While companies may pay lip service to the concepts of open communication and transparency; the reality is often unrecognisable from the vision.

During the past year, half a dozen Finnish organisations have battled for headline space for all the wrong reasons. While allegations of actual fraud or embezzlement are rare in Finland, cases of dubious business ethics have become commonplace.

It doesn’t happen often, but on rare occasions I wander into a shop intending to spend more than 5 euros. In the past couple of years there has been a camera, a new phone and a fair amount of travel and outdoor gear, and I have noticed that all of those shopping experiences have one thing in common – I have largely served myself.

According to my TV guide, there are at least five programmes showing on TV this week that feature Finnish celebrities, and another six featuring those from the USA. No doubt you have seen a couple of these shows – so-called celebrities cooking dinners for each other, ice skating, diving into swimming pools or even cleaning up someone’s summer cottage.

They are sad, desperate television from producers devoid of either the money or imagination to make anything more inspired.

Yle reported recently that Finnish schools may require as much as one billion euros to rid themselves of mould, with 200 million euros required urgently. Thus far, parliament has budgeted only some 35 million euros. Schools will simply have to wait.

Meanwhile, children and teachers alike struggle with breathing difficulties and asthma, rashes, coughs and headaches. Returning after summer breaks, many children reported symptoms which had lapsed were now more severe than ever.

The Internet has impacted every aspect of our lives during the past 20 years, from grocery shopping to Google and from Facebook to data collection. But for all of its impact, there has been surprisingly little discussion about the various positive or negative sides to the changes.

The positives I think are more obvious. We have access to more information in fifteen seconds than was available to previous generations in a week of library visits. We can locate weather forecasts, stock prices, the name of the guitarist on “Station to Station” or the team sheet for HJK’s latest debacle in the Champions League.