Author Archives: Marco Bertolini

Boost your Business Set Up With Mind Mapping and Creativity Tools !

You want to set up your business, but you don’t know where to start ?  You have a good idea… but you don’t know how to go further ?

 

Then, you are at the right place !

In one day, you will set up the foundations of your future company.

 

Ask the good questions first

 

1. Jump from a mere idea to a real business project

First, let’s ask a few questions, to be sure we understand each other :

  • what’s an idea ?
  • What’s a business idea ?
  • what’s a project ?
  • what’s a business project ?
  • how to go from an idea to a project ?
  • from the project to the business ?
  • how much time will it take ?
  • what are the steps I have to go through ?
  • which are the tools I can use to save time and money ?

You will find your own answers to all these questions and many more with the unique tools we’ll provide you !

2. Define your “core business” with the Winning Triad Technique ©

All experts will tell you, successful entrepreneurs built their success on three dimensions :

  1. Passion
  2. Expertise (or excellency)
  3. Profitability

Find out which are these three dimensions exactly for you and your project and define your core business !

3. Define your personal goals and values with the List of 100

To focus your energy even more on your project, here is a powerful tool : the list of 100.  It is a well known creativity tool, but I have adapted it to the mind mapping technique to get even more out of it !

This practice will give you a unique direction and you’ll spare time and energy by maintaining your initial goals and avoid to get distracted from your main route.

This way, you’ll give yourself guidelines for several years.

go for success !

4. Explore all the dimensions of your project with the Rules of 9

To design or analyse a project, you have to ask the good questions first.  I gathered for you 9 fundamental questions to explore every dimension of your project. I organized them into a mind map to provide a powerful and complex analysis matrix.

Thanks to this matrix you will :

  • identify the known points of your project
  • track down the remaining of the unanswered questions
  • define realistic goals and deadlines
  • visualize the stage of progress of your business set up

 


5. Build up your Business Plan Structure !

  • What is a Business Plan ?
  • What can I do with a Business Plan ?
  • What’s the difference between a Business Plan and a Financial Plan ?
  • Who is this Business Plan for ?

Together, we will answer all these questions and I will give you models and templates so you’ll be able to build up your own business plan, adapted to your personal needs !  The business plan that will be the best control and communication tool for your future business !

 

Business Planning with DropMind

Business Planning with DropMind

You too, at the end of this session, will understand that to understand your business project is to understand… Yourself !

To understand :

  • your values
  • your goals
  • your aspirations or expectations

and to mobilize them in a project that will disclose you and you will bare for years, and maybe, for the rest of your life !

After the training session, you will get :

  • all the documents of the day
  • a syllabus with all the elements of the course
  • models and template that you can freely use to develop your business project
  • a free e-coaching session to validate your tools and define your next step


Where and When ?


At the HUB SUMMER SCHOOL

Rotterdam : on the 22nd of July from 8h30 am to 4 pm

The Hub, Heemraadsingel 219, 3023 CD Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Booking : Click here !


Amsterdam : on the 23rd of July from 9 am to 5 pm

The Hub, Westerstraat 187  1015 MA Amsterdam

Booking : click here !

 

Atelier en français

 

 

Mind Mapping Basics : master the principles of a powerful tool !

What is Mind Mapping ?  Does it work ?  What can this amazing technique bring to my own life ?  Can it give me some tools for my professional life too ?


Yes, Mind Mapping can do that… and much more !


It all began at the end of the sixties, when a young student in psychology searched for more efficient ways to jot down notes and to prepare for the exams.  Later on, he designed educational programs for the BBC and wrote an encyclopedia on the brain, still using and promoting the amazing technique that helped him so much as a student : Mind Mapping !

His name is Tony Buzan.  Now, he is a star, one of the most fashionable speakers and consultants throughout the world.

And his tool, Mind Mapping, is spreading around the world and is used by students as well as doctors, bank moguls, Boeing engineers and many more…

For a very simple reason : IT WORKS !

Why Mind Mapping ?

Today, we want to share this fantastic technique with you and that’s why we are organizing a workshop called “Mind Mapping Basics” in two cities in the Netherlands : Rotterdam and Amsterdam.


But before, let me tell you a couple of things about mind mapping…

Firstly, it is a powerful technique because it calls on the two sides of our brain.  Most of the time we use the left side of the brain, the rational one, the one that loves figure and logic and straight lines so much.  That is also the side that schools are favoring.  And we forget that we also have a right brain, the one involved in creativity, colours, sounds, sensations, organic lines…

With its strong hierarchic structures, mind mapping appeals more to our left brain.  But its images, its spatial disposition and its colours are more appealing to our right brain.  That is the reconciliation of both that makes it so efficient.

Mind Mapping Workshop

How does it work ?

As Tony Buzan puts it, Mind Mapping is a radiant thought : it starts from the center of the page – and not from the superior left corner – and radiates towards the edges of the blank sheet.  At the center of the page, firstly put your central idea, but do it with a picture rather than with words : that will help you to be more creative !

It uses no sentences, but keywords written on organic branches and associated with images.  This association of images and keywords is a wonderful guide to understand and to remember everything…

The place of each item on the page also provides a spatial marker which helps to memorize concepts.

Each branch constitutes a secondary idea, related to the central one.  Each branch is organic, is a flux, going thinner as the flow goes on…

This gives mind mapping its powerful structure : you can see everything in one glance at the page.  Or you can examine every minute detail on each branch.  It is a unique way to get the analysis and the synthesis of any project at the same time on the same device !

Try to do this with something else !

A mind map of Marion Chéreaux

Our Workshops in the Netherlands

The Lingua Franca Foundation is a member of the Hub in Brussels and collaborates with the other Hubs throughout Europe and beyond.  That’s why we decided to organize several workshops in Belgium (in French) and in the Netherlands (in English).

Mind Mapping Basics ? What will we do in these workshops ?

This workshop is aimed to teach you the basic principles of mind mapping.  So, we’ll learn how to draw our first mind map.  We’ll see how to associate words and pictures, how to reconnect with our own creativity, to feel the pleasure to draw and to write on the same page, to find out what are our deepest feelings and our unconscious thoughts.

We’ll also practice efficient notes taking with mind mapping : the grey linear notes are over, up with the full colour mind maps !  You’ll find out a very powerful way to jot down short but precise and useful notes, using only keywords, branches and small sketches of your own…

You’ll summarize a short text, written or spoken and you’ll see that it is much simpler and accurate that way.  You’ll discover that each participant has his/her own way to read or listen, his/her own way to understand, to remember and to summarize.   This is also part of our human richness

You’ll structure some documents too : generally we are not too good at planning documents’ structures.  We tend to jump on the writing without paying too much attention to the general frame of our papers…  and, of course, our texts lack  any structure…  Forget about this and start giving a sturdy and impressive backbone to your future papers !

And, last but not least, you’ll design yourself some time management tools.  You’ll see, once again with mind mapping, it is simple, easy and strikingly efficient !

Taking notes during a workshop in Paris


Practical information


Our workshops will take place at the Hub’s Summerschool :


  • In Amsterdam : on the 20th of July from 9 am to 5 pm.
  • In Rotterdam : on the 21th of July from 9 am to 5 pm.

Address Amsterdam :

The Hub Amsterdam Westerstraat 187 1015 MA Amsterdam

Address Rotterdam :

The Hub Rotterdam Heemraadsingel 219,3023 CD Rotterdam


Prices :

For Hub Members : 190 euros including VAT

For non Members : 232.50 euros including VAT

All the material are provided by the trainer


Booking :

For Amsterdam : just click here !

For Rotterdam : just click here !


She-conomy : women, business, comsumption and marketing…

It is the first video I translated for the Lingua Franca Academy and I wanted to show it to you because it is very representative of a new generation of peculiarly lively entrepreneurs : Women !

In this clip, they talk about 70% of business being started by women.  In the last training courses that I coordinated in Belgium, figures were closer to 80-85% of women.  Women are now a new force you have to count with !that matters !

This video, initially published on the Blog She-conomy, has been produced by Stephanie Holland, woman entrepreneur and founder of the marketing agency  Holland & Holland.   She knows what she’s talking about.

I did the English transcription and the French translation with the open source translation website www.dotsub.com.  Translation of documents, including videos, is one of the Lingua Franca Academy’s activities.  It corresponds to one of our goals : promoting languages and intercultural exchanges.

The Best Job in the World

The Winner of the Best Job in the World

Do you remember this contest buzzing in all medias several months ago ?  You could get the Best Job in the World : all you had to do  was  to become the Caretaker of tiny islands along the shores of the Queensland Area, in North-West Australia.

The job was paid some US $ 111.000  (about € 83.000) for six months. It consisted mainly in exploring the islands of the area and reporting to a blog.  Ben Southal, the winner, has been elected out of 34.000 applicants from the whole world.

Ben started his best job of the world on the 1st of July 2009 and is living his last days in paradise.  But is it really a paradise ? Not so sure since Ben has recently been stung by a  tiny jellyfish along the Hamilton Island shore and it almost cost his life.

Continue reading

Sunitha Krishnan’s fight against sex slavery

Among the evils that strike women and children, sex slavery is probably the worst.  Experts estimate that human traffic has become the main mafias income provider, even before drugs and weapons businesses.

Sunitha Krishnan talks about her experiences with children and women sold for pornography, prostitution, forced labor…  She witnesses every day torture and exploitation.

Her testimony is hard to hear.  Imagine, how much more it is to experience that situation in your own life…

She’s asking us our support and, above all, to break “this culture of silence” that surrounds these problems.

A newcomer in the Lingua Franca Foundation : Trouve ta voie !

In French, “Trouve ta voie” means “Find your Way“. This is a new blog in French, destined to people in Belgium and France who want to know better about job search, job coaching, business creation, communication techniques, positive thinking and much more.

The Lingua Franca Academy will soon develop activities in Brussels, the Belgian capital, and this blog is aimed to inform Brusselers about our courses, job opportunities, coaching, and the goals of the Lingua Franca Foundation.

We will tell you soon where we will settle our Academy in Brussels.  You can already find this blog by cliking here.

Shereen El Feki : creating a gathering place for Arabic people and the rest of the World

Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations showed the war between civilization as unavoidable, something engraved in the core of geopolitics since the beginning of times…  A lucid examination of history shows something rather different : cultures and civilizations always exchange, giving to and borrowing from each other, excluding some elements and integrating some others according to the proper dynamics of their own evolutions.  The Arabic and Muslim world is no exception to this rule and is re-interpreting elements from modernity according to local needs and conditions, “to produce novelties which are neither conventionally Western nor traditionally Arab“.

Shereen El Feki, half Egyptian, half Welsh, is observing these side effects of globalization. “Her passion lies in the many projects in which she is involved which aim to better understand, and surmount, the social challenges facing Arabs, particularly young people”.

In this video, published by Ted India, she is showing some examples of these borrowings.

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Languages in Europe : a free tool to evaluate your command of a language

The European Union is made of 27 members states and has no less than 23 official languages That means that languages are an important matter for the European Institutions.

Measuring the language skills of their public servants is also a matter of importance as they have to cope with so many complex topics in so many languages.

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Ban on minarets construction in Switzerland : the extreme right used “irrational fear” to reach its goals

minaret

minaret

The entire world was  abashed when the results of a poll against the construction of new minarets in Switzerland have been published.

The extreme right party – Swiss People’s Party (SVP) – launched such a gross campaign against the minarets, using posters showing a woman with a burqa facing a Swiss flag covered with missile-shaped minarets, that everybody expected a defeat of the populist party.

But inf fact a majority of 57.7 % voted for the ban of minarets construction in Switzerland.

The Swiss People Party clearly exploited the irrational fear of “extensive islamisation” of the country and wanted to stop the Muslim tsunami…

But what tsunami ?  There are 400.000 Muslims in Switzerland, out of a total population of 7.739.000 inhabitants. Most of them work and are perfectly integrated in Swiss social life.  There are about 400 mosques in Switzerland and… 4 minarets!

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Is your mind rather synthetic or analytic ? This free tool will help you to determine which category you belong to

Opening a new category on our website

The Lingua Franca Academy, the Research and Education Department of the Lingua Franca Foundation, is opening a new category on this website : the Free Tools category.

In the articles of this new category, you will find free tools to help you in your daily life, to know yourself better or to act as a professional trainer or teacher.

Today, we open this new series with a test to determine the way you analyze new information and resolve problems.


Synthetic VS Analytic

According to your tendency, you will collect and analyze problems, situations and general information differently.

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