We went to the theater last night with R to see Teatteri Takomo perform Ihmeellinen armo. It was about the rise and fall of an Evangelical-Lutheran preacher. I won't actually go into the plot too much, but sufficient to say it made me think of There Will Be Blood more than a few times. And they also played the National Coalition card; nothing's easier than to poke fun at the upper classes. Anyway, I have to admit that I'm not a very big fan of Finnish television or theater. Or very many art forms in general. My issues are multifold: on one hand I always feel that Finnish as a language, while average for literature, is entirely appalling and unsuitable for any sort of verbal artform. On the other hand I feel that an average Finnish actor has the stage charisma of a shoe. The starting points are thus not too good for the Finnish "intellectual" artforms.
Maybe it has something to do with the overall Finnish attitude and temperament. We've traditionally been very sparsely populated as a country and very much oriented towards survival in a climate where the winters are dark and cold and agriculture stands firmly on its own, as long as the European Union is supporting it. I talked to a Polish acquaintance a few years back and he explained that they see Finns as good intending folks, who may be slightly naive and like to cut trees, swim across rivers (as opposed to using bridges) and then drink vodka to get warm again. And once a Finn starts to do something, s/he will typically do the best s/he can. So it's not a surprise that once a Finn decides to act, it will be something that you will remember: "Now I am acting and I am going to let everyone know that I truely am acting." Not too good, especially if acting is supposed to be the act of pretending or portraying someone who you are not. If acting is deception, then Finns will be unbelievably appalling in lying.
And then about the language: this is slightly difficult to elaborate on, since it's just something that personally annoys me very greatly. I don't consider Finnish an especially beautiful language. It lacks the finesse that some other languages have and the language is difficult to master. I've never read Douglas Adams in Finnish, but I somehow feel that if I had, I would've had to contemplate hurting myself to ease the pain. There are some famous Finns who have been able to make beautiful and great things with Finnish (Mika Waltari comes to mind, for obvious reasons). It's just a shame that had they had access to better tools in the form of other languages, they could've potentially achieved very much more and on a more global scale.
Then there is the general problem that amateur theaters have to struggle with: building credibility and getting noticed. This isn't necessarily applicable only to Finns, but based on personal experience, it just seems that Finnish theater, especially on the lower levels, is very much based on silly gimmicks and plots and dialogue that has been written for the sole reason of trying too much to be controversial, thought-provoking, and intellectual. Or if it doesn't aspire to the former of the three, then it's because it wants to be so artsy that it will be credible in the right circles. This combined with the "I'm acting now!" trait, as described above, can result in very... err... well, something.
Now, I know I might be fairly cruel. And I have to admit that Ihmeellinen armo was surprisingly decent for Finnish theater. And I know that theaters have trouble to compete with other entertainment forms in the contemporary world and for the niche that is still left it's a cutthroat competition to the end. But that does not change the fact that more often than not I just cannot stand Finnish theater. As an experience, I much more prefer the opera.
And one last thing: I seriously hate it when the actors start interacting with the audience. The audience is often very courteous and respects the presence of the fourth wall, but when the actors break the wall, I personally have a very big urge to also abuse the broken wall and throw something at them in return...
Friday, March 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
On deltas, again
I was watching the latest episode (S02E19) of Gossip Girl on Tuesday morning and I noticed that indeed the most interesting things in life often do revolve around change. We hosted a very interesting seminar at work where we benchmarked various things and there also the most interesting tidbits of knowledge were concerned with trends, or deltas and amounts of change over a time period.
As with benchmarking trends, Gossip Girl is also interesting because of the deltas. My favorite character from the start onwards was always Chuck, who on the surface is a very superficial and manipulative chap, but it was obvious from the beginning onwards that this setup would afford the most juicy character development prospects, at least from my perspective. And now with season 2, things have come true. I won't spoil anything for the Finns reading this blog who are following the series on Finnish television (and thus lagging 18 episodes), but I will say that right now Chuck's situation is interesting to say the least. And it's all thanks to the deltas.
As with benchmarking trends, Gossip Girl is also interesting because of the deltas. My favorite character from the start onwards was always Chuck, who on the surface is a very superficial and manipulative chap, but it was obvious from the beginning onwards that this setup would afford the most juicy character development prospects, at least from my perspective. And now with season 2, things have come true. I won't spoil anything for the Finns reading this blog who are following the series on Finnish television (and thus lagging 18 episodes), but I will say that right now Chuck's situation is interesting to say the least. And it's all thanks to the deltas.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Count your blessings, not your problems
Now I've pretty much seen and heard it all. I've been called a lot of things by very many different people, but I've never been called a Count before (well, the closest one prior to this incident was when I was told that I had a slight resemblance to the Count of Monte Cristo; I don't necessarily entirely agree with this...).
Anyway, we were checking out the new entrants to the Helsinki nightlife with Istvan on Saturday and thanks to his magnificent charm and exotic appearance, my friend was gathering the attention of the fairer gender for the most part of the evening. We eventually found our way to the recently opened Tiger where we ran across some of the people from the previous destinations. I kept myself out of the discussions and let my friend enjoy the ride while I kept myself preoccupied by working on my recent Twitter addiction and trying to figure out what I would like to drink next with an additional constraint that the generic, but still very friendly, bar staff would actually know how to make (it turns out that Manhattans are way to exotic). The bomb of the night arived when I briefly rejoined the conversation my friend was having: our new pals were very much intrigued whether or not I was a member of nobility, a Count perhaps. Unfortunately I had to admit that to the best of my knowledge I am nothing of the like. Nor are my ways in general very noble, so there we are...
I didn't get around to asking what this was about, but I have formed two mutually non-exclusive theories regarding my supposed promotion. The first is that Finland is still not entirely ready for any sort of dandyism, and I would very much argue that what I was wearing wasn't very dandyistic in the first place--a black blazer with grey buttons, a white-and-blue striped shirt, relaxed jeans, brown oxfords and a black Ascot tie with slightly slicked back but still wavy hair. My second theory is that I might've come off as slightly arrogant by excluding myself from the conversation and also exhibiting a decent posture and restraint of unnecessary facial expressions.
Now, asides from these two theories I'm still very much baffled. But this begs the question as to whether or not Finland is destined to be doomed; are Finnish men really so lost that Finnish women will mistake a semi-decently dressed person as a person with class and are youngsters so ill after being exposed to hip-hop-pop that they cannot hold a decent posture? Now that one actually begins to think about it, maybe it seriously is so...
Moving on, surprisingly enough The Tiger seemed like a semi-decent place. It's still essentially Lux but with a slightly different colorscheme and women who are more aggressively trying to steal drinks that your group has positioned onto a table. Then again, it was opened on Friday, so I guess we'll need to give it a month or two and see what it turns into. Privé opened up again a while back after being closed for a few years. The opening event saw the place packed up pretty tightly, but last Saturday it was more or less empty. Is it so that trying to position yourself in the upmarket amidst a recession is a foolish thing, or is it just that the places that are truly founded in the upmarket are ones that stay around year after year and are not even competing in the same category as the fad-ish clubs that come and go in three year cycles... Anyone see the parallels to the fashion and art worlds?
Anyway, we were checking out the new entrants to the Helsinki nightlife with Istvan on Saturday and thanks to his magnificent charm and exotic appearance, my friend was gathering the attention of the fairer gender for the most part of the evening. We eventually found our way to the recently opened Tiger where we ran across some of the people from the previous destinations. I kept myself out of the discussions and let my friend enjoy the ride while I kept myself preoccupied by working on my recent Twitter addiction and trying to figure out what I would like to drink next with an additional constraint that the generic, but still very friendly, bar staff would actually know how to make (it turns out that Manhattans are way to exotic). The bomb of the night arived when I briefly rejoined the conversation my friend was having: our new pals were very much intrigued whether or not I was a member of nobility, a Count perhaps. Unfortunately I had to admit that to the best of my knowledge I am nothing of the like. Nor are my ways in general very noble, so there we are...
I didn't get around to asking what this was about, but I have formed two mutually non-exclusive theories regarding my supposed promotion. The first is that Finland is still not entirely ready for any sort of dandyism, and I would very much argue that what I was wearing wasn't very dandyistic in the first place--a black blazer with grey buttons, a white-and-blue striped shirt, relaxed jeans, brown oxfords and a black Ascot tie with slightly slicked back but still wavy hair. My second theory is that I might've come off as slightly arrogant by excluding myself from the conversation and also exhibiting a decent posture and restraint of unnecessary facial expressions.
Now, asides from these two theories I'm still very much baffled. But this begs the question as to whether or not Finland is destined to be doomed; are Finnish men really so lost that Finnish women will mistake a semi-decently dressed person as a person with class and are youngsters so ill after being exposed to hip-hop-pop that they cannot hold a decent posture? Now that one actually begins to think about it, maybe it seriously is so...
Moving on, surprisingly enough The Tiger seemed like a semi-decent place. It's still essentially Lux but with a slightly different colorscheme and women who are more aggressively trying to steal drinks that your group has positioned onto a table. Then again, it was opened on Friday, so I guess we'll need to give it a month or two and see what it turns into. Privé opened up again a while back after being closed for a few years. The opening event saw the place packed up pretty tightly, but last Saturday it was more or less empty. Is it so that trying to position yourself in the upmarket amidst a recession is a foolish thing, or is it just that the places that are truly founded in the upmarket are ones that stay around year after year and are not even competing in the same category as the fad-ish clubs that come and go in three year cycles... Anyone see the parallels to the fashion and art worlds?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Spaces and decorating
I was watching an episode of a Finnish home decoration/renovation series last night and they were renovating the home of one of the hosts of the program. His home was a large loft apartment and being an interior decorator or something of the like, he had fairly solid views about what he wanted and what he didn't want. The outcome, while technically ok, was not something that I would've done.
I really like loft apartments thanks to the vast amounts of space they provide. But in my opinion the whole philosophy of a loft apartment is to be industrial and minimalist in some way; in the show last night the end result was very much crowded and looked like something that was forced into the world for the sake of doing something "different" and making a statement. It just didn't work, in my opinion. There were too many tricks and gimmicks to keep the open and spacious nature of the loft intact.
But I guess there might be some issues with decorating large areas. A person I once knew lived in this quite decent sized apartment, but the problem there was the typical Finnish mentality of decorating: put all of the furniture along the walls. There were other issues with not having any continuity or having interesting details, but the main turn-off for me was that by piling everything against the walls, it looked empty and soulless. As if no effort and creativity was used at all. In smaller spaces it's more difficult to place furniture due to the constraints, but in open areas this constraint doesn't exist and things should be a lot more easy. If you want to go for minimalism in open spaces, you should take very bold stances and not fear about placing furniture in the middle of the room.
But I'm nitpicking here and provoking a fight. While I have strong opinions on these subjects, ultimately I guess the core point is that you have to feel at home in your apartment or house. That said, you can decorate things in an interesting way, or then you can be a Finn...
I really like loft apartments thanks to the vast amounts of space they provide. But in my opinion the whole philosophy of a loft apartment is to be industrial and minimalist in some way; in the show last night the end result was very much crowded and looked like something that was forced into the world for the sake of doing something "different" and making a statement. It just didn't work, in my opinion. There were too many tricks and gimmicks to keep the open and spacious nature of the loft intact.
But I guess there might be some issues with decorating large areas. A person I once knew lived in this quite decent sized apartment, but the problem there was the typical Finnish mentality of decorating: put all of the furniture along the walls. There were other issues with not having any continuity or having interesting details, but the main turn-off for me was that by piling everything against the walls, it looked empty and soulless. As if no effort and creativity was used at all. In smaller spaces it's more difficult to place furniture due to the constraints, but in open areas this constraint doesn't exist and things should be a lot more easy. If you want to go for minimalism in open spaces, you should take very bold stances and not fear about placing furniture in the middle of the room.
But I'm nitpicking here and provoking a fight. While I have strong opinions on these subjects, ultimately I guess the core point is that you have to feel at home in your apartment or house. That said, you can decorate things in an interesting way, or then you can be a Finn...
Friday, March 13, 2009
On support
All in all I would say that I'm fairly responsible as a person. This manifests itself in various different ways and when I typically start doing something, I want to do it properly and strive to keep within the given timeframes. In practice this means that occasionally I put in decent amounts of time and effort at work, which I guess most people do. It's also sometimes called commitment.
Based on empirical evidence, the reactions to this sort of effort and commitment are interesting, to say the least. They vary very widely from just acknowledging that "yeah, that's life" to the oh-so-traditional "you're working too hard, you should take it more easy". It's very seldom that I've heard very many encouraging things, which has led me to wonder why that is. It's actually surprisingly often that I encounter the "you should take it more easy" reaction, and somehow I always get this impression that this is just something that you should say to attempt to discourage the person from putting in more effort into something and as such tries to inhibit the progress of the other person. I know that this may be quite a strong interpretation and that there are others as well, but on some level it just feels that when someone tells you that, they're in fact trying to tell themselves that it's ok that they're not putting in as much effort and obtain some sort of better consience. It's something that happens when the other person feels that they're not ahead in the game and might be feeling threatened.
And as usual, this has been slightly provocative in an attempt to bring out another aspect to this phenomenon. So take it with a grain of salt...
Based on empirical evidence, the reactions to this sort of effort and commitment are interesting, to say the least. They vary very widely from just acknowledging that "yeah, that's life" to the oh-so-traditional "you're working too hard, you should take it more easy". It's very seldom that I've heard very many encouraging things, which has led me to wonder why that is. It's actually surprisingly often that I encounter the "you should take it more easy" reaction, and somehow I always get this impression that this is just something that you should say to attempt to discourage the person from putting in more effort into something and as such tries to inhibit the progress of the other person. I know that this may be quite a strong interpretation and that there are others as well, but on some level it just feels that when someone tells you that, they're in fact trying to tell themselves that it's ok that they're not putting in as much effort and obtain some sort of better consience. It's something that happens when the other person feels that they're not ahead in the game and might be feeling threatened.
And as usual, this has been slightly provocative in an attempt to bring out another aspect to this phenomenon. So take it with a grain of salt...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Pensions
There's a very populist debate going on in Finland right now about what to do with retirement age of people. For a few years now it has been 63, but now the government is suggesting that it should be raised to 65 on the grounds that with the declining population and other factors related to the financing of pensions, it is very possible that this bomb will blow up in our faces sooner or later and that we should attempt to counteract that by getting a few extra years out of people.
According to recent surveys, the majority of people are very much against this turn of events. I am not one of them. It's very selfish to assume shove the problem on the people who will be financing the pensions of tomorrow. In the past the retirement age has been even higher than 65. Additionally Finland prefers the model of pension financing where a part of the pensions are paid directly from the taxes collected each year and a part is paid from funds collected in the past. Obviously with the current financial crisis the situation is slightly more difficult with all investments deep in the red, so even on these grounds I think the raise is somewhat warranted. Although I have to admit that I haven't done the math myself; but then again, I get the impression that the social democrats have flunked their math too.
In fact, because of this debate I've started to wonder why we even have this central system of pensions. Why do I have to be a part of it? What if I want to arrange my future pension myself? If I think that I can get a better ROI on the money I currently pay to the government myself. In that case the argument about the retirement age would become smaller: you should be able to retire when you feel so yourself, and if you can afford it. If you can't afford to retire, that's of course a problem, but one that you should have thought about before. Now the social democrats will rush in and tell us that we can't leave anyone behind and we have to support the weakest. And they do have a point in that, but I'm increasingly fed up with their populist arguments and the fact that I have a feeling that I'll be one of the poor souls who will end up as part of the upper middle class who will be paying for the mistakes of other people.
If you think about it: the people who work the hardest earn the most. Not always, but there is a correlation, I would say. They also get taxed very much, thanks to the progressive taxation that is in place in Finland. At the same time if you work when you study, you cannot get any support from the government, unlike if you just decided to be drunk all day, every day at the campus. Then you graduate and start earning money, out of which you finance the elementary school dropouts and drug addicts. Then you also pay the retirement taxes to finance the pensions of people who are retired, either because of age or because they're in such a bad shape that they can't work anymore. And by the way, you won't ever be able to enjoy any of the benefits because you'll die of a heartattack at the office when you're 45.
So let me apologize, but I do not always understand how the world is fair. The current system, at least in Finland, is penalizing you for trying to succeed in any way. If we want to keep the current pension system working, then by all means raise the age requirement to 65. I'm quite convinced that I personally won't reach that age, but I am certain that whether I want it or not, I'll be contributing my fair share to the health and wealth of the nation at large. I'm, however, increasingly starting to feel that maybe I should go make my contribution somewhere else...
According to recent surveys, the majority of people are very much against this turn of events. I am not one of them. It's very selfish to assume shove the problem on the people who will be financing the pensions of tomorrow. In the past the retirement age has been even higher than 65. Additionally Finland prefers the model of pension financing where a part of the pensions are paid directly from the taxes collected each year and a part is paid from funds collected in the past. Obviously with the current financial crisis the situation is slightly more difficult with all investments deep in the red, so even on these grounds I think the raise is somewhat warranted. Although I have to admit that I haven't done the math myself; but then again, I get the impression that the social democrats have flunked their math too.
In fact, because of this debate I've started to wonder why we even have this central system of pensions. Why do I have to be a part of it? What if I want to arrange my future pension myself? If I think that I can get a better ROI on the money I currently pay to the government myself. In that case the argument about the retirement age would become smaller: you should be able to retire when you feel so yourself, and if you can afford it. If you can't afford to retire, that's of course a problem, but one that you should have thought about before. Now the social democrats will rush in and tell us that we can't leave anyone behind and we have to support the weakest. And they do have a point in that, but I'm increasingly fed up with their populist arguments and the fact that I have a feeling that I'll be one of the poor souls who will end up as part of the upper middle class who will be paying for the mistakes of other people.
If you think about it: the people who work the hardest earn the most. Not always, but there is a correlation, I would say. They also get taxed very much, thanks to the progressive taxation that is in place in Finland. At the same time if you work when you study, you cannot get any support from the government, unlike if you just decided to be drunk all day, every day at the campus. Then you graduate and start earning money, out of which you finance the elementary school dropouts and drug addicts. Then you also pay the retirement taxes to finance the pensions of people who are retired, either because of age or because they're in such a bad shape that they can't work anymore. And by the way, you won't ever be able to enjoy any of the benefits because you'll die of a heartattack at the office when you're 45.
So let me apologize, but I do not always understand how the world is fair. The current system, at least in Finland, is penalizing you for trying to succeed in any way. If we want to keep the current pension system working, then by all means raise the age requirement to 65. I'm quite convinced that I personally won't reach that age, but I am certain that whether I want it or not, I'll be contributing my fair share to the health and wealth of the nation at large. I'm, however, increasingly starting to feel that maybe I should go make my contribution somewhere else...
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Back to basics
It turns out that my football coach was always right... If we look at the past few years and think about the lessons we should learn, one of the core ones is this: STICK TO THE FUNDAMENTALS! If the foundations aren't good, there's no point in building a house on top of them. Now the million (or should we say several billion?) dollar question is how do we actually remember to do this.
Even very recently, I still see events which trigger the question: why so hasty and why these rash actions? Where are the fundamentals?
Even very recently, I still see events which trigger the question: why so hasty and why these rash actions? Where are the fundamentals?
Monday, February 09, 2009
X is right, works, clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit
People aren't complex. People are simple. The world isn't hard to understand inherently, but the difficulty arises from us artificially creating opacity ourselves and not even always understanding it. We create endless amounts of artifacts and build monuments to ourselves, but lose touch with everything else and just sink into the bottomless pit of quicksand. It's ironic how reaching for the stars never results in anything permanent, no clarity and no fulfillment. It's all a big joke, but seeing it may at times be difficult. Some people might argue that it's drama, but it's all a satire. Embrace the dark humor and find solace and terra firma in that, since the castles in the clouds are merely that: not there.
Find X.
Find X.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The vacation that wasn't...
A mental note to self: the next time I go on vacation, I'm going leave all laptops and mobile phones to the office and be entirely unreachable. I've been at work more than I've had true vacation days during this past month. Sheesh...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Summer's around the corner...
It's nearing the end of January already and that means only one thing: only a few more months (and then a few) until it's time to ditch the tweeds and hide the leather gloves and get your hands on the all time favorite summer wear: linen suits, seersucker jackets, polo shirts, etc. Another sure sign of this is that everyone's already got their spring and summer catalogs prepared and available. So in short, time to start checking out what to get and then start pestering the tailor again to have things adjusted.
This time around I think that the first thing to get is a decent seersucker jacket, which is unfortunately missing from my wardrobe. And because it's a very preppy thing to do, obviously the right choice is to turn to Brooks Brothers for the quintessential American attitude and cut. Some people who follow this blog will obviously be completely at a loss as to why I'm all of a sudden interested in Americans once again. And to be honest, I have no idea. At first I was going to say that it must be because the only real way to spend a summer is to be at the Hamptons, but, well... That's not exactly true. In Europe we have the Italians who have the brilliant ability to dress well for summer.
To add to the confusion, I'm turning into a serious mess now that I've been turning to Italian clothing in the immediate past (a couple of coats by Zegna and a suit by Valentino Roma), which in itself is a mild change of direction from the British attitude. So I'm sorry, I don't have a coherent answer for this. It's just a thing that depends on the feeling, I guess. Some days you wake up and feel that New England is the way to go (yeah, yeah, I know that it's a horrible thing to say) and on other days there's nothing better than an aggressive Italian cut and slicking your hair back and waving your hands around uncontrollably while elaborating issues like this to your friends over a cup of espresso.
But maybe, just maybe this is not a weakness but a strength of sorts. I know that it somewhat conflicts with the notion of having a clear and focused personal style and is borderline fashion/faddish, but it need not be. While writing all this, it's starting to become more clear. Maybe the following rough outlines will help to clarify the stylistic positions that I hold at this moment:
This time around I think that the first thing to get is a decent seersucker jacket, which is unfortunately missing from my wardrobe. And because it's a very preppy thing to do, obviously the right choice is to turn to Brooks Brothers for the quintessential American attitude and cut. Some people who follow this blog will obviously be completely at a loss as to why I'm all of a sudden interested in Americans once again. And to be honest, I have no idea. At first I was going to say that it must be because the only real way to spend a summer is to be at the Hamptons, but, well... That's not exactly true. In Europe we have the Italians who have the brilliant ability to dress well for summer.
To add to the confusion, I'm turning into a serious mess now that I've been turning to Italian clothing in the immediate past (a couple of coats by Zegna and a suit by Valentino Roma), which in itself is a mild change of direction from the British attitude. So I'm sorry, I don't have a coherent answer for this. It's just a thing that depends on the feeling, I guess. Some days you wake up and feel that New England is the way to go (yeah, yeah, I know that it's a horrible thing to say) and on other days there's nothing better than an aggressive Italian cut and slicking your hair back and waving your hands around uncontrollably while elaborating issues like this to your friends over a cup of espresso.
But maybe, just maybe this is not a weakness but a strength of sorts. I know that it somewhat conflicts with the notion of having a clear and focused personal style and is borderline fashion/faddish, but it need not be. While writing all this, it's starting to become more clear. Maybe the following rough outlines will help to clarify the stylistic positions that I hold at this moment:
- The British attitude in general and the cut of their suits in specific are a sure choice for the office. Conservative, boring, and fitting into the masses and the classes around.
- Weekends are somewhat more difficult, but blazers and knitwear and a right balance between the Brits and the Italians may be a good idea here. And during the nights out on town, nothing can come close to the Italian flamboyance.
- The winter is the time for heavier cloths and as the weather gets tougher, the clothes need to be able to withstand more as well. The British climate, at least in some respects, is closer to the Finnish climate than what the Neapolitan crowd is accustomed to.
- In general the American sack mentality is entirely horrid, but may be acceptable in casual circumstances, making it an ideal competitor for the Italian summer look. Balancing between the two may require tons of effort, but can potentially be an interesting path. Let's face it: the New England crowd and the Italian crowd are both into sailing, so they can't be entirely incompatible...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thursday, January 08, 2009
You either die a hero, or...
In the recent follow-up Batman movie, The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent uttered a view that "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Being a villian is often just dependent on the point of view, but I was personally intrigued about whether this thought could be applied to the corporate world with some modifications to capture a key part of career creation...
A very well known strategy to climb the ranks in the corporate world is to continuously keep moving. Often moving within a single part of the organization, or even the same organization, is not enough and if you want to turbo-boost your career, you should just jump from company to company and back again. A cynical person would say that if you look at the life cycle of a project, the organization climbers are most visible from the outset of the project. They hold the speeches and launch the projects, but soon afterwards they move onwards, leaving other people to deal with the shit.
If we consider Harvey's quote and remember that surprisingly many projects fail (i.e. are not fully succesful along the metrics that they are evaluated against), maybe the dynamics are that you should quit while being "victorious" (i.e. before you've been defeated, which is the same as moving on even before the first battles ensue) or if you stick around, you will ultimately fail. To elaborate: give a person, a job and enough time and eventually the person will fail in one way or another. And the more you fail, the more difficult it may become to justify promotions. Failures decrease momentum, and momentum is precisely the thing that gets you promoted.
On the other hand, if you actively switch jobs and pursue new challenges, you don't have the time to fail because you're already elsewhere. You seem very proactive, energetic, and dynamic (and a lot of other meaningless adjectives as well). It seems that you're continuously on the move and are able to make things move with you, and thus it is easy to get promotions. Additionally, once you've left, assuming that you didn't totally mess things up, time will take care of things and people will mostly remember the (small) accomplishments that you were able to achieve. Then when you come back, not only do you already, by default, have a larger paycheck and a niftier title, but because nothing is really ever taken away from you, it's all the easier to give you an even bigger paycheck and a corner office. If you had initially asked for both and suggested that you should jump a paygrade or few to your superiors, that would quite potentially have been met with a fair amount of skepticism.
So maybe in the corporate world Harvey's view is distorted into "You either continue to move as a hero, or stick around long enough to fail (and thus die)." Or something to that extent. People who are better with words can undoubtedly make that sound more sexy.
A very well known strategy to climb the ranks in the corporate world is to continuously keep moving. Often moving within a single part of the organization, or even the same organization, is not enough and if you want to turbo-boost your career, you should just jump from company to company and back again. A cynical person would say that if you look at the life cycle of a project, the organization climbers are most visible from the outset of the project. They hold the speeches and launch the projects, but soon afterwards they move onwards, leaving other people to deal with the shit.
If we consider Harvey's quote and remember that surprisingly many projects fail (i.e. are not fully succesful along the metrics that they are evaluated against), maybe the dynamics are that you should quit while being "victorious" (i.e. before you've been defeated, which is the same as moving on even before the first battles ensue) or if you stick around, you will ultimately fail. To elaborate: give a person, a job and enough time and eventually the person will fail in one way or another. And the more you fail, the more difficult it may become to justify promotions. Failures decrease momentum, and momentum is precisely the thing that gets you promoted.
On the other hand, if you actively switch jobs and pursue new challenges, you don't have the time to fail because you're already elsewhere. You seem very proactive, energetic, and dynamic (and a lot of other meaningless adjectives as well). It seems that you're continuously on the move and are able to make things move with you, and thus it is easy to get promotions. Additionally, once you've left, assuming that you didn't totally mess things up, time will take care of things and people will mostly remember the (small) accomplishments that you were able to achieve. Then when you come back, not only do you already, by default, have a larger paycheck and a niftier title, but because nothing is really ever taken away from you, it's all the easier to give you an even bigger paycheck and a corner office. If you had initially asked for both and suggested that you should jump a paygrade or few to your superiors, that would quite potentially have been met with a fair amount of skepticism.
So maybe in the corporate world Harvey's view is distorted into "You either continue to move as a hero, or stick around long enough to fail (and thus die)." Or something to that extent. People who are better with words can undoubtedly make that sound more sexy.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The thing about fine dining...
Fine dining is typically considered a joke in very many circles in Finland. I guess it's also quite universal that people poke fun at the "small" size of the dishes and the large amount of forks and knives present on the table. But in fact, fine dining is a very nice way to spend time with friends and acquaintances. The servings may be small, but from experience the overall amount of food is pretty much perfect; when you leave the restaurant, I've seldom felt hunger. The very many different courses take care of that. Also, more emphasis is spent on the experience on a holistic level: the waiters and waitresses can help you coordinate the food and the wine to achieve a completely different taste than what one can achieve with casual dining. And overall the whole situation has that "old world" charm in it. Instead of the hectic pace that is so present elsewhere in this day and age, you can just enjoy those small luxuries in life.
Oh, and I'm sure that by exchanging McDonald's with Chez Dominique, a lot less people would be obese. :) And speaking of which, I'm going to to that piggy restaurant on Wednesday. Yay.
Oh, and I'm sure that by exchanging McDonald's with Chez Dominique, a lot less people would be obese. :) And speaking of which, I'm going to to that piggy restaurant on Wednesday. Yay.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Significant others and what to value
I recently had an interesting chat with a person who I know regarding relationships and what to value in them. I'll grant that the person in question is a young person (even when compared to me), so we'll be very nice to them. But regardless, I was more or less appalled by what I heard from her. Supposedly the three main attributes in the significant other, in order of importance, are 1) outlook, 2) IQ, and 3) social networks. I don't even know where to start enumerating the issues that I have with this approach, but I shall try, anyway.
Outlooks. This is entirely random, and if you are looking for a person with whom to spend the rest of your life, it is of course important, but hardly the deciding factor, I would say. The issue is that however beautiful or ugly a person is, if it doesn't click, it doesn't click. The physical appearance, I would argue, is a sanitary issue: your significant other needs to look good enough that you will in fact want to wake up next to him/her. But I would hardly say that outlooks weigh much more than that; in fact, physical attractiveness is a diminishing attribute in the sense that people get old and unattractive. Even more so with women. So in the list of things to score, I agree that physical attractiveness is important, but it is hardly the most important aspect. And to top if off, physical attractiveness is in fact entirely random: the way you look is more or less random and you typically have not really had that much say in it yourself.
Then... IQ. Intelligence is traditionally measured by Mensa and other such institutions. The metrics have received a lot of criticism and rightly so, as there are many different types of intelligence. I understand that what she may have meant was intelligence on a larger scale, but she did not specify the criteria in any more detail. Again, while I list intelligence fairly high in my list of things to value in a significant other, it is again, at least, secondary to that "click". Intelligence is hard to measure and again mostly the way the metrics work can be studied and learned and thus if traditional IQ metrics are used, I venture that it is possible to train oneself in those. This is why Mensa does not allow you to do the test very many times and this is also the reason why traditional IQ exams have favored people with western educations... The tests are biased. Again, I would suggest that the metrics are difficult and again, even if an absolute IQ that covered the Mensa intelligence as well as e.g. emotional intelligence could be determined, the problem is still that these are things that you are essentially still more or less born with, and again can't affect too much.
Now, social networks. These are of course important. I would argue that from a "young" persons perspective there are multiple types. From my personal perspective I know two types of people: people who actively shape the world via political and economical (e.g. business) mechanisms and then the rest. The problem here, as I see it, is that you on some level inherit social networks. I personally wouldn't know these "big names" based on my own merits, but I do know them via other routes. And then again, if valuing a social network, the "other people" aren't really that important. So valuing the social networks that a person has is again fairly silly, since the most valued acquaintances are again established beforehand. If you are born into circles who know people, then you will more or less automatically learn to also know the people who have the power.
Out of these three dimensions the common denominator appears to be that these are in essence things that you can, at best, inherit through your parents and your genes. And because I'm a keen advocate of meritocracy, I reject this view right up front. I personally don't see any intrinsic value in these: you are either born beautiful or not, you are either born intelligent or not, and you either have social networks or you do not. As I discussed previously, it is in fact the movement that I value. I personally don't really give a damn where someone comes from, it is the amount of movement and velocity that they demonstrate, be it in a career or by building a functioning family or whatever, that's what counts. Out of the three dimensions listed above, I would argue that only the third one, social networks, is one that a person can actively develop, and thus might be a thing to consider. And in fact, many people in the venture captital world who I've had the pleasure of meeting also agree that it isn't necessarily what you know but who you know that counts. But the discussion at hand is about significant others, and I personally do not give a damn who my ideal significant other knows or doesn't know.
In light of this, in the scope of significant others, I value this intrinsic and extremely vague concept of "click". If things "click", then you've found a good significant other. If things don't "click", then get rid of the situation and move along. What that means, I have no idea. Base it on intuition, I would suggest. But whatever you do, do not apply the same metrics as you would apply at work; they should be kept very separate. Along with "click", I also judge by the amount of movement and momentum that a person is able to gain. In terms of outlook and appearance, I would not value (outside the basic sanitary requirements) how the person looks by default, but I would in turn emphasize the way they've created and found their own style, how comfortable they are in that style and so on. Intelligence is difficult to measure and arguably should not even be done, but if movement is required, I would value intelligence from the perspective of how well a person is able to manage abstract concepts, deal with social situations (e.g. behave in public, understand and discuss about emotions, etc.), discuss about current events, be opinionated, etc. This is not necessarily movement as such, but again, I would not wish to measure this. Instead I would use the concept of wavelength. You are either on the same wavelength or you are not. If you are, you are able to communicate very well with your significant other, otherwise not. And finally social networks: depends on the type. Facebook friends do not carry any value at all. If you seriously want to value social networks, then you need to analyze the networks in respect to what you can benefit out of them. The beneficial type of social networks may be a good indicator for some attributes that a person may have (e.g. leadership, sociability, etc.), but I would hardly classify it as an intrinsic value by itself. In business acquaintances I value connectedness, but in a significant other I just value the match and the "click".
It may be that I am very simple (hell, I am from the country-side, so what can you expect from a simpleton like me ;), but I feel that in this case the metrics are very skewed. I venture that it has quite a bit to do with me being a supporter of meritocracy (i.e. movement and momentum), but on the other hand with meaningful, romantic relationships, I'm just a simple person who values the concept of "click". If I am happy in a relationship, then I'm happy. If not, then do something about it. Relationships are just one aspect of life, so even though it is very important, it should not be overstressed. Instead, I argue that sustainable happiness (is this analogous to sustainable competitive advantage in the business literature? :) comes from two aspects: 1) a relative balance of different aspects of life (social life, romantic life, work/career, children, education, intellectual pursuits, etc.) and 2) perceived movement and advancement in the different aspects.
Outlooks. This is entirely random, and if you are looking for a person with whom to spend the rest of your life, it is of course important, but hardly the deciding factor, I would say. The issue is that however beautiful or ugly a person is, if it doesn't click, it doesn't click. The physical appearance, I would argue, is a sanitary issue: your significant other needs to look good enough that you will in fact want to wake up next to him/her. But I would hardly say that outlooks weigh much more than that; in fact, physical attractiveness is a diminishing attribute in the sense that people get old and unattractive. Even more so with women. So in the list of things to score, I agree that physical attractiveness is important, but it is hardly the most important aspect. And to top if off, physical attractiveness is in fact entirely random: the way you look is more or less random and you typically have not really had that much say in it yourself.
Then... IQ. Intelligence is traditionally measured by Mensa and other such institutions. The metrics have received a lot of criticism and rightly so, as there are many different types of intelligence. I understand that what she may have meant was intelligence on a larger scale, but she did not specify the criteria in any more detail. Again, while I list intelligence fairly high in my list of things to value in a significant other, it is again, at least, secondary to that "click". Intelligence is hard to measure and again mostly the way the metrics work can be studied and learned and thus if traditional IQ metrics are used, I venture that it is possible to train oneself in those. This is why Mensa does not allow you to do the test very many times and this is also the reason why traditional IQ exams have favored people with western educations... The tests are biased. Again, I would suggest that the metrics are difficult and again, even if an absolute IQ that covered the Mensa intelligence as well as e.g. emotional intelligence could be determined, the problem is still that these are things that you are essentially still more or less born with, and again can't affect too much.
Now, social networks. These are of course important. I would argue that from a "young" persons perspective there are multiple types. From my personal perspective I know two types of people: people who actively shape the world via political and economical (e.g. business) mechanisms and then the rest. The problem here, as I see it, is that you on some level inherit social networks. I personally wouldn't know these "big names" based on my own merits, but I do know them via other routes. And then again, if valuing a social network, the "other people" aren't really that important. So valuing the social networks that a person has is again fairly silly, since the most valued acquaintances are again established beforehand. If you are born into circles who know people, then you will more or less automatically learn to also know the people who have the power.
Out of these three dimensions the common denominator appears to be that these are in essence things that you can, at best, inherit through your parents and your genes. And because I'm a keen advocate of meritocracy, I reject this view right up front. I personally don't see any intrinsic value in these: you are either born beautiful or not, you are either born intelligent or not, and you either have social networks or you do not. As I discussed previously, it is in fact the movement that I value. I personally don't really give a damn where someone comes from, it is the amount of movement and velocity that they demonstrate, be it in a career or by building a functioning family or whatever, that's what counts. Out of the three dimensions listed above, I would argue that only the third one, social networks, is one that a person can actively develop, and thus might be a thing to consider. And in fact, many people in the venture captital world who I've had the pleasure of meeting also agree that it isn't necessarily what you know but who you know that counts. But the discussion at hand is about significant others, and I personally do not give a damn who my ideal significant other knows or doesn't know.
In light of this, in the scope of significant others, I value this intrinsic and extremely vague concept of "click". If things "click", then you've found a good significant other. If things don't "click", then get rid of the situation and move along. What that means, I have no idea. Base it on intuition, I would suggest. But whatever you do, do not apply the same metrics as you would apply at work; they should be kept very separate. Along with "click", I also judge by the amount of movement and momentum that a person is able to gain. In terms of outlook and appearance, I would not value (outside the basic sanitary requirements) how the person looks by default, but I would in turn emphasize the way they've created and found their own style, how comfortable they are in that style and so on. Intelligence is difficult to measure and arguably should not even be done, but if movement is required, I would value intelligence from the perspective of how well a person is able to manage abstract concepts, deal with social situations (e.g. behave in public, understand and discuss about emotions, etc.), discuss about current events, be opinionated, etc. This is not necessarily movement as such, but again, I would not wish to measure this. Instead I would use the concept of wavelength. You are either on the same wavelength or you are not. If you are, you are able to communicate very well with your significant other, otherwise not. And finally social networks: depends on the type. Facebook friends do not carry any value at all. If you seriously want to value social networks, then you need to analyze the networks in respect to what you can benefit out of them. The beneficial type of social networks may be a good indicator for some attributes that a person may have (e.g. leadership, sociability, etc.), but I would hardly classify it as an intrinsic value by itself. In business acquaintances I value connectedness, but in a significant other I just value the match and the "click".
It may be that I am very simple (hell, I am from the country-side, so what can you expect from a simpleton like me ;), but I feel that in this case the metrics are very skewed. I venture that it has quite a bit to do with me being a supporter of meritocracy (i.e. movement and momentum), but on the other hand with meaningful, romantic relationships, I'm just a simple person who values the concept of "click". If I am happy in a relationship, then I'm happy. If not, then do something about it. Relationships are just one aspect of life, so even though it is very important, it should not be overstressed. Instead, I argue that sustainable happiness (is this analogous to sustainable competitive advantage in the business literature? :) comes from two aspects: 1) a relative balance of different aspects of life (social life, romantic life, work/career, children, education, intellectual pursuits, etc.) and 2) perceived movement and advancement in the different aspects.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Catastrophe!
As I previously noted, I was in London about a month or so back and it was a very nice trip, all in all (even though British Airways insisted on me checking in my James Smith & Sons umbrella, which in turn caused quite a bit of frustration). Anyway, things were fine up until today, when I figured out that I had horribly overlooked one little thing that I was supposed to additionally accomplish on the trip. And no, I'm not referring to the brunch with Natalie, which in the end didn't happen, unfortunately.
You see, more often when considering proper dress, I've always focused on what I wear outside the comfort of my home. Mostly because, well, I'm almost never at home. I've spent this Christmas at my parents' place in the countryside, and all the lounging about has proved a very fatal hole in my wardrobe, namely the lack of a proper dressing gown to lurk around in when not feeling ready to dress properly. Now, London ties into all of this in the way that Turnbull & Asser is one of the stores which, amongst other things, offers very decent dressing gowns. This is an even more sore subject as I did in fact visit Turnbull & Asser to get a nice and nifty ascot tie for myself, and entirely forgot about this gown issue. So now I will have to deal with the situation, one way or another. Of course if the pound sterling keeps on plummeting, I may as well make another nice trip to London later this winter to rectify this error. Otherwise I'll have to search around Helsinki to find nice dressing gowns, but I'm not holding my breath with this choice. I am, however, accepting all sorts of advice on where to solicit a nice dressing gown for myself...
And yes, it is Tom Ford sporting a very decent dressing gown in the photo above. And yes, I blatantly ripped the image from some site I can't remember which I found from Google's image search. So credit goes to whomever wants to claim ownership of the photo.
You see, more often when considering proper dress, I've always focused on what I wear outside the comfort of my home. Mostly because, well, I'm almost never at home. I've spent this Christmas at my parents' place in the countryside, and all the lounging about has proved a very fatal hole in my wardrobe, namely the lack of a proper dressing gown to lurk around in when not feeling ready to dress properly. Now, London ties into all of this in the way that Turnbull & Asser is one of the stores which, amongst other things, offers very decent dressing gowns. This is an even more sore subject as I did in fact visit Turnbull & Asser to get a nice and nifty ascot tie for myself, and entirely forgot about this gown issue. So now I will have to deal with the situation, one way or another. Of course if the pound sterling keeps on plummeting, I may as well make another nice trip to London later this winter to rectify this error. Otherwise I'll have to search around Helsinki to find nice dressing gowns, but I'm not holding my breath with this choice. I am, however, accepting all sorts of advice on where to solicit a nice dressing gown for myself...
And yes, it is Tom Ford sporting a very decent dressing gown in the photo above. And yes, I blatantly ripped the image from some site I can't remember which I found from Google's image search. So credit goes to whomever wants to claim ownership of the photo.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
On movement
Movement is an interesting phenomenon in the sense that it is dependent on both temporal and spatial dimensions. As per definition, speed is the distance covered over a period of time. Thus speed requires two different metrics before it can be determined: a concept of distance/length (typically e.g. meters) and a concept of time (typically e.g. seconds). It is thus synthetic in the sense that it combines two fundamental building blocks to construct a third element. Speed is useful as it implies movement of sorts, and if we value movement, we can say that we value A more than B if the speed (or velocity) of A is higher than B.
This trail of thought is useful on a personal level as well, as it gives us a very simple framework for analyzing the relative movement and the associated speed that we are able to achieve in our personal lives. Very often, especially in western economies, the metric of distance is synonymous to wealth. This means that the faster we gain more wealth, the better. But the framework itself need not be this simplistic, as wealth is a difficult metric and spawns many different feelings from a wide range of people. Wealth may be a good metric in some cases and a very bad metric in others. But if we replace wealth with a function x(a, b, ...), which takes into account different aspects of ones life, and where each given attribute is given a weight of w(a), w(b), ..., this may become a very interesting exercise indeed. Thus, as per our definition, speed is measured by the delta of x(a, b, ...), when we also give the function a temporal dimension and judge the change in the value of x.
What I'm aiming at with this analogy is that people might be well off if the every once in a while evaluate what they've actually achieved (x(a, b, ...)) and reflect that against their on values (w(a), w(b), ...). If no movement is perceived, then something must be fundamentally wrong as the individual is stagnating. This might imply that the individual is already at a local or global maximum, i.e. the person is already as satisfied in life as he or she can be and thus does not benefit from any additional movements. But as this is rarely this case, we might as will just work towards optimizing our movement in general.
Class reunions are brilliant position of time to stop and see what your x() function looks like and compare it to that of others. Sometimes you get motivated by seeing how others are progressing with life, and at other times you get disheartened by the amount of confusion and lack of direction that young adults present. I was recently discussion about the fates of various people with an old classmate of mine at a local bar and this lack of coherent direction was one that was obvious, especially this the so-called mid-crowd. What I mean by this is that the ones who more or less dropped out of the "pre-academic" scene after junior high school are now already trying to manage a family. On the other hand, there are the people who aimed academically higher and possibly also have an academic career to show for. These are the two extreme opposites, but both are able to demonstrate tangible movement, albeit they have fundamentally very different values (as determined by the very different weights, i.e. w(a), w(b), ...).
Now, the third class are the people who fall between the two. The people who may have previously shown academic promise, but discarded that path in favor of other alternatives. What is typical in these people again is very often the situation that they have also discarded the career-building option that the people who began that phase right after junior high. Very often they are also ones who demonstrate long-term relationships that lack tangible progress as well. It is very difficult to see very rapid movement of any sorts for these people, as they seem to just idle away. But interestingly enough it may just be, that traditionally the easiest ways of interpreting this framework do not apply here. These are not the people who work their arses off at manual labor, making sure that the wheels keep turning. Neither are these the people who contribute the most intellect or the most effort into building the systems and constructs that the world is based on. These are the people that go home at 5 PM. But in fact, this might be precisely the group that is fundamental to the backbone of the society. I have to admit that very often I may poke fun at them and ridicule them for the lack of obvious movement, mistaking them for dead. But it is this more or less silent and unnoticeable group, the very middle, which may in fact be the one that is the crucial glue between the other two ends of the system. The connecting factors without which the wheels don't touch each other and things fall apart.
As a fairly analytical person, I analyze my doings very much through the framework of movement, as described above. If I don't see myself moving, then I try to figure out what has happened and try to solve it. But these traditional metrics of movement may not, in fact, be applicable to all. They may work for me, but maybe that's because I'm a lost cause in the first place. And maybe it implies that we are in fact using the wrong metrics at large and that even though I still argue that people like me are important, it may be that in fact even I might need to take a longer look at the mediocre people at the class reunions and actually see the slow but steady movement that they are demonstrating. Maybe that type of movement is more sustainable than the movement that may be more apparent in strongly competitive fields.
This trail of thought is useful on a personal level as well, as it gives us a very simple framework for analyzing the relative movement and the associated speed that we are able to achieve in our personal lives. Very often, especially in western economies, the metric of distance is synonymous to wealth. This means that the faster we gain more wealth, the better. But the framework itself need not be this simplistic, as wealth is a difficult metric and spawns many different feelings from a wide range of people. Wealth may be a good metric in some cases and a very bad metric in others. But if we replace wealth with a function x(a, b, ...), which takes into account different aspects of ones life, and where each given attribute is given a weight of w(a), w(b), ..., this may become a very interesting exercise indeed. Thus, as per our definition, speed is measured by the delta of x(a, b, ...), when we also give the function a temporal dimension and judge the change in the value of x.
What I'm aiming at with this analogy is that people might be well off if the every once in a while evaluate what they've actually achieved (x(a, b, ...)) and reflect that against their on values (w(a), w(b), ...). If no movement is perceived, then something must be fundamentally wrong as the individual is stagnating. This might imply that the individual is already at a local or global maximum, i.e. the person is already as satisfied in life as he or she can be and thus does not benefit from any additional movements. But as this is rarely this case, we might as will just work towards optimizing our movement in general.
Class reunions are brilliant position of time to stop and see what your x() function looks like and compare it to that of others. Sometimes you get motivated by seeing how others are progressing with life, and at other times you get disheartened by the amount of confusion and lack of direction that young adults present. I was recently discussion about the fates of various people with an old classmate of mine at a local bar and this lack of coherent direction was one that was obvious, especially this the so-called mid-crowd. What I mean by this is that the ones who more or less dropped out of the "pre-academic" scene after junior high school are now already trying to manage a family. On the other hand, there are the people who aimed academically higher and possibly also have an academic career to show for. These are the two extreme opposites, but both are able to demonstrate tangible movement, albeit they have fundamentally very different values (as determined by the very different weights, i.e. w(a), w(b), ...).
Now, the third class are the people who fall between the two. The people who may have previously shown academic promise, but discarded that path in favor of other alternatives. What is typical in these people again is very often the situation that they have also discarded the career-building option that the people who began that phase right after junior high. Very often they are also ones who demonstrate long-term relationships that lack tangible progress as well. It is very difficult to see very rapid movement of any sorts for these people, as they seem to just idle away. But interestingly enough it may just be, that traditionally the easiest ways of interpreting this framework do not apply here. These are not the people who work their arses off at manual labor, making sure that the wheels keep turning. Neither are these the people who contribute the most intellect or the most effort into building the systems and constructs that the world is based on. These are the people that go home at 5 PM. But in fact, this might be precisely the group that is fundamental to the backbone of the society. I have to admit that very often I may poke fun at them and ridicule them for the lack of obvious movement, mistaking them for dead. But it is this more or less silent and unnoticeable group, the very middle, which may in fact be the one that is the crucial glue between the other two ends of the system. The connecting factors without which the wheels don't touch each other and things fall apart.
As a fairly analytical person, I analyze my doings very much through the framework of movement, as described above. If I don't see myself moving, then I try to figure out what has happened and try to solve it. But these traditional metrics of movement may not, in fact, be applicable to all. They may work for me, but maybe that's because I'm a lost cause in the first place. And maybe it implies that we are in fact using the wrong metrics at large and that even though I still argue that people like me are important, it may be that in fact even I might need to take a longer look at the mediocre people at the class reunions and actually see the slow but steady movement that they are demonstrating. Maybe that type of movement is more sustainable than the movement that may be more apparent in strongly competitive fields.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Who are you? - Demographics of a blog
1984 was (and still is) a very remarkable piece of fiction, which is increasingly transforming into a factual piece of text. Big brother, as a concept, has been spread wide and far. It has even gotten its namesake in the contemporary TV schedule at prime time, albeit the show itself seems quite horrid, based on the 15 minutes that I've spent watching it. The internet is also starting to exhibit some Orwellian aspects and whereas theoretically anonymity is still possible, most of the time a governmental entity will be able to order individual ISPs, websites, etc. to give out enough data that the anonymity is questionable, at best.
Individual website owners have also had a longstanding hobby of creating statistics about the visitors of their websites. A few years back Google brought out its own offering called Google Analytics, which allows just about anyone to add a small snippet of text into their own websites and begin to collect information on their visitors. At this point I should note, however, that this information is technical in nature and does not really violate privacy; if I am able to say that someone in the past week has looked at my blog and has had a screen resolution of 1024x786, that doesn't really invade your privacy.
Anyway, I thought that I might share some things that Google has gathered on this blog. And maybe that can tell something about what sort of people are reading this blog (i.e. you)...
Since February 25th, there have been 1620 individual visits to this blog, consisting of 2108 page views. So you are not a person who spends very much time digging deep into the blog. But that's not such a surprise, considering the nature of blogs and how the typical use case consists of a person quickly checking the main page of the blog for new entries. No need to dig deeper. This is also supported by the fact, that out of the 2108 page views, 1482 were of the main page of the site. The second most popular page was my entry on convertible cuffs in shirts with 71 page views. Also, over 86% (1400) of the visits consisted of only a single page view, offering even more support for this interpretation.
But even if the attention span of a reader of this blog only allows 1.3 page views per visit, you are still a very persistent bunch. Out of the 1620 individual visits, 1075 visits were from returning visitors. This is comforting, as it seems that you find the ramblings that I write engaging enough so that you actually bother coming back.
Maybe slightly unsurprising is the fact, that 960 visits originated from Finland. In general Europe was very well represented with 1227 visits in total, followed by the Americas with 342 visits. The other continents were all minute compared to these two. The image of the world map is slightly misleading, as the clustering around North America is due to the large number of one-off visitors, who jumped on the site from search engines and the like. On a national level, two thirds of the visits from Finland (604 out of 960) come out of the greater Helsinki area.
On a more tech-y note, it appears that the readers of this blog, you, are a very educated crowd as nearly three quarters (1198) of visits to this site are made using Firefox. This is in sharp contrast with the historical data which gives Internet Explorer a very solid foothold. IE is, however, in second place and the other browsers make up a thin long tail. So kudos to all you enlightened people.
There are also some other statistics which Google provides, but I don't really think that they are that interesting. So of course it would be very interesting to know who exactly reads this blog, but I guess that's something that I'll never truly get to know. However, that said, I do know individual people who read this blog. It becomes quite apparent when I start discussing some topic with another person or within a group, and I automatically get an answer not so dissimilar to: "Yes, we know, you already blogged about that."
Individual website owners have also had a longstanding hobby of creating statistics about the visitors of their websites. A few years back Google brought out its own offering called Google Analytics, which allows just about anyone to add a small snippet of text into their own websites and begin to collect information on their visitors. At this point I should note, however, that this information is technical in nature and does not really violate privacy; if I am able to say that someone in the past week has looked at my blog and has had a screen resolution of 1024x786, that doesn't really invade your privacy.
Anyway, I thought that I might share some things that Google has gathered on this blog. And maybe that can tell something about what sort of people are reading this blog (i.e. you)...
Since February 25th, there have been 1620 individual visits to this blog, consisting of 2108 page views. So you are not a person who spends very much time digging deep into the blog. But that's not such a surprise, considering the nature of blogs and how the typical use case consists of a person quickly checking the main page of the blog for new entries. No need to dig deeper. This is also supported by the fact, that out of the 2108 page views, 1482 were of the main page of the site. The second most popular page was my entry on convertible cuffs in shirts with 71 page views. Also, over 86% (1400) of the visits consisted of only a single page view, offering even more support for this interpretation.
But even if the attention span of a reader of this blog only allows 1.3 page views per visit, you are still a very persistent bunch. Out of the 1620 individual visits, 1075 visits were from returning visitors. This is comforting, as it seems that you find the ramblings that I write engaging enough so that you actually bother coming back.
Maybe slightly unsurprising is the fact, that 960 visits originated from Finland. In general Europe was very well represented with 1227 visits in total, followed by the Americas with 342 visits. The other continents were all minute compared to these two. The image of the world map is slightly misleading, as the clustering around North America is due to the large number of one-off visitors, who jumped on the site from search engines and the like. On a national level, two thirds of the visits from Finland (604 out of 960) come out of the greater Helsinki area.
On a more tech-y note, it appears that the readers of this blog, you, are a very educated crowd as nearly three quarters (1198) of visits to this site are made using Firefox. This is in sharp contrast with the historical data which gives Internet Explorer a very solid foothold. IE is, however, in second place and the other browsers make up a thin long tail. So kudos to all you enlightened people.
There are also some other statistics which Google provides, but I don't really think that they are that interesting. So of course it would be very interesting to know who exactly reads this blog, but I guess that's something that I'll never truly get to know. However, that said, I do know individual people who read this blog. It becomes quite apparent when I start discussing some topic with another person or within a group, and I automatically get an answer not so dissimilar to: "Yes, we know, you already blogged about that."
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Objectivity
Prior to running the half-marathon last spring, I received plenty of advice from more experienced runners regarding how to survive and maybe even get a good time out of the run. The guidance was very good in general, and in retrospect the key issues were where I stumbled horribly (I guess that's why in certain fields academic literature has defined the concept of critical success factor--things that are, well, critical to the success...). I took all the advice, pondered a bit, thought I understood it, and then failed. Knowing is something, applying the knowing to practice is another beast altogether. Next spring when I run the half-marathon again, I'm very confident that based on my previous experience, the results will be better. Heck, they can't be any worse after this spring's run...
Learning for me is a very iterative process. I would argue that it is for most, but recently some more intelligent people have struck the fear of god (or at least the fear of generalization) in me, so I shall not speculate with such broad strokes. You try, you fail, you pick yourself up and try again. And at some point you absorb knowledge and wisdom from other sources, and sometimes it is a really slow process. And when you stubbornly refuse to accept conventional wisdom and rely on your own intuition, you might occasionally be able to create new wisdom. At least for yourself.
There is a Finnish idiom of "Aika kultaa muistot", but unfortunately I can't recall the English counterpart right now. The idea, anyway, is that over time your memories will become distorted and should not be relied on for anything more serious than casual conversation. I'm sure there are plenty of papers explaining the process of taking what originally might have been a relatively objective interpretation and how it becomes very biased and subjective when sufficient amount of time is allowed to pass. This is again conventional wisdom, which I've been unfortunately forgetting. I've been delving on past issues a bit more than I should've during this year. The reasons are many, but none of them are especially good. Personally I experienced how a technically small thing escalated into one of the biggest bogeymen for me. I cannot entirely open the situation up, as I fear that grasping the entire situation is even beyond my capabilities, but sufficient to say that at the same time I loved and hated my experiences. I put them up on a pedestal but still feared them and was angered by them. And eventually they grew very much out of proportion. So what is the way to kill the bogeyman? Stand up, stay firm, and stare it in the eye. And as is often the case, even now the bogeyman didn't appear so terrible anymore once you actually confront it.
The irony here is that as objective as some people (e.g. me) think they are, it is very much an illusion. Actually it is an even bigger irony that I am a judgemental person, and still dare argue that I am capable of objectivity. But I guess that is not an entirely fair statement either. Another funny thing is related to the aforementioned bogeymen. Typically one hides them from general view, but in fact letting the light into the attic, where the bogeyman lives, might very well show that the bogeyman is in fact gone. Clean the dust, do some housekeeping, and the mind becomes lighter and healthier as well. And on that note, I've been playing around with the idea of hiring a housekeeper to come by a couple of times a month to take care of my flat...
Learning for me is a very iterative process. I would argue that it is for most, but recently some more intelligent people have struck the fear of god (or at least the fear of generalization) in me, so I shall not speculate with such broad strokes. You try, you fail, you pick yourself up and try again. And at some point you absorb knowledge and wisdom from other sources, and sometimes it is a really slow process. And when you stubbornly refuse to accept conventional wisdom and rely on your own intuition, you might occasionally be able to create new wisdom. At least for yourself.
There is a Finnish idiom of "Aika kultaa muistot", but unfortunately I can't recall the English counterpart right now. The idea, anyway, is that over time your memories will become distorted and should not be relied on for anything more serious than casual conversation. I'm sure there are plenty of papers explaining the process of taking what originally might have been a relatively objective interpretation and how it becomes very biased and subjective when sufficient amount of time is allowed to pass. This is again conventional wisdom, which I've been unfortunately forgetting. I've been delving on past issues a bit more than I should've during this year. The reasons are many, but none of them are especially good. Personally I experienced how a technically small thing escalated into one of the biggest bogeymen for me. I cannot entirely open the situation up, as I fear that grasping the entire situation is even beyond my capabilities, but sufficient to say that at the same time I loved and hated my experiences. I put them up on a pedestal but still feared them and was angered by them. And eventually they grew very much out of proportion. So what is the way to kill the bogeyman? Stand up, stay firm, and stare it in the eye. And as is often the case, even now the bogeyman didn't appear so terrible anymore once you actually confront it.
The irony here is that as objective as some people (e.g. me) think they are, it is very much an illusion. Actually it is an even bigger irony that I am a judgemental person, and still dare argue that I am capable of objectivity. But I guess that is not an entirely fair statement either. Another funny thing is related to the aforementioned bogeymen. Typically one hides them from general view, but in fact letting the light into the attic, where the bogeyman lives, might very well show that the bogeyman is in fact gone. Clean the dust, do some housekeeping, and the mind becomes lighter and healthier as well. And on that note, I've been playing around with the idea of hiring a housekeeper to come by a couple of times a month to take care of my flat...
Monday, December 01, 2008
Finland 0-7 England+Italy
One of the biggest differences between London and Helsinki was one which also separates Milan and Helsinki: dress. I don't know whether it has something to do with Helsinki residing in such a cold climate that we must emphasize functionality of clothes or if it's just because we Finns have grown in a forest, but it seems that the Italians and the Brits outdress us by, well, a lot.
There's an old saying which states that you are able to identify a Finnish business man at the airport by his shoes. And that's not a complement. This has been attributed to the horrid weather in Finland, which eats through all types of shoes in a matter of months. But it does not explain how it is possible that Finns cannot wear suits that fit well. The suit, to many Finnish men, is some horrid apparatus, which they feel has been devised only to restrict and constrain. The most typical Finnish suit is one which resembles a box. I do not wish to describe it in more detail, as I'm sure that you will already have an idea what wearing a box might look like. Tapering is entirely unheard of and the armholes are cut so large that movement is just horrid. So no wonder Finns fear suits.
Brits and Italians, on the other hand, have a long history with everything related to style. Brits through their class hierarchies and dress codes. Italians, on the other hand, need nothing more than sprezzatura and they're able to always come out on top and not even break a sweat. But for Finns, mastering even a single knot to tie the feared tie with seems to be beyond all hope.
Helsinki does, however, have some fashionable people. Or at least I would imagine so. But fashion is again something that I do not want to know anything about, which means that from my perspective the Finnish society consists of people who think that wearing a shell suit in town is acceptable and then people who think that it's cool to dress like a member of the opposite sex (to be slightly provocative, as I have no idea about the rationale or reasoning behind the fads of the fashion crowd). We are lacking the group of people who master the art of style. I'm not necessarily even referring to the dandies, but maybe a slightly towned down version of them. It shouldn't be so difficult, but apparently it is. Unfortunately.
There's an old saying which states that you are able to identify a Finnish business man at the airport by his shoes. And that's not a complement. This has been attributed to the horrid weather in Finland, which eats through all types of shoes in a matter of months. But it does not explain how it is possible that Finns cannot wear suits that fit well. The suit, to many Finnish men, is some horrid apparatus, which they feel has been devised only to restrict and constrain. The most typical Finnish suit is one which resembles a box. I do not wish to describe it in more detail, as I'm sure that you will already have an idea what wearing a box might look like. Tapering is entirely unheard of and the armholes are cut so large that movement is just horrid. So no wonder Finns fear suits.
Brits and Italians, on the other hand, have a long history with everything related to style. Brits through their class hierarchies and dress codes. Italians, on the other hand, need nothing more than sprezzatura and they're able to always come out on top and not even break a sweat. But for Finns, mastering even a single knot to tie the feared tie with seems to be beyond all hope.
Helsinki does, however, have some fashionable people. Or at least I would imagine so. But fashion is again something that I do not want to know anything about, which means that from my perspective the Finnish society consists of people who think that wearing a shell suit in town is acceptable and then people who think that it's cool to dress like a member of the opposite sex (to be slightly provocative, as I have no idea about the rationale or reasoning behind the fads of the fashion crowd). We are lacking the group of people who master the art of style. I'm not necessarily even referring to the dandies, but maybe a slightly towned down version of them. It shouldn't be so difficult, but apparently it is. Unfortunately.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The large questions in life
Life comes down to a small number of really big questions. Questions that will define the direction of the rest of your life. Questions that will be so large in nature that under no circumstance do you want to rush things. One of them involves a question, which at first brush seems pretty irrelevant. But it is not, and it really should not be underestimated. The question is as follows: If you were spending three days and two nights in London, what jacket would you wear?
The three alternatives (from left to right), along with their respective motivations, are as follow:
- The brown, single-breasted jacket with two buttons and a single back vent with tapered sides. Combined with jeans, brown leather shoes, and a crisp white shirt it would be an absolutely perfect combination for having breakfast in. And yes, I am aware that a gentleman never wears brown in town. And because I said that, it means that I'm allowed to break the rule. Naturally.
- The really dark blue, single-breasted blazer with two buttons and side vents and slight tapering. Can match with anything, and combined with tan trousers, a blue and white striped Sea Island cotton shirt with nice cufflinks would be a brilliant outfit for having a drink at the airport and just lounging around town on a weekend.
- The really dark gray, Italian, single-breasted suit with two buttons and a back vent with some tapering. Would be very nice for contrasting with the British cuts and perfect for going out in the evening.
Out of the three choices, the most versatile, hands down, is the blazer. You can dress it up, you can dress it down. You can wear it with jeans or you can wear it with trousers. You can wear it with shirts, turtlenecks, or t-shirts and knitwear. You can absolutely do anything with it and always get away with it.
(And for those who are interested in it, a jacket should have four cuff buttons. Not three or two or one or none. Those are too few. Nor should it have five, since that makes it too cluttered, and I don't care whether Paul Smith does it or not. Four is the perfect number. It's not too many, it's not too few. It gives weight to the cuff, but does not clutter. And as for lapels: notched. Not peaked, as they should be reserved for more formal clothing as well as double-breasted suits. And on the topic of double-breasted suits: if you're not nearing retirement, stay well clear of them, unless you know precisely what you are doing...)
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