Work
My main job is at VTT as the Lead Lean & Agile Coach.
I also do coaching and consulting for the Academy of Philosophy (nowadays part of Heltti). I facilitate, train, and speak in different events and organisations about self-management, sustainable work pace, self-directedness, complexity theory, agile thinking and experimentation-driven development.
I run Sami Paju’s Holistic Consulting Company, specialising in the practical applications of complexity theory in leadership, management, and organisation design. I also facilitate LEGO Serious Play workshops and provide training in experimentation-driven development.
I have also written a couple of books in Finnish.
Photography
I started to take photography seriously in the early 2000s when Canon and Nikon released their first affordable dSLR’s. At first my aim was to get material that I used to create digital art, but over time my focus shifted more towards pure photography.
A big leap in developing as a photographer took place in 2010-11, when I lived in South Korea. And to this day Seoul remains my absolute favourite place for street photography. A more dynamic and diverse city is hard to find.
My urge and interest in creating photographs has waxed and waned over the years. Sometimes it has been hard to grab a camera, let alone create anything I could be happy with. Yet photography has remained by my side to this day.
I am likely to be a student of photography for the rest of my life. Maybe I will start to take it really seriously when I retire and have more time to spare :)
Over the years I have shot with different cameras from Nikon, Olympus, Lumix, Sony and Leica. My current kit consists of Fujifilm gear, Leica Q, and a battered old Ricoh GR.
Other
In addition to photography, a significant pastime is board games, which I have accumulated by several dozen.
I try to keep myself in shape by mostly going to the gym and running. The older I become, the more I also find myself working on mobility and doing yoga or qi gong. I also love snowboarding, which I started doing in the 90s when the sport was taking its first steps in Finland.
I appreciate books, music, coffee, chocolate and whisky. As an old nerd who started playing games with the Commodore 64 and Amiga, I have completely fallen for games created by From Software since they released the original Dark Souls.
Finland 2021