ESTIEM Magazine | Spring 2011 | Global communication

Global communication The master language

European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management Issue 40 2011/1 | ISSN 0874-5242 | Price 0 Euro | www.estiem.org

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INSIDE ESTIEM Introduction to ESTIEM The Board 2010 Interviewing the Board 2011 BrainTrainer Second Gear An Interview with an Entrepreneur STARTup Weekend: What a Wonderful Experience Let’s Talk about Business The Lions or Trainers. It Does not Matter Some Words about the 20 th Year of ESTIEM “Cereals, Juice, Fruit... and Feedback” The Glue of the Network “Go East” -Another Way to Support Members Committee ESTIEM Theatre Play University Relations What Motivates Professionals?

From Previous Project Leaders What’s Happening in Famagusta First Round of Exchange: Istanbul-Yıldız & Skopje The Baby is Growing up!

The Winner Article: How ESTIEM Changed My Life

INTRODUCTION Editorial President’s Speech Projects & Committees

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8 9 13 14 15 15 16 17 18 19 19 20 21 22 22 24 24 25 26 27 28 31 34 36

FOCUS Globalisation and Communication -Two Faces of Same Coin CRM and Social Networking It’s a Social, Social World Thoughts on Modern Instantaneous Global 38 Communications 39 Name of the Game: Do not Miss Integration Laughing with Grandad CAREER Top Acceleration for Engineering Careers 40 How to Prepare My CV 42 European Graduate Program at Texas Instruments 43 EXPLORE EUROPE

43 6 Months in Seville 46 Buenos Aires: Where Europe Meets South America PUZZLE Crossword Puzzle 48

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AGENDA

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Introduction

imprint

Dear ESTIEMers,

Project Leader Nazlı Oğuz Editorial Staff Nazlı Oğuz Melania Mateiaş

Design Public Relations Committee David Christian Berg Çağan Candan Anne-Laure Ladier Article Acquisition Nazlı Oğuz Melania Mateiaş Jelena Bajsic Advertisement Acquisition Melania Mateiaş Nur Özlem Öz Contact magazine@estiem.org ESTIEM Permanent Office Paviljoen B-6 P.O.Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Fax: 0031-(0)40 2473871 info@estiem.org www.estiem.org Disclaimer The contents may not always reflect the opinion of the publisher.

Any reproduction or copy is permitted only with the permission of the editors.

Our Partners

nazli oğuz

Layout Çağan Candan

Welcome to the 40 th issue of the ESTIEM Magazine!

It is a pleasure for me to be involved in the preparation of this special issue. It is amazing to see that 40 editions have been printed in 20 years, especially having a different Project Leader for ESTIEM Magazine every year. I would like to thank all the previous thirteen ESTIEM Magazine Project Leaders for continuing this Project until today and for making it possible for us to feel the pleasure of creating this special 40 th issue.

In my opinion, one of the most important reasons that made ESTIEM Magazine reach its 40 th issue, is the ability of the Magazine Team to communicate globally. People from different parts of the world come together - but not physically - for a common aim and create pages for the people from 25 countries to read. It is possible, again, thanks to the existence of global communication! As you may guess, this existence affects the world beyond this publication. But, what are these effects, and how influential are they? In this issue you will have the chance to read about the effects of global communication on business and academic lives. Moreover, communication-based businesses are ready to be discovered!

What more does this issue offer you? Most recent news from the Projects and Committees of ESTIEM, latest events, the winner article of the 1st article competition, career tips from experienced, successful people and companies, experiences of exchange students... Not enough?

Then, go to the last pages and test your knowledge on basic Industrial Engineering terms by solving the crossword puzzle! You will definitely like it!

Enjoy reading!

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Dear Reader,

Being limited to the basic transmission of the message between individuals in its initial form, communication has evolved throughout the centuries in a way that distance and time are not an obstacle any longer. Fire, drums, smoke, pigeons, heliographs, telegraph, radio, phone, satellites and finally “www” have steadily paved the path towards one of the biggest terms of today’s world: global communication.

The ability to communicate with anyone on the planet at any instant, various means enabling even cross-continental transactions easily and increasing mobility dissolved the limits in communication and created the grounds for quick exchanges and strong interactions. Feeding the opportunities for global cooperation and establishments, the effects of global communication have become visible in many fields including academic and corporate worlds.

Massive developments that occurred in the field of communication especially through last twenty years can even be traced within ESTIEM. Whereas the allocation of an entire day was needed to arrange postal matters during the first semi-annual meetings of ESTIEM, today, discussions are rapidly held and

several decisions are instantly made through online platforms in addition to various occasions across Europe that are accomplished by ESTIEMers to bring them together physically.

Did the rapid developments in technology “globalise” the communication? Or did the global communication enable fast developments? Either way, the influence of global communication for individuals and in different areas is indispensible.

Therefore, the ESTIEM Magazine decided to focus on the effects and importance of global communication in its 40th issue. Enjoy discovering!

In high ESTIEM, Berna Bas

BERNA BAŞ

President’s Speech

INtroduction

introduction

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Projects

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TIMES

T he Tou r n a ment I n M a n a gement a nd Engineering Skills (TIMES) is the largest pan-European case study competition solely for the students of Industrial Engineering and Management.

This prestigious, highly acclaimed event is the flagship project of ESTIEM. It has successfully been organised since 1994 and attracts around 1000 top European students every year. After Local Qualifications in 64 different universities and 7 Semi-Finals in selected cities, the winning team of the Final is awarded the title of Europe’s “IEM Students of the Year”.

Vision - Leadership through Engagement

Vision Seminar Series aims to improve the personal skills and capabilities of the Industrial Engineering and Management students in Europe.

The seminars contain a balanced mixture of academic lectures, workshops and company visits, which are combined with cultural and free-time activities of the organising city. Through those activities the participants of a Vision Seminar develop themselves both personally and professionally. Each year’s Vision Seminar series focuses on one main topic to which all Vision seminars are connected. The current main topic is Vision-Leadership through Engagement.

Europe3D

Within a 5-day seminar series the participants get a basic picture of the hosting country. A special focus thereby lays on national characteristics in politics and economy. Lectures given by experts from politics, science and economy shall provide the participants with a theoretical insight. On the other hand the Project’s aim is to integrate our guests actively in this seminar. Especially to include the practical aspect, the Project wants to cooperate with companies for excursions and lectures.

ESTIEM Magazine

ESTIEM Magazine, the official publication of ESTIEM, provides the perfect platform to reach the target group of approximately 47 000 students of Industrial Engineering and Management at universities all over Europe. The Magazine is one of the most important PR tools of ESTIEM. The ESTIEM Magazine is published twice a year

and distributed among Industrial Engineering and Management students, graduates and also professors and employees of companies across Europe, through the ESTIEM network. The Magazine is free of charge.

Summer Academy

T hrough the Summer Academy Project, ESTIEM recognizes the importance of and takes responsibility for providing knowledge of ethics and sound leadership among future leaders of Europe. It was set up to bring international students together during summer holidays to engage in open discussion, group work, debate and private study under a senior Academic Leader.

Student Guide

Student Guide is ESTIEM’s guiding service provided to students who are interested in studying Industrial Engineering and Management in Europe. Through an online database full with academic and practical information on cities/universities, ESTIEM promotes intercultural and academic exchanges within Europe. All the information is provided by students in our database. Student Guide also shares the experiences of the students who have been abroad for studies by collecting articles.

Brain Trainer

A need was discovered in ESTIEM to increase the personal skills, competences and knowledge of young people, which help them to be creative and entrepreneurial in the active European society.

These skills are extremely important if one wants to participate and actively contribute to Europe’s future.

BrainTrainer is a Project designed to develop leadership, presentation, business and human skills of the participants through professional trainings lasting one or two days. Its aim is to coach and develop the participants to become more professional and successful in their organisation as well as in their own future career.

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Committees

Public Relations Committee

The aim of the Public Relations Committee is to take care of ESTIEM’s outer appearance. The Committee is responsible for communicating the brand of ESTIEM and increasing the awareness both inside and outside of ESTIEM. The PR Committee works with several different tools to achieve this, for instance designing PR material, creating design guidelines, and working on press visibility. The work is done both on Central and Local level.

Knowledge Management Committee The Knowledge Management Committee does two things; updating/creating Best Practice Documents containing guidelines – from organising a project to how to be a leader – by documenting the collective experiences of ESTIEMers throughout time (available online on the ESTIEM Portal).

The Committee is also providing trainings on ESTIEM events and on local level to stimulate a continuous development of ESTIEM and ESTIEMers through knowledge transfer on a personal level.

Corporate Relations Committee The Corporate Relations Committee coordinates the relations between ESTIEM, companies and universities jointly with the Board. The Committee’s work covers a number of fields with the aim of improving and simplifying ESTIEM’s relations with companies and universities, such as updating cooperation proposals, creating and gathering results for different surveys or training people on how to approach companies and universities. The Corporate Relations Committee also plays an active role in supervising and supporting Projects and other Committees with regards to sponsors and academic supporters.

Financial and Legal Committee The Financial and Legal Committee’s role is to ensure ESTIEM’s compliance with all laws and regulations. It supports the Board, other Committees, Projects and Local Groups in all financial and le-

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gal matters. On one hand, it consists of experienced ESTIEMers and ESTIEM Alumni, who are motivated to provide advice whenever requested. On the other hand, active Committee members work on creating and updating Best Practice Documents, trainings, templates, etc. for all related topics. Since many people are unexperienced with finances and regulations, the Financial and Legal Committee aims at helping them to deal with them correctly. Furthermore, the Financial Controllers are part of the Committee. Every year, they perform the audit of the financial books of ESTIEM.

Members Committee The Members Committee supports the member groups of ESTIEM and provides information for those students who are interested in joining the ESTIEM organisation by forming their own Local Group. They guide the interested groups through the whole process, starting from establishing contact – via the guest and observation period – until fully pledged membership.

Also, Members Committee takes care about Local Group Exchanges, Requirements that Local Groups are expected to fulfill, tutoring Local Groups that are already accepted to ESTIEM and tries to figure out what Local Groups need on local level, cooperates with the Trainers on Tour to fulfill these needs that have issues about any possible topic (HR, PR, Recruitment, Fundraising) and with that tries to foster connections between Local Groups.

Information Technology Committee The IT Committee maintains the mail, intranet, and web servers of ESTIEM and coordinates all IT-related development in the organisation, such as regarding the IT backend system (.NET platform/C#). In addition, its members offer troubleshooting services and technical advice to ESTIEMers.

Grants Committee The Grants Committee supports ESTIEM’s applications for EU Grants and aims to establish and develop knowledge on public funding opportunities and their application procedures. It also wants to share the existing knowledge with as many ESTIEMers as possible and to support more and more Local Groups apply for an EU Grant for their events.

introduction

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Inside Estiem

Back in 1990,

students from five different countries founded an organisation, which they named ESTIEM: European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management. Its aim was and still is to establish and foster interrelations among European students of Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM).

After 20 years, it has grown into an organisation bringing together 47 000 students from 64 universities in 25 European countries, and is still growing.

All these universities offer courses in IEM. Based on this structure, ESTIEM forms links between students, academics and companies in order to create a Europe-wide, multi-level IEM network. Through involvement in ESTIEM, students get an opportunity to experience different cultures, take part in international projects and become friends with other ESTIEMers from all over Europe. Our belief is that the activities and Projects of ESTIEM give our members knowledge and experiences that are important for their personal development and the realisation of future goals. The students involved in ESTIEM incorporate both the skills required for modern business and an open-minded approach towards other people and cultural issues.

The decision-making body of ESTIEM is the Council, which meets twice a year, in autumn and in spring. Each university, represented by its socalled “Local Group”, sends two student representatives. The six members of the Board of ESTIEM are elected during the autumn Council Meeting. The Board is responsible for the management, coordination and administration of the association. It represents the association in all legal matters.

ESTIEM has continuously increased the number of its activities, thus being able to offer a great va-

riety of events to IEM students. Based on its activities, ESTIEM has attracted many active students, and the organisation has seen rapid growth since its founding. Major activities on a European level besides Council Meetings include the only European wide IEM case competition TIMES, the seminar series Vision, ESTIEM Magazine, Europe3D, Summer Academy, BrainTrainer and Student Guide (a database with information for students who want to study abroad); all led by Project Leaders who are elected at the Council Meetings.

Besides taking leadership positions in the Board and as Project Leaders, ESTIEM members can also take up more responsibility by working in one of the Committees. The Committees work together closely with the Board, supporting it in its tasks.

ESTIEM has seven of them at the moment: the Information Technology Committee, the Public Relations Committee, the Members Committee, the Knowledge Management Committee, the Financial and Legal Committee, the Corporate Relations Committee and the Grants Committee.

With lots of teams and tasks to choose from, there is a place for everyone. Naturally, the backbone of ESTIEM is the European IEM student.

Open-minded and keen on developing him or herself, he or she is eager to make friends and create contacts with different IEM students from all over the continent.

For more detailed information about our organisation and its activities, please visit our website at www.estiem.org. Here you can also find everything you need to know if you want to get involved. So don’t hesitate and start moving… you will not regret it! g

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The BOARD 2010 INTERVIEWING the BOARD 2011 Berna Baş President

Interviewed by Geoffrey van IJzendoorn President 2010 1. Have you ever watched the first episode of “The IT Crowd”? Either way, how will you bring/ maintain team spirit within the Board and on a broader level, within ESTIEM? No, I haven’t. I think the major catalysts for a strong team spirit are efficient communication, (similar) dedication of all team members and good coordination. Both within our team and on a broader level, keeping up the personal and proper communication, motivating people (in a way to meet their interests and benefit the skills) for both taking on responsibilities and pursuing their objectives, tasks, being structured while following up the work and involving people as much as possible are/will be the key factors for me in that sense.

2. Summarise your Board goals with three key words: Comprehensive

Supportive (towards all layers of ESTIEM)

Feasible

3. Could you give some examples of how ESTIEMers will benefit (more) from your Board goals?

Our Board goals in general aim at creating new opportunities and improving current services in a way that ESTIEMers benefit from them more easily. Improving diversity by both reaching to new countries and enabling interactions with the students of different academic backgrounds through expanded Network and stronger external relations, new and well-established -hence easy to benefitservices thanks to the proper inclusion of new

Projects and Initiatives together with intensified academic developments, stronger/more connection between locals and Central ESTIEM thanks to the goals aiming at higher support towards the Local Groups are a few specific examples to be named.

4. Where do you see ESTIEM in ten years from now?

I anticipate that we will have 6-8 new countries welcomed to our organisation, almost doubled number of ESTIEMers travelling to internal and external events, at least 2-3 new Projects/services and a greater budget with improved stability.

5. How has ESTIEM been affecting your life and how do you hope it will affect your life further in your Board year?

Very briefly: ESTIEM has played an important role in my life so far whereas it is the entire play itself now. :) During past three years, I got to learn m a ny t h i n g s w h i le meeting new people and saving many good memories. Throughout the Board year, I believe that these major effects will reach to its utmost level.

Inside ESTIEM

Inside estiem

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Max Steinmetz

Vice President of Activities

Alexander Peters

Vice President of Administration

Interviewed by Antti Mattila Vice President of Activities 2010

Interviewed by Harald Schmidt-Horix Vice President of Administration 2010

1. As you might know, the Vice President of Activities is usually the Board member who travels the most. How much are you exactly planning to be on the road during your Board year?

I know that I have to travel the most but honestly there will be a hard travel-competition this year. But I want to be almost on the road from the end of February till the end of August. Then I will make some further money calculations and hope that I’m not on the rocks.

1. When is the Portal going to be ready?

The development process of the new Portal is long and hard to predict, since it is influenced by a lot of factors. Most progress takes place during one of the many Coordination Meetings with the team.

The amount of problems that always arise during our work can definitely frustrate the process.

However, this is compensated by 20-hour working sessions, many litres of Coke Zero, plenty of pizza, and stupid internet songs on repeat.

Anyway, to come back to the question, the Portal is going to be ready at the end of the year of course. Though I assume the Vice President of Administration 2005, who is still highly involved in the development (!), said that as well in his Board year.

2. What do you find as the most challenging task of Vice President of Activities?

My most challenging task during my year?!

Mhmm, I think to wash and iron my clothes all over Europe.

3. If you had to describe your fellow Board members by one adjective starting with the same letter as their names, what would the adjectives be?

Alexander: adventurous Melania: modern Ilka: ideal Berna: Bambi-like Maria-Alexandra: masterly 4. If life was a game of Bingo, do you think you would have chances to win?

Honestly, I don’t like Bingo that much, but I’ll try to answer your question.

In my life so far I had a lot of luck also in situations where I was loosing my hopes (e.g. during the Board Handover Meeting in Serbia because of my health problems).

Most of the time my friends or my family helped me to find new solutions, new ways, new plans to come back on track. In my opinion, it is not a question of winning and failing in life, it is more about making the best out of the situation and trying to be happy. I can only give you the advice to enjoy each moment and try to get to know as many nice people as possible. In the end you can only find the success in yourself!

2. If you could go to any concert in history, which one would you choose?

From the ones I visited, it’s definitely hard to say. I think the Franz Ferdinand concert in 2006 is one I would like to experience again, although I saw them later for two more times. I also remember I was at Council Meeting Zürich when Röyksopp gave a concert in Amsterdam, something that still frustrates me when I think about it, so I would go for that one as well.

3. Describe your role in the Board. Which type are you?

As Vice President of Administration, you are already automatically the IT guy. But in the end, we all have different responsibilities and we work mostly together on our decisions. I guess my type is “The Dutchie”, making the stupid over-the-edge jokes, but also able to be serious when needed. I will also continue to promote Denglish (Dutch English) as ESTIEM’s second language :) 4. You are surrounded by smart, beautiful girls in the Board. Please comment.

Well, what can I say; it is a pretty nice travel company! Though, it’s a bit scary as well, I guess at

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some points Max and I need to use our joint forces to bring some peace in the chicken run...

self emerged by the wish to establish this position and show the benefits for ESTIEM of it.

5. Do you happen to know where my headphones are?

Somewhere between Trondheim and Munich, I think we can limit the search to that. Although I cannot give you an exact location, I can explain why you lost it. We already established Harald’s Law, which says that Harald can have a maximum of 1 (one) advanced digital device. Note: your laptop and phone are definitely not considered advanced. It’s probably your new iPad that made you lose your headphones.

Ah yes, and the big hole in your backpack probably did not help either.

4. Without looking it up from anywhere, please write down the names of the five Finnish Local Groups. (by Antti) Helsinki, Lappeenranta, Oulu, Tampere, Vaasa– the only obstacle always being how to spell Lappeenranta. Double p, double e, double a, how many of the doubles ;)?

Ilka Petersen

Vice President of Education

5. How has ESTIEM been affecting your life and how do you hope it will affect your life further in your Board year? (by Geoffrey) ESTIEM has given me many challenges and has been pushing me beyond what I thought I was capable of. It has changed me personally and improved me professionally, at the same time bringing some of my dearest friends to me. What I expect further in my Board year: to be surprised by upcoming challenges and to receive inspiration for new things in my life.

Interviewed by Board 2010 1. What has been the most important thing you have learned in ESTIEM? (by Terhi) How dedicated and hard-working people can be if they are really engaged to something. I am repeatedly amazed on how much ESTIEMers are willing to work to achieve great things, despite all the other responsibilities they have in their lives.

2. How far can ESTIEM stretch the line between serious and fun? What are the challenges? (by Harald) To me, the challenge is to combine both. While doing serious work, the fun should come along and the other way around. They are tied together and neither of the two sides of ESTIEM should be abandoned, keeping a balance between them.

3. How does it feel to be the very first Vice President of Education? (by Sebastian) To be honest, I bet it does not feel much different than to being in any other position in the ESTIEM Board. Everyone one of us is concerned about doing the best job we can to leave our footprints and push ESTIEM further. Only every once in a while I get struck by a wave of pressure on my-

Maria Alexandra Bujor Vice President of Finance Interviewed by Sebastian Geese Vice President of Finance 2010 1. If you were a bookkeeping software, which one and why?

Of course I would be my own unique software, MAB.exe, not a freeware mass product. I would be rather small, 160 KB and wouldn’t run too early in the morning. Always on top of the Task Manager, the user could change between 4 different languages, but be aware, if cold, the software freezes.

Inside ESTIEM

Inside estiem

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Hardware-wise I would prefer not to be operated 2. What is the best thing ESTIEM has brought with a mouse, but a cat. you this far?

If I look back at my ESTIEM experiences, I am 2. How long did you need for your decision to proud to say I have lots of wonderful memories that run for the Board?

I can share. Both on professional and personal levOne month and one second: one second to de- el, I gained knowledge and specific skills that will cide, one month to admit it to myself. certainly improve my further development. I also realised that everything is happening because of the 3. What are your PERSONAL, not ESTIEM- people involved, the regular ESTIEMers that torelated, goals for your year in the Board? gether make this association so unique. So I would I aim to graduate in July, start a master pro- say the best thing ESTIEM has brought me so far is gramme abroad in September and eat less chocolate. the opportunity of meeting these people and gaining their friendship.

4. What is it throughout 2011 that makes you most nervous?

3. What are your three favourite countries in This feeling you have while standing at the bag- Europe and why? gage claim and hoping that this is not the last suitAlthough it’s really hard to choose just three, I case coming out. would pick Greece, Portugal and Sweden. The reasons behind my choice: in Greece, the hospitality 5. Please describe your t wo Financial of the people was really impressive, in Portugal I Controllers, Jeroen Hoeks and Melodi Türkili, in enjoyed the landscapes and the relaxed atmosphere, three words each! and for Sweden, the lifestyle and general mentality Jeroen: wizard of finance; changed my perspectives.

Melodi: fairy of finance.

4. Describe each one of your Board members with two words.

Alexander: reliable and committed; Melania Mateiaş Berna: organised and efficient; Vice President of Public Relations Ilka: calm and professional; Maria-Alexandra: competent and understandInterviewed by Terhi Marttila ing; Vice President of Public Relations 2010 Max: creative and energetic.

1. If you were to be remembered as an ESTIEM Board member for one thing only, what would that be?

I hope I will be remembered for as many achievements as possible, but if I had to choose just one, I hope that it will be acquiring a new Partner for ESTIEM.

5. If you had to describe ESTIEM with exactly fifteen words for a a) student b) company representative that has never heard about it, what would you say? a) Student ESTIEM is an organisation, which enables you to explore Europe, develop professional skills and make friends. b) Company ESTIEM is an exciting European network of open-minded students with a professional and innovative approach. g

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Inside ESTIEM

Second Gear

Since the XLI Council Meeting Finland - where the first, nevertheless successful Brain Trainer Working Group was held - the basic Project team has been formed. A lot of new and old ESTIEMers volunteered to join us and to be a part of the high quality improvement that the Project conveys. It is always hard to see something that did not exist before in the beginning as a whole, but we will try to stick to the accumulated Best Practices to shape the Project and to explore the ways in which to expand.

The final decision about organising BrainTrainer events is the following. First of all, we have to try to have two of them per year, one for the late spring early summer and another for the late summer - early autumn session. We have received three applications so far for the first session and we hope that there will be even more for the second session. What I see as an important thing regarding these applications is that the Project Leader should be ready at any time for a consultation about the applications - but only if the Local Groups are sending them significantly before the deadline - because it is very likely that they do not know that much about what the expectations are, due to the fact that BrainTrainer is a fresh new Project. According to that, I encourage all the Local Groups to rely on pre-consultation regarding their application material.

To my greatest happiness, the first (officially the third) BrainTrainer since the establishment of the Project, has been organised in the city of ‘Pindakaas met hagelslag’, in Eindhoven, from the 22nd to the 28th of March.

So what is BrainTrainer actually?

BrainTrainer is a Project designed to develop leadership, presentation, business and human skills of

the participants through professional trainings lasting one or two days. Its aim is to coach and develop the participants to become more professional and successful in their organisation as well as in their own future career.

On the other hand it is not only about trainings and academic activities, but it also has an important focus on the cultural background and the development of the ESTIEM team-spirit. Visiting a foreign country, living like a native, experiencing the life of the folk, participating in traditional activities whilst sitting on the grass, surrounded by a bunch of ESTIEMers, relaxing and thinking about the future… Do you need more?

A significant part of this Project is represented by the implementation of methods and tools that facilitate entrepreneurial activities. The participants will have the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience on how to use their skills in front of a large audience with diverse backgrounds. Due to the fact that most participants have different nationalities and cultural backgrounds, we will have the opportunity to establish a platform for further cooperation between countries and different parts of the organisation, such as Committees, Projects and Task Groups. The collaboration among the participants is going to be an important tool to sustain the high quality of the trainings and to achieve one of the main goals of the event. All of the participants are going to be able to enhance the natural and successful way of dealing with intercultural conflicts.

In addition, if you are a trainer or a trainer candidate, it can help you immensely to improve yourself, since here you will have the opportunity to work for 1-2 days, apart from the 2-4 hours training per day, which needs more experience and self-confidence from your side. Nevertheless, a professional trainer could be a tutor for you during the whole event.

So what can you do if you are interested? Simply write an e-mail to the Project Leader (Csaba.

Hartmann@estiem.org) and share your interest. g

CSABA HARTMANN

What is actually going on in the newest ESTIEM Project? What have we done since the latest and the most awesome Council Meeting so far? How is BrainTrainer going to contribute to ESTIEM and what is it going to offer for you in the future, regarding your development? If you are curious, come and read the following lines!

Inside estiem

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Entrepreneur An Interview with an Entrepreneur Norberto Guimarães Vice President of Product at TheCleverSense and Co-founder at MojaMix.com 33-year old ESTIEM Vice President of Administration 2000

João Oliveira

Norberto, who lives in SiliconValley, USA, launched in 2009 a company called MojaMix, an online platform for creating your own food products that now lets you custom-mix your own breakfast cereals or snacks.

What have you been doing?

I have been working with Internet and technology start-ups for the last 3,5 years. I co-founded or worked during the early state of six start-ups. Before that, I lived in Frankfurt and worked for Continental Automotive Systems, doing a management rotation program for four years in business development. In the final years of my Industrial Engineering and Management studies, I lived in Gothenburg, Helsinki and Hamburg.

Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

I was always entrepreneurial, and it was not really a decision as such. I have many entrepreneurs in the family and being exposed to that lifestyle from early on certainly influenced me.

Entrepreneurship for me is a way of life, not a career choice among others.You can also be entrepreneurial in a large corporation, but in my experience I found it much easier to be that in a small start-up.

Having worked in a very large corporation and also experienced work in small start-ups, the two are worlds apart in terms of the work style, flexibility, speed of decisions and many other aspects. For me, the start-up world fits well with my character, as I like novelty, fastpace, can-do attitude, and a strong spirit of purpose.

How did you decide to launch MojaMix? During my MBA at Berkeley I joined another student who had been working on the business plan and we decided to launch it a few months later. The idea was about business model innovation using the Internet to enable mass customisation for food – an industry that does not have it yet. Like what Dell had done for computers, or Apple had done for music, MojaMix enables the individual customer to choose exactly what they want to have in their product, rather than a pre-packaged solution.

What made Silicon Valley such a wonderful place for entrepreneurs?

In my opinion it is about two things: the spirit of the people and the ecosystem.

Silicon Valley attracts many talented individuals from all over the world who bring with them a spirit of optimism and a belief in unbounded possibilities. The risktaking culture and openness to discuss ideas with others is an important part of that special culture that strongly promotes innovative approaches to old and new problems.

Secondly, there is an eco-system with many selfreinforcing mechanisms like: inspired entrepreneurs, specialists in many fields, world-class technology companies, cutting-edge research at two top universities in the area (Berkeley and Stanford), many mentors and advisers willing to help, and capital from angel investors and venture capitalists.

How did your experience as an ESTIEMer help you in this entrepreneurial adventure?

My experience as ESTIEMer was very helpful to: Have the ability to motivate others without using monetary or power incentives; Get leadership experience with diverse teams; Understand the meaning of the expression: “Work hard, play hard”; Know how to start from an idea all the way to execution; Be exposed to different ways of seeing a problem and learning to work in multinational teams; Visit and live in many countries (mostly due to ESTIEM) – openness to different mentalities; Work with a strong sense of purpose and belonging.

What is your advice for ESTIEMers who want to start their own business?

Make sure that you really can handle the extreme emotional ups and downs of a typical start-up roller coaster. It has to be in your blood.

Start early and don’t be afraid to fail. The earlier you start in your life, the less commitments you have, and therefore you can take more risks.You learn tremendously when you are in a start-up environment and it is a great experience along the ride. g

Corner

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Inside ESTIEM

STARTup Weekend?

What a wonderful experience...

Sometimes you might ask yourself: “Can I simply learn about entrepreneurship in a classroom?” The answer to this question is: NO! Entrepreneurship is mostly about risk, passion and hard work and you have to experience them to understand the real meaning of the word. Fortunately you have an opportunity to work on a business idea, in a creative environment, during a weekend of intensive work in an event format called STARTup Weekend. The concept, originally from the United States, is now spreading all over Europe. Luckily I had the chance to have two completely different experiences at STARTup Live: one as a participant and the other as an organiser.

Last November I participated in this event, hosted

by STARTeurope, an Austrian non-profit organisation, and it was a remarkable experience. The opportunity to develop an idea into a solid business model working with a multidisciplinary and multinational team was awesome.

I got an idea of how hard it is to be an entrepreneur but, at the end of the weekend, I was highly motivated to

start my own project and bring that energy to Portugal by hosting the event.

After several hours of meetings, calls and hard work, STARTup Live Porto #1 came to life on December 17th. During those three days the participants, mentors and experts worked together on developing ideas to a level where they can be presented to investors. It was wonderful to watch their final presentations in front of several investors. Please remember the following names: myplace2stay, Et.All, Mydeabook, Active TV and iCoach.

You are going to hear about them soon...

Do you have a business idea? Are you looking for new team members, feedback or investors? Do you want to learn more about start-ups? If your answer to any of these previous questions is YES, a STARTup Weekend event is the right place to you! Search on the internet, find an event near to you and go there! The experience will change your perspective about entrepreneurship! g

Let’s talk about business…

As I’ve witnessed that the number of successful young millionaires rises, I have asked myself if I have what it takes to become one. Or just to start my own company, and make it in the real world... Who knows? Now, don’t get me wrong - I have some good ideas, and great plans, but I never really knew where to start. Or how. Or when...

The ESTIEM Business Incubator is a brand new

Of course, not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, and many would be perfectly satisfied with working in a big multinational company. But I know that even more people would like to create their own Company! So hop aboard this initiative, because ESTIEM deserves Bigger, ESTIEM deserves Better, and ESTIEM deserves Business!

So let’s talk Business! g

DIMITAR GRCEV

When just a couple months ago, a friend and a fellow ESTIEMer, Maria Dureva, approached me with the idea of an ESTIEM Business Incubator, I immediately said: “I’m IN”, even though I didn’t know what it was in the beginning. But it all made sense. Imagine a network of people who share your ambition. Imagine a place where you can share your ideas, develop your plans and shape your future. Imagine events where people gather to create new things, and figure out how to make a living out of them. Now imagine you don’t have to imagine these things.

initiative which would feature a virtual platform for an entrepreneurship environment, where ESTIEMers can exchange ideas, share know-how and get feedback from more experienced people, as well as have some educational content about starting their own businesses. It would also create and encourage new and exciting events, which are business and entrepreneurially oriented. It would gather all the people that want to be all that they can be, and even more. Ultimately, it will increase the number of (successful) companies founded by ESTIEMers. If we have this, it would be so much easier for a good idea to sprout, and grow into something amazing...

Inside estiem

16

Training New The Lions or Trainers?

Trainers It does not matter...

melis özateş

We all know that the word “training” means more than these eight letters, don’t we? It is a wonderful world created for development. Now, ESTIEM is travelling in this world by the Training New Trainers wheel.

Being a participant of a Training New Trainers Event… I was able to feel that it was going to be a good challenge. A challenge for myself…

After some teambuilding activities and a gettingto-know each other session, the event started quickly. Being the first working day, we started with the definition of trainings and how to give feedback.

The feedback part was important for me because of its frequent usage in daily life in all kinds of relations.

We needed to know how to give feedback in order to improve as trainers. Then information-gathering and determination of needs and goals followed. This session provided me with systematically thinking skills which include seeing all aspects and getting them in a good structure. After all sessions of the first day ended, we grouped together with our buddies.

What a nice activity! We also had mentors who were observing us and giving feedback about our development. During buddy sessions we shared our feelings and expectations, as well as gave feedback to each other.

style fits me, as well as the ways to approach different kinds of people and satisfy all sorts of expectations.

Facilitation came next. Even though I have not yet delivered a training, I use the facilitation skills that I gained during this session. I am the Local Project Leader of Vision Ankara-METU 2011. We have regular meetings and I can capture and maintain the attention of the team, direct the discussion topic on the right way and I am able to solve conflicts in an effective way.

The third day was the last one dedicated to theoretical sessions, because on the following day we were going to have an Ankara city tour and deliver trainings. Day by day I was feeling that my self-confidence was rising. The third day was the most challenging for me. I know that most of you are just as afraid of having presentations in front of people as I was. On the third day, we had many presentations and a chance to get feedback. Then, based on this feedback, we improved and tried again.

After that, the preparations for the trainings we were going to deliver on the following day, started. We had partners, required tools and knowledge. Even when the university was already closed, we were still working on our trainings until late hours.

During the last day, after a nice city tour in Ankara, the excitement was increasing. After lunch, The second working day was more challenging. our mentor told us which part of our training was We started to learn and then apply the things learned chosen to be presented. Last preparations were right afterwards. Training elements and the learning done, and then we started.Yes, I had the feeling that styles were the first topic of that day. Learning styles the participants were listening to me and answering caught my attention. It is important to communicate my questions, and that I had the power to create an in the right way with people. I have realised which impact on them. I was able to capture their attention.

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That was cool! Of course I had some improvement points that I learned through my mentor’s and friends’ feedbacks. After all the sessions were done, we got our certificates and wrote some notes to our friends. This was an event which really gave me the chance to get to know myself better. It was hard to leave after the nice gala dinner.Some days later, we, as the new trainer generation within ESTIEM, were going to call ourselves “The Lions”.

Inside ESTIEM

important not to have any problems in order to focus on trainings only. I want to thank Local Group Ankara-Bilkent for organising this event. Of course there were also parties and possibilities to relax. The dance party, with a nice workshop from me, was great!

Our lovely trainers are the last people that I would be able to forget. I should thank all of them for their great effort.Very special thanks go to Berna, When it comes to the organisation itself, Louise, Aaro, Mircea (from BEST) and Kajsa. Cheers Local Group Ankara-Bilkent did a good job. It was for the Lions and next generations! g

Some words about the 20th year of ESTIEM from the Members Committee

During the Council Meeting Grenoble, a thrilling and inspiring event called International Night took place in our lovely youth hostel. International Night was organised in order to represent each culture existing in ESTIEM by showing their special food, beverages and any other cultural entities. During this night, great knowledge exchange on each other’s culture happened and the participants of Council Meeting Grenoble enjoyed a lot to feel and experience ESTIEM’s diversity first-hand.

As an active team member of Members Committee and also organiser of the International Night at that time, the meaning of that evening was rather special to me. We were aware of the fact that each Local Group has contributed to ESTIEM’s development and values in a different way. International Night was a unique chance for Members Committee to show all ESTIEMers that we are a harmonious composition of more than 20 cultures.

Another wonderful memory of mine is watching the ESTIEM video that was recorded in 1991, when ESTIEM was far from its current state, with 200 ESTIEMers in the same room. There are few words that can describe the observations and feelings we had while watching the video. That video was the true summary of how ESTIEM developed, evolved and became the lifestyle of many IEM students all over Europe within 20 years. It was a great historical journey.

These two memories mentioned above made me understand the huge significance of the 20th anniversary of ESTIEM and its celebrations throughout the whole year 2010. As an active ESTIEMer, the 20th Anniversary of ESTIEM represented an exceptional chance to salute our diversity, our common missions, our common history and what we have built together as ESTIEM. We all have good friends from all over Europe with whom we share the same spirit called ESTIEM spirit.

For me, the 20th Anniversary of ESTIEM was also a way to celebrate this unique value we have. g

gülfem Karcı

We all do have unique moments, experiences in our minds about the ways this organisation touched and changed our visions and even lives in many aspects. So, this topic requires some flashbacks that deserve further reading from you!

Inside estiem

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

“ Cereals, juice, fruit...and feedback mari haga RIMEStad

Just like we need breakfast every morning, ESTIEM needs its feedback to maintain forces. Think of this: you go to an ESTIEM event, have a great time and in the end you often fill out a feedback survey to help the organisers find out what went well and what could be improved. Perhaps, at that moment, one of the following questions runs through your head: What happens next? Usually this feedback helps the organisers improve, but what about ESTIEM events all together? How is the quality of the Vision series, Summer Academies and all the other ESTIEM events improving over time? What was the academic content of Vision five years ago as opposed to the one we have today?

”

We cannot forget that the fact of having a good response rate tells by itself if people are interested enough to want to share their feelings. Of course, none of this would be possible without that small effort of filling out the forms, and every time, the Feedback Team will be there to collect them and transform them into the mentioned Reports. After all, “quality is not an act, it is a habit” (Aristotle).

Jaime López Gutiérrez pablo bretonez

TIMES Local Qualification as first contact Though sometimes, these kinds of things are seen as a pure routine, their benefits are tangible. Perhaps my little experience on this field could be helpful: after organising TIMES Local Qualification Madrid 2011 with Carmen Muñoz as our first contact with The answer to all of these questions will be ESTIEM, we wanted to know how we performed brought by the new Feedback System that is currently as organisers: if there was anything we could have being worked on. This system aims to ensure the done better or if we took something for granted quality of ESTIEM events in a decided leap towards when we should have paid more attention to it (just excellence and continuous improvement. From to mention some possibilities). Also, we questioned now on, feedback will be collected from events in ourselves if the participants enjoyed it enough to a standardised way, with some general questions, repeat it, because, when working while focusing on a as well as questions related to the event. Thanks to goal, it is easy to forget about people’s feelings. today’s global communication, this will be done through an online survey, which will later allow In the end, the feedback reports we received the Feedback Team to create two kinds of Quality told us that, despite all our hurries, we were quite Reports: successful, and that with the suggestions and our self The event-specific reports which will be criticism, we could improve. a deep analysis of the opinions of the participants about one event in particular and they will be shared To sum it up: though it was tough, we would go with the event organiser. through it again... but we will pass that chance to the The general reports which will summarise next generation of ESTIEMers. Hope the feedback the results of one type of events (for example, surveys will help them! g Europe3D) that will be available to all ESTIEMers to show in an easy and visual way how the quality of the event type is progressing.

MEMBERS COMMITTEE The glue of the network

Most people know that ESTIEM has several Committees. Nearly everyone knows that there are quite some Local Groups as well. But what is the thing that links these two together?

Local Groups. How many of the current ones and their students really know each other? Not that many, in the end. The solutions to this problem are the Local Group Exchanges, in which the Committee assists. Any two or three Local Groups can decide to visit each other to share their ESTIEM related knowledge and experiences, and to get to know each other’s culture and local habits. At the same time, they can recruit new members and find the real ESTIEM spirit.

The Members Committee is the place for any ESTIEMer who wants to make sure that ESTIEM is present in different universities all around Europe.

If you want to make sure that it is possible to visit your favourite country in an ESTIEM event in the future, join the team and help or find a group in that On the other hand, Members Committee is not country. If you want to visit that country now, just only about responsibilities and finding brand new talk to your Local Group and suggest an Exchange. It can be you who makes it all happen! g

Inside ESTIEM

Terhi marttila

Members Committee is a group of people taking care of all the Local Groups of ESTIEM and making sure that they stay active. This Committee also tries to expand the ESTIEM network: to find new countries, cities, universities and student groups interested in ESTIEM, and help them in the whole process of becoming - and staying - an active member.

They take care of the Local Group Requirements to make sure that all the members are fulfilling their responsibilities and contributing to the network like they should.

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“Go East” – another way to support the Members Committee union. A nice evening with presentations and cultural exchange took place and we enjoyed the Latvian pyjamas, sauna and swimming pool party.

The next morning we continued our trip and drove to Tallinn, where we spent a really cold night in several bars and in the end freezing and sleeping in the car before the ferry brought us to Helsinki. Unfortunately our car didn’t completely survive the adventurous Polish streets in the area near Kaliningrad, so the Finns had to prove their car repairing skills. At one point during the trip Eighteen years later, in 2010 at the ESTIEM we decided to also “Go West”, so the return trip College in Berlin, while everybody was in a historic got settled through Sweden and Denmark. After mood thanks to the 20th anniversary of ESTIEM, the remarkable Council Meeting in Finland we some Germans wanted to do something similar - a had breakfast with an ESTIEMer in Stockholm. car-trip from Germany to the Council Meeting in Starched, we made our way to Gothenburg to give Finland, crossing as many potential and existing a presentation at their IEM general assembly and ESTIEM Local Groups. The “Go East Trip” was born! to meet up with ESTIEMers and one Alumnus. We hope that we could help the Local Groups in Gdansk, After weeks of planning, success and setbacks Warsaw and Gothenburg to keep up the good spirit, four Germans and one Chinese from Bremen, and Riga to develop the spirit for their observership Hamburg and Karlsruhe started their journey. After application at the Council Meeting in Karlsruhe! the Regional Coordination Meeting in Vienna we started our trip to Warsaw. After two nights we went Take your chance to spread the spirit in potential further to Gdansk. The next stop was Riga, where universities all over Europe and plan your own trip we met a big bunch of IEM students, who were glad maybe already to the Council Meeting in Ankara! g to invite us to the strategy weekend of their student

verena hohn

Back in 1992 some ESTIEMers wondered whether there are Industrial Engineering and Management students on the Eastern side of the former Iron curtain. The “Eastern Europe Committee” or rather the “Go East Project” got started and had its first success after 23 Finns from Helsinki made a trip through the Baltic States.

Riga and Kaunas got interested and joined the next Council Meeting, Budapest and St. Petersburg showed up shortly after, due to the efforts, which have been taken by the “Go East Project”.

Inside estiem

20

ESTIEM THEATRE PLAY

How could we celebrate the 20th birthday of ESTIEM in a very special way?

I have received a lot from ESTIEM since I entered, and I wanted to give something back, but something that would touch every one of you, ESTIEMers, something that could be “yours”, even after the end of the anniversary.

Thibault MAFFEI

I had to overcome two main obstacles being the responsible for this idea. First, we had to write the script, and then, rehearse with the actors in order to be ready. Writing the script was a challenge because I tried to gather a lot of ideas, and at the same time, it was a part that I could influence directly. After a With this thought running through my mind, lot of Skype chats and endless talks, as well as an at the end of 2009 an idea came to me for making amazingly productive Working Group in Council something we had never made before. I was in my Meeting Porto, we had our outline, and ideas for car, coming back home and, while I was looking at each different part. my agenda, I found a flyer for a theatre play. Then I thought – why not write one for ESTIEM? Based Then came the moment to write the final form on my own experience acquired during the three of the script. Rafael Ferrin from Local Group Seville years of involvement in this association, I wanted was completely dedicated to this task and wrote the to make something significant, to put a story into first five parts in Spanish. After translating them to perspective, where all the members of ESTIEM English, I added two more parts, and Karlsruhe’s could identify themselves with. Maybe some would script was “ready”. be able to recognise their own history, and it would Caught off guard by the time passing too fast, it be a pure coincidence… but that is what I secretly became extremely hard to coordinate with thirteen wanted more than anything.

European students to have rehearsal time in order A few days later, I was chatting on Skype with to teach them the basics in terms of improvisation, my best friend João Barata from Local Group Lisbon, behaviour on stage, voice… With only one general who really loved the idea. After he pushed me a lot, rehearsal, we went on stage on July 3rd, as planned. we presented our initiative to the Board 2010, which The performance of my actors was truly great, and accepted the idea on January 22nd. I must admit that they did it with a lot of passion. I was really proud of without João’s support, this idea might have never all of them. seen the light, and he truly was the one who saw the Due to the achieved success, the President potential of it. and Vice President of Activities of Board 2010 Soon after the Board’s approval, João and I wrote approached me in order to bring this Theatre Play an open call via mail from Trondheim in order to to the Council Meeting Finland. I accepted, being gather interested people. I must admit that most of aware that the script was still unfinished. Therefore, I them felt strange about the whole idea, saying that we finished it, adding the three other missing parts at the were engineers and that creating a theatre play was end (most of them were created during my holidays, foolish. But, can’t engineers be creative sometimes, while talking with ESTIEMers). Most of the actors and go off the beaten track? Moreover, the project from Karlsruhe’s representation managed to come had been initiated by a Portuguese and a Southern to Finland, and they knew the basics for acting. The French person: a lot of similar Latin ways of thinking most difficult thing was, once again, the coordination in an association that had been initially formed by of rehearsal time. Despite not having the opportunity Germans and Dutch people… It would definitely to have a general rehearsal in Finland, we went on lead to something unusual. However, I had a red date stage on November 9th, in Helsinki. on my calendar - the 3rd of July, Karlsruhe. That was the place where we were going to present it.

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Inside ESTIEM

As a director, I was completely dependent on the actors’ performances in both representations and I must say they performed extremely satisfying.

I also gave them a lot of freedom in their roles’ interpretations, but I was concerned with the clarity of the idea their character had to transmit.

Furthermore, I was personally dealing with the narrator’s voice, music, sound and light, and was mainly backstage.

This adventure has been extremely fulfilling and made me a lot more mature. I learnt to be a leader, to make choices and I would not exchange this experience for anything in the world. Despite the sleepless nights I spent and the restless moments I had, in the end, everything paid off. It was a personal challenge, and I doubted from time to time about my ability to carry it out, but my friends always supported me, believed in me, and showed me their trust. They know how thankful I am to them. They Frankly speaking, both representations can hardly made my project something great, not just for me, be compared. The differences in the atmospheres but for the association, and that was my deepest wish. during the two days of the representations, in Karlsruhe and Helsinki, the places we used for the Once again, I would like to thank all the people plays, and the different actors that were in the first who took part in Theatre Plays, whether it was in the show and not the second, made each representation process of writing the script, acting or organising. completely unique.

They made the Theatre Play come true. g

UNIVERSITYRELATIONS Have you ever wondered how many universities are represented in ESTIEM? How many more of them which have Industrial and Engineering Management programmes are there in Europe? I know the answer to the first question (it is 65) but not for the second one (it is surely a lot). ESTIEM cooperates with some universities, but there are still many opportunities for us to develop new contacts.

Firstly, if your Local Group has not even tried to contact your university for its activities, you can be

Secondly, you are always welcome to join the team if you are interested in working and having fun with us. Get active by becoming a member of University Relations Task Group and develop yourself in the fields of fundraising, communication and teamwork!

You will highly improve both your self- development and ESTIEM. Don’t forget, universities are a step away! g

nur özlem öz

In the past few years, ESTIEM has become more aware of the importance of cooperating with universities, in addition to companies, so actions have been taken in order to improve our relations with universities. First step was initiating the idea. Then, during the Council Meeting Finland, University Relations Initiative found its place under the Corporate Relations Committee. Today, University Relations Task Group establishes and maintains university contacts and supports Projects and central ESTIEM in regards to academic support from universities. Keep reading and find out your own and Local Group’s opportunities!

the one establishing the first contact and maybe even a long lasting mutually beneficial relation between your Local Group and university. The only thing you need to do is to contact the University Relations Task Group and then all the information and assistance you might need will be provided. Furthermore, if your Local Group is already in contact, then why not extend this good relation for central ESTIEM? Don’t forget that ESTIEM can provide unique opportunities for promoting these universities and their Study Programmes within our network and it is up to you to build a bridge between your university and the central ESTIEM by contacting University Relations Task Group under the Corporate Relations Committee.

Inside estiem

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What motivates professionals?

David Brandstädter

The headline of the 2010/11 Leadership through Engagement Vision posters leads to quite some questions: what are professionals? What is professionalism? And what does motivation have to do with engagement? Don’t worry, this article is not an academic abstract to respond all the abovementioned questions, but it rather incites you to think about these questions and find your own, personal answers.

Professionalism is definitely not an achievement solely attached to the business and academic world. Furthermore, I can tell you that from my experience with the Vision project so far, it is also not utterly requested by them for a simple reason: professionalism can be misunderstood as decent behaviour, politeness and courtesy. As this sounds like a checklist your mother in law might assess you with, it also encourages a passive, aligned bias limiting the development of a prerequisite for successful business: fresh ideas popping out of an engaged employee’s mind. Professionalism as antagonism to entrepreneurship? Not really, if we redefine its meaning. Being a professional employer nowadays means motivating your employees, enabling engagement and sharing the fruitful results of any measures taken.

No one would deny that it is the people who matter in the European economy. We cannot provide mass of cheap operatives because we do not have endless resources, and even high-end technology is no longer a synonym to ‘Made in Europe’. But people are what we can compete with. Positively committed, highly motivated and experienced job holders, productive and beneficial because of their engagement, not their occupation. It’s not an easy way to build up a team of engaged staff but even harder to plagiarise.

You do not know what engagement is? It is this feeling in your chest which makes you move. It is quite likely the reason why you are reading this article and why you are an ESTIEMer. Be a bit different than others, take this one additional step and share your motivation with others. Quite a professional attitude, isn’t it? g

Join a Vision seminar!

1st – 6th of May 2011 23rd – 28th of May 2011 June 2011

Vision Seminar Groningen Vision Final Conference Istanbul Vision Coordination Meeting

From Previous Project Leaders

João Barata

1. Why did you decide to become a Project Leader?

That decision was made right after my participation in Summer Academy Hungary 2008. That was indeed a life-changing event: the atmosphere among the participants and the knowledge gained under the Academic Guidance of Professor Dietrich Brandt made me realise that I wanted to commit myself to this Project.

2. “Oh damn, why did I become a Project Leader?” Your worst experience, please!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be the Project Leader that gave Summer Academy its welldeserved Alumni Meeting, even with some great involvement and desire of a couple of ESTIEMers towards such event. That was definitely the greatest failure of my Project Leadership.

3. “Great, I became a Project Leader!” What was your best experience during your term?

When I had the first glimpse on Sine Taymaz’s article in the last issue of the ESTIEM Magazine.

After reading it, I understood that the participants of the 2010 Summer Academies felt the same magic that I did when I was a participant. Mission accomplished: pass on the magic!

4. What did you gain from being a Project Leader and what did you add to your Project?

Being a Project Leader is all about two things: timeline and communication. I’ve learned the importance of being strict on time (and the consequences of not being able to) and how things work amazingly when you keep on communicating with everyone who is also committed to the Project.

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Inside ESTIEM

5. Define your Project with a colour and fruit.

Red Raspberry!

7. Is there anyone you want to thank for their support during your time as a Project Leader ?

First of all, my family, for giving me the 6. What was your favourite activity or opportunity to grow as a person because of my unforgettable experience in ESTIEM ? involvement in ESTIEM. Second of all, every single There are too many of them! Participating person I had the pleasure to work with during my in Summer Academy Hungary 2008, organising Project Leadership: I wouldn’t have been able to Summer Academy Portugal 2009, the Activity Weeks do it without their support. And last, but not least, in Bucharest, Budapest and Karlsruhe... However, Thibault Maffei: a good friend when going through the best feeling was winning the elections for TIMES good times, the best friend when going through bad Final location in 2011 with the Lisbon team. It felt ones. g like the Lisbon ESTIEMers managed to resurrect what was once, a long time ago, an inactive Local Group.

2. "Oh damn, why did I become a Project Leader?” Your worst experience, please!

I had to select forty participants out of a total of two hundred applications (!) for one event. That was hard and took me a full day, since I would have loved to have everyone there!

3. "Great, I became a Project Leader!" What was your best experience during your term?

Definitely participating in Europe3D Sweden and Europe3D Finland. The atmosphere was great and the events had the full “Europe3D experience”.

Seeing your Project events turning out that well feels rewarding!

4. What did you gain from being a Project Leader and what did you add to your Project?

Besides even more enthusiasm about working in ESTIEM, I also gained more experience in leading a team and working with different people from different cultures. I think that is something really useful, and I can only recommend everyone to consider working in ESTIEM. It is a useful experience combined with the fun of working with ESTIEMers.

Looking back at my term, I am glad that we applied for two grants for Europe3D events. Although we did not get these grants, we learned from it and I hope to have that improved this year.

5. Define your Project with a colour and fruit.

I think Europe3D can be better described as a fruit juice: different fruits (the three dimensions, different cultures, ESTIEMers and nonESTIEMers) all mixed together in one great taste!

Europe3D can be described in colours with the three primary colours: cyan, magenta and yellow.

6. What was your favourite activity or unforgettable experience in ESTIEM? Getting elected as Project Leader during Council Meeting Zürich was great because of the feeling that a majority of the Council puts the trust in you as a Project Leader.

7. Is there anyone you want to thank for his or her support during your time as a Project Leader?

Yes, Dana Nastase (Europe3D Project Leader in 2009) for passing me the Europe3D spirit, Antti Mattila (Vice President of Activities 2010) for the support throughout the year, my Europe3D team and of course the organisers for organising four unforgettable Europe3D events in 2010! The Grants Committee should be thanked as well for their work on the application for two grants.

I had a great year with all of them, and I am happy to continue working for Europe3D as Board responsible for the new Project Leader Öykü Tomris from Local Group Ankara-Bilkent. g

Alexander Peters

1. Why did you decide to become a Project Leader?

After my first event, Europe3D Switzerland, I did not just become active in ESTIEM but I also became a fan of Europe3D events. I was an organiser of Europe3D Holland and after that I wanted to do more in ESTIEM. Becoming a Project Leader for a Project I really liked was therefore the next logical step.

Inside estiem

24

What is happening in

ABUBAKAR SALEH

As a historical port city and as the most important centre of scientific activity of Cyprus for the last 20 years, Famagusta has managed to be the most valuable gate of the island opening to the outer world. Situated in a point of importance both in Cyprus and Eastern Mediterranean, Famagusta adapted itself to the changing world and still significant. Famagusta, host of the largest port of North Cyprus, today hosts the largest university of the island; Eastern Mediterranean University, which for sure is behind the city’s success.

The ESTIEM spirit in our Local Group members is an extraordinary one. Our lovely island embraces us in generations for only a specific time, as our life train passes by it. Yet the ESTIEM spirit never dies!

It all started when a very active and ambitious group from our Industrial Engineering department decided to join the ESTIEM network. They felt that their normal university life was in lack of something. As they were asked for reasons of joining ESTIEM, they said: “Our university life is great but we want to develop more professionally, and we have extra motivation, energy and time for that”.

They agreed that ESTIEM is their gate to Europe

Famagusta?

and the key to professional self-development; in addition to that they will have a new profile in them with new international students from many different countries.

As for any other Local Group, the ups and downs of Local Group Famagusta were on track from 2008, when Council Meeting Famagusta took place. It was an unbelievably amazing one, as explained by ESTIEMers who attended it. This glory left a great impact both inside and out of the Local Group. A lot of newcomers arrived at the Industrial Engineering department, and many international ESTIEMers expressed their desire to attend Local Group Famagusta’s future events.

By the end of the Council Meeting Famagusta in 2008 our activeness curve sloped downwards, many of the old ESTIEMers graduated and things were not going as good as expected. At the beginning of 2011, Local Group Famagusta is again back on track. Starting with an Activity Week, which will be held at the beginning of this summer, and a plan to organise a forthcoming Council Meeting. The secret to this rebirth was again the new ESTIEMers that recently arrived in our Local Group. So make sure you schedule your calendar in parallel with Local Group Famagusta. g

First Round of Exchange: Istanbul-Yıldız & Skopje

selin uzunoğlu

Once upon a time there was a Local Group in Istanbul, called Istanbul-Yıldız. This Local Group needed motivation. Their Local Responsible, Hazal Aydın, found an extraordinary way. She was thinking: “If we could organise an exchange, our motivation would get higher”; she started working on organising the exchange. Finally she found a Local Group which was similar to Local Group IstanbulYıldız. This Local Group was Skopje.

We made many plans, we changed our program about a million times since we wanted to do our best for Local Group Skopje. Although our program was a bit too busy, the participants found thetime to rest after an amazing exchange in Istanbul First, they had a workshop that was really important to Turkish people. We taught them many things about the traditions in Turkey. At the end,

all ESTIEMers used what they learned at the Turkish night.

Our sight seeing plan was a short one. For the evening we prepared enjoyable games. One of thegames we had was a negotiation game. The participants had only two cans of energy drink toexchange and get valuable thing(s) in return.

The winner group managed to change their energydrinks for a water pipe and a bag. Our second game was a Real Adventure Game. We discovered the Historical Peninsula and Taksim together. The game’s prizes were old fashion hats.

Then we came to the last night when we exchanged gifts. We received a flag to be signed by us. I think there are no two flags that fit together better. Then a brilliant idea came to our minds, organising a “blind date game”. The organisation

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team’s names were written on papers and each participant took one paper. We spent a really good time before the “Gala Dinner” and “Angels and Devils Masked Party”. Everyone had their tridents and became an angel or a devil.

Inside ESTIEM

There was only one thing to do for the last day: enjoying the “Turkish Bath”. Then it was time to “say goodbye” but instead of that, we said “see you very soon”. g

The Baby is Growing up!

The hard core of the team are the Database Responsibles. All these Responsibles have their Local Groups and contact persons, who are usually the Local Responsibles. The Local Groups are informed about what to write and how to write it in a given time span. Afterwards, Database Responsibles give periodic feedbacks to their Local Groups. As always in ESTIEM, communication is the most enjoyable part to me - both with the Local Groups and with my team members. Seeing the articles with valuable and satisfying input given by ESTIEMers makes all of us proud of our work.

The ones who were present at Council Meeting Finland might remember us from the penguin dance, the penguin mascot, or the flyers with the penguin logo. During the Coordination Meeting held by Local Group Istanbul-ITU, many bright ideas were generated, the penguin idea being only one of them. The main actions we took at the Coordination Meeting were: revising the responsibility definitions, setting up the updating procedure for the finished articles and moving the

first finished article from the wiki to our external pages. The Coordination Meeting lasted for three days, during which we tried to get the most out of work and fun. The lucky part was that there was the IFISO Meeting in Istanbul during the same period, so we had the chance to join them in the evening activities.

Council Meeting Finland was a successful event for the Student Guide Project after which we welcomed our new teammates. Apart from the penguin theme, the Student Guide organises contests at Council Meetings to promote the contributions to the articles. Local Group Zagreb was the winner according to the votes and the prize of five ESTIEM overalls were given to them.

I liked to call the Student Guide Project a baby when I took over as the Project Leader in Council Meeting Porto. The guiding idea was not new, however; forming a database and collecting information through a wiki system was only one year old. Now the baby is almost two years old, many articles are finished and published on www.studentguide.estiem.org and we have already started to deliberate on how we can develop the Project further.

The discussions are continuing and the upcoming Coordination Meeting will have a big importance for the future of the Project.

Student Guide is standing as a student made service, not only for ESTIEMers but also for any student interested in studying in Europe. Just go and discover the universities in Europe simply by visiting our pages. g

Fatma Ece Er

Student Guide Project can be seen as the Project which is “in touch” with all Local Groups, especially Local Responsibles, the most within ESTIEM. The Student Guide team aims to provide practical and educational information to students about IEM studies in Europe through an online platform, with the help of ESTIEM member Local Groups. The team and the Local Groups make commendable efforts in order to generate informative articles about IEM specialisations at different universities, as well as living practicalities in these European cities. Apart from these, we are collecting study experience reports from ESTIEMers who have been abroad for studies under the name of ExplorEurope. The ExplorEurope articles are published online and some of them are published semi-annually in the Magazine - just take a glance at the last pages of it.

Inside estiem

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The Winner Article of ESTIEM Magazine Article Competition

jelena bajsic

How ESTIEM changed my life…

“Climb, climb up sunshine mountain Where the little breezes blow.”

That is the well known song Which lines I am proud to know.

It was ignorance before ESTIEM That made my bliss all aglow.

Europe was only a map Which secrets it did not show.

Many countries, nations unrevealed Like wonderful books left unread.

Much knowledge, life and skill unborn In the blank pages of my head.

Turn, turn your back on it, you sing?

In a wild flash I obeyed the line.

That first look into ESTIEM Gave my sky a different shine.

Again, I climb, climb up sunshine mountain Where the little breezes fly.

Yet now, they lead me to the summit Made for you and I.

The 1st official article competition of ESTIEM Magazine was organised between the 18th of January and the 10 th February 2011, having the topic: “How ESTIEM changed my life?”. The participating articles were evaluated by a jury consisting of five members. Jelena Bajsic’s poem was designated the winner of the competition. As ESTIEM Magazine team, we would like to thank again all the participants of the competition and congratulate the winners.

The ESTIEM Magazine Team

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Global Communication

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Globalisation and Zeljko Tekic

If I should use only one word to describe the actual state of the World, that word would be “globalisation”. Globalisation is the most important trend at the beginning of the 21st century that brings people, cultures, countries, and markets closer than ever before. It shapes all aspects of economy, culture, society, politics, and technology. Although it can be defined in a number of ways, the term “globalisation” essentially describes the increased mobility of goods, services, labour, technology and capital throughout the world, making it “flat” [1].

The term globalisation is relatively new, but the process it describes is rather old. Globalisation started with the first caravans, horse carts and ships. It was accelerated by development of railways, highways, container ships and airplanes.

However, the progress of telecommunication and maturity of the Internet made globalisation what it stands for today. This consideration leads us to two conclusions. First, our civilisation is based on technology and without technology there would be no global phenomenon [2]. Second, globalisation and communication are inherently linked, and the level of communication could be taken as a measure of globalisation.

Communication today means globalisation and convergence. At a technological level, print, photography, film, telephone, broadcasting, satellites, and computer used to be separate and independent not long time ago. Today, they are rapidly merging in the global communication network. This network is everywhere around us – wireless or wired. Over $1.5 trillion worth of optical fibbers connects the world [1], while, since October 2010,

3G signal is available on the top of Mount Everest [3]. On the other hand, a universal communicator has emerged – the smartphone. It assimilated and integrated functionalities of telephones, cameras, radios, televisions, and navigation systems.

Smartphones are music players, remote controllers, gaming consoles, wireless routers and modems, as well as printed maps and news publications.

The way people communicate in the era of globalisation is blurring boundaries in economics, politics, and culture. The Internet with its 1.9 billion users in 2010 [4] and sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Wikileaks represent a highway of global communication. Google is processing more than one billion searches per day [5]; 105 million Twitter users are tweeting an average of 55 million tweets a day [6]; people sent more than 90 trillion e-mails in 2010 [5]; Facebook has 540 million users who spend about 700 billion minutes on the site every month [7]; Wikileaks has published 3,890 secret diplomatic documents from all over the world... All this has changed important aspects of our lives, globalising the local and localizing the global.

From economical stand point, industries in fields of communication, media, entertainment and many other that have been developing separately over forty years are combining today to service the new multimedia environment. Old corporate giants are dying, but some new players are emerging. Apple, the third most valuable publicly traded company [8], once was a synonym for computer industry. Today, after iPod, iTunes and iPhone, it is much closer to entertainment. Information and communication are becoming very important and

Zeljko Tekic is a Teaching Assistant at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad. He is also teaching at the IEM Department on the same Faculty.

He went to the Faculty of Technical Sciences, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

From 2006 to 2007, he went to the University of Nottingham for his PhD studies. These studies were granted to 14 best students of Serbia, and Zeljko Tekic was one of them, graduating from the Faculty of Technical Sciences with the GPA of 10.00 out of 10.00.

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Communication – Two Faces of the Same Coin valuable in the market. Google is the 9th biggest company on the Fortune 500 list. It is 3 times as valuable as the world’s biggest airplane maker, Boeing, and it is worth 30% more than the world’s largest drug firm, Pfizer [8]. On the other hand, Facebook has recently received a new round of investment that increases the value of the social media firm to $50bn, making it worth more than Time Warner, eBay or Yahoo [9].

The impact of global communication on cultural life is perhaps the most visible. Names like Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Justin Bieber are well known around the world. They are idols of millions of young people. Complemented with global brands like MTV, Nike, Diesel, Coca Cola and MC Donald’s they set trends and shape global pop culture. Politically, global networks, such as CNN and BBC earlier, and social networks and web sites like Wikileaks today, present the way to cross national borders, break communication monopolies and diffuse information. Foreign news, entertainment and educational programs are available at many places and almost impossible to control.

Examples of the last American presidential elections, where Barack Obama’s campaign team relied on technology and social-networking sites to connect with voters better, faster, and cheaper than ever before and won [10]; and riots and political changes in North Africa, where Twitter and Facebook activity helped spark the Egyptian revolution [11], demonstrate all power of social networks and global communication.

Globalisation is changing the way businesses are organised, how they compete on markets and acquire innovation. To survive and win, companies need talent, ideas, components, products, and services from best sources all over the world.

For example, the new Boeing 787 is composed of 132,500 engineered parts that have been produced in 545 global locations [12]. At the same time consumers are changing as well. Information access,

networking, global view, experimentation and activism move the system of value creation from the company centric to the consumer centric, with co-creation as a main paradigm [13]. Our world is becoming increasingly service based. Firms have been moving from a transactional to a service relationship with customers, and value is shifting from products to solutions and experiences [13]. In this context, a shift in strategy, management, production and value delivery is needed. All these aspects of business are highly influenced by and dependent on different features of (global) communication.

Therefore, global communication is one of major concerns of every international business.

In the changing environment international businesses, the biggest, but even very small companies need to communicate with people from different time zones, in different languages, with different attitudes and values, with people of different cultures. Global communication is and will be dependent on technology. The exact form of global communication is in continuous change, and it adapts to the permanent changes of technology. Development of ICT and numerous applications enabled immediate, 24x7 and almost free communication across the world. By shortening time and distance gap, technology brought people closer. New technology platforms enabled people to always be connected with thousands of others, enabled to share ideas, knowledge and information in real time. By building more and more sophis-

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ticated translators, even the language gap will be eventually closed.

However, communication is more than just technology. It is coloured by social attributes, attitudes and thought patterns of different cultures.

Global communication is at the same time intercultural communication. By its origin, the world communication means to share, divide out, to make common [14]. To be able to do that in a particular country language is necessary, but not sufficient.

Intercultural communication is about understanding history, different cultures, behaviours and customs. Therefore, cross-cultural training will be becoming more and more important.

What about the future? It will be more globalised. Despite the talk of a new, flat and global world where information, ideas, money, and people can move around the planet faster than ever before, more than 90% of all phone calls, Web traffic and investment are local [15]. This is only the beginning of true global integration.

In the following 20 years, in the era of three Os: biO – nanO – infO, technology will change dramatically; communication as well. In order to grow business, to acquire best talent and to be recognised among thousands of employers, distinct products and services companies should build people-centric communication strategies. Not to focus on market segments, costumer or employee groups, but on each and every person. These strategies should be creative and innovative, based on dialogue and transparency of information. Creativity is a way of distinguishing itself in complex and chaotic environments. New means and communication channels should be used, formal and informal. In the era of growing complexity, innovations will be needed to solve problems of information overload and “spam communication”. It will be crucial to manage chaos. Transparency of information will be necessary to build trust between institutions and individuals, while dialogue will create qualitatively new levels of understanding between them. As always, it will be important to do something new, rather than giving more of the same! g

1. Friedman, T. L. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

2. Katalinic, B. (2010). Engineers for knowledge based society. Annals of DAAAM for 2010 & Proceedings of the 21th International DAAAM Symposium, Katalinic, B. (Ed), DAAAM International, Vienna, Austria 2010 3. The Guardian (2010). Mount Everest gets 3G mobile network, retrieved on 10.02.2011, from: www.guardian. co.uk/world/2010/oct/29/mount-everest-3g-mobile-network 4. ****, (2010) www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, retrieved on 05.02.2011 5. ****, (2010) http://edudemic.com/2010/10/the-ultimate-guide-to-internet-statistics/, retrieved on 15.02.2011 6. * * * *, ( 2 0 1 0 ) . w w w. h u f f i n g t o n p o s t . com/2010/04/14/twitter-user-statistics-r_n_537992.html, retrieved on 15.02.2011 7. Bleicher, A. (2010). Social Networking: Friended, I EEE Spect r um, Ja nuar y 2011, I EEE, ret r ieved on 05.02.2011, from: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/ networks/social-networking-friended 8. ****,http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/performers/companies/biggest, retrieved on 25.02.2011 9. The Guardian (2011). Facebook’s value swells to $50bn after Goldman Sachs investment, retrieved on 10.02.2011, from: www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/ jan/03/facebook-value-50bn-goldman-sachs-investment 10. Fast Company. (2009). The world’s most innovative companies 2009, retrieved on 10.02.2011, from: www. fastcompany.com/fast50_09/profile/list/team-obama#self 11. CBSNews. (2011). The face of Egypt’s social networking revolution, retrieved on 10.02.2011, from: http:// www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/12/eveningnews/ main20031662.shtml 12. Vest, C. (20 08). Context and challenge for twenty-first century engineering education, Journal of Engineering Education, 97(3), 235-236, retrieved on 10.02.2011, from: www.engr.wisc.edu/services/elc/21st_ Century_Engr_Educ_editorials.pdf 13. Prahalad, C. K., & Krishnan, M. S. (2008). The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks. McGraw-Hill.

14. * * * * , w w w. e t y m o n l i n e . c o m / i n d e x . php?term=communication, retrieved on 10.02.2011 15. Ghemawat, P. (2007). Why the World Isn’t Flat, Foreign policy, March/April 2007, pp 54-60

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and

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Social Networking What does social networking mean for business today?

Social networking sites not only provide the ability for users to communicate with each other but also enable users to find individuals with same interests and life style. As social networking sites continue to grow in popularity, firms can no longer solely rely on traditional mediums (print, radio, TV, etc.) to enforce public perception of their product - today the UK Internet ad spend is equal to the ad spend on TV. At the heart of any business are customers, and social networking represents an opportunity to build even more mutually rewarding and candid relationships with those customers. But for organisations to realise tangible business benefits, they need to better plan, manage, and measure their social networking efforts. This is precisely where Customer Relationship Management (CRM) intersects with social networking. When social networks and CRM work together well, businesses gain the ability to better listen to customer conversations and engage social customers on their

The new version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Dynamics CRM 2011 has many features that enable defining connections of customers on the fly, which is valuable information, which later can be effectively used for marketing campaigns. A CRM solution, which is tight to Social Networks allows business professionals to monitor and analyse customers’ conversations on social networking sites, and as a result, provides real-time status updates about their products and services. Companies are able to fetch feedbacks and tweets directly into Dynamics CRM, enabling customer services to report, react and resolve issues. It includes the same easy-to-use interface and industry leading analytics that allow organisations not only to capture data but also make sense of it. Marketing professionals can identify their most influential advocates and better manage the brand. Sales professionals can discover new leads and zero in on key data points, and customer service agents can proactively identify and address issues.

Social Networking for Marketing Perhaps the biggest benefactor of social networking is the marketer. Social networking provides marketing organisations with new insights into their brand, innovative ways to execute and track grass-roots marketing programs, and new methods to turn fragmented online conversations into actionable insights. To do so, though, organisations will need ways to monitor, understand, and participate effectively in those conversations and leverage them in conjunction with existing marketing programs and processes.

Social Networking integrated CRM solutions

BariĹ&#x; Taptik

As social networking sites explode in popularity, the hype and interest continue to build.

Facebook alone topped 500 million users in 2010 and even the movie about this social explosion is in theatres. But sorting the fact from the hype can be a challenge. Social networking at a high level is described as the convergence of technologies that make it possible for individuals to easily communicate, share information, and form new communities online. But the big question today is not what social networking is, but rather what it means for businesses. While social networks began as the province of individuals, businesses are now trying to capitalize on this trend as they search for specific strategies and tactics to derive value from it. If used effectively, social networking sites can enable marketing professionals, salespeople, and customer service agents to develop meaningful relationships with customers in new ways.

own terms while managing and measuring their efforts to do so. Social networks, by bringing in otherwise untapped and unmanaged online conversations, also help organisations get closer to a true 360-degree view of the customer so they can further optimise their marketing, sales, and customer service efforts.

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can help organisations increase the awareness of their brand and products and improve market sentiment by: Identifying key influencers in each product area to increase brand awareness.

Automatically tracking public online conversations of interest within the customer system of record.

Rating and tracking the sentiment of specific social networking conversations.

Tracking online reaction to new announcements or developments.

Keeping track of competitors by monitoring their public online conservations.

Using social networks as a source of market research by creating online focus groups.

Leverage online channels Marketing via social networking, helps marketing organisations engage social customers while managing and tracking their efforts by: Quickly spotting developing PR or perception issues and addressing them with pinpoint responses.

Authoring social networking messages directly from the customer system of record.

Automatically tracking responses to social networking messages or conversations.

Seamlessly integrating social networking channels into existing marketing methodologies.

Launching online marketing programs that engage social customers in their preferred environment.

Seamlessly tracking responses and leads generated from online marketing efforts.

Social Networking for Sales In sales the hunt is always on for the next deal, and social networks provide a rich prospect-

ing resource. Unlike traditional channels, social networks provide the added benefit of allowing a salesperson to gauge a prospect’s interest through their online profile and find possible anchors and connections before communication is initiated.

Knowing your customers interest in a sport team can help you opening a conversation and find common points. Social networking sites can also provide a wealth of information about customers and their interests, lifestyles, and attitudes - data that might otherwise be difficult or impossible to acquire. Paired with the right analysis capabilities, publicly available customer data from social networking sites can provide an additional layer of insight into customer preferences, behaviours, and sentiment, which can lead to more successful sales interactions.

Social Networking for Customer Service Increasingly, customers are using social networks as an important channel to find, receive, and communicate information about the products and services they use. This change in customer behaviour creates both opportunities and challenges for customer service organisations. Social customers expect service delivered through their channel of choice, often with a personal touch. And they are certainly not afraid to express their views or displeasure. Social networks provide a rich source of unfiltered feedback and a dialogue that can be invaluable in identifying service issues and spotting opportunities for product improvement. Thus, used correctly, social networking channels can help customer service organisations be more effective and create value for the business. In addition, social networks provide an interaction channel that not only helps remove perceived barriers between customers and companies, but may also reduce the cost of service. However, when all is said and done, social networking is another communication channel and something that should not be done in a vacuum. It needs to be embedded in the everyday processes of customer service organisations and

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delivered in a consistent manner for the true benefits to be realised.

The Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help customer service organisations better monitor and identify customer issues within Microsoft Dynamics CRM by: Proactively monitoring social networks for key words, complaints, and issues relating to a brand.

Monitoring chronic complainers to identify top potential service issues.

Seeing social networking conversation history right within the customer system of record.

Tracking the number of influencers and followers of a given topic or issue.

Provide efficient multi-channel service By the very nature of its opt-in and shared interest structure, social networking can help customer service organisations address customer issues in a highly efficient manner. As these customers turn to social networking sites for help, organisations have the opportunity to help them en masse, for example, by posting information in relevant communities or providing self-help capabilities through the Web. This in turn can reduce call volumes and has the additional benefit of increasing satisfaction among the growing mass of customers who expect this kind of service. A Social Networking enabled CRM solution can help service organisations better address customer needs by: Making knowledge base articles publicly searchable so savvy customers can find information themselves without burdening the contact centre.

Addressing new issues by posting a response online quickly and automatically tracking responses.

Leveraging the power of community-driven support as an additional channel.

Instantly creating a case in Microsoft Dynamics CRM from online conversations and addressing the case through an established problem resolution process.

Tap into new feedback channels Social networking sites enable organisations to track service issues in more places, thereby gathering more intelligence on their products and on customer experiences with them. With social networking, customer service organisations have an opportunity to leverage unfiltered feedback to drive business improvement. For example, user communities may provide the first public feedback on a new product release, or usability hiccups may appear as an increase in user questions posted online. This kind of information can help customer service organisations create a valuable feedback loop, helping them improve the business while at the same time improving customer satisfaction.

This can help service organization analyse and better leverage customer feedback right: Tracking feedback by monitoring and participating in customer communities.

Identifying the most talked-about issues and using them for improvement in products and services.

Creating a mechanism to elicit feedback from customers and creating an idea repository.

Conducting aggregate analysis and identifying key customer service trends and patterns. g

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It’s a social, social world momcilo Radovanovic

So, I woke up one morning, a few days ago. As soon as I opened my eyes, I just picked up a smartphone from the floor, turned on Wi-Fi and checked my e-mail. Brushed teeth, did regular toilet activities, and turned on a laptop so Windows can load on while I’m preparing breakfast. With my fingers greasy of jelly, I was checking out my Facebook, Linkedin, Netvibes (rss feeds) and Serbian news website called Blic. So, just some pure basic stuff, necessities as I usually read other things when I get to the office. After that, I dressed up, put my headphones, turned on the mp3 player (not a big Apple fan) and went to work.

friends, met a lot of new interesting people... It felt so liberating.

In one moment, my phone beeped, informing me that I received an e-mail. “Wow“, I thought, “Isidora Strboja. It’s been a while since we had such an official correspondence. Let’s see what she is up to”. “Can you remember or imagine a time period when you have not used the internet, the mobile phone or any other telecommunication tools?” “Haha, what? No way, this is impossible” was my first reaction. “What am I, a caveman? Ok, Momcilo, try to remember something, there must have been a moment in the recent past when you didn’t use any form of telecommunications tool”.

After a few minutes and one missed bus stop, I remembered the first weeks of my study abroad in the United States.

We live in the 21 st century.

Yes, we are too addicted to the new technology. Our lives would probably be richer if we would stop checking out our Facebook accounts five times a day (I know it is not just me!) and actually start seeing more people than profiles. But how would any international organisation function effectively without internet (I will not even imagine without a phone)? Imagine applying for a Vision Final Conference – sitting in your dorm room in Ankara and nervously waiting for the postman to bring that letter from Oulu.

And that is not nearly as bad as sitting in your office in Oulu and waiting for the postman to bring the subsidiary’s monthly report from Ankara or, even worse, your subordinate’s results of a market research that will determine will you launch that new product on the Turkish market or not.

For a week, I had neither a phone nor a computer. No texting, no calling, no facebooking, no emailing. From this point of view, it feels almost ridiculous. And then I tried to recall how it felt in that period, and felt great. My social life was not any worse without social networks. On the contrary, I was going out every night, I had quite a few

And then I started thinking – “Screw Facebook, screw e-mails, screw Linkedin. I am a free man, not a slave to the modern technology. Yeah, from now on, Momcilo, you will stop your addiction to communication tools”. And then I got to the office, read all of my e-mails, had some phone calls and a regular Skype meeting with my mentor from Budapest. Yes, my strong decision crashed the same moment I started operating that day.

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Of course, face-to-face meeting is of a great importance for doing a business, but no one said that those faces cannot be on the different sides of the screen. So, instead of waiting for the postman, you just turn on, let’s say Skype, and you are able to show that market research results not just to your boss in Oulu, but also to your colleagues in Shanghai and Sydney from your office in Ankara. So, instead of organising an expensive trip for every time you need an international business meeting, you can just pay a few euros for extra options on Skype. One of the good sides of ESTIEM is that we technically grew up with that. Anyone who was ever in an ESTIEM Committee or a Project knows what email & Skype mean for efficient work. Members Committee Angels managed to do a great job working for a few months without ever meeting each other in person.

Although for you it might be a regular thing to do, be sure to mention your online conferencing to your interviewer while applying for a job or a trainee program, which you will probably find on Entrypark or some other similar website. While thinking of that, also “write” a mental note to update your LinkedIn/Xing profile. Being in Human Resources industry myself, I can tell you that for many HR professionals LinkedIn is their primary source of headhunting – on one place and by just one click they can see your previous experiences,

connections and recommendations. My friend got an offer from Google that way, true story. He has had good recommendations, very well written and in a catchy summary, all internships well explained, updated reading list and his own presentations from several seminars uploaded on his profile.

Recruiters also use Facebook quite often, so take care of who can see your pictures from the bar last night or from a Council Meeting after party.

Although dozens of your friends might “like” the picture of you running naked in the snow, your potential employee might “dislike” it, and that is a good reason to explore privacy options. Via social networks we are being constantly watched and it can bring us both fun and worries, it is just on us to try to get the best out of it.

As we have seen, modern telecommunication systems are not simply trends or caprices as some people may think - they have become necessities, an integral part of both private and business areas of our lives. Be sure you keep yourself constantly updated because in this fast growing industry yesterday was not a day, but closer to a year ago. g

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Thoughts on

Modern Instantaneous Global Communications

Communicate literally means to make together, or bring together. And now, we have the technology to bring together any persons on the globe through electronic means. Or do we, really?

Sencer Yeralan

I have spent almost three decades in classrooms teaching university students, occasionally giving seminars or invited talks. In the past, for the most part, people came to the classroom to listen. Now, more and more, I am recorded or web-cast. People don’t need to come to the auditorium, but simply watch and listen later and from afar. I suppose it was the same a few hundred of years ago, when, if you wanted music at your party, you had to invite a chamber orchestra to play in one corner of your room. Now you may play broadcast or recorded music. Music from an MP3 player that is connected to an amplifier is much less expensive and much less complicated than trying to accommodate a small group of musicians. So we have the technology to bring the music to the audience. Or do we, really? Why do people still go to concerts then?

Why do cruise ships and nice restaurants employ live music?

A person interested in any given topic may quite easily log in to a university site and listen to a lecture given by an expert. In fact, there are world-renowned researchers whom are abundantly reachable on the web sites of the many prestigious universities. You “make together” the expert and the layman. Or do you, really?

The first point I make is that “making together” is not just sight and sound. As Master Yoda might say, “talking to someone far does not simply make communication“. Could the young Skywalker have reached his powers if he had watched the Master from a web-cast? Fiction, you say. Alright, would Philip settle for Alexander to follow Aristotle on the tube? And if so, would Alexander still be Great?

If we interpret “make together” as “hear or watch each other” then, yes, modern technology made global communication possible. If it was today, Aristotle could have raised a thousand Alexander’s, all of whom potentially Great. But if “make together” means “bring together,” then modern technology falls short.

There seems to be a conundrum in modern education. Many might submit that, fuelled by neoliberal ideas that force it to be profitable, education is actually changing at its core. Hence, although university is becoming attainable by the masses, it is not the same university we knew, we admired, and we came to respect. If you like the perturbed versions of the university, then you may embrace it and be blissfully content. But then again, not all would. There are those who would argue that the new communications-at-a-distance model of the university causes more harm than good, since it undermines what is truly the spirit of education. How can the spirit of a mentor like Master Yoda reach the masses through packaged sight and sound alone?

Perhaps a mix to the operation of the modern university model is to be considered here. The new university may mass-produce graduates to serve as the clones of Jango Fett, while the Jedi use the true and time-tested methods of one-on-one mentoring to raise their knights. For each Jedi knight, there need be thousands of Jango Fetts, marching in unison, not unlike Chaplin’s moderns in Modern Times. Yes, the technology-assisted mass production of learned-from-a-distance graduates is cheaper per student than mentoring the select few. Bits of authentic silk to the truly committed, and heaps of the cheap polyester that are given to the masses as unconvincing but attainable substitutes. So the mixed model works and produces. But not without leaving a somewhat bitter afterthought, no?

Is it all that bad? Well, perhaps not so. With the advent of mass-produced modern-communicationsbased university education, we may finally relieve

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the better universities from giving the masses the more pedestrian skills. The worthy universities may once again return to mentoring, relinquishing the pressure to be economically profitable in the short term, and lifting the heavy burdens of forced expediency to graduate so many. Their mission, not to dish out titbits of information or simple knowledge, but part understanding and wisdom to guide our species – a species undoubtedly in dire straights. University education would then possibly mean more. Fewer but more true-to-the-cause Jedi knights, that is.

Somewhat related to our discussion is the effect of instant communications and easy access to encyclopaedic knowledge that, perhaps, has the appearance of converting any laymen with a mobile computer and a network connection into a self-claimed able agent. In fact, the wireless network seems to be the first true competitor to the divine being, for the wireless network is practically omniscient and omnipresent. Such a human-machine-network combo may even pass the simplistic academics version of the Turing test. But how many engineers so clad in techno bling-bling can design the next killer app? Dare I say none? None, since that, which does not exist on the web cannot be retrieved from the web.

Let us call this second point the lopsided incarnation of perceived knowledge. Our layman may quickly recite the capitals, populations, areas, etc. of countries in any given continent – and in reverse alphabetical order if asked. But how many laymen may formulate and propose eloquent concepts such as plate tectonics? The more mundane points are at the fingertips, but at the expense of a partial loss (at best) of notion and understanding. Seemingly paradoxically, the more the populace knows the less wise it becomes with these technological novelties. Is this the fault of technology? Honestly, no.

But it is the fault of those who are quick to adopt it without due contemplation. At the present, however, when we see that it is wisdom that is being

depleted, one questions if all this haste is wise.

A third point that occurs, as one contemplates communications, is how quickly humanity has become so smug in these domains. How short-term progress is so hastily and prematurely deemed a full and unqualified success. Communications today may seem instantaneous. What happens in a few centuries when humans colonize the planets?

Depending on their relative positions, communications with even our closest neighbour, Mars, will take an hour or so. How then, would you say communications are practically instantaneous? Yes, someday there may be faster-than-light communications, but a sequence of new issues with such new developments is also to be expected. By definition, the current state of affairs is always doomed to remain transient at best. Such are reasons why we must not be so smug, not so quick to claim that technology is here to stay, to become the terminus that solves all problems, and is to be adopted forever. Such global haste has happened before, and its undesirable consequences are deeply engraved in our collective memory. Some, like anthropogenic climate change, constitute some of the thorniest concerns of our times. A big mess with which we must now come to grips. Perhaps, this is also why pride is considered a sin more than a virtue by most societies, and by most holy books. We must not be so narrow minded, nor so quick on the diving board to take the plunge into self-gratification.

So ultimate global instantaneous communications made possible by current technology? I think not. Expect more changes. Be mindful of the negative effects as much as the positive. Currently, the true “make together” is still only possible in person and in the fullness of time. We may one day get to the ultimate communications, but I am afraid, for the time being, we must be humbly patient. It is perhaps wisest to master the current technology, take advantage of its offerings, but always keep in mind the wisdom of the likes of Yoda are within reach only in person. g

Sencer Yeralan is assistant dean of the College of Technology and Innovation at USF Polytechnic in Florida, U.S.A. Dr Yeralan has a wide range of interests from embedded control and open-source software, to machine tools, production lines, applied probability theory, complex dynamical systems, and sustainability. Recently, he has become more involved in popular science, giving talks at various conferences and appearing on radio and TV programs.

Focus

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sinan kayaligil Si n a n K aya l i g i l i s a professor a nd depa r tment head of i ndust r ia l engineering at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He received a B.Sc. degree in industrial engineering in 1978 and holds a Doc. Eng. degree in Computers and Electronics with specialty on Operations Research from the Louisiana Tech University. His areas of interest are make-to-order manufacturing, lot scheduling, and planning in modern manufacturing systems.

His articles have been published in The International Jour nal of P roduct ion Research, Computers and I ndu st r ia l E ng i neer i ng, I IE Transactions and the I nter nat ional Jou r nal of CIM.

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Name of the Game:

Global communication has introduced new styles of business that had not been around at the times of electronic data interchange (EDI).

Communication not only supports access and brings the unreachable closer together, but converts activities exclusively performed on networks. Purchasing via computer networks in the UK for example, has grown from 33.3 percent in 2008 to 51.9 per cent in 2009 according to the Office for National Statistics [1]. The rate of increase is overwhelming and one can easily see that it is widespread. It is not unlikely to find all sorts of exchange (for which, banking has long been in the forefront) taking place in a digital marketplace in the near future. This will force companies to be dearly seeking knowledge based management actions in all areas of their business activity.

Well, volume and percentages in networked business grow rapidly but, does this colossal phenomenon justify economies of scale in all forms of business? If price was the only criterion for the buyers, that could make sense. But as a recent Economist article discusses [2], a small business (or a network of small businesses for that matter) might be perfect more than ever in meeting a very specific need. Global communication helps buyers to become aware of a business’s existence. Just like home designs to taste discussed at small architecture agencies devised with gadgets of the global communications age, I expect specialized cooks (following the individualized diet hype) collaborating on the Internet with distant dieticians or web-based, simulator-aided photography and film making tutors will get abound soon.

Brand and image management have grown into new forms of business. Global communication has awakened business to create lots of unprecedented transferrable goods. Most of these are intangible.

Take the record holder of the European champion titles, Real Madrid football club. It has appointed a local company to represent its interest in Asia [3]. Their manager announces that they will be present in Singapore “not only to play a match but also to run different activities related to football through Centurion (their partner), as academies, as camps and as clinics.”. In the Real Madrid FC case, it is not simply the transfer of players or the football know-how, but, to a much larger extent,

Do not miss the integration the diffusion (and selling) of the reputation built upon the brand management activities.

Communication is not limited to the flows in all directions as the streams of data in multitude of forms. It provides a shared environment. This medium being on a global scale has given businesses a chance to enjoy synergy through working with the others. They took advantage of opportunities in sharing resources in getting things done.

Collaborative design, planning, manufacturing and service delivery are seen as “sharing of a working environment in a joint effort to accomplish a task” [4]. Collaborative design areas are mentioned to extend “in architecture, software and movie making” [4]. If subjects of design are so farfetched, one can imagine the breadth in collaborative manufacturing and all-inclusive functioning with virtual factories/organisations. Name of the game is the management of integration. It is a true challenge in developing countries like ours, for it repudiates quick (and less-than-needed) fixes.

In the 27 EU member countries percentage of enterprises that made on-line purchasing (23%) is more than double of those that received online orders (11%) in 2009 (reported by European Commission Eurostat)[5]. This asymmetry is indicative of the uneven intensity of collaboration across business organisations even in the developed economies. As larger companies can hold a greater variety of inventories, advertise on third-party sites and afford developing and maintaining large and eye-catching websites, they are more likely to be called to collaborate.

Global communication, on the other hand, has been the main contributor in the impacts leading to the demise of local business in many instances.

According to an Economist article reporting a recent study by four economists at the University of Chicago[2] travel agencies were among the businesses that were literally struck. “In the ten years to 2003 the number of travel agencies that employed more than 100 people grew by 60%, from 109 to 174, and the number of tiny ones fell by a third, from 18,186 to 12,865.”

In short, communication shrunk the wide world as we knew it a few decades ago, into a rather small

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sphere by its global reach, and this has affected businesses more than anything else that impacted them in the meantime. Is it all for the betterment and flourishing of the humankind through businesses? Time will tell. g Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Ms. Nazlı Oguz for her help in gathering the many resources that could not have all been used for brevity in this short essay.

Laughing with

Focus

References : [1] http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Product. asp?vlnk=6645 [2] http://www.economist.com/node/16478931 [3] http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1113491/1/.html [4] http://www.slideshare.net/memibeltrame/embracing-collaborative-design-acceptance-of-ux-in-the-development-process [5] http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/ index.php/Information_society_statistics

Grandad

It is not only that Europe has come together wonderfully in the last twenty years (with difficulties, of course, but it is far better than the alternative) but the world continues to move on at an amazing pace. Globally the manufacturing world is now a small place and managerially too, we have to get to know each other. Because travel is far easier than it was. All this impacts the teaching of industrial engineering and management greatly and it tests the agility of our universities to not simply keep up with it, but to be fit teachers of it to keep you on top of it. What has become a delight to be involved in, is there is now an emerging network of professors - European Professors of Industrial Engineering and Management (EPIEM) tussling with these questions. There are many new, young universities trying very hard to establish what they should teach and how they should teach it, under

the general IEM heading. Even within old universities there are new faculties pondering these questions and even within old faculties there are new and young professors facing these issues and wanting to structure well what will be their future life’s-work. Just like those ESTIEMers 20 years ago, they want to network.

And they need to. You all know that because many universities teach in a modular way, it is possible for many of you to do part of your degree at a different university to the one that will in the end award you your degree. Just from the human support point of view in many cases that could be handled better than it is, but it raises a whole host of issues from the teaching point of view. For a start, how am I supposed to put my hand on my heart and sign you off as worthy of a degree from our university when my colleagues and I did not plan, deliver and assess some of your studies? We – and here I am meaning the different universities – do need to know what and how we all teach. And when we do know that, we might begin to develop things in a co-ordinated way, that over the years we at university A have focused a lot on this aspect and teach it very well, and you at university B have focused a lot on that aspect and teach that very well, how about if we collaborate?

Impossible? Let me let you into a secret. In the end the oldies retire, and the youngies, who are the ones wanting to have all these conversations, become the ones who run the show. I have a secret wish. At the end of my life, the final words I would like to hear are “don’t worry grandad, it’s OK. We’ve got it sorted!” g

jim platts

Twenty years ago, a realisation that the world was a small place and we had better get to know each other, fired a generation of ESTIEMers to travel around, talk through the night, sleep on each other’s floors and find out what life was like in each other’s shoes. And they discovered that it was not just interesting, it was fun! Generations of ESTIEMers since have continued to prove it is true. Ten years ago, a nagging feeling that we should be learning things in Europe about how to be good Europeans prompted the development of the ESTIEM Summer Academies on cross-cultural working, and deeply human leadership. And they too have stood the test of time. There is an even bigger question - in fact two questions - now surfacing, and they are what should we teach?

And how should we teach it?

Jim Platts, a lecturer (Manufacturing Engineering Tr i p o s) a n d e x a m i n e r (Manufacturing Leaders’ Programme) from the university of Cambridge, spent 23 years in industry, was a partner in the consulting engineering practice Gifford and Partners, 1981-6, MD of Composite Technology Ltd 1986-9 and is now a lecturer in the Institute for Manufacturing. His interests are design and manufacturing, particularly skill-based manufacturing, and a concern for ethical leadership.

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Career Top Acceleration for Engineering Careers Executive, part-time Master’s Programs for Industrial Engineers at HECTOR School of Engineering & Management

Bild Irina Häge

The HECTOR School of Engineering and Management, named after Dr.h.c. Hans-Werner Hector, co-founder of the software company SAP, is the Technology Business School of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). What is it that makes the HECTOR School so unique in the huge market of business schools? Get an insight by an Interview with Irina Häge, Program Leader at Alcatel-Lucent Germany GmbH and an alumna of the HECTOR Intake 2008 in Information Engineering / Embedded Systems Engineering.

1. Why did you decide to participate in a Master’s Program?

I wanted to complement my technical background with knowledge in the domains like finance, accounting, project management and law in order to gain holistic view of business.

2. Why did you choose HECTOR School for an Executive Master’s?

I appreciate a lot that HECTOR school is attached to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, which is internationally recognised. T hus, HECTOR School can offer insight into cuttingedge research.

3. When you started the Master’s Program you already had a degree and had worked for some years. What were the advantages of studying and working at the same time? Was it very difficult for you to combine working and studying at the same time?

I wanted to enhance my knowledge and professional skills without making any interruptions in my career. Studying and working at the same time allowed me to apply what I learned immediately in the business environment. In addition, I learned a lot from my fellow students who shared their experiences they had within their working environment, their companies and the industrial sector.

Working and studying at the same time can be

very exhausting and stressful but it feels great to master this challenge.

4. A lot of international participants join the Executive Master’s Programs at HECTOR School. Do you consider the international environment an advantage in regard to building an international network?

By working together with fellow students from US, Russia, Middle East and Asia, I learned a lot about different cultures in a personal and professional environment. Today, working in an international environment, I can profit from this experience in my daily business.

5. What do you consider a special feature of the HECTOR School?

HECTOR school offers seven different programs which are tailored to different domains in engineering. Working in the sector of Information and Communication technology, I chose the program “Information Engineering” and I gained domain specific knowledge, in example related to services and regulation in the domain of telecommunication or economics of networks. This focus on different domains is very specific to HECTOR School.

6. Last but not least: How far did the Master in Information Engineering help you develop further in your professional and personal career?

Thanks to the holistic view on business and personal skills, which I gained during my studies, I was offered a position as a Program Leader. Today, I am responsible for several hardware-related projects during the entire product life-cycle: from the product idea to mass production and worldwide deployment. I manage an international crossfunctional team with members from Research and Development, Product Management, Supply Chain and Procurement spread over Europe and China. g More information about the HECTOR School:

www.hectorschool.com

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How to prepare my CV? A quick recipe for creating an attractive Curriculum Vitae from Procter & Gamble.

P&G is a truly global company, we employ 135,000 people all over the world, and among those are more than 140 nationalities. Quite logically, perception of a CV varies from culture to culture and so does the format that it is being presented in; and that excludes the personal style of writing of each of us. This means that there is obviously no ‘one size fits all’ curriculum, but there are definitely a lot of tips that can make writing a high quality CV easier and result into a more attractive, concise, and informative document.

What are the employers looking for? They are looking for a simple, specific and diverse CV. You have put yourself in the mind of the screener of your CV. They get hundreds and hundreds of CVs and have to selectively dedicate only about a minute to your specific CV. Yours has to stand out – be different from the others; ‘Mr. Everybody’ is not so interesting. Think of your CV as of your business card - make it simple and easy to read, do not go beyond one page if not necessary, and highlight the most important parts. Be specific and give examples of your achievements, provide clear and short explanations. Do not throw your whole life into your CV; be choiceful, select those experiences that can really be relevant! Remember: employers are looking for evidence, not intentions.

Display your potential and enthusiasm, motivation; but the evidence has a value of thousand words.

B efore w r it i n g a CV, you have to take a step back. There are two questions that you should ask beforehand: ‘What can I bring the company as an applicant?’ and ‘What does the company expect Naturally, and last but not least, you must not from me? To be able to correctly answer these two forget the most important data about yourself. questions, you have to analyse yourself and the These will vary company to company and job company that you are applying to first. to job, but generally personal data, education or training, diploma contained, language proficiency, You have to think about your skills, interests, skill in computing, hobbies and social activities aim, values, career prospects, but also about your should be included in your curriculum vitae. responsibilities, and obviously about your previous experiences. The outcome of this analysis should As stated in the beginning: there is no univerbe a sum of your preferences and skills. You should sal CV format or content, but the most important ask questions like: ‘What do I like/enjoy to do?’, things are: be honest, make it simple, provide spe‘What kind of environment do I prefer?’, ‘What cific details and examples, indo I want to reach in my life?’, ‘What is the most clude all relevant informaimportant thing for me? – Is it the career, family, tion, highlight the most regular hours (9am – 5pm).’, ‘What would I like to important parts – and learn still?’ Write down your answers, and when above all – before writyou have all of them, try to think about the com- ing the curriculum vipany that you are applying for. Is how you have as- tae, try to sit back and sessed yourself congruent with what the company think about what you want, is looking for? Be honest with yourself, searching how you can contribute to the for a job is a job itself, so do not lose your time company and how to make your CV stand out and effort, concentrate on what you really want among the others. g and what is expected from you. Be aware of your strengths... and market them!

Career

Career

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European Graduate Program at It’s not all about calculators The biggest part of TI’s $ 14 bn. revenue comes from components that can be found on printed circuit boards. This includes different analog parts like amplifiers, data converters, etc. and on the other side a huge range of processors for simple functions like smoke-detectors or highly sophisticated applications like mobile hand-sets or medical instrumentations.

If you get in touch with an electronic function -you are most likely using at least one of the more than 55.000 products from TI. TI currently has 28,400 employees worldwide. One way to become a “TIer” is the European Graduate Program (EGP), which opens the door to a promising career in Sales & Marketing with offering networking opportunities and real-world skills during the 12 month program, a combination of learning on the job and complementary trainings.

Get ting star ted with the European Graduate Program – what is included?

1. Rotating through challenging positions in different countries helps you gain product knowledge, understand the structure and processes, how to deal with a customer and how work in an international environment.

2. In addition to that you can benefit from a vast variety of trainings during the program: Timemanagement, negotiation skills etc. help build the fundamentals for the job.

3. Through learning and working with other Eurograds or TI colleagues as well as socializing after work the program is a lot of fun.

After the program T he final role can be in Sales or Field Applications. In case you are working in Sales (like I am doing) you are responsible for managing

Texas Instruments customer relationships and for understanding the customers’ expectations and needs to identify new business opportunities. You are not only representing TI towards the customer but to the same extent you are representing the customer towards TI. In this way together with the support of the Business Units we make sure to find the optimal solution for the customer and to develop the right products for the future.

Parallels between my job and ESTIEM In my current job I can see lots of parallels to the experience I have made in ESTIEM. I am part of an international team of people who are working hard but also having fun together. I am continuously learning new things and I have the opportunity to develop my professional and personal skills in the current position or changing to a different position within the company.

In all situations it is most important to sit on the driver seat when I want to move or achieve something.

Impressions from participants of the program “It’s a great opportunity to meet many of the decision makers and key contacts for my current job at Texas Instruments” “It’s an easy way to understand the company’s structure and processes and start building up your network” “I like to learn different ways on how to approach the business/customers based on cultural and regional differences” “A unique and recognized program … I’m very glad to have the opportunity to follow this program, and recommend it”. g

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6 months in Seville

- Una maravilla -

My experience started on the evening of September 16th, 2010, when I arrived at the airport and found myself welcomed by three great ESTIEM friends, who took care of my luggage and introduced me into their hometown. Already during this first night I got an impression of the beauty of Seville with the Cathedral (especially its tower the Giralda) and the different building styles combining cultural influences from many centuries. Of course, being in Seville -the city of TapasI tried my first Tapas - Salmorejo, Espinaca con Garbanzos, Croquetas and Solomillo al Whiskey - accompanied by Tinto de Verano (red wine with Fanta lemon) and Picos (small bread sticks). If you come to Seville you should know that Pico does also mean kiss, so be careful, if you ask for Picos ;) During the following days time was running

away. Together with ESTIEMers and other people from all over Europe we discovered the center of Seville, which is actually not too big, but all the narrow streets, which do not have any order make it quite difficult to locate yourself. Another challenge is the design of city maps. Every small tourist city map is turned around 90°, so you cannot trust in your normal North-South-East-West thinking. It might happen that you end up far from where you intended to go although you are normally quite smart in reading maps and orientation. Seville’s inhabitants usually don’t use maps.

They just walk and try to find their way, which is the best option most of the times. If you don’t know where to go, everyone will be pleased to help you. And actually one of the best activities to do in Seville is: just start walking and find your way through the lanes. You will always find something new and discover different ways to reach a certain point.

I’m still impressed by the beauty of many houses, the bottom side of the balconies, the beautiful courtyards with flowers and typical tiles in Santa Cruz, the uncountable amount of tiny Andalusian bars, the small corner and Chinese shops, the orange trees all over the city, the Arabic influence in many buildings and the amount of people on the streets. It’s a city that never sleeps (unless in the summer months July and August, when everyone tries to escape from the tremendous heat).

By the way, I mentioned the orange trees all over the city. Yes, they are bitter and eating them is not recommendable, however you can try, if you want. Take a video of it in order to have some funny memories. Some people say these oranges are exported to England in order to make the famous bitter orange marmalade. Others will tell you that in earlier times the military used the dry oranges as gunpowder. I still don’t know what to believe.

Janine Brockmeier

There is a well-known saying: “Quién no ha visto Sevilla, no ha visto maravilla.” (Who hasn’t seen Seville, hasn’t seen any wonder.), which some time ago made me quite curious about Seville, the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. Why was that? What is this kind of wonder people see in Seville? Luckily, I got the opportunity to study one semester abroad in Seville in order to combine some months living in one of Spain’s most important cities with an improvement of my Spanish skills at the Universidad de Sevilla. I can’t deny that ESTIEM was also one of the reasons for my decision to go to Seville as we have our only Spanish Local Group right in this beautiful city and I already knew some people. This was a great help for me, because all these nice ESTIEMers offered me their help while finding the right subjects, searching a flat, getting to know the city, trying to understand lectures in Spanish, explaining me the projects I had to hand in and so on. I had a great start and until now spent some exciting and interesting months in the capital of Andalucía.

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But coming back to my first week in Seville: I was searching for a shared flat, which turned out to be stressful as I didn’t plan it in advance (exams in Germany until I left) and the whole city was full of Erasmus students searching a place to live. Yes, the whole city. Every semester there are about 1500 to 2000 Erasmus students spread over the various faculties located in different parts of the city.

The common way to search for a room – next to the search for Internet - is to come to Seville, stay in a hostel and read all announcements in front of the university buildings and call as many numbers as possible. You just have to take into account the Spanish “Siesta”. Between 2 and 5pm it’s really not the best idea to call anyone. You might better do that at night until 11pm and be prepared for a spontaneous visit. In case you want to live with Erasmus students you might also just go to an agency or the Erasmus office of the university and ask for help.

I decided to live with Spanish people, so I had to search on my own, being the main problem that people look for students, who stay the whole year and not just one semester like most of the Germans. It was really tiring and I sometimes doubted my Spanish knowledge. Luckily, my dear friend Rafa took over a lot of phone calls and supported me during the search. An example situation: We are walking around the city in order to get to know it, Rafa stops because he has seen a paper with a telephone number on it in one of the windows saying “Se alquila” (for rent) and 10 seconds later we are calling in order to see if it’s worth it. Finally, after 5 days running around, asking many people for the right way and having seen several flats I knew the city quite well and finally found my flat: an attic in the center with a huge rooftop terrace, a nice Spanish flat mate, a dog and two turtles. Perfect! I was happy and finally able to attend lectures. This flat is really great in summer, but be aware that in winter old houses don’t have any heating or insulation. You will probably have to face more cold than in your home country. But, let’s get back to the topic.

In case you ever study in Seville as Erasmus, make sure you select your lectures quite quickly and hand in your matriculation papers as soon as possible, so you don’t have to wait two months until you are able to access the material you have to study. Or try to insist that professors or fellow students send you the respective documents. They won’t do it that easily. You should also apply as soon as possible for a Sevici Card, which allows you to use the bicycles for rent all over the city, either via university or just on the webpage. It might take some time until you get it. Actually, I still didn’t get mine after waiting three months. But, you can also try to find a used bike on one of the mercadillos (small street markets) or the famous market on the Cartuja island on Sunday mornings. Don’t buy a new bike or take it with you wherever you go.

Bike theft is a good business in Seville. I got quite used to walking by now and my shoes tell you the story about Sevillian street conditions in the old city center. Ah, and watch out for dog droppings, there’s enough for everyone. But you get used to watching the ground while walking and crossing the streets during red lights. But let’s move on to some leisure activities in Seville.

The river Guadalquivir - or better said the Channel of the Guadalquivir - invites you to practice rowing, to play any team game connected with rowing, to walk or run along the riverside, to fish or just sit down on the meadows or stones and enjoy the sun. There are plenty of schools offering Flamenco, Sevillanas or Salsa classes and of course, you can enjoy yourself in the parks or wander around the typical districts like Triana or Santa Cruz. I recommend you to spend free afternoons in the “Alcácares”, where students enter for free and where you will find many different trees and flowers around the impressing old palace. Several peacocks might join you for a walk and you can enjoy the beauty and silence of this place. Also, the Parque María Luísa offers colourful paths and silent corners to read a book, watch nature or listen to birds. If you want to have a perfect view

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over Seville, climb the tower of the Cathedral, the Giralda, or visit the Torre de los Perdigones, which offers you an incredible view via a dark chamber.

Another very popular activity is shopping. There are two main shopping streets in the center and many small streets and places around, where you will find everything you need. It’s fun. And especially the wedding gowns and typical flamenco dresses are worth a look. The real shopping craziness starts in January, when every female is trying to find the best bargains in “Rebajas” and the whole city center is a swaying mass. I almost forgot to mention the Flamenco culture. Of course, you cannot leave Seville without having seen a Flamenco show in one of the many places, where flamenco dancers, guitar players and singers act. People are infected by the ambience and many shows end with a traditional Bulería, where local people knowing Flamenco join the artists on stage. Olé!

Beside this, Seville also offers a big gastronomic variety. There are plenty of restaurants, bars, tapas bars and cafés. If you go to a bar or a small restaurant, be prepared for a lively ambience. You don’t need music as everybody is talking fast and loudly and you might have to shout in order to talk to your friends. And be prepared to share your food. Spanish like to order different Tapas and share them with the whole group and then maybe move on to the next Tapas place and so on. Many times you won’t even sit down, just have your drinks and some small bites in between.

Some places I would recommend you: Levíes, Dos de Mayos, Coloniales, Bar Eslava and Casa Paco.

And of course, my favourite café just around the corner: the Café Hércules, run by one of my neighbours and a very typical place with Sevillian breakfast (tostada con jamón y café con leche) until three in the afternoon.

Well, talking about bars, Sevilla has three core nightlife areas, where you will find many people on the street, different kinds of bars and clubs and people from all over the world: La Alameda

de Hércules, la Alfalfa and la Calle Bétis. Apart from these, there are several clubs in the Eastern part of the city, where most of the big Erasmus parties take place. There is a place for every taste.

During the summer months it is mostly common to make Botellón on the place San Salvador, on la Alameda or on the riverside next to the Torre de Oro. Botellón means everyone brings some drinks and you meet with your friends and other people and have fun.

At the moment I still have two more months to spend in Seville and I fear this time will be over as fast as the last four months. It is exam time now. Students are studying a lot and try to pass their classes. Nevertheless, studying Industrial Engineering and Management at the School of Engineers in Seville is no picnic at all. It means working hard and many students study almost eight instead of the planned five years. If anyone tells me again that Spanish are always late and don’t work that seriously, I wouldn’t believe it. There is a difference between working time and leisure time. I was the one being late at lectures (actually in Germany there are more students coming late than in Spain). But, when you meet in the evening or at the weekend, be prepared to wait, or plan to arrive at Spanish time. ;) To put it in a nutshell, I can only recommend everyone to spend at least one semester abroad in Seville as it is a city with lots of life, Spanish culture, people from different regions and countries, sunny days, beautiful places, Flamenco, traditions and much more. Come to Seville and discover it yourself. You won’t regret it.

And yes, from my experience I can say: “Sevilla es una maravilla”. g

Explore Europe

explore europe

46

Buenos Aires:

where Europe meets South America

adrien sentis

The first clichés that come to mind when you think about Argentina are probably Maradona, the living football legend, and Tango. But Argentina has way more to offer! That is why despite the distance with the “old continent” and our beloved ESTIEM, I chose to go there for a semester, that I spent in the engineering faculty of Buenos Aires University (FIUBA – Facultad de Ingeniería de Buenos Aires) in the IEM department (Ingeniería Industrial).

But I know what you are thinking: what the hell is an article about Argentina doing in the ExplorEurope section? No need to google, European frontiers have not changed last night, and Argentina is still a country in South America.

Nevertheless, as you may experience it if you have the chance to go there, the country’s culture is highly influenced by migrants from Europe: French, Italians, Spanish, Welsh...

All those inf luences are mainly noticeable in the capital, Buenos Aires, which gathers 13 millions of inhabitants, out of the 40 millions Argentineans. Before a financial crisis in 2001, Buenos Aires was the richest city of South America, and despite new signs of poverty in some neighbourhoods, the city is still called “the Paris of Latino America” by some people.

Although the architecture may recall Paris or London, the rhythm of life is definitely Latin.

Restaurants (where you can eat one of the best meats ever), Boliches (night clubs) or pubs are open till late, and many porteños (inhabitants of Buenos Aires) enjoy a rich and colourful nightlife.

Don’t even think about going to a restaurant before 21:00!

Classes and lectures are adapted to this style of living, as many of them are in the afternoon, and even in the night (class from 19:00 to 23:00!).

The main reason is to give the students the opportunity to get more sleep after staying up so late and also to let the day free for the students to work as interns. The average age when graduating from public school is above 30, and the majority of students have already been working when they graduate, at least in the public system. Things get a little different in the private system where the average age of graduation is closer to 25, but lecture hours remain mainly in the afternoon.

FIUBA, founded in 1866, is the oldest and most prestigious engineering faculty of Argentina.

Sadly, as many public institutions and due to the financial crisis, the university lacks resources (e.g. for rebuilding old buildings) but teachers are competent, and the university is highly appreci-

47

ated by Argentinean HR persons. Not only for the quality of lectures, but also -ironically- for the state of disorganisation of the University: As the students are not much supervised throughout their careers, graduating from FIUBA is seen as a sign of resourcefulness! The university is willing to open itself, and therefore they are rarely rejecting requests from students studying abroad.

Unfortunately, the international relation department is not well organised, and sometimes it may get hard to contact them. To their defence I made my exchange the semester just after the H1N1 epidemic, which paralysed the whole University for three weeks.

Years are divided in two semesters: February - July and August-December, with final exams at the end of each. Students usually take between 2 and 4 classes each semester. All the classes I am aware of are delivered in Spanish, and an intensive Spanish training is offered (with fees) at the beginning of each semester. All classes I took were divided between lectures and practice. In order to take the final exam, you need to get your practice part validated (which can be done through an exam or a project).

The schedule for exchange students (not working at the same time) is

relatively light (15 - 20 hours per week as maximum) and you can easily manage to have some nice weekends to visit the country (3 or 4 days if you are smart and lucky enough). The main way of transportation is the bus, and due to the large size of the country, you can be sure that you will spend plenty of time on board (35 hours to go to Ushuaia for example). But glaciers of Patagonia, waterfalls of Iguazu, salt desert and Andes cordillera landscapes totally deserve it! Be sure to save at least a month before/after your exchange to visit the country.

So if you want to spend a day horse-riding with a gaucho in the Pampa before enjoying an Argentinean style BBQ, feel the emotion of a goal scored by Boca Juniors in La Bombonnera, watch tango dancers while having a beer at plaza Dorrego or get lost in Patagonia, don’t hesitate and choose Buenos Aires for your exchange. g

Explore Europe

Crossword Puzzle

48

Dear Reader, Now the ESTIEM Magazine has a crossword puzzle! You will have the chance to examine and extend your knowledge while solving it. The crossword includes terms from the Dictionary of Industrial Engineering terminology by Institute of Industrial Engineers. While solving, you will find the words from the areas: Analytical Techniques & Operations Research, Employee & Industrial Relations and Facility Planning & Design. See what “Magazine” means according to that dictionary!

Enjoy!

Nazlı Oğuz 1 2

3

4

5

M A G A Z I N E

6 7 9 10

11

13

12

14

15

16 17

18

19

20

22 23 24

25

26 27

EclipseCrossword.com

21

8

49

Down 1. Ability of an item to perform a required function under stated conditions for a stated period of time. (11) 2. A proposition (or relation) that a given mathematical function shall be equal to another function (often a constant) (8) 3. The design and operation of a model of a system.(10) 4. A type of warehouse usually covered with earth or depressed, where ammunition or other hazardous material is stored. (8) 5. A market research study which is conducted by asking respondents specific questions in order to obtain information on attitudes, motives, and opinions. (6) 6. One of the defining points of a network; a junction point joined to some or all of the others by arcs. (4) 8. The termination of the ability of any item to perform its required function under stated environmental conditions for a specified period of time. (7) 9. Any impairment of quality, value, or usefulness, including damage caused by erosion, corrosion, combustion, and contamination. (13) 11. The difference between the largest observed value and the smallest observed value. (5) 14. The repeating of a basic feasible solution during application of the Simplex Algorithm. (7) 15. The moving of a product item from where it is made to where it is purchased and will be used.

(14) 17. A single cycle of operations in a solution algorithm made up of a number of such cycles. (9) 19. A pay or work time adjustment to compensate an employee for job fatigue, unavoidable delays, personal needs, and rest. (9) 20. A measure of the ability of an item to achieve mission objectives given the conditions during the mission. (10) 21. A line formed by loads or items while waiting for processing. (5) 23. A combinationz of all of the physical elements required to manufacture a product, or to provide a service. (8)

Across 3. The decision rule used for making the choice from available courses of action. (8) 7. An inventory valuation method, in which costs are transferred in reverse chronological order. (4) 10. A distance metric where movement is only allowed in two directions which are perpendicular to each other. (11) 12. The responsiveness of a solution to changes in the numerical values of the problem parameters.

(11) 13. The time elapsed while a unit is waiting for service. (5) 14. A sequence of arcs (i,i1), (i1,i2), (i2,i3) ...(ik,j) connecting nodes i and j. (5) 16. A departure of a quality characteristic from its intended level or state that occurs with a severity sufficient to cause an associated product or service not to satisfy intended normal, or reasonably foreseeable, usage requirements. (6) 18. The ability of an item to perform its designated function when required for use. (12) 22. Any set of conditions or causes which work together to produce a given result. (7) 24. A scaled two-dimensional drawing or scaled three dimensional model created by hand or computer or using templates, icons and other display devices. This drawing indicates the physical arrangement of machines, workstations and support services in a manufacturing facility. (6) 25. An inductive and iterative mathematical technique for developing numerical solutions to certain classes of problems. (9) 26. The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. (7) 27. A set of objects with relations between the objects and their attributes. (6)

The answers of the crossword puzzle will be published both on the Internet and in the upcoming 41st issue of ESTIEM Magazine. Visit the ESTIEM Magazine’s page on www.magazine.estiem.org to find the answers.

may

AGENDA

Check the latest updated event information at www.estiem.org and register for your favourite events through the ESTIEM portal. See you somewhere in Europe!

april

Vision - Leadership through Engagement | Groningen

1st - 6th

25th - 30th Local Group Exchange: Ankara-Bilkent & St.Petersburg

Europe3D Hanse | Braunschweig-Bremen-Hamburg

1st - 8th

27th - 2nd May Activity Week “Normiviikko” | Helsinki

5th - 13th

Activity Week | Porto-Aveiro Regional Coordination Meeting North East | Gdansk

10th - 14th

Yogis Bear-lin Trainings Weekend | Berlin

12th - 16th

Bussines Incubator Coordination Meeting

19th - 22th

Sensation White Activity Week | Belgrade

19th - 22th

June

Brain Trainer | Eindhoven

22th -28th

5th - 11th

Activity Week | Ilmenau

23rd - 28th

9th - 12th

Activity Week | Famagusta

Vision - Leadership through Engagement Final Conference | İstanbul-Boğaziçi ESTIEM Entrepreneurship School | Catania

Activity Week EXIT 2011 | Novi Sad Summer Academy | Belgrade

30th - 6th June

july

6th - 11th 31st - 14th August

november Council Meeting | Ankara-Bilkent

8th - 13th

august 12th - 17th

ESTIEM College

14th - 28th Summer Academy | İstanbul-Yıldız

› Language: English | Term: 18 months while working full-time › M.Sc. of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) › Studying in the south-west of Germany and in the top technology region, Karlsruhe › Management topics combined with current Engineering, IT and Finance Know-how Next program starts September 19, 2011

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KIT – University of the State of Baden-Württemberg and National Research Center of the Helmholtz Association 110209 Anzeige.indd 1

14.02.2011 18:30:04

Industrial

g Engineerin e nt Recip

geme y and Mana Productivit nics ■ ce ■ Mecha ■ Finan tory ■ Design ■ Inven y isation ■ Qualit ■ Organ ■ Time Study ■ Management ics rship ■ Logist ■ Leade omics ■ Ergon

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