VIRTUAL SHOCK AND DEFINING YOURSELF!
This week hasn’t been as hectic as the previous week at school and I’ve actually had a chance to concentrate on other things as well. Our digital course had basically two themes: the new project assignment Minecraft for Vantaa city given by Lari Aho and then a session about motivation and defining yourself by another great guest speaker Aida Hubanec on Friday.
Lari Aho talking about Minecraft and it's challenges
Let’s start with Minecraft. The whole city of Vantaa has been built to the popular game of Minecraft and we are experimenting how virtual world could benefit the city of Vantaa as well. Our team and a few other teams struggled a little bit to understand the goal of the assignment. Was it to get more players and content to Minecraft or to make Vantaa a more interesting city to visit and live in? Well, in the end we figured out a strategy how to move forward and are working on executing it.
One thing we all learned is that if a game or service is difficult to download and start using, it’s very unlikely we will ever start using it. Now we did it of course since the task required it but this is not just a challenge for Vantaa Minecraft. I think it applies to business life in general. The access to the service must be easy and user friendly or it doesn’t have a chance.
Before Lari's session on Minecraft started Ilkka showed us a recently released video of Mark Zuckenberg demonstrating how to combine virtual reality with reality by using Oculus. Make sure you check it out at https://youtu.be/s2U9lXEnHns
As I’ve said before I’m not a big fan of virtual games or technology but this blew me away! Somehow I’ve believed combining virtual and real world this way is not happening for a very long time and therefore I don’t need to take it so seriously. For instance making a messenger call in virtual world to person in real world, is so absurd to me that I can only imagine it happening in movies. I’ve finally realised I’ve got to change the way I think about this and start adapting. Virtual world is not just going to be a thing in my children’s world, it going to affect me as well.
Zuckenberg's wife Priscilla making a messenger call to virtual world.
Now from technology to more spiritual and emotional things. Aida Hubanic, a brave survivor of war from Sarajevo, told us her story and how she is now taking a big step and starting her own company. I was expecting to hear about strategies behind Samsung marketing but instead we got to learn about Game Jam (which I really want to go to!) and defining yourself. I really enjoyed her stories and got some great material to my notebook.
Hubanic's team designed the winning game at the Game Jam and they went on to win even the international Business Game Jam in Barcelona.
Hubanic taught us a way of evaluating the situation: “Think of the best, the worst and the most likely scenario that could happen if you take the chance. After evaluating them, you will now of it it’s worth taking the risk.” What a simple and clever way of getting some data to back up the feelings that often lead to the decision. I’m going to use this one for sure!
A few words to decribe Aida: brave, beautiful, smart and inspiring
Some other great tips from her were:
Facts tell but stories sell!
Make a “boostlist” of compliments you have received and take a look at it when your self-confidence is low.
Keep your “why” with you all the time
Then my favourite: Put yourself in situations where you have to work with different people and with people that are smarter than you.
She also introduced us one of the tools she uses in working as a motivator in her new company. It was about defining yourself. I liked how it was divided to different parts, one side had people and the other qualities. I did the whole thing in about 10 minutes and only wrote the key things to each section. I think that’s actually a really good way of doing it; quickly without too much hesitation. Then you get the honest answers that come to mind directly, not the ones that you’d liked to have. For instance when I wrote down my closest friends, it was only one of them that I also wrote to my support group together with my family. I feel I have a handfull very close friends that I can rely on and ask for help at any time. But this one is special and I know she will support me in anything I do.
So, to finish of the week, here she is together with me in a picture taken more than 30 years ago… :) I hope you also have a great friend like her!
