ANTTI T. MÄKELÄ

Uno-Am communications solution for effective political campaigning is a tool and an environment for individuals who want to influence and make a real difference.

Read more from Uno-Am Blog (In Finnish only).

Me and my partners are proud to publish the first version of the Uno-Am website. Check it out and browse around. Enjoy.

What I have here is the upcoming product line of our creative agency. This product line will be officially released soonish, while our company’s website gets updated in the near future. With that in mind, I’m offering a sneak peek of the products for you to mull over. Enjoy!

Basic

The Basic Solution contains essential functions for a web-based communications and marketing solution, created around a customized content management system. The solution is provided with a variety of tools of utilizing contemporary communications standars e.g. social tools and resources. The Basic Solution works best for the marketing and communications needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, NGO’s and public organizations.

Premium

The Premium Solution is all about a comprehensive and innovative solution production. The client is introduced to a variety of different communicative tools that are compared with desired needs and requirements. The idea of the package is to create a truly innovative communicative environment, which is generated of a unique collection of distinguishable features. Practically, the Premium Solution involves the idea and the method of implementation of the Basic Solution, enriched with a unique and innovative communications toolbox and design.

Open

The Open Solution is all about increasing the opportunities and possibilities for the maximum flow of knowledge, may it be restricted mainly inside an organization or without any boundaries. As the fundamentals of working life, especially in the creative sector, are constantly renewing themselves, the tools have to match the new requirements. The Open Solution includes a collaborative tool, operating on a wiki-environment with a suitable platform and content management. The solution is tailored and designed for the exact needs of the customer. Additionally, we won’t leave you alone! We throw in an educational training package for you to make the most of the solution.

The Creative Powers of the Information Society has been recently published by a Brussel-based think-thank, the Ludwig von Mises Institute-Europe. The following quotation has been acquired from the LVMI-Europe website.

The legacy of Friedrich August Von Hayeks’ life work remains an influential source of inspiration to scholars in different fields of science. Naturally, the Hayekian economic theory endures in our contemporary environment, however, Hayek excels in examining a multitude of diverse social phenomenon. In the Creative Powers of the Information Society, the Hayekian approach on human innovativeness is utilized to provide perspectives on information society through reviewing the theories of a free civilization and organizational competency.

After witnessing the emergence of an era of digitalized human creativity, manifesting itself as a product of the development of the information technology, we now have a growing number of chances to interact and socialize with each other. Nevertheless, we are rarely provided with solutions that could utilize our intellect. Examples of such lack of judgement are generally associated with public organizations.

According to the findings this study analyzes, the information society would benefit more from functions that the Hayekian theory on creativity pushes forward. Thus, public processes would add on the number of organizational interest groups, attain more information to produce better services and increase transparency. Consequently, the public organizations would acquit themselves better for their appointed basic task and mission.

The Creative Powers of the Information Society is produced in cooperation with the Ludwig von Mises Institute-Europe.

Click here to read the complete paper.

You may introduce yourself to latest version of my CV. The file is converted to pdf-format and can be downloaded here:

Antti T. Mäkelä – Curriculum Vitae

I’ve finalized my thesis for the first time today and it is practically done. I’ve sent it to of my professors, they’ve promised to browse it through and give comments. After some (hopefully minor) adjustments, I’ll leave the paper to be proofread and then- it is done.

It turned out not to be as good as I’ve expected, but I’m sure it will do. I’m glad that I managed to pull it off in English, and I’m sure it will serve me as great assistance in the future. I will post my final version to this blog when it is the real deal. This would be approximately in a three weeks time.

I’m having really grave problems in trying to implement the Hayekian theorizing of knowledge into my theoretical framework. These problems appear every time I start thinking of how to connect the benefits of mass innovation with governmental decision-making.

Hayek states that knowledge has, apart from the scientific knowledge, a practical side. This knowledge is dispersed among countless individuals and can not be used by a governmental institutions in making decisions. And thus, governmental decision-making has to merely safeguard the liberties for the individuals for they can decide in cooperation which is best for them.  Hayek calls such an institution an open society.

If the case I am about to use shows that in a certain environment the governmental institution made a bad decision while the option that the market forces produced was seemingly better (and humane), I should refer to Hayek while claiming that governmental decisions lacked knowledge and therefore failed? Right?

The failed governmental decisions have their basis sketched on the strategy documents and hence I should compare the strategies with how good was their ability to predict the future or the ability. Right? Now I just need a good strategic analyzing method to evaluate these documents, right? Any suggestion?

The first leg of the year 2010 has been quiet enough. I’m using the second chapter of Hayeks’ Constitution of Liberty as a reference.

Knowledge

Starting with the utmost basics of theorizing civilizations, we are to use certain utensils whilst using Hayekian schemes of thought in explaining the workings and functions of a civilized society and its constituents. Hayekian notion of knowledge in a civilized society sets a certain pattern toward its existence and beneficial usability. Knowledge is conceptually something every individual possess regardless of its contents. One of its furthermost attribute is its ability to cumulate i.e. its amount can be increased. Realizing the basic properties Hayek constructs a theorem connecting the ability of knowledge to cumulate with the growth of the civilization.

Secondly, Hayek describes the patterns of naturally cumulative knowledge and compares it with more artificial methods, thus pinpointing certain errors in certain scheme of thought that are not to be acquired if the full abilities of knowledge are to be set free. Hayek argues that knowledge in society is not of a focused origin but dispersed to single fragments i.e. every individual in a particular society.  For centralized knowledge has only limited usability  it can not be used to increase knowledge in absolute measures, and hence knowledge cumulates in concert with the growth of the civilization, the activity of individuals becomes essential in Hayekian theorizing.

One of the first Hayekian conceptions of knowledge meets individuals is analogous to the Socratic maxim that sets square one for a civilization as a state of ignorance. Although, Hayek does not judge individual intelligence as ignorance per se but emphasizes its limited quota when compared with situations where the individual stocks of knowledge would be shared, developed and altered. Therefore, Hayek comes to a conclusion that to escape individual ignorance one has to communicate with other individuals , for firstly it is time and resource consuming to invent the wheel all over again, and secondly it’s impossible to acquire for certain goals alone.

Characteristic of the Hayekian theorizing is a vibrant protagonist antagonist arrangement considering the basic attributes of the functions of a civilized society. Therefore Hayek sees the uselessness of central bureaucracy activities in forcing a set of rules via a top-down model. Hence, like argued in the earlier chapter, dictating the activities of a myriad individuals from a centralized source is not as powerful as a tool for acquiring knowledge, if compared with the mutual cooperation of individuals behaving in a fashion they see fit for their own purposes, let it be individually or collectively orientated.

I thought I might publish my first version of the theory I’m planning on using.

Theoretical frame of reference: Creative powers of society

The theoretical framework used in this study provides an explanation on how the novel ideas of development in the information society can follow an ideal of freedom and free society by Hayekian definition. Friedrich August von Hayek is one of the most preeminent liberal thinkers of the 20^th century whose reasoning is embraced widely in a myriad of social and economic sciences. This theoretical frame is erected on Hayek’s conception of institutions.

To enable its creative powers for an optimum result, a society needs to enable certain attributes. The Hayekian view describes the nature of human action and elements of social interaction in a state of freedom trough a degree of individual liberty, requiring a lack of coercion of some by others.[1] By optimizing such an environment for the successful use of creative powers, we are capable of increasing our chances of “special constellations of individual endowment and circumstances” resulting “in the shaping of a new tool or the improvement of an old one.”[2] Therefore, it can be claimed that creative forces require a certain amount, or a number of, individual liberties.

For the development of society, in which we are concerned here, we are to review some in-built Hayekian features starting with knowledge and its use. The basic Hayekian axiom presupposes that an individual benefits from more knowledge than the he or she is aware of. During the pursuit of new information, an individual is able to escape his ignorance i.e. personage remain ignorant until they are to extract for knowledge previously unknown to them.[3] To be able to profit from such interaction, individuals have to socialize in an environment described as an advanced form of social life, thus realizing that his or hers discrete ends become more successful. Therefore, it can be argued that society’s advancement is parallel to the amount of knowledge used by its constituents, and it is thus important to preserve institutions that enable knowledge to transform and cumulate. [4]

One of the most common misconceptions over the views in knowledge is the belief that the greatest human inventions are of an origin of deliberate design, yet this would mean that it would be possible to receive and employ knowledge to such extents that is unthinkable.     The peculiarity of intelligence is that it can’t be stored at one place or be used by one mind without loosing some of its essential creative powers i.e. a command by some for others will destroy the individual liberty to choose an option best suitable for someone at a particular moment in a detailed environment. Also, Hayek argues that knowledge is of a dispersive kind thus information in society is scattered among the individuals that constitute it. Therefore, it is vital for the empowerment of creative powers that the institutions in society are designed by “mutually adjusted efforts of many people”; hence “achievements are made greater than any single mind can foresee.”[5] Hayek claims that institutional structures providing individuals with the most extensive scope of opportunities are paramount for the advance of society.[6] Therefore, the amount of opportunities has to be as large as possible for static guidelines would be helpful only in static environment.

Human action in society consists of constant adjustment to continually altering circumstances and conditions. These adjustments produce solutions and adaptations that are of temporary aid, albeit they can constitute more permanent features too. Hayek refers to this production as spontaneous formation, stating that the approach corresponds to the nature of human action. Considering that it is fairly easy to influence in the workings of society without respecting the underpinnings of freedom, and thus implement commands of positive rights rather than negative ones, we are to require a set of certain rules that satisfy these conditions. So, if we are to function in a way that ensures the maximum amount of creativity, our laws will have to generic to an extent that they enable us to perform in ways that gives us the freedom to act in anyway we think is best for a particular situation.[7]

My understanding of the Hayekian comprehension of liberty leads inevitably to a certain chain of thought describing an ideal environment providing individuals with opportunities to make the most of their capabilities. In such an ideal, the common reasoning provides rules that are not to compete with or amend the nature of things, but to understand it and to provide society with institutions that are generic to an extent that help individuals interact and aspire for their goals, without additional coercion.

[1] Hayek (1960: 11)

[2] Hayek (1960: 30)

[3] Hayek (1960: 22-23)

[4] Hayek (1960: 26, 30)

[5] Hayek (1960: 30-31)

[6] Hayek (1960: 29)

[7] Hayek (1960: 33)