Trapped at Hyper

So, I want to share with you my proud work! Still no sound effects or anything visually or technically advanced, but I'm still really happy and satisfied with actually achieving anything at all!

Very much afraid that my friends will feel the lack of time, but I want this badly.

In her work, Katarina had followed swedish teens, or rather, youth. The age span was 15-23 and although I am part of that group, the presentation of us in the lecture made me feel frustrated like "I already know that!" but also way old, as if I were the age of my dad or perhaps granddad and she was telling me about the lazy and non creative youth.

Even though the presentation irritated me it was still very interesting because what Katarina said about the self knowledge and use of media and behaviour I still hadn't reflected over some of those facts. That it's getting harder to entertain and also that we (I say we as Im a part of the target group that Katarina and her colleagues were investigating) are in constant need of entertainment. We don't speak of it because to us it's so obvious and natural, she said. 

I believe that this might be true. That my generation is so spoiled with not having to think and just have fun. There's been a lot going on in the media about kids being too fat and watching too much TV. I think my generation was perhaps the first to do this. Why else would we be so fed up and spoiled with different kinds and constant entertainment?

Let's think about that for a while now, shall we?

What a silly blonde I am , and a prejudiced one too! The workshop was on leadership, and we sat in our groups (the ones we were divided into at the beginning of this module) and each group was assigned one leadership college student each. The students were vice presidents and CEO's from Delhaize Group, and they came from all over the world. To us, and to do a workshop with us! That was an amazing feeling, for both sides I'd guess.

My groups leadeship college student was Tod. And our first assignment was to sit down, close our eyes and fantasize about our perfect dream working place. Then we were to specify our "I want" and "I see" on a long list. The group took Tod, papers and pens outside and we sat down in the late summer sun and discussed our opinions of a perfect working place. Tod was an excellent listener (I hope that his employees will use that resource!) and together we managed to downsize all our needs into two very specific words that were the most important to us:

MOBILITY

and

FLEXIBILITY

To visualise this Augut and Sebastian did a great illustration of a surfer, surfing with a laptop in his hands. 

Why this, then?

With flexibility I mean that I want the office to be a home base that I have access to 24/7 so that I can choose myself when I want to work. All people have different needs and have their own diurnal rythm, and I need to be able to adapt my working hours to when I'm most productive. 

With mobility, I want to be able to ring work home, or to a park, or abroad or wherever I want to go. Bring my office with me, or keep it online for easy access from where ever I'm at. 

With these ideas comes a lot of responsibility and the need for communication skills. I need to have good contact with my colleagues and customers so that if needed, I will be able to handle changes at work even if I'm not at the office. Or that I can work more one day if I'm in a good work flow and come in late or even take the next day off.

To me this would require constant availability and access to all employees, that there would be some kind of personal schedule online so that i always can update and let everyone know where I'm at or what I plan. Or book a meeting with me.

As long as the work is done in time and budget I don't see the need for fixed working hours. I still want and feel a need for regular meetings and checks that everything is going according to time plan and to get information, but an open and easy way is essential. Invisible company structures or even a flat organisation where everyone is treated evenly (even though people with authority still make the descisions) and information is available for everyone.

Health benefits, insurances and paid vacation are also essential, but to me so obvious and natural I don't even feel I should need to bring that subject to the surface. Though, I must say, we did speak a lot of it during the workshop.

To summarize everything we spoke of is so hard, but I think I got the essentials. At least of what I spoke of, and that is what I want to be able too look back at when enough time has passed.

To spend a day with Delhaize was terrific, they were all so open and nice. I really wish that they will take the workshop with them and that they will be able to use this. And listen to their employees, because I bet they would have said exactly the same as us.

One of the first things Paul brought to our attention is that the business is changing in the way that agencies recently have started to pay attention to the costs of outsourcing work. That they are realizing that it doesn't pay off as well to outsource work that they do a lot and that it's easier to have the competence at hand at all times.

To me, this is really exciting and I'd like to keep watching this evolution in the business. Does it mean that freelance is going out of fashion? That companies will be better at listening and supply their employees with their needs and demands? Really ineresting.

Another thing Paul talked about was the costs of advertising/PR. One statement he gave was that good and successful pr costs "nothing", because good pr pays back.

The most important thing is to access your target group and reach them at their own level, and to keep their attention. The keeping attention bit is the hardest one, as I'll tell you more about later on.

For how long can you say that a campaign is having an effect? Why is it so hard to recreate the big impact that came with a successful campaign?

What makes the campaign successful? How do you know when it is?

Paul gave loads of smart questions, and answering them when creating a campaign I'd probably end up with something good. As long as the original idea is. But he gave some tips there as well: humor, reality, unexpected, media.

Humor still works go get peoples attention.

The audience is good at spotting fakes, so keeping it real gives it a better chance of being noticed.

The uexpected and razy things are always talked of, and put on youtube.

Make sure you design the campaign after the media you intend to convey it through.

To someone like Paul these facts are obvious, but to someone like me it still isn't. Even though I hate getting the obvious pointed out for me, it's always most rewarding to have it so. 

So, what do I get of this? I need to be more objective. Look at things like a mental Rubiks cube.  

Solve the puzzle!

PS, I never solved Rubiks cube.