Exactly one year ago I left my relaxed little day job to spend some quality time on the couch at home. Total inactivity was great – for about a week. To kill time I decided to write down all the mistakes I’d made and the things I’d learned over 25 years of entrepreneurship. I wanted to get the most out of it and try to understand or at least make an educated guess about which corner the puck was heading to next. I also had to get my brain and legs in the kind of shape that would allow me to get to that corner before anyone else – or at least have the sense to hire the most promising forwards in the business for my team…

I’ve tried to stay away from the IT business during my year off. Reading the business news, one might think that every day is national failure day. Without playing down the worries and losses caused by the many problems companies face, I think it’s time to start talking openly about the lessons to be learned here. If your solution is to take it easy and drive with your hand brake on, you can surely avoid a few of them. Nothing risked is nothing gained. And when you stop playing it safe, sometimes the risks do materialize. This is no reason to brand yourself or anyone else an eternal loser.

Finland is a small country way up in the far North. If we drive with our brakes on, everyone in the world is going to zoom past us, both states and corporations. The productivity report(Finnish language) published by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum EVA and Jorma Ollila is probably the most depressing document an IT professional will read this year. For the past four years Finland has been treading water. Productivity growth has stalled. International competition increases productivity and technology, as well as people with valuable skills are the building blocks.

Finland wasn’t hit with a massive spike in unemployment as a result of the 2008 crisis. There were no mass firings and the expectation was that the country would return to a normal state of affairs shortly. The rosy picture created by the employment figures is false. The recession actually hit productivity. Productivity growth has hit the wall. Back in 2008, most compaies wanted to hold on to their employees in the hopes of making it through the recession and not having to face the struggle finding new staff as the economy went on the upswing. As a result, Finland will now be dealing with a drastic and possibly protracted productivity shortfall. Enterprises are continuing to take the recession hit even as we speak. The estimate is that there are 150,000 jobs workers in the private sector. This may yet result in mass unemployment. Or a protracted period of very low economic growth.

I was listening to a presentation by Minister of Education Henna Virkkunen and learned that in 2030 only 25 people out of 100 will be working. All the rest will be retirees, in school or in some other way dependent on the tax and pensions revenue generated by those 25 people. So how efficiently those 25 people work and earn is an important issue. If those poor wretches (and I’m one of them) fail to work up to their full capacity, Finland Inc. will go bankrupt and be forced to merge with Sweden or Russia. We need to produce the best, most desirable and most efficient products and services in the world.

We in the IT industry are not used to the idea of long-term responsibility. We tend to avoid it as much as possible. It’s a doctrine of sorts, a result of a rapidly changing operational environment. Technology changes, changing jobs is easy. People are young and life is wonderful. No wonder the thought of being responsible for Finland’s future is a bit foreign and tends to induce anxiety.

Regardless, I think there will be life in Finland in 2030. As long as we can combine our directness, the base of technical know-how we have to build on and the agility of a small country to internationalism and courage, we can make it. Driving with your hand brake on may be on par with folk wisdom in this country, but I really don’t think it’ll work anymore. We as IT professionals must be at the forefront of this movement.

It gives me hope that even when I screw something up in the most public manner possible, someone somewhere will profit from it, maybe even find joy in it. Thank you. Let processing power be with u.

– P. V.