Editorial: Can apps open the door to a new working life?

A joint working group for Nordic telephone networks was established as early as 1969. In 1981 the world’s first fully automatic mobile telephone system was born: NMT (Nordic mobile telephone system).

In 1992 the mobile telephone system was digitised and called GSM. Telephones became smaller and smaller but contained more and more: cameras, calculators, games and music. Nokia became the world’s largest mobile telephone producer and long led the technological development.

“Nokia created the smartphone, but when the mobile world went constantly online the Finnish mobile giant lost its grip,” writes Carl-Gustav Lindén who has been following Nokia for many years.

The problem, many say, was Nokia’s ageing operative system. As a result the company decided to cooperate with Microsoft. 

“Now the whole of Finland is holding their breath, waiting to see whether this change of direction will pay off.”

Meanwhile thousands of jobs have been cut - but this also means opportunities. Many new companies will be formed. Mobile telephones have become an arena for the race to create apps, the small additional programs which are often used to open the door to the large computer systems. Swedish Decuria is one of the many companies which are now building mobile apps. This will influence working life in untold ways. 

The competition for the best system developers is very tough. It’s not only about money, but about being able to combine work and life. The workplace should be fun, there should be good perks and each individual gets his or her own development plan, writes Gunhild Wallin who visited Decuria’s offices in Stockholm’s Old Town.

“We want to be a dream workplace,” says Decuria’s managing director Elin Lundström.

These are sweet words to Palle Ørbæk’s ears. He heads the Danish Research Centre for the Working Environment and has seen stress become one of the greatest problems for the whole of Europe. But the reasons behind stress are complex. It is not only a working environment issue.

“The 24/7 society is growing. So when we say our workplaces are stressing us out, this often mirrors that the sum total of work related and private stress factors has grown,” he says in Marie Preisler’s portrait.