Chapter 2 : Personal branding and stuff

Greetings everyone! So what's the haps? As I wrote last week, a flu almost knocked me out cold but I managed to get up from the canvas and as a result, what a week it was! On Monday we had a lecture about personal branding which for me was the most interesting subject to deal with by far. You can make a good first impression only once and that's what the personal branding is all about. The looks of you is the logo and what you do, how you behave and act is the brand you form of yourself to others to see. And as we dug deeper into the subject, I instantly started to wonder how personal branding is related to the digital business? Well it's obvious, it's related entirely to it. While I'm blogging right now, I somehow modify my personal brand. How I appear online to others, maybe even to my future employers. Blogs, social media channels, all of those are attached to the personal branding and Internet has become more and more some sort of a self-marketing channel instead of just a place for information, amusements and entertainment. Kinda scary though, pictures from my last weekend might end up to my employer's laptop's screen by just a few clicks. :S Not saying that there would be some unproper material but just thinking...

On Thursday we were blessed by two amazing presentations. First was by guest speaker Heini Karppinen who told us some fascinating things about her career and digital business as a whole. Heino confirmed my thoughts about the rapidly changing world. Next few decades will show the way where the digital era will take us and can we keep up with its transformation. Heini actually gave us a little task about the future: learning, education and school in the future. Actually it's very current topic as well because Finnish upper secondary schools are testing the digital format way to execute the final exams. Those will probably consist exercises which are done by laptops and tablets. With my imagination it's hard to come up with any other ideas for how will the education system be related to the digital era but maybe social media could be utilized somehow in the learning process. For example essays could be written as blog texts so that student's own voice could be heard too from the text. 

After Heini, two Kevins took over the stage and had put together a fine presentation about their project which had worked out quite a well as they are now even hiring a new person to their business! Props to them, encouraging and motivating presentation about how you can make it even to the big leagues by just selling your know-how.

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Going back to the subject of Monday's lecture "personal branding", I read some interesting articles and blogs about the personal branding online which dealt with the pros and cons of digital revolution."If you're not searchable and foundable in Google, you don't exist" caught my eye immediately on one particular blog.

Digitalisation will rule this planet at some point, there's no doubt. everything will be related to digital era. But the question is: are we ready yet? Are we ready to step in completely to this entirely new and fascinating world of digital revolution? No, we are far from ready. While the people evolves with the same familiar speed as it has over the centuries, technology has passed us by a lap or two already and it doesn't get any slower.

Should we slow down a bit and take a look around what's going on in the world right now and most importantly, where's everybody standing at this point? For example my close relative is currently planning to seek a new job but he is highly worried about the fact that it's quite challenging to make new contacts and find a new job nowadays if you don't represent yourself on any social media channel. And he doesn't have ANY desire to join them, it's just not his thing and for me it sometimes seems like the community is somehow forcing everyone to get involved in the fast-growing

times of digitalisation but don't seem to notice the fact that not everyone are ready for the quick transformation. Some of us don't even want it to happen, it's enough comfy for them as it is right now. And in my honor opinion, we should take that matter under a serious consideration. Of course you have to make hay while the sun shines but should we just hit the brakes and think the fact that we may not be as ready and prepared as we thought we were for the digital revolution.

Again, the phrase "technology evolves, people don't" comes in my mind but at the same time I keep thinking the fact that the only species who can affect to the growth and evolving of technology are we, the people ourselves. We pull the strings here on Earth so let's pull them more wisely and patiently I'd say. 

People and technology evolves constantly, it has become more of a standard than aspiration which the previous history has shown by industrial revolution for example. But now it feels like we're trying to take a little too big leap sligthly too fast. Returning to history, even Rome was not built in a day. So what's the reason for hurry when we cannot keep up with the development of technology yet? It's easy for my generation, the so called ''diginatives'' to say that yeah, of course this digital era is a wonderful thing and will provide billions of new possibilities. Surely it will, there's no doubt about that but the modern human wants all at once, right here, right now. It's safe to say that digital era will take everything in our lives to the next level WHEN its time is more proper than now but before that, older generations in the first instance have to absorb much more information and knowledge of the possibilities of digital revolution before we can adapt to it. 

Summarizing these thoughts, I would say that younger generations have some learning to do with patience and human consciousness meanwhile older generations have to be provided with more time to adapt to the digital era. And while we are focusing on these subjects, technology keeps evolving. Should I say ''unfortunately''? Tricky question but we have to consider various problematic things that digital revolution brings to us in addition to those countless possibilities.

We also had another task to do which was to make an "elevator pitch"-style video of ourselves. Like a CV in a form of a video. So I went random. Very random. You may have to watch some other illuminati-videos on YouTube if you don't catch the idea on this one but here you go, enjoy!

      

'Til next week, cheers!

Chapter 1 - Kick off

This week was a bit two-folded for me. It sure had a nice and interesting start when our new digital course in school started on Monday. The opening lecture was very motivational and thought-provoking to say the least and we were privileged to hear some subjective thoughts and experiences from our guest speakers. It definitely gave me more perspective and boost to make the most out of this course with our group.

After a positive start for the week, I thought that this flow would last till the end of the week. Wednesday was not an exception yet, I planned my working shifts with my new boss in my new job and that's another thing which I am excited about. Well it sure looked a bit too good for me and of course I got sick the following night on Thursday. The fever rose up to that kind of numbers that going to school or anywhere outside the house would not be possible. So I didn't make to the second lecture which was a huge setback for me because we had prepared a nice presentation with our group to our fellow teachers and student colleagues. It addressed our group's scenarios for what could the world look like in 2020. Very interesting subject to make a presentation of and that's why I will curse this damn flu to a deepest... whatever.

So I missed the second lecture where the instructions were given to these blogs which are part of the course module assignments. Pretty bad for me because I have never written a blog so any given instructions would have been welcomed. But here I am typing and trying my best. Luckily this week's offering what comes to the digital business didn't stay that diluted even though the flu almost ate my heart out. On Wednesday I escorted my girlfriend to a health station and decided to kill some time in a library next to it. I had browsed the bookshelves for a couple of minutes when a one particular book caught my eye. It was called "Digitaalinen jalanjälki" written by Antti Isokangas and Riku Vassinen. Because my girlfriend's examinations took some time, I managed to read about 40 pages of this book and I have to say that it was really exciting to read. Perhaps the biggest reason for me to read it was to gather some information for our presentation and other assignments of the digital business course but it really was compelling.

The authors delve into the groundbreaking times which the digital revolution has brought to us. Especially they focus on how the digital revolution has and will affect on businesses and their procedures. For example, there were listed theses for how a business can get through the transformational times successfully and keep evolving in the future. What I also liked in the book was a very critical and objective manner of an approach to a social media for example. What really caught my eye was a strong and pithy statement by the authors: technology evolves, people don't. Do I agree with that? I don't know but certainly got me thinking about that. I would warmly suggest to explore this book. I myself will definitely borrow or buy it at some point.

So let's close this first chapter with a summarized look-back at the week. As I probably already said before, I'm very excited about this digital course and even though that flu was a downside, let's not give it a chance to ruin this on-going flow completely. I will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and give the best possible load for this course, its assignments and our group. Looking forward to work with different kinds of multimedia, especially videos from which I have a little bit previous experience from comprehensive school and upper secondary school. Unfortunately almost every videos I have made, edited or filmed are swimming in the "bit space" but to make a fool of myself, I could link a Kalevala-themed video which we made at 8th grade. It was the first video which I directed, edited and also done a little shooting but when we sum up the key points "8th grade" and "first video", have to say that the editing, shooting and the overall offering of the video is quite horrible... But you have to start from something so try to enjoy!