What do I know about business and corporate blogging in Estonia?

The good, the bad and the ugly: Meelis Mandel, Editor in Chief, Äripäev Meelis chooses some Estonian business blogs and says what's good or bad about them in his opinion.

Hello folks! We’ve less than one hundred kilometers in distance between Tallinn and Helsinki. The birds can travel this distance very easy but how well do we know the blogosphere and business practices in our neighboring countries?

It very quickly occurs to me that that the Finnish bay is much thicker borderline than we tend to think. Estonian businesses is a big question mark for me. Tourism is one of the areas where people know a few brands. The same goes for liquor, beer and some household products.

It seems like we still live a very separated lives within our national economies. How could that be changed with Web 2.0, social media, blogs and microblogs? We’ve the tools but there has to be some common areas of interest before we start to connect. 

Are you able to make changes?

Enthusiasm, passion, engagement, risk-taking, the ability to think differently and to transform thoughts to action are essential personality ingredients for innovators and change makers.

The big challenge is always to get started with innovative processes; to overcome friction and inertia. It’s so easy to get tired and de-motivated. Those who make new things do always face opposition and down-right hostility. Change makers are regarded as trouble makers, revolutionaries and unpredictable eccentrics.

Innovators and inventors need endurance. A network of like-minded people supporting change and invention might be a helpful in situations when the fight for what is right is getting though.

Natural iTraining in Finland as a spin-off of innovaatiojuna

I’m learning the logic of the Google Buzz. The iTraining emerged as a result of the innovaatiojuna / innovationtrain.

The new challenge is how to continue a process that started in September 2009.

Social Collaboration is seemingly a very instantaneous process but I think that we can foster some long term projects and goals as well.

Innovaatiojuna was an important self-organizing project and was manifested in the January 13. 2010 journey Helsinki – Oulu – Helsinki.

From Innovation Train to Loviisa next week

The Helsinki – Oulu –Helsinki 13.1.2010  innovationtrain / innovaatiojuna experience isn’t over yet. We’re returning back to Loviisa January 18, 2010 and there is plenty of work to do.

After the trip, there are hundreds of photographs and videos that have to be analyzed. We learned a lot about open innovation and self organization of events.

A traditional seminar can only provide a fraction of the experience economy this trip provided the participants.

Followers are jumping on the train after the trip to follow the digital footprint. Blogs and feedback powerpoints are covering the experience. OpenJournalism will lead to several printed media articles.

Innovaatiojuna is changing the digital landscape in Finland. We’re only witnessing the very first transformations three days after the journey. There is a lot of information that has to be analyzed and the learning process continues.

Self Organized groups is a big challenge to traditional top-down managed activities. We’ve to tell people that the Father Christmas exist. Many outsiders think that the innovationtrain experience is too good to be true.

Thos who participated know that it was more than real! And it was great fun as well.