The story of Rudolph the red nosed reindeer is a perfect story for Christmas! A classical plot about someone being bullied for a special feature and then that feature turns out to be just what is needed!

Brainpicker has written an article about how the story was written in 1936 by Robert L. May. But it wasn’t until his brother in law, Johnny Marks, wrote a song about Rudolph that it became really popular. Before that Max Fleischer made this animated film about Rudolph.

I think it’s fascinating that this little, sweet story later lead up to the following, rather crazy music video with Kurt Olsson and Damorkestern/The Lady Orchestra from 1990.

I hope that Santa will find his way to all of you today!

This weekend I started to read Walter Isaacson’s book about Steve Jobs. Exciting for an Apple-fan like me. Before, when I thought about California, San Fransisco, the hippie culture and Silicon Valley I have not really understood that it was all the same. I have placed the hippies at 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 made for ordinary people. That one should feel that the computer was a friend and not an incomprehensible machine.

There was a need for new ideas as an antipole to the industrialism and all the machines. The hippies opened up doors to new ways of thinking, a new way to combine things – what we call to think creatively and out of the box. Humans need powerful mental pushes to start to think new thoughts. From an international perspective Sweden is thought of as one of the most creative countries, but there is one country in our nearness that I believe is something like the Baltic Sea countries ”Silicon Valley” and that is Estonia.

When Soviet let go of Estonia I think of it like a lot of creativity was let loose. I base my assumption on what I have seen during my visits in Estonia. I started to noice 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 like the Estonians truly believe that 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 it’s 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 Ginger bread mania/PiparkoogiMaania. I think great deeds will come out of this Piparkoogi-power!