The images and realities of foreign top professionals in Finnish working and living environments

In the immediate future foreign labour will play an increasingly important role in the competitiveness of expertise-intensive firms and whole urban regions in Finland as has already happened in many other western countries in recent years. Due to high birth rates at the late 1940s and the early 1950s compared with almost half smaller birth rates in the early 1970s the number of retiring people will increase dramatically in relation to people entering the labour market. Labour shortage may be eased by educational reforms and by raising the age of retiring from the labour force, but one crucial part of the solution is foreign labour that should fill in the gap in the Finnish labour markets. At the moment labour shortage is visible in only some branches of the fastest growing industries and the slowing world economy fades the visibility of even these shortages. However, the fast growth of economy in previous years gave the first ideas about the attractiveness of Finland due to labour shortage mainly in the information technology related business. Professionals from around the world came to fill this rather strictly determined gap on skills. This study aims at a profound understanding of key issues in attracting and retaining foreign professionals in Finnish working and living environments. Although this study focuses on professionals in IT-industry, it shoul provide a wider picture of Finland and its industries abilities to attract labour force in immediate future. (project still running untill June 2002)

The new Finnish government could offer a natural ally for David Cameron

Following elections in April, the new Finnish government was finally appointed at the end of May. Tapio Raunio assesses the makeup of the new government, noting that its key difficulty is likely to be the implementation of economic reforms. He also writes that with the leader of the Eurosceptic Finns Party, Timo Soini, holding the portfolio for EU affairs, the government could offer a natural ally for David Cameron in his attempts to renegotiate the UK’s terms of membership

The European Parliament elections in Finland are unlikely to see a significant swing in support toward the Eurosceptic Finns Party

With Finland due to hold parliamentary elections in 2015, the European elections in May will be viewed as an indicator of where the major parties stand with the electorate. Tapio Raunio gives an overview of the campaign, noting that European Parliament (EP) elections in Finland are traditionally highly ‘candidate centred’ due to the use of open party lists. Nevertheless one of the main areas of interest in the campaign is the performance of the Eurosceptic ‘Finns Party’, who had a breakthrough in the last parliamentary elections in 2011. He writes that while the Finns Party are still holding firm in the polls, the fact that their charismatic leader, Timo Soini, is not standing for an EP seat leaves them without a much needed leading candidate in the election

Lean Startup –menetelmän käyttö laskeutusmissivun ja WebinarJam integraation toteuttamisessa – CASE: Opus Productions Oy

Opinnäytetyössä toteutettiin Opus Productions Oy:lle produktina ”laskeutumissivu” ja integraatio WebinarJam nimisen sovelluksen välillä. Laskeutumissivun kautta potentiaaliset Opus Productions Oy:n asiakkaat voivat rekisteröityä heidän järjestämilleen webinaareille ja samalla he pääsevät rekisteröityessään lataamaan yrityksen tuottaman, digitaalisen markkinoinnin kirjan. Työssä toteutettiin Lean Startup-menetelmää, joka on uudenlainen tapa toteuttaa yrityksien liiketoimintaa ja tuotekehitystä. Lean Startupissa toteutetaan ”rakennamittaa-opi” –sykliä, jossa ensin rakennetaan yrityksen haluama tuote, siten, että siitä tehdään mahdollisimman pienellä vaivalla tärkeimmät toiminnallisuudet sisältävä versio.Tätä versiota kutsutaan ”Minimum Viable Productiksi”. MVP on tuon syklin lopputulos, jonka toimivuutta on tarkoitus kokeilla oikeilla asiakkailla ja oikeilla markkinoilla. Näin tekemällä saadaan helposti tietoa siitä, toimiiko yrityksen tuote keskeisiltä toimintaperiaatteiltaan vai kannattaako se mieluummin hylätä, kuin lähteä tekemään sen parissa jatkokehitystä. MVP:ssä on aina tarkoitus tehdä mahdollisimman pienellä panostuksella tuote, näin saadaan tietoa heti siitä että onko tuotteelle kysyntään isompanakin versiona vai ei. Työssä esitellään muutamat eri MVP:t mitkä toteutettiin toimeksiantajalle testattavaksi. Niiden vertailu toteutettiin keskenään A/B testauksella markkinointikamppanjoissa. WebinarJam on työssä käytetty sovellus, jonka avulla voidaan toteuttaa webinaareja asiakkaille. Webinarjam on rakennettu täysin Google Hangouts –palvelun päälle ja vaatii googletilin toimiakseen. WebinarJam on hyvin yksinkertainen käyttää ja sen avulla voidaan olla yhteydessä webinaareihin osallistuviin asiakkaisiin jatkossa automaattisilla viesteillä.This thesis focused on building a “landing-page” and integrating it with and a web based software called “WebinarJam”. The product related part of the thesis was done using a Lean Startup-method, which is also covered in the theory part of this thesis. Lean Startup is a new innovative of way to do product or service development in companies. The core of Lean Startup is a “build-measure-learn” -loop and with it, the developer produces “Minimum Viable Product” as a result. This Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is, just like as its name says, the product which development did not take much time, but does have the viable parts working in terms of product development. This MVP is then used as a test in real market with real customers to see if it is any relevant or useful for customers. If it is not, then it is tossed away and development starts again, but if it is viable then the development continues with a new round of the loop. So it is very important to keep the MVP development as a fast as possible to make sure that team does not spend too much time developing product that nobody wants and can start testing a new MVP if the first one is not working like the team believed it would work. In this study there were couple of MVP’s developed for customer testing and they were showcased in this thesis report. The integration part with WebinarJam is considered important for this product. WebinarJam is software that runs on top of Google Hangouts videoconference service. It is like a little toolbox to add functionality to it. Using it one can host easily webinars for registered customers. Manage customers, give them deals, videos and message them, automatically or manually. There is also a comprehensive overview of that software provided in this paper. As a result in this thesis, customer got two working landing-pages with integration to WebinarJam and one site provided only for registered customers

Alexander Stubb’s transition to Finnish Prime Minister ensures Finland will have a pro-EU leader despite a Eurosceptic public

On 14 June, Alexander Stubb was selected as the new leader of Finland’s ruling National Coalition Party, ensuring that he will become the country’s next Prime Minister. Tapio Raunio writes on the impact the appointment will have ahead of the country’s 2015 parliamentary elections. He argues that Stubb’s pro-EU views and desire to take Finland into NATO will set the background for the upcoming election campaign, with the Eurosceptic Finns Party in particular likely to lead opposition to the government

The images and realities of foreign top professionals in Finnish working and living environments

In the immediate future foreign labour will play an increasingly important role in the competitiveness of expertise-intensive firms and whole urban regions in Finland as has already happened in many other western countries in recent years. Due to high birth rates at the late 1940s and the early 1950s compared with almost half smaller birth rates in the early 1970s the number of retiring people will increase dramatically in relation to people entering the labour market. Labour shortage may be eased by educational reforms and by raising the age of retiring from the labour force, but one crucial part of the solution is foreign labour that should fill in the gap in the Finnish labour markets. At the moment labour shortage is visible in only some branches of the fastest growing industries and the slowing world economy fades the visibility of even these shortages. However, the fast growth of economy in previous years gave the first ideas about the attractiveness of Finland due to labour shortage mainly in the information technology related business. Professionals from around the world came to fill this rather strictly determined gap on skills. This study aims at a profound understanding of key issues in attracting and retaining foreign professionals in Finnish working and living environments. Although this study focuses on professionals in IT-industry, it shoul provide a wider picture of Finland and its industries abilities to attract labour force in immediate future. (project still running untill June 2002

Finland’s 2015 parliamentary elections: a final look at the parties and the polling

Finland will hold parliamentary elections on 19 April. Tapio Raunio previews the vote, noting that the Centre Party, which lost power after suffering a dramatic drop in support in the 2011 elections, is set to regain its position as the largest party in the country. With Finland possessing a tradition of ideologically fragmented coalitions, however, the election remains all to play for with several smaller parties vying to enter the next government

Continuity in Finland as Sauli Niinistö is re-elected as President

On 28 January, Sauli Niinistö was re-elected as Finland's President in the first round of voting. Tapio Raunio explains that with voters clearly approving of Niinistö's track record in office, the other mainstream candidates found it extremely difficult to challenge him. The result means continuity for Finnish politics: Niinistö is not in favour of NATO membership, but supports the development of the EU’s security and defence policy, bilateral security policy cooperation with Sweden, and maintaining close ties with NATO

Destined for Irrelevance? Subsidiarity Control by National Parliaments

The Lisbon Treaty introduced the ‘early-warning mechanism’, with national legislatures assigned the right to monitor whether initiatives for EU laws comply with the principle of subsidiarity. Does the mechanism really empower national parliaments by giving them a collective veto in EU politics or will it remain largely unused by domestic MPs? This paper leans towards the latter interpretation, arguing that the whole mechanism was mainly introduced in response to legitimacy concerns. It is a rather harmless procedure, with only a marginal impact on the EU’s legislative process. The incentive structure simply works against individual MPs, political parties or parliaments making active use of this instrument. When placed in the larger context of the role performed by national parliaments in EU politics, the early-warning mechanism can be seen to reinforce the perception of domestic MPs acting as the ‘gatekeepers’ of European integration