, and to take advantage of its possibilities we must be flexible enough to allow ourselves to go down the unexpected pathways that the new technologies reveal. that is the new challenge for the it professional. you have organized your work to give the user what he asked for. you need to go further, to empower the user to change his mind, to go off in directions he hadn ’ t thought of before, and to change the ways in which he organizes his work and his use of it services. we are embarked on a voyage of discovery, in this age of it, and we must work together, it specialists and the consumers of their product, to rewrite the maps and charts that guide us, as we go along. we must avoid beating up on each other when we occasionally run aground because the charts we were working with failed to reveal dangerous shoals in our way. we must be able to recognize when what we had thought to be a safe harbor turns out to be an iron bound coastline, and change course accordingly. by sharing stories and experiences, and seeking advice among ourselves and colleagues at home and abroad, the isb members can make it a more productive journey for everyone.

and asset price growth, followed by a cyclical downturn and heavy loan losses that exhausted the capital of many banks that had over - ex - tended themselves. the strong credit growth was partly due to the earlier de - regulation. borrowing was also encouraged by the generous tax deductions for interest payments. while the crisis was certainly aggravated by external shocks, such as the currency crisis in europe in the early 1990s, it was mostly homemade through a bad policy mix and bad timing of reforms. however, prompt and broad - based government intervention helped the banking sector to recover relatively quickly. the fiscal costs of solving the banking crisis were also comparatively low. nevertheless, the negative impact on the real economy was severe, particularly in sweden, and unemployment soared. sweden had to pay a high price for its defence of the krona in the early 1990s, and a return to a fixed exchange rate regime was not a realistic option at the time. instead, a new monetary framework took form. an inflation target was adopted and the krona was allowed to float free. in norway, the situation was somewhat different. the norwegian krone had not depreciated as much when norway left the exchange rate mechanism. norway therefore returned to a fixed exchange rate regime, although this regime gradually changed and in 2001 norges bank also formally adopted an inflation target and a new fiscal framework was introduced. so our two countries have had a similar strategy for monetary policy based on an inflation target and a floating exchange rate since 2001. during this period there have been frequent and deep contacts between our staff, and i am thankful for all that we at sveriges riksbank have learned from these exchanges of methodologies and other experiences. however, the emergence of norway as an oil nation has made norges bank unique in many respects, not least in managing a sovereign wealth fund. norges bank is one of very few central banks charged with such a task. in fact, this fund is one of the largest investors on the swedish stock exchange. when norway became an oil nation in the 1970s, the country started its journey to become one of the richest nations in the world. we swedes have some - times been a little envious of this, and perhaps even thought it was a shame we no longer have the union! huge oil revenues also create major challenges, and many countries have not managed so well. but norway has. by creating the petroleum fund, norway has managed to save the revenues and keep them separate from its domestic economy