One of the best parts of this conference are...

... the people, all the delegates from ~ 100 countries (highest number of delegates in an IC so far). During the talks with the people I have discovered that I’m very proud to be a member of AIESEC in Estonia. We are known as the country where Deniss comes from (and Mairi etc). :P But it’s not a bad thing as it means that he has done a lot of lobby work to promote us, we are continuing his work We are small but actually the work we have done and will do is really impressive. We are pioneering in many things like alumni fund, using “I’m an aieseccer campaign” for recruitment, having Learning Cycle “Klapid eest!” etc.

An amazing session took part yesterday – we went back to the time when the organization was founded. It was just so unbelievable to hear the stories of PAIs (President of AIESEC International) of previous times. About how it was to be an African in a world of racism and being a part of AIESEC and trying to attend the conferences. How it was to take AIESEC to Latin-America and build it up. How hard and challenging times the organization has had because of the political issues like South Africa, Taiwan, Russia etc. What it was like to start AIESEC behind the iron curtain. How it was to do matching via post. Having pink and green papers to mark interns and TNs. I actually took our organization for granted and I haven’t really thought about how it all started and what it might have felt like.

Take a look at the Pärnu blog (aiesecparnu.blogspot.com) and don’t forget to log on to IC Live to see what we are up to in this hot city of Istanbul where 650 young leaders have gathered to become even better and make an impact once they return to their AIESEC countries and territories.

Hugs and sun from Istanbul,

Kadi

Why should we care?

I wrote this posting yesterday night at 3 AM. The day had been full of new lessons and ideas, so this posting is not so much about IC, but about my personal lessons from here. Enjoy!

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Do you care what happens in the world? Do you believe you can do something about it? Do you dare to take responsiblity over what is happening in the society, in your community, among your social network, your family?

There are so many people who don’t dare. They are afraid to believe, because there is such a social pressure to be average, be passive, not to stand out. Saying: „I believe I can do something about it and I care!” requires a lot of courage. By standing out you always disturb people around you, because you remind them their own potential which they never use. You remind them that they have given up the opportunities to live a much more fulfilling life. It feels uncomfortable if someone shows with an example that actually no-one is a victim of circumstances and you can always choose your attitude.

I believe really good people will always find resistance.

Yesterday PAI from 86-87 Martin Bean, who is now the 3rd man in Microsoft corporation (http://www.league.org/2006cit/bios/bean.html) shared his story in AIESEC. To be honest I was almost moved to tears and still get thrills when I think back about the moment in plenary. It wasn’t necessarily about what he said, though it was extremly inspiring to hear him sharing what the leadership experience in AIESEC really taught him and what were the learnings he got out of it. But even more moving was to see a person who dares to stand out, be the one who cares about what is happening, who has a passion to change things, who really understands the personal responsibility each of us has and who doesn’t find some fake comfort from the thought: „Anyway I can’t change much and the bad things continue to happen with or without my effort to change something.”

Why should a person care anyway?

I believe that in the end it’s all about your personal happiness. Everyone wants to be happy, so everyone is looking for means to do it. We all have an inner need to be happy and the happiness comes through meaning. We all want to have a meaning in our life, so we are attaching it to something - have more money, have a beautiful girlfriend, nice clothes, impressive career etc. Quite often they happen to be things that in the end doesn’t give us the meaning we are looking for and make us feel even more empty and disappointed.

Real meaning comes through serving.

How do you feel when you have made someone elses day? Remember the feeling if someone is really grateful for you because you said the right words on the right time or did something else helpful for the other person. Do you know the great feeling if you have felt really useful and you know that without your unique contribution in this very moment nothing would have happened?

Now compare it to the feeling you get from getting compliment because you look good or the inner satisfaction you get from the idea that soon you will have a payday and your salary will arrive. It’s also great, right?

But what does feel better – the admiration because you are a good speaker or someone gratitude for changing the course of someones life because of your authentic and sincere words? What does feel better – having a lot of friends and being popular or sensing that the conversation you just had with another person was something so meaningful and needed for she, that she almost started to cry?

You have a million of opportunities to live a meaningful life, if you only care.

So in the end we should just care about what is happening around us, because it makes us happy. I mean authentically happy, happy in the truesest sense, which is not determined about the conditions and events happening to you.

Living a life with a meaning, finding your own true inner strenght and path you should walk requires belief and courage. I can’t express quite clear enough how happy I am I once made a choice to join AIESEC, to face all the challenges I have had here, to be forced to discover my own potential I had no idea about, to be surrouned by people who dare to believe and have a courage to stand out.

Moments from IC

It has taken more time than expected to update the blog from my side. This text was already written at the second day of IC, meaning 2 days ago, hopefully I manage to write more soon. Keep yourself posted also through IC Live live.myaiesec.net

22.08

IC has started! I’m sitting in HP internet cafe and writing a quick update about what has been happening so far.

Today is actually the first day of 9 day conference left to go. Altogether the conference lasts 10 days, but as yesterday was wholly dedicated to opening the biggest event in AIESEC network, it’s referred in the agenda as „day 0”.

So what happened yesterday? We started with our internal opening plenary, which is growing every year as the network has already reached the benchmark of 100 hundred countries (and growing). All the countries could convince others during 1-minute roll call that they are the coolest, greatest and most extraordinary AIESEC country. Our delegation improvised in previous evening a traditional dance with a traditional song in the background (greetings to all helle-helle-leelo-leelo-song fans) and educated the global plenary about Estonian history with the fact, that we got our independence back 16 years ago.

After the opening we headed to Global Village, which astonished me already last year with the vast diversity of cultures. Making the world tour by just walking from one table to another is something so unique, that I don’t have a right word for that. Everyone has brought something from their native country that distinguishes them from others, willing to share what they are all about. The world becomes clearer and clearer, you start seeing the patterns how we all are connected and what makes us different. The Global Village gets it’s true meaning at IC and not only in the culture-fair, but also throughout the conference in sessions, conversations an any other connection with other delegates.

The evening ended with official ceremony with speeches from our PAI Gabiza, representative from Turkish Supervisory group and our global partner HP, Turkish MCP Candost and the CCP who has been working together with her team on the conference almost 1,5 years. We also saw a performance from a world-class dance group Fire of Anatolia. During the ceremony we heard at least 4 times that IC is now officially opened, so this morning I woke up with a clear understanding that this must the the truth and today it’s time to start working. Jiihaa!

The chair this year is Pedro Santoz who was the PAI in 2003/04 and decided to chair IC mainly because his vision about AIESEC was always making things happen – which is exactly the vision of this IC and also the vision of the whole year – generation of achievers making it happen. Seems that the organization is now ready for this mindset and we are anxious about seeing results, tired of only knowing things on the paper or not understanding the strategies in a simple way. I’ve noticed that besides Estonian MC vision – keep it simple and make things happen! – also other MCs have a similar vision. For example Colombians are connected by „Make it real and keep it simple!”, I’ve also seen similar sentences on other MCs T-shirts.

Before IC officially started we also participated Study Tour in Istanbul and spent 3 days in our CEE GN pre-meeting. During the pre-meeting all MCPs spent one day together, from which I’d like to share some glances. Everyone was sharing with Gabiza the things we’d like to learn about and also our favourite learning barrier, which means in simple words – what keeps me from learning.

Examples of MCPs lavourite learning barriers:

- I already know that

- I take in charge

- I’m not interested, I don’t think it’s useful

- I don’t have time

- I’m actually satisfied

- I need to do it in a perfect way

- I should know that (I pretend to be competent)

Many greeting from here, hope to bring it back to you as much as possible,
Marjam

I'm a CEEtizen

How is cool to feel yourself like at home! :)
I have realized how I was missing for this spirit, for this filling, for this emotions, for there people :)
now I'm again feeling myself like a CEE member.
I'm really proud of to be from CEE, one is a strong GN, one of the ambition GN, one of the hard working GN.
I really respect Maik (AI Director 05-06), Jarda (AI Region Director 06-07) who made a lot of for CEE, for countries, for people. Now our AI RD is Inav from Columbia who really loves us, our culture and potential. He has passion to our GN.

You have to fill this spirit ;) (following the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD62nSpHxQ4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Flive%2Emyaiesec%2Enet%2Findex%2Ephp

we'll bring it to you!
Inna

Merhaba!

We are currently having the 2^nd day of the CEE pre-meeting and we have still one day to go. On Tuesday there is the day 0 of IC meaning the open Global Village and other openings (both inside and external) are going to take place.

For the first 2 days all of us from the IC delegation and also Marina attended the Study Tour in Istanbul. We saw many interesting and beautiful places of this huge city. There are actually 11,008,790 inhabitants and it’s area is 1,538,77 km². For example we visited Hagia Sophia which is famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Also Grand Bazaar which is one of the largest covered markets in the world, Dolmabahçe castle (served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1853 to 1922) and other mosque’s and places.

Yesterday was the first days of the pre-meeting and it was about sharing the realities of the countries, understanding the timelines of all the 25 countries (extension included), getting to know the CEE GN board, becoming CEEtizen etc. Today we went more into our projects and co-operation points. The EnterCEE program was re-launched and I’m very proud that all the 3 LCs in Estonia are participating in it. We also went more deeply into the topics connected with CEE. For example with TM people we were thinking about the agenda of EnterCEE conference, other groups talked about matching, ER, tracking etc.

I have met a lot of new people and to my surprise I also have a lot of old acquaintances here present. For example the OCP of Study Tour – Melih – attended the CEEMOS/CEELDS 2007 conference in Estonia and I was VP delegates then of that conference. Or the Baltic Energy 2006 co-facis Tiger, Petra and Slavik. Or Rita from Latvia who is in the OC finance team. I’m extremely glad for seeing our Estonians who are abroad here – it is just great to be ablt to talk with Deniss and Helena, share the differences of realities and remember old times. It’s a small world.

I’m missing the cool weather of Estonia and the smiling eyes of you all. To keep yourself updated what is happening in IC check out the IC Live page here.

Always yours,

Kadi

Getting ready for International Congress

Today we are leaving to IC, the biggest conference in AIESEC network. During little bit more than 2 weeks when we're going to experience greatest cultural diversity coming from 100 countries, understand better global strategies, build a strong network with people all over the world, get to know new AI team and interact with our global partners. It's great.

Right now I need to finish with my to-do list and packing my bag. In reality I'm in a hurry and doesn't have too much time for wondering how great it is to go to Turkey.

I exchanged EUROs for the fee, I have never taken so much money out of the cask machine before. Did you know that the maximum amount you can take out is 10 000.-? So to have 30 000.- in cash you need to insert the amount 3 times. Now I have in by bag new shiny EUROs and I feel a paranoia towards people. I guess we'll divide the money between us.

We have set the rules inside of our delegation. Nobody misses a single session unless it's important for AIESEC Estonia (it's actually a rule for you - if there are urgent e-mails, we'll reply them). In case someone really needs to miss morning plenary, it's allowed 2-3 times during the 2 week conference, but we all let Marjam know. I guess I'm not going to miss a single one.

I see IC as a big investment for AIESEC Estonia, both money- and time-wise, so we all plan to take maximum out of it. For that we have set clear expectations what we really want. There is no better place to network and learn from other countries experiences than a conference where you have 600 aieseccars together, most of them with long career in organization and deep knowledge about their function.

Having good and meaningful conversations is one of my personal goals. I want to learn about things we can improve in AIESEC Estonia - develop heading for the future stage, see if there is somewhere a good case for personal development track. I also want to share what we have already great here - we have alumni fund, great national strategy, excellent usage of funds etc.

I also want to see very much other MCP-s and other friends from conferences, who have become good friends of mine. Knowing people who understand your experience and live a similar passion for your daily work is fulfilling, I get much out of such friendships.

I and others as well are going to keep the blog alive, so come back regularly to read about our adventures and learnings from IC. Also check IC Live, where other delegates leave their photos and videos and where you can see what is happening is sessions, what are our partners telling, see world famous alumni and interact with other aieseccars.

Enjoy,
Marjam

Building conferences

My 2 first months as the MC VP TM and the transition before have given me a LOT of new knowledge about a variety of topics, it’s quite an empowering feeling to know that this is just the start and I’m facing a challenging and exiting year ahead. One of the interesting experiences is building conferences from nothing. Sitting behind the table or on some nice grass and creating something, something that will impact the lives of the delegates and facilitators, and ofcourse not to forget the OC and agenda team.

One of the coolest experiences in my quite short agenda creation career was the Baltic Energy 2007 agenda creation. There are three people in the agenda team – Deny Lithuanian MC VP TM (originally from Slovakia), Kuba Latvian MC VP TM (originally from Poland) and me as the agenda manager. We have some kind of special synergy between us – we catch some word which one of us says and build on it, we complete the thought others have, we help to spell the English words in our own languages (yeah – somehow Estonian, Polish and Slovakian languages are with similar pronunciation of the letters), have loads of fun and manage to be effective and totally creative.

At the MC Lithuania office in Vilnius

I never imagined that conference creation can be so cool – you just start adding the bits and pieces, calculate the time, think out what is useful and necessary for the delegates. And you know what – this year I would really like to be a delegate myself, I’m just soooooo exited looking at the agenda. We did a great job in my mind as we created a theme for the conference – it’s going to be a treasure hunt, spiced with pirates and Caribbean feeling. Everything is according to the topic – session names, simulations, party themes etc.

Some challenging times are ahead as currently the faci application is open and the best ppl have to be selected, lot of communication with the OC, virtual prep of the facis is going to start in September and then in one heartbeat the pre-meeting, conference itself and post-meeting is following. If you want to become part of this experience and become a faci at the Baltic treasure hunt then click here to download the booklet and application.

Baltic co-operation rocks. I’m really looking forward to seeing you in Energy 2007 in Tartu, Estonia.

Many sunny hugs,

Kadi

Big changes are made of small changes

Every year the whole management board in all AIESEC countries and entities changes. This is so usual fact for us that we can forget that is actually behind that.

It’s a huge change, especially in national level where you are dealing with lot of legal responsibilities and working with great variety of stakeholders in a professional level.

The better the preparation from the last team the more effective the new team will be. Besides the transition you need all the outputs, documents with learning points about different events and periods of time, mind maps with responsibilities, examples of different documents to understand the past, agendas and preparation materials, budgets, project concepts etc. All these need to be organized in a logical order, of course and you need to do the same for the next team (if you care that your achievements are not lost, of course).

From MCP perspective the beginning also means a lot of legal issues that you need to take care of. During first months you need to visit numerous institutions to register and re-register people – bank, insurance office, mobile company, lawyer, Business Registry, Migration Office (if dealing with foreign MC members).

The knowledge you got from your predecessor is great, but it’s not enough to really understand the situation in details. So you need to meet personally as many stakeholders as possible to first introduce yourself, then discuss the past and more importantly – develop ideas for the future. By „stakeholders“ I mean our strategically important partners, umbrella organisations, funds who are supporting us, other co-operation partners.

Through these meetings a lot of extra value is developed both for AIESEC (and for yourself personally, as you will get a great network of people), very often new project ideas or innovation inside of current projects pop up. A random example from June when me and Inga had a meeting with Tehnopol, a business incubator and innovation centre. Their proposal was to start organizing more Klapid eest! events in company rooms and if needed drive people with special Klapid eest! buses to the spot. Currently we are developing the idea into new Klapid eest! dimension – practical entrepreneurship (more about that in the future). Also they are offering opportunities to promote our exchange program to the companies in their building.

If in companies people usually change one by one and you rarely meet a situation where the whole management (or whatever else) team changes at a time – then in AIESEC it’s quite a unique opportunity to practice working in a team where no-one has an advantage compared to others, everyone is new. Building the team culture and identity in the beginning is the foundation for the whole year. If you get some not healthy habits in the beginning and don’t ground your work on some universal principles you might lose a lot of energy later.

In MC we put a lot of effort on our first team days to understand what each of us wants from this year and especially from this team and coming from that developed the rules we all are following now, vision that drives us and values we feel connected by. All in all it has formed a culture in the team and has given us needed structure to work efficiently and not to put too much effort in trying to figure out what is the framework we are all acting in.

All in all I have to say that in MC you need all the past experiences you have. My years in EB and especially as LCP are showing their real results now. Among other things you need to know how to lead a team, prepare and run effective meetings, present AIESEC, be skilled in networking, manage your time, communicate with different types of people, see the big picture and be able to act strategically.

So all the big changes are made by small changes, the ones you make every day and that doesn't seem so be very big at the first sight. But after putting them together you end up with greater personality, unique skills, bigger network and stronger organization.

PS: Thank you for great AIESEC birthday! We enjoyed every minute of it!

MC male part hiking in swamps

There is not just the same origin - coming from the small town Valga - what unites male part of MC team 06-07. Both Siim and Deniss love nature. And last weekend we went to the 2-days hiking trip to the swamp area next to Peipsi Lake (Emajõue Suursoo Kaitseala).

Here are some visual highlights of the trip, which was both relaxing and impressive.


Modest, yet beautiful and surptising Estonian nature is something, which we are really proud of!



The total area of marshes and swamp forests is over fifth (around 22%) of Estonia's territory.



The old wooden house we spent a night in

Heroes of the nature :)

Transition - Transition

Helleluuja,

Pretty soon the "old" MC is leaving the place and the "new" one is stepping in the office...
For some people a sad day(the current mc), on the other mostly a happy one:) No matter the emotions, right now there are numerous transitions happening all over the organization, also in the MC.

Currently me and Inga are meeting every week and discussing about all the topics related to External Relations work and also about the role of MC. Doing it as practical as possible.

A great tradition by previous MC ER`s, are the dual meetings. We have done them with Inga for a while now. One of them is right here also. Me and Inga went to Saku together, to meet AIESEC`s fans there:)

People on the picture, from left: Inga, Kristiina (Saku Õlletehas, HR manager), Kerst (Saku Õlletehas, HR specialist and our alumni), Siim.

|Siim|