Nonsense!

Kung-Fu High Impact soundtrack

2011-09-26T13:02:00.004+03:00

This is a sample from a new upcoming Xbox Kinect title from Virtual Air Guitar Company called "Kung-Fu High Impact" that I wrote the music for:

Kung-Fu High Impact by Lasse Enersen

I had a lot of fun writing the music, as there were many different styles ranging from Spaghetti Western Electro to Industrial/Heavy Metal to Ravel/Shostakovich style orchestral stuff. I used UAD:s EMT140 plugin as my main orchestral reverb, and it sure sounds a bit cleaner than Altiverb, especially in the lower register.

A music video

2011-08-24T10:16:00.004+03:00

I produced and Adele directed this music video for singer Emmi Salo:

Emmi Salo won a song writing competition called Biisikisa, and the first prize was having the song produced professionally at Fried Music (where I currently have my studio). Part of the prize was also a "making of" music video, but the guys at Fried thought that we could try produce the ourselves with our own Canon 5D cameras, with some simple visual idea, rather than a story or a "making of". Adele got this idea and storyboarded it in one day. We all liked it and I ended up producing the whole shebang.

Director/Writer/Make-up/Wardrobe: Adele Enersen

Producer/Assistant Editor/Lighting Assistant/Playback: Lasse Enersen

Cinematography: Juge Heikkilä

Camera Assistant: Heikki Slåen

Color Grading: Timo Luomanen/Post Control

Editor: Santeri Enstedt

We shot the video using one Canon 5D Mark ii camera with Technicolor Cinestyle color profile. More than third of the video was shot with a Steadicam.

The locations are all within three kilometers from our own home in Helsinki.

New music

2011-08-18T21:51:00.003+03:00

Here is a sample from my latest score, from the upcoming Xbox Kinect game Kung-fu High Impact:

Kung-Fu High Impact - Swamp by Lasse Enersen

Evolution of Lullabel, my stop motion character

2010-10-05T18:36:00.002+03:00

I haven't buried my stop-motion dreams, although I'm still enjoying maternity leave and my precious, precious little baby girl. Beside being most lovely little bundle of joy, she has been a great muse for us. I just wrote my first book for her, and Lasse is composing more music than ever.

Back to Lullabel...Before my morning-sickness took over I learned to make puppet with some simple expressions, I also made this "home"-set up with tiny props like knitting basket and artist supplies.

The Lullabel -puppet is now better, but not yet perfect. I need to solve her bad hairdays and balance problems, so she would be better to animate.

My maternity leave hobby

2010-06-24T12:23:00.007+03:00

I'm now on my maternity leave but there can still be something creative in every day. While my baby is taking her nap I spend few minutes by capturing her daydreams:

(Music by: Lasse Enersen)

More daydream pictures in Mila's Daydreams blog.

Environment-independent transparency

2010-04-22T12:03:00.000+03:00

In a short period of time, the internet has made almost all the information in the world available to half the world's population. We have in a way created a collective superbrain of links and information, and built infinitely multiple and personal layers of value indexes that manages and connect to all that information. This jungle of personally fitted and mined information connects people who are interested in same things. This is the part of the internet phenomena that interests me the most.

The internet is incredible in gravitating like-minded people together at different new environments, like web pages, software and even geo-locations (through mobile and GPS). However, the transparency of these environments - people to each other - is dependant to the environment itself. For instance, you can't see who are on the same web page with you, or who are using the same software. On some environments, like on YouTube, people are visible to each other via the videos they send. Or in Wikipedia there are ways of collectively decide and discuss dictionary articles. Every website and other environment has their own specific means of connecting people and making communication possible. There is no uniform way to establish every connection and every type of communication everywhere, independent of environment.

This is the problem that my company Ghobee was trying to solve. It's an abstraction to start with and a wild proposition, but we found a pragmatic and user-friendly ways to do this.

My orchestral film scoring template

2009-12-26T16:30:00.020+02:00

It is very hard to find detailed information on what kind of studio setups film composers have. I've tried to find them from magazines, websites and DVD extras, and I've been able to cobble up some info. After watching this Mike Patti's great video about his setup, I decided to write about my somewhat similar setup. I hope it sheds some light into the technical side of composing orchestral music for films, and maybe gives ideas for other composers who are updating or building their own setups and templates.

The main requirements for the setup are that I am able to write orchestral music to a moving picture, export an audio track for directors approal, and be able to export a midi file that makes sense for the orchestrator. For me, I want to have a very diverse and large palette of instruments and articulations at hand all the time. If I want a suspended cymbal roll played with drum sticks + flute flatterzunge + sul ponticello tremolo in strings, I can write/play/edit the music directly to the already created midi tracks and hear the result. This means that I need hundreds of midi tracks in my template open when I start a new cue. My sequencer is Digital Performer 7.01, and the current working template has 250 midi tracks (click thumbnail for full size image):

My studio setup consists of one host computer and three slave computers:

Host: Mac Pro, 2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 12 GB RAM

Three identical slave computers: Dell Studio XPS 435, Intel i7 2.67 Ghz, 12GB RAM

Audio interface: Motu 828mkII

Midi Interface: Motu Midi Timepiece

Midi controllers: Kaway ES4 Keyboard and M-Audio Trigger Finger

Bulk of my orchestral sounds are from Vienna Symphonic Library and they all reside in the 3 slave computers. I have the extended cube, which is a very large library with incredible amount of different articulations for each orchestral instrument and the very best sound quality. The samples are dry so I apply reverb and ambience to them, depending on the sound I'm after. Usually I use the Altiverb with Todd AO impulse response.

The sounds are loaded into Vienna Ensemble Pro instances in the slaves. These instances are connected to my host via ethernet. One instance in my setup can have up to 32 Vienna Instruments, but even more can be loaded. Almost every VI (like Piccolo Dynamics) has multiple articulations, like 2 second crescendo, 4 second crescendo, 4 second crescendo-decrescendo, sforzando, etc. I choose the articulation with my M-Audio Trigger Finger pads, that are programmed to apply keyswitches to the VI:s. It also controls dynamics with expression and velocity crossfade faders.

In DP, the only instrument plugins that are loaded are Omnisphere and Trilian. All the other plugins (including VE Pro plugins) are loaded into a standalone Plogue Bidule, and connected to the DP via rewire. This has been a revolutionary little piece of software for me. Since all the sounds are automatically loaded in the slaves when I open them, and the plugins are loaded outside DP, it makes it very easy for me to open and close different projects and cues. I don't have to waste time waiting for all the sounds to load every time I open another DP file. DP only handles midi, audio routing and applies Altiverb to the sounds. In the Bidule template, I have seven VE Pro:s, two Kontakts, one PLAY (StormDrum2), one Omnisphere (for basic sounds I want to use regularly), Garritan Steinway Piano and Stylus RMX. Bidule is very easy to use modular software, especially if you have experience with Max/MSP. Here is my Bidule Template:

A recap of the work method: I record and edit midi in DP. The midi is sent to Bidule's midi ins. VE Pro plugins can receive max 16 midi channels, so all the Vienna Instruments past that get the midi through MidiOverLan. In Bidule that midi is sent to VE Pro Plugins, which go through ethernet to Vienna Ensemble servers in slaves. The audio is then sent back through ethernet to Bidule, and directed through ReWire to Digital Performer. Here it goes through some auxes and buses (Altiverb), and ends up to a stereo audio track. If I'm sending the stuff to 5.1, I apply a 100% wet Altiverb track for LSRS channels. Works like a charm and is very reliable. Bidule doesn't crash even with PLAY, which is notorious for crashing.

If you have questions about this setup/template, leave them in the comments.

www.lasseenersen.com

2009-12-12T18:07:00.001+02:00

Latest orchestral film music demo of mine:

Helsinki, The World Design Capital

2009-11-25T13:32:00.002+02:00

Our hometown, Helsinki has won the title of World Design Capital for 2012!

more info: WDCHelsinki2012

Scene from Pan's Labyrinth (2006) rescored

2009-11-10T20:54:00.011+02:00

I wrote this as a compositional exercise and promo material (open in YouTube for larger picture):

Green Cloud

2009-07-20T14:29:00.004+03:00

Here is an idea that my friend and co-founder in Ghobee came up with: Green Cloud.

It's a mix between Seti@Home and cloud computing services like Amazon's EC2 and Google's App Engine. The idea would be to program a software that people could download and use as screensavers/etc, that would give their unused computer time and processing power to companies' computing needs. Green Cloud could charge the companies the same amount or less than Amazon and Google and all the money would go to charity, maybe of the user's choice. This software could be a quite decentralized P2P application, so the running costs would be very minimal. This would be a great and simple way to participate in charity.

If someone has time and passion to code this, please take it and let us know so we can start using it as well :)

She is Lullabel

2009-07-18T18:08:00.003+03:00

Summer of stop motion

2009-07-17T08:39:00.007+03:00

I haven't been blogging lately in 'Nonsense!', simply because I've been busy with other projects and blogs. If I find something new creative and interesting, I'll act like an addict. I'm totally in to it, and nothing else matters. Luckily my hubby is same kind, so we understand each other well.

Most of the time my addiction is advertising, but after a quite hard year, I needed something comfortable to balance that.
So I got obsessed about well-being, low-carb cooking and natural beauty care, here's my food blog. (Only finnish, I'm sorry)

That's why I was probably too relaxed when my 4 week summer vacation started. After enjoying 3 days freedom and holidays with friends, I was ready to create something. "Let's make a our own movie!". We both love movies. I'm into screenwriting, stop motion and character & set designing. Lasse is a brilliant movie composer, but also into shooting, lightning, screenwriting and editing. We both are interested about directing, and in this little short film, I think we are the perfect package together. Some couple's test their relationship by building a house, we are going to make a film. Insane, but that's us.

Right now I'm learning how to make best puppets for the animation. There's a great handbook in www.stopmotionanimation.com we have also The Aardman Book and watched some extras from Tim Burton films. I really love Burton style, but I hope that I could find my own style. In this point, I guess my source of inspiration is showing through.

The story is based on my old comics, and I've written the first version of the script. The hard part with the story is the narrator, so I'll write one version before and other after we have shoot the film.

....to be continued.

UNICEF Finland, typography print

2009-03-31T14:38:00.004+03:00

"Be a mom for a moment."

www.unicef.fi

Stock market prices = Economy?

2009-03-22T07:18:00.003+02:00

It seems to me that when people talk about how good or bad the economy is, they really mean Dow Jones. Stock values. This is like taking blood pressure to measure eye sight.

Haven't people really discovered already that markets can be extremely erratic and volatile? What do they think the stock market bubbles are? Did the 14,165 record Dow in October 2007 really represent the healthiest economy USA ever had?

So why are everyone looking at stock values when they are trying to fix the economy? My guess is that because that is where the recession effects first hit for those in charge; people with enough money to invest in the stock market. This includes politicians. Now they are trying to make stock values go higher again. Why? Shouldn't the markets try to rebalance itself after the bubble? Why should the stock prices be at the same level than during the bubble market conditions?

So what is the right meter to follow? Well, I think that a healthy economy is a sustainable one. One with good immune system. One where markets are forced to follow fundamentals. This would mean balanced government budgets, balanced import/export, high savings rates, low government debt and low inflation.

This would also mean no more crazy stock market booms. But do we really need them? Now that we've seen where they lead?

Change?

2009-03-16T17:54:00.003+02:00

Dot-Com Bubble

Bush & Greenspan methods fighting against recession:

- Increased deficit spending

- Loosening of monetary policy, significantly lowering feds funds rates

Housing Bubble

Obama & Bernanke methods fighting against recession:
- Increased deficit spending

- Loosening of monetary policy, significantly lowering feds funds rates

Albert Einstein's famous definition of insanity is as follows: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Jaiku is now open source

2009-03-14T10:37:00.005+02:00

Jyri Engeström wrote a blog post about open sourcing Jaiku. This is interesting news, since Twitter is right now the hottest thing going in the web, and Jaiku is the second best microblogging platform available.

Jaiku resides now in Google Cloud. Anyone can now set up and run their own JaikuEngine instance on Google App Engine. Hopefully the developer community takes it as their own and starts to develop Jaiku like crazy. There's certainly a lot of stuff they could do to make it even better and more diverse. And I wouldn't be surprised if some startups find a new way to use microblogging as part of their offering. My own Ghobee could be one of them.

Good stuff.

UNICEF campaign - Guerilla kick off

2009-03-10T13:56:00.014+02:00

Let´s wake up those motherly instincts.

Imagine you see blue abandoned baby strollers. You see them on the way to your work, and then you hear some crying coming out of them. Would you take a look that everything is ok?

Watch this video

Inside the strollers is a sign that says (loosely translated):

"Thank you for caring, we hope there is more people like you.
Be a mom for a moment, UNICEF.
www.unicef.fi/aiti"

Campaign: Ole hetken äiti - Be a mom for a moment
Client: UNICEF Finland
Agency: Taivas

Cloud panel

2009-03-01T08:33:00.002+02:00

A great panel about Cloud Computing, all the major cloud companies represented:

I am certain at this point that cloud computing is the next great enabler of future internet innovation.

Mobile short film: Mankind is no island

2009-02-20T20:58:00.008+02:00

One of my collegues show this short film today. Very inspiring.

This touching, shot on a mobile phone -movie has won both the 'People's Choice' and 'Best Film' category at the NY Tropfest short film festival 2008.

I think we should sometimes do something non-commercial film "art" with Lasse.

Ad placement gone wrong, Finnair

2009-02-13T11:21:00.003+02:00

News is all about Buffalo plane crash, and Finnair ad says: "Happy surprise for valentines day!"

Oh dear. (Thanks Johannes.)

All work and no play, but a NEW campaign for Arla is out there!

2009-02-11T19:05:00.022+02:00

Arla Power Cow is Arla's brand for dairy products for children. Unlike their competitors, Power Cow does not use traditional media like TV. Nice Challenge, me likes!

(In my opinion, there's enough annoying bright and noisy "Hey kids, you wan´t this yammy-stuff"-commercial in TV anyway.)

Last year campaign was about a dance contest. This year the name of the game is Music Video. We wanted to give even more space for kids creativity. We have a new song and new product: cheese.

We have also Power Cow room in Habbo. It's nice to read comments in there. Some kids remember last year dance contest, and others are already expecting this new competition. Some likes products, some don't. It's nice to be honest in advertising. "Here is this product, but you make up your mind what you really think about it. "

Here you can see the campaign site:
http://www.powercow.fi/

Is it really 'worst since Great Depression'?

2009-02-11T09:01:00.005+02:00

(from Examiner)

Bill Hicks on Letterman, finally

2009-01-31T09:20:00.003+02:00

I have to post this video for cultural value, and as a good deed from David Letterman.

The legendary comedian Bill Hicks recorded this bit in 1993 for Late Night with David Letterman, and it was the first bit ever to cut completely out of the program because of the nature of the material, which CBS at the time thought to be offending and not suitable for the viewing public. This devastated Hicks and his fans. He never got the recognition he deserved in his life time. Bill Hicks died in 1995.

Internet really made Bill Hicks a posthumous star and a hero to many. I remember getting some mp3:s from my friends and laughing my ass off to his routines, which were quite anarchic and philosophic at the same time. A true alternative for comedy. He validated many peoples sense of reason and view of the world.

Anyway, Letterman decided to put this video on air finally, so here it is:

"The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, 'Hey – don't worry, don't be afraid ever, because this is just a ride ...' And we ... kill those people. Ha ha, 'Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.' It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because – it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." -- Bill Hicks

Story of Stardoll.com - a co-founder's story, Part Four

2009-01-28T19:10:00.003+02:00

I was at that point an avid user of finnish website called Mikseri.net, which allows people to share their own music and discuss softwares and hardwares. As I liked how it felt to use, I contacted its founder and manager Arto Aaltonen on IRC (not the gallery) and briefly presented our little thing called Liisa's Paperdolls. As a very entrepreneur-spirited guy, he got excited and was like "yeah let's do it". Together we created a new site, which included basic social networking features and made into a bit more professional looking, logos and all. Arto was really fast at coding the site. I realized only later on, being more around with other coders, how fast he actually was. I'm really happy to have started my internet career with him, because that way I understand what kind of work attitude and end result is possible. At times they can be really lazy and managers are wondering why projects are stalling, while their coders are surfing the net and not doing anything.

Fifth lesson: Hire people who work hard as well. Do not recruit rockstar coders, or anyone with huge ego.

Company was founded by the three of us, Liisa, Arto and me, money was getting in, site kept growing like crazy. To get where we were going with product dev, we needed a Flash coder. We talked with few, but they all decided they wanted to stay at their cozy jobs, rather than doing some fantasy startup company about paperdolls. We started to think about having venture capital money in the company, in order to develop the things we wanted. Enter Danny Rimer.

Danny is a general partner at Index Ventures, one of the best VC companies in the world. We had decided to start looking for venture capital money just one week before out of the blue he contacted me and said he liked the website and wanted to talk about it. I didn't know anything about how everything works regarding venture capital company involvement. At this point I contacted Taneli Tikka, who at that time was the CEO of our hosting company, and who I knew had a lot of VC experience. We met and had an interesting talk. He had many good advice about our company, service and he helped understand more about venture capital. And kudos for also understanding how valuable the site was for girls online. I also met Aapo Kyrölä, the other co-founder of Habbo Hotel. I presented the site to him, and we mainly talked about negotiating with VC:s. We were a lot smaller than Habbo at that time, but were still competitors in 50% of their target market. I highly respect his attitude towards us, in spite of us being competitors. Finland is a small country and we should help each other out like that more often.

to be continued..

Internet industry vs. electric industry

2009-01-28T10:36:00.003+02:00

I have always had extra big admiration for Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. In this video he explains how the dot-com boom and bust is often compared to the Gold Rush, but that its more like the early days of the electric industry.

An inspiring video.

Bad sign

2009-01-24T10:46:00.005+02:00

Here is interesting graph. This is probably good to keep in mind in the future. It's exactly like Jim Rogers said: when 29-year old people in the financial sector are driving Maseratis, something is terribly wrong.

Online shop for Finnish goods!

2009-01-22T19:04:00.004+02:00

If you are finnish person living in somewhere else, or otherwise brainwashed to enjoy our nordic goods, you´ll eventually miss finnish products like crazy.

Especially real rye bread, salmiakki (salty licorice), sauna products scented with birch and tar, and of course latest issues of finnish journals.

But now there is a solution! Hurraa! Suomikauppa.fi is the world largest online shop for Finnish goods!

Goodbye Bush : Veet

2009-01-22T08:02:00.004+02:00

Clever!!! Via: Brand Strategy - blog

Monetary politics

2009-01-20T10:54:00.003+02:00

Central banks are independent institutions without any tangible government (people) control. The are not accountable by any authority. Therefore monetary policy is undemocratic. We can vote any other sort of politician, except the monetary politicians - the most important ones. No other institution in the world has so much power and so little obligations and accountibility. The complete untouchable.

If you are going to centrally control the economy, rather than giving the control to free market (democratic economy), then at least give the people the right to vote on it, and educate them on how their economic system works.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

—Thomas Jefferson, 1802
the third President of the United States (1801- 1809).

Anatomy of a Bubble

2009-01-16T16:17:00.005+02:00

1. Investing (in any asset class) goes mainstream and ordinary people think that they can get rich effortlessly

2. This can go on as long as everybody has the same disillusion, and supply of the particular asset is smaller than demand

3. Bubble bursts when supply gets bigger than demand and forces prices to decline, causing the demand go even lower, and eventually turning into a loop

Central banks are in the position to create bubbles, because their credit to banks and governments can be cheaper than if commercial banks lent money to each other. It is a centrally controlled mechanism for agreeing prices for credit.

Artificially cheap credit --> less risk for banks to lend money to companies and individuals --> companies and individuals invest more --> go back to nr. 1

Half of LAMP is from Finland

2009-01-15T17:15:00.004+02:00

Finnish people have sometimes problems taking credit from what they have done. So I'm going to brag a little bit.

How many realize that half of the open source software bundle LAMP is finnish: operating system Linux and database management system MySQL. Remaining being Apache and PHP. LAMP is used everywhere in the world, and is behind most stuff on internet.

Päivän neljäs kalapuikko

2009-01-15T14:03:00.006+02:00

Sorry folk´s, I just have blog this one in finnish. This blogging about finnish fish stick-riot in school. If you really need to know, you may try google translation. :D

Tapahtui eilen:
Keskellä kaikkien masentavien uutisten ja yt-neuvottelujen, yksi uutinen kaikessa surkuhupaisuudessaan piristi päivää.

Ei siksi, että olisi jotenkin hauskaa että kuriton koulupoika käyttäytyy huonosti, ja koulu joutuu turvautumaan poliiseihin, vaan siksi, että yhden yksilön itsekkyys saa älyttömät mittasuhteet, kun mediassa kaikki näyttää kiteytyvän yhteen pieneen kalapuikkoon. Oikaisuyritykset rapeista kalapaloista vain lisäsivät vettä myllyyn.

Eipä sillä, lapasista lähti myös vitsinä perustettu neljäs kalapuikko-ryhmä, jonka tehtävänä oli pohtia parin kaverin kesken mikä on se viimeinen kalapuikko joka katkaisee kamelin selän. Allekirjoittanutkin paneroutui kalapuikkojen syvimpään olemukseen sellaisella antaumuksella, että aviomies vaihtoi huonetta kun myöhäis-illan pimeinä tunteina esa pakarisen klassikko muuttui muotoon "Lentävä kalapuikko".

Vielä tänäänkin kalapala-baliikki on rapeaa asiayhteydestään irroitettuna. Kalapuikko-metaforat saavat hymyilemään. Ehkä jonain päivänä kielletyn hedelmän sijaan meillä on se neljäs kalapuikko. Eilen onnistuin jo käyttämään neljättä kalapuikkoa lauseessa. Tänään olen onnellinen kuin neljännen kalapuikon saanut koulupoika.

Ehkä me kaikki kaipaamme juuri nyt elämäämme sitä mahdotonta neljättä kalapuikkoa, ja sille asialle on parempi nauraa yhdessä, kuin itkeä yksin omaa kalapuikottomuuttaan.

I swear..

2009-01-12T17:34:00.004+02:00

...If I suddenly lose my job in this economy-schmeconomy situation, I will apply into this one:

"Britney Spears 2.0 Media Manager"

(Well, no, I didn't went to Harvard, but I've seen Love Story few times, does it count?)

If I don´t have to do this, I know the right person to be the one: It´s Chris Crocker

Causes and effects of fuel hedging

2009-01-12T15:17:00.003+02:00

China Eastern Airlines, one of the country's largest carriers, said it faces a "significant loss" for 2008 after fuel price hedges turned bad to the tune of 6.2 billion yuan ($906 million) (from Associated Press).

I think that this is very interesting phenomena, and suspect that this was going on rampant in 2008. Wikipedia explains what fuel hedging is:

"A fuel hedge contract commits an airline to paying a pre-determined price for future jet fuel purchases. Airlines enter into such contracts as a bet that future jet fuel prices will be higher than current prices or to reduce the turbulence of confronting future expenses of unknown size. If the price of jet fuel falls and the airline hedged for a higher price, the airline will be forced to pay an above-market rate for jet fuel."

So airlines have bought a lot of fuel (--> oil) in 2008 when the prices were skyrocketing, basically paying a much higher price than they would have if they just bought at whatever market prices were after the spike. This makes me believe that the price collapse in oil from 145$ to 42$ (price today, January 12th, 2009) is partly due to this. When massive amounts of hedging contracts were made, the effect was that future demand decreased the same amount. "We have already bought all our jet fuel for the next 1,5 years, we don't need anymore".

Now the overall demand, and I mean how much oil is really consumed, hasn't declined much. What has declined is output, because of the fear that during worldwide economic crisis, everyone has to drive a lot less. And I happen to disagree with this. I will not believe that people have really started to use and buy less fuel, globally. That is just a gut feeling.

So what are the effects of fuel hedging in 2008, other than decline in prices? I suspect that prices will go back up. I think that commodities bull run isn't over yet. I'm with Jim Rogers on this one. When stocks and bonds lose their value, the most valuable thing are real things. People will always be in need of food and energy and raw materials. And investment in productive capacity just isn't happening. I mean, who wants to become a farmer, hands up? Or who is investing in a coal mine or lead mine? At times like these?

Long: commodities. Short: 30-year bonds.

A great speech

2009-01-11T15:33:00.002+02:00

This is something I just want to share with everyone:

New place for my music

2009-01-11T10:54:00.005+02:00

Check out my music in Facebook

I have uploaded my music to several online services, such as mikseri.net, last.fm, myspace.com and soundcloud.com. I still haven't found a place which would serve the need to publish one's own music online well enough.

I'd be happy with a site that would let me upload the music in any form I like, and have a really simple and easy to use artist page with all my music. And nothing else. Built to serve just one purpose really really well. The finnish Mikseri.net is probably the closest to this ideal, but it has lots of other stuff as well, like social networking functionality. Which are really great and I use them, but kind of blur and complicate the sort of idea for service that I'm after.

Let's see how this Facebook Page thingy works for me. Please feel free to add yourselves as fans.

If you ever need a Hotel Room in Finland....

2009-01-09T17:57:00.005+02:00

Ok, I´m not the first, but I've to say, I just love this idea.

Hotel Room

Gongratulations guys!

"Don't feed the depression" campaign

2009-01-07T13:57:00.004+02:00

Advertising agency Bob Helsinki has launched a "Don't feed the depression" campaign in Finland. They say that a depression is mostly a psychological phenomenon, and that people shouldn't cut in spending.

The household saving rates in Finland has dropped for 6 consecutive years, and was -3.76% in 2007. It means that we consume more than we earn money. Is that a psychological fact, or is it a real life economic fact?

I think it is almost irresponsible to advice people to spend money they don't have. When we as people have spent too much, and borrowed too much, the cure is then to start saving again and pay back the debt.

The boom is the disease, the bust is the cure.

Other side of the Moon

2009-01-06T10:54:00.008+02:00

President-elect Barack Obama is pushing forward a $775 billion stimulus package. $300B of that is going to low- and middle-income earners as tax cuts. That's great, isn't it? US economy is getting more money into the system at a time of historical economic downturn.

But wait. That is just half of the deal. The other half is this: $775B is taken from someplace else. That "someplace" is going to be $775B poorer. At a time of historical economic downturn, mind you. So where does the money come from? There are three places a government a get this money:

Taxes
Federal Reserve
Borrowing

There could be a fourth place and that is surplus in government budget, but that also is a result from taking it first from some of these places. And USA infamously has the massive deficit. So scratch that.

1. Taxes

Well, they are giving tax cuts as earlier mentioned, so this probably isn't going the be the method. And if they would, they would first tax the people, and the same money back. As ridiculous this sounds, it is basically how everything works. But it isn't done in the US. It's just not IN these days.

2. Federal Reserve

This is the government's most reliable weapon in it's arsenal. There is no way the Fed - at least under Bernanke's control - would ever refuse to loan money to the government. Even at extremely low interest rate. Wow, free money! Well why doesn't the government just ask the Fed to create $50 trillion and loan it, so we can get everything done at once; end the crisis, zero unemployment, huge space program on way and pave the freeways with pure gold? It's free money isn't it? And if you believe John Maynard Keynes (like most modern economists), it will create at least triple that amount of income in the economy, in stages. Excuse me while I briefly am the party pooper and say: in your dreams, baby.

What this method of obtaining cash can and will do is create inflation. Period. If you create more money than there are goods available, that is the only result. Are there more goods produced in USA? No. That is why they don't create that $50 trillion every day. Even Bernanke knows that.

Inflation makes everyone's purchasing power diminish. If they give everyone $400 tax cut, and they have to print that money, the effect is that goods cost more money and you lose the same $400 that way. This is just taking blood from the right hand and putting it into the left hand. Do you in effect have more blood in your veins? If you believe what you read in the newspapers everyday, then that is reasonable logic to you.

3. Borrowing

This the people understand a bit better. Government can borrow this money from banks, individuals and other governments. But as you know, this money has to be paid back. If you as an individual borrow money from a bank, is your overall economy that much stronger? Of course not. You haven't received any free money. Well, there are people who do loan money and never think about paying it back, just thinking that they got rich, wohoo! That is part of the problem why we are in this mess in the first place.

In any effect, borrowing is what the US government will also try to do to obtain this money. I say "try" because it is increasingly difficult for them to persuade banks, individuals and other governments to loan money to US, because US is exactly that guy who keeps loaning money and never pays it back. Especially when the crisis that got started in America has now spread across the world, the would-be lenders have to tighten their belts and think twice who they loan money to. There are economists that think that this is going to be a huge problem.

Borrowing money will not create real wealth, unless you invest it really wisely to produce new wealth. If you just spend it on consumption, that money goes to China/etc. whoever manufactured the goods the people bought.

Conclusion

The media is fervently avoiding any sort of analysis or even mentioning the other half of the deal. Extremely rarely I see anyone in mainstream media talking about where the money is coming from and what are the effects of that. I mean, I could be totally wrong about what I have said about different ways of getting money and what are the result from them, but I think no one can deny that there is the other side of the Moon, and that it has as much real life effects than the visible side.

"Can the US economy afford a Keynesian stimulus?"

2009-01-05T09:17:00.002+02:00

Here is a great blog entry from Willem Buiter. This is the level of depth in analysis the media should offer right now, rather than just describing the color of a gunshot wound.

Rare Stardoll founder interview (in finnish)

2009-01-03T17:28:00.005+02:00

My mother Liisa, who is behind Stardoll.com, is very shy and doesn't enjoy publicity. Here is a rare interview in Turun Sanomat (only in finnish, sorry).

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T16:28:00.005+02:00

Let's start this year's blogging lightly with a picture (thanks Big Picture):

Just Married!

2008-12-21T17:47:00.002+02:00

In case you wonder silence in our blog, we are on vacation in states & Mexico. What a weird trip we are having. Snow in Los Angeles, blizzards in Las Vegas. Now we are stuck in Houston, Texas, and we did not have any intentions to be here. I just combed my hair with the fork and I seriously miss my luggage.

At least, the travel companion is the best! We just got married in Vegas!

Big Bad Car Czar and the Little Red Riding Hood of the Automakers

2008-12-16T09:43:00.008+02:00

News from Bloomberg: U.S. May Give Car Czar Power to Force Bankruptcy, Levin Says:

The U.S. Treasury may adopt a plan that would let a car czar or the Treasury Secretary force General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC into bankruptcy if the automakers don’t show they can survive without government aid, a U.S. senator said.

The concept and wording of "forcing a company into bankruptcy by not giving it government aid" is an amazing demonstration of marketing a thought pattern.

In a free market, the government has a very limited space and function. If some company does horrible business, it forces itself into bankruptcy. By not intervening in the free market and not transfering public money into it, the government isn't forcing that company into bankruptcy. Bloomberg's phrasing makes it sound that it's all the government's fault if Chrysler goes bust. Which is not true at all. The reality is that the automobile companies have done poor job and they deserve to go bankrupt.

Ted and Nick both have one Mars bar. Ted eats his right away, while Nick saves his candy for later. Ted is a greedy little brat and wants more. He starts to beg Nick to share half of his Mars bar. Nick says no.

Is Nick forcing Ted into starvation?

Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman is wrong

2008-12-15T08:24:00.004+02:00

Paul Krugman writes in his New York Times column:

"The usual response to an economic downturn, cutting interest rates, isn’t working. Large-scale government aid looks like the only way to end the economic nosedive."

And

"As in the United States, monetary policy — cutting interest rates in an effort to perk up the economy — is rapidly reaching its limit. That leaves, as the only way to avert the worst slump since the Great Depression, the aggressive use of fiscal policy: increasing spending or cutting taxes to boost demand. Right now everyone sees the need for a large, pan-European fiscal stimulus."

Now, I've said this before and will repeat again: Why should we try to avoid a downturn in the economy, and how would that even be possible? Why should we try to put the air back in the bubble? It was a bubble!

I hope someone will some day explain me why. Because even Nobel prize winning economists don't seem to make a bit of sense.

Story of Stardoll.com - a co-founder's story, Part Three

2008-12-13T11:40:00.004+02:00

I was aware of my mother's crazy paperdoll page, and I was basically just happy that she had a great hobby. Like most men, I didn't "get it" at first. When she called me and told me that her statistics say the the site receives 8000 users each day, I realized something very special was going on. At that point I was studying classical composing in Sibelius-Academy and my summer vacation was just around the corner. We agreed with my mother that I would look more into the website and try to find out ways to monetize. I started to study internet business like crazy. I understood that there was this whole market of girls, for which there was very little online entertainment. Women/girls make up 50% of the online population, and they weren't been served! That plus the fact that the web traffic kept growing like crazy, made certain that we had a business at our hand.

Together we decided that my mother kept doing what she loved the most, which is to draw dolls and design clothes, while business and product development, and managing the company were left for me. This gave me a lot of enthusiasm. I was also a regular poor student, so every extra euro was welcome. I read everything I could about internet business and running a company. I studied HTML and Flash, but not in order to code, only what can be done with them. I studied advertising systems and we experimented with them. We moved out (were kicked out) of different hosting service providers before we got settled for one. That was because our data was downloaded mostly from USA and other international locations, and the overseas bandwidth costs were too much for the small hosting companies.

We got the advertising systems running and boy we were happy when we saw our first revenue coming in. On business development side, we came to conclusion that the service could be two-sided: we could get money from companies who would want to advertise on our site, or display clothing lines, promoting stuff, etc. And also we could get money from users, subscriptions, VIP functions, shoutboxes and so on. On product development side we figured that the girls would probably want to create their own doll and start buying it clothes with our own money system. Also saving dress-ups was important. By this point we understood that we needed technical help.

Part Four

Change We Can Believe In

2008-12-12T08:14:00.004+02:00

There is going to be lot of changes in my life, big ones, in few weeks.
Good changes, and I love changes.

Robert F. Kennedy said "Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies." Change may have always enemies, but all new needs friends. So let's think positive and be friendly to new changes.

We both love this quote from Pixar Ratatouille movie:

EGO:  In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends....

Autechre - Gantz Graf

2008-12-11T08:58:00.005+02:00

"The music video for "Gantz Graf" reached a cult status in underground computer-generated imagery art circles. The video features an abstract object (or an agglomeration of objects) perfectly synchronized to the sounds in the music as it morphs, pulsates, shakes, and finally dissolves. The visuals contain the same amount of richness and detail as the soundtrack does, having a visual counterpart to every little sound or frequency range in the song"

This video had a huge impact on me when I first saw it. The music is probably a bit too weird and avantgarde for some, but I enjoy it. The reason I post about this video is that I saw it again after a few years and remembered how culturally important it actually is. It is very much ahead of it's time I think.

Director: Alex Rutterford.

Watch the Youtube video in HD 720p here. (can't be embedded unfortunately)

Public vs. private allocation of money

2008-12-11T07:48:00.006+02:00

Is government policy of spending public money to create jobs a good thing? I bet you that most people think that it is. For instance in United States right now, the government is using public money (either tax money or by creating inflation using the Federal Reserve to print the money) to save the autoindustry and all the jobs that are dependent on them.

First off, if people aren't willing to buy Ford, Chrystler or GM cars or invest by buying their stocks, then why should they be forced by the government to do it?

Second, when the government is using people's money to create jobs somewhere, they are taking away money that the people would have used some other way, that would have created jobs naturally somewhere else.

But people can see the people at work in the autoindustry. They see pictures in the newspapers. They can see the cars that are made. What they can't see is the jobs and goods that are not allowed to come to existence.

Using public money to create jobs destroys private jobs somewhere else.

Two most interesting music related startups

2008-12-10T15:29:00.014+02:00

The first one is Soundcloud. It's sort of like Flickr for musicians. Here is a work-in-progress track from my upcoming electronica album "Hoodf":

Hoofd 5 by lasseenersen

The other very interesting company is Spotify. The CEO and founder of this company is Daniel Ek. For a brief time he was the Chief Technical Officer of Stardoll.com. Extremely gifted technical fellow with good business sense. Spotify lets you enjoy music for free. You can also share your playlists. They make money with advertising and user payments. If you have Spotify, here is my "disruptive electronica" playlist. If you don't have it yet, you can ask me for invites.

Music and internet are both passions of mine, and I believe that both of these companies will succeed very well.

Economics in one lesson

2008-12-10T12:21:00.004+02:00

"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups." -- Henry Hazlitt

Embrace the pain

2008-12-06T08:29:00.003+02:00

There is nothing we can do to prevent a severe recession. To think that we can as a global economy live beyond our means, spend too much on consumption, create enormous amounts of debt, and somehow not have to pay for it is absurd. But somehow there is a weird consensus about trying to minimize the pain, smoothing the recession and pretending nothing ever happened. We are distorting the natural forces of economy, and it will only make things worse in the long run.

Yes it is possible to print so much money and pump it into the system that it will inflate the recession away for a few years. But it's like curing alcoholism with three cases of beer. It will not make the fundamentals of the economy any better. It is going to create a huge global inflation somewhere down the line. That is the disease the central banks are injecting into this already shattered economy. That will make the commodity prices skyrocket and result in food shortages in third world countries. You see, someone will bite the bullet at the end, no matter how you slice it. It is only matter of who, how and when.

There is honor and grace in paying the full price yourself for the bad and stupid things you've done.

Economy surprised Copywriter

2008-12-05T18:13:00.011+02:00

Well, you have your brief, you make some research, but still it's not easy to predict the future...

In the year 2007, autumn, Nordea Bank ad:

Headline says loosely translated: "You probably won't be hearing 'cheap as oil' -saying tomorrow either"

Year 2008, winter, headlines in finnish tabloid:

Headline says: "Cheap - cheaper - crude-oil."

whoops.

2xDavid

2008-12-04T08:06:00.006+02:00

Two David's have made a quite impact to me yesterday.

1. David Droga
from Droga5 ad agency. He was visiting here in Finland. He seem to be really down to earth and clear minded. I really felt that he spoke out loud things I've been thinking about lately. I guess it has to be something to do with his half scandinavian and half australian heritage. There was lot of common sense, like in situation you want to do something outside the box. Maybe you need partners or volunteers, or make few phone calls. Way too often we think, ok, it's not gonna work, and it's not my duty to make that kind of calls, they don´t want me to call them. Guess what? Usually those people are going to take your calls. If there is benefits for them also, why would they say immediatly no? He was also talking about insight and strategy, you can be as creative as possible, when you have a great strategy first. No need to be just clever clever, or somehow oh-so-different than others. I just had kind of enlighten while watching his latest campaigns like tapproject, million and the great schlep. It's right there, in the pivot point, what makes them tick.

One example: Teenager and young adults + Shopping. Ok, they use a lot computers but they also love to hang around the mall, and watch telly and movies to get fashion tips. What if they could get social network and entertainmet while online shopping? So they created "digital mall" Honeyshed. Interesting combo between TV shop and web store for young people.

2. David Thorne.
Guy who tried to pay his bill with a spider pic. He says in his email: "Dear Jane, I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a spider instead. I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this settles the matter,"

And the value of this Itsy bitsy spider? In Ebay, US$10,000. Well, I´ll buy that lovely piece in 10,000€, but I also value this posting as a 10,000€ word of mouth advertising campaing, so David, we are even steven.

Paperdoll Heaven makes a comeback

2008-12-03T16:47:00.005+02:00

Stardoll launches www.paperdollheaven.com again. It features over 500 dress-up games, without the social networking and MeDoll.

I think this is really good for the younger users, and will make it easier for them to play dress-up. Cool stuff!

The lion hunter

2008-12-02T19:40:00.006+02:00

I´m quite buzzzzzyy right now, so Lasse´s economical rant is dominating this blog.
But let me tell you at least something about advertising:

UNIQLO and The Cannes International Advertising Festival invites designers all over the world to design a official Cannes T-shirt.

We finnish designers rarely shine in Cannes awards, but here is one change to make an impact. So I dare you to design!

Of course awards are not the reason to design, but I guess they are pleasant side effect if you are doing something right.
So I've set myself an ambitious goal. "Get in Cannes shortlist 2009". In this economical situation when budgets are cut down and campaigns frozen, I must be crazy. But I haven´t lost my hope yet. I´ll think we are developing something special right now.

Stay tuned.

PS Lion pic inspiration via kattalogen.

PPS Ok, cats are so last season. Here´s something new: FUCK YOU IM AN ANTEATER

Creating impotent banks

2008-12-02T08:26:00.006+02:00

Banks loan money to people and companies so they can invest in turn in something they believe in, like real estate. When the investment turns out poor, and the debtor can't make loan payments to banks, the loans turn non-performing. The banks could collect the collateral, but since it has lost a lot of value, it would be bad business for the bank. So the banks keep the loans in place, put them in a time capsule, waiting for the asset prices to go back up. They become unrealized loss.

Unrealized loss is an interesting concept. It is an idea that defies gravity and distorts economic balance. If all the companies in the world would have to power to refuse failure, what kind of system would that turn out to be?

In a crisis, when lots of banks have lots of non-performing loans, which haven't been written off, banks cannot lend more money until they increase their cash reserves to cover the bad loans. This leads to less financial cushion for economic growth.

Propping up failures lead to a degenerated economy. Such that has grown huge intolerance to cash - the economic viagra.

The solemn task of not letting recessions to clean out excesses is a very new thing to do. We don't have much experience in how it is supposed to turn out eventually. Jeremy Grantham (hat-tip Paul Kedrosky) and Ross Healy point this out well.

I just think that central and commercial banks (what is the difference, by the way?) have gained a terribly powerful status and influence on the economic system, and it is really hurting us. They are the modern untouchables.

Story of Stardoll.com - a co-founder's story, Part Two

2008-11-30T12:08:00.008+02:00

Our family got it's first PC computer in 1998. Me and my brother Matti had had Commodore 64, Amiga 500, MSX and Atari ST for gaming, and my mother never paid much interest in them. And at first actually she was very little interested in the new PC that we got. I almost had to force her to pay attention to the new thing called internet. Little by little she sat down and learned to use the computer. She would always ask my a lot of questions and my answer was always "you won't learn it you won't learn it yourself". And she learned it. She also found programs for drawing. Microsoft Paint and whatever, those early horrible programs. She did a few things with them but found them really incabable of doing stuff that she enjoyed. At some point however she found Flash. And it was a revelation. She started to draw with it day and night. In fact she still does. The good thing about drawing with computer is that there is never a shortage of paper :)

Second lesson: You have to be willing to work work work. No other way around it.

At some point she found the drag'n'drop function in Flash, and instantly thought of paperdolls. She did a few tests and they worked like a charm. At the same time she had been reading about girls having to play boys' computer games, like sports, cars and violence. Girls clearly wanted to play too, technology was there, but no one was providing it to them on the internet.

Third lesson: Your company has to solve some kind of problem for which there are real needs. I don't believe in creating needs or creating markets. They are already there, it's just that in some cases the problems aren't addressed yet, or they are addressed poorly. It's all about channelling those real needs efficiently.

My mother went on to create more dolls with Flash, and created an english speaking (this proved to be important decision) home page to Geocities where she would then upload the paperdolls. At first there was only one doll. Somehow someone found the doll, and liked it. That someone told some other person what she had just found, and there was a second user. Those two told someone else and the word started to spread. Soon they would send email asking for more dolls and more clothes. And my mother did more. This pattern kept on going, and soon there were a few thousand girls on that site every day, asking for more dolls.

Fourth lesson: On the internet, websites get picked up by audience by word-of-mouth, not advertising. There are exceptions, but this is how I really see it. And I'll go even further: word of mouth is way more efficient if it happens offline, even if it is about online services. We learned early on that schools were really the place where the word spread. For example teachers let us know that our site was interfering with their work :) The best and only way to ensure word-of-mouth is to build a great product or service. And make your service available in all countries by having it in english. It's the same amount of effort to make it in finnish, than it is to make it in english.

Part Three

Straitjacket economy

2008-11-27T21:31:00.004+02:00

This is a followup on my blog entry Straitjacket of consuming.

I have started to think that we (Northern Atlantic economies) indeed might have allowed ourself to be subject to a grande economic system, which can function only by perpetually expanding credit. And to do that, people have to bury themselves more and more in work, government spending has to grow, and companies have to create products and services for which there are less and less any fundamental need. Because we cannot create real wealth fast enough, and because our economic system will create great pain if we fail at doing this, we are forced to create asset growth artificially. We have to create air. Increasing stock market speculation and derivatives are a symptom of this disease.

When the housing assets started to lose value in 2006, the economy could have survived the hit if people had bigger savings rate, and companies would have had more financial cushion at their disposal. The economic downturn is so much worse, because everyone has so little slack. If there is even a minor disruption, the shit hits the fan big time.

So what is the reason for the underlying reason that creates credit expansion? Credit comes from banks. Banks create money in the form of credit. When someone opens a new bank account and makes a deposit, that money is loaned out many times it's size. Banks create money out of money. They don't have to create any real value, like produce or manufacture something, they can just make up the money. Banks get money as loans from central banks. Where do central banks get their money? They create it out of thin air and loan it to banks and governments with interest. Now is it then so hard to understand why the money supply is growing so much faster than everything the whole world produces? Is it really hard to understand why money loses so much value? Why we work so much? Why both men and women have to work in order to provide food to the table? Why we have had so many economic crisis in the last 100 years?

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." -- Henry Ford

Adbusters and new young radicals

2008-11-27T15:18:00.008+02:00

In the year 2006 I took part in finnish adbusters competition called "Mainoskupla". At that point I had been in advertising about a year or so, and I had no relevant education. Actually I drew this one by myself. I´m truly sorry about comic sans, but that was a part of joke. Guess what? I didn't win. But this year with similar idea somebody won price in amateur serie of Mainoskupla: Bitch. Oh yeah. I was good as an amateur...or maybe I'm a rolemodel. :D

In that same year 2006 I figured that I need more knowledge and education. So I took part in first class of copywriters in Institute of Marketing. From that same class has become many new talented and ambitious junior copywriters. I'm always happy to see them getting in the industry, or success in competitions. They work now in all the best agencies in Finland.

Nowadays I have more experience, but I think I'm still green. I feel that is a good thing, I will learn and my point of view is fresh. I don't know if there is a kind of cap between generations, but if you read finnish advertising magazines and blogs, you find the cap, and from the conversation behind them, you find lack of respect in attitudes, both sides.

So here are my thoughts:

Youngsters: It's not your fault to be young and fierce. You'll grow up. Someday you might be even BIG. Just respect older designers and co-workers and try to learn from them. I was lucky to get good mentors in the beginning of my career, and I'm eternally grateful of that. (Some name dropping: Micke Silén, Markku Rönkkö, Hannu Konttinen)

Professionals: Guess what, those young bastards did not came to steal your clients, they are more like worshipping you and your knowledge. Share it, listen, ask from them, so you get also something back. Insight of next generation. So you know even more. Knowledge is power. Keep your heart open to youngsters, if you are not young at heart, you suddenly start to fear change. It´s not easy to find new solutions in a fear of change.

Bailout costs more than anything else ever

2008-11-27T09:15:00.006+02:00

TechCrunch Brunch in Helsinki

2008-11-26T10:52:00.004+02:00

I attended the TechCrunch Brunch in Helsinki, day after Slush. It's good to have these sort of events in Finland, so that the small startup groups can become more like a real community. As for me, I'm really crappy at networking, so every now and then I try to force myself to show my face.

Discussion was of course centered around current economic crisis and how it effects startups. I'm surprised how so many startups still seem to think that venture capital money is needed in order to run a small company. I think that VC funding is most needed at a point when you already have a proven success and you need help to turn the small company into a big company. There is a chasm when you are crossing over, and during that time there are a lot of new hiring to be done, product development, business strategy, partnerships, and many other little things that suck up a lot of capital. This is easier if there is financial cushion. This is the prime reason. There are other reasons as well, like getting valuable contacts and wisdom from investors.

One company that was quite interesting to me, was Hammerkit. It develops a:

"...true component-based architecture that allows web applications to be created very quickly using fully reusable components through a web-based, collaborative application assembly line environment"

It has a real early adopter approach, and is basically a tool that makes coders' life easier. It tries to solve a problem that I myself have been thinking about. I believe that in the future, people like me who don't know how to code, but have ideas for internet businesses, could somehow use a easy-to-use graphical user interface to create web services with LAMP. Like DreamWeaver with database functionalities. I use Max/MSP sometimes in my music projects, and something like that could be great. Drag'n'drop boxes with functions connected together. I know that something like this is possible to make. But which coder would want to create a software that makes coders lose their jobs? The managing director of Hammerkit, Mark Sorsa-Leslie seem to be a very smart guy also. Hopefully they make it, and at some point move from early adopter market to mainstream market so that a dummy like me can use their product as well.

I talked briefly with Teemu Kurppa (Jaiku co-founder, just left Google), and Heikki Mäkijärvi from Accel Partners. They both had interesting thoughts about the industry.

Must have: a cat and ROOMBA

2008-11-25T22:27:00.002+02:00

Too bad that I´m allergic to cats, I see tons of fun in this combination.

Story of Stardoll.com - a co-founder's story, Part One

2008-11-25T08:35:00.007+02:00

My experience as a co-founder and the first CEO of Stardoll.com (previously Paperdollheaven.com) was a quite unusual one, and us such it might be of interest to people in the internet industry, and especially to startups. Maybe other people as well. I learned a great deal during the time that we transformed a tiny little Geocities home page to the largest online destination for tween girls in the world, now entertaining over 23 million of it's registered users. And "I will dispense this information. Now."

The beginning of Stardoll has nothing to do with me. What later turned into Stardoll.com was originally created by my mother Liisa. As a little girl from finnish forests, she used to make her own paperdolls by drawing and cutting paper. After the war, there was shortage of everything and often if you wanted to play with toys, you had to make them yourself. And so she did. But as she is an artist at heart, she really loved the process and made a lot these paperdolls and clothes and have them to her two sisters and neighbour's girls. And so they would all dress those dolls up and play with them endlessly.

First lesson to entrepreneurs: do something that you really love, something that gets you inspired. Sometimes it's hard to see what is your real essence, what drives you. But everyone has one. You have to be honest to yourself. It might be some silly old thing like making paperdolls.

The little girl grew up and went on to live a normal life, having children and so on. She had multiple jobs, but she always kept drawing and painting. And reading. A lot. Her drawings and paintings were always very full of details. She paid incredibly amount of time to draw stuff like individual hairs and stuff like that. Very meticulate. This is actually something very important to our company's early success. I don't know anyone who draws with Flash with as much details as her. Flash of course, not having pixels in the same way that Photoshop, allows to produce very meticulate stuff.

Part Two

I have an idea! Let´s think inside the box.

2008-11-22T11:04:00.009+02:00

This is a new one, and totally out of my line of business. This is about housing and architecture. It's absolutely stupid but so simple and clean. I think no one has done manufactured quite this solution for this need. At least I don't know where to buy it. And millions of people could find it useful. I know I would. That's a start.

Actually, about 12 years ago I made a decision not to accept admission to Tallinn Art University Department of Interior Architecture. Instead I studied Fashion Design less than a year in Kuopio. And then move in the Helsinki. Advertising and Internet are good fields for me, because I love to get new challenges and learn new things every day. But there is still a little designer in me, and my AD partners have definitely noticed it, in good and in bad. (sorry guys!)

I don't regret anything what I've done in my life, they make me who I am. I regret only things I didn't do. Now I don't know how to design interior or work in furnishing product development. So when I get Idea for interior design, I have no skills to make it.

So here in one idea for free; Room Cube.

Make a room inside a room! Prefabricated room in IKEA style, build-it-yourself product: ROOM.

In Japan they have some paper rooms, and of course prefabricated steam room or cabinet is a old thing, but how about a just a room? No room divider or other thin curtains between space. A room.

Of course there should be few size variations and you can paint cube coat, or use really nice, modified coats with trendy graphics. So this little room cube inside the another room is also kind of piece of art. On top of cubicle you could make a loft and storage.

Who could use this room cube? People who rent or buy quite big 1 room apartment, or loft, but like to have rooms. People who have suddenly kids, but don't wan't to search new apartment and move, so they can easily build a room for a child. Design lovers, who consider old fashioned kids play houses ugly, could use this in they garden as a play house for kids. In big office space you could have more privacy in room cube than in open cubicles.

Go on, grab this idea and run. I wan't to buy a room cube.

Originality

2008-11-20T10:26:00.010+02:00

Is it possible to be truly original? And especially in ad business? We had a little conversation about it in Deceptive Cadence.

It's easier to be original if you make art and express yourself through it. But advertising is not art and ad people should not act like artists. This is more like a craft, customer service and insight of people. Usually we try to reach masses, and sell something. Advertising becomes art when it's great.

Sometimes I feel we go so extreme that true originality is something so mainstream, that we don't even see it. This polarization is clear in all fields of life, not just in advertising. This zeitgeist is feeding our need to be unique individuals, but the next wave in economy, culture and set of values may bring back some other needs. Some principles of life don't change, even if all the means and reasons would.

Don't get me wrong, I think individualism is a good thing, and it's always refreshing if someone seems to have created something new. But sometimes I feel that ideas I find BIG, are the most obvious solutions. They make me feel so small, it was right there front of my nose, and I didn't see that until now.

What is originality? An original idea is not received from others nor one copied based on the work of others. An original idea is one not thought up by another person beforehand... Ok, what about the teamwork? How about our subliminal mind? And influences of the culture and lifestyle? Have you seen this Derren Brown clip about 2 ad guys and de-brief? It explains quite well how the creative mind works, and how easy it is manipulate human mind. (Don´t get any ideas from this, you sneaky ad people ;) )

I have to quote myself, "It's not easy to be original in advertising. The whole nature of advertising is more like manipulated echoes from life, culture and common situations for stereotypical people. But when advertising is echo from another ad, we ad people get annoyed. Consumers don't care, unless it's a really really really bad rip-off. "

Sometimes many people can come up with the same idea independently. Sometimes they borrow idea and make it better.. you may say, it's not stealing, it's inventing it again. To be original is one goal, but relevant timing, surprising but memorable story and the best execution is the winner of all the similar ideas. You don't lose your credibility if the message is credible for your product.

And here is something we should not forget. Windo gives you good lesson:
It´s just advertising, get over it!

Taxing the rich and poor

2008-11-20T10:08:00.002+02:00

Warren Buffett says the he has lower tax rate now - as the richest human being in the world - than he did when he delivered newspapers as a boy. He has to pay 15% by law. His tax rate is also smaller than the woman who comes every day to clean his office. Makes you kind of think.

Deflation or not

2008-11-20T08:23:00.004+02:00

The greatest negative effect during the Great Depression was deflation - contraction in the money supply. Deflation occured when people drew their deposits out of their banks. Against every 100$ deposit the bank could (and still can because of the fractional reserve banking) lend out 1000$, so when people went to the bank and took all their money out, the money supply contracted ten-fold. This caused the purchasing power of money to rise dramatically. If you have a company and pay 100$ in wages, and then there is massive deflation, you are forced to pay more and more to workers (unlike today's inflation where workers must ask a raise every now and then). This led to massive unemployment, which in turn led to other big problems.

Why the Fed never pumped enough money to the system during the early 30's is still a bit of a mystery. It didn't do what it is designed to do: to be a lender of last resort. Because the biggest winners during that time were the original founders and private owners of the Fed: Rothschilds, Rockefellers and Morgans, I am left to believe that private interests were served here.

Bloomberg wrote about a deflation risk today. J.P. Morgan's analyst Michael Feroli predicts that the Federal Reserve will lower it's interests rates to 0% during the following two months. The banks will be able to loan money for free. Isn't that great business?

Why does Feroli expect that there will be deflation? Because:

"...companies cut jobs and banks reduce lending, stifling spending"

But companies cut jobs because of deflation, not the other way around. Banks reducing lending will create deflation, I'll give him that. But the effect of stifling spending in itself doesn't create deflation. The only thing that can create deflation is that people, companies and governments pay back their loans, because it contracts the banks reserves, the basis on which to loan money. This is what banks are afraid of. People are not taking their money out, because times are different than in 1930's, the biggest fear is that people do the right thing during crisis: repay their loans.

Governments are being scared to death by banks to let deflation occur, so they do whatever they can to prevent it. For some reason, Wall Street seems to believe that contraction in the stock market is same as deflation. It is not. When you go out and buy stuff, and its cheaper every month, that's deflation. Have you noticed such things lately? But because people are up their ears in debt already, it makes it really hard for them to pay back the money they borrowed. Therefore I see no risk in major deflation. So when the Fed pumps massive amounts of money, and the system is flushed with dollars, and no one absorbing it, it will create massive inflation.

The Wall Street propaganda machine will also tell us that dollar is strenghtening and commodities have gone way down, thus reducing the inflation. But this will be temporary, as everything is being forced to sell. And thus people are in effect buying dollars. This will create the illusion that dollar is stronger and commodities (all dollar-denominated) will continue to go down. When the force-selling eventually runs it course, the fundamentals are back in game, the fundamentals for the dollar are terrible, and for commodities the supply-demand hasn't changed, dollar will go down dramatically and commodities will go back up. This will make the inflation a lot worse.

I project that deflation is the least of our worries at this point. Au contraire. There will be massive inflation because we are fighting the non-existing deflation.

One more thing: Monty Python Channel !!!!

2008-11-19T20:20:00.003+02:00

Wow, high quality Pythons in youtube!

And this is WHY:

Monty Python Channel

Ministry of silly walks, killer rabbit, witch village and black knights... all the goodies. But they want something in return:

"None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years."

Page 56 Meme

2008-11-19T20:06:00.003+02:00

Despite its technical character and forbidding complexity, the subject of international monetary arrangements is one that a liberal cannot afford to neglect.

What´s on page 56?
Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

(Lasse´s book was closer... damn!)

Happy birthday, Dear finnish Internet!

2008-11-19T17:23:00.005+02:00

Internet has been in Finland now 20 years!
In November 1988 Nordic collaboration Nordunet, had a first connect to to the worldwide network. I guess I´ve been using Internet now about 15 years.
And last 10 years has changed my life.

I have found my best friends, new skills, jobs and hobbies trough web. I fall in love with knowledge which was free, and out there. No other school has ever get me so excited, I could educate myself to be almost what ever I wanted to be. So I wanted to be a writer and everything is my paper.

I keep in touch with my family trough Internet. My mom and dad (now 70 years old) have their own webpages and they skype me sometimes with webcam. Most of my relatives are in Facebook or use messenger. I even met Lasse first in web, maybe in year 2002, but in that moment we were just acquitance to each other. But Internet was sure the reason we met again at work.

So thank you finnish Internet and happy birthday to you!

The beauty of internet is to believe in change. Everything is possible and "blessings are deserved by the trust that always could."

Theme and variations

2008-11-19T11:54:00.002+02:00

This is something I composed as a study for myself. A simple theme with four variations tied to different film directors' styles: 1. Stanley Kubrick, 2. Sergio Leone, 3. Tim Burton and 4. all these together. It is interesting to see how the exact same musical material can be used to portray different world by changing the orchestration. Anyways, it turned out quite fun and I thought I'd share this piece for which I have no other use.

You can listen it here:

I.O.U.S.A.

2008-11-19T10:04:00.003+02:00

A great and informing film about United States national debt and its effect on US citizens and their future. Also gives a really good picture of the whole western economy and its viability. Anyone making investments decisions should watch this film:

The internet entrepreneur

2008-11-18T19:50:00.001+02:00

This is a subject that I will probably tackle more in the future, but I might as well start writing a little bit about it already.

I have never worked "in the industry" so to speak. I don't know about processes. I don't know what's it like to work in a real office with schedules. I have always felt that I'm an outsider in the Finnish startup scene. I know more internet people outside Finland. My path co-founding what is now Stardoll.com and Kuvake.net is probably a bit uncommon. I don't know how to code, I have no history in doing any business, no legal background, nothing. But somehow I've learned to manage quite well doing internet business. And my approach to the whole thing is just common sense.

There's nothing inherently special about internet. It's the same as any other business, especially the media companies. Somehow because it is still relatively fresh new industry, it is surrounded with a lot of bullshit. It's probably the same with all the new Gold Rush-equivalent industries in the history, where there is a lot of money to be made whoever finds something valuable first. This is something I dislike about the IT the most.

I think that creating new internet services should be a craft like glass blowing or stone carving. Something to be done with a humble approach. Slow process, always trying out what works in practice and what doesn't. It should resemble an artists process of starting with a simple but identifyable idea and building something bigger with it. On running internet business, there shouldn't be any unnecessary expenditures like fancy hip offices or arcade games. There shouldn't be people surfing the net instead of working. No endless meetings that don't lead anywhere. All this just doesn't make any sense to me. Why should internet be any different than selling hotdogs?

The successful internet entrepreneur must have two characteristics: 1. he/she must be stupid enough to start a new business in the first place and 2. he/she must be intelligent to succeed with it. They also have to be somehow egoistic enough to think that they can do things better than others, while at the same time humble enough to listen what other people have to say and learn from everything they read. This is why there aren't that many success stories, I think.

And one last thing that they have to have bipolar about: they have to be nice no strings attached people with good self-esteem, while still being able to be a ruthless businessman.

Quite a mixed monster this dude, right?

I know who the fu*k is Jenny Woo!

2008-11-18T12:04:00.006+02:00

(Picture from Deceptive Cadence)

We saw this car middle of Helsinki.

"Do you know what it was?" asked my AD partner.
"I dunno." I said.
"I don´t know is that good..." he said.
"guerilla in Finland is always somehow so sad." I said.
"But this reminds me... that campaign about movie-channel...do you remember it?" I asked from him.
"Oh yes, it was pretty good!".
And then we talk about THAT campaign, and forget about Jenny Woo and all this finnish guerilla marketing sadness.

Then I heard that there were a similar sign in Idols show at Sunday.

At the sunday newspaper "Jenny Woo" was searching roommates in rental classifieds. You can also find her roommate ad from web: Oikotie

And today I saw those in this blog: Deceptive Cadence

Ok. You get me. I´m interested. So I googled it.
Not just Jenny Woo, but phrase "who the fuck is Jenny Woo?"

I found finnish magazine article about Riku Stenroos.

He´s facebook status was: "Who the fuck is Jenny Woo?".
He is building a new bar middle of Helsinki. Simonkatu 6.
Bar name is still "a secret."

You do the math.

Useful guy

2008-11-17T18:29:00.005+02:00

...well, he had his moments, at least in ads and jokes.

Via: http://adsoftheworld.com/

With great power comes great responsibility

2008-11-17T09:38:00.005+02:00

Free markets work beautifully. I believe in this. But markets aren't really free if they aren't being self-regulated via natural discipline created by risk and responsibility. If these two factors are removed from the equation, it is no longer free market capitalism, it resembles central planning of some socialist countries in the past.

When banks are able to borrow money from central banks with lower rates than there is inflation, it distorts markets greatly. If central banks couldn't print money out of thin air, there would be no bank which would find it good business to loan out money with rates below inflation. It is an artificial system that creates artificial economic environments. When this is combined with fractional reserve banking system, which enables banks to lend out money that it doesn't have, our system of credit is basically without boundaries. The only boundary that it does have people's and institutions' willingness to borrow money. This is not freedom in my eyes. This is distortion of freedom. It is for freedom what Kentucky Fried Chicken is for chickens.

Some day we must realize as one, that we don't have a free market economy. Our economy is controlled by central banks, and the only thing it can create is money, inflation. This can lead to no other result than booms and busts. Banks are the biggest winners during booms, and ordinary people are the biggest losers during busts.

I dream about a world which would have natural free market capitalism. A world without central banks. A system in which risk couldn't be transferred, and responsibility was effecting the decision making. This system should work with same rules as an ordinary household. No stupid risks, trying to save money, not taking too much credit and not spending on consumption. This kind of system is possible. It has existed many times during our history and it has brought great wealth upon all citizens, while bringing bankers down the level of ordinary entrepreneurs with common problems.

I have a wordle for you...

2008-11-16T11:37:00.007+02:00

Cute little application for generating word clouds. Go on and make your own: Wordle

Here is some nonSENSE:

Found via: If it´s hip, it´here -blog

Could the next bubble be green?

2008-11-15T16:07:00.006+02:00

The greatest bull market in stocks lasted from 1982 to 2000, when the dot.com bubble burst. To ease the pain, Federal Reserve lowered it's interest rate to 1% for a whole year. Many economists say - such as Ross Healy in this great interview - that this was one the prime reasons for the housing boom and it's eventual bust, for which we are now facing the consequences.

If there hadn't been a housing boom created by US government creatures, the fall in the stock market could have been more severe after the IT bubble, and led to a real recession. What the Fed has been trying to do after 2000 is to prevent recessions from taking place. Housing boom was the thing that bounced the economy back up. But the growth wasn't real. It was a bubble. Just like the IT bubble.

The consensus by politics in the western world, is that money has to be pumped to the system, in other words by printing it. We are yet again trying to fight against the natural waves of free market economy, by expanding the money supply even more - trying to keep the fever elevated. If we are to escape the next Great Depression, another bubble has to be created. Now the question rises: what could create the next bubble? What could be universally accepted as great growth opportunity? What could lead the people trust to put their money into stock market again? It can't be IT or housing. Those have been tried and found non-functional.

I have a wild theory: If we will bounce again by creating another bubble, the color of the bubble could be green.

Everyone shares the worry about climate change. Everyone in the whole world knows about it. Everyone wants to live in a clean planet. We have a huge industry forming called "green tech". New York Times has good article about it. The legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins launched a new Green Growth Fund last May, totalling 500 million US dollars. According KPCB, the fund is:

"...intended to help speed mass market adoption of solutions to the world’s climate crisis."

Many VC's are following. President-elect Barack Obama is the sort of New Deal guy, who could put a lot of government money to support this industry.

All this is great for the planet. It has to happen, because we are quickly turning our world into a dump. Putting together an effort to clean the planet is a noble cause. But we have to remember that Internet also was a noble cause. We are connecting people on this planet. Housing is also a noble cause. "Every citizen must have the opportunity to have their own home". But these two things created a hype that let to a bust. This could happen to the green tech as well. Robert Bell has written a book about this.

We have to be careful this time. We should put the sought-after regulation working in central banks, having governments have oversight, and see that they are not creating yet another artificially beneficial environment for credit expansion. And no industry should be granted government backing. Free market works, if you let it. That way we can make the most out of these noble causes.

EDIT: Steve Randy Waldman pointed out a great article about this on Harper's

Fruugo launches... nothing

2008-11-14T08:41:00.005+02:00

According to sources (in finnish), Fruugo didn't launch it's service yesterday at SIME, as it was supposed to. Kauppalehti (also in finnish) writes that the CEO Reijo Syrjäläinen has left the company, and the new CEO is Juha Usva. They are now in talks with VC:s about new funding. Their biggest investor so far is Queensway Developments LLC. Taneli Tikka has a good blog entry about Fruugo's mystery.

This is from Fruugo.com:

"We want to make it easy for consumers to buy the stuff they want, in their own language and using the payment method they prefer – without the hassle of exchange rates, complex shipping costs, taxes, or staying up all night worrying “am I actually going to get my stuff?” We want to help with all that."

These problems have been addressed by many different e-commerce services, such as Amazon. Where is the beef? What is their unique value proposal? On ArcticStartup, Fruugo's Janne Waltonen commented that:

"Fruugo doesn’t have direct competitors as such, and most of the players concerned with Fruugo entering their space could actually rather be quite interesting partners (like Kelkoo and other product comparison sites for example)"

Every single company has direct competitors. At least that has to be the mindset. I mean if you don't have the competitors, you don't have a market either. If the problems that Fruugo's service is trying to solve are as described above, it doesn't sound like a disruptive innovation. It sounds like a mainstream service in an sustaining market. If it were truly disruptive, I could understand the "no competitors" comment a little better. But as it sounds more like late adopter service, you should create the competition, as competition is the fundamental condition for purchase. You just can't do early adopter marketing with late adopter product.

Also it has been reported that they have about 100-150 people working in Fruugo right now. I think that amount of people in a startup is pure madness. Even Google didn't need that many to get the service running online.

All in all, this all sounds very peculiar. I would absolutely love to see new big things coming out of Finland, but it just seems that either 1. The idea is too small and the effort too big, or 2. The idea is great and effort too small.

Yes I´m pregnant.

2008-11-13T19:56:00.005+02:00

I´m having very intense idea labor with few campaigns, so less blogging, more pushing... aaaarrrrrrrrrhhhhhh!

I hope to avoid this kind a baby blues:

Two pieces from Wojciech Kilar

2008-11-13T11:23:00.006+02:00

Wojciech Kilar is one of my absolute favorite film composers of all time. He has been active mostly in his native Polish cinema, but he has done a few bigger budget movies as well, such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Truman Show, The Ninth Gate and The Pianist.

What is intriguing in his style is his use of extremely simple and to-the-point motifs. In that respect, it resembles Hitchcock's "court composer" Bernard Herrmann. They both invent little ideas upon which they expand. And repeate.

This is Kilar going a bit Debussy and Ravel, the very beautiful and melancholic "Walc" from the film The Promised Land (1974):

My favorite Kilar is from one of my favorite movies The Ninth Gate (1999). He really is a master of dark colors, and suits Polanski's style extremely fittingly. Together they create pure, original and masterful cinematic expression. While the superb Corso's Theme takes us through the story with different orchestrational variations, the opening title music always gives me goose bumps with it's chromaticism and minor chords:

OMG, WE ARE DOOOMED!

2008-11-12T17:33:00.004+02:00

(and omg, and SHE is blogging about economy, and she does not know anything about it!)

Advertising is dying! We are going to be unemployed! That means poor! We need money! Security! Our nice apartments, huge TV:s and fast cars! Good food!

The world economy is weakening fast and advertisers are cutting their budgets because they suspect that consumers are not able to buy things... or what ever their biggest fear is. Few days ago I had to read from the magazine that the advertising agency I am working in, is in financial troubles. Well, that is not the absolute truth even if some scared marmots hyperventilates after seeing some numbers about last year which was tough. This year and new business is looking good. It´s business baby. Up´s and downs. Investing and making profit after that. Ok, you may laugh at my optimism if I lose my job next year. Promised.

It´s absolutely hysterical how financial worries drive people crazy. It is just money. MONEY. In Scandinavia we have so strong social security, that it´s not the end of the world if you lose your job. I always keep that option open and have a plan B. Good job is a privilege. Of course it´s uncomfortable to give up of all the benefits you´ve collected, but it´s not the end of the world. Be patient for a few years and try again to reach your dreams. It´s your problem if your lifestyle demands more money. If being poor is something you haven´t experienced before, it will be a valuable life lesson for you. And you are not alone. About half of the human population suffers from poverty. Be down to earth but keep your spirit high. Of course you want to tell me now, how money makes the world go around, but let me tell you, people don´t need just money, people need to believe. People need people. Only together people can create new solutions. And the money comes along with creativity. If you sat down your ass and wait for things to get better, they´re not going to do that. It´s same with normal people and advertisers. You don´t have to spend more money than you have, but why be so black and white? There is nothing between the big spender and Uncle Scrooge? Ok, there is a cutting on consumer spending, but if your product or service is still relevant to consumers, do you think hiding is the solution for keeping YOUR business up? No. Wrong answer.

Advertiser that continues to advertise regardless of economic times have a competence and advantage over businesses. There is also another ways to make advertising than multimillion TV campaigns. Think different. Creative people, creative advertisers and creative ad agencies always survive. If so called BULK advertising dies and unnecessary products drop down from market, it´s really not lost for me.

"Creativity doesn’t care about economic downturns, In the middle of the 1970s, when we were having a big economic downturn, both Apple and Microsoft were founded. Creative people don’t care about the time or the season or the state of the economy; they just go out and do their thing.”

(HOWARD LIEBERMAN, serial entrepreneur and founder of the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute)

Straitjacket of consuming

2008-11-12T08:03:00.005+02:00

How many times during the last year have you heard the term "stimulate consumer spending"? It is universally accepted in most business (not economy) media as the absolute cure for current economic crisis. It states that we the people have to consume as much as possible to keep this system working, and that is somehow our obligation as citizens. As if we were in this mess because people didn't spend enough money.

Cutting on consumer spending is not the cause for this crisis we're in. It is an effect. A very reasonable effect, I might add.

The real reason for this mess is housing bubble, and beyond that, a what George Soros calls, a super-bubble created by enormous credit expansion during the last 25 years. In other words we spent and borrowed too much money. This is common knowledge, but still somehow escapes the reason when media starts speculating what should be done.

When you consider what has happened to people's mental health during this 25-year period, how busy we have become, how separated from each other, how driven by buying more stuff we don't need, it is somehow perverse to think that we should do more of the same in order to keep up the banks that ultimately are the cause for all of this.

Edit: Just found a great video where DuckTales explains exactly what central banks do and what harm they produce:

My Report 2008

2008-11-11T18:18:00.004+02:00

Gunn Report has listed the world most awarded ads in 2008. And the winner is.... Cadbury´s Gorilla!

Ok, it´s clear that we all just LOVE Gorilla, even if I had first some heretical thoughts that it´s really not that good as a ad, because it could be ad for about any product or advertiser... but that also is the beauty of it. It´s not an ad for any product, it´s ad what Cadbury did. That makes it so great and different. Come on Lads, It´s a fuc*ing gorilla playing Phil Collins! I would tell about it to my friends, and you bet I would buy THAT dairy milk chocolate!

But here is my personal TOP5 listed:

1. The"Power of Wind"-spot. I´ve seen it now like 30 times, and I still feel childish joy every time I watch it. It just touched me, or my black little heart. I would love to write a script where weird guy throws sand in kids eyes! Sand in kids eyes! Awesome!

2. Halo 3 campaign. Simply breath taking.

3. BURGER KING - Whopper Freakout Is there life without whopper? No.

4. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL - signatures

5. SONY BRAVIA "Play-Doh"

One winning campaign I just don´t get it, is the AXE DARK TEMPTATION - Chocolate Man.
For me it´s just creepy... the guy looks like a huge shitman, and it´s gross to eat peoples bodyparts. And chocolate smelling deodorant is propably not wanted imago either. But like I said it, I just don´t get it, but if consumers does, that´s good commercial.

Investing - AIG or small children?

2008-11-11T09:25:00.011+02:00

US treasury is firmly propping up zombie banks like AIG, and by such actions they are making sure they end up where Japan was during it's lost decade of the 1990's.

Federal Reserve says that people shouldn't think of these bailouts as just waste of money, because they are really "an investment", as the government could end up making profit later on.

If we are talking investing, let's talk investing. Would you rather invest in AIG's nuclear-waste-equivalent shares, or something that makes 16% real return on investment: Early Childhood Development? Oh and did I tell you that it also reduces crime? Nice spotting from Steve Randy Waldman.

I WANT THINGS TOO!

2008-11-10T18:02:00.005+02:00

It was about a month ago, when I had the kind of idea flow, when you just knew you found something so stupid it might actually work. I was planning to build a plain website with simple text:

I WANT THINGS.

Send me some money.

Then there would be the list of all things I already got, and my wish-list about things I still need.

The reason I didn´t continue to develop this idea further was simple: I wouldn´t want to be that greedy girl in the web, it´s not my nature. But if you discover what somebody gets from giving you things, it´s not greedy at all, it´s genius!

Meanwhile I was still pondering what I could and would give to deserve things, they did it. They really did it. And they solved my dilemma. They also give what they wants. Unbelievable simple. Respect!

Hey guys, want something for me too...like:

"Better ideas for envious Adele".

Economic stimulus and how it's really done

2008-11-10T08:54:00.000+02:00

There has been a lot of stimulus packages dumped on the economy in the United States and now here in the EU region as well. And very possibly there are more on the way. The idea is to jump start the economy, to have people regain trust in it, and have them spending and taking credit again. The way they do it is by giving people tax cuts, tax rebates or pump money into the whole system via banks.

When the problem lies in the fact that people in the western economies spent too much on consumption and took way too much credit, because credit (money) was cheap due to Fed's artificially low interest rates, how are we to think that by doing the exact thing that got us into this mess is going to save us? It's like trying to cure lactose intolerance by drinking more milk.

We don't need to regain trust in an economy which sucks. When the stock prices go down, it is a clear sign that something is wrong. It isn't just blind mass hysteria. There are real fundamental problems in our economy and this crisis will not go away until they are fixed.

There isn't an economist in the world who wouldn't recognize Federal Reserve's and Alan Greenspan's responsibility in this crisis. And yet, neither John McCain or president-elect Barack Obama never ever said anything regarding them. If they do not understand the problem, how are they to fix it? I like Obama quite a lot, and especially after Bush, he is a breath of fresh air. But I am worried that he will use his intelligence and charisma to get a lot of stuff through that will hurt the economy, not save it. There is a big possibility that he will make things worse, if he doesn't understand the disease.

Quite out of the blue, China just announced an economic stimulus package. And it is huge, totalling 586 billion dollars. At first I was surprised, and thought that it somehow represents the same economic philosophy that we have here: "printing" the economy. But no. Chinese are using this money mainly to build infrastructure. This means airports, railways, subways and villages. This is also called subventing, something very familiar to USA, but further down the decades. There are two key elements that separate the chinese idea from what the western world is trying to do:

1. They have the money. They don't have to borrow one cent, or to print it in their central bank. Therefore it will not create any additional inflation.

2. They use the money in infrastructure, not to encourage people's bad habit of spending on consumption. Infrastructure is a real investment, because it will help create wealth in the future. Investing in consumption doesn't create wealth.

While I am not usually a fan of government directing money straight to domestic companies, China is doing something very clever here. And we should take notice.

And... Go.

2008-11-08T23:31:00.000+02:00

I will now start writing here together with Adele. Here goes.

I feel strongly about the economy. I started to study it in 2007 after I noticed the Ron Paul phenomena on YouTube. First I was struck by the way he spoke about USA and it's foreign policy. I loved the fact that he is a republican and a strict follower of the US constitution, and deriving his anti-war mindset from those principles. After reading more what he had to say about economy, I started to study how economy works. I read wikipedia articles, watched YouTube videos, some news, and tried to be open to a broad spectrum of economic opinions and theories. I found out that I believe in free market, capitalism, small government, libertarian values and Austrian economics. I also started to really feel that there is something very wrong with fractional reserve banking, fiat money and central banking. I will probably write a lot about those things later on.

I am big fan of investors Peter Schiff and Jim Rogers, and I read and watch practically everything they say. I am a BusinessWeek and The Economist subscriber. I follow Interfluidity. I'd say I read and study economics about 1-2 hours every day. It is a great hobby. It gives an interesting view to the world. Economy affects us all a great deal and I think we should all know at least the basics, but preferrably lot more.

Here is something recent from my man Mr. Schiff about how the current ideology in the midst of economic crisis is just to save it by "printing it":

The truth in Advertising

2008-11-08T17:15:00.001+02:00

Old but so good:

Change. True. True.

2008-11-07T09:58:00.000+02:00

Change. There is a true change.

Maybe in politics too, but i´m talking about marketing.

The Obama campaign finally did it. Viral marketing and creative use of social media is the carrot, and traditional advertising just a butter on top of it. Plane butter makes you through up, and turn out to be a FAT mistake, like McCain´s TV commercials. This is what you get with it.

If you believe only in traditional advertising and communication, in a modern world, you lose your control over product totally. Ads are not the absolute truth from the know-it-all brand managers & creative gods. I don´t know if it´s ever been that. Especially good advertising.

I´ve been in advertising industry less than 4 years, and I think I represent the next generation. Idea is everything and media comes after that. People don´t believe in ads if they talk from above, they believe in other people, conversation, personal conclusions, social networks in IRL and in web. This change is good. Maybe after this Obama campaign, we can convince advertisers to think little bit out of the box. The truth is out there.

2 great things in Obama Campaign:

Genious "Wassuup 2008"

Original Cast of Budweiser Ads has made Obama commercial in youtube. Extra points: Budweiser is owned by Anheuser-Busch, which is owned by Cindy McCain. Touché!

"Obama Lost!"

Customised CNNBC videos

Your friend sent you the following video from CNNBC:
"Obama's Loss Traced To YOU!
Watch it here: http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/

(not responding right now, maybe the server is down?)

There Will Be nonSENSE!

2008-07-16T11:39:00.000+03:00

A: "Gee L, what do you want to do tonight?"
The L: "The same thing we do every night, A —try to take over the world."