SO sad...

"Limiting our national C02 quota would cut 40k jobs in Finland"... or should it be "Not participating and driving the global quota limiting movement will permanently change the life of us all and our children, and make in worst case >100million people to have move within th next coming 50 or so years"

Blessedness of not having a connectivity....

It's actually great to be totally out of any sort of data connectivity.... aeroplanes are nowadays almost the only remaining connection free islands (and not for long). Thoughts are pouring and flowing freely, there's time to think one thing properly at a time, embrace/hugg one single issues thoroughly .... this luxury we do not anymore have nor really give ourselves which is a shame and also great source of inefficiency (even though we think that if we run thru constant flow of meetings and reply/create countless emails and SMSs we will be very effective ?)

I think there is a great opportunity for some kind of consulting company here ;o) Create/formalize, implement and sell a process which forces organisations and the people working within to have these luxury thinking moments regularly (so that it is officially acceptable way of working to just relax and think). Formalization of productive idling - www.ProductiveIdling.com ?

Even this stupid idea was born in productive idling state when flying to Madrid ;o)

Valuutan nesteytys... liquefaction of the currency

I was sharing the train cabin with Jarmo on the way back.

Repin - Sibelius 1-0 for the first class.

Went to do the (as Jarmo it so well put it - the "liquefaction of currency" aka to get rid of our last rubles by buying a beer) in the very old Soviet Union style restaurang wagon. Propobaly soon starting to be the last years one can still enjoy the old style and atmosphere.

80 rubles for peanuts

Sankt Peterburg was very nice ....
















...but way too many just tries to get extra money out everything you do which sort of pisses me (and based on discussions very very many others) off. Not that it would be question of big money but more like the feeling that it is causing to the back of your mind - you must constantly be alerted before and after buying anything.

The funniest case was the one where me, Jarmo and Juhani went for "a one beer" before dinner. We ordered 2 beers, 1 glass of white wine - they brought 3 beers and 1 red wine... and a small cup of peanuts (see yourself). Well all OK for us...

The bill was 60 ruples per beer and 80 ruples for that little cup of peanuts ;o)
















As said - the amounts are not the issue and neither is the described true for anything close to all businesses but the fact that it's common enough stigmatizes everything in visitor's mind. Not good for the business on the long run and in a bigger scale.

Cafe hermit ?

Interesting to only now notice and understand that I'm actually a cafe hermit. Otherwise I enjoy greatly to bs with my friends, family and colleagues, but somehow in a cafe I'd most of the time just rather sit quietly, watch the world pass by, observe others and think about whatever... there is something in that "flow moment" to boost thoughts. You cannot really speak with anybody to get into that flow ? and get those thoughts materialising.

Somebody should put up a cafehermit.com (wonder it that is taken ?) community service... cafe hermit's beam their random cafe thoughts to a common place, and try to build bigger "thought constructions" out of the thoughts grouped under same theme. Cafe & coffee advertising and books matched to the thougth themes/contructions as business model ;o)


Or something or then maybe not...

mandate or/and commands...

I had a nice moment in a cafe at St. Petersburg with cup of coffee and a beer watching the world pass by and thinking about "mandates management" and "command managenent".

In mandate management individuals are given full authority and trust to execute. This has somehow an inbuild mechanism to incentive and encourage people to take care of the entirety instead of just their "land". You simply are inspired to contirubute to things outside your own responsibility ... very little tend to be left accidentally uncovered because everybody are interested in the total picture and things are developing fast due to this same inspiration and cross-functional interest.

In command management (in which nobody intentionally aims to go I think but more like organisations end up there for various reasons ?) everybody are lead/guided to care about their own "land" and the current commands associated to it (and eventually only that). In a worst case if you show interest and are active in other areas this will be interpreted as sign of having too little to do on your own "territory" which eventually leads to behaviour where you just keep your mouth shut so that you will not be loaded with additional "commands" on your own area (typically no new mandates but more micro management). As a side effect, command model finally petrifies organisation's view of each individual into competence boxes which has mutual negative consequences in a long term both for individuals and organisation. This means that people's contributions in other areas are not asked nor accepted - competent people are heavily under utilised and areas in organisation suffer innovational impoverishment. Very little new fresh ideas are bred.

Suitable amount of commands work extremely effectively in mandate managed organisations.
Mandates do not work at all in command managed organisation.

So mandates with it is .... but this is again the same old trust and self-esteem issue - I'm obviuosly coming again and again to same conclusion from different angles.

Should I be worried...

Just few hours ago finished speaking (among other things) about new web and as part of the speech how consumer created content and social networking around that content is the advertisers dream-come-true; individuals describe/tag their interests presicely, often very intimately and in very personally relevant way... and the advertisers just beam ads fitting ~exactly what the individual just expressed she/he was interested in.

...I just had a look at my LinkedIn account and what did they advertise to me ?



Mental Health Treatments - Find The Top Sites For Mental Health Treatments Here

Bummer ;o)

Comfort zone...

I've sort of always secretly cherished an image of myself as a person who is not really afraid of moving out of his comfort zone(s) = open minded, adaptable guy with will solid will to understand things .... yeah right :o(

It seems that now a frontier guard's firm stare when he takes my passport for an half an hour, _old_ car as taxi, street signs in language that I cannot unfortunately understand, traffic without concept of lanes, ... basically very minor things make me feel much more uncomfy than I'd ever "dreamed" of admitting. The fact that people are friendly, smiling, things work and that the new city is beautifull does not really mentally seem to weight any more as much as the fact I do not "know" fully all aspects of the situation.


I've become old in it's negative meaning ? ... need to fight against this

Glue...

Thoughts increasingly working around the concept of trust .... Looking backwards of my 15 years in the working life, trust really seems to be the common nominator, the glue that make winning organisations and organisations win.

Trust enable persons to put their best into the play constantly, trust makes things fun (= no stress for doing 24/7 thinking), trust makes commanding possible&effective&productive (direct commands are accepted and executed very effectively if mutual trust exists), trust creates specific loyalty and binds people together in unique way ...

"No trust" situations seem to lead eventually to command managing and result as teams which just focus on implementing the row of commands instead of thinking what really should be done (people just don't anymore have the energy and time to think and care for the things which fell outside of their immeadite circle of current commands).

No trust leads to underperformance and defeat.




The captain and the crew of a ship use nautical chart and the latest info about winds and currents when planning the route and estimating the travel time to the target. Captain and the crew communicate the route and the travel time to the passangers and the ship heads onwards... If everything goes smoothly (nice weather, old known route - no suprises) the ship will be in time where it was supposed to be. However, if it's a totally new route, new target, or the conditions change on the way (maybe several times) then "trust" comes into the picture. If the passangers trust the captain and crew, they will let them handle the steering even if the weather changes, if it will take longer to get to the target, or even if the end harbour was not the same that was agreed initially. If the passangers trust their crew, the crew will do all they can to live upto the trust and bring them safe back to the new land.
Titanic times wait ahead if the captain and the crew are forced to listen to the opinions of the passangers and in worst case steer based on these commands. If the route foggy and unclear it does not help to increase the speed...

Voi hyvät hyssykät mitä paatosta ... taas ;o) Syytä painua pehkuihin

Rise of Conscience Economy

Pretty interesting story in last Friday's Talous Sanomat - Jaana Haapala (director of strategy in PHS)... fairness&rightness will become and be the new competitive edge for companies. Rise of conscience economy, rise of consumer citizenship. If people feel they or somebody are being tretead unfairly they have their revenge as consumers. Corporations need to make the choise whether to stand side by side with their workers and consumers or boom as "Catheral brand"s repeating their simplex messages. Consumer responsibility is rising since from many areas authority control is already gone.

Rise of Consience economy and consumer citizenship ...