Inspired

It's Sunday again - damn these weeks go by so fast! This week we had lectures on Monday and Thursday, just like every week.



On Monday there were two guest speakers in our class, first was Terhi Aho from Tulos and second Joanna Puro from Mynnin & Markkinoinnin ammattilaiset. Terhi told us about different kinds of ways of marketing and creating content to the internet. We talked about search tools like Google and also social media and mobile searching. Terhi pointed out that Google is still the most used in desktop searches but mobile searching is growing all the time. And as I think about it, yes, I always google stuff on my phone if I wanna know something or figure things out.

Our other guest speaker Joanna was a former student of our school Laurea. There were 3 key points in her lecture, since she wanted to tell us something that she would've wanted to know as a student. Here's what she pointed out:

1. Network - talk to people, say hello and make contacts.

2. Digitalization - well, yes. Just yes. This is the future.

3. This is only a start



On Thursday our dear teacher Ilkka gave a phenomenal presentation, which was actually streaming live to 70 watchers all around the world through the Periscope app. Ilkka talked about digital strategy and we also discussed some things together, like what is the most important thing in business and who are the people that inspire us. I made a lot of notes and found the lecture very inspiring and useful considering my dreams about starting my own business one day.

One point that Ilkka himself also named as one of the most important was "The moment of truth" in business. He said that it is the moment, when a customer makes the decision about his/her purchase. What is the customer thinking at that moment and how can you use the information about the decision making in developing your business. I found that very important and will definitely think about "the moment of truth" when I develop my own business idea/ideas.

It was so touching to see how excited and also happy Ilkka was about the lecture he held. It clearly meant a lot to him and as he said, it was a dream come true for him, since he had always wanted to hold a presentation/lecture that would be streamed online.

Ilkka's lecture kept me so busy listening that I didn't even take pictures of him, which is too bad... But atleast you have proof that I really listened haha:'D

I also took a look at some of my class mates blogs and read them through. Here are some, that I found very interesting and pleasant to read.

Hannah's Digitalia

Hannah updates very often and writes long, thoughtful posts. I like that she uses a lot of pictures and that you can see her personality through the texts, that she writes. She is also in the same team as I am in the project that we are working on at the moment.

Road To Digitalisation

Otto uses a lot of pictures and writes widely about our school weeks and lectures. I like the layout of his blog - it's very simple and visually pleasing.

Digital Business

Kata is one of my best friends and this was actually the first time I went to read her blog. She - as like myself - writes a blog of her own in addition to this "school blog", so she has skills in blogging, which you can clearly see from her posts. Her posts are distinct, deliberate and pleasant to read.

Digitall

Ohh, Essi's blog is so cute! The pink banner and the background pattern makes the blog stand out from the crowd. She also blogs often (as we are supposed to, hehe) and uses nice pictures to support her writing.

On the way to digital

Nelli's blog is pleasant to read and browse through. You can even see pictures of her dog there, haha. She writes quite long posts and updates often. Thumbs up!

-Laura

A little update about the past weeks

It's been a while. And a little too long of a while to be honest... But, I'm here now!
Instead of writing down every single detail about our lessons at school, I'd rather just update in general - related to our studies, of course.

Last week we actually had a lecture break, which meant that our team didn't meet or do school tasks at all. It was nice to have a little break once in a while - at least for me it boosts motivation and gives some time to rest between going to school, working and becoming a personal trainer at the same time.

Anyways, lately, we've had a lot of companies presenting themselves to us in class. We've had guest speakers talking about their companies/the companies they work for and their own journey in business life. The lectures have been very interesting and inspiring - at least some of them have really made me think and have really inspired me.



3 weeks ago (can't believe it has really been that long since I've updated, I'm truly so very sorry about that!!!) we had a week full of guest speakers. On Monday there were atleast four different people from different companies presenting themselves and their companies to us and on Thursday we had a couple guest speakers more. Actually one of the guest speakers was very unforgettable and sticked to my mind specifically - his name is Jyri Rasinmäki (pictured above) and he works for Vapamedia, a company that focuses on digital communication, social media and content marketing. Jyri talked to us about problem solving and about how it would be important to remember to "think outside the box". Actually, a couple of his propositions sticked to my mind specifically that I would also like to share here:

1) "When you are trying to solve a problem or creating a whole new solution for it, don't automatically go through the door that says "the solution" - instead, go through the door that is blank. By doing that, the process will probably not be as easy as it would if you went through "the solution door", but it will most likely develop something better and something more creative.

2) "You just need to find your own way to think. And keep on thinking."



Also, here are some pictures of some of the other lectures we had, that were held by various people from companies like Urakkamaailma, Seniori365, Taivas + Helvetti.



After that week - a week before the lecture break - was the "Network to get work" event at Laurea Leppävaara campus on Thursday (October 8th). There were a lot of different companies presenting themselves and promoting available jobs, trainee positions etc. In addition to that, the students had an opportunity to take part in various lectures that were related to our studies - there were lectures about entrepreneurship, business, marketing... Almost anything you could think of. Inspirational stories and useful strategies related to our studies.



That same week our class did have a lecture on Monday, but I didn't make it to school that day. Although, my friends told me that one of our mentor students - Faysal - had given an interesting lecture that day, in which he showed pictures that he had taken and talked about photographing. I wish I could've been there.

Anyways, that's what up right now. I will update about this week soon enough - there's not gonna be another 3 week break here in the future. Again, sorry about that.

Until the next time,

Laura

Favourite

This week must have been my favourite, because our group finally got to present our work in front of the class on Thursday. We had gotten a task to come up with some topic that we would teach to our classmates and we decided to create a lesson about blogging, since it's a current topic for us considering this digi marketing course that we have going on.
But before I get into our presentation on Thursday, let me just say a few words about Monday's class. On Monday we had another guest speaker Tomasz Odrobinski, who told us a little bit about his career and the company that he has. I thought it was interesting to hear his story, since he was originally from Poland, but had worked a long career in Finland.






And on Thursday was the time to hold some presentations. Our team was very excited about it, since we had promised to present our "lesson about blogging" to the class. We had prepared an 8 minute long video (which we had filmed and edited on Tuesday) and a concise prezi slide show to go with it and sum up some of the main points of our topic - blogging. We had so much fun presenting and were really proud of our work with the video and the whole outcome of the presentation. Anna, Ilkka and Marjo all seemed to like our work and it felt really good to hear some positive and encouraging feedback, since we had really put our heart and soul into the whole thing. Here's a link to the video we made (click!).

Some of the other teams also presented on Thursday and I thought it was nice to see others work too. First Pate and Otto showed a slide show and a long video about their proejct with the sports clothing brand Puma. The guys had been on a Puma tour all around Finland promoting Puma's new football shoes, that people got to try on during the tour. The video the guys showed us was really great and it visualized alot of things for me after hearing the story of the tour through the slide show.

We also got to see how to create a Linked In -profile, when one of the teams held a little "guidance tour" through a video they had created. I thought it was a nice idea to go through the steps of creating an account to Linked In, because it's a very important channel to i.e. network with people in business life.





Team "case garage" told us about LaureaES and Nordic Business Forum, that were - to be honest - not so familiar to me. I mean, yes I had heard of them, but didn't really know that much more. So thanks to this team, I learned some new things for sure! They told us about Entrepreneur Tuesdays that are held usually in Laurea Leppävaara campus, Pitch & Beer sessions that you can pitch your business ideas in and the live stream session of Nordic Business Forum event, that will be held on Laurea Tikkurila's campus. We also got to hear some information of some of the great names that will be speaking in Nordic Business Forum event, that will take place in Messukeskus in a couple of weeks. For example Mette Lykke, Simon Sinek, Björn "Nalle" Wahlroos, John C. Maxwell and Garry Kasparov will be speaking there. I didn't know that Laurea arranges the possibility to go see and hear the speakers live from one of our campuses - that is so great and - considering the student budget - a lot cheaper way than to buy a ticket to the actual event. Wow, I gotta say.

All in all, a great week to end the first part of the course. As I understood, next week we will start collaboration with some companies that have been selected to each team. Although our team will do the collaboration with a company that is one of our team mates, Hannah's, friends company. Or actually I think it is her aunts or something like that, but anyways. I'm excited for the new things to come. Let's see what the new week has to offer!

-Laura

Feelings about the 3rd week

picture: Faysal Hasan

On third week we talked about international marketing and cultural differences. We were shown the iceberg model, which demonstrates that every person has something underneath, that others don't know. Same applies to cultures - there are always things that us, externals, don't know. During the lectures, Anna emphasized on how we shouldn't assume that people from other cultures think and act the same way as we do. For example people in Japan greet each other very differently than we do over here in Finland. That is why in marketing, it is very important to take the cultural differences in notion.

On Monday we also had a guest speaker, Lynn-Marie Sederlöf-Airisto, who was an original Finn, but had lived in America for almost her whole life. She told us about marketing and her journey with it - she had worked in multiple positions that had something to do with marketing. I thought it was so interesting to hear about her work experience and to have a lecture from someone who speaks very good, native English.

picture: Faysal Hasan

For Thursday we had a couple of group tasks, that we were supposed to prepare. The other one was for our guest speaker, who wanted out help to develop her business. The other one was to prepare a presentation of some culture that we got to choose as groups. On Thursday we spent time on viewing the presentations that the groups had prepared and in the end of the day some groups went to do the "Digi Small Talk".

It was an interesting week and I think the next one will be as interesting and nice as this one. Or maybe even better...

-Laura

My cultural baggage

Here is my cultural baggage. Some things that are important to me and some background information of where I come from and what I appreciate.

-Laura

Pitch

A week has passed and this time I'm here to post a video of my elevator pitch. The job I'm applying in the video is to be a wellness coach, that coaches people to exercise, make healthier choices every day and overall to be more aware of their well-being.

My dream would be to combine business studies with my personal trainer degree and start my own business, that would focus on both physical and mental wellness, one day.


Th second week we talked about personal branding and what things should be taken into consideration when branding yourself. "It's not what you know, not even who you know, but who knows you and what Google says about you", that really matters. It is important to create a good brand of yourself by i.e. putting up nice pictures, talking nicely about others and yourself.

We also talked about social marketing and marketing communication. The lesson emphasized on how it's important to remember that it's usually not about WHAT you say, but actually, HOW you say it. You can say nice things and sound angry, when the message to the other person is totally different compared to if you said nice things with a gentle voice. It is so very important - especially when doing business - that you remember to use the right tone when communicating and that you know how to behave. What also links to this is that you remember to use the right body language. The non-verbal language is something that actually messages more information about you than the verbal language.

Off to start the third week now!

-Laura

First week of digital marketing course

Excitement and enthusiasm. That's what I felt after coming back to school from a long summer break on Monday. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from this starting school year - or to be precise, this starting digital marketing course - but after the first lecture, I knew it was gonna be a good one.

When Ilkka started lecturing in English, I was a little confused, but really excited at the same time. "Would we really be speaking English throughout this whole course?" I thought. And luckily, the answer was: yes, we would.



The digital marketing course focuses on digitalization and it's current issues that we are and will be facing in the future. Based on the couple of lectures we've had so far, the course seems very interesting and useful, as the world keeps changing and becoming more and more digital every day. I am excited about everything that's about to come and all the tasks we're about to do. I think it's a great idea for the students to write a blog during the course, because blogs are a very big part of our life today, and they are becoming more effective when it comes to making decisions of for example purchasing a product or reserving a table from a restaurant etc.



So all in all, I am excited about all that's about to come. I have a great team with me, and I'm sure we will do some great things together and make the most out of this course.

-Laura