Creativity is a word that has received a lot of attention in recent years, but what is it and why is it important?
By Tina Larsen
Creativity is a sought-after quality, both at the private level and in working life. In the first Engage Talk of this semester Maiken Nilsen Stenaker from Engage has a discussion about creativity with an expert panel. They discuss what it is, whether it can be taught and why it is important. The expert panel consists of Elli Verhulst, Håvard Sandaa Karlsen and Kim Daniel Arthur.
If you want to learn more about creativity and how to develop your creative abilities, watch the Engage Talk below. It`s subtitled in english.
To be creative or non-creative
People will often consider themselves as either creative or non-creative. Being creative is often understood as being artistic and using visual means like painting, drawing and producing music. However, Kim Daniel Arthur believes that this way of thinking about creativity is a misconception.
Creativity is individual and everyone has their own way of being creative. You are not either a creative person or a non-creative person. We have all those qualities and bring them with us in what we do.
Kim Daniel Arthur, serial entrepreneur
Being creative does not belong to creative professions. A plumber, an accountant and a librarian can also be creative in their doings. The potential to be creative exists in every aspect of life, either it’s working life or private life. Creativity is really about finding solutions to a problem, coming up with new ideas and creating something. Being creative is therefore not just for the artistic. We need different perspectives and input from all types of people and from different types of disciplines and fields of knowledge to solve the great challenges we as a society face today.
Can you learn how to be more creative?
Yes, you can. Creativity is an ability and it can be developed. One can consider creativity as a muscle and a muscle can be trained. This also applies to your creative abilities. We must learn different creative methods and practice problem solving regularly and purposefully. It is important to force ourselves out of habitual thought patterns. As humans, we like the safe and comfortable, and as a result of evolutionary developments, we have learned to avoid fear. The feeling of fear can be an inhibitor of creativity. It can be scary to share ideas and jump into the unknown, but Håvard Sandaa Karlsen points out that you just have to do it. Do not be afraid of what others might think. Not all ideas are good, but a suitably good idea can be developed to be an extremely good idea if you get input and collaborate with others.
Why is creativity important?
Creativity is crucial to solving problems and challenges. We are in a time where we all have a social responsibility to become more sustainable. To become more sustainable, we must come up with new ideas and solutions that make it possible to act more sustainably on all levels.
You often hear about how much you must sacrifice or give to achieve the sustainability goals. But if everyone works with their creativity and collaborates, then maybe we will find better solutions that doesn’t necessarily lead to having to sacrifice something or compromise on either finances or functionality. We can be part of building this society into a better society, more sustainable in all respects and I think creativity is the key to making it happen.
Håvard Sandaa Karlsen, founder and CEO of by North
Creativity is therefore very important if we are to achieve the sustainability goals. Creativity is also important to solve other problems and challenges in life, either big or small. Developing your creative abilities should therefore be a priority.
Engage TALK
Engage TALK is a digital series in the field of entrepreneurship where we highlight current topics that can be useful for professionals, experts and businesses. The goal is to connect these different actors.
The next Engage TALK will be held on the 22nd of October.
Click to see related exercise: “Getting started on reflection”
Why encourage students to reflect?
Reflection – a skill for learning and development
Reflection is in our context of entrepreneurship education one of five key elements together with act, interact, challenge and embrace. It can be seen as the bridge back and forth between theory and practice and from prior experiences to future challenges. In entrepreneurship education with its use of experience-based learning, reflection is a vital part of the learning process –by reflecting on our experiences we enable and internalize learning.
Reflection is also what helps us “close the gap” when we are dealing with a confusing or problematic situation. External disturbances and perception of uncertainty, which often ispresent in entrepreneurial processes,are according to Dewey (1933) major cues for reflection.In these situations,reflection is the key to help us make meaning of our experiences, help us to clarify our intentions and move forward to further experiences.Reflection deals with our subjective and therefore personal relevant experiences. In an educational setting this implies that the students are exposed to real. life challenges in which they are engaged and motivated to invest time and effort solving. These experiences have the potential to encourage the students urge to reflect.
Through reflective processes we reconstruct this experience; we make sense of it and create our very personal understanding of an experience. Reflection therefore is a relational activity that helps us with recreating the world. Reflection and experience are closely intertwined, as any insight into our own thinking, feeling and acting also involves certain changes with respect to how we experience a (future) situation.
Knipfer, Kump, Wessel, & Cress (2013)
The benefit of group reflection
Reflection as a collaborative activity has major benefits. Firstly, it triggers us to make tacit knowledge explicit and facilitates individual reflection by challenging one’s own understanding and interpretations of an experience. Secondly, it fosters sharing of individual experience and promotes joint sense-making on shared work practice. Hence, collaborative reflection both acts as a catalyst for individual reflection and enables sharing of knowledge and construction of new knowledge on a group level (Knipfer et al., 2013)
…But what is reflection, really?
Reflection is often referred to as a conscious cognitive process of thinking over a situation, person, problem or question. Boud, Keogh, and Walker (2013) also include the affective activities in their definition, by saying:‘Reflection in the context of learning is a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciations’ (p.19).
Towards a common understanding. For most of us, reflection is an activity we do on an everyday basis without labelling it “reflection”. However, in an educational context, many students find reflection a troubling and difficult concept to grasp. (Meyer & Land, 2005) Therefore, many students question how to reflect and what the difference is between a reflection and a description of an experience. The diversity among the students when it comes to for instance family background, learning style and chosen discipline in higher education can influence the pre-understanding of the concept. Still, a common understanding of reflection among those involved is often taken for granted. Since this is not the case, we believe that the concept should be explored explicitly to enhance clarity and unity on two levels: within the teaching team and within the student groups.
Link: The exercise “Getting Started on Reflection” shows three ways to introduce reflection – to facilitate a common understanding of the practice.
How?
Since reflection may be a troublesome concept and may be given less value than the actual problem-solving activities, the support, scaffolding, and facilitation we provide as educators are crucial. Below, we have described four aspects of reflection worth to consider when introducing reflection as a learning activity:
1. What to reflect on?
The learning objectives of the program, course or workshop will help you to find the themes that is central for reflection. What are the main goals forstudent learning? Reflection can help the students to look backat experiences either individually or in a group. In this case, the themes to reflect upon may be related to the activity the students just went through, for instance by focusing on the content, the problem-solving process, the entrepreneurial process or the cooperation if the activity is a group task. Reflection can also be used to investigate possibilities and challengesahead, through asking question related to a) a problem they are working on (e.g. “What alternatives can you find that may help to solve the problem?”).
2. The art of asking open-ended questions
The ‘secret’ of facilitating reflection is to ask open-ended questions, in which you do not know the answer. Simply because there is not one right answer, but many possible ways to perceive the situation or object of reflection. This may sound easy, but surprisingly many of us fall into the trap of asking questions from a role of being an ‘expert’, searching for right and wrong answers. If we want to stimulate reflection, we have to put the expert role aside and our curiosity in front (Schein, 2013). Therefore, we must try our best to formulate questions that may have multiple answers and that will engage the students in exploring their experiences based on their own curiosity and motivation to learn, and not to satisfy us as educators. Some tips are: Start the questions with ‘What’ or ‘How’ (or ‘when’ and ‘who’ if relevant). Try to avoid asking ‘why’, at least in the beginning, because this often makes us narrow down our thinking in trying to find one answer or a ‘good explanation’, but what we want is our students to open up and look at an experience and explore it from different perspectives.
3. A safe environment to reflect
In contrast to sharing factual knowledge, sharing our reflections is something personal, that can make us feel vulnerable. Some people are comfortable with introspection and sharing these thoughts, but for others this is very challenging. Therefore, it is crucial to create a safe environment that enable the students to “think aloud”. This may take time, but for a start, it is important to emphasize that there are no right and wrong answers, and that you as an educator see reflection as a means to learn something new about yourself and the content of the course. We will learn much more if we support each other! One way to do this in practice is to start with individual reflections, then ask the students to share what they are comfortable with in a small group, preferably with people they know. Eventually you can ask some questions in plenary that potentially open up those who wants to share with the whole class. Remember to be curios, humble and grateful for those who chose to share.
4. Practice makes perfect!
There are opportunities for learning through reflection from all our experiences – trivial or complex. We would encourage you as educators to find allocated time for reflection after, or possibly also before and during, all learning activities where the students have been exposed to problem solving activities individually or as a group. If reflection is done at a regular basis as part of the learning activities, this will help the students to develop reflection itself as an integrated skill. Therefore, we argue that 10 minutes at the end of a learning activity is much better than one day at the end of the semester. As all other skills, reflection is a skill that can be learned and further developed, – and practice makes perfect! However, time is always a limited resource be it during learning activities or in working life.
Although time for learning and development through reflection may sound like a good investment, students may lack motivation to reflect if they have not experienced that the time invested will pay back later. This may be particularly challenging in action-oriented courses if the students experience reflection as a sudden break in their workflow. Hence, the educators need to think through when to introduce reflection activities. Anyhow, reflection must be integrated in the time schedule of the course within the time of the course to ensure it is given the needed priority timewise. The students will probably not initiate this by themselves! Reflection can be done both “in and on action”, but to put an explicit focus on it from the start, giving time to reflect through structured exercises is recommended. Below you will find two examples of structures for reflection on action.
Learning the method, not only learning from the method
No matter how much we prioritise the possibilities for our students to learn through experience and reflection, the skill level they can achieve is somehow limited due to limited time and the “not totally real life”-context they operate within. However, if we can give them both a deep understanding of skills, knowledge and general competence and rewarding experiences with deliberately reflecting on both previous experiences and scenarios to come, they can keep learning and developing skills and mindset in a lifelong perspective as professionals. Entrepreneurs often operate in a market where uncertainty and rapid change are trademarks. Through reflection to be able to use previous experiences to develop the team performance as well as the actual product or service provided from the company, are important both at the individual-, team- and organisational level to enable learning and success.
Literature
Boud, D., Keogh, R., & Walker, D. (2013). Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning: Routledge Ltd.
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think : a restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company.
Knipfer, K., Kump, B., Wessel, D., & Cress, U. (2013). Reflection as a catalyst for organisational learning. Studies in continuing education, 35(1), 30-48. doi:10.1080/0158037x.2012.683780
Meyer, J. H. F., & Land, R. (2005). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): Epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning. Higher education, 49(3), 373-388. doi:10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5
Schein, E. H. (2013). Humble inquiry : the gentle art of asking inst- ead of telling. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Five participants are pitching their paper, based on the theme entrepreneurial mindset, followed by a digital roundtable discussion.
24th of September 2020 at 3 PM to 5 PM (CEST) Register to the event HERE by 23rd of September 2020 at 2 PM (CEST). You have to be a member of ECSB to follow this event. If you do not have a valid membership, click here to become a member.
As moderators, we have the pleasure of presenting professor Andrew Corbett and professor Jeffery S. McMullen.
The theme of this event is based on the theme of the 3E conference that was cancelled this year, due to the Covid-19 crisis, Entrepreneurial mindset.
This is the first in a series of event that Engage – Centre for Engaged Education through Entrepreneurship together with ECSB now are launching online.
Andrew Corbett is the Paul T. Babson Chair of Entrepreneurship and serves as Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division at Babson College. He is an editor for the Journal of Business Venturing, and co-editor of the Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence, and Growth book series. Professor Corbett also holds an appointment as a Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Nord University Business School in Bodø, Norway.
Jeffery S. McMullen is David H. Jacobs Chair in Strategic Entrepreneurship and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Business Venturing and former Editor-in-Chief of Business Horizons. Dr. McMullen earned his M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado, and his Bachelor of Accountancy at New Mexico State University.
Participants pitching their papers
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’ ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET Iselin Mauseth Steira, Nord University, Engage Co-authors: Karin Andrea Wigger and Kari Djupdal
Entrepreneurial mindset(s) and cycles of learning Matthew Lynch, Østfold University College Co-author: Andrew Corbet
ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET IN HIGHER EDUCATION: WHERE ARE WE AND ARE WE GOING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTIONS? Inge Birkbak Larsen, Aarhus University, BSS
Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset – The Impact of Pedagogical Interventions on the Entrepreneurial Mindset Anh Dinh, University of Dortmund Dr. Luis Oberrauch, University of Koblenz-Landau Co-authors: Mario Holesch, University of Dortmund (in the video) and Dr. Samantha Dewalt, Lehigh University (US)
Towards an Entrepreneurial Mindset for All: From United Nations Initiatives to Strategies for Individual Educators Audree Chase Mayoral and Whitney Szmodis, Lehigh University, College of Education
After a successful debut, Trondheim Slush’D is coming next year with a new concept of a hybrid physical and digital event. The Trondheim Slush’D team is currently working on setting a date for the event for 2021
Entrepreneurship has never been a straightforward nor predictable path and Covid-19 certainly didn’t help. In general terms (pardon my dire oversimplification) you identify a problem, you validate that problem and seek out to identify a solution and a customer for that solution. In the beginning you might have some early traction, a couple daring or desperate (preferably both) pilot customers willing to try out your solution. Maybe, through a combination of hard work, perseverance and luck you start seeing product market fit. What now?
Identifying the challenges
What you usually find at tech and entrepreneurship conferences is a lineup of inspirational keynotes and discussion on the next big thing, and as awe-inspiring as that can be, inspiration has never built a prototype.
At Slush you get help that inspires you, not inspiration that doesn’t help you. You are inspired not by the grand war stories of success, but by your own, cloudy, tumultuous path becoming just a bit clearer. That next insight, hire or partner coming to light, allowing you to take action. Slush is about real, tangible help for founders to achieve the future they have envisioned.
Earlier this year, we in the Trondheim Slush’D team set out on the task of identifying the challenges Norwegian entrepreneurs face, in hope of singling out a concrete problem, an area to target and address. Turns out that finding an answer to that question is not exactly a straightforward path. The first half of 2020 was spent looking for an answer through numerous interviews and conversations with up-and-coming founders, venture capitalists and other ecosystem players.
Entrepreneurship is a practice full of uncertainty and always will be. There is no golden playbook, and no two companies are built the same way .One will always face new challenges, new obstacles to overcome, both big and small. However, there was a recurring sentiment across all the conversations we had; Norway has many brilliant early stage founders, and early stage funding is plentiful.
The challenge we see is that there are not many that manage to transition towards scaling their business.
What we in Trondheim Slush’D found through our research is that the primary challenge Norwegian founders face today is growth
As Paul Graham of Y Combinator famously said in his 2012 essay;
A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of “exit.” The only essential thing is growth.
Naturally, growth itself is not a challenge unique to the Norwegian entrepreneurs, but Slush’D focuses on the local aspects. How do we scale globally from the Norwegian market? How to think about recruiting for growth ? How should we think about inclusion and diversity when scaling our team and product? Trondheim Slush’D will approach the challenge of growth through a Norwegian lens, addressing the unique challenges and opportunities that exist here.
Hence, the theme of Trondheim Slush’D 2020 is; “From Startup to Scaleup”. In November entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to hear experienced founders share their lessons, give actionable advice, and mentoring the next wave of ambitious entrepreneurs on scaling their team, their product and conquering new markets!
All to help founders prepare for, and think about how they will scale from day 1 to execute their transition from a small startup to a growing, thriving company.
Learning from those who’ve walked the path
So founders, come to Trondheim Slush’D not for networking and inspiration. Come if your time is best spent learning from those who’ve walked the path before you, and take a small break from building your breakthrough.
To help us help you, I encourage you to be proactive! If you have an idea, a topic, a problem you are pondering, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re doing this for you.
And students, we are looking for you who want to help founders in Trondheim/ Norway build and deliver the next wave of game-changing products and services. By joining the core team you are put in the midst of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a unique opportunity to learn from experienced entrepreneurs and investors, while building something together.
We are especially looking for someone with marketing experience joining the core team, but we are open for all those passionate about entrepreneurship and willing to put in the effort.
Later this fall we will also open for volunteering at the event itself, so please don’t hesitate to reach out if you are interested!
About
Slush is one of the world’s leading startup and tech events, having grown from a 300-person assembly in Helsinki to gathering 25,000 attendees in 2019, with over 3,500 startups, 2,000 investors and 600 journalists coming in from over a hundred countries to participate.
Despite now being a community of true global magnitude, the mission of Slush remains the same: to create and help the next generation of groundbreaking entrepreneurs.
Slush’D is a new concept by Slush, pioneered here in Trondheim in 2019 with the aim of activating and accelerating the
development of startup ecosystems, and connecting them across Europe.
Trondheim Slush’D is a project driven by a dedicated independent team of local entrepreneurs, students, community builders and Slush alumni.
The value of 7-day entrepreneurship courses. A new book about camps, challenges and short courses that promise to create change agents
By Lise Aaboen, Professor in entrepreneurship, NTNU
Perhaps you have seen all the glossy posters and pictures from camps, challenges and entrepreneurship courses showing excited students grouped around post-it notes. In the pictures, we see enthusiasm, engagement and entrepreneurship in the making. Just outside the picture, is a tired but relieved teacher, program manager or university administrator who received a message a few months earlier that “the university has decided that all students should be introduced to entrepreneurship and you are the person that will make it happen”. This book is written for these teachers, program managers and university administrators. By reading this book, they will learn how eleven other European universities decided to solve this task and learn from their experiences.
By reading this book, they will learn how eleven other European universities decided to solve this task and learn from their experiences.
There are three types of initiatives in the book:
1) The first type of initiatives tried to instill an entrepreneurial mindset and inspire the students to entrepreneurial thinking through teamwork. The result is often a pitch or presentation of how the students have solved a challenge. These initiatives are often mandatory and provided for instance in the beginning of a semester to a large group of students at the same time.
2) In the second group of initiatives, the intended result is to contribute to the third mission of the university by preparing students for a career as entrepreneurs. These initiatives are usually extra-curricular and the students are working on developing an actual venture.
3) The third group of initiatives are based on collaborations between universities and have a regional or societal goal for their activities.
Even though the initiatives have different goals, different students and different contexts, the pedagogical approaches are more or less the same in all initiatives. The emphasis is often on teaching the students tools such as design thinking or lean start-up through experiential learning where students work on a project in groups with mentoring and attend lectures for learning the tools they need during their project. A promising development in some of the universities is that in addition to providing an initial awareness of entrepreneurship to the students, these initiatives are used for trying out new exercises that are later implemented in courses and for training junior faculty in entrepreneurship teaching. In order for these initiatives not to become just a fun add-on event during education, we suggest that future developments of such initiatives should move in the direction of increased contextualization in order for entrepreneurship to become an integrated part of the curriculum of the study programs.
You can read more about the book from the publisher
In the book you can read about the following initiatives: WOFIE (Aalborg University, Denmark), The Innovation Camp (NTNU, Norway), SEMIS (TBS Business School, Toulouse, France), LISS (Leeds University, UK), SommarMatchen (Linköping University, Sweden), Entrepreneurship for Research Professionals (Turku University, Finland), VentureLab Weekend
(University of Groningen, the Netherlands), PIE 17-088 (University of Malaga, Spain), Pursuing Entrepreneurship (Aarhus University, Denmark), 5UCV-E2 (Universitat Jaume I, Valencia, Spain) and ComoNExT iStart Academy (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy).
Maiken starts the discussion by asking if gender matters in regard to entrepreneurship. “Fewer women than men are involved in entrepreneurship in Norway. This is the case in other countries as well, but the differences between the sexes are actually greater in Norway. Only about 3 out of 10 start-ups in Norway are founded by women”, she states.
Gry Alsos, professor at Nord University Business School, has researched the role of gender in entrepreneurship. When asked about why there is an uneven distribution when it comes to entrepreneurship and gender, she says a lot of it is because of historical reasons and traditions as well as how this is lingering in society today. “It is about ideas, what is seen as the norm for men and women, and what kind of priorities one should have”, she says.
Female entrepreneurs
The entrepreneurs Anita and Lisbeth have both been working in a male-dominated industry as entrepreneurs. Maiken asks them how their experiences have been. “It has been very challenging”, Lisbeth says. She explains that it has been difficult to gain acceptance and to be taken seriously. “At the fair where we were going to promote our product, we were often asked about who was behind the product, and when we said it was us, we got a little snazzy smile back and questions about who “really” stands behind. It is clearly very provocative”, she says. On the positive side they stood out and received a lot of media attention. Anita also met some prejudice as a female entrepreneur and especially being a mother as well, but that gave her even more motivation to succeed and to show them that she could do it.
When it comes to financing, both Lisbeth and Anita experienced being asked other questions than men. “You get critical questions, such as whether you have considered the risk, why you should succeed and whether you can do it. You have to show that you have prepared and done a lot of research in advance, which I think men do not have to put as much effort into”, says Lisbeth. Anita have had the same experiences regarding financing.
I do not want to be defined as a female entrepreneur; I am an entrepreneur. I see now that it is important to speak out and highlight and define a good content in being a female entrepreneur.
Anita Skog, Innovation Norway
“It is cool to be a female entrepreneur. We should cheer for other female entrepreneurs and be proud of it”, Lisbeth adds.
Is there a difference in the way we talk about female and male entrepreneurs?
Gry says there is a difference in the way we talk about female and male entrepreneurs in which we do not talk about “male entrepreneurs”. “There are entrepreneurs and there are female entrepreneurs. When we talk about female entrepreneurs, we refer to something special – to another type of entrepreneur”. She refers to research findings which shows that the financiers tell women to be careful not to fail, while to men they tell them to seize the opportunity and be ambitious. This is done unconsciously, and she explains that there is some sort of care for female entrepreneurs.
Lisbeth experienced that she and her partner often got portrayed as young and dreamy in the media. “Instead of saying that we had goals and ambitions, they said we had hope”. She refers to a TV-series she attended where they got described as two young girls even though there where men her same age also attending. “They were portrayed as successful without even having a product, while we had a finished product and were portrayed as young”, she says. “As a female entrepreneur you get a softer approach. There is less focus on business and the portrays are more playful when female entrepreneurs get coverage by the media. Society is steeped in attitudes about gender and therefore, media reports can be colored by it”, Anita says.
What about change?
“In the big picture, things are slowly moving forward”, Gry says, but confirms that there is a positive development. “Entrepreneurship has become cooler, especially among young women. It is important to stand out as a female entrepreneur because then you can gradually change the image. Therefore, it is necessary to present those stories of female entrepreneurs”, she states.
We need entrepreneurs to succeed in transitioning to a more sustainable society. It is then stupid to slow down women. We need experience from different industries, and we need to think about where the potential for value creation is. The more diverse, the more original things will emerge.
Gry Alsos, Professor at Nord University Business School
Anita agrees and says it is important for women to help and participate in shaping the future.
When asked about what is needed to increase the attractiveness of being a female entrepreneur, Lisbeth says we must continue to promote female entrepreneurs. “It is important to create good examples, to create someone you can identify with and look up to”, she says.
Many have during the recent months lost their jobs, and over 200.000 are still laid-off. The government has introduced a competence reform whereby they, through a temporary regulation, allow unemployed and laid-off workers to combine unemployment benefits with education or training. This regulation applies until September 1, 2020. The government thus searched for universities and colleges that could offer courses to this target group, and NTNU received support.
NTNU and Engage Centre wants to give people affected by the corona-situation a skill-upgrading so that they can learn to create value. In the summer of 2020, NTNU will offer an online course in entrepreneurship and business development for laid-off and partially laid-off workers. The online course is for those who want to learn about how to identify new opportunities and how to do something about those opportunities.
Even Haug Larsen, a university lecturer at NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, are one of the lecturers working with this project. He says that participants are allowed to work on real and self-selected issues that are relevant to the participant and / or company the participant is laid-off from. The lecturers will be with them in the process of developing an idea to a concept. “The course is a mix between videos and digital lectures, so you can do everything from home”, he says. After delivering homework assignments and passing the exam, you will earn 7.5 credits in entrepreneurship and business development from NTNU. The online course is taught in Norwegian and requires only general university admissions certification.
Skapverdi.no
Starts the 22nd of June and lasts until the 31st of August.
Registration deadline is 17th of June.
Free of charge.
55 admissions.
Requires general university admissions certification.
At universities around the country, there are various offers aimed at inspiring and helping students realize their business idea. Maiken Nilsen Stenaker from Engage at Nord University had a talk with the leader of Spark* NTNU Rasmus Thunem and the entrepreneurs Siw-Cathrine Braa and Michal Meyer Nilssen about how they used their time during their studies to realize their entrepreneurial dream. Rasmus, Siw-Cathrine and Michal have all started a business while studying and in this Engage Talk they will talk about the benefits and opportunities of realizing your business idea while still being a student.
Benefits of becoming a student entrepreneur
Many people may think that becoming an entrepreneur and starting a business while being a student are difficult and that they will fail due to the lack of experience. However, Siw-Cathrine points out several benefits of becoming an entrepreneur while being a student.
“First of all, you will always have an income because of the student loan. That is not necessary the case once you’re starting a business after you have finished your education”, says Siw-Cathrine. The student loan can thus be regarded as a safety net. Secondly, she mentions that you learn how to become efficient as you have to balance both studying and starting a business. This is a skill that is wanted in all kinds of jobs. In addition, even though you’re starting your own business, you will at the end of your studies have a degree.
In the worst-case scenario, you end up with a degree and no company and at best you end up with your dream job.
Siw-Cathrine Braa
What she herself has benefited from the most is the huge network you get access to through the university. Combine, her startup-company, got access to a developer which was an expertise that they needed. Michal points out that you do not have to know everything yourself. He expanded his team after attending Join A Startup Night (JASUN) arranged by Spark* Nord. JASUN is an event where student startups can meet students interested in joining a startup. You do not need to hold all the answers yourself. In addition, he agrees with Siw-Cathrine that being an entrepreneur gives you an important ability. “Every business or organization needs a change agent, so even if you do not succeed you will learn something valuable”, says Michal. Learning the “entrepreneurial mindset” are therefore important in an ever changing labour market.
How to create a good environment for entrepreneurs and startups at universities
As we mentioned, there are various offers aimed at inspiring and helping students realize their business idea. “Spark* NTNU is a free advisory service for students with a business idea or who wants to join a startup”, says Rasmus. In addition to this they hold events like JASUN and FuckUp Nigth. They also provide funding through TrønderEnergi-bidraget, which is a grant intended to be the first financial contribution a start-up project from NTNU receives and will help to take a business idea from a thought to a real product. Siw-Cathrine and her business Combine got a contribution from TrønderEnergi-bidraget. Rasmus also mention that Spark* NTNU are working to launch a co-working space.
What has been important for Michal and Siw-Cathrine is the culture of sharing and helping each other. “It is important to create unity, to have supporters and someone cheering you on”, says Michal. There should be no “pointed elbows” in these environments. Rasmus says that Spark* could be “a door opener” to the networks who has knowledge.
Unforeseen challenges will always arise but through a network you could meet people who have been in the same situation and that can give you advice.
Rasmus Thunem
Connecting with the right people
When it comes to realizing your business idea, you will be dependent on contacting and collaborating with others. “There are always people who have knowledge, so it’s important to find these and talk to them”, says Rasmus. In addition to this he points out that “you have more knowledge than you think you have”.
Michal says that “you often have the assumption that you can’t contact people because they are higher up”. His experience, however, shows that people are very happy to make contact, they feel important and appreciated. “It is important to dare and take contact”, says Michal. You depend on getting access to resources, such as finance, knowledge, etc. “You don’t have to be good at everything, but you need to connect with the right people needed to succeed with your business idea”, Michal says.
Summing up
“Starting a business while still being a student is a valid opportunity”, says Rasmus. “You have the opportunity to create your dream job. Creating your own job can be a very good idea, especially now with COVID-19 due to the market uncertainty”, he says. Michal agrees and says that it is a golden opportunity right now. “The labour market are changing and we need more and new jobs. If you want to take a chance there are some good conditions for that right now”, he says. Siw-Cathrine says “go ahead” but that you should do something that you like to do, something you are passionate about and that drives you.
If you want to see the Engage Talk you can watch the video below. The next Engage Talk will be on the 11th of June and the theme will be about entrepreneurship and gender.
During the past two years Spark* has expanded with units at Nord University and Chalmers University of Technology.
By Silje Bechmann Granås
Now even more students have the opportunity to pursue their business ideas with help from other students with startup experience. There is also hope for an even bigger expansion in the years coming.With 450 ideas during the past six years it is obvious that the student-to-student mentoring model works at NTNU. Spark* North and Spark* Chalmers has also proven that this can be done at other institutions as well. They are both in early stages but have managed to host events for idea holders and have about 15-20 projects in mentoring each. Spark* has also generated interest from Denmark. Aarhus University has reached out to Spark* NTNU regarding their own initiative, Ignite. They have their own name and brand but have taken inspiration from Spark* NTNUs student-to-student model and are now in the process of applying this on their own.
Many universities and other institutions for higher
education have innovation and entrepreneurship as focus areas but might be
missing something important: an arena where students can try and fail with
help, but without any stakes. Therefore Spark* has a lot of potential to expand
in the time coming. The work has already started in small steps by establishing
contact with NTNU Ålesund, University of South-Eastern Norway and University of
Agder. Two girls from NTNU has also explored the possibility for establishing a
Spark* organization in Nairobi. The strategy for expanding Spark* forward can
be divided in three parts:
1. To look at the already existing environments for entrepreneurship at Norwegian universities. Initiatives like Start is a great basis for understanding the right conditions
2. Establish contact with universities who has venture creation programs. Here, students are taught entrepreneurship in practice, and not only in theory.
3. Help other universities who have noticed Spark*s work and wants input and/or help
By focusing on these areas, it is easier to find the three main ingredients for establishing a successful Spark* organization: engaged students, key employees at the faculties and financial partners who can help fund startups in early stages and make the Spark* organization viable.
Are you eager to learn more about the work that Spark* does? Please send an e-mail to project coordinator Silje Bechmann Granås at silje.bechmann@sparkntnu.no
Mette Mari Wold Johnsen had a talk with Sigrid Westad Brandshaug, Maiken Spjelkevik and Stina Kånhoff about virtual teams and how they can succeed in our latest Engage Talk.
By Tina Larsen
Mette Mari and Maiken are PhD students at Experts in Teamwork (EiT) NTNU, one of our partners. EiT is a master’s degree course in which students develop their interdisciplinary teamwork skills. The course is compulsory for all students in master’s programmes and programmes of professional study at NTNU. Maiken is looking into how we can teach students further about interdisciplinary collaboration, and her focus is on virtual teams. Sigrid is a PhD student at Engage and she conducts research on teams and learning processes in entrepreneurship education. Last but not least, Stina is an entrepreneur with experience of having a virtual team. She will share her experiences and lessons from working online.
Pay attention to the team
“It’s kind of a myth that start-ups consist of a lonely, often male, hero”, says Sigrid. That is at least the picture often portrayed by the media but is, however, rarely the case. Most often, a start-up company will consist of a team.
The reason why many start-ups fail is not because of problems with the company or the economy, but because of the team. Therefore, there is every reason to pay attention to the team when it comes to start-ups.
Sigrid Westad Brandshaug, PhD Student at Engage
Having such a focus during these pandemic times will therefore be of particular relevance now as many start-ups and companies are dependent on working in virtual teams. Sigrid further discusses what characterizes start-up teams. First, compared to other teams in established businesses etc., the start-up team is more homogeneous. That may for many be surprising, but starting a business is self-chosen and we humans normally choose people who are similar to ourselves. Secondly, a start-up will constantly be changing, and this also applies to the team itself. The motivation of the team members will most likely vary, as well the need for people with different skills and knowledge at different stages of development. Mastering having a flexible structure is something most startup teams struggle with. Thirdly, start-up team members will not necessarily have many formal commitments, but in return they will have a great commitment to the idea, as well as a drive and a positive energy. This is what keeps the team together. Stina confirms that a lot of what Sigrid mentions is recognizable from her own team experiences. “In relation to homogenous teams, we are two students who have the same education, are of the same gender and age and we share many interests”.
What happens when teams become virtual?
“But what happens when teams become virtual?”, Mette Mari asks.
It’s very much the same thing that happens when we meet around a table. People are the same after all. The context has changed, not the people. However, we become two-dimensional, we lose body language and we do not capture the small signals. That is probably the biggest challenge with moving to a digital platform.
Maiken Spjelkevik, PhD student at EiT NTNU
Maiken emphasizes the importance of finding the right structure and finding the right way to work together. She refers to a research programme she’s been working with called Virtual Experts in Teamwork (VEiT). “The student groups that get a good structure are often the students who check in everyday”, says Maiken. With check in she means small talk and the informal talk. Other measures you can do to make the working environment online better are exercises she refers to as icebreakers. These are exercises that normally create laughter. “There are many things you do physically, which you can also do digitally”, Maiken says. She mentions an exercise where you ask the participants to choose between two options, for example between beer and wine. The participants then write their name under what they most prefer. Maiken believes that exercises like these are important for virtual teams.
Sigrid points out that startups are good at iterating. They test out a solution and reflect on it, and then they test out a new solution again. It’s an iterative loop. “You can do the same with teamwork,” says Sigrid. “It’s about testing out ways to work together, get feedback and possibly make changes. It is an alternation between trying out and reflecting.” Stina says it’s important to be aware of typical pitfalls and finding out what works best for your team. Mette Mari says, however, that “there is no one size fits all”.
At the end of the talk, Mette Mari asks each participant for specific tips. Stina says that you have to try to incorporate the things you do physically as well, for example taking breaks. “To play with the technical aids you have”, says Maiken. Sigrid believes it is important to find good ways of working and to alternate between action and reflection.
If you want to see the Engage Talk about virtual teams and how they can succeed, you can see the video below. The next Engage Talk will be on the 28th of May.
