Yesterday I read a born-new book which includes stories of alumnis of Pärnu college. Some of them have achieved a lot after their graduation and have much to say...

As I think that some of their ideas would be important to know by our members then I will post two of them here.

Tauri Sumberg who is working in the Legendijuhitmise AS and has established hotels like Georg Ots Spa, Kolm Õde (Three Sisters) and in Riga hotel called albert, answered to the question "What was the difference between theory you learned in college and reality when you went to work?" the following: "... What concerns general theory of economics then I would like to calm you down - your studies are more like training of communication and broadening your mind than learning a real job. In future competition will win those who have better leadership skills and characteristics, are better communicators and are more ambitious than those who have better results in macro- and micro-economics..."

And later on: "...If I recruit people to my company then usually I dont care about their results in the university. The knowledge of people is useful if they cannot communicate. Besides your studies I suggest you to listen to wise people, read good books and travel-work around the world..."

Lehar Kütt who is leading PEAK (in Englist Pärnu Entrepreneurship Development Center) answers the same questions the following: "...In management one of the most critical dimensions is the ability to communicate in extreme situations. This is the thing which you cannot learn in the university. Communication skills and the knowledge how to act in different situations can be learned only by practical experience."

A part of the answer of Kristi Pihelpuu, Marhaba Tours, to the questions "What were the first impressions in the college?" comes here: "...At the very beginning, in the 1st course, I realized that in 3 years 20 young and good people will graduate from Tourism and Hotel Management who will start competing with each other in the labor market. That is why I decided to actively coordinate student life besides my studies (Kristi was in Student Council and also organized Student Winter Days etc). I wanted to differentiate from my course mates and at the same time to test my organizing skills..."

With this posting I dont want to tell you that you dont have to learn in the college or university - of course you have to because this gives you the ability to think and use your brain for learning and growing in all kind of situations. I just want to say that people who are already in the real work and labor market really evaluate the same things we are doing here right now - AIESEC and its members are on the right track. Keep on moving!

About LCP Mojco

I uploaded here a video from Mojco, who is the LCP of AIESEC Zlin. In this video his sharing couple of thoughts/experiences with us. I wanted to upload it here so we could remember it :) Zlin is similar to Pärnu and I believe that they are a good role model for us.

As a small AIESEC local committee our size gives us both the advantage and challenge to prove ourselves daily. I guess its up to us to decide will it be a bonus or not. This year the heat is hotter than ever - we have firmly written down our goal to become an local committee. We have defined the steps that will take us there. We have the people - our members.

Who doesn't know, Pärnu is still an initiative group and we don't have the rights that a local committee has.

So keep up the spirit and lets make it happen ;)

Noored Kooli

Kas sa oled kuulnud Noored Kooli programmist? Ei ole? Soovitan seljuhul uurida selle kohta rohkem.

Noored Kooli alustasid just oma programmi blogiga, kus kirjutavad nende programmi valitud noored õpetajad. Eesmärk on, et need lood tõstaksid õpetajaameti mainet ja inspireeriksid noori õpetjajakutset valima. Lugege noorte õpetajate igapäevastest raskustest ja seiklustest aadressil: www.nooredkooli.ee/paevik

Mulle meenus praegu ütlus: "Kui sa ei ole pidanud kasvatama last, ei tea sa mida eestvedamine (ing k leadership) tähendab". ;)

Leaders of the World

At first I wanted to write: "LCPs of the world". But then I thought that non-aieseccars won't know what that means. And for a headline its too long to write "Local Committee Presidents of the World". So the outcome is: Leaders of the World.

And you know what, guys - thats who we are! We are the leaders of the world. Not in ten years, not after we finish with AIESEC - we are it t o d a y. If you think about it, its logical.

Throughout this conference we have heard from different speakers how important it is to activate the local environment, to have the people, who will execute the things in their society. Its easy to write a big check but in the end, its no use, if you can't find the right channels to use the money. For example: billions of dollars are given to HIV/AIDS, but the money isn't doing what it should be doing. And that is so because they don't have the right channel.

Dear LCP's, we lead those right channels. We are responsible of changing our society today by the projects our LC leads. It doesn't matter that much if there is a learning environment around it or not. What matters is that our projects, our message, our events are communicating the right message, are bringing here the people, who make the change in the companies or schools or in whatever place you target your project.

Your proud and honored teammate,
LCP of AIESEC Pärnu

Mari

I planned to write something much different, but I'll leave it to some other time :)

You have a point there

"Good is the enemy for Best and Good Enough is never."

"If you want to be seen, stand up.
If you want to be heard, speak up.
If you want to be nice, shut up."

Have you been tested?

I took part of HIV/AIDS learning network. Scary. Didn't expect it to be that. We didn't talk about people dying and we didn't looked at pictures of people who have HIV/AIDS. We emphasized on what we - aieseccars - can do, when we go back to our homes.

I've never been tested for HIV/AIDS. Why should I? But at the point when we were working out ideas how to grow awareness of this disease, I suddenly felt to be scared as hell. Not a nice feeling. A bit later on I found out that if I start to think about prejudices like "I'm not gay" or "I don't do drugs" or "I don't sleep around", it calmed me. But the point is, that these prejudices are wrong.

We know you're sure. But are you a 100% sure? Get tested now!

For more information or places where you can get tested, look at www.aids.ee

Arthur's blog

Check out Arthur Josephson's blog at arthur.nomadlife.org. His an ex-aieseccar with loads to say. Very interesting.

The AIESEC solution by DHL

Today we had a presentation form our global partner DHL. It's always interesting to hear our partners talk about AIESEC and why do they co-operate with us.

One thing what is common for our partners is that they always say: "You can feel the energy in the room". And they never miss a chance to try out a role call or a shout. Every time when partners speak, we get another confirmation to the fact that our culture IS unique and it is something what companies dream of.

DHL, like most of our partners, is very conceus on the fact that they can have a big impact on the society. Its in their hands to choose whether they want it to be good or bad. I'll bring out couple of trends that DHL is doing. To me, these trends also show the connection between us and them. They show the link, why we co-operate.

Firstly, DHL is a logistics company which means that they use a lot of gasoline. Now what DHL has come up with is that they use vegetable oil in running trucks. Now I'm not sure if that is right - it seems too science fiction to me, but thats what I heard.

Secondly, DHL wants to be the first choice for their clients. Sounds familiar? To those who aren't aieseccars - our vision for 2010 also states that we want to be first choice in our target group.

For DHL being first choice starts from employees. For them, happy employees equal happy customers. Its an easy formula, but most of the companies haven't realized it. Taking care of customers is critical to obtain your market share and on the whole - just to survive. Its the way the customers are been treated that makes the difference.

Now, 7 caracteristics of being a great leader by DHL:
1. Positive can-do attitude;
2. Passionate work ethic;
3. Build relationships;
4. Strong values and character;
5. Set others up for success;
6. Socially responsible;
7. Sense of humor.

The one which touched me the most is nr 2. You have to be passionate about what you do and you'll never work a day in your life. I relate to this, because my AIESEC work doesn't feel like a work at all. It's more like a hobby and sometimes it just feels like I'm pampering myself by working :) Its a great feeling!

DHL spoker said that don't listen to people who say what you have to do that you'd make a lot of money. In the end, if you don't like what you are doing, you won't get the money anyway. And it was good to hear that from a respectful person, who has proved himself. This is something with what we struggle in AIESEC daily.

Developing Leaders Day

Today we had a Developing Leaders Day (DLD) which was facilitated by AIESEC global partners Cadbury Schweppes (CS) and ABN-AMRO. I'm not sure, but I think that AIESEC and CS has co-operated since 2000. Co-operation consists of different parts, one of them is DLD. This year the co-operation is expanding, involving also ABN-AMRO. We had approximately 40 people from both of those companies. Those people who are executive officers came specially to Turkey to facilitate DLD for 650 AIESECcars. Wow :)

Overall, it was fresh, exciting, proactive. I want to thank group nr. 16 facis Linda and David for the awesom day! "choky! choky! choky! - yum! yum! yum!"

The DLD 2007 promise was "By the end of the day, you will be able to have a better understanding of what unique role you play in driving high performance in your team." This should give the general idea of what the DLD was about.

The part which was more excited for most of us, I think, was self discovery. We made a Belbin Test which showed a general view of what type of a person we are. I am a Teamworker :) My strengths are that I bring co-operation, I'm mild, perceptive and diplomatic. I listen, build and avert frictions. My weakness is that I am indecisive in crunch situations. That is what the test said. To most of us in group 16, what the test said, was very true.

For me it was good to get a confirmation on what I have been thinking of quite lot. I've always considered myself to be a very result orientated person. But lately (past 6 months) I've found that it's not entirely true. Many of my behaviors seem to go more on to person orientated type.

So I've learned first hand, how important it is to really know who you are. In the past I've made many decisions based on the knowledge, that I'm very result orientated. In team work, it has been hard to find how I really suit to the team. After I've been starting to realize that I'm really more people orientated, many of questions about "how to work in a team" or etc, have become a bit more clearer to me.

So I recommend to all of you to find out who you are. Or at least in general, what type of a person you are. Don't take that seriously what other people think - you have to make up your mind on that.

And BTW - finding out what our weaknesses are, is one step closer to improving them ;)

Principles for a strong team

Today we had a performance by Rice Ignasi, who works in one of AIESEC global partners Cadbury Schweppes (CS). Ignasi has worked in many parts of the world under CS. His known for leading strong teams that bring strong results.

Here are shortly 8 principles that he applies for his team:

1. Everybody needs to share the same vision.
2. Clear roles and responsibilities.
3. Diversity makes the difference.
4. Keeping people motivated.
5. Setting up team principles and being true to them.
6. Learn from failures.
7. Use "we" instead of "I".
8. Write the book together.

Read more about IC!

You can read more about IC 2007 from AIESEC Estonia MC blog, where MC should put up new postings hopefully every day.

Also vistit live.myaiesec.net - you can see there pictures from IC, videos from IC, etc etc.

If you've been to one international conference, you've seen them all. I came to IC expecting that I would probably not now anyone. But as I arrived, I found out that from CEE region there are so many familiar faces. I've met those persons either in EnterCEE conference in Hungary or in CEELDS conference in Estonia or in both of them. So to my surprise I found out that I really do have a lot of people here with whom I have "common history".

The other thing is that even with those people that I don't know, its really easy to connect. Most of the people I have met are very opened and ready to share. So in these past few days I have met a lot of people, not only random contacts but people whom you really have something to talk with.

The atmosphere here doesn't seem to be that different. I think the biggest difference (and which I really like) is that there is no place for criticism. Everything that is said is for improving - so you don't say what is lousy, you say that that could be improved and how.

So for me all of this proves again that IT IS important to attend international conferences. Right now I'm thinking that we have the priority to send people to conferences, but we didn't planned the support for international ones. We need to raise more money :) Anyone up for some X selling? :)

20 minutes = 6 country contacts. About this I'm very EXITED :D Yesterday, on 19th of August (I have to remember the date ;)), I asked Deniss to tell me something about the countries which deal with tourism. But instead of just naming the countries, Deniss started to introduce me to different people, from different countries. So basically in 20 minutes I got 6 MC contacts from different countries, who are working with the issue tourism and are very interested in co-operating. Who ever said networking is hard?!

So what does this mean? It means that if we will follow these contacts up, realizing exchanges will be so much easier! We can have agreements with different LCs to recruit EP (exchange participants) for us, for a certain job description. And for our EP's - they can find much easily a good internship place.

So basically I got my IC goals realized before the actual IC started. I'm amazed. Now I'm trying to gather those LCPs that are here, together. Lets see what happens ;)

BTW - this is my first blog-posting ever :) Thank you for the attention :)

"Ideas are open knowledge. Don't claim ownership. They're not your ideas anyway, they're someone else's. They are out there floating by on the ether. You just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up."

by Paul Arden

The beginning of a new era ...

From the President of AIESEC Pärnu 2006/07.

Good evening members of AIESEC Pärnu, its friends and fans, my ladies and gentlemen.

Im glad (actually 50% sad also) to let you know that today is the day, when AIESEC in Pärnu celebrates the first day of a new year, a new term. For some people this is maybe one of the most important and life-chaning opportunity giving day in their life so far. From today, I mean still the 1st of June, new EB members and project managers got the one of a kind chance to make something extraordinarily great with their own lives and help others also to grow.

The topic of this e-mail is "The beginning of a new era..." which is actually true from one side. But on the other hand our so called new generation, our future leaders and positive-changes-in-society-generating-change-agents, continues to follow the path which first steps have been made by Helena, Liisa and the EB of 2006/2007 and others who have been always there...

But this is not only the happy day for new leaders - it is also an important and worth of celebrating and remembering day of the whole AIESEC Pärnu. It is like the New Years Day the AIESEC way.

As it was said already - new leaders will continue walking the same path as previous generations. New leaders, I adjure you to do it with passion. Carry on the contribution of previous generations. Enjoy it, support each other, be tolerant, want to learn and develop and help others to do it as well. I truly belive that it is in our hands to ensure that after 20 years we can gather together as alumnis of AIESEC Pärnu and recognise with proudness that once we were the leaders of this organization and contributed to the opportunity to grow of the youth several years after us. Work towards this feeling.

Some of you used the unique opportunity to enjoy AIESEC Pärnu LC picnic this Thursday - thanks for being there - and already heard some final words from me as an LCP. But they also experienced that it was not so easy for me to find proper words to say in the situation where I should give my last speech as an LCP. I guess that even with this quite a long letter (I thank those who have reached this point with their reading and will do it until the end of the letter, even then if it is only one single person:)) I cannot express all the thoughts and feelings I would like to say you at the moment. And throughout the whole amazing year we have had togehter. Thank you, everybody.

Take it as the last speech from me to you as an LCP of AIESEC Pärnu.

Happy new year!

Enjoy and behave, smile and be happy :)
Marko
LCP of AIESEC Pärnu 2006/2007