Yesterday, April 1, 2008, marked the first day of my marketing communications tenure at work. I had to attend a team kick-off meeting in Espoo, Finland where my manager sits. The Nokia site in Espoo is where Nokia House is located, the headquarter of the company.

My day started off by driving to the Tampere site at 7:00 am, where I’m still located, then take a taxi to the Tampere railway station, take a train to Helsinki, and take a taxi to Espoo. I had scheduled a lunch with Katriina’s second cousin, Niina Tyyskä, who works there as an assistant marketing in the indirect purchasing department. We really haven’t had a lengthy conversation before so it was a good opportunity to catch up and get to know one another better. The first time we actually spoke to each other was during Katriina’s aunt’s funeral.

While having lunch with Niina, two of my new Finnish female colleagues found me and asked if they could join us. It was a great way to start off our professional relationship over lunch. That said, it felt we already knew one another. I actually already knew one lady, which was even better, from an earlier acquaintance at the S60 graphics design department.

I have been to the Nokia House site a few times before so the premises was familiar to me already. It’s a beautiful peace of architecture with a nice view of a lake. The site is undergoing some renovations to better accommodate the need for additional resources. I’m not sure if it’s for the better, but I won’t be moving there anytime soon. I would rather remain at the Tampere site, close to where I live. At times, there are possibilities to work at home, a benefit for team members being scattered around in different sites.

We headed to the meeting room where our manager was already there waiting for us. Apparently, she was having lunch…from the looks of her takeaway paper bag. The agenda of the day was primarily about our organization structure, team processes, our customers and future responsibilities. Throughout our discussion, I realized how different it was compared to my previous UI graphics designing with the S60 graphics design team. There are many facets to the business and corporate functions – having to discuss this subject area has more of a business environment feel with a bigger picture implications to the company. Our customers are basically in the same organization where we have an organization-wide support role. Networking is the key in our positions. Moreover, it is important to get to know people in the organization for close collaborations. Initially, I really didn’t know what to expect, only the fact that I will be in the marketing communications field without any prior background information. At the end of the day, I came out a little bit smarter at how the new organization and corporate communication functions in the company.

Although my new team doesn’t consist much of a diversity in ethnicity, I have traded for a more intellectual field of work. It’s nice to be among a group of people understanding business, technology and marketing communications in general. I believe I’m in a team with book smart people. They have very good English as well – near native speakers.

After taking the taxi to the Helsinki railway station, my train back to Tampere stalled. I really didn’t know what was going on, but there was some sort of delay. The train finally left at 6:30 pm when it was supposed to have left at 6:00 pm. I finally got home at 9:35 pm after an hour drive from Tampere. All I can say is that it was a long day.