A Relocation!!!

Dear friend,

I moved my blog to> Relocation. I hope to see you and interact there!

Let's Connect!

Proliferation of Writing

Today I watched a clip of Seth Goding telling a bunch of people at a conference how he felt about blogging. The intrinsic move someone makes to make his or her voice be heard. Next to that, Seth points out that nobody will read your stuff but as he makes clear, it is NOT about the 'numbers'. Even though I check my statistics sometimes, I try to keep away from that since from that point on I only want the numbers to go up. This blog is what I believe it needs to be at any point in time.

I did not write that much lately and I felt that something was missing. I watched a Tony Robbins video of one of his Ted Talks (don't mind the galant pose) and I stopped watching at his 3 decisions of Destiny. This particular segment (surfaces after 8 minutes) is about Focus. I am writing this today because I am turning 26 very shortly and want to create a little mental roadmap/stimulans for myself to carve out my road to Fulfillment.

Research Online @ Mindz.com

After such hard work, my research is online and I need everybody to pitch in, however the survey, blog and the short clip up ahead are in Dutch though!.

Everybody who is on Facebook, makes pictures, loves to meet people and collaborate: have a look @ Mindz.com

Personal Branding on Mindz.com

Mindz.com is an online (working) environment and is for everybody who wants to join. Mindz.com ties in with the concept of Seats2Meet.com, which facilitates meetings offline. The MINDZ Ecosystem is the social glue holding together the organization, independent professionals and both online and offline meetings. The MINDZ Ecosystem is an online (working) environment. As an individual or a group, one can perform their personal branding there, but first and foremost: it enables a person to organize and connect based on mutual interests and passions.

For the blog concerning my graduation project: http://tinyurl.com/63gnvz9

At the bottom you can find the links which guides you to the right survey ;)

All the best and thank you!

Balance X Patience

I have never been a person who liked to look back at past experiences, but I am smart enough to know that everything happens for a reason and in each experience there are several lessons to be found. Currently, I have to be a patient man in order to achieve my goals and paving the way for them. I am still learning to be a patient man for good things to come even though it is in my nature to go after what I want when all I have to do is give it some time. Although I appreciate that character trait, it sometimes guides me into a situation I even want to be there for, or around, somebody even when I am fighting my own battles. I guess that is just my nature instead of trying to portray a certain role. When I deeply care for somebody I always make sure I am emotionally secure but sometimes I even go beyond that to be there for somebody else. It shows respect when that other person says that I am not the most qualified person to be there even when there is some cheering up to do :). It is the difference between what your mind says and what your heart sees and how one decides for himself to respond.


Every person has his own battles to fight, whether they stem from work, family history, upbringing or any other path that makes one the person who he/she is today. Personally, I allow any friend to be critical of me as long as they understand that when somebody really cares they also will say things that can be harsh or even difficult to listen to. Everybody is responsible for their own actions, as a friend you can offer your opinion and be there when the chips are down. After all, it takes a long time to grow an old friend. Sincerely, I have made mistakes to but I am grateful to have a few people around that when I've made a fool of myself they do not feel I've done a permanent job.

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.
Henri Nouwen

Inspire Series X Muhammad Ali

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Muhammad Ali reigned as a boxing champion in the ring but as an inspiration to many outside the ring. With a height of 1,91 m Ali is known for his unorthodox method of boxing: instead of holding his hands high to block punches, he literally floated around in the ring diverting punches. Next to becoming a Sunni Muslim, one of his character traits that he was very outspoken concerning religion, human rights and was very opinionated. 
He always believed that he was the greatest boxer alive and commended attention in that way and became bigger then life. He took risks by not listing to go to Vietnam and overcame all the struggles to regain his world championship title. Since he retired from boxing, his life is about devoting himself to humanitarian endeavors around the world supporting education efforts of all kinds, promotion adoption and encouraging people to respect and better understand one another. Being a champion in the ring as he still is outside of the ring.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."
Muhammad Ali

Louboutin Kicks for Men

Searching for inspiration on such a nice day, it is 24 degrees down here in Rotterdam, these kicks caught my eye:

Christian Louboutin Spacer Flat Sneaker

Although the same causes some excitement for women, the focus of CL onto the men's market hopefully will cause the same response. Available through CL retailers in black leather, white leather and beige suede for the price of $1195. I do like the fact it is a hight-top sneaker where the buckles go up towards the diagonal zipper. Reminded of a Kris Van Assche sneaker of Autumn 09, Louboutin branches out into men's footwear and might do well there to with this bolder design. They are something to look at!


Source: My MANy Bags

Keep Moving On and Breathe

Hey there,

Lately I have not found the words to write, but today triggered me. I saw a big man strolling around with a baby carriage and playing with his little boy making all sounds. The little guy bursted into laughther everytime his father did something to make him smile and lifted him high. Sunshine does a person good and I whondered: what does my future hold?

Lately I am asking that question multiple times, everytime to be remembered that the future is TODAY and not tomorrow. I believe people can change but that everybody has a certain set of characteristics (DNA, upbringing, you name it) which are instilled in a person. I will take myself as a example:

After taking some time to myself, I find myself having trouble letting go. This can be a person, cause or situation but when it does not sit right with me, I keep troubling myself with it. What I learned about this is that I always want the best for people and when something does not go how I see it can go then I get worried. I try to control the situation or force things to go my way. Even in my research that I am doing, situations do no always go as to my planning. What I take away from this is, is that when you start forcing something (especially creativity) you end up with the wrong results.

I believe that I have a promising future but I work for it everyday and try to enjoy my soon-to-be final days as a student. Even though this scares me a little at moments, I try to take it as it comes and enjoy every moment.

This is not a character flaw, even though it can come across, but a internal desire to bring out the best results and outcomes for everybody. This does not relate to my own personal well being but how I look at everybody around me and see where I can lend a hand or even a few words. Yes, I do screw up and can not be everywhere but a few sincere kinds words go a long way.

Each year I watch this video: Life Lessons by Madea and I am reminded about the fact to take a close look at the people around me. I can honestly say that I do not have many friends, but I have a few roots and I place my trust in them. To stay positive towards them, to share my thoughts whatever they may be and encourage them to follow their dreams.

As doing so I am reminded that I need to do the same by keep moving on and just Breathe...

This song always lends a hand and makes me smile: Sam Cooke

The Come Up

Dear all,


I have been looking for a focus of my blog and some of you read about my experiences, my research, some lifestyle posts but today I defined what I will write about. It may come as a surprise but my posts will be about:

• Lifestyle, fashion is something I love;
• My research endeavors, I have to read up on Social Contagion, but I want to become an knowledgeable expert on this subject and the advantages of the application of Serious Gaming for business purposes and in education;
• My life lessons, I draw inspiration from Paulo Coelho, Rudyard Kipling (the man who wrote Jungle Book, one of my favorites), Maya Angelou and many others. It is not that I want to be a writer, but one is what he talks about so that makes me guy who loves to write. 

Babysteps before a big leap. As Oscar Wilde put it:

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

Sincerely,

Stefanos

Learning to be a Satisficer

Another day at Seats2Meet 030: today was one of the coolest and most awakening interviews I had in a long time. I had the pleasure to meet Kim van Velzen which is the general manager of the CDEF Holding which the concept of Seats2Meet belongs to. 
Officially it was an interview and with interviews for job positions a person has expectations. I had several great experiences with working at Seats2Meet and having a crowd of people around me which are, for the most part, open for conversation. However, the position which I am interested in was already occupied so this led me to a conversation (during the interview) about expectation management. 


Let's say you visit a great restaurant and you have a wonderful dinner. Even the person serving you is utmost attentive and kind an during the dinner you look to your significant other and say that you really enjoy being here and this must be a great place to work. The association between having a pleasurable experience somewhere leads to the assumption that it also must be a great place to work. This can be the case, but experiencing one thing and actually working at the place where you had the experience can be quite different. In my case of today: i will have to prove myself again from scratch which I am always interested in and can start fresh in an exciting organization.


What happened was: I projected my pleasurable experiences on my focus of potentially working there. I made this inference due to positive associations and experiences. During my days of moving towards my graduation I think a lot of what my next step is and how important that choice is because it might affect my whole career. For one part, this is true because choices involve other choices but the modern marketplace is a conspiracy to confuse, to trick the mind that believing that every choices (how small they might be) are actually extremely significant. I know people who actually others that they already should be a millionaire because they are approaching 30, the thing is: i am not kidding!


I personally believe that when everybody does the thing that they love or are naturally good at, which can be the same thing or not, a lot of people would be happier.
Rather then always focusing on maximizing, i would rather set criteria for adequacy, rather then to identify an optimal solution.
Most of the time we do not know the outcomes of our undertakings in life, we can rarely evaluate all outcomes with adequate precision.


What I gained from this cool conversation was a good lesson in expectation management, some personal insights and this blog which will remind to always be myself during any conversation. In the meantime, I’m going to continue my quest for self-improvement, reminding myself to be less of a maximizer and more of a satisficer

Lean & Mean

Today I was in Utrecht at Seats2Meet for a conversation with Vincent about allowing me to put out my survey amongst it's online community of professionals and entrepreneurs: Mindz.

The goal of the meeting was to make the survey fit to be distributed amongst it's members. He pointed some details which allows me to gather data which could make a different in my research and provide valuable insights in how a platform is adopted, being used and how informations spreads on it about services, products and of course the development of the platform itself since they are giving it a 'facelift'.

We both came to the conclusion that this could provide benefits for Mindz as well as for my research. What caught my attention was that Seats2Meet is all about meeting new people, connect and share stories. When I came in, I did not went looking for Vincent or went to their desk but just grabbed myself a coffee, unfolded my Macbook and grabbed a chair and after a short while Vincent popped up as well.


Realizing that I did not  go for the desk immediately but just took a seat in a relaxed manner, made me think about Identification. Seats2Meet pulls it of to make such a strong association between meeting people and connect that everytime I walk in, I feel welcome and talk with everybody around me. Well, most of the time ;)


How about that for a 'Touch point'!


What I did today:

• Made another step towards graduation;
• Received valuable feedback in making the most out of my survey;
• Finally enjoyed a nice dinner while having some laughs ;)

Thanks to a friend who showed me this after sharing my day>>

Can YOU smell it!! 

Backpack v.s Man Bag

For some weeks I am looking for a cool backpack. They have to be big enough to fit my Moleskine, laptop and several other articles that I carry along with me. I love leather bags but since my old Eastpak died on me with several holes in it, it is time for something different. One brand that caught my eye some time ago is Stockholm-based bag brand Sandqvist.

The brand was build in 2004 by Anton Sandqvist and includes products for everyday use combining style and durability. Their collection includes leather laptop bags and backpacks made from Canvas. Their Inspiration wall is definitely worth checking out!
Since my Eastpak made itself quite usefull, this specific model caught my eye as well as:

Eastpak Floyd

Checking out the Sandqvist collection of this year I came across this old school model featuring brown leather and made out of heavy navy blue canvas. This one definitely goes on my list!





 


Something to reach for!
Straight out of Japan by Yoshida Porter, this one is a keeper! This item can outlive your grandfather, hold your 15inch laptop and a water bottle for those difficult hours. For the shoppers, Nalden his blog is the place to be! My search continues on to find the Perfect Backpak.

Setting Priorities

Today I had an interesting meeting at Seats2Meet  with one of the founders of the business concept after enjoying a good lunch! While I walked away from this conversation, I realised that I had not made really clear what it is that I wanted out of the meeting. For me personally, it was meeting a new person and telling a part of my current undertakings and my dream. However, these intentions did not really came across correctly as I wanted them to. It is okay to go into meetings with an open mind, but what I learned today again is that when you are straight forward in such meetings that that is more appreciated then lacking details.

I always try to be prepared for any question and to be myself whether it is an interview in a big company or a entrepreneur who heard it all. In my opinion, the key to always be prepared is to just be yourself. This can work out differently, for different persons so you are warned but the key is to be authentic. You only get one chance for a first impression!

My first priority is to finish my academic undertaking, after that there is lots more to explore. Therefore, what I did today:

• Found out that you have to treat each person, situation, business conversation as a single chance to make the impression you want to last;
• Be myself, also when it comes to meeting people who can help my business ideas;
• Read up on volunteer work in India, China and in Rotterdam;
• Finished my surveys for my thesis and publicizing them this week and start measurements.

Nobody said it was going to be easy creating my own job and finding my way but I have my positive attitude, oversight and insight into the material at hand and good people around me.

Sincerely,

Stefanos

Inspire Series

Today I sat down for a minute in one of the buildings of the Erasmus University, overlooking the whole campus while enjoying a nice Espresso. Actually I am pretty lucky that all my hard work got me so far that I can sit here, almost as a graduate, and overthink how I got so far. I was reminded of an MBA-student, in his thirties, who left Nigeria to come to Rotterdam and get his MBA in Business Administration. As the world becomes a global village, he is a nice example of how one can pack up and head in a whole new direction. This moment led me to the idea of also sharing the stories, encounters and conversations I have with people who inspire, achieve and work hard and from whose endevaours I draw lessons from.

Sir Ken Robinson

I will post these stories, pictures, random encounters and inspirational moments under the Inspire Series. This will also include encounters while I travel and pictures or can be a story of a personal hero of mine.

On to the next one!

Progress is a Process

Today I had another session with my coach. Currently I am editing my survey and the final 'tweaks' are in sight. One of the questions I faced during drafting the survey was the scale development. Considering my topic, a 5-point Likert or 7-point would suffice so therefore this post is about lessons learned along the way when drafting a survey covering new marketing instruments and to be tested marketing instruments such as the opinion leadership-scale. 

 

Similarly, attitude is the most widely measured attribute in marketing, and the findings should generalize to other concrete attributes, such as beliefs or perceptions, intentions, and satisfaction. Theoretical tests and empirical findings would be unchanged if good single-item measures were substituted for these constructs in place of commonly used multiple-item measures (Bergkvist and Rossiter, 2007).

Lessons learned

• When using marketing constructs which were used in other studies and measured on a 7-point scale and the rest of your constructs are to be measured on a 5-point scale: bring them all in line;
• Try to trim down the number of items by first assesing the construct's concreteness. If the object can be conceptualized as concrete and singular, it does not require multiple itemts to represent it in the measure and if the attribute can be conceptualized as concrete, it does not require multiple items either;
• If you have multiple items belonging to multiple objects (or variables, or as I just called them ''marketing instruments), randomize them and play with the order of the items. Don't forget where you put them in the survey. Here is a helpfull tool which I used: Randomize Items;
• When you have two separate surveys measuring separate groups, such as users and non-users of an online platform, make sure you have a sufficient N for both cases. In my case I have two organizations but mostly users, but the non-users is the group that can help me get the most usefull information: non-adoption reasons.

Reminder to myself: when I will finish my thesis, I will post a couple of the instruments I used in my survey. I can not post the whole survey, but I will share some of the results and the validity of the instruments I used.

J. Lindeberg Spring/ Summer 2011

Johan Lindeberg started J. Lindeberg as a brand back in 1996. J. Lindeberg is a Stockholm based designer who built the brand to what it is today. Coming from Diesel and wanting to establish his vision, he built J. Lindeberg as a brand he loves to wear himself and I have been digging the label's offering for quite some time now.

Currently, they are in their last days of their Season Sale which still has some great accessoires and fine quality knits that never go out of style. I first came across this brand a year ago and their cardigans fit like a glove and are being made from the finest wool and cotton. Their The Bridge Collection is definitely worth a look!

A cardigan from JL is definitely on my list!

J. Lindeberg Spring/ Summer 2011

Work & Passion

Today I had another session with my thesis coach and after this session, I faced the following question: how can one estimate the market demand for an innovation? What happened before I came up with this question was this: me and my coach were discussing the concept of social contagion and how organizations can use this. I mentioned this concept in my previous posts but I will discuss this in more detail. My research is in full force and I am making progress in tuning all the constructs, which I will discuss more in posts to come. 

The central theme of my research is to develop our understanding of how social contagion comes about in relation to the consumer adoption of new products and how social networks play into this. In general, consumers do not make their needs and requirements explicit and then subsequently go and look for products to fulfill them. I argue that consumers are very aware of which products others around them are using. How many times have you heard your friends about their Iphone 4 and some other cool App they found.

Firms do not take this social process in account in their new product development activities, preferring to focus on the practicalities such as product functionality and design.

My research, which I want to carry on with after my graduation, interest is:

How information diffusion in online Social Networking Platforms within organizations influences demand patterns, word of mouth behaviors and knowledge sharing.

I am in the process of gathering data from two major Dutch organizations which have a Social Networking Platform (one build it themselves, the other had it built by a Social Business consultancy company) in use for their employees. I will use the gathered data to assess peer influence in adopting the Social Networking Platform, factors that influence knowledge sharing, how interpersonal influence affects the product adoption and word-of-mouth behaviors within organizations concerning new product diffusion.

Along the line of thought of Professor Sinan Aral of NYU: "Research on how information and behaviors spread through social networks can help us understand the productivity of information workers, peer-to-peer marketing strategies, and the success of health policies such as the containment of disease and smoking cessation."

Maybe I am biting off more then I can chew but it has my deep interest and as I am moving towards my graduation I am thinking of a way to make it my profession.  Any suggestions are more then welcome!! 

PS: the last time I told you all that I would make a list of everything I have done on that day relating which relates to my passions. Well here the things I managed to take a crack at today, this one relates to my graduation research:

• I finished the concept version of my survey for both organizations;
• I managed to get a interview at an organization which has the newest formula for exciting meetings (in Europe!);
• I made progress in writing this blog and explaining a little bit (without a picture still!) what keeps me busy as a person but the next post will be about something I love, which is Lifestyle!

All the best!

Stefanos 

Wake up Call

Today became a day that became dear to me, since I got a huge wake up call from someone close. I noticed that working hard has his pay offs, but it is important to take a time out for certain things, especially when you are not going for your goals but strayed away from them.

Starting today I will make a list of everything that I have done on that day which has a connection to my ambitions and goals.

More to come and that picture of course!! 

Stefanos - How It Works?

Who are you?

I am Stefanos Karakasis, both Dutch as much as I am Greek. I will post in Dutch and English (for my Dutch readers, sorry but there is more to come!) I love helping other people out as much as I love doing nice things, such as: finishing my Master in Marketing Management, beating my twin brother in Fifa2011 on his PS3, watch maffia movies and having a good time with friends and family. Currently I am working on several things and there are several ''shifts'' going on in my life. This entry is more personal since I will start telling my story and what is keeping me busy as well as my focus for this year and the years to come.

What can I read which is authentic?

I will write about current undertakings in personal development as articles, movies and other content which relates to Social Business*, Co-creation and other exciting news and my perspective on what is going on. If it is out there, it will find its way here if it is cool enough. I love lifestyle and fashion, Blackberry is always with me (most of the times to make pictures), working on business concepts, improve my writing skills and read up on anything that has to do with Marketing and mobile technology.

Current focus

I am finishing up my Master in Marketing at the Rotterdam School of Management, where I became interested in consumer behaviour and social networking, especially social contagion. Social contagion (Iyengar et al., 2011) relates to the interpersonal influences people exert on eachother and how this Word of Mouth (WOM) affects new product adoption or behavourial changes.

This interest became the main topic for my thesis, which respectfully is being conducted at two major organizations in Holland. I am looking at the social side of ''knowledge sharing'' on Social Networking Platforms which are active, and build, within organizations. This takes me through a whole lot of interesting data, books, articles and gives me the opportunity to meet lots of interesting and inspiring people.

Next to this ''project'', there are several other things that keep me busy and goals for the future, but for now: i will upload a picture and will start unpacking my new Moleskine and go for a walk for some new inspiration!

* I will use the concept of 'social business' as a term for Knowledge Based Working, Social Media principles and Sustainable Enterpreneurship.