Got this link from a friend of mine today. Excellent piece (by Garrison Keillor), and an idea I can subscribe to.

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I have quite a few feeds in my FeedDemon but often I just read the blog entries and skip the comments. The other day, I did visit Malcolm Gladwell’s site because he posed a question about Enron there, and I wanted to see if somebody had answered him.

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This from The Guardian:

3. Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.

More here and even more here.

Anybody know if there’s a way to count the total number of words in several Word documents (without opening them all and adding them one by one)?

No, I’m not going to write about some site every day, but this is pretty good.

Old Version:

We believe that every computer user has the right to use a version of the product that he or she is most comfortable with, not the one dictated by the software developer, so we provide access to the files that are no longer obtainable.

Currently including 1355 versions of 125 programs.

Trust is hard. Being afraid is easy.

Today, I interviewed an executive at Swedish Vattenfall, about an incident they had a nuclear plant, and their analysis of it. He said all the right things, they are doing all the right things (investing more money, adding staff, easing up on the pressure on people there, etc.) and yet, they’re not going to get recognition for it.

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I’m working on a story about the cultural differences with the concept of time and I was wondering if you’d have some ideas. How does the Western concept of time differ from the Eastern one? Are the Germans always on time? Who’s always late? And so on.

Leave your ideas in the comments. Thanks!

I always thought that Finns were the only nation in the world where the crew cut was still alive and kicking dandruff. In fact, I still do. I think it’s because of the structure of Finnish hair: straight as an arrow.

What does that tell us about Finns? Well, for one, that they talk sraight, that they care less about style and more about how easy it is to take care of hair, and that they are fascinated by discipline. Not only that, Finns love discipline.

Well, maybe you can’t tell that just by looking at the number of crew cuts in Finland, so you’ll just have to trust me on this.

I take this knowledge with me to Gävle tomorrow when I go to meet Leif Boork, former Team Sweden head coach, and now coach of Brynäs in the Swedish Elite League. He’s known to be a straight shooter who runs a tight ship.

He’s got Sweden’s most famous crew cut.

This is me:

And here’s my story, neatly inside a pdf file. Enjoy.

Posted in Work

2003- Finnjewel Oy
Founder, CEO

• Freelance writing
  Hockey: The Hockey News, ESPN.com, nhl.com, IIHF.com, Jääkiekkolehti, MTV (Finland), Hockey (Sweden), Champions Hockey League
  Other: SAS’s Scanorama’s Web & Tech editor, general business writing, profiles
  Translated a youth book series (of 22 books) from Swedish into Finnish
• Editor-in-chief and publisher of Hockey (2003-05)
• Numerous magazine/Web projects
  Examples: Assa Abloy, Universum, Scandinavian Traveler

www.finnjewel.com

2002-2003 Kynämies Oy, Helsinki, Finland
Managing Editor

• Managing editor for seven customer magazines
• Concept for award-winning Ekonomi
• Editorial team leader

www.kynamies.fi

1998 – 2002 Appelberg Publishing Agency AB, Stockholm, Sweden
Managing Editor

• Project manager for M-real’s international customer magazine. Including start-up of the magazine, Embrace.
• Editor at Ericsson’s global customer magazine On.
• Project manager for internal communications for Ericsson Consumer Products.
• Created several communications platforms.
• Marketing Appelberg in Finland
• Created and relaunched Appelberg’s marketing communication material
• Member of Appelberg’s New media group

www.appelberg.com

1995 – 1998 Canadian Embassy Helsinki, Finland
Business development officer

• Promoted Canadian exports to Finland: Areas of responsibility: sporting goods, environmental technology and forestry, among others.
• Helped several companies find partners in Finland. Example: Circul-Aire, an air purifier manufacturer in Quebec.
• Launched the Embassy’s first Web site.
• Also wrote several country reports on different sectors.

1992 – 1995 Freelance (editor and translator) Helsinki, Finland
(Homme Habile; founder)

• Editor and translator for Egmont’s hockey magazines (Inside Hockey, Pro Hockey and Finnish Beckett’s) from Norwegian/Swedish into Finnish.
• Market research and analysis for several Finnish companies.
• Marketed a computer-based hockey coach’s tool, Hockey Manager, in the Nordic countries.
• Translated (from English into Finnish) and edited five books for Karisto Oy; one Formula 1 book and four NHL Hockey books.
• Worked on a consultative basis for the National Hockey League during International Challenge 1994 event and World Cup of Hockey in 1996.
• Wrote and translated articles for the official tournament program. Also did research about hockey in Europe.
• Contributor of the EuroReport hockey site.

EDUCATION
1986 – 1991 Helsinki School of Economics Helsinki, Finland
M. Sc. (econ.)

Major: marketing
Minor: law
Enrolled at the HSE as a post-graduate student, research topic: Sponsorship. Did a study on “sponsorship’s effect on brand loyalty among hard-core fans of the sponsored teams” for Finnish Hartwall, sponsor of Jokerit, Helsinki, in 1993.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Finnish: native language
English: excellent
Swedish: excellent
Spanish: basic skills

INTERESTS AND HOBBIES

Hockey, writing, sports in general, sports business, “ideas,” and travel