Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship (Task 1.)

According to a Harvard Business School professor of Business Administration Tom Eisenmann, the term entrepreneurship is elastic and can mean anything from venture capital-backed startups to any small business. According to the Professor Howard Stevenson, the godfather of entrepreneurship studies at HBS, “entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled”. Dr. Eisenmann argues that this definition works in practice, since entrepreneurship is seen as a distinctive approach to managing rather than a specific stage in an organization's life cycle (i.e., startup). Secondly, it has, and allows a specific role for an individual (i.e., founder), or a constellation of personality attributes (e.g., predisposition for risk taking; preference for independence). Therefor, entrepreneurs can be found in many different types of organizations, including large corporations. This is great news and affirms that entrepreneurship can be an engine of global economic development and a force for positive change in society. If the definition is put into other words, it could be said that an entrepreneur must be inventive, creative, opportunistic, and persuasive, because one rarely has enough resources.

(source: Harvard Business Review, http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2013/01/what-is-entrepreneurship.html)

Intrapreneurship

Definition by www.businessdictionary.com

Practice of entrepreneurship in an established firm. Intrapreneurship applies the 'start up' style of management (characterized by flexibility, innovation, and risk taking) to a secure and stable firm. The objective is to fast track product development (by circumventing the bureaucracy) to take advantage of a new opportunity or to assess feasibility of a new process or design.

Start-ups are a hot new term and they seem to have a close link with intrapreneurship. and the leading papers, such as Helsingin Sanomat, regularly publish articles and news about them and their events. On March 20, 2013, the paper published an article about the annual start-up conference and fair SXSW in Austin, Texas.

The media follows closely the Finnish start-up hatcheries. One of them, the major one, is located in Aalto University. The campus hosts Aaltoes, a Aalto University Entrepreneurship Society, which is the largest entrepreurship society in Europe. It revolves mostly around start-ups (which are serial entrepreneurships), which generally refers to high-tech, high-growth and scalable or other technology-related start-ups. According to them, ”community is a key to serendipity” (http://aaltoes.com/about-us/). Aaltoes has a lofty objective of being Aaltoes' goal is that Finland will be the startup hub of Europe and Russia by 2017. Aaltoes was founded in 2009. The founders of Aaltoes wanted talented people to embrace entrepreneurship and view it as a way to create something new and radical.

On Aaltoes home page, I followed the link to their Twitter hashtag #aaltoes, and there was a Tweet about 10 SXSW 2013 Lessons to Apply in Business:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kauffman/2013/03/13/10-south-by-southwest-2013-lessons-to-apply-in-business/

There seems to be a lot going on as a new wave of entrepreneurship.

Can intrapreneurship be taught? Definitely, I think, but not effectively in a traditional classroom setting. I referred above to the Aalto University Entrepreneurship Society, who are doing Start-Up Sauna, recruiting start-up trainees to the Silicon Valley, conducting events and so on. One could also attend events like SXSW. And all this is definitely vocational.

C) What kind of effect would the development of Intrapreneurial skills have on me as a teacher? Person?

If I could apply the above-mentioned qualities of an (ideal) entrepreneur or intrapreneur, meaning being inventive, creative, opportunistic, and persuasive, these qualities quite well define the prototype of a new-generation person, whether you aim towards entrepreneurship or not. Life is shifting very rapidly, there is not much solid ground underneath. The society with its eroding global economics make sure that this doesn’t happen. You just cannot stick with what you learned or were taught, but just like with iVET, you need to find out stuff and learn by yourself, dig deeper, make many detours, extract and merge impressions, ideas, gut reactions, great lessons, and your life experiences to be “on the nerve of time”.

The teacher must follow the time and should be in the front line of knowledge, skills, and creativity. As the trend is, the teacher is the facilitator and the one who walks beside the learner rather than the one who pours information into student’s brain. The reality is that one teacher cannot know everything, but should be aware of what’s going on around him.

Special Education: Reflection

The Special Education in vocational school is not a very familiar topic, so I learned new things. First of all, I learned that the individual education plan (IEP) is a crucial tool in studies of a special-need student. It is based on the general curriculum and created individually for each student, and specifics about person's deeds are taken into consideration. The IEP reviewed three times a year according to Luovi interview. Flexibility is the key word. However, the IEP is not obligatory, but with its help the student will receive additional support and more teaching resources. There are six special-needs vocational education institutes in Finland, the nearest one Bovallius Institute in Pieksämäki. I have visited the premises in another context, but the facilities seemed good.
 It sounds like drafting the IEP and juggling with the best solutions for everyone is a lot of work, as the purpose is to get a profession and a degree, so a lot of teaching staff is needed to cater to the needs of special students. In addition, the need for vocational special education has increased and these days it'a about 12%, according to Wikipedia. The main purpose of special-needs vocational education is inclusion.
The special needs education has been taken into consideration in legislation (Act on Special needs education* and statute about special needs education**). I found a good template for special needs education in Finnish language***. It is meant as a tool for teachers who are involved in planning IEP's and teaching for special needs classes. The site also featured a classification of different disabilities and conditions. You cannot let you mind wonder though, and it needs to be kept in mind that not all "special" students are eligible for special needs education, meaning that if a student need some temporary measures and short-term extra classes, this is not considered special needs education. This point can cause some confusion, because it was suggested in the autumn that the students needing some extra attention are also covered in this lot. Also those with mild learning disabilities or social adaptation issues are not eligible (A 811/1998 § 8). I guess that in practice it means that they study in normal classroom and learn less, and are more likely to cause more trouble, but there are no extra resources. My brother-in-law has a dyslexia, or "reading disability" to some extent. Learning languages is very hard for him. However, he is good in maths and technical subjects, and he became a math, chemistry and physics teacher in secondary school. Plus he wrote his Master's thesis in 3 months. He is a great example of overcoming his learning difficulty. Plus he learned quite good English when they lived 3 months in Africa.
I recently encountered a young man who was finishing his primary school. He had a hearing impairment and used a hearing device. He wanted to study a social field, and this spring he would make the choices concerning his future studies. The doctor had recommended him an ear implant, which would improve his hearing and his career prospect. However, the boy refused, fearing that the operation may cause permanent damage. The doctor had explained that the operation was very quick and safe, and would significantly improve his quality of life, but the boy wouldn't budge. The parents were shattered and the doctor probably felt sorry for the boy, but he had to respect his will. I think the teenage boy just wanted to exercise his will and make his own choices, because maybe he hasn't had that much choice in his life. I wonder what an impact the small operation would have made to the boys working life and the future. The stubbornness may cost several employment opportunities, since in the current condition the young man could hear very little and had to rely on sign language. Anyway, he could always change his mind later, but the more time will pass, the less the operation will help him. I hope he would rethink his decision. This example shows how even the special-need students are individuals with individual needs, preferences and dreams. Some of the choices the make may not be in their best interest, so highly skilled and experienced teachers and mentors are crucial. In this case, two of the boy's teachers were present, but of course they cannot make someone change their mind.

Sources: * Laki ammatillisesta koulutuksesta (630/1998)
** Asetus ammatillisesta koulutuksesta (811/1998)
*** http://merjaritva.wikispaces.com/erityisopetuksen+lait

Sustainable development, Task 1: Ideas to Save the World

Sustainable development, or I would say, ecological living from the perspective of an individual, can be divided into four categories, if my memory serves me right:

1) travel & transportation
2) housing & heating
3) general consumption
4) food

I got this division from www.myfootprint.org, where I completed the Ecological Footprint quiz. The result was pretty much the average European's, 2,92 globes.

In today's Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, professor Atte Korhola, who works as the professor of Environmental Change, has his ecological footprint measured (section Science/Travel/Technology/Car, page 22), and he commented on the result. He travels extensively because of his international work, but he says in the past years the air travel has been made too demonic: using the internet causes as much emissions, and constant use of car is more harmful to the environment that an occasional trip to Thailand. He stated that air travel causes only 3% of the greenhouse emissions, and according to studies, flying also has impact of cooling the atmosphere down! I like that, because I love to travel, and I would travel by air much more if I could afford it.

Here are my suggestions and challenges for other iVETian to Save the World, according to some of the above-mentioned categories:

TRAVEL
1) Use your bike or walk if you travel less than 5 km. Carpool or use public transportation for longer trips. (Ok, not very original ideas, but I want to challenge on each point.) Or, join EasyTrip Finland http://www.easytrip.fi and
http://www.facebook.com/groups/easytrip/
This is a carpooling application on Social Media (and it may require an invitation, but let me know, I can invite you). An acquaintance of mine has launched this site.
2) When travelling, couch-surf or stay with your friends as much as you can. Also generously offer your friends a place to stay. I mostly do this and very rarely stay in hotels.

FOOD
3) Cook home-made meals and offer meals and coffee etc. to your friends and family rather than going out to a restaurant or café. Watch MasterChef for some great ideas and recipes. I used to go out to eat on Sundays, but these days I mostly do some gourmet cooking at home on weekends. My next ventures will be pizza blanc with potato slices and panna cotta caramelised with a gas torch with apple flambé. You can donate the money you saved to charities if you really want to make a difference.
4) Try a de-tox fast for a few days by drinking only fruit juices and smoothies. Buy a juicer to make freshly squeezed juice. Our favourite is apple-carrot. Chilled orange juice is also awesome, cause the pulp and the white layer add texture to the juice. I love the juicer, because I don't have to peel or chop the fruit - I only need to wash & halve the apples and the machine takes care of the rest. Too bad that fruit is so expensive in Finland, but use whatever is affordable during the season. You can dump all the leftover salads etc. to a juicer AND it's a good way to smuggle broccoli etc. healthy stuff to juice without kids noticing.
5) Form food communities with your friends, colleagues, or people living in your flat. I don't mean those that collectively buy organic food, but this collective takes turns in cooking. There can be themes in cooking generally or differing by day, e.g. seasonal/local/organic ingredients, theme cuisines like Thai, Mexican, etc. For example, if you eat your own meals at lunch, find 4 others, and each cooks for all of you once a week. This was my new, original idea.

GOODS
6) Set up clothes potluck parties. I mean, invite a bunch of people over, and ask everyone to bring clothes, shoes, and other stuff that they don't need. Put them in display all over your house and pick whatever you like. There can also be a rule that you can take as many things as you brought. I have attended a couple of these events. I got to meet new people and I found some really nice clothes that are still in my wardrobe. This is a good alternative if booking a table in a second-hand shop is too time-consuming and if you don't want to take the clothes to a charity without compensation.

GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
7) With your colleagues or friends, start sponsoring a child from a country of your choice. The child get a chance to going to school, getting an education and then supporting his or her family. There are a lot of organizations who are involved, e.g.
http://www.fidainternational.fi/development-relief/child-sponsorship/
http://www.plan.fi/en-GB/frontpage/activities/sponsor-a-child/
http://www.worldvision.org

 Have you tried any of these? What do you think?

Interacting with working community, Task 3

How do you interact with your working community? What could you do differently to enhance the spirits of your working place? Is there someone in your working community who brings positive energy to you; why is that? Reflect on the quality of the interaction in the light of where and why is the interaction fruitful to you to lift up your working spirit.

My current working community consists 1 adult private English student, my interpreting clients in the university hospital, the police, and other offices, plus the nurses, doctors, lawyers, policemen, etc. who are the other party of interpretation, plus a few employees of the interpretation agency who book the gigs and handle the paperwork. In other words, I don't really have colleagues to chat or spend time with, except on rare occasions on my free time.

The interpreting assignments, "gigs" are booked by phone. Sometimes I get an urgent phone call at night, in the evening, 7 a.m. or when I'm just cooking a delicious Italian lunch, and they ask if I can come ASAP. Often I can. Work takes place face-to-face, also with my English student. With the student we communicate by e-mail or by phone if we need to make changes. Some interpretation jobs are booked in advance by e-mail.

To inhance the spirit of the work place, because the interpreting situations are either very personal,  intimate and stressful (hospital, police cell, court cases) I aim to be emphatic and positive and try to make a connection with the client, yet remaining neutral. I want to leave a positive impression also to improve my chances of being hired again. I'm really nice to secretaries, because they are the ones who call me, but they are rarely up to date with where to find my paperwork from their own files, so often I have to instruct them to use their own systems. 

Just few days ago there was an instance that another interpreter showed up for interpreting appointment. In the papers, my name was written down, so the other interpreter had to withdraw, but I discovered that this other one had interpreted the same client previously. A family member laughed that they were not sure if they were going to have an interpreter, so two was better than nothing. This wasn't the first time another non-Finnish interpreter emerges, so I've been wondering if there's some conspiracy to steal my job, since there has been very little work lately, but it could have been just some weird mix-up. I guess that's part of my "working community" too, but that's when and how I DON'T want to meet my colleagues. Actually, one non-Finnish, aspiring interpreter guy told me squarely that "we could cooperate and he could take my assignments". How rude! There are not enough jobs in my field, also confirmed by the Employment Agency statistics of job barometer 2012, so there seems to be a fierce competition of interpretation assignments.

Mostly my clients bring positive energy into my work: majority of them are very positive, grateful and personal. They often tell their life stories to me while we wait, and several times they have invited me to visit their city abroad. Professionally I don't give my contact information to clients, but sometimes we have exchanged phone numbers, for example when I interpreted through a delivery and was invited to a baby party some time later. The patient-clients are grateful and happy, because the level of treatment is very high and the staff has high expertise in the university hospital. In our Eastern neighbor country, for example, hospitals do not cater any meals for the patients.

Even though some interpretation situations are stressful and clients are there to have their problems sorted out, mostly the work is very rewarding and gives me energy. Interaction is fruitful, because the staff shares me new information, so I learn about the diseases and treatment methods, which is very interesting. The interaction with clients is  also great, because I develop my own expertise by learning new vocabulary, and often the patients comment on good language skills.

Sustainable Development

Task 2. Write a blog post about the following themes:

1. The main points of my workplace's sustainable development program

2. How does it affect employees' day-to-day life or does it?

3. What are the challenges in sustainable development in my field of work?

4. How could I teach the principles of sustainable development in my own subject?

Send a link to your post on this FB page by 30.4. Make sure you visit at least two other blog posts. Remember to leave a constructive comment.

1. I worked in the development collaboration agency Fida International some years ago. The theme of sustainable development comes up at least in three different ways:

Development work and mainstreaming themes

Second-hand store concept and procedures

Office staff measures

The sustainable development program is based on EU and governmental best practices, including the millennium goals and cutting-through themes. Environment is on of the mainstreaming themes in Fida practices. Taking environmental issues into consideration is based on a Christian concept of balanced and sustainable relationship between the man and the nature. Respecting the environment contributes to motivation towards environmental protection and sustainable care and nurturing of the environment. Therefore the partners of all the Fida development cooperation projects and programmes are trained to apply the principles of sustainable development, while taking the environmental specifics into consideration. Understanding the climatic conditions and factors helps finding sustainable solutions and prevent environmental problems. The aim is to strengthen the models that support environmental diversity and balance in the projects.  (source: http://www.fida.info/tyomme/kehitysyhteistyo/kehitysyhteistyon-valtavirtaistamisteemat/) For example, there are projects e.g. which focus on planting mangrove forest on flood catastrophe areas  in India and Bangladesh. Those projects are lead by foreign environmental specialists, who work side by side with the local people.

The chain of Fida second-hand stores has the concept of receiving donated clothes and household items, selling them, and supporting the development cooperation projects with the acquired funds, so the operating principle is based on sustainable development. Fida has collaborated also with some movie projects (e.g. Joulutarina, Christmas Story, to which it donated clothes for the cast). Fida partners with IKEA by receiving used IKEA shopping bags, to be used further for its projects.

2. The office staff is aware of sustainable development in everyday practices. Organic waste, printing paper and other materials are recycled, as the local infrastructure allows it. The stationery used in the office (envelopes), as well as brochures, magazines are printed on recycled paper. The coffee and tea used in the office is fair trade industry and the tea bags are also organic.

3. My challenges for applying the principles of sustainable development is my current work are many. I work from home mainly, so I don’t have any organizational guidelines, and I cannot really do much in that respect, other than what I would do normally at home, which I do.  I consider myself somewhat environmentally friendly, even though not a freak, so I practice some principles. We recycle all printed paper at home, meaning that we use the empty side to print any unofficial stuff, like reading material, cooking recipes etc. I collect and recycle thick envelopes and packages, as well as organic waste. I try to bake and cook food from the scratch and avoid processed food. I use organic flour and sometimes make juice with a juicer from fresh fruit and vegetables. I pick my own raspberries and strawberries. Most of the other organic foodstuffs are so expensive that I don’t buy them. We don’t have sauna. We use the dishwasher once a week. I walk or cycle to a lot of places. I sell clothes and household items in flea markets and second-hand stores and also donate to them. We have installed led lamps in 2 rooms to save electricity. My teammates and I carpool to floorball training sessions and games. I don’t consider myself an environmental hero, but at least I do something. The thing is that there are other considerations, such as cost, other benefits to body etc. For example, I recently purchased an organic Mádara deep balance toner for skin, but the primary consideration was  to soothe my sensitive skin, because there are no preservatives, alcohol etc. The same goes with food: I can pay a bit more for a better taste and less harmful agents, but if something costs a lot more, I choose a normal product.

4. As I pointed out, I don’t really have a forum to advocate the principles of sustainable development at work. But if I imagine myself as a language teacher for young adults, we could study sustainable development as a topic, learning the vocabulary and at the same time how it relates to the vocational subject of students (e.g. if they are nurses-to-be.). Of course the vocational students have this topic already covered in general studies, so we could think of some new applications. In a classroom setting the practices could be lowering the room temperature for a few degrees centrally.

I want to turn the topic around and ask what are we doing to ourselves? In hundreds of schools, institutes and universities in Finland, people struggle with indoor air problems, simply meaning mould. This makes the learning environment environmentally dangerous for the students. When the constructors make the ready-to-be-installed concrete elements, some wool is placed between the concrete layers and the elements are let to dry outside in the mercies of the weather. The rain makes the wool soak, but no-one cares. Once the elements are erected in place, the water inside the elements may stay for decades, unless someone lucky happens to drill a hole in the right place. This may let loose dozens of litres of water, in the worst cases ruining the interior. I know several people who have long-term effect of either living or working in mould-infested place, causing long-term flu and asthma. This has been the hot topic lately in the Finnish teacher’s magazine Opettaja. You who are reading this blog post, what would we do to contribute?