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Newsletter

 

Materials from my Startup Sauna talk 3.5.2011

Tue 2011-05-03 17:55

Today, just a few minutes ago, I was speaking at the AaltoES Startup Sauna kickoff event.

Here are my slides as a PDF from that event:

Small filesize version here. (1 meg)

Large filesize (over 60MB, very high res images you see...) version here.

As always, all feedback is much welcomed!

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Time to vote

Mon 2011-04-11 08:37

Time to vote if you haven't already!

I'm writing this short entry from Copenhagen, where I'm visiting as a part of Sitra's Elivoima programme. We are trying to tackle important issues the Finnish society is facing like; "What is new work?", "How to solve the alienation of the youth?", and "How to avoid the social exclusion of immigrants?" etc. Interesting topics and all quite much in the long term field. The other members of the group come from quite different background; starting from ex-ministers etc.

Short term stuff, then;

17th of April is our parliamentary elections date, that's just 6 or so away. Many have already voted.

I am going to vote this candidate from Helsinki:

Lasse Männistö, number 77

I'm a public supporter of his campaign, my own video clip where I explain some of the reasons why so is here:

Miksi Taneli Tikka äänestää Lassea? from Lasse Männistö on Vimeo.

This probably doesn't come as a surprise to anyone as me and Lasse just recently introduced a proposal to change startup funding towards the better.

Naturally I don't agree with Lasse 100% on all the issues - but I don't have to. You don't have to either. He still comes on top out of the candidates I want to be supporting. Energetic, smart, courageous, knows a great deal about startups, good values and view of the world, and already plenty of real experience from politics. Just the kind of person I would like to see making decisions in the parliament.

If I would live in the Uusimaa electorial precinct I would probably vote for:

Elina Lepomäki, number 93

If I would live in Oulu electorial precinct, my candidate there would be:

Henri Heikkinen, number 132

All candidates write very good blogs. Especially Henri has written some brilliant stuff; so definitely check that out. The others are worth a read as well. Unfortunately all the stuff is in finnish.

(We need to fix this electorial precinct system btw, if feels ancient, inefficient and I think it would be about the time for it to go away for good)

All the candidates are from the National Coalition Party, I would probably much rather vote for the Liberal party if it would be possible without the Pirates getting mixed up in there..

So there you go! Who are you voting for and why?

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Proposal to renew startup financing

Sun 2011-03-20 10:22

Today me and Lasse Männistö published a finnish language proposal about renewing the growth company / startup financing in Finland.

As any experienced startup entrepreneur in Finland knows; the state is heavily involved in giving grants and loans etc various kind of direct and indirect support to companies. All together there are about 100 different instances, giving out over 1000 separate instruments of support, that total over 2 billion EUR annually. This is quite complex and quite confusing.

One interesting stat from the "support jungle" is that there are approximately 4-5 thousand government officials involved in this machinery (by a wide definition) - and arguably Finland has less than 4-5 thousand strong growth companies; so in essence we have a system that has more than one person working it for each growth company we have.. Doesn't sound very efficient, now does it?

Our finnish language proposal can be downloaded from here.

And the associated press release from here.

What we are proposing is just a good start - something to get things moving. Naturally there would be more action following these initial steps. We formulated our proposal to be politically easy to accept and realistic. It is designed as an expense neutral program: meaning that it would not increase government expenditure; in fact there's a rather high chance that it would produce money instead of drain it.

In brief, we propose:

1) Tax breaks for innovative R&D activities. Finland is just about the only western country in the world that doesn't use these kind of tax breaks. Even Germany started using them recently. Many others like Norway and the Netherlands use them extensively and with very good results.

2) Incentives for angel funding and other seed funding. This kind of model has been successfully implemented by Singapore, Israel and to some extent (with very heavy tax breaks) by Canada as well. We would need incentives for business angels, and for grass roots level funding from the groundswell. The state needs to get into market driven asymmetric funds and let commercial free market mechanisms decide what kind of innovations to fund - encourage growth by other means than government official decisions.

3) The support jungle machinery needs a reform. It is too inefficient and too massive for its own good = there are not enough good results coming out of it per cost of running it.

The job creating power of startups is amazing; when it comes to new jobs they are not the major thing; they are pretty much the ONLY thing. They drive job creation and growth more than anything else out there. They drive prosperity and wealth. We don't need another monolithic Nokia in Finland; we need a thousand Angry Birds and a lot of things we can't even predict yet - that will raise up from the mists of creation to conquer the world!

If you agree with this proposal; expand on it, champion it, talk about it to political decision makers and make noise about it in general! With the elections at our doorstep there is a genuine chance to get positive things done in this very vital and important field as well!

I'm also very interested to hear how the proposal could be even better?

Edit (20.3.2011 18:48) Petteri Koponen has good commentary on this, here:

http://serialtrier.wordpress.com/2011/03/20/on-improving-finlands-startu...

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Chosen as the Opinion Leader in ICT of 2010 with Angry Birds

Tue 2011-03-15 09:03

Today the Finnish Information Processing Association, FIPA (or TTL, Tietotekniikan Liitto) has chosen me as the opinion leader in ICT along with Angry Birds as the ICT product of the year!

The FIPA is a bit similar kind of organization in Finland as the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) is in the USA and worldwide.

It's a very positive surprise to be chosen in the first place, and even more positive to have such great company as Angry Birds by my side.

This honorary title of "Opinion Leader in ICT" (vuoden tietotekniikkavaikuttaja) has been received by some very prestigious people in the past;

Prof. Reino Kurki-Suonio
Prof. Pekka Himanen
Prof. Hannu Jaakkola
Risto Siilasmaa (2007)
Dr. Jyrki Kasvi, Member of Parliament (2008)
Dr. Mikko Kosonen (2009)

And now me for 2010.

What kind of themes I want to introduce in to the discussions?

Finland can no longer succeed with old models and processes of leadership, thinking about the old fashioned nature of work, and having an attitude geared more towards industrial production than for modern innovation.

People are not resources in a production facility.

The amount of work no longer correlates to good results or with more profits - the quality of the work and the brilliance of the idea does instead.

We kind of have an existential crisis in the Finnish economy; we have to be able to innovate and to think of work very differently from what we are used to.

Defining problems is more important than honing your skills in solving them. Independent critical thinking trumps common problem solving skills any time.

The whole world of ICT is full of opportunity for us all; and we have to be able to grasp those. Renew our entire concept of creativity, education, work and what it means to live your life as a contributing creative member of an organization and of society.

One good place to get your mindset right would be to start from reading Rework by 37signals. I have never seen more good thoughts compressed into a book than in Rework.

A finnish language story about this in Tietoviikko.

What do you think: how can we solve our crisis? Renew our thinking? Succeed in global competition?

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Good Morning finland interview 8.2.2011 about Ecommerce

Tue 2011-02-08 10:31

Earlier today I was a guest in Good Morning Finland (Huomenta Suomi) on the MTV3 channel. I was there with Jaana Kurjenoja, Chief Economist of the Federation of Finnish Commerce. Topic was ecommerce and its relation to the structural change of trade; how it affects the trade of special items and how services are also transferring to ecommerce models. And how ecommerce is evolving.

Here's the video clip from it:

Taneli Tikka 8.2.2011 Huomenta Suomi - Ecommerce from Taneli Tikka on Vimeo.

All feedback much welcomed!

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