Life Design
Conference 2022

The morning panel of Life Design Conference 2022 consists of specialists who see Life Design as an integral part of their profession. The interesting thing is that everybody is using different words on Life Design. The panel’s goal is to find common understanding between the different techniques and vocabulary around the topic as well as share working practices.

First introduction is Sami Pirkola, the professor of social psychiatry in Tampere University and the chair of the expert committee in Finnish mental health strategy 2020-30. Sami knows best the field around clinical mental health. In that field the focus has shifted recently from hospital centric mental health work to cooperation within the whole society to increase the mental health capital of the populations. Sami is constantly discovering new ways to work together in building stronger healthy minds. Check our short interview from: https://selfhack.org/a-strong-healthy-mind%ef%bf%bc/ 

Ilona Kangas is leading the largest unemployment fund association in Finland consisting of 200k members. YTK association provides support for the members to develop in their careers. Community cooperation is a new technique that she sees value piloting in. Ilona mentioned that if 1% of all their members would be proactive and take responsibility for joining social activity, that would mean creating groups in every small and middle sized town in Finland. We just need to offer the right activities for them.

Jenni Kääriäinen has had a colorful career starting as a light designer in Finnish teathers and entrepreneur at Sun Effects design house. She was in the forefronts of global productions from SLUSH (Helsinki, Tokyo, Shanghai, Singapore), Flow, Lux, Nordic Business Forum, Tuska festival. One of the most empowering ways of combining art, production and even business has been co-creation “talkoot” mentality, which Jenni is a master in organizing. Between the productions Jenni tests new co-creation methods and hosts a clubhouse in a highly communal Hakkila Container Village. The goal is to help professionals from many different fields and social backgrounds to be creative together.

Yoad Mick works for our imagination. He knows that personal development starts from the skill to imagine available futures. This skill of stepping out of the ordinary requires practice, and as gym is made for us to upkeep and grow our physical shape, imagination practices are for us to train our brain to be receptive to the many opportunities out there.