NBF Challenge, who's in?
Tuesday was a big day… we had the #Mazdastudentchallenge presentations! I was really looking forward to seeing all the presentations and especially the videos. And I know I wasn’t the only one. Having the videos from each team made the day a lot more interesting. I was happy with our project and video. We didn’t take the obvious or easiest way since Mazda said they wanted something new. So that’s what we gave them. Here’s a link to our video: https://youtu.be/b4sCgtWBKcw
Our team at the presentations. Photo by Teemu Reunila
During this Mazda project I learned a few lesson about how the social media functions and is supervised. As I told you last week, our Instagram account got removed. We managed to get it back after providing Instagram a picture of the account holder with a security code sent by them. Apparently due to the activity on the account they believed it was managed by a bot. Another similar thing happened during Mazda presentations; the live feed on Facebook was shut down due to the music played on some of the videos. It was interesting to see how quickly they reacted. This was all new for me and even though I knew they had automatized supervisor it still surprised me.
Another highpoint of the week was Friday’s livestream from Nordic Business Forum. It’s an event I have been wanting to see for a while now. LaureaES had organised together with Helsinki Think Company a livestream in Finnkino Kaisaniemi. I thought it was well worth the 10€ to get comfortable seats and enjoy the show.
I listened to the founder of Kiva.org Jessica Jackley, ICT guru Vineet Nayar, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Amy Chua, marketing mogul Seth Godin and world famous skate boarder Tony Hawk. Surprisingly the ones that I had the highest expectations for, Amy Chua and Tony Hawk, were my not my favourites. Don’t get me wrong, they were still good, just not as catching us the other ones.
Jessica Jackley told us her amazing story about founding Kiva.org and why she did it. Her presentation was full of tips for the future. Jackley was clear on pointing out that it is just as important to know who you are as it is to know who you are not. I had never thought of it that way before and it made a lot of sense. Knowing yourself is so important when pursuing goals.
Jessica Jackley, what a superwoman!
A few tweets from #NBF2016
Another life lesson she repeated was “There always a reason to stop and not move forward”. I have often found myself making excuses when I’m about to go out of the comfort zone or been close to making a significant change in my life. I’ve even realised it’s just an excuse and the “easy way out” but have still chosen not to move forward. So, yes, her story really hit me. She has been really true to herself and to the values she had. At the same time she’s had the guts to move forward with the things she believes in. She’s just simply amazing!
There's always a reason!
Last week I wrote on my notebook: “Make someones day, everyday”. Today I went to Kiva.org and lent 25$ to a young woman named Hana in Palestine. The money goes towards her higher education. Since I’m lucky enough to get my education for free it seemed like the least I can do. Now it’s your turn: I challenge you to join and let’s help together the ones that don't have the same possibilitys as we do. Hana’s missing $200 was funded during the time I wrote this blog but there are plenty of others who need your help.
I could write about Nordic Business Forum for ages. My notebook is filled with quotes and here’s a few favourites by Seth Godin:
“Not enough good ideas. Then you need some more bad ideas, some of them will turn into good ones?”
“My job is to make you see world differently!! (loved the pic of dancing bats!)
“Making change happen is our job, do not just copy!”
“Remarkable, worth making a remark about”
“Finland needs leaders not managers”
Check out Seth's super populat blog at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
He’s session impressed me the most. The way he speaks is so entertaining and inspiring, I could listen to him again and again. I really want to learn to speak like him. This has been on my agenda for a while and now it time to stop making excuses. The whole NBF got me even more convinced that performing skills are really important. Tony Hawk’s story was great but I thought his way of talking wasn’t so enthusiastic.
In my opinion it is impossible to be a good leader without good performing skills. You must be able to inspire people and activate motion as Chris Evatt told us. It can’t be done just on one to one discussions. Especially in the big companies it must be done in front of hundreds of employees. I’m getting more and more interested in leadership and digging deeper into the fact what kind of leader I’d like to be. I thought I would never find a subject for my thesis but it’s all starting to come together. Slowly but surely.
I’m going need some time to take in everything I learned at the NBF16. This blogpost was just was a small part of big picture. I’m already looking forward to next year since Richard Branson and George Clooney are coming!!!
This week was awesome on all levels and it was finished with a great event. We had 20 years from graduation-party. It was so much fun to see people I haven’t seen in 15-20 years. Facebook took off some of the drama since we were able to check out before hand how everybody looked etc. But we still had quite a few surprises and it was hilarious when people tried to recognise each others. Good drinks and many good laughs. We plan to have the next one in 5 years!