Week 7: Learn before you earn

I remember a mentor had once told me that in the first phase of your career, focus should always be on the learning. Once you start learning and expanding your knowledge base, the earning will follow. I feel the same could apply to Nova, once we focus on the learning and the people aspect of the organisation, revenues will follow. Building the core and essence of the organisation is important. Once that is sustainable and resilient, we can create revenue streams.

My learning for the week is that we really need to learn what Nova is all about and think of ways to make it resilient and sustainable. This might mean moving away from the recruitment focus but it might also mean that we need to think of how to enhance the sense of community for Novas. Defining top talent is just important as understanding the desires, needs and pains of top talent. Insights from this research can help us identify values we want to incorporate in our culture and the products and services we want to provide them.

My learning for the week will also be that sometimes it's ok to leave with more questions than answers. I have a tendency to solve problems as soon as I see them but sometimes this would mean coming up with short-term fixes instead of long-term solutions. For example, I realised that there were many things still incomplete in our toolbox and that caused me stress earlier this week but after having a conversation with Karin and Per, I realised that having a list of to-dos and fixes for future development is better than coming up with a short-term fix for the toolbox. It's always good to keep in mind the bigger picture and the long term impact, even though we were only here for this internship for eight weeks.

I also learnt the importance of seeing things from another person's perspective this week. Throughout the organisation of Sunny Fridays we had doubts and questioned the effectiveness of our work. However, the feedback from guests and staff at SUP46 made us realise that we did have an impact on the community over the course over the summer and did a good job bringing people together. Staff at SUP46 mentioned how they would like to continue with this event and that made me feel like we are leaving behind a legacy rather than just an experiment over the summer.

Overall, I engaged in a lot more reflecting this week, informally and formally and that helped me develop a sense of closure and purpose for the rest of the time I'm here at Nova. 

Week 7: The big revelation

Week 7 was a week of collation, presentation and revelation of all the work we've done over the last 7 weeks. It showed us that we have some degree of clarity about what we have done but there are still some question marks about what lies ahead.

Some key takeaways regarding the process of this week:

- Harvesting is key! We realised the importance of harvesting a bit too far down our journey. Although it's better late than never, we should've started this process and tracked it earlier.

- Aligning expectations is important. We not only presented our findings to Lars Henrik and the Nova team but also got some feedback from them on their vision and their ideas. Although they seemed receptive of our ideas, we should've involved them more during the process so that it didn't become a us versus them approach but more of a collaborative effort.

- The way ahead needs to be clearer - Although we have clarity about what we have done. We need to ensure we are all on the same page with regards to our expectations for the future. In terms of process, it would be good to have a "what lies ahead" session once everyone has had their feedback meetings and meetings with Lars Henrik.

- The mystery of Nova experience - I feel like there's still a lot of questions and mystery around Nova Experience. I like that we have more time for collation and feedback but we feel like we lack ownership of the process and the event. It's hard to feel the sense of excitement and bring our passion into the event when we are so far removed from the content creation of the process.

Overall, a good week, a productive week but also a week that left us with more questions than answers. 

Week 7 (what I learned)

Some of my learnings this week:

• Our work is very strategic and practical on how to expand globally (unlike previous researches)
• Still a lot more work to be done. This is because we started on the wrong track and kinda wasted a lot of time on nothing. Ever since we started working on what we should have worked initially, it's been very productive and good work. But since our time was limited there is still quite a bit missing. The Nova team should continue working on these strategies after we leave and conclude them. 
• Nova needs a top-down strategy of how the current 3 hubs, Headquarters and new hubs will collaborate with each other. Nova needs to be centralized initially in order to keep the same values and Nova structure. Right now, it seems like Nova is decentralized. The hubs lack communication between one another. I am afraid this will continue to happen if a communication/reporting strategy is not enforced. 
• We still don't know the how-to's of expanding in new markets. Is Nova students or young professionals? Is the start-up manager a student or YP? Is Nova a start-up community or every professional community? What are the KPI's for the new chapters? I know we have been told we will figure them out as we go, but unless we have a Nova big picture, I don't think this will be feasible. I know someone raised this concern in the meeting and Karin said we will figure them out later, but later is now in my opinion. 
• As far as the market selection we are on the right page. We have identified which markets we should enter first and why. Please refer to my other blog post this week for a bit more details.
• I believe that Sunny Fridays would have been more insightful had we invited people from different professional fields rather than just start-up community. 

Crazy week ahead of us. Stay Fabulous!

Ella

Week 7 (what I thought about the process)

Hello fellow interns

This was a big week for us. Many presentations; Lars-Henrik, Nova team, Elin and Jonas.

Lars-Henrik's presentation was a very practical/operational Nova business approach. Inna and I worked on a similar approach as LH, but we chose not to present because it was very operational. And in my experience this project has been more of a consulting approach. I wish we had presented because as LH mentioned our presentation was more management consulting than practical business model.

Nova team meeting - Exactly what I've been talking about. We (Nova Global) still doesn't have a strategy how they will get everyone involved when expanding globally. It is hard for the current Nova employees to wrap their mind around to what will happen once we go into 1 or more markets in the fall. A top to bottom strategy is needed as soon as possible. How will the current three hubs collaborate with the HQ and the new hub(s)? How and who will approve certain new values/mission/principles, strategies and more? There a lot more questions raised after talking to the Nova team. It's common for them to resist changes, but not having a strategy in place how these changes will be applied makes it even worse.

Meeting with Elin confirmed me that we are on the right track with the expansion strategies. Her work was not strategic and she looked at markets without a clear 'why'. She talked to professors and students at top schools. Thing she found and we have included in our strategy:

• Don't go into markets such as US, India, Germany. They have very strong and structured recruiting and school career offices. There is no need for Nova there as of right now. Maybe later.

Last week I realized we are too late with our work, and we are no where to being done. There are so much more missing for the strategy and toolbox that we won't be able to finish by next week. We will work hard and see if we can at least put everything together so it makes sense in the end. 

Stay Fabulous!

Ella

Retreat Week (what I learned)

Oh Varmdo how I love you.

What I learned this week:

• You can swim in Sweden in the summer and not freeze 
• Retreats are the best thing ever. We should definitely start having these in US too
• Hot Seat is really hot. But you should never ask your fellow hot-seaters to keep it short. They'll get upset about it.
• Swedish people like reflecting. Even on retreats. 
• Mama Karin is the best cook ever
• I confirmed I love sailing. Thanks Karin and Stefan
• The boys can never act normal in a canoe
• Klaus has a lot of insights about current Nova and future Nova
• We are on the right page with the project
• Gustav is very passionate about Burning Man

Retreat Week (what do you think about the process this week)

This has to be the best week so far. My boyfriend came to visit me all the way from USA, and we had the retreat which was a blast for everyone.

Thank you everyone for being so nice and welcoming to Mike :)

I enjoyed spending time with everyone; swimming, sailing, laughing, cooking, and of course doing the 'hot seat' exercise.

What was really productive for me this week was the meeting with Klaus (Universum executive). Before the meeting I was in charge to talking to Universum employees and find out more about what they do and how we can work together in the future. I learned that Universum and Nova can collaborate very well in the future. Nova will benefit quite a lot from Universum's already on the ground business, and Universum can benefit from Nova's highly selected network. Klaus is a very practical and rational person, and I highly value his ideas and opinions. I wish we could work more with him.

As per Gustav's meeting (Burning Man), I feel like it was unnecessary given that he does something completely different from what Nova will do or does. As a matter of fact, I think we've talked to way too many people in the start-up community. Nova's focus will not be a start-up one; therefore, talking to all these entrepreneurs is kind of confusing with our ideas. It would have been more valuable had we talked to some real professionals and got their opinion on what we are doing or will do.

My 2 cents for the week.

Stay Fabulous!
Ella

Last week: thoughts

Hi y'all

Yesterday the nickel really fell (Dutch saying directly translated), I discovered what the key to most of our individual creativity is. I feel that it is not on the discussion table that we find our best strategic intents. I find that it is hardly ever the product of our arguments that finds it way into the record books as an unsurmountable fact. No, the contrary is what I believe to be the truth: The best insights and ideas come to you when you let everything sink in and start losing yourself in your own mind. 

The product of your conviction should be a beautiful thing that you should start exploring and building onto. Whenever I feel that I am on track to discover something I pick someone random (outside work/office space) to discuss it with and sharpen it up. I feel that way too many times we try to explore our ideas in an environment where those ideas might not necessarily align with the ideas of others and can therefore be received with some resistance. I truly believe that if we sharpen up and reinforce our ideas substantially before we bring it to the contextual discussion table we have less of a tendency to give up and in that line can be more innovative.

In conclusion, whenever you find yourself in the shower with what appears to be an idea you should write it down and try it out with someone that has no particular interest into it to see if it can float.

xoxoxox

Stefan