by ECMT+ | Mar 26, 2019 | Testimonials
Adéla Chromčáková
Student at Silesian University in Opava, School of Business Administration in Karviná
March 2018, Spring, 2 weeks spent in Germany in the beautiful town of Wildau with the perfect people from OPF Karviná and with the opportunity to meet many other students and teachers from 6 other European countries. And not only that. Deepening knowledge and skills in business and work in a multicultural team. I could not believe that I can get all of this through the ECMT + project. After successful completion of the selection process, we have started our intensive preparation. And let me tell you, it really was intensive, I had to dig deep and find many new skills. Together with our team of Czech students, we searched for the current gaps in the market, creating business ideas from which we have developed two in graphic form and taken with us to Germany. And that was only the beginning of our wild ride.
The first day of the program began with ice breaking and getting to know each other, presentation of the ideas of all 7 teams, subsequent division into multicultural teams and assignment of a coach who was guiding us. I hope it is clear from the description that the first day was quite demanding, positively challenging 🙂 And not just the first day. All of the days, the whole two weeks, were demanding, and especially illuminating. After familiarizing ourselves with the people in the team, first contradictory feelings and the initial planning of our idea, we have received a task to visit and discover Berlin or its surroundings, to find out whether there is an enterprise that is close to our idea. Based on these findings we could move further with our planning. It was a great surprise for me that the companies were very willing to show us everything and even do a brief interview with us. And even offered us a taste of their products. Despite the language barrier, the staff of these companies were very pleasant and inspirational. However, the biggest step out of my comfort zone occurred on the day we were sent to the magnificent city of Berlin with a clear task – to confront people, our potential customers, with our idea, find out their opinions and feelings about it. This made me scared! At first, it was incredibly challenging for me, to choose the right person who would probably be willing to talk to me and then literally talk to them. But after talking with two people, who have been nice, my unpleasant feeling was gone. On the contrary, there was plea and a desire to ask virtually everyone.
Photographer: Eva Pitrunová
Photographed from left: Eva Pitrunová, Natálya Bukviarová, Adéla Chromčáková, Michal Stoklasa
Market research was done, it was time to go into detailed planning and preparation of the presentation to investors. Due to the lack of time and increasing nervousness and stress in the team, our morale was not the best. But our coach was always available to us, giving us the motivation and energy to not give up. Unfortunately, after the first week, the coach had to leave, and another coach was assigned to us, who had different views than the first one, which caused several unpleasant situations. We had to change a lot of our plans at the last minute, which had a significant impact on our final preparations and presentations. The closer we were to the final term, the longer we spent preparing and reworking the strategies we had already proposed. During the increasing nervousness, it was a great lesson for me to perceive the needs and customs of other nationalities in the team.
Photographer: Eva Pitrunová
Photographed from left: Eva Pitrunová, Martin Czyž, Natália Bukviarová, Michal Stoklasa, Michal Doležal, Adéla Chromčáková, Dominik Schopf
The day before the presentation. Nervousness reaches its peak, a lot of work ahead of us. The evening is approaching, the presentation is not even 10% ready, oh well, working through the night and getting up early. That was our team agreement. We will not give up what we have started. Despite our fervour, we unfortunately did not manage to determine the roles ahead of the presentation, so it seemed very chaotic to investors. Based on feedback, we found out that we would not get any investors, as we had unclear financing, and we lacked plenty of details at each step. A great lesson was for us not only feedback from investors, but above all teamwork and better time distribution of individual steps.
Thanks to the ECMT + project and the intensive program, I have confirmed my strengths and weaknesses, trained my English in various situations, gained a lot of valuable experience, I have stepped out of my comfort zone several times, which helped me move forward immensely. I have also gained a lot of contacts and had the opportunity to get to know the capital of Germany.
by ECMT+ | Mar 26, 2019 | ECMT+ Project, Testimonials
Martin Czyž
Student at Silesian University in Opava, School of Business Administration in Karviná
I am a student of Public Economics and Administration, I never wanted to start a business or lead a company. I wanted to have my little cosy office, an official stamp and eight hours a day to work on developing spine scoliosis. However, I could not miss the chance to take part in the two-week intensive program in Germany. I knew it was not just about the two weeks spent in Wildau, but also the process of creating new ideas at our home university.
I keep my entire studies, from the nature of my field of studies, within the exact limits of the law and regulations. There are no exceptions, there is no will, there are no dreams. But all of a sudden I sailed from the austere port of the state bureaucracy to the open, wide ocean of creativity. The ocean, which has no width or depth, where we can fall and ascend as we wish. Do you want an ostrich? Keep an ostrich. Do you want to sell sugar wool? Just do it. Do you want to build a snowman? Come on let’s go and play. The only limitation is we ourselves.
ECMT + taught me how to achieve my own goals and at the same time to abandon my own goals. It is not just about being part of a team, you have to know when to stand up for your opinion. On the contrary, our opinion may often be our enemy, if you do not see behind your own words. I have never been a fake person. I say what I think and I do not use euphemisms, but this directness was my greatest weakness. This has changed due to IP. I am more empathetic and I can listen more. Sometimes it is easier to just sit, smile and nod your head. If we are in a business environment, we need to be more interested in what can be done than what can go wrong. At the beginning I wrote about my studies, and why do I mention teamwork now? If you are not a lone woodcutter in Alaska, you will work with colleagues. And maybe you will even have to lead a team of people. To lead them for one vision, to determine missions and to head towards success together. However this will never happen if you are not able to deal with people, often with people of different opinion, who have grown up in different socio-economic conditions, with other priorities and different work ethics. Strangely like these two weeks in February and March 2018.
Did we change the world? I do not know. More water has to pass by in the river so we can judge it. One thing is certain, that the ECMT+ program changes every participant. And I am convinced that this is for the better.
by ECMT+ | Feb 25, 2019 | Entrepreneurship, Multicultural teams, Testimonials
Daniel Berger
Student of European Management (B.A.) at TH Wildau
“Entrepreneurship and Communication in Multicultural Teams” is an ERASMUS+ funded project which offered students from seven different universities in seven different countries the possibility to learn how to work together on a business idea in a multicultural team.
The project demonstrated what difficulties can occur when a multicultural team works on a common goal with different approaches. We as a group realised that there are many different methods for how to finish work on time and that every team member has a different strategy. Therefore, the development of a common strategy became the main goal during this two-week group project. During the different stages of the project, every member needed some time to comprehend in which field his or her potential could be unleashed and how he or she could support the team with his abilities to achieve a well-structured business model. The single interpretation of the common goal and the clear definition of the business idea proved to be the most difficult part of the project. However, those definitions are crucial for the success of a team and it took us a lot of time.
In the beginning every member described himself and we structured the roles of the team according to the BELBIN theory. My roles were the Resource Investigator, Coordinator and Monitor Evaluator. In the process of the business model we added more roles, like the Spokesperson or Problem Finder/Problem Solver and adapted the roles according to the experiences we made while working together. By the end of the project we were proud to have such a clear structure which had a horizontal approach.
I realised that it is very important to use different methods to visualise ideas because team members do not always understand them. I am very glad that my team showed me tools I didn´t know before that made it much easier to visualise ideas. I will surely use them again for future projects. The importance of a roadmap to achieve different goals and the clear definition of single tasks which need to be clear to every in the team were another important aspect while working together. It is much easier to double check if someone understood the task than rescheduling the deadlines. Due to the online tools we used I have learned a lot about how easier it can be having an instant check up on documents or files.
The coaches and moderators of the ECMT+ project developed a well-structured schedule which gave us as a team enough time to work on the business idea, while obtaining the right input for the final pitch. The support of the coaches helped us to work better together and to find a common communication strategy which led to a functioning group dynamic. It was interesting to see how the content of the different coaches helped us to structure the final presentation (pitch) of the business idea. The lectures about Social Entrepreneurship and Business Financing made me rethink different aspects and I am grateful for those experiences because I am sure that I will need this knowledge in my future career.
I wanted to work on a start-up idea that considered profit last, and people and planet first. To write a financial forecast for a non-profit project was my personal favourite part of the whole project. Every part of the balance sheet was discussed with the members and the research on costs and savings was very interesting. I would not consider myself a person who likes numbers, but calculating the success of a project gave me an even better insight into the business idea.
The language barrier which many thought would be the main obstacle was not that much of a problem. We understood each other and in the end every member of the team was satisfied about the exchange of knowledge in a common language. I would not say that my language skills have improved significantly.
The cultural exchange was still very interesting. We asked each other at the end of the project if the experiences we made while working together or the content of the coaching were more beneficial for the personal development. The conclusion was a mix of both. We could directly apply whatever we had just learned on the business idea, and this practical application made learning much more comprehensive.
After the ECMT+ project I posted an image on LinkedIn showing our group during the pitch and it was amazing to see the reach of this post. It was also impressive to see how during the business idea process I was able to get in touch with many students and coaches, building a network which can work together in future projects. Currently, I am in contact with students from Scotland and we are planning to work together on a business idea which could be applied simultaneously in different locations around the EU member states.
To conclude, positive and negative experiences shape your character and, regardless of the project result, the process of finishing something together, with all ups and down considered, is a priceless experience. This intensive program demonstrated that working in an international team with a specific finish line is hard but worth it, especially in times of distrust between cultures.
by ECMT+ | Feb 19, 2019 | ECMT+ Project, Testimonials
Heikki Immonen
Principal Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Karelia University of Applied Sciences
In March 2018 year I took participated to an intensive entrepreneurship education 2-week program at Technical University of Wildau. The event was organized by the ECMT+ project. Six students from each seven participating countries had had few months to prepare and produce rough business ideas ready for further development and testing during the intensive week. I was able to participate on the first week, during which teachers from partner universities gave lectures in the morning and student teams applied these lessons during the afternoon and evening. Because of the lessons and work done by the students, those rough business ideas sketches transformed in to a more thoroughly tested and complete business concepts.
This was my first time really experiencing Germany. My earlier experience consisted of flying from Helsinki to Munich, renting a car from the airport and driving south to Austria. Based on my 7-day stay at Wildau, I must admit that Germany felt simple and approachable. Trains are on time, streets are clean and feel safe. I think I didn’t spot any vacant commercial spaces in Wildau. (a sign of Germany’s strong economy?) Some curious cultural or practical differences also stood out: cash is everything; credit or debit cards are not often accepted in smaller shops. Shops close early and are not open during Sundays. Also, I got the sense that German organizational culture is somewhat more hierarchical compared to what I’m used to in Finnish universities. Obviously, flat and vertical structures both have their benefits. If you get too flat, it might be difficult to get coordinated collective action for any sustained period of time towards an important strategic goal. Which by the way is often the biggest issue with “creative” and “dynamic” startup teams.
Moving back to the issue of entrepreneurship education: what can we expect to get from an intensive entrepreneurship education program? According to Bae et al (2014) entrepreneurship education has no significant effect on entrepreneurial intentions, when pre-education attitude towards entrepreneurship is taken as a factor. For a group of already entrepreneurially-minded students entrepreneurship education could provide small but statistically significant boost. Intensive week as a teaching method doesn’t bring any special boost to learning outcomes. Problem-based learning and discovery-based learning improve learning, but less than average interventions (Hattie, 2008). If intensive week is seen only as a tool for promoting entrepreneurial intentions and a way to deliver entrepreneurship education, it shouldn’t be the number one choice.
What if the main benefit of an intensive week is less about the individual skill development and more about the relationships and the interactions between? We know that shared novel and exciting activities can be a significant factor in experienced relationship quality of couples (Aron et al., 2000). It is not farfetched to propose that novelty and excitement, such as the kind what you experience when you go to a foreign country to work and live together with people from different cultures, will be a good relationship builder also in non-romantical context. Thus fostering future collaboration and exchange of ideas. In fact, this exchange of ideas might the most important outcome of the intensive weeks, at least for the faculty and staff of the partnering universities. Alex Pentland and his research group at MIT have studied this so-called idea flow extensively (Pentland, 2015). Pentland defines an idea as three-part unit of knowledge: when in situation A, do B in order to get to C. When people interact and discuss, ideas flow between people. When we see others doing something in a situation similar to ours, reaching towards a goal like ours, we’re likely to imitate if this activity leads to the desired results.
With the advent of mobile devices it has become possible to study idea flow objectively. Pentland and his colleagues have discovered that idea flow is a mighty predictor of success. Intra-organizational idea flow predicts better productivity and effectiveness, while inter-organizational idea flow corrects with long-term success and innovativeness. For example the economic development of different US states is strongly correlated with the number of social ties to other states (Holzbauer et al., 2016). It is also the increasing density of idea flow inside cities that explains the scaling of economic and innovation performance per resident in cities (Pan et al., 2013) .
So, how did I personally benefit from this idea flow in Wildau? Next are couple of ideas that stood out and certainly had an impact to my own thinking. First of these was an excellent demonstration of the “get out of the building” principle originally made famous by startup thinking pioneer Steve Blank (Blank & Dorf, 2012). As according to the “get out of the building” principle, already on the second day, students travelled to Berlin to interview and observe potential customers in hopes of discovering unsatisfied needs and other business opportunities. Students were also instructed to look for existing solution similar to the business idea they had chosen to develop further. A second trip to Berlin came later during the first week.
These excursions worked as excellent learning opportunities and as exciting relationship-building experiences (see above). For me this was maybe the best example of the “get out of the building” practice I’ve personally witnessed. It is very likely that this practice will be integrated to some educational programs we have here are Karelia UAS.
Second practice that stood out for me was the Vinn Lab, a prototyping and mockup building facility at Wildau. My personal experiences are more with “dirtier” prototyping machines such as woodcraft and metalcraft tools. Vinn Lab had a “cleaner” focus with 3D printers and simple CNC machines. What I liked especially was that together with these tools the facility had also amble room for brainstorming, dedicated computers with design software and simple building materials such as Lego bricks. It felt as if Vinn Lab was clearly organized around a specific need an innovator might have. To my estimation this need is the ability to quickly visualize business ideas as images or to produce them as simple 3D mock-ups. When a product or service idea becomes visual and physical, higher quality feedback can be gathered from outside experts and potential customers. Also, the designers themselves become aware of possible flaws and ways to improve the idea further. So-called dirtier prototyping facilities have a clearer focus on producing actual functioning prototypes. To summarize, Vinn Lab is something I feel we lack here in Joensuu.
How would I change the intensive week concept for our next implementation in 2019? Perhaps one way to improve would be to narrow the type of business models student teams can work with. If all would be working to create a physical product, it would make it easier for the teachers to design more effective learning experiences. Student teams could follow mock-up and prototype building and usability testing steps in an orderly fashion. To have even more focus, all teams could be developing a physical product to a similar kind of customer need. This would allow teachers and students alike to see performance differences between different teams and thus facilitate learning better. When everybody is working on a completely different business idea, the innovation skills might be lost in the practical details of the product or service.
Thank you team WIldau!
References
Aron, A., Norman, C. C., Aron, E. N., McKenna, C., & Heyman, R. E. (2000). Couples’ shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality. Journal of personality and social psychology, 78(2), 273.
Blank, S., & Dorf, B. (2012). The startup owner’s manual: The step-by-step guide for building a great company. BookBaby.
Holzbauer, B. O., Szymanski, B. K., Nguyen, T., & Pentland, A. (2016, January). Social ties as predictors of economic development. In International Conference and School on Network Science (pp. 178-185). Springer, Cham.
Pan, W., Ghoshal, G., Krumme, C., Cebrian, M., & Pentland, A. (2013). Urban characteristics attributable to density-driven tie formation. Nature communications, 4, 1961.
Pentland, A. (2015). Social Physics: How social networks can make us smarter. Penguin.
