Most popular and my favorite blog post from me in year 2010

Year is over and like everyone else, I'll do a short recap on my blogging. I got in to blogging this year and it's been lot of fun. It's been nice to see that there has been also increasing number of people coming to read my posts.

Here's recap which posts people have liked and which I like the most.

Quoted content

 Amazing stuff with using existing images in social 
By far most popular post in my blog.

The machine is changing us: YouTube and the politics of authenticity  
Personal favorite, this video really affected what I think about me (I mean anyone as themselves) in web when they write or communicate in anyways. If you haven't seen go and watch: 

My own content
Personal cloud services
Second most popular post of my blog.

Day my dad joined Facebook
Personal favorite, it was on that time shocking. Now I've got used to situation, but I have to admit I haven't really noticed my dad there. Maybe I got over it, but it was funny to read what I thought on that time.

Short book reviews of mine:

Who moved my cheese 
Most popular of these book reviews.

What Would Google Do
Personal favorite, not because what I wrote about it, but how refreshingly good the book itself was. I had expectations towards it, but it exceeded those by a mile.

Have a good new year!

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Wordle of my blog from 2010

Wordle with all the text I've blogged this year. I just realized I really need to start using less the words Really and Just.

Do you own in wordle. Share it using #wordle2010. Let's make visual recap to year of blogging.

Looking back - inspiring blogs and sites this year

Year is ending and I decided to join the club and make short recaps on my web life. This was the year I really realised how much great content and interesting people there are to enrich my life.

I'll start these recaps with listing couple of blogs I have enjoyed following this year:

Springwise
It's inspiring to see new innovations everywhere around the world day after day. In some weird way it makes me happy that there are always room for good small innovations. It doesn't require a corporation to build something new and interesting.

Seth's blog
Being as popular as he is, he still keeps making surprisingly good observations about the world we live in. Quality of posts no one else have been able to achieve.

Stuff no one told me
Beautiful and inspiring cartoons from Alex Noriega.

Hawaiians do no blog
Amazingly stupid nonsense with twisted sense of humor. Best medicine to not to think yourself too much of an adult yet.

Ted talks
It's not exactly a blog, but there's so much great content I've enjoyed during the year that it had to make to the list.

There's many more I've followed and many of those have produced some brilliant posts. These are just the ones that have almost always made me feel more inspired or happy. That's the reason I think those are most relevant to me.
 
Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Amazing stuff with using existing images in social

This is stuff that if someone would present this with decks it would look wow, but you wouldn't really believe that it can work. This is just amazing what these guys have done with images. Beginning part of the video is nice and it has some great ideas for webpapers in tablets for example.

But what made me really post this was the latter part. What had been done with existing flickr images was just beautiful. Soon you can really web travel to all popular location in the world and see all the details from your home already.

I really recommend to watch this Ted Talk:



And you can also try photosynth directly in here (requires silverlight):



It's just so nice to see what all social media, people sharing their photos and videos and all amazing technology will bring us in the future.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Amazing app - translates text on the fly with phone camera

It's been a long time I've been totally amazed on some SW. I do follow lot that what's happening on application development aroung the world, but this totally blew me off, Check this out. It translates language on the fly with phone camera. It's the first time I've really thought that these augmented reality apps make lot of sense. It would be so cool to try this out.

App is from Word Lens from QuestVisual. Check the video out:




It's just so cool. And what shocks the most, it is really usefull.

Make a difference and give a loan - Kiva.org

Do you have any money on your bank account? Do you really need all of it during next year or so. If not, be a sport and lend it to people who really need it and want to help themselves and their families.

Go to Kiva.org and decide the people or group you want to loan some money and then give it a go. As small amount as 25 dollard you can make a difference.

Really think, these people really are wanting to make a difference to their live and living standards. They are not asking for charity. These are the people we in western countries can easily help.

And if you really carefully think, I'm sure you can think something you don't need right now, but can postpone bit later.

I just last week took my first step and now I'm challenging you to join me.

Kiva - Loans that change lives

P.S. I'm aware of critisism kiva.org has got in the past, One story here and some more in here. They have acted on these and I at least still feel good when I can help the ones that want to help themselves, even those are  sold to me with colourfull stories

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Brilliant marketing and nice real life game in Stockholm with Mini

What a brilliant marketing from Mini. And also it seems like a quite interesting game. Maybe there could be some middle point prices or ways to disappear for some minutes to keep the interest for whole week. Or then I could have been wrong and people really played the whole week, not only first and last days.

It's always fun to see innovation like this in games and marketing. Check it out:

MINI Getaway Stockholm 2010.

Team dynamics - Can group of specialists be a good team?

Yesterday in Agile gathering we discussed about how teams work and how to get teams work more like a team. There was lot of talk about specialists and generalists and how to spread the information of specialists to other team members to make team more successful.

Afterwards I started to think sports. All sports, for example soccer, american football, basketball, you name it are full of specialists. Best teams have most suitable specialists working together to make even more value out of each other as a team. Team member knows each others strengths and use those to beat the opponents.

 Sport teams are bit different than the work ones. There's always games and opponents where teams are weighted. Most of the time is spent practicing. Teams have team practices and individuals practice their specialties. Also there's a playbook to follow. It gives guidelines for problems that arrive rapidly in the field to make decisions which the whole team knows about. Still there's always room for excellent individuals to make their own decisions to make a difference.

Does teams work best if everyone is equal and generalist? Maybe not. Some people are always better than others in some tasks. They should be allowed to come even better on their area to make the whole team better. Main task for line manager or scrum master or whomever is watching the team is to make sure that there's a possibility to learn. Everyone should have the possibility to learn from the more experienced ones. There will always be situations when these less experienced ones need to take the responsibility and tackle the situation.

I see playbooks as an interesting idea. Maybe teams in work life could also have a playbook. That would give guidance to tackle most commonly faced problems. It would give guidelines how to start looking for solutions, but it still would leave room for individuals to make their own decisions. These could be used in discussion, retrospectives and learning's. Maybe those can't be taken directly from sports, but the idea feels interesting to me.

Self directing teams are often said to be the most successful ones. Still in sports there no fully self directing teams. In some sports, like soccer and basketball, teams are more on the self directing side when they are on the field. Then in some others like american football, there's more guidance from the coaches all the time. Maybe this self directing thing is more of a motivational issue than performance issue. Worth to keep in mind still.

I know sports is not the same as work life. There's so many differences. Maybe still, there's something to learn in work life also.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

My thoughts on One subject blogs becoming boring revisited

From the moment I blogged about one subject blogs becoming boring soon, I felt that something in my thinking isn't really right. There's TV series and books made on top of very narrow subject. So maybe the reason for blog becoming boring is not about the subject.

If I think myself back for couple of weeks, even a month, I just kept running back to similar post on similar subject about Agile. This got me in to impression that problems is the subject. That it isn't evolving in the speed blogging about it is.

Soon after my post, I run into two agile posts that got me convinced that it's just about taking new view points and connecting existing knowledge on a way that haven't been arranged before to make good posts. So it's still about the content and presentation skills. Not about the subject. Those two great posts by the way, where one form my colleague Vasco Duarte about Patterns of Agility and second was from Jurgen Appelo about there is no single truth about Agile and Lean.

How stupid I was. I've always hated people who jumps directly to conclusions and are not really analysing any reasons, and now it was me who did so. Obviously subject isn't the reason. It's like if you give 20 photographers a mug and table and ask them to shoot some amazing photos. You can get few really amazing from surprising angle and set and then the rest looks almost the same.

Maybe the main reason for my original post was to convince myself that I can post anything on this blog and people will continue to read it. Maybe I need to revisit on my thoughts on that one too.

I take myself credit of at least realizing my faulty thinking.

Book I read - What Would Google Do

I've been a fan of Google for long time already. Maybe that's why I expected book What Would Google Do to tell stories about Google. I was totally blown away how much more there actually is in this book than just Google. Actually this book isn't really about Google, but the way they think and how that thinking have changed the world already and will change for the future also.

I've never had so many ideas bursting to mind than reading this one. In every chapter in some point there came this realization, "hey this is how it could be done" or "OK, that's a brilliant way to look on this problem". Book covers so many different industries giving examples and ideas how this Googlethinking or Googlejuice as Jeff Jarvis puts it, that it makes it really interesting book for many.

Openness and trust are the key themes in this one. This book got me again one step towards being more open and direct. Jeff convinced me that there's much more benefits of being open than what are the risks of it. Of course you need to be aware of your privacy, share the things you want to. And I'm at least thinking that openness is your personal right, I'm not entitled to share too much data on my kids or my friends, but I'll let them decide themselves.

I have to say, that I didn't have a dull moment reading this one. Almost every book have this section which could be made shorter or more interesting, but with this one, nothing comes to my mind.

I really want to recommend this book to everyone who wants to understand how openness have changed and will continue to change the world we live in and how companies and organizations operate.

I'm sure this is one of the books I'll get back to over and over again. I at least enjoyed this one a lot and hope you would enjoy it too.

Next in line I have Dan Pink's Drive which I've waited to read for a long time. I'm excited to start that one.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

How to prevent interruptions in workplaces

I watched recently Ted talk from Jason Fried. He is the author of Rework I read lately. Jason talked about why work is not done in the work places, but rather in almost anywhere else.

His main point is interruptions. He identifies two types of interactions. Un-voluntary interruptions (or distractions like he calls those), when someone or something else interrupt you without you having possibility to affect on it. And users voluntary interruptions, like reading mail, checking FB or going to grab coffee. He makes a valid point here. When you check your mail, it's your decision, when someone comes to talk to you, it's not.

He blames meetings and managers on these interruptions. I tend to think good on people. I don't believe managers and others are interrupting people by plain evil. Also I think meeting organisers often do think their meeting has a meaning. And often these interruptions, managers or meetings do have a value. The problem is more on the timing and the actual interrupting. So what could we do.

Jason had already couple of ideas you can listen, but I'll bring couple of my own. Maybe some meetings could be kept as a chat type of a thing. Someone is typing in a stream and others have the possibility to participate when they want. It could be for example announced, that during this 4 hour window, this chatroom is dedicated to this subject. Feel free to join to discuss or read the stream later.

Other idea is to have an actual traffic lights next to your desk. Available and Do Not Disturb. Those do require environment, where you can say to your boss and colleagues, that I know what is important, let me do my job.

Maybe the main thing still is to recognizing this on your workplace. Are people interrupting each other. Are people doing things that require concentration and takes some time to really get back to the mood again. If yes, then talking about this will definitely be the first step.

If you have any good ideas and expertise on this area, it would be nice to know more.

One subject blogs comes soon quite boring

I wouldn't like to keep many blogs. I already have two, this one and then one stream of funny stuff in Posterous. Still many guide that you should try to blog about one narrow subject, so that people would know what to expect. That would make them follow you. In a longer term, I think it's bit other way around.

I've been following for example Agile blogs for some time. One after another those start to become more borer and borer. Agile is still quite narrow subject where renewal of different methods and thoughts takes time. No one can really write interesting new views on agile 100 times a year.

I think more and more, people are finding writings by recommendation or social stream. So people are not following exact blogs only, but writings that are detected by someone else and are visible in websites, twitter and FB streams. This also supports my approach of wider scope.

Why I actually started to think on this, was that I thought that how much I should mix things from personal interest and professional interest on this blog. For example, I'm not that an agilist, that I would without my job, really follow that closely what's happening with Agile. But then, I am following some of the tech stuff just for personal interest. Same goes with many other things. Some stuff I follow and know from business and some from personal life.

I actually convinced myself, that I'm going to continue blogging on misc subjects, since that so much more fun. You can write on anything that comes to you mind. If people don't like, then they don't read it. Skipping content is easier than ever. And there's so much always happening in the world and life, that it would be shame to try to keep with one subject. Hope you agree and read me some other time also.

I revisited my thoughts 3.12.2010. Here's a post for that one: My thoughts on one subject blogs revisited.

Personal cloud services

I have this problem of having many computers I use, 2 different at home then the ones in workplace in addition. When I need to remember to do something, I often send myself mail, to either work email or home email related where I need to remember that one. This works for things that need immediate attention.

When I want to store some information for longer time, I had this problem of not finding suitable tool for that one. I use Diigo for things related in web, but that's not for my own content. And I know Evernote is kind of for this king of thing, but I figure out otherway more suitable for me.

I made form in Google docs for me. I can reach Google doc form anywhere, any time, with any PC or mobile. All information is then stored there and I can get back to it also whenever I want.

I know it's nerdy solution, but it really works fine for me. And you can easily extend it for your family or friends for example. That's my personal cloud service.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

What do you remember from learnings few years back?

When I think about courses I've attended in work life or back in school, I always remember only one or two things for those from those, if even that. Same goes with business books, there's one or two punch lines you remember after few years and that's all. And I'm talking about time frame of years now, not months. When talking about certain processes or technologies which you practice every day this might not be true. For training sessions or books this applies at least for me.

This got me thinking, why trainers and writers don't emphasize this more. In the beginning they could say, here's the catch for this course or book, keep this in mind. Then over and over keep saying the same punch lines.

Maybe it's just hard to decide what are the small things you would like others to remember. All books and courses will of course offer lot more material to deepen the understanding on the subject, but normally there is this one catch. Somebody could perhaps make a study about this one. They could be asking people what they remember on specific book or course from years back.

Everyone who have read legendary Crossing the Chasm from Geoffrey Moore, what do you remember from it? I remember what the chasm meant and then I remember the technology adaptation curve (which I guess wasn't invented on this book). Also I remember there was lot of methodologies for "crossing the chasm", but I don't really remember any details on those. Still I would say Mr. Moore should be happy that I remember even that much. It's much more than other books I've read on that time (maybe 2003).

Of course everything you learn builds your consciousness on the world and different areas. And you can't really say if something was worth of reading or participating only by what you remember from that in couple of years. But still, I think it gives some hint.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Book I read: Undercover economist

Good friend of mine brought this book to me and said, just read it. My education is from economics, so I wasn't really that keen on reading book about economics. My friend knew all this, so I decided to give Undercover Economist by Tim Harford a try.

I have to admit that mr Harford really can explain things easily and entertainly. Many of thing that he brought up I knew, but still he explained those from an angle that really made it valuable to keep on reading.

Book was able to explain many complex economical stuff so easily that it really started to feel that these things are simple and easy. One of the best things were that human side was often present. Book explained many phenomenons so that it was obvious that human behaviour is one of the key explanations to those.

I liked the most on the game theory, globalisation and china becoming big parts of the books. All these really introduced some good views to me. I maybe need to find some books about game theory after this one. Somehow that felt so interesting and I have so little understanding on that one. My game theory is mainly from poker books and from movie Beautiful Mind.

If you have any interests to economics, this is good one. Like my friend said, just read it.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Can you live your life without ever trying Facebook?

I have still many real life friends who have refused to join Facebook or Twitter due to principle. I think they still see it childish or something. This got me thinking what's gonna happen to them.

These guys are men of principle (there's lot of those in Finland) and they might be so stubborn that they'll never join FB. I think FB is there for good. It's going to change over time for sure, but I don't see it ever going away. FB or something similar will be part of our lifes for a long time.

If they will never join FB I think they will somehow get isolated. That's really the question. Will they be isolated or not? Is FB account like email, you just need to have one. Or is it just for fun. Will they be dissed in future job interviews if they are not part of social media. I'm not saying FB equals social media, but it often is the first step to interact elsewhere in the web also.

What FB has really brought to me is the different level of friendship and communication. There's lot of people who I follow and who I interact with, I would almost never talk otherwise. This is the aspect they might not ever really understand. I just see it a pity.

If I check from their perspective, I don't think they'll really miss anything, since they don't know what to miss. And I'm not saying that's wrong at all. That's just selection of life.

And don't get me wrong, some of these are really my best friends and really smart guys. It's just so funny that they see something like FB or Twitter so differently than I.

Everyone just needs to make their own mistakes, like Geraint Andersson said.

Extending experiences

For many things we do, actual doing is not the all we get from it. Like vacations for example, all the planning and checking out the places in advance are big part of joy. Same goes afterwards. People want to extend the experience by telling others about past vacation or showing photos from places they've been.

I wanted to share how I extend my holidays for example. I like to build photobooks around those. One important thing is the cover. I try to do something different each time. This one on the rigth is from out trip to Santorini. I wanted to try this nice collage this time. Front cover is on the right side and back in the left.

This one on the left is from Switserland, like you can guess from the photo.

I really like to build these for myself. This is kind of like playing Simcity or some other Tycoon games for me. It's just relaxing to work on the details of the books. And I don't mind paying from that fun.

I'm currently working in product management and I think these are things we often forget. People want to extend their experiences. It's not only about product, but it's everything around it. Some people like to discuss about products in the web. Others want to pimp their products with additions. Some like to take extra good care on their stuff. There's so many different people around, that there's always room to engage someones experience. There's always possibilities to make someone feel bit more happy and at the same time, make some money for you and your company.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

TED talk - Keep Going Until We Stop

TEDxOakville - Scott Stratten - Keep Going Until We Stop

It just makes sense. So obvious, still so hard.

It's our nature to overhear phone conversations

I read about study week ago from some magazine, about how people naturally start guessing how conversations go, if they hear only one side of conversation. So, nowadays this means that you will more likely notice someone talking to the phone than someone talking to person next to her.

After reading this one, I've really noticed that I at least behave just like that. My brains tends to guess what people are talking about, when I hear someone talking to the phone. That's just funny. If you pay attention to this, you probably notice the same.

I think this gives us right to overhear phone conversations.

I just hope I would have taken note which study it was and where it has been made. It would be nice to dig bit more on it.

How changing one word can change the way the you think

In Dan Pink's: Whole new mind, there's one small exercise I just fell in love. It asks to change the word "but" to word "and". I've heard same advice in negotiation skills rehearsals, but this is different. This advice is actually referring to your personal problem solving mode.

For example I used to think that I'd like to excersice more, but my kids are so little that I don't have time for it. Then I changed it to "I'd like to exercise more and my kids are so little that I don't have time for it". This got me thinking right away that I could go exericising after kids go to sleep.

Okay, maybe that seems obvious, but this has really changed the way I think for things I'd like to do or have. I've really stopped finding excuses for not doing something, but actually I've started to be more creative on problem solving.

Just try it. It might sound easy, but I bet it you'll find yourself couple of times, but I can't, but I don't have time, but I don't have money etc.. It's not that easy, but it rewarding, I promise.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Is Facebook usage changing ?

Is it just me, but I have this gut feeling that amount of Facebook status updates has been going down. At least amongst my friends there used to be much more status updates during one day than there has been in last month or so.

I tried so search from web some tools or websites, which could prove my point, but there wasn't any. Almost got the impression that this is information Facebook is not sharing with us. Or then they just don't store old status updates.

Also I haven't received any new FB friend invites for some time and also the amount of others making friends are calming down. Could it be that now in FB usage has calmed down. Most of those who will join have joined and rest won't join due to principle.

I'm not saying that FB is in any ways dying, but maybe the dynamics of usage are changing. I would say there's bit more interaction, meaning more comments on posts and then there's much more links shared than previously and discussion is going around those.

Maybe this is specific to Finland or then this is just my imagination, but let's see, if this is one ff these silent signs on social media usage changing. If my guess on this usage pattern is correct, next step could be Twitter having easier way to follow up tweets related to specific links somehow. Kind of like comments on blogs or comments on FB or Buzz updates.

I'll keep on following if this is really a trend.

Book I read - "Cityboy": Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile

From play.com

I've been lately reading just business related books, so it was fun to get my hands on bit more narrative one for a change. Book still is business related and about banking world and more specifically about what's really happening in the banks of London. It's based on true experiences of the writer Geraint Anderson who was working inside the system for 12 years.

Book really tries to shock you. It feasts with dirty details how money, sex and drugs play huge role in a world full of egoistic individuals of banking. Those seem to contain mainly quite young white men. It shouldn't be no surprise to anyone involved in team sports or being part of other manly activity groups that there are lot of men like this in world. These cityboys in London, just happen to get too much money and respect out of the work they do and that makes them act like this.

The other part of the book is really about how screwed up the economic system has been. When people get short term rewards on how well they anticipated the markets and how much commissions their company gets, I can see there's room for cheating and trying to manipulate the market to get more rewards. Book attacks the most toward Hedge funds which are in this book seen as the most greedy form stock markets. Still quite equally it blames most of the cityboys beings selfish, money addicted assholes. Still I wouldn blame only the playes, I'd blame the rules.

I have an insider also in London banking system, an old friend who's been working there for 7-8 years already. I must admit that he's view to normal world is sometimes bit distorted, which kind of a proofs the point of the book. Still I don't believe it's all that bad, there's lot of really talented and motivated people out there, who are not definitely only about sex, drugs and money, but about business itself. Lot's of these cityboys really commit (read: waste) their lives to making money to themselves and their companies.

The book itself is a bit longish sometimes when Geraint tells lots and lots details about drinking and partying. Also it requires a bit of an interest towards stock markets and banking to really follow all the curiosities that are being told. Part I enjoyed the most was actually the epilogue, where author confesses that money and working like hell doesn't really matter that much and didn't really make him happy. Maybe it's just because I'm not in this banking world, and I'm just jealous. But I've really tried to think similarly for sometime already. I do enjoy working, but I still do it only for living and not the other way around.

Often there's one sentence that sticks in my mind after reading a book and the one in this book was: "Everybody just needs to make their own mistakes." That's so true. If you believe in some pattern of living bad enough, there's no one who can convince you to change the pattern. The only way is to really see the mistake yourself.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

One more great music streaming service - Grooveshark

I've lately almost abandoned spotify and started to use Grooveshark the most. It so damn easy to just open browser and start streaming music. My main use is for radio type of service where I let the service to decide my music, I'll only give it a hint what I like.

Actually there are two main ways I've been using in this service. Sometimes it's just fun to listen these really popular stuff and for that I just select popular from left column and hit play all. OK, there are lot of stuff I don't really like, but I can skip those easily.

Second case is, I hit Radio button low right and let it start playing different songs for me. Then I'll teach it a bit by liking and disliking some songs and soon I start to get proper music for the current mood. It's just so awesome.

If I wanna listen some specific artists, then I use other services. For me Grooveshark just works perfectly for discovering and listening some good music. I've used it so much lately, I thought it would deserve blog entry.

Give it a try, if you are not familiar with that one already.

Zero complex

I think I have zero complex. I've noticed that I just must get my to do counters to zero when those are existing.

In Gmail, Google reader, work mail and other similars, I have fixation to get unread items to zero. It doesn't mean I need to really thorougly read those, but I at least need to check the headings and see if it's something worth reading later.

Funny thing is, this same doesn't happen with Twitter or Facebook or anything else which don't have that a counter showing how many are not read.

I don't think myself as perfectionist, but certainly this has something to do with completing. I have no idea though where this fixation came from. But I guess it's easy to blame parents about all these things you do subconsciosly.  I just hope my boss is not reading this.. I would be so easy to motivate me by just having huge number on my wall showing unfinished tasks :)

Just wondering am I alone, are there others with Zero-Complex around? Maybe we should set up some support group..

Nice music service to discover new music - Hitlantis

I really like what these guys have made. It's place for new bands to share their music and let people to boost them if they're worth it. The playback function is quite nice. It jumps from band to band either with selected genre or within all genres.




Not sure how they are doing, is anyone really buying any stuff from there, but at least it's fresh and different. And works very well in my browser. Only thing I would appreciate is browser extension, so that I wouldn't need to always open that tab to change songs.

Give it a shot: hitlantis.com

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Games are changing the way we behave

Interesting Ted talk about game dynamics being the thing for this decade. Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world:



I've seen this happening for some time already, so it's not really a new thing. 2002-2004 I used to play Hattrick for a long time and it totally changed my week schedules. There was something specific for each day, but main days where Wednesday as practice/cup match and Saturdays for league matches. That's what Seth is really talking about, how games change people.

Update: They totally nailed it. Consumer promises in tes..

Now they came back to me, only couple of hours after working time in Germany had started. They said to be really sorry about what had happened, and promised to send new one right away. Then they asked me to sort out how much it would pay to send package from Finland to Germany and tell them.

Wanderer: Consumer promises in test, faulty product delivere...: "I am quite heavy user of webshops. I've ordered lot of different kind of stuff from all over the world. Now for the first I really got my fi..."

That's just beautiful service. I'll update you if this changes, but so far, really exceeded my expectations. Thanks Smoothy!! (http://smoothy-beanbag.com/)

Consumer promises in test, faulty product delivered

I am quite heavy user of webshops. I've ordered lot of different kind of stuff from all over the world. Now for the first I really got my first faulty product.

I ordered from Smoothy (from Germany) about month ago bean bag for kids and it was so excellent, I decided to order another one. It came yesterday and it's surface had couple of big scratches and bag was about half as full as the previous one.

I'm not upset yet, I understand that mistakes happen, but now it's the time this company is really valued. They have in their website these promises on quality and money back guarantee and other customer focused grap. Let's now see how they really walk the talk.

This is the point I'm either gona start promoting or dismissing them. I really loved the first bean bag, so hope that they serve me well.

Finally some explanation to me who I am as wanderer

From http://www.llresearch.org/wanderer.aspx

"What is a wanderer? Some wanderers are ETs who have come from elsewhere to planet Earth for this incarnation or at this time. Many other wanderers are earth natives who have matured spiritually to the point of awakening to their metaphysical identity, thereby making the worldly identity less real, and creating the sense of being a stranger in a strange land." 

...

"If you feel you are a wanderer, an alien, an outsider to planet Earth, or if you feel Earth is no longer your native land simply because you have awakened from the planetary dream, L/L Research has three things to tell you (click on each link for more information):

1. You are loved.
2. You are not alone.
3. You have service to perform for planet Earth.

Thanks for listening! Hang in there, and don’t let the wanderer’s blues get you down for long! The service of a lightworker is sometimes a difficult service to offer, as it requires our being incarnate on planet Earth, but it is well worth the sacrifice. Cast your deep mind back, and recapture that feeling you had before incarnation when all was so much clearer. All of us wanderers were eager to come and serve. This is our moment to do so, this brief time of living and being part of Earth. May we serve together with beauty, style, grace and joy."

This explains why I sometimes feel like an outsider :)

How's that for marketing - You've been selected to 50 person focus group

Couple days ago I got a call from my cable TV operator Elisa. I've has some fights with them in last couple months. Now they had selected me for a special 50 person focus group to try out their new services.

That sound nice, finally something good from them for a change, I thougth. Women in the phone started to explain that you'll get about 30 channels free for 2 months.. and then you only have to pay for 6 months !!

I almost lost words. 50 person focus group my ass.. It was just really really pathetic marketing. They gave first good impression, but then came out with horrible offer. I can't even think of any ways to do it worse.

I think this the worst marketing I've ever faced. Total waste of my and the callers time.

Book I read: Rework (by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson)

These guys in 37 signals have really made up something special. They have succeeded with many different products, books and many other. Now they are revealing bits of their working style and mindset with this book.

Style of the book is a bit arrogant. I guess that's the purpose since it brings many contradictory thoughts compared to main stream ways of doing business. They're message is to quit the bullshit and concentrate on things that makes you and your customers happy. They're message is that good user experience is the way to beat your opponents.

They also see growing too fast as a danger for complicating things and not as mandatory action for businesses to survive. They're hiring policy is really cautious. Their advice is to hire in the last possible moment, when all of your are just too damn busy to make something which is absolutely necessary.

I advice to read it to get you thinking. There's some things I didn't agree right away, but that's quite normal. Still I really enjoyed reading it. It's compact, full of good thoughts and some good examples. It gives the finger to many believes in current business making and working habits.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube and the Politics of Authenticity

How Youtube ans other social media have influenced the way we can influence, and how we communicate. It's not about the tools, but how we reveal our via the tools we communicate.

Eyeopener for me. Really worth of watching.

Is it just bad taste or genius? Nestle's Jesus loves KitKat

Nestle, in the middle of social media fight with Greenpeace (Forbes article), made quite controversial campaign to get KitKat some publicity. Check the video if you haven't seen before:



Religious is such personal stuff, that I think Nestle took a big risk in making this campaign. I bet there are lot of angry people out there after seeing this was a stunt. For many, I believe they'll never get to notice it was a trick by Nestle.

Still it worked really well, KitKat got lot of attention on media. Somehow I feel it genius, but there's some side on me saying.. come on, you shouldn't use jesus to advertise candy bars. Can't really decide.

What do you think?

Book I read: Who moved my cheese

Easy reading book about dealing with change. It talks about change with 4 fictional characters chasing the cheese in a maze. Basic message is the same than in other stuff which talks about dealing with change, change is inevitable, select how you deal with it.

I admit, I have a tendency to sometimes overanalyse things, so it was good reminder to me that just go with it could be an options also.

What I will remember from this book for a longer time is question "What would you do if you were not afraid?" That's a good question, I guess any of us could ask once in a while when dealing with changes. Still admitting or even noticing that you are scared of something might not be that easy.

As it is such an easy and short one to read, I definitely recommend to read it.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Couple of reasons you might not want to move Finland after all

Newsweek listed Finland to be the number one country in the world (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html) and I know there are many people packing their stuff and moving to Finland right away. I wanted to give you couple of insights which might make you change your mind still.

First and most important, if you are enthusiastic sportsman, you should know this in advance. There will be lot of last minute disappointments for Finnish athletes and teams. Maybe the most famous one is losing to Sweden 2003 in hockey WC in quarter finals after leading 5-1. You can check the pain from here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ckaCuFfBzA.

There are other good examples. Like Finnish ski jumping national team losing Olympics gold metal with 0,1 points (smallest possible gap) in Salt Lake city. One good one is when Hungary tied in last minute with one of the funniest goals ever made. Win would have taken Finland to WC qualifying. Here's video about that one also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT-q65Qjy1M.

And there are lot more. Just last week my birth town team lost their continuation in Europa league after leading 3-0 after first period. (http://fin.worldfootball.net/spielbericht/europa-league-qual-2010-2011-3-runde-fc-timisoara-mypa-kouvola/liveticker/#redirect)

So to put it short, if you are sports fanatic and don't have good nerves, just don't come.

Second thing is, if you don't like people complaining about the weather, don't come. That's utmost the most important topic to discuss. There are about 10 days in a year when people think weather is fine.

Couple of those are in April-May when there's around 15-20 and spring has started. Then there might be some good days around Juhannus (mid-summer festival) and then in August when there's again some 25 celsius and it's not too hot or cold. Final ones are Feb-March when there's some snow in the ground, days are getting longer and there's only -5 celcius.

All the other time it's either too cold, windy, rainy, snowy, dark, hot, sunny or something else. You will see how good we are finding reasons to complain about the weather. It's kinda of a hobby to all Finns.

These two are the most important ones I would say.

Facebook posts I hate

I bet there's hundreds of these types of lists already existing, but still here's mine. There are certain type of facebook updates i really hate.

1. Ridlles
These updates which doesn't really tell anything, but are there to tease and make people ask questions. Those are just annoying way to try to people interested about someone. If you have something to say, just say it!

2. Repeatition
You know these updates, Again goint to work.. going to work.. going to work. Week after week same update. OK, maybe that's the only thing happening in someone's life, but it's just so boring..

3 Gooooaalll.....
Someone is watching some games or sports in TV and then have urgent need to tell about every fucking goal and happening to all friends in FB.

Anything else come to your mind?

How looks of a brand was changed in a day - Old spice guy

Month ago, when word Old spice would have come up, I would immediately think of older men, who have put bit too too much fragrance in morning. No offense to Old spice users, but that's just how I did see the brand still month ago.
Then end of last month they pulled a trick from their pocket and gathered group of social media and advertising experts together and launched new "campaign" in YouTube and Twitter etc. First ads were funny and got lot of views on the web, but when they started to answer with video commercials to tweets almost real time, then they really hit the spot.

Here's one for example:


These ads worked at least for me. Next time I'm searching for new fragrance, I at least will check Old Spice out.

If you wanna know more how they worked it out, there's and article in ReadWriteWeb on it: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_old_spice_won_the_internet.php  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Worst decicion of Fifa 2010 - Fifa stopped showing replays of unclear situations

There came couple of referee errors in the early phase of the games and Fifa reacted to those immediately. They made ridiculous decision of not to show replays for unclear situations. So what actually happened was, that when something interesting happened, you couldn't see a replay if TV.

When there was a tackle and it looked liked someone might have faked and dived, replay didn't come. When it actually hit someone, then there was a replay showing that. Same happened with offsides. If there was an offside which wasn't blown, there wasn't a replay. For correct calls replay was always shown. And this list extends to playing with hand, tearing and corner and free kick hassles.

Someone in Fifa might have had the idea, that people are so stupid, that if we don't show the replay they don't notice there was an error. They hugely underestimate capabilities of football fans. Referee errors are part of the game and all possible replays should be shown. That's part of the excitement.

Biggest problem with this decision is that now the Oscar nominees of football will not be exposed to viewers. Fifa decided to reward the guys who can trick the referees the most. Only real way forward would be to show all the acted stuff happening in the field and let people to judge those. No one really likes those actors and if football fans would really properly see who are the worst actors in the field, they would start to hate those. That would eventually start to affect to the game. Take Premier league as an example, there those guys who fall too easily are not appreciated at all and there you don't see that much acted falls.

Best what Fifa could now do would be that they would make statistics with videos of referee errors and faked falls and let the people to learn and judge themselves. Organisation as flexible as Fifa, I don't really believe this happening.

Day my dad joined Facebook

I knew this day would come some time, but still I wasn't properly prepared. My dad joined Facebook and asked to be friends with me (of course). I'm quite knowledgeable of my privacy, so my concerns are not about there being inappropriate material about me on FB, but something else.

I really love my parents and think they are great. Still I've somehow thought that FB and others are my private area :) I get this teenish feeling that parents shouldn't be doing the same stuff I do. Or at least liking it. I get this feeling that somehow dad is watching me. Truth may be that my dad couldn't care less about what I'm posting there. I do have kids of my own and I should understand that parents can have life too, but I don't. Something just doesn't feel right. Generations just shouldn't mix like that. Damn Facebook.

Maybe I just need to let go. Maybe I can continue using the service as I'm used to. Maybe the problem is just me and how I wanna overanalyse things. Maybe it's just about me trying to control too much. Maybe I can get over it. Maybe this is the way world will go.

One thing for sure, it's been the friend request that made me think the most. There's many "friends" I barely know or care, but those are still easy to accept or ignore. I guess what makes this so hard is the fact I care. I guess at the end I just need to go and accept the invitation. It's too much of problem, if I don't and try to explain why.

I promise here, that I won't do the same for my daughters. I'll let them to invite me their online social networks if they like, I'll never invite them. Luckily that time is not there yet. Some years still to wait.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Music, my day saver

Didn't get that much sleep last night due to my newborn baby and FIFA 2010. This morning I was in this bad mood which happens easily when I don't sleep enough. After surviving breakfast and other, I finally got in to my car.

I stopped for a second to think that this shouldn't be the way to start the day. There must be a way to turn the day around. I plugged my phone to car stereos and started go through my music collection to find something to cheer me up. I picked upped something that I know has made me smile previously (new Katy Perry) and started the way to work.

It really works. Music has lot of impact to mood. I bet there are studies about this, but at least my own experience is that this works. When I'm heading to play some sports, I have music to get to me prepared, when I want to concentrate at work, there's a music for that also.

I'm just happy that I was able to turn my morning around. Maybe the Finnish morning sun had some effect too..

World cup time!!

It's nice to be a Finn at World cup time. We've never made to play the games, so you can just enjoy the games without this stress about how well your team is playing.

What I've always done is to pick up the teams that plays the pretties football and have the most interesting players and live through the matches with those favorite teams. This kind of gives this little feeling to matches, but still you are not that disappointed if your selected team doesn't win.For me this is perfect way to enjoy the games.


I haven't received my sport magazine for this week with hopefully the world cup extra, but with first look here's my favorite's:

Netherlands - Just due the players with amazing attacking capabilities like Sneijder and Robben.

Chile - Haven't seen any of their games, but stories tell that there will be happening a lot when these guys play.

Spain - Winner candidate number one in my paper.


Argentina - Amazing players, "amazing"coach. Anything from disaster to finals.

Whole Group G - Toughest group plus North-Korea which no one knows much. All games can be really interesting.

Eagerly waiting for kick off.

Facebook, Ning, Grou.ps...

I've been following quite closely this discussion about Facebook privacy controls and people quitting and thinking about quitting Facebook. I have to admit I'm one of those who would like to really control what part of my web me is visible to all and what is to only my friends.

For me Facebook is kind of a collection of people who I've bumbed into during the years. There's a people as "my friends" who in real life I might not even say hi, since I've not seen them for a so long time.

What has happened few times is, that someone is asking to accept me to be their friend and I really don't recognise from their name that who is this person. Then the next thing I do is, check mutual friends, and from that list I often realise what is the context I should this person. And often I do accept the invitation. For me, Facebook really isn't that personal.

With my offline life friends we have set our own social network. First it was in Ning, but then they decided to ask money for it, so we change to Grou.ps. I think this excellent setup, then I do have lot more of control with whom I share what. I truely recommend to give Grou.ps a try if you are fed up with facebook privacy changing every month.

Latest trend - letting others know your credit card usage

In short time I've run in to 2 different services which offers it's users possibility to share their credit card purchases with your friends. Those are Swipely and Blibby

Eventhough I'm always thinking about security, somehow this service makes sense. Social media's are going to direction that people want to let others know about every step they take, so this makes it even easier.

Cool kids and wannabes can try let every one easily know that they are visiting hippy places or buying cool stuff.

Let's see how this takes off, but I would guess quite well.

Here's ad from Swipely:


Swipely from Swipely on Vimeo.

Web reputation as currency

I happened to run in to Whuffie bank (http://thewhuffiebank.org/). It's an interesting idea of earning currency (Whuffie) by being active in  social media. It currently supports only Twitter. Somehow it feels like quite an "american idea" of more is better, but still it got me thinking that could it actually work.

Easy way to say someone have influence for example in Twitter is to look at amount of followers. Still in current days, it's so damn easy to start "following" someone, but then discard everything from this same person, if you are not interested. I atleast am not that active Twitter user and I atleast miss most of the stuff people are tweeting about.

Whuffie tries to tackle this problem by counting how much people re-tweets someone's posts. Whuffie has also some balancing factors that those who tweet too often or always just re-tweets would get lower score, but overall it's about who story is being told forward.

Reputation as "free-ticket" has so far been the privilidge of actors, athletes and other celebrity. Now this tries to bring the same to social media actives. Also this tries to bring reputation as a visible number. It's ultimate way of saying I'm cool and you're not. I wouldn't be wondered if you could soon buy (with real money) someone to retweet you and get your whuffle number up.

Maybe I'm too pessimistic to see it actually work as a currency, but certainly it will work as indication who are influencers in social media and who are not. Also, I could easily see that for people with high Whuffiebank balance, will be asked to try out many cool stuff, so that they could make it viral if it is good.

I guess I need to get the book the idea came from to understand it bit better: Cory Doctorow - Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

About Daniel Pink's - A Whole new mind

I read like half a year ago Dan Pink's - Whole new mind.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it's an excellent book. It is seems to be mentioned in all top business book charts. Still I don't think it's only a business book. It does talk about work life and business, but it has lot of ideas for life outside of work also.

What amazes me, is that I keep coming back and back to the thoughts on it. I have started to realise that many of the people and the companies I see as someone to admire, do have many of capacities Dan presents in his book.

These are the six senses from the book, but maybe those don't open properly without reading the book itself:

   1. Design - Moving beyond function to engage the sense.
   2. Story - Narrative added to products and services - not just argument. Best of the six senses.
   3. Symphony - Adding invention and big picture thinking (not just detail focus).
   4. Empathy - Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and intuition.
   5. Play - Bringing humor and light-heartedness to business and products.
   6. Meaning - the purpose is the journey, give meaning to life from inside yourself.
  
I think these are nothing new really. It's just first time I see someone to put those in such a good order with proper reasonings. I've even really tried to take these as my guideline for work and life from the moment i read this one.

Only bad thing about the book I have to say, is that it has too many interesting exercises :) It would be so nice to try out many more than the ones I've tried so far.

Happy reading

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen