A sort of experience...

A Chairman’s eXPerience…

[not my best picture in Hanoi, and before my “Vietnamese haircut” hehe]

Definitely one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Have you ever thought about having paper and pen with you all the time?

Right then, I guess everything is about organization! Just to give you an idea, imagine this:

One place, Hanoi, Vietnam;
Over 120 Vietnamese people and several international delegates gather in their annual National Leadership Development Conference;
A Conference Team conformed by the Organizing Committee and Facilitator’s Team, 5 and 7, respectively;
And a Chairman.

Well, interesting describes my experience of being Chair of the National Leadership Development Seminar at Hanoi, Vietnam organized by AIESEC and hosting more than 120 members of the organization, mainly from Viet Nam but also from Brazil, Hong Kong and Taiwan; and 7 facilitators, Australia, Canada, Italy, Russia and Viet Nam. People who I enjoyed a lot to work with, learn from them and share invaluable moments.

Everything started with an offer from Marcello Ciaramella, Italian Vice-President for Exchange of AIESEC in Vietnam, to Vika my girlfriend, to be Chair of the next National Conference in Vietnam; for his bad luck but her good luck, Vika was unable to live this position because she was selected for an internship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. However, she recommended me to Marcello and that’s it, mere formality from the Member Committee President inviting me to chair their conference and my acceptance to be part of this challenge.

Main responsibilities as Chairman

Motivate the whole Conference Team to deliver a great experience to all delegates for the event.
Coordinate and support each one of them, as long as it’s possible, if you cannot help be honest and say no.
Deliver the main message of the conference, linking every session and include the audience.
Keep the mood of the conference, begin at maximum and try to not let it get down too much; it can happen because of the amount of days and hours working.
Deliver pre and post meeting with facilitator team and be sure that all what they need before the conference is ready.
And there are many more, this was my First Chairman Experience 🙂

The Team

Cao Phoung | Member committee President of AIESEC in Vietnam |

Van Anh | Vice-President for Finance of AIESEC in Vietnam |

Nguyen Thu Ha | Vice-President for Talent Management of AIESEC in Vietnam |

Marcello Ciaramella | Vice-President for Exchange of AIESEC in Vietnam |

Richard Yang | Vice-President for External Relations of AIESEC in Vietnam |

Viktoria Poltavceva | Intern of AIESEC in Vietnam at Westcoast International |

Scott Norford | Elected Vice-President for Exchange of AIESEC in Vietnam ’10-’11 |

Thank you guys! Thanks for deliver a great conference, no matter tiredness, sleepless and difficulties during the event.

It was awesome to share all those moments with a culture different from yours, a lot of things I got from them.

What I take from members of AIESEC in Vietnam

There are many aspects that I take from these kind persons. It was a pity not to have a chat with all of them.

Level of commitment to AIESEC, it was very impressive.
Very young people, even though, willing to share their experiences and listen to others’ ones.
Friendly individuals, smiling every time and caring about you as well.
Party-active!!! They love singing, dancing, sharing…
Language barriers, I was amazed to see how discussions were in English even there were just Vietnamese people around.
Enjoy Life!

Things I learned

I received feedback, definitely it’s important to share it and I could add some critics to myself.

I’m too nice. It’s important to balance everything, when to be strict and transmit it to others and when support and treat “nice”; I need to improve that.
I should be more creative. Meanwhile I was in charge of the mood, deliver the message, etc. I should create new ways for approaching to people and keep their attention to me.
Distraction. I realize that I should take notes in order to have clear understanding of new processes, instructions and deliver a clear message.
Work in my English accent. Mainly because in this part of the world, people are not used to “Latin” accent either “Mexican”.
Positive??? Well, maybe keep with the energy, supportive with others and the personal approach.

There were personal learnings, and all of them related to my person handling stressed situations. Trying to avoid personal conflicts and keep everything in a professional way. I really appreciate my girlfriend, Vika, who supported me, encourage me and inspire me to be better every day, during this conference it was not the exception.

In the end, my experience was exhausting, stressful, diverse, awesome but despite everything I consider it…authentic!

I would like to receive your comments or questions about my experience. Thanks!

Written by Juan Manuel

March 10, 2010 at 5:50 pm

Posted in AIESEC Experiences

Tagged with AIESEC, authentic, chairman, experience, Hanoi, juan, manuel, Mexico, trejo, Vietnam

Welcome to my mind!

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One more Blog to the “cloud”.

Yes, definitely you may say: “another blog…”, “one more guy, sharing his experiences”, “where is the authenticity? If I’ve done that”; Anyway, that’s right! You will find different and definitely more interesting topics, ideas and thoughts in others’ blogs and journals; however, I just want to do what I found interesting and good to share with others: to write and vent my ideas, experiences and words.

Another question that came up to my mind: why to write in English? If Spanish is my mother tongue. Actually, it’s because I realized that I really like it, it’s a language that must be spoken everywhere and a good step to end with all understanding barriers. Definitely, a good post for My Blog would be about this language, why not?

I invite you to look around, read a little bit and, why not, to write what you have in mind and also share what you think it’s important to know, learn and send to others. Typing over here is relevant to do a small reflexion about what is happening around; I cannot promise you that I will write about global issues, political and social topics; it’s just about what I lived, I’m living and I’ll live, and with it some news, comments and situations from our crazy world.

Here you may find the ways to be in contact, I would really like to help you for anything:

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