Running a business...

"It was a hectically start this week on Stumholmen. Everyone was preparing for the big presentation on the Wednesday. Though, in the hecticall moment, people in the class started to talk about ideas and plans regarding this autumn. A pleasant surprise was that the school had guests from the digital media from Stockholm. They were taken good care by the dm from Karlskrona. We were too busy preparing the presentation that was held on the Wednesday. After 24 days, 576 hours, 34560 minutes, 2 073 600 seconds, it was finally time for presentation on the bank. The whole day was full of excitement and nervous emotions among all of us. The rumour kept spreading that it was a hard jury at the bank but fair. No business plan got approved by the bank, except the last group. They presented a great business plan and an excellent presentation.
The idea was simple, easy and allot of money investment involved. Unfortunately we can’t reveal the idea here on the blogg...."

An eventful week

It's a lot of things that are happening right now. We are in the middle of the module The Digital Industry Project, where we are working parallel with two clients. We are creating digital strategies for our clients and learn more about the digital media industry. At the same time we have a couple of individual tasks, like trend watching in the digital media industry, and to be a mentor for one of the new students in BM10 and DM10. So there are a lot of things to have in mind and plan for.

Last Tuesday we had a kick off for our class project, where we are supposed to create an event or something to spread the brand of our class. The goal is to make Business Management just as well known part of Hyper Island as Digital Media is today.

And last but not least I have worked a lot this week with planning the big party at Saturday – The Hyper Island Kick Off Party of 2008! The party where all the three classes will get a chance to get to know each other better. We have sold out all the 70 tickets and I’m really looking forward to it!

Have a nice weekend!

Knowledge as Aid

The first thing you think about when you hear the word "Aid" is probably hungry children in Darfur or homeless families left without anything but the clothes they are wearing after a natural disaster. But there are so many other ways of aid. I'm doing my internship at Office for Contract Training and Projects at Blekinge Institute of Technology.

During my first four weeks I took part in the administrative arrangements around a Sida-funded Advanced International Training Program in Integrated Urban Planning and it's a part of the Swedish aid-program.. I met urban planners from Ethiopia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, North Korea, Laos, India, Senegal, Zambia, Namibia, Brazil, Honduras, Kosovo and other developing countries.

It was a mix of cultures, religions, viewpoints, languages and mentalities with this international group and we who organized the program had to take that in respect all the time. I think that the most interesting to follow in a group dynamic point of view was to see how members of the group first tended to team up with their countrymen and as the time went by more and more started to team up with members of other countries. Some nationalities were much quicker than others in this change of teaming up and it was really easy to see that the members from more “closed” or under-developed countries took longer time than members from the more open or developed countries did.

So, back to the aid part. How can this kind of program be aid? Well, look at it like this: Food or money is a temporary or short-term solution to ease the symptoms of the countries situation. To make the country able to help itself you have to give knowledge as aid. If you teach key-persons how to organize, structurize and develop their countries and how to make the right decisions the impact of the aid effort is far more long-term and the penetration of the aid goes deeper than a sack of rice or a blanket.

The fundamental practical part of all urban areas is planning. If the city is well planned it doesn’t only makes it easier to live in, it also spares the environment, locally and globally, and makes the development and up-building smoother. Secure housing areas close to communications, schools, stores and places to work is essential for a good city.

Apart from this I’ve also been looking at in the context more everyday problems like process cycles of bids for contracts, document management and structure, applications etc. Interesting problems but compared to the development of a under-developed country that kind of problems seems to be irrelevant.

Brand vs. Trademark

One brand, one trademark equals good business, or how does it work?
I’m Rasmus Bjurstrom and I have the brilliant opportunity to do my internship at Essen International, Sweden’s largest branding agency located in Stockholm.

Last week we had a lecture/education for the personal in brand-law and guidelines, not the silly Kottlers five p’s or AIDAS, but the real deal.
In the office we have two lawyers specially educated in brand law, so I thought of sharing some good to know facts that I myself recently gained.

Do you know the difference between a brand and a trademark?

Trademark = a legal term for name, symbol, design etc that differentiates one company’s products/services from others. The trademark can be registered and become an exclusive legal right for its owner.

Brand = is the communicative dimension of the trademark that represents the associations a beholder affiliates with the TM.

To register your trademark there is a demand for differentiation:
You cannot register a TM. if it indicates the;

- Sort (generic description – COFFEE for coffee)
- Nature (describes the product – FAST for a sports car.)
- Amount (6-pack of bear – for bear.)
- Area of use (FISHING – for a fishing pole)
- Geographical origin (MILAN – for clothing)

Bewildering, yes.
Exciting, without a doubt!
But you can’t imagine all the fun and creative processes going on in a branding agency. That’s all for now,
Peace out

Wah likes it the Beijing Style

Distance to the closest Starbucks: maximum 5 min walk
Distance to the closest McDonalds: across the street
Distance to the closest Karaoke bar: across the intersection

Location: Advertising agency. DMG. 25th floor. Tower A. Chaoyangmenwai Street. Chaoyang District. Beijing. (From experience I know that the 25th floor is not a good place to be during an earthquake)





Position: Interactive department.
Go right if you are facing the reception. Across the four steps over the small pond with golden fishes. To the left by the windows. The desk with some random guy's phone number written down on the whiteboard wall infront.


What's going on? Research & Analysis: Interactive stuff, Competitors. Meeting interesting people. Gaining knowledge. Getting experince. A lot of nice meals with an American dude who fills me up with priceless knowledge about life. A lot of trips to Starbucks around 5 p.m. And pretty much checking out the hot guy behind me. Night activities that I will miss when I go back to Sweden.


I blend in pretty well with my looks. Sometimes even a bit too much... People believe I speak their language and get confused when I don't aswer them. Being able to speak Cantonese doesn't help me much here, cause they don't understand it. But my Mandarin is slowly improving, I'm taking Mandarin lessons provided be the company.


// Wah Linh

Third week,

We are already on our third week of internship. And I who thought eleven weeks would take forever. I guess it depends on were you are and who you work with.

I feel that I’m very lucky being were I am. UIQ Technology is a pretty big company but the people are very friendly and welcoming. I already feel like one in the specific team were I’m working. I work with their partner conference and everything around that. The event involves many different things so there are always a lot to do and not the same things over again.

The only sad thing is that I don’t get to se so many from the class during these weeks. Even though I’m not far from “home”- but others are.

Anyway I feel great and It’s fun to practise the things we’ve learned, our first year of Business Management, in “real life”.

Wish you all the best,
//Michaela

End of "Running a Business"

We have now ended the module "Running a Business".
This week we had a presentation for the whole class, Sandro Miletti (which har been our mentor during this module) and our co-workers Åsa and Sofie.
Me, Peter and Stefan had our personal presentation this friday for Blekinge Institute of Technology, External relations office who we worked for in this module. We did present our analysis of how they could develop their organization further which was very appreciated.

Tommorow we start our new module, "LIA", for 11 weeks.
I will be at the company UIQ in Ronneby and practise together with a project manager from UIQ. I look forward to this very much...

/Mattias Johansson