tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6188296629318293222024-03-10T21:08:12.817+02:00Märt Ridala's thoughtsDeveloping digital and IT-services for The Baltic and Nordic organizationsMärt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.comBlogger294125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-12284188432105449512022-12-27T17:21:00.000+02:002022-12-27T17:21:08.419+02:002022 - The year of breakthrough of hybrid and remote work. The massive impact this will bring<p>(Neither ChatGPT, nor any other AI was used to write this article. Photos by me. But the illustrations were created by Midjourney AI. You can find the Midjourney command in <i>Italic</i> at the footer of each illustration.)</p><p><b> In this post I will cover two topics. Firstly, the hybrid and remote work practices and its challenges. Secondly, some thoughts on the huge impact the hybrid/remote work will bring about small-townization.</b></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>Part 1 - Where we are with hybrid and remote work?</b></h2><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIKOVaBaqhpd3PbRNP8xm8Szy35w-iU_kh8GwYI83gbzwV4a9L8gKt_0J9sB7U0uhp5jafOqq3iN4LqNRFe0LjjI_kvB1JbJk_P4-9IJpmPq4FOwQoXpugxEj3Gexc7iR725Qj_z6kdNd4K15PDqdlVb3CYYhl8bNIHEfJtUqS2L_6034asABSVdaW" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="2252" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiIKOVaBaqhpd3PbRNP8xm8Szy35w-iU_kh8GwYI83gbzwV4a9L8gKt_0J9sB7U0uhp5jafOqq3iN4LqNRFe0LjjI_kvB1JbJk_P4-9IJpmPq4FOwQoXpugxEj3Gexc7iR725Qj_z6kdNd4K15PDqdlVb3CYYhl8bNIHEfJtUqS2L_6034asABSVdaW=w360-h640" width="360" /></a></div><br />A few weeks ago there was a fire drill in the office building of Solita Tallinn. The alarm went on and everybody in the building (the one on the photo) had to evacuate to the street. While waiting on the street for the drill to end we did a small calculation. We calculated that there should be about 800-1000 workplaces in the whole building. However, the "evacuated" crowd was only 150-200 persons strong. So roughly 10-30% of the workplaces in our office building are used. This matches the numbers we are seeing in different offices in Solita.<p></p><p>One reason for this excess space is that office rental agreements are signed for very long periods - 5 years is quite usual. Add to that the hassle with furniture, reparations, moving and you see that there is a big time-lag in adjusting the office space for the needs of a company. As "the new normal" - that is massive hybrid and remote-working - was settled somewhere in Summer 2022 then organizations have not yet been able to adjust their office space to match it.</p><p>The sight of empty workstations is quite usual in most of the offices now:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8cFJy6lyrZ7WQcUcOJUI8CIQmz-t9YRTF9hw-qXh_0gdCTvh8zt-hJS508YDjXp1ALkdBxE4lpobriYOz6OENiSCXICkPsFL3EjV9pAFZ96d3Gt_af9nAkzIbRhfltfjAzzSlQPf3JsTK-rMSoqC3BGidhghuIr-L1p6NLzRI2V66TGXMcb1dhOds" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2252" data-original-width="4000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8cFJy6lyrZ7WQcUcOJUI8CIQmz-t9YRTF9hw-qXh_0gdCTvh8zt-hJS508YDjXp1ALkdBxE4lpobriYOz6OENiSCXICkPsFL3EjV9pAFZ96d3Gt_af9nAkzIbRhfltfjAzzSlQPf3JsTK-rMSoqC3BGidhghuIr-L1p6NLzRI2V66TGXMcb1dhOds=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The trend</h2><p>Since Summer, when the restrictions ended, many team-leads and companies have encouraged people to return to offices. Smart organizations are doing it through positive - arranging events, workshops, joint breakfasts. These activities are important and have an effect, but it seems that the force of "the hassle of coming to the office" is so strong that the number of days at the office is at best stable, but rather it is slowly declining even further.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The three breaking points in becoming remote first</h2><p>It is amazing how fast people adjust to situations and how fast we forget how it used to be. Do you remember that in the end of 2019 more than 80%, or in some organizations more than 95% of meetings were physical on-site only meetings? Microsoft had tools like Lync and Skype for Business, which had annoying quality issues. People did not have headsets, cameras, Airpods etc to make videomeetings. A hybrid-worker was a bit of a problem and a full-remote mode working required serious considerations. People physically present on the meeting definitely had an advantage over those, who were over video. But it has all changed in 3 years. I would point out three breaking points in this process to illustrate how hard it would be to go back:</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The first - Making remote work (technically) possible.</h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifW7hYyJ1m-H6fC5WzdeNN7HH4Dx5FOOBMolUzq-Ufy9Y5hq5v_aKK0u_SbPXmu8anu58lYZQdQCISz0dp5cmWJXfd7t1dWX8EF0R-aYCSN55_SKCwcS77jKRlAEOlzmvGjc3flcFW7NIrq6qTVjVfudQ2gI9YwKTpGYAqezI1d_lfzzNS78OwRZSB" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifW7hYyJ1m-H6fC5WzdeNN7HH4Dx5FOOBMolUzq-Ufy9Y5hq5v_aKK0u_SbPXmu8anu58lYZQdQCISz0dp5cmWJXfd7t1dWX8EF0R-aYCSN55_SKCwcS77jKRlAEOlzmvGjc3flcFW7NIrq6qTVjVfudQ2gI9YwKTpGYAqezI1d_lfzzNS78OwRZSB=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><i>(Midjourney: videomeeting, online meeting, home, person with headset, film scene, 4k hd --v4)</i><p></p><p>This is something we all had to do in February 2020.</p><p>From a personal perspective this meant setting up a workspace at home. Headsets, a monitor, room, chair etc. From the team perspective it meant video meeting tools, adding a video meeting link to each meeting. Do you remember that it was only recently when MS changed the default meeting to be a Teams meeting in Outlook. Previously you had to add a link manually to the invitation.</p><p>This meant also changes in the ways of working. More asynchronous chat and less face-to-face discussions. The teams started to treat equally the people on site and the ones participating remotely.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">The second - Making on-site work (a bit) problematic</h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCF3mFTvRcFTY8Mtgyj3zvwFlEX6s3zqIkzw1NrOeFcYLRgnEgVkXPFgzEY6n4ygeiDah9eQMPvDF1zL-cc2GmiW5ze0_doCiCwiyaUD9K6Syux4zP79nCgfNDHqbV53PZ-z8JiVnB1rMRtbLS87TLGc_e7SHPkgWNADRRGegNrzzyYnYPX1i1uqXm" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCF3mFTvRcFTY8Mtgyj3zvwFlEX6s3zqIkzw1NrOeFcYLRgnEgVkXPFgzEY6n4ygeiDah9eQMPvDF1zL-cc2GmiW5ze0_doCiCwiyaUD9K6Syux4zP79nCgfNDHqbV53PZ-z8JiVnB1rMRtbLS87TLGc_e7SHPkgWNADRRGegNrzzyYnYPX1i1uqXm=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><i>(Midjourney: walking a dog, daytime, photography, 4k hd --v4)</i></span></span></p></h3><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The examples of this breakthrough are things like taking a dog, moving to a place further away from the office, buying a cottage outside the city, selling your car, arranging children daycare or school so that you have to be there for them during daytime. From the team perspective it meant mobile workplaces and having less workspace than team-members. Maybe also turning some workplaces into meeting- and call-rooms. Many of these decisions were done during the pandemic and maybe without considering the consequences. So here we are - the dogs, cottages and children have to be taken care of now.</span></p><div><p>It would be possible to re-arrange things, like buy a car, find another school for the child or sell the cottage so that you could in theory work again from the office from nine to five, but it would be costly and an effort. The company on the other hand would have to arrange workplaces for everybody, maybe even parking space - and this would be in some cases impossible without moving.</p></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">The third: Moving and thus making it impossible to work from the office every day</h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8EzNvKeiJgBTLqsVygE44ojBvxGhReK9F9OrvQJ5K1_qxueY5WqQ7vIdoNaZoUK5v0sZ_lKW9lFt1b2GBnedyAf1GIiWTjTIPf5i-zJ0lcXG3RJwx3WMSfnBdcLfiDTSh4Of60T95ya_z0y_FiH7Lxn3iCLxTENmT8aUhQ3k_rTKPWKKa57GnbYTU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8EzNvKeiJgBTLqsVygE44ojBvxGhReK9F9OrvQJ5K1_qxueY5WqQ7vIdoNaZoUK5v0sZ_lKW9lFt1b2GBnedyAf1GIiWTjTIPf5i-zJ0lcXG3RJwx3WMSfnBdcLfiDTSh4Of60T95ya_z0y_FiH7Lxn3iCLxTENmT8aUhQ3k_rTKPWKKa57GnbYTU=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: men moving furniture, moving truck, city street, sunshine, 4k hd)</i><br /><br /><p></p><p>This is the "point of no return". A point where it would be easier to switch jobs than to return to 9-17 office work. There are many versions of it but here are the obvious ones:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Team member moves far away from the office. To a different town for example.</li><li>The company gives up the office or substitutes it with a much smaller space dedicated to meetings and interaction and not working behind the desk</li></ul><div>Different teams and different team-members are in different phases of remote work. But the direction is clear - slow and steady increase in remote work with an occasional step over one of the breaking points.</div><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Remote work has problems that we have to solve</h2><p>So here we are. 70-90% of workdays are done remotely and there is no way we will go back to that being 10-20%. Probably the trend will continue and there will be more and more persons and organizations stepping over the third breaking point. This has created a number of problems for which we kind of have solutions, but not perfect ones yet.</p><p>These are hard problems where the solution is not a tool or a process, but it is in the changes of everybody's behaviour and how we do things. The solution cannot be achieved by only the team-leads doing something, everybody in the team has to change how we work and interact. Therefore, it is hard and takes time. It is like 11 people training to become a good football team and it cannot be done by just learning a theory, watching the World Cup or the coach doing something.</p><p>Two ideas before listing the problems:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Just taking the off-line practices and moving them online helps, but does not fully solve the problems. Some things like "water-cooler chit-chat" or "office parties" just cannot be done online.</li><li>It makes sense to go really deep in analysis, by e.g. using the five Why? method, find the real source of the problem and then try to find a way of working to address that. It might be something completely different than we would do in the face-to-face office work.</li><li>The whole team has to train the new way of working, not just some members or the coach or the captain.</li></ul><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Cabin fever</h3><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEAiHrgLok7A7OH2z7QpnPVhurjx6s3JrNtcLFTndOtI_RDp8OI1LSg2f_fUTY_nHEX5-FwwwHNYE6vT8JnEjO6pRRpVCfve-A-p0ACYTGzZ9NvcbOy4rdZveMH3cm1iT40sSSP00MZba6SACGOSE0BDAkoheb1Pi7RSohTlEhi-XIxMLZlYb0PVHj" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjEAiHrgLok7A7OH2z7QpnPVhurjx6s3JrNtcLFTndOtI_RDp8OI1LSg2f_fUTY_nHEX5-FwwwHNYE6vT8JnEjO6pRRpVCfve-A-p0ACYTGzZ9NvcbOy4rdZveMH3cm1iT40sSSP00MZba6SACGOSE0BDAkoheb1Pi7RSohTlEhi-XIxMLZlYb0PVHj=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><i>(Midjourney: lonely house, lonely person, photo quality, depression 4k hd)</i></div><p>We have had quite a surge in depression, stress and other mental problems during and after the pandemic. There are many reasons like Russia's war, inflation, disease and pandemic, but working and being at home without your team-mates is definitely one of them.</p><p>In the office you can do things like ask "How was your weekend?" or go together to a lunch and discuss the plans for the New Year. These small interactions are essential to our mental-wellbeing, but they don't happen automatically when we work remotely.</p><p>From the team-lead side the situation is even worse. Your whole remote team could be in depression, drinking every day, working 12h a day or working 0h a day and it could take you weeks of reading secondary signs to discover that something is wrong. Compare that to the immediate overview you get when you actually see people.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Involving, introducing and mentoring new team-members</h3><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfvLfZ-huuI6kH5NFdBJznr2pax_-iR3--GgXlNgRBLJExhSBi2a1gu1TJesoFUaOMCU-uWcnpaR-1n-JQZJi6Gl643481mWVyFZ_L8clBXMZ2y5cJ3B--lrLYGkm8Oe_N6WB2eEx31woXcRSo7DNuW8PcY-cTPcx-8RPCu8KokHWmYJt6xLR4u5PP" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjfvLfZ-huuI6kH5NFdBJznr2pax_-iR3--GgXlNgRBLJExhSBi2a1gu1TJesoFUaOMCU-uWcnpaR-1n-JQZJi6Gl643481mWVyFZ_L8clBXMZ2y5cJ3B--lrLYGkm8Oe_N6WB2eEx31woXcRSo7DNuW8PcY-cTPcx-8RPCu8KokHWmYJt6xLR4u5PP=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><i>(Midjourney: film scene, old person teaching a young person, office, 4k hd)</i><p></p><p>When I was a junior monitoring systems developer and I had a question, I would walk to our senior UNIX sysadm Ivan and look, if he was busy and if I would dare to ask him to explain something to me. It was especially easy when I heard that the seniors were e.g. discussing some non-work stuff and I could be sure that I would not interfere them. How do you do it now remotely? Over chat?</p><p>Vice versa, how do the seniors or team-leads notice, if the new team-member is struggling with something? It used to happen by just casually asking or looking at their face or what they are doing. How do you do it now, in a remote working setting?</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Lack of information</h3><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuL0vD5RaXUXW1KNVg3g9hx1YvI_wpkcKgCG4gYsaB0u0KWVJM0Ckygxh0HwjMiS-N-viH0Eu_tlNaZfpBypsNy7PZ-j_82ukpSbB__HS2e3jV8Qj4UlmxMGQ-y4hI5qkAbnmT9h0al5dgOioZP77Bd9XMl1uMUPc8oJ_LeOSPb8q1luHAt6Uw3SVS" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuL0vD5RaXUXW1KNVg3g9hx1YvI_wpkcKgCG4gYsaB0u0KWVJM0Ckygxh0HwjMiS-N-viH0Eu_tlNaZfpBypsNy7PZ-j_82ukpSbB__HS2e3jV8Qj4UlmxMGQ-y4hI5qkAbnmT9h0al5dgOioZP77Bd9XMl1uMUPc8oJ_LeOSPb8q1luHAt6Uw3SVS=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>(Midjourney: I don't know things, person shrugging, photography, 4k hd)</i></div></div><p>The small bits of information we get at the coffee machine, lunch together or just chatting might not seem important when it comes to the immediate task at hand, but usually there is a chance that they will be useful later. Maybe you hear that somebody has solved a problem that your next task will present toyou. Working remotely, this does not happen itself.</p><p>An important bit of information is even just seeing your team-leads and team members. That they are still there, that they are not planning something horrendous that might influence your work.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Rumours</h3><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZQ_xs0W3BqifwSHO6RMuwYQutq45h_iuthiOcLyA2yTUGcnzJmNacL17VZ4d2BXeUyfJ8TGwpi5D8c7GmEgaQUw9xLWjWwnKibhmp3acTAV3iZO3ZqCAfAOcrpPL7Fgfw88X246gh-W5PLUYYcK3drekRi_lbb_DLHN9qhrf1Jqmeiz6-5hA2pOwV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZQ_xs0W3BqifwSHO6RMuwYQutq45h_iuthiOcLyA2yTUGcnzJmNacL17VZ4d2BXeUyfJ8TGwpi5D8c7GmEgaQUw9xLWjWwnKibhmp3acTAV3iZO3ZqCAfAOcrpPL7Fgfw88X246gh-W5PLUYYcK3drekRi_lbb_DLHN9qhrf1Jqmeiz6-5hA2pOwV=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: people spreading rumours, photography, 4k hd)</i></div><p>To compensate for the lack of information people try to get the picture on whatever small pieces of information they have. The bits we don't have - we add by imagination. You all know the Telephone game, but take that to the modern world of chat and you will be amazed how the real thing gets distorted, mixed up and changed when the third person gets the info over chat.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Team feeling, culture, relationships</h3><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEL6jdhIIUNi5jzYJliB4HgVz0ek868Xk7QljiSkD3Qlzi0XawzAOnq5WdBIuavocFv2awXpBPSt5mWF4wXSK8d7wgARL2b8I92G5wgySR8uLhbCctMVfTKiLfvmV_ii4YSt47MDlZ21b3rIcvQCIyjSHeWb5ASdPjbp8q03xjh7q95j7mJMXf9mNz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEL6jdhIIUNi5jzYJliB4HgVz0ek868Xk7QljiSkD3Qlzi0XawzAOnq5WdBIuavocFv2awXpBPSt5mWF4wXSK8d7wgARL2b8I92G5wgySR8uLhbCctMVfTKiLfvmV_ii4YSt47MDlZ21b3rIcvQCIyjSHeWb5ASdPjbp8q03xjh7q95j7mJMXf9mNz=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: teamwork, trust, team cheering, 4k hd, film scene)</i><br /><br /></div><p>Perhaps as a sum of all the previous problems or maybe as a separate topic - the team feeling, personal relations and the overall good culture of remote teams is an issue. When people see and talk and meet, it almost like just happens. Emotions, interaction, trust, friendship. In a hybrid or remote work environment it does not happen automatically.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Solutions</h2><p>This is definitely not the full list of problems, there are more, but the problems are solvable. It is just that every person and every team must recognize these and solve them for themselves. I am pretty sure that in 3 years most of these problems will sound like setting up a video-meeting. Now we even don't know that starting a video-meeting is a problem, but 3 years ago it sure was! Remember, you had to plan a 15min buffer for starting a video-meeting when you had external parties and even then the meeting sometimes failed.</p><p>Maybe one place to look for solutions are online gaming teams. Small teams working together, with the same problems and having the videocall open all the time. This would lower the barrier of exchanging quick advice and small bits of information and build some level of team-feeling.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Part 2 - What the hybrid and remote working will bring with it</h2><p>So now, at the beginning of 2023, we have solved all the technical challenges of remote working. As humans we will learn, we will adjust and we will solve the team-working problems in the coming months and years. So what will this mean for our society and economy? The change this brings is much bigger than most of us think and we have already seen the first signs of it in our work in Solita.</p><p>Let's assume that all the office work can be done from anywhere and try to analyse what will the world look like.</p><p>Let's start with the extreme and then filter and limit it with reality. The extreme version would be that all the office workers would become digital nomads, travelling and working from wherever, whenever. The office would be just a small cafe type of meeting place.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjB0jPRY2DrJgem97WNyKURI7Ffh9PNgo70T-r7VODf658YTnqqolbl_gFNxRKE8w9khOCsUs92zf3IrEVMzNROTR2twbWy7ztCpwslWQxNi12r_zpx5OjFA2rI7LAW9Uwfgmdu87IUccpbI0-t49vXGX7UzLr9kZ_78SKdOx6kFNZ3N3Jkrky0Fvam" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjB0jPRY2DrJgem97WNyKURI7Ffh9PNgo70T-r7VODf658YTnqqolbl_gFNxRKE8w9khOCsUs92zf3IrEVMzNROTR2twbWy7ztCpwslWQxNi12r_zpx5OjFA2rI7LAW9Uwfgmdu87IUccpbI0-t49vXGX7UzLr9kZ_78SKdOx6kFNZ3N3Jkrky0Fvam=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><p><i>(Midjourney: a digital nomad, working from a beach, palmtree, 4k hd)</i></p><p>Working as a digital nomad can be an interesting idea, but it will be quite niche, because of the following:</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">First - the practical limits:</h3><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Timezone. You still have to have meetings and having them at night is not fun.</li><li>Travelling is expensive. Especially with family and with the need to setup a decent workplace. A good monitor does not fit into hand luggage.</li><li>Hobbies, schools, daycare, family, healthcare. This is not that much of a problem if you are alone and 25. But take a spouse, three kids and move them to another country? It is a very costly full-time project for at least 6 months.</li><li>Last, but not least. It is usually a little bit illegal. Or arranging nomad work to be by the book is very expensive for the company and the person. Let's say a Brazilian specialist wants to work 2 months from Estonia for his Brazilian employer. Firstly, working is illegal with a tourist visa. Getting a work permit and working visa on the other hand is in a totally different bureaucracy category than using the tourist visa. In this case the company would have to found a legal entity in Estonia and then apply for short-term work permit for the specialist. There are other issues: Will the company pay social- and income tax to Estonia? How about meeting the legal requirements of work-place safety, work conditions, vacation calculation, retirement fund. Are there requirements for salary levels set by trade unions? There are companies who provide this possibility as a service, but it still has a price tag to it.</li></ul><h3 style="text-align: left;">Second - Working language</h3><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj4G4Y46zY1uPXBzTzPA1jrQk-4-uwVnfLVitsEyRSVBBXfiF05Ux4215KfkT_s6zEdbZGfaekvr1A1EqE3zfUCid5cqbkoP6P4ztLkhts8yLSHKY1QmZc5L7YoMo73WRdVp5lBk5kqWg8ZIJhb235k3k7RQmCEUl7QeHwXjPaZgARa6TpnsbYVBda" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgj4G4Y46zY1uPXBzTzPA1jrQk-4-uwVnfLVitsEyRSVBBXfiF05Ux4215KfkT_s6zEdbZGfaekvr1A1EqE3zfUCid5cqbkoP6P4ztLkhts8yLSHKY1QmZc5L7YoMo73WRdVp5lBk5kqWg8ZIJhb235k3k7RQmCEUl7QeHwXjPaZgARa6TpnsbYVBda=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: people talking in different languages, 4k hd)</i><br /><br /></div><div>Not all work is done in English. No. Indeed many multi-nationals, startups and growth companies work in English, but this still is a small minority outside the English speaking countries. The situation is changing and eventually English will be the main language at workplace, but it will take years if not decades. Currently, definitely over 80% of work in non-english speaking countries is non-english.</div><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Third - Building trust</h3><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhybC0OlKhJVeVaSMXk5K-7TryWTjbs33ubZt4z2rzgSVmIT8ieIwFpXzg9d6zhoeeVSrK2xPX6VCNNj_jNOvMAOzr2VU1ch2JYa7_BlU-GWEfkTtyW8mhVTk4Gen_6QT_CcfIalLV0y9jY9OsS7uYzOqM51lj1gAR2c7bFbzG9u5CqN558-NKJDYMI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="837" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhybC0OlKhJVeVaSMXk5K-7TryWTjbs33ubZt4z2rzgSVmIT8ieIwFpXzg9d6zhoeeVSrK2xPX6VCNNj_jNOvMAOzr2VU1ch2JYa7_BlU-GWEfkTtyW8mhVTk4Gen_6QT_CcfIalLV0y9jY9OsS7uYzOqM51lj1gAR2c7bFbzG9u5CqN558-NKJDYMI=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><i>(Midjourney: trustworthy accountant, woman in her 30s, busy, working, photo quality, 4k hd)</i></div><br /><br /></div><div>Building trust between people and companies is as time consuming as it has always been. It can be done remotely but it takes its time nevertheless. This means that if you are looking for somebody to do a task then your ex-colleagues, friends and friends of friends do have an advantage.</div><div><br /></div><div>Trust is also a question between companies. Would you buy e.g. financial services from the local freelancer accountant, a local branch of a big financial services company or trust your bank account to a really cheap team of accountants from another part of the world?</div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Forth - Learning to work with people from different cultures</h2><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCly7yCPPYNnOGAlC64CIijSUlKfuZ2zipVomyYH9QZw6uiIU0XdKgt1DwYf6x0lDtwMaHXRGHPun9oNEhCvw2IXTM7rSjEd1VhPXxDBFy19SS_D_-9lppvoxjLHY6im-0vVUdtgE8DGMRnRA1J4aXkz46Ur8mUXj14J6WRiGHYqDn436BCxmEOJt8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="657" data-original-width="657" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCly7yCPPYNnOGAlC64CIijSUlKfuZ2zipVomyYH9QZw6uiIU0XdKgt1DwYf6x0lDtwMaHXRGHPun9oNEhCvw2IXTM7rSjEd1VhPXxDBFy19SS_D_-9lppvoxjLHY6im-0vVUdtgE8DGMRnRA1J4aXkz46Ur8mUXj14J6WRiGHYqDn436BCxmEOJt8=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: different cultures, working, office, 4k hd, photo quality)</i><br /><br /></div><div>Working with people from different backgrounds takes more time to adjust than working with the people who have grown up in the same city, speak the same language and have attended the same universities. It is possible and there are tools and ways to do it, but it just takes a bit more time and effort.</div><h1 style="text-align: left;">The forces pushing the work to be remote</h1><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-yZmnqAKInHif1tvWgtk4kA9ho4kTsbPoNT61BlhHb90B2sqhV5kKDlSS5DCa4Gxgr-ryP1LhVmVTrmmkWqUutpYrQRX8Px8Phs5vtPqqkYpkP_qKHIVq4I2xwI0gekMiDC1YvUPbDWOiBgb8KkENOskNb4eTlBQkvi6YdfCiy2ilLUF11i9dmWop" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="884" data-original-width="1791" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-yZmnqAKInHif1tvWgtk4kA9ho4kTsbPoNT61BlhHb90B2sqhV5kKDlSS5DCa4Gxgr-ryP1LhVmVTrmmkWqUutpYrQRX8Px8Phs5vtPqqkYpkP_qKHIVq4I2xwI0gekMiDC1YvUPbDWOiBgb8KkENOskNb4eTlBQkvi6YdfCiy2ilLUF11i9dmWop=w640-h317" width="640" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: crowded London subway, 4k hd, photo quality.<br />woman working from home, computer screen, happy, shnshine, 4k hd, photo quality)</i><br /><br /></div><div>Most of us know the everyday reasons for people appreciating the possibility to work remotely. Most importantly you avoid the commute, save an hour or two a day. You can handle some family errands, like let in the plumber or take care of children.</div><div><br /></div><div>These are important, but on a wider scale remote work opens up totally new possibilities. Now people don't have to be in the same headquarters, in the capital to work for an organization. Now everybody does not have to move to London, Paris, New York and Silicon Valley anymore. You can work for example for a global bank or why not a French ministry from a small remote village in Finland or Estonia. If you think this idea further then you notice, that now that people don't have to move to the big city for jobs, they can stay or move to the smaller town where real-estate is cheaper, school is closer and life is thus easier. </div><div><br /></div><div>The third, very important force pushing remote work is the need to get best price performance and fast access to talent from the business side. When remote working is possible the organisations are not limited to hiring talent from where they are. This is an opportunity to find specific skills, but also an opportunity to drive down prices. For the last 2 years, I have been wondering, why the US companies are paying 200-300 000 salaries to engineers, when they could get a small team for that price from Europe.</div><h1 style="text-align: left;">The bright future!</h1><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtebsNNY8BV4tbkIWYTlGjD9KUqARzi6PFNnECRJtSJK7VTzHg2P8JVrst75yUH9h69J1RZ9ZJGgmndYfc3eMink3ZktwGTvrsYT0vITCT8HgdATV30H2UEpeDhGYHljzTtWbpnj_vHoreQt1Vqlm_LLLpRwAVNke5S8HoRv7HfLY7kFX1UH0dBINj" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtebsNNY8BV4tbkIWYTlGjD9KUqARzi6PFNnECRJtSJK7VTzHg2P8JVrst75yUH9h69J1RZ9ZJGgmndYfc3eMink3ZktwGTvrsYT0vITCT8HgdATV30H2UEpeDhGYHljzTtWbpnj_vHoreQt1Vqlm_LLLpRwAVNke5S8HoRv7HfLY7kFX1UH0dBINj=w640-h640" width="640" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: nice small town street, happy people, sunshine, film scene, people walking and tlking, 4k hd)</i><br /><br /></div><div>Looking at the big picture:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Trying to get the best price performance, skills available drives organizations to hire remotely.</li><li>Possibility to work for different teams remotely drives specialists to work for organizations that might not be established in the city they live in.</li><li>Technically remote working is possible from anywhere. However, in practice it is possible from the same state or legal framework that the organizations legal entity is.</li><li>Building trust, language and culture limit the speed of change</li></ul></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Work is moving out from expensive big cities, but not to the countryside</h2><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6H7lKJ1gs1z2RWqJ1MKxN6-Q8FL4cxOdS299quqxY0Izu52fRtNJ0gdNK8Poa2K9WySGn4QRcgWWAZ3aPOKOfqedWa08Mr1SsXuyvq1k7KVxqDAIw2p3_rARjxsxzIlDKvrr89knZXxDMApHdTvJxly6lfX1az5bSqY5ASDZeALgYZzXd_aX7oFSt" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6H7lKJ1gs1z2RWqJ1MKxN6-Q8FL4cxOdS299quqxY0Izu52fRtNJ0gdNK8Poa2K9WySGn4QRcgWWAZ3aPOKOfqedWa08Mr1SsXuyvq1k7KVxqDAIw2p3_rARjxsxzIlDKvrr89knZXxDMApHdTvJxly6lfX1az5bSqY5ASDZeALgYZzXd_aX7oFSt=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: crowded city, people walking fast, billboards, stress, 4k hd, film scene)</i><br /><br /></div><div>For the last decades the we have experienced a surge in urbanization. There have been two reasons behind it. Firstly, industry and logistics have been built close to each other, thus creating cities for their workers.</div><div>Secondly, offices and headquarters have been concentrating employees to big cities and capitals. Each office job that moves to the city means that 4-5 other jobs will move there with it. These are physical jobs like plumbers, teachers, shop personnel, couriers, construction workers and others moving to the city to serve the office workers.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the modern hybrid- and remote-working we don't have to move the office work to the cities anymore. Where the jobs will be boils down to money and time. The price of real-estate, commute makes big cities in-efficient and expensive. Thus people and jobs will slowly start to move out from mega-cities.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other end of the scale people sometimes dream of a life on the countryside. This is technically possible with remote working. You can live in the middle of the forests and write software or do process management for a multi-national telecom.</div><div> </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbrHENRbYafyZcHQ87ZYVVJxOC6riga4icG-7Okjt8_CMGCSLqbFPNZG8mou7JV6Er3FHPmkT6dNk_OW1klhVdDTRjqJvbNN9riwEy_zzFw9IyU1mar0jTtljOej2buTZihUtRwSJ9sXWQ7UgVU2dzDLqRBp8BB-CNMsvzSYoZpu-SzRwMxUQKJBaF" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="1988" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbrHENRbYafyZcHQ87ZYVVJxOC6riga4icG-7Okjt8_CMGCSLqbFPNZG8mou7JV6Er3FHPmkT6dNk_OW1klhVdDTRjqJvbNN9riwEy_zzFw9IyU1mar0jTtljOej2buTZihUtRwSJ9sXWQ7UgVU2dzDLqRBp8BB-CNMsvzSYoZpu-SzRwMxUQKJBaF=w640-h318" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><i>(Midjourney: house, snowstorm, countryside, road full of snow, 4k hd.<br />unhappy children in the back-seat of a car, driving, countryside, bored, 4k hd)</i><br /><br /></div><div>However, living in the countryside is also very expensive and time consuming. Every trip to the kindergarten, school, hobby or doctor is a long drive. Building and taking care of the infrastructure like roads, snow, electricity, water, Internet, is tens or hundreds of time more expensive than in a city. And if there is no reason, like keeping animals or farming, to live in the countryside, then why would you pay the extra cost in money and time.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thus the optimal place to live and where the jobs will move are towns and small cities. Towns where there is enough service, but that are not too big to make the real-estate disproportionally expensive and commutes long. What is a "small city" varies on the services a family needs, eg. is a movie theatre OK or do they regularly want to go to the ballet. Are the kids happy to play football or do they want to practice the violin on a professional level. However, I would say the optimal size is between 10 000 - 500 000 inhabitants. A place where you can get anywhere by bike perhaps?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUtAB4oEllZ7CM7EyMIUzBEf6UiZIucoqaEZSSIkNl_b0QWVoLSd9EQkoeaIvbG10JiZi68RdcqQIRa6cCMj-1V9iuff1kkIHE2l-BvlABM1vvI3MOmGa2SGkFPMI5dK868yk-ZzAXBgexFBwz2OuwkSgmjTfk2pkUj4JM6WS2ZR445iT51ph8SXlV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="603" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUtAB4oEllZ7CM7EyMIUzBEf6UiZIucoqaEZSSIkNl_b0QWVoLSd9EQkoeaIvbG10JiZi68RdcqQIRa6cCMj-1V9iuff1kkIHE2l-BvlABM1vvI3MOmGa2SGkFPMI5dK868yk-ZzAXBgexFBwz2OuwkSgmjTfk2pkUj4JM6WS2ZR445iT51ph8SXlV=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>(Midjourney: woman and child biking in a small town, smiling, happy, sunshine, 4k hd)</i></div></div><h1 style="text-align: left;">How has the progress been in Solita</h1><div>Solita develops data and IT systems for large organizations in the whole Europe and even outside. To do that we hire talented consultants in the countries we are present - Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Estonia and Germany. In Solita we have definitely seen the hybrid and remote work changing the nature of our work. There are two sides to it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgC2G0rzfcfLmlBbYWom4N5uvMNsbRsq43sEa-mmDacpAjPoFBjTKEX5g62EFqfF7aBk-O_qSD6DIOj_Ayj3pD-BqmE3r6jVnBiTHHzfMAsu1BXGH0uoHS2vh86ibcs-LCbsLLVvbHZlwPId-nDHSC1LSpKC79aXIq_lJYnO_Bk39tTdPpOVIi9rx5N" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="837" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgC2G0rzfcfLmlBbYWom4N5uvMNsbRsq43sEa-mmDacpAjPoFBjTKEX5g62EFqfF7aBk-O_qSD6DIOj_Ayj3pD-BqmE3r6jVnBiTHHzfMAsu1BXGH0uoHS2vh86ibcs-LCbsLLVvbHZlwPId-nDHSC1LSpKC79aXIq_lJYnO_Bk39tTdPpOVIi9rx5N=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>(Midjourney: female sales person, talking on a phone, home office, sunny weather, photo quality, 4k hd)</i></div><br /></div><div>Firstly, on the customer side, we have seen that the need to be present on the customer office has declined dramatically. Largely, because the customer's team members also work remotely and from different locations. The change is quite drastic and we have seen remote work become possible in roles that was unheard of in 2020. For example B2B sales, large project management and UX-design are tasks that can be done remotely nowadays. The only big obstacle of full-around-the-world remote is the language. Many organizations and many projects still prefer to work in the local language.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDWXdEGQsPpd_rsHiqlPPYcZdobCrRD90AWb6u1ugc3RQBfFz3xktYDAnITZ9sD-_TBw0bWqJDcdfa2jkek75DkTAIIeYOwYxlOPy6eGhaOTzKxlIcWGiRabJHl8ciS1NSRbgkbjvTlwd-7cSzthqJmZb8QgC9hNzzqAMwsG59a1xsCDleWN35-e2u" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="603" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDWXdEGQsPpd_rsHiqlPPYcZdobCrRD90AWb6u1ugc3RQBfFz3xktYDAnITZ9sD-_TBw0bWqJDcdfa2jkek75DkTAIIeYOwYxlOPy6eGhaOTzKxlIcWGiRabJHl8ciS1NSRbgkbjvTlwd-7cSzthqJmZb8QgC9hNzzqAMwsG59a1xsCDleWN35-e2u=w400-h400" width="400" /></a></div><i>(Midjourney: unshaved man working form home, computer screen, headphones, software development, busy, 4k hd)</i><br /><br /></div><div>Secondly, on the specialist side, we have opened up many new small offices (e.g. in <a href="https://www.solita.fi/solita-laajentaa-toimintaansa-vaasaan-joensuuhun-jyvaskylaan-ja-kuopioon/?utm_campaign=FI+Dynamic&utm_term=&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_kw=&hsa_acc=2178929025&hsa_mt=&hsa_grp=123041857355&hsa_tgt=dsa-19959388920&hsa_src=g&hsa_cam=13089456176&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ad=521373180189&hsa_ver=3&gclid=CjwKCAiAzKqdBhAnEiwAePEjkprkfrC9WuzZc1duhGGuOZ0rBStYnjW-SYPJXcZVL5kHXRtEKTs55hoC7pkQAvD_BwE">Vaasa, Joensuu, Jyväskylä, Kuopio</a> and in <a href="https://www.solita.fi/en/solita-opens-a-new-office-in-tartu-accelerates-growth-in-estonia/">Tartu</a>). We have also opened the possibility to work remotely from anywhere in the countries we are present. Naturally, a specialist working remotely or in any of our small offices does not have to work for a customer in that city. No, it is mixed, multi-site, multi-country teams delivering to multi-country, multi-site customers. This is the future! Working from Tartu with team-mates in Tampere and Göteborg for a customer whose headquarters are in München. </div><p></p><p></p>Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-46864075415465555842022-07-28T11:43:00.002+03:002022-07-28T11:43:37.770+03:00Predictions about (renewable) energy<p>Putin turning off gas from Europe and thus fossil fuels hitting record prices is.....very good!</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Some fundamentals:</b></span></p><p>- Capitalism (mostly) works: people prefer to pay less, companies prefer to invest into areas where there is more business and more profits to be made. It seams silly to write this statement but in energy production we have seen a lot of hope and wishes, but in reality - if making electricity from natural gas is the cheapest option then companies will build gas powerstations no matter how green their logo is.</p><p>- Politicians (and when it comes to economics then also dictators) (mostly) do what people want. How do you know what people want? Well you can listen to what they say, but the true wishes are demonstrated by what they buy. So if people buy SUV-s, vacation trips to the other side of the world and fast-fashion, then the politician who wants to be popular, has to work on cheap fuel prices to ensure this. <br /> For example, if people would want to stop climate change then they would drive less, fly less, buy less stuff and would demand green energy, sustainable products regardless of the price. Politicians in that case would then work on changing the energy to green and products to sustainable.<br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The situation before Autumn 2021:</b></span></p><p>Producing electricity and heat from <b>fossil fuels</b> like gas and oil is cheap and simple. You drill a hole in the ground, the fuel comes out, you pump it to a powerplant and produce. Proven tech that humans have been using for over 100 years. However there are 2 problems. Firstly, as we know, it causes climate change and pollution which results in all of us, including the animals and plants, potentially dying after a few decades. Secondly, and more short term, there are the guys who own the source and can turn off the fuel if you don't pay them enough.</p><p><b>Wind and solar electricity production</b> is nowadays also technically cheap and simple....when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining. When they are not, then you need solutions of energy storage and these are not yet cheap and simple. There is potential and possibilities (for example the sand heat storage system: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61996520), but some development and investment is needed.</p><p>The third option is <b>nuclear</b>. Unfortunately movies like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078966/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1" target="_blank">The China Syndrome</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7366338/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Chernobyl</a> have made sure that people are afraid of it. Hollywood really can change peoples minds. Do you know for example that sharks kill only about 4-5 people every year, while people kill about 100 000 000 sharks every year. About 1 300 000 people are killed in traffic every year so we should be 260 000 times more afraid of cars than sharks. But thanks to the movies Jaws, Jaws 2, Jaws 3, Jaws: The Revenge and on the other side endless number of The Fast and Furious movies, people think that sharks kill and cars are cool. In reality cars kill and pollute and sharks are an essential part of the ecosystem keeping us all alive.</p><p><b>Climate change</b> has really started and for some years people have demanded politicians to do something about it. This has had results. However if you look at the real wishes of people by looking at what they are buying then the message is: "I want to drive a SUV and fly to Thailand for vacation and I want cheap fuel for this, but you politicians have to do something about the climate change". The solution from politicians has matched that wish really good: "For now we try to ensure cheap fuel for consumption, but we can already now make a promise that in the future (like in 2050 when I will be retired or dead for some time ago) somebody will do something about the climate change."</p><p>But things are not that bad and there <b>has also been massive progress</b>! There have been many important positive steps in fundamental technology, production technology and also economical-political solutions for implementing renewal energy production and also electric transport. I don't mean only electric private cars, but more importantly electric bikes, electric scooters, trains.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The change in Autumn 2021</b></span></p><p>What really changed was that Putin's Russia started to play with the gas and oil valve more aggressively. Small change, but this switched the energy economics into a different mode. Fossil fuel prices skyrocketed and thus made gas-electricity by far the most expensive one. As importantly it made it clear that the supply of gas and oil is unreliable. Would you build a gas power station now? Would you get a bank loan for it if your business plan says: "The fuel price is probably something from 1 to 16 and there might be times we cannot buy natural gas at all"</p><p>This switch made renewables and nuclear much more competitive. The crisis also demonstrated quite vividly that the main priority for citizens is the price. Have you noticed, that the first thing politicians had to say was "We will support, cut taxes, turn on coal plants, subsidise and make everything to get the prices cheaper". The message was not "Hurray, prices of fossil fuels go up, consumption goes down and we are a step closer to saving the planet"</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The next years</b></span></p><p>Now the market situation is really favouring renewables. With current electricity prices and inflation the ROI of solar and wind powerplants is ridiculous. Probably something like 3 or max 5 years. It has never been so short even for gas powerstations.</p><p>So we will see a massive deployment of solar and wind turbines. When it comes to solar then I am talking about:<br />- Every parking-lot should have a roof with solar panels. (Underneath is a photo of an IKEA parking lot that already has such a roof)<br />- Every roof should be a solar energy production unit.<br />- Why not install solar panels over sidewalks, railroad lines, roads. It makes much more sense to install them there than on the fields as we are currently doing.</p><p>A massive amount of renewable energy means that the Nordpool electricity price will be very volatile. It should be almost zero when the sun is shining and wind is blowing and become expensive (500eur+ per MWh) when it is cold and there is no wind or sun.</p><p> This price volatility makes it economically viable to build systems that make use of it. It does not make sense to build a battery storage system if the price of electricity is always the same, but if it is 1eur at 12:00 and 35eur at 24:00 then it starts to make sense.<br /> The electricity and (heat)energy storing systems are not the only one's that can make use of the volatility. We can also have energy intensive production that works only when the price is low. Most importantly all the electric transport can and will take use of the cheaper energy prices when the renewables are working.</p><p> The systems utilizing the lower energy prices are in turn important, because they will push up the price for the time when the sun is shining and wind is blowing and thus make it reasonable to build more renewable capacity.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzo2nj9FHZ9svtSbGH1Af09XkljX-efbLm01-HHg7SE7LNWtg4DBoFdde0E0gM2WabwVpkrDddKru4kI2rQ7M0Kfn20cbk0NCV4pkCToDFfXM-OVUMEfmOs14lCXIciCGIdG2I9daD6cUSfrdKOPDONrXjKfmLHm0jLdmULJK5G0y4YLAFquMwkcXs/s4000/2022-07-15%2018.23.29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2252" data-original-width="4000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzo2nj9FHZ9svtSbGH1Af09XkljX-efbLm01-HHg7SE7LNWtg4DBoFdde0E0gM2WabwVpkrDddKru4kI2rQ7M0Kfn20cbk0NCV4pkCToDFfXM-OVUMEfmOs14lCXIciCGIdG2I9daD6cUSfrdKOPDONrXjKfmLHm0jLdmULJK5G0y4YLAFquMwkcXs/w640-h360/2022-07-15%2018.23.29.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>When it comes to nuclear then hopefully we will get reactor technology that is smaller scale and cheaper and faster to implement than the traditional reactors. It is on its way as I understand. What the energy crisis of 2021-2022 has shown us is that for people price is an absolute priority number one. People are not even afraid of an climate apocalypse that all scientists have predicted of hitting us in maximum 20-30 years if avoiding that would mean higher prices and thus buying and travelling less. So it is very much possible that the fears created by a few movies will be overcome if nuclear could provide 2-5 times cheaper MWh prices.</p><p>For the coming years we will have also fossil fuel electricity and heat production. No doubt about it. We need it for the cold windless days and it takes years to roll-out renewables and nuclear. The transition to electric cars also means that we will have much higher demand for electricity. However, thanks to roll-out of solar, wind and in perspective also nuclear power + energy storage systems, we can gradually use less and less of fossil fuels. It might even be that we can shift to using "some fossil fuel energy on some days a year" could happen surprisingly fast.</p>Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-53374031365316583842021-07-19T17:02:00.000+03:002021-07-19T17:02:26.123+03:00Misconceptions regarding electric cars<p>EU's Fit for 55 plan includes quite ambitious emissions reduction targets for the car industry and this has initiated a big discussion in the industry and among thought-leaders. I would like to point out two topics where our thinking tends to go wrong and where looking at the wider picture makes sense</p><p><b>Let's think wider than just switching the power source from internal combustion to battery-electric.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv2gae9v9eoq8rXviXVZVtQqAkWNT0zPXuUus3e22vpdD6XhbUQJHQ5rv-bpyif2vWYW4HzgXIA0l7gxQMDqAbJOxW3hy9A9Q8Bjyyt-pSLODbzY-C2X-IY0onRan6sZdne_-HbZcn9dY/s1920/1896-arnold-benz-motor-carriage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv2gae9v9eoq8rXviXVZVtQqAkWNT0zPXuUus3e22vpdD6XhbUQJHQ5rv-bpyif2vWYW4HzgXIA0l7gxQMDqAbJOxW3hy9A9Q8Bjyyt-pSLODbzY-C2X-IY0onRan6sZdne_-HbZcn9dY/w640-h360/1896-arnold-benz-motor-carriage.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Here is a photo of one of the first cars made. It is a 1896 Arnold Benz, whose driver Walter Arnold received the worlds first speeding ticket for driving 13km/h with it. As you can see the car looks like a horse carriage minus the horse. It was only a few decades later that cars were considered to be cars and not horse carriages with engines and could therefore be designed differently.</p><p>At present day we have a similar problem and are stuck in the thinking that an electric vehicle must be a car where everything must be otherwise the same only the engine to be a battery powered electric engine.</p><p>But this conception misses one fundamental problem. That is that for electric battery powered cars range is expensive, weighs a lot and takes a lot of space. For a gasoline engine adding range means just a bigger tank, so for 100km of range you need:<br />- 8 litres of space<br />- 5,7kg of extra weight <br />- a few euros for the extra plastic of the tank.<br /><br />For an electric battery powered car an extra 100km of range (rough calculation based on 2 models of Hyundai Kona) means:<br />- 75kg of extra weight<br />- Almost 3000euros for the bigger and more energy dense battery and more powerful engine.<br /></p><p>The fundamental reason for this is the difference in energy density of batteries and gasoline:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDqYwk7Q2_TJAuS2oP86D4oQtcDw2mmi1cxegkRr1QVDl-DJpuUemJFow6_jKsoQA_tZZXQz1CEOPmzAZbCbc1CGtpj5de6-Idr25GsdvwOqgQZnGrXn23gcoWo8I834JzCezbpk-w1CE/s1920/1920px-Energy_density.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1920" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDqYwk7Q2_TJAuS2oP86D4oQtcDw2mmi1cxegkRr1QVDl-DJpuUemJFow6_jKsoQA_tZZXQz1CEOPmzAZbCbc1CGtpj5de6-Idr25GsdvwOqgQZnGrXn23gcoWo8I834JzCezbpk-w1CE/w640-h400/1920px-Energy_density.svg.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The important result of this is that for gas cars the costs of range are irrelevant and driving short trips (to the supermarket, to work, to kindergarten) with a car that has a 500+km range is OK. Even driving with a full tank does not create much waste.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">However, for electric battery cars taking the big expensive battery with you for short trips is a huge waste. We don't need the 10keur, 400kg battery that fills half of the trunk to drive 10km to work and back.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So maybe the future will be:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- Cheap, short-range cars for everyday driving with less than 50km range<br />- Big expensive (rental) cars for the trips to the countryside.<br />or maybe we will do all the short-range travelling with e-bikes, e-scooters and <a href="https://vokbikes.com/">Vok Bikes</a><br /><br /><b>Substituting trips not (just) the vehicles</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The other conception that we are stuck with is the idea that to become fossil fuel free means substituting the fossil fuel vehicles with electric vehicles. What we should think instead is substituting our fossil vehicle <b>trips</b> with either not travelling or fossil fuel free trips. When you think this way then we have a lot of positive things happening:<br />- If instead of driving to the office every day you would work from home 2 days a week then you have would cut your work-trip emitions by 40%. A huge shift! Use an e-bike for the 3 other days and you cut work-trip emissions by 100%. Wohoo!<br />- If cities would plan school, daycare, hobby possibilities so that children and adults could walk or bike to them then we could cut tens of percents of "school-trip" emissions.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- Last mile electric delivery robots will substitute some of the trips to the nearest supermarket.<br />- Online meetings instead of travelling to the customer office.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- Online shopping with electric van-s doing the delivery instead of driving to the shopping mall.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">All in all we have a lot of good things happening and in private transport cutting the emissions drastically is really possible. Ships and airplanes are a bit harder.</div><br /><p><br /></p>Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-27970083258617090262020-10-26T10:59:00.004+02:002020-10-26T10:59:53.778+02:00IT ja konsultatsioonifirmade kasvust Solita näitel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Hwr2EwJreY88eGZlgSZUWIx6BwEdymkYBeV5Wmj3Nsxcn8LZQWkW-2NZmSPPJ33lTbS99FSm8zy0tVt_SYbz9PnYttlOmsYYz_p1PvLj-zab4nsa0btBkKhA9cG7td9EPCzxOhI0t18/s1920/201022_IKT_konverentsil_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Hwr2EwJreY88eGZlgSZUWIx6BwEdymkYBeV5Wmj3Nsxcn8LZQWkW-2NZmSPPJ33lTbS99FSm8zy0tVt_SYbz9PnYttlOmsYYz_p1PvLj-zab4nsa0btBkKhA9cG7td9EPCzxOhI0t18/w640-h426/201022_IKT_konverentsil_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Esinesin 22.10.2020 Äripäeva korraldatud IKT konverentsil ja rääkisin IT ettevõtete kasvust Solita näitel. Jagan ka siin mõned mõtted sellel teemal.</p><p>Kui mina liitusin Solitaga aastal 2017, siis olid Eesti ja Rootsi esimesed riigid väljaspool Soomet kus Solita avas oma kontori. Tänaseks on Solita ekspertide arv ületanud 1000 ja oleme kohal kuues riigis: Soomes, Rootsis, Eestis, Taanis, Belgias ja Saksamaal. Kasv on olnud kiire. Osaliselt on kasv toimunud ka läbi kahe ettevõtte - Sparks ja Ferrologic - ostmise, aga ka orgaaniliselt. Allpool olevad mõtted ongi orgaanilise kasvu kohta, sest M&A vajab ilmselt omaette käsitlust.</p><p>IT, disaini ja muid konsultatsioonifirmasid iseloomustab see, et firma äri suurus on otseses seoses töötajate arvuga. Erinevalt toote- ja teenuse firmadest tähendab kasv uute ekspertide palkamist ja uute klientide ning projektide müüki.</p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Kolm <i>modus operandi</i>-t</span></b></p><p>Välismaale laienemiseks või ka oma kodumaal laienedes on konsultatsiooni ettevõttel kolm viisi toimimiseks.</p><p><b>Nr.1 - Dessant</b></p><p>Julged müügimehed, kes otsivad kliente võõrastelt maadelt, võõrastest valdkondadest, võõrastest segmentidest. Vahest õnnestub mõni klient leida, vahest mõni projekt käivitada ning ka mõni partner värvata. Dessante teevad paljud firmad, teiste hulgas ka Solita, ning sellega võib edu saavutada. Dessandi puhul ei investeerita sihtturgu ega sihtvaldkonda eriti palju rohkem kui ehk reisikulusid ja müügi aega ning sealt tulevad ka lähenemise miinused. Peamiselt see, et edu on juhuslik ja kui pikemaajalisse kohalolusse ei investeeri, siis ka pikemaajalisemat äri ei sünni. Samas annab dessant väärtuslikku teavet ning kogemusi. Kogemusi nii sihtturu kohta, aga ka firma enda võimekuse kohta tavapärasest erinevaid projekte teha.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Nr.2 - Väikefirma</b></p><p>"Väikefirma" võib olla ka näiteks teise riiki asutatud kontor. Väikefirma võib olla ka tegelikult päris suur - näiteks ka 40 või 60 töötajaga, aga teda iseloomustab ettevaatlikkus. Uus ekspert palgatakse siis kui talle on arveldatav töö olemas ning müügis ollakse ka pigem rahulik - keskendutakse olemasolevale ärile ja klientidele ning ei tehta aktiivselt turundust või uute klientide otsimist. See on täiesti mõistlik toimimisviis, riske on vähem, aga ka kasvukiirus on väike. Kuigi see võib kõlada rahuliku ja aeglase lähenemisena, siis igas firmas on kogu aeg sadu suuri ja väikeseid probleeme ja tööd, mida teha. Arenguprojekte, lahkuvaid kliente, uusi kliente jne. jne.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Nr.3 - Gasell</b></p><p>Gasell ehk kiirelt kasvav ettevõte. Konsultatsiooni ettevõtte puhul tähendab see julgust võtta riske ehk aktiivselt palgata, aktiivselt müüa, aktiivselt turundada ja teha seda ilma, et oleks näiteks uue töötaja puhul kindlalt määratud, et sina hakkad töötama selles projektis. Nii värbamise kui müügi protsessid on sellised, kus protsessi käivitamisest kuni tulemuseni läheb minimaalselt 3 kuud. Pigem isegi 6 kuud. Seega peavad need protsessid kogu aeg käima ja tooma pidevalt nii uusi projekte kui ka uusi häid eksperte. Neid ei saa peatada ja käivitada kiirelt kui peaks uus vajadus tekkima.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Mõned mõtted seejuures:</b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Dessantti tasub igal juhul ja alati teha, aga see eeldab julgust ja valmidust ka veidi imelikke projekte ette võtta.</li><li>Väikefirma mõtteviisist gaselliks üle minek ei ole võimalik "natuke". Tiim ei saa olla "natuke" gasell ehk proovime natuke ja kui läheb hästi, siis proovime uuesti ning kui ei lähe, siis lakume haavu.</li><li>Gasell tüüpi firma käivitamises ja toimimises on üsna tihti tunne, et oled pimedas metsas täie kiirusega jooksmas ning saad ainult loota, et rajal ei ole puud ega auku. Tegelikult muidugi augud ja puud on, aga nendest tuleb kiirelt õppida, püsti tõusta ja edasi joosta.</li><li>Gasell tüüpi toimimine on ainus viis saavutada kasvu, mis on mõõdetav kümnetes protsentides.</li><li>Gaselli puhul on segadust kõige rohkem ja ka arenguvõimalusi kõige rohkem.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div><b>Julget kasvamist!</b></div><p></p><p><br /></p>Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-71181216999393814502020-05-18T19:23:00.005+03:002020-05-18T19:23:47.691+03:00Opening up<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today Estonia, and many other European countries are opening up some of the COVID-19 quarantine measures. For me, it seems strange, than in evaluating choosing the measures to be opened there is almost now discussion on how important or even critical the activity is for society and people. What is the damage if this activity is not available. For example, dentists and hairdressers were both opened only today. Swimming pools are opened, but schools are not. Opening up football leagues or holding the Olympics seems to be among TOP-3 topics in the news.</div>
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To provoke a discussion around this question I drew a graph. This is the type of two dimensional diagram that should be the basis on deciding on quarantine measures. Naturally, this includes only a very limited number of activities and we can argue about the importance of activities but I am sure that everybody agrees for example that:</div>
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- Food processing is more important than making toys</div>
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- School is more important than hobbies</div>
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- Dentist and health centers are more important than hair-dressers.</div>
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There are also many activities that can be substituted by less risky options. Like e-shopping vs. shopping and remote work vs. office work. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEW8bY-M039-HFicaH6hSFK2RZ8MoDNevbKQis1Dn8AvY4wwkcxF-V5I1PGWXL5sujQIXuy0LQIg10Ao-glIAuZaPrN1gUpA9pJ2IsIiQecK_1LEwTDF8b3SUB9-FomCg78bbdP0shXc/s1600/COVID-19_measures.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEW8bY-M039-HFicaH6hSFK2RZ8MoDNevbKQis1Dn8AvY4wwkcxF-V5I1PGWXL5sujQIXuy0LQIg10Ao-glIAuZaPrN1gUpA9pJ2IsIiQecK_1LEwTDF8b3SUB9-FomCg78bbdP0shXc/s640/COVID-19_measures.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Unfortunately there are activities that have high risk, are critical and cannot be substituted by less risky options. For example, schools (especially for smaller children) are among these.</div>
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Then again there are activities that do not pose a high risk and we have closed down "just because". For example, there is no reason why we should not be able to drive by car from Estonia to Croatia and camp or stay in appartments without meeting any hosts on the way.</div>
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<br />Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-91718874269781455572020-03-29T18:17:00.001+03:002020-03-29T18:17:28.002+03:00How we will beat the virusI am not a virologist nor do I have a medical education so the analysis underneath should be taken as an idea or a suggestion. I am a hobby-historian, follow news actively and I can take credit for the fact that I bought face-mask already in January. Then they were freely available, cost 0,1eur a piece and everybody thought that I have a paranoia when I bought them.<br />
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So how we will beat the virus. It is actually quite straightforward. States, cities and families have always beat diseases in principally the same way: by raising the level of hygiene. Typhus and cholera was beaten by cleaning the water and building proper sewage systems. Washing hands, washing teeth, wearing underwear, vaccination, following strict rules in food production - all these measures have served us by eliminating the risk of getting one or more diseases. Mind you, some countries have not implemented these measures and thus bare the consequences: cholera in Haiti, hepatitis in India etc.<br />
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With Covid-19 the situation is similar like always. It is a new problem and most societies act like always: hoping that it will go away, hoping that someone else will solve it (like they solved Ebola and MERS) or ..... just hoping. Hoping, but not doing enough. We are like the 17th century townfolk hoping to avoid the big investment in separating the drinking water from sewage and wishing that instead of that praying will save us from this terrible stomach disease that killed our neighbour.<br />
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Luckily there are a few positive examples. So if we would all in Europe, USA and other countries do the same <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077009/coronavirus-can-taiwan-repeat-its-success-controlling-covid-19">as they do in Taiwan</a> we could send our children back to school in soon. Produce enough and wear masks, disinfect hands and surfaces, wear gloves in public transport and whenever you touch doorknobs etc, don't meet with other people until the epidemic is over, work hard and invest in finding a medicine and/or a vaccine.<br />
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I would predict optimistically that by the end of May or in June it will be clear what are the measures that we should implement in Europe that would allow us to control the epidemic without disturbing the normal life too much. Maybe even open some restaurants, dentist clinics and hopefully open schools in August/September. By the end of May the medical industry and logistics have got over the worst crisis and can deliver masks and other sanitation material to the general public.<br />
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Unfortunately, there will be societies that will not be able to implement the necessary levels of hygiene and sanitation. They will unfortunately be under travel-ban until they get it done or the virus will go away itself....as everybody is now hoping.Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-73741412397385946732020-03-21T19:28:00.000+02:002020-03-21T19:32:46.713+02:00How the coronavirus related quarantine will influence the economyWe have now been working from home for a little more than a week due to the coronavirus quarantine. Based on this first experience it is possible to make some predictions on how the situation will influence the economy in the near future. The results might look a bit scary, but the logic is quite straightforward.<br />
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Very important thing to understand about how the economy works is the concept that "Your spending is someones income". Meaning that in the big picture money is not something physical, but an abstract concept - it is more like a measurement unit that measures value or work. Therefore saving money is different from saving something physical. If you save for example sugar then you will later have more sugar that you can then spend. If you save money then this is away from the overall process of economics and if you don't pay the others, then the others will not pay your salary.<br />
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Now when we have the first real experience on remote working and living, we can look at how our consumption has changed and by extrapolating that we can easily see what will happen to the different sectors in economy.<br />
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The first thing to note is that while in quarantine and working remotely you spend much less. No cinemas, no lunches in the restaurant, no going to the gym, no shopping of clothes. Therefore, if everybody does it - as they are doing now - the economy will shrink proportionally. If your monthly costs are 20% lower when in quarantine and you , then the GDP will shrink more or less 20%.<br />
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Naturally this is not evenly distributed and on some goods and services the spending increases. Here is my prediction on what will happen to different sectors in the coming months:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; text-align: center;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Tourism, Cruiselines, Airlines, Airplanes, Hotels</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: red;">Significant
shrinkage</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Office real-estate</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: red;">Significant
shrinkage</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Home real-estate (Bigger homes to house all the remote-workers and
students)</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #92d050;">Moderate
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Food delivery</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #00b050;">Significant
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
E-groceries</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #00b050;">Significant
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Groceries and food industry</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b>No change</b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Private cars</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #ffc000;">Moderate
shrinkage</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Trucks and transport</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b>No change</b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Restaurants</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: red;">Significant
shrinkage</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Takeaway food</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #92d050;">Moderate
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Telecom, Internet, Remote working tools</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #00b050;">Significant
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Financial sector, Banking</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b>No change</b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Electronics, Computers, Screens, Robotics</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #92d050;">Moderate
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Computer games</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #92d050;">Moderate
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid 1.0pt; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 332.9pt;" valign="top" width="444"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Online media, online music and films</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid 1.0pt; border-top: none; padding: 0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; width: 117.9pt;" valign="top" width="157"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="color: #92d050;">Moderate
growth</span></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
It is also important to note that financial support by the governments does not change the patterns of consumption. If you are quarantined you will not go to the restaurant even when the restaurant owner has got tax subsidies and can lower their regular prices 20%. So the waitresses will be unemployed anyway. Government and financial support however is very important as it gives the companies and people a buffer to adjust to the new situation and time to find new business and work. For example the subsidies might allow the restaurant to organise sterile cooking and packaging and the kitchen staff can continue offering takeaway lunches.</div>
Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-91008089253853812942019-05-28T17:30:00.004+03:002019-06-07T11:53:02.314+03:00The technical innovation that might help us avoid the climate crisis and extinction of species ....and this is not the usual stuff.I have been following the climate crisis and other global threats to humankind since 2008. It has actually been quite depressing. If you remember then in 2008 the global threats that everybody was talking about were:<br />
- Peak Oil<br />
- Food crisis<br />
- Exponential growth of population<br />
- Global warming.<br />
<br />
The only one of those, that has been "solved" or actually postponed a little (by inventing economically viable fracking), is Peak Oil. Unfortunately, this postponing has made the problems of global warming and extinction of species now much worse.<br />
Overall between 2008-2019 all indicators of global warming and the extinction of species have followed the pessimistic patterns. The situation is bad and becoming worse fast.<br />
<br />
The fundamental problem why humans are not doing anything about reducing CO2 or methane emissions is, that doing so would conflict with (the perception of) how good our lives are. As for most of us, better lives mean more things and more travelling. So "better lives = more emissions and less space for other animals." Until now, the solutions humans are working are in the area of having the same amount of stuff and travelling with less emissions. For example by using renewable energy, nuclear energy or recycling.<br />
<br />
But the real solution has to be in changing the meaning of "better life" that humans strive for. This is a very big cultural change and as our very minor success in promoting vegetarianism shows, it is almost impossible. However, there is just one thing that might do it! This definitely isn't the thing that your parents would promote, but there are even more powerful influencers that do. The thing I am talking about is<b> spending time and money online </b>instead of buying things and travelling. The influencers driving this are the online gaming, online betting and social media companies.<br />
<br />
Although this might sound evil or "bad", but think about the following:<br />
- Compare the natural resources needed for an online gaming tournament, where everybody takes part from home, to an international swimming competition where to the participants fly by plane.<br />
- Or how much CO2 your 100 euros would create if you gamble it online vs. if you drive to a shopping mall and buy new clothes (that you could very well buy a year later)<br />
- You don't have to move to Europe or the USA to be happy - "League of Legends" and "Dota 2" work the same wherever you are. (Yes, I know you have to have a good internet connection and a PC, but these are way easier and cheaper to get than to move from one country to another.)<br />
<br />
So the ideal behaviour for avoiding climate crisis is to live in an apartment, sit at home, walk on foot to get exercise, spend as much time and money online as possible and have maximum two kids and maybe we could even start promoting it.<br />
<br />
This change might require a generation change, but humans are making quite good progress in this already:<br />
Have you noticed that over 10% of people walking in any city are "in their phone". Driving a car is nowadays mostly impossible, because you cannot chat during that. So why walk or drive overall if your life is in the phone? Why would you need to fly to a vacation to the Mediterranean if you mostly sit in Facebook there, which is the same thing you would do at home.<br />
<br />
If you think this is a joke or an utopia, then spending time online is considered as one of the main reasons why young people drink and smoke less and why crime has declined in some major cities. So if online gaming has managed to fight drinking then it might be strong enough to fight the climate crisis.Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-26699651707183428912019-05-10T11:08:00.001+03:002019-05-10T11:08:45.295+03:00Is there a relation between good universities and average salaries?<h2 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="text-align: start;">This map is courtesy to Jakub Marian and can be found here: </span><a href="https://jakubmarian.com/number-of-top-ranked-universities-by-country-in-europe/" style="text-align: start;">https://jakubmarian.com/number-of-top-ranked-universities-by-country-in-europe/</a><span style="text-align: start;"><br />(You can also find many other interesting maps on jakubmarian.com!)</span></b></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: start;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy_tVWq3KNDkrKnO2yxbdaJJNxccxg-rBMDN7ivW98XA-BvrburEvaoaDbzTRYqV63RIsish1Q-dEJTFIPsJjkHkAXZgQnrjZUaTiRksCnkZorOeP8QawB-exNraBJ3GyFUnxRX6XGPx0/s1600/Students_in_top_universities.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="938" data-original-width="998" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy_tVWq3KNDkrKnO2yxbdaJJNxccxg-rBMDN7ivW98XA-BvrburEvaoaDbzTRYqV63RIsish1Q-dEJTFIPsJjkHkAXZgQnrjZUaTiRksCnkZorOeP8QawB-exNraBJ3GyFUnxRX6XGPx0/s1600/Students_in_top_universities.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<b>The latest map from Wikipedia showing the average net salaries in European countries</b></h2>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMA4IZF8P4r9R8dDTJasp84ew_AzoPSvGeUEaQeGskw-W2CVc4ye05LMBLSSJrHCdAFxJ2UdhWZI8TW_4YpwhjxRl1MC0UfSvmBxS-CdSUgfrsm-v225sJkMSIHCuVtMSSCUukmYiCXw/s1600/Average_net_salaries.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="882" data-original-width="1125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMMA4IZF8P4r9R8dDTJasp84ew_AzoPSvGeUEaQeGskw-W2CVc4ye05LMBLSSJrHCdAFxJ2UdhWZI8TW_4YpwhjxRl1MC0UfSvmBxS-CdSUgfrsm-v225sJkMSIHCuVtMSSCUukmYiCXw/s1600/Average_net_salaries.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h2 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b>These two together in one graph:</b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjooU2Yshca74CDxb7EppqvL_vd6gQ1zy_Cux1j5A6Oeb-Be6XMEkq1vCcVsqOHy_kXznIhVe_gKbeADxW8-ZX18wrZZkEAQaRGHhjjoWXqkzLxmLgJdnG2VvwJCCxxPNptGm4v3OUjPDI/s1600/Avg_salary_per_students_in_universities.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjooU2Yshca74CDxb7EppqvL_vd6gQ1zy_Cux1j5A6Oeb-Be6XMEkq1vCcVsqOHy_kXznIhVe_gKbeADxW8-ZX18wrZZkEAQaRGHhjjoWXqkzLxmLgJdnG2VvwJCCxxPNptGm4v3OUjPDI/s1600/Avg_salary_per_students_in_universities.png" /></a></h2>
<h2 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b>Good universities => higher salaries!</b></h2>
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<br />Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-19383967690981323832019-01-06T12:56:00.001+02:002019-01-06T12:56:42.058+02:00Last mile delivery revolution in EstoniaThe revolutions that change the government tend to be noisy and bloody affairs, but the revolutions in technology and economics happen rather silently. This is because true technical revolutions happen when people start to take a new phenomenon as a normal everyday thing and don't even notice that they changed their behaviour. And one such thing is now happening in Estonia - the radical change in the last mile delivery. As an indicator, here is a list of changes that have happened in the last 5 years:<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZGDXvi7X2xzRMpB4pXqOLWWmjtOlFVI95JKRy-bDiuemkrgBXdkPKvIAcewrgACEpiitds2GO0J2Nsz3vNS5M5XWMAGIQrf5rbTmFSotwawGIoHmHvqBWfQmmOW6nJRjwMD9Tz8S7hvU/s1600/4806943t1h1573.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="685" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZGDXvi7X2xzRMpB4pXqOLWWmjtOlFVI95JKRy-bDiuemkrgBXdkPKvIAcewrgACEpiitds2GO0J2Nsz3vNS5M5XWMAGIQrf5rbTmFSotwawGIoHmHvqBWfQmmOW6nJRjwMD9Tz8S7hvU/s640/4806943t1h1573.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are now 3 parcel terminal networks operating in Estonia. Omniva, SmartPOST and DPD. Therefore there is competition and prices are driven down. Most E-shops are integrated with some or all of them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are at least 5 online grocery supermarkets that offer home delivery: Selver, Coop, Fresh and Go, Barbora (the shop previously known as Maxima) and Prisma. One of the latest innovations is done by Coop, who offers grocery lockers that are refrigerated and to where you can order food from their eshop.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjasFBD_ad3LexnoqLjx7cvQeRSCpuuhO0CO_ZbzxFMhm-2MOdblGBO_QeW9GTgu2FsybzYzO2bVvtJqEuTgitwKqpYJp8VcR_Y2ugUCPQ83KTyz2JC8Ox6UPxzUyGN7Lfqe0gRldhBepM/s1600/chkzurei.zgh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjasFBD_ad3LexnoqLjx7cvQeRSCpuuhO0CO_ZbzxFMhm-2MOdblGBO_QeW9GTgu2FsybzYzO2bVvtJqEuTgitwKqpYJp8VcR_Y2ugUCPQ83KTyz2JC8Ox6UPxzUyGN7Lfqe0gRldhBepM/s640/chkzurei.zgh.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Numerous companies offer food home delivery. Like Wolt, Takeout, Tellitoit etc.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In Mustamäe you can have small parcels delivered to your home by a Starship robot</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9YCZaC2Yx8KJL-KOOZBQWsyvgIANXCItBqLoeT7ixsyfRnM1FLyqo-Hr_kHu9P4GTuvTq7TW0GBV4ejERfDeDBttgPzcpOc504hWVYLjXa_zWeQ3MsS3Pw9h-yVEcxj1JZoSbFym_G8c/s1600/starshipi-pakirobot-teenis-mustamael-kadaka-teel-bussiootajatelt-imest-76672424.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="1000" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9YCZaC2Yx8KJL-KOOZBQWsyvgIANXCItBqLoeT7ixsyfRnM1FLyqo-Hr_kHu9P4GTuvTq7TW0GBV4ejERfDeDBttgPzcpOc504hWVYLjXa_zWeQ3MsS3Pw9h-yVEcxj1JZoSbFym_G8c/s640/starshipi-pakirobot-teenis-mustamael-kadaka-teel-bussiootajatelt-imest-76672424.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Some new apartment buildings and office buildings have a smart parcelbox built by Cleveron, so that couriers can leave the delivery in the box and you don't have to be at home to receive it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All this brings about a change in the shopping habits of people. The stats show that the revenue of Estonian e-shops has risen 11% between 2017 and 2018 and will continue to do that. And this is just the Estonian e-shops - if there were statistics about Amazon, eBay, AliExpress and other international e-shops then we would see a much bigger rise.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
One peculiar indicator of the changes in shopping habits is the advertisement campaign of the newly opened T1 Mall in Tallinn. Nope, they don't advertise a shopping campaign or cheap prices. Instead, to get people to visit them, they have arranged an exhibition of robots.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-22779585980770529662018-08-17T16:42:00.000+03:002018-08-17T16:42:21.776+03:00Average salary and ease of doing businessOne of the main parameters of an economy is the average net salary and I have been following that on my blog for some months now. Here is my short post about the last comparison: http://www.pilveraal.ee/2018/06/euroopa-keskmise-palga-areng-2018.html<br />
<br />
As I work in a data and IT company <a href="http://www.solita.ee/">Solita</a> and am surrounded by data scientists, engineers and developers, then I cannot only settle with following the stats but want to find the reasons for some economies doing better than the others.<br />
<br />
As a first step, let's see if the countries <a href="http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings">Ease of doing business ranking</a> is related to the average net salary or can predict the change of the salary. If there is a correlation then it gives a clear message that working with the things that are measured by the Ease of doing business index makes people richer. No political discussion needed just copy what countries on the top of the list are doing and you get rich. :-)<br />
<br />
Underneath you will find the graphs for the EEA/EU countries on that, but I will jump straight to the conclusions.<br />
In West-European countries the net salaries and the ease of doing business are related with some exeptions:<br />
- Switzerland and Luxembourg are the richest countries in Europe, but are only 33 and 63 on the ease of doing business ranking. Probably the financial industry and beautiful nature for tourists explain that.<br />
- Portugal seems to have some other economic problems and salaries there are much lower than their ease of doing business suggest.<br />
- the salaries in UK are lower than their high ease of doing business ranking (7th in the world) suggest. This is partly due to the pound/euro exchange rate that has fallen about 10% after Brexit vote. Most probably the soon to be due Brexit will lower UK's ranking on the ease of doing business and then it will be all in correlation.<br />
- Norway (and Denmark) have oil and gas (and wind and biofuels).<br />
<br />
In East-Europe the picture is different and there seems to be a far greater correlation between having rich neighbours and high salaries than between ease of doing business and high salaries. However, on regional basis there is a relation. For example if you group countries like:<br />
- Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary<br />
- Slovenia, Croatia<br />
- Romania and Bulgaria<br />
or maybe even the Baltic countries you can see that ease of doing business does convert into higher salaries.<br />
<br />
So here is the current map (17.08.2018) with average net salaries in Europe:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinlwDxl-qxgEFnD9Z5o_UVe1TXgC8G5gdXFCSF6LZAsRLiAd6jSeWqYM38cbl4Ut3HXEHyUBHfA5AJPEK2TMRfM3FXNBDjFmzLSQPlOdez5R0IX_zRSHPcF6KKagmtCIDjnSO693nCsi0/s1600/180817_Europe_polar_stereographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary3.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1226" data-original-width="1578" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinlwDxl-qxgEFnD9Z5o_UVe1TXgC8G5gdXFCSF6LZAsRLiAd6jSeWqYM38cbl4Ut3HXEHyUBHfA5AJPEK2TMRfM3FXNBDjFmzLSQPlOdez5R0IX_zRSHPcF6KKagmtCIDjnSO693nCsi0/s640/180817_Europe_polar_stereographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary3.svg.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
In the bottom of this post you will find a table with the EEA countries, their ease of doing business ranking and average net salaries. However, for analysis purposes it is clear from the data and visible on the map above that it does not make sense to put all the countries in the same pot=on the same graph, so I did some grouping - an operation that would not be allowed in real-sciences, but could be OK in social sciences like economy and history. I grouped the countries to West and East. I also thought if it would make sense to make a separate graph for Switzerland and Luxembourg, but decided to leave them on the Western-Europe graph. So here they are:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlUpwLA1H-fTBn7-06MbkV83T0BRysNsnKuCBaSm2v8NSpkjk8zCBGxapePyx4q_0KxHsCjv6Fcw7SouutCm7ZGnx_Et_BiUJ6Pr94efOeUePg-h0q800jqX74mVVI0Cp0x7CU3P3-ZO4/s1600/West-Europe.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="984" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlUpwLA1H-fTBn7-06MbkV83T0BRysNsnKuCBaSm2v8NSpkjk8zCBGxapePyx4q_0KxHsCjv6Fcw7SouutCm7ZGnx_Et_BiUJ6Pr94efOeUePg-h0q800jqX74mVVI0Cp0x7CU3P3-ZO4/s640/West-Europe.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6sE38OndjnLrnW9JyG8RJxP0PmBHuL041GHQPeXYuBfc5PyxXC8ISHauod8WpaMQohDUZ2y_GD-DXRZY67IlvJnfniZG0M7u6cWZDY2px7MEyeG1QutTdmxULVP7vQorRtbAAJ756BFc/s1600/East-Europe.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="489" data-original-width="981" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6sE38OndjnLrnW9JyG8RJxP0PmBHuL041GHQPeXYuBfc5PyxXC8ISHauod8WpaMQohDUZ2y_GD-DXRZY67IlvJnfniZG0M7u6cWZDY2px7MEyeG1QutTdmxULVP7vQorRtbAAJ756BFc/s640/East-Europe.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse; text-align: center; width: 425px;">
<colgroup><col style="mso-width-alt: 3584; mso-width-source: userset; width: 76pt;" width="101"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 6030; mso-width-source: userset; width: 127pt;" width="170"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 5489; mso-width-source: userset; width: 116pt;" width="154"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="39" style="height: 29.4pt; mso-height-source: userset;">
<td class="xl66" height="39" style="height: 29.4pt; width: 76pt;" width="101"><b>Economy</b></td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: none; width: 127pt;" width="170"><b>Ease of Doing
Business Rank</b></td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: none; width: 116pt;" width="154"><b>Average net
salary (euros)</b></td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Denmark</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">3</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">3270</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">UK</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2018</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Norway</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">3395</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Sweden</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2510</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Estonia</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">12</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">1053</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Finland</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">13</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2509</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Lithuania</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">16</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">700</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Ireland</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">17</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2505</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt; text-align: center;">Latvia</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">19</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">733</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Germany</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">20</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2302</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Austria</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">22</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2324</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Poland</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">27</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">803</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Spain</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">28</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">1749</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Portugal</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">29</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">925</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Czechia</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">30</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">930</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">France</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">31</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2225</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Netherlands</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">32</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">2152</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Switzerland</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">33</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">4502</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Slovenia</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">37</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">1083</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Slovak
Rep.</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">39</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">862</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Romania</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">45</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">589</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Italy</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">46</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">1758</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Hungary</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">48</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">701</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Bulgaria</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">50</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">451</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Croatia</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">51</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">858</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Belgium</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">52</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">1920</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Cyprus</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">53</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">1658</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Luxembourg</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">63</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">4887</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Greece</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">67</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">890</td>
</tr>
<tr height="19" style="height: 14.4pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="19" style="border-top: none; height: 14.4pt;">Malta</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">84</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: none; border-top: none; text-align: center;">1021</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-679538263058382812018-07-09T13:40:00.001+03:002018-07-09T13:40:08.479+03:00Startupide ja IT arenduskeskuse mõjudest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrLsMGmComgPTA7DhJrWFYQCs_EkP_BJsXcO9_bn0WBJVKmEtLloWHsTHw_mSZoMmCSG2W9b9uLivNbOKz34VmaEjKiXxvC6b8_YL8aLRWct4RmKGSRxTBxsBle7G7nxiNlg2htaLHjPc/s1600/2018-03-16+16.00.48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrLsMGmComgPTA7DhJrWFYQCs_EkP_BJsXcO9_bn0WBJVKmEtLloWHsTHw_mSZoMmCSG2W9b9uLivNbOKz34VmaEjKiXxvC6b8_YL8aLRWct4RmKGSRxTBxsBle7G7nxiNlg2htaLHjPc/s640/2018-03-16+16.00.48.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.poliitika.guru/">www.poliitika.guru</a> on viimasel paaril nädalal tõstatanud teema startapidest ja nende mõjust Eesti majandusele. Argumente on toodud nii poolt kui vastu, aga tegelikult on selge, et startapid ja IT arenduskeskused üks parimaid viise ühiskonna jõukuse kasvatamiseks....ja seda me ju tahame.<br />
<br />
Seejuures on siiski üks teema, millele tahaksin tähelepanu juhtida.<br />
Järjest laienev IT sektor tähendab seda, et IT tööjõuturul on suur nõudlus. See omakorda toob kaasa surve palkadele ja IT sektoris ongi palgad tõusnud viimastel aastatel keskmiselt 7-8% aastas. Loomulikult on seegi igati positiivne nähtus nii IT spetsialistide, riigi ja ka 3 euroste cappucinode müüjate seisukohalt, aga sellel on nüüd ka väike majanduslik miinus. Nimelt tähendab <b>Põhja-Euroopa tasemele lähenev palgatase ka seda, et IT töö hind on läheneb sellele tasemele</b>. See aga võib muuta väiksemad IT ja tehnoloogiaprojektid liiga kulukaks ja need jäävad tegemata. Eestis võiks tegelikult olla IT-d ja tehnoloogiat kasutusel palju rohkem. Eriti ettevõtete seas. Palju rohkem mobiili-äppe, palju rohkem automatiseeritud protsesse ja palju rohkem suurandmete analüüsi. Ilmselt jäävad need arendusprojektid vähemalt osaliselt tegemata seetõttu, et nende tegemine ei tasu kõrgete kulude või IT inimeste puuduse tõttu ära.<br />
<br />
Sellele väljakutsele on üks kiire lahendus, mis vähemalt osaliselt leevendab olukorda. <b>Nimelt soovitaksin teha IT projekte inglise keeles.</b> Projektis inglise keeles asjaajamine võimaldab teha IT arendusprojekti odavamalt või kiiremalt, sest tegijatena on võimalik kasutada eesti keelt mitte-valdavaid spetsialiste näiteks allhankena mõnest välisriigist või ka kohapealt. Teiselt poolt võimaldab inglise keeles projekti tegemine ka seda, et mõne tehniliselt spetsiifilise ülesande jaoks on võimalik palgata tegija näiteks Soomest või kasvõi USA-st.<br />
Tänapäeval ei ole multi-language, multi-location projektide tegemine enam ka midagi uut ja paljudel spetsialistidel ning tiimidel on selles juba mitme-aastane kogemus.Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-86722101083354687142018-06-12T17:28:00.000+03:002018-06-12T17:28:06.899+03:00Should you found an IT development center in Tallinn as we in Solita did?<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We founded the
development center for Solita in Tallinn in autumn 2017. The start has been
very interesting, fast and fun and our plan is to grow our team up to 15-20 IT
specialists by the end of 2018. One question I get asked frequently is why we
chose Tallinn as the location for the development center. Isn't the job market
in Tallinn overheated, costs high and good people very difficult to find?</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">After the first half-year, I can
say that Tallinn was a very good choice for us. I will try to explain why we
chose Tallinn and more generally, what are the things one should consider when
choosing a location for an IT development center.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4KPGFxTeBIv8zsI0lg1TVOxBMiYJH7XqSgwiW-jcVNWWZJGBBl_27RjcHr10if24OYNnv2xfjf8Fc7wAaa44hFexea1vxU1B6TdOsl3WYBFDeWXuvSsI8g7TWYY30sNm4arzqFUfUiN8/s1600/2018-05-23+19.33.41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4KPGFxTeBIv8zsI0lg1TVOxBMiYJH7XqSgwiW-jcVNWWZJGBBl_27RjcHr10if24OYNnv2xfjf8Fc7wAaa44hFexea1vxU1B6TdOsl3WYBFDeWXuvSsI8g7TWYY30sNm4arzqFUfUiN8/s640/2018-05-23+19.33.41.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The job market
loop</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Firstly - yes, there is a lack of
good specialists and salaries in the IT sector are the highest among all
sectors in Estonia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiho_2UZdTGg27JLnHL8_GLhWMJ7r82URpjn4lvUcrMl2ZH5gVevfWkMbn1m6q0b08c8trcwRzqSjdHHp7ULUr5EZfgFeXASJ3GUT0AvqfzKf73VqtR-8p_eiANfBDnS-H0DZZd_G3EnBc/s1600/Average_salaries_in_Estonia_2017.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="1106" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiho_2UZdTGg27JLnHL8_GLhWMJ7r82URpjn4lvUcrMl2ZH5gVevfWkMbn1m6q0b08c8trcwRzqSjdHHp7ULUr5EZfgFeXASJ3GUT0AvqfzKf73VqtR-8p_eiANfBDnS-H0DZZd_G3EnBc/s640/Average_salaries_in_Estonia_2017.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, we should look at this
situation in a bigger picture and that is ruled by the following principles:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Good specialists are only in
cities where there is demand for their skills - meaning jobs in the specific
technologies. With no jobs, the specialists either leave or work with something
else thus losing their skills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- If there are specialists and
preferably a technical university in a city and there is a global need for
skilled specialists then companies expand to take use of the specialists
available.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These two principles create a
positive feedback loop: jobs->experienced specialists->companies expand->more
jobs->more career and development opportunities ->more experienced
specialists->more companies move in->more jobs. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-no-proof: yes;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc_pKhLSCjAfXkY0-24JbsVbMo68ukA2jceTsNRQZ-0VFcR0tdtF4iLkx8WkkjCxw-tf9zTMc7HFR1mLzgcx9ObKKdePlHjCMXVsPjJ7HyE_TkuBnwF7vlYtJts5mzp3agqZ7_mTwo_7Y/s1600/Job-specialist-company_loop.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc_pKhLSCjAfXkY0-24JbsVbMo68ukA2jceTsNRQZ-0VFcR0tdtF4iLkx8WkkjCxw-tf9zTMc7HFR1mLzgcx9ObKKdePlHjCMXVsPjJ7HyE_TkuBnwF7vlYtJts5mzp3agqZ7_mTwo_7Y/s640/Job-specialist-company_loop.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This loop has been working in
Tallinn for the last 5 years at least. Keeping this loop running is beneficial
for all the actors in the city: the companies, the specialists, the
universities, the government, the supporting companies (e.g. real-estate). Among
other things, this means that the IT companies should not look at each other as
competitors on the job market but rather make the whole job-market more
attractive for the specialists, students, high-skill immigrants together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Is the IT job
market global? Competition between cities.</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">IT job market is more or less
global. What I mean with "more or less global" is that:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Many teams work in English
but it is still only around 30-50% of overall IT work that is in English in the
Nordic and Baltic countries. 50-70% of jobs require the knowledge of the local
language. Many jobs - especially in the consultancy business - require also the
knowledge of local culture, how business is done, how the users act and what
they prefer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Remote work is possible in many
teams and companies, but 100% remote work is relatively rare. Many
organizations want their IT teams to work together in one physical
location...at least for some days in a week. Cases of "digital
nomads" are still rare and physical presence is important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- The differences between
technology and IT development processes in different nations and cities are
minor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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o:title="Local_vs_Global"/>
</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifR1Y08mQGZySMl7VW0ukrnvoml5Gbx9-5tCCz3j72Gof-uZcFPXX78Bkv_KQi55p7BbGdFiIFIzJ-v_lk1cl0HwpwKKOaI3F1IbMe0__O8mi6kXSnRnJI9BUEUKlr-X6TtbEh7bscM10/s1600/Local_vs_Global.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifR1Y08mQGZySMl7VW0ukrnvoml5Gbx9-5tCCz3j72Gof-uZcFPXX78Bkv_KQi55p7BbGdFiIFIzJ-v_lk1cl0HwpwKKOaI3F1IbMe0__O8mi6kXSnRnJI9BUEUKlr-X6TtbEh7bscM10/s640/Local_vs_Global.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">So overall, the IT job-market is
much more global than the job-market of e.g. lawyers and schoolteachers but it
is far from 100% global. Nevertheless this global market means that the
difference in salary levels vs. living costs in different cities cannot be
nearly as high as they are for example for school-teachers. Smart people look
at the equation:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">net salary</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> minus <b>living
costs</b> minus <b>transport cost</b> minus <b>food</b> minus <b>kindergarten/school</b> minus <b>other
costs. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgk25lsv1dvdkdF48v4BhUTwpGJNaF_Vd2cLEl-mjEq_JPHzdPLlUPtbVQrC3DRAPNDbKNpMMgHLd57KnLWZ0e5mfeydFd_mg8E-ZzoO7L7m5b9ZoBAmNVxby1me4Z9mowqq79GkxpUo/s1600/Net_minus_costs.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihgk25lsv1dvdkdF48v4BhUTwpGJNaF_Vd2cLEl-mjEq_JPHzdPLlUPtbVQrC3DRAPNDbKNpMMgHLd57KnLWZ0e5mfeydFd_mg8E-ZzoO7L7m5b9ZoBAmNVxby1me4Z9mowqq79GkxpUo/s640/Net_minus_costs.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
id="_x0000_i1029" type="#_x0000_t75" style='width:480pt;height:270pt'>
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Besides money the specialists
compare other factors like living standards and professional development
possibilities and if these results are much better for them somewhere else then
they send in their CV to a job offer in the other city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This equation+living standards+professional possibilities
are categories where cities compete with each other. This really is a
competition as each IT job brings tax money, creates 4-6 other jobs and unlike
paper-mills, shale oil plants and other industrial jobs, the IT developers sitting
in an office do not pollute very much. What (the local) government can do in
this regards is to work with this equation and see that for example the living
costs do not skyrocket (unlike e.g. Stockholm, Oslo) and the city is a nice
place to live in. Fortunately these are not very difficult policy decisions as
decent living costs, good schools, parks and good transport systems are good
for all ....voters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2P6pWkxshKpaqUAGLk7flotIGCtvvr1Iw4DS-80CFEm8z8leZeSsURWoWZi98XjP8Nmv1mMBozUWtBteJgEDWUgcW5zYaGt0-0c_BZFL_QPhNToOvuzEITcg4tPVEfC8eKQKwN2XO1s/s1600/2018-05-23+19.33.32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw2P6pWkxshKpaqUAGLk7flotIGCtvvr1Iw4DS-80CFEm8z8leZeSsURWoWZi98XjP8Nmv1mMBozUWtBteJgEDWUgcW5zYaGt0-0c_BZFL_QPhNToOvuzEITcg4tPVEfC8eKQKwN2XO1s/s640/2018-05-23+19.33.32.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Is there a city
for a development center where one can recruit tens or hundreds of good IT
specialists that want much lower salaries?</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The answer is "In normal
circumstances no, but sometimes there are disruptions". :-) If you
consider that the job-market works as a loop and the cities compete for the
talent globally then "the price/performance of the cities" evens out
in the time perspective of 3-5 years. (Fortunately) it does not work like for
example the clothing industry where companies can get much cheaper labor from
the cheapest country for a long time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However sometimes there are
disruptive situations that change the usual evened out situation:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- A major employer has just gone
bankrupt or moved out from a place (e.g. Nokia from Oulu and Salo)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- A government decides to give big
benefits to companies, e.g. taxcuts, easier immigration laws, free office space
etc. (e.g. Belarus to IT development companies or Estonia helping with the
immigration of IT specialists)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Something terrible happens and
people (including the IT specialists) move to other countries. (e.g. Turkey
after the revolution attempt)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, as usual the influence of
these disruptive events is temporary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
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<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPn3UDmLymWj_TUbn8fMfQFURBVbOgx9Vlk2IHRtqSmolwV9fqPi5-NjpoorTNKHP95JAGoOziD6fFn926XU1w6MYW84xmYc9czHZyhFlXTHxei-IoWg5CQPcEDoekvsfQme4IZ2FR1pk/s1600/2018-05-15+15.12.29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPn3UDmLymWj_TUbn8fMfQFURBVbOgx9Vlk2IHRtqSmolwV9fqPi5-NjpoorTNKHP95JAGoOziD6fFn926XU1w6MYW84xmYc9czHZyhFlXTHxei-IoWg5CQPcEDoekvsfQme4IZ2FR1pk/s640/2018-05-15+15.12.29.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The other - and
more important part - of choosing the location</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Finding talent is actually only
half of “the problem” when choosing a city for an IT center. The other factor
is building teamwork between your new employees, old employees and customers.
This means building trust, a common language and common processes. It is in
this that Tallinn is a much better solution for Solita than many alternatives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> I am a huge proponent of
remote work and use video, chat, phone and other telecommunication methods but for building trust and getting the "coffee machine" rumors,
it is important to meet face-to-face. To accomplish this, two factors come into
play.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Firstly, of course, the transport. It is important that your colleagues
and new hires meet regularly and to accomplish that there have to be fast,
cheap and convenient transport connections between your new location and the
old locations. It is hard to underestimate this! Compare for example the travelling
options between Helsinki and Tallinn to e.g. Helsinki and Katowice or Helsinki
and Lissabon. For the latter cases one really needs an important reason to
travel and for example a half-day workshop or a meeting with one customer just
is not enough to justify that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Secondly, it really helps if people
like to come to the city where the development center is. Things like an
attractive Old Town, nice parks, good dining options, art/hipster areas help a
lot with this. For frequent travellers also things like swimming pools, gyms and
other sporting opportunities matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Overall, as a coincidence, the same
things that attract tourists, attract businesses: transport connections,
sightseeing, good hotels, restaurants, sporting and going out possibilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Brand of a city</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Branding of a city and a country is
very important. As you know from your own behavior then “Made in
Switzerland/Norway/Sweden” means that it is OK to pay 30% more for a product
than the average. Whereas “Made in Ethiopia/Bangladesh/Romania” is something
that the sellers rather not write on the product to get even the average price.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same goes for IT development centers.
Imagine for example that your CEO will announce on the shareholder meeting that
“We founded a development center in Pattaya!” or “Our next place of growth is
in Medellin”. These would be a bit hard to sell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it comes to branding then Estonia and
Tallinn have a good reputation in the IT sphere. Years of work by Enterprise
Estonia, E-residency team, the IT companies and among others also the former
Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas have made its mark! Naturally, there is no reason
or possibility to stop that, but to carry on and continue with marketing and
also maybe living up to the promise.</span><span lang="ET" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: ET;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_xYe5gU02fIJVvq_kWS4PR2NIDONjavjK_Kb5LMXsO8yviLjZ7zYSyLAKj4DnG25p1F7p4dvvSpRfXAjmt_FTEsBR7TRBxQ2f0g2g91ZbRMrm9rXWoArqPbPw3NHqdHBWdOqJ9hBEHJI/s1600/Teletorn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_xYe5gU02fIJVvq_kWS4PR2NIDONjavjK_Kb5LMXsO8yviLjZ7zYSyLAKj4DnG25p1F7p4dvvSpRfXAjmt_FTEsBR7TRBxQ2f0g2g91ZbRMrm9rXWoArqPbPw3NHqdHBWdOqJ9hBEHJI/s640/Teletorn.jpg" width="360" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Conclusion and some thoughts on making a city attractive for IT development
centers</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Keeping the living and
transportation costs down through city planning and effective public transport.
For example it is a good idea to see that the banks don't go crazy and give 125
year home mortgages to everybody, thus increasing the real-estate prices to
unreasonable levels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- A good
university. Universities are also hubs for bringing in specialists to a city. Not only from other countries but also inside the country. Developing curriculum's (e.g. in English) to foster that immigration is a good idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Good connections
to other cities. Plains, trains and in some rare cases also automobiles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Making moving to a city easy and
cheap for specialists. For example offering education possibilities
in English, preferably for free or for a small tuition fee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Easy and cheap ways of doing business in a city. From registering a company and renting office space to taxes
and accounting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Make the city a nice place to be
in: parks, sporting possibilities, nice restaurants, gyms, swimming pools etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">- Actively build and work with the
brand of the city and the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The good thing with this is that
almost all of these things are good and loved by the inhabitants - and the
voters - anyway. Improving some of these things also brings tourists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-17070915167903731352018-06-04T17:59:00.000+03:002018-06-04T18:00:14.037+03:00Euroopa keskmise palga areng 2018 esimeses poolesSiin on Euroopa riikide keskmised palgad juuni 2018 seisuga Wikipedia andmetel:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxJM5USGW7-olK9hHGUIUvfPMsKh2dUYVFN8gzEOjOaDmbk11I1BaE3e85K4pK0G4OZ3cDx6-ZulqIacemKmKQgteONkd2MEfDTBJSl8XCEJfceMvaeItcQzTClgcoQQ1fM-ShHDoed8/s1600/180604_Average_Salary_in_Europe.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="809" data-original-width="1125" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVxJM5USGW7-olK9hHGUIUvfPMsKh2dUYVFN8gzEOjOaDmbk11I1BaE3e85K4pK0G4OZ3cDx6-ZulqIacemKmKQgteONkd2MEfDTBJSl8XCEJfceMvaeItcQzTClgcoQQ1fM-ShHDoed8/s640/180604_Average_Salary_in_Europe.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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2018 aasta alguses oli seis selline:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHHiwGa0qahVXQEcOcWxCkPvreBaOmKFArdcvv9aHcgvhlB387EnR6wL8vScBXgzn8B7u0VMQ-2mqogIgcPa24MRV7SGnK0O5CgVx52rGldHrjc2PvXePueNaMbNRzfZXQ6Ty1eDbIgfU/s1600/Europe_polar_stereographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary3.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="910" height="496" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHHiwGa0qahVXQEcOcWxCkPvreBaOmKFArdcvv9aHcgvhlB387EnR6wL8vScBXgzn8B7u0VMQ-2mqogIgcPa24MRV7SGnK0O5CgVx52rGldHrjc2PvXePueNaMbNRzfZXQ6Ty1eDbIgfU/s640/Europe_polar_stereographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary3.svg.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Eesti keskmine netopalk on poole aastaga kasvanud märkimisväärselt ja nagu näha, siis kõigest 30 eurone netopalga tõus võrreldes Sloveeniaga on veel vajalik, et Eestist saaks Ida- ja Kesk-Euroopa kõrgeima keskmise palgaga riik. Ühtlasi on Eesti palk tõusnud kõrgemaks Portugalist ja Maltast.</div>
<br />Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-74258026876497574202018-01-03T17:10:00.002+02:002018-01-04T16:56:52.435+02:00Kas see võiks olla Eesti järgmine suur eesmärk?<i>Note: I am writing this post in Estonian so that slovenians would not understand it. :-)))</i><br />
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<b>Aasta algus on hea aeg mõelda tulevikule ja seada eesmärke. Nii isiklikus elus kui ka laiemalt. Nagu me teame, siis peale Natoga, EU-ga ja euroga liitumist oleme Eestis olnud veidi hädas uue suure eesmärgi seadmisel.</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDMOdqe9TBRQQrOskB7NJ0HEG04EY6M3JXHK-0B-JGgOG-fHWpaz07ze6DN0PZ6qMkCx4gKEerXuIxm0b43SesGvjQw_Ja1Q6kbPII50WlYSRzvD1Ka_KIv3sFsstlzdkb93_kpOMqlcw/s1600/Europe_polar_stereographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary3.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="910" height="497" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDMOdqe9TBRQQrOskB7NJ0HEG04EY6M3JXHK-0B-JGgOG-fHWpaz07ze6DN0PZ6qMkCx4gKEerXuIxm0b43SesGvjQw_Ja1Q6kbPII50WlYSRzvD1Ka_KIv3sFsstlzdkb93_kpOMqlcw/s640/Europe_polar_stereographic_Caucasus_Urals_boundary3.svg.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><br /></b>
<b> </b> Reformierakonna mõte saada Euroopa viie rikkaima riigi hulka oli küll päris hea ja kõlav eesmärk, aga paraku ei vastanud ta SMART printsiibile. Esiteks ei ole rikkus üheselt defineeritud ja seega mõõdetav ning teiseks on see eesmärk endiselt ka realistlikusest päris kaugel.<br />
<br />
Kuid ärme heida meelt ja otsime edasi! Eesmärke leiab ju teisigi häid ja mis oleks kui võtaksime eesmärgiks: <b>Eesti Ida-Euroopa kõige kõrgema netopalgaga riigiks!</b> See on väga hea eesmärk, sest ta on mõõdetav ja tulemused on täna avalikult esitatud ilusasti ja graafiliselt siin lehel: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage</a><br />
Eesmärk on täiesti realistlik! Me oleme juba täna teisel kohal ning Eesti keskmine netopalk jääb ainult napi 90 euroga alla Sloveeniale. Kolmandaks, see eesmärk on kindlasti ka väga innustav.<br />
<br />
Vaadake nüüd näiteks Lätit. Jah, nad tegelevad nüüd edukalt alkoholi ja diisli müümisega. Samas ei suuda nad isegi pudelipandi süsteemi juurutada, ega Riia magalarajoonide maju ära remontida ja nende keskmine palk on peaaegu 300 eurot väiksem kui meil. Hehee, see pole isegi samas liigas kus Eesti koos Sloveenia, Tsehhi ja Horvaatiaga on. Varsti läheme me neist veelgi ette, sest me ei raiska oma aega soomlastele odava õlu müümisele vaid müüme globaalsel turul pakiroboteid, IT teenuseid, tõeliseid maitseelamusi meie restoranides ning maailmakuulsate brändidega disainitud tooteid.<br />
<br />
Ma usun, et me saame selle eesmärgiga hakkama! Vaja on ainult natuke innovatsiooni, äriarendust, brändide loomist, tehnoloogiaettevõtlust! Ettevõtjad, koolitagem rohkem oma töötajaid ja makskem neile kõrgemat palka tänu parematele tulemustele. Arendame oma tooteid ja õppigem uusi asju! Vähem mõttetut teleka, reklaamide ja kollase ajakirjanduse vahtimist ning rohkem huvitavaid raamatuid, interneti kursuseid ja õppimist ning ta tuleb ära! Ida-Euroopa kõrgeim palk.Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-62210856536400744122017-10-30T16:54:00.001+02:002017-10-30T16:55:43.836+02:00Starting the Solita development center in TallinnI am proud to announce that from October 2017 I have the honour to lead the Solita Development Center in Tallinn.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.solita.fi/en/">Solita</a> is one of the leading IT and digital service providers in Finland and we are now expanding to international markets. We have opened an office in Stockholm to serve Swedish and Scandinavian customers and we are now opening a development center in Tallinn to serve Solita's Nordic customers.<br />
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You can read more about Solita's services on our <a href="https://www.solita.fi/en/services/">webpage</a>, but in one sentence I would say that "We make our customers succeed with the help of IT tools and service design". We are working with big Nordic companies and organizations. We work in the areas of data analytics, data warehouses, service concepts and also with more traditional IT like software development, system integration and information systems. We work with IT for big organizations so our work really has a big impact and meaning.<br />
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The plans for the development center in Tallinn are quite ambitious. We plan to hire 20-30 experts during the first year and include them in the projects for our Nordic customers. If you like to work for big customers like <a href="https://www.solita.fi/en/customers/">ASSA ABLOY, Nokian Tyres, S Group, Finavia and many others</a> or know more about our plans then send an e-mail to our <a href="mailto:careers@solita.fi">reqruitment team</a> or <a href="mailto:mart.ridala@solita.fi">me</a>.Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-63755436563475552632017-07-04T11:40:00.003+03:002017-07-04T11:40:38.172+03:00How product development and R&D has changed in the last 10-15 years (in telecoms)I have been working with product and service development in the telecom and IT industry for over 15 years and here are some thoughts about the change we have vitnessed in it.<br />
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Firstly, the product development my teams have worked with is taking existing software, hardware, devices and combining them into a service that is easy to use by business or private customers. This means integrating hardware, software, IT systems and devices. Building sometimes customer portals and making the overall experience seamless. On top of that we add customer service, help, support and sales. As you can see this is not R&D in the classical sense, but it is a lot of technical work, software development and also team building and process development. We literally take components from AliExpress and other vendors, system software from open-source communities and software vendors, and integrate it all together to make it one service that is easy to use.<br />
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In the last 10 years the situation in this area has changed quite radically. The main change is that today there is so much more technology - both hardware and software - that can be integrated to services that the need for such service creation has increased significantly. There are a few reasons for that:<br />
- The startup and VC ecosystem is working globally and producing much more than ten years ago.<br />
- The production and logistics systems of hardware from Shenzen factories to Cleveron automatic postal machines and Starship delivery robots have decreased the price of hardware.<br />
- Open-source communities thrive.<br />
<br />
At the same time:<br />
- The rate how fast people and organizations can adopt new technologies has increased only a little bit.<br />
- There has been no radical change in how easily tech components integrate, meaning that by default they don't.<br />
<br />
So from a Nordic-Baltic ICT development view it seems so that the main bottleneck of moving society forward is not in creating new technology, but rather turning the existing technology into services and implementing them. Let's focus on that.Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-8650665901384019422017-05-12T13:17:00.002+03:002017-05-12T13:17:25.981+03:00Belbini meeskonnarollidestMats Soomre on Belbini metoodika maaletooja Eestis. Rääkisime temaga videointervjuus Belbini meeskonnarollidest.<br />
Minu jaoks on tegemist väga huvitava teemaga ja vähemalt isiklikult sain oma tööks siit vajaliku tõdemuse: Edukaks tiimitööks peavad tiimis olema kaetud erinevad rollid. Seda tuleb jälgida ja märgata. Seejuures on oluline täheldada, et inimese sobitumine või kasvamine tema persooniga mitte sobivasse rolli on üsna pikk, vaevaline ja tihti ka mõttetu ettevõtmine. Palju mõistlikum on leida tiimi sellised tegijad kes sobivad omavahel ja katavad ära kogu edukaks tööks vajaliku isiksuste spektri. Head vaatamist! Need 5+5 minutit aega on kasulik investeering. :-)<br />
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Esimeses intervjuus räägib Mats sellest, mis on Belbini meeskonnarollid:<br />
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Teises intervjuus rääkisime näidete varal veidi täpsemalt mõnest konkreetsest Belbini meeskonnarollist:<br />
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<br />Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-58855151539549772402016-12-29T08:33:00.002+02:002016-12-29T08:33:47.141+02:00Desktop, Android, IoS usage on Recommy.comHere are some statistics from <a href="http://recommy.com/">Recommy.com</a> about usage of different platforms.<br />
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Recommy.com is a service for companies for asking feedback from their customers and analyzing it. Recommy works so that feedback requests are sent to the customers with an E-mail. The customers click on a link in the E-mail and go to the Recommy webpage where they fill in the questionnaire and give feedback to the company. So here are some general statistics about the platforms that people use to land and access the Recommy page where they give feedback:<br />
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- On average we get about 50 000 visits a month on the Recommy page. So about 50 000 people click on the link they receive in the E-mail and give feedback on the Recommy page.<br />
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<strong>Desktop vs Mobile:</strong><br />
81% Desktop<br />
16,5% Mobile phone<br />
2,5% Tablet<br />
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<strong>Most popular operating systems:</strong><br />
79% Windows<br />
12,7% Android<br />
5,4% iOS<br />
2,1% Macintosh<br />
0,5% Linux<br />
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<strong>Most popular browsers:</strong><br />
44,3% Internet Explorer<br />
34,8% Chrome<br />
10% Firefox<br />
6,4% Safari<br />
2,7% Edge<br />
0,6% Android Browser<br />
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<strong>Most popular mobile operating systems:</strong><br />
67% Android<br />
28,7% iOS<br />
2,8% Windows<br />
1,1% Windows Phone<br />
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<strong>Most popular mobile devices:</strong><br />
24% iPhone<br />
4,5% iPad<br />
2% Samsung Galaxy S6<br />
1,9% Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge<br />
...a long list of Android phones dominated by Samsung and Sony, with Huawey and LG also mentioned.<br />
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Want to develop the services and products of your company also? Register at <a href="http://www.recommy.com/">www.recommy.com</a> and start gathering feedback or request more information at <a href="mailto:info@recommy.com">info@recommy.com</a>. Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-69689095444802435822016-10-04T16:29:00.000+03:002016-10-04T16:29:05.120+03:00Protsessijuhtimine - selguse loomise distsipliin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Kuldar Hansen teeb <a href="http://tinyurl.com/Recommy">Recommy koolituse protsessijuhtimise teemal</a>. Tegime lühikese videointervjuu sellest, mis on protsessijuhtimine ja millest tuleb koolitusel juttu. Vaata siit:</div>
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<br />Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-31733711544058369572016-08-02T14:47:00.001+03:002016-08-02T14:47:20.920+03:00Money is a fairytale I recently read a book by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470136735&sr=8-1&keywords=yuval+noah+harari">Yuval Noah Harari called "Sapiens a Brief History of Humankind</a>". It is one of the best books I have ever read and a real eye-opener. Here is also a link to mr. Hararis <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans">TED talk</a> where he explains the rise of the human race.<br />
The main reason why humans managed to be more successful than any other animal races is our capability to imagine things, believe in fantasies and to tell each other about them. It is our capability to understand the abstract concepts without the need to see or touch them. In most they even don't have a physical form. You might think that what is so important in believing in Snow White and Red Riding Hood, but these are not the game changing fairytales. The really important ones that we firmly believe are fairytales like religion, nationality, human rights, capitalism, ownership, socialism etc. By far the most important of all fairytales is Money. All our systems and agreements are based on the belief of the common story of money. Only humans are happy to give away real useful things like apples, tools, cars, computers, houses for money - a fairytale.<br />
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In the modern technology-age the fairytale of Money has risen to a new level. Now it is not even a paper, but a number on a screen that you see when you log into your bank account or it is a number with a minus sign on your credit card account. A negative number in itself is a philosophical concept that only humans are capable of handling. More and more money nowadays is something in the bits and bites on a disk in a database in a server somewhere in a cloud. Miraculously humans have true trust that if they log into the bank account tomorrow then the number will be there. Even more wonderful is the fact that if you go and buy groceries at a self-service grocery store then you just take the shop owners things and the numbers on your account are changed. The shop owner is even happy than he traded his real milk, bread, meat and eggs to a virtual number in a database. :-)<br />
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The financial sector, central banks, Bitcoin miners and stock markets have done even more interesting things - they have built multiple fairytale layers on the fairytale of Money. Think how far from the real physical world is a fond of currency futures. :-)<br />
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I am not advocating against it. I think it is all very interesting and wonderful. :-)Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-67409506432464429662016-05-24T07:47:00.001+03:002016-05-24T07:47:13.561+03:00How much does creating an ICT service cost?<p dir="ltr">I have now been working with ICT service creation and development for over 10 years. I have been doing this in different telecom operators, in startups and IT companies. Here is my advice to investors and teams on how much money and time you should reserve for starting a new service creation project. I have seen too many times that you get into a new development with big enthusiasm and too little resources and the whole thing dies halfway through the MVP creation.</p>
<p dir="ltr">A service is usually a technology provided by a vendor or open-source community that you then develop into a form suitable for your customers. It consists of:<br>
- "Backend technology" provided by a vendor or open-source community. (In many cases the vendors claim that their technology needs just "a little design and translations" for launching to the customers....well, it never is so.)<br>
- A user interface, web-page, mobile-app that your customers will use and that you usually need to develop yourself.<br>
- All the processes and systems around it. Like buying, billing and service support.</p>
<p dir="ltr">It usually makes sense to first test the market traction of a new service by creating a MVP (Minimal Viable Product). To see if your potential customers are really interested in such a service or you and your colleagues just think it would be a cool and useful thing. There is actually a nice rule of thumb for how "Minimal" your MVP should be - "If you are later not embarassed with your first MVP, then you launched it too late". So how does this embarassingly minimal service cost? Is it possible to make it in a weekend hackathlon. Well....unfortunately not. :-(</p>
<p dir="ltr">If you have a clear definition of what do you want to launch as your MVP (and yes there are methods on how to reach that definition) then it takes:<br>
- at least 3-5 persons fulltime for a year<br>
- at least 0,5 MEUR investment<br>
to launch a proper working MVP.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Yes, that is quite a risk and a huge investment, but if you are an investor or looking for an investment then it makes sense to calculate with these sums...and that is for the MVP. Then you need at least twice as much to make it into a proper product.</p>
<p dir="ltr">There are ways to minimize that risk and move in smaller steps:<br>
- Make a fake prototype and interview and pilot with friendly customers with that.<br>
- Have less people and smaller investments, but do it slower.<br>
- Co-creation with customers - where you work very closely with some (business) customers and create the service with them. This method has its downsides like longer creation time and a big influence by one customer who might not represent the whole market segment, but it is a viable option.</p>
Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-59663812805115478962016-05-09T23:43:00.001+03:002016-05-09T23:43:54.929+03:00How to make a country prosper<p dir="ltr">Many nations in Europe are struggling with the economic growth and are wondering how to get the economy growing again. A tough challenge? I don´t think so. <br>
I have lived, worked and done business in different countries and I think it actually is just doing the obvious right things that will get you there:<br>
- <b>It is getting all the small things to work and be as effective as possible.</b> This means the public sector, eg. tax department, but also the private. For example in Estonia a bank account costs something like 2 eur/month for a company whereas in Finland it costs 50 eur/month. It seems a small issue, but it is one among many. In Estonia it takes 5min to register a company, in Finland you have to print and send an application on paper.<br>
- <b>It is looking at the big picture and not only optimizing the current budget.</b> The government should not just look at the current budget (like in Estonia), but take care also of the term development, like education or solving the declining demographics, HIV, drug or alcohol problems.<br>
- <b>Eliminate the known real bad phenomena</b> like corruption, arguing with your neighbours, oligarchy, giant firms and economic sectors living off the general population - banks charging ridiculous transaction fees, monopoly-utilities, pension funds charging too high management fees etc.<br>
- <b>Eliminate the obvious waste</b>. People living in suburbs and driving 1+ hours to work and back instead of living close to their work and biking or teleworking.....or companies producing something that is only profitable due to government subsidies (agriculture in EU) or usage of free resources (producing oil from oilshale in Estonia)</p>
<p dir="ltr">So making an economy and a country prosper is not rocket science and it does not demand top of the noch innovation. Just do the right and obvious things properly and prosperity comes to you....because startups will start and intelligent people will come and start working.</p>
Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-27828952157634840412016-04-19T22:54:00.001+03:002016-04-19T22:54:01.754+03:00Magical communication experiences<p dir="ltr">Have you noticed there are a lot of weird phenomenons enabled by communication technologies that we accept as normal:</p>
<p dir="ltr">- People walking on the streets and talking to themselves is absolutely OK. We know that they are using their handsfree, but it looks kind of funny, doesn´t it? <br>
- People chatting with customer-service bots....that are essentially robots that learn, is just fine. Sometimes we even don´t know that they are robots. There goes the Turing test. <br>
- Having a videocall with a latvian in Norway while being an estonian in Sweden is just everyday ordinary work. Nothing special in that at all. We actually do expect that to be almost free of charge.<br>
- Sitting on a train no-one reads books anymore, but many are doing work - chatting with colleagues, setting up meetings and writing e-mail.....a bit makes you wonder that why are they travelling to work anyway.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Are people already having video-parties? I mean drinking beer in different cities, towns or well...houses and having a Skype or Hangouts connection open.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><a href="http://www.ucexpo.co.uk">This post is inspired by the UC EXPO where most of the best unified communication providers are demonstrating their newest and finest solutions.</a></i></p>
Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-618829662931829322.post-30940007101950202362016-03-28T16:33:00.000+03:002016-03-28T16:33:08.830+03:00Magical shopping experience<b>We live in a time when magic is possible for everybody. Here is one magical thing you should try out.</b><br />
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Go to a supermarket that offers self service buying: like <a href="https://www.selver.ee/selveekspress">Selveekspress</a> or <a href="https://www.coop.ee/coop-eesti-votab-kasutusele-nutikassad/">Coop self-service</a>. Buy the groceries you need and try to do it without talking to anybody. Afterwards reflect what happened.<br />
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Here is how I would explain what happened. You walked into a place of abundance, took whatever you wanted and walked home. You only had to beep a "magic card". It was pretty much like living in a garden of Eden....but way better, because in Eden there was only food on offer.<br />
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What is even more amazing is that many people, actually most of the people working in offices get power to their "magic cards" by....talking, writing and drawing. Not lifting heavy stones or digging ground, but sending e-mails and doing Powerpoint presentations.<br />
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Isn't life great and magical! :-)<br />
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<br />Märt Ridalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09530854231875322364noreply@blogger.com0