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!

Is there life after a wonderful golf summer?

I've been on a four-month break from writing blogs.  I nearly started to write a golf blog during the summer, but  now, however, I was able to control myself and I focused on offlline- life; just playing golf without analyzing it's outcomes.

Did I miss writing blogs? The answer is yes and no. I think, it would have been nice to every now and then to share my golf experiences with fellow golfers. But on the other hand, it was also quite wonderful to be offline as much as possible during this lovely summer.

Golf is so dangerous game. It has totally hooked me during the last three years. It's the yin and yan in the same packet. It's both social and personal game at the same time. One shot  is just as valuable whether it is 20 cm or 200 meters. The body and mind... I'm still learning the basics. I look very carefully, how  expert golfers find  the right driving  position, reducing the outside world  focusing minds before making the perfect hit. That is a skill and an art!

During this summer, I went to play golf in Peuramaa, Vierumäki, Kotojärvi, Virvik,  Porvoo, Kulloo and Vuosaari. The most beautiful golf course was in Kulloo 4 green. The most difficult golf course is the Vuosaari links course. Playing there keeps up my mind humble. Vuosaari is my home course and I both hate and love it. I cannot wait until  the next summer, when I'll struggle with myself trying to beat the Vuosaari golf course again. It's going to be fun. 

I asked in the title: is there life after a wonderful golf summer? The answer is yes, there is "waiting life to get play golf again". The first waiting period ends in November, when I'm going on ProJenni's golf course in Torrevieja, Spain. After that follows the second period of waiting  to play golf in San Francisco. This SF's golf play will be during of this dark and snowy winter here in Finland. Yes, there is life outside golf courses, you know like social media kind of stuff, but if I were forced to choose either a golf or social media. There is only one right answer for me and that is GOLF. As long as my legs carry on me, I rather play golf instead of looking at the screen.

A Green Social Media Vision by 2017 - finally “think global act local”

This blog got it roots from another blog that I just read on "information work" in which the writer was concerned about our brains and also this current open office working culture with constantly disruptive colleagues.

Every morning when I drive from Helsinki to Lahti to work, I wonder how patiently hundreds of cars on the motorway are queuing to work towards the center of Helsinki and the metropolitan area. At the same time another four highways are blocked also, when everyone of these information workers, I assume, are driving towards their offices. In the late afternoon these same people are queuing out of their offices heading back to their homes. This same phenomenon happens in all countries all over the world in the mornings and late afternoons. I wonder why this happens, if the most of them are so called information workers.


I have following questions for the information workers now in April 2011:

- do you work side by side in an open office where you are trying to work in peace and hope that other coworkers don’t disturb you,

- could you work at home with Web- connections instead of traveling to work everyday,

- how much do you have face-to-face meetings with your coworkers; 20 %, 40 %, 60% or 80% of your working hours and

- if you have collaborative online working facilities (e.g. video conferences, social media- tools like shared documents, chat and group discussion tools), how much do you use them instead of face-to-face- meetings?

I also wonder, why I drive 100 kilometers twice a day to work in an office with people whom I know very well from seven common years. Nowadays I wonder even more, why 80 % of the working hours I work in face-to-face meetings, where people are doing something else like reading and answering their emails, accepting the bills and surfing on the Web, these were not included in the meeting’s agenda. Why are we coming together to the face-to-face meetings to look at laptops instead of each others, which was previously the practice at face- to-face meetings. Is this something that happens just in my workplace here in Finland or this a global phenomenon?


Let’s be patient, the future will be much better, because we have the green social media vision by 2017:

- we have understood that information work does not happen in offices between 8-16 or 9-17,

- we use our collaborative online working facilities including all social media tools more effectively,

- we have created well functioning online-offline working cultures where also The Net Generation feels comfortable working with us and

- we have also understood that we are saving the environment, when we stop this unnecessary traveling after information work between organisations and also homes and offices.

Social media's opportunities to improve management and leadership

This blog post got its roots from three of my latest work related social media (SOME) experiences: 1) quality management work with WIKI, 2) online news Salpaus Monday Morning News and 2) using online video conference instead of face-to-face- meeting.


Social media to improve quality management
Social media tools require users to familiarize themselves with the tool itself, for example WIKI online group work. Online group work will be initiated, to be aware of participating in the common goal of working as a concrete example, the output document, whose structure and content must be a certain shape. Participants should be aware of the milestones, schedules and division of tasks between the different roles of the experts working together. This requires a collective agreement or rules of the game to work online. In addition, a further commitment to the work of the participants and the promoter patience to guide the work toward a common goal. So far, we have used in our organization a WIKI environment, only a description of the quality of processing. WIKI would be a great social media tool for quality management systems to improve staff's increasing participation to quality assurance work. This could ensure that the entire organization's quality management systems are going be more transparent, which will improve the organization's quality improvement generally.

Organization's video online news
Somehow it seems so much easier to communicate by talking face-to-face, when there is non-verbal communication aid. Face-to-face- communication on the other hand, does not leave traces, unless the conversation is being recorded or videoed, as we have begun to make in Salpaus Monday Morning News. I was a guest for Salpaus Morning News on 21st February 2011. At the same time, it was my first experience of how the video recording and chat option can be combined with each other. Was it a social media event? Yes it was, as it was via video in real time online to connect with about 30 different people. One of them sent a question through the news studio to chat about the issue, which took place in real time debate. This face to face- event moved to the online event and started to live its own story about the various SOME communities (Facebook, Twitter and blogs). It was a great experience on how we could use more videos and chat opportunities for organization’s inside and outside communication.


Online meetings
My recent experience of the use of social media as part of leadership took place in last week, when we held our management team’s meeting by using online video conference. Management team's meetings usually last two and a half hours. Video conference meeting lasted just over an hour. Some time of the begin of the meeting went to the equipment testing. Participants' first experiences were positive. Discussion progressed to the point and so-called useless discussions and too deeply reflections avoided. Video conferences are therefore a very active tool for using as part of management and/or leadership. We could use more videos as part of management/leadership and combine face-to-face- meetings and online- working with social media- tools more efficiency together.


My meaningful SOME- learning experiences
First of all, while using social media, the techniques of the tools have to be studied and tested carefully before using them. We have to give us time to learn how SOME- tools are working as part of leadership and management. Let's be patient and forgive us failures that we make in the begin while using social media- tools and social media give us great learning and renewing opportunities while acting/working online.

To be online - to be offline? That’s my social media question

In my last blog I wrote a wish to Santa Claus to bring me a new social media (SOME) tool with high speed connection. I’m not sure anymore if it is a good idea to have just one SOME- tool because the presence in several SOME- communities is the key issue especially if you are selling or marketing something. A social media consultant Jay Baer says in his blog that social media “ is much more about the social than it is about the media” and although we are social we have “our powerful, inescapable, unavoidable need to not be alone”. How many SOME- communities should I take part in, how active should I be in there, and how can I know how much is enough to be online for me? I still struggle with these kind of questions, while I’m planning my personal social media online-offline strategy because I also have a strong need to be alone.


In the attached picture I’m having a Skype phone with my daughter Sanna to San Francisco. Three months ago in August 2010, I used Facebook and Skype for my private online social networking. After that I’ve taught myself to use over 15 social media tools. I’ve learnt that Facebook has much more opportunities than just being a connection tool with my friends and family. While I’ve used these SOME- tools, I’ve realised that the key question is not in the use of SOME- tools. Instead, the question is, how to participate in the SOME- communities, that these SOME- tools give me an opportunity.

I’ve started consciously changing my own leadership action model to be more based online working culture and therefore my management team also has to change their working culture. I’m a lucky person because my management team is so innovative and they want to try this new online working culture together with me. I’ve created many private and public discussion groups on Yammer for our management team and also for other personnel in our college. We’ve also started using WIKI for sharing documents, which is a huge change from our previous working culture.

Now in the begin of December 2010 I see both challenges and opportunities in the use of social media as part of leadership. The greatest challenge is, how can we change an organisation’s culture that only has one “leadership tool”, face to face- meetings. Everyday I hear how people are tired of these meetings. But are people ready to renew their working models by using SOME- tools that give an opportunity to work together and share your experiences online with each others. I understand that a change to an online-offline working culture happens step by step. The first step is to do social media rules for our management team and also for the whole college to avoid conflicts in this new online-offline working culture.

While I’m digging more deeply into the world of social media, my knowledge has spread from my own Facebook- family and friends community to see more opportunities than disadvantages in the whole social media issue. Online working contributes paperless office and also green business generally. The new generation, our current students, they were born to a social media society and they are here now and we should learn how to communicate and work together with them online-offline.

The future is clear, I can’t stay out of SOME- communities, they are meaningful to me and to my work. Now I’m just looking how to find a balance between online-offline work. Social media is becoming more and more as a part of my life. Is it coming to change my identity or even my personality? I’m quite sure that SOME online working is going to change my thinking and my working models. So it’s quite sure SOME will also changes my personality to a better direction, I hope, ;).

A Social Media Tool With High Speed Web Connections

I’ve used computers/IT- technology as part of my life and work the past 20 years. In the beginning the greatest change was when the computer screen view changed from the dark mysterious DOS- world to WINDOWS- world. After that change, it was so nice to know, where I was and what I was doing with e- tools. After that work has changed from paper office to e-office, where I use eight different kinds of software everyday in my work.


During the last three years I’ve created for myself profiles/accounts to over ten social media tools (Skype, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SlideShare, YouTube, NING, Second Life, WIKI, Google- tools; Blogger & docs and two Moodle- learning platforms). When I count together all my e-tools, the number is near twenty that I use almost everyday. I have a dream that in the future I have one e-tool, which I use for online calls, video conferences, chats, messages, documents’ pictures’, videos’ sharing and so on for the other purposes, that we don’t even know about yet.

Nowadays, while I’m using e-tools via my laptop I almost feel how a relationship with me and my laptop works. Our relationship has almost human features. When I open my laptop, I’m a little worried if it will connect to the Internet. If there are difficulties to get connected, I can feel how my laptop suffers and I wonder if I can help it. It’s like a human who can’t get air to breath. What to do with a laptop that is not connected to others via Internet?

My new laptop is now two weeks old. In the very begin my laptop had a lot of “newborn’s problems” and I needed advices from our Helpdesk. It was a strange feeling when a person from HelpDesk gave long distance help for my laptop. I followed on my screen, how she digitally touched my mouse and made some “clicks, clicks, clicks” and cured my laptop to work again. While doing this digital cure operation I discussed with her on the phone. I was so relieved to get my laptop baby back from digital doctor and my social media studies were able to continue again.

Now, Christmas is coming in one month, it’s time to make wishes to Santa Claus. I have two wishes. Dear Santa Claus, please bring me a social media tool with all kinds of features I described before and, if it’s Brand is NOKIA-SOME , we Finns are more than happy for that. The second wish is, please acquire me a Web connection, that always works on my laptop and that gives me Internet connections and also allows me to go to our organisation’s intranet, where ever I am.