AIESEC Norway 2009-2010 vision (as presented in ScaLDS)

This is AIESEC Norway: (if you can't see the video, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNod7EWGRA)



I know I've been an extremely bad blogger. I am not prioritizing the blog at all - but I can say why: because I LOVE my job and I dedicate a lot of time to it.

Education design fail

From Gabi's blog:

Research says the top quartile teacher will increase the performance of their class by over 10% in one single year. Awesome! What are, then, the characteristics of this top quartile?
Very senior teachers? No. Once somebody has taught for 3 years, their teaching quality does not change thereafter.

Maybe teachers with masters degrees? No. According to research, masters degrees have no effect at all in teaching quality.

You might be thinking: the way the pay system works in most countries rewards these two things: seniority and master degrees. What really matters, though, is not any of those. What makes the difference is past performance. Doesn't that make sense? If someone continuously proves s/he is competent at engaging students to learn, s/he will probably have a good performance engaging more students in the future.

Well, classic example of a unintelligent design, which does not see the whole system, does not reinforce desired behaviours and does not naturally create conditions for improvement, i.e. increasing whole classes' performance by 10% every year.

More on Education? Check the provocative TED talk which inspired this post.

I know I am not writing very much here. I am just not prioritizing it so much, because it's so much better to be with my team working with them. But after planning I will start evaluating how to post things more often, since being president of AIESEC is probably the most intense and challenging experience I had.

Starting point

So, today it really starts.

Between today and tomorrow, all my new team will arrive and we will be in the office together, for 13 months.

I love this "fear" feeling when I take huge responsibilities that demand me to learn new things I would never dare to think I would ever know. Such is the magic of AIESEC: we start one position as prepared as we can, but not as good as necessary, then we change, we develop and, by the end of this fast paced year, we are competent enough to say we can do it.

But then, it's time to leave for the new generation to learn.

I really love this organization :)

Withing paradigm versus between paradigms (or, management versus leadership once again)

"You manage within a paradigm.
You lead between paradigms."
- Joel Barker, Paradigms

Very wise words.

It's easier to act within paradigms. People like the safe-side of a well stablished paradigm and dislike the shaky ground of a new mindset. But sometimes you have to take the unpopular call and lead the organization to the next paradigm. Evolution, even with resistence. Puting out your neck on the axe's range is not easy. Sometimes people will hate you because you are "changing how things are done to this crazy new way". But, if it's a good call, the reward of the new and better new paradigm pays off.

I think, as a CEO of an organization that needs a big deal of evolution to keep relevant and competitive in these mutant times, I will experienced a lot of that. In fact, I started experiencing it already, by changing the financial incentives and responsibilities of our local AIESEC Norway chapters.

So, what are the things that us leaders can do to move to move our organizations and teams to the next paradigm without so much bumps on the way? What do you think?

And what if we are wrong, the new paradigm is not the right one? How to be sure? (In fact I guess there's no answer to this one).

World starts to open its eyes to AIESEC

AIESEC Represented at the World Business Summit on Climate Change!

Aman Jain, the President Elect of AIESEC International 2009/2010 (picture on the left), spoke at the press conference launch alongside Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon confirming the role of young people in the climate cause. "Some call us the leaders of tomorrow, but I think of us as the leaders of today", said Aman during the press conference.

To read more on the Summit, follow the link: http://en.cop15.dk/blogs/view+blog?blogid=1361

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AIESEC Meets the Next EU Presidency

Sweden’s Migration Minister met with the incoming and outgoing presidents of AIESEC International to discuss the challenges and opportunities to the mobility of young talent in the European Union.

As the host of the next EU Presidency, Sweden plays an important role within the policy agenda for the European Union in 2009. As the AIESEC international internships program operates across 100 countries and in 2008 sent over 5,000 young people abroad to undertake international internships, AIESEC’s interest and contribution to the topic of mobility is considerable.

On the picture: Juan Cajiao, President of AIESEC International 2008/2009)

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AIESEC International receives an award for Most Democratic Workplace

AIESEC International maintains its place among the 40 organizations who are the annual winners of the WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces™ award for a third consecutive year. The award is sponsored by WorldBlu, an US-based non-profit specializing in organizational democracy.

More information on the WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces™ is available at the Worldblu website here: http://www.worldblu.com/worldblu-list/worldblu-list

Leadership in it's strangest form

Check the video:



(from Seth Godin)

We are young and want to change the world... watching movies (?!)

The Swedish Pirate Party won a sit at EU parliament.

While this is cool at a copyright and entertainment industry reform point of view, it makes me think: is this one of the outstanding issues Europe is facing?

It's natural, the PP had a very good media coverage David versus Goliah style. Everyone get simpathetic with the poor citzen opressed by the big corporations full of money. I am not exempt of it also. I am very pro a reform in this area. The current model doesn't work anymore, especially in the develop countries where high speed internet is a common place. I don't want to talk much about any ideas on this, but it's easy to see the success of the Apple Store and Steam as examples of how we could move further in the entertainment distribution models.

But, I repeat, Pirate Party got an EU sit, is this really what Europe needs?

Well, let there be file sharing.



Just as a final though, it's interesting that again the theory (is it a theory?) "if you fight you lose" is proven. Authorities fought the Pirate Party. What happened? They became stronger and got theirselves into the power position. Probably would never happened if no one messed with them. They would be just sharing their files with the world - as it is happening now anyway, the only difference is that now the EU parliament has to get used with parrots and wooden legs.