lauantai 26. maaliskuuta 2016

Chapter 2: Week number 3 started little bit exhausted but things got really interesting

I missed the Monday's lecture because the cruise to Sweden. Yeah we went international and the trip was great but exhausting. I'm glad I got myself to school on Thursday because we had the most interesting speaker in this course Antti Haapsaari from architecture firm Kanttia 2. Got to say, his presentation style was amazing. He was present all the time and very natural. I actually checked around the class and everyone was listening. I actually noticed that Anna was checking the same. He told us about their projects in Egypt and how it is going towards European style in the future. There will be shopping centers which are mix of Egyptian and Scandinavian architecture. Globalization is this day and it's good thing sometimes but what I really hope that cultures stays the same because what's the point everything being similar? When time goes by, eventually it will be very boring. I've talked about mixing in couple of my posts and mixing everything in a right way is good and welcomed but roots of the cultures should still stay the same because if those don't, new generations will not know where they came from, my opinion.


Otherwise you will forget where you came from

Antti also talked about customer relationships and what is important in those. I had written in my notebook that everything should be thought by customer's point of view and instead of making lots of money you should think ways to help customers and how to make more value for them. After that money will come along those things. The most important thing is to understand customers. I also wrote that confidential customer relationships are the key things in successful business. It's actually true in every part of your life, if you have confidential relationships in every part of your life, you are winning. BUT big but, when confidence is lost, it's really hard get back again, sometimes impossible, so maybe the key thing is how to maintain it. Making contacts with new people is also crucial when building confidential relationship. First impression should be made correctly because you have only 7 seconds to make it and you don't get another chance to do it.


Antti Haapasaari keeping a presentation


In job interviews they have always asked what are my best skills for the job. I could enumerate what I can do or what have I done but I have always answered that being natural is the key thing and complying different situations with being natural. Guess what, there's only one job that I haven't gotten when I have managed to get in job interview. Being yourself will pay off eventually. That one time they chose more talented person for the job, which was more than okay for me. That leads to one thing Antti told us: BELIEVE yourself, if you don't have the courage to believe yourself that much that you could get a job or something else, then don't do it at all. It's not arrogant to believe yourself. Make your own decisions whether you want something or not. Move towards your dreams. Every decision should be made by yourself. If you want to be successful, that doesn't mean you have to be the best immediately, the point is that you have to be able to see in future that you can be the best or at least good at it. For example this blogging thing, i'll probably never win the blog of the week but i'm 100% sure that i'm getting better at it all the time and that's my main goal in this. This is really close topic for me, because those things I mentioned before, got me back to school in first place. I want to learn more and achieve something meaningful in life, for myself and for others.


Remember that

We also got another assignment and we actually got to choose from two presentation. First presentation was held by Tuomas Kidron and Viveka Kulmala from Avionboard. Company sells those electronic boards, you have probably saw in the streets. Presentation was very natural and energetic, easy listening some might say. In addition of marketing their product they also talked about importance of making contacts, which I also mentioned earlier. My first touch to those boards was in Dubai where in breakfast buffet kids balanced with those and it was super annoying. But when I got to try it in my work, it was actually really fun and I wanted to roll around Jumbo with it. But it's very hard for me to find anything useful out of it but fun. That's why we decided to take task from Funking team. They have developed this idea of ultimate fanning thing that where artists or other celebrities can share exclusive material in style of snapchat but little bit differently. We are looking forward to this task because being a fan is so big thing and you can be a fan of basically everything. Idea is originally Ilkka's from Funking and one of his friend. Ile's enthusiasism shines through when he talks about it. Hope we have something to give them for this idea and I hope this pays off for them in future because I really do believe that this idea is possible to execute successfully!

Lots of blasting again, hope you enjoyed, see you on next week!

-Miikka

lauantai 19. maaliskuuta 2016

Chapter 2: Week number 3, MRI-scan, Mazda marketing plan and other stuff

I missed Monday's lecture because i had MRI-pictures taken from my knee. Fingers crossed that I don't need another surgery. Athlete never sees healthy day expression is made for me unfortunately. It was pretty hard for me to stay put for 45 minutes in a tube where you can't move at all. I still made it!:D


MRI-scan

On Tuesday my team told me the topic of assignment from Mazda and it was super interesting BUT deadline in three days, come on! It is very nice that we have possibility to do co-operation with this kind of world wide companies. I really do appreciate it but it's only glimpses to real learning because everything has to be done in a rush. Assignment was to make an innovative marketing plan for new Mazda 2 car. We got it done by Tuesday and we were excited about our idea. Idea was to market it in radio. The place where people listens radio most, is in the car, morning on the way to work and the most listened radio station is Suomi Pop especially the show called Aamulypsy which is aired 6-10am. Our idea was to put Jaajo Linnonmaa to market it, because he is one of the host in this show and probably the funniest man in Finland. We also got couple of other ideas too, how to ease the car purchasing decision.


Mazda 2

We kept the presentation to Mazda people on Thursday and feedback session was great. We got positive feedback that our presentation was strict and natural, the points we showed them why to use our idea and for that we had counted the marketing budget roughly. We got negative feedback also because our idea wasn't the newest or the most innovative. All in all nice and interesting assignment but waaaaaay too short. Good thing was honest feedback session from Mazda people, the professionals from marketing field and next time we turn the criticism to win. I've always thought that criticism is the best feedback, because if you never get it, you don't get an honest opinion what needs improvement or what have to be done differently.




On Thursday we got another assignment from PCA scala-gym, which has focus on personal training and coaching training tailored for the companies. Presentation was held by Mika Järvinen who has actually lectured for us before. Very interesting speaker and rarely uses anything but his own voice. They have this fair day event coming at their gym and our task is to come up with marketing solutions how to get more followers on their social media channels and how to get participants to this fair event, using social media competitions and other stuff. Mika told that he is not very good, when it comes to social media stuff and I actually remember from last year's presentation when he showed their website... I'm glad that some improvement has happened because old site hmm.. Ascetic might be the best word haha. This kind of tasks where teams can actually see the outcome of their work, are the best. I think it's important to see outcome of our work and in my opinion teachers should trust us more because they have been amazed many times in this course what the teams have came up with.




On Thursday we had this freelancer video dude who held a presentation about videos. Purpose of the video, planning and manuscript are the key things. If you need video for something you should think the very purpose of it. Costs will be the financial resources which are available to use for the video and based on this it's possible to approach the video maker. He also told that it's important to ask from the video maker, how many repair times is included in the deal. This presentation was very useful because we haven't had this point of view at all that if we need video from someone else. In this course we have only made videos to somebody. Either way video business is growing and it's one of the most effective ways to market nowdays and in this course we have had glimpse to video world which have been very new to me.

On Sunday we are going on a cruise, so Sweden here we come!

See you on next week!

- Miikka

sunnuntai 13. maaliskuuta 2016

Chapter 2: Week number 2 , law issues and secret of life

Hi everyone again! This week started on Monday when we had lecture about law issues held by Marjaana Marmo. She told us what consumer protection act and commercial code means. For me as a salesman consumer protection act has come pretty familiar. Everyday I have to deal with customers reclamations and handle them within the law. For me this lecture was extra useful because I can use this information in my working life and I got memory refreshing information about it. In my opinion consumer protection act is pretty shady, for example if customer buys a product, She/he will have 6 months to open it and if some fault comes up it should be assumed that the fault was there when customer bought it. Basically customer can use the product for 6 months and brake it and if customer can proof that the fault was there when it was bought, she/he will get new product or refund. Commercial code wasn't so familiar for me so it was very nice to hear about it. Marjaana also gave us 7 tasks considering those laws and we had to solve them. Very useful to do those kind of things in practice.
We also got our video for Nobot ready, you can check it out below!






On Wednesday started this E-service competence course, interesting topic and very relevant at this point. E-services are the most growing business at the moment and I think its going to be huge and it will eventually replace many old services and jobs we know.  But I'm sure that it will also create many new possibilities. Interesting topic and lots to do, we'll see how I manage to do everything on time.

Kevin and Lasse gave us presentation on Thursday considering marketing research. It's crucial for companies to make market research properly. Kevin and Lasse told us an very good example what happens if you do it wrong. Nokia Failed their tablet and mobile market research badly because they didn't understand customers enough. As you can see, there is no Nokia anymore, i'ts Microsoft nowdays and they can't compete with Apple or Samsung at all. Companies should also know the markets they are stepping to, where are they going to be situated in there and which companies they should compete with.



Kevin and Lasse keeping presentation


On Thursday Anna Ikonen gave us lecture about secret in life. At first when she started to talk about it, I thought that it's going to be some hippy stuff, which actually would have been interesting too haha. I'm myself little pessimistic always and I always try to be realistic when it comes to real life matters. This lecture opened up my mind more! Your thoughts attracts things you are thinking about. It's the law of attraction. If you send message to universe, it will send something back, so if you are positive, you get positive back. Negativity to positivity is the key and as I told in my last post, your own thinking is one thing you can control 100%.

Placebo effect is funny thing, I've red so many articles when some medicines had been tested and how the people who actually didn't get the drug felt better than those who got it. So you can think positivity as a placebo effect, if you feel positive, you'll probably get positive things back in your life in form of health or thoughts or something else. I actually red this article today which claimed that actually healthy eating could replace many medicines because if people would eat healthier some of the medicines wouldn't even have to exist. But you can't rely blindly on that, I watched this episode of Arman ja viimeinen ristiretki, there was very sick little boy in Africa who needed medicine badly but only thing he got was some voodoo stuff  from a local priest. That was really sad and I really don't know what happened to that kid. Even though drug business is very much about money and making profit, those companies creates life saving stuff too.

I will rest my case here, are you ready to make a revolution in your mind and change negativity to positivity? As Dennis Brown sings, it's all about living, loving, caring and sharing.

 Peace and love!

-Miikka



sunnuntai 6. maaliskuuta 2016

Chapter 2: Back to school, mental illustration and cool projects

Winter holidays are over and we got back to business. On Monday we presented our videos to Eija from Super Park and that was exciting because I'm pretty sure that she couldn't imagine even in her wildest dreams how good they're going to be. We also presented our thinking how they should improve their marketing in social media and marketing altogether. My thoughts were true, all groups got only positive feedback and Eija was thrilled. I think Super Park will rise from the ashes to shining star because with the possibilities and potential they have, it would be only fair. Also the winner of which Super Park video got most viewers was revealed and team DigiInspiration won, they got over 1000 views, very nice!


Winner of Super Park assignment, Congratulations DigiInspiration!


Ilkka held lecture for us about thinking. Only thing you can control 100 % is your own thinking. That's true but it's actually way harder than it sounds. We tried this mental illustration thing in school where you put your eyes closed and think of couple of people close to you, then big problem you have, after that you go the most comfortable place you can think of and ask them what should you do. That was variation of Napoleon Hill's invisible counselors method. I had unfortunately such a bad focusing day so it didn't work for me this time but I will definitely try that next time when I have a big problem. I've red this article that people only uses 10% of brain capacity and if we were able to use all of it, we could speak telepathically and we could read other's mind. Reading other minds would be probably little scary but super cool, watch the movie What women want haha. That probably would make world also little quieter place but imagine how different world would be.

Emotional intelligence is pretty awesome thing if you think of it. You recognize your own and others emotions and you can use them to guide your behavior and thinking. Subconscious is very strange but yet awesome thing and power of it can't be denied. It's also one of the things you can affect for example with jedi mind tricks, and i'm not talking about hip hop duo which is also great, check the link Jedi Mind Tricks

Hahaa got ya! I meant this one Jedi Mind Tricks, very nice examples how your mind and subconscious can be changed.





Creativity is everything in the world and everyone. I had wrote this to my notebook because it was so well said, it was from one of the voice messages Ilkka showed us during the lecture. Everything and everyone... that's lot of things. This sentence made me realize all the possibilities we had in world and all the possibilities we haven't found yet. As I told in my pitching video that everything is combination of something, I'd like to add that it's also about finding the right combinations.
Talking about videos, we also made greeting video from our group to Kyla Mitsunaga considering her PET talk. All the groups should come up with one question about her talk. I'm really waiting her to answer us! Well that was Monday.


On Friday we got two guest speakers and we got our fourth assignment, nice! First we had presentation held by Jouni Varpelaide from Nobot company which creates social media solutions for example websites and content in social media. The presentation was awesome and very appealing. I loved that the company keeps young people in the center of it and actually almost all the contracts with customers are made by young employees. That's the way to involve younger people! Nobot's values were also very interesting because their focus was on transparency and lacking of secrets which leads to healthy environment in company. Building trust is crucial. Our assignment was to make short video for them from the book they've made: Guidebook to healthy company (Terveen yrityksen työkirja) which you can download for free on their website. Our video will be from chapter 10 which is about caring, inclusion and celebrating. Task is to create video how those things should be done in our dream working place. Looking forward to it because Nobot was little bit mystic and I wouldn't be surprised if they would use the gestures groups come up with in their company's real life.

Other speaker was Joanna Purosto from MMA (Myynnin ja markkinoinnin ammattilaiset) and I liked it also very much. She presented many basic points about selling but she emphasized meaning of asking the right questions, which is sometimes really hard because you can't read customer's mind. I think every salesman got unique style of selling and it's not about the guidebook which says for example open questions are always so much better than closed ones and you have to follow some specific guideline in every sales event. Environment changes, so should you and you have to comply in each situation you get in. And just to be sure, I don't say that guidebook material is unnecessary, NOO, it's very crucial know the basics and more BUT you don't have to follow it exactly every time, you can think of it more like a red line and everything around the line changes. If you are good enough you don't have to follow every guideline exactly, actually in my opinion when you don't have to do that, you are possibly better than someone else because then you have thought by yourself. As I told you in my last post that it's possible to mix stuff up, pick the best ones, shake them, add your own thinking there and waduuup, you have your unique style. Oh did I mention that if something doesn't work, you can leave it or replace it with something better. I've also noticed that sometimes closed questions are more effective than open ones;D it depends on environment your are in, how impressive you can be and how you have managed to perform the whole sale session. You can be perfect and learn all the books about selling and marketing upside down and still not be the best salesman. My opinion!





Thanks for reading!

- Miikka