This weekend, I started reading Walter Isaacson’s book about Steve Jobs. Exciting for an Apple fan like me. Before, when I thought about California, San Francisco, the hippie culture and Silicon Valley, I had not really understood that it was all the same. I have placed the hippies in one place and the computers in another place. Even if I, of course, knew that Steve had a period when he walked around barefoot, let his hair grow and went on his spiritual trip to India, I thought of it more like a parenthesis in his life. When I learned that Apple made computers for creative people, I pictured designers and media people, not a whole gang of Channa Bankier-look-alikes. It’s not until now that I begin to understand that it took that kind of mental revolt to make someone start to think the thought that computers ought to be made for ordinary people. One should feel that the computer is a friend and not an incomprehensible machine.
There was a need for new ideas as an antithesis to industrialism and all the machines. The hippies opened doors to new ways of thinking and combining things – what we call thinking creatively and out of the box. Humans need powerful mental pushes to start thinking new thoughts. From an international perspective, Sweden is considered one of the most creative countries, but there is one country in our neighbourhood that I believe is something like the Baltic Sea countries’ ”Silicon Valley”: Estonia.
When the Soviet Union let go of Estonia, I think of a lot of creativity being unleashed. I base my assumption on what I have seen during my visits to Estonia. I started to notice a certain playfulness in art and handicraft, and of course, in the fantastic design in their hotels! But, during my last visit in March I visited several exciting companies.
It seems the Estonians truly believe they are special, that they can make a difference, and that there is a future for those who dare to try. A bit like the way Steve Jobs looked at himself… (as far as I understand it). Like California had its hippie era with flower power and student revolts that questioned the old and the tradition, I believe that Estonia right now is in a similar boiling stew. That’s why they come up with an event like this, Gingerbread mania/PiparkoogiMaania. I think great deeds will come from this Piparkoogi power!
