Introducing Gemic

Now that things are nicely underway with the business, I feel it's a good time to update on my latest serious endeavour. I was asked to join a consulting outfit called Gemic as the managing partner earlier this year, and given the other people in the project, I'm very happy about the prospect. Johannes and Sakari are the smartest guys I've worked with. It's also incredibly rewarding to be able to apply hard theoretical, scientific research, problem-solving and pattern recognition methods to the amorphous world of business and human behaviour.

Gemic - name taking root from Emic and Gem, with resulting pronunciation - is a management consulting company concentrating on what we call people-centric problem solving. We apply methods from social sciences, particularly anthropology and social psychology, to business problems that often revolve around product development and innovation. Having worked on a few projects now, it's amazing to see how well this works: instead of trying to come up with ideas in brainstorming sessions or other traditional top-down methods of innovation, going to the field to study people in their everyday life and behaviour is an unfailing source of relevant innovations. Tall order, perhaps, but we have applied it successfully time after time. No wonder there's a bit of a business buzz around ethnographic methods right now.

To add to us being a happy little company (and growing), Sakari just tied the knot yesterday. Hooray!