Accelarating technology* is changing the way of work, for millions.Β
Business leaders, education institutions and policy makers will have to work on tacktics to benfit from those technologies while creating new, innovative ways of working and providing new skills to the workforce.Β
A few good practices are shown by Amazon that plan to invest over $700 million to provide up-skilling training programs for one in three of its employees across the U.S. and it is looked into as a large-scale experiment in whether companies can remake their existing work forces to fit a fast-changing technological world.Β
Carnegie Mellon University released the OpenSimon Toolkit, which makes technology-based learning techniques, software and underlying code freely accessible. These tools are believed to democratise learning science and create a global, collaborative community of learning engineers within higher education.Β
Do you know the business definition of what a team is?
More that 2 people with a common goal, exchanging communication and dedicated to the same set of work principles and the same organizational culture.
So business theories talk a lot about team stricture, culture, effectiveness, motivation, measurement, evaluation etc. and that is great. I have read and remembered those. Implemented them in business too.
Until I came to realize that is not out of a business book but an universal truth of how people function together and what a magic is when they reach out bigger success than themselves individually. 1+1=3
And I see that pattern anywhere: in close-friends groups, in theater troupes, in music bands, in my high-school teacherβs program for dedicated physicists. Just anywhere!
Don Braden is an American jazz saxophonist. He talks about Jazz being nothing else but a team (Isnβt it actually the same in organizations?)
And how amazing it is that it turns out just as universal:
Bunch of people
Everybody has their own role
But compatible styles, close to each other
They listen to each other
Itβs a community
They must be consistent in practice
Learn from masters in their field
Act together to βget into itβ
Keep that going again and again
Get better over time
Have fun, joy and magic.
With everyone being in the right zone with the right team, the jazz band (Were we still talking about the jazz?) end up with something bigger than what separate musicians count. 1+1=3
The team success is about how much more you get out of the bare number equation.
Don Braden says 4 + 20 = 100, that is what you get out of it!
Go overstep your boss! Mentorship goes beyond schools and organizations
Wait no more to share experiences or seek some help for your professional growth. No more there is local knowledge but one global mind. Of course itβs online. Happily itβs free. So join the network. Growr Β
Growr is lead by great young people from 3 continents to support its worldwide scope. One is Stefan Alijevikj from Macedonia. Canada is represented by Hayley Lapalme and India - Jatin Kataria. Bulgaria joins the team soon.
Stefan, simply said, what is Growr all about?Β
Growr is a global learning community for education and career growth, where young people, however also individuals from international companies, NGOs, academia, think-tanks, or other institutions can join hands together to foster their real world-skills. This can be done through peer-to-peer mentorships at the Growr platform, or through sharing and following each other's Growr Tuesday tips on Facebook.
Why is mentorship important?
Mentorship is important, as it can open relationships of mutual learning and friendship for both the mentor and the mentee who agree on a mentorship partnership. The idea of Growr is that this is done peer-to-peer: the mentors is someone who will care for the whole person of its peer-mentee, not just their academic or career side. The mentor takes the serious task to push the individuals boundaries of the mentee, to push her or him out of their comfort zone. The mentee cannot be a mentor to the same person in the same mentorship, however he or she can mentor someone else. It doesn't matter who is more experienced in any of the relationships - there is so much to learn from each other despite our backgrounds, our countries or our beliefs.
How is online distant mentorship successful? What are the challenges?
I think that the main challenge is that both the mentor and the mentee respect what they will agree for their mentorship, for the aims of their learning and the outputs, otherwise the effect will be small. It takes a discipline to follow up on communication, and that is a commitment for the both parties. If they can overcome communication issue, anything else could work very well. I also think it's important the moment of "nowness", meaning, that when you would like to write to your peer they respond in the moment. That moment is powerful, as moment-to-moment connection. Imagine, you are somewhere in the Balkans and you type in the same time with your peer in India, or Nigeria.
What it the reach of Growr? How many countries participate?
Growr boomed on Facebook in 2014. What we have started as sharing authentic Growr career or life tips each Tuesday morning has become a Growr ritual, so many people are following it and contributing to it. In this manner, tips have arrived so far from more than 25 countries. Eminent challenge:future leaders, community members, but also successful managers, professors, CEOs have shared so far tips and their reached is amazing: to an audience of more than 220,000 young people worldwide.
> visit web page at growr.net
How can people try out Growr? What are the best 3 things a person can get from the platform?
An online mentorship with someone from another continent is by far something most valuable you can get out of Growr. Intercultural experiences are invaluable today. The other dimension, is the friendship which Growr promotes: pushing people out of their comfort zone, having someone who will care for you for your whole personality. We all have so many different personal challenges and if this connection could tackle those challenges, the experience is valuable in an instance.
What is the plan? How is Growr to change in the next years?Β
Growr will grow. The board has discussed launching a crowd-funding campaign, which could be immense and important experience for everyone on board, and for Growr itself. We would like to have the Growr platform fully operational and boost its tools in order to facilitate the work of the mentors and the mentees.
And what about the team behind the project?Β
Ales Maticic from Slovenia initiated Growr in the first place. We have management board but it is important to underline that Growr functions through the principles of open innovation, just like the C:F. That's why we share this call to everyone. We would take in account and listen anyone who has energy, and a valuable input to share, and make the space for mutual collaboration.
Thank you!
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Growr is a global learning community for education and career growth. See how it works and join the network for free. Also keep yourself updated and inspired by great content on the Facebook page.
It is said that there are 4 urges for a person to become an entrepreneur:
You have the resources
You come across a market niche
You are eager to address a problem
You are deep expert in some area
I admire the passionate ones that strive to address market or social challange!
As that challenge usually has not been [adequately] addressed before it is lucky to have its blind spot in the market.
So the house is small but has its secure niche to jumpstart safely!
Have you ever tried to manage mobile advertising?
Planning, budgeting, overviewing, analyzing, reporting, evaluating results... If you have, you would know it is so impossible a mission:
No relevant data is possible to be collected
No precise planning and advertising possible
No chance of targeting in detail
Hardly addressing the audiance you search for badly
No relation of the adds to the ever-changing environment of mobile users
Low conversion rate etc.
So I know someone that got so pissed that decided to make a move!
Dilyana started a project to provide innovative start-up solution on mobile advertising to:
boost sales, reach the right audience and manage valuable data [good for business]
to provide free & broad access to wifi [good for people].
And that it is so simple a solution! I met her to tell me her story of passion.
Q&A
Simply, how would you summarize what W1Fi.com is all about?
I am turning my elevator pitching mode on :)
W1Fi.com / WiFi.bg is linking venues that provide free wifi with relevant advertisers. For example, if you have a restaurant and you want to attract tourists in the city, you could use W1Fi.com to display your advert in all the hotels that are registered on W1Fi.com.
When did you launch and how it works? Why is innovative and profitable (I know it is :)?
We had the idea last autumn. Initially, we needed time to shape the product, so it would fit a real market need.
In our case, innovation comes from the fact that we are the only advertising platform that knows at what type of venue users are located in right now. Currently, it is impossible to segment mobile users in such a manner on the platforms such as Facebook or Google. These platforms still support targeting by demographics or search data, which results in low CTRs. Unlike them, W1Fi.com allows marketers to display their messages to the right audience at the very point of sale.
I also think that our business model is innovative. Our direct competitors are Wi-Fi branding companies that are charging the venue owner to display its own adverts on its own router for a fixed monthly fee. However, the business owner often does not have the time, a fully-fledged analytical approach and expert marketing skills to manage this channel. Therefore the complete idea of Wi-Fi branding is flawed.
By contrast, we reverse the model and focus the sales on the brands (beverage industry, marketing agencies etc.) that are actually searching for innovative communication channels already. Building on this feature, W1Fi.com is creating an ad network with unique user data that is not available on existing ad platforms such as Facebook, Google etc.
Stemming from this feature, W1Fi.com provides additional advert space for marketing agencies and brands, at the very moment when consumers make purchasing decisions. We explore a whole new level of data about consumersβ real-time preferences.
You operate in Bulgaria. How responsive the market is to innovative marketing solutions? Who your clients are?
Β Β >> Dilyana pitching in Berlin, WiFi.bg, W1Fi.com
The local entrepreneur community is extremely responsive and helpful. During the local start-up events, such as Silicon Drinkabout Sofia, you could meet a variety of experts that are open to contribute to your idea with their experience or with intros.
As it comes to the market itself, I think Bulgaria is the perfect sandbox to validate the business model of your start-up. Business owners are not tech savvy, they do not like to spend extra amount of money and sometimes they understand innovation as something invasive to their regular way of work. If you manage to launch your product in Bulgaria and start making money, you will be able to do it anywhere.
Our core target group are HORECAs (hotel, restaurants, cafes).
There is an obvious trend on mobile commerce, mobile advertising, mobile presence, mobile payment, mobile everything that boosts, but do you have any data on that to share? Or insights?
Only in Bulgaria 48% of the population owns a smartphone. In comparison, the number for Sweden is 83%. Only is Germany mobile ad spending is expected to pass $2 Billion in 2015. As you said, the trend is obvious, now the challenge is to keep the distracted mobile users as engaged as they were on desktop.
Advert blindness and ad blocking software are major problem for the advertising industry, both of which we are tackling with W1Fi.com platform.
And what about you? How did you get so excited about the idea? How did you came up with it? Were you alone?
I had to advertise a mobile app, which target group was exactly tourist in Sofia. The app promoted popular restaurants and bars in the city, therefore I started with the struggle to talk personally with hotel manager and make them agree on one specific leaflet campaign. Printing, distribution, contracts⦠It was extremely hard to execute, therefore I decided to cancel the project and think of something else.
Then I realized that all of this could be executed via the wifi connection β no printing or distribution needed. Plus, all these people have a huge demand for wifi, so I decided to maximize the opportunity that this channel offers.
What is the next step for WiFi.bg?
We are planning to build real-time-bidding system inside our platform and link it with other programmatic marketing tools. I believe adverts should resonate with usersβ real-time location, attitude and consumer behavior. We have embedded this type of thinking in our team, which makes it easy to forecast the future of our product.
The shortest CV I can think of βMe | Quality Manager | Content Team | 6 Editors | 3 years | Fashion Days The best part of my job β Team | Collaboration | Optimization | Creation | Goals | Targets |...
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Remember why it is one of my favourite startups?
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Π Π΅Π³ΠΈΡΡΡΠΈΡΠ°ΠΉ ΡΠ΅ Π½Π°Β JOBIO.meΒ βΒ Π°Π»ΡΠ΅ΡΠ½Π°ΡΠΈΠ²Π½ΠΈΡΡ Π½Π°ΡΠΈΠ½ Π΄Π° Π½Π°ΠΌΠ΅ΡΠΈΡ ΡΠ°Π±ΠΎΡΠ°Β |Β
Π‘ΠΏΠΎΠΌΠ½ΡΡ Π»ΠΈ Π·Π°ΡΠΎ Π΅ Π΅Π΄ΠΈΠ½ Π»ΡΠ±ΠΈΠΌΠΈΡΠ΅ ΠΌΠΈ ΡΡΠ°ΡΡΡΠΏΠΈ?Β
ΠΠΈΠΆ Π½Π°Π±ΡΡΠ·ΠΎ Π’Π£ΠΒ :)
Which partners vs. If they are any | Entrepreneurship
Often partnerships are not considered by the public as specific opportunities (i.e. we do not care who the partners specifically are), but moreover they are an important signal that the organization: has such a development practice | could bring it into action | is a preferred partner! _____________ Π§Π΅ΡΡΠΎ ΠΏΠ°ΡΡΠ½ΡΠΎΡΡΡΠ²Π°ΡΠ° Π½Π΅ ΡΠ΅ ΡΠ°Π·Π³Π»Π΅ΠΆΠ΄Π°Ρ ΠΎΡ ΠΏΡΠ±Π»ΠΈΠΊΠ°ΡΠ° ΠΊΠ°ΡΠΎ ΠΊΠΎΠ½ΠΊΡΠ΅ΡΠ½ΠΈ Π²ΡΠ·ΠΌΠΎΠΆΠ½ΠΎΡΡΠΈ (Ρ.Π΅. Π½Π΅ Π½ΠΈ ΠΈΠ½ΡΠ΅ΡΠ΅ΡΡΠ²Π°Ρ ΡΠ°ΠΌΠΈΡΠ΅ ΠΏΠ°ΡΡΠ½ΡΠΎΡΠΈ), Π½ΠΎ Π΅ Π²Π°ΠΆΠ΅Π½ ΡΠΈΠ³Π½Π°Π»ΡΡ, ΡΠ΅ Π²ΡΠΏΡΠΎΡΠ½Π°ΡΠ° ΠΎΡΠ³Π°Π½ΠΈΠ·Π°ΡΠΈΡ: ΠΈΠΌΠ° ΡΠ°ΠΊΠ°Π²Π° ΠΏΠΎΠ»ΠΈΡΠΈΠΊΠ° Π½Π° ΡΠ°Π·Π²ΠΈΡΠΈΠ΅ | ΠΌΠΎΠΆΠ΅ Π΄Π° Ρ ΠΏΡΠΈΠ²Π΅Π΄Π΅ Π² Π΄Π΅ΠΉΡΡΠ²ΠΈΠ΅ | ΠΏΡΠ΅Π΄ΡΡΠ°Π²Π»ΡΠ²Π° ΠΆΠ΅Π»Π°Π½ ΠΏΠ°ΡΡΠ½ΡΠΎΡ!
