Voluntariness

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the TEDx Helsinki event last Wednesday. A lot of inspiring speeches. I got especially inspired by the speech about voluntariness as a phenomenon. And as a matter of fact, the lack of voluntariness, as the speaker Anssi Vanjoki put it. In our culture of "what's in it for me" and especially "how much will I get paid for doing this or that", or "is it within my job description", the phenomenon of voluntariness is worth being reflected upon. I suppose that Vanjoki defined voluntariness as something that has to do with being a member in nonprofit associations where your memberships are based on passion for doing and learning. And where the goal is not about getting financial support but about being part of a community, having fun, refining talents or even wanting to make our world a better place. Vanjoki asked "where has all the voluntariness gone". One of my answers is, we don't have the energy for that if we by voluntariness mean that people should take part in politics, sports clubs, choirs or anything else. Families with children are already voluntarily doing fundraising for camp schools for example, in different housing communities people are organizing spring-cleaning events and frail parents are taken care of. But maybe it was not this kind of voluntariness Vanjoki was worried about. Maybe it was more about the attitude. He was maybe looking for the scout attitude "do a good turn daily" or as he said in Finnish "aina valmis" (always ready). Maybe this is the crux of the matter? My life would really be much easier if my children would volunteer all the time in all the chores that housekeeping includes. Instead of always having to put energy on convincing why something should be done I would have three youngsters in a row wanting to sign up for the job ;-). Utopia? Yes, but it's worth discussing anyway. And maybe we will sow the seed of voluntariness in our childrens minds?

PS. This concept has some power issues too...

Redefining experience

Often recruiting firms want to have experienced people to work for them. The specific experience needed is usually listed and most probably there will be no-one who has achieved the right experience in all areas of competence. The recruiter has to make compromises and decide to emphasize some of the characteristics that the future employee seems to have. For example having an experience of the tourism industry could be a good starting point for those working within that industry but what is that experience really all about? What is it that you should know? I understand that if you have to create tourism services it is absolutely clear that you cannot be totally without knowing the problems and obstacles in the creation processes. And you maybe should be able to show that you know how to create those services yourself, at least if your job is really about creating services within tourism. But when it comes to the situation where you are leading others who are creators, an experience that has given you the right tools for structuring up reality, seeing the future, being information literate and above all seeing entities instead of details could be sufficient. And well, in the society of today, knowing how to network and build up networks that co-create something valuable within those networks, is utterly important.

Here is one practical example showing that experience could/should be redefined. I have a good friend who has no children of her own. This means that by some definition she has no experience of children and how to bring up them. But as a matter of fact she is the one who has given new, innovative ideas to help me with questions when upbringing my own children. Why? She is a good listener as well as broad-minded. She skips the details and uses the wisdom she has gathered when meeting with really different people and families during her lifetime. And yes, she has helped me in situations when I have been insecure and worried. In other words she has saved me from giving up and helped me with my decisions. So even without that "right" experience you can give a developing and helping hand. And maybe that is just what is needed.

So maybe we should really reconsider what we mean by the appropriate experience for a job? Maybe we just need wise, humane people who know how to see the whole situation? I would definitely like to be that kind of person in my job and I will try really hard to learn from every mistake I make. And we really never stop getting experienced, or do we?

Young and hungry, the golla brand in a nutshell?

Golla is a brand specialized in fashionable bags for technology products. The bags are really attractive because of the beautiful design and the numerous colours. I really love the products and I could consider myself to be a fan. A middle-aged fan. What I didn’t like to hear in a presentation by Golla, was the fact that employees should be young and hungry. Hungry, that’s okay but is it obvious that you cannot be mature and hungry, older and hungry? Well we meet ageism everywhere…even in events that should be future-oriented…When another young and hungry presenter said that we in the audience seem like retirees in an evening for bingo I wanted to leave the place…But well I decided to stay and listened to the discussions between young entrepreneurs which was really inspiring. I understand that the future is within the young and hungry risk takers but anyhow I protest against ageist attitudes. You don't have to bring forward an age group by diminishing another. What companies really need is a better knowledge and more sensitivity in addressing different audiences. How about being known for communicating age in a sensible non-ageist way?

Wow! The radical, forever-young older woman

You should really check this woman's website and videos: mamyrock.com

She uses the elements known by young people and combines her experience of singing. So after all this phenomenon shows again that there are different ways of ageing. And by using media you can offer new discourses.

Old and young/Old or young?

I am really happy to have the opportunity to get back to my research by doing a presentation for a workshop. My task is to create something inspiring about the age discussion, or at least that is the way I am going to do it. It is great to be able to exclude the typical header "marketing to seniors" and dig a little bit deeper in the cultural discussions concerning age as a concept. So I have made a wonderful little "mash-up" of pictures, caricatures, texts and music to show some example of how we construct age in our society. Please listen to my spotify-list as an example of how age is constructed in some lyrics: http://open.spotify.com/user/suokannas/playlist/5pWF40xBRguDc2mc8oHxGV