The last one

Hey, this post is going to be the last one in this digiblog. Our digital business course has ended now. The autumn has been amazing and I would like to thank our excellent teachers, Ilkka and Anna, digicoaches, all the classmates and especially our super team members. This course has learned a lot of new things and has given a lot of new experiences to me. Next spring I'm going to be a digicoach and I'm looking forward to learn more things from a different perspective.

During the course I have learned lots of new things about digital world and digital business from our lectures, teachers, guest speakers and company visits. Digital business world is new thing but it's growing all the time. Continuous development of functions is necessity. Few of my favourite speakers and lectures in this course was Jaakko Alasaarela, Tuloshelsinki and our own teacher Ilkka Kurkela. Company visit to Vainu was great opportunity to see and explore the real successful company. Also Nordic Business Forum belonged absolutely to the highlights.

Projects were big part of this course. Some of those were better than others but I'm sure that I learned something from each of them. In my view the best one was Mazda and Nobot, because they were clear and very instructive. I'm super happy that we had amazing team in this course. We had very good team spirit and I think it was one of the things that developed during the autumn. The team was  flexible but still very goal-oriented and in my opinion each of our projects were success. So big thanks to my teammates Anna, Tuomas, Tiina, Kalle and Jesse!

Our super Team 2

Soon is my favourite time of the year, Christmas! Let's all have a great well earned holiday. Once again thank you and have a Merry Christmas!!

Lotta

Week 11 - emotions in marketing

Hey readers!

What a week! This week has included a lots of everything. Interesting lectures about marketing, other school stuffs, lots of work, short trip to Dubai and a few gymnastic competitions.  So I haven't had any boring time in this week. In this post I’m going to focus on the lectures and other school stuffs as usually in my blog.

Emotions in marketing

On Monday Anna Ikonen kept a lecture about emotions in marketing and meaning of social media. I learn a lot during the day. The topics are very effective and too often forgettable. Emotions are one of the most impressive way in the marketing.  It takes just three seconds to get potential customers interested in videos online. So first impression is very important. Ikonen showed many marketing videos to us and most of them were really good and really appeal to the emotions. After all the emotions are one of the most important things when you are making buying decision. Intuition is the key word because it regulates people. That's why it is really important to understand what kind of marketing appeal to the emotions.

Social media meaning and strategy

We also got a few guest speakers during the day, Mira Niemi and Camilla Fagerström, who told about how important is to have social media strategy and being yourself in there. There is always people behind the screen not only customer. In social media you build your brand so you have to be loyalty and trust to your customers.

”Being real is soul of social media”

Talousguru project

Our Talousguru project progressed much in this week. I'm happy that at this time we started working on it in time and not in the last days. Once again our team has done amazing job and I'm sure that representative will like it. On next Monday we had presentations but unfortunately I can't participate for it. Luckily we have opportunity to watch it afterwards from Facebook live and I'm looking forward to see all the presentations. So big thanks for it!

On the top of Dubai

At the end of the week I visited in Dubai. There was a bit less slush than in Finland. Although I love winter it was nice to see sun and enjoy of it a few days. +30 degrees was refreshing and I got lot of energy from it.

Thanks for reading and have a nice week!

Lotta

Week 10 - digital tools

Hello!

This week's the most interesting day was Monday. On Monday we listened many interesting topics. Our teacher Ilkka Kurkela and guest speaker Tanja Heikkinen was the stars of the day.

Tanja Heikkinen started the day and told about company Myy which is her internship place. Myy is a PR and marketing agency. It does content marketing, digital strategies, communication partners etc. Tanja was great speaker and it was nice to heard about her internship company.

At the end of the day Ilkka Kurkela talked to us about digital business tools. Ilkka is an amazing speaker, inspiring person and know how to argue things so that all interested in it. Here is a few topics that I learned:

• It is very important to focus right things and one thing at a time. You need to know people and choose that ones who makes you believe in you. If you have nothing, connect with the best ones and learn from them. And at the end think big and the new way.

• Digital tools, like google analytics, google adwords, Thinglink, are very useful for example in marketing and knowing what happens in your website. I'm looking forward that I have time to learn more about those tools.

• Search engine optimization is important if you want to be founded. Visibility is the most important think in marketing. SEO consist of content, links and tech. 

SEO

"Fail fast, learn faster", Ilkka Kurkela

On Wednesday we got guest speaker Jussi Simolin from Innoduel. He told about the company and their tool which was very useful. It is an APP where people can add their ideas and then others can vote them. In my opinion their idea is very distinctive and in the future it has good opportunities to expand.

End of the week our team worked with the Finanssialan keskusliitto project. The team worked very well and we got a lot of things done. Great job team 2!

Team 2 has done very good work!

Until next week!

Lotta

Week 9

Hey! One week behind again. During the week I was not sure how to survive this week because winter surprised and almost the whole week I have driven with summer tires. Every year same thing, maybe next year I can anticipate.

Social media and Proteinvital -workshop

The week start on Monday with Proteinvital & social media marketing -workshop. The day was varied and we listened many interesting speakers during the day. Our teacher Ilkka Kurkela had the first speech. He spoke about social media and content marketing strategy. There was so much great points only in 30 min. Main thing was that social media really is social. You market yourself all the time. Digital presence creates trust so you can't promise something that you can't deliver. 

You need to be founded + you need to be trusted = marketing

Ilkka and Christmas mood

We also have a few guest speakers on Monday; Petteri Avila and Riina Laaksonen. They both tell us their own stories which was very interesting. Avila spoke about success and continued Ilkka's speech about social media. He noted that social networks and branding yourself is important all the time and wherever you are. The person next to you can be your future employer. That is good to keep in mind.

Riina Laakso is founder in Hyvinvointistudio Lupaus. Riina seems very positive, energetic and motivational person. She likes what she do at the moment and  most importantly she works with passion. Why you do something that you don't like if you can create a career with your interest, like Riina did.

Our promotional photo for Lupaus

SSM project presentations

On Thursday we presented our SSM project results. Every team presentations were different but very good. Everyone got a lot of positive feedback and praises. Presentations were in english so that was good learning time to me because my english skills are very bad. It's good to learn weaknesses here in school that they are not totally new things in the future workplace. 

Also we get a lot of positive feedback. I'm not sure how useful is to get all the time only positive feedback. In the real work life it is one of the most important things to develop yourself all the time and in my opinion we should practice it already as a student. Positive and supportive feedback gives a good mood and self-confidence but it is not the key to development. Of course the listener would like to respect the speaker by being subtle but in my view it's also respectful to give constructive feedback. Everyone would like to learn and would like to get all keys for it.

Our team and our SSM presentation

Finanssialan keskusliitto, Talousguru project

Right after the SSM we got instructions for next project which would be for Finanssialan keskusliitto. The project sounds different that I expected but still very interesting. I'm looking forward next week when we start to work it properly. 

My weekend has been full of everything so sleeping time now. Good night and have a great week guys!

Lotta

Week 8 - law issues

Hey! How's your week been? 

We had a bit different week in our digital business course. In this week the main topic was law and law issues. We didn't have any digi business lectures with Ilkka and Anna so it was like a little break from the course. This week was also photo free week so sorry about that only few pics.

On Monday we had a law lecture with Marjaana Marmo. She spoke us about contract law and how important is it. In all your business it is very important to have a contracts. It doesn't matter how big or small thing it is but the contract is very useful for example in situation of conflict. 

Every team got also a few law tasks to do and on thursday we went through of them. Tasks were very interesting and them raised a lot of discussion. Especially marketing laws interest me and I learned a lot of them.

All to all it is major thing to know country's legislation because everything based on the laws. When you know the limits of law you can easily plan and do things and you don't need to start it again because of it is unlawful. In the future I would like to learn more about legislation so I can advantage  it in my future job.

Our team has also worked with SSM project in this week. I think we have great plans although it felt difficult at the beginning. You will hear more about that in the next sundays blog. Have you answered to our survey Ilmaisjakelun merkitys yet? If not, go now and tell what is your opinion of  free distribution. Thanks!!

Lotta

Seventh week - Vainu.io and projects

Good Sunday evening my readers! This week has been quite usual and nothing so special but here is a few main topics of it.

So school week started with a great way on Monday. We had a company visit to Vainu.io's office. Vainu is quickly grown Finnish Startup company. The visiting was one of the most instructives in this autumn. Veera Virintie and Sini Elomaa from Vainu told us about their company and the company industry.  Vainu have a new and very useful software which include lot of free data. Their business is b2b and b2c. The best marketing tips from Veera and Sini what I learn was about inbound + outbound = smartbound. Everyone in the company seems very positive and motivated to work together. I'm very thankful we got that opportunity to see the marketing company such a close and learn real things from them.

Vainu.io

On Thursday we had our second projects, Minecraft Vantaa, presentations. Our team had had little difficulties with the game and assignment but at the end we solved them and in my opinion our team Minecraft video and the whole presentation was successful. There is always difficult situations also in working life so it is good to practice problem solving in school and find the way to do things as well as possible.

After the Minecraft presentations we get new assignments which is for SSM. I can admit that I had some prejudices for the company because they support to printed advertising. Todays world goes digital all the time so all printed is quite unusual and I'm not sure is it profitable anymore. But although at this time we get exact and reasonable tasks for the project and thats great. I'm looking forward to start this new project. I'm hundred percent sure that once again our team is going to create something creative, gorgeous and useful. Once again, stay tuned to hear more!

SSM project tasks

Now it's time to finish this week and start the new one. But lets sleep first, good night!

Lotta

Sixth week - virtual reality and Aida Hubanic

Hi!

It's Sunday evening again and time to tell about the past week. Just realized that the autumn is on midway and I feel it's still end of the summer. This week hasn't been as busy as others but here is topics from the past school week.

Virtual reality

Our teacher Ilkka started our week with Mark Zuckenbergs video of virtual world. Video was super impressive and get me thinking about how fast our world is going to be more and more digital. In my opinion the idea of virtual reality sounds actually little bit scary but I thing it could open many doors in the future world.

After that Lari Aho kept a Minecraft Vantaa workshop for us. The idea was that everyone could try and learn how to play the game but it was not as piece of cake as that it should have been. The workshop answered to many questions but still left some questions for us. After the workshop our team got together and now I think we have a very good plan to implement the project that could also be useful for representative. Next week we are going to introduce our spectacular idea so stay tuned!

Aida Hubanic

On Friday we had a day which was named "case Samsung". I didn't have any expectations about that but the day surprised me positively. We got an awesome guest speaker Aida Hubanic with us. Hubanic told us her own story which was very impressive. She is very brave woman and has experienced a lot in her life. She is from Sarajevo and came to Finland 22 years ago because of war. She has created her own story here bravely and successfully. At the moment she is studying Master's degree in Laurea and has her own company as a mentor and motivator. Her story was very impressive because she told it with pride.

Aida Hubanic

At the moment Hubanic is mentor and motivator so she spoke about motivation for us. I totally agreed that it's very important to know your own strengths and weaknesses. Only by knowing them you can improve yourself, develop weaknesses and on the other hand underline strengths. Also her sentence that "Keep your why with you" stayed to my mind. In every part of life it's always very important to know why you are doing something. Hubanic told that her "why" is her little son because she wants to be an good example for her. Everyone had their own "why" which motivate to do things. That sentence got me thing what is my "why" in every part of my life.

For more information about Aida Hubanic from her website:
http://www.aidahubanic.com

Hubanic is an great example of mentally very strong people

So that's all of the Digital Business courses week number six. I wish you a very good week!

Lotta

Fifth week - Mazda presentation and NBF

Hello again!

In this week we finished our first project in the Digital Business course. On Monday our team worked with the Mazda Student Challenge -project presentation and marketing video. On Tuesday all teams presented their marketing campaigns and videos to Mazda's representatives, Markku Riekkola and Aki Kaukola, teachers and other teams. Each team had done very good job and videos were surprisingly good. In my opinion our presentation went perfectly and our team had done very good work together and I can say a big thank you to our team members. We got lots of positive feedback on our presentation. Mazda's representatives will choose the best team and Mazda may use their campaign in the future.

Here is the link to our team video which was part of our marketing campaign:

https://youtu.be/b4sCgtWBKcw

Our team at the Mazda project presentation, photo by Teemu Reunila

After Mazda presentation and lunch break we got presentation to our next project, which will be for city of Vantaa. Lari Aho presented to us the project. Project will involves to building city of Vantaa with Midcraft game. I'm not sure what it would be because I'm not big fan of games and not good at playing them at all. But it's always good to learn something new so I'm looking forward to see what we are going to do.

Lari Aho telling about the city of Vantaa project 

Nordic Business Forum 2016

Friday was the most inspiring day of this week and I learned a lot of new things. We participated in the Nordic Business Forum via livestream. Big thanks to nice arranged livestream to Finnkino Kinopalatsi. If the speakers wouldn't be as good as they was, I think I would fallen asleep because of movie theaters comfortable chairs.

Feeling VIP in Finnkino

During the day I listened to four amazing and very inspiring speakers; Jessica Jackley, Vineet Nayar, Amy Chua and Seth Godin. Jessica Jackley was the first speaker of the day. She spoke about her non-profit company KIVA and how important is to help others to reach the goals. "Having nothing didn't mean coming nothing" stayed to my mind. Tiger mom Amy Chua told about her book and that what really determines succes. She had a few good points and in my opinion the most impressive was "taking risks mean you fail more often than success".

Jessica Jackley - KIVA and new business thinking: challenging common business

Amy Chua - What really determines success

All the speakers were very impressive but in my view the best ones were definitely Vineet Nayar and Seth Godin. Nayar spoke about putting employees first and customers second. I learn that you have to invest to your employees and create a good working atmosphere that employees could be proud of their work. "High performance teams do what others consider impossible." Satisfied and good employees do always their best so why we would like to have bad employees.

Seth Godin had a whole spendid presentation of how to get your ideas spread. He seemed that he has spoken many times for a big audience because he activate audience all the time that everyones interest was maintained throughout the whole speech. His way of speak was in itself very teaching. Godin had so many good things in his speech which really got me to think and here is a few; "Not enough good ideas. Then you need some more bad ideas, some of them will turn into good ones." "Don't fly too low."  The easiest way is rarely the best. "Making change happen is our job, do not just copy." If you want to reach success you have to do it yourself. "If failure is not accept, then success is."

Vineet Nayar - Employees first, customers second

Seth Godin - How to get your ideas spread

I have had a nice weekend. Hope you have had also. See you next time!

Lotta

Fourth week - Celebrate Driving and New York

Hey readers! This week has end very quickly. Maybe because there has been so much things to do.

SAE institute

On Monday we had a lecture about SAE institute (School of Audio Engineering) and studying in abroad. Tapani Marttala told us his own story as a free mover. He moved to Sweden without any exchange student agencies and managed to get to study in SAE institute. Marttala seemed brave and his story was respectable.

At the end of the day we had a task as groups to do a marketing plan for SAE. Unfortunately our group didn't won the task. All in all the day was nice but in my opinion it focused little bit too much to music instead of business.

Our teachers Ilkka and Anna

Mazda Student Challenge -video shooting

Tuesday our team worked with the marketing video with Mazda 2. The day was fun and instructive about video shooting. Next tuesday we have Mazda project presentations. I am looking forward also to see other teams marketing campaigns.

Sneak peek for our video

Trip to New York 

I also had a little trip in this week. At the end of the week I visited in New York. The trip was short but great break in the middle of busy week. In my opinion New York is one of the most beauties city in the world. I think there is totally own atmosphere in that city and I love it. 

Spotted Mazda2 from New York

Until next week!

Lotta

Third week - personal branding, Markkinoinnin viikko and Mazda challenge

Hello my readers!

It has been a busy week, like running one place to another. School, coaching, training, working and then again.

Personal branding

On Monday Anna Ikonen spoke us about personal branding. It is very important in particular when you are looking for a new job. The most important thing in a job interview is your first impression. It gives the impression of your personality and your personality is a combine of your image and reputation. Giving a good first impression helps you to stand out in a crowd. 

We had a few personal branding tasks: swot -analyse and elevator pitch about myself. Here is a link to my pitch -video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFaq2P5gQ8w

SWOT -analyse about my skills

Markkinoinnin viikko

On Wednesday we had an interesting day at Messukeskus where was Markkinoinnin viikko event. We listened a few interesting speakers there. In my opinion the best speaker was Samuli Tursas from Koodiviidakko Oy. He talked about the changes in the purchase path and how marketer has to notice the changes. Digitalization is essential part of the changes so our digital marketing course is an ideal to think about that kind of things.

Samuli Tursas, Koodiviidakko Oy

Mazda Student Challenge

Our team has been working on with the Mazda student challenge. Strategy is almost ready now. Next week are going to carry out the description of the video and some other things. Stay tuned to hear more about our team project plans.

Team 2 working on the challenge

My weekend has been full of work but it has been still very enjoyable because I just love my work with the gymnasts.

Sunday coffee break before trainings

Until next time. Have a nice week mates!

Lotta

Second week - #MazdaStudentChallenge and happiness

Hey guys and welcome to read my second blog post! Step by step it feels easier to write a blog. Anyhow, writing this blog is very good way to learn because you have to think what you have learned in past week.

Mazda student challenge

We had only two days school attendance in this week but those days were full of instructive things. Thursday we got two speakers from Mazda: Brand director, Markku Riekkula and Brand manager Aki Kaukola. They told us about brands, marketing and gave some interesting perspectives.

Our first case #MazdaStudentChallenge has also started now. The purpose of this case is to create new marketing ways for Mazda2 -car. Each team will use Mazda2 -car for one day and make a marketing video about it for a specific target group. Our talented digicoaches kept video editing workshop for us and that would be very useful during the case.  I am looking forward the next few weeks when we are going to implement the case.

Aki Kaukola

We were able to explore the Mazda cars

Social skills and happines

On Friday we met in Laurea Leppävaara campus and talk about happiness etc. We had a few amazing guest speakers there. First one was Chris Evatt who told us how important is to have good social skills in every part of life. That is something which I totally agreed.

Second speaker was straight from South Korea, Kyla Mitsunaga, TED speaker and a professor. She told us a shocking fact that only 13% of people are happy with their life which means 87% are unhappy. I cant't believe this because in my point of view life is to short to be unhappy. In working life it doesn't mean that every day or even every week should be like peace of heaven. You should be realistic and have targets which make you happy when you reach them. If you are unhappy, you cant't be as good and motivated as you can be. Without motivation you are not ready to develop your own career. Happiness is keyword to everything and it's all about your own attitude. So just do things that makes you happy! :)

Thanks for reading this second week thoughts. Hope you have had an amazing and relaxing weekend!

Lotta

Photos by Teemu Reunila

First week

Welcome to read my blog! First week of Digital Business Course in our school has ended up now. I am studying at Laurea University of Applied Sciences and this blog has created during the our course. 

This is my first time ever writing a blog so it's totally a new thing for me. I am still pretty sure I am going to learn lot of new skills while blogging although it's not my favorite yet. Nowadays blogging is important digital marketing channel so objective for the blog is to learn something new about digitalization.

We have had now only a few days of Digital Business course. I don't exactly know what to expect but it seems very interesting already. In this first week we had two guest speakers to visit us. Ronja Salmi and Dr. Jongtae Rhee was both very inspiring, amazing speakers and especially motivation to do your own career with hundred percent.

Ronja Salmi, Photo Teemu Reunila

Next week we are going to start our first project assignment with Mazda. I'm looking forward to see what we are going to do in this and all other projects that we are going to a have during the autumn.

Thank you for reading and have a nice week!