antti.vilpponen.net

For those whom it is of interest of - this year’s TED conference is on. More here.

Today I realised my dust bag was full in my vacuum cleaner (or actually had been quite some time, but let’s not get into that). Since it was an old vacuum cleaner, I doubted anyone made the dust bags for it anymore. I did a simple Google query in Finnish and came up with Findust.com.

Findust.com is a simple website where you can order dust bags on a per bag basis or through a subscription model. I took the sample order of one bag for 0,99€ incl. delivery. Not bad. Businesses exactly in these sort of product categories should really reap into the subscription based ordering. I’d order my toothbrush from a website and get it delivered to me every 3 months. It’s one of those things you always realise you should have renewed some time ago already.

I’m sure there are other better examples as well, but I thought I’d share this with you. I really found it quite interesting that a Finnish company had ventured into this business. Then again, I believe the whole entrepreneurial scene is slowly changing, even in Finland :)

Last night I talked with a guy who had driven one of the saddle sore rides with the Iron Butt Association of Finland. Today I decided to dig in a little bit more to these rides. I had heard of them earlier and even thought about riding one of them. However, after watching these two videos - I’m pretty sure I will have to challenge myself to the SS1000 ride next summer. Mad fun!

I wrote about Kiva in December on Arctic Startup, my blog co-written with Miikka and Tomi. Kiva is a non-profit organisation which helps people people in need of financing connect with those who are able and willing to lend some money. The problem with entrepreneurs and developing countries is that they are too risky and small for bigger finance organisations to operate in. Furthermore, Kiva is a relief to those who need a microloan to expand the business a little without too much bureaucracy.

Today I decided it was time try it out so I registered and lent 25 USD to Carlos Yakisich in Paraguay. The attributes that affected my decision was of course the entrepreneur itself and the organisation who works on the local level in Paraguay. Fundación Paraguaya has a default rate of 0 on their loans, which is always good.

If you’re interested in helping out entrepreneurs, please sign up and lend some money.

I wrote an article on social media to HETKY’s (Helsingin tietojenkäsittely-yhdistys) magazine. The article in itself is quite light and doesn’t dig that much into the possibilities, but shines light on some possibilities and ways how companies have used internet in creating competitive advantage. The image is available in real size scan over here.

“A fundamentalist is a person, who considers whether a fact is acceptable to their faith, before they explore it - as opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not they want to accept the ratifications.”

By one of my favorite authors, Seth Godin.

Here it is, the 90 minute keynote in 60 seconds. Enjoy.

“EMI, the big music company, spends 25 million pounds a year ‘to scrap unsold CDs’ ” - Financial Times. (via Marc Andreessen)

The image above is a great example how to communicate to your customers when you have to ask the customer to do something that’s not in their interest. You position the message so that it’s actually a compliment instead of apologising for the task. Don’t concentrate on yourself and what you’re doing - focus on the customer, they’re giving you their attention. Give something back to them.

The message is from twitter, when they were going through my Gmail contacts whether any of them had an account with twitter.

Mikseri.net, a very succesful Finnish website to promote new artists and unknown talents has sprung many amateurs into the music industry in a way they could have only dreamt of. See it as the open source “Idols“. However, there’s something very wrong with the site and their logic how they function. They don’t promote CC-licensing at all.

Artists should naturally have a chance to license their music through CC-licenses and thus help spread the music. At the moment the only alternative (after a little detective work) for artists to license their music is the regular copyright law. If you try to grow your business and help the artists, let the music play! I mean they’re already doing it with embeddable music players. Where’s the logic in that?

Mikseri.net - you guys should meet Creative Commons and truly blow your business. You’re artificially limiting your business, because you’re stuck to the old ways of doing things. Innovate, live long and prosper!