15. THE LAST WEEK - check out the final videos!

Hello! Oh my god, this fall has gone super fast. I feel like it was just last week we continued school after summer vacation. And now in a couple of weeks it's already Christmas..

First of all I want to thank my super group FTS13: Nelli, Mira, Linda, Tanja and Ria, like I predicted in some of my first blog posts, together we make one hell of a team! Also thank you to the mentors and the digital coaches, this course has by far been the best course in my 1,5 years of business studies. Of course this is school and sometimes it felt though and boring, but mostly we got the opportunity to be creative and do what we like the most: videos. In 15 weeks we have done 11 videos + two animations. Not bad!

On Monday I wasn't able to join my team. But they had shown the unfinished final presentation video to the teachers and they loved it! So on Tuesday we finished that video plus the short introduction video. In addition to those we also finished a video that we made for Emotion Tracker as an example of what they could use in a launching campaign. So on Wednesday we had a day off. Nice!

Motivation on Tuesday! My friends dog Hilla.

Hilla the movie star!

I have to say, the videos are amazing. Especially "Our story"-video, is going to be a great memory of us working together and all the fun we had. Please check the videos out here below and let us know what you think.

On Thursday we had the final presentation seminar. I was genuinely surprised how great it was! Almost like we graduated. Or actually we did in a way, we even got a certificate.

 Every team held a brief 3-5 min presentation of the project they have done. There were many interesting and very good presentations, all the groups did a great job. We showed of course the videos, and I think it was a success.. At least we loved it! Also two of our team members got a special mention. Linda was chosen as one of two best bloggers and got an opportunity to write a blog post for Myynnin & Markkinoinnin Ammattilaiset. Ria on the other hand is heading to New York in January to take her internship! Great job both of you, we are really proud of you two!:)

As final words I want't to compare digital business with my dear hobby horse back riding. When riding a horse you're never going to be perfect. It's constantly new learning, getting hundreds of mussels to work at the same time, not only your own, but also the horse's. The same thing is in digital business. Every day you can learn something new, and every day you will learn something new! Keep your mind open. Strive to be perfect, but keep in mind that you will never be. Depressing? Don't let it be, you CAN be the best. Not perfect, but the best. I feel that I took a huge step closer to be a master in digital business this fall, but I still have lots and lots of things to learn.

Next year round two! Most of our team members have singed up to be digital coaches in the digital business course starting in the beginning of next year. Looking forward to it! Now I'm starting mt Christmas break, take care and see you later!

And hey! The last Martta picture...

For the first time Martta's sleeping side by side with Hilla.
 This is just amazing..! Martta is usually not that into other dogs ;)

THANK YOU!

14. The last lecture and second exam

Hi you all! So this was the second last week! Soon it will be over. Good or bad? I think both. This have been a very great course which have both educated and entertained. I have learned about digital and content marketing, gotten inspired many times and best of all, I have had an awesome time together with my team and other people involved!

But back to business.. So on Monday we had our last lectures. The first one was held of Mika Aittamäki. I really liked this lecture as the subject was selling in the digital break trough. The first thing he told us was that people like to call the digital break trough a "tsunami". A tsunami all though is a great wave, but eventually it will pull back. In his opinion, and I totally agree, the digital break trough is any way more like a more constant rising of the water. It will not pull out.

Mika Aittamäki

Nowadays the customer has the power. The marketer has to stay focused on the consumers all the time. It is so easy to find information, better offers and better products every where and all the time. But an important thing is to remember always that there's a human behind the internet. Always, no matter what.

What captured my attention the most, was this line "Kone välittää informaatiota, ihminen välittää ihmisestä", a machine provides information, a human cares for a human. So much better in finish ;)

It's also important to know the difference between a traditional seller and a digital seller. If you're an awesome traditional seller, selling face to face, it doesn't mean that you're a great customer servant in digital. In the digital world the written skill is much more important than the social face to face ability.

Lecture selfie!

Aittamäki had some super points of views. After him Nikalas Litmala told us about Leijona Academy, and the lectures they provide free for students in Helsinki.

And then the last lecture this fall! Wow, time flies.. Our mentor Ilkka Kurkela held again an inspirational lecture about digital humanism. Aristotle said that there is three things that effect a human mind: Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Rational, emotional and ethical appeal. Ilkka combined the rhetorics & modern marketing. The comparable appeals in modern marketing is spirit mind and heart.

Ilkka Kurkela

Ilkka's life advice

Mira filming :)

On Thursday we had the second exam. It was okay, let's see what the teachers think :)

The funniest thing in this ending of the course is the videos we are making, one that's our final presentation video (it's so awesome!) and then a short introducing video of the course. The videos length should be about 15 seconds, and as it turns out it seems to be a hundred times more difficult to make such a short video... Which clips to use.. How to make it dynamic.. But I'm sure we're going to find it out!

Martta before I got her :)

Hey! Happy last course week everybody ;) 

13. Silja Symphony and lectures

Hello! What does Silja Symphony and lectures have in common? Well, actually nothing this time, but on Sunday our group (and a lot of other Laurea's students) headed to the harbor and Silja Symphony! I think we really needed this and we had a lot of fun together! But enough of this topic.

FTS13 on Laurea on Boat!

Back to school! On Wednesday we met in a coffee house in Sello, and continued planning the next steps of our projects. At this point we plan the final presentation video. I think we will start editing it next week when all of us are in the same country the whole week ;)

On Thursday we first had a lecture by one of our digital couches, Arman Hosen Nuri. The topic was Digital Marketing. The meaning is to do strategic marketing by engaging customers and creating reliable, valuable and relevant content.

Arman showed us a interesting showdown between Coca Cola and Pepsi. I will link both videos below.

                                                                          (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jehpz6P5O90)

                                                   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEa3xMMUHMM)

Which one do you like to most? In my opinion these kinds of marketing videos are an excellent way to engage the customers through digital marketing.

After the first lecture we, the students, held our own lectures about something we were interested in. This task was given already a several weeks ago, but our group got to present it on this day. You can find the blog post of this task HERE. The link to the Prezi presentation: Video Marketing.

Filming our last weeks video

By the way, I don't think I have mentioned before but our group now have our own YouTube channel! Check it out here: FTS13 Laurea. Remember also the Twitter account @FTS13laurea ;)

Martta and her new buddy!

         

Have a great next week!

12. What a Monday! - not that usual

Hello! This week started straight with a couple of very inspirational lectures! Mondays are definetly not my favorites, but this time it was just great! The first one on Monday was held by Jaakko Alasaarela, the CEO of ZEF Solutions. You can check out the company's website in the link.

Jaakko Alasaarela and Zlatan as inspiration.

Jaakko talked to us about dreaming, achieving and passion. First of all 98% of people doesn't write down their dreams, including myself. But the 2% who does, are in general more happy in life. I think that is something I need to try out. Secondly, everyone should figure out the one thing why he or she is NOT giving up, no matter what. I can think of some things that keeps me going, but I can't find that ONE thing. This is also something I'm going to work on, especially when not knowing what to do with life. We need to think that whatever comes in our way, WE CAN DO IT! I can do it. Every one can, if they so want to.

Then he shared us ZEF Solutions values:

1. LOVE - Everyone wants to be loved. If their not being loved, they want respect. If they can't be respected they want to be feared. If their not being feared they want to be hated. So basically, Peace and Love ;)

2. PASSION - Let's change the world. Problems are solved straight away, giving up is not a solution.

3. COURAGE - Use the courage to change with the world. Don't feel scared, as a team everything can be done.

This man was truly an inspiration. So filled with passion, great stories from real life and enthusiasm. More of this please! :)

The second lecturer were no worse, also an amazing person, Camilla Tuominen, the CEO of Emotion Tracker. She lectured us about mastering emotions and the importance of understanding them, both our personal emotions but also others.

Camilla Tuominen.

1. WHY

"Too much information. We need wisdom."

This, and two following pictures are Camilla's own drawing. Super talented!

"Situations will become unpredictable."

"You have to know your system."

2. WHAT

"Emotions are energy and information."

3. HOW

"No judgement, just curious."

"Have the courage to look at your true emotions."

"Become aware and learn to choose your response."

These are quotes from Camilla's presentation, and I think they sum everything up perfectly. Also Camilla, just like Jaakko, encouraged us to write down stuff. And that's actually what our mentor Ilkka Kurkela also always emphasize so I'm starting to believe in it.. ;)

These lectures started the week perfectly. Tuesday and Wednesday we worked with a group task and the tasks given by Emotion Tracker's Camilla Tuominen. We have some great ideas for Emotion Tracker, let's see how it works out! But the group work was to analyse a bunch of thesis's (opinnäytetyö). Personally I think this was not that relevant to this course, especially when we are (or some have already) fulfilling a course just analyzing and learning about thesis's. But anyhow we made the most out of this too and made a video again! It's about the methods used in the thesis's. Find the video below!

On Thursday we had two more lectures. They were held by our digital coaches. The first one about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by Jabed Kaisar. I'm sure I have talked about SEO earlier in this blog also, but briefly it strives to make better visibility for a website or blog.

The other one was about Freshdesk by Bui Duong. Freshdesk is a partly free ticketing helpdesk software, designed to make life easier. I have never heard about this before, but if any time needed then why not!

These guys did very well with their presentations and knew the stuff they were talking about, and I appreciate that. This week the Monday lectures were the stars of this blog post, but any information is great information on the path of learning!

So loved <3

On Sunday almost the whole FTS13 group (except Tanja :( ) goes Stockholm! See ya next week!

11. Law issues - oh god

(Written on Friday)

Hi you all! This week has been all about law. I'm so.. exhausted, not excited this time I'm afraid!

On Monday we had a lecture by one of Laurea Otaniemi teachers, Marjaana Marmo, with the topic law issues. Like most of the lectures, also this were held in English. It was really tough to listen to all these law terms in a foreign language and it was difficult to catch up. Actually I'm not that into law in general, but I very well understand that it is extremely important to be familiar with this topic. Like Marjaana said, it is not usual that companies have their own lawyers, but it is every employees responsibility to know the basics. Especially the employer should have knowledge about this.

The lecture were mostly about binding contract. Who, How and When?

WHO - First of all, to have contractual competence you have to be over 18 years old. There's also some more detailed laws on minors doing contracts, but I don't find it relevant to this blog. The who-part also includes that the contract can be made by natural persons (like you and I) and legal persons (companies).

HOW - Drafting a contract: 1. Offer 2. Period of validity 3. Response. Offer and response leads to a binding contract. The contract can be both in written or in oral form. I personally prefer a written contract, it's nearly impossible to prove something if there's some issue with an oral contract.

WHEN - Well.. When your making a deal with somebody? No matter if it is a job contract or a business contract. So simple is that. The more important question, I believe, is what to include to the contract.

Because this is a digital business course, we also talked of course about social media. But social media is such a new thing, there is no precise laws and the issues have to be solved by adapting from other similar laws.

This week we also got a whole bunch of tasks regarding the law issues. We started doing them on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday. There was a lot of work, and unfortunately we stated that this week we will not be able to make a video. Boring, I know! The tasks were mostly based on consumer protection and commercial law. This topic was after all quite interesting, but my head is spinning round after this information flood, and I feel I can't actually write down anything clever.. The law issues are a huuuge area. But I think you all know that. Or at least you will know.

On Thursday we went trough the tasks, which I think was really good. I learned a lot and stayed focused the whole lesson due to the lecture language, Finnish! If nothing else, I know I'm going to be more sharp when it comes to customer rights!

As I said this week was mostly about law issues, and I'm a little disappointed on myself this week. My dog has been bored the whole week and I had to priority school work and hobby over her.. But next week hopefully will be easier and I can spend more time with the brown beauty! She really deserves it. But today it's Friday and were going to my boyfriends cottage with a pair of friends and all the dogs, so it's going to be a lot of fun and relaxing!

Martta and the best friends!

Write to you next week, have a great weekend! :)

10. Week ten - time is flying!

Hello again! This  week was a little busy. The week started with two guest lectures, the first by a Laurea alumni Sofia Auranen who's working for Parker Hannifin. She told us about her career at Kakkugalleria in the break point of digital marketing. Then he told us trough her experiences working abroad. Her four main points were: Do your best, treat people with gratitude, never burn bridges and aim to great. An inspirational lecture, we'll see if my way ever leads abroad and what the future brings... :)

The other lecture on Monday were held by Hanna Sirama, who owns a startup, but the startup is new and naturally I can't write about it. But we got a bunch of tasks to do for her, and our team made a video regarding the topic, dogs. I think that I can relieve ;) On the video you can see cute dogs, not much more, but I think especially dog lovers will enjoy it! My dog Martta is also starring in it.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we worked with the given tasks and the video. On Thursday we presented the works to Hanna and here connections. I think we did really great, despite that the Prezi presentation did not work on the computer in the auditorium, so we saved it with an iPad :D I guess these are things that can happen!

On Wednesday we also finally visited DigiPeople Studio's office!

FTS13 outside DigiPeople Studio!

There we met Pekka Tuominen, the CEO of the company and his wife Camilla Tuominen, among with the other employees. Pekka showed us around and told about the work in the video marketing field. Interesting! Afterwards Camilla told us about her startup, Emotion Tracker. Quite an interesting idea, you can read about it on the website! We are supposed to do cooperation with her now, because the lack of tasks for Digi People Studio. Let's see how this works out! Camilla is a lovely person and very inspirational :)

Last but not least Thursday. So on that day we had the presentations, but before that we had jet one more guest lecturer visiting. This time it was Arto Kuuluvainen, who works with sports brands and marketing.

Who is Arto Kuuluvainen?

So sports like football is not my passion, not at all. So at first I was honestly a little bored. But when he continued the lecture, I understood that sports are actually a great, big business! Both sports teams and athletes are brands.

No Finns I'm afraid ;)

He told us lots about sports marketing, and I didn't quite catch up. Then he told about how companies can utilize sports in branding. One great example is Redbull, who (i believe) launched this sport downhill ice skating. What a great visibility trick! Also Finnish Jokerit are cooperating with a big company Huawei. I think these kinds of things are good customer engagement. Below I will link the Huawei video of Jokerit joining the team. Quite captivating! Jokerit and small Finland.. ;)

Have a great Sunday and hey, happy fathers day every father, especially mine! <3

Such a beautiful dog, both outside and inside.

9. Exam and blogging

Hello! This week we had our first exam out of two. The exam was OK, I believe I'll pass, the rest is in the hands of the teachers ;)

The exam was on Thursday, but before that we had a pretty cool guest lecturer on Monday. He was Ilpo Kärkkäinen, a DJ and electronic music producer, one of the big names in that field in Finland. He lectured us about blogging, as he's been a professional blogger for 5 years. To be completely honest, I was I little bit disappointed that the topic once again was blogs.. But sure, blogging is increasing its popularity constantly and his lecture was great.

He gave us 4 main points:

1.

• It helps you think concrete because it's public. So you need to do proper research and focus.
• It is creative, and one tips was to go beyond Google. That makes it more interesting.
• Even if your blog is not public, it is like a journal of your learning's

2.

• It takes time and patients
• You can work from home, that's always a good thing right? ;)
• Many different opportunities
• Remember to present everything proudly
• Can also be done as a side business
• Incomes:

1. Advertising - Google AdSense, remember to build up traffic first. 
2. Affiliate marketing - You pay only for the accomplished targets (like a registration in an online service).
3. Selling products
4. Get free stuff and discounts - recommend only stuff in your blog you like yourself 

• Passive income: Work with it once, get paid constantly
• Active income: Sell service, get paid when work is done

3.

• We are all social creatures
• Same minded people all over the world
• Don't try to be perfect, be honest
• Important! Make it easy to contact you
• Share knowledge

4.

• Make goals and define them clearly
• Achieve goals
• Remember that peoples interest are shifting

In addition to these, Ilpo told also about Google Analytics and Google trends. Google Analytics is a very basic website analyzer. It tells you the visits of the page, locations, demographics etc. You can also see the real time statistics and where the traffic is coming from (like mobile or web..). In Google Trends you can see the interest in different topics at the moment. You can also see what is "in" in specific countries. The statistic bases on what people search on Google. This is a really good tool specially for bloggers.

Hope I'll sleep tonight as well as she does :)