Merry Christmas! Happy and Prosperous New Year 2008!

Merry Christmas! Happy and Prosperous New Year 2008!

Hyvää Joulua ja Onnelista Uutta Vuotta 2008!



FinRusGateway team

Congratulations Finland!

Today, 6th of December, Finland is celebrating 90th Anniversary of Independence.

In 31.12.1917 V.I. Lenin, Josif Stalin and Lev Trotsky signed the official papers of Independence of Finland from Russia.

Finland's Independence Day is a public holiday.
Tonight Finnish President Tarja Halonen is organizing an official party, where quests can have a party and celebrate the Anniversary.

Finland has been part of European Union from 1.1. 1995.

Read more about Finland.

Congratulations Finland, let's celebrate today!

Where to go in St.Petersburg

I made a very nice 3-days trip to St. Petersburg the last July.
Here are some beautiful places which I recommend to visit.
St.Petersburg is cheerful place, full of positive energy.

See my recommendation list bellow.

1. Peterhof
Petergof is a must place to visit. A park which Peter Great started to build and Ekaterina II continue to develope.

Reserve full day or at least half of day.
The best visit would be on sunny weather. This marvellous park is also possible to reach by boat.

2. Tvarskoje Selo, Puskin 

- Small city Puskin is about 1 hour drive to south from St.Petersburg.
Really very nice place to visit. Beautiful park  and renovated castle
of tsar.








3. Vasiljev's Island

Island in RiverNeva. Splendid view to the Erimitage and to all other buildings close to Neva. The Park
and beautiful catedral. Nikola II and some other russian tsars buried in to catedral.

4. Boat trip in River Neva

I recommend strongly to take boat close to Nevski Prospekt. On the boat trip you really just can feel closer all those beautiful places. And at the same time You will have full

Enjoy Your time in St. Piter!

Have a nice Mid-Summer!

Hyvää Juhannusta!

Happy Mid-Summer!

Juhannus, Mid-summer holiday is dedicated to longest day of summer.
It's widely celebrated in Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Denmark, Sweden,
Finland and Estonia, but found also in France, Italy, Portugal, USA and Canada.

If you are interested to read more.

The Soul of St. Petersburg

By

Petteri Hannonen

Last night I came back from St. Petersburg, Russia. Each and every time it feels a bit more difficult. The city, where I never planned to visit, has become like a home for me. It is a rather interesting feeling for a Finn.

My love affair with the city started in January 2005. Then I traveled to St. Petersburg to study (and work) for few months. While being there, I had a chance to live in a local family. My Russian family was extremely far away from New Russians, and the only way to communicate was to speak Russian. For once there was a chance to see and experience something very different, to be a part of a normal St. Petersburg family and their everyday life.

This time my trip was also a bit unusual. I went to the Venice of North for so many reasons – to have some business negotiations, to perform live the first time in Russia with our rock band (Dusha Pitera, www.myspace.com/dushapitera) and to visit friends. Once again, on my way back to Finland I thought that time flies too fast.

Our concert was held in a local rock/art club, called Manhattan (www.manhattanclub.ru). It was a real pleasure to notice that the place was quite crowded. Naturally, I was a bit stressed, how people would react – we are Finns but we perform only in Russian language. After our first song I knew that our concert would be a true success – the audience was with us all the way, even singing with us during the last songs! After the concert feelings were just unbelievable. People were extremely happy and satisfied, and the art director of the club wanted us to come back again during the summer, etc.

St. Petersburg has something for all. I always recommend interacting with locals as much as possible, and getting away from the stereotypical “tourist supply” as quickly as possible. I found my St. Petersburg that way. Naturally it might take quite a lot of courage, but it is worth of it. Trust me in that. In the end, I am a Finn, who thought that he would never visit Russia…

… and now I’m questioning, is my home here or there…

Petteri Hannonen

The Art of outsourcing

I have always wondered why everything should be done by yourself. People think that they know and can do things better than someone else. I often try to think other way around: "Someone else can do this task better than me and more cost efficient"

3 things to consider before starting outsourcing:

1. Experience. It's good that you have experience about job ( task) which you want to outsource. The task here could be anything: for example software module or project management. Experience can come from some other people as well.

2. Briefing. Which kind of ideas you have about the outsourced task? Before starting the outsourcing describe and document what you except from the outsourcing process and end results. Describe also responsibilities of outsourcing parties.

3. Management. You have to manage yourself (or ask someone you trust to manage) the process. The quality of the process should be on the good enough level.

The 7 Hottest Wireless topics in 2007

Based on our observations in CTIA 2007 Wireless there are 7 Hottest Wireless topics in 2007:

1. Mobile eMail
2. MobileTV
3. Mobilecontent (Personalized content: Blogs, Videos)
4. VoIP
5. Mobile Map Services / Location based services
6. Voice recognition
7. Smartphones

What is Your own list?

Our Mobile Life - What is not wireless to You?

Our lifestyle has changed a lot. I remember the time then my friend said that he is not going to have a mobilephone ever. That was the year 1995.

Now in 2007 he called from shop that he is going to change his mobile phone to the latest model. He asked which phone he should buy that it would have synchronized business calendar and radio. This just shows that most people cannot live without mobilephone.

In CTIA Wireless 2007 which was held in Orlando Florida USA, there were over 2000 exhibitors, mainly from USA. Some companies even came from Europe and Finland. We met lot of phones' manufactures, cellular operators, software vendors and value-added service providers.

In the show most of the people have been using their BlackBerry:s and other Smartphones for the fast communication ( except these two participants in the picture who are still fans of fixed phone lines).

Wireless Factors - enlarging your network

If you want to Exchange information in Wireless industry and enlarge your contact network you can join to Wireless Factors with following link:
www.wirelessfactors.com

There is also discussion groups in Yahoo
For Russia
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Wirelessfactorsrussia/

For Finland
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Wirelessfactorsfinland/

The Wireless Factors Linkedin group is the first step to helping companies and individuals improve the quality of relationships, the effectiveness of their efforts and their productivity within a developing industry. Wireless Factors is proud to be the first wireless industry group on Linkedin.

Success stories of Life and Business

We decided to open new blog dedicated to success stories of life and business as well.
It's nice to read about things which are inspiring. It's also possible to get new ideas while you are writing about inspiring things.

Of course we would also like to readers to enjoy the ideas and stories written here.
If you have success stories to tell, please write to us:
janne.mikkola@finrusgateway.com

Welcome and succesfull year 2007!
Janne