Chapter 2: Week number 7 - Happiness workshop and surprises

So what's up everybody, I'm back! We are getting closer and closer to the finish line of this course and it has been crazy and thoughtful journey with ups and downs. This is going to be my second last post so get your eyes and ears ready!

Monday started as usual with basic lecture, so we thought. Ilkka had Skype-conversation with Kyla Mitsunaga and tried to ask her some questions but there were some connection problems. Suddenly Pharrel started to sing his song Happy in Youtube and Anna came with... Kyla Mitsunaga to the class, everyone was confused and started to applaud. It was pretty funny got to admit. After all the hassle Kyla started to speak and what an amazing woman, so positive, natural, compelling, happy and wise. As you can imagine Monday's theme was happiness. Kyla formed some random groups and we had these happiness tasks and discussions in groups. It was nice to hear other's opinions about happiness. Kyla had many good points and the biggest one was that you can't be succesfull if you are not happy. Happiness has been on surface on this course and I have realized that i'm actually happier than I thought. I've actually changed my pessimistic thinking to more optimistic during this course which has been great. So what is happiness? In my opinion it's a combination of things and that you can be satisfied in every part of your life. It's enjoying your life and it should be shared because happiness creates more happiness. Kyla also brought us some Korean snacks which was very nice gesture from her students and they were quite tasty. Kyla showed us happiness workshops made by her students in  Korea and gave us same task. We were suppose to make as many people in Laurea happy as we could and make a video about it. Got to say one of the most interesting task so far.

Kyla Mitsunaga

On Wednesday morning we went to school to shoot the happiness video. I'm not gonna tell you what was our idea, you check it out below. Little bit humor, little bit love, little bit positivity. We were quite glad what we could came up with. Okay lets be realistic, it's little bit cheesy but in a good way. Without further ado here it is! Video doesn't work with mobile devices.

Later on Wednesday we went to auditorium and each group presented their videos and other groups evaluated those. Again WOW! Each video was so unique and so positive, I have to be proud of our class because all the groups had put so much effort on those videos. Everyone was smiling after the video session. We also bought some Finnish goods to Kylas students. Our team bought some salted licorice, Finnish chewing gum, chocolate, and chocolate mixed with salted licorice. Hahaaa I really would like to see Kyla's students reactions when they taste Turkish Peppers, one of my favourite candies.

On Thursday we had this Javec Welc from Poland telling about numbers and business risks. At first it seemed super interesting but it was too hard to follow for me for some reason and I fell of the wagon and I couldn't catch it anymore. Shame on me, hope other students got most out of it because it really seemed very interesting and relevant topic. Math and numbers have never been my favourite subjects that might be reason why I fell off the wagon. I don't know.

After that I had this Elämäntaito lecture, which has been great course so far. Thursday's topic was stress and how to prevent it. It's surprising how many things can cause stress: Money, school, weather, relationships, eating, sports, pets, job, and so on. It's crucial to prevent it and when preventing is not possible it's crucial find a solution for stress causing things. Did you know that too much stress can raise your blood pressure and in worst case scenario it might cause death. I don't try to scare or anything I just want to tell that stress can be real pain in the ass if you let it. So create positive vibes and deal with stress correctly, that will eventually lead you to happiness!

Be happy and share the happiness

All in all very interesting week, I have been happy all week long, thanks to happiness workshop and everything. Now just have hope that my knee can handle the football, I actually bought massive support for my knee, so we'll see. Thumbs up for HIFK's ice hockey team, they have a mountain to climb in Tampere tomorrow. Well that's about it, next week's post is going to be my last one. Sorry, writing a blog has been quite interesting but i'm not gonna keep it up, it takes too much of my valuable time.

-Miikka bossman boss

Chapter 2: Week number 6, Thinglinking, tracking emotions and stuff

Yeah, I know that you missed me last week but sorry it was blog post free week and we also had online exam. It went great, I got full points of it, okay it wasn't the hardest but it needed some thinking though.

On Monday Sani Leino from Thinglink held a presentation for us. Cool, cool and again cool. Very compelling guy with positive and innovative vibes. At first we talked about what are the hottest things in digital world and it was so interesting. Few things popped out, one was Virtual Reality, which is growing really fast. I have tried these VR-glasses and they are pretty cool got to admit. Technique is pretty unique and I'm really waiting how it's going to develop in the future. Second was content marketing and videos which have been on the surface in this course. We have made content and videos for different clients and I have learned the effectiveness of videos because combining voice and visual things are the most effective way to catch audience's attention. There were big list of other things and I would have to write a book if i wanted to handle all of those. Okay one thing more, in my opinion personalization and inclusion are big trends too. Those can be combined and it's growing value that customer's really like that everything is tailored just for them. I think it makes them feel special and respected. I don't know. For example in Nordea's online bank you can personalize the content in there. So basically customer also creates content there. In my opinion very effective because Nordea have created this ''illusion'' that customer creates content also.

What is Thinglink? It's basically interactive image where you can tag picture in picture, links, videos and everything else, if you don't have it yet go and make your own account here. I made my own Thinglink picture about myself. It's like my CV plus more. Check it out here

On Monday we had also this lovely Camilla Tuominen keeping presentation about Emotion tracker. So natural woman, I really liked her style to present and she was herself all the time. She told about importance of knowing what you really feel, for example anquish can be excitment and stuff. That was great lecture and it was relevant this time because I started this Elämäntaito course which is about knowing your feelings, how to prevent stress and how to schedule your life etc. Great lecture but not much about digital marketing and I actually didn't catch how the Emotion tracker actually works.

Feel your feelings

On Friday each group presented what they had came up for Avionboard and Funking. DigiInspiration team had made supercool video for Avionboard, it was simply amazing. Good job! We also presented our video to Funking and it was pretty exciting because we really didn't know if they liked it or not and our ankle was little bit outside of their own which is musicians and artists. Our was not so surprisingly... Football of course. After showing the video to them, they kept a feedback session for us. Outcome was... that they were actually super satisfied and if I remember correctly Ile's comment was F*****g great! Pardon my french. They had also showed it in start up meeting and according to Funking team, teachers were speechless. They also gave us gift card to Stadium because they thought that the video was so great. Thank you really nice gesture! We decided to give it to Tommi, our video guru because he made the video possible. You can check it out below!

What else, as I told this Elämäntaito course started and it seemed very interesting. Oh and I also got back to football trainings, i'm so excited about that because season starts soon and I have to get fit really fast. So that's about it, see you on next Sunday!

- Miikka

Chapter 2: Week number 4, knee is okay and Next Level event wasn't so okay

I missed Tuesday's lecture again because I had doctor's appointment for my knee. Good news, all the main parts are okay but slight damage on the right side. HUH got to say because the same knee has been operated before and another surgery would crash my football career probably for good.

Back to business, on Friday we went to this Next Level event arranged by PCAscala. In the morning I checked Facebook and there were some tasks that we were supposed to do there. I was like whaaat, you got to be kidding me and why you inform us so late. Tasks were something like cleaning and showing their products and stuff. I thought that I was going to fair trade event to make new contacts and hear the guest speakers there. I'm pretty sure that this kind of tasks doesn't help us making new contacts. Sorry but not well organized at all. First impression of the place was not so good. There were no signs or anything that this event was held there. We went inside a dark staircase and still no sign. We didn't know if we were supposed to go up or down. Okay we found the place. New gym, nice and modern but not the place where I would hold an event. In my opinion this kind of positive event should also be marketed much better and much more welcoming, so lots to do for them. I got to hear one speaker there, Mika Järvelä by himself and speak was awesome. He told about his career as a coach but between the lines I tried to catch tips. It is easier ask for something after you have given something. That is true, it's called reciprocity. Invent, develop and try, that's the pattern how your development should work. I've talked much about trusting in my previous posts and Mika also talked about it, NEVER trust the word, ask always black on white. It sounds kind a harsh but it's true and it's not arrogant to ask black on white because contract concerns you and you have right to do it. When applying for a job, selling yourself in a positive way is the key thing, just have the courage to tell honestly what you can do, where you are good at and so on, forget the prattle. Learn and teach, make contacts, ask for help, develop yourself and last but not the least explore the world. If you do all those things you have possibility to succeed in a way you want. Exploring the world is crucial and it will broaden your view of thinking. I did this test recently and I have explored only 5% of the world, so lots to do for me.

I also talked this Mizudo presenter there. It's a sport brand from Japan which is not so known in Finland but in Asia it's quite big. He told that one pair of sport shoes goes through over 100 pair of hands before it can be sold. Also one shoe has so many little parts which came as a surprise for me. He had torn one shoe down there so we got to actually see all the moving parts there. Those things kind a explains also the high price of some shoes.

Mika Järvelä's presentation

Gym was small but modern and effective

Long awaited Veikkausliiga started on Saturday, PK-35 vs Rops. Me and my friends as a PK-35 fans bought season tickets for this season. Sun was shining and weather was sweet but the end result was bittersweet. PK-35 was 3-0 ahead but crashing on second half and 3-4 on scoreboard. Yeah not much to tell but if something positive have to come up with, there were lots of goals!

Season ticket

At least the weather was nice

See you on next Sunday!

- Miikka