Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Places of last 6 months

2008 is coming to its end and since it is quite boring during the night in the Riga airport, I decided to count the places I have been to this year:

Jan to May: Lived in Australia, Sydney
February: 2 weeks in Macedonia for International President Meeting (IPM), traveling in Greece and France.
May: Traveling from Australia to Estonia. Long travel that took some few days and took me through Abu Dhabi, France, Lithuania.
July: CEE MCPs meeting in Czech Republic, Prague
August: Traveling through Netherlands, Amsterdam to Brazil, Sao Paulo for International Congress (IC).
November: fun road trip with half of the MC team to Energy in Latvia.
December: Global Steering Team meeting in Netherlands, Rotterdam
CEE MCPs meeting in Turkey, Istanbul, with a lovely night in the Riga airport.


Looking at that I can truly say that I feel like a global citizen and someone who has the coolest job in the world.

My mom keeps on telling that during my university times she knew the way to Tallinn bus station even in her sleep, because she use to take me to Tallinn bus station every week, so that I could catch a bus to Tartu.
Now she is starting to know the way to Tallinn airport inside out, because she is taking me there almost the same often. For her, I have grown from student to a successful business person.

Anyone thinks that this is a job or a position that I should talk someone into or convince to take it up, should be insane I think.
Can you name me any other job, which lets you in the age of 25 to be part of global strategy making for an international organization, lead a national organization of 150 people, travel to more than 10 countries and build a strong network amongst future leaders of the world?

Sunday, September 14, 2008

I am happy and doing big things

This is a sentence I heard on Friday night, in a bar in Tallinn old down while talking to an old friend. This sentence was his answer to a questions – so what are you up to these days?
Since that evening this sentence has been stuck in my mind. I started to like it. And now on I am going to start using it as well J. I believe that the ultimate goal for every person in this life should be happiness. What being happy means for a person can be very individual. For some happiness is earning millions while for others it could be helping starving children. Both are right, as long as they are happy.

This is a good way to restart and re-orientate this blog.

So what makes me happy currently?
Since June I have been working as a president of AIESEC in Estonia.

And why this is my happiness right now?
Everyday I feel that I am doing big things. Everyday my actions and work has a meaning and impact. I am developing young leaders in Estonia through international and leadership experiences. I am developing young people who are and will have a positive impact on Estonia and the world. I am making the world a better place!

This is what makes me happy and my life meaningful.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Unilife in Aussie

One of the first impressive experiences I had in Australia was seeing the university life.

In Estonia universities are spread around the city – so different faculties are in different parts of the city. Which means there is no centralised place for the students to meat and mostly there is no unity between different faculties. So mainly you have close relationships within your faculty, but that’s about it.

In Australia universities have different campuses. One university campus is like a small city. If you are fulltime student then you sometimes don’t even leave the campus because everything is there.

Campus normally has all the faculties next to each other, big library, lot of pubs and clubs, shops, restaurants, parks, sports clubs etc. And all of that just 10 minutes walk from the CBD of Sydney City.

Which means that there is a place for university students to network and get to know people from all over the university.

I feel always so good when I am on my LC visits and between the meetings I just walk around in the campus and try to feel my self as student again. These moments always get me really empowered of going back to university to do my masters. I don’t know what it is but university just breaths of wisdom. But you need to be out of uni to evaluate and appreciate that.

So the university life shown in the US movies actually exists. This is also the reason why I enjoy walking around there – I just feel so cool as in American movies.

And as I mentioned the fully packed market and how marketing gets harder and harder here - Even the marketing and recruitment in the universities is getting harder for the LCs every year. For example in the University of Sydney there are 200+ student organizations and AIESEC is just one of them. So to make our messages to stand out and reach the right people is harder than it has ever been. It is definitely a totally new reality compared to the university life in Estonia.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Sky Marketing?

A new area that I have discovered in Sydney is marketing in the sky.

So you have either the planes writing in the sky or some weir looking balloons flying around or just the adds behind planes.

Since Sydney is a big city and companies have to put a lot of creativity to their marketing messages and ways to address the right audiences. Probably this is why, very often you see things written in the sky. For the first time I was really impressed and took multiple pictures of it ….wow so cool. Now it is just part of everyday marketing and sometimes I don't even notice it anymore.

I wonder how far will the marketing go?

What is the next out of space marketing?

Reflecting brands from the moon?