All Things Go Digital Soon

The Digital Future offers great potential, but needs the right approach so that all will benefit. The next big things don’t just appear from nowhere. We need to be prepared; do the home-work and find the right people, money and the resources needed to get things done.

We have had industrial revolutions before and we were pretty good in dealing with them. What’s new is the enormous speed of the current revolution, which is being fueled by digitization.

We can not change the speed of technological change - so we need to adapt to it. We must be agile, self-organized and flexible. Organisations need to give people more ownership and responsibility for what they are doing.

Traditional hierarchies are smashed and digital nomads are given the ability to self-organize their productive contributions.

The leaders assume the role of coaches, trusting their teams to make the right decisions. Another key for success is diversity. 

We need to enhance the innovative strength and unleash the potential of our participants.

Diverse teams prove highly capable in adapting to to a  changing environment., and thus contributing to the success of smart villages.

We need to do the most of our participants diversity with regard to everything from cultural background , ethnicity and geographical location.

Let’s get started

Let’s get started! From building the Great Pyramids to landing on the moon, humanity's greatest endeavors have required thousands of people working together on common goals. That requires intricate project management to pull off.

Project management is what gets you to your goal. We need to break down the project into manageable, repeatable steps, ones that guarantee success even when working with many individuals institutions, communities, villages and companies.

It was a project management system and teamwork that landed man on the moon in the 60's.

What do we want to achieve?

Like any startup, the Digital Villages project management team and participants have to  set their goals, define their mission, get organized and discuss a common strategy. What do we really want to accomplish?

• A learning process
• Technology improvements
• Better business environment
• Attract more tourists
• Construct hotels and improve housing
• Export local goods and services to new markets
• Improve life for the villagers

If we don’t know where we are heading, we might end up somewhere else!

A Digital Villages startup’s success always depends on the three crucial ingredients:

• access to capital 
• access to talent and 
• access to markets

Who owns the Future

Digitalization might be the biggest thing that has happened after the industrial revolution.

It could be the most fundamental thing since humans were able to communicate.

Digitalization changes everything, affects core aspects of business processes, customer interaction and processes.

Processes gain obvious benefits from digitalization, as well as the ways companies interact with customers.

Do decision-makers fully understand the opportunities and threats posed by digitalization and how technological change will affect the long-term health of their organizations?

Digital Villages has been in the making for three decades

It started out as a very analogue process 1987 in Kajaani. Things have changed, we're now taking an aim at our home base from an outsider's perspective.

First, we're chatting about "talking walls" and "info centers".

Back then, it was much talk, visual and digital day-dreaming but very little action.

Personal Computers carried a lot of promises but businesses lived in a paper driven world. Nevertheless, The PC was a milestone for the movement that ten years later surfaced as the concept of a digital village.

The first generation Digital Villages came along 1997 in Southeastern Finland. We were able to use Internet and Web 1.0 technologies as a platform to improve local and regional networking.

We're now ready to reach out and find new audiences.

It's hard to believe that the virtual construction of "Wirby the Global Village" would continue as a self-improving project for such a long time.

The first generation Digital Villages was still a regional story while the products and services connected only had a local, regional or national reach at most.

When we watch the world at present we need to work with people and producers who love to connect with their audiences on a global scale.

It's 2017 and we should be able to talk about digitalization as way to provide visibility and public awareness to products and services that have been limited and restricted to a small local market in the past. We'll do it in a way that counts.

Today, the tools are much more advanced and the fantasies of 1987 can be accomplished through global collaboration of small independent and distributed teams of producers.

Progress was being made on many levels.

• Broadband
• Youtube
• Podcasts
• Picture Galleries
• Digital Storytelling

We're attracting and connecting with people who love to do what they're passionate about.

Today, technology isn't a bottleneck or information flow a limitation anymore. We can  do it! Digital Villages is a living network and a breathing brand.

• We're working to make this a worldwide phenomenon

As a partner, you just have to believe that you're good at what you do, while working to process and integrate those who are willing to grasp their own share of the market.

Now, we're giving Digital Villages a second chance to become a hyper-local and transatlantic success story with a built-in ability to scale for global reach and business growth.

• Micro-movies showing the opportunities to do good
• Representation is the best thing that has come out of the Internet
• Putting yourself out there and being open and honest and authentic about who you are and what you represent creates interest and attracts followers

DV 2.0 is responsive in real time to customer needs and the changing needs of international clients. Many future products and services will be created and improved through crowdsourcing of customer requests.

• We want to be famous around the world in hopes of reaching digital nomads, especially digitally advanced international people with an edge and a pitch
• And with everything going on we can say that multi-channeling has a purpose 

Collaboration is the key to the evolution of the creative process showing networking partners in a flattering light. Our producers are using social-media marketing to create hype as strong that customers join the crusade and start doing their hyper-local activities on their own while sharing with others.

• Younger people are connected by the Internet, and that means we're communicating with people from halfway around the world 

We're featuring characters, personalities and organizations that are real and complicated, contradictory, normal individuals, organizations and companies like we all are, who are also allowed to be funny and challenging.

• Playful positivism
• Hyper-local live shows
• We welcome those who like to think they're citizens of the world

Writing Technical Specificatiosn III/1990

Beyond Innovation. DV is an online business market penetration network developed in the early years of the 1990's. At a very early stage, it's impossible to know if there're any realistic possibilities for startups and innovators to connect with their clients at all.

Digital Villages enables us to manage, monitor and evidence business development projects and allow participants to measure and analyse the impact of invested time and money.

The show must go on. We've tested its functionality during the past decades in numerous exciting projects. As it turns out, easy market penetration and entry has its limitations, for ongoing success we need a world-class products and services. Next, we've to make the stuff available and create awareness.

Initially, the DV breaks down the barriers of entry to international markets for small and medium size companies. The growth of social media amplifies the possibilities of innovators to find out profitable niches in the market.

But look closer. It takes in consideration a vast range of opportunities and market conditions for those who travel through the three major steps of internationalization:

1. Penetration
2. Dedication
3. Saturation

Digitalization of Banking in Spain

Francisco González: "We are building the best digital bank of the 21st century"

• Digital transformation: “Our goal is to turn BBVA into a totally digital company, including  all our products and services, and with our over 100,000 employees working digitally.”

 The BBVA Chairman & CEO first went over the global and European economic situation, before covering the Spanish economy. “In 2011 and 2012, Spain was on the verge of collapse,” he pointed out. “And, in 2015, we expect it to lead Europe with a growth of 2.7%.” Francisco González also pointed out that more than 400,000 net jobs were created last year.

Nevertheless, he said job quality needed to improve and warned about the high unemployment rate (close to 24%).

Likewise, he highlighted the need to promote innovation, improve education and the Public Administrations, streamline the judicial system and effectively fight against corruption.

“To build on our achievements, we need strong governments. With political stability, 2016 and the following years will be very good for Spain,” he said.

Key developments in 2014

Francisco González recapped the key developments of last year: “Despite the complex environment, 2014 was a good year for BBVA.” The Chairman & CEO of BBVA referred to income growth and the Group’s good cost performance.

Furthermore, he pointed out the improved risk indicators and high solvency levels.

He also underscored that BBVA was one of the strongest institutions among large European banks in the adverse scenario of the stress tests.

As for the shareholder remuneration policy, he asserted that the bank has set a “recurring profit payout target of 35-40%, all in cash. We will carry this out progressively, according to regulatory and market conditions.”

In 2015, BBVA will make four payments, two in cash and two with the Dividend Option scheme, which allows the shareholder to choose between cash or shares.

The Chairman & CEO then focused on the transformation of BBVA to anticipate the impact that the technological revolution will have on the banking industry. “The financial industry has lagged behind, but we see new competitors popping up in many segments of the banking value chain,” he explained.

Eight years ago, BBVA started to build its new technological platform, giving us “a big edge over the vast majority of banks.” The platform now processes 350 million transactions a day, a figure that will reach 1 billion in 2017.

In 2014, BBVA set up the Digital Banking area to accelerate its transformation and make “BBVA a totally digital company, including all its products and services [such as BBVA Wallet or the one-click loans,] and with our over 100,000 employees working digitally.” 

Source: BBVA

Digitalization, Robotization, Automation, Networking = Industry 4.0?

We've been looking into the future of the upcoming or emerging industrial revolution. Germans have dubbed IoT to Industry 4.0 and defining the 4.0 as the symbol of a revolutionary change that is taking place in eg the mechanical wood working industry.