Susana Vilaça

Failure, Serendipity and Change are the main ideas I take from day #2 at SWITCH. Day #2 was not as great as day #1, however I saw some great talks like:

1.S… Happens in life and businesses and it should by Ana Silva

Ana talked about serendipity. I must be honest, I knew the word but I didn’t knew what it meant until I saw her presentation. So according to Ana, serendipity is about you looking  for something and instead finding something else. It has an intrinsic randomness which I love .

She also talked about serendipity being a factor  that drives us in our social lives (stimulating connections) and in our work life (when we create new experiences).

2. To change or not to change, by William ShakesFear by Zé Pedro

This was the last talk of the conference and, I must say, it was a really good way to end it! This talk was about embracing change and don’t letting yourself be ruled by fear. Here are some points he highlighted:

• You often stick to some labels that don’t allow you to change
• Life runs fast and when you notice “life has decided for you”
• You don’t depend on the world, you have to adjust yourself
• Everybody is running (that’s why they call it the human race)
• What you need to do? Accept the change, respect it (be humble) and embrace it (just do it)
• Everything is up to you. Be alert of your surroundings.

3. Failure

These days talking about failure has become sort of a fashion. SWITCH was no exception. We saw some talks about failure. Ones more interesting than others where basically the main message is “Do not fear failure. Persevere. It’s all up to you.”

So wrapping everything up SWITCH was a great conference! I sure was inspired, had fun and connected!

“Done is better than perfect” - this sentence is from Ji Lee, ex-Creative Director at Google Creative Lab and future Creative Director at Facebook, and I think it sums up the main idea at #1 at SWITCH.

This day had some really good talks like:

1. Working at home Without Going Crazy by José Fontaínhas

José had some really good insights about how efficiently work at home without damaging your life. I really enjoyed his talk and I think that many things he talked about also aplies while working at an office.  Some ideas I enjoyed:

• We’re walking backwards to the future and all we can see is the past
• Learn from your mistakes, but learn more from your successes

2. Creativity by Ji Lee and Miguel Duarte

Regarding creativity Ji Lee talked about the power of personal projects. Basically how can you put together you’re professional and personal life to create something awesome. He then presented some simply genius projects, like the Bubble Project. He summed up his talk by referring some lessons learned:

• have fun
• personal and professional projects complement each other
• never put all the eggs in one basket
• Ideas are nothing. Doing is everything.
• Ship! Ship! Ship! Don’t be afraid of failing.

Miguel picked the subject of creativity from other perspective – the organisations perspective. He talked about organisations working as an assembly line and how that kills creativity. He then presented a new concept called Un|management. Un|manegement is about you setting your own office, your own schedule, choosing your own  colleagues and setting your own salary. A little utopic in my opinion but he presented some good points.

3. Attitude to change by Ricardo Diniz

This was the last and in my opinion the best talk of the day. Ricardo talked about finding and pursuing your dreams. To find your dreams he says there 3 questions you have to answer:

1. What do you love?
2. What are you really good at?
3. What others think you’re really good at?

He then finished his talk giving us some insights about some key points to take into account when pursuing our dreams:

• Create lifelong relationships
• You never feel lost with the right partners
• Invest and develop strategic partnerships
• Be brave. Be different. Be yourself. Innovate.
• Delegate. Don’t go over yourself.
• Just do it.

4. Stop Sending CV’s by Active Media

Active Media organized a workshop about self promotion and how to stand out from the crowd. The main points we talked about in this workshop were:

• Coming back to the basics. You must try to answer who you are, what do you do and why are you important.
• Having an online presence. Have a blog to share your thoughts, go to Linkedin to connect with other professionals, and use Facebook to engage with the community.
• Design your own CV. Make it playfull, show off your skills and your work.
• Make some business cards. They offer a quick reference to you.
• Look for projects not jobs.
• Explore different cultures.
• Don’t be shy and keep your mind open.
• Apply with your soul.

It was a nice workshop where some interesting points were discussed, and some good ideas presented.

Looking forward for day #2

So I decided to move to my own personalized domain. I thought it was time to leave some topics in the old blog behind since I’m no more working on them.

So to inaugurate my new blog I leave you with an inspiring video about motivation. It was a talk given by Daniel Pink at TED. I truly believe that it’s your motivation and persistence that can get you where you want. So I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did !