3.1.2011: PR and marketing company Visionist (www.visionist.fi) was founded exactly 10 years ago. In December 2000 I bought internet connection, two computers and pile of business cards. Then I figured out suitable name for the company and at the beginning of January 2001 I officially became a private entrepreneur. My goal was and still is to offer knowledgeable PR and marketing services.
Many things have changed in ten years, but thinking backwards I realized that not that many things have revolutionized. People and partnerships are still the keys to success. It is difficult to predict future and at least I couldn’t predict the present state of entertainment digitalization or the complete breakthrough of social media. For myself social media meant ten years ago mainly journalists having joyful time at press club after hard day’s work. Today it means a lot more varied opportunities… Entertainment has changed quite a bit and it seems to continue to evolve. Physical media and owning material are slowly disappearing and need-based entertainment consumption is coming as a valid option instead. Whether it is music, movies, games, books or magazines, they are all moving towards digital format and even to subscription models instead of buying things separately.
It doesn’t matter in which format products will be sold in future, but the need for good people and fresh ideas in making communication are still hard currency. Stories are still written by people and without fresh ideas new things won’t emerge. Similarly, machine-like translation of international materials or forced feeding of foreign arguments to local (Finnish) market is not working either. After countless press releases, customers and partners it is great pleasure to see that many of the partners that have been close to me at the beginning haven’t disappeared and close collaboration continues. Also, many new partners and close friends have come by along the way and I’m extremely grateful for that. I would like to thank all of those people with whom I have had the pleasure to be involved and I hope that our journey continues even more interesting.
Collaboration is even more important than ever and one should stare at own navel less and less. Therefore Visionist won’t celebrate own excellence by having useless party, but will focus on future. Money that will be saved from the party will be given to two charities. First of all, because I personally believe in people’s self-reliance and self-help, two percent of Visionist’s anniversary year’s income goes to entrepreneurs in developing countries. After short testing, Kiva.org seems like a great service and provides microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. More information can be found from www.kiva.org.
Another charity got initial inspiration from a French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s stunning documentary film. The film and its background material can be viewed at www.youtube.com/homeproject. GoodPlanet is environmental organization founded by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and more can read from www.goodplanet.org. I donate one percent of Visionist’s anniversary year’s income to this organization.
Hopefully my small examples will also encourage many others to invest in our common future.
This is the beginning of the next hard working decade, so good luck and enjoy everyone!
Jiri Koivuniemi
