Million, billion, aren't they the same?

Lately I've been an angry citizen and tax payer. My anger originates from the local politics: Helsinki city board of health affairs were supposed to make a first go/no-go decision for a huge IT project about patient data management system. The decisions made in this particular project potentially effect on the whole country, and the costs of the nation-wide project were estimated to be 1,2 to 1,8 billion euros. In the Finnish economy scale that's a huge project. And one bittersweet detail in this fuzz is our dear neighbor country Estonia, who was able to create their patient data management system with 10 million euros. Well, at the moment the project is on hold, thanks to active discussion in social media.

     Now that's what I call a data management system

It's quite easy to mix millions and billions. I know that the limits of my understanding go somewhere close to 1 billion: I can understand the scale of 1 million. I'm able to understand that 100 million is huge amount of money - that's a scale of a big construction project. As an engineer I'm able to count up to 200 million, 300 million, 500 million and all the way up to 999 million - I understand that the next round figure after 999 million is 1 billion, but I'm struggling to understand the true scale of 1 billion. I just understand it's a hell of a lot money. And I hope the decision makers understand that too.

Let's try to build some perspective to this 1,2 to 1,8 billion. GDP in Finland is about 180 billion. So the estimate of the patient data system project is 1% of the GDP. That's insane. Industry sectors should be measured as "percentages of GDP", not IT projects. Take mining industry as an example. In 2010 the mining industry in Finland was about 750 million euros. In other words, this IT project is twice the size of our mining industry. The project is about the same size as the water and waste management sector in Finland. Really, IT projects are not supposed to be that big.

In 1990's, during the great Finnish recession the GDP dropped 13%. I'm happy that we haven't faced that kind of a drop ever since, but it's clear without saying that also the standards of economy have changed since the 1990's. Nowadays zero-growth in GDP is a concerning news. Decline of 1% in GDP breaks the news for sure, and then they'd be screaming about depression for sure. So practically this IT project could push the Finnish economy into recession, right?

We'll, it's easy to nag about the price tag without offering any kind of reference. I'm not an expert of massive data management systems, but my gut feeling says that with 50 million a nation size of Finland should be able to get a decent patient data management system.

The art of wearing hat

The baby princess Estelle of Sweden had her christening yesterday. Because of the close neighbor relationship, the president of Finland usually has the front row seats for the official family events organized by the Swedish royal family. Tarja Halonen was sitting on the front row in the wedding ceremony of Victoria and Daniel, and yesterday Sauli Niinistö and Jenni Haukio were having a close look at the baby princess as she was dipped into holy water of Öland.

Yesterday all of the royal ladies and majority of the other lady guests wore a hat or a fascinator of some sort. Jenni Haukio didn’t - even though it would have suited her well. And she has even been spotted with fascinator earlier, in her first official visit to Sweden (image below). But I guess that’s the difference between us republicans and the monarchists: If you invite a representative of a monarchy into a big fancy daytime event (as you probably often do), she will naturally wear a hat or fascinator, while her republican sister will most likely have no head-wear what so ever. As a statement.

Anyway, the hat industry must be very grateful to the monarchs of the world. If there were no monarchies, the only hatters to survive would be the cap-makers. Because that’s what we, citizens of a republic state, love to wear.

Talk to my hand? Talking with my hands?

Typically Finnish people are communicating in quite minimalistic way. The sound of our language is monotonic, there are practically no variations in the pitching. The stress is almost always on the first syllable, which probably makes Finnish sound like a bit angry language. I believe the static tone and stiff rhythm of our native language reflects to our non-verbal communication as well: We don't talk with our hands like Italian. We don't make as rich gestures as Spanish while talking. We don't have a culture of debating like in US, so using tone of voice and little nuances in strategic way is nowhere near to our backbone.

Where should I put my hands? I'm pretty sure that is the question that has been going around in the presidential candidates' mind - even though they are trained and experienced in this field. In my opinion Haavisto is more fluent in his communication. He also uses his hands more when he speaks. On the other hand (pun intended), it's also easier to see from Haavisto's gestures if he's nervous or tense. Niinistö is using more facial expressions when he speaks. In a live appearance Niinistö is usually bit stiffer and quite traditional with his body language, including hands.

Both of the campaign teams have clearly thought through the hand issue in the campaign posters. I think neither of the candidates are exactly hitting the nail, but not failing miserably either. In this case Haavisto takes the safe, traditional and a bit boring approach. I appreciate Niinistö's attempt on doing something different, despite the slightly artificial end result. But I'm very, very happy that the candidates do not fall on the classic cliches: hanging your jacket on the shoulder or touching your chin - thank you!

Breaking the taboo

Alea iacta est - I gave my vote yesterday. Initially I was open for voting for almost any of the candidates, and that's why candidates' behavior during the campaign really mattered to me. I had my eye on five criterion: values, view on foreign politics, campaign attitude, self-perception and communication skills.

I mapped the candidates and the criterion based on the impression I have gotten during the campaign. I didn't judge the communication skills separately, because communication skills are striking through in the other four categories: if I have formed wrong impression or if I haven't been able to form any impression at all, then it's her/his lost in the communication.

"Who do you vote for" is some sort of a taboo in Finnish culture. But in the presidential election 2012 quite many have broken the taboo and expressed openly who they vote for. I believe some people have broken the silence because it's their way of fighting back to True Finns' success in the last parliament election. I'm sure some have broken the taboo just because it's so easy with Facebook and all. And for sure it's easier to be open since this is an election of a person, not that much of a party.

So I'm coming out of the closet too: based on my engineer-like Excel approach I voted for Pekka Haavisto. His values are ok for me. He's the only candidate who's view on foreign politics I'm able to a) understand and b) support. Haavisto is also the only one of the candidates who has been present on those arenas I'm following; I'm an internet consumer in my thirties. You can't win my vote by hanging around on the market square serving pea soup and giving out brochures. You can win my vote by being smart and active in both social and more conventional media. To summarize, he has earned my vote.

What are they running for?

In January we'll have the first round of the presidential election. Nowadays the president doesn't really have too much of official powers - the president of Finland is nothing like the colleague in US and far from the president of France too. But due to the fact that the president exists, for example the role of the prime minister in Finland is not as big as in UK or in Germany. Jyrki-boy must be a bit annoyed.

There are many people who think we could simply dump the whole president thing. I don't know about that... I think it's kind of good that we have someone who can be thrown into any opening ceremony, A-list cultural event or sports game VIP stand. That way the real politicians don't need to visit each and every ceremony, and they can concentrate on taking care of the nation's business. Well, at least in theory.

The president institution simply can't be as expensive as monarchy. In Sweden many would like Carl Gustav XVI to step aside and give the stage to Victoria, but it's impossible to predict when it's going to happen. In Finland you'll get rid of the president in 12 years, and the following person doesn't have to be an offspring of the previous one. 

Even though the candidates are nominated by political parties and have all been active politicians, the one who's elected to be the president will give up on the membership of the party. The president won't be involved in the topical issues of the daily politics either. Which kind of makes the idea of voting Timo Soini a bit attempting: if he was chosen to be the president, he could not participate the daily political debate and he'd need to give up the membership of the True Finns. And what would True Finns be without Timo Soini - doomed.

Well, even the official powers of the president are cut off into minimum, he's still sort of a leader what comes to values. And I don't want to see Timo Soini to lead this country into the direction of his values.