The Feelings Games: Golf & Yoga & Meditation

It's been a while since I wrote my last blog to Katri's meaningful experiences. During the year 2012, I've written three other blogs in Finnish: 1) work related blog, 2) my personal blog and 3) golf related blog. The golf blog has a connection with the book which I wrote together with ProJenni. The golf book has a title "GOLF- Feelings game" (GOLF- Tunnepeli). The book is a dialog between an expert golfer ProJenni (hcp 0) and a novice golfer me (hcp 33.5). The writing process has been a great experience. We used many social media tools (Skype, Google docs, LinkedIn and Facebook groups) for sharing our thinking. It is quite certain that the book would not be completed in a year without social media tools.

I have since 2007 used dozens of social media tools. Today, I find that my new acquaintances I've met them online first and only later get to know them in person face to face. I've found that I can no longer distinguish between whether the discussion took place face to face or online. And it does not matter at all. It is essential that communication works, and things should be done. Social media has become part of my daily life and also to my management of work.

So, as well as golf and social media are both a major part of my life. Alongside these, since last summer I have practiced yoga and meditation. I must say that I am totally hooked. Yoga stretching and slow movements will increase body strength and balance. Mediation exercises are relaxing and clears the mind.

Emotions are part of the learning of new skills. Through feelings I get feedback on what I'm doing. On the other hand controlling my emotions, I can also control the action on the desired direction. In particular, this last one is the one that all golfers would like to know how to do in order to succeed in a better game performance.


The adjacent picture I do yoga practice, whose name is a clown. I did one month of regular exercises until I learned to balance my body on the head and hands. I think, the key issue of the learning   process of clown, was my learning to trust myself. The sense of trust can also called self-confidence.


As a golfer I have to constantly look for mind-body connection in order to be successful in game. I've found that yoga and meditation has helped me to improve my body and mind connection. So I highly recommend them to the readers of this blog.

I wish Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2013 to all my blog readers!

From Social Intranet to Design Thinking

In my last blog I sketched a framework for the perfect social intranet solution. I belive that organizations that improve their internal online working culture by sharing knowledge and experiences with co-workers are going to be the winners in the future. Sharing information including experiences makes the organization culture more open.

An open organization culture is a great opportunity to increase effectiveness, but it's also an opportunity to change working culture more creative. The creativity is needed in renewing processess to find new innovative solutions in this continuously chancing world. The creative working culture is based on open leadership and positive thinking, both of which are starting points for collaboration. The positive thinking makes us happy and that is needed both in private and working life. We also need design thinking in creative working organizations. There are great examples within educators who have used design thinking to improve their school organizations. 


What is Design Thinking?

Firstly, design thinking is a mindset with the following features of working culture: 1) human-centered, 2) collaborative, 3) experimental and 4) optimistic. Design thinking mindset needs also a design process that puts design thinking into action. The design process has five phases: 1) discovery (I have a challenge. How do I approach it?), 2) interpretation (I learnt something. How do I interpret it?), 3) ideation (I see an opportunity. What do I create?), 4) experimentation (I have an idea. How do I build it?) and 5) evolution (I tried something new. How do I evolve it?).

Design thinking process sounds simple as a mindset and a process. Is there really anything new? I'm sure there aren't any new aspects for artists in different fields. But, I'm also quite sure, that there are many learning opportunities for the service sector (e.g. education, social and heath care, hotel, catering and tourism), that could find and develope new solutions to be more proactive organizations.