Personal SWOT Analysis

S&W

I have a lot of the same traits in both strengths and weaknesses because I believe most of our characteristics are not contrasting, but cohesive, and can turn into both our advantage or disadvantage.

My higher than average speed and energy levels allow me to function well in high-paced environments (such as the Hackweek), but at the same time can make me impatient and sometimes get unreasonably annoyed or bored by slow people or processes (like in teams – oops). I am undecided yet on how to leverage this. Slowing down feels very unnatural and makes me twitch, but being able to come down to everyone’s level, or pace, is a key skill of being a leader. Aside of that I do hope to build a life that facilitates and benefits from this quality and allows me to reach ‘flow’.

My ambition and attitude often gets me into awesome places, to meet awesome people and do awesome things that others might never have the chance to. But in my pursuit I tend to take on too many projects, over-estimate my time and then stick to unreasonable plannings and overwork myself. To make sure the ambition stays at a healthy intensity, I should strive for a better work/life balance and be more realistic and mostly; more picky. I’m already putting this into action by cancelling and no longer taking on anything that costs me more energy than it gives me.

With close to infinite curiosity and a wide scope of interests it can seem and sometimes feel like I lack focus and direction. But when I embrace these same qualities I can be a proud generalist, and use my cross-discipline knowledge to be a cross-pollinating innovator.

Qualities others have pointed out to me throughout the year are my likability, communication skills (verbal as well as written, concise and engaging), leadership skills (natural tendency), my fluency with (almost) everything digital and overall resourcefulness (always find a way).

Weaknesses are my slow decision making skills, difficulties to stay focused (easily distracted by external stimuli), truly listening (as a result of my impatience and ego) and asking the right questions and how I deal with uncertainty.

O&T

Some short- to mid-term opportunities that could make a major positive impact on the direction of my career are my potential involvement with TED, the summer internship and other projects with Saher such as possibly setting up Hackmasters Amsterdam, and the success and scope of the Entreprenerds venture with Marvin. After reevaluating all my projects, I ranked the above three most fruitful and most relevant at this moment.

Also teaching at IBIS and facilitating workshops will help me to learn certain knowledge and skills that will be very beneficial in any prequel of my career. Other growth opportunities lay in the study and intern abroad semesters as this will help me develop cultural awareness, independence and autonomy, continue building on an international network and will help me to master a foreign language, in this case Spanish. Along with this I will build on my internal and external environment and try to minimize the impact of threats and non-constructive habits.

Like I said before, my ambition and attitude open a lot of doors and are widely acknowledged (resulting in job offers etc.), but it comes with a cost – and could leave me ‘bankrupt’ of the energies that make me me (I’m frequently close to burning out).

What could stand in the way of following through and making the most out of these opportunities are mostly emotional factors. The fact that my ambition and certain patterns might drive me to have a burn-out or another depression at some point, which would put me along the side of the road for some time. This goes hand in hand with my insecurities and jealousy and emotional instability, which are all triggered by unhealthy lifestyle habits. If I don’t sleep enough I am very susceptible to stress and heavy mood swings so I will have to avoid this by sleeping a minimum of 5-6 hours any day and aim for a full 8 hour night of sleep.

Other threats I will actively work on to minimise are my lack of sufficient intimate relationships as a result of social anxieties which tempt me to avoid social interactions. Because I believe these relationships are a vital part of my support system and will help me release stress in hectic times I hope to open up a bit more and develop a more meaningful, honest relationship with my friends.

Concluding ..

This year has brought me a lot of new insights about myself and my place in this world. With what I have and stand right now, I might just become a succesful business innovator, but not a happy one. And since frequencies are contagious, I feel it is necessary for me to take care of this before I can fully flourish and help others as I wish to. Therefor I will for now focus on minimising the threats, and finding my ways of coping with them, whilst welcoming most relevant opportunities. In time and over time I also want to develop my strengths further, or rather deeper, and find out how to leverage my weaknesses. I have a lot of time left 😉

Evidence Portfolio

In the Evidence Portfolio I will show and speak of different projects that helped me develop the meta-skills. Each section consists of a few written examples followed by the illustrations.

Define

Professional Rebel’s Quest for Start Ups
My Quandary for term 2 was a research assignment for Professional Rebel to find innovative start-ups that were still quite underground. As easy as it sounded, we soon found it wasn’t as their underground profile automatically indicated minimum to no press coverage to discover them from. After trying various search strategies and sources, we found it was most effective to narrow our scope and search in specific geographical areas or industry fields at a time, or search around certain communities and industry events, and curate them afterwards.

Defining the Customer’s Job Research Proposal
The biggest challenge relying on my define skills was of course the research paper. Having a personal vendetta with this subject, as it was the sole reason I didn’t receive a propedeuse in my previous bachelor studies, I was determined to do it right. I got familiar and used a lot of different databases to search for information and proposed various quantitive and qualititive researching methods for the specific research question. I re-defined the problem statement as it was given by the client, to one I thought was more measurable and actionable. I set out a strategy to find, collect data from the target group and extract insights.

Mindmapping and Sketchnoting
This year I also started making a lot of mind maps and sometimes sketch notes, rather than lists or plain text, to organize thought or data. I found this helps me understand the topic, its key point and its connections, it helps me remember and communicate them and it helps me to focus on the subject at hand by giving me something else to do without it distracting my mind. We did a variety of exercises through the year, such as one with Saher to give subject new meaning and context, and during Visual Harvesting NLU, where we learn to capture notes in a visual but also summarised manner.
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Defining the Customer’s Job

Mindmaps for the Challenge

History of the Record Industry

BMC for S2M

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Additional examples:
IWB Record booth research, narrowing scope and chronologically sorting and presenting the data // Business Model Canvassing at Seats 2 Meet and with WeCloudIt // To always search for synonyms when defining a statement or in your search key words // Researching criteria and requirements for the passport assignment // Trendwatching // Logbook of the challenge

Design

Brainstorming and Creative Techniques
The last year I got introduced to a lot of idea generation, but also idea selection, verification, prototyping and testing methods. As I had never done these activities before and we did them practically weekly, I made a lot of progress in knowing, understanding and applying all these creative tools and techniques. For instance in the design project and hackaton we did with Jeroen, I learned about design thinking, brainstorming techniques and prototyping. I had the opportunity to put this and other concept development techniques into further practice during the Hackweek with Saher in London.

Freelance Web, UiX and Graphic Design
Within as well as outside of school, I’ve spent a lot of time with Photoshop the past 9 months practicing design in the quite literal sense of the word. For example for app design mock-ups, the press kit for BE, the Shogunz dummy magazine for the Magazine Making NLU, the infographic for the challenge. I’ve been doing freelance design for a bit but through practice and repetition have clearly improved in this area. As a result of that I’ve also landed a job with CampusINC as their User Interface & Interaction Designer. The design I’m most proud of is my visual resume.

Designing WordPress Curriculum
Another design challenge for me this year and next year is to design and develop a curriculum for the WordPress classes that I’m going to teach next school year. I had made a rough sketch of the content and did 1 trial class to start testing and refine it based on both direct feedback and insights from the way people respond. I iterated pieces of the content and mostly the structure and might just do so for another 100 times, getting comfortable with trial and error processes.
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Creative User Journey Mapping Techniques	Prototyping things all day ’round	Shogunz magazine dummy	Web design practices
My flyer design all the way out in Bogota, Colombia	My face on the CampusINC team page	Wireframing interfaces at the Hackweek	Designing solutions during the beacon hackaton with Jeroen
(Part of) the Self-Actualization infographic	App screen designs	(Part of) my visual resume.	WORDPRESS CIRRLUM PHOTOOOO

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Execute

Label Management 
Working for the label, I operated on every level of the business; from day-to-day logistics to long-term business strategy. I assisted in managing the process of creation, production, distribution and promotion of various music releases on both physical and digital formats. I’ve executed product development for new merchandise items doing things such as designing the mock-ups, collecting green lights and contacting, negotiating and ordering with the supplier; taking into account budget and planning. I also helped to ensure a key partnership with an international vinyl distributor and hash out the organisational and financial details of this deal. All the while iterating the overall customer experience and its touchpoint, such as the check-out process on the webshop and the follow-up e-mails but also the order packaging, based on direct and indirect feedback, data and developments.

Freelance
For my freelance activities, I also go through the process of attracting, acquiring and negotiating deals and project requirements with (potential) clients. That, sadly, also includes the practices of invoicing, book keeping and paying taxes. Doing freelance work and The Tika venture has helped me gain much insights into the different activities that come along with running a business.

Public Speaking and Pitching
I became a bit more comfortable with public speaking through the TEDxIBIS talk, my teams final pitch at the Hackweek, all english assessments (the Board meeting, Press Conference, the Debate and the Arguing), the Challenge pitch and the many, many mini-presentations we did throughout the year. I’ve also been to a lot of networking opportunities and became somewhat more fluent in introducing myself, finding common ground and following up in a way.

I believe communication is one of the, if not the, most important fundamental skill in business, and life. Therefor, practicing it, wether written or verbal, professional or creative, formal or informal, is hardly ever a waste of time.

Started Blog Monetisation / Creating Revenue Streams
As a side note, I also started monetising on my blog (thetika.com) by putting up ads through Google Adsense. This turns it from a cost into a revenue stream; making it a sustainable venture.
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Da BlabberMouf LP of Da Shogunz label

Exclusive merchandise released along with the label

Me during my TEDxIBIS talk about Hip Hop

My web analytics during high peaks

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Learn

Keep Calm & Carry On with Jolly
Some of the concepts we discussed with Hesther in PSD were quite useful to gain a better understanding of yourself and other people. Not only to recognise or categorise, but it’s also in discussing the topics with each other in class that you can learn a lot from.

I am personally motivated by personal development (the innate drive to reach your full potential), self-belief (If you believe it, you can achieve it) and curiosity & interest (following your interests and explore more). I am always actively seeking to learn more. This curiosity, and my enthusiasm, shows by my attendance at various extra events and seminars like ITEA, start-up meet-ups, a workshop at THNK, the TrendWatching seminar, NewCo and so on. This is a very different approach from people who are mainly motivated by rewards. My main stressors are social and status related.

We also looked into different learning styles and I concluded that to grasp a topic I need a balance between practice and theory, with a preference for deep-dive activities, and short readings and audiovisual material. Like most of my ADHD generation, I have the attention span of a goldfish but I hope to improve that a little bit over the summer and beyond by starting to read books off paper again.

Evaluating Performance through Realistic Goal Setting
I strive for continuous improvement and so I’m always sort of naturally evaluating my performance. Sometimes to an extreme level so I should more specifically work on being more realistic before, more disciplined during and less judgemental after the action. I also tend to get caught up and distracted by daily operations, leaving me to lose sight of my mid- and long-term goals. I want to work on this by setting and achieving more smaller milestones instead of vaguely defined and therefor 0-satisfying goals.

Openness to Reflecting and Sparring with Others
I got more used to giving and receiving open, constructive feedback and really see the value of doing this more than I did. Especially for the video I made for the hackweek, I received such meaningful words of kindness that people otherwise wouldn’t express. Both feedback and compliments are free to give and can be so valuable to receive. Also discussing ideas with others in an early stage or when I get stuck is something I do a lot more now and it often brings me new insights, ideas and inspiration to get back to the project with. Overall I’ve acknowledged the value of thoughts, opinions and knowledge of others more.
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Learning from the greats (Apple, Pixar etc) at the Emerce E-Day

Exploring new audiovisual technologies at the ISE fair

Listening to THNK’s co-founder speak on the importance of creativity in leadership at the TrendWatching seminar

Collaboration with, everyone 🙂

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Lead

Leading
I seem to inspire and motivate others and am very humbled to have the ability to do so. Sometimes my fellow students come to me for advice or support and it makes me happy to help them get ahead. I often took on a leading role within the teams and was more than often perceived as a leader figure; something I was unaware of before this year but am very pleased to discover. Also after the Hackwork in London, Saher pointed out my natural leadership qualities in my feedback, noting that only I have to believe it myself first. I would like to develop this trait further, understand myself and people better and become more fluent and confident with leadership. I will also practice the leadership and communication skills through facilitating workshops.

Being Led
I’m also fine with letting others take the lead, as long as they’re not slow :p For example with Marvin, we have a very good dynamic. Also following others, like Willem or Saher, is not difficult for me. Where it gets challenging is when people are (too) slow, or I have to follow people I do not look upto. This has always been an issue in my education, but I am getting better. Also handling conflict, which I used to really avoid, is something I am getting more comfortable with and trying to find my own style in. We did a lot of group work this year and I like it a lot more now than I used to.

Leading Oneself
I still have a lot to learn on the act of managing myself, stress-reduction strategies and handling conflict, but I like to believe I’m well on the way. I’ve become more directed in my actions, resulting in me being more picky with my projects, time and energies. It’s important for me to start being more focused and disciplined so I can actually carry out and act on my ambitions.
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	Discussing user journey cases with developers	Working individually, doing research and preparing for the client pitch later
Communicating my perspectives and ideas to the others	Following Saher’s lead as he talks me through the Hackmasters manifesto and elaborates on his philosophies	Re-arranging and puzzling web app user interface elements together

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Overlapping Projects

I’ve done a few projects this year that covered the full circle of the meta-skills in their process. A good example was doing the Entreprenerds project with Marvin, where we moved from re-defining our and our users needs, to designing a workshop curriculum, to executing that soon enough and learning and iterating with every step we take. Another complete process was the one we went through at the Hackweek in London. Here we started with a problem statement, explored that, started designing and developing a web app prototype and on the last day executed and pitched the concept to clients.

Naturally some meta-skills appeal more to me than others, but what I like best is to consider the process in whole.
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Bringing together the Design Thinking Process, Lean Mindset and Business Modelling Tools in our workshop

The Entreprenerds brand in the making – from EntreprenerdsAMS to Entreprenerds&Co.

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Additional examples:
From idea to MVP with the Innovation quartet for the Serious Game Design NLU // The design project in term 2, from technology and industry to app prototype and branding plans along the design thinking process

That’s it for year 1. To be continued ..

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