On May Day, Koskipuisto Park in Tampere was like a rubbish dump on the run. In the most charming city of Finland, on the motherly face of the Tammerkoski Rapids the mess is like a five-centimetre pimple on the tip of the nose.

 Aamulehti of course reported on the matter. The city has 15,000 employees, an on-going cleanliness campaign and opinions on every matter regarding municipal politics, but here the apocalypse model was in use. Nothing matters. No one is responsible for anything.

Traditionally, newspapers report. However, the newspaper of the future can do more good in its publication area. Really, truly act.

Good does not have to be just what is stated in the Aamulehti guidelines: “The most important medium and exponent of the Pirkanmaa area.” When talking does not help - especially afterwards - actions are needed.

Next May Day, Aamulehti will organise a cleaning bee on the night of May Day eve or during the frosty May Day early morning hours. Even if no one else goes in for it, I will go. I believe and trust that I will not be alone. A wake-up call is needed. I promise to be the one to toll the alarm bells.

The future of the newspaper medium is ensured by actions, not by shouting from the sidelines. The more everyday problems we solve and practical good we actually do, the more necessary our publication area will find us.

The Alma newspapers and magazines already have excellent campaigns. Few of them burden the publishing house as little as the Aamulehti Tolerance Reward. For over ten years, with the help of a small initial sum of money, one pupil from every grade in every upper comprehensive school in Pirkanmaa has received a reward. Students make the choice, Aamulehti provides the funds.

When the rewards are given out at the schools’ spring festivities, Aamulehti is on everybody’s mind. The right values are emphasised. The grounds for receiving the reward are trustworthiness, courage and humanity.

Believe it or not, those kinds of students exist.  There’s no shortage of candidates.

By cooperating, we can develop nationwide campaigns that shape the image of newspapers. SuomiAreena, organised by MTV, does not have to be the most visible media campaign. We can and we are able.

Now I can hear a grumbling rising from the editorial office: It’s none of our business, we’re too busy.

We always have to have time to ensure the future. Our work is evolving, newspapers with it, towards becoming a more intimate medium. A benefactor is always needed.

If I heard right and remember correctly or even close to it, the communists of the University of Tampere sketched out a new future for the press as early as the 70s. Wasn’t it according to the Marxist theory of journalism that we were supposed to be agitators and organisers?

There aren’t many Marxists around anymore but their idea had a point to it. Let’s do more good and less politics.

Jorma Pokkinen

The author is Editor-In-Chief in Aamulehti Newspaper

Like many media companies, Alma is simultaneously aiming to achieve a strong renewal of its products and services and a significant improvement in the efficiency of operations. At the same time, the company is naturally also seeking new growth. In Alma’s case, growth is sought through digital services.

Our unit has now operated under the Diverso name for about four months. Our focus so far has been on developing concrete expectations and an appropriate organisational structure for the new unit, with a particular emphasis on establishing priorities. Of course, we have also taken practical action on several fronts. It already appears clear that 2012 will be a year of rapid growth in online commerce, mobile services and digital marketing. This means our digital service and development unit will certainly have its hands full! Rapid growth on multiple fronts also requires that priorities are set appropriately. We can't move ahead on everything at once no matter how much we would want to.

Our initial priorities are:

I. Managing website visitor traffic
Alma’s online services have over 5 million visitors each week and together they reach nearly 70% of Finns aged 15 to 69. By making effective use of unused banner advertising slots to market our own services and implementing visibility solutions that serve consumers by highlighting interesting content, we can continue to increase the quantity and quality of visitors and the time they spend using our services.

To know which way we need to move, we must first know where we are at present and where we want to end up. Therefore, our initial emphasis is on analytics and on clarifying our objectives for visitor traffic. We are also preparing guidelines for how to make the best use of unused banner advertising slots and starting to plan and optimise visibility solutions separately for each online service.

II. New online advertising products
Targeted and results-based advertising are increasing their shares of digital advertising. There have already been experiments on automated online buying. These new online advertising products require expertise and experience in inventory management, campaign monitoring and optimisation as well as reporting, while technological knowhow and familiarity with the target group are also important.

Diverso is working on establishing a new online advertising team tasked with the productisation and sales of the network products of Alma’s online services (e.g. targeted and results-based advertising), improving the service level of online advertising management and developing operations.

III. Online commerce
Last year, the total value of online commerce grew 10% to exceed EUR 10 billion. Travel products are still by far the largest category with over EUR 3.6 billion in value, but the largest growth rates were seen in the financial services, food and gift cards categories. The increase in the value of online sales during the Christmas season exceeded all expectations and growth is widely expected to continue.

Online merchants are seeking new solutions to attract visitors to complement search services. There is a growing need for both brand advertising and more strategic solutions. We are developing new products and service concepts to respond to this need. Increasing online commerce also provides opportunities to develop new sources of income.

IV. Analysing and prioritising development needs for usability and technology teams
One of Diverso’s tasks is to act as the home of the centralised functions that support Alma’s online services. Based on discussions with various business units, we are currently developing a plan for how to proceed in the areas related to usability and technology.

The digitalisation of life and development of technology are creating fantastic opportunities. Nevertheless, we would be wise to keep in mind the old adage that people tend to overestimate changes in the short term while underestimating them in the long term. At Diverso, we keep our feet firmly on the ground by monitoring and developing the unit’s own consumer services. Digital services require continuous service development that never reaches a point of completion along with investments and creativity in the area of visitor acquisition, i.e. marketing and sales, and they also frequently call for implementing new forms of customer service.

There is a lot to do, but we also have a lot of enthusiasm!

Minna Nissinen
 
The writer works as Director, Alma Diverso

We’ve been working intensively for the past twelve months with Helvi Liukkaala, CEO of the printing and distribution company. Last spring we toiled over the purchase contract of the printing press with manroland AG, and immediately after that, we started on the mailing system supplied by Ferag AG. I thought that this was going to be the first and last time I’d be involved in the acquisition of a printing press. It turned out that I was wrong. The ink on the paper was barely dry when manroland’s bankruptcy led us back to the negotiating table at the beginning of the year. We are now working hard to make sure that the Aikakone 2013 project will be completed according to the original investment decision, both in terms of cost and the schedule.  

The manroland episode is, however, a good example of how anything unexpected can come up and turn everything upside down, regardless of whether you have a plan or contract worked out to the smallest detail. We also remember how last year’s government negotiations led to the introduction of value added tax that came out of the blue. This, in combination with the ongoing economic uncertainty and increasing cost pressures, make this a challenging time. 

Although there have been some unpleasant surprises during the past twelve months, there have also been many encouraging successes. In accordance with our strategy, we have been able to make significant progress in the Czech and Baltic countries, for example, in the form of recent acquisitions. The most relevant web services are also taking big steps forward. Although the role and organisation of Alma Diverso were established to support the growth of the digital business operations, it is going to play an important role in the pursuit of future success. 

Last autumn was quite confusing with all the centralisation, combination and merger plans. The HR and financial organisations were focused on the Group level, we established Alma Regional Media, and the number of Group companies at the end of this year will be markedly lower. The need to rationalise and cut costs is not always so clear on an individual level. These changes are, however, closely linked to the maintenance of agility, one of our key success factors. We can usually react, decide and move more quickly than our larger competitors. It is also crucial for our success whether we proactively reinvent ourselves or just carry out changes when forced to by outside circumstances. 

Although it’s never quite clear what the future is going to look like, based on what can be seen at the moment, we are heading in the right direction. Future battles will also be fought with the help of our attitude. There’s no room for pessimism. Someone once said that statements along the lines of “This isn’t going to work anyway, we’ve already tried this before” prove that pessimism is just another form of cowardice. Negative, pessimist forecasts are only correct in some four per cent of cases.
Only optimists can create and make new things happen. 

Mikko Korttila

The author is Alma Media’s General Counsel, Legal Affairs and M&A

I’d always thought that environmental issues were considered as “soft” values for business, but based on my recent experiences and various types of seminar briefings, I’ve come to suspect that this might be changing after all.

In addition to the enjoying the coffee and carb service available at meetings, seminars and other such events, I’ve also been exposed to new information concerning the importance of corporate responsibility and responsible investments as a prerequisite of successful business in today’s world. Is it really so that taking care of the environment is no longer just something you have to do, like brushing your teeth every night, but that people are starting to think of it as an opportunity, something you want to do without being forced to?

A speaker at Alma Media’s Annual General Meeting a couple of days ago put a wide smile on my and my colleagues face and made us give them a thumbs up. Alma’s long-term active focus on the environment was finally recognised by its own investors. Based on the speaker, the work is appreciated as something that creates added value for the company. This means that the work has paid off.

All those Alma employees who have been actively participating in the environmental projects of the group and its business units can now give themselves a pat on the back. Our environmental responsibility and the Sustainable media programme have appealed to the investor.

More patting is in order because the results of the pioneer project carried out on assignment for Alma Media, the big environmental study, have attracted world-wide attention and interest. As the tip of the iceberg I can mention that we’ve been asked to participate in the world’s largest print media fair in Drupa to tell about our study.

Based on the above, I could go as far as to say that Alma Media has succeeded in launching perhaps its first genuinely global and international product – Sustainable media. And there’s nothing to make a Finnish media company to feel better than knowing that information it has created starts to live on at the other side of the Baltic Sea as well.

Henry Grönfors

Henry Grönfors has been a corporate responsibility trainee at Alma Media’s group communications since the end of January 2012. In his own words, he has been released from the theoretical vacuum of university into doing things that actually become palpable, or at least readable.

It's nice to see some things don't change. This headline in the Ilkka newspaper on the Tuesday following the first round of the presidential elections confirmed this: "Votes stolen by the southern media. Väyrynen's chances lost due to election tactics."

Aspiring journalists are often driven by a certain degree of idealism. The job is attractive because of a desire and need to tell about important things, expose injustices and find truth in the world. As the years on the job pile up, this idealism begins to fade. The occupational disease of journalists, cynicism, hardens fiery hearts.
 
At its turning point, media has suffered some hard blows. Media agencies are streamlining, and the economic quarter has marched right into the editorial department. More and more, the pace of the newsroom is being set by EBIT percentages and exchange rate curves. New business models mean more must be done for less. The feeling that things have fallen flat is all too typical in many editorial offices.
 
Young journalists face daunting thresholds right at the start of their careers. Employment is short-term, even when the applicant has a whole pile of degrees. Many young journalists’ careers begin with that dreaded phrase, “we’ll call you when we need you”. Finding one’s own stories and seeking out the truth remains a distant dream for those called on to ease the workload during crunch times.
 
Idealism should return to the core of journalism. No media house can afford, in the long term, to be blinded by speed and efficiency. When quality begins to go downhill, we should have the courage to start focusing on quality instead quantity. It is not the scarcity of material that harms our readers but the lack of truly interesting and important information.
 
Fine journalism is usually arduous for its creators, but effortless for readers. It demands the return of idealism and passion on the part of its creators. In my experience, idealism continues to smoulder for years under the carapace of even the most hardened cynical journalist.
 
Journalistic communities must now revive the smouldering fire in the hearts of their members. Enthusiasm must be encouraged. Young journalists must be given the opportunity to show their claws, while seasoned journalists should have cause and licence to get carried away once again. Passionate journalism means portrayals, opinions, and daring to unhinge truths taken for granted.
 
In the end, it makes no difference how journalism is published. We will publish on the channels where people want to read, be they paper or bits. But if we run out of things to say, media will cease to exist. This is why we must rush to fuel the smoking fire of passion and idealism.
 
Jenny Jännäri
The writer is a Journalist at Kauppalehti newspaper
 

As was mentioned in the previous blog post, Alma Media did not participate  in this year’s Sijoitus-Invest fair, which closed today. Instead, we decided to try something else this autumn: rather than waiting for people interested in Alma to come to us in Helsinki, we decided to set off on our own journey to meet private investors in different parts of Finland.

The Investment Evenings held by the Finnish Foundation for Share Promotion (Pörssisäätiö) play an important role in Alma’s investor relations. On Tuesday I had the opportunity to visit the Investment Evening in Turku. Much to my delight, the room was filled to capacity, with about 250 people listening to updates from Alma, Metso and Stockmann, as well as OP-Pohjola’s financial outlook. Lively discussion ensued over the course of the evening about the development of the corporations and the churning state of the economy in broader terms.

In my own introduction I covered matters such as Alma’s digital growth strategy and the current state of the advertising market. Audience questions sought more information about Alma’s views on paying for digital media content, the value added tax on newspaper subscriptions, the potential growth of Talentum’s ownership and upcoming corporate acquisitions, among other things.

And what a fruitful gathering it was! Meetings with investors always provide a breath of fresh air and new material to work with, and during the other companies’ presentations it was fun to look out for the differences and similarities between the challenges faced by companies in different fields of business and of different sizes. Listening to the presentations by economist taught me that Europe, with its uncertain economic outlook, is in the most difficult situation of all large economies. In the United States, not to mention Asia, the situation is luckily better.

Next week the journey continues on to Jyväskylä and Kajaani. See you soon!
 

Anu Heinonen
Communications Manager
 

These days, the actions of a small European country that shall remain nameless are under close scrutiny by all those interested in the economy and investing.During the past year, share prices have first soared and then plunged – even in Helsinki the OMX25 Index has fluctuated from +20% to -20%.Lately there have been subtle signs of an upturn and many are eager to grab the chance. However, those with the famous crystal ball do not announce their visions publicly...

We received a message from STT-Lehtikuva, the Finnish news & picture agency: ATTENTION EDITORIAL OFFICES// Lehtikuva Picture Agency was not granted permission to take photographs at the BRITNEY SPEARS concert in Finland.

Will there be jobs for journalism students in the future, and will that work be meaningful? I couldn’t help thinking this when I attended a seminar at the Journalism Education Unit of Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences in May. The same thoughts returned last week at a meeting of the Journalism Education Unit’s Business Delegation.

I hope that the answer to these questions is a positive one.

I have, of course, attended numerous events for journalism professionals and students. Haaga-Helia’s seminar last spring was like a dive into a refreshing pool of water. The programme was genuinely interesting, with the theme of ”The reader’s voice grows stronger – how do journalists respond?” The seminar was also very well organised and best of all, the audience was simply fantastic!

The majority of the participants was journalism students. I had almost forgotten how young people throw themselves into important issues with complete seriousness and openness. There were plenty of smart and incisive questions, good observations and realistic comments, but not a trace of cynicism – except on the other side of the table of panellists, where the experienced career journalists were seated.

One of the speakers and panellists was Janne Kaijärvi, Editor-in-Chief of Sanoma Kaupunkilehdet, whose column in the September issue of Journalisti magazine painted a picture of the journalist of the future as a moderator who simply channels content produced by unpaid audience members into different media outlets. Fortunately, the other panellists didn’t quite share his views, although they did discuss how journalists should live and work in the atmosphere of Hommaforum, an immigration-critical website and bulletin board whose content is characterised by quick and strong reactions to current news and topics.

A more optimistic view of the future was offered by Nick Davies of the Guardian, although he did accuse today’s journalists of being lazy and not critical enough. However, he also spoke strongly in favour of traditional journalism. The need to question things, analyse and provide perspective is not going to go away, was Davies’ message.

Of course, I want to believe he is right, as did the seminar audience. In his column in Journalisti magazine Kaijärvi does admit that ”there will still be people like Ilkka Malmberg and Nick Davies in the future”, but then goes on to say ”just not very many”.

If those of us working in editorial offices are struggling with the rapidly growing range of media channels, the crumbling away of the media’s authority and the uncertainty surrounding revenue streams and business models, how hard must it be for journalism educators and future journalists? No one truly knows how the media will change and how many jobs the industry will provide in the coming decades. And what impact will result from the nine per cent value added tax to be implemented soon? What should the journalists of the futures be prepared to deal with? These are some of the questions that will be addressed during Journalism Day on 14 October.

I personally still believe that there is a future for meaningful and valuable journalism work, regardless of what the channels and the nature of the media’s relationship with its audience may be.

I believe, because I want to believe. As do many others. Perhaps there is power in our will?

Diana Törnroos

The author is the Managing Editor of Alma 360, a unit of Alma Media responsible for customer communications. She is a member of the Business Delegation of the Journalism Education Unit at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and a business coach for 20 journalism students who began their studies last spring.