This weekend we have received some news, from Basque Country.
We are told that Ametsen Ekaitza's event is going on so right, and different kind of people are going to speak in the one. People like Zubizarreta, Jart, Pukas and they will explain their experiences over 400 students.

Sari also, told me that she is going to come to Tampere, where Hopemyrsky will be held 13 of May. So, the day before, we could meet to speak about our experinces in different countries.

I have speak with some basque country student that they are thinking in going to university, and their opinion about the new degree(LEINN) seems very good. They are exciting in new degree ´cause seems that could be the new and revolutionary educational system for the future..

Besides, we have received our feedbacks about the personal proyects.
In my case, apart from J.Mari opinion about the topic, it has been very interesting the feedback because I have been the chance to meet(by e-mail) Ivan Marcos.
Ivan Marcos is from Oviedo, and he studied engineering, nowadays since february to february of next year(2010) is around the world looking for business opportunities.

An example

Last day we were told to write all our frustations and fears about the project in a board, and after that Nic say us that we should answer those questions with a optimistic point of view, I must say that we havent done it... I think that is a really hard work that if we finally achieve to de it is going to be very beneficial for ourselves in the future, but I think that we still need some help to reach that point.

Talking about it, Miika a guy that learns in Intotalo tells us one of his experiences, last year there was a competition between different groups in Intotalo about selling socks, the thing was that the socks were hand maded and were really expensive 45€ a pair. Who was going to buy a 45€ sock? at the beggining they did it really bad, they coudn't sell any sock but then they thought that was impossible to sell only a sock for so much money and they stop to think what kind of added value could they see in those socks to sell them.

In this way they came up with an idea, the socks were hand make by grandmas all around Kainu, and they thought that that idea might work, so they stert to develop it and they achieve to create the feeling that the one that was buying the socks was not only buying a pare of hand made socks but was helping to those gandmas to keep the happines in life and the feeling of feel useful.

So they start to sell that idea that was behind the socks and finally they won the competition selling over 100 pair of socks which create an income of 4,500€!!!!!

With this real live story, I meant that if you are going to sell a product that is not the cheapest or the best in the market the most likely situation is a failure in your try, but if you are able to sell more than a product, an ilusion, a feeling, a state of mind and you reach the right audience, you can be amazingly succesful.

Mikel

In this enviroment, where the innovation , creativity and working together maybe are the most important things, reading books can be a good options to develop and to create some new ideas, and also to develop our own writing skills.


The truth is that I'm not to a passionate of reading books, however one of my goals in this experience was to try, at least reading 4 books.


I really think that if you don't like reading, you must start with books that maybe can attract or like you.



So, I started with a book concerning with how adapting to different kind of situations, or how to move to achieve your "cheese", I mean, your aim.


Because of that, I read: " who moved my cheese?", I will just say that is an interesting book where you can see the amazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life.

Now, 20 pages left to finish another book, this one "Screw it, Let's do it".

The book is Richard Branson´s autobiography, and he tells about his life, his achievements, his many remarkable things... Moreover, he explains the history both his failures and his achievements, from a humble perspective.

In Intotalo, , there are rooms for meeting and larger proyects, a small kitchen with a coffee machine, and storage space. The atmosphere is hectic and creative: the team is working out a solution to a problem, someone is inmersed in his thoughts at a computer, a couple of people are sitting on a sofa in the corner chatting with each other.

Books

I have just dinished of readyng a wonderful leadership story, the book is called The Sackletons Way its based in real life happenings, real testimonials and real biography of a famous antartic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton lived between lived from 1874 to 1922 and had been one of the most famous antartic explorers of the time. The book doesnt't only speak about the life of this men, but it focus specially in the leading skills of this great men who was able of the impossible and after 2 years of the sank of their ship he managed in taking back home all his men a live and full of moral. I personally recomend this book very strongly to those that are interested in leadership and maybe also to those that are pesimist and they dont see the point in trying what seems imposible.

Another book that I'm reading at the moment is The Guerrilla marketing handbook and I think it should be a must to all of those that are studying business and more exactly marketing, but this book is not only woth reading for students, every single person that have a company, a business a small shop... should read this book. The book doesn't focus, as the common books, in theorical marketing but gives much more importance to the real life examples, giveing a lot of ideas and tips to save money advertiseing but giveing some therorical knowledge at the time. As I said it should me a must for every company and in every business school.

Mikel

thought

When you have a project in your hands you have to have clear one thing: What do you have to lose, it's easy and everybody knows and dreams about what do you have to win but what really measures a project and the value it has for you is what you can lose and if you are ready to lose it.

Mikel

This easter, we have decided to go up even more, and we have go towards Lapland.
Firsty, we were in Romanievi, where Artic Circle starts, and we visited Santa Claus Village, by the way, very commercial place, in spite of his its peculiar charm. And after sending some postcards to our family since S.C village(they put the stamp of the Artic Circle, the only place in the world), we went to Artikum museum, here we had the opportunity to see more deeply how the Northern Lights are, how can they appear....
The following day, we took the train, and we went to Muonio. Muonio is in Finland, however we were in a cottage in Undermuonio, that it´s in Sweeden, and they are only separated by 5 Km.
The place we were staying it´s called Rajamaa (which we strongly recomend you you are thinking in visiting that area of Lapland) http://www.rajamaa.com/eng/current.htm , here you can see some pictures of us), and their owners were really nice people.
We were doing some sport like huskys safary and sky background and besides we ate reindeer with salad and strawberry made by bossman.
It was a good trip, because besides of meet new people we knew something about another culture.

interesting info

Hello our followers! how are you doing? As in the last dais we are not having any task or anything to do, we have started to develop our personal projects and the common one.

As we don't have much relevant things to tell I just going to mention some contrasting or at least different thing that we have find in here comparing to the Basque country, that might be interesting for the people visiting finland.

-If you are in the bus stop and you see that you bus is coming even if it's the only bus that stops there, you should make a signal to stop, if not they will drive through.

-When you meet Finnish people it's not usual to give two kisses as we use to do, maybe can be better jut a shake of hands.

-If you see people eating at 6 it's not that they are having a late lunch they are having dinner, so be careful and check the closing hour of the restaurant you want to go for dinner.

-If you are planing to buy some alcohol you should know that is much more expensive that in the basque country, and at unless you want to buy beer or sider you are not going to find it in a super market, you have to go to acohol shops called Alko and make sure you are over 20 to buy drinks over 20 degrees.

-At the time of shoping make sure that you take the bags you need from home, if not you have to pay for them every time.

-When you buy botles or tins you are paying an extra suplement for the recicling, so you should return it to the recicle machines if you don't want to loose the money.

-The finnish people use to eat a lot of ready cooked food, so you can buy them in the super markets (hot or cold)

Now, I will give you a cuple of references of products you can buy in a super market in order to show you how cheap or expensive are things here (I have tried to get some international brands in order to give the posibility to you to compare them with the prices in the Basque Country):

-Potatoes: 0,79€/kg
-Lettuce: 2,19€/kg
-Tomato: 2,99€/kg
-Leek: 2,25€/kg
-Oranges: 1,49€/kg
-Corona beer: 1,99€
-San Miguel 0,5l tin: 2,40€
-Milk chokolate: 1,69 (200g)
-Milk: 0,88€/l
-Activia (Danone): 1,25€
-Actimel: 1,89€


Mikel

Today we have not so much to explain, so we are going to write a superb word that, we think that is very important to grow up, be it in the business or in your life...: Otherness!!!

The last Friday, we were in Tampere, about 6 hours by bus. So the day was very long....We took the bus at 5a.m in kajaani's bus station, here we met coaches, some students...and after 6 hours by bus and some stops in the way, we arrived to Idea Park(Tampere).
Idea Park is a big mall where there are a lot of shops, and where in this time AIVOMYRSKY was going to be celebrated.



AIVOMYRSKY, brain storming, ametsen ekaitza...is an event created by students, for students, in this case from Team Academy, where different kind of (famous or at least known) entrepreneurs go tell their experiences, what they do, how they arrived there... and where many people can go to listen them make them questions...



So, we arrived 11 a.m. and there were many people with their bags and their accreditation willing to came in the annual event.


After, walking around the big shops and get our accreditation, we entered to the event, that was happening in the middle of the mall, in a large open place closed by large curtains and big lights.

There were many chairs and in the front of them a stage with two sofas where two Team Academy students present the "performance" and the guests were innvited to seat and speak about their experiences, all this of course in finnish.

One of the Aivomyrsky´s most expected moment happened when Jarno (the dudesons)(for the ones you don't know them is a kind of Jackass but in a Finnish version) appear speaking about his histories around the world and how do they make the things.


Apart from that, we made several new contacts during the event, most of them from Team Academy and we speak with them about several things, Finnish education, TA, the Aivomyrsky (which some of them were organiceing).


At 7p.m, we took the bus, and after some hours sleeping and having sung the "happy birthday" mikel, we arrived to Kajaani.

http://www.dailymotion.com/teamfactory/video/x53qii_peter-senges-congratulations_webcam?from=rss

We have tried to upload this video to the Blog, but was impossible, so we have decided to put the link in order to offer you the option to enter an see the video. In it you can see Peter Senge (an American scientist and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management (you can find more information about him in wikipedia)) congratulating team academy adn giving his oppinion about that institution.

Tomorrow (3rd of April (my birthday:Mikel)) we are going to Tampere to the Aivomyrsky event, so we will inform you about it further when we come back.

By now I think that can be agood thing to tell you that Intotalo have many motos and that one of them is that everything can be done, so i think that the following sentence used by Adidas can feed quite good.

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.