Now what kind of a title for a post is that you may ask. It’s a title that is trying to constructively criticise the traditional press about its methods. We’re talking about Slush Helsinki of course.
The sad truth is that the traditional press was uninterested in covering anything from Slush, be it a short article online or a in a more material format. A quick query with Ampparit, a Finnish news aggregator site, results in 0 results about Slush. The irony of this is that the President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, has written an apology e-mail to Helene Auramo, one of the organisers, apologising that she was unable to attend (Helene wrote about this in Jaiku). The press did not bother to reply to any queries about coverage.
This is extremely sad, when Risto Siilasmaa, one of the most successful Finnish entrepreneurs said in his keynote about growth entrepreneurship the responsibility everyone has in times of crisis. He also nodded towards angel investors, as they need to believe more than anybody in these companies to invest in them – when it makes no economical sense whatsoever. Risto also talked about the responsibility of the media – these companies need visibility – ahem ahem, are we the only ones supporting this cause?
Slush Helsinki was an extremely successful event in many different ways. We managed to get the elite of the Finnish growth entrepreneurial scene under one roof for the first time in Finland and in a way that close to 400 people could listen and learn from these experts. This in itself is something that should interest many people, what do these experts have to say about pushing yourself beyond belief in a venture that only you believe in with endless passion – looking to make it big from the Arctic.
However, being able to organise such an event that created so many happy faces, so many positive thoughts about the future of the growth entrepreneurship and so many new deals during a time of huge, unimaginable financial crisis. I believe these sort of events are extremely important as they lay the foundation of hope for something that is crucial to the economy in terms of not only growth, but competition in the international markets when we, Finland especially, cannot count on the support of the more traditional industries such as forestry or machinery.
Then again, Slush Helsinki was not created with support of external financing nor official support from a member of government. It was created out of passion and belief that growth entrepreneurship does and will happen out of the Arctics. Maybe in a few years we can turn to the traditional press and tell them – we told you so.
Apologies for a long rant without any bigger news value (pun intended), but I believe this is an important issue that should be addressed and not only in Finland. We’ll be releasing lots of video material in the coming days to spread the knowledge from the event.
iWillStudy.com
Unita
to my understanding the president sends an apology to every event she has been invited to but not able to attend.
Hmm, I guess I could’ve helped you guys a bit more on this (have quite a few contacts to HS, etc.) but I figured you got it covered already. Sorry! Anyway, I’m happy all went well and at least you got presidential-level apologies :-)
Meaning, all went well except maybe the press interest.
Considering the huge success of this event, I wouldn’t be surprised if it might be easier to get media attention in the future. The media, like everything, has it’s own tricks and rules if you want to manage it.
On the bright side, well known international blogs were talking about it, so it’s not all gloom.
It seems like Helene really has very high connections ;))
Anyway, there are now reports of Slush out there:
http://www.itviikko.fi/talous/2008/11/26/kasvuyrittajyytta-lapioitiin-lumituiskun-keskella/200830635/7?rss=8
Subject: TIEDOTE: Korjaamo täynnä: yli 400 osallistui Slush-kasvuyritystapahtumaan
Date: Wed, November 26, 2008 12:47
Do not whine before the press release is sent out. (The timestamp of this post is older than the press release’s timestamp.) Traditional media works still in traditional ways and if they do not get the press release -> no story.
Were there lots of journalist at the event? They should be able to write without the official press release.
It was a great event! Thank you, Peter and Helene and the Arctic Startup guys. Hopefully you get some press coverage also. I saw a girl interviewing people there, with a microfone, camera and in english.
You definitely should do Slush 2009. I will attend. :-) And it sometimes is a good idea to ask a minister to attend, you get the press (perhaps even TV) with him/her for free. ;-)
@Kimmo I think Antti makes a very good point and it’s not about whining. And it’s not like the press wasn’t contacted ahead of time, there was earlier press releases and meetings as well. But of course a mirror is a very good tool in this case as well, we can all do better. That said, next year we’ll have even more Slush and it will be bigger and better.
This kind of prove it that the traditional media is only an outlet and press agent of government. Anything else is not interesting (no news) if it is not originated by some public body and official…
On the other hand Slush is a wonderful demonstration that great things can be done without asking or begging funding and permission from central planners :-)
At least one journalist I know didn’t get any answer for the press registration inquiry until after the Slush. Person responsible for the registration was on holiday, apparently.
Next time, try inviting Johanna Tukiainen instead of the president and you’ll get traditional media coverage for sure :)
I`ve been following this conversation on Jaiku and now here and I have to say that we could have done much better on PR and marketing. I am sure that Ville, Hele and Peter agree with me. Slush 2008 was great and I am very happy about it but I also think that this was one of the areas were we could have done better.
I wonder if the replies from the president are sent by some assistants. To what I have seen, media coverage about start up here in Finland is 10 times less than in Vietnam, although the international environment and facilities are 10 times more.
Kimmo,
Before you jump the gun, it’s good to check your facts. We send out a PR release before AND after the event.
Secondly, we had a lunch with the leading Finnish daily, Helsingin Sanomat, months before the event just to brief them on Slush.
@all: This is exactly the kind of passion we need to unleash for things like growth entrepreneurship in the form of discussion.
In the end if you look at innovations and how they are executed, it always pretty much comes down to communication. If the traditional media isn’t communicating, we need to be :)
The bar cannot go any lower than this regarding what is news worthy in mainstream media (http://tinyurl.com/69t69x – sorry in Finnish only) :-)
The actual Slush day was full of potential headlines, shame that you didn’t manage to get any writers from our newspaper. Somehow the material in the web failed to tell about the potential of the day. I didn’t expect a lot – the bigger the surprise when you guys ran an event that was very newsworthy, even historical.
Pekka Pekkala
Producer
HS.fi
For what it’s worth, I agree that there could’ve been more on the website. Even we were slightly confused as to what would be taking place. Ville, Peter etc: for next year I can possibly get you in touch with the Alt Party’s press folk. They did an excellent job at getting the word out. It does take some time and planning. Now we just need to recruit them to Scred ;-)
Pekka, the event itself was indeed fabulous. Quite honestly one of the best of this kind I’ve been to.
@Ville
I got the press release before and after the event.
I did not jump on the gun. I was just amazed about this post and said what I thought about it without spending that much time on it. I was amazed because this is normal. I’ve been sending out press releases (and organizing events) and traditional press is usually not interested, no matter what it is about – unless it’s something extraordinary, like invasion of the saucermen (or something about big brother). This is a sad fact.
Media is not that interested in something that will happen in the future. Traditional media does not understand events like Slush that well. (I had never heard about Slush before I got the short press release few days before the event.)
If you have pitched the event to journalists and still they decide not to write, then something’s wrong. At least their morale.
I think @Pekka Pekkala’s comment really says it all -without playing the old look-credible-and-corporate -game things won’t really happen within the press, no matter who’s bios are there.
It’s kind of sad when things like these happen – one can really see how far apart the big innovation plans and reality are. Hopefully at least some old-sckool reporters will get a grip on what’s going on next year.
Tein nyt vähän kaivelua Slush Helsinki -tapahtumalle suomalaisessa verkkomediassa. Kas näin:
14 osumaa tällä viikolla (eli tapahtuman aikana/jälkeen)
Nämä jakautuvat seuraavasti:
* kaksi on lehdistötiedote sellaisenaan läpi -osumia (STT ja Kauppalehti)
* kolme on tiedotteen pohjalta tehtyjä referointeja (Tieke, ITviikko ja Digitoday – kaksi viimeistä identtisiä)
* kaksi kertoo enemmänkin Floobsin liittymisestä Sunin startup-ohjelmaan
* kaksi kertoo Tori Innovationsista
* kolme on Kauppalehden blogeissa olevia pläjäyksiä
* yksi on FIG Marketplacen lehdistötiedote (Slush mainittu)
* yksi on Marmain blogikirjoitus
Tässä linkki tuohon viimeiseen, jossa on selkeästi eniten nähty kirjoittamisen vaivaa:
http://www.marmai.fi/blogit/vassinen/article172497.ece
Slush 2009 will be bigger and better, all help we can get from all of you is much appreciated. Slush is an event that is first and foremost “by the community, for the community” and it’s all done on volunteer basis.
The two things we wanted to achieve this year was to highlight entrepreneurship and get more people thinking about starting their own company or go work for a startup. That’s why we had the local startup heroes there as role models and I think it worked pretty well. The other thing we wanted to achieve was to get some visibility for the fact that there has been great things done here in the slush, and that there are even bigger things cooking in the form of the very vibrant startup community that we have over here. We didn’t do that well with this, but at least we got some coverage for local startups in VentureBeat and TechCrunch with more to come.
Next year we’ll do better.