Taking toll the slow way

It's been exactly four years when I entered a job interview with Antti Aumo, the Head of Invest in Finland, in their office in New York City. I had lived in NYC before when I moved to the USA some twelve years ago, and I felt comfortable being in my old neighborhoods. The interview went well, Team Finland was nice, I had some lunches lined up with local friends, a nice day all in all. I boarded the plane back to New Orleans with moderate excitement.

Little did I know this interview would change my career. I got hired as a Senior Advisor at Business Finland, Invest in Finland, ICT, USA. My responsibility, as a technology professional, was to create and execute strategies for Invest in Finland in the ICT sector. This is the Information, Communications, and Technologies industry. Surely I was very comfortable with the technology part, having worked in various technical positions at Nokia, founded two tech startups of my own and sitting in the boards of several other startups. But what is this FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) that Invest in Finland is talking about? That I didn't know.

Fast forward four years, and now I get it. Totally. I was first hit with the basics of FDI, get so and so many investments in this amount of dollars creating this amount of jobs. Easy? No. Anyone who finds themselves in this position needs to get creative and fast. There is no way American tech companies are just going to set up R&D in Finland, or any other country. You need strategies, girl. Insight. And strategies I started to do.

First, you need to look at what is strong in your region. Where you are good at, what do you have to offer to your target audience. What does Finland have to offer to American businesses? Well, plenty, but where does it warrant a greenfield investment into a R&D center, and when is just a majority stake at a Finnish patent holding company enough?

Then, you need to figure out competition. Which other countries have a similar offering, and how do you compete against them. Lastly, create short and long term investment stories for your audience. Be visible and vocal with these stories. Plug into existing narratives, take advantage of any hype and bring concrete value to those stories.

These past years have taught me a whole new world, the world of IPA (Investment Promotion Agency), ED (Economic Development), TPO (Trade Promotion Organization), TPA (Trade Promotion Agency), and FDI. Lots of acronyms I would have shrugged off as excessive government bureaucracy just a few years ago.

The thing is, when you work for a large corporation or an innovative startup, you tend to be consumed by a hubris that tells you your ideas are original, your value add is unique, and your achievements are due to your hard work, and your hard work alone.

When you then get a chance to work behind the scenes and connect with people in those public organizations, you realize that the same you, the private innovator, came to a smorgasbord of opportunities and picked your favorites without realizing someone had organized the party, invited all the guests, and baked all the goods.

I am humbled, a little embarrassed, but most importantly energized by what I've learned in the past four years. I feel compelled to write a book about these learnings.

The book is called "Innovation, Economies, and Industries - the policy makers guide to innovation" and it is coming out in the fall of 2022.

I haven't written a book before, but I've been told I need to start to create my "author platform" even before the book is out. Author platform is the core group of people who will receive first copy of the book before it's published, agree to read and give feedback, and when it's public agree to go rate and review wherever the book is sold.

You all here in LinkedIn are my author platform. Many of you are former colleagues from Nokia all over the world. I also have a good number of connections from the days of Mobile Brain Bank, my startup connecting the 3000+ app developers to brands in USA. And of course, the past four years getting to know amazing people in American corporate R&D as well as public innovation offices in North America, Europe, and Asia.

This is an open invitation to you, my sister and brother, to be the first recipient of my book "Innovation, Economies, and Industries - the policy makers guide to innovation". Will you help me? All you need to do is to say 'yes' and I will send you a copy of the book once it's finished, before uploading to Amazon. You will get the chance to read, review and give feedback before the final edition, helping the book to become better.

The best reviews will be printed on the sleeve of this book and used elsewhere in marketing. I know many of you will have wise things to say about this topic so I'm eager to hear how you think it can be made better.

If we are LinkedIn contacts, please DM. If we are not, leave a comment below, just say "I'm in", and I will get in touch with you. May the force be with us, Namaste, hyv?t l?ylyt, and let's not sweat the small stuff. Easy does it.