Sunday, April 02, 2006
The weather...
The weather in Sweden is quite interesting. One, because it changes so much. Two, because it affects us a lot. Three, because we often talk about it.
One - 10 days ago, spring finally decided to come around, that was great! Even rainy, foggy days felt amazing! Not because it is nice weather, but mainly because you know it is not winter weather and that soon, summer will come around! 3 days ago, I woke up with a snowy weather outside my window, and that was not nice at all. Very annoying and disapoiting... But soon enough, the spring will come right?!
Two - The winter in Sweden is long, cold and dark. As quickly as the temperature starts to rise a little above 0 degrees and the sun starts to come back, we feel spring is coming and you get all these feelings of happiness and joy that start to come. You feel euphoric! Then, a few weeks later, you wake up with a terrible snowy winter day, and that makes me so mad... Really depressing.
Three - The weather is the most used topic for small conversation in Sweden. I think. We seem to very quickly move in to talk about the weather, specially when we meet new people. It is part of our social standards. Why is that? The fact that the weather is changing so much is probably one reason. The other ones are more hard to identify. But maybe it comes from the fact that it is safe ground. Most of the time, talking about the weather means you can agree on something to start with and avoid more sensible subjects.
Is talking about the weather, like other small conversation, just a way to avoid opening up and talk about things that are more important and sensible to us???
One - 10 days ago, spring finally decided to come around, that was great! Even rainy, foggy days felt amazing! Not because it is nice weather, but mainly because you know it is not winter weather and that soon, summer will come around! 3 days ago, I woke up with a snowy weather outside my window, and that was not nice at all. Very annoying and disapoiting... But soon enough, the spring will come right?!
Two - The winter in Sweden is long, cold and dark. As quickly as the temperature starts to rise a little above 0 degrees and the sun starts to come back, we feel spring is coming and you get all these feelings of happiness and joy that start to come. You feel euphoric! Then, a few weeks later, you wake up with a terrible snowy winter day, and that makes me so mad... Really depressing.
Three - The weather is the most used topic for small conversation in Sweden. I think. We seem to very quickly move in to talk about the weather, specially when we meet new people. It is part of our social standards. Why is that? The fact that the weather is changing so much is probably one reason. The other ones are more hard to identify. But maybe it comes from the fact that it is safe ground. Most of the time, talking about the weather means you can agree on something to start with and avoid more sensible subjects.
Is talking about the weather, like other small conversation, just a way to avoid opening up and talk about things that are more important and sensible to us???
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Integration
Please note that this are highly simple thoughts and personal observations, highly simplified.
What is happening with our societies? There are more and more problems related to unemployment, integration (or lack of), social gaps, conflicts, alienation of people and violence. The most striking example is probably France. Having lived half of my life there and half of my life in Sweden, I can easily compare the two societies.
In France, the social gap can clearly be seen and sensed. Maybe not for tourists, but I do feel it when moving around in Paris. This is of course not very nice and a problem that will not be easy to solve. People are suspicious of others, elderly people are frightened and angry at the young French with an immigrants background, young immigrants are angry at old people, society, people with more wealth. Middle class people (and wealthy) are frightened by young immigrants and so on.... This creates a divide. It creates fear. It creates tensions and all this creates anger, suspicion, leading to an even greater divide - a moment 22 one could say.
How can this be? A social divide, tensions, suspicion, "those ones"... In a country where the social wellfare state is amongts the highest in the world. Everyone should be happy since no one needs to starve (supposably), everyone has a home (supposably), everyonoe is equal (once again supposably)... The wellfare state that was supposed to prevent all this has failed to deliver this in the long run. It worked for a while, when the economy was doing good, before the global village became reality.
Today, it feels like the social state is one of the reasons for the social gap. Instead of encouraging people to find jobs, and put expectations on people, it seems the state is marginalising people by putting them into different social schemes. Unemployment, pre-retirement, sick leave, social support and more... This marginalizes people and alienates them. These situations are extremely hard to handle for an individual. Just imagine, playing in a football team (average team), and then all of a sudden hear: "sorry, you are just not good enough. You're not going to be, not anywhere at any point, so we're not even going to let you be on the bench. You're out of the team. Game OVER". Or sit on a bench with hundreds of others fighting for a place in the team. With little chances to learn what is required to get back on the field, no chance to practice the things you need to know in order to take a spot in the team...
One goes through all kinds of negative feelings. And this separates you from others. Anger, demotivation, lack of will and more. Creates a gap.
The high amount of people leaving on different social schemes leads to a high pressure on the public sector, taxes have to rise, the possibility for SMEs to grow and create new opportunities is small. Unemployment raises, people are frightened to change jobs, resign, this leads to a low turnover and movement on the labour market, thus making it more difficult for people outside the market to enter and get a shot at something. At the same time, getting fired is almost impossible (because it is not nice to fire people), so why should you work your ass off? You're not making any more profit? Just stay foot and you'll be fine.
Lack of requirements, expectations, incentives, movement and more creates a stagnation. The system is breaking down what it is suppose to improve - societies with no classes. The system is actually leading to classes. It also creates a rigidity and difficulty to break through and move from one class to another.
Sweden - the country with the highest taxes in the world. The gap in society is not anywhere close to what it is in France. But it is getting there. The main reason why it's not is because of the higher amount of taxes and a different culture. As more and more people are excluded from the labour market, the frustration grows, marginalisation is increasing, anger adn frustrations are becoming more and more common amongst young people working in the "wrong suburbs". This can actually be seen more and more. The society is changing and it is slowly moving towards the situation where France finds itself at this point.
How can we prevent this from happening? Work for an increased integration, a more flexible labour market, more incentives and more demands on individuals. More about this in some other post.
Later...
What is happening with our societies? There are more and more problems related to unemployment, integration (or lack of), social gaps, conflicts, alienation of people and violence. The most striking example is probably France. Having lived half of my life there and half of my life in Sweden, I can easily compare the two societies.
In France, the social gap can clearly be seen and sensed. Maybe not for tourists, but I do feel it when moving around in Paris. This is of course not very nice and a problem that will not be easy to solve. People are suspicious of others, elderly people are frightened and angry at the young French with an immigrants background, young immigrants are angry at old people, society, people with more wealth. Middle class people (and wealthy) are frightened by young immigrants and so on.... This creates a divide. It creates fear. It creates tensions and all this creates anger, suspicion, leading to an even greater divide - a moment 22 one could say.
How can this be? A social divide, tensions, suspicion, "those ones"... In a country where the social wellfare state is amongts the highest in the world. Everyone should be happy since no one needs to starve (supposably), everyone has a home (supposably), everyonoe is equal (once again supposably)... The wellfare state that was supposed to prevent all this has failed to deliver this in the long run. It worked for a while, when the economy was doing good, before the global village became reality.
Today, it feels like the social state is one of the reasons for the social gap. Instead of encouraging people to find jobs, and put expectations on people, it seems the state is marginalising people by putting them into different social schemes. Unemployment, pre-retirement, sick leave, social support and more... This marginalizes people and alienates them. These situations are extremely hard to handle for an individual. Just imagine, playing in a football team (average team), and then all of a sudden hear: "sorry, you are just not good enough. You're not going to be, not anywhere at any point, so we're not even going to let you be on the bench. You're out of the team. Game OVER". Or sit on a bench with hundreds of others fighting for a place in the team. With little chances to learn what is required to get back on the field, no chance to practice the things you need to know in order to take a spot in the team...
One goes through all kinds of negative feelings. And this separates you from others. Anger, demotivation, lack of will and more. Creates a gap.
The high amount of people leaving on different social schemes leads to a high pressure on the public sector, taxes have to rise, the possibility for SMEs to grow and create new opportunities is small. Unemployment raises, people are frightened to change jobs, resign, this leads to a low turnover and movement on the labour market, thus making it more difficult for people outside the market to enter and get a shot at something. At the same time, getting fired is almost impossible (because it is not nice to fire people), so why should you work your ass off? You're not making any more profit? Just stay foot and you'll be fine.
Lack of requirements, expectations, incentives, movement and more creates a stagnation. The system is breaking down what it is suppose to improve - societies with no classes. The system is actually leading to classes. It also creates a rigidity and difficulty to break through and move from one class to another.
Sweden - the country with the highest taxes in the world. The gap in society is not anywhere close to what it is in France. But it is getting there. The main reason why it's not is because of the higher amount of taxes and a different culture. As more and more people are excluded from the labour market, the frustration grows, marginalisation is increasing, anger adn frustrations are becoming more and more common amongst young people working in the "wrong suburbs". This can actually be seen more and more. The society is changing and it is slowly moving towards the situation where France finds itself at this point.
How can we prevent this from happening? Work for an increased integration, a more flexible labour market, more incentives and more demands on individuals. More about this in some other post.
Later...
Friday, March 24, 2006
The Knowledge Volonteers - Kunskapsvolontärerna
My main source of occupation at the moment! My colleague, David Tegenmark and I have started up this NGO that focuses on knowledge transfer between the business sector and the NGO sector. We do it by setting together advisory boards to NGOs that can adress their challenges/opportunities and we then provide all facilitation, administration etc in order to ensure a high quality to all stakeholders!
Cheers,
Fredrik
Cheers,
Fredrik
Finally coming around...
Welcome!
After lots of thinking, wanting to start a blog but not really knowing about what, I finally took the step to start it up. My own blog...
If you want to know what it's about, don't ask me, ask someone else maybe? Maybe you could suggest to me what you'd like me to share my opinions about?
All I know for now is that I'll be sharing my thoughts when I feel I have something relevant to talk or reflect about. I am interested in people, integration, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), society, entrepreneurship, family and a lot more...
For those of you who don't know me, I can tell you right away that I have my opinions and people tend to think I have strong opinions. Also, I tend to give bad first impressions and grow on people. Some of my best friends are people that I first of all started to piss off (not on purpose though).
I guess if you read this, you'll get to know a little more about me but foremost my opinions.
Cheers!
Fredrik
After lots of thinking, wanting to start a blog but not really knowing about what, I finally took the step to start it up. My own blog...
If you want to know what it's about, don't ask me, ask someone else maybe? Maybe you could suggest to me what you'd like me to share my opinions about?
All I know for now is that I'll be sharing my thoughts when I feel I have something relevant to talk or reflect about. I am interested in people, integration, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), society, entrepreneurship, family and a lot more...
For those of you who don't know me, I can tell you right away that I have my opinions and people tend to think I have strong opinions. Also, I tend to give bad first impressions and grow on people. Some of my best friends are people that I first of all started to piss off (not on purpose though).
I guess if you read this, you'll get to know a little more about me but foremost my opinions.
Cheers!
Fredrik
