Feardriven

In a time of change we all fear what changes the future will bring. This we do in spite of knowing that nothing remains status quo and never has actually. So by now we should have the tools to handle that. But fear can be constructed in so different ways. In an organizational context it could be fear of losing control over your work, losing a nice working culture, your workmates or even losing your job completely. Or even worse you could lose your dignity or trust in yourself but mostly we don’t think so much about that until it is too late. As meny wise men and women have said, it doesn’t pay to worry for tomorrow because it doesn’t help. So true. When tomorrow comes and even if all your fears come true you are not better prepared. On the opposite you have tired yourself with fearful thoughts and as you have to face the facts you have no better ideas how to cope with the new situation. But this is really much on an individual level. On an organizational level you need some reassurance about the future and your opportunities because the organization needs continuity and a certain knowledge-base in order to build new solutions on a solid ground. But nevertheless, fear is partly the reason why people work too much and to an extent where they burn out themselves. So reassurance of what the near future will bring is of utter importance. Or if no-one really knows what will happen you could concentrate on being friendly and respectful towards every person you meet. That will even make the fear disappear. Feardriven organizations and individuals will never be able to come up with something new and creative. To be driven by a trustful attitude you learn the power of now and you can let the stillness speak (Eckhart Tolle). I will end this blog posting with a quotation: ”Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness” (Eckhart Tolle Stillness speaks 2003:5). And the best of all you can do it wherever you are. In your mind.

Managing chaos

When you are in the middle of change that happens to be on a vertical and horizontal level in the organization and your project is to be a change agent, how do you manage without getting insane? One way is to start to structure things up. A psychiatrist once said that we have schedules in order to get rid of our inner chaos. So that's why we aim to structure things up by writing and documenting what we do. Words on a paper give us structure by leaving things out and by trying to diminish the number of different interpretations. Another way is to try to figure out which milestones and modes of operation we should emphasize. Dates could even be pretty useful in that sense. They help you to structure your time and prioritize. As long as you know what to prioritize. In a changing environment it is definitely the prioritization that is so hard. You want to show you have been working, something visible and even tangible. The operative work is good in that sense and helps you with your chaotic feelings. But to really try to be part of the change and acting as a change agent you have to discuss with different actors, reflect, write it down and reflect again. The results don't come straight away but notes are real. But remember, never to work without a deadline as that easily makes you polish your ideas eternally.

But what happens when you add an inner emotional chaos that people as a matter of fact can experience in their personal life at the same time? Inner chaos in combination with an ever-changing context? How do you find your way without loosing your mind? My recommendation is, schedule routines in your calender: Breakfast at 7.00 a.m., lunch at 11.30 a.m. gym or jogging at 6 p.m. These help you structure your life and helps you in coping with turbulence and chaos. There is nothing as comforting as a bus coming to the bus stop every morning at the same time. They come in spite of what you are experiencing.

Do these comments foster innovativeness?

That persons comments are not so innovative because his research is not that renowned
Those who have the right academic position know what is innovative
There should be a system for how new research ideas should be approved.
The most important thing is whose ideas and not what ideas are developed.

I have to write some rules for my small team and I decided not to get entangled in the rule makers' web of bureaucracy but to emphasize the expression working culture instead. Sometimes it would be really easy to work with strict rules in order to know when you can be satisfied with your input as well as knowing when your boss is. But strict rules easily creates a culture where people start to scrutinize other people’s doings instead of putting their energy on creating something innovative. In that sense strict rules can be energy thieves and instead of being just guidelines they start to be the most important issue in your work. The rules rule. And by this we foster more or less a culture of Management by perkele (authoritarian leadership see more here) But I can understand that when time is scarce you maybe have to skip the consensus and listening mode. And on the other hand you cannot work without guidelines if you want to enable equality as we people work so differently.

But being an idealist I still believe more in spiritual leadership where the employees are empowered and trusted and rules are not the issue. The employee’s own learning process and spiritual development are thus seen as the starting point when striving towards a more innovative professionalism. I have been truly inspired by the book ”Spiritual leadership” by metropolitan Ambrosius, professor Henrikki Tikkanen and the executive vice president Timo Kietäväinen (here). I will finish this posting by quoting them: "An organization that values human beings emphasizes and encourages open interaction and discussion (page 77)” and ”The inner rhythm and spiritual mood of the individual are often left un-observed in leadership…The daily working hours is an example of this…Almost half of the people want to sleep longer and work in the evening instead…People are creative at different times of the day and even the year. When we don’t take this into consideration when planning flexible work time, we will loose their most innovative hours” (39-40)

Being a stupid consumer

In January I bought flight tickets from the Lufthansa website for a trip to Italy. At that point I did not know that I would change jobs and be responsible for a workshop on the day of my flight to Rome on the 4th of June. I called Lufthansa in order to try to get my ticket changed but as it was so cheap I could do nothing but cancel them and buy a new one and of course to a much higher price. I didn't know that when you buy a return ticket you have to be on the plane both ways otherwise the ticket is invalid. And the most important thing was of course that I would have to start the trip at the correct date. What I did was that I booked another trip for Rome with Air Baltic (which was a nice flight by the way) and thought that my Lufthansa ticket would have been valid from Rome to Helsinki on the 16th of June. I even checked it on checkmytrip.com the day before leaving Italy and it seemed that everything was okay. But nope. At the check-in counter I was told that my ticket was not valid anymore. I had paid 270 euros for a return ticket that did not exist just because I did not catch the flight on the 4th of June. So although I tried to negotiate it I had to buy a new one for 500 euros. Well, I got a 100 euro reduction because I bought a return ticket to Milan (as a matter of fact I could take the plane to Milan next Monday, lol). So in fact my trip that should have cost 270 euros cost 1030 euros (260 with Air Baltic + 270 + 500). The only answer for this was that it is a pricing policy. I am not a frequent flyer so I fall in the category of naive, stupid consumers that the big companies as Lufthansa can gain on. Onboard the plane I read Lufthansa's magazine and the words of the CEO. He was really satisfied with how well Lufthansa did on the market. One of the reasons was their way of handling cost-effectiveness. Yeah, right. And I think that happily enough they have stupid consumers, customers as me. Will I use Lufthansa in the future? I will try to avoid that if possible.

Gender in IM

Naomi S. Baron (in the book Always On 2008) has researched gender differences in the language use in instant messaging and presented the following findings: Females were more talkative, had the longest transmissions, had longer conversations and it took them longer to say goodbye. The use of emoticons were more obvious if you were a female person (Baron 2008:67). The more extensive use of emoticons in IM would mean that IM is interpreted more like spoken language which includes the rhythm and proximity. So females would in that sense see IM more as spoken language than males do.

The overall conclusion made by Naomi S. Baro,n with some exceptions (as the use of emoticons) was that: "...male IM conversations have a great deal in common with descriptions of face-to-fae speech, female IM conversations more closely approximate conventional writing patterns" (2008:69). These differences could enlighten how men or women interpret utterances in IM. I would like to find out how emotions are transmitted through written vs. spoken language online in comparison with the body language of avatars for example. Maybe you could compare this by seeing how different areas of the brain are activated?

Finally, is IM spoken or written language? Naomi S. Baron puts it like this:

"Some of both, but not as much speech as we've tended to assume. What's more, gender matters" (2008:70)

Baron, Naomi S. (2008): Always on: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford University Press:New York

Seminar:The power of visual journalism

I am just listening to the presentation of Peppar (Sofia Holmlund as a presenter) that is a website which combines news with social media or in other words creates synergies between community building and news "distribution". People register at peppar and by that those "behind" the site will get more information about the different emerging "tribes" and their information retrieval behaviour and interests. This information is important for the advertisers and enables customized solutions. The idea is to catch a young target group (Swedish-speakers in Finland) in order to attract advertisers' interest (money makes the media go round)

Senior researcher Anssi Männistö from the University of Tampere presented "New forms of photojournalism : utilizing the web creatively". Today the internet connections, the multimedia phones and the YouTube revolution enhance the easy production of visual material and sharing it with others. Anssi showed two examples of how videos could be presented on a newspaper website. Please go and have a look and decide which one you prefer: satakunnankansa.fi and nytimes.com. In print these two newspapers look really much the same but on the web there is a huge difference. Photojournalism on the web needs new decisions: choice of tools, what kind of editing, who does the editing, which genres (stills+audio, stills+video+text...), design and brand managing of the website, metadata and contextual information, who trains the staff" (Comment:Don't you have to make decisions about this also in the traditional media?). Contemporary photojournalism could be a video-slideshow, wide audio-slideshow (includes effects), multimedia slideshow,multimedia feature (see: L.A.Times:Marlboro Marine By Luis Sinco) and interactive videos.

Anders Enström from Nordström & Frank editorial development elaborated around the theme Alternative Story Forms. He emphasized that you should optimize the readers' time (note: average reading time is 30 minutes in spite of the size of the paper, 45 percent of the time is dedicated to scanning and 55 percent of the time to reading and the average reading speed is 5-6 stories with 2500 characters). With alternative story forms you can meet the need for optimizing the reader's reading time.

Anders Enström also presented some results from a knowledge test (see Poynter) which showed that readers remembered best the contents of a print-page which was divided in multiple parts and not perhaps the most visually attractive one, but the content was well-labeled. There are two theories about this: Alternative Story Forms (different parts) are read with less cognitive effort and variation stimulates the brain and makes you curious. To strive for reading with less cognitive effort and delivering variation you should create a palette of different stories. The palette could consist of timelines, facts, pro & cons, guiding panels and different polls (the voice of the ordinary people).


The seminar was closed by a panel discussion where Petri Krook, videographer; Jenni Lieto, executive editor; Sofia Holmlund, executive editor; Jesper Vuori, AD and Saku Heinänen, MC discussed around the following themes:

Jenni: Not putting the printed media on the web but instead creating something new for this media and understanding that the web is working 24/7 is important
Jenni: Content vs coding. Why are media putting so much effort in coding instead of in creation of the content.
Jesper: Does anyone really understand new media (my comment: is new media really new anymore?)
Sofia: Readers like stories that are at most 2000 characters long
Jesper: The newspapers offer analysis and that is the only way they will survive
Saku: What about the education of graphic designers when people are pretty talented and self-learned already?
Jesper: Important within graphic design education is to know how web-design works
Jenni:Learning can happen by doing and on-the-job
Jenni: Educate the advertisers to be more knowledgeable about whom they are targeting


Thank you for an interesting seminar!