10 June 2024 - 14 June 2024 | Week 8
Shofwa Alyadiena | 0350019
Major Project | Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Professional Development Week Self-Reflective Report
During the professional development week, we had 4 mandatory webinars and 2 or more of our choice. For the sake of this reflective paper, it will be separated by the title alongside the reflection report for each lecture.
Financial Literacy for Fresh Graduates
We start with an icebreaker with the speaker Shandy Lee, a certified financial planner from Maybank. the topic is ‘How to Make Your Money Work For You’. He explains that applying what you've learned is easier said than done, hence hoping the webinar can act as a bridge between the knowledge and its application. We covered saving strategies and investments.
- Pay yourself First
This wasn’t necessarily “paying ourselves first”. The idea is that we set money aside first for saving, investments, or emergency funds before making any spending in a given timeframe. - Know what you're spending for
One way to track our expenses is to list down what it is we spent our money on. We have to make sure it’s counted. This is one of the main steps I’ve heard from my mother. - Own, don't Owe
Owing money to others can be a huge step back to our progress. Of course, some debts are good- such as for investments, but it’s more encouraged to keep our own money. - Track your Wealth
Combining all the previous steps, we can review our expenses, and get a grasp for what I use my money for.
Investing is making money work for you in the long run. We should invest by using our own money. It can both be profited or backfired by inflation. We have to be smart to invest early before inflation hits so that if what we invest has higher value, we will be able to reap the benefits.
A metaphor I found interesting was the “Core and Satellite” way of perceiving investments. A core investment consists of investments that are secure and stable- it has to be your biggest investment for the long term. Satellite investments can be on a whim, making it non-dependable in comparison.
Keynote: Aspire to Inspire
The second webinar was hosted by POS Malaysia’s Charles Brewer. This webinar passed by rather quickly, as it was more of an extended Q-n-A session. He starts by answering some pre-written questions. He reminded us not to forget our roots, of what made us who we are. Mr Charles explains that for certain jobs, A worker needs to stand out; we have to find ways to be different.
it’s preferred for people to have a higher emotional intelligence compared to IQ, as it’s much harder to train. However, it doesn’t take away that a good IQ is crucial depending on the job field you take an interest in. In this case, you have to be insistent on learning.
Learning is something you don’t stop doing. Even when it’s not textbook learning, there’s always something new to find out every day. If you want to stay current with the trends, you have to want to learn and gain experience. You block yourself out of the market if you’re not thinking with the current times.
For Mr Charles, staying with the current times requires a lot of reading. In my opinion, although I agree, I believe reading isn’t always enough. Trends come and go very quickly, making social media one of the best ways to stay present. It also requires an open mind, as some new ideas need older and more traditional ideas to be discarded or set aside.
The Art of Storytelling
For the last webinar of the first day, Low Ngai Yuen from Kakiseni introduced to us the art of storytelling. With her experience as a chief merchandise and marketing officer of AEON Malaysia, among other things, she breaks down details of her wisdom.
One of the interesting points she brought up early on was regarding perspectives. An article about her was written in a seemingly negative light- but she was not bothered by it. Rather, she finds other people’s angles and perceptions of her to be interesting, there is no one truth and everyone has their interpretations. This is where our storytelling should come into play, to allow others to see our version of the story.
When we talk about storytelling to others, it is often met with the idea of fiction, a fake reality that cannot be used in our day-to-day lives. Truth is, you tell stories all the time. We tell stories about our day, our past experiences, and our complaints to others. The issue is when you can use it tactfully to your benefit. If you understand how to story tell, you will understand the purpose of it:
- Access to complex information
- Foster a sense of shared purpose
- Present cases persuasively
- Inspire adoption and traction
- Engage, connect, and build trust from storytelling.
Storytelling isn’t as easy as it may seem. It requires a lot of planning- the media you want to use, the characters, the plot itself, and the ability to hook the audience to what you want. Ms Low and her team would build a space with goals in mind in a more direct problem-solving manner. ‘The Art of Storytelling’ was relatable to me in the sense that I do aspire to do visual storytelling, and the explanations of the audience’s interests compared to our personal goals aligning and fading over time was an interesting outlook on the matter.
Maximise Your LinkedIn Presence
To mark the second day, we start with our first lecture, ‘Maximise Your LinkedIn Presence’ with Ms Nurul Syafiqah Mohd Nazli. She starts by explaining what LinkedIn is used for. Before this webinar, I had the assumption that LinkedIn is strictly for job searching. I now understand that although that’s still true, there are more ways we can utilise the platform to our advantage.
It’s important to understand that LinkedIn is the best way to network professionally. It shouldn’t be used for social media, to talk about personal stories and opinions. We have to compose ourselves as a professional worker. By using LinkedIn, we get perks like recognition from recruiters, opening up opportunities for new careers, gaining credibility, and personal branding.
We have to make sure our profile is attractive- starting from the headers, profile photos, order of achievements, etc. It’s the online version of our resume. One tip for our ‘About’ section, is to make sure it’s written in a first-person perspective and to have a call to action for employers to drop us a message for interest. It’s also crucial for us to write to our aspiring job when we will be able to work and why we would like to work there specifically.
Lastly, we have to craft our work experience on LinkedIn by keeping accuracy and consistency of between the profile and our resume. It’s helpful for recruiters for our tasks and achievements to be on a bullet list of 4-5. The main thing to remember about LinkedIn is that although it’s for our benefit, it’s also heavily designed to make it easier for recruiters. Which is to say, we have to try and cater to the tastes of the companies we are interested in.
AI In Digital Media
The second webinar of the day was hosted by Hassan from Grab. Hassan has experience as country marketing head of Malaysia, playing a crucial role in its success. He spent years in the advertising field, finding passion in the technology used to improve it. An interesting introduction is how he sees that people have been talking about whether the industry will be affected by AI. Before we delve into that, he gives us a brief introduction to marketing.
Marketing is very important to a company because that’s where people have access to information. Through marketing, you can improve the products or even invent new ones. The marketing role allows you to have ideas and opportunities. Branding, social media, creatives, digital media. Returning to the topic of artificial intelligence, he argues that AI is not disrupting marketing. Instead, it’s only a downside when we refuse to embrace AI. It’s in his beliefs that the marketers who don’t embrace AI will be trampled by those who have the capability. Some key takeaways that were presented to us:
- Personalisation at scale
Everyone has their personalised preferences. - Infinite Production capacity
In an AI-powered world, they can produce everything at a fast speed. - Marketing Automation
- Rapid Experimentation
AI can quickly generate predictions for future trends and be used for testing. - Budget Fungibility
It’s cheaper.
Overall, marketing will not be disrupted by AI but rather will have to be under the hands of those who know how to tactfully use and embrace AI in the work that’s being done. This is important to digital media, a field I am a part of. It’s a sensitive subject for my specialisation, but ultimately this webinar is where I can feel secure in knowing there’s a technique to properly use the tool for us.
The Rhodes Scholarship
The last webinar of the day is from Renee Lee, Mathilde, and Qi Xuan Khoo regarding the Rhodes Scholarship. As usual, we start with the introduction of their background. For Renee, the Rhodes Scholarship was a bright opportunity at a time when she lacked direction to fund her passion for research. The Rhodes Scholarship is a fully-funded, full-time, postgraduate award to allows everyone from around the world to study at Oxford University. It’s an incredible opportunity.
Some important information I believe is applicable is the myths. This is what I would say is similar to our issues with self-esteem. The first myth is that we’re incapable of being accepted, but how would we know if we don’t try? This is an important question we tend to overlook when we do anything. If we don’t have the will to try at all, we will never be noticed and considered in the first place.
I chose to be part of this webinar to understand any crucial information regarding opportunities for overseas opportunities, so it’s a little difficult to relate to it as they exclusively talk about the Rhodes Scholarship. The key takeaway I feel is worth mentioning is that just like everything else in this world, we must compose ourselves as professionals to be accepted into the group we aspire to be a part of.
Digital Transformation and Solutions
The last webinar I joined was hosted by APLIKASI, who shared their experiences with us. Mr Azlan, the host speaker, starts by explaining what exactly digitisation is. It’s straightforward- using digital means to transform an existing physical thing into a tool you can access through devices much closer to us.
For example, people are more inclined to use e-commerce for their shopping needs, so much so that even the malls are emptier and filled with window shoppers rather than customers. This is a result of digital transformation. It isn’t limited to e-commerce, marketing, video consultations, instant messaging, and machine learning. There are some trends in digitisation: cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
Looking at the Trends, companies expect to implement the latest and most updated AI. In this case, It’s important to know that we will be expected to keep up with this trend and have experience using them before entering the working world.
Moving into the working world, we must learn to use multiple software to maximise our potential. When we learn to use the softwares and can digitise for the greater good or as requested, we have increased job opportunities and gain higher salary potential, improved career progression, remote work opportunities, and enhanced job security. All of this is important no matter what work or industry we find ourselves in.
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