Brynn Marie Evans

Chris and I have been in Finland for about a week now. I participated in the FinnFacts blogger tour (hearing about various web 2.0 startups in Finland). And Chris has been putting on workshops and giving talks. Until this weekend, we had very little free time.

Last week we arrived in Helsinki on Sunday, September 27, 2009. Monday was a work day as we were preparing for a hectic week to come. On Tuesday, Chris and Jyri put on their social web workshop and I visited the Nokia Research Center with FinnFacts. We got a tour of their BetaLabs site and saw demos of some “proof of concept” services (like how we will navigate a fully digital world, especially when we are outside in the physical elements). I took my first Finnish sauna at our hotel, Klaus K, that night. Ahhh, it was wonderful!

Wednesday things really kicked off. Chris and Jyri gave another all-day workshop at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel. I visited with several web 2.0 startups in the Helsinki area with FinnFacts: ArcticStartup, Floobs, RunToShop, and Muxlim. In the late afternoon, we picked up Chris in the FinnFacts mini-van and drove about 2 hours to Tampere. That night we went to a delicious restaurant called Henriks (sadly Chris couldn’t join because he was putting the finishing touches on his talk for the next day.)

Part of our walk around the lake in Tampere on day 1 of MindTrek.

The MindTrek conference lasted all day Thursday and Friday. Chris gave an awesome keynote first thing in the morning on Thursday, called “Identity is the Platform.” The rest of the day, the FinnFacts bloggers milled around on our own for the most part. I attended the Launchpad session (a bit like an Ignite or CHI madness but for startups in the MindTrek competition). We met with Jani Pettinin from Xiha Life (a social network that works across language barriers by providing translations); and attended Jyri’s plenary on “Snack Sized Sociality.” Chris and I then snuck away for an hour-long walk around the lake and woods by the venue.

By the time we got back, we were shuttled off to visit Demola (hosted by the Nokia Innovation Center) as the nth highlight of the day. We heard how illtags is working to end the common cold and Ball-It is revolutionizing the gaming platform.

That night was the MindTrek party at Yo-Talo. Sadly there was no vegetarian food besides caesar salad and chips & cheese dip. And not long after it started, it grew really loud with music and people. We went home pretty early and finally got a great night sleep. (Others in our cohort were out until 5:30am! Heh.)

Friday was another long, but invigorating, day. Chris stayed at MindTrek and said there were some good sessions in the morning. I went off with FinnFacts to visit Star Wreck Studios and then Gemilo, a social media consultancy. Star Wreck Studios was particularly awesome—they produced Star Wreck (a movie) after working on it for 7 years and receiving community contributions to help with the production. (This is a great model that I’ll write about more later.) In the afternoon, we saw Adam Greenfield speak on “Elements of a Networked Urbanism” and then Chris & I went for another long walk around the lake—this time in the other direction! Around 4:30pm, we caught a bus to the train station. Eeva (who was leading our tour) had to race over to Gemilo to pick up a jacket one of us lost, and just barely made it onto our train back to Helsinki! Phew!

That night we checked back into the hotel Klaus K, and met up with Jyri and friends at a bar called Old Anchor. They actually had veggie burgers! (Yum, and we were hungry for vegetarian food at this point!) Strangely enough, Jyri left almost as soon as we arrived, but Chris and I stayed out a bit longer with his Finnish “geek” friends. What a great crowd—they were an incredibly lively, friendly, and funny bunch! I hope they find this post and connect back up with us!

…and then it was Saturday, and boy did we sleep in! Details on our wonderful weekend and the highlights of the startups will be coming soon. Stay tuned!