is this, I think as academics, we have to think a

little bit about what the organization tells us that we

need to do, and then take a stance on whether we're going to

do that or not. So we were traveling with the Mobile Life

Center now last week across Europe, and we saw different

research groups. And it was just so interesting to see how

they're all fulfilling these requirements that everybody puts

on us, like, you need to pull in funding, you need to build

stuff, you need to have PhD students, a certain number of

PhD students, the more you have, the better, you need to do this,

you need to do that, in order to be a successful research leader.

And there are a lot of duties that sort of are hinted at me

now that I'm back, like, maybe Kia, you need to be there, you

know, taking care of this team, or you need to be the department

head at some point or whatever. And I know that this is true,

the organization demands it. But I don't think honestly, in my

heart, I don't believe that that's the best use of me. That

they could do. I'm sure, I can do it. And I will do it. If I

say yes, I will do it carefully,

I'm sure, you would.

But there are things I can do that are important, really

important.

This sounds like an occasion to bring in the same

strategies as working with industry to work with the

internal people to say, what do they need? What other things do

they need that I can argue, that I can deliver for them?

Yes. And that I know, [Geri: It's different to what

they think that they want to do.] Yes. And that I know what

sort of comes together into a whole. And not dividing myself.

That centering that you found on the sabbatical, keeping

that protected.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. And, yeah. It's, yeah, it is very

hard. And I think you can only change so much in a short while.

And you can do, the way I think about it now is I managed to

secure funding together with Barry Brown and others, Ylva

Fernaeus and so. We secured funding now. So we have funding

for five years. [Geri: You're great at getting money.] Yeah,

money is my thing. I'm such a good scientist. So that's my

forte. It's one of the things I do really well. But there's this

thing where, as I said before, funding attract more funding. So

for me, it's now very important to say 'I have now exactly what

I need. I don't want any more. I don't want any more funding now.

This is what I want. And I'm going to stick to this for these

five years.' And if the others want to pull in funding, they

can do that, fine, and increase the group, but this is what I'm

doing.

It's a similar flattery argument there, isn't it, that,

you know, I could get in more funding and then yes, I've got

more ticks. But at what cost?

Yes. Because then you get all of this attention, right.

You get the rector of KTH sending you a congratulation

email. And you go 'I'm so good!'.

So we have to guard against ourselves in some ways,

don't we?

Definitely. Definitely. And there are these prizes that we

get, right. Like, I think you're also distinguished speaker. So

these regalia, what do you call these?

This is the ACM distinguished sign.

Yes, that one for example. No, but just as an example,

there's a bunch of these things where it's recognition for your

work, and it helps you to spread the core, the things that

matter. But if you don't have a core, if you don't know, why am

I doing this research? What is it that I'm changing in the

world that I actually believe is good? So for me, during the

autumn being in the US with Trump winning, I had to go I'm

sitting here writing a book, what on earth is that? Am I

really contributing to society in a good way? And I had to go

back and say, well, some aesthetics to me is about

finding your core, knowing yourself, slowing down and being

more empathic with other people. So this is what I really do

believe that the world needs. It is a much slower way to success.

It's not the same thing as going in one of those, like the

Women's March, you know, and so on. It is a different process.

But it's one that I do believe in, and therefore I need to take

this seriously. You know, so stuff like that. It's you have

to have your core. If you don't have a core, then it doesn't

matter if you get to be the ACM distinguished whatever. That's

just shallow.

And scattered. I mean, like some of the things you've

talked about for about just being scattered is the word that

you use. So scattered versus being centered and having, being

connected to that core. And the choices that come with it.

Yeah. But of course, it's like, the issue has been for me.

It's like when you're in Sweden, and you're a researcher, is

really hard to get recognized internationally. And I feel

like, if I were to complain a bit that we've done research

really early on, that does not get cited. And then some

American does exactly the same thing. And they get cited. And

so I have been longing for that recognition. I have been, and I

know, it's just a social system. It is a, you know, you have to

pop up and be visible and then you get these recognition things

and you have to know the right people and so on. I know, it's

all about that. But it also matters to whether my research

gets spread or not. And

Because you believe in the idea, isn't it?

Yeah. So that I have been struggling with. Now I've

decided to stop caring about it. But it's been annoying. We know,

we did some work on social navigation extremely early.

And there's a whole culture of citation practices

that we could discuss. We should probably look at just wrapping

up. Are there any things that you've thought of that you would

like to share that we haven't touched upon? Or any final

thoughts?

Yeah. So there were a couple of things I was thinking

about before I met with you. One of those is, I know people in

Sweden think that I'm successful, and that we were

able to pull in all of that funding and so on. But that was

not without a lot of struggle. And I've met a lot of resistance

and really damaging once I've even been on sick leave due to

stress. Stress stuff, because people have been nasty to me.

Because when you do something that goes across, it goes

against it's a different form of organization or a different way

of doing research. As I said before, you're sticking your

head out, you know, and of course, you'll be hit.

So it takes bravery in all sorts of ways.

Yeah, bravery, true that. And I am brave. I'm not so

scared of stuff. But I wasn't prepared for how nasty some of

that can be.

Perhaps because it's unexpected as well.

You sort of think that people around you will think,

oh, that's excellent that she's pulling on all of this will be

good for the department for the fame and glory of you know,

everything. Yes, I'm sure they do at some level, but it's also

a bloody hassle to have somebody like me around saying, 'No, I

want my office to be an open office office, and I want this

and I want that. And I really, we need to do stuff this way.

And it's going to be different, because we need to be

different.' And that is annoying for people, too. And I might

seem like I'm stronger than I am. I'm not that strong. So,

even though I'm brave, and I'm sort of driven by these visions,

values, and ethics and so on. I'm also fragile, very fragile.

And, yeah, so I'd really wanted to say that.

It talks to the importance of collegiality, empathy, being

happy for one another, supporting one another. Yet

there's something about the culture that sets up the

opposite about competition. Just the fact that the four of you,

as leaders set up your individual groups reflected

those aspects of the culture about the individual needing to

Yes, of course. And it is also the case, yeah. Different

shine.

organizations will be different good at, you know, different. So

SICS was such that if I put in funding, then the all the other

ones were happy, because they knew that this took off some of

the pressure of the joint funding that I would, you know,

that there would be more joint funding for the rest of them.

Not the university. It's so big. So that is not always the case.

It's more like you're competing for attention. You're competing

for the internal funding to be co-funding to your projects and

stuff like that. So of course, they, sometimes they feel

different about this. So moving from SICS to the university, and

so on was a big cultural shock to me in that I thought that

people would be happy for me. And they weren't always.

Sometimes there's a term called horizontal violence, that

reflects some of that sort of peer to peer empathy.

And also, you know, at the time, when we got this funding,

I was young, and we were all young, and I was female. And so

I got to be in the media, and, you know, what, you know, the

king was visiting, and then they asked me to give a talk, you

know, and I, you know, so all of this stuff, right. And, of

course, to some people who've been struggling for years and

years and years and doing really good research, you get this,

this young woman suddenly getting all of his attention

because of her boobs. Annoying!

But it's not, it's because of your work and your, [Kia: As

well.] your innovation and vision.

But also my gender. Yeah. And I can see how that is

annoying, you know. Very annoying. Especially I was also,

you know, strong and cocky and

And that's something I'd love to talk more at another

time about as well about gender and computer science and how

that plays out.

Now, it's a complex, complex issue.

It is. They are complex issues.

So thank you so much for time, openness, and I really hope that

you can find a way to keep that centering going on [Kia: Now

I've said it publicly.], making those choices and keeping space

for yourself. And all the best with the book look forward to

seeing it coming out. [Kia: Oh, yeah, if it ever.] I'm sure. So

thanks, Kia.

Thank you.

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