On a Thursday afternoon, at afterwork hours, I sit in a pub table with a pint, waiting. I’m nervous: will I end up sitting alone? I’ve sent around emails calling out university people who want to use their skills for entrepreneurial action. A missed call?
A guy appears to there door and looks around hesitating. He smiles relieved when he sees my “Action Thursdays” note on the table and sits down with me. Two girls approach the table from another direction and greet us cheerfully. Suddenly there is a dozen of us shaking hands and introducing ourselves. My call was not a miss.
When everybody has found a seat, I ask why have they come. Tuukka, an anthropologist, says he wants to combine the immense fieldwork that anthropologists do as part of their studies to something useful. His looking for people to develop his ideas with. As it happens, next to him are Maria and Lisa, two out of a group of four who have been cooking up an idea that combines ethnographic research and journalism. Mika, an urban studies student & urban enthusiast, wants to do something about the things others sit around complaining about. For him entrepreneurship is a mind-set, an active approach to life and a way to solve its tricky problems. Next to him is Jana who, after spending two years complaining about children’s games, started developing educational games for them.
Henrik is a political science graduate and a musician excited about the social bubbling that’s happening in Europe. As a musicians he’s also interested in new models of creating cultural content and making fair business out of it. Talking about music, next to Henrik sits Aku-Ville, who runs a start-up that designs beautiful loudspeakers. Aku-Ville has also been starting AES Aalto entrepreneurship Society. Lennart is also a entrepreneur already (and a communications student and an architect): he has a construction consultancy company specializing in group building thus creating alternatives for the bulk in housing market.
Jaakko and Tomi, a history student and a folklore studies student, have recently pulled together Kulttuuriosaamo Toimi, a network of cultural studies students and professionals for promoting their expertise and contribution to the society. “I’m working in marketing, and through my work I’ve really started to value the skills cultural studies experts have. Now I wan’t to use my marketing skills to get those competencies in wider use in the society”, Tomi tells us. Simo, also a folklore studies student, is interested in individualization of culture and performativity as well as social entrepreneurship. Luciana, a student of journalism and literature writing her thesis on multicultural education concepts, is not happy with the concept of entrepreneurship in public discussion. For her entrepreneurship is an interaction driven thing, not a money making machine. She has an idea of a documentary film on entrepreneur families. For developing her idea further, she might find help from Jon sitting in the other end of the table. Jon happens to be a film maker (and a block-party organizer). Jon is enthusiastic about alternative economy ideas and lately he’s been fired up by the book ‘Lean Startups‘. ‘We need to do practical daily stuff right from the beginning, prototype our ideas together and that way pool our human capital’, he claims. Annina, a journalist, accompanies him firmly: “I don’t care what we talk about as long as we do things.”
One after another, my amazement grows. Where did all these wonderful people come from?
Laura, who’s writing a book on food security, thinks our generation needs to create a totally different kind of working culture than our parents. ‘These kinds of communities could be part of it’, nods Laura smiling and looks around the table. Paula, a student of Polish language and culture, couldn’t agree more with Laura. Years in working life have made her think there has to be another way of doing things. ‘I would like this to be a network, a group, a community to test your ideas, to let other people contribute to the solutions from the beginning’ ‘Like a swarm business!’ exclaims Oskari approvingly. He is a student of adult education busy working on his master thesis on collective action in Twitter, running open learning network Avokadot and organizing raves. Oskari is interested in all forms of co-working and thinks we need a communal workspace. Erkki supports the idea warmly. He had an encouraging experience lately when he set up a temporary Social Hub, a space and laboratory of social action. He’s a political science student and a city activist who’s a looking for a community to grow his skills and projects with.
After the long intro round is done, my pint is not even half empty. I’ve been too excited to remember to drink it. In the end, there is 17 of us, with versatile backgrounds but shared visions. We, a bunch of strangers, have ended up talking on top of each other, nodding and waving enthusiastically at each other’s words and ideas on different kind of work life, learning practical business skills, creating alternatives to existing products and production models, co-working, work spaces, sharing skills, peer teaching, social hackathons, social innovation, cooperatives, tackling challenges by combining expertise, growing our ideas and opportunities together and throwing ourselves out there to do things we’ve been dreaming about alone.
Join the bunch. On 10 May (at the Helsinki University main building, 3rd floor of the new side, hall 4) and 24 May (at Helthinki space at Tiedekulma’s cellar). You’ll fit in.