Letim rides round the Europe: Hungary

I´ll Start the engine on saturday 23th of april.

I will stay in Hungary, Team Academy Debrecen, 28.4.-6.5.2011 Continue my adventure via Alps to Irun, Basque Country 7.5.-15.5.2011 I´ll work in Team Academy Mondragon 16.5.-3.6.2011 I visite in Angers´Team Academy 6.-7.6.2011 I visite also Team Academy Harlem 9.-10.6.2011

I have tried to define the goals of my journey.

I think there will be lot of fun but also I will…..

Have many good opportunities to learn

Help the coaches and teamentre-preneurs Share tagit kowledge and experi-ences Create new network

6.3.2011 Yesterday I bought me a helmet – yellow one! It´s not very common colour among bikers. They normally buy black, red or blue.

I wanted to be radical and also wanted to be visible in traffic.

There´s lot of cars in the motorways of Europe and everybody drives too fast. I`ll try to survive with a yellow helmet and with ”Happy Monkey” attitude.

27.3.2011 We have still very nice winter here in Finland.

I´m training for my journey by skiing! Let´s hope that snow melts before I go to Hungary.

I am the first “Godfather” of Monkey Business. That title obligates. Dog in the picture is Sulo ow-ned by my son LeoMatti. He visites us every sunday. He is also a very happy dog !

Nice to be in Hungary. This is a small Team Academy in a big city of Debrecen. Put they are crowing.

In autumn 2011 there will be 30 more.

I´m so happy, that they understand my “monkey” english. One of my motives to travel round the Europe is to learn more english. And I have learnt already a little. It´s very interesting to explore how they are using our Partus method here. I have noticed that they are using it in a right way, but also improvising.

University of Debrecen is a huge university. And they have really fine campus area here: lot of green and also many footballfields situated in the midlle of the city. I have a room in the hotell inside campus so it´s only two hundred meters to TA. My journey from Finland to Hungary was successfull but also very challenging. 1500 km on three days was enough. I was dreaming about finnish silent roads.

But still five or six weeks on the road. I am already longing for home and my family. My youngest son got today a driving license, and I was teaching him to drive. I am very proud of it.

I arrived to Debrecen on wednesday 27.4.

It was not very easy to find hotel, which was inside the campus area, not outside. On thursday morning I had my first introduction to Team Academy Debrecen with the team entrepreneurs. We had a wide dialog about everything, what´s happening in Debrecen and Jyväskylä. We tried to find also answer to the question – how to collaborate? Student exchange would be one of the main issues, also co-operations between hungarian and finnish teams.

There is more similarities between Finland and Hungary than differences: We both are • Entrepreneurial • Courageous • Inspiring If you are traveling to Hungary and see around, you can soon notice, that we really have same DNA. Just sit down to the beer garden and look at the people and their behavior. The beat of life is the same, we are talking in same way and can also listen. Hungarian are trustable, they do like they say. To me and I can say also to other finns it´s very easy to involve to this lifestyle. We really have the same roots.

I´am very impressed about these young team entrepreneurs.

First of all they are very polite, smart and hospitable. Second they are very hardworking and enthustiastic. The ecomical situation in Hungary is not very good, they have plummet to the depression and it´s very difficult to find right way to survive. But people tell here a story about TA Jyväskylä, which started during the deep depression. It turned out to be good time to start….

3.5.

Today we have a training session and I had huge problems with my english – again.

But the main issue of the session was, how to collaborate. The main problem is the money. It is quote expensive to travel to Finland, and all the teammates said, that it would be better if one team from Finland can first come to exchange to Hungary. I succesteed team Made. About 13 persons of Made has said that they are eager to come to visit Hungary. The suitable time is october 2011.

We also started a project for the exchange team from Hungary. The plan is, that they travell to Finland on april 2012. The budget is 600€/student. I hope that all the students of Team Academy Jyväskylä will help our friends to get that money!

4.5.2011 Trainingsession with Victoria and teams Ammatti, Gifteam and Hungarian Pie It was in hungary, but it doesn´t make any problem, I only have to use more my imagination. I got an idea to give some feedback about my visit in Debrecen. It was a good training session. I didn´t understand all, but Victoria “sounded” like a great coach.

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Students have earlier studies in University about two years - they have already good knowledge about economics, accounting and marketing

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There is only a little problem with the dialog. Mainly it came from unsuitable surraunding. They learn it soon, no problem about attitude. They are motivated, enthusiastic and smart.

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Teammates were very eager to take part to the training session, they are well involved to the process.

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I thought that how´s the business? And same issue and question had Victoria also. Hungarian PIE goes strong, how is the other teams?

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There is lot of market potential in Debrecen. This is a big city with over 200 000 inhabitans.

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We have same challenges in TA Jyväskylä – how to create and innovate new products and services? And sell them.

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The main problem is not the customer visites or dialog with the customer. It´s how to make business.

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I was very impressed: at the end of the training session Victoria gave very good and exhaustive feedback to each team and to each teammate. Also reflected essees!

WHAT WENT WELL All the teammates were very friendly and polite. They had organized me enough program, sight-seeing “walking” in Debrecen, softair-fighting on saturday….But I had also my own time. For example on sunday I made all-day long trip to Eger and Sirok Teams organized two trainings to diskuss what´s happening in Team Academy Jyväskylä and how can we collaborate

I got lot of practice for my “monkey” english and I had to talk, because there was any well english talking collegue with me from Finland. No-one laugh to me english as they do in Finland The spirit of Teamacademy Debrecen is totaly excellent.

Students are full of energy, they are smart and polite, social. Coaches are hardworking, committed and deeply involved to the Teamacademy world My accomodation in Zenyház was good and homelike, and not very expensive

Vivian helped me before my journey to plan my schedule. She was very helpful.

WHAT WENT POORLY? We didn´t have time to plan my visit with the coaches of Debrecen. There was also problems with e-mails: it was very challenging to make contact with the coaches.

They have so much work.

It was very difficult to find my hotell on wednesday evening in Debrecen. My navigator was right but my mental models vere wrong. After I had found the hotel, I didn´t found any restaurant that is open

WHAT DID I LEARN? I learned to speak better monkey english and found it possible to learn more.

I have time to explore Teamacademy Debrecen and learned very much about their way to use Partus learning method I had change to live 10 days quite on normal life OF hungarians. Lot of walking around Debrecen and exploring the everyday life of hungarian people.

The spirit is good put the economical depression is bad

TEAM AMMATTI We are the “Ammatti”, a team consisted of 5 young university students. With our name, we want to refer to the Team Academy’s Finnish root: “ammatti” is a Finnish word, it mean intellectual profession.

Marketing aspects were important for us when we were creating our logo, that’s why we choose orange, one of the most bold colours.

We are selling professional hairdresser’s scissors and other hairdressing accessories. Mainly we are dealing with the CeCe of Sweden brand.

Now we seek out the hairdressers in Debrecen.

Later we will meet the hairdressers in Hajdú‐ Bihar country and in 2 another country. Beside this we take part in another project. There will be 3 teams in this and we will introduce a brand new cosmetics product line to the market. Hope we will succeed in the future!

EDDO Our enterprise consists of 4 members. We all study Commerce and Marketing at the University of Debrecen, and we are so glad to be a part of Team Academy.

The name “EDDO” was created from the first letters of the founders’ name: Edina, Dániel, Dávid, Orsolya. The word “Contact” refers to the connection with the companies we are working for. That’s how “EDDO-Contact” was born. Our logo was made by Dániel, and it’s very simple and easy to remember.

Our activity:

We are planning to work in Social Media Marketing because in Hungary it’s a quite new part of market. We would like to present the service especially on facebook, because it’s the largest social network. Moreover we can satisfy other wishes of the customer, like having profile on Iwiw, etc. Exactly what we do is creating the customers’ profiles, keeping connection with them, and show the wanted content on the site like sales, coupons, etc. We hope that our enterprise will be able to keep long-term success.

Our second project is to start and operate a food-auction site. Registered members could bid for menus which is put on the site by restaurants. Before undertaking this activity we have to make a market research in order to estimate the needs. Moreover this project is quite expensive to start so we should save some money for it

NUORET This company was founded within the framework of Team Academy. We have 6 members in this team from financial and marketing areas. The name Nuoret means “young” in Finn. With this choice we wanted to represent Team Academy’s Finn roots and our team’s young intellectuality. According to this we wanted to form a suitable logo which is modern but simple and elegant at the same time.

Our work is based on marketing activity. These projects are very different, since we are trying to realize our partners’ marketing-ideas. According to this activity we organize events, make questionnaires and evaluate them. Our mission is to serve our customers, who we already have and find new ones with their references. We are trying to innovate our work from time to time, so we can make our customers’ products and services more and more attractive and effective. Our goal is to become a strong, decisive marketing agency throughout the country

Currently we have three in-process projects: First: we would like to sell discount notebooks on the university for the students. We are planning to cooperate with an IT shop. We want to work up a trustful connection between the students and our team. This project’s goal is to help the students finding the suitable notebooks at the suitable price.

Second project is an event which is organized by a company in Debrecen. This will be a conference where our team will be working as a coordinating group. The conference is organized in connection with Hungary’s presidency in Council of European Union this halfyear Third project:: 3 companies from Team Academy are working together on a mutual project. A new cosmetic product was given to us in order to launch it to the market. Everything is our task from packaging to sales.

NUORET This is our biggest work at the moment. We believe Team Academy can help us to contact other companies in other countries, for example Finland. So we can cooperate with other Team Academy groups, especially with teams from Finland.

We are looking forward to seeing you soon.

Greetings, Zsuzsa Balogh, Adrienn Horváth, Tamara Kassa, Anikó Nagy, Zoltán Németh, István Turcsán

DESPARK In our company called: DeSpark Llc., there are five members. The full name of our company is: Debrecen Spark Commercial and Service Llc. The spark of our name idea originates from our main activity, the sale of fire resistant liquid. Our logo is: the Phoenix bird, that symbolizes our city, Debrecen and our primary activity.

Our goal is to found our firm in spring. We have had many ideas since September regarding the concept of our main profile. Now, we deal with two main activities. One of them is event organization especially for the students of secondary schools, the other one is to put a new product on the market, a fire resistant liquid that we are considering taking to the Finnish market, too.

We think that the Team Academy provides us countless opportunities. We can acquire such important knowledge through the practices that we are going to use in the real business life. Our goal is to found a professional and goal oriented ltd. Though, we don’t have to attend at traditional lessons, our teachers hold us trainings that provide us theoretical knowledge, in addition we also gain experiences about business thanks to our activities. All these are great possibilities for self-realization.

Furthermore, we can create new values in a new team.

Within our team everybody has a different personality.

We have managed to get know each other and to handle problems and conflicts since September that is inevitable to our successful cooperation.

Moreover, we think that business relations are necessary to the profitable work. Thanks to the Team Academy we have already acquired everlasting business contacts and friends.

Members: Bihari Zsófia, Kerekes Vivien, Nagy Dorottya, Racsmány Donát, Stevanyik Árpád

GIFTeam In our company called: GIFTeam Ltd. This means: good, innovate, fast team.

There are four members. We opened a second hand shop. We sell clothes for young people. Our plan is to develop the shop designe and a product list from the profit.

And we would like to make more discounts for example: if you buy two get one free.

If somebody buy clothes for kids give a surprise we can give some candyes. Another opportunities is the name day discount such as: if you have name day and buy something you can buy the clothes cheaper.

We would like to open another shop in the near future. We hope it will be succesfully.

Hungarian PIE Welcome you in the World of Hungarian PIE which was estabilished by us for you to give more discount price in Debrecen and offer you more programs and hot parties. In this case we introduce you the Hungarian PIE’s regular card system… As students, we know that you do not have many opportunities and enough money to do good programs and parties in Debrecen, that is why we try to help you improving your Hungarian life!

That is the reason why we created this regular card system!

You can save more money if you use our card at more than 60 companies. The cost of the card is ONLY 800 Ft for one semester which you can order online as well! We are letting out our system permanently! Sign up to our newsletter and learn more about as on Facebook! You can know more about us and get more information about our system in point „NEWS”!

News: 1. Dear PIE fans, fortunately, Hungarian PIE will flying open the door at 15th of April! It means that the discount price repertoire are coming soon! Look for us on Facebook and on our website!

Next party is coming soon!

2. The first 10 registrator get free Hungarian PIE regular card!

About us (help our student life): 1. Regular Card System 2. Party Organization 3. Travel Organization 4. Exchange Student Support 5. Science Box

Dear Timo,

We managed to write a few questions we would like to discuss with you during your stay in Debrecen.

Topics: (1) Introduction of your teams' career (how they started, what difficulties arised).

(2) Networking inside and outside the TA. (3) Time schedule (weekly monthly).

(4) Positive and negative examples in the life of your TA. (5) What is the evaluation like at the end of a semester in the Finnish TA? (6) Do you have alumni? Who are they?

(7) Team bulidings and trainings.

(8) How do you make good deals?

(9) Crisis management.

(10) The relation between the trainers and the teams.

(11) Democracy within the TA. I hope I didn't leave out anything.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards, Vivien

SOMETHING ABOUT LETIM: I was born in year 1957.

My father was a shopkeeper and entrepreneur and worked with my lovely mother. After my schooldays in Jyväskylä I moved to Vaasa and started my studies in Vaasa University. It took me four years to graduate as Master of Business, then I moved back to Jyväskylä with my beatufull wife kanditate.

We get married in year 1984 and our first son of three was born in year 1985. I took part in a great birthgiving.

My first workplace was Viherlandia It´s a huge gardencentre where my job was to take care everything that dosen´t grow, because I had now competence about flowers! After Viherlandia I worked as a consult of business in a big company called Kesko in Jyväskylä. I consulted 30 shopkeepers around Central Finland. I managed that job very well, so I started my own business in my father´s small cornerboutique near the centre of Jyväskylä. It was hard work for 10 years. Same time I studiet in a Teacher School of Jamk. After graduation I got an oppurtinity to practice my teacher skills in Adult Education centre of Jyväskylä. It took me two years and headcoach of Teamacademy invited me to work as a coach with him.

I have had a great time in Teamacademy Full of challenging tasks with young students. After many years work in our network in Europe we have got good friends and co-walkers abroad. We have Teamacademies in France, Spain, Holland and Hungary. Right now I have a great plan to go there for a coach exchange. I will start my journey on April 2011 and arrive back to Finland on June. As you can understand I have a great motivation to learn more English to survive abroad and have great dialog with my gollegues.

I have been coaching teams in Teamacademy since year 2002. Our students are young entrepreneurs and owners of their co-operatives.

Right now we have 11 teams and five full time coaches. It´s a greatest job I every have!

I travelled first time to Hungary in year 1974. I was 16 years old! We were in the InterRail-trip around the Europe with my good friend Jukka. In a train from Budapest to Balaton-lake we met Károly Kovács. We visited his home in Nagykanizsa. It was beginning of the life-long frienship. In that time Károly worked in a big oilcompany as a technical translater and after our visit he started to study finnish.

In year 1981 we participated into Pannonia-Rally in Sirok (near Egér). We drove with my girlfriend on a small MZ motorcycle over 3500 km from Finland to Hungary and back.

We participated into Pannonia-Rally also in year 1982 (Budapest) and 1983 (Vác). After Pannonia-Meeting in Vác we had a sisterweek with Budai Motorclub. We got engaged during that week. After the rings were bought from Budapest we had a nice engage-party with our finnish and hungarian biker-friends.

We got married in 1984 and our first son was born in summer 1985. At that time we had to change our motorcycles to a car. When our son Leo-Matti was one year old we made a camping-journey to Hungary and Austria. We met Károly Kovács and invited him to visit us in Finland (he was in Finland first time in 1982).

Károly “Kalle” spend few weeks in Finland in 1987 and in 1993 we made a hiking trip to Lapland.

We were ready to take part to Károly´s 80-years birthdayparty on january 2005, but we got a very sad message from Hungary: he had been overdriven by a lithuanian lorry in a foggy morning of December.

“Kalle” is buried to the cemetery of Nagykanizsa and it would be nice to ride there and spend a moment beside his grave during this journey.

Károly was a technical translater but also a great painter.

This is one of his paintings made in a oilfield which is on fire.

Photo here under: home journey from Budapest with technical problems!

Oli mielenkiintoista aloittaa tämä tutkimusmatka meille kaikille melko tuntemattomasta Unkarista. Tiimiakatemia aloitti siellä toimintansa marraskuussa 2010 ja tällä hetkellä siellä opiskelee 28 tiimiläistä.

Toimitilat sijaitsevat opiskelija-asuntolan ykköskerroksessa, käytäväseinällä on isot ikkunat ja muutenkin tilat ovat valoisat ja toimivat. Huonekalut vielä vähän kierrätystavaraa, mutta käyttökelpoisia kuitenkin. Kellarikerroksessa on kaksi treenitilaa, joista toinen on melko epäkäytännöllinen, mutta toinen oikein toimiva. Neliöitä on ykköskerroksessa noin 50 ja alhaalla saman verran. Kyllä niissä mahtuu toimimaan.

Tiimiläiset ottivat minut ensimmäisenä päivänä erittäin ystävällisesti vastaan, ja valmentajat Victoria ja Ildikó kävivät pikaisesti moikkaamassa. Heillä oli kiireitä jonkin rahoitushakemuksen kanssa. Tiimiläisten kanssa pidimme ensimmäiset treenit, joissa keskustelimme Tiimiakatemioiden mahdollisesta yhteistyöstä. Pari tuntia riitti ihan hyvin, sillä treenitilat eivät oikein toimineet.

Tiimiläiset olivat todella mukavaa ja toimeliasta porukkaa.

Näytti siltä, että työtä riittää. He suorittivat TA:n ohella myös muita opintoja, mm. logistiikkan perusteita, joka vaati panostusta.

On hieman kaksipiippuinen juttu tuo muiden koulutusohjelmien opintojen suorittaminen Tiimiakatemian yhteydessä.

Ihan selvästi energiaa kuluu ja suuntautuu muuhun kuin olennaiseen eli tiimiyrityksen pyörittämiseen. Jotkut tiimiläiset opiskelivat siis kahta tutkintoa yhtä aikaa, mm. teknisen tulkin tutkintoa. Tällöin opiskelukokonaisuudesta tulee todella massiivinen, pitkäaikainen ja haastava. Kaikilla on kahden vuoden opinnot yliopistolla takanapäin, lähinnä liiketalouden tai kansantalouden perusopinnot. Painotus paljon laskentatoimessa.

Olemme jo Suomessa todenneet, että yrityksen pyörittäminen on varsin vaativaa ja sijaistoimintaa keksitään helposti.

Aika saadaan kyllä kulumaan ja kiirettä riittää. Olennaista olisi keskittyä yhteen asiaan eli tiimiyrityksen pyörittämiseen.

Sama haaste tuntuu olevan myös Mondragonin yliopistolla.

Tiimiläiset olivat varsin tyytyväisiä valmennukseen ja valmentajiin, ja kertoivat valmentajien viettävän aikaa paljon heidän kanssaan. Myös Zolt tuntui olevan Tiimiakatemialla niin paljon kuin mahdollista, vaikka kiireitä tuntui riittävän.

Hänellä on muitakin vastuu tehtäviä yliopistolla, Tiimiakatemia on vain yksi.

Pyrkimys kohti uutta on unkarilaisilla kova. Tällä hetkellä mennään kuitenkin varsin hitaasti eteenpäin, sillä maassa on taloudellinen lama. Tämä näyttää vaivaavan myös tiimiläisiä.

He eivät oikein usko siihen, että tiimiyritykset voisivat todellakin tehdä rahaa. Suomen matka tuntuu melko utopistiselta, vaikka siitä puhuttiin monessa yhteydessä. Matkan kustannukset ovat yksinkertaisesti liian suuret.Lama on varmasti todellisuutta, mutta samalla se kahlitsee ihmisten ajatukset ja tekemisen mielen.

Lopuksi lainaus artikkelista Suomi-Unkari seuran lehdestä

Mielenkiintoista arvioida Unkarin nykytilaa, kun viime käynnistä on kulunut 25 vuotta. Elämänilme on toki samanlainen kuin ennenkin. Unkarilaiset ovat edelleen mielestäni perhe-, suku –ja parisuhdekeskeisiä. Ihmiset liikkuvat paljon yhdessä ja viettävät yhteistä aikaa.

Ihmeellistä, että he vaikuttivat nauttivan elämästään myös kommunismin aikaan, sillä vallanpitäjät eivät näköjään voi koskaan kahlita kansan sielua.

”Suuri kysymys on, kuinka perinteinen, preussilaisen tiukaksi, sotilaalliseksi ja autoritääriseksi mainittu unkarilainen kasvatustyyli saataisiin ohjattua Euroopassa hyväksytylle Bolognan prosessin tielle. Osa Unkarin asiantuntijoista epäilee, kuinka eurooppalaisittain edelleen erittäin kurinalainen koulutusjärjestelmä pystyy omaksumaan uusia, vapaampia ja lempeämpiä menetelmiä.

Arviointini objektiivisuus on kyllä harhaa, sillä olen käynyt Unkarissa ensimmäisen kerran vuonna 1974. Nuoruus on melko positiivista aikaa ja silloin koettu tuntuu aina hyvältä. Saimme Interrail-matkallamme paljon ystävällisyyttä ja huolenpitoa. Olin silloin 17 vuotias.

Olen paljon ajatellut sitä, kuinka nopeasti muutokset tapahtuvat paperilla ja maiden rajoilla. Muurit murtuvat yhdessä yössä, mutta ihmisten mielenmallit eivät muutu kovinkaan nopeasti.

Samaan aikaan nuorten keskuudessa opetuksen arvostus laskee jatkuvasti. Yliopistoon mennään usein pakosta – vanhempien painostamina, helppona ratkaisuna tai jopa välinpitämättömyydestä kertovan valinnan tuloksena. Toisaalta on myös ajattelua, jonka mukaan on turhaa ylikouluttautua, koska keskitasoisin tiedoinkin tulee hyvin toimeen esimerkiksi tietokoneammattilaisen palkalla.”

Debrecenissä vanhan vallan merkit näkyvät selvästi.

Lujasta betonista valetut elementit ovat olleet aikaisemmin oikeastaan ainoa rakennusaine ja arkkitehdit ovat saaneet tyytyä suoriin ja monumentaalisiin muotoihin. Näistä “muistomerkeistä” ei päästä eroon vuosikymmeniin, ja markkinatalous sekä oikea bisnes hiipivät maahan vähitellen.