What
a day, what a lovely day!
Those
who saw Mad Max: Fury Road know what I am talking about :)
As you probably
remember from the article I wrote a few days ago, April 8 was the day for the
second stage of Simformer Business Cup 2016. So, a very expected day by me and
my students.
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| From the interview for Simformer |
My motto for my
students is something like this: You are winners, no matter what. Maybe some
colleagues in teaching area disagree with me, but in my opinion, it is more
important to convince your students that they are valuable even if they lose a
contest or fail to get higher grades or something similar.
I never push my
students do things they do not like or things just for a recognition. I believe
in them and social media helped me a lot to coach them. Friendship is more
important than anything. And I am very grateful that my students became my
friends and for some of them I succeded to be a mentor. These are not my words,
but sincere appreciations from the students that competed in Simformer BusinessCup 2016.
So, Simformer team
offered us an opportunity to really create a connection between theory and
practice, but also to learn how to manage a team. And even if we were 8 teams
in Pro League and 5 teams in Amateur League, I am not wrong if I say that we
were ONE big team. I changed a few words with Denis, the guy from the second
position in the Pro League and I really appreciate him and congratulate him for
having such wonderful results by himself and not in a team.
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| From the interview for Simformer |
But working in a team
is better, you create strong connections, make friends and you cannot know what
could happen, maybe you decide to create a real business with your team mates
after that.
I started my April 8 day
with some courses (duty first), but I gave my personal phone number to the
contestants in order to be reachable for them. The company given to them was
one in distress so our emotions climbed a mountain that day :) They also had
only 8 hours to stabilize their business, not 30 like in the first stage. They
were relieved because 30 hours was indeed very long, but in 8 hours (meaning 2
months in the game), the competition became more aggressive.
As Minvydas told us in
the Live sessions they had on Youtube, small and steady businesses are not
enough if your goal is to win the contest, not just survive. I also was a
contestant in the simulation, but my goal was only to become familiar with the
mechanics of the game and be able to offer them my advice. I have to
recognize that my main task was to focus on their enthusiasm so I tried to
boost their energy tagging them in different post, pictures, on different
groups, in order to show them that I really appreciate their effort, their time
and their dedication.
It did not matter their
place in the game for me, I really wanted to make them understand it is more
important what you gain from the contest, in terms of friendship, self-control,
organization, connecting the theory with the practice, working under pressure
and also trying to have some fun at the same time.
First 4-5 hours were ok
but I noticed that the team of Diana Bobaru (Diana, Adi Voicu, Cristina Raicu,
Gabi Pungaru, Gabi Tudor and Ionut Renghea) had a different strategy. They
expanded their activities a lot, restaurants, clothes, food, moto stores. Their expenses were very high because of their investments so the losses in the first
half of the contest were very important.
In the second part of
the contest, my emotions became higher and higher. Usually, my blood pressure
is very low but I think it grew and normalized :) I watched all the live
sessions held by Minvydas (I think they were 16) so my activity was something
like this: calls from my students, private messages on Facebook with captures
from the simulation (especially from those in the Amateur League), watching
Minvydas, posting on Facebook about the contest and keeping people informed,
creating a hype for the event and keeping my students’ motivation and energy
up.
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| This is why the game is even funny, not only callenging :) |
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| Yeah, sometimes you need music when working :) |
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| Restaurants are good :) |
I hope I managed it
well because I really haven’t had a free minute. During the last 2-3 hours,
Diana Corporation started to show some profits and higher revenues and that was
the moment I understood that the battle was given between them and Denis (ASEM
Wave).
The contest rules
stated that there were four prizes, one for each category: Performance,
Revenues, Profits and Assets. The difference between Diana Corporation (representing
students from FEAA Craiova) and ASEM Wave (Denis) was not that big, so my heart
started to beat faster :)
18 o’clock came and the
end of the contest too. In top 10, our faculty had 5 teams (including me). I
think this is a great achievement for the faculty and our university. And I
want to mention here the teams Craiova Fighters (Lavinia Balan and her team mates),
Ciobanu International (Adina Ciobanu and her colleagues), Brave Corporation (Silvia
Neamtu and her team mates).
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| Love that yellow! :) (1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 16, 22 are from FEAA Craiova, University of Craiova) |
Of course, Diana
Corporation won the contest, but my reaction was like: What a wonderful game!
What a day, what a lovely day! They were first for all four categories:
Profit, Revenues, Assets and Overall Performance. They played the game in
different conditions, using a phone, talking with me while driving, giving them
a small advice before the end of the contest, but they won!
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| Me and the winning team |
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| Me and Andree-Corina International |
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| Me and the girls from Brave Corporation! We are brave girls here, at FEAA Craiova :) |
In top 10 of Amateur
League, we had two teams from five and one of them - that of Catalin Bodae (UCVCompany) succeeded to qualify for the highest position in Assets category. Catalin
is like a Pro in the Amateur League because his team and also the team of Alina
Tirei (Alina-Maria Limited) were contestants in the first stage of Simformer
Business Cup. So their experience helped them to maintain in this ranking.
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| Amateur League and we have a winner, UCV represented by C. Bodae |
I
am so proud of you, my dear students, I learned a lot from you:
I learned that most of
the time, you need a friend and not a rigid teacher
I learned that you become
more enthusiast, energetic and do wonderful things when you are encouraged
I learned that you can
make me the happiest person
I learned that you
raised you interest for projects outside school, because of me. You keep
telling me this so it must be true :)
I learned that social
media (Facebook mainly) makes miracles in teaching. We organized our activity
on a Facebook group and we also entered Simformer group for more info on the
contest.
I learned that I am
better because of you.
So, thank you for all
these and I address this message to all my students (I also want to mention here
the guys from the first year who attended the contest because they saw my
enthusiasm: Andreea and Beatrice in Pro League and Andrada, Lali, Vali in
Amateur League).
Thank you for giving me
a purpose! I am very proud of you and grateful that I had the honor to work
with such wonderful kids.
I also want to mention
here Simformer guys who organized very well the activity of Simformer Business
Cup and I want to express my gratitude and what are the things I learned from
them:
I learned from AdelinaJensen that it is very important to take the initiative and contact people and
use LinkedIn more often.
I learned from Minvydas that using multiple channels for communication is better :) For example, I felt
an improvement in the second stage with the live sessions on YouTube, comparing
with the first stage where it was only a chat. But I have nice memories with the day
I entered the chat on 5th March.
I learned from Danas that it is important to be flexible in business and also friendly.
I learned how to
translate from Russian with the help of Facebook and also of Silvia Neamtu, a
student in the contest (Brave Corporation).
At the end of this
contest, I hope Simformer guys will organize the event every year and they can
be sure that I spread the words with a lot of posts on LinkedIn, Twitter,
Google+, Facebook, my blog, a journal of students, a marketing club I organize,
posts on the website of our faculty and also attending two shows at a local TV
station.
I also know that
sharing means caring, so I do all these because I appreciate the work you do
there, your simulation is very challenging, comparing to others and most
important it is also friendly. Your servers did not have problems or if they
had, the problems were rapidly solved, the communication was also very
important.
I want to wish Happy
Birhday to two of my students: Catalin Bodae (his birthday was on 5th
April) and Andreea Maracine (hers was yesterday, during the final stage). You are winners and I am
proud of you!
And this is not all :) Simformer also has a Simformer Best Reporter Competition and my students registered there too with the following articles:
5. Puiu Corporation (this is just me, but I want to be lost among my students :)
7. UCV
Smile and shine, wherever you are!
