No sé qué sea peor, que a los mexicanos en el extranjero automáticamente les pongan bigote y sombrero, o que a los finlandeses en el extranjero no les entiendan ni de dónde son. Me había tocado que confundieran a Finlandia con Irlanda, Tailandia o Filipinas, pero el premio se lo lleva una dependienta en una tienda en Ixtapa que confundió al país donde vivo con Disneylandia. O_o
Obviamente semejante “lapsus” combinado con mi natural simpleza ha creado un sinnúmero de situaciones imaginarias cuyas dotes cómicas dependerán en gran medida del estado de la audiencia:
Finally finished reading the book-long document (also a summary here). In short it recommends that to enhance the country brand of Finland, its people should focus on 3 strengths based around the idea of sharing Finnish practicality and problem-solving worldwide:
The most functional country in the world. Functionality: Finland to be developed into a Silicon Valley of social innovations
Drink Finland. Nature: Let’s make the lakes drinkable and serve organic food
Teachers without borders. Education: Finnish teaching protection force in peace work
One of the most interesting and exciting aspects about the whole report for me was, to be frank, how action-oriented it is. While it does have a significant current state analysis study behind it, most of its recommendations are actionable now, and they encourage public discussion of their findings and recommendations at their website.
Would definitely love to see this approach taken up by more countries. I can think of at least a couple that need a little bit of polish.
I am a proud product of the Finnish educational system (as well as the Mexican and Belgian ones), but as much as I think it gives you a great preparation, there is a few things that I’d like to see changed:
Knowledge of the world: While they focus a lot on the technical foundations of your chosen subject, cross-cultural, geographical and historical awareness outside of Europe seems to be lacking. Funny given their strong focus on foreign language education.
Presentation skills: I’ve mentioned it before, but I think it’s crucial to know how to communicate and sell your ideas. You only learn through practice, so it is very important to get started early. I remember I was doing English-language presentations already in 3rd grade.
Financial skills: This is something that would be necessary not only here in Finland, especially with the proliferation of express loans. Knowing how to handle your money is a basic skill for life.
What was your major or field of study in college? Did you wind up working in that field or using that degree? If not, what field have you wound up in? Submitted by sneuf.
I studied Computer Engineering in Finland, and did work in that field for a while. However, almost 5 years after graduation from college I took the option of studying a masters in International Business, so now I've ended up in e-marketing, and of course have no idea what will come next in my career progression.
That's the whole point, isn't it? A degree (especially at the bachelor level) doesn't guarantee employment, as it only shows that the holder has proven his/her ability to learn.
Looking for some related information I found this news article about the drive by the Mexico City government of teaching Náhuatl, the Aztec language, at local schools. In principle, I would think it actually is a good idea. At least in theory there should be no problem with the ability of pupils to learn another language besides English and Spanish (I mean, in some countries of Europe it is common to learn three or more languages in high school). In my case specifically, I find it rather sad that I can now more or less babble in up to eight languages, but I know only a few words of the languages my ancestors used.
However, as an engineer would say, the problem is implementation. We all know that in general Mexican education is not of the highest quality at the moment, and the addition of another subject would further complicate things. Furthermore, I'm rather suspicious of the political motivations behind this move, as it would seem to pander to that part of the population that would rather look inward than ride the wave of globalisation. Whereas I am absolutely for the preservation of indigenous languages, I don't think that precludes the mastering of other languages such as English or Spanish. Multilingualism is not a bad thing! I truly think that the more, the merrier.
I have mentioned before that I believe Finland to be the closest thing to a geek paradise. The reason for it is very simple: given the high esteem Finnish society in general has of education, people are encouraged to be highly educated, which results on a certain level of geekness.
Even though individuals related to IT such as Linus Torvalds are probably the most famous, there are other aspects of geekiness where Finns excell. I could for example mention the Nuntii Latini, the renowned service of Latin-language news, or the fascination Finns have with Tolkien. There I have found out that there are not only computer geeks, but history geeks, role-playing geeks, music geeks, art geeks and even food geeks (also known as foodies), and not only are they not ridiculed, they are accepted.
This is one of the reasons why Finland is cool, and why it is thriving in the creative economy.
It's funny how usually in the Beeb the country is mentioned only for the wrong reasons, but now they have a nice article about a system that is being investigated in Mexico for supposed corruption.
I was talking with a guy who runs a biotech start up I met at the Creativity World Forum about the fact that he feels that he hasn’t heard enough in business literature and training about the failed cases in business, meaning all the companies that for some reason or another failed, and why. That’s why I propose the creation of a new paradigm in business education:
The Fuck Up Business School
At the FUB you don’t learn how to be an efficient business leader, you learn how to be an inefficient one. You study all the mistakes that previous companies have made so that you can innovate and make new ones. After all, trial and error is the best way to learn, so why don’t we leave the error part to previous attempts? 😉
