Starting a new segment: Understanding Nokia thru Finnish Proverbs
By Stefan Constantinescu on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 12:27 PM PST In Made in Finland
In order to truly understand a company you have to get intimate with its history and employees. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is a Finnish based company, and that fact alone has dictated their design, marketing, and business practices from its inception.
What makes Nokia so Finnish, BMW so German, Samsung so Korean, and Sony so Japanese? If these companies were founded in other parts of the world I guarantee you they wouldn’t be as iconic as they are today.
There is a Nokia employee out there, Phil Schwarzmann, who has a great blog called “Finland for Thoughtâ€
The byline reads: “I’m an American who’s been living in Finland for four years. I started this blog to address some of the political, cultural, and current event issues in Finland and the United States. I am a strong advocate of liberty, individuality, equality, and tolerance. Enjoy!â€
I like that. I like that a lot.
Reading about Finland from the perspective of an American living there has been rather interesting. It’s caused my curiosity level of this Nordic country to peak.
What do they eat? How social are they? What holidays do they celebrate? These are the questions I ended up asking myself, and later looking up on Google (NSDQ: GOOG), to silence that little voice in the back of my head who always wants more input.
I’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding Finland and maybe one day I can use, and expand, that knowledge of the region if I ever get to see Nokia HQ in Espoo.
One thing every country has unique to themselves are proverbs. I’ve found a website with a ton of them, from Finland of course, and I’m going to be starting a new segment, every Monday and Thursday of the week.
To put it simply, I’ll share a Finnish proverb with you, twice a week, tell you what I think about it, and see how that little tidbit of information has shaped Nokia today.
Why am I doing this? Like I previously mentioned, you can’t fully appreciate a company until you understand what geographical and social elements contributed to the way we know them as today.
Tomorrow is going to be the first installment, what should I call this little idea of mine?
I’m leaning towards "Nokia: Made in Finland"
One of the best posts yet! More please.
One of the interesting things to start with could be the pronunciation of Nokia itself. It always strikes me when American English speakers pronounce the name as: No’kia (emphasizing the 2nd syllable), as opposed to European speakers who pronounce it as: ‘Nokia (emphasizing the 1st syllable). Perhaps a Finnish speaker could step in and enlighten us?
This could be fun..:). Very nice angle indeed! And I don’t just say it because I’m a Finn (after all, this could backfire big time), but as an idea it’s very creative.
As for a Finn, I pronounce Nokia, “NOkia”, emphasizing the 1st syllable. It’s short like the rest of the word, not NOOOkia, but NOKia..:).
I hope Stefan is feeling better already and the migraine is gone.
Henrikki, are you saying Nokia should be pronounced No-Key-Uh or Knock-Ee-Uh ?
I really want to know because last time I was in Australia I caught grief from my sisters: “Is that how Americans say Nokia?”
In my ignorance (please forgive me) I said “No, that’s how the Japanese say it.” Fortunately (for me) my sisters were as ignorant as I was and were not aware that Nokia is Finnish…or maybe my brother-in-law who works for Valmet knew, but he tactfully held his tongue.
PLEASE I am trying to verify a Finnish proverb for a tattoo in memory of my Grandmother and I cannot locate the info any where PLEASE HELP ME
I have found = “Kaveria ei jätetä!” does this correctly translate to “never leave a friend behind”
your prompt assistance is GREATLY APPRECIATED!
THANK YOU
yes “Kaveria ei jätetä” does mean “never leave a friend behind”