View From a Height

Nokia, the Official Cell Phone of Blue America

OK, that's a little harsh, but these comments from Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila show a couple of things.

Nokia's chief executive, Jorma Ollila, said in a rare television interview that the world is living in "an era of selfishness" very different from his childhood days in a small town in central Finland, when family values were of prime importance.

"Put in a nicer way, it is an era of individualism. This is a very self-centered period, which also has plenty of good features too because, when understood correctly, it can help you live independently and stand on one's own two feet," Ollila, 54, said in a candid interview broadcast on state-run YLE television.

Speaking with Finnish philosopher Esa Saarinen, a personal friend, Ollila said he thinks people are more concerned about individual rights than taking responsibility for their actions and trying to have a positive influence on society.

"What I'm worried about is that if this disintegration of values continues and develops further, we'll get a conservative counter-reaction precisely like what has actually happened in the USA," he said.

"This ultraconservatism, coupled with the elements of the church ... which, as we well know, has also supported the current (U.S.) administration, is a powerful counter-reaction to a longtime vacuum of values in society," Ollila said.

Later on in the interview, Ollila talks about the importance of his company being an "educartional establishment," which means that not only do the employees learn, but that the organization's implicit knowledge improves, too. It's a key insight, and part of what's made Ollila such a successful CEO.

No, what this interview shows is that any leader, even a CEO, especially a CEO, is only as good as the information he gets. Ollila gets gobs and gobs of market research data on the US, and yet clearly understands so little about our culture and how we see ourselves. He clearly gets his political news from the European MSM (or whatever the Finnish acronym is), who very quickly adopted the Americans-as-religion-obsessed-reactionaries meme.

"The church," as such doesn't exist in the United States. Perhaps Ollila is viewing religion through the European experience of established churches? In fact, religion in America has adapted quite well to individualism, paralleling business success.

The marketplace of religion in America never resembled AT&T as The Telephone Company. It may have, centuries ago, resembled post-breakup AT&T and the regional Baby Bells. Bur if Ollila wants a good analogy, it's the telecom market of today, with competing companies offering competing versions of competing technologies. Ironic, that.