I am, as a consumer, confused. Every time I think I know something (based on some study) it appers that there comes out another study that is giving the opposite results. For example, I thought that diesel cars are more environmental friendly than cars that use gasoline. I think that I read that from some paper. Sometimes later it appeared that that diesel cars have problem with emission of particles,which makes them not so environmentally friendly at all. And then the hybrid cars. I thought that they are the environmentally friendly cars (if they can be such a thing), being advertised with that theme, but then I read some study from a paper that actually the manufacturing of the cars takes so much energy and materials that they are worse than off-road vehicles (read about that here).  And are biofuels really the solution to the problems with petroleum. Some instances claim that biofuels are the biggest reason for global trend of incresing costs of food.

And now it appeared that using computers actually cause environmental problems, because of taking so much energy. One search by Google uses as much energy as use of energy saving light bulb for one hour.  Here is some news how Google tries to save energy.

As a conclusion: life appears to be full of surprises and various truths. It is difficult for consumers to pick up the right truth.

In the era of mass production, mass consumption, masses of stuff and shops that sells them there are some ways to differentiate oneself.  Just focus on two simple colors: black and white, like this shop in the picture is doing. The shop is spotted from Arlanda airport.

Some time ago a news about a radio station for dogs appeared blogs around the world. The radiostation was located in Thailand. A similar type of miracle was spotted at Helsinki: an ad about radiostation for kids, Nappularadio (miracle= a new thing )According to the web pages of Nappularadio, they play nice children’s songs and at the evening time you can listen to tales. The radio station was born because of group of parents get tired of all the f* words from Finnish radio stations (refering to Radio Rock, I suppose??) and wanted to have a radio station for their kids, with stories and music suitable for them. It appears that the radio station is quite seasonal, so next time here in Helsinki area you can listen to it when the schools start again.

After spotting this kids’ radiostation I started to think that why this haven’t been here for longer time. Great idea!

Leasing or part time ownership is something big in the future I think. Leasing could be one good solution for decreasing material consumption from the environmental point of view.  

Of course the success of leasing depends much on the good business ideas around this theme. Everybody knows leasing cars and videos, and even construction tools, but did you know that you can also lease luxory handbags, babyclothes, books, even dogs (!) In one of the meetings I participated, one woman spoke out an excellent idea for leasing: suitcases. You only need them once and a while, and when you do not need them, they take an awfully lot of space. So who is the brilliant company who ceases this business idea ???

(My suitcase is travelling in couple of weeks to Mongolia with my dear friend.) 

Image: From aeroplane at Helsinki-Vantaa airport coming from London

One of my friends, working in a big Finnish company, told me with enthusiasm in her voice that she has just made a first VOIP call. Since that she has only used VOIP calls when calling her business parners. Actually, she told that in their company using VOIP calls is encouraged and she even got a shrt training for using the VOIP system.

My dear friend is not maybe the first one to adopt new technologies (not the creator or lead user but maybe an early adopter), but when she does, I certainly know that the change is coming in couple of years. My friend told me that many people from their company have abandoned using SIM cards in their internet phones and just call VOIP calls. We had a short discussion with my friend that what are the business logics and opportunities for the operators in some years to come. We agreed that in the future mobile phone manufacturing will probably be focusing more on manufacturing portable internet tablets, but what will the operators do that remains a mystery.

You probably remember the documentary of Mc Donald’s: Supersize me. The documentary was full of critique to the culture of eating a gigant unhealthy meals. Fast food, specially hamurgers and related food, is a big trend in the world and supersizing is another in these places. But when there is a trend there is usually a countertrend raising. Minnies is a restaurant chain that offers not supersized but minisized foods. It is interesting to see the demand for that kind of restaurant in USA. (note: the image of this post has nothing to do with Minnies!)

Today I was having a lecture in an advertising agancy Family Inc’s 4 year birthday party. Besides of me there was another speaker, Brand Building Expert Minna Anttonen from Ben&Jerry’s, which is still a quite unknown ice cream brand in Finland even though well known for example in USA. Minna Anttonen had very interesting speak about the brand and she was the first lecturer that I have got some ice cream (very good!!)

Ben and Jerry’s is a premium ice cream brand with fine idea behind it. It does not advertise itself at least here in Finland but it is involved in many “social conscious” campaigns and through that it seeks to get good publicity. For example in last year it promised to give one euro/ sold ice cream pack to some charity. People were asked to what purpose to give the money. The mental health issues of young people got votes the most, and they donated the money to Helsinki Mission crisis phone targeted to help young people.

Ben and Jerry’s has the first fair trade ice cream for sale here in Finlad and it serves carbon neutral ice-cream. They also use green energy sources for ice cream production and are really concerned about the climate change issues- and also act based on their concerns. Doing good for the society is really one of their targets. Specially here in Finland this kind of social counsiousness of companies or brands is unique. I hope that many other companies start to follow the excellent example of Ben&Jerry’s !! One interesting question is that how does Ben&Jerry’s philosophy suit to Unilever’s one. I really hope that Unilever as a megacorporation would adapt one of its brand’s philosophy more. 

image from page: http://www.consortfrozenfoods.co.uk/index2.php

NTT  in Japan has started to sell device that transmits data across the skin of human body and lets the user to communicate with other electronic device by just touching them. NTT considers this device called FIRMO to be useful for security purposes in companies (using it like “key”), but of course this device will have huge potential for many applications. Firmo is based on NTT’s RedTacton human area network (HAN) technology, which is designed to allow convenient human-machine data exchange through natural physical contact for example by clothing, gloves and shoes. Currently the device is very expensive (8 000 USD), but in the future the price is expected to drop when the mass customizin starts.

Source: pinktentacle

image: RBB Today

Greetings from England, again. This time I visited Lego and had a wonderful possibility to interview their experience and innovation manager Cecilia Weckström. Lego truely is an exceptional case in using crowdsourcing or open source innovation. They use in their product development lego fans that construct all possible stuff with their software Lego Designer. Lego also uses help of their adult fans when designing new concepts and products.

What really astonished me positively in Lego facilities in Slough was that their officerooms were full of all possible lego stuff. Also the employees had a new task to do: to build dozens of packages of lego stuff. Actually, I think that is wrong that people get payed for doing such a nice job

Well, anyway, I managed to spot some weak signals in England. One of them is a gift package in a bookstore. You could buy there a, adopt-a-pony pack. By buying the package you will donate the money for taking care of one pony. You had also possibilities to plant a tree, save the wild life etc. Is this one of the first signs of growing trend of ethical consumption and intangible goods.

Today I have visited British Telecom facilities in Ipswich, England and I had a wonderful opportunity to interview futurist Dave Brown about anticipation of futures in BT. Dave told me BT’s ways to look at to the future and their tasks inside the company. This information is very valuable for me, because currently I am working on a book about anticipating customers’ needs. So thank you Dave for the interview and your hospitality!

While being in England I have used my extra time for spotting weak signals. Here are some images about things that I found extraordinary to me. From these images you can see, that things that are new to me are probably every-day life for Englishman.

a couple of ways to increase your mass (Tesco)

A sign in a Taxi

The original SPAM

Liquieise for sale in the health section in Tesco

Well packed suitcase, Heathrow Express