What's your true profession?

A persons profession might actually be what the person Want's to be good at.

During my time in Nokia I witnessed how experience and competence were repeatedly ignored when organizations were reshaped according to new strategies. Further, when this was understood, there was a strict guidance to ensure that recruits had proper education, which led to overlook the experience.


People really can make up their experience or credibility and talk themselves into almost any job and learn while doing, like the fake doctors also have shown. Fact is that a person might turn out to be incompetent despite the long list of experiences, but on the other hand person can be extremely skilled, but totally lack the motivation for the job.

Despite the idea of crafting ones career might sound awkward for Finnish ears it should be considered. It is proven to be a clear weakness in the competition between Finnish and foreign applicants e.g. in Nokia and has lead to less competent people doing the work with better accent.


Developing a new career without years of training sounds unorthodox for some, but it can be seen also as a huge possibility. This thinking does not corner people into their slots, but opens new possibilities, keeps the motivation up and creates cross discipline innovations.

What really matters, is whether a person wants to learn and grow to a new profession and from employer point of view, is the person interested in the right aspects of the role with potential to learn.

Time, management and how to optimize those two?

Difference of managerial and creative work is

that the first is done in meetings and the latter in between.

Tacit or explicit communication for you organization? -Choose both!

I started to read legendary manual How to Adapt to the Mountain by Jimmy Odén. On first pages Oden reminds how mountaineering skills are divided to tangible and measurable knowhow and to abstract part that he calls mountain sense. According to Odén, mountain sense can be learned slowly through experience, evaluation and reflection.

Odéns duality reminded me not only about organization psychology, but also of my ancient post that compared challenges of free skiing and design process.
Also competences in the office have dual nature, divided similarly to explicit and tacit know how.
As organizations have their mountain tops as goals, the most tangible means are naturally seen the most obvious to get there. -The abstract and non measurable traits of competences can get overlooked although it might lead to compromising the innovation.


Then, how to nurture competences to promote innovation?

One example comes from the discussions we had while making the new sitting arrangements in our office.
It was acknowledged that two types of communication is needed to get creative organization working effectively. The first one being obviously the communication required to make progress in your tasks. Second being the communication that supports the values, learning and openness in the company.

The solution here is to support the primarily the latter - tacit - communication goal, although it might sound controversial. Rationale is that this effort is not on the cognitive level and should come effortlessly - almost unconsciously. Further, mutual learning, shared values and general openness enhances competences and creates good motivation to deliver the innovation - giving good base for the first - explicit - communication goal.

Keeping finnish industries competitive by design thinking - Herrmans

As a bicyclist I was thrilled to see a Finnish bicycle part manufacturer Herrmans seeking for a industrial designer the other year.
Not only that at some point I had spotted that the company might use some design thinking, but in the end because my good friend and extremely talented designer Mikael Heikkilä got the position.

I have been eagerly waiting to see the results of his design efforts and it really starts to have an effect on the brand previously known for OEM manufacturer.

I just replaced original Specialized grips with these Endorfin 3D grips.
I love the tiny detail and the caring thinking in how he has marked the left and right as well as the up directions. Marking these directions means that I can push them with ease and confidence to the bar and that just makes me feel good. -A feeling that is sometimes hard to justify in the R&D meetings, but makes a significant effect on the customer.

 

Design story - Gässling underwear

Marketing sometimes fails to deliver the original design intent to the customer. Since the contradiction between design and marketing has been intriguing me, I was really exited when I had the chance to discuss with Joakim how a garment that now supports a whole new underwear brand Gässling was designed and is now marketed.

I wish all the best for Joakim and I just checked that you can still order some treats for christmas ;)

The name
In short, Gässling is a Swedish underwear brand that makes premium eco underwear for style conscious men. From the very beginning we wanted to create a brand based on Swedish values that was primarily focused on an international market.

We knew that we wanted to use organic cotton and that they should be manufactured in a responsible manner and we needed a brand name that could reflect this as well as look Swedish. The name should fulfill these criteria; be Swedish but not look strange in English, speak of nature, have a local connection to Malmö where we’re based and to be easy to remember.

We started to analyse different traits of nature and eventually we got hooked on the goose. We thought it was a good animal for us because there are lots of geese in Malmö and it has very sympathetic traits. For instance if a goose gets injured during flight, another goose will stay behind until it gets better or dies. It took about 1.5 months and a lot of debating to come up with the name Gässling, which means gosling in Swedish (goose baby).

The product
It’s usually said that in order to break into a saturated market your product need to outperform the competition tenfold.
I wouldn’t say that our underwear is ten times better than other underwear but we have done our very utmost to create some killer garments. We tried to list all available pain points and address them one at a time. Some details that are worth mentioning are that we don’t have a care instruction tag inside, but they are instead printed for better comfort. The waistband is covered in fabric for a smooth feel and there are no seams in the back or sides of the garment to make it as clean as possible.
Our second - more aspirational product is the first ever (as far as I know) tight fitting boxer with an openable waistband. To give it an extra exclusive look we used fabric covered buttons that were all custom made to match the color of the main fabric.

What’s next
We have now been online a few days and even though we are still very far from sold out we can see that the main traffic is coming from outside of Sweden and predominately from the US. This tells us that we probably made some correct decisions when creating the brand. Now we need to turn those page views into purchases but if we succeed with that is another story. 

Introducing oneself

Sitting in a meeting - listening what people have done and how experienced they are. Does it feel waste of time for you?

Listening people introducing themselves as experienced and noteworthy in meetings or seminars feels more or less useless. Instead of retrospectives, it would be more interesting to hear what people have on their desks right now or what are they interested in. That information might tell more about the personality of the person. But the personality is unfortunately sometimes our best kept secret. That might be the reason to rely on list of experiences.
The fact is that a person might turn out to be incompetent despite the long list of experiences. Next time you introduce yourself, make a decision do you want to turn this into your advantage or play it safe ;)

GrapePeople held an training that I participated for facilitation of creative work and they had a nice idea to do the introduction by telling a short story or incident from that morning or from the way to work. Even that can tell more about the person and the way of thinking. -Try that next time you facilitate a meeting.

Negative criticism = Opportunity to engage

While learning about contemporary marketing theories and consumer goods touch points from Hanne, I ran into this video where Avinash Kaushik from Google discusses how seizing negative critisism can be turned into opportunity.

What we have learned is that customer can become even more loyal when errors are corrected promptly and smoothly.  Having a personal presence in social media can be a huge asset.
Instead of being worried about having negative content on the web, one can have negative content AND show how well complaints are taken care of and criticism is used to develop the service.

Use the link for the right spot (1m42s), or watch the whole clip.
Winning the Zero Moment of Truth - Ratings and Reviews: Word of MOT

There is a side track here also. You might remember the Talisker case. -The story took new turns after my post.
It actually makes a good example here, since we you all could already know how things are if their media policy would include the presence in the blogs.. 

Work of Art?

Valio (Finnish dairy producer) has a ongoing campaign where famous Finnish artists designed prints on milk jugs standing on Finnish tables.

Finnish design legend Eero Aarnio was also asked to do his magic. I was pretty disappointed when the result turned out to be just an add for his previous designer furniture and not much else.

This makes me wonder about the situation when somebody in Valio has realized that the delivery was something else than ordered and how could it be rejected..

Complaining makes you fail?

Somebody starts complaining and hesitating in the middle of action. Wanting others to know that there lies a risk in the activity. And more the complaint is overlooked, the louder it gets.

I remember a trip to Chamonix, which ended up me wondering that do I really complain. I though I was just making notions on the circumstances.
Complaining and negativitity spread from people to others. Although the intention might be neutral, the effect might be that somebody else starts focusing on cold feet insteads of good skiing.


Hesitation and negativitity grow from fear. A fear that something is getting worse and not having control over it. -Withdrawing while still able might feel like the rational thing to do.

Working in organizational environment and extreme sports have much in common in this. Going to the mountain and making strategic decisions contain risks. In both cases the missunderstood fear can lead to not getting the run planned or failing in business. Sometimes even to fall of mighty organizations.
-Do we have the skills? What do other think if I can't?
-Are we strong enough? Can we make it in time?
-Do we have the right gear? Have we covered all the risks?
-Am I able to take care of myself? Is this getting worse?

Both in organizational environment as well as in extreme sports there are times that you to make leaps of fait. Have the confidence on yourself and on what you are doing.

There are three good anti-dozes for fear:
Experience creates confidence, that all the challenges can be tackled and all the needed skills and gear is with you.
Positivity makes you focus on the solutions - not the problems and make sure you don't spread the hesitation to others.
Finally, if there is a fear behind a complaint, treat it as such and discuss through to diminish it.
-Monsters are as frightening even if they are put under the bed.

In both environments, not keeping noise about real problems can be lethal too. Good question is that how to recognice the serious stuff? -Mutual trust maybe?

Better service through accepting mistakes?

Just like people reveal their fundamental characteristics under stress, so do services. Giving feedback to service provider creates a conflict that reveals how well the service culture is understood and cultivated in a company.

Being passionate about services I usually tell if there is something wrong - because I care. Regular customer do not usually care - they just change company. Giving feedback has offered a front row seat in observing how is feedback taken. Companies operate through individuals and their defence mechanisms usually determine how feedback is received. -This is where service culture steps in.

If a company does not take a stand on 1) how feedback should be received, 2) how and within what limits the situation is settled and 3) how the feedback is eventually processed, the employee falls back on ones own defenses or in best case builds on the self confidence, wits and positivity.

Katja Okkonen writes in Helsingin Sanomat about poor service in the article Saitko surkeaa palvelua? Tästä se johtuu.  She points out that following rules and regulations diligently and being afraid of mistakes often creates poor user experiences:
-Tuulikki Juusela calls finnish culture a culture of regulations, which could be interpreted as bureaucracy. Hiding behind rules and regulations has become common and common sense is used less and less.
- It is easy for me to agree when Juusela assumes that finnish people have gained a significant fear of mistakes. We are highly cautious for our manager or coworker to give negative feedback. Current economical turbulence has also made the fear of losing one's work very real. When customer gives negative feedback, the fear of mistake and fear of losing one's work is combined and that can create a strong need to be right.
-Janne Löytänä has written that the best way to receive negative feedback is to response promptly and personally. Löytänä further reminds that compensation is actually cheap marketing for a company. If a company is able to turn negative experience to a satisfactory, the customer becomes a 15 times more loyal than a regular customer - and that must create a lot of good reputation.
-While Juusela mentions that Finland is a true self service culture with all possible technical innovations to support it, Camilla Reinboth takes another perspective reminding that engineering culture might also lead thinking that errors in product can be fixed when they occur. With services employees need to know how to deal with mistakes before they occur.

Egolocical thinking as a strategy; Patagonia and Basecamp Oulanka

Some might say that Patagonia is crazy company when launching a campaign with the motto "Don't Buy This Shirt Unless You Need It".

For me, it made read through their values and find out that Patagonia is one of the leading companies in the world really finding ways to produce it's outdoor gear in the most ecological way possible.


Outdoor lovers use enormous amounts of different kind of synthetic fibres, plastics and composite products. It's about time that there are some leaders in making our consumption leaner so that we will not destroy our environment while enjoying it.

Another good example of ecological thinking in nature travel is Basecamp Oulanka in Kuusamo. They arrange a range of wilderness activities from extreme adventures to well-being holidays - all with high environmental, social and economical standards.
Seeing what modern wilderness tourism has done to many areas of Finnish Lapland, doing things really in the original way and minimizing operational footprint in every way is a refreshing, delightful and not a bit less fun.

Buy a Patagonia - if you really need one, and go to Kuusamo to enjoy some real experiences!

The moment of choosing a strategy

CityDeal launched itself in Finland about a year ago. It has offered quite good bargains of quality products and services, but now it seems that the revenue expectation has contradicted with the growth and the offers include items that would be more suitable for TV store.

This clearly presents a critical moment in how CityDeal builds it's customer base and who do they focus their marketing. -At least I will delete my account in near future if this starts to be another channel for the crap available from TV store.