FINAL FRIDAY OF SEMESTER ONE. BRING ON THE HOLIDAYS!

It gives me much pleasure and joy to be bringing this semester to a close. I feel extremely proud of myself for making it this far and I’m excited for what the next semester has in store. I have drunk from a plentiful fountain of knowledge and my brain is bursting, full of new insights all thanks to this exciting course. With this being said, I am more than ready for a well deserved break back home in Bermuda and several servings of Christmas dinner, not to mention all the booze. You have to love the festive season!

The last friday was another day full of nerves and anxious laughter as we had to give our branding presentations to two groups of entrepreneurs from all areas of the Creative Industries. We only made a few necessary tweaks to the presentation and we were feeling quite confident this time round thanks to the previous week at Wolff Olins. We had practiced it enough times! The structure of the presentations and how they were ‘judged’ was very similar to the BBC’s Dragon’s Den. We were already prepared for heavy criticism and we’ve had quite a dose of it thus far, but it’s what we need to make the most of our businesses and once the slight sting wears off, you realise it’s so helpful. Both presentations went extremely well and the Dragons seemed very interested and impressed with our idea. The four of us gave it our all and although we weren’t considered as the best group of the day by the dragons, in my heart, we were the best. I think that self-belief and belief in our product and business as a whole is crucial to our future success.

It was a great opportunity to have real business moguls, if you will, giving us great advice and insight into working within the Creative Industries and how to be successful in them. It definitely boosted my confidence in myself and in my group and we left the class with our heads held high. In just a couple of months, we have developed ideas that originated from scribbles on scraps of paper, into something real, into something tangible. It has motivated me even more to keep working hard and to keep pushing myself forward because I’ve learnt that I am more than capable of greatness and it doesn’t just apply to me. It applies to all my fellow MACErs, past and present.

I think the Helping Hands team deserves a special mention. I couldn’t have done it without Megha, Johnny and Lucas. We are a culturally diverse group. Megha is Indian, I am from Bermuda with very deep Scottish roots, Johnny is a Greek Cypriot and Lucas is from Spain. Johnny is very musical and did his undergrad in Business. Megha is a product designer and an extremely talented one at that. Lucas is our resident psychologist who also does advertising, and then there is me, with my Creative Writing and Journalism degree and I also study music along with Johnny. This diversity makes us a strong team full of vision and creativity and we compliment one another extremely well. I know it might seem a bit soppy, but I couldn’t be happier with this team. They’ve taught me a lot about myself and I’ll be forever grateful for them.

Also, you should check out Johnny’s band. They are amazing and deserve a listen:

Fine them on their Facebook page: TRIPLEJAM