Christmas 2.0

I still send a Christmas letter to my friends and I haven't gone completely Christmas 2.0. I'm not broadcasting or podcasting our Christmas practices (decorating, baking, cleaning) and I'm not sending the letter through my blog. But why not? It could be cheaper and wonderfully multimodal. But on the other hand who would have time to stare at, read and listen to my Christmas instead of constructing their own?

Last Saturday I listened to a short lecture where Marika Borg talked about the importance of connecting with yourself and finding harmony in this hectic time. You just had to close your eyes and think and feel your breathing for three minutes. For those who practice Yoga or Pilate's or sing a lot know how awareness of breathing gives energy and help to relax. So instead of trying to create and share a virtual Christmas I think that we should have Christmas practices in the physical space and even more than usually. And feel our breathing. Getting together and feeling how the real meetings in opposite to virtual ones make you grow and makes it easier to connect with yourself. Have a peaceful, breathable Christmas time!

Service euphoria

The other day I read professor Magnus Söderlund's interesting thoughts about customer satisfaction. He convinced the reader, including me, that customer satisfaction is not enough. Instead the customer should experience stronger positive emotions during a service encounter. One emotional state could be joy. If the baseline today is that services are okay, smooth and provided by a talented personnel how should we move to the next level? One example from service encounters I had recently and which wasn't just satisfying but something more:

Last Thursday I had to go to the dentist and reluctantly so. I know the dentist from earlier visits so nothing was new in that sense. At first I had to wait for 20 minutes because of a delay. So I was in a bad mood as I could have done something productive at the same time. Anyway, my dentist came and apologized for the delay and asked how I was. Okay, I answered, but I don't like waiting. He explained politely why he was delayed (because of the patient before) and I understood all that...But if he hadn't listened to my suggestions for improvement of the service in a way that opened up a good dialogue, I would have been just a satisfied customer but nothing more. As our discussions went on (discussing my doctoral thesis and dissertation) until I had to give up my talking because of the drilling, I felt somehow relaxed and in a good mood. It wasn't euphoria but an encouraging moment of energizing dialogue. Maybe, if I wouldn't have anyone to talk to, these encounters as a customer would be the ones that would make life worthwhile.

As I was in Vienna last week I had lunch in a small restaurant the customers of which were elderly and obviously loyal customers. The service included a warm friendliness and especially a helpful attitude. On top of that the personnel wanted to know about their customers. There was nothing manipulative about it but instead authenticity ruled...I think that this will be the future...We will have to go back to the small-scale service providers. They are the only ones who can stay true and authentic and connect. It could be a way of creating euphoria and fight the feeling of loneliness and meaninglessness. After all what we really need is to be seen and that our existence makes a difference.

6-word-play

I read about the 6-word-memoir on a friends blog (bajde.net) and surfing around I found more information here www.smithmag.net/sixwords. So today when we haven't time to read as much as we have time for writing we could start compressing our life, our job, our week, our day, our love story in six words...Here are my examples:

My doctoral theses: Catching the ageless, anonymous senior consumer
My life so far: Inspired by words, music and love
My ideal workday: Creativity born in action and reflection
My Christmas: Connecting, Caroling, Caking, Cooking, Consuming, Conviviality

How about your examples?

I got carried away!

Yesterday I built up my own netvibes page and got carried away. I don't know if I made it by the book (and I suppose that there isn't a saying like that in the virtual world) but now I have my information flow-page that keeps me updated with those issues I'm currently interested in. The problem is minimizing the content as there's so much wonderful new things to learn and get updated on. From a researchers point of view I would surely like to research what identity we're constructing by combining different information resources. Who am I to someone who doesn't know me? Can you figure out the age of someone who is behind a certain netvibes page? This question comes to my mind because we usually market services or products according to the age of our "target". In spite of the fact that the virtual reality is the place where the consumer isn't constructed through demographics but through different practices.

Anyway, netvibes is something that I would really like to recommend to every researcher, student who wants to handle the daily information flow easily. My page is found here: www.netvibes.com/msuokannas

Getting inspired by web 2.0 for libraries

I am currently taking part in a conference in Stockholm. Read more here: http://www.nordlib20.org/ It's nice that I don't have to provide the information but I can of course share my interpretation of things that I have heard. I am already inspired by web 2.0 and now I just have to find out how I should convince faculty members to understand the opportunities of web 2.0. I would also like to give some supporting tools or good practices and that I surely have learned today. I already got my account in netvibes.com and I hope that I could inspire both students and faculty to build up their own "research source site". I see that the discussion around web 2.0 is much about being visible or not, who the model reader for a blog is and how you should get empowered by web 2.0.-stuff.

Amnesia

I just read an interesting article in Svenska Dagbladet (published on the 9th of November). The article was about research results that describe how every generation remembers better than the previous one. The professor of psychology Lars-Göran Nilsson is the leader of a project where 4200 randomly chosen respondents aged 25- 80 have had their memory tested during 20 years. The aim is of course to find out the reasons for dementia and at an early stage. One of the results is that the development of the socalled episodic memory is mainly dependent on education, nutrition and how many siblings you have. So this means that if you are educating yourself, eating well and on top of that have sisters and brothers you could perhaps feel saved from the horror of dementia...Another thing is that the flow of information also makes the brain more flexible...So my future concerning a functioning memory looks great (well educated, two brothers and a sister and taking care of my diet more or less successfully, working with information every day). But it doesn't help that I have senior moments and I have to admit that CRAFT (can't remember a f**king thing) lurks behind the corner. Yesterday I didn't remember the name of someone I should know but of course when I say remember it means straight away. After some minutes I knew the name... Some kind of cognitive overload, tiredness could have been the reason...Or maybe my archiver was resting ;-). Anyway to avoid these scary moments of amnesia I'll try to concentrate on taking care of the factors mentioned above as much as possible. BTW, professor Nilsson suggests that the year for retiring could be higher as we're getting smarter and remember more and more...

To read interpretations of your thoughts

Yesterday there was a story about my subject in Hufvudstadsbladet and I was even interviewed for that! I really liked the story and how it was written and combined with comments from other researchers and older consumers. In the text there was once again an example of lived ideology: seniors don't want to see older faces in advertisements but they like their own age. In other words they are content with their age but don't want to be reminded of it...So the lack of older faces in advertisements has to do with the fact that you feel okay being older but you don't want to see yourself in the mirror (if you see advertisements as some kind of mirror). It could be that how the older body, face is met in society doesn't correspond with your inner feeling...What do we think when we meet an older person?

Tuning in for choir practice

It's time again for my choir practice and I usually look forward to it as singing always gives you energy. Breathing in the right way and trying to produce a sound as nice as possible is so inspiring...But today...I'd rather stay at home as I can't stand one of the monotonous pieces we will perform in two weeks...It's a piece that was found in an archive and I really think that it should have stayed there...Maybe it sounds nice when we all sing together but I can't catch the pulse of the stuff...It feels like eating a lot of crispbreads without drinking anything between...And as my mental state is this the singing will certainly sound flat and stiff and dull...A good metaphor for anything that we're forced to do...It becomes tuneless and without rhythm. But then again there are these wonderful songs that make every cell membrane come alive, breathing becomes easy and your stiff face muscles loosen up...

Reading with awareness

Today we don't meet just a lot of advertisements but we meet texts of different kinds that tempt us to take part of some thought that someone has written either profoundly or maybe just scribbled. At the moment I see myself as a surfer between texts of different genres: from profound texts to scribbled texts and the reading happens from dawn till dusk. There is the morning newspaper, the newspaper on the bus, the five books I read at the same time, the e-mails, the blogs, the documents of strategy, the texts I try to produce myself, the discussions of students within a course...But do I really read with awareness so I could tell another person about what I have read? How profound is my reading and do I really have time for that? As I work with information literacy skills "cognitive overload" is often mentioned ad nauseam. But I even think that that's a really important point when information literacy skills are learned. We don't just need the skills to find the information and evaluate it we should also try to process the information so much that it evokes new innovative ideas. It goes of course without saying but I feel that it's rare that you are both a really fast and a profound reader and that you're able to read a lot of texts and process them thoroughly. Do we really have time today to read a text, then think about it, and then read it again and then write about the thought? And if you read a lot and surf around, is there a possibility that you get lost in the texts and the border between your thoughts and other people's thoughts get blurred...These thoughts come up as I have to discuss plagiarism with students within a course...Soon....Anyway couldn't you say that academic texts differ from other texts also in the sense that there is more thinking behind, which means that you can't be that up-to-date with all the superficial societal changes...Just a thought

Postdoc-depression

Some weeks after my dissertation the daily question I had to answer was: How do you feel now? Any post doc-depression vibes? As a social constructionist (today) I feel that words have a power to make us into something, so the post doc-depression came. A sudden feeling of restlessness and so-what and hysterical thoughts that blur your mind...and then of course new opportunities you would like to try out...But of course your dissertation is like a premiere where you aim for some kind of confrontation or meeting in public and you're not able to hide behind closed door with your ideas anymore. That takes a lot of energy and you need to rest sometimes afterwards to get the creativity flowing again. There is also a certain responsibility to act like someone who is knowledgeable. And yes, of course, you know a lot about your subject. I know more about aging in combination with consumption but above all I have learned how to deal with the everlasting brain gymnastics that research is all about. Relating concepts to each other and defining them and knowing that when you read and learn more you feel like you know less. I call it the information anxiety as you know how much information there is that you can't handle. If I had lived in a small village with no connection globally I could have had another identity as a PhD than today in an ever connected global world where you have to be aware of so much more and feel your littleness. But in order to stop dwelling in some post doc swamp I have decided to be happy and not worry about the future and simply think that I am good enough. When I was little, three-years-old I liked to sing and I had learned a lot of hymns in the Sunday school. One Sunday I was in church and during the service I sang eagerly in some of the hymns I recognized and afterwards I cried "I was good" so the church walls echoed. This story was told by my mother and sister all over again during my childhood. I always felt a little embarrassed about this story as you're not supposed to be so self confident. But I would really love us all to be able to think more in this way and stop putting a damper on our feelings of joy and success.

40 is the limit

I heard the astonishing news yesterday (from a reliable source) that one finnish headhunter had recommended the recruiting firm not to hire anybody over 40. So finished at forty that is...Unfortunately I don't have any other details but you could speculate...Who the h*ll is so childish that (s)he puts rigid age limits to development and learning in a society that fosters a lifelong learning culture and antiageist culture? We have the same situation if we say that don't hire a 30-year-old. Arbitrary age-limits are so old-fashioned and narrowminded but I suppose this is the way we have constructed our reality since we were born. I admit that chronological age could be informative when you talk about entering the education system as a child but even then we know that this age concept doesn't tell us everything. It would be interesting to know if a person saying that 40 is the limit is younger or older than forty. Anyway (s)he is perhaps not taking into account the cultural change in the attitude to learning and to the fact that we are living longer nowadays...We have to use all the brain capacity in our country and people are innovative and creative without age limits. I surely would like to know more about this firm to be able to hurt their brand a little...If somebody reads this, what do you think? Are we all finished at forty? Should everything happen in the age of 30 to 40?

Students and plagiarism

One of my tasks as an information literacy teacher is to discuss the ethical use of information with students. To put it simply it's a question of using reference technique correctly and being aware of the difference between your text and somebody else's text. So if you refer to other authors in your text in a correct way and the author's name combined with the article she has published is found in the reference list you should feel secure. But then there is of course the discussion of when something becomes common sense, common talk and doesn't need to be referred to? I had a student coming up to me after a lecture about reference technique and he was really worried about how he should know which thoughts are his own and which are not. And he added that he had been reading a lot since he was three years old...Can he ever be sure that he isn't plagiarising someone somewhere? My answer was that if you feel unsecure you can always use your information searching skills to try to find out if there's someone that has come up with the same idea. But being afraid of plagiarising shouldn't cause fear of writing. It's easy to find traces of plagiarism if someone has copied and pasted a text but how should we find the owner of ideas? I suppose the experts in immaterial rights can answer this...Anyway I am afraid that the plagiarism talk today, plagiarism discourse could even result in the death of creativity and passionate writing.

Interesting seminar for women as entrepreneurs

Yesterday I attended a seminar for women entrepreneurs arranged by the so called Junior Chamber Havis Amanda. The seminar was well organised with really interesting speakers as the CEO of Kalevala Koru Laura Lares, Riitta Saarikangas an experienced educator and coach, Juha Rouvinen from the digital media agency Gyllene Skor, Sisko Sammallahti from Stockmann and the legendary Esko Reinonpoika Alanko. All the speakers gave their own contribution in inspiring the women listeners to believe in their capabilities, to be aware of their own values and staying truthful no matter what. I especially liked the way Laura Lares used alliteration and metaphors and that's really one thing we should remember: leadership is mostly about talking in a convincing and down-to-earth way. So why don't we have rhetorics as a mandatory subject in our business universities?

What else then? One woman in the audience asked Laura Lares about the three most important characteristics of a good leader. She answered like this: Predictability, Fairness and A true enjoyment in other people's work. This is something I would have loved to discuss more...I would like to add that a true enjoyment in other people's success and happiness is something that should characterize not only leaders but everyone of us. But maybe the leaders enhance the feeling of success and happiness?

Voting for those who work with the unwanted work

I work at a university and I would really like to bring out those people who work year after year with one of the heaviest loads of all: teaching the basic courses for all students! This means that they have to examine at least 200 students that are more or less uninterested in the subject as it is mandatory. And this results of course in a situation where the poor teacher has to use all the charm in the world to try to motivate the unmotivated...I suggest that lecturers, THE workers of the academia, should get some special reward every year they have coped with the heavy workload. Today we are mostly admiring and rewarding those who write in top ranked journals, something a lecturer can only dream about.

Kauppalehti Thursday 9th of October

I read in Kauppalehti about a seminar that had been arranged for advertising people. In this seminar they were again discussing seniors as consumers and how they are treated. The old thought that glorification of youth is the obstacle to finding new ways to market to older consumers, was popping up AGAIN. Are we really still at the point of elementary knowledge about older (than what?) consumers? Maybe some researchers cannot see the symbols that are created for the older consumers? Maybe it's only a question of being myopic and not seeing that the older consumer is constructed all the time but without emphasizing in a subtle symbolic interchange...

Old stereotype

Walking to my work to the library today I thought of the image of librarians. In Finnish and Swedish women working at the library are named "kirjastotäti" or "bibbatant" which means something like the library spinster...Do we have to find out a new title for us working daily with interesting information retrieval practices and really being on the edge of technological development? Some social creativity to get rid of the disempowering title is needed...Information wizards?

About my thesis

Contemporary senior consumers are often described as financially strong and with a willingness to consume. Combined with spare time they become an utterly attractive consumer group. In spite of that, marketing to the older consumer has been off the track, as old age has meant thriftiness, decline and withdrawal. At the moment a change is to be seen. Age can be commodified in order to sell more to the older consumers who are eagerly waiting to be noticed and to blow their money. In this commodifying process, marketers as well as society in general offer different ways of interpreting and giving meaning to age when talking about or visualizing the older consumer. By this representation they at the same time create boundaries for how older age and aging will be and can be interpreted. These boundaries construct age identities. The thesis contributes to consumer culture theory where marketing is seen as a discursive practice with an ideological character. By using discourse analytical concepts in combination with a cultural approach to consumption the thesis provides tools for grasping commodifying identityshaping processes where marketers are involved.

There is something in Swedish also behind this link: http://www.hanken.fi/staff/suokannas/

Discussing senior consumers and web 2.0 with Tuija

I had a really interesting discussion with Tuija Aalto this evening over skype about senior consumers and web usage. As I have introduced some age discourses in my doctoral thesis (senior, radical, forever young, hedonist and soulful) we went through possible web usage profiles for these discourses and tried to draw up a picture for how for example a senior profile differs from a radical. That's a thought that should be further developed... Here you can find our discussion: tuhatsanaa.net

New models for aging

When you talk or write about age or aging people start to discuss how bad the situation is within elderly care or how their parents or grandparents are lousy in using new technology. We are so locked within the old age stereotype which only talks about decline and loss and misery. A minority of people discuss progress or innovations in combination with aging. Maybe that's why marketers weren't so interested in older consumers  two decades ago. Now new ideologies are evolving and we need other models for aging. In this process marketers play an important role as I see them as identity-shaping professionals.