We had a great time in Copenhagen and can now start the Spring term of MediaBizlab with a fresh and excited attitude. Thank you to all of the participants and to all of our hosts!

You can read more about our study trip as well as the students’ projects in their new group blogs (see links on the right).

The workshop started out by getting to know each other, after which Piritta Kantojärvi from Grape People facilitated exercises on creative problem solving working in teams. For instance, the MediaBizLab students had to create devices in groups out of everyday objects that would allow an egg to be dropped from the height to 3 meters and not break, while its shell had to touch the ground. This exercise brougt very interesting results, some of which can be seen below. Most importantly, the students got insight into how they work in groups and what kind of roles they take.

The students also presented their initial concept ideas for a media service. You can learn more about their great ideas from the students’ blogs, the links to which you can find on the right. Commenting on the ideas were representatives of some of our partner companies: Anders Stenbäck and Eero Anhava from Sanoma, Jussi-Pekka Erkkola from Valio, and Niko Ryytty from Sulake, as well as some MediaBizLab alumni: Jukka Kajan, Karri Knuuttila and Jason Nikkinen.

The program got to a great start and all of us look forward to seeing how the different ideas develop!

Congratulations for all of you – next year will truly be wonderful!

Here are the new students:

Atte Hujanen

Elmo Allén

Essi Tani

Heikki Laaninen

Julius Valjakka

Lauri Hassi

Markus Kauppinen

Matti Torniainen

Tapio Haaja

Valtteri Vartiainen

Ville Kormilainen

Xu Yang

(One of the applicants did not allow their name to be published)

Mediabizlab_brochure_2011

The deadline for applications is Tuesday May, 31st, 2011.

Juuso Myllyrinne (Executive Director, Digital Strategy, TBWA) opened the seminar with an interesting keynote (watch the video) on utilizing transmedia storytelling in high impact projects. This was followed by discussions in small groups around the topics of ‘Brand participation in media services – branded content and sponsorship of media services’, ‘Driving popularity of brands and stories – best practices for triggering and managing word-of-mouth’ and ‘Designing customer engagement – how to co-create content and value with users in media services’. The seminar concluded with a brief update on the future of MediaBizLab academic program by our academic director Prof. Pekka Mattila. Indeed, the program will be continued next year with some slight modifications and application period will open in April. Stay tuned for more information!

Check out the student blogs for more discussions on the afternoon’s learnings.

After experiencing (it is, indeed, an experience to visit this magnificent complex) Sound and Vision, we headed towards Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht. There, we had an opportunity to meet a crowd of inspiring students and faculty as they were hosting their annual Project Market event. During this visit, we were impressed by the wide variety of projects the students had carried out. Some examples are available here.

On Friday, we had a chance to visit the offices of Sanoma Digital and OmnicomMediaGroup. Check out the student blogs to read more about these visits and their learnings (Leyla, Jukka, Saara, Karri, Tomi, and Eveliina.)

Here’s some pictures from today, hopefully they can convey some of the good spirit present in the HvA MediaLab today – we certainly had good times and were able to take home some valuable learnings.

In this seminar you will have a chance for inspirational encounters with our students during their poster session in which they will share insights on current trends in media consumption, consumer cultures, and business models. The actual seminar will start at 3 pm with two short and insightful presentations. First a look at tactical implications of recent media trends by Sami Kankkunen from OMD/Omnicom Media Group. Second, a talk on monetization of media content in digital environments by a Sulake representative (TBC).

The rest of the seminar comprises of three case studies. First Mikael Gummerus of Frosmo will talk about Social Networking Logics. It deals with impacting the bottom line with social media marketing and sales. The second case is on how to globalize the brand ‘You’ by Saku Tuominen (Idealist Group) and Risto Kuulasmaa (Not Guilty). They will be talking about an interesting book project in the works. The final case study is on new businessmodels of Helsingin Sanomat by Anders Stenbäck of Sanoma News.

The seminar ends with coffee and networking sponsored by Sanoma.

Please sign up for the seminar through the Facebook event. More information and updates on the program will follow. Stay tuned for our Twitter and Facebook.

Alternatively, you can sign up by sending email to Elina, e l i n a . k o i v i s t o (at) a a l t o . f i

Could you briefly introduce yourself and describe your professional background?

Anders: I joined Sanoma in 2002 to write my master’s thesis on communications technology (Aalto University School of Technology). In those days, my task was to build a mobile strategy and its implementation for Sanomat. Later on, I started working with online trading site, oikotie.fi, and from there, I moved on to establish the product development unit of Helsingin Sanomat, both newspaper and its online version, hs.fi. I was doing that until the beginning of this year, when I took over the development of online advertising at Sanoma News.

Eero: I graduated as a marketing major from Helsinki School of Economics (current Aalto University School of Economics) with a minor in International Design Business Management in 2008. Then, I joined Sanoma, first as a Product manager of oikotie.fi Jobs and currently I am working as a development manager for Sanoma News strategy office, doing everything between strategy work and implementation of operative development initiatives.

What does your company do? How do you provide value for your customers?

Eero: First and foremost, we need to make sure that we listen to our customers in everything we do. The interactive and dynamic nature of online media services requires that we stay in touch with the most important people in our operations, customers. This is done through a variety of research methods as we conduct all kinds of market and usability research among consumers and business customers. We need to keep improving our services constantly according to the behavior and feedback of our customers. Also, we need to be quick in everything we do, we need to do constant product development in our existing services and also be prepared to terminate our ventures if it turns out that they are not profitable for us or interesting for our customers. This is done through constant monitoring of how people use our services. Our online auction site, huuto.net is a model example of this, how users are sincerely excited about our services and how their active participation has enabled the social aspect for the core service. For instance, its users are very active in discussing the products and are selling anything between heaven and earth apart from just socializing with each other and browsing for things, without their enthusiasm and interest, the service would not be a success it is nowadays.

Based on your experience, what aspects make media service a success?

Eero: Briefly, whatever the service is, it needs to have three things, interesting, enticing content, usability and a great business model.

Anders: I fully agree with Eero. In addition, it’s always good to keep in mind that for a media service to be truly profitable, we need at least 100 000 users, that’s quite a lot in a small country like Finland!

I would also be interested in hearing about your current projects and how do you apply the concepts you mentioned in them?

Eero: For instance, as I am working closely with many different Sanoma News websites, we need to consider that the major part of the content and commenting comes from the users. We need to maintain their interest in the service and enable them to share their thoughts and make the service as usable as possible. Of course, we need to also maintain the consistency in the user experience, and offer them interesting ways to use the site. In addition, we need to think about the revenues, for instance, we want to enable our corporate customers to increase their trade over the internet. For this we need to also understand their business.

Anders: Right now, my main ambition lies in the social media and how to establish a beneficial presence there. Currently, the advertisers are still a bit lost with what to do and how to behave in social media to best utilize its potential. For this purpose, Sanoma has an active role in creating its own social media, for instance, omakaupunki.fi, omamaailma.fi, online discussion boards and huuto.net. Through these ventures we can gain cutting edge insight into social media and create new ways in encouraging participation and utilization in social media.

What kind of trends do you see for your industry?

Eero: Most importantly, media in the new age is about sociality as internet is becoming more social every day. It is no longer about one-way pushing of information, but it is an interactive process between the content providers and the audience. Actually this divide between audience and producers no longer applies as producers have a key role of providing the means of sharing and creating for audiences.

Anders: Indeed, people seem to spend significantly more time online and internet reaches broader audiences than ever. Also, through new means of accessing the internet, the day of consuming media becomes longer as people check news headlines and email first thing as they wake up, and update their statuses just before they fall asleep. Also, through these new mobile devices, such as tablets and smart phones, usage of internet becomes more ubiquitous and media practices expand to a variety of platforms. Here, these practices are changing as different forms of media, both traditional and digital, come together to provide user with a coherent transmedia experience. To facilitate this user experience and make it a pleasant one, we need to find ways to utilize user profiles and find new models of operation.

Eero: All in all, we need to design new kinds of services with a customer as our main focus. These new media services should be directly designed into digital context, what used to work in the traditional business, does not necessarily work on these new platforms. Also, as the barriers of entry in this new line of business are low, we need to be first one’s to act and implement great ideas fast.

The MediaBizLab is about creating comprehensive transmedia experiences and commercializing that content as services. What’s your take on that?

Anders: The concept of transmedia is evident in our business. As we think of our customers, they use a variety of our services during one day. As an example, he wakes up and checks the news from his smart phone using hs.fi, browses Helsingin sanomat with his morning coffee, listens to Radio Helsinki on his way to work, checks out hs.fi for news during his work day, checks out the cultural events in the afternoon from Nyt or menokone.fi. The day is structured around a variety of medias. We need to find a way to provide them with a consistent, fluent, and customized user experience to best suit their needs.

Finally, what is your message to the cross-scientific group of Aalto University students that are taking their first steps in becoming media service entrepreneurs?

Eero: Consider this as a great learning experience for the working-life since this is what you will be doing everyday he rest of your life, that is working in teams with a variety of backgrounds.

Anders: Think big! More practically, think about your own everyday behaviors, challenges and problems. The best service concepts arise from these. Of course, you should also find out if everybody else has the same problem through market research.

Eero: Finally, you should embrace cross-disciplinary teamwork! It’s a great opportunity to  learn how to argument your ideas for others, how to make your co-workers as enthusiastic about your idea as you are!