Finland?s
SixDegrees
english language magazine
BORDERLESS
FRIENDSHIP
Twin cities
& sister towns
Page 10
KAVILESH
GUP TA
The oil alternative
Page 8
JENNI
vartiainen
Touring the pop scene
Page 25
Nokia
New book details the
declining fortunes of
the Finnish giant
Page 18
Issue 4/2014 www.6d.fi
24.04.2014?21.05.2014
Infochat is an information service for anyone
planning to move from outside Finland to the
Capital Region, immigrants already living here and
everybody who is interested in Helsinki, Espoo,
Kauniainen and Vantaa.
The service offers information about the services
in the Capital Region and in Finland, as well as
the various alternatives regarding immigration to
Finland. The Infochat service counsellors cannot
solve individual situations, but can inform you
about opportunities and guide you forward.
Koulutuksia
maahanmuuttajille.
Valmistava koulutus, MAVA
? suomen kielen opiskelua, tietoa ammateista
ja koulutuksista, tutustumista suomalaiseen
työelämään ? kesto yksi vuosi ? hakuaika
16.6.?25.7., täytä hakemus opintopolku.fi
Perusopetus
? nuorille ja aikuisille, joilla ei ole peruskoulun
päättötodistusta ? voit kysyä mahdollisia
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Täytä hakemus www.hdo.fi > Hakijalle
Koulunkäynnin ja aamu- ja
iltapäivätoiminnan ohjauksen
ammattitutkinto
? alle 29-vuotias maahanmuuttaja, joka olet
kiinnostunut koulutyöstä ? lisätukea esim. suomen
kielessä ? hakuaika 6.5. saakka ? kielikoe 8.5.
? täytä hakemus www.hdo.fi > Hakijalle
? hakuapua 5.5. klo 12:45-14:15 luokassa 41.
Koulutukset alkavat elokuussa 2014. Opetuskieli on suomi.
www.hdo.fi
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17 ? 30 APRIL 2014
HELSINKI TIMES
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Monthly review
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Advice on public transport routes,
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PO BOX 100, 00077 HSL
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Passengers happy with reliable public transport
Passenger satisfaction with Helsinki region
public transport hit a record high according
to the autumn 2013 survey.
HSL has completed a
draft for a new tram network
HSL has been working on a draft
tram route network plan for 20142024 since last autumn and now
the draft is ready.
In the draft plan, only the routes
of trams 4 and 10 will remain unchanged. In future, tram 1 will run
from Eira to Käpylä, via Töölö,
while the tram 2 route will be extended to Pasila. Tram 3 will continue until Meilahti and a new route
5 will start to serve the Katajanokka terminal.
The route network will cover new
areas when route 6 is first extended from Hietalahti to Telakkaranta
and later to Hernesaari, as well as
routes 7 and 8 from Saukonpaasi to
the West Terminal and route 9 from
Pasila to Ilmala. The changes will
create a tram route network for the
Helsinki city centre that is more efficient than before and makes travelling easier, thanks to frequent service. Services will be more frequent
during the daytime and in the evening, in particular, with some of the
routes designed to improve especially the cross-town traffic.
HSL plans to introduce the changes in phases between 2017-2024.
The draft, which was prepared in
close collaboration with clients, is
currently being circulated among
the HSL member municipalities for
comments.
More information is available on
the HSL website at www.hsl.fi./en.
Passenger satisfaction with
Helsinki region public transport
has been steadily improving in
recent years and hit a record
high according to the autumn
2013 survey. Passengers gave
the HSL area public transport
services an overall score of 4.13
on a scale of 1 to 5.
Some 22,000 passengers responded to the survey, with almost 90 per cent giving public
transport either a good or very
good overall grade. The share
of satisfied passengers has increased by two percentage
points in two years.
The reformed trunk route
550 from Itäkeskus to Westend
received particularly high ratings, with up to 87 per cent of
respondents satisfied with the
service.
In autumn 2013, both open
fare collection and new vehicles were introduced on the
route. Passengers responded
positively to the changes and
Roll along the
roads, not on
public transport!
The spring brings with it also roller-blades, skateboards and bicycles to public transport. Safety
and good manners should, however, be kept in mind when crossing stations or climbing aboard
with a bicycle or a skateboard.
When travelling on public transport, roller-blades must always be
taken off and skateboards carried.
A vehicle forced to brake suddenly may cause a passenger standing on roller blades or a skateboard to lose balance and injure
themselves or other passengers.
Bicycles must always be pushed
and roller-blades and skateboards
carried on Metro stations. Instead
of taking a bicycle on the escalators it should always be transported in a lift.
open fare collection received
positive comments also in the
open-ended section of the survey.
Reliability of
commuter services increased
Passenger satisfaction with
commuter train services also continued to increase. The
respondents found commuter trains reliable and their satisfaction with the smoothness
of travel has clearly improved.
The number of disturbances on commuter trains has decreased.
Passengers are satisfied also with the reliability of tram
and bus services. Satisfaction
with the ease of transfers has
improved on both modes of
transport. Of trains, the A train
from Helsinki to Leppävaara received the highest rating while
tram 4 from Katajanokka to
Munkkiniemi was the tram with
the highest score.
The night
Metro trial
to continue
HSL has decided to extend the late
night Metro trial until the end of
2014. The trial began in November
2013, with the first phase set to run
until the end of June.
The metro will continue to run until approximately 1.30 am on weekend nights for the rest of the year.
The services will run every ten minutes between Ruoholahti and Mellunmäki and every twenty minutes
on the Vuosaari and Mellunmäki
lines.
During the metro operating
hours, the night buses in East Helsinki do not operate the services that normally run only on weekends.
Starters
6
Issue 4 2014
Top 5
I, too, am Finland
things on our
mind this month...
Political quote of the month
?It may be a good idea to step down while there will
still be people asking you why you do it,? said the
Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen in a TV interview about his announcement not to run for (Coalition) party leader this coming summer, effectively
ending his term as PM as well. He, like the rest of
us, is entitled to change jobs.
Get your kicks on Route 66
Finland has one, too. Highway no. 66 runs between
Orivesi and Lapua, via Virrat. Along the road there
are some places of interest to visit and sights to see.
You can get tuned in by listening to the eponymous
Jussi Raittinen song from the ?70s.
Caution advised when handling sharp tools
When spring comes, all different kinds of mechanical gadgets are dug out of storage, to cut firewood
and whatnot. YLE?s health programme Akuutti recently showed that every year many people sustain
hand injuries ? horrible ones, too ? when operating
a circular saw, for example. Full invalidity can be
just one wrong move away.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom?
? because there?s close to no-one there: The Jyväskylä Adult High School offers upper comprehensive-level evening courses for just 70 euros
per study year, but certain courses have to be cut
next year due to lack of students. If someone was
deprived of the opportunity to study French there,
that person might lament: ?C?est la merde.? We?re
glad he won?t. Besides, there would be no-one to
hear him.
?Say it ain?t so, Joe!?
Oh but it is ? the Black Sox are alive. But this does
not mean the end of integrity in baseball, actually
vice versa; unlike the 1919 ?untouchables? in Chicago?s South Side, the 2014 Turku team is not set
out to fix games. They just play baseball at Suomisarja, the second highest tier in Finland
Mika Oksanen
Word on the
street
What does Vappu mean to you?
Noora
A celebration of spring. The big picnic on Vappu
Day in Ullanlinna is an essential part of it. The eve
is not as important to me as the actual day.
Pave
It means having fun and enjoying the spring. I
celebrate it with my friends, mostly on Vappu Eve.
We go somewhere outside if the weather is nice.
Sari
A traditional carnival and a big party. I?ve got kids,
so buying balloons is important for them. The
Vappu Day is the main day for us. We live near
Hakaniemi Market where the communist parade
starts and we always go there to see it.
Laura
It doesn?t have a great meaning to me. Just having
fun and celebrating with friends. It?s an opportunity
to wear your matriculation cap or a fancy dress.
The original meaning of Vappu probably means
more to older people than to people my age.
Milla
A day off, that?s what it means to me more than
anything. I don?t really have any traditions for
Vappu or think about the reasons behind the
celebration.
Compiled by Mari Storpellinen.
We,all,
areFinland
Yannick Ilunga
I
T ALL started in the most common way: with a drink at the bar.
?Julie and I started to talk about the I, too, am Oxford initiative
and contemplated the idea of bringing it to Finland? says Meg
Sakilayan-Latvala. ?We really liked the strong message it was
bringing forward and how efficiently it was exposing everyday vexations done to people considered as ?outsiders?,? adds Julie Breton.
Coincidentally, as Sakilayan-Latvala and Breton were about to
launch the I, too, am Finland blog, they were interviewed by a radio show that was discussing the topic of racism during the Week
Against Racism (15-23 March). What could have been a great opportunity to share their idea with others, however, ended up being
something different.
?Even though we have expertise on the issue from our studies
and work experience, we were only asked to talked about our own
experience with racism,? recalls Julie. ?But since we are not as affected as other people with different backgrounds, we ended up
discounting the experience of those who really face racism on a
regular basis.?
After overcoming the disappointment and the initial series of
?what if ? questions that came to their minds, Julie and Meg set up
the blog. ?We decided that we just had to start the campaign and
see where that would lead us,? says Meg. ?So we started the blog by
posting our own pictures with a message.?
Julie and Meg were a little concerned that their initiative would
generate criticism and they would receive a lot of negative com-
ments?but they were in for a nice surprise. In fact, the blog turned
out to be well-liked by the dozens of people that started participating and uploaded their own pictures and messages.
?What was supposed to be a place where ethnic minorities? daily
issues could be brought into the spotlight turned into a love letter
to Finland!? Julie adds.
Even though the focus was on the topic of immigrants and racism, Julie and Meg wanted the initiative to be open to all, rather
than being an ?immigrants-only? website.
?I, too, am Finland is all about people expressing the sense of belonging to society,? says Sakilayan-Latvala. ?People don?t have to
be Finnish citizens, or speak fluent Finnish for them to be able to
claim that they too have a place in Finland.?
Only time will tell where I, too, am Finland will go, but what is
certain, is that the number of people that are sharing their messages
is growing day after day. ?We want this conversation to continue,?
concludes Meg. ?It?s not a one-week wonder, rather a very crucial
question that might be key to the future of Finland.?
Julie concludes with a special message for all foreigners living in
Finland. ?Moving to a new country is a challenge and a process
that continues for years. Sometimes, it can happen to feel alone or
powerless, but it gets better! With I, too, am Finland you can be part
of the change. Add your voice to the conversation!?
The ?I, too, am Finland? blog can be found at:
itooamfinland.tumblr.com
Finnish After Dark
Learning the Finnish they don?t teach in school
Finnish: Putki/putki päällä
A BL E
AVAIL ATED
NO W
TR
ILLUS
AS AN ERBACK ! tores
PAP jor books
a
/fad
rom m
.6d.fi
Buy f line: www
or on
English Equivalent: The pipe or the tap is on
Putki means ?pipe?, but when the pipes are open, you aren?t as much in need of a plumber as a barman. Or perhaps an intervention,
as having the pipes open suggests you have forgotten how to have stop drinking ? and are laying on the ground with an open keg
pointing in the general direction of your mouth. Surprising as it may be that Finnish has a negative term about drinking ? this is
probably about as close as it gets!
?
?
?
Jussia ei oo näkyny vähään aikaan? Onks tietoo, mitä sille kuuluu?
Mä kuulin, et sillä on jääny putki päälle.
Hitto! Se on kans sellanen tyyppi, jonka ei pitäis koskee viinaan ollenkaan!
?
?
?
I haven?t seen Jussi for ages?have you heard how he?s doing?
I heard he?s had the pipes open recently.
Really? He really is that kind of guy who just shouldn?t touch the sauce at all!
David Brown and Mimmu Takalo
SixDegrees
Starters
7
SixDegrees
Airing immigrant
Tell me about your
city...
?
views in Finland
Radio UusJussi celebrates
one year of broadcasting
across the country.
Amberg!
Harald909
Pilar Díaz
Sherrif Jawo (R) and Yana Herrala.
R
adio UusJussi, an online radio for immigrants located in Pori,
is celebrating its first anniversary on air this year. Packed with
programmes about culture, language and businesses, the radio emerged from the Multicultural Association of Satakunta with
the objective of giving immigrants the opportunity to voice their
opinions and express their culture.
?Information has always been flowing from one direction to the
immigrants and most of them felt left out,? explains project coordinator Sherrif Jawo. ?Through our programming we assist immigrants to easily integrate into their new home, Finland.?
Radio UusJussi?s programmes are in Finnish, English and Russian, but they also have one in Arabic from time to time. Their
audience is mainly settled in Finland, but they also have listeners
from Gambia (Jawo?s home country), Tanzania, Nicaragua, the
United States, Russia and United Kingdom.
Yes,
Jawo is especially interested in the feedback they receive from
their listeners, which makes them improve their work. ?It guides
us and it?s always good to have a second or even a third opinion.
We are always welcoming ideas from our listeners. If we think the
idea is going to be helpful to people, then we start working on it.?
Radio UusJussi is funded mainly by the SOLID fund, a European
Fund for the Integration of third country nationals, but they also
receive funding from a number of different Finnish ministries,
such as the Ministry of Culture.
Jawo and Yana Herrala are the only two workers at the online station, the rest of the team are volunteers. However, they are willing
to expand the languages of their programmes some more.
?We are looking for a volunteer who speaks Spanish; it?d be great
to have a programme in Spanish,? Jawo says.
Helsinki is
Pilar Diáz
Ihana! s
James O?Sullivan
Ihana Helsinki
The Ihana Helsinki flower exhibition for schools and day cares at the
Forum shopping centre in 2012. This will be organised once again this
year.
taged for the third year in row, a range of shopping centres,
boutiques, restaurants, museums and many other operators
in the centre of Helsinki are celebrating Ihana Helsinki during the month of May. Translated as ?Lovely Helsinki?, the event
seeks to officially open the door to spring and summertime by
decorating and taking over Helsinki with flowers and also presenting a versatile and interesting programme.
Amidst the festivities is the Shopping Night on Thursday 15
May, where organisers hope to give the flagging economy a
boost by keeping shops? doors open until midnight. Elsewhere,
Saturday 17 May sees a special day for children and families
being held. More information about events can be found from
the website.
Lovely Helsinki ? City Festival 2014
www.ihanahelsinki.com
HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW spring IN FINNISH?
1
1. rain
2. kite
3. garden
2
3
4
4. seed
5
5. butterfly
6. bird
6
7. flower
7
8. worm
8
9. umbrella
9
10. sun
11. picnic
W
hen I asked Tanja Pfeifle,
an exchange student at the
University of Helsinki, to tell me
about her city, Amberg, she described it as ?a small and typical
Bavarian town.?
Amberg is indeed a small town with almost 1,000 years of
history, which you can see in its buildings and the old town.
However, despite its small size, Amberg is also a lively town
where you can enjoy different events through the year. ?I would
recommend to come in July when the Altstadtfest takes place,
because you can listen to several bands playing live music all
over the town,? says Pfeifle.
You can also visit the Mariahilfbergfest in summer, which
offers the visitor the opportunity to experience the local
gastronomy, such as bratwurst (grilled sausages) and, of
course, beer! But, if you are a beer lover, you can?t miss the
Kirwa, ?a little Oktoberfest?, and visit one of the breweries of
the town.
After getting spoiled with all these Bavarian specialties, you
will have plenty of energy to go hiking to the Upper Palatinate
forest, or take a bike and enjoy the modern network of cycle
paths that connects Amberg to Nuremberg and Regensburg.
But if you are too tired or lazy to do any exercise during your
holidays, you can also relax in one of the two swimming
pools Amberg has (one of them is open-air), or cool off in the
summer days with a swim in one of the many lakes that are
situated in the region.
Anytime during the year is good for visiting the town though.
Even if wintertime in Amberg isn?t as cold as it is in Finland,
it usually snows there too. During the coldest days, Pfeifle
suggests to visit the Christmas market and drink Glühwein (hot
wine) to warm up and get into the Christmas spirit.
Your visit may continue with a stroll in the city town, which
is very nice since ?there are some gothic-style buildings and
it?s in a really good condition, especially the city wall and the
Stadtgraben.? Then you can go up to Mariahilfberg, from where
you will enjoy a beautiful view over the town, and visit the
luftmuseum afterwards.
Among the touristic sights Amberg has to offer, one can
go to the Stadttheater, a theatre that is accommodated in a
former church and which programme includes extraordinary
performances and concerts. But if you really cherish ancient
charm, you should definitely visit the Eh?häusl (marriage
house) or even stay there during your trip, do you want to know
its story? ?In the 18th century there was a law that only people
who have a house were allowed to marry, so someone built
that Eh?häusl, which was sold from one couple to another so
that everyone could marry.? Nowadays it is the smallest hotel
in the world!
So, for those who love beer, culture, music and tourism
surrounded by nature... Willkommen in Amberg !
10
11
Test your knowledge of Finnish vocabulary by using the local equivalent.
Puzzle by Eva Peltonen. Solutions on page 25.
Contact james@6d.fi if you
want to share the inside word
on your town.
We Met
8
Issue 4 2014
oil
Kavilesh Gupta sees that biofuel is a viable option for Finland?s
future, but acknowledges it will not solve the problem once global
demand for oil outweighs supply.
Text James O?Sullivan, images Tomas Whitehouse.
W
HILE the world grapples with overpopulation and its subsequent drain on resources, oil
continues its dominance in people?s everyday lives. But what happens when the oil dries
up? How to implement strategies that offer viable alternatives? How economical is each
option?
Grappling with this issue is Indian Kavilesh Gupta. Having arrived in Finland nine years ago, recently he took a detour from his day job as a seasoned IT specialist and commenced studying the oil
industry. Before long he graduated in global oil & gas management, strategy and finance, ?the most
capital intensive industry in the world?.
However, this latest was in a long line of successes for Gupta. Currently working for Atos and having
worked for Tieto, he was the first non-Finn ever to grace the cover of a business magazine, when he
appeared on the cover of Fakta in July 2010.
But, it?s oil that has his attention these days, in particular biofuels, and the positive potential for the
alternative to oil in Finland.
With the blooming Finnish spring outside contrasting with the dust and bustle of his hometown
Delhi, the conversation begins with the country he left behind 14 years ago, following his business
pursuits to the US, the UK and then here to northern Europe.
You are very passionate about your home country, India. What brought you to Finland in the
first place?
I was working for a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in India. They first sent me to the US for three
years back in 2000, and from there I was sent to the UK. I did not like it there, so I asked my boss for
a transfer and he suggested Finland. I said yes, and then immediately went to have a look on the map
where exactly Finland was. My wife and daughter said it is too far, but we said we would try.
I liked it, my wife liked it and my daughter loves it. We are settled and have our own home. My wife
and daughter, even though they are of Indian origin, they both hold a Finnish passport. I still hold an
Indian passport.
What aspects of the culture have you embraced here, making it easier to settle down?
It wasn?t really easy, but it?s not that tough either. The best thing is that the acceptability is good overall.
That is the good part of being here. There are certain things that are different. No doubt about it. This
happens in every society. If I had my way I would definitely make Finns more risk averse; they should
be more willing to take risks compared to other nationalities. American?s are ready to go for a project if
they have 80 per cent surety. Swedes will go at 90 per cent. But Finns want 99 per cent. By the time you
reach 99 per cent the world has already tried it, and you have to go for version two.
The second thing is that this country needs to be more on the marketing side. For instance, a neighbouring country like Sweden has marketed itself so well. Finland has many great things, but telling
their good stuff to the outside world is absent.
I like living here, I like the country?s people and infrastructure; people are simple and have yet created one of the most developed nations in the world. When it comes to the long winter, I?m fine with
-27 degrees Centigrade, as you can put another jacket. The national infrastructure is equipped for that
sort of thing. But, it?s too long: six months of going through that grind. I wish winter could be a little
shorter. There are three types of weather in Finland. One is very cold, another is biting cold, the third
one is devilishly cold. You have a choice on a platter ? take your pick.
During your time here in Finland you have developed your understanding of the oil industry.
What interests you so much you about oil?
It?s not something that will keep coming. It is finite. It is something that mankind will need, at least for
the next few decades. While there are theories that the US has found so much shale oil that now they
can become a net exporter instead of a net importer, I believe that the demand of oil in China and India will be so high, that shale oil will not be able to take care of it. The growth in demand there is going
to be greater than the supply growth here. This commodity will always be in demand.
The countries that have oil have the way forward. Otherwise you are depending on someone. For
instance, in India, 30 per cent of India?s import bill is oil. Imagine if they didn?t import oil, and that 30
per cent runs into many, many billions of euros that can be put elsewhere. India is country where there
is little oil production. Locally, in Norway, they have so much exploration and production capability.
We Met
9
SixDegrees
They were lucky to find oil in the ?60s and this changed the face of
the nation. They are one of the largest sweet crude oil producing
countries; the economy is built on oil. This doesn?t apply to Finland
or Sweden. Even Denmark does not produce all its oil. That helps
in the national wealth creation. It?s not here in Finland.
Therefore, countries are now getting in the act of finding alternate fuels. When you find alternate fuels, you have to find a reason
why someone should use it: it?s green, less carbon emission, global climate change, etc. But, on the other hand, I feel you should
talk about growing the economy as well. This is the reason I feel
that when going forward, oil is going to be the key to the economy.
It has always been. Many wars have been fought because of oil.
Whether someone acknowledges it or not is a different issue.
Which wars are you referring to?
The saying is that for the Iraq war, there could be some reason related to oil. Look at Libya, one of the wealthiest nations in terms of
oil. Just yesterday I was reading that because of the Libya tragedy,
oil production stopped as there was a glut in the African market.
Now that Libya is getting back on track, the market is looking better. Look at Venezuela. They have too much oil. They have the
world?s largest reserves of bitumen: a highly viscous form of petroleum that needs more processing. They are enemies of many countries because they have oil. This is the curse of having oil. There are
countries like Chad, Cameroon, Angola, which have oil. But these
are the countries that are known for the ?curse of oil?. They are not
able to utilise their national wealth for the welfare and development
of their own society. Rather, the presence of oil acts as a dampener
to their economic growth. The wealth is limited to some people
and is not accessible to all. For example, with Norway, they utilised
their oil wealth for the development of the nation.
Are we running out of oil?
There is a concept called peak oil. It means the point at which the
highest petroleum production level of oil is reached and after which
rate of global oil production will enter a terminal decline Whether
that point has been reached or not, it?s not yet known. Some people
say it has already been reached. This is one of the basic theories
which says the amount of oil is finite. The second theory is that
the quality of available oil is declining, meaning the new oil being
discovered is more heavy and sour. The quality of oil is measured
in terms of what we call sweet/sour and light/heavy crude oil. We
need a lot more processing power in the refineries if the crude oil is
heavy and sour. Companies will have to invest.
The whole oil economy is linked to the big companies like Shell,
ExxonMobil, Chevron Texaco and BP that are really investing in
the finding of oil. Over the past five years these countries have put
in excess of 100 billion dollars to discovering oil. When you find
oil, it?s not just important that you find it, but it is more important
that you find it and extract it at today?s price. For example, at today?s price oil is 106 dollars per barrel. But if you find oil and the
resources required for its extraction and production shoot the price
up to 130 dollars per barrel, who?s going to buy it? You need to produce oil at today?s price, at a price that people will buy it.
The shale oil presence and concept in the US was known even in
the 1960s. Everybody knew there was oil in shale, but there was no
technology at the time to extract the oil. These technologies, like
horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing become available now,
so that we have oil available at today?s price. In the 1960s there was
no way to extract that oil. The whole point is that yeah, there could
be oil, but how can you get it at the right price?
You can also talk about biofuels, but will there come a time where
every car will be using only biofuel? I don?t think so.
Why is that?
You must understand when you put biofuel into a car from a gas
station, it?s not 100 per cent biofuel. Something like 10 per cent of
biofuel is mixed-in regular diesel, in order to reduce the carbon
emission and increase the octane power of the fuel. You never have
100 per cent biofuel. While it is a great lead to some economic activities, there?s currently not a lot of investment opportunities with
biofuel. It is nice to have, but it may take a few years to pick up.
The legislators in Finland should push for biofuel. Unless there is
a will from the government to create a biofuel roadmap that says
we have to be using a certain percentage of biofuel by a particular
year, it will not pick up on its own. When you go fill up your gas
tank, tell me, do you go to a gas station that sells biofuel, or do you
even care about it? Would you especially drive to find that biofuel?
I don?t have a car, but if I did I would go by price.
Exactly.
So, in terms of biofuels, what will bring the price down and
make it more competitive in future?
Biofuel is not even aiming to be in the lower price segment. It is
aiming at the segment where the consumer says that he or she is
contributing towards lower carbon emission. Biofuel advocates
are talking about the bigger picture: ?let us contribute towards a
greener environment.?
But are these steps towards generating a profit?
The companies that have adopted biofuels as their strategy are taking steps towards generating a differentiation. If you see the oil industry, you play with two kinds of strategy normally. Either you say
?my product is the cheapest?, or you say ?my product is different?,
and you charge a premium. Either you play on price or you play on
differentiation.
In the oil industry there is no differentiation in the final product
like gasoline and diesel, which goes to the consumers. That is the
reason why if you look at the financial statements of all refineries,
they all focus on and are measured by investors and analysts on a
metric called return on capital employed (ROCE). The strategy is
how do you ensure that your operating costs come down. The big
companies are constantly investing in technology to bring down
the cost. But for biofuel, it is not just the lower production cost
which is the attraction. Companies are working on biofuel as an
alternative fuel and to create something that is good and green
for the environment. Neste Oil, which is world?s largest renewable
diesel producing refinery, also had its NEXBTL renewable diesel,
based on the company?s own technology, named the most groundbreaking Finnish business innovation of the new millennium in a
survey by the financial magazine, Talouselämä.
There are companies that have adopted biofuel as their core
growth strategy. UPM is opening the first biorefining plant in the
world in Lappeenranta in the summer. The company that makes
paper has decided to get into energy, biorefining. They are now
investing close to 150 million euros and are doing it because their
core industry produces the raw material that will be used as the
input here. Instead of crude oil, the feed stock here is the waste of
living things. They are using it to create a differentiation, saying
that here is an alternative fuel. But can that take care of the world?s
global energy needs? Not necessarily so. There is no definite answer to this question right now.
?T
he fear that oil can
become a scarce
commodity is
already changing the
behaviour of people.?
Currently, there?s a lot of scepticism surrounding the whole
concept of alternate fuel sources to fossil fuels. How
probable is being able to replace something like oil with
an alternate fuel source? At the moment it appears the
technology is underdeveloped and insignificant compared to
the planet?s consumption of oil.
85 per cent of our energy demand comes from fossil fuels. What does
that fossil fuel mean? Coal and oil. The remaining 15 per cent is nuclear energy, hydro energy, wind power, things like that. Still the world
is 85 per cent dependant on fossil fuels. It is not so easy or not such a
quick process to develop technologies that can become an alternative
to the 85 per cent. In 50 years we?ve only been able to create 15 per cent
of energy that isn?t fossil fuels. Therefore, getting rid of fossil fuels is not
something that is foreseeable in the near future. Maybe 50 years down
the line there is something else, but not now, no way.
The whole planet?s population has been raised on the
production of oil. It is responsible for so many things we take
for granted.
Exactly, we don?t even realise how much is created by oil.
Let?s say tomorrow it ran out and there was no more oil, or
the oil became a scarce fuel source, there would be lots
of things such as certain foods and medicine missing that
people rely on.
The fear that oil can become a scarce commodity is already changing the behaviour of people. The oil price is rising. For example, in
late ?60s it was something near 3-4 dollars a barrel. Unthinkable.
It was cheaper than milk today. In July 2008 it was 147 dollars a
barrel.
In countries like India and China it is not the price of oil that is a
barrier to using oil, but it is the price of an automobile. In India, the
Tata group came out with a car called Nano. At the time it was introduced it cost 2,000 dollars. Nowhere in the world was there a real car
with four wheels that runs well and you can put a family of four into
it. Now maybe it costs 2,500 dollars. Tata group got the innovation
award of the year for introducing the car. People are ready to fill up
their gas tank in these countries, but the availability of the car is the
barrier. Because of the rise in the oil price, the changes and innovations of lifestyle are taking place. You are already seeing it in the US;
those SUVs that used to guzzle gasoline have gone down in demand.
Even Americans now look for efficient cars, as price is important.
Consumption is growing in the developing areas of the world.
This will outweigh the production on the other side. That is the
crux of the whole theory. This will happen some day. If you look
at countries that depend too much on oil like Saudi Arabia, now
they have started using their own oil to produce electricity, which
they were not always doing. The biggest producers of oil are also
becoming consumers of oil. Which means there is more and more
demand that is rising. But ask them if they are using biofuel to produce it ? no way. They can?t, they don?t have alternative energy.
There?s a lot of controversy regarding whether the predicted
amount of oil resources left on the planet are accurate. You?ve
got large sources of oil, where the oil makers, like in Saudi
Arabia, are actually looking to offshore drilling, which is less
cost effective and less efficient. Then there?s all the trouble
of trying to drill in the Arctic, which seems even less thought
out. Beforehand these options were swept aside as being too
expensive, yet more and more people are looking to them now.
It makes one think that scarcity is more of an issue than these
companies let on. Is it being hidden away, and are the figures
accurate? Or is it too difficult to quantify at this stage?
Firstly, Arctic drilling has stopped. They pumped billions of dollars
into it and decided to stop. Secondly, if you are an investor and you
want to invest in a refinery, what?s the first financial metric you
look at? It?s the return on capital employed (ROCE). Is the refinery
utilising its capital in the right way and getting an acceptable return on it? For an upstream oil company which is into the exploration and production of oil, how does an investor read its financial
statement, to figure out should I put my dollar here or not?
One important metric that upstream oil companies show, and
on which their market capitalisation depends, is the proved oil reserves. Every upstream oil and gas company announces every year
what is their oil reserve and what is their daily production, which
can translate into annual production, hence their total reserve life.
If they don?t find new oil reserves, their total available reserve life
reduces. Every year they have to show that the proved oil reserve is
more. The oil reserve is measured as 1P, 2P and 3P. 1P is the proved
oil reserve the company has. It is proven that there is a 90 per cent
or more certainty of production.
2P means the company has proven and probable oil reserves which
cannot be reported to investors as the probability of production is
about 50 per cent. Then there is 3P, where it is proved plus probable
plus possible, and the recovery factor is less than 10 per cent. But 2P
and 3P are not counted. They are not part of a company?s wealth.
Each company is trying to find and secure more and more proven
reserves. That is the reason why the quest to go to offshore drilling.
It?s a very heavy investment. That?s why small countries like Finland
are not into it. For a country like Finland with a 193-billion-euro
GDP, it may not be wise to invest in oil exploration. These giant international oil companies understand that they need to have an everincreasing amount of oil reserves. The moment they say their proven
oil reserves have gone down, you can see the share prices going down
dramatically. Immediately. Investors will not go in for it.
So, biofuel then becomes an option for countries like Finland
if they are not investing in finding crude oil.
It is an option. The logical reasons for Finland could be lowering
carbon emissions and cleaner traffic. Countries such as Finland
have a very clean environment, compared with other countries. If
you go to Delhi, after four days you will start coughing, or maybe
even on the very first day. But here, it is clean and they want to
maintain it. That is what?s happening. They are talking about sustainability. When you are talking about sustainability one element
is a clean environment. This currently does not apply as much to
China and India. They are not following it as stringently. That is the
biggest challenge. There are zones in China and India where huge
manufacturing takes place. Nobody talks about a cleaner environment out there; they talk about the final product. If everybody
starts thinking in these terms then it?s fine, it?s a level playing field.
But currently not everybody is thinking like that. Finland making
biofuels, selling it in Finland and Europe ? yeah, it?s great, you can
do that. But is it something that?s going to be sustainable in future?
That cannot be decided by Finland alone, it has to be a concerted
effort by the EU. Finland has to push the EU to work out a biofuel
roadmap. This will definitely help Finland because it has the lead.
As of now there is no other biorefining plant in the world except for
the one UPM will soon go into production with. Opening UPM?s
biorefinery in summer this year will be brilliant. It definitely will
put Finland on the global map for very positive reasons.
Date and place of birth: 31 March 1968, Delhi.
Family: Wife and daughter.
Education: Bachelor of science, studied in Indian Institute of
Foreign Trade, certified in global Oil and Gas management,
strategy and finance.
Oil is? something which most or many people should
understand is a commodity that will not come on its own
forever. It?s a commodity which has some limitations in terms
of its availability.
India makes me? proud.
If I wasn?t living in Finland I would? go back to India.
Lifestyle
10
Issue 4 2014
Borderless
friendship:
Twin towns
& sister cities
Some examples of the twin cities
that Finnish municipalities have:
(in brackets, the year when the relationship was formed)
Espoo
Shanghai, China (1998) Køge, Denmark (1970) Nõmme,
Estonia (1993) Esztergom, Hungary (1974) Sauðárkrókur,
Iceland (1984) Kongsberg, Norway (1970) Gatchina, Russia
(1968) Sochi, Russia (1989) Kristianstad, Sweden (1969)
Irving, Texas, United States (1998)
Helsinki
Helsinki doesn?t have formal twin towns, but the city has
selected strategic partners, including Tallinn, St. Petersburg,
Stockholm and Berlin. It also has a ?special partnership
relation? with Beijing and Moscow.
Jyväskylä
Esbjerg Municipality, Denmark (1947) Potsdam, Germany
(1985) Debrecen, Hungary (1970) Fjarðabyggð, Iceland (1958)
Niiza, Japan (1997) Stavanger, Norway (1947) Pozna?, Poland
(1974) Yaroslavl, Russia ( 1966) Eskilstuna, Sweden (1947)
Kajaani
Jiujiang, China (2006) Schwalm-Eder-Kreis, Germany (1973)
Nyíregyháza, Hungary (1981) Rostov-on-Don, Russia (1956)
Östersund, Sweden (1943) Marquette, Michigan, United States
(1997)
Lahti
Deyang, China (2000) Wuxi, China (2011) Randers, Denmark
(1947) Narva, Estonia (1994, partnership agreement) GarmischPartenkirchen, Germany (1987) Suhl, Germany (1988) Pécs,
Hungary (1956) Akureyri, Iceland (1947) Ålesund, Norway
(1947) Kaluga, Russia (1994) Västerås, Sweden (1940)
Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine (1953)
Oulu
Halle, Germany (1968) Leverkusen, Germany (1968) Siófok,
Hungary (1978) Alta, Norway (1948) Arkhangelsk, Russia
(1993) Boden, Sweden (1948) Bursa, Turkey (1978) Odessa,
Ukraine (1957) Hangzhou, China (2010)
Tampere
Linz, Austria (1961) Olomouc, Czech Republic (1986) Odense,
Denmark (1966) Tartu, Estonia (1992) Klaksvík, Faroe Islands
Chemnitz, Germany (1961) Essen, Germany (1961) Guangzhou,
China (2008) Miskolc, Hungary (1963) Kópavogur, Iceland
(1964) Kaunas, Lithuania (1997) Trondheim, Norway (1964)
?ód?, Poland (1958) Bra?ov, Romania (1981) Nizhny Novgorod,
Russia (1995) Norrköping, Sweden (1956) Kiev, Ukraine
(1954) Syracuse, United States (1992)
Turku
Varna, Bulgaria (1963) Tianjin, China (partnership agreement)
Aarhus, Denmark (1946) Tartu, Estonia (2008) Cologne,
Germany (1967) Rostock, Germany (1958) Szeged, Hungary
(1971) Florence, Italy (1992) Bergen, Norway (1946) Gda?sk,
Poland (1958) Constan?a, Romania (1958) Saint Petersburg,
Russia (1953) Bratislava, Slovakia (1976) Gothenborg, Sweden
(1946)
Vantaa
Askim, Norway (1951) Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany (1987)
Huddinge, Sweden (1951) Jinan, People?s Republic of China
(2001) Kineshma, Russia (1969) Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
(1951) Matte Yehuda Regional Council, Israel (1967) Mladá
Boleslav, Czech Republic (1978) Nuuk, Greenland (1965)
District of Rastatt, Germany (1968) Salgótarján, Hungary
(1976) Seyðisfjörður, Iceland (1980) S?upsk, Poland (1987)
Source: Cities? websites
The concept of friendship towns dates back to the 1940s
and has offered various benefits to Finnish municipalities
over the years. These days, cities collaborate across
borders routinely, but town twinning still has relevance in
international relations.
Teemu Henriksson
F
OR ALMOST 70 years, Finnish cities and towns have been forming friendship agreements with foreign cities, allowing them
to collaborate in numerous ways with their international partners. Today, Finnish municipalities have over a thousand twin
town relationships around the world.
Over the years, the aims of town twinning have evolved, following the wider developments in the field of international affairs. Although international cooperation has now become commonplace,
friendship city networks can still be a valuable asset to municipalities in giving support to their international culture and business
initiatives.
Historically, the first steps in town twinning were taken shortly
after the end of the Second World War, in the spirit of reconciliation, cooperation ? and providing material aid. The first friendship
town relationships were, in fact, formed between Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian towns in the late ?40s. After the war, the cities
exchanged aid to help in rebuilding, and these ties were formalised
afterwards through friendship agreements.
Outside the Nordics, twin town relationships were created with
many Soviet towns, following the ?YYA-treaty?, agreement on
friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between Finland
and the Soviet Union after the war. Also Germany became an
important country for friendship agreements, and many towns
formed ties with both West and East Germany after the division
was recognised internationally. (Today, many Finnish towns have
two friendship towns in Germany for this reason).
Later, various citizen organisations such as cultural exchange associations became an important driving force in promoting twin
town agreements, and, overall, the growing European friendship
town network could be seen as one chapter in the general integration process that took place in Europe over past few decades.
More recently, a more pragmatic reason for formalising relations
between cities has become more prominent, as formal ties between
cities may give additional support to businesses that are expanding
from one country to another.
Friendship in the making
Friendship town agreements are formed at the initiative of the two
towns that want to create official ties between each another. The
relationship is always formalised through a twinning oath, which
both town councils sign. There is no central authority to coordinate the process, although the Council of European Municipalities
and Regions (CEMR) gives support to towns looking for a twin.
What practical activities the towns engage in depends entirely
on the towns themselves, as the twinning oath typically specifies
few, if any, concrete actions for collaboration. ?Normally the twinning agreement does not specify the areas where the municipalities
commit themselves to collaborate, as it is mostly a symbolic agreement,? says Carlos Mascarell Vilar, Policy Officer at CEMR. ?It is
up to the two municipalities to afterwards decide what to do with
regard to meetings, activities, areas of cooperation and so on.?
The reasons why two towns choose each other as friendship towns
are often historical, or there may be some shared qualities between the
towns. The city of Oulu offers a couple of examples: both Oulu and
Boden, its Swedish friendship town, are hubs for the countries? northern railway networks, and both cities had military bases when the
friendship was formed. Similarly, both Oulu and its German friendship town Leverkusen have links to the chemical industry ? Oulu has
Kemira?s plants while Leverkusen is the home for Bayer?s factory.
Originally, town twinning was a unique initiative in that it offered the first formal way for cities to collaborate internationally.
?In the early years, internationalisation was a sufficient goal in itself for town twinning,? says Tuula Antola, Director of Economic
and Business Development at the city of Espoo. This gave municipalities access to their international peers, allowing the exchange
of the best practices in a wide variety of areas varying from waste
management to gender equality, says Mascarell Vilar.
Citizens often benefit from the relationship also in more direct
ways. For instance the city of Oulu has been able to capitalise on
its friendship town relations by getting involved in a wide range of
activities and projects, extending from cultural exchange to business promotion: one long-running programme allowed chemistry
students to work as interns at Bayer?s factory in Leverkusen, for
example, while the cities? music academies have a decades-long
collaboration in the form of meetups and joint concerts.
?It?s regrettable that when newspapers write about international
collaboration, they concentrate too much on politicians? trips,? says
Anneli Korhonen, Public Relations Manager at the city of Oulu.
?What gets less publicity is that in reality, friendship town relations
have made a wide variety of great initiatives possible.?
Lifestyle
Business with friends
International collaboration may have been rare between cities
when the first friendship town agreements were made, but these
days it is ordinary for Finnish and foreign municipalities to work
together. Because of this, formal friendship agreements are less significant than before, as activities between twin towns are now only
one way for cities to cooperate internationally.
In fact, collaboration with foreign towns has become so customary that forming official partnership agreements can seem like an
overly formal approach to cooperation, particularly among European cities.
?We collaborate less with our friendship towns nowadays, however the network still exists and can always be reactivated when
useful,? says Ulla Heijari from the City of Lahti. She notes that the
city?s different offices conduct their international activities independently, also with cities that don?t belong in the friendship town
network. ?These days, friendship towns don?t really have special
status but are part of regular international relations activities.?
Outside Europe, however, there are places where formal ties are
still useful, particularly in countries that have a short history with
international collaboration. China is a good example: Espoo is a
friendship town of Shanghai, which has helped Finnish companies
to form closer relations with Chinese enterprises in a city that is
becoming an increasingly attractive location for foreign businesses,
according to Espoo?s upcoming report on the city?s international
relations. Also higher education has been an area of fruitful collaboration: in 2010, Aalto University opened Aalto Design Factory,
the centre of the university?s Asian activities and an important hub
for Finland in China overall, at the Tongji University?s campus in
Shanghai.
Although relations with some old friendship towns are not as dynamic as before, the level of international activity has never been
higher on the whole. However, the focus is more and more in promotion of business, Korhonen says, as areas of collaboration evolve
according to general trends in international relations: ?Today, the
bottom line of all international activity is to have active business
and industry cooperation, with
the aim of creating jobs.?
Who?s friends
with whom?
Most commonly, Finnish
municipalities have twin towns in the other Nordic
countries, in Estonia and in Russia. The biggest number of
connections is with Sweden (285, according to CEMR). In
Europe overall, the largest number of twin town agreements
(almost 2,300) is between France and Germany.
SixDegrees
Trend
Month
? Information and guidance for immigrants
? Information about integrating in Swedish
? Mentor program FIKA
? Courses and events
Amigurumi
Amelia Arkins
As technology grows
and grows, no one
thought knitting and
crocheting would take
the world by storm in
2014. This new craze
is called amigurumi,
and is the Japanese
Casiop
art of crocheting and
knitting small stuffed
animals and anthropomorphic creatures. Amigurumi began
to attract its fan base in 2003, yet already in 2006 it was reported to be the most popular item on Etsy; an online craft marketplace. Since then, its popularity has flourished, and they
are very popular not only in Finland but all around the world.
The word ?amigurumi? is derived from the Japanese words
ami, which means knitted or crocheted, and nuigurumi,
meaning stuffed doll.
The amigurumi creations are normally crocheted out of
yarn using a single crochet stitch, and they can also be knitted as well. The dolls are worked on in sections and are then
joined together, except for some who are created as one piece.
Smaller crochet hooks or knitting needs are used, in order
to keep the stuffing contained, so it won?t poke through the
fabric. Standard polyester or cotton craft stuffing can be used
for stuffing, as well as plastic pellets to even out the weight at
the bottom of the figure.
With amigurumi you don?t have to stick with one topic for
inspiration, you can let your imagination run wild and free
when it comes to making them. Such inspiration has seen the
likes of Pokemon and Despicable Me characters being created.
With the craze spreading all around the world, will it be on
your next shopping list?
SPORTS-RELATED HOBBIES
Being at a loss for words does not become public
announcers.
In our third story of sports-related hobbies, this issue we focus on public announcers.
Mika Oksanen
T
11
he task of public announcer must be one of the most sought-after off-field duties related to sports. When the US professional baseball club San Diego Padres sought a new PA earlier this year, the first 460 hopefuls were granted an onsite
audition, and after that the doors were closed ? the queue was still crawling a long way from the Padres? compound at
that point.
So the fact that Henri Berg, a 28-year-old native of Jyväskylä, is a public announcer in one ? no, two ? nope, make it three
different sports for local clubs on the highest tier sounds rather impressive. In winter he does ice hockey (JYP) and floorball
(Happee), and pesis (Kiri, Kirittäret) in the summer.
So, how did he become a public announcer?
?It started somewhat incidentally,? Berg recalls. ?A couple of years back when I was working for the local radio station that
also acted as game-hosting sponsor in one floorball game, and for added visibility it was agreed that I, as a rep of the station,
would take care of public announcing in that game. I got a little carried away at the first game ? I was officially given a warning
to show for it! Later that year I was asked to fill in for the incumbent guy, and slowly I got more into it. And the same goes for
the other sports: I was first asked as a back-up, and then it started building up.?
This sounds like an excellent example of seizing the opportunity as one arises. So, what goes into doing the PA duty?
?Passion ? you have to be interested in the sport, so that you have an idea of what is happening on the field and who is playing. You also have to come to terms with talking to a house full of people through the PA system, which can be very exciting.
And you have to be able to mind your tongue, to comply with the values of the club,? Berg lists. ?Ice hockey is a big business,
and the PA?s talk is more regulated, but in some other sports like floorball you?re expected to be more active.?
Can an immigrant become a public announcer?
?I?d say they ought to have a pretty good command of Finnish to do it here,? Berg says. ?Basically, your voice is your instrument, just like on the radio. And if you want to be able to really excite the crowd, you?d better sound natural.?
And so, dear reader, here you have another excuse for not missing your Finnish class, if you are aspiring to become a PA for
a Finnish sports club.
UPCOMING EVENTS IN APRIL AND MAY
Application assistance
29th of April from 1-4 pm
Itäkeskus Library, Turunlinnantie 1
Need assistance with your applications concerning
job, housing or social benefits? Visit Ne-RÅ and Luckan
Integrations info point in Itäkeskus Library on Tuesday
29th of April 13-16. Free of charge.
Introduction to the Finnish-British Society and the
Finnbrit Language Centre
May 8th at 5 pm.
Information about English proficiency examinations
and tests (IELTS International English Language Testing
System, Cambridge English examinations) and English
and Finnish language courses. Please register to integration@luckan.fi.
Job search with Academic Work
May 14th at 3-5 pm.
Need help with your job search? Academic Work gives
useful information and advice for students, graduates
and other professionals. Please register to integration@
luckan.fi. Welcome!
Occupational Safety Card Training and Test (50 euro)
May 17th, 8 am. to 4 pm.
The Occupational Safety Card (OSC) is rapidly becoming
a popular way to complete the basic training in safety
and health at work at shared workplaces. Course material provided by the trainer. Trainer: Heli Aulio. Register
by May 12th to integration@luckan.fi.
Swedish Language Café
Thursday 22.5 and Thursday 26.6 at 5 pm.
Practice your Swedish in a welcoming and informal
environment at the Swedish language café in Luckan.
We will discuss everyday situations and adapt the
evening according to the participants levels. Register to
integration@luckan.fi
for more information and registration visit our webpage integration.luckan.fi !
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Finnish society. For more information see fika.luckan.fi
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SixSociety
Degrees
12
Issue 4 2014
Column
Minority Report
We take a look at the ethnic
minorities here in Finland.
How Finland
Failed Women
local FilmTown, and American music can be heard on the radio. Cultural influences are everywhere; heavy metal music,
currently the one of the most popular genres in Finland, was
originally developed in the USA and UK.
Finns are justifiably proud of their history in gender equality. Few countries around the world have voted in female
presidents, prime ministers, or cabinet ministers in the
numbers that Finland has. France has never had a female
president, and neither have the US, Italy, or Spain.
But in the business sector the record is dismal. Women
make up a tiny minority of directorships, and are almost
exclusively in under-valued fields like HR. A list of Finnish
companies in which women lead production, sales or marketing would fit on the head of a pin.
This, however, is not my point. The greater issue here is
what this says about Finnish society and our ability to adapt
to societal trends. How are Finnish companies adapting to a
world in which prejudice against any people for any reason
is considered unacceptable?
?H
ow are Finnish companies
adapting to a world in
which prejudice against
any people for any
reason is considered
unacceptable?
Americans
D
espite the ocean separating them, the US and Finland
are closer than they appear. Currently, Statistics Finland
reports around 4,480 people living in Finland that were
born in the States, while some 187,000 Americans visit as
tourists each year. Products and services from the US make
up 7 per cent of Finland?s total imports ? fittingly, 7 per cent
of Finland?s exports are to the USA as well.
Perhaps the large amount of American imports can account
for the fact that Americans in Finland don?t have to try very
hard to find bits and pieces of home in Finland. TripAdvisor lists 40 American themed restaurants in Helsinki alone,
American films can be viewed in cinemas or rented from the
Finnish names may also be familiar to American hockey
fans, as Finnish players dot the American NHL landscape.
The careers of these players are followed just as eagerly by
Finnish fans as their American counterparts, as evidenced by
last year?s film SEL8NNE, which focussed on hockey player
Teemu Selänne, whom American hockey fans will recognise
as the Finnish Flash of California?s Mighty Ducks hockey
team, and who Finns will know from the Finnish national Olympic hockey team.
Another way Americans and Finns are connecting is
through education. While many have read of the USA?s recent
interest in Finnish education in the news, the educational dialogue is not just a one way street. The Fulbright Center awards
grants to Finnish institutions of higher learning, in order to
fund American academic lecturers? visits to Finland. Grants
are awarded for periods of a few days up to a whole academic
year. Then there is the North American studies course offered
by the University of Helsinki, which combines information
pertinent to both the USA and Canada in to one course.
While the extraverted Americans and introverted Finns may
have their differences, there is also much to be celebrated between the two!
Legal Immigrants
6D gets to know what it?s like to be a regular immigrant in Finland.
How many openly gay executives are there in Finland? How
many directors of African or Middle Eastern origin? How
many Muslims or Hindu?
That?s where everything started: we moved to Finland and we
had two kids.
Not surprisingly, in each case the numbers are lower than
those in society.
What do you like about Finland?
I like the nature here and and the peace. These are the two
things I appreciate the most because as an Argentinean, I am
used to big spaces and nature is a part of me.
What is so baffling about this is that Finnish people are
genuinely tolerant and open minded. If the Finnish people
can accept gay contestants on Dancing With Stars, in parliament and on TV chat shows, why would they not accept that
as managers? Finland came within a few thousand votes of
electing the first openly gay head of state in the developed
world, and actually there are a handful of MPs from ethnic
backgrounds that at least forge a path for others to follow.
What do you like about the Finnish culture?
I?ve realised how different Finnish culture is compared to the
Argentinean, but I must say that the sauna culture is something
I could take back home! I love the sauna on weekends, it is great.
If the experience of Finnish women is a model, then that
may be a very long time indeed.
What culture shocks did you experience when coming to
Finland?
For me there were many culture shocks. One of the biggest was
maybe the fact that people don?t talk so much to you unless you
start the conversation or they are drunk. The other thing is that
every time there is a festive day coming and you don?t have to
go to work, everything is about getting drunk. People are also
extremely shy?
The situation in the business world is effectively untouched
since the 1970s. In a country where trends like organic food,
micro-brewing, Fair Trade and carbon offset schemes arrived 20 years later than they did Sweden or Denmark, attitudes towards a genuinely non-prejudicial society remain
prehistoric.
Have you been able to settle and integrate into Finnish
society?
In one way I have been able to settle but sometimes it feels hard
not having my childhood friends close to me nor being able to
visit people without making an appointment in advance. The
thing I miss the most is my social life back in Argentina.
In an era where Finns of African origin read TV news, write
books, sing and run small businesses ? and all in faultless
Finnish - how long will it be before a major business hires
one as a CFO?
In this case, perhaps we need only look west for inspiration.
Not only does the US have an African-American president,
but even the ultra-conservative Republican Party is likely
to have a black or Hispanic candidate for the next elections. There are literally thousands of Asian-American and
Hispanic-American business leaders. Race is simply not the
issue in the US or UK that it was even 20 years ago.
Finland can still play a leadership role here. As the first
European country to allow women the vote, my hope is that
Finland can also be the first European country to eliminate
prejudice on the basis of race or gender orientation.
But if these issues genuinely do not matter, then that must
be reflected in boardrooms as well.
David Brown is a language consultant and journalist, regularly
covering stories in Africa, Asia & the Middle East. He has lived
in Finland for over 10 years.
Pilar Diáz
N
icholas Brain is Argentinean. He is been living in Helsinki since 2005 and he loves going to sauna every weekend.
What do you do here in Finland?
I?ve been working in IKEA since 2007. I am a visual merchandiser, so my job is basically about decorating and showing our
products in a good functional way. At the same time I play semiprofessional football in the team Bollklubben-46 Karjaa. Football is my life and a way of living for me. I feel empty if I don?t
kick the ball around. I?m also a single father of two boys: Aslak,
6, and Alex, 8. They are the highlight of my life and I love them
with all my heart.
When and how did you end up here?
I am English-born but have been brought up in the southern
Patagonia of Argentina in a small town called El Bolsón surrounded by mountains and amazing nature.
In 2003 I decided to move to England. Half of my family lives
there so it was a natural move to go there. In 2004 I was working in a restaurant and it was there where I met the mother of
my kids.
What were/are your worries about life in Finland?
Sometimes I think whether I?m doing the right thing being here.
I have a great job, I play football here, my kids have a great education and there is a great social care in Finland, so it feels like
the ?perfect life?. But I feel I?m missing basic and really important
things like the warmth from people I care about. It?s something
very simple, but it?s very important to me.
How has Finland changed you?
Finland has changed me for sure to be more understanding
with things in general and it has also thought me that at the end
of the day one has to adapt to new places.
What are your future wishes for your life here?
My wish is being happy. I also want my kids to be fine and to
fulfil my dreams. Nothing comes for free and sometimes we
have to make some sacrifices to accomplish what we are really
aiming for.
Contact james@6d.fi
if you?d like to share your thoughts for a future issue.
FINNISH
SOCIAL FORUM
CULTURE AND DIALOGUE
ANOTHER WORLD
PEACE,
DEMOCRACY AND
HUMAN RIGHTS
IS
WELFARE
AND EQUALITY
POSSIBLE
CHOOSE
RESPONSIBILITY!
ENVIRONMENT
OF THE FUTURE
WORK, LIFE, ECONOMY
26? 27
April
th
ARBIS, HELSINKI
DAGMARINKATU 3
FREE ADMISSION
www.sosiaalifoorumi.fi
th
Sat 10 ?18
Sun 11?17
SOSIAALIFOORUMI 26.?27.4.2014
2
Tervetuloa
SUOMEN SOSIAALIFOORUMIIN!
KUVA: TSL
S
Kari Anttila, pääsihteeri, Työväen Sivistysliitto TSL ry,
Suomen sosiaalifoorumi 2014 tili- ja vastuujärjestö
UOMEN sosiaalifoorumissa on mukana yli sata järjestöä ja kansalaisliikettä, jotka uskovat,
että toisenlainen maailma on mahdollinen.
Sosiaalifoorumi toimii hyvänä alustana avoimelle kansalaiskeskustelulle. Viikonlopun aikana noin 60 osatapahtumassa pohditaan ehdotuksia demokraattisen ja tasa-arvoisen maailman rakentamiseen, päämääränä solidaarisen globalisaation voitto.
Tänä vuonna Sosiaalifoorumin valmisteluissa on käyty keskustelua vastuusta. Vastuun käsite voidaan mieltää yksilön vastuullisiksi valinnoiksi, mutta yhä enemmän peräänkuulutetaan
myös yritysten ja yhteisöjen sekä yhteiskunnan ja kansainvälisten yhteenliittymien toiminnan vastuullisuutta suhteessa ihmisarvoon ja ympäristöön.
Tänäkin vuonna Suomen sosiaalifoorumi on kutsunut kansainvälisiä vieraita keskustelemaan kansojen, yhteiskuntien sekä
kansainvälisten järjestelmien ja instituutioiden välisestä yhteistyöstä. Suomen sosiaalifoorumissa ei ole tarkoitus yrittää muodostaa yhtenäistä kantaa tai mielipidettä, vaan synnyttää vuoropuhelua ympäröivän maailman kanssa.
Suomen sosiaalifoorumin tapahtumien toivotaan edistävän
mahdollisuuksia hedelmälliseen vuorovaikutukseen uusliberalismia, pääomien maailmanvaltaa ja mitä tahansa imperialismin
muotoa vastustavien järjestöjen ja ihmisten kesken.
Toisenlainen maailma on mahdollinen ? Valitse vastuu!
HOW TO FIND ARBIS?
DAGMARINKATU 3, HELSINKI
INSTRUCTIONS YOU CAN FIND AT
WWW.SOSIAALIFOORUMI.FI
THERE IS ALSO INFORMATION
ABOUT CHILD CARE
There?s a search for new economic models to replace purely pro?t oriented ones with a more solidarity-based economy that prioritise the common good, and the welfare of
people and the environment.
New economic models and practices from Finland and
other countries will be presented at several seminars
and workshops. These will cover innovations in Switzerland and Central Europe, and discuss how locally organized economies, such as community exchanges or social
enterprises, and how such things as free software, communal agriculture and cooperatives could tackle today?s
economic challenges.
Seminars will look at the struggle of migrant workers to
improve their working conditions, and wellbeing at work
in welfare work. The impact of Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnerships (TTIPs) will also be discussed in
terms of food production, the sustainable use of natural
resources, working life, and democracy.
This theme will be discussed from a wide range of angles,
including participatory welfare, and the new reform of
the social welfare and health care service system in Finland. Participants will look at whether local democracy
has the potential to in?uence the changing local government sector and the provision of health and social welfare services.
Other social policy and equality issues up for discussion: whether the EU increases or helps reduce poverty,
education and training in terms of equality, the transitions of the Nordic welfare model and the voice of women, the act on same-sex marriage, and alcohol-free lifestyle alternatives.
Discussion sessions will look at the e?ects of rapacious
economic growth on the planet, sustainable lifestyle models, tackling climate change, and civil society action opposing the harm caused by mining.
There?ll be discussions on the mass accumulation of plastic waste in the oceans, Africa and Finland in the grips of
climate change, the grounds for environmental activism,
and the mysteries of worm composting. Also on the agenda:
carbon-free Helsinki and Finland?s commitment to sustainable develop and community supported agriculture.
Themes include coexistence with diverse neighbours, the
challenging new book Rebellious Research, and notions
of responsibility in di?erent religions and creeds. There
will also be an opportunity to hear directly from migrant
workers employed in Finland.
A variety of NGOs and faith communities and other civil
society actors will be holding the seminars. They include a
number of arts groups, and include Q Theatre, which will
be part of a discussion about the sheltered housing service on Ruusulankatu, which has aroused strong reactions
in the neighbourhood.
WORK, LIFE
& ECONOMY
WELFARE
& EQUALITY
ENVIRONMENT OF
THE FUTURE
DIALOGUE
& CULTURE
DURING FINNISH SOCIAL FORUM.
Suomen Sosiaalifoorumin lehden tekijä on
.
Päätoimittaja Arja Alho, toimitussihteeri Kirsi Koivuporras-Masuka, ulkoasu ja taitto Teppo Jäntti.
Lehteen ovat kirjoittaneet Arja Alho, Kirsi Koivuporras-Masuka, Andy Kruse, Heidi Rautionmaa,
Noora Savonen, Simo Ortamo ja Mark Waller.
Ydin-julkaisut on saanut Sosiaalifoorumi-lehden tekoon ulkoministeriön viestintä- ja globaalikasvatustukea.
These issues are more relevant now than ever. There can
be no durable peace without human rights or if people are
unable to run their own lives and in?uence society. We only have to think of Syria, Ukraine, and Western Sahara. The
Social Forum will o?er an array of issues on these and related themes. Big systemic social issues will be discussed
together with day-to-day ones, such as how to make solidarity between people more prominent. The aim is also
to promote networking on ending the arms trade, nuclear weapons and for a basic income for all, social equality
and support for the dispossessed.
PEACE,
HUMAN
RIGHTS &
DEMOCRACY
SOSIAALIFOORUMI 26.?27.4.2014
3
International
solidarity
& NEW ALLIES
C
OMMON goals collectively aim to
develop human kind through humanity and humanism. Ultimately, the panel members share solidarity on one common vision: to
make the world organism and all
its parts equally healthy.
Projecting the ideas of French sociologist Emile Durkheim onto a global scale, the world is an organism
whose societies make up its inner parts. Due to inevitable contact, population growth, and new technologies; these parts are no longer isolated self-sufficient
societies but now tightly connected.
They have grown into focusing on their most productive specializations to provide for the whole, thus
making them interdependent. So in order to maintain
the optimum health of the organism, its parts must
be equally strong.
However, today?s societies are not equal. They are lopsided in their well-being and opportunity for growth.
They are subject to power structures and monetary barriers that can be very difficult to overcome.
The parts of the organism have become a body of
parasites and hosts. But movements do exist that are
attempting to make the environment more balanced.
It is a force whose power lies in numbers. These are
The basic argument for the panel discussion called
International Solidarity and New Allies at this year?s
Social Forum Finland is that international solidarity
is not charity, but cooperation for common goals.
the ?new allies? and they are striving for international solidarity.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
International solidarity can be defined as cohesion
between societies based on mutual objectives, standards, and sympathies. It is centered on human interests such as individual dignity, equal opportunity, and
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY IS
?NOT AN ACT OF CHARITY BUT AN
ACT OF UNITY BETWEEN ALLIES
FIGHTING ON DIFFERENT TERRAINS
TOWARD THE SAME OBJECTIVES?.
Samora Machel (1933?1986)
CHRIS MATLAHAKO:
SOUTH AFRICAN SOLIDARITY SPECIALIST
Chris Matlahako, the International
Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP), will be attending the Finnish Social Forum, o?ering
participants an opportunity to learn
about civil society developments in
the Southern Africa region.
The SACP was a main player in South
Africa?s liberation movement against
Apartheid, and its leaders were key ?gures in the African National Congress
(ANC). The party is a member of the Tripartite Alliance, which comprises the
ANC and the Congress of South African
Trade Unions (Cosatu). This alliance is
responsible for much policy making
by government in South Africa.
Matlahako is a former student activist, and was recruited into the liberation movement in the later 1980s. He
is employed full time by the SACP at
its head o?ce in Johannesburg, and
is the South African representative
to the World Peace Council and the
president of the South African Peace
Initiative.
He has also been in?uential in solidarity movement work in Africa, for
instance for the decolonization of
Western Sahara, and the pro-democracy struggle in Swaziland. He has also played a key role in building Afri-
Kansainvälinen
solidaarisuus ja uudet
liittolaiset -keskustelu
lauantaina
kello 12?13.30
juhlasalissa.
social justice. As this concept transcends differences
in traditions, values, or beliefs; it puts not one country above the other, but as equals.
Most importantly though, international solidarity is not charity and it is not an act of investment for
one-sided economic gain, but an act for mutual benefit and growth.
? The idea is not to bring water to the thirsty, but
show them how to drill for water themselves, states
Finnish panel member JP Väisänen.
NEW ALLIES
In this case, the ?new allies? are all progressive forces
who embrace peace for social development and aspire
for a society based on egalitarian values.
? They struggle for freedom over neo-colonialism,
imperialist hegemony, and militarism, says Chris
Matlhako, a panel guest from South Africa.
? And work to suppress the powers and interests of
local bourgeoisie and nationalistic forces.
The ?new allies? are made up of NGOs, cultural workers, artists, or anyone involved in grassroots movements
pushing to limit the influence of big corporations and
powerful politicians that work against international
solidarity. It is a movement of common people who in
large numbers can influence the big players.
? Change is not a utopia or a dream, Väisänen
says.
? It?s everyday work where people are excited and
not only talk about change, but make concrete plans
to have an influence.
Verovälttely kuriin!
-työpaja lauantaina
kello 12?13.30,
luokassa 21
can solidarity with Cuba, and in particular in giving a high public pro?le
to campaigning work for the release
of the ?Cuban Five?.
Matlahako has also been a regular
participant at World Social Forums.
He also attends many events throughout Africa to develop pan-African networking and joint activity.
His participation at the Finnish social forum o?ers an opportunity to ?nd
out more about the growth of the civil
society in South Africa since the advent of democracy 20 years ago, and
the state of solidarity work within Africa in trying to tackle the problems
of the continent.
VERONKIERTO KURIIN
JA VEROPARATIISIT KIINNI?
Jos vastasit kyllä, kannattaa
osallistua verotyöpajaan, jossa
kehitellään toimintaideoita veroparatiisien vastaiseen kamppailuun.
Verovälttely kuriin! -työpajassa Sosiaalifoorumin kävijöillä on mahdollisuus iskeä niin sanotusti kädet multaan ideoimalla verovälttelyn vastaista
toimintaa yhdessä muiden osallistujien ja monen järjestön yhteisen Veroparatiisimatkat-kampanjan aktiivien kanssa.
? Ihan kuka tahansa voi osallistua,
ei tarvitse olla konkari. Pääasia on,
että pitää veroparatiiseja ongelmana
ja haluaa tehdä asialle jotakin, kertoo
Attacin Marissa Varmavuori.
Varmavuori toteaa, että kysymys
veroparatiiseista ja niiden laajamittaisesta käytöstä myös suomalaisyrityksissä on noussut ajankohtaiseksi
päivänpoliittiseksi aiheeksi myös Suomesssa. Monet poliitikot ovat esittäneet huolensa asiaan liittyen, mutta
konkreettiset toimet verokeinottelun
kuriin saattamiseksi odottavat kuitenkin edelleen toteutumistaan.
Siksi juuri nyt on hyvä hetki aktivoitua ja osallistua vaikuttamistyöhön.
? Poliitikot miettivät kysymystä ja
painetta on molempiin suuntiin, paitsi veroparatiisien lakkauttamiseksi,
myös verovälttelyn sallimiseksi. Siksi kansalaisyhteiskunnan olisi hyvä
olla aktiivinen juuri nyt, toteaa Varmavuori.
SOSIAALIFOORUMI 26.?27.4.2014
4
Sustainable and freer economy
O-N T-H-E H-O-R-I-Z-O-N
Parecon Finland will hold a seminar on ideas for a freer, ecologically and
democratically sustainable economy. Antti Jauhiainen and Aki Tetri representing
the organisation will introduce the discussion. The focus will be on the concept of
participatory economics and the alternative economic structural models it offers.
P
ARECON FINLAND is a specialist
organisation for participatory economics founded in 2010. So far,
its activities have mainly involved
giving presentations at public libraries in the Helsinki area on the
Parecon idea.
The organisation has also published numerous
translations of articles, and runs an economics blog,
updated each week, which broadly deals with problems of austerity policies, the relationship between
economy and environment, and topics of economic
history and ethics.
But what does participatory economics actually
amount to?
? Participatory economics is a coherent proposition for democratic economic planning that realises
environmental sustainability as well as the freedom
of individuals and communities to decide their own
affairs, explains Antti Jauhiainen.
Central to participatory economics is the idea of
cooperative enterprises in which employees decide
their operations.
Jauhiainen is pleased that discussion on society and
economy has gradually been gaining some ground in
Finland. He mentions degrowth thinking and time
banking as examples of the sorts of hands-on experiments taking place in communities.
? We believe that participatory economics provides
useful solutions to how various communities promot-
ing democracy and environmental sustainability could
organise the economy cooperatively, by drawing on
one another?s strengths, says Jauhiainen.
He does not believe that communities should be
insular local units.
? We need to consider how various ideas on improving the economy could be combined so that it emphasises the right of individuals and communities to decide their own affairs.
? We want to outline various possible developments and goals for improving society, over a longer
period than the next parliamentary term or the interim. If ever there was a need for far-sighted thinking
and discussion it is now, and it should include everyone who wants to take part, instead of some small
closed clique.
GRAPPLING WITH BIG ISSUES
Parecon Finland?s seminar at the Social Forum will
continue in the style of earlier events. The first part
will focus on the weaknesses of the current market
economy.
? The aim is to discuss what the incentives are that
make individuals, businesses and governments to
make adverse choices. We?ll look at why entities that
are outside commerce are powerless in the face of decisions that affect them.
The second part will look at the ideas of participatory
economics as steps toward building a freer economy.
Jauhiainen hopes that his and Aki Tetri?s detailed introduction will stimulate a wide-ranging debate.
? I hope it will provide participants with useful
building blocks for outlining basic ideas of democratic planning, and maybe also that, without avoiding difficult issues, there will be solutions to today?s
urgent problems.
Jauhiainen and his partners do not shy away from
heavyweight questions. But when you are dealing with
such massive topics, how do you avoid getting into
discussion frameworks that are too broad? Or should
you avoid them?
? I think that it?s precisely speaking about and discussing broad social issues that matters most. If you
don?t have meandering and boundless public discussion and debate, you find that the dynamism of society weakens.
He believes that economics concerns everyone, not
just people with Phds.
? One of the mainstays of our activity is that we try
to give people the means to open up the closed recesses of Finnish economic debate.
But Parecon?s aim is not to construct a ready future
model of society, but rather to provide ideas and stimulate discussion for the long run.
BUEN VIVIR ? HYVÄN ELÄMÄN JÄLJILLÄ
Buen Vivir on Latinalaisen Amerikan alkuperäiskansoilta lähtöisin oleva
ajattelumalli, joka haastaa perinteiset jatkuvaa kasvua painottavat kehitysmallit. Miten käsitettä voisi soveltaa suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa?
Hyvän elämän ajattelumalli korostaa
kestävyyttä ja paikallisten ratkaisujen
merkitystä globaalissa ekologis-kulttuurisessa kriisissä. Käsite rantautuu
tänä vuonna myös Sosiaalifoorumiin
seminaarin muodossa. Teppo Eskelinen Vasemmistofoorumista ? yksi tilaisuudesta vastaavista järjestöistä
? pohtii käsitteen mahdollista roolia
suomalaisessa keskustelussa.
? Talouskasvukriittistä keskustelua
on ollut paljon, mutta sen osat ovat
jääneet hyvin irrallisiksi toisistaan.
Yleensä kuulee puhetta luonnonympäristön asettamista rajoista. Harvemmin puhutaan mahdollisista elämänmuodoista, hän toteaa.
Eskelisen esittää, että ?hyvinvoinnis-
ta luopumiseksi? mielletyt ja rajoihin
keskittyneet ajattelumallit saattavat
karkottaa laajempaa yleisöä.
? Esimerkiksi degrowth-ajattelun
ongelmana on ollut se, että se houkuttelee mukaan vain hyvin marginaalista joukkoa. Hyvän elämän käsite puolestaan tuo sanomaansa positiivisemman kautta.
Eskelinen haluaa jättää kysymykset Buen Vivirin mahdollisuuksista
suomalaisessa yhteiskunnassa vielä avoimiksi.
? Tilaisuuden tarkoitus onkin juuri
avata tätä keskustelua. Ajatuksenamme ei kuitenkaan ole, että käsite tulisi soveltaa suoraan sellaisenaan Suomen kontekstiin, hän sanoo.
Täysin käyttökelvottomaksi käsite
tuskin kuitenkaan jää.
? Myös Suomea koskettavat tietyt
ekologiset paineet, jolloin on pohdittava tuotammeko vakautta vai epävakautta. Tarvitsemme paikallisesti sopivia ratkaisuja, joilla on jatkuvuutta.
Tarvitaan tulevaisuuden ideaa, Eskelinen summaa.
Sosiaalifoorumin seminaari koostuu
kahdesta sessiosta, joista ensimmäisessä kuullaan alustuksia muun muassa
kehityksestä ja hyvästä elämästä. Seminaarin toisessa osassa kuullaan ympäri Suomen eri liikkeiden käytännönläheisempiä esityksiä, joiden Eskelinen
toivoo herättävän runsaasti keskustelua myös yleisön joukossa.
USEFUL BUILDING BLOCKS
Vapaan talouden
rakentaminen
-tilaisuus lauantaina
kello 16.00?17.30
luokassa 35.
Rajaton kasvu,
kilpailu kaikkia
vastaan vai hyvä
elämä? lauantaina
kello 14?15.30
sekä kello 16?17.30
luokassa 13.
Fernando Vega
Xavier Torres-Bacchetta
Over 150 Performances!
Free Entrance!
Celso Piña (MEX)
Saturday 24 May 16.30
Sunday 25 May 16.30
Ricardo Trabulsi
Ane Hebeisen
Amparo Sánchez (ESP)
Los de Abajo (MEX)
Saturday 24 May 18.30
World Village Festival Club
Da Cruz (BRA/SUI), Capitan Tifus (ARG), DJ Lucho (COL)
Sunday 25 May 21?03 , Virgin Oil Co (Mannerheimintie 5)
Age Limit 18. Free Entrance!
Warner Music Live,
Fullsteam, Monsp
Records, Jussi Aalto,
Tuomo Lampinen,
Ofer Amir, Timo
Lukkari, Joni Sarkki,
Viljami Schleutker,
Tiger Hoods
World Village Festival 24?25? May 2014
Kaisaniemi Park & Railway Square, Helsinki
Open Finland, Railway Square
Useful information about Finland for newcomers
Hiphop Allstars & FeatFest Winner Tiger Hoods
Street Food
60 kitchens offering tastes from all over the world
Saturday 24 May 14.30
The Complete Festival Programme:
www.worldvillage.fi
Partners:
Supporters:
City of Helsinki Cultural Office &
Ministry of Education and Culture
Feature
18
Issue 4 2014
The surreal
world of
Nokia
David J. Cord reveals something
he discovered while writing his
book about Nokia: it was a very
strange company.
David J. Cord
S
OMETIMES, while researching my book The Decline and Fall of Nokia, I felt
like a character in a Franz Kafka novel. He is known for books where the
protagonist enters a disorienting, senseless world of overpowering bureaucracies. The nightmarish system is perfectly normal for those living in it, but it
seems surreal to the outsider. This was Nokia.
Autonomy to autocracy
It wasn?t always this way. Throughout the 1990s Nokia was young, agile and decentralised. There was trust in the individual, and people were given an enormous
amount of freedom and responsibility. Executive Pekka Ala-Pietilä said the company was like a jazz band: they improvised as they played together.
Then Nokia became successful. They beat Motorola and resisted Microsoft?s attempt to force its software onto the industry. Nokia was no longer the hungry upstart. They were the dominant force in a stable mobile device market. The major
player in a stable market behaves much differently than a challenger in a dynamic,
growing market. So Nokia changed.
CEO Jorma Ollila fundamentally transformed the structure of Nokia in a series of
steps. In 2004 a major reorganisation introduced the matrix organisational structure.
There were vertical divisions like business smartphones and feature phones, as well
as horizontal units such as marketing. Autonomy was removed and control was centralised. Bureaucratisation accelerated.
Controlling costs were emphasised over value creation. Existing profit lines gained
priority over potential profits. The culture, strategy and tactics of the organisation
changed. The improvisational jazz band had been replaced with a strictly controlled
marching band. This pervasive hierarchy and bureaucracy, this autocratic structure,
were key reasons why Nokia declined and fell.
Forgetting the customer
Few things illustrate how Nokia?s culture changed more than what happened to their
famous corporate values. In 1992 several members of the Dream Team met to formalise Nokia?s core ideals. They ended with a clear and simple list: customer satisfaction, respect for the individual, achievement and continuous learning.
Corporate values are not static, though, and when they were redefined in 2007 it was
a radically different process. In 1992 six key, visionary people had defined the values;
in 2007 about 10,000 people were involved. Over 6,000 employees participated in 16
meetings over two months, and thousands more participated via the company intranet.
?The whole process felt strange. It took so much effort,? the book quotes one participant. ?There was a committee effect, so everything was watered down. The focus
was being lost and the values became fuzzy.?
One example was what happened to the goal of ?customer satisfaction.? This was
replaced with ?engaging you,? meaning that the company wanted to address all corporate stakeholders, not just customers. This sounds good, but it is disquieting to
realise Nokia relegated the aim of satisfying their customers to a mere bullet point
under a broader category.
Feature
19
SixDegrees
?I
t is disquieting to realise
Nokia relegated the
aim of satisfying their
customers to a mere
bullet point under a
broader category.?
It might seem bizarre, but Nokia increasingly turned its face
away from the world, being more interested in staring into a mirror. Nokia became self-obsessed, not unlike the surreal governing
bureaucracies in Kafka?s The Trial or The Castle. This was not only
clear from changes in corporate values, but also from how they ran
their business.
Products, not people
?At dinner one evening, I mentioned a slim phone and my eightyear-old daughter thought I was talking about a Motorola model,?
recalls a former executive in the book. ?I went to CEO Olli-Pekka
Kallasvuo and said this is not good. My daughter associates a slim
phone with Motorola. OPK said don?t worry. But I did worry. We
had created affordable convergence, but we were becoming too
much a product company, not focused on the consumers.?
Not only was Nokia ignoring the consumers, they fought against
the big operators, those who bought their products and serviced
the end users.
?Other manufacturers did exactly what the operators told them
to do, but we wanted to make our own phones,? another former
executive says.
It is important to realise that Nokia did, in fact, pay attention to
the customer, but it was the wrong attention, brought about by how
they viewed the world and their place in it. Nokia ultrasegmented
the market just like a consumer products company. It acted like a
Proctor & Gamble with 30 different types of toothpaste, not a participant in a dynamic, fast-changing market. When the market was
stable in the early 2000s this worked well. When the great disruption began in 2007, it was a disastrous strategy.
?Inside models, not outside?
With few exceptions, Nokia was not caught off guard by changes
in the mobile device industry. They foresaw the mobile Internet,
third party app developers, open-source software and even touchscreens. Yet they were not able to act upon these changes which
they knew were coming.
?The organisation was built to serve itself,? one former employee
says in the book. ?It was built to handle inside models, not outside.?
A main reason the Nokia structure was so solipsistic is because
the structure was built to fix specific internal problems. In the early
1990s Nokia was in the midst of a civil war fought between owners
and management. Chairman of the board Casimir Ehrnrooth and
new CEO Ollila were able to fix the problem, but needed a more
autocratic system to do so.
Additionally, in the mid-1990s the company went through a severe logistics crisis as a result of fast growth and inefficient processes and structures. Pertti Korhonen earned the title ?The Man
Who Saved Nokia? by solving these problems, but the cost was a
more bureaucratic system with rigid planning procedures.
Finally, in the early 2000s the mobile device market stagnated,
and when it began to grow again it was at a much slower rate. Nokia
began to ultrasegment their market and focus on many different
product lines. It worked marvellously, and this problem was fixed,
too. But again: there was a cost to pay. This was a fine strategy in
a stable environment where innovations were mostly incremental. But when there was a massive disruption it was deadly. It was
like a consumer products company focusing upon their 30 types
of toothpaste suddenly having to react to a new invention which
rendered toothpaste obsolete.
Implementation Department
Employees nicknamed their headquarters the Power Point Palace.
The grim joke shows that employees realised how much time they
were wasting in meetings. Others did not simply make jokes about
it; they found ways to measure it.
?In the early 2000s I spent 90 per cent of my time doing my job
and about 10 per cent on necessary bureaucracy,? a former employee in research and development says in The Decline and Fall
of Nokia. ?By 2005-2010 my time was split about equally, 50-50. In
some weeks, if I attended every meeting I was supposed to it was
100 per cent bureaucracy.?
A Nokia scientist says that he was once berated by his superior
for missing a meeting. He thought he had a good excuse, because
he had been trying to file a patent for the company. His boss didn?t
agree. To this particular manager, at least, it was more important
to attend meetings than to strengthen the company?s intellectual
property rights.
To be fair, many employees were well aware of this problem.
Anssi Vanjoki, who narrowly missed out on becoming CEO on
two occasions, was particularly annoyed at spending so much time
in unproductive endeavours. His protest was simple: he plastered
a sign on the door of his office which read: ?Implementation Department.? Vanjoki, for one, was more interested in implementing
Nokia?s strategy than talking about it in meetings.
Fat and inert
Nokia had become fat, both figuratively and literally. It was like a
once great athlete who was now so out of shape that he became out
of breath by climbing a flight of stairs. An enormous amount of
energy was expended in keeping the corporate entity alive, instead
of being used on innovating products and services.
Former smartphone executive Jonas Geust explains in the book:
?The culture had changed. The way of working had become stiff.
When we released the N95 it took a huge push, an enormous effort
to push our boundaries and capabilities. It took massive resources
to move the organisation, and we saw it start to crack.?
The N95, released in early 2007, was a fantastic device. Its successor the N96 came out a year later and was lacklustre. The next
smart device, the N97, was a disaster. It was released in the middle
of 2009 to heavy criticism. Over a period of a few years Nokia had
become progressively worse at bringing a good experience to the
customer.
It was the worst timing imaginable. Nokia had slowly and gradually built a massive, rigid internal structure and inertia had set in.
Simultaneously, Apple and Google began a massive disruption.
The old mobile phone market was superseded by an entirely new
market. Nokia had set itself in concrete right as the hurricane began. It needed to be as supple as a willow branch to bend before the
winds, but it was instead stiff and brittle.
The answer: more bureaucracy
Nokia had always been willing to reorganise itself. From the outside, a casual observer might have believed the company was being nimble and proactive to take advantage of new opportunities.
In actuality these frequent reorganisations often just made matters
worse.
One of the best examples of a botched reorganisation was the
Solutions unit. By the middle of 2009 Nokia executives were well
aware of the disruption happening in the mobile device industry,
and they wanted a new structure to better enable them to compete
in their new world.
The organisation already used the matrix structure, with both
vertical and horizontal business divisions. This required comanagement, because any given employee could have two bosses
(or even more). Solutions put a third element into the corporate
structure, so that it was now three-dimensional. Product divisions were vertical, support units were horizontal, and now Solutions added depth.
The Decline and
Fall of Nokia is out
now from Schildts &
Söderströms.
An American
journalist and
author, David J. Cord
has contributed to
Helsinki Times as
a columnist and
business writer since
2007.
Nokia had chosen to react to revolutionary changes not by reducing bureaucracy and returning autonomy to individuals and teams,
but by doing the exact opposite. Once power has been grasped
there is a tendency to hold it, no matter what.
?Things exist in a certain way?
All of this is easy to see in hindsight, but even during those years
it was clear to many people that Nokia had become stuck in their
own surreal world, determined to do things their way. A hint of
this comes from Nokia Advisor David A. Stewart?s interview with
the New York Times. His job was to help executive Tero Ojanperä
move Nokia into content and entertainment, but he carefully told
about the problem he experienced.
?We disagree on the speed of things,? Stewart said. ?I?m trying
to force it faster, and he, quite wisely, understands he?s in a world
where things exist in a certain way. Tero?s thinking is that he?s going to change the way things work and it?s going to be better. But
it takes time.?
This insistence about a ?world where things exist in a certain
way? will be familiar to anyone who has read Franz Kafka. It is impossible to speed things up, because the powerful machine insisted
things be performed in their all-important bureaucratic way. Any
other way was inconceivable. And, just like in a Kafka novel, it all
ended badly.
Key events in Nokia?s evolution
Early 1990s: Infighting amongst owners and senior executives
forces new CEO Jorma Ollila and chairman Casimir Ehrnrooth to
build a more autocratic structure.
1995-1996: A severe logistics crisis results in structures and
processes which are more centrally controlled and planned.
2004: The matrix organisational structure is implemented. The
central office becomes larger and merges with Nokia Mobile
Phones. Nokia Ventures, the company?s attempt to be nimble and
find new opportunities, is abandoned.
2009:
The Solutions unit tries to create a three-dimensional
organisational structure. It is discarded the next year.
20
5
Tastebuds
Issue 4 2014
,
s
i
h
t
s
i
t
Wha
Top
exactly
The weird and wonderful tastes of
your local Asian grocery store.
Hello and welcome to a brave new world of? dried spices.
Much maligned and far from being inferior to fresh herbs, dried
spices have been used for centuries to preserve foods, add flavour to otherwise blah dishes and to disguise the tell-tale flavour
of food that has ahem, somewhat passed its use-by date. Many
spices might be familiar to the Finnish kitchen but what about
Asian spices? Let?s take a look shall we?
budget restaurants
in
Mustard seed ? available
in black, brown and light
brown, mustard seeds are
used in Indian cookery to
impart a crunchiness and
nuttiness to lentil curries
and certain dishes. Heat
oil and add mustard seeds
and allow to pop to get the
best out of them. Entertainment factor from dodging the popping seeds ? priceless.
Sugeesh
Helsinki
Andrew Taylor
There are things that can be done cheaply in Helsinki (good schooling, public transport) and there are things that cannot be done
cheaply (umm, eating? and everything else). But since we must eat pretty much daily, and that it?s nice to dine out at least occasionally,
here is a roundup of Helsinki?s 5 best budget restaurants, in alphabetical order. Let?s call the definition of a budget restaurant one that
serves food to your table, provides chairs and metal cutlery, and offers mains of around 10-15 euros.
Following on from that are coriander seeds, which look like tiny
little footballs. Used in certain fried snacks and often as a component in curry powder, dry roast coriander and then grind before using. Also available in powdered form but the flavour won?t
be the same. Works a treat with fish dishes.
Cardamom ? green and brown. Green cardamom has a more
delicate flavour while brown is smokier, with some cooks comparing its flavour profile to camphor. Cardamom works well
bashed and added to curries, or in chai tea.
Fenugreek ? a tiny but potent yellowish brown seed, it adds excellent flavour and boosts digestion. Add to fish curries or drink
as a tea with hot water.
Nutmeg ? A mild sedative, it adds a floral hit to certain dishes.
Buy whole and grate into dishes.
Mace ? the flower from the nutmeg tree, it adds colour and a certain floral flavour to dishes. It?s not as common as nutmeg though.
Cafe bar No. 9, Uudenmankatu 9
A pleasant, busy, central, café / bar with a minimalistic and traditional Nordic interior. Located in Helsinki?s hip design district, a
young and trendy crowd is drawn and local artwork is pleasantly
exhibited and sold. A range of sandwiches, salads, soups, pasta
dishes and tasty woks, including vegetarian options, are on offer
for under 10 euros, plus other classic and more expensive fare. The
prawn ?Kill Bill? wok (9.70 euros), a yellow curry with noodles,
was a good choice and the service effective. Otherwise, the salmon
medallion (15.90 euros) looked like a good bet. Come here for a
cosmopolitan experience, perhaps after a morning browsing the
local design boutiques.
Pueblo, Eerikinkatu 27
A taquería (taco shop) for the people (pueblo means ?people? in
Spanish), serving tasty street hawker style food with a relaxed, colourful and textured latin surf-shack vibe. The vision here is to fuse
Mexican streetfood with cocktails, and blend dining and bar experiences, which are too often separated or compromised in Helsinki.
The menu covers typical snacks of nachos, guacamole, ceviche and
a great tomatillo salsa, and mains of various filled tacos (7.20- 16.50
euros) and burritos (14.90 euros). The pork neck tacos (11.40 euros
for 3 with rice and refried beans) were appetising, as were the vegetarian quesadillas (11.80 euros with rice and beans). Come here to
share food, a drink and live music with friends.
Beefy Queen Jambo, Pieni Robertinkatu 13
Great name, great food. A central, leaf steak restaurant selling a
vast range of steaks (pihvi) and schnitzels (leike). It?s not glamorous (it doesn?t pretend to be), but the place has a gritty, yet lovable
charm, while the service was friendly and fast. The menu includes
chicken, pork and beef steaks pounded into various guises, plus
some dearer and more tender steaks. All can be combined with rice
or potato options and different sauces (9.50-20 euros). The pork
schnitzel with wild mushroom sauce (12 euros) was tasty and, well,
really big. Come here for a hearty and tasty meat eat, but perhaps
not for romantic or vegetarian endeavours.
Tuk Tuk, Vaasankatu 19
Tasty, authentic Thai food purveyor also located in characterful Kallio.
Given its size it is suitably named after the compact taxi vehicle. Mains
start at 11 euros, and a busy lunch buffet is on offer for those arriving at
an opportune time. If you have bendy legs, one table offers a platformfloor-sitting-cushion-experience. Otherwise, the interior and atmosphere is not exactly Thai, but the food certainly is, with all the classics
on the menu, including green, yellow and red curries, tom yam soup,
som dam etc. The beef Thai green curry was everything one could
hope for: coconuty, spicy and just excellent, and the Pad-Thai flavourful and moreish. The mains are priced according to your protein, e.g.
tofu mains are 11 euros, beef 14 etc. Come here for tasty Thai food that
will bring back memories of that adorable country.
Pelmenit, Kustaankatu 7
The food at Pelmenit is both delicious and Soviet. The signature
dish and namesake, pelmeni (12 euros) are tasty meaty dumplings
served with, and cleverly balanced by, sour smetana, hot chilli sauce
and sweet lingonberries. You might have eaten something similar
in China, Japan or Nepal. An 8-euro lunch dish is on offer, as are
other Ukrainian and Russian classics, including borscht, seljanka
and stroganoff (8-13 euros). The decor is kitsch, the service with
a smile and the atmosphere relaxed. Plates, colourful cloths and
a cuckoo clock adorn the walls. Come here for an authentic and
modest Soviet food experience in bohemian Kallio.
This list certainly isn?t definitive. If you look, talk to friends
and use social media there is actually a wealth of good value
eateries in Helsinki, and it?s great to make a discovery yourself.
With the growing popularity of street food there will likely soon
be more tasty and good value food in Helsinki. In addition to
these five restaurants, honourable mentions go to Blinit (blinis),
Gran Delicato (Italian), Harju Döner (kebabs), Konstan Möljä
(Finnish), New Bamboo Centre (Chinese / Malaysian), Puttes
(pizza), Unicafe (Finnish / mixed) and Skiffer (pizza).
Cinnamon ? whole cinnamon sticks are used in curries, to flavour
drinks and can be used to sweeten dishes because its flavour
tricks the taste buds into thinking is something is sweeter than
it is. Much like me. Also used in Chinese dishes that have heavy
flavours, to help bring a sweetness - such as pork belly stew.
Cassia bark ? Looks-wise cassia is not very pretty and is a poorer
cousin to cinnamon bark. But it has a less sweet flavour profile
and can be used with more success in savoury dishes.
Nigella seed ? tiny and black, nigella is great on breads and to
top yogurt as a part of an Indian meal. It has a faint onion flavour
and words well cooked in with white rice as well.
Tania Nathan is a Chinese-Sri
Lankan Malaysian who loves
her food and is often to be
found rummaging through
a freezer somewhere in
Hakaniemi. Come say hi!
Kirby WIlson
The per kilo price of
rainbow trout rose
from ?5.84 in 1994 to
?14.80 in 2012.
Source: Statistics Finland