Balkans Media Open Days

Jovana Petkovska (CEED Macedonia) chatted with Tomas Mata and Carlos Perez on entrepreneurship and innovation, during the Open Media Days (July 2016).

Jovana. You have worked as a top executive and management consultant in several companies and based on your experience you have quite to tell. How do you manage to pass your knowledge on others, and how do you retain their attention?

Carlos. I share knowledge I feel passionate for. Passion is a contagious disease.

Method is key to explain facts, concepts, ideas in a structured way, and adapted to your audience. Use examples… the more the better.

I always try to explain why, help others to dig into facts and look for insights in their own way. When you understand the “why”, you remember the “what” and “what for”.

And freedom’s people is essential to adapt the ideas to their own views and preferences. To make decisions, mistakes and learn on the way. Everyone needs to practice, and there is no practice without mistakes.

True learning and innovation comes from personal experience and experimentation. Without freedom there is no true learning.

We need less followers and more leaders.

Jovana. Are people nowadays ready to accept something new? Are young people more inclined toward innovation?

Carlos. Kids are entrepreneurs. They learn and advance through play.

Education places rules and protocols above everything else, but this is changing.

Millennials have to lead Humanity to a better way of producing and distributing wealth.

We need less followers and more leaders.

This is the biggest challenge the Humanity has ever faced.

Education is under review everywhere. We need to help kids reach adulthood without loosing their natural willingness to innovate.

Jovana. As expert in social media, how can entrepreneurs use them for building a business?

We are 7.4 billions souls, and the noise produced by all talking all the time is unbearable. We need feedback from the others, reassuring that our lives, as individuals are not a spare. That we matter. Each one of us. Selfies shows us how important this need is for everyone.

So, if you want someone else to listen to you, first listen to him/her, in a genuine way.

Entrepreneurs are tenacious, hardworking courageous people who are not afraid of failure.