Friday, November 26, 2010

On a mission

Lucas was reading the latest publication on the Brand of Finland and thought that for the first time, the document was actually quite practical and he was able to spot realistic tasks also for himself. The Mission to Finland consists of tasks under three topics: In 2030 Finland will be
  • functionality: the problem-solver of the world
  • nature: all the lakes are drinkable and organic food is served
  • education: teachers are without borders
  • and Finns are bold enough to tell about all this!
Inspired by all the suggestions, Lucas decided to organize a party for his neighborhood as they had recently finished a road construction on their street. He also gave up on water bottles and decided to have the next meeting in a library, rather than in an ordinary office building. 


The report stated that a functional society is not fulfilling by controlling, but by doing things together. This is what the Solutions local, together is all about!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Talking about money

The recent months have shown that it would be so much easier, if we would talk about money instead of sustainable development. When we talk about the use of resources and quality of life, it is as if they would not have financial implications. In reality, many municipalities need to raise their taxes and service costs in future, as the basic resources, such as water and energy, will cost more. By being sustainable, we would get savings that everyone is so much searching for.

Talking about money would also mean that
  • Local authorities would all be eager to prioritize the sustainable solutions, as that would mean savings in the long run.
  • The decision-makers would see the prize tag on some things that in the end are considered prizeless, such as clean air, water and soil.
  • No one would expect the events dealing with sustainable development to be free of charge, instead they would pay without any questions daily fees around 800 EUR.
I have then seriously considered naming the conference in the end - "Financial solutions local, together - maybe then we would all wake up?

Saturday, November 13, 2010

First snowfall

It felt cold to get out of bed this morning. As Lucas slid his feet into the slippers he wondered if the weather forecast had been right and it had snowed during the night. Peeping through the curtains he saw that it had. Coffee, I need hot coffee, Lucas said to himself and headed for the kitchen.

He had come across a promising contact while surfing on the social media. And now his business idea was starting to take shape. Lucas got dressed and went out to do the snow work. He was whistling.

Lucas felt that he could do anything, as making contacts was so easy through services like Facebook and Twitter. It was like first snow, lots of promises of fun, but still too fragile to stay...

Friday, November 5, 2010

Network of networks?

When looking into the sustainable development from the city perspective -it is evident that every day resources are wasted in reinventing the wheel again. When serious changes would be needed, we rather focus in starting from zero then on looking outside and benefiting on what has already been done elsewhere. Internal process is needed, but why not speed it up a bit?

It is amazing, that the flow of information inside the organizations is still, in many cases, on a random level. More faster would be to consider each local authority as a network or a spider web that would have the same aim/interest in mind. This way, the message might reach the right nodes faster. For this to succeed, it would need a change in the way we consider the role of the local authorities. And in this respect, we would need a network of networks to speed up the exchange of good practices in the Baltic Sea Region.

Is a network of networks even possible to be created? Would we finally be ready to share experiences, both good and bad, for the benefit of the common sustainable future of our region?

Come and check out, how we succeed with creating a node for the networks, namely Solutions local, together -conference