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Rebecca Johansson is an enthusiastic business student currently living in Stavanger. Here she is studying for her masters at the University of Stavanger in the field of service leadership and international business. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international tourism management from Middlesex University in London with a focus on marketing in the area of travel and tourism. Rebecca has a passion for travel and has since she graduated from school in her native Sweden spent her time, living, travelling, working, and studying abroad. Her journey has taken her to many places around the world that she has called home from anything from a few months up to three years.  Everything from Australia and New Zealand, to UK cities such as Birmingham, Oxford, and London to most recently moving to Norway, living first in Oslo and now Stavanger.

Rebecca has several years of experience working in various areas of the service industry. Both in hospitality, retail, customer service, booking, and sales. She holds a special interest in the marketing and sales area and is eager to pursue a career in the filed after completing her masters.  Apart from studying for her masters Rebecca is also currently working as a student assistant at the university, helping to read and asses the work of first-year bachelor students. This is something that she has found very interesting and sees as a great learning opportunity as she is always eager to widen her knowledge and explore new opportunities.

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A first-year master's students experience so far in understanding and attempting to practice networking for innovation and entrepreneurship.

How have you been networking during the semester? A simple question but networking can mean so many things and be done in so many ways. Seeing as how the semester has only been going on for a few weeks I find it hard to answer that question in full, which is why this blog entry will draw in a few notes from the previous semester as well.  Starting from the beginning, this first year has been full of changes and personal development for me and thinking about it now, networking would definitely not be one of the things that I would have added to that description if you had asked me about it when I first started.  However, looking back at the last six months I would have to say that I have probably done more of it than I would have thought.

Having just moved to Stavanger last August to start the master program, with only a limited number of people that I knew here, to where I am now is quite astounding. The biggest networking opportunity that I have had so far and taken advantage of is definitely taking part in the mentorship program here at UIS. After been given a wonderful mentor, and the chance to meet some of the other students and their mentors as well at the introduction I now have a very good relationship with my mentor. This has given me access to not only her experience in the field but also her contacts and network, which I am very grateful for and I plan to cherish and maintain those relationships.

Apart from that more “official” networking I have this semester networked and gotten to know many more of my course mates.  I have gotten to know them a lot better, making connections and friendships that I otherwise probably would not have gotten to make. This I think is incredibly important, as when we graduate we are all going to go into different areas of work and having a broad network of connections then I can only think of as an advantage.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I have a standard approach when meeting and following up with new people, it very much depends on the situation. For example, if I am in a more professional situation, for example going with my mentor to meet someone else in the industry then I will now send them a short message on LinkedIn after meeting them, just to make that connection and add them to my network. On the other hand, when meeting people on the course or at the university in general I will add them on Facebook and mostly use messenger to keep in touch. While similarly adding them to linkedIn, but that normally happens a bit later and is not part of the initial contact.

If I would take one thing so far from my quite limited experience of networking, it is that one of the most important things you can do in my opinion when meeting new people is to be happy and open. Approaching either new people or new situations in general with a curious and open mind never fails, at least not for me so far. If you approach people with this attitude you very often get the same back from them.

On campus, I would have to say that my absolute favourite place is actually the library, a bit boring perhaps but it is true. I have explored most of the campus by this point and the library has become my go-to place. Spending most of the time in the building of the Hotel school for classes and working and socialising in between classes I find it quite relaxing to head to the library after. I m sure you are now wondering how spending time in the library is good for networking, but I have actually found that, not surprisingly, most people spend a lot of time there. So, whether I am working alone or in a group going to the library almost always include meeting people and I have found that getting on a friendly basis with the people who work in the library is never a bad thing and might come in handy when I a year from now will be writing my master's dissertation.

Finally, after having watched the video of Elizabeth Wei and seeing her talk about the non-negotiables in her life I have after some though concluded that my two non-negotiables are as follows. Number one, I will never lie or pretend to be someone I am not, that is not saying you cannot turn on a little charm or try to upsell yourself when meeting new people, because that I probably will do. No, what I am saying is that I will never lie about my experience or try to be someone I am not. My second non-negotiable is that I will never go to an event or similar hungry. That might seem a little silly but going back to what I have learned so far on the importance of being happy, open and outgoing, that is something I am far better at if I am not hungry. These are the two non-negotiables that I will now go by for my networking journey moving forward. A journey I am quite eager to continue, and I am excited to see where it takes me next.

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Developing the “Too good to go” business idea on the basis of coming up with a solution to “What breaks your heart in the world”. Of the five statements originally posted the problem statement addressed here will be;

“Seeing homeless people on the streets in Norway, despite it being one of the richest countries in the world”.

The Too good to go app is relatively well known for its idea of ending food waste by allowing customers to pick up “leftover food “at a discounted price.  In short, they allow customers via their app to see restaurants/cafes, etc. in the area that has food over, for example, bakeries that have bread leftover from the day or restaurants that didn’t sell out the food they prepared. The customer then simply pick a restaurant in the app and in the designated time frame, usually in the afternoon/evening, go by the restaurant and pick up the food at a cheaper price. Part of the “excitement” as they themselves put it is that you don’t know exactly what you are getting, it is a surprise (Too good to go, 2020).

The idea here is to take this concept that is already doing good to the next level if you will, not directly battling the issues of homelessness but help to end one of the problems that they face daily. With the “We can help” initiative, we invite hotels in the participating city or area, just as the too good to go concept it is applicable all over the world, to give the food that they very often otherwise would throw away to the people who need it the most. For example, many hotels operate with a large breakfast/lunch buffet for their guests, much of which goes to waste when the buffet closes. Instead of wasting the leftovers they could use the technology of the already established too good to go app to every day give away the food.

The best way to do this would be to set up a collaboration with an already existing homeless shelter or similar in the city. They would via the app, see which hotels that are giving away food that day, pick up the food and then offer it to their patrons. Helping the homeless people of the city to have access to fresh and healthy food each day, while simultaneously at virtually no cost for the hotels allow them to brand themselves with an image of corporate social responsibility.

Too good to go (2020.) Retrieved from https://toogoodtogo.no/no

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After having pitched the idea to other people and asked them to reflect over it with the help of The Really Big Idea Critique pad some feedback on the idea is combined here. Overall, it received very positive feedback as all asked thought it was a very nice and unproblematic idea to help with the chosen problem statement. However, some unclarities became apparent as the people that offered the feedback understood the concept differently.

When coming up with the concept, the idea, as seen on the BIS, was that the user/beneficiary were the homeless people and that the economic buyer/decision-maker would end up being the hotels. However, when pitching the idea, a couple of people thought that perhaps the customer that should be kept in mind should also be the customer of the hotel. Looking at it from the standpoint of pitching this idea to for example a hotel this makes a lot of sense because from their point of view they would arguably get involved not from the good of their hearts but more from the standpoint of CSR and in that sense how their customers see them is ultimately what matters.

Therefore, if this idea were to be made in a second version on the BIS this would be taken into consideration, and perhaps even alter who is the customer/user depending on who it is pitched to. For example, when getting a shelter involved or if asking for funding from for example local authorities then the beneficiary in mind would be the people that the solution set out to help, namely the homeless. Alternatively, when pitched from a business standpoint to get hotels involved you would put their image and their customers at the front.

With this in mind, going back to the feedback on the critique pad, overall, the idea scored pretty high on “assess impact”, from the people who placed the homeless in the “customer box”. For the people who instead had the customer of the hotel in mind this score was much lower. They thought it was a nice thought and good for the hotels' image but would do little to impact the customers' overall choice of hotel. Finally, for the “asses feasibility,” it scored between 7 and 10 from all asked as they saw no real obstacle for this being feasible and able to implement.

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Business model canvas for Green Small Business Development Center
https://bmfiddle.com/f/#/local