The technological drive behind cultural change

I had an interesting conversation with a random colleague about foreigners working in Finnish companies in the past. They are ex-Nokia (like many in this company) and was saying how working in English has helped their career enormously. But, there is far more to it than that in my opinion, as it has helped many in their careers and has actually been part of the driving force of innovation and the ability for companies to go international with their products.

Nokia is one of the success stories of the Finnish tech industry, but it is also one of the examples of how centralization can stifle innovation and reduce the willingness to take risks. The company is still generating 26 billion in revenue a year (mostly from its Networks side), so it isn't like it has disappeared, but considering where it was, it has changed markedly over the last 15 years, especially on the phone side of the equation. However, through the "collapse" of Nokia, a whole new breed of Finnish startups were able to have space and flourish, the company I work for being one of them.

The locations Nokia used to inhabit are now filled to overflowing with tech businesses in various stages of their lifecycle, which has absorbed all of the ex-Nokia workers. But more than this, it has opened spaces for other employees too, as for example, rather than one CEO, there are 100, instead of a finance department, there are 100 finance departments and instead of 5000 coders, there are 50,000 coders.

While these figures are just to illustrate what has happened, the thing with decentralizing businesses and fragmenting them is that more overlapping positions are created across them all. Not only this, as startups, they are far less efficient in many ways as they are unoptimized, as well as those that grow will add people, whilst large organizations tend to maintain their structure or reduce their headcount as they are better able to predict demand and lean processes.

But, going back to the learning of English for a moment, what this allowed was not only the development of language skills, but also the development of cultural habits and gateways out of the country, either through relationships or skill growth. This has meant that the Finnish-based startups were further along the internationalization path than previously, with people taking new positions who were already seasoned professionals with international experience. This allowed for the startups to build informed structure much faster, and it meant that the companies were able to build international offices using a blend of Finnish and local resources very quickly and with far less localization problems.

It is quite interesting to think that when I first came here, I was still getting the, "you come and steal our jobs (and women)" comments from time to time, when in actual fact, more jobs have been created and supported because of it. A country is very much a centralized entity and it is only until the centralization is chipped away at, that new potential can enter and possibility turn into reality.

This chipping away also means that of culture to some degree and because of this, a lot of people see it as a negative, even though cultural flux is a norm, even when a population is largely homogeneous. It doesn't mean that it is a comfortable process, nor that it isn't without ongoing challenges, but I think that overall, there are far more positives than negatives to the decentralization of communities of all kinds, where people group based on interests and abilities, rather than something like nationality.

Moving on from here, the growing shift into the decentralization of digital communities and businesses means that the cultures that are more capable of adapting into the change, are going to likely be among the first to adopt early and build valuable collateral to support the various networks. I think that in many ways, Finland is very well technologically poised to be part of the early processes, but what holds it back is the will to follow the legislation, rather than pushing the boundaries. What I mean by this is that many still think that the government has their best interest at heart and are the most skilled to make the decisions for everyone, which has led to a culture where many are deferring and not making significant decisions for themselves.

A lot of people rely on local stability to feel safe, which is natural, but when it gets applied to everything, people become more unable to deal with change, as change threatens their safety. This is a dangerous position, as change is of course inevitable, so if a stable culture is required for quality of life, there is going to be a life of continual suffering, as disruption happens.

Technological disruption has completely changed culture as we know it and it has affected everything, from the music we listen to, to the sports we play. What used to be "local" has been under threat from internationalization for decades, as consumer preferences have been opened up to a global menu, and people have tried and liked new things.

Blockchains and crypto is going to be an extension of this, as while the businesses have been able to expand globally using our growing skills, they will allow our skills to participate economically as more than a consumer. The disruption to technology is going to drive another change in culture, one where there can be far more economic collaboration across enduser groups, not just business to business and business to consumer. This means that peer to peer business ramps up and as a result, we will have more ability to take our local skills to the global level, without having to filter it through the interfaces of centralization.

We are already accustomed to the processes involved, it is just that the economics and financials of it have been hidden away from us, as they are only feeding the centralized owners. Once we are individual owners with personal as well as collaborative value to offer and that can be tracked, all of the skills that we have become value-adding activity that can both attract and disperse value, depending on how we use it.

This means that the cultural structures we value today are likely going to change, whether we like it or not, but there are opportunities for all of us to learn, use and thrive in a messy, non-optimized and highly dynamic environment, while still holding onto many of the things we value, through decentralized groups of people, who value them too.

The interesting thing is that while people argue about what culture is and the rights and wrongs of centralized decisions, we are building platforms and technologies that will allow us to literally create our own cultures and empower them economically. While disruptive at the digital level, it is fundamentally going to change our lives as we know them as today. Since anyone will be able to build or find a home though, it really could be for everyone.

All advancement, leaves something behind. Every innovation replaces something.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]