Progress and women´s magazines

I gave a talk today at the Diaconia University of Applied Sciences to an auditorium filled with media students. The subject of the entire day was the responsibility of lifestyle media for what they present.

My talk (unfortunately in Finnish) is below. I focused on how a progressive lifestyle journalist should position himself or herself. I claim, that it is very easy to get stuck to the old rant on how journalists should be independent and not promote any specific idea. I claimed that the justification for being progressive for instance on sustainability can be found from the Ethical Code of Conduct for Journalists where it states that journalists have a responsibility to tell people what is happening in the world. And as climate change is the big issue of our time, you do your job poorly if you don´t build ethical and environmental norms into your work. Already journalists have made a commitment for human rights, this is the other big ethical test.

In the presentation I suggested that when dealing with sustainability, lifestyle media should build on what they do best: enthusiasm and encouragement for action. They should promote excellent and ethical choices with the same enthusiasm they promote a new eyeliner. Making things appealing works far better than the message about giving something up.

The third main point I raised was on how change in lifestyles happens. This I would claim is the ultimate test for women´s magazines. Most lifestyle media still deals with change by showing one person one morning transforming their life completely. This is understandable cos it´s easy to build a story around it. But if you actually look into research on how change happens, people who do big transformations always relate to other people. By showing this link and giving the readers tips on how to win support and get people along, lifestyle media could be one of the most powerful instigators of action for the better.

Edistyksellisyys ja naistenlehdet

View more presentations from Demos Helsinki.

Food Politics

I just got a delayed Christmas present in the form of books. I have been fascinated by the politicization of food for some time now and therefore this present really hit the ball straight out of the park.

It´s clear that more and more people are starting to advocate for healthier and more sustainable ways of eating. Brilliant. What seems to work is what we do at Demos as well: giving people tools and tips how to act rather than beating them on the head with information and guilt.

I was actually quite surprised last week to see that TV host Ellen DeGeneres - a stay-at-home mom favourite - had author Jonathan Safran Foer in her show talking about his new book, Eating Animals. In his book Safran Foer explains his journey from a father of a new-born baby wanting to know what to feed his child to an advocate of a vegetarian diet.

If you have followed the debate - in the form of documentaries, celebrity chefs and books - there is nothing new in Safran Foer´s book. But what makes it briliant is that a celebrated bestseller novelist - you might even say a household name - decided to make a big move towards more conscious eating. In the TV interview Safran Foer was simultaneously funny, witty and still critical and factual. I think we get further with that strategy than with the Michael Moore approach.

The other book in the gift bag was journalist-writer Michael Pollan´s pamphlet-like publication Food Rules, An Eater´s Manual. It builds on his bestseller In Defense of Food but makes an excellent move toward simplifying his message. Pollan´s book is concise and something you could have in your bag when you head to do the groceries. The book has 64 tips. Here are some of my favourites:

Rule 3: Avoid food products containing ingredients that no ordinary human would keep in the pantry.
Rule 6: Avoid food products that contain more than 5 ingredients.
Rule 12: Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
Rule 21: It´s not food if it´s called by the same name in every language.
Rule 22: Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
Rule 47: Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.
Rule 59: Try not to eat alone.

I recommend you buy the book. It´s funny, useful and to the point. The most important contribution by Pollan to the public debate on food is: it´s not that complicated to eat healthy. Common sense gets you far.

Are You Being Served?

waiter
Originally uploaded by ariadust

The encounters with America´s service culture from the last couple of days that do not stop baffling me.

1. Gas Station
As we pull out of the car wash at Shell, a Mexican man steps in front of the car. He takes his cloths and swipes the car windows clean. He does not speak a word of English. As he finishes, the driver opens the door and hands him a couple of bucks.
"Is this guy working for Shell", I ask from the back seat.
"No, no."
"So are you obliged to pay him, like can you drive just by?"
"You can but that would be rude."
"So Shell is fine with him being there?"
"I guess, he might be like a friend of the owner or just someone needing to make a living."

2. Taxi
"You know the flat rate, yes? 45 dollars to the airport, 5 dollars for tolls", the driver explains as we head towards JFK. "And of course the tips", he says with a grin. "Tips are important."
The man turns up to be Ukrainian and to put it mildly, social. He tells us about vodka drinking, holidays at the Krim, complains about New York drivers - whilst constantly jumping the line and causing near-death experiences for us all in the back seat. He just does not stop talking.
This turns up to be the worst taxi ride during our couple of days in New York. We take a deep breath as he unloads our bags.
We tip him 10 dollars. "You have to", I am told.

3. Clothing shop
A young man walks over to me as I go through the pile of pique shirts.
"Hi, how are you? Let me know if you need help in finding your size. If you wanna try on those shirts on your hand now, I can just go and set up the changing room for you. My name is Mark."
As he heads off to set things up, another salesperson walks up to me and starts:"Let me know if I can help you in any way, we have more sizes in the back."
"Thanks. Your colleague was actually helping me already."
I end up buying one of the shirts and head to the register. The chirpy sales girl calls me to her.
"Hi, how are you? Having a good day?"
"Yes, thanks, you."
"Great, great. Did you find everything OK? Was someone helping you today?"
"Uhm...Yes, I think his name was Mark."
She glances down to the staff list next to the register and puts in the code. "Great, thanks. Here´s your bag and have a good one!"
At the door a lively woman greets us farewell. "You guys have a great day now."
I am being told outside that Mark just got a commission point for my shirt.

4. Restaurant
A young African-American woman greets us and checks that our reservation is OK. "Welcome. My colleague will show you to your table. Have a good evening."
The white young man dressed in a skinny suit walks us over to our table and seats us - and leaves. Another man dressed in a light blue pique shirt comes over. "How are you all doing? Good. My name is Miguel and I will be your waiter tonight. Here are the menus. Would you want something to drink to start with?"
"Just ice water, thanks."
As Miguel sets off, another Latino man walks over and silently fills our water glasses. As he sets off, another Latino man comes with the forks and knives. In the course of a dinner two other Latino men pass by to fill glasses and clean finished plates. Midway through the dinner a white woman in her thirties dressed in a Hillary-like pantsuit stops by to check that everything is OK. The skinny white man walks around with a notepad, looks at our table and makes some notes as my dish is delayed.
I taste my dish. The duck meat is lukewarm. I feel embarrassed to bring up the subject to the restaurant staff but my American dinner companions encourage me. "You´re paying for it." The previous evening one of them asked to change the ordered dish as she was not fond of the taste. The waiters did this enthusiastically, without charging extra.
They holler Miguel over.
"Everything OK here?"
I go red and feel uncomfortable but cannot escape anymore.
"Well, uhm...sorry to bring this up but my dish feels kind of lukewarm, like it is not straight from the over hot."
"Oh, I am terribly sorry. Let me just take it back to the kitchen."
"Sorry to bring this up."
In the end of our dinner the restaurant fills up and the Latino men - including Miguel - run around like crazy. It takes ages for Miguel to bring our invoice. During all this time the woman and the man at the door look incredibly bored with nothing to do - right next to our table. The young man notices the delay and writes something on his notebook.
We leave a 15% tip.

Donate Here

Some advocacy organisations just get it better than others. WWF - the people who brought us Earth Hour. Via: Deceptive Cadence.

One More For The Road

Making mine a double
Originally uploaded by Liesel's Easel

Flying domestic is not something I do often, I think actually four times in my life if I count the return flights to Kittilä last week. And as before, flying domestic with someone non-Finnish makes one take another perspective as one tries to explain the behaviour of one´s fellow citizens.

Already on the flight to Kittilä, it was pointed out to me that the Finnair flight attendant allowed a Finnish man visibly drunk to occupy the seat in front of the emergency exit. I was informed by my company (someone who knows more about flying than anyone I have met) that this actually counts as a violation of airline protocol.

On the way back it got worse on the plane. The positive side was that we got to test the new Finnair Airbus 330-300, which will be used for flying to New York. It was the first week of the plane and things looked brilliant. The revamped Finnair colour scheme makes the cabin seem much more spacious and the new seats make you keep a good posture.

But as the plane was filled with Finns ending their one-week holiday either in Ylläs or Levi, it smelled like the empty bottle room of Alko. Big portion of the customers were visibly drunk already when boarding the plane. We actually changed our seats on the last minute due to the odour created by the people behind us. I managed to catch the frightened looked on a face of a young father who was forced to sit with his one-year-old in the middle of the Boozy Family. And the 5 euro charge for alcohol on domestic flights did not stop the people from boozing up more. I mean hey, last moment of holidays.

I am not blaming the cabin crew for slacking, I am sure they do not love the drunks in the back of the plane anymore than I do. After moving back to Finland from the Netherlands I have been in quite a number of situations where I notice how differently people and institutions tolerate overuse of alcohol in public transport, at stations not to mention restaurants. The Finnair case seems to be just another example of Finns looking the other way when the drunk is making another situation uncomfortable - or even risky as in the case of the emergency exit - for the rest of us.

Once Were Consumers

olimme kuluttajia
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

The pamphlet Olimme kuluttajia (We Were Consumers, Tammi) published yesterday by Aleksi Neuvonen and Roope Mokka of Demos Helsinki lays out four scenarios for 2023. The book takes scarce resources and higher price of energy as matters of fact and looks at our future within this context. It quotes on one hand Hannah Arendt in advocating that true freedom is not the freedom to own but the freedom for meaningful and public action and on the other hand scientists that we have reached the climax in the amount of core resources. If we do not change our way of living, in 15 years the climate has warmed up to the extent that certain parts of China and the American East Coast are starting to be unbearable to live in. The book follows the line of thought in the public debate now that the recession could actually be an opportunity to reboot.

The theme spreading across the book is the way we tackle climate change. According to Neuvonen and Mokka, most of us wish that there will be a day when we will be told by The Leader what not to do and until then most of us continue flying and buying in the current accelerating speed - fully aware of its consequences. The reaction is the same as a child who covers his eyes and ears to avoid the bad news. According to the book we need to recognise our role in change for as long as we wait for our elected leaders to make that switch, we are somewhat doomed. Over the last few years politics has actually taken its lessons from consumerism - politics is more a service industry answering people´s wishes than about ethics, ambitions or doing the right and responsible thing. This is very clear in political rhetorics of today. Therefore that SUV will only be banned when the big middle class takes another turn in its consumption. The book is a rare but realistic call for individual responsibility together with others.

The scenarios see control rising as we fight for limited resources. Control is also one of the ways to make people change. Rather than listening to our neighbours through the wall, in 15 years we can follow the ecological footprint of our neighbours from a public record Wastebook. In a world of less, we will surely make sure that our neighbours will not be free riding the system. This has been happening already in some countries in smaller scale for instance by people reporting their neighbours to the authorities when they do not recycle their trash.

The book claims that have moved from Social Democratic I Need Politics to more Centre Liberal I Want Politics. We are seeing the emergence of I Can Politics but the true change happens when we make a shift to We Can. When the media, corporations and governments take a bigger role in showing us the interconnectedness, we move from rights and responsibilities to virtues and pursuing truer happiness through responsible action and more meaningful human relationships. It moves discussion from what I want to what we can do.

This liberation from consumerism and move towards citizenship is quite inspiring and Case Obama is a good example of how it functions as a rhetorical tool. But I end up thinking, after reading the book, what happens when the resources really start running out. What are the arguments for building trust? The book paints a relatively beautiful picture of collective action but I feel it slightly - maybe for the argument´s sake - downplays the conflict and difference of opinion on the tools to make the switch. Politics is about deciding on those alternatives. It is not a question of The Good vs. The Bad but different strategies maybe even towards a shared goal. Does the urgency make our political system more responsible or more vicious What kind of leaders to we get, wish and deserve?

Olimme kuluttajia makes a convincing case that we have no alternative but to change. But I recognise I am already somewhat in the inner circle of this stuff. Reading it makes me reorient my professional focus to enhancing those positive developments and using my writing skills to formulate those attractive arguments to convince ever bigger parts of the population. This requires reaching over the aisle and bringing the engineer, marketeer and politician to the same table to build that map of interconnectedness. And yes, this is terribly exciting.

Oops, Stockmann

U1283875INP
Originally uploaded by shuyipeace

Toby makes in his blog the revelation of the day regarding intercultural communication. Finnish department store Stockmann has decorated their most prominent window at the flagship department store around sports with the slogan: V for Victory. The window´s major photo illustrates the victory sign made famous amongst others by Winston Churchill (pic) and Richard Nixon.

Or - as Toby well points out - that is what they were supposed to do. In the picture at Stockmann the hand is turned the other way than Churchill´s - i.e. in the picture the palm faces the person showing the sign -, which translates in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and a number of other places as Up Yours or F--- You. I am just waiting to see the confused English couple on a holiday in Helsinki standing in front of the display.

Oops. Well, it´s not like they would be selling S/M-themed puzzles in the toy section or something. Oh sorry, that happened already.

Face The Music

Great ad by Demos Helsinki and advertising agency PHS as part of Ilmastotalkoot (Climate Action) on the impact of travelling. Apparently Finnish TV stations did not want to show the ad due to the risks it could cause for travel and airline ads. The advertisement won the Audience Prize in the Voitto competition for the Best Ad of the Year. (Source: Markkinointi ja Mainonta)

Boiling It Together

Soup Ingredients
Originally uploaded by Anne Helmond

So, month 1 done as an entrepeneur. Some reflections are in order:
1. It feels so liberating to be in charge of your own schedule and work load. Everyne should at times try to define to oneself and others what you can do. It is good for your (professional) self esteem.
2. There is bureaucracy involved but you manage if you just get yourself into it. Good accountant helps. Taxation is not rocket science. Pricing is something I guess one learns only by doing.
3. Coming up with ideas and concepts is the best job ever. You also need people skills to make this work. But this kind of work is made for someone with a slight attention deficit because you have to stay alert and keep numerous balls in the air simultaneously.

So here is my Going Up and Going Down list from the first month:

GOING UP
- Lähivakuutus and Fennia: extremely good service doing exactly what an insurance company should do: take the worry away. Understanding that the salesperson should be the one knowing their product catalogue, not the customer.
- Cafes: I find writing in a cafe often more productive than at home. The buzz and soundbites from random discussions are inspiring.
- Verottaja: The Finnish tax authority has one of the clearest website around and superb customer service on the phone. Governmental excellence if you ask me. One of those things where regionalisation of phone service works - the ladies answering the phone outside the capital region are so relaxed and kind of motherly. "Don´t you worry, dear, it is all going to work out."
- Home food: Making pulla, macaroni casserole, meatloaf, meat balls with brown sauce and baking your own pizza is a splendid exercise after a long day in front of the computer.
- K-Market Kamppi: Sometimes size matters. When you have a big space in the centre, you can provide your customers with affordable organic products, fresh fruit and vegetables, great selection of beer and helpful meat&fish desk. Placing this market on top of the bus station and a metro stop is a wise choice.
- Demos Helsinki: cooking up a number of projects with them. People having this fresh and inspiring view on climate change and citizenship are hard to find.
- Blogs: Only now when I have more time for content, I realise really how great blogs there are out there. Some witty, some informative. Looking constantly for more but my current ones are there on the left hand side.
- Public transport: In Amsterdam I barely used public transport. But I must say that Helsinki has a punctual, well-planned and relatively affordable public transport system. HKL is the best argument against buying a car. And it is so much easier to read a book on a tram than on the bike.

GOING DOWN

- Nordea and OP-Pohjola: The beautiful idea of providing bank and insurance services from the same counter leads to the people at the counter not knowing the basics of the products they are selling and asking the customer to identify the products from their product catalogue. And hey, giving a pile of terms and conditions is not customer service - I could have printed them myself.
- Sonera: changing from Elisa to Sonera (for the iPhone) did not start too well. They for some bizarre reason "forgot" to process my application for two weeks and then I need to wait for my new phone for 3 weeks. What is the logic in individuals getting their phone directly in the store and business customers having to wait for weeks?

So all and all, we are strongly on the plus side. Next month should land a few big projects so we are all set to make this work.

Race To The Bottom

Behind the Bank Counter
Originally uploaded by YY

Another episode on my way towards becoming a real entrepeneur: the bank.

I don´t know how many articles I have read during the last years about the importance of good service in the fight over customers. How the ones who succeed are focused on the customer experience by making the encounter both smooth and clear. Quite often this has been tried through mergers and acquisitions. A phrase you hear often: "we offer all services from one counter."

But as my experience with Nordea today showed, this sometimes means that you get rather vague counselling on all the issues on that very counter. I felt sorry for the bank lady who had been assigned also to handle the insurance policies. When my questions started getting more detailed (as they do when you talk about your insurances or your pension), she was on thin ice. I was also asked numerous detailed questions without understanding their consequences. In the end we ended the interaction by her taking my mobile number and saying that a colleague of hers would call me. Not really how things should go. The experience was rather different than at Fennia where I was suggested to do certain things or set my income estimations on certain levels.

I do understand the need for lean and mean. But when you deal with issues such as health or the end of your days, you wish to have service making you feel confident and taking the fear away. Nordea still has a lot to do to get their insurance customers smile as the people on their ads.

Safe in the Hands of Visa

Visa
Originally uploaded by DeclanTM

Last Friday my phone rang unexpectedly:

"This is XX from Nordea Bank. I am calling about your Visa card. I wanted to check a payment made yesterday. Did you make a purchase of 700 dollars in a department store in the United States?"

My heart started beating faster:"No..." I had flown from Amsterdam to Helsinki on the previous evening so making payments in the US would qualify me to play Superman in the next film.

"Sir, it seems that someone has gained access to your credit card information. We would recommend that we close the card immediately and we send you a new one. We apologise for the inconvenience."

I must say I was amazed. I have read numerous articles about credit card frauds but never thought it would hit on me. It occurred that two payments had already been done on my card.

But more than that, I was highly impressed by VISA. The friendly woman from Nordea explained to me that they have algorithms that monitor purchase patterns and the system had alerted that this payment was not in line with others. And what made the experience even more pleasant was that the woman from the bank was extremely friendly, assured me several times that I will only pay for the purchases I have made and wanted to make it work quickly that I would receive my new card. As I checked now online, my card has been blocked from Friday on.

These things happen, we don´t live in a risk-free society. But the more important fact here is that this experience makes me an even more committed Visa customer and stops my hesitation on changing into a MasterCard (promoted heavily from all directions). This is the competitive edge of today. Job well done.