#contactday

This time we pitched our ideas to another group from Let’s Innovate course. We got some feedback and helpful tips on how we can improve our Festival.

Our classmates wrote down & explained to us what they both like and dislike about our ToF event, here’s what they said:

Also, we created a timeline which helped us realise there’s not much time left until we need to pitch our idea to an actual target group!

Time for a deep conversation! We were trying to think about our work and how did it go so far.

What has gone well in our group: communication, team work What has not gone well: observation (one of the tools we wanted to use) What have we learned: we’ve learned a lot about Tom of Finland, team work, tourism in Finland What will we do differently from now on: we’ll try not to get distracted during our meetings & stay a lot more focused on what we have to do

5 dream situations/conditions which would make the target group extatic, would help them reach Nirvana:

Turning Nirvana into hell:

On 28th of September we had to come up with our target group everyday situations. That’s what we came up with:

- drinking alcohol - awkward situations - everything’s too expensive - studying - getting bored easily - lazy - social media/Internet - cooking/shopping - clean eating - taking a shower - driving/going by bus.

The first Let’s Innovate class took place on the 19th of September. We were told to make little ‘invitations’ in order to let others know a little bit about us. On the invitations we were supposed to:

1) write our names

2) describe our passions/hobbys

3) say why we are here.

I decided to keep my invitation very simple and frank. That’s how it looks like:

Afterwards, we were supposed to go around the room with our invitations in our hands and meet other students, talk a little, get to know each other. Then, we were told to create groups with other students, preferably from different university than ours. That’s when I met Allie, Mai, Paula and Juan. 

We followed the coaches’ instructions and came up with the name of our group - Pajam Innovates. We tried to combine a part of every single one of us in the name of the group, so we took the first letters of our names and that’s how Pajam was created. If you want to watch a short video about us where we introduce ourselves (& have fun), then check out this thing. That’s a piece of paper that I have used in the video:

Next, I created a map of things I consider myself good at. Also, I wrote down some of my hobbies and interests there as well. That’s how my treasure map was created. 

By discussing our best skills and interests, we created Pajam Innovates’ map treasure - our best virtues. We included in it things that we are good at personally and as a group.

And that’s us - Pajam - working on our magnificent treasure map at SparkUp for the first time!

Later on, we changed the location and went to Arts Academy. There, we went outside in order to find something that defines us as a group. We have found a beautiful clone leaf and decided it’s a perfect personification of Pajam Innovates.

The leaf has got five ends which kind of connect together in between - that’s five of us working together. Each one of us is eaqualy important and without one of us Pajam would be incomplete.

We - Pajam - were really excited to find out what is our actual task in this course. Among two other things we could work on, we picked a topic which suited best all of us - increasing tourism in Varsinais - Suomi by utilizing Tom of Finland. At first, I was a bit scared and unsure what to do, because that was the first time I have ever heard of ToF. Paula - the only Finnish student in our group - tried to explain to us what Tom of Finland is all about and why it is connected to Turku. Still, it seemed a little surreal and strange to me at first- not because of the topic, but rather because of the fact that we were able to work with such a ‘controversial’ thing during the course and that were supposed to use it for tourism purposes.

During the first contact day, we were supposed to come up with the target group. That was really hard to do and we kind of failed trying to set one particular group of people that we want to target our project at. 

Along with other Pajam Innovates members, I came up with some pains that would make people less likely to came here - to Turku - in order to see something connected to Tom of Finland. 1) obscurity 2) homophobic people 3) gambling 4) weather 5) lack of information 6) there’s no particular landmark/symbol 7) Turku website and tourist information/media are not the best 8) economical problems can ruin tourism 9) if Finland left EU 10) if it becomes a part of Russia again 11) Turku burns once again 12) climate change, natural disasters 13) terrorist attack 14) Muumins 15) kids find out that Santa Claus is not an actual real person.

Yes, some of the assumptions are pretty crazy, but we had a lot of fun coming up with them.

We also tried to assess what would be 7 needs of our target group:

1) adventures 2) parties 3) cheap activities 4) looking for affection 5) independency 6) guidance 7) safetyness; having a group of friends. In the end, every each one of us was supposed to come up with three things he/she don’t really like doing but would like to try it during this course. I wrote down these three things:

1) staying focused for a long time (I do have some problems with that) 2) listening to others carefully 3) public speaking.

I hope I can finally try to work on those three problematic aspects of my life...