Asking Alumni #4
Wed, 16 Dec 2020
written by Jorrit Geels
As a student in one of the most widely applicable fields, it is easy to lose yourself in the amount of options you are given. But why figure it out all by yourself? There are always others sharing the same struggles, both now and in the past.
I decided to reach out for advice to those who have been able to deal with my struggle in the past, our alumni. These kind people took their time to review their career for me: the choices they made, the problems they had to deal with, and what in the end made it all worth it.
The format is very simple: they all answer the same 10 questions in their own way. No guidelines, no restrictions: their story.
On https://svcognac.nl/blog/132, https://svcognac.nl/blog/136 and https://svcognac.nl/blog/142 you can find the first twelve interviews. Here are interviews 13 to 16! A huge thanks to Herman, Roland, Lonneke and Jeroen for being a part of this blog series.
The response to the last post went beyond expectations; the 30th birthday of our CognAC clearly surfaced a lot of great memories. Old and current CogW / AI students got very involved on CognAC's LinkedIn page. Once again, lots of positive feedback! Some responses:
- “I love how such a small room as the TK has been key in so many people's student lives, and for so long"
- “It always was apparent that the AI job market is very broad, but I learn about options that I never even thought of considering"
- “The interviews taught me to take more initiative and ask for more things myself, instead of waiting for opportunities. This has already opened so many doors for me!"
I’m very curious to hear what you, the reader, take away from this blogpost. Please let me know through cogblog@svcognac.nl, so I can include it in the next edition!
Or…, if you are/know an alumnus/alumna (preferably 5+ years since graduating) that would like to participate in these blogs, please email me at that same email.
Happy holidays.
- Jorrit Geels
Contents:
- Herman Roozen: cartoonist.
- Roland Meertens: product manager at Annotell.
- Lonneke Dikmans: co-founder at Vennster.
- Jeroen Baidenmann: founder at Baidenmann consultancy.
Herman Roozen
Herman Roozen entered my radar 2 years ago when he commented on the CognAC facebook banner that I designed with "Nice to see the logo I made all those years ago is still in use!". His name then became a frequenter in my CognAC trivia / pubquizzes, but his name is also a frequenter in another business; the one of comics. From the first of January onwards, Herman will be "Stripmaker des vaderlands" (our national comic creator) for the next three years.
Herman and I even discussed all kinds of board games over email after he sent in his contribution to the blog. He owns a whopping 150 of them.
University and CognAC
1. Were you involved within CognAC? If so, how? What did you learn from that experience?
I was editor and contributor to the magazine ‘Blanco’ for several years. I learned how to use Aldus Pagemaker and how to fill a magazine.
2. What is your most ‘typical CognAC’ memory?
I spent a lot of time in the “terminalkamer”. Working hard, fooling around. Not typical CognAC, but typical Cognitive Science (or “CogW” as we called it.)
3. What is/are the most valuable thing(s) you learned in university, outside from course material?
What I learned is that you can get a lot of things done if (and only if) you just start with it. Also, like Woody Allen once (allegedly) said: “80% of success is showing up”. For exams, for instance.
About your career
4. What is it exactly that you do now on a daily basis?
I write stories for comics and television. Also I draw comics, cartoons, illustrations and ‘rich pictures’.
5. What skills are most valuable in order to perform well in your workfield? What would you advise students to acquire these skills?
I would say that it is very important to think inside the box. Yes, INSIDE the box. A lot of times the solution to a problem can be found with the help of the information that you already have. You don’t need to bring in more. That will most likely only make the issue at hand more complicated. “Less is more”, I guess. And like any other skill: you get it by practicing.
6. Are there any things you wish you’d have done in your time as a student?
My son (the second of three) is now studying Software Science in Eindhoven and he is a member of the board game club and the theater club. In hindsight I would have liked to do that too.
Dealing with problems
7. What is the hardest thing about your current job? How are you dealing with that?
The hardest part is waiting for the approval (or rejection) of your work by the client. Especially when the work is a ‘rich picture’. In a rich picture you try to visualize a mission or a project or something else for a company in a large illustration, often with metaphors. You’re trying to tell their story in a different way. I try to always have an option B (or even C) for the (thankfully very rare) occasion that they don’t like my proposal.
8. How did you come to your current job? Did you take steps in between? Could you consider any of these steps as ‘failures’, and if so, in what sense?
I have been drawing comics since I was 12. So being a comic artist is not really a job, it’s just something that I have always done. I did submit my work to magazines and newspapers on several occasions when I was younger, but soon realized that I wasn’t good enough to make a substantial amount of money in the field. So I went to Dronten to study Animal Husbandry, and after that to Nijmegen for Cognitive Science. I worked 5 years doing research at Wageningen University and 5 years for a software company specializing in agriculture. That company went bankrupt in 2003: the dot-com-crisis. I couldn’t get another job and decided to try my luck once more. This time things fell into place and now I have been a comic writer and artist for 17 years. I could not have done it without the experiences (and failures) in the ‘real jobs’. The fact that I have had these ‘real jobs’ are often a plus for clients. I have an inside understanding of businesses. Sometimes I have to do ‘rich pictures’ or cartoons for software companies, and they very much appreciate that I have a good understanding of what they are talking about.
Advice, to close off
9. What is the best advice you ever got? Why did it turn out to be so useful?
This might be too specific, but whatever. We once had a course on information analysis by a senior information analyst. I was designing a lot of entity relationship diagrams in those days. He was promoting a more process-oriented way of designing. He said: “An optional attribute is a hidden process.” It was like he turned on a light in my head. I designed totally different, and much better, diagrams after that.
Besides that immediate effect, the experience made me much more aware of things that ‘stare you in the face’, or things like ‘the elephant in the room’. (I have made a lot of cartoons with an elephant the last couple of years.) You always have to be ready for a total new way of looking at something. Which is basically my job when I am making live cartoons at a conference: showing people another way to look at things.
10. Do you have any good advice for ambitious students that would like to go into your workfield? And what kind of advice should they ignore?
Well, then I would like to repeat Woody Allen again: “80% of success is showing up.” Show your work to others. Someone might like it (and give you money).
If I would have to start over I would probably learn animation. I now have to hire someone to do that for me. I think that movement is an intricate part of comics and any (new) comic artist should know how their figures move, and be able to let them move.
What you shouldn’t do is be picky in your projects. It’s not the clients job to give you the perfect project, it’s your job to make the best of it.
I think the advice “Follow your dream!” should generally be ignored. If the company I worked for hadn’t gone bankrupt in 2003 I would have never become a professional comic writer and artist, even though I very much like being one. The chances of being succesfull are just to small, even if you are very good. I am not very good, but I am flexible and work fast, and had a great deal of luck in the first few years of my career.
Roland Meertens
It has been 5,5 years since Roland Meertens left our university. The chair of the 21st board of CognAC is a robotics fanatic; his portfolio contains autonomous drones, automatically translating text, and recently building self-driving cars. However, when I asked him for his biggest achievement: 'Together with some ex-CognAC people we managed to launch a rocket in Factorio within 8 hours, giving us the "There is no spoon" achievement.' The interview is too interesting to postpone with introductory words, so enjoy the (great) read.
University and CognAC
1. Were you involved within CognAC? If so, how? What did you learn from that experience?
Yes, I was part several committees, and chairman of the board for one year. Being part of committees and organising activities teaches you a lot about planning projects, and collaborating with others. It's also a lot of fun, and will lead to life-long friends!
Joining a committee is a great boost for your future career skills! It's astonishing how well-organised committee work was when I was active at CognAC. Knowing how to set up (and follow) an agenda for a meeting, how to write notes on the meeting, and communicating decisions are all important career skills I often don't see in my fellow colleagues.
2. What is your most ‘typical CognAC’ memory?
I absolutely loved visiting Sweden for a week. It was great to see how student life is in different countries, and seeing what others learn about artificial intelligence. Going on trips with students from other studies widens your horizon.
3. What is/are the most valuable thing(s) you learned in university, outside from course material?
When I studied AI there was a lot of room to choose the courses you liked. It was great to be able to try courses in multiple domains so you can figure out what you really like to do in life.
About your career
4. What is it exactly that you do now on a daily basis?
I'm currently working as a product manager at Annotell. The company I work for is accelerating the field of autonomous driving by annotating data to train the perception systems that go on self-driving cars. My job is to think about the things self driving car companies need to do to get these cars on the road, so we can develop products to help them.
It's a fantastic job which requires deep knowledge of how autonomous cars work, and you have to talk a lot to different companies to figure out what problems they have. By solving these problems we accelerate the progress of self-driving cars for multiple companies at once.
5. What skills are most valuable in order to perform well in your workfield? What would you advise students to acquire these skills?
People who want to work in the field of robotics have to have knowledge of a lot of different fields. AI knowledge is only the top of the iceberg to can make your robot autonomous. You also have to know how sensors work, be able to efficiently program onboard computers, and understand electronics. It's hard to find people with knowledge about all these topics, and it's hard to obtain this in your spare time.
Luckily the Radboud University has a robotics lab, and many great courses to acquire these skills. Make sure you acquire them while you are still studying, as it's your only chance to get into this exciting field!
6. Are there any things you wish you’d have done in your time as a student?
Not really, but this question is a great moment to plug going abroad. I personally did an internship in Paris, which taught me a lot. Make sure you orient yourself on this early so you can plan it into your study.
Dealing with problems
7. What is the hardest thing about your current job? How are you dealing with that?
There are always more things you can do. Focus on the exact set of tasks you need to perform to succeed is a fine skill to master. Make sure you often ask yourself what to focus on, and why.
8. How did you come to your current job? Did you take steps in between? Could you consider any of these steps as ‘failures’, and if so, in what sense?
So far I tried making autonomous drones, automatically translate text, and build self-driving cars. Every of these steps taught me something which helped me in my next job(s). Make sure you are always learning new things, and always getting better in the things you do.
Advice, to close off
9. What is the best advice you ever got? Why did it turn out to be so useful?
A few years ago I decided to start my own blog (www.pinchofintelligence.com). It's a lot of fun to do side-projects and write about them. It also leads to new connections with people who like what you do. Instead of only talking about projects you did in the past, you can now forward people an article. I can recommend everyone to start their own blog.
10. Do you have any good advice for ambitious students that would like to go into your workfield? And what kind of advice should they ignore?
Look back at point number six: learn a lot about robots while you still have access to robots. Try to understand as much as possible about how they work, and what methods exist to make them autonomous. The robotics field is a fast growing market with massive potential, but the number of people who have the right knowledge is very small.
Lonneke Dikmans
Lonneke mentioned she finds it hard to sit still. She easily gets bored, so she actively looks into new learning opportunities each day! Amongst other achievements, she wrote a book on Servic Oriented Architecture with her business partner ("Not giving up when we both got a bit bored after reading our own text 4 times (at least) was a real challenge, but we are proud of the result. Even though books are outdated quickly these days, we still sell some copies every quarter. "), moved to California for over 4 years and is currently active as co-founder of Vennster, a platform facilitating bottom-up decision making.
It has been 26 years filled with a lot of learning experiences, and she took the time to tell us more about some of them below.
University and CognAC
1. Were you involved within CognAC? If so, how? What did you learn from that experience?
I was close to the 2 people that founded CognAC, André and Freek, so obviously I was a member. I sometimes helped out with the organization of a party or trip. I enjoyed being a member and hanging out with like-minded people.
2. What is your most ‘typical CognAC’ memory?
I have a fond memory of a trip we were organizing where we used an old van (Renault??) to transport food and drinks and other stuff to the location. I honestly don’t remember what the trip was about, maybe canoeing?
3. What is/are the most valuable thing(s) you learned in university, outside from course material?
That people process information differently than computers do. Oh wait…
I worked for ANS (University newspaper) on the layout for a while. The newspaper came out once a month and layout was the last step in the process. Layout was planned for 2 days. The deadline was tight: we had to deliver a paper copy of the newspaper before a specific time the day after layout day. Writers and photographers would be late or have last minute changes. Working against a real deadline monthly and being part of the creation process was, apart from a lot of fun, very educational in terms of managing a deadline and work as a team to reach a common goal.
About your career
4. What is it exactly that you do now on a daily basis?
I am the co-founder of Vennster, we have recently (last summer) built a platform that facilitates bottom-up decision making (see doemeebeslismee.nl). With this platform we help organizations to make decisions with people instead of for people.
We are a small startup, so on a typical day I develop software for the user interface or backend (based on blockchain), support customers, negotiate price, discuss usability research and design with our UX designer, write articles and discuss with my business partners marketing, vision and finance. Never a dull moment!
5. What skills are most valuable in order to perform well in your workfield? What would you advise students to acquire these skills?
Everything changes very fast, so you have to keep learning. Working in a structured way is a key skill to handle that. Being able to make a planning and anticipate and access risks, both technical and financial risks is very important. I think any extracurricular activity you engage in is valuable. As I mentioned before I worked at ANS and Critic! (Psychology magazine) as a layout person. It taught me about planning, dependencies, working together, deadlines, learning new things (how a paper/magazine is made) and a lot of other things that are very important in any industry or job.
6. Are there any things you wish you’d have done in your time as a student?
Nope :).
I don’t believe there are fixed windows for things. For example: you can travel during your time as a student, after you graduate (I lived in California for 4.5 years after I graduated) or never. You should do what you feel comfortable with and what suits you at the time.
Dealing with problems
7. What is the hardest thing about your current job? How are you dealing with that?
Because we are a small team and just started, there are not enough hours in the day. I tend to keep going until something is finished, but that is just not possible: there is always something to do and we enjoy it very much. Letting go and focusing on other things is the hardest thing right now. I am not sure I deal with it very well, especially since Corona makes it hard to go out and have fun and focus on something else.
8. How did you come to your current job? Did you take steps in between? Could you consider any of these steps as ‘failures’, and if so, in what sense?
I started out as a freelance usability tester. At the time UX was not a ‘thing’ yet and being at the end of the process was a bit frustrating. When we moved to California, I decided to pick up computer science, an old love of mine. I went to community college and learned Java, C++ etc. When we moved back, I took a job as a consultant. I specialized in backend integration with Java and Oracle tooling. After seven years (2007), I started my own company, a consultancy in integration and Service Oriented Architecture. In 2014 we merged the company with a Luxemburgish company (eProseed) and I was country manager, product manager and global CTO. We sold our shares this year, restarted Vennster and launched our new platform.
During the banking crisis of 2008 we had to fire a number of employees, I consider that a (personal) failure. When you hire people, they depend on you for salary and being able to meet their financial obligations. Letting them go was something we could not avoid at that point: we would have gone bankrupt if we didn’t restructure. I learned a lot from the experience but also think that the current employment structure in our society is not fit to handle a crisis. This has become apparent again during Corona. I believe a base income for everyone would remedy this and would fuel innovation because people can focus on something other than job security.
Advice, to close off
9. What is the best advice you ever got? Why did it turn out to be so useful?
My Math teacher (“Meneer Versluis”) in the fifth grade of high school told me I should graduate in Physics and Math instead of the French, Geography and other subjects I was planning to take. He made me realize that as a girl you get easily drawn into fields that other girls are in. Making your own choices, based on your own interests and strengths will make you a much happier person. This has helped me in my field: I am in IT, a predominantly male profession. I feel confident and able because of his advice when I was much younger!
10. Do you have any good advice for ambitious students that would like to go into your workfield? And what kind of advice should they ignore?
Listen to people who have your best interest at heart. Don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you to do something that you don’t want to do. You will only excel in things you love.
Jeroen Baidenmann
Jeroen Baidenmann played a lot of bass guitar in his student time (25 years ago). At some point he practiced with a band in the basement of Café De Nieuwe Maan, on the ground floor he attended CognAC Risk evenings, and lived in a student house above the café. According to my research, this location is now in use by Le Cafe, where we coincidentally hosted our CognAC evenings last year. How cool!
He currently works his own company helping webshop owners to generate extra revenue, but his portfolio contains iOS apps (look for DevMobile in the App store). He has also been an interim scrum master for bol.com and Livewords! (https://baidenmann.nl/)
University and CognAC
1. Were you involved within CognAC? If so, how? What did you learn from that experience?
Around the summer of 1992 I got involved with CognAC writing a piece for the Blanco magazine. I really liked writing and working on something like this, so when there was a free spot after the summer, I started doing the layout and editing of Blanco and wrote a bit more. A few months later, I volunteered as chairman of the new CognAC board.
What I liked about it, was to create a product from beginning (an empty layout template) to end product (getting the printed and stapled version from the print shop, putting it in a big stack in the Terminal Kamer) with a small team of fellow students. And, when it’s done, work on the next one, trying to improve since the last one. This is something that I still experience in my current work.
Although CognAC was only a small Study Association back then, I learned some things from being Chairman for a year, such as organizing things with students and the faculty, and seeing how others organize things. Also, I learned that when you want things to happen, you can contribute, and people might actually appreciate it.
2. What is your most ‘typical CognAC’ memory?
Of course, the “Terminal Kamer” was typical CognAC: a mix of students doing study assignments, writing, chatting about their private lives, hanging out or doing editing for the Blanco.
I also have fond memories about the introduction weekends to Schiermonnikoog and sailing in Friesland, and the Risk tournaments / evenings in Café De Nieuwe Maan (next to Café De Fiets).
3. What is/are the most valuable thing(s) you learned in university, outside from course material?
One of the things I learned, was how to quickly acquire new knowledge and navigate new situations, where you mostly have to figure things out by yourself. Also, doing a graduation research / assignment at a company (Akzo Nobel in my case), and then afterwards writing your thesis learns you to work for a longer period of time on one project, stick with it, and complete it. And the experience at Blanco / CognAC taught me that it’s fun to try new things, as well as what I wrote about working on a product.
About your career
4. What is it exactly that you do now on a daily basis?
I work in my own company, running a software-as-a-service called inventoryalarm.com, which helps webshop owners generate extra revenue using in-stock-again e-mails to customers for out-of-stock products. It’s around 60% product development, 30% marketing, 10% support. Also, I have a portfolio of iOS apps: a paid app called SonoControls and a few e-commerce apps that work with webshop partnerships. Look for DevMobile in the App Store. In between I sometimes do a bit of freelance web application development work as well.
I have outsourced a lot of work by automating it, and I do have a good network of freelancers and other entrepreneurs to work together, learn from each other and help each other with things.
5. What skills are most valuable in order to perform well in your workfield? What would you advise students to acquire these skills?
I like to work on most, if not all aspects of a product: research, design, implementation, operations. When you are working solo or in a small team, I think it you really need to know enough about many disciplines.
Of course there is always one thing that you are better at than the other things. My advice if you want to be self employed and create your own product: master one of the disciplines needed, try to learn enough of all the other disciplines, by just doing it and learn as you go (Google, follow a course or book), and work with others that complement you when you can.
6. Are there any things you wish you’d have done in your time as a student?
Overall I’m quite happy with how things went. However, at some point there was an opportunity to do a graduation assignment in Germany, which I did not pursue. That could have been a good experience as well.
Dealing with problems
7. What is the hardest thing about your current job? How are you dealing with that?
Managing unexpected work loads. I have had situations with system issues during holidays abroad. Luckily these are very rare. I solved that with infrastructure that has head room and is scalable and after a few years there aren’t many bugs left in the software. Also, sometimes I think I have been working solo on a project for too long. I deal with that by reaching out to friends and people in similar businesses. And perhaps at some point I will outsource more things to others.
8. How did you come to your current job? Did you take steps in between? Could you consider any of these steps as ‘failures’, and if so, in what sense?
In 1995 I started as software developer and later technical project manager for a large IT consultancy company (CMG, later acquired by Logica / CGI). 2.5 years later I went to a small IT company, where I met the co-founders of the agency we founded one year later, where I did software development, a bit of IT operations, project management, and tried my first sales, marketing and product development. After seven years, I decided to leave as co-founder, looking for something else, and joined bol.com as IT project manager when it was around 70 employees. While I liked the job most of the time, after a year I realized I really wanted to change roles once in a while, I didn’t want to be project manager all the time. So I started freelancing as a team lead / software developer. At some point I started trying some product ideas and iOS development, since then I have been running my own business and productsfor more than 10 years so it seems I found my focus and I did stick with it.
Though not all jobs were a perfect match for me, I don’t consider them failures, as they all, in one way or another, have some part in the skills I use in running my business today. Or, at least, have helped me discover what kind of work I like to do.
Advice, to close off
9. What is the best advice you ever got? Why did it turn out to be so useful?
Don’t put too much value in what other people think about the work path you choose, try to find your own path. This looks so obvious yet some people don’t do things they want because it is not “the right way”, or they are afraid of negative opinions of others. This helped me with my decision to go build software again, instead of going into a management job.
10. Do you have any good advice for ambitious students that would like to go into your workfield? And what kind of advice should they ignore?
Find something at the intersection of what you are good at, what you like, and you can make a living of. This may take a while, give yourself some time. You will find that certain things you learned turn out to be useful further down the road that you were not expecting (watch the Stanford speech “Connecting the dots”).
Also: don’t let people decide for you that there is a certain order of jobs that is the only right order, or that you should have a certain age for a certain job. As a freelancer I worked for a brilliant start-up CEO that was almost 10 years younger than me. And I only started developing iOS apps when I was 37, after I had been a project manager.