Author: anabelcastillorod

Course: Introduction to Personal Branding

Though the concept of personal branding isn’t new, the questions remain about how to create one and, more importantly, what it means to maintain and inhabit that brand. In the quest to improve my Professional/career brand, I took a course – “Introduction to Personal Branding“ on Coursera.

The main lessons for me that I would like to share are summarized below:

1. Branding is holistic, it covers not just Professional but also Personal. The brand should be compatible with your beliefs and values (Your Three Cornerstone Words); those two You’s must be able to exist harmoniously.
2. Setting up a search alert (e.g., Google search alert) for your name/key words, so that anytime it is mentioned you will be notified.
3. The 80/20 rule: 80% of what you put out on social media should be content that is of interest to the people who follow you. 20% should be self-promotion.

Course: Circular Economy: An Introduction

A Circular Economy cycles valuable materials and products, produces and transports them using renewable energy. In the living world, one species’ waste is another’s food, and energy is provided by the sun. This is considered the inspiration for the Circular Economy.

The ‘rules’ or ‘principles’ that govern these natural systems and used to inform a Circular Economy; Waste = Food, Build resilience through diversity, Work with energy from renewable sources, and Think as a system.

I also learnt about the different views of the roots of the circular economy, and How can the circular economy provide solutions to the challenges our current linear economy.

I learnt about the three main business processes required to close loops: Acquisition, Reprocessing, and Remarketing. If any of these key processes fails, we do not have a closed loop.

Also, the different business value in a circular economy; sourcing value, environmental value, customer value, and informational value.

The three general barriers for refurbishment: Perception, International trade barriers and other regulatory barriers, and commitment from top management. Closing the loop through refurbishment needs to be a strategic business decision.

The three different categories of product-service business models: Product-oriented, Use-oriented, and Result-oriented. However, the transition from a product-oriented model to a result-oriented model is difficult. Typical barriers are the need to pre-finance the products that are offered as part of the service contract, the need to organize maintenance, repair and acquisition, and the need to change the “sell more, sell faster” culture of the organization.

The smaller the loop, the greater the profitability of the system. The two ways to extend the life of a product are either keeping the product in use for longer period, or by giving a product a second, third, etc., life. A product’s life can be extended by making it durable, easy to maintain and upgrade, and by making it repairable. Refurbishment and remanufacture also extend a product’s life.

The “Inertia Principle“ – Do not repair what is not broken, do not remanufacture something that can be repaired, do not recycle a product that can be remanufactured.

Thinking about remanufacturing upfront, during product design, can make the remanufacturing process more efficient and thus save a great deal of time and money. There is not much scientific knowledge available on the engineering and business aspects of remanufacturing. Remanufacturing is considered more ‘art’ than ‘science’, which is a missed opportunity.

This was a really interesting course and I would recommend it for any circular economy enthusiat.

Recently completed two online courses and would like to share a few of my learnings.

Course: “Introduction to Personal Branding“

With the shift to the digital world, it is becoming a necessity to promote ourselves digitally and often termed as “Personal Branding”. In short, it is a way to promote ourself which includes our experiences, the combinations of skills, personality, and vision. It is all about telling our story that reflects our actions, attitude, and so on. Personal branding gives us an opportunity to control how people see us and it is very beneficial professionally. Preferably Social media sites or professional networking sites should be a few platforms to promote yourselves where the audience can see you. Consistency and Authenticity should be important while building your personal brand. It is important to keep in mind that your personal branding matches what people say about you. For e.g. if you believe it is important to lift others to get lifted, it should reflect in your branding. I would like to share a few tips which I learned to make a better personal brand: 

1. Introspection and self-reflection: ensure that you know your audience.
2. Find yourself, directors, or mentors. Good guidance never hurts.
3. Personality Test: to help you with a better understanding of yourself.
4. Align your personal values and skills.

Lastly, it is always a good idea to learn and apply. There are many courses on personal branding and can be accessed through various learning platforms. I did a course on “Coursera” called “Introduction to Personal Branding“. Keep upgrading and keep an open mind to adapt to the changing world. 

Course: “Circular Economy: An Introduction“

Our current economy called Linear Economy is all about “Take-Make-Use-Dispose”, which is not a sustainable model. The reason behind not being sustainable is that resources like fossil fuels, food, and water are increasingly hard to get. Biodiversity is declining worldwide and the linear economy depends on cheap energy, cheap materials, and cheap credit. On the other hand, the Circular Economy aims to radically limit the extraction of raw materials and the production of waste. The basic idea of circular economy is to recover and reuse as many of the products and materials as possible, Inna systematic way, over and over again. The circular economy is based on four basic principles:

1. Waste = Food
2. Build resilience through diversity
3. Use energy from renewable resources
4. Think in systems.

The circular economy can be easily understood by a diagram called Butterfly Diagram. The butterfly diagram represents the flows of products and materials in the circular economy. It has two sides called Biological materials, that is materials that can be safely returned to the biosphere and value to the environment once they have gone through one or more use cycles. And Technical materials, materials that cannot be returned to the biosphere, should continuously cycle through the system so that their value can be (re)captured. 
For businesses to close the loop, three main business processes are useful: acquisition, reprocessing and remarketing. Along with these processes, it is very important to have a value, often termed as “Business value in the circular economy”. The list of these values includes Sourcing value, environmental value, customer value, and information value. Though it is important to have these values and processes integrated into a business, it is a good idea to revise the business model as well. We can distinguish three different categories of product-service business models:

1. Product-oriented
2. Use-oriented
3. Result-oriented.

Offering services in combination with products is a way to add value without using more materials.
Other than the concepts or discussions above, there are many other areas like remanufacturing, how product life extension helps reach circularity and how repairing plays an important role in the field of the circular economy. I did my course in Circular Economy called “Circular Economy: An Introduction“. It is very well structured to give a brief understanding of the concepts. Since it is an online course, it should be helpful to integrate it into your personal learning environment. Keep learning and do share your point of view on the circular economy.