Week 10: November 23-28th
Lesson of the Week: “Practice makes perfect”
Now this is nothing new to anyone but for me it came into play this last week. Over the weekend Christine and I hosted some of our friends over for an American Thanksgiving dinner, which was deliciously prepared by yours truly…. lol jk actually it was wonderfully and deliciously prepared by Christine!
My job was to go to the store (bum bum bum) which is daunting as the Italian supermarkets are ALWAYS busy. Doesn't matter a day or time, always busy. And not entirely sure why but whenever I stop somewhere in a store in Italy, to stand out of the way, to check my phone, to cross something off a list, always and I mean always people have to come look at whatever I am standing next too. There could be no one around and when I move boom people. Coincidence?!
So Friday afternoon I embarked on my journey for a pretty long list as Christine has had one heck of a busy week at school, I managed to do well, only not finding 6 items.
After coming home and sorting through our groceries, Christine and I planned out our attack for Saturday morning to get the remaining items, this time as I embarked on my journey, I was once again met with the challenge of not finding what I was looking for after searching all over. So what was the next logical thing to do, ask for assistance. Now this alway makes me nervous, (yes me, who loves to, and will talk to about anyone) because I get what I need to say in Italian ready, run through my lines to ensure dictation etc, and then I get to ask and freeze, and instead of use Italian, I fumble through in English and trying to talk with my hands.
But I have been practicing, and on Saturday I was able to ask for what I needed and got it! After that when I went to one of our favorite local Egyptian Kebab places to grab a quick lunch in the midst of cooking a feast, I asked for and ordered everything in Italian only!!! I have been trying really hard to learn Italian and been taking a class 2x a week that in graciously offered by our school. But as much as I know when doing worksheets and writing, talking is the hardest. Slowly though I am learning and practicing. And this goes to the point that practice makes perfect.If I don't try, I don't learn.
On the school front, classes have continued to pick and we have been diving into some good topics! The other day we were having a discussion around Innovation the skills of innovators. The key takeaways or top 5 skills of an innovator are:
- Questioning- be curious always, learn
- Observing- pay attention to the world around you and what people are doing and using, and how
- Networking- Network, Network, Network! And not just within your field, you need to network with others outside your field to gain valuable knowledge, insight, and ideas
- Experimenting- try and do not be afraid to fail
- Associating
We also had a lesson with the Director of Brand Fashion and Luxury give us an excellent presentation around Brand and the effect of Pricing on a brands equity. This is a big point of emphasis for company want to be positioned as a premium product and high priced, high fashion line. To counteract this and to not diminish your brand equity, companies must diversify their product and brand portfolio. We also discussed the ‘Brand Iceberg’, there is the external brand that everyone sees and knows, i.e. the logo, slogan, etc, and then there is the internal branding. This visual representation, I believe, is spot on! Living in Milano, a city known for being at the center of the fashion world, it was great to see and use examples in class of companies like Armani, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, and others. It made for an interesting and intriguing lesson as the fashion industry is an industry I would be very interested in working in.
I am excited as next week we will be competing in a Business Game Simulator. The goal is to run an airline and make decisions regarding Marketing, Pricing, Flight Options, Communications, and Network. This will be a great hands on experience putting to use our experience in strategy and positioning as well as getting to work in a multi cultural environment. This simulator will allows to make real world decisions and compete with our classmates! Next post I will make sure to let you know how it goes!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving back in the States!
As always I hope that there is a takeaway or two in here for everyone. If you have any questions or would like to discuss some of these issue more in depth feel free to write a comment or shoot me a note at robbynap87@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @RobbyNap and connect with me on LinkedIn at https://it.linkedin.com/in/robert-napoli-a5839119
Ciao Ciao!
Below is the spread from our American Thanksgiving in Milano! We shared with our friends from Egypt, Turkey, Colombia, Taiwan, and the Philippines!
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