Finnish engineers discover there is life after Nokia

TAMPERE - The decline of Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has encouraged a whole generation of local engineers to venture on a new and riskier path: that of entrepreneurship.

Housed on the top floor of a building located on the main avenue of the southern city of Tampere, the office of local start-up TreLab exudes ambition and optimism.

"We just sent our first five-figure invoices. It feels good!" 44-year-old chief executive Kimmo Saarela said.

This former Nokia employee joined four colleagues to create in December 2011 a start-up specializing in wireless measurement devices which can be used in sectors such as health care, logistics, and personal wellness and training.

"Even if I sometimes miss the comfort of a regular salary and the job security provided by Nokia, I feel freer here. One can make decisions quickly, without going through all the bureaucracy of a big firm," he said.

In the early 2000s, when Nokia reigned supreme in the global mobile phone market and contributed four percent to Finland's gross domestic product, the job security offered by the company had no match.

"When you were a Finnish engineer starting at Nokia, you knew you would leave Nokia only when retiring. Your future was clear," recalls Tommi Uhari, who left his management position to found Uros, a mobile wireless Internet provider for international travelers.

Everything changed when the financial crisis hit and Nokia fell behind in the smartphone race after Apple launched its first iPhone in 2007.

Trapped in a failure spiral, Nokia started to lay off white-collar staff and ended up agreeing in September to sell its mobile phone division to US giant Microsoft for 5.44 billion euro ($7.5 billion) in a move considered by local media as "the end of an era for Finland."

When it began to need to downsize a few years back, the firm launched an uncommon initiative named the Nokia Bridge program, through which it helped its former employees to create their own companies.

TreLab, the Tampere start-up, benefited from the program, which allowed former employees to leave the company with up to 20,000 euros ($27,573) each.

Some engineers, the founders of TreLab among them, even got the right to use certain technologies they had developed at Nokia without having to buy any expensive patents.

"Without this support, we probably wouldn't have been able to create our company," Saarela said.

'People are ready to take risks ... do what really excites them'

According to Nokia, more than 1,000 start-ups had access to the Nokia Bridge program, 400 of them in Finland.

The most famous one is Jolla, which has taken over Meego, a free mobile operating system abandoned by Nokia. The company is expected to launch its first mobile phone by the end of the year.

The start-up model does not suit everybody, though.

"Sure, there are a lot of engineers coming out of Nokia, with a long and brilliant career behind them. But very few know how to sell a product, which is a necessary skill when you're creating a start-up," said Tiina-Maria Siipola, president of the Association of Engineers of Oulu, a city in western Finland that was hit hard by Nokia's job cuts.

In Oulu, more than a third of all start-ups created in 2011 did not survive their first year.

Some nostalgics in Finland still dream of the arrival of a "new Nokia," a top world-class company that will boost Finnish pride again.

This is not a pipe dream. Finnish entrepreneurs have had an uncanny knack for turning from underdogs into greyhounds.

Take for example Rovio, whose Angry Birds games exploited the new touchscreen features of smartphones and tablets to launch itself to success.

Another example from the same industry: Supercell, which was founded only 2010 and recently sold 51 percent of its shares to Japanese investors for $1.5 billion.

Entrepreneur Tommi Uhari thinks it is better for Finland to stick with Davids rather than Goliaths, however.

"When Nokia was successful, it was very hard to hire talented employees, because they all worked there! Now it is much more interesting. People are ready to take risks, and to do what really excites them," Uhrari said.

source: interaksyon.com

Western Union pledges $220,000 for nationwide financial literacy campaign

MANILA – The philanthropic arm of Western Union and its agents Petnet and eBusiness Services last week helped launch a nationwide financial literacy campaign with a $220,000 pledge.

In a statement, Western Union Foundation said “Peso-sense” is meant to increase financial literacy by promoting productive expenditure, greater savings and entrepreneurship among recipients of remittances. The campaign, which started with the “Peso-Sense at Christmas” module, will target students, young adults, entrepreneurs, homemakers and retirees.

“Western Union’s consumers are ambitious and resourceful and their most important aspiration is to secure their financial future, increase their standard of living and improve their level of education,” said Western Union Foundation president Patrick Gaston.

“However, for too many, their dreams are delayed or out of reach. What they lack is the encouragement, training and tools to accelerate their aspirations through innovation and new ways of thinking. The Western Union Foundation’s mandate is about empowering people to reach their destination through education and knowledge. Our funding of Peso-Sense is about making the journey easy to inspire individual innovation and entrepreneurship,” he said.

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas will implement the campaign with assistance from the United Nations Development Programme.

 “Our overseas Filipinos deserve their financial freedom considering the blood, sweat and tears they have invested while working and living outside the country.  Collaborative initiatives between the government of the Philippines, corporate sector and inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations are crucial to helping them achieve their individual goals and we thank Western Union for initiating this multi-stakeholder campaign,” said Commission Secretary Imelda Nicolas.

According to research conducted by Ipsos and sponsored by Western Union, two-thirds of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who send money home were unsatisfied with how their beneficiaries spend the remittance, most of which ends up paying for food, education and debt. The study further showed that nine out of 10 respondents agreed that a financial literacy campaign would benefit them.

“Financial literacy is an essential component of access to inclusive financial services. It can assist in developing inclusive financial markets by empowering the poor to evaluate options and take responsibility for their financial decisions by choosing products and services best suited to their capacities and needs,” UNDP Philippines country director Toshihiro Tanaka said.

“Growth becomes inclusive when the poor participate in the growth process and share the benefits. With financial literacy, this participation in the growth process can become a reality as the poor develop their capacity to save and invest”, he said.

source: interaksyon.com

5 finance tips for SME owners, professionals & pork barrel

Balancing your money is the key to having enough. Elizabeth Warren

One of the often glossed-over weaknesses of small- and medium-scale enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs and professionals who are earning well or have good cash flow is accounting, or how to handle one’s money well.

I think more so in government, which has more lawyers than either accountants or engineers, basic accounting is the Achilles heel of many well-meaning or otherwise outstanding politicians. Is this one of the many possible reasons for the ongoing pork barrel mess of unaccounted funds and now very angry taxpayers? Of course, a deficit in moral values is a grave non-accounting deficiency of not a few of our politicos!

Many entrepreneurs, professionals and even political leaders mistakenly think that accounting is an esoteric, boring or alien subject, like most laymen would think of space science, thus allowing even the most basic accounting to be inefficiently handled.

I recommend that all entrepreneurs, professionals and anyone else handling money  especially our politicos, who handle billions in taxpayers’ funds  study simple, basic accounting for non-accountants, or else a lot of money will go to waste, turn business or professional profits into losses, and public funds into plundered funds.

By the way, Chief Prosecutors’ Association of the Philippines president and Manila City chief prosecutor Eduardo “Ed” Togonon and his group told me that “to demand for better financial transparency and fairness in allocation of all government pork barrel funds,” he is inviting all prosecutors nationwide to join the Aug. 26, 9 a.m. rally against the abuse of pork barrel funds in Rizal Park. The meeting place will be the Department of Justice (DOC) building. He said that 60 to 70 percent of all prosecutors nationwide have no decent Halls of Justice and their “repeated appeals for help from legislators and the Department of Budget have always been ignored.”


Here are five tips for small business owners, professionals and even politicos on how to better handle accounting  with input from Kirk Simpson of Wave Accounting in his Forbes magazine article:

1. Keep business and personal finances separate. Years ago when I started out as a real estate broker and was doing well, I focused so much on making record realty sales but often neglected basic accounting. There were even times when check payments to me had become stale in my wallet because I forgot or simply had no time to deposit. I also didn’t separate my personal and professional expenses, nor did I have financial analysis. There’s no need for an accountant or bookkeeper for us to do this.

Eventually, I hired a trusted person to be my bookkeeper and to go to banks, even when I was on my own as a realty broker and not in business then. Now as an SME realty entrepreneur, I have two hardworking and honest accountants among my office staff just handling all money matters, with me signing all the checks. My personal and business expenses are strictly separated, and I pay myself a salary as well out of my business although I own it 100 percent. I always keep separate bank and credit card accounts for business and personal expenses to minimize the work of my two accountants.

Many family-run small businesses and professionals, whether doctors or celebrities, and sadly, even politicians, do not have the self-discipline, system and staff to separate their business expenses from personal and family expenditures. How can we gauge or accurately measure our business or professional efficiency and productivity if our business and personal finances are mixed up?

If a business has investors or partners, lack of independent and separate accounting for the entrepreneur’s business and personal expenses will surely result in future conflicts, unnecessary misunderstandings and crisis. In government, politicians should also separate official and personal expenditures as a matter of honor.

In the case of the controversial Janet Napoles and her non-governmental organizations (NGOs), I think non-stock and non-profit foundations should also follow normal accounting procedures in order to be credible and financially viable, and strictly separate organizational expenditures from personal and family expenses. Is there not a government agency or an NGO auditing body that can monitor and check on the finances of NGOs or foundations to prevent scandals and outright thievery?

Government offices of the president of the republic, legislators, governors, mayors, barangay chairmen, government corporations, judiciary officials and even religious or school organizations also need to instill the discipline and tradition of basic proper accounting: separating official and personal finances.

2. Consult professionals. I highly recommend that no matter how small a business is, even if it’s a professional practice by a salesman, doctor, dentist or movie actress, etc., it is best to consult a good accountant outside your office staff for a periodic review of your finances, to plan your tax payments. Accounting firms are not only for the SMs or the Ayalas but also for SMEs or professionals.

3. Review finances at least 15 minutes once a week. We entrepreneurs, professionals and political bosses should set aside personal time  even if it’s just a half hour or less  to personally go over our finances at least once a week. It’s like doing basic cardio-vascular exercise three times a week or going to church every Sunday  a must we should do and not have excuses in our minds to put off. If we use up so much time for Facebook, Candy Crush, Twitter or Instagram daily, why not set aside a minimum of 15 minutes every week to go over our finances?

Our excuse is “no time”? My reply is: We always have time for the things we put first or prioritize, so no alibis and no excuses for not studying our finances once a week!

4. Consider your staff or employees. Often, human resources or people are the most valuable asset of businesses, even big ones. Most small businesses, like mine, do not have full-time human resource or personnel departments handling staff or employees, but this is no excuse for not computing our labor costs. We ourselves or our in-house accountant or assistants should not forget to properly monitor and study one of our largest business expenses: labor.

It doesn’t matter if we are paying for secretaries, drivers and employees or only you the professional as the only person on the payroll; we must efficiently monitor the full costs of salaries, benefits, overtime and any other labor expenses.

By better understanding our labor expenses, we can think of ideas on how to add incentives, bonuses or benefits for our people, and we can also discover if we are overspending on salaries or wages beyond our optimum business budget.

5. Don’t forget to collect payments! Billionaire business leader Lucio C. Tan told me several years ago that one of his idols is ancient Chinese tycoon and statesman Tao Zhu Gong, also known as Fan Li, of the Spring and Autumn Period circa 500 BC. In Tao’s 12 golden rules for business, his rule No. 6 was: “Ability to control credit. Do not allow nonpayment. Make sure you collect what is owed.”

Many entrepreneurs like me tend to be marketing persons whose overriding focus is often on closing sales or making deals; in so many instances, our weakness is in accounting. This cardinal rule of business  to collect payments  is often shockingly not accomplished by many SME entrepreneurs and professionals.

This part of finance is all-important, so we need to always monitor, organize and have proper records of all invoices and client payments. One good way to minimize headaches is to request postdated checks or other guarantees.

Whether for a small business or a professional, chaos in record-keeping and basic accounting will cause a lot of booked sales or done deals to go to naught if we fail to collect payments. Collection of payments so often spells the big difference between sustaining success or degenerating into mediocrity, so let’s collect!

source: philstar.com

Inspiration has an expiration date

You are working on a morphing business landscape today. Implements that were once out of reach are conveniently available; new software and technologies are readily accessible for little or no cost. One person can do the work that used to take two or three people to finish. You’re connected like never before through online calls and social media platforms. You don’t even have to be in business attire or technically need an office these days to do business.

The New York Times bestseller Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson demonstrates a better and easier way to succeed in business. It offers new thinking on the rules of entrepreneurship, mainly by revealing the secrets of starting and running a business. Fried and Hansson had great success with their web-application company 37signals. With the tome, both carry on a conversation about a startup philosophy in the tech world, and share idea gems that have the influence to truly restructure a company’s approach to the creative process. So much is packed into Rework; here are a few of the book highlights that jump out.

Workaholics don’t actually accomplish more than non-workaholics. They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just means they’re wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task. The truth is, sometimes they do accomplish more than their non-workaholic colleagues. But if all you do is work, you’re unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision-making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what’s worth extra effort and what’s not. And you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired. As such, being a workaholic isn’t exactly a viable way to operate.



Millennials will force companies to allow employees to work from home. You don’t even have to imagine this, you can just look at the numbers. Remote work is growing at an impressive clip. From 2005 to 2011, the number of remote workers grew 73 percent according to the Telework Research Network. It’s a viral thing, too. Once you have experienced the lifestyle benefits of working remotely, you’re highly unlikely to pick another cubicle job. Young people do not have the same reservations about using electronic communication to get stuff done. They grew up with that being the norm. So some of this generational gap can be summed up with a quote by celebrity septuagenarian Michael Bloomberg: “Telecommuting is one of the dumber ideas I’ve ever heard.” As the millennials would likely say in response, “Sure, Grandpa.”

No time is no excuse. You bellyache that you don’t have time to mingle, you don’t have time to produce that movie in your head, and you don’t have time to exercise, or lose weight. When you want something badly enough, you make the time, regardless of your other commitments. To others, however, delaying things can be a positive. They often delay implementation of innovations for a period of time hoping to discover a better solution. But at the end of it, don’t let yourself off the hook with excuses. Besides, the perfect time never arrives.

The core of your business should be built around things that last. Focus on what won’t change — things that people are going to want today and 10 years from now. Amazon.com concentrates on fast or free shipping, great selection, friendly return policies, and affordable prices — things that will always be in high demand. Japanese automakers center their operations on core principles that don’t change — reliability, affordability and practicality. Focusing on the next big thing, and latching on to what’s hot and new, is temporary; they fade away. When you train your sight on permanent features, you’re in bed with things that never go out of style.




Big decisions are hard to make and hard to change. Consider making tiny decisions instead. You can’t make big mistakes with them. Make choices that are small enough that they’re successfully impermanent. It doesn’t mean you can’t make big plans or think big ideas. It just means you believe the best way to achieve those big things is having one tiny decision at a time.

It’s okay to “under-do” your competition. Do less than your competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems and leave the dangerous, easier-said-than-done, vicious problems to the competition. Instead of “one-upping,” try “one-downing.” Instead of “outdoing,” try “under-doing.” Focus on yourself and not your competition. Come up with your own fresh ideas, and not waste time following your competition. You are not running a company that changes plans based on what the competition is doing. That’s what the Flip camera — an ultra easy, point-and-shoot, compact camcorder — did, and in the process took a significant percentage of the market in a short time. It doesn’t do everything other cameras do. It does a few simple things, and its simplicity made it highly saleable.

Saying no by default. You avoid saying no because confrontation makes you uncomfortable. But the alternative is even worse. You drag things out, make things complicated, and work on ideas you don’t believe in. It’s like a relationship: breaking one up is hard to do, but staying in it just because you’re too chicken to drop the ax is even shoddier. Deal with the brief discomfort of confrontation up front and avoid the long-term regret. Learn to say no.

Being obscure is a great position to be in. Welcome anonymity. No one knows who you are right now. And that’s just fine. Be happy you’re in the shadows. Use this time to make mistakes without the whole world hearing about them. Keep tweaking. Work out the kinks. Test random ideas. Try new things. Broadway shows provide a great example of testing ideas on a small stage first. They routinely do a trial run in a smaller city before hitting New York.

Failure is not a prerequisite for success. It doesn’t matter what’s gone before. It doesn’t matter that others have tried and failed. Your misplaced conceptions or ill-conceived ideas are what commit your ventures to failure. You create your own luck and in spite of others. You succeed because of you. Evolution doesn’t linger on past failures. It’s always building on what worked. So should you.

If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire an excellent writer. It doesn’t matter if what you need is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever. A person’s writing skill will pay off. That’s because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate.

Long-term business planning is guessing. You may agree or disagree with this statement. To some, it may sound ridiculous and a waste of time and resources, since who knows what technological innovations might affect your plans in six months? So they basically plopped in some random projections. To others though, long-term planning helps steer you in the right direction and brings you closer to your desired outcome.

Trusting your gut. You need to be in tune and feel the pulse of how people perceive your product, how they use it, and the problems they are really solving with it. Don’t be too data-driven. Don’t look at numbers to make decisions; instead look at trends and patterns to lead to new insights. Don’t take numbers as a “yes” or “no,” but as a part of what you do. Oftentimes you’ll do things that the numbers say won’t work. Numbers can only measure what’s happened in the past. That’s valuable to know, but you have to trust your gut moving forward — otherwise you’re just going to be running in place.

A strong stand is how you attract super fans. This is true of blogging and of business. Draw a line in the sand and stick to it. In other words, you won’t please any of them if you try to be everything to every customer. It’s better to really please your base and forget the rest.

When you impose a deadline, you gain clarity. Don’t delay a launch until everything is perfect. Or, think of it this way: “If you had to launch your business in two weeks, what would you cut out? You suddenly realize there’s a lot of stuff you don’t need. And what you do need seems obvious. You can also break your estimates into smaller bites. For example, instead of one 12-week project, structure it as 12 one-week projects.

When something goes wrong, someone is going to tell the story. You’ll be better off if it’s you. Own and report your bad news. Otherwise you create an opportunity for rumors, hearsay, and false information to spread. When something bad happens, tell your customers. Don’t even think you can just sweep it under the rug. People will respect you more if you are open, honest, public and responsive during a crisis.

Alone time is key. Unplug. Take an hour “off” to focus on a key task. Shut down your e-mail. Don’t take calls. Work alone. Concentrate.

A good apology accepts responsibility. That’s how to say you’re sorry. It has no conditional “if” phrase attached. Here’s a bad one: “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” The “may” here implies there might not be anything wrong at all. Own up and be sincere.

Some of the thoughts presented in Rework may be acceptable or uncomfortable — ASAP is poison, meetings are toxic, or pick a fight — depending on your framework. But one thing is sure: it’s a kaleidoscope world, there are many possible roadmaps and more than one way to skin a cat. And just because you already have procedures and rules in place, you don’t automatically have to put up with them if you believe there is a better way to reach the same goal or attain the same outcome. One last take from Fried and Hansson that captures the essence of this good read: you have ideas. And ideas are immortal. They last forever. What doesn’t last forever is inspiration. It is perishable. Inspiration, like fresh fruit or milk has an expiration date. It is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, and a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now.

source: philstar.com

Silicon Valley Achievers At Forum

Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev) announced its 2012 PhilDev Economic Forum with the theme “Harnessing Filipino Innovation and Entrepreneurship” will be held on October 8, 2012, in Makati City.

 PhilDev’s US-based Filipino Board of Directors who are established entrepreneurs and change-makers will come home to host the event, merging local technopreneurs with investors and game-changers from Silicon Valley.

“Based on the experience we gathered from the Entrepreneurship Camp we held in Cebu last May, the time has come for all to discover, highlight and harness the talent of the Filipino,” said PhilDev Chairman of the Board and Tallwood Managing Partner, Dado Banatao.

Aside from Banatao, PhilDev Trustees and Event Chairs, Winston Damarillo, Chairman and co-Founder of Exist Global Inc., and Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Founder and CEO of Care.com will also be advising entrepreneurs at the forums and will help showcase the Philippines’ software industry as a burgeoning leader in the ASEAN and global markets.

Other speakers will include Toby Stuart, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation from Haas School of Business in Berkeley, CA, and former Harvard School of Business faculty, Loida Nicolas Lewis, Chair and CEO of TLC Beatrice, Arthur Tan, Chief Executive Officer and President of Integrated Microelectronics, Inc., a subsidiary of Ayala Corporation, Eric Manlunas, Co-founder & Managing Partner of Siemer Ventures, and Secretary Greg Domingo of the Department of Trade and Industry. Executives from Facebook, Google, Oracle and Dell and have also been invited to become speakers and mentors.

This year’s Forum will be preceded by a three-day mentoring session on October 5 to 7 at the Radisson Blu in Cebu City. “Hack2Hatch: From Hacker to Founder” is a weekend entrepreneurship camp and guided pitching session and one-on-one mentorship where local start-up founders can harness their business and technical skills and pitch to actual investors and venture capitalists who have had success in Silicon Valley. This special 4-day mentorship and speaker series aims to take the Filipinos’ innovation and entrepreneurship towards collective empowerment and economic development.

source: mb.com.ph

Former 'Darna' actress launches charity project

MANILA, Philippines - Former actress Nanette Medved, who became famous in the '90s for her film portrayal of super-heroine “Darna,” is back though not to reprise that role.

Apparently, Medved is more into helping the downtrodden; putting up the “I Drink, I Give” campaign, which aims to raise funds to build classrooms.

“This is about helping our children,” said she at the launch of the campaign recently.

“Alam naman natin na marami pa [sa kanila] ang nag-aaral sa ilalim ng puno,” she added, noting the need for an additional 66,800 classrooms across the country.

“Let’s not always rely on government to do things for us. Let us also try to be proactive and do things ourselves, kaya naman natin.”

She quickly dismissed notions that she is out to create publicity for a planned showbiz comeback.

“This is not about me, please,” said she. “Marami nang magagaling d’yan, hayaan na natin sila. I will just focus on helping [others].”

“What we’re trying to bring to the scene here is ‘Hope in a Bottle,’ nakikitulong lang ako,” she added.

Medved’s showbiz background allowed her to tap some of her colleagues to join the crusade including veteran comedian Dolphy, Boy Abunda, Jericho Rosales and Bea Alonzo.

Medved was born in Hawaii, but she grew up in Angeles City, Philippines.

Some of the movies she did during her heydays included a couple with Fernando Poe Jr. namely “Dito sa Pitong Gatang,” and “Isang Bala Ka Lang.”

She also did films with Robin Padilla (“Sa Diyos Lang Ako Susuko”), Bong Revilla (“Iukit Mo sa Bala”), Rudy Fernandez (“Tumbasan Mo ng Buhay”), and Christopher de Leon (“Hiram Na Mukha”).

She became scarce in the scene after getting embroiled in the so-called Metro Manila Film Festival Scam of 1994.

She went on to pursue her studies, graduating with degrees in Finance and Entrepreneurship (with highest honors) from Babson College, Massachussetts, USA.

Medved is married to Chinese businessman, Chris Po.

source: mb.com.ph