Preparing for Finland

All the last minute "stuff" to pack as the excitement builds for Helsinki!  So instead of packing my suitcase, I decided to buy a new digital camera for the trip.  It's a little Sony Cybershot and I hope to post some pictures here in the days ahead.

I spent the rest of the day trying to pay bills, prepare taxes (April 15th "Tax Day" is just around the corner) and get a few last minute client conversations out of the way before I leave. Nonetheless, I could not resist the urge to search the Web for different facts and figures about Finland and Helsinki. What would we do without the Internet to prepare?

I'm a political junkie, so I wanted to learn about their population, political party system, their educational standards, etc...) Wikipedia did the trick. Here are a few of the basic tidbits of Finish trivia I found:

• The population of Finland is 5,238,460 and the population of Helsinki is about 577,000
• According to UNICEF, Finland ranks fourth in the world in child well-being.
• About 18.9 percent of health care is funded directly by households and 76.6 percent by public and other insurances.
• The World Economic Forum ranks Finland's tertiary education #1 in the world.

Sounds like a pretty progressive place that also has good environmental laws.  Not to mention the fact, they are leading the world in mobile technology!  Nokia is one of Finland's largest employers and is the world's largest cell phone provider.  I can't wait to meet some of these folks and learn about their city, country and even what mobile advances are coming in the months ahead.

I also checked out weather.com. It is still cold in Helsinki and I need to pack my winter jacket.  While, I fear saying goodbye to the Cherry Blossoms of DC for snow covered streets, I can't wait to see a completely different part of the world.

To get in the mood I'm listening to the Finish rock bands HIM and The 69 Eyes while working, typing my first journal and reviewing my itinerary.

Anyways, it's now 5:35am and I still need to actually pack, do some final errands, get through DC traffic to Dulles International Airport and catch the plane.

I'm a little tired and also nervous about all these last minute preperations I still need to make before getting in the taxi.  Nonetheless, I am fully intrigued, engaged and ready for  "my Helsinki" adventure to begin.

Day 1.

With little sleep and an 8 hour time difference, I arrived in Helsinki.  Mikko Leisti from Pluto (the Finish marketing firm - not the highly debatable planet) met me at the airport and gave me a brief tour of the city as well as an overview of my itinerary. (I will try to keep updating these journals - but it is a packed schedule!)

We had a traditional lunch of salmon soup and were off to meet with the Eero Holstila, Director of the Office of Economic Development for the City of Helsinki.  He explained to me some of the city's vision to truly become a world hub of technology and attract young entrepreneurs to live and work in Helsinki.  They are making a bold effort to facilitate all types of city renovations and promotion of arts & culture.  They are also working with technology leaders, universities, and others to attract the best and brightest to their city.  They are experimenting with the power of word of mouth marketing over traditional advertising (something I have been working with and am facinated by for a number of years) and created the program I am on to experiment with the idea of bringing over a number of folks from DC that all have different social circles. I know each member of our group will bring back different experiences, stories and opportunities from this unique city. (I am looking forward to reading some of my colleagues journals when I catch up on sleep).

Nonetheless, I was unsure what I would find in Helsinki that mixes my interests of mixing music, art and culture with political organizing. My business revolves around social networking, text messaging, and lifestyle marketing for non-profits and political campaigns. So, I was amazed to see my schedule filled with relevant topics from every aspect of these interests. I will be attending unique meetings and events of some of the newest innovators in these areas over the next few days. 

I started off the day viewing a modern art exhibit that questioned capitalism political impact on the world with powerful multi-media pieces of pop-culture and branding images. This exhibit was obviously very relevant to view after just reading about the current G20 protests that are taking place.

We than met with Sulka Haro who helped create one of the world's largest teenager social networking sites.  Check out the virtual world of  HABBO where kids learn how to social network and creative think in a safe place online. We had a great discussion about the future of online social networking and how there is now an entire demographic of kids that will be growing up using these networks their entire lives.

I ended the day taking a ferry over to Soumenlinna Fortress for dinner at a music industry conference called, "Is This It."  This conference just happened to be taking place while I am in town.  Helsinki is very involved in promoting their artists and musicians to the world and hosts this conference to discuss new and innovative ideas on ways music can be promoted.  The conference has music industry representative from over a dozen countries in attendance.  Soumenlinna was a great setting for this event and gave everyone a chance to listen to some Finish Jazz from inside an over two-hundred year old brick fortress.  Not a bad way to end Day One.

Journal of Scott Goodstein on April 4

More on all the amazing political party leaders and inovators I met soon.

Just a quick note:

I'm eating well.  Amazing salmon and fresh smoked fish.  I will be heading to The Sauna Society today. 

Speaker of the Parliament is Sauli Niinistö

Parliament

I spent some time yesterday learning about the multiple political parties that make up the different coalitions of Finland's government.  It is always amazing to learn about another country's political battles and struggles for progress. Even the political parties admit that, on many issues, they are very similar eventhough there are clearly differences between the parties on philosophy towards how their  government should work.

Nonetheless, most of these parties have good progressive ideals. I even learned that Finland was the first country in Europe to give women full voting rights as well as the right to run for election in 1906. 

Here are a few pictures I took of Finish Parliament:

In addition to learning about Finland's political history, I had the honor of meeting the Speaker of the Parliament, Sauli Niinistö. He resides over the 200 members of Parliament. He took time out of his schedule to show me Finish Parliament and discuss how their system works.

In addition to spending some time with me, he also offered me my first taste of reindeer as well as an interesting discussion about the world economy (he previously served on the Board of Directors at the European Investment Bank).  He talked briefly about how he sees the changes in the US leadership and how closely he watched the US elections.  He was very familiar with some of the work our new media team had accomplished.

I will soon write about my meetings with some of the different political parties I had the opportunity to meet as well.

However, I just saw a Finish music showcase at one of the nicest rock clubs in Helsinki called Tavastia.  The Von Hertzen Brothers  were there making some of the newest and most interesting progressive rock sounds around.  They play their own unique mix of many different styles.  Listen to them here.

Photo of  Parliament:

Political Parties

I am always fascinated to learn differences between political parties and how they organize.  Finland is clearly different from the United States as the country is more homogenous and their political battles are more rural vs urban or (historically) differing views on foreign policy in times of war.  While I am clearly not an expert on Finnish government, everyone I met could not clearly define which major issues separated the parties. Except for the smaller parties that are more like single issue parties. One of these parties in Finland evolved post their independence  that represents the Swedish speaking minority. They still has a few members in Parliament today.  

Folks I talked to felt that maybe one part stood for more urban development issues than the other. But, it seems many people are like my cab driver that votes for his political party because his family had voted that way for a number of generations. Nonetheless, most people have very little opinion on these differences and are realize their politics are far less divisive than the US.

I was able to have coffee with Anni Sinnemäki in the Parliament's cafeteria.  At a very young age, she is celebrating her tenth year in Parliament, has worked for the city of Helsinki, and is in the leadership of the Green Party.  She works on a number of arts and cultural projects.  She explained their legislative process to me as well as some of her current project in helping both Helsinki and the country promote arts and culture.  She also explained how the Green Party is able to get proportional votes based in citywide elections and the math to calculating the percentages.  The Green Party is mostly focused around the cities and suburbs of the country.  Nonetheless, she was heading off to take a five hour car ride to speak to her party members on the other side of the country. To learn more about the Green Party, Vihreät, visit wikipedia. (sorry I could not find a green party website in English)

Political Parties Part Two

I had the chance to visit Kansallinen Kokoomus, The National Coalition Party. While they are the conservative party, they are very socially liberal. They stand for the "basic values are education, tolerance, rewarding and caring." Their website states,  "Our goal is to build a Finland with equal opportunities for all."  They are one of the top two parties in the country and hold 50 seats in the Parliament and are the same party as the Speaker of the Parliament.  I had a chance to meet with Jenni Haukio and Pasi Heiskanen.   They run all of the party's communications, Internet and New Media Teams.  It was fun to meet them as political operatives that are using new technology in similar ways to organize. They even had a microsite for community service activities. They were able to show me how they used the Internet to show people how few votes it takes to win in legislative districts as a candidate recruitment tool. It was great.  Simply, type in your zipcode and learn more about how easy it is to run for office locally!  They followed the Obama campaign very closely and are thinking about ways they can continue to evolve their web presense.  Their website and microsites are pretty cool! visit it them at www.kokoomus.fi and www.toivotalkoot.fi

Serious Music Fans Part 1

Similar to DC, Helsinki takes it's music seriously.  There are atleast three professional orchestras in this fairly small city.  As well as a beautiful opera house and a half dozen historic theaters downtown.  In other words, kids that grew up in Finland are trained to play and understand music and are experiencing art at very early ages.

There is an amazing amount of technical precision to the music I have heard in Finland.  Its challenging and is very well composed.  From the dark metal bands of HIM and 69 Eyes to the jazz I heard my first night I landed - music is taken seriously.

I was honored to see a band called the Von Hertzen Brothers that is made up of three very well-educated musicians from Helsinki that compose "epic" ten-minute progressive rock orchestrations drawing from dozens of styles of music while still making it uniquely their own.

Serious Music Part 2

I was able to spend two nights at music club Tavastia.  This club is like both DC's 9:30 Club and Black Cat in one facility! I saw lesser known band playing at their smaller "Semi-final" stage a few nights ago called "Underwater Sleeping Society." These guys also played a more technically challenging version of basic rock (adding in more keybords and drums than the average US punk band.)

I have spent the majority of my life in two cities that music and art are reflective of the local area's culture. Cleveland, OH is home of factories, steel mills and auto plants - and folks have reflectively created aggressive punk rock and industrial music in the 1980's and 1990's. Washington, DC is a political city and is internationally known for some of the most political and progressive punk rock produced by our local record label, Dischord Music and the band Fugazi. We are also becoming known for our multi-ethnic flavor and is home to Thievery Corporation - a music group that mixes dozens of different cultures into their sound. So what about Finland?

Serious Music Part 3

I believe Finland's music is very much tied to the region. The gothic, metal and progressive rock bands I've been listening to seem to draw references to their Pagan history. I saw an art exhibit about Kalevala, their mystical & poetic oral tradition Nordic folk stories and learned how much these stories are reflected in some of their art. There is also rumor that the heavier metal bands are reflecting on the extreme cold winters and the amount of days with very little light outside. (Finland has several months of darkness in the winter).

These are just my thoughts and some discussions I have had with local music aficionados reflecting on the orgins of their unique sounds and their love of music that shares different amounts of popularity than in it does in the US.

I was also able to meet with Stuba Nikula, a gentleman who runs one of the largest art spaces in the city. He is an active promoter of the area's largest summer metal music festival. He talked about the huge popularity of US bands like Metallica, Slayer and Faith No More (which will be playing Helsinki this summer). Stuba has an amazing amount of knowledge of music and art.  He took me to a punk rock bar called "Loose." This bar is basically a rock art museum of internationally known punk bands and their local tour posters from their Finland visits. (see the photo of me randomly wearing the T-shirt of the MC5 by a mural dedicated to this Detroit band.)

Helsinki has many good ol' fashion record stores to buy records from! They were not open yesterday (most stores are closed on Sundays). So, I plan to try and stop by and check them out in between meetings today.

Helsinki Old & New

Helsinki From Old to New Part 3

I enjoyed the very pragmatic and modern looking theaters and office buildings of the downtown to the very stylish modern glass exterior office building like Nokia's Headquarters pictured below.

Helsinki From Old to New Part 2

Helsinki changes art and architecture in such quick and amazing ways.  I loved walking through the streets of the downtown and checking out all the shops in this historic district, finding a park with a castle in the middle or simply staring at very intricate details on the sides of buildings.

Sauna

I went to the Finnish Sauna Society on Saturday.  While I have been to a few small saunas before, I have never been to a facility that had this many saunas in one setting.  The Society Sauna Facility was built for the 1952 Olympics and has since been converted into an amazing study of Finnish Society. 

It was a balmy 40 degree kind of day and you could still see ice around the Baltic Sea.  I was given two different towels - a little square to sit on and a regular size towel showering and told to go change.  The rest is history!

We first started in the warm sauna and discussed the sauna culture and many Finish traditions in this small wooden room that had very easy heat.   The rooms we went to after were all progressively hotter and were heated up to over 300 degree Fahrenheit (150 Celsius). Most of the rooms are heated by wooden stoves and than each room gets to add their own ladles of water to whatever the desired amount of steam is.  (I could only handle one or two ladles of steam at a time)  After you cook your self to the point that your skin is bright red, your sinuses are cleared, and you are only breathing steam... its time to jump into the frozen Baltic Sea.

I will never forget walking out this narrow wooden foot path from the sauna to the sea.  It was awakening and revitalizing.  After going from the sauna to the sea.  We sat around a giant fireplace and drank a few beverages and talked with some others for a half hour or so while sweating some more!

With a country of over 5 million people it is rumored that Finland has over 3 million saunas.  A great way of heating up a room, cleaning and exfoliating your skin, talking with your neighbors, and relaxing during the cold months of a long winter.  Most Finnish people were literally born in the sauna and have grown up with this tradition ever since.  I learned that just about every modern apartment and condo complex comes with a sauna! This tradition is for both Finish men and women and does not matter your income level - In Finland, you are using the sauna!

Thanks to the guys who took me to the sauna. It was an honor to experience this part of Finnish culture first hand with some great friends that understood my Western fears of hypothermia as well as my "rookie" threshold to the five or six ladles of steam in the hottest room.  I was glad I got to experience each room, but know I have a few more years before I am really ready to handle the hottest room in Helsinki. 

For more info on the Finish Sauna Society and the sauna culture visit their website here.

Rockin For a Cause 

A number of Finnish bands are socially active in their ever growing music arts and cultural scenes.  While most of the music comes from their darker Pagan traditions and heavy metal, I was able to talk with the lead singer of the band "The 69 Eyes" that are involved in different organizations.

Jyrki 69 is their lead singer and writes most of their lyrics. He is outspoken and greatly enjoys his roll as Goodwill Ambassador  to UNICEF.  He is a great ambassador for them as he represents a different style music than most of their liaisons.  He is also a pro at touring and music since The 69 Eyes have been together for almost 20 years.  While his music, like most Finnish bands, is not directly political or written to be socially aware, he personally has plenty of opinions. Nonetheless, he states clearly,  "We are rockers first." and wants to keep the mystery and excitement of his music completely separate.

So we spent our time talking about his ability to work as a national ambassador to this non-profit organization and still maintain his band's unique identity.  He was very clear that he does his UNICEF work in his free time.  But he did say that none of his fans have taken offense to him doing this type of work and he has met several fans that have mentioned UNICEF to him at a show or a club.  UNICEF works during the day works well since being in a Vampire Goth Rock Metal band you are "Dead until its Dark Out."  Jyrki explained that he spent some of his time in the "off hours"on UNICEF trips to Africa.

Jyrki has a masters degree in Analytical Chemistry and is well read on a number of subjects including political history.   He is currently spending a a lot of time in the United States and was excited to learn that I worked on the Rock Against Bush CD set with Fat Wreck Chords back in 2004.  He even let me know that he watched the educational video shorts while on his tour bus.

He was a great guy to spend time talking with about music's roll in society and culture.  While he sees his music as completely separate from his political viewpoints, I quickly learned how well versed he was on a number of current event topics as we discussed Obama's recent visit to Europe.

On a side note: Jyrki loves the mystery of the music and art around his brand of Vampire/Goth/Glam Rock.  He has an interesting passion for comics and 80's movies.  Let's be honest, who doesn't love adventure movies like The Goonies and The Lost Boys?  

The 69 Eyes are now heading off to Los Angeles to finish production on their next record.  And with a new area of politics taking place in the US, he believes America may also be ready for a different type of rock and roll.

Radio Helsinki

The ways we consume news and music are rapidly changing.  We are watching an era of newspapers dying in the US and local radio stations were crippled over a decade ago.  Both these industries are working on what is the best formula for survival and relevancy.  They both need to find a revenue stream that works and they both are losing viewers to online media. 

Radio Helsinki, a local independent / free-format radio station (that does not use any reporting or playlists) is now working directly with Helsinki's largest daily newspaper, The Helsingin Sanomat.  This new model is helping both entities build a digital presence and work on additional community projects including more arts and entertainment reporting.

While the newspaper has a huge reach and is already read by a quarter of all Finns, it is slowly evolving its digital presence and currently building new digital studios.  They are working on breaking news and growing their online communities.

We had an interesting discussion on how radio and newspapers can work together and how they both need to grow their digital and mobile phone stratgeies.  These issues are far from figured out in the US media as we are watching organizations like the New York Times and The Washington Post starting to figure out new online video and text messaging strategies.

It was great to see a major newspaper breaking news while working with a fiercely independent radio station that was playing punk rock and hip-hop.  (They were playing NWA and Dead Kennedys while I was there.) 

It will be interesting to see how these two very different and independent Finnish organizations grow and work together in the days ahead. 

It's all About Social Networking!

I met a number of online social networking experts in Helsinki.  I had no idea that Finland was a hub of so many online interaction organizations.  Everyone is working on figuring out new technologies and working on ways to incorporate new media into their business strategies.

These meetings included getting a chance to meet Matti Makkonen's new firm.  Matti invented SMS, text messaging and has not stopped developing new applications and ways to make cell phones even more interactive.

I also met with Avaus, Finland.  This organization is a business consultant group that specializes in digital & viral communications.  We had an enlightening discussion on word-of-mouth communication and how their group helps Finnish businesses build online communities.  These new media experts are mixing social networking, e-business and mapping technologies in new ways.

I than met some of the founders of Sulake, Finland. This social networking company created and runs  Habbo, a safe virtual community where teenagers can learn to meet new friends and have online social interactions.  We had an honest discussion on the concerns of online safety and the proper way to monitor online communities.  Sulake also built a social network site for photo sharing that combines MySpace/Facebook style comments and blog with Flickr style photo uploading.  Learn more about it at IRC-Galleria.Net.

We had a nice discussion with the folks at Pixelache.  A fun digital multi-media festival that experiments with all types of new digital media.  The name Pixelache is a fun fiiting name that is a digital (pixel) headache!  Check out their website for some cool new ideas at Pixelache.ac

We than met with the niche-based social networking site, Muxlim.  Another facinating social networking that I would have never guessed would be based in Helsinki.  Muxlim, concentrates its efforts on young Muslim lifestyle and culture for Muslims that are not based in Muslim countries.  During the campaign, I had great experiences with niche based social networks like BlackPlanet, AsianAve and Disaboom. 

It was great to learn about how all of these creators and innovators are seeing the future of online social networks. 

Random Photos

I enjoyed taking these photos of Helsinki.  I hope you enjoy them too!

Beautiful tree-lined trails...

Fun graffiti artwork (love the counter-culture)...

 A small but active synagogue & kosher restaurant...

Easy to use commuter rail (even if you don't speak Finnish)...

Modern buildings with stylish and organized outdoor advertising...

And karaoke bars...

This city has everything!

Nokia!

The day I had been waiting for had finally arrived - a chance to meet the folks of Nokia.  We drove to Espoo, their worldwide headquarters, to visit with their marketing & management teams and learn about the future of mobile technology.  As we drove up, I joked that the building looked like "the mothership."  But Pekka Somerto actually let me know that the building was designed to look like a ship and even has a lot of naval motifs integrated throughout the architecture.

Pekka is Nokia's vice president of sales and marketing.  He gave me a brief tour and explained how Nokia became the largest cell phone provider in the world.  I learned that they are also the largest manufacture of cameras (because most of their devices now come with camera in them).  As their technology further advances, they will also be the worlds largest manufacturer of GPS navigators and MP3 players!  They even have a map of the amount of cell phones being purchased around the world with real time estimates being updated in real time.

It is an amazing story for a small Nordic pulp and paper factory to advance into the regions largest rubber and cable equipment provider.  But Nokia again reinvented themselves into becoming the dominate force in the mobile industry - all within the last 15 years. 

I also learned that Nokia is consistently ranked as one of the best places to work in Finland and have helped many local businesses evolve.  It seemed that almost everyone I met in Helsinki knew someone that worked for or with Nokia.  This is probably because they are almost a third of the Helsinki Stock Exchange and represent over 3.5% of the Finnish Gross Domestic Product with over $35 billion in revenues.

I took a quick walk down recent memory lane in the Nokia cell phone museum display.  I even saw several of my old cell phones on display.  They had everything from their first mobile phones that weighed several pounds to the first video phones that weighed almost nothing. Of course they had a number of multicolor Nokia 5800 and 6100 that all of my friends used a few years ago. I forgot how much I loved my old Nokia 6820 flip phone that had a full keyboard.  The interesting thing to note about this display of cell phones was how quickly the technology advanced.  Their display only goes back ten to fifteen years!  Therefore, the excitement is really about what comes in the next ten to fifteen years, and will we be laughing and reminiscing over our first touch screen phones?

The folks at Nokia joked with me about my iPhone and showed me their version of a new touch screen phone that is going to be released in a few months.  This devise will compete with both Blackberry and iPhone.  It has both touch-screen and a full keypad functionality (about time someone realized that many of us like both types of functionality).  It sounds and looks great. Nonetheless, I hope the battery life is better than my current devise (and the international data charges are not as confusing).

Nokia is also moving into software development and social networking areas in the days ahead.  Pekka showed me how all of their new devices are connected to a software suite called "Ovi."  This software will connect GPS mapping to your phone in fun ways so you can easily geo-code your photos, monitor workouts, track your friends music, download or stream music to your phone, play games, and check email! Visit Ovi.com to learn more about this software suite.

Knowing that cell phone reach is far greater than electricity, Nokia is working to improve the lives of their third-world customers.  They are including English language tutorials on their least expensive cell phones and even software that will help farmers in Africa better negotiate crop prices. 

I also had an opportunity to meet with Pia Erikinheimo-Mennander and a number of Nokia's marketing experts.  They are working on evolving Nokia's online and offline efforts.   They are thinking about how to use mobile devices in social networking gaming and even virtual reality.  My visit to Nokia was both educational and truly inspiring.

Moi Moi

What an amazing experience I had.  I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Helsinki and all it has to offer.  I enjoyed learning about the people, the food, the culture and their new innovations! 

It was a well organized trip, a packed schedule of interesting meetings and an all around great adventure.  I appreciated the amount of work and attention to every detail the City of Helsinki and Mikko Leisti put into making this experience run so smoothly for all of their DC visitors. 

A special thanks to Mikko Leisti, Susanna Torvinen and all the staff at Pluto Finland!  I can't wait to come back and visit soon!

My Helsinki Top Five

5. Learning about Kalevala - This uniquely Finnish epic was on display at Helsinki's Ateneum Art Museum.  But I was also able to see how the legend lives on in modern art, culture and design throughout all of Helsinki.

4. Visiting the Finnish Sauna Society - Nothing wakes you up like warming up to 150 degrees Celsius and than jumping into the 0 degree Celsius Baltic Sea!

3. Eating fresh Salmon.  My favorite was the market by City Hall in downtown Helsinki.  Its only seconds from the Baltic and amazingly fresh! I was even able to bring back some fresh smoked-salmon for my family from Stockmans Dept. Store.

2. Drinking Salmiakki and listening to Nordic rock.  They like their drinks black and their music even darker! I enjoyed hanging out at Tavastia and checking upcoming Finnish artists on their multiple stages.

1. Seeing Nokia. I enjoyed spending time with some of the most forward thinking mobile innovators in the world.  I enjoyed the opportunity to learn about what is next in mobile communications from the country where SMS text messaging all began!

Kiitos Helsinki!  It was an amazing experience and I hope to return in the near future.

Sincerely,

Scott