Weak signal

Finnish docent in Future research Mika Mannermaa has characterized our society as a "John Wayne-society". John Wayne, like the ordinary citizens of today, was outstanding at what he did and the prize tag of his expertice wasn't cheap. Anyhows, he's got a new book out, called "Out of Weak Signals, a Strong Future". Apparently, he feels that we're all surrounded by these weak signals, i.e. an idea or trend that will affect what business we do,and how. This trend is usually hard to perceive and is spotted by experts in the field.

There's an idea that I come across more and more often and perhaps that could be seen as a weak signal. The prediction is that the expert will be replaced by a generalist who knows a little bit of everything, instead of knowing everything in one tiny area. The idea is that people who have a broad perspective and a general knowledge of many things will do a lot better in life than experts concentrating on only one thing. (One reference in Swedish here.)

London calling

I'm off to London in a couple of hours. As I've never set foot in this metropolis before, I've read The Londonist-blog a couple of weeks now in order to get to know the city. The barometer of how well I know a city is how I manage the metro. By the time my return ticket expires, I've almost always gotten the hang of it, but according to Rob, I'd better not get my hopes up here.

Laughter therapy

I attended a laughter therapy course today. I learned a new word to avoid, Karoshi, and how to get high on laughter. The course didn't really give me much though, perhaps because I already know about the endorphines, the body's own drog etc. Or that I'm a person who laughs a lot anyway. But I do admit that the exercises to get us to laugh were quite stress releaving: "Pretend you're a male dog who marks his territory by peeing on it. Go out there and pee on each other."!

Google goes scholar

Google Scholar, the new search service aimed at scientists and academic researchers, is up and running now. Available here. (Source: Air-list)

film festival online

The Stockholm International Film Festival takes off today and so does its ifestival - one of the first film festivals on the internet. Internet users can watch 10 international short films and vote for their favorite.

Swiss sociologist Rico Grünenfelder participates with Pico takes off, definitely worth watching!

Long awaited, much appreciated!

The snow's finally here!

Haluatko filmitestaajaksi?

Since about 33 % of my visitors are Finnish, I'll take the opportunity to market the media lab that I'm working at, iDTV Lab, and the chance of becoming a movie tester. You get to see new movies before they hit the theatres for free, and the chance to actually have a say in the process. If you loathe the ending of the movie, there's a chance that it'll be redone. For more info and to sign up, go here.

If you're a media reseacher or PhD-student for instance, looking for a cool opportunity to test interactivity, usability or user interface, or if you have a movie or tv-programme in your drawer and want to know what the big audience will say about it, go here (pdf), or here.

Deviant art

One of my favorite photographers, Esa Wendelin, has a great forum here. Go get blown away.

Seminar on media cooperation

There's a seminar at my university today that I'll attend. I'm especially looking forward to hearing Jonas Löwgren, associate professor of human-computer interaction in Malmö, Sweden talk about media cooperation. The seminar is taking place 12.30-16.15 (Finnish local time) and is streamed here.

Blogging apathy

My blog hasn't been much updated lately. There are three primary reasons for this. Firstly, my project to get connected to the net in my appartment keeps on failing. I signed up for a ADSL-connection but the installation queue is 8 weeks.

So, I figured I'd get myself a WLAN-card for surfing meanwhile standing in line, and I did, but the connection was too fable. When I didn't get it to work properly even out on the balcony, I realized that I'll have to live without the net at home for a couple of weeks. The blog posts I have written were born at the office but I've been so busy at work that I truly have not had one minute to spare. And as my partner lives 350 kilometers away from me, when we finally meet in the weekends, other things are on my mind than browsing through the net for interesting papers and thoughts to blog about. Lack of access to and time spent on the net is thus one reason for letting down my dear readers.

The second reason is an identity crisis. Since I'm not primarily a PhD-student anymore, but a media researcher with a paycheck dropping down once a month (which is rare for PhD-students here), I've been thinking about what to do with my blog. Should I go on writing about interesting papers, academia-related issues, even though I don't have as much time to follow these matters? Or, should I broaden the perspectives and blog news, media matters and research in general or make it a more mobile one, for instance blog when I go places?

But the most significant one is the fact that my mother is very ill. She suffers from a, most likely, severe disease that no one of us saw coming. It hit us like a bolt from the blue. Therefore, I've spent many hours with her and my family. While trying to cope with the chock, I played with the thought of blogging my feelings. I still don't think it's such a bad idea to blog one's way through sorrow and the struggle against a fatal disease, but I decided not to until we know for sure all the facts about her condition. I want to have a label on the matter before blogging about it. Perhaps that's just a silly desire of having control but that's how I feel.