The Kick Off week in IBIS
As an introduction to the study the first week of school was a kick-off week.
This week consisted of several activities to make the students aware of the content of the education.
The first day started up with being divided in groups. I was in group 3. We were then assigned 2 companies to go to the next day. These companies were Diageo and House of Eleanor.
What impressed me was the professionalism that the programme showed. We had to come up with a gift for the persons that spoke about their companies.
After that we had a keynote speaker called Paul Ensley who now works as a Program manager and communication specialist after working for more than over a decade for a bank.
What I thought was really interesting about this speaker was that he shared a lot of personal experience with the group.
The main thing which really got my attention was that no matter how much he had failed with a project he always stayed positive. I can say that he got to me about
his downfall and then against all odds he kept fighting and try to rise from the ground. He had a phrase that i will not forget for the rest of my life. He said:
"Don't flow through life, let life flow through you!". This sentence had a strong impact on my brain, it got me thinking about my future and my past. In my opinion this sentence
means even though life is hard, and you will be kicked down you still to embrace what life gave to you and what it will still give you. You only need to fight and get back up and
confront her with all of your strenght.
After the keynote speaker we were divided in groups. Every group was given a colour to focus on. Our colour was orange.
When divided in groups, every group had to find at least 20 objects connected to the given colour.
After every group had searched for objects we were given an assignment with the materials that we found; we had to create something that gives a warm welcome when entering the park near the school.
This was the first real assignment given for my new education and I thought it was already really difficult. I learned from this how to be extremely creative and how to think outside the box, and how can
so much ideas put togheter can create a super idea.
The second day we had to visit the two companies. In the morning we were given a presentation about the company Diageo. I learned a lot about their innovative way of their company’s content.
They came with a new bottle of Whiskey promoted by David Beckham and even though they are promoting liqueurs they also promoting to drink responsible. After that we were given a tour within the company.
They had a bar in the building and the woman that was showing us the company told me that they also organize little parties there for the employees.
After Diageo we moved along to the other company, House of Eleanor. They were uprising and trying to build a new jewelry store here in Amsterdam. They want to combine nature, cafe and a jewelry store. The idea
sounds great and i think they will have a lot of customers. Their innovative project will combine the 3 things that people are searching. As I said they are uprising and they said they will have a presentation and
a store oppening in February. The creator of House of Eleanor is a young men that had a dream. He had 2 different companies,but still he said that those were not enough,he wanted something more.
He said that if you don't like what are you doing keep searching untill you find that one think that makes you shine and be the best in that.
When we came back to from our visits, every individual had to write down an irritation or an amusement of his. After everybody had thought of one, we had to put it up on the wall.
Everybody then had to write their name under the ones they agreed with.
The ones with the most name under them were selected by the teachers. Out of those we had to select one which we most agreed with. My irritation was that our generation and future ones are obbsesed with smart devices.
We then had to discuss and come up with points with stated why we chose this problem. This really made me think of how to express yourself and come with ideas to strengthen your opinion.
Day three started with a fast reading course. This course consisted of three hours of training the speed in which you read in. I started up with reading 200 words per minute.
At the end of the course I could read more than 400 words per minute. I learned a lot from this actually and think that this will help me to learn faster and more effective in the future.
After the course we had another keynote speaker. This was Harry te Riele. He had a clear vision to look at society and change it. He did this with his company by trading in services.
I cannot say that he impressed me with his innovation, but he got into my heart. He wasn't looking for mountains of money, he was looking to help people get what they want without real currency.
With this keynote speaker I learned how to run a company without money being you main interest.
At the end of the day we had to work further on the deep dive project. We had to give a presentation on our process.
This presentation provided us with a large amount of feedback from the audience and teacher which given us more information to finalize our project.
Day four was almost all about working on the deep dive. We began the day with working on it and ended the day with working on it. We actually finished our project on this day as well.
What I learned the most about this project was to define problems and mostly focus on how to come up with real solutions, that can actual apply in a daily basis.
In between the finishing of the project we had a third keynote speaker. Her presentation was mostly about product innovation in the textile and fashion industry.
What I learned most from the speaker was the simplicity of a product. She said that you can create new things even from leftovers, the only wall you have to break is your imagination.
I was impressed by her sentence. When you actually think about that, you start realizing that everything that you think off even though it is serious or not, it's still an idea and you
should put a little more effort.
The last day we had to set up a market. At this market we had to present our final product. It was really interesting to do this.
I learned how to fully present a project on what we worked so hard on and to actually sell it to the audience. Even though i was scared to talk in public,
I started talking and i didn't finish talking untill i finished my idea/opinion. My product is about Education, Not War. How war affects our education system, but we mostly focus on America. We had a little advantage because
one of my group mates was an American.
Also I have read all the other problems from the other groups and is was very interesting to see what their end result was.