How to do marketing for your new service release?

First Bill announces that he will start actively using LinkedIn as "his community service". LinkedIn does a service revamp at the same time. Then Bill is place in all pages placing his question into the community. Next MS invests in or buys LinkedIn (or is it already owned by some of the big ones ?) ;o)

HP.... Finnair ... Delta - changing preferences

HP..... We have bought 2 laptops over the 2 last years from HP - in total close to 2000€ which I think is pretty big amoutn of money in a household. As a gear really nice I must say. We bought the 1st one as Xmas present for the boys 2006. Worked fine. That's why we bought another one for Xmas 2007.
This last one was broke straight on - did not charge the it's battery at all. I took it to service December 29th. It took over 5 weeks to get it repaired and after all the only issue with it was the battery. Anttila/HP service promised to come back on reimbursing something on the way too long service time but even after series of phone calls nothing so far.
The first laptop from 2006 started first to use it's cooling constantly about the same time we bought the next one, and then it just went dead after some time....
HP website in Finland guided to a service point which has not been there since Dec 27th. Very nice = absolutely the last HP gear our family will ever spend our € to.
Challenging business since it not about the gear but also how you handle the total life cycle of the gear. (btw I have had 5 IBM laptops with no probs ever...)

Finnair..... my favorite airline so far. Seems that in their quest of corporate effectiveness they have definately taken the fleet-in-air-time/maximise the return on the fleet investment as their key target and into extreme over the customers. In pratice this means eg that any delay on any single long distance airplane will simply be paid by Finnair's customers. Our short SFO vacation started "nicely" with 6 hours delay in Helsinki-Vantaa. (They gave basically an additional delay announcement every hour.) We missed of course our connection to SFO. Food was absolutely ______ - all three of us felt like ___ afterwards even thinking of it (for some days). On the way back again late arrival of the plane from Helsinki made us miss the slots in JFK so nice rough hour waiting in taxi queue. I have actually never been in that tighly packed MD-11. Finnari cabin crew is still great thought but anyway - fare well Finnair for overseas flights until you put the customer in front again.

I have had lot of doubts on US airlines, which this trip quite honestly removed totally. In the next US flight I'll invest my money to US airline or BA.

Voi vista ...

Lost all my new stuff from the computer due to some Vista's wierd virtual file saving... all SFO pics, Lake Tahoe pics and work powerpoints files gone - nice. Vista seems to be like a modern car's engine - not a chance to service it on your own. Should really have a sticker in the laptop next to Intel Centrino, Microsoft Vista and NVDIA sticker warning users "DO NOT DO ANYTHING ON YOURSELF"....

Herald Tribune...

Spend the whole flight back from Prague reading thru HT... good stuff.
Very informative story about how French economical and political elite is formed/has formed for long time (thru Ecole Polytehcnique and thru ENA) and how's it's now under fire with the Kerviel catastrophy.
Great story about how some of Iran's former lead revolutionalists and key political figures Ibrahim Yadzi (former deputy prime minister and first foreign minister) and Abbas Abdi (lead figure behind US embassy former hostage horror) have been strongly disaggreing about how republican & democratic Iran should be build... and they have been set aside. Not how I thought it's there..
Iran and Syria hunting down together a mysterious killig of Hamas leader in Syria. which Israel so firmly denies of being responsible that makes really wonder who it was - who videotaped that ?
Interesting story on Sarkozy's wierd "how to teach 10 years old to school kids about holocaust"-plan.
Another horror gunman incident in Illinois - after giving up medication a normal person shot 20. Basic trust to fellow beings/anyman slowly degrading - breaking one of the corner stones of our society ?
Eco anxiety moms strike back with community services - Looks like real change on our living values is taking place - promising, wakes up hopes for the future.
California 5150 - ex drug addicts shout for help to improve eg mentally disturb persons' and drug addicts' possibilities to survive by improving their relatives possibilites to force aid on them. But still keeping in mind the thread of misuse - standard theme in horror and thriller movie scenes.
Did someone actully temper with Kerviel's and his mates IM dialog to make them look bad ? propably yes, and head will drop soon in the bank ?
Very interesting article about firms (again) cultivating loyalty by investing in worker clubs and worker benefits in US. Competition for the competent people and their loalty is tough in US - in Finland it seems that outside of SME scene competences do not really interest corporates ... expect of course management competence ;o) Let's hope that current lack of true interest for competences will not be eventually the achilles heel for bigger Finnish corporates.

...and finally a familiar face in the last page - big picture about Tanja Poutiainen who won the slalom in Zagreb.

Loads of stories - time to expand Sunday morning's Hesari hours with subcription of HT ?

Fatal separation of the act and the consequence... I'm becoming old ?

A young guy kills his little sister with a hammer and a knife after a heated debate over a math calculation. Then he also kills his other sister who is just coming back home so that she would not see her little sister dead. The boy says that nothing would have happened if the hammer would not have been lying next to him.

Four young guys aged 17, 19 23 break into a random appartment. They torture to death 66 years old man and his 33 old son and then burn the appartment. They get some money.

The horrible incidence in Jokela at end of last year, and in Myyrmanni 5 or so years ago, and actually now when I think of it the list of such deeds seem to go on and on ...

I cannot help thinking that commodization of the violence in everything we see (TV series, TV news, movies, games, ...) has managed to permanantly separate the act and the consequence from each other in the minds of our new generations, and that the results can now be seen everywhere.
Not a world and future which I specificly would like to live in and nor do I like the idea that it's where the boys have to live for the next 60orso years. I feel old.

1971 Grange, horse races, taxi licences and rare coins...

This xmas I bought 5 course dinner in Postres for Nina. While I waited for her in the restaurang I had my hands on a great looking magazine Fine - Scandinavien fine wine magazine if I recall it correctly... very interesting story about Penfolds Grange as an investment. Had a good spontanous "räkänauru" when I bumbed into this: "For many year Access Economics was using 1971 Grange as measurement for economics. As an investment it beat other top alternative investments as horse racing, taxi licenses and rare coins" ;o)

well actually not too much to laugh at since 40x return on the investment is not too bad ? just that the combination of top investments was so odd

WidSets adverts...

Pretty awsome to see WidSets adverts in Metro station, inside metro, inside busses ...