Magic on music and lyrics...

Did some quick "study" on Spotify apps UIs... tried Musixmatch and wow :)   Somehow magic! Hooking ... don't know for how long but still. 

About Burn out. About the biggest Finnish industrial mistake. About us becoming a new developing country.

I have been working for little bit over 20years, in high tech. Brilliant times, most of the time. First 15years, lot of emphasis on how we work better, feel better, are more productive in sustainable way, become more competitive together and as individuals, lots of training by the companies.

Now? No real effective team work (virtual teams yeah right), loads of meetings, loads of emails, double shifts for just coping with emails and real work etc., lots of talk,  ineffective decision making, mistrust of talent of own workforce (everything is better abroad for way too many Finnish "leaders")... well, just bad leadership in way too many companies. Resulting under-use of individual and team talent and devotion,  and people burning out.    

The real thread for industrial survival of Finland is just the state of leadership in this country - not the pricing of Finnish labor. 

I believe this is largely due to the biggest industrial error in Finnish industrial history - the launch of Nokia's option system. 

In short what it did was following...

'Early' high-tech Nokia was all about people being enthusiastic about telecommunications, products and about engineering. If you wanted to participate more than "just" do one part of the system, you could be trained, grow and go as far as you wanted basically up into the company's ladder. OK, bit of a simplification here but basically so.   

First 1995....1999 option plans were very successful for many participants.  

Nokia got a reputation of being a place where anyone with a good managerial position for the first time in Finland could get very wealthy, even rich in Finnish terms. And the better the managerial position, the more you would make. Automatically.

Nokia increasingly attracted people who only wanted a management position, if possible directly. Since it was the fastest way to wealth.

(Pardon me for generalization, but) Way too often these people had no or too little interest in the context or the products of the Nokia.      

Big mental movement from over-valuing management skills over expert skills started. (Funnily enough I remember well a slide set from one Nokia EVP declaring in the first slides "The only scarce resource is management attention. Everything else is plentiful.") 

Since the best, fastest way to get up in the ladder and to the promise of sudden wealth, was to sit on as many things as possible and be known for it, managers started doing majority of decisions increasingly independently of experts (and what do the engineers know about markets and products?)

Ideas for engineering and design were increasingly overlooked since everything was management driven (who lacked increasingly context and really the market understanding) 

Engineering and design was considered not only as commodity but as a burden due to costs, long lead times and human (=leadership) aspects.

Own engineering also actually became sort of a thread for way too many managers who actually lacked the context vision and interest to it, real life strategical skills (easy to operate on endless budgets resulting form years of success) and real leadership skills; experts were capable to challenge decisions ... "but only because they did not understand markets nor strategies" ;)

Engineering was just to be sourced from best (=cheapest really) possible "partner". As manufacturing etc.

Add in a bit of good old Finnish "weak self esteem" also in very high positions: it just felt more important when everything was so international. Officially Finnish engineers were too expensive, did not know how code software, markets could do better on any IC anyway, only people in US could do Internet services, etc.  

Unfortunately many too many companies copied the rewarding model and with the fact that simply wanting to become a manager was enough to climb the ladder.

"The only scarce resource is management attention. Everything else is plentiful."  = No matter how good you are or become, we just don't care since you can be replaced. Wow! And the results can be seen ... unfortunately. 

We are too small market and too protected to survive this in the long run. Thanks to also Finnish industry investments money has been cumulating to current developing countries for long time. At the same timed weakening our own economy. We become the new developing country.

What a mess as a blog post.

One essential piece of the future of the news industry?

 
One essential piece of future of the news industry: UGC together with newspaper's journalistic professionalism and editorial role?

Very interesting page about "When was Finland at her most independent stage?"  in Hesari. The topic/idea for the story from the news paper, "expert" opinions interviewed by the newspaper, and the bulk of the story from participating "people"  in the form of very interesting hugely varying opinions/points of view. 

Changing? From reader opinions/points of views as spice only to editorial/background as spice?     

Valid point....

School boys comment in open lecture for Maggie Aderin-Pocock: "Should we first solve our problems here? If we would meet an alien from space, we just steal everything from him"....

http://www.itviikko.fi/uutiset/2012/09/18/lumia-920n-kohukamera-mihin-se-oikeasti-pystyy/201238013/7

Finns seem to have a special "relationship" to Nokia... funny and very sad at the same time. 

Start-up = windsurfing in new conditions a.k.a. Trip to unknown takes courage if you want to have fun

I had my first attempt to the obviously wonderful world of wave windsurfing. Weather forecast promised great for Yyteri, Pori. "Everybody" else also going there. So I too started early and drove 260km there. Rigged the gear, got into suit/helmet (thank Good for helmets :) ) and carried my gear to the shoreline in full excitement. Marched into the water. Nice exciting but short planing. And then the reality hit. The waves were really big for my skills, wind on the edge (15m/s for my 5.8 sail). And, it become very soon obvious that in order to windsurf there I must head further straight to the open waters. To the bigger waves and less gusty winds.

Not having the guts needed to head straight to the open waters, I kept surfing safely close to shore. And started slowly but firmly slide downwards in the shoreline. And hit occasionally the sea bottom when waters run away after the waves. 

Constantly cursing my lack of courage. But finding excuses why I stayed next to shore.

In the 1.5hrs I had occasional short moments of "YEAH", lot's of washing machine experiences... and then looking at the other windsurfers from the shore after my session I found confirmation that when I crossed the waves I took them pretty ok compared to others. Just that I did not head to open waters (and yep the gear... 125litres instead of 90ish-70ish others had which would have likely made my open waters experience somewhat more challenging).

Results? A firm understanding that that was exactly what I had to do. I had to go there and experience. I had to swim a lot. See others going. And know (now safely here behind computer and after few days) that I would have made it also in the open waters I only had had the guts, the trust (The worst thing that could have happened would have been that I drift/swim to shore a km or so from point of starting).     

Funny to realize that the situation is so analogous with the start-up we have been developing with our small team. The same feelings pretty much exactly.

We have now about made the trip to Yyteri. Sea looks bloody exciting. But also scary, wild. Now, we should really have the guts to go to the open waters. Get washed over. Many times. But lift the mast again and waterstart. Have fun occasionally riding the waves - surviving them. 

If we stay sort of semi safely next to shore we will slowly but surely just drift down the shore.  And miss all the potential fun.

It will be fun.... but it's scary.

Pictures from that very same day and from http://but.fi/sl