Minimax: The Future Issue by Minimax

MINIMAX THE STUDENT ASSOCIATION AT STOCKHOLM SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

THE FUTURE ISSUE JUNE 2018

CONTRIBUTORS 2 1

LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE PUBLISHER Emma Perlelin mediapres@sasse.se EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Olivia Krall cred@sasse.se PHONE NUMBER 073 747 09 20 VISITING ADDRESS Saltmätargatan 13-17 ADDRESS Minimax/HHS Box 6501 113 83 Stockholm COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY Johanna Tell TREASURER Filip Flenhagen PRINTING HOUSE Printr ON THE COVER Jessica Ollus CONTRIBUTORS Molly Clark Engin Erdal Alexander Perrien

MINIMAX is the ofﬁcial SASSE magazine. MINIMAX is religiously and politically independent. Opinions uttered in MINIMAX do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial staff or the Student Association. The magazine is printed in approximately 5000 copies and is published four times a year. MINIMAX is liberated from VAT and sorted under the Media Committee in SASSE. The editorial staff may edit and reject contributed material. MINIMAX is not responsible for any material sent in to the magazine.

CAPITAL PARTNERS

*McKinsey & Company is also a Capital Partner

CONTENT 3

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Interview with the President of SASSE Interview with the IT Committee Interview with RAMP Letter to the Editor: Sesec Security Please, Take a Chill Pill What Eludes You Interview with Johan Ramsten Can One Person Make a Difference? Can You Make a Difference? Being Boiled Slowly A Robot as Your Manager? No Thanks! The Future of Identity A Word from the Editors-in-chief Thank You from the Editorial Team

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR This issue marks the end of our year as the Editorial Team of Minimax. We have been able to cover a lot of topics, some heavier than others, and for our last issue we wanted to look forward, towards The Future. This year, Minimax has been host to a wide range of articles- from inspiring opinion columns to insightful interviews. While all these articles had different tones and were encapsulated by different writing forms, they all had something in common; they all instilled some kind of hope. The world is chaotic,uncertain,sometimes overwhelmingly positive, and at other times, it becomes even easier to be cynical. But if there is one thing this year as Editor-inchief of this publication has taught me, it’s to be hopeful. There are amazing things currently happening and being initiated behind Ekporten and beyond these halls.There’s hope in our future, despite all the cynicism, and maybe, partially, even thanks to it. It’s with these bittersweet last words as Editor-in-chief of this magazine, that I’m excited to hand over Minimax to the new Editor-in-chief and Vice Editor-in-chief, Filippa Högling and Wendela Spelmans, respectively. Högling’s amazing creative eye and ideas can be seen throughout the past four issues as this year’s Art Director. Spelmans has an incredible energy and ideas on how to modernize the magazine even more. Together I have no doubt they will take the magazine to new heights. The future of Minimax has never been brighter. We should embrace the uncertainty and hope to help create the future we want. In The Future Issue, we try to do just that.

OLIVIA KRALL Editor-in-chief 17/18

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EDITORIAL TEAM

Editor-in-chief Olivia Krall

Vice Editor-in-chief Sigurd Log Røren

Art Director Filippa Högling

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2017/2018 Photographer Johanna Tell

Photographer Clarity Bian

Layout Designer Johanna Arenius

Layout Designer Fransiska AspegrĂŠn

Layout Designer Sylvia Hongqiushui Zheng

Business Relations Editor Emma Hamre

Business Relations Journalist Johanna Persson

Editor Matilda Fors

Editor Vendela Palmquist

Journalist Ludvig Eksandh

Journalist Sara EngstrĂśm 6

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IS SASSE’S FINANCIAL MODEL SUSTAINABLE? TEXT // SIGURD LOG RØREN PHOTO // CLARITY BIAN DESIGN // FRANSISKA ASPEGRÉN

Rebecca President greets us she gets

Gustavsson has now been the of SASSE for over two months. She with a big smile, which widens when to talk about her time as President.

“It has of course been intense, as always when you start something. Now, I feel like I am starting to get the hang of it. This especially concerns, things you do not expect when running for president, like all contact with SSE. It takes time to be comfortable in those situations and to get to know the staff and faculty at SSE.” What has been the biggest challenge? “Well, I think that the biggest challenge has been the balance between external and internal operations. I can spend hours preparing for a meeting with the school, but I also need to do SASSE things,” she explains. After a brief moment to think she continues: “Getting everything up and running with the board has also been challenging. For example, making sure that the board meetings are as effective as possible and not too time-consuming. We are 11 people with different schedules and we should meet up a couple times each week, so that has also been challenging. But it already feels like we are a little family who has known each other forever. “ What are your plans for the rest of the year? “We of course plan to make this the best year ever! Our vision for this year is actually a more sustainable SASSE with regards to economic, social, and environmental sustainability. “I think it has been an issue that SASSE is too shortsighted. We need to be ready when things change. I also want to look back at a year where a lot of things happened. We can spend all day talking about strategic matters, but what we as SASSE members want is for things to happen. “One of the strategic matters that allow for events to happen is SASSE’s financial model. Our most important revenue sources all stem from companies. The last few years there has been a decreasing trend in some companies’ willingness to pay, especially the London banks.”

Rebecca Gustavsson President of SASSE

Will this development affect the association? “As of right now, I think the financial model is stable. However, we need to rethink and maybe have a backup plan, for example seeking more grants. But we also need to look at where we can cut costs. SASSE is a very budget guided organization. What’s in the budget is definite. We just spend the money we are allowed to according to the budget, instead of trying to cut costs or negotiate a better deal.” Which parts of the association needs to cut costs? “We all need to look over our budget posts. Is this post legit or could this budget post be reduced?” SASSE is a very ambitious student association with much higher member rate than comparable universities. Will the decrease in revenues affect how much we are able to do? “By cutting costs, we do not need to remove everything fun. We should just try to get a better deal. I think that there will always be sources of revenue, but we have to rethink our financial model. Other student associations, both in Sweden and internationally, do not have revenue from businesses to the great extent that we do and they are still ambitious. “I really think that if there is will, there is a way. We have so many ambitious students here. People are so innovative here.” The optimist Gustavsson shines through again.

THE FUTURE OF SASSE’S DATA COLLECTION TEXT // FRANSISKA ASPEGRÉN P H OTO / / J O H A N N A T E L L

Martin Unger President of the IT Committee

GDPR has now been introduced into all of Europe. Minimax met with Martin Unger, the President of the IT Committee, to find out how the new legislation will affect SASSE.

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What is GDPR? GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, is a new legislation that has been introduced in all of Europe. It regulates organizations’ gathering, handling, and saving of individuals’ personal data. More specifically, the new legislation replaces old and outdated data-handling legislation that have been different in each country, and replaces it with an updated and much stricter legislation that is the same for all European countries. How will GDPR affect the student association? All organizations are to follow the new legislation, and SASSE is no exception. Fortunately, we do not handle much data about the members in our organization and the little information that we do save is directly related to student benefits such as Mecenat. Therefore, GDPR will not affect SASSE as much as most other organizations.

expect to see several coherent terms of agreement in processes where we save data such as membership registration, receipt handling and disciplinary errands. The deadline for GDPR is May 25th. Do we actually have to hurry? The short answer is no. It is not realistic for most firms to properly handle all personal data by the 25th of May. If we were to do so, and fully abide by all GDPR regulations, we would have to wipe all current, and past, SASSE members’ computers, email accounts, and burn most of the physical archives. That is completely insane. GDPR is imposed on May 25th, but it will be a long and slow process that realistically concerns routines going forward rather than deleting the past.

More practically, we, as an organization with over 2,000 members, cannot move around all documents during “...we would have to wipe In order to adapt SASSE to GDPR the terms when they are being regulations, my plan is to centralize the used. Instead, we are planning all current, and past, SASSE personal data that we handle. As of to do much of this work during members’ computers, email today, most SASSE involved members the summer. Furthermore, it accounts, and burn most of have some sort of spreadsheet with is not until most information the physical archives other members’ names, SSE student has been collected and stored IDs, and email addresses locally in the right place that it is on their computers. It has been feasible to begin deleting the necessary for members to download such documents to information stored in the wrong places. their personal computers when arranging SASSE events in the past, and I do not believe that a single member remembers to delete these documents afterwards. What I am currently doing is trying to grasp what personal data we collect, which personal data we need According to the GDPR regulations, we need to know to collect, where we currently store it, and how we will where we have all copies of all personal data saved, and be handling it in the future. This will be summarized in a therefore, we cannot continue to work the way we have “Records of Processing” document that will be finished done in the past. Instead, I, together with my committee, by the 25th of May. will gather all of the personal data that SASSE needs to handle and store it on multiple locked online drives. My vision is that these drives will be easy to access for the What can happen if we do not adapt to GDPR? right people and that these members will use the online documents rather than having to download them locally As I previously mentioned, one of the changes between before using them. GDPR and earlier personal data handling legislation is that GDPR is much stricter. The monetary penalties for breaking the law have increased severely and the How will GDPR affect the members of SASSE? maximum penalty will be 4% of the organization’s revenue or 200 million SEK. In more severe cases, people Furthermore, GDPR also regulates what information in charge of the data handling could be prosecuted and we save and how we collect it. Members can therefore jailed. In other words, SASSE needs to adapt to GDPR.

A NEW BEGINNING

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In 2016, SSE launched RAMP - Rapid Acceleration Management Program, an educational initiative designed to assist degree-holding newcomers and asylum seekers to Sweden and “provide a fast track into the Swedish job market.”. This class year is also noteworthy, as beginning this year, RAMP participants are now also members of SASSE. After undergoing an intensive application process, RAMP participants are matched to internships with Swedish companies and take part in ten weeks of rigorous management training held at SSE throughout the year. This year’s RAMP class includes fifteen participants from five different countries who, over the past few months, have been working as interns with prestigious Swedishbased companies such as Nordea, H&M, Trelleborg Treasury AB, and Newsec Property Asset Management. Program Coordinator, Mais Irqsusi shared that “breaking into the Swedish job market is not easy. We try to pick the most talented and create a faster track for them.” The 2017 RAMP class is now gearing up for the end of the program, with participants beginning to prepare for their graduation in June. At the ceremony, the RAMP’ers will not only share their own stories of heroism and growth, but they will also have the opportunity to discuss their internship experience and provide feedback to their partner company. As the end of the program year draws nearer, Samir Azmirly has had the chance to reflect on their internship experience and RAMP training. Azmirly is a Syrian national born who was raised in Cairo, Egypt. He is married and has four children. He has a business degree in Business Management and has had over 25 years of work experience in the Gulf and the Middle East. He enjoys working within customer service and is currently interning for Handelsbanken in Stockholm.

Why did you apply to RAMP? “Stockholm School of Economics is my dream university. If I could go back in time, I would be sure to receive my education here and be part of the SSE community. “RAMP is a tool that helps us to fulfill so many of our goals. I hope that one day we can have a SSE collaboration in order to replicate a similar experience in the Arab world. . SSE has given us a priceless opportunity; RAMP opens the door for us to socialize, work, and integrate into Swedish society.” What is your favorite part of the program? “I enjoyed the curriculum of the education and learning about all of the different subjects, the cultural and historical aspects, and social events. Really, all of it. Most of all, I enjoyed meeting a lot of people and making new contacts and friends.” What about the biggest challenge? “The biggest challenge for me is learning Swedish. Learning the language isn’t just important because of work, but it is especially important to me since I have decided to live here and want to integrate into Swedish life. I want to take care of my family and ensure that we can be a good example of productive citizens who contribute not only to Sweden’s development, but also our own.” What are you looking forward to after the internship ends? “I’m definitely looking forward to working and, of course, keeping in touch with all the people that I’ve met and the friends that I’ve made.” What does RAMP mean to you? “It is a new beginning.”

RAMP is currently in the process of processing new applicants to apply for the 2019 class. Application materials and eligibility criteria can be found at: https://www.hhs.se/en/outreach/sse-initiatives/ramp/. Applications will be accepted until June 10th.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT SSE EVENTS Sesec Security, the security company that the Entertainment Committee uses at all of their events, contacted Minimax about their policies regarding eliminating harassment at these events and what we as attendees should do in the case of harassment.

Sesec Security works actively with eliminating different kinds of harassment in public environments. This focuses on updating the public about what harassment is and includes. Individuals set their own limits. Following are a few starting points:

If you or anyone else is exposed to this behavior: Communicate clearly that the behavior is unacceptable. Take note of what has occured (words, behavior, date, time, witnesses, and so on). Inform a guard or chef på plats about what has happened as soon as possible.

It is up to the person that is being exposed to this behavior to determine if the behavior is unwelcome or not. Sexual harassment is a crime that can be reported to the police.

However, the event organizers have a responsibility to make sure that behavior stops, regardless if it is reported or not. It is not necessary for the person that is being sexually harassed to report; the report can just as well come from a colleague or friend that has a suspicion about what has occured.

”You should always contact a guard in case you are uncomfortable or perceive the slightest indication that you have been harassed,

You should always contact a guard in case you are uncomfortable or perceive the slightest indication that you have been harassed, since the guard can always provide a safe environment by being physically present and take note of what has occured. You can of course stay anonymous since the guard will not question you, instead they will make their own opinion of the situation and act accordingly. Sincerely, Engin Erdal, CEO Sesec Security

If you experience any of the following, you may have been subjected to sexual harrasment: Unwelcome advancements or demands for sexual services Unwanted physical contact Unwelcome sexual innuendos, looks, whistles, or comments regarding looks Someone showing you pornographic photos Someone making derogatory jokes about your gender

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TEXT I ENGIN ERDAL

FUTURE? FUTURE.

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PLEASE, TAKE A CHILL PILL 15

TEXT // SARA ENGSTRÃ&#x2013;M PHOTO // JOHANNA TELL DESIGN // SYLVIA HONGQIUSHUI ZHENG

A stream of evaluations, opinions, and complaints posed

scoring exceptionally high on “self-expression values”. It paints an image of a country where people have an individualistic attitude towards life, ourselves, and others.

Global Challenges is a never ending discussion where students take on the role as pedagogical experts, Digiexam has become a discussion we have “just because” (even when the exam is calculation based), and it’s custom to ask to get your exam back after the end of the course – just to check whether the examiner has corrected it accurately!

Becoming increasingly individualistic (because it appears to have gradually increased) could hold the answer to, at least, why we value the individual-self highly. When we have a high sense of importance and greatness connected to the self, we might become more convinced that we ourselves also hold all those answers.

m I the only one who is growing tired of the constant

by students about the matter of our curriculum?

How is it that we, a, think we have the expertise to give valuable insights in all these things, b, believe that anyone cares about our personal opinions?

It might not even be any of those reasons. Perhaps the student body at SSE is just too socioeconomically privileged, or maybe it is the growing disregard of the teaching profession in Sweden. There has been no shortage aof reports about parents who have called their kid’s teachers and tried to pressure them into giving their children better test scores and higher grades. Maybe parents today are signaling to their millennial kids that teachers cannot do their job properly without input from them or, in extension, us as we grow up?

Media has, for a long time, loved to draw the picture of millennials - those of us born somewhere between 1980 and 2000 (with some deviations in the exact time span, depending on who you ask) - being so different from previous generations that management developers actually have had to draw up new educational programs for their management educations to teach To bake a cake, you need many ingredients. We have a businesses how to handle socioeconomic privilege, we us. We are supposedly “ Wouldn’t the overall climate score high in self-expression very entrepreneurial and values, our parents and improve greatly if fewer of us at the same time lazy societal structures tells us (huh?), entitled, confident, took on the role as executivethat teachers can’t handle narcissistic selfie-lovers, with their jobs without our input, “everything” here at SSE? many better liked qualities and most of us here at SSE also adding to that list are millennials. But do we (although, seemingly less interesting to media). really want to bake this specific cake? Wouldn’t the overall climate improve greatly if fewer of us took on the I’m not much for this categorizing based on generations, role as executive-“everything” here at SSE? as all categorizations in some way play with stereotypes. The describing features become almost more of a Couldn’t we, please, at least try not to be the horoscope horoscope description, that fits all of us and none of us description of our generation? Couldn’t we, please, prove at the same time. all the management development programs that they do not have to specifically re-educate their managers for However, can the answer to our behavior, here at SSE, lie them to be able to hire us in the future? Couldn’t we, in us being a specific generation? Is this mutual tendency please, stop trying to tell Emma Stenström how to run to feel entitled the answer to why we deem it reasonable Global Challenges? She has studied pedagogy at Harvard to share our thoughts and ideas with everyone all the Business School so she probably knows better than us. time? Perhaps. Please, just take a chill pill. Or perhaps it’s a Swedish thing. Looking at the World Value Survey’s (WVS) cultural mapping of the world, Sweden comes across as a very extreme country –

WHAT ELUDES YOU

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ost SSE students fit into the category of people who are “serious about their future”. It means we wrote our resumés at age sixteen. We were the kids in middle school who corrected the teacher’s spelling on the whiteboard (yes, those kids). We go the extra mile, proofread before handing in, craft flashcards with dizzying speed. We have all at some point — and many of us still do — secretly coveted the archetypical markers of prestige and achievement: a full almanac, a profile in the Sunday section of the newspaper. When we exited our teens, our Facebook pages underwent meticulous cleanups. Pictures of underage drinking or dubious status updates from an angsty fourteen-year-old or anything else possibly deemed as unprofessional, the plunder of HR people, were swooped up like skeletons of a former life.

We are serious about our futures, and rewarded for it. We are told that doors will open and goals will be achieved if we only put in the work and don’t give up. So that’s what we do. Go the extra mile, read that book on case interviewing, hammer our lives zealously into the colored squares of Google calendars to fit as much as possible.

called your grandmother, bought flowers, learned to like capers, booked that ticket, peeled citrus rinds that left a faint perfume on our fingers all day. Danced even though you didn’t know how to.

What eludes you when you are busy being serious about your future are the Still, there are so many nights when we little things. come home and just don’t know.When we ideas that crackle in your brain at 3 AM and that stare into the refrigerator, eyes unseeing, The you jot down among the notes in your phone to revisit and haul ourselves into bed to drift into later. The indulgence of picking up a useless subject — astronomy, dystopian literature, ramen noodles — and a dreamless sleep. dropping it after a few days. The things you didn’t plan When the fuse burns out and we wonder what the point of it all was. When we cuss at ourselves for the things we did — procrastinated, let that boy distract us — and the things we didn’t do — woke up early, went for a run, asked more questions in class. Our battles may be private but the struggle, I suspect, is strangely alike. We worry about not being enough, we worry about being too much. We never quite feel as if we have enough time. As if we’re not quite as achieved, as distinguished as we’d like to be by now. It’s so easy to feel that everyone is zooming past us, more accomplished, more certain. Rushing past us on the up escalator, already coming out on the winning side. But what gets remembered, what remains? Maybe it’s not whether we always did our readings or applied in time or scored better than our peers. Maybe it’s the night when no one wanted to go home. That documentary. That you remembered someone’s birthday, got lost on Wikipedia,

for. The money you didn’t have but somehow found. Rewatching Twin Peaks, daydreaming.

I like to believe that so much of what actually counts are the things that happen between these summits we climb. Music is the space between notes, Donna Tartt writes in The Goldfinch, and what she refers to is not emptiness but a wholeness. A density that rounds everything out and makes it understandable. The flatness that turns spikes and drops into a smoother curve. I think that’s what I want in my life more than anything else.

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TRUST AND THE FUTURE TEXT // OLIVIA KRALL P H OTO / / J O H A N N A T E L L

The future is uncertain, technology is developing exponentially and there is a growing focus on questions like sustainability. Minimax met with Johan Ramsten, the CEO of Hallvarsson & Halvarsson, to discuss what effect these things and more have on our future.

Sustainability is an issue that is becoming increasingly important in different aspects of society; how do you think the business world will be affected by this?

Name: Johan Ramsten Age: 45 Career: CEO of Hallvarsson Halvarsson for the past four years, but has been with the company since 2004. Favorite part of the day: Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a morning person. Just looking ahead to what is coming up during the day and having a lot of interesting discussions and meetings in front of you is great.

It has already been affected in a major way.What I can see is that it is hard for the politicians to do really significant things in these areas; they can obviously do a lot, but the areas in which they are lacking leaves room for initiatives from companies. Companies can do, want to, and have been doing a lot in this space. In 2005, we started our own sustainability affairs team with a former SSE student. We saw interest from companies to actually do something real in this space; not just talking about it, but actually trying to integrate these themes into their businesses. You need to do that in order to attract not only employees, but also the next generation, which there is a lot of discussion about, customers who are increasing demands, and owners that have become a big driver of change.

Sweden is often seen as a leading country in these regards. What impact do you think this has and how do you think the rest of the world will follow? In Sweden we always have really high ambition, and have a perception of ourselves as being great, within these areas. We are really good and we are really progressing and going forward faster than many others, but we still have a lot to do. I think that is why we get so surprised when scandals appear in Sweden because we think all these previously mentioned things, and then scandals arise and we don’t understand how it could happen. Sweden has a lot more to do, but I think that we can be, and are, a good example for many others.There are a lot of companies looking at Sweden, Swedish companies, and Swedish society as a whole, trying to understand what is working here and how can they perhaps implement something from the Swedish model, which is now being used as a benchmark. As the pressure increases from different stakeholders, and perhaps more pressure for other companies to follow, is there an increased risk of greenwashing? There is, of course, a risk. I think that companies are getting smarter and they understand that in today’s world, where transparency is so high and the access to information is so easy, you can’t really green wash and not put yourself at a great risk. We often work with risk identification projects where we try to understand the trust risks that lie within companies, to see what can we change within the business, and what can we change in the communication, in order to lower the total risk for the companies. If we were to see in any of these audits that a company was trying to green wash, it would be highlighted as potentially high risk. I think the business leaders of today know this, and while most, if not all, have high ambitions, there are also complex structures they need to work with. I think that is why investors have actually gained traction with boards and management teams. They have seen these complexities and are more insightful when they look at the company and see what they actually do, and when looking for progress they understand that it will take time to get to where the companies want and need to be. Since they are more understanding about the complexities, they have been a huge push for companies, who are also really listening to them. This has helped a lot in that space. DESIGN I JOHANNA ARENIUS

”THE MOST LACKING ASSET IN THE WORLD TODAY IS TRUST. 20

How does the complexity of these issues change the role of companies like Hallvarsson & Halvarsson in recent years and how will they continue to change as these developments follow an exponential trend? The biggest shift is that communication has risen on the agenda for many companies. It’s not just about doing it right, it’s about getting it right; it needs to be perceived as doing the right thing, which is completely different. You need to be really proactive, to explain, and to be transparent. We work a lot with the concept of trust; we are trying to help our companies build and sustain trust. If you look at what trust is actually composed of, you would see that there is competence; you need to be good at what you are doing, be engaged, and be passionate about what you are doing because that builds trust for the stakeholders. You need to have ethics and to really understand the norms within society and in your stakeholders. You also need to provide enough transparency so that stakeholders can actually give their ”We are trust. Communication is a huge part of that. All different aspects of business is melting together- from public affairs to sustainability to investor relations. You need more complex competences in more complex areas to meet that, as well as depth and different perspectives.

Also, there is the issue of tech and what it is bringing to businesses. We can see that it is changing a lot, for example, in the media. 15 years ago you could know ten journalists and you would be fine. Now you need to really understand how to get your message across. In some areas it is doing fantastic things, but, I think, in some areas we have an over-belief in what it is actually doing. We are living in a sharing economy, but sharing doesn’t mean buying or activating ourselves. You can sit on your sofa, like a post, and feel like you’ve done your job. You can get 10 000 likes, but by whom? Who were they, what do they do, did you change their opinions? What actually happened?

living in a sharing economy, but sharing doesn’t mean buying or activating ourselves.

How do you feel about the future within these questions? The most lacking asset in the world today is trust. In world politics, people are focusing more on their own agendas and trying to be more protective, which is a movement we see all over the world. Trust is actually going down and that is a huge challenge. There’s a book called The Speed of Trust with a very simple conclusion; in organizations or societies where trust is high, things change and move fast, but in societies, companies, and organizations where trust is low, things move really slowly, which is bad for productivity, for efficiency, for change, for basically anything. I think that is what we are seeing right now. Increasing trust is one of the biggest challenges on a macro level. On a micro level, I think people generally have good intentions. We have high ambitions in this

country in where we want to be, what country we want to live in, and what norms we want to have; we basically want to be good people. I think that change will continue, but looking at what is happening around us, I think we can do a lot. However, we cannot do everything ourselves; we need bigger change all over the place.

We are working a lot with businesses, and finding the right areas where technique and tech platforms could actually support is a huge challenge. There is a huge amount of areas where that can happen but you need to be smart about how you use different tech platforms. It is not always about reach, but if you get it right, there is a huge opportunity.

There is also a complexity because there is no really good way of measuring results today; it’s mostly quantitative. How should we measure success in a world where there is so much complexity? There’s a huge amount of data but you need to know how to use it. Do you have any advice for students at SSE? Get to know everything that’s out there; learn as much as you can. Be curious and work hard. That’s basically it, if you do that, you are going to be fine.

THE FUTURE IS .

YOU COULD FILL THIS PAGE. INTERESTED IN BEING A MINIMAX CONTRIBUTOR OR A PART OF THE EDITORIAL TEAM? CONTACT: cred@sasse.se

CAN ONE PERSON MAKE A DIFFERENCE? TEXT // SIGURD LOG RØREN, LINUS EDGREN, MADELEINE AHLSTRÖM AND OLIVER LINDQVIST PARBRATT DESIGN // FRANSISKA ASPEGRÉN

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In the book “80 000 Hours”, which this article is built upon, it is defined as, “the number of people whose lives you improve, and how much you improve them by. [...] We think everyone is equally valuable, and we think it’s reasonable to extend “people” to include non-humans.”1 This implies that improving a life in Sweden is equal to improving a life in, for example, Uganda. It also implies that it is better to improve the lives of 10 people in Uganda than one life in Sweden. But is it possible for us as individuals to actually make a difference?

THE RICHEST 1 % As a student at SSE, the most prestigious school in Sweden, you are probably aware that you will have a salary above average in Sweden after graduating. However, we do not think most SSE students understand how rich they are going to be. If you earn 37 000 SEK/month, you will be among the 1% richest in the world.2 This puts you in a unique position to do good. If you donate 10 % of your future income directly to people living in extreme poverty, you will double the income of 25 people a year. 3 That is an enormous impact!

$100

you are here

$90 000 $80 000 $70 000 $60 000 $50 000 $40 000 $30 000 $20 000 $10 000

10%

20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Percentile of Global Population

Source: Doing Good Better, by Will MacAskill, 2015

THE IMPACT OF OUR CONTRIBUTION However, the projects we often work with are very time consuming and only make a minor difference in the world. For example, in Stockholm there are several running events where you can run a given distance for a good cause, where only the profits are donated. These organizations often help few people, measured per dollar. Hence, we should consider that NGOs differ in how much good they do, measured for example per dollar donated. When comparing the effect of different NGOs one might think that the effectiveness follow a linear regression. However, if you rank NGOs after their ability to help (measured after the definition we have used until now), you get something like this: Most NGOs are quite ineffective, but if you donate to or work at the effective NGOs, you will be able to do an immense difference . 8 Self-reported satisfaction from 1-10

THE DEFINITION OF MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Income per household member (US$

pactimpact ctimpact imimpact imimpact imactimpact ctimpact imimpact imimpact imactimpact ctimpact immpact impacct impactim-

Some might think that becoming a doctor is how you can help the most people. We argue that studying finance can make a much bigger difference in the world.

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Self-reported annual household income Stevenson, Betsey, and Justin Wolfers, Subjective well-being and income: Is there any evidence of satisfaction? No. w18992. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013.

For example, as you see in the figure above, a donation of one dollar will have a much larger impact on life satisfaction if it is donated to someone who lives in extreme poverty in India than if it stays with someone in a Western country (since the slope of satisfaction is steeper). A doctor in Sweden will on average save two lives throughout their entire career (since most doctors in the Western world work with slightly improving life quality. Furthermore, there are so many doctors in the Western world that the marginal utility of an individual doctor is low). An SSE student who donates 10 % of their future income to, for example, the Against Malaria Foundation will save 44 lives throughout their career, an effect 2 200% larger than a doctor in Sweden.4 So, can one person make a difference? Yes, of course, but how big your impact is, depends on what you do. The decisions that will affect your ability to change the world the most is your career choices. To see how you can use your career to make the biggest difference, turn the page. Interested in learning more? Check out https://80000hours.org/

Todd, B., 2011. 80 000 Hours. 1st ed. Oxford, United Kingdom: 80 000 Hours Org. pp. 183 Giving What We Can. 2018. How Rich Am I?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/get-involved/how-rich-am-i/. [Accessed 8 May 2018] 3 According to Our World in Data, an Oxford University project, approximately 350 million people live for $ 200 per year. If you earn 37 000 SEK/month and donate 10 % each month, you will double the income of more than 25 people annually. 4 Chris Weller, Business Insider. 2015. The world’s best charity can save a life for $3,337.06. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-best-charity-can-save-a-life-for-333706-and-thats-a-steal-2015-7?r=US&IR=T&IR=T. [Accessed 8 May 2018]. 1

HOW CAN YOU MAKE THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE? TEXT // SIGURD LOG RØREN, LINUS EDGREN, MADELEINE AHLSTRÖM, AND OLIVER LINDQVIST PARBRATT “By working together, in our lifetimes, we can end extreme global poverty and factory farming, we can prevent climate change and safeguard the future, and we can do this while having interesting, fulfilling lives too.”

number of people affected, (ii) the larger the size of the effects per person, and (iii) the larger the long run benefits of solving the problem.

Secondly, our impact will be even higher if the issue is In the previous article we have established that one neglected as well. If many already focus on a specific issue, it will be difficult for us to add person can make a difference, so, something new. The marginal utility of how should you spend your career to ”Your potential our contribution is low. make the largest difference?

WORK WITH THE MOST PRESSING ISSUES

impact is 22 times larger than the impact of a doctor.

First of all, you should focus on the most pressing issues. There are countless good causes to work with. However, if we want to help as many as possible, we should consider three factors: Firstly, we should think of the scale of the problem we are working with. The scale of a problem can be measured in several dimensions: (i) the larger the

Thirdly, we should work with most solvable issues. In other words, we should pick the lowest-hanging fruits first. It might seem difficult to decide which issues fits these requirements. Thankfully, the authors of “80 000 Hours” has already done the work and they think that issues like global priorities research, climate change, and developing world health are the most pressing.

APPROACHES TO SOCIAL CHANGE

To make the largest contribution to those problems, we should consider the following approaches: direct work, research, advocacy, and “earn to give”. Direct work is to work directly with fieldwork. The problem with direct work is that you only have two hands and your impact is therefore limited. Furthermore, if our goal is to save as many people as possible, it does not matter whether it is me or someone else who solves an issue. Therefore, it might be better to use our brains to change structural problems. One can do this through advocacy, where the idea is to spread ideas that influence the world. Examples of this are politicians and public intellectuals. “Earn to give” is the approach we have been using as example throughout this article. It is when you pledge to donate, for example 10 %, of your salary to the organizations that help the most people. Hence, careers like investment banking might be a good way to create a better world.

FIND YOUR DREAM CAREER To maximize our impact, we should also consider what makes a dream career. Firstly, you should work with something you are good at. This will give you both a feeling of achievement and you will be able to negotiate the other components of your dream career. Secondly, you should work with something that helps others. Research shows that people who volunteer are happier than people who do not, and that people who

IMPACT

Pressing problem Right approach

CAREER CAPITAL

Connections Credentials Runway Skills

donate money are happier than people who earn twice as much and do not donate. Thirdly, you need supportive conditions like engaging work, supportive colleagues, and work that fits your personal life. A lack of major negatives, such as unfair pay, a long commute, or job insecurity are also important.

BUILD FLEXIBLE CAREER CAPITAL As students, we should realize that we do not have a platform to change the world. In contrast to CEOs, professors, and influencers, most of us do not possess the ethos to push for change. Therefore, we should start with investing in ourselves. In other words, we should build flexible career capital (or improve our CVs as we as business students call it). Since it is hard to plan for the future, this career capital should be flexible.You are up to a great start by studying here at SSE! Many students who want to make an impact ask themselves whether they should start working at a NGO after graduating. In many cases, it might be better to start in the corporate sector since you can advance faster there. Furthermore, the non-profits that help the most people (i.e. GiveDirectly and Against Malaria Foundation) often hire from firms, not NGOs. It is also easier to switch from the for-profit sector to the nonprofit sector than the other way around. If you combine these factors with a great personal fit, you will truly be able to make a difference in the world!

SUPPORTIVE CONDITIONS

Fit with the rest of life No major negatives Engaging work Colleagues

PERSONAL FIT

26 DESIGN | J O H A N N A A R E N I U S

BEING BOILED SLOWLY TEXT / / S Y L V I A H O N G Q I U S H U I Z H E N G Between April 3rd and 15th, the MSc International Business class 2017-2019 went on an immersion trip to Uganda. This yearly trip to different locations is organized by SSE and is part of the Masters in International Business program.

There are always some small things that haunt you. You think about them, all the time, day and night, every minute and every second. They seem like trivial things but you feel scared after thinking about them. You start wondering if you are overthinking. Then, you decide to leave it, tucked into small corner of your mind.

Interesting. Since this visit was a class activity, “we” should refer to the whole class. His white comment was very appropriate and inclusive for a class with 17 different nationalities.

However, it is impossible. Every night when you are in bed, alone and surrounded by silence, it appears again and it just won’t leave. You realize that you do care, you care a lot.

Then there was silence lasting for about one minute. It was the longest minute I have ever experienced. So there I was, standing, waiting, hoping.

When I think about this Uganda trip, there are so many happy memories. So many amazing moments that I will never forget. It was such a great and eye-opening trip. However, among all of these moments of laughter and happiness, there is one small thing from the Uganda trip that constantly haunts me.

“Any brown? Any black?” A girl spoke out.

“Well, I am not entirely sure what she meant by it. We’ll see later….” came the answer from our director.

“Is it because we’re white?

It happened one morning, a morning filled with beautiful sunshine, with green trees and grass, with all the best things you could get from the nature, and, with the most unexpected of conversations. We had a meeting before we left to visit a teen pregnancy center“How can we help them?” A student asked. “The woman I’ve been contacted by told me we could help do some consultancy for the girls. But I am not sure what kind of consultancy and I am a bit confused too,” answered our director. “Why do they want our consultancy? Is it because we’re WHITE?” asked by the same student.

That is what I got after one minute. Nothing more.

So, all my waiting and hoping was for nothing. The guy did not apologize for saying something so clumsy and selfcentered. He did not try to correct his white comment or at least explain himself. He did not say anything. He just stood there silently, as if nothing serious happened. And no one questioned him more than that first girl. It is actually just one short moment during the whole 12-day trip. We had so many inspiring and unforgettable speeches and visits during the whole eye-opening trip. But after that day, every night when I lie in bed, this conversation just appears. It just will not let me go. It is open to interpretation, but I get so scared thinking about it. Racism is defined as “the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity.”

27 DESIGN | S Y L V I A H O N G Q I U S H U I Z H E N G

Oops, it seems like a match to me. “He didn’t mean it.” “Maybe it was just a small mistake and it would not matter that much.” “It is such a small thing. Don’t over exaggerate.” I have said these to myself several times. However, the Boiling Frog Experiment somehow hit me - “if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.”

Well, I am not sure if I will become that frog. I am not sure if more people are becoming those frogs. So what happens now? I do not know. It is still there, haunting me all day and all night. I am still trying to find the answer. Am I overthinking? I’ll leave the answer to you.

28 PHOTO | A L E X A N D E R P E R R I E N

A ROBOT AS YOUR MANAGER?

NO THANKS! TEXT // VENDELA PALMQUIST

“To develop others” - the major driving force when it comes to what is asked for in future leadership. Clearness, attentiveness, and commitment are further top three soft characteristics that are the most desired ones in managers, concludes a recently completed study made by Sweden’s largest job matching company Lernia. Imagine your future dream working situation. Does your manager offer you flexible working hours? Do you have a satisfying salary? Do you reach your stated goals? In fact, results show that we nowadays ask for a more humane leadership style where communication and empathy are more important than salary and spare time. In order to help employers to attract, retain, and develop employees, United Minds, on behalf of Lernia, asked 1 522 people about different aspects of future leadership. As many as 77 percent claim that their manager somewhat or very much influences their health and wellbeing. A manager that coaches, provides a clear vision, and helps develop you as a person is therefore very attractive.

With the digitalization in mind, day by day, we get closer to future managers that might have been seen as impossible up until now - robots. Studies show that the human manager would save one day a week by assigning administrative tasks to the robot. Education and training is also thought to be appropriate tasks for robots. However, more than 80 percent are negative towards having a robot as a manager as they think the work would be harder and more boring. The urge for a more humane leadership nonetheless points to key factors to successful management, but if the digitalization takes us as far as predicted is something only the future can tell.

“High pace, fast digitalization, and increased mental illness at work leads the way to the highly requested humane leadership,” according to Helena Skånstorp, CEO of Lernia AB. “We see that these leaders have knowledge in how to make use of the competence available within the firm if you only open up for diversity,” she continues. Regarding becoming a manager in the future, almost half of the people asked in the age group of 18-35, have the ambition of becoming one because they want to be able to develop others. In today’s society where digitalization takes place at a breakneck speed, expertise and rationality become less important. We need future leaders who know how to transform knowledge into skills, who engage in the work, and who see themselves as human beings.

30 DESIGN | J O H A N N A A R E N I U S

â&#x20AC;?I fear that children adapt their lives to what looks appealing to others, which can be very limiting for the development of identity. 31

PHOTO | J O H A N N A T E L L

SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON THE FUTURE TEXT // LUDVIG EKSANDH

Individuals today often feel lost when it comes to knowing who they are and how they should define themselves. Social media offers us a deliciously simple quick-fix solution: condensing the complexity of our character into 140 bytes of easily digestible information. Many believe that social medias provide us with insights into people’s identities and values, forgetting that they are only snapshots of our lives. The consequence of this is that many people seem to believe that the response to their posts is a direct reflection of who they are, and judge themselves based on the number of friends and likes they have on social media. The children of today, and of the future, are growing up in an increasingly digitalized society in which they are constantly connected to their social networks. Children and teenagers are especially vulnerable and need to feel like they fit in. Previously, when children got home from school, they were cut off from all the social pressures associated with it. They were given the space to be themselves and do whatever they wanted, with no need to adapt to others. Children who grow up today have never experienced a world without social media. Hence, the line drawn between off-line identity and online identity can become blurred. I fear that children see it as a natural part of their lives, instead of something separate from their “real” life. This may lead to the pressure to appear interesting and exciting on social media being even bigger. Therefore, I fear that children adapt their lives to what looks appealing to others, which can be very limiting for the development of identity. DESIGN | F R A N S I S K A A S P E G R É N

Nowadays, children get home from school only to still be connected to all their peers and their interests. Since it’s now common for people to share everything they do with the world, I believe that this can result in children feeling pressured to follow this trend. When they do, their worst fear is to come off as different or an outsider, forcing them to adapt to their perceived peers expectations, even when they’re at home alone. Consequently, this hinders children from ever feeling like they are allowed to be themselves and instead have to constantly align themselves with societal norms. What implications does this have for the identities of future generations? In my opinion, a lack of pursuit of personal interests and a lack of one’s non-judgemental exploration of one’s self could likely lead to less personalized and shallower identities. Instead, people could be seen as more generic and cookie-cutter due to a constant adaptation to their surroundings. It seems impossible to picture a world without the looming presence of social media. Hence, we have to instead ask ourselves how we are going to save the integrity and individualism of our identities in the future. There is no easy answer, but I believe that a good starting point is changing our relationship to our online presence, and in turn, what we define as our online identities. People should feel that they can share some aspects of their lives, and to keep others to themselves. This will create a space where identities can flourish, without all the pressure that I believe is currently attached to social media. If we are able to change the way we see and use social media, this will lead to much healthier and welldeveloped identities for our future generations.

THE FUTURE

...OF YOUR COMPANY COULD BE ONE OF OUR READERS. MAKE SURE THEY SEE YOU. CONTACT CRED@SASSE.SE TO ADVERTISE IN MINIMAX

DESIGN | O L I V I A K R A L L

INTRODUCING THE MINIMAX PROJECT LEADERS 18/19: FILIPPA HÃ&#x2013;GLING AND WENDELA SPELMANS PHOTO | J O H A N N A T E L L

HELLO, GOODBYE M

A WORD FROM THE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

inimax is a project that has become an increasingly large part of my life. It is a magazine that has grown close to my heart, much thanks to the dope ass Editorial Team I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with this past year. Basically, this project has been the silver lining of my first year at SSE. For me, Minimax has been a source of creativity, energy, inspiration, and thoughtful and passionate discussion.

and heard, as well as be a magazine that challenges harmful structures and behaviour and emphasizes and lifts the positive aspects and developments of our lives.

Furthermore, my hope for Minimax is to continue creating high quality texts and bring forth those perspectives not included in, or overlooked in our education. I would like for Minimax to be a complement to our education, for it to raise voices of uncertainty or criticism, and for it to Thank you Olivia and Sigurd for all your hard work this always offer an alternative perspective of what is going year. I very much doubt you are truly done with this on at SSE, and in the world at large. project or that it actually would be possible for either of you to ever really put Minimax behind you and therefore To ensure the future of Minimax and to make sure it is all I hope and suspect to see you return as contributors in that it can be, the financial structure of Minimax needs to one way or another very soon. be reviewed and the digitalisation of Minimax should be further developed and focused on. This past year’s Minimax has, in my humble opinion, been filled with interesting, qualitative, and relevant content, and Lastly I just want to say that I’m thrilled to have such a it is my hope and aspiration that it will continue to be filled great Vice Editor-in-chief; Wendela Spelmans, who’s just with just that. I want Minimax to be a creative outlet for all as excited for this next year as I am. I am confident that students; one that is very much needed in this otherwise we will have an amazing year filled with a lot of late nights rather academic and theoretical world of ours. Minimax editing texts, arguing about color schemes, and fitting all should be a place where all students feel welcome, seen the pieces that is Minimax together.

// FILIPPA HÖGLING, Editor-in-chief 18/19

n The Health Issue, my first issue as Editor-in-chief, I wrote about this year’s Editorial Team’s goals for Minimax: to write about topics we are passionate about, develop our digital platform, and be able to be critical towards SASSE and SSE. What I did not write, but found equally important, was to create a better financial model for Minimax as well as create a welcoming and fun atmosphere for the Editorial Team. Our success rates have been varied. While we have successfully continued to develop the digital platform with each of our issues available in full online, along with having digital exclusives, it’s not been to the extent that we would have liked. The Minimax financial model, especially in regards to advertisements, still has a lot of problems, still needs to be redone, and should be a focus for next year’s Editorial Team. One year ago, Sigurd and I began planning our year as project leaders of this publication over dinner on his balcony. At that point I would never have been able to imagine what this past year, in regards to this magazine, would bring. I could not be more proud of the four issues we have put out this year, and it’s all thanks to the two things that I think have been our biggest accomplishments. Firstly, we have written about topics that we find both important and interesting, more than I ever could have imagined a year ago, and along those

lines, I think we have been able to be critical in a larger degree than any of us thought when we started our first issue. Secondly, what I will look back at, even more fondly than the issues that we have published, is the Editorial Team that has made all of this possible. The Editorial Team has grown immensely in size this year compared to previous years. With fourteen people, we managed to take a step towards including the different programs at SSE by having a Masters student in the Design Team, an Exchange student as one of our photographers, and with multiple Exchange students contributing articles. We not only succeeded in creating a welcoming environment, but also one of a supportive, open, and honest close-knit project and friend group. Nothing I write here would be able to do this team, how proud I am of them, and how much love I have for them, justice. It’s been an honor to be able to be the Editor-in-chief of Minimax. It has been an amazing experience working with this magazine for the past two years. Thank you for all the opportunities, and thank you to the fantastic Editorial Team for being who you are, for inspiring me every day, and for all the incredible memories, some of which will be forever archived in the products of this year and in MedU. With this I’d like to say thank you for the past year. And to the extremely talented person taking over this project after me- Filippa, you’ve got this, go take them all by storm. // OLIVIA KRALL, Editor-in-chief 17/18

From left to right: Olivia Krall, Editor-in-chief 17/18 Sigurd Log Røren,Vice Editor-in-chief 17/18 Wendela Spelmans, Vice Editori-in-chief 18/19 Filippa Högling, Editor-in-chief 18/19

If you want to be a part of Minimax, contact cred@sasse.se

PHOTO | J O H A N N A T E L L

AN ISSUE

THE HEALTH ISSUE

MINIMAX THE STUDENT ASSOCIATION AT STOCKHOLM SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

ILLUSTRATION | F I L I P P A H Ã&#x2013; G L I N G

THE FUTURE ISSUE

THE LOVE ISSUE

PHOTO | I S A B E L L E H E

37 ILLUSTRATION | O L I V I A K R A L L

PHOTO | J O H A N N A T E L L

Health. Sexual Harassment and Assault. Love. The Future. Over the past nine months and four issues, the Editorial Team 17/18 wanted to cover topics that we find important and interesting, and that we believed our readers would find equally so. We hope that we have successfully contributed to the overall conversation within SASSE and at SSE, and that Minimax has been as enjoyable for you to read as it has been for us to make. So thank you for the opportunity that has been Minimax, for coming along on this at times stressful, but mostly rewarding and meaningful journey. Thank you for reading the result of all of our hard work. Thank you. Love, The Minimax Editorial Team 17/18

If you have any feedback or want to be a part of Minimax, contact cred@sasse.se DESIGN | F R A N S I S K A A S P Ă&#x2030; G R E N

PHOTO | J O H A N N A T E L L