Monkey Business
Mental Model Game pitching #1
Apr 19th
Wednesday 13.4.2011 at Hub SoMa in San Francisco was a historic day. The first investor pitch of the Monkey Business Mental Model Game was held then. And the results? Lot of fun and learning, I’d say! Here I reflect the outcome and share the slides used & ideas generated from this session. I’m going to use a short “motorola” model answering the 4 questions below.
What went well?
In my master’s program all individuals of our #minnteam had a challenge to pitch a project. I picked Mental Model Game since we had just recently been talking about it with Tekes and found out that there might be potential to invest on this idea and the development of it. So the pitching chance came with a perfect timing!
Thanks to deciding the topic well in advance I was able to develop my pitch by talking it thru for many people before the actual show. Hugo & Ville Monkeys, Aleksi Hasu and #minnteam mates helped by giving a lot of open critics & additions beforehand. (Thanks guys!) Just before the show I also established a relationship with the investors by chatting a bit with them before going to the stage. It helped to relax and enjoy the moment, and finally the presentation went better than any of the test pitches. It was a good experience and for sure I felt that I want to do it again and again and again!
What went poorly?
The presentation was quite well handled but in the questions and answers part I was not sharp anymore – it was the selling point and I went on talking not focused. First question was: What kind of customers buy this game now and have you asked them woud they like to pay for an online game or mobile app? That was easy to
answer: individuals & consultancies have already showed interest for buying a training for facilitating the game, and also for buying the web / mobile version of the game. The next question I received was harder: Why companies buy exactly this product? I answered that it’s bought for the team-up-day purposes or for eg. the sales teams motivational purposes. But that’s not really a good answer. Mental Model Game is not just any dynamic for the team-up-day. Instead, it’s a deep and simple tool for improving the team dynamics and performance inside a company, and you don’t need to wait for a development day to play the game. It can be used for thinking challenges in real time, even urgetly. For the next pitch I will go deeper in thinking about the real value of the Mental Model Game with the Monkeys team and with the academics who have launched the theory originally.
What did I learn?
I learned that it’s important to mention numbers, and for example answer to the question “How much are you investing on it yourself?” and of course I forgot to tell that. We have been investing on the brochyre texts about the game, on the rights for the name and websites, and on the Mental Model Game tour. Our total investment is about 2000 € + 2000 working hours up to date as a team. We are now facing a bigger investment need for getting the online game development going on and the board game design done.
I also learned that: “Investors never invest on a service company, but if you had a developer in your team who owns this project it would be an attractive project to invest in.” Second positive comment from StepOne José was: “I want to see you making it happen, it’s a good idea and you’ve got the basis ready – it will be a good learning experience for Monkey Business to check how far you can go with the Mental Model Game - make it happen!”
What will I do differently next time / take to practice?
I would practice still more before presenting. Maybe 30 times is minimum for practice, now I had 10. Goal would be to get to give 300 pitches at least! And that’s why we are launching a “Pitching Evening” concept to Jyväskylä region, for getting a stage to learn this lovely skill, and for waking up the start-up culture in our city. Would yu be up to participate? Is there someone wrking on it in Jyväskylä already? Who should we team up with?
We will keep on developing the game with our new designer Janne, and keep on talking with Tekes about the possibilities for idea development funding.
Summa summarum: I used to be critical towards pitching because my mental model of a pitch was that it’s boring to have one head talking for a crowd as fast as possible to get the idea sold. Now, after experinecing the role of the presenter, I can just say that this was the most learningful experience I’ve recently had. Being seriously vulnerable and honest with the project in front of 30 or more people makes you feel, think, act and love it!
Today our USA Learning Journey continues in Boston with Liher Monkey. We’re visiting MIT Lab, Babson College with Endeavor course running there, and also Harward & some local enterprises. Do you have more ideas for what might we do here? We’re around until Friday 22nd of April.
With Yellow regards,
Henna Monkey
Visiting Patagonia @ Ventura
Apr 14th
There were 10 dreams that I wanted to make true in life, and one of them became reality last thursday. I got the chance to visit Patagonia and met Yvon together with 26 team entrepreneurs from Mondragon Team Academy and Team Coach Aitor Lizartza.
The visit started with a fully inspirational speech by Yvon Chouinard. Yvon started sharing that even if the Economic crisis is breaking down many companies, this has been the best year for Patagonia. He shared that people (consumers) become more conservative when the crisis hits and start buying what they really need. Actually the growth of Patagonia has been about 20% this year, but it could have been up to 30 or even 40%. It did not happen because of their own choice, since they want to create an organic and sustainable growth.
Yvon sees that the government or the corporations won´t change the world, but it´s now in the hands of the consumers to step up and to show the power by deciding what to buy and who to support. He mentioned as well that co-operation through Business is the only way to create solutions for the environmental crisis we´re going through. Leading by example, Patagonia and another 24 clothing brands have created a shared project with the aim to provide more information (about how a cloth has been produced) to the customers prior to their purchase. It will take some time till this really takes place, but idea behind is that customers with an iPhone will get the chance to find out when they visit a store what has been the process of creating the jacket: where, materials, transportation…
Patagonia´s business model is not based on selling more to the same customer, but they aim to sell to new customers. I got some ideas here. Patagonia has the commitment to donate 1% of their sales (4 million $ will be donated this year) to organizations that support environmental change and activism. From my perspective, this tribe has been created already, it does not grow and they are looking for tools to make change happen. So how can we do that? probably education is the only way to make that change happen. So how about Patagonia creating scholarships or grants for students from developing countries to attend schools that can create profound changes in behaviours through radical educational models? Team Academy could be a good partner probably for that
We got the chance to visit all the facilities and after that the teamsters had to work on a company challenge in 2 teams.
First team had to work on a challenge related to Product Marketing, and Helena Barbour, the Business Director for Lifestyle product presented it:
1. Patagonia is a brand committed to both the climbing and surfing lifestyles. Surf culture is driven by brands that sell fashion forward styles at low price points to the youth market, with significant advertising investment. Since Patagonia doesn’t promote fashion, low
prices or advertising, how should the brand seek to be relevant to the surf customer?
2. Given the environmental and social compliance parameters we choose to work within, our retail prices tend to be higher. How do we appeal to the younger generation who want to pay less at Zara, H&M etc?
The second team had to work on a challenge presented by Lisa Pike, Director of Environmental Giving. She posed the following questions:
1) A lay of the land of the environmental movement in both Spain and Europe (if they are not just Spanish students). What are the driving environmental topics and issues that are resonating with citizens and customers currently?
2) How best can we communicate and execute our environmental giving in Spain/Europe. Each year Patagonia gives away 1% of sales to grassroots environmental organizations. Is this the right model for Spain? If so, how can we better brand this core company mission and execute it in Spain/Europe. If not, what other approaches might we consider?
The students had 2 hours to work on the challenge and then present the solutions, which were really good.
Yvon is definetely a truly inspiring master, whose business is based on the Zen philosophy. “Don´t focus your effort on shooting the animal correctly, but focus your energy on making the right move when shooting the arrow” – said him.
I wanted to dedicate this post to Tatu and the boys, to Hugo and his upcoming baby and to Ville, who lent me the book written by Yvon “Let my people go surfing” in November 2008.
Liher
Learning Journey to San Francisco is made of…
Apr 12th
First day behind in this unique 1st Learning Journey to San Francisco we’ve been co-creating together with the Learning Journeys crew Liher, Kaisu and Bego Maite, and the Mondragon Team Academy community.
Who’s on board in here? It’s 2 Uni programs, BBA and Master from Mondragon Team Academy, and 4 pioneer participants of the 1st Learning Journey to SFO with their 2 coaches. All together we are about 40 experimenting the contemporary business context here thiw week.
Yesterday was an inspirational day and it already contained two or more chances to pitch the projects in front of the audience. First we landed in the Hub SoMa, where 10 Hub entrepreneurs were joining us talking their stories of playing in the US market. It was Adam Archer from GamesThatGive, wh said that a young company crew needs to have only 2 roles: “you just need people who are building and selling”. Then there was Javier Ideami, who shared that possibility lurks around every corner, and you need t keep listening to the market carefully and adapt to it a bit, because if you don’t do so you will be forgotten. Also I remember Santiago from softonic.com talking about the importance of having the right people on board in the beginning. “It’s a strategic esicion with whom you
work, and hiring great people needs great investment.” Later on, we had a session with Victoria Hale from medicines360.com, who had created a non-profit drug company and said that in the medical sciences field there are multiple areas where help is needed, but not given, due to the market powers. For example in USA 50 % of the pregnancies are unplanned, and contraceptive pills are not sold without meeting a doctor. There lurks a great change possibility, for example. Her rule of thumb was that business lurks in fields where no one else wants to go. And to go there, she has always been a serius person who came to do serious things. There were also more entrepreneurs from the Hub Ventures program wh were purifying water and building better sanitary solutions to India…quite inspirational in deed! In the evening we headed to the Summit Café, where MTA had invited some local entrepreneurs, and I met for exapmle Espen, an ex Kaospilot Team Leader, who now lives in San Francisco and builds interactive toys for facilitation purposes.
Espen comes to work with a cost of costs, and takes a persentage of sales and a patent of of a new creation, and so he’s affordable for all small and medium size businesses too. Shall we buy him in Monkey Business for a week or two?
This banana-surfing monkey is his gift for us. Maybe it’s he himself?
Right now I have to go because MINN, my Master’s team, is about to start brainstorming and preparations for today’s meetings with BitTorrent, IDEO and Innvalley. I have to say that this program is an eye-opening, and brain-nurturing experience in many ways!! Yesterday we tried concreticizing what is MINN, and we are still around here:
MINN is a lively, constantly evolving executive learning journey at the service of creative processes, participatory and open environments.
It was set up to research and experience the interaction between the individual, company and community on a contemporary business context.
The value of MINN lies on a unique team for experimentation and promoting new cross-disciplinary formulae.
What do you think?
See you tonight with some new insights….
Yellow regards,
Henna
Master international of Intrapreneurship and Open Innovation
Feb 9th
Just as Hugo Monkey returned from the Master program of Communication and Business from the Bond ”Secret Agent” University of Australia, me, Henna Monkey, started in Mondragon University’s international Master program in Intrapreneurship, Team Leadership and Open Innovation. It’s going on from now until Jan 2012 and it’s going on around the world!

My goal for 2011 is to check out if it’s possible, and to prove that it is possible, to be a Monkey even if living and working most of the year outside of Finland.
This program is run by Mondragon Corporative University. Mondragon is the largest cooperative group in the world with more than 85.000 employees and it’s University is a partner of Team Academy Finland.
Participants of the program are all from businesses and the learning touch is very practical. We are forming a company as a team, too. Here there’s a short bio of all of us, so you will know who are in my extended team for this year, and what kind of knowledge Monkey Business (or your company?) can reach out to thru this program.
Eneko Izquierdo, Business background. He has been past 8 years in Eroski group, the 2nd largest retail company in Spain in the strategic management department. He has been the leader of the implementation of self-managed teams, in the whole company (50000 employees, over 1000 retail stores)
Aitzol Garmendia, Service unit manager for the group Danobat, which is the largest machine tool company in Spain. His role in the company is finding full solutions for the customers worldwide related with tools & services. Their main international market is in China.
Cristina Murillo, project manager in Gaia, which is an Association of Industries for Electronic and Information Technologies in the Basque country (North of Spain). She has been there for 5 years, working in many projects such as: Online communication for digital support in urgency situations for handicapped people, Recycling project for computer and electronic appliances in India and Implementing a management model for Corporate Social Responsibility in companies locally and internationally.
Iñaki Egitegi, background in engineering. Has been working the past years in the world of culture music and arts developing social media in that field. For example running websites for music events in San Sebastian ( www.nimu.tv). He is active event and concert organizer and working at the moment in an entrepreneurial project of setting a cultural hub in San Sebastian.
Iñigo Blanco,has environmental science background. He has been working for last 3 years in environmental science in UK, the HUB Berlin project and Funky Project innovation agency in Bilbao. Nowadays he is starting to lead in developing the HUB project in San Sebastian-Donostia.
Sanna Tossavainen BBA and graduated from Team Academy Finland & from Team Mastery international coaching program. She has wide experience of working in international field from Disneyland to a company called Entrepart located in France combining arts and business. Sanna has also been working in organizing Learning journeys to Finland bringing high level bankers from France. Right now working on exporting Finnish education in France.
And me, Henna Kääriäinen, business background and graduated from Team Academy Finland & from Team Mastery international coaching program. Past two years I’ve been working as entrepreneur in Monkey Business. Right now I’m working my way in the international sales of Finnish education. It’s my passion and competence too, as we monkeys are all products of Finnish education and are living examples of what it enables for people. My most ambitious project is happening between Team Academy and Senac Sao Paulo exporting the Finnish educational model to Brazil. Other main project during 2011 is about creating learning journeys for various audiences to various countries.
Coaches/Coordinators
Anita Seidler (German/Russian), master in European Management. Graduated also from the Team Mastery international coaching program. Has 3 years working experience in Mc Kinsey now working as a president of SoL Spain. Anita is also entrepreneur and founder of HUB Madrid aswell as an entrepreneur and consultant in Creative Society.
Jose Mari Luzarraga, business backround, BBA, PHD in Mondragon multilocalization strategy innovating human-centered globalization. 5 years experience in consultancy in KPMG, Icon media lab as Portugal Country manager. He has been working the past 5 years as researcher/ lecturer at Mondragon University and currently also an entrepreneur in Mondragon Team Academy.

Here we are co-creating the follow-up for Nokia's crowdsourcing unit that we visited in Finland in Jan 2011.
Our next session will be in the Hub Madrid starting from tomorrow! (10th-13th of Feb) Theme is Co-creating and Learning with Customers. You’re invited to enjoy our learnings presentation show on Saturday night in the Hub Madrid. It starts at 9pm.
Hope to see you there!
Cheers,
Henna Monkey, the world researcher
Monkey Business Must Books Vol. 1
Jan 27th
Over a month ago, on 13th of December 2010, I asked on our Monkey Monday weekly meeting about the must books for Monkeys and our friends. Meaning books that have influenced us a lot, and if you read them you may gain a better understanding what this Monkey Business is all about. This is the first volume of the list, and with the help of our bookshop friend Esa, you may soon find them in our private bookshop at the Yellow Office. See the books below and get yours from Amazon. If you buy them after clicking the links below, we will receive a small credit to buy more books, too. So thanks for you support and have a good time reading! It would be great if you let us know your key insights and favorite books as well.
Ps. If you are on Facebook reading this, you may wanna click here to see the page online, I suppose the shop isn’t available there. Or, just manually, the books are Papillon, The Fifth Discipline, The Alchemist, Let my People go Surfing, Blue Ocean Strategy, Orbiting the Giant Hairball and One from Many.
Ps2. The Finnish musts Vol. 1 will be revealed next but here’s a taster: Tatu ja Patu Supersankareina.
“Don´t worry – be crappy!” -Guy Kawasaki, Art of Start-
Nov 17th
Old finnish saying says that it´s better to have one goose in backpack than ten flying free. So here I go. Strongly believing that one posted writing is better than ten unposted. In a way that is how all started in Monkey Busines. No business idea. A lot of questions, small and bigger ones. Or even before that here was a meeting between two humanbeings, Ville&Tatu year 2005. Maybe even Adam&Eva before that. Later some biercans and mugs of coffee. And an attitude that we can have impact. WE HAVE IMPACT!![]()
What would an organisation from future be like? Why is business so serious? What does mother Earth say to that? What is the best misunderstanding of my life? For me it´s Monkey Business – when people were talking about Funky Business. It was something we had been seeking out. Can´t be taken too seriously, yellow and playful. Travelling was meaningfull, ideas came through conversations with new people and surfing in new cultures. Bananashaped businesscard, logo and core message.
What is the tribe I want to join? Whose truth do I believe? Who/What leads me? After what I am running for? Is it possible? What inspires me? What keeps me moving? Dream? What is the cartoon I want to create?
Juha-Matti Kinnunen aka Tupsu has drawn these cartoons. And by serendipity we have started to use it as a tool for running interactive workshops. By telling our stories and raising questions and then throwing them to participants. And sharing our story is something that inspires me. No logic. Just attitude. Yellow spirit. And a lot of actions&Dialogue. Love me or hate me. Do the newer!
Lifestyle company. With Impact. Like organic plant. Maybe?
Facebook Username for Monkey Business?
Aug 29th
Help needed!

I recently figured out that we can have a username for our Monkey Business page in Facebook. You may wonder, what’s a FB username? Well, it’s the name that appears in the web-address of our page. Currently the web address for our FB page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Monkey-Business/34489254526. Not so handy, I think.
So, we have a little challenge to come up with something for the Monkey Business page, and I would appreciate your help. What would be a good username for us?
Please drop your suggestions in comments below. Award and fame for the person providing winning suggestion! Keep it yellow, Ville
Learning Journeys à la Monkey Business
Jul 22nd
July 2010 has been a great learning journey month with friends from TA around Europe. I felt like harvesting a bit of this concept of Learning Journey, because that’s becoming such a key element in Monkey Business’s business!
One significant day in the 3-weeks journey of mine was the day of attending the thesis presentation session of Liher at Mondragon University / MTA. Liher had done his thesis about Learning Journeys. In his presentation he reflected what he had learned in the journeys he did together with the TA network over the past 1,5 years, and how he will use his learnings in the future. The topic was really real and tangible, because due to the experience Liher had gathered, MTA had given him a challenge to organize all the learning journeys of LEINN and MINN University programs to Finland, US California and China during this and the next year. Quite a nice challenge, I thought! One significant interest factor at Liher’s story for me was that I had been with him in most of the learning journeys he described, and he had indentified that we could work on the journeys together in the future as well. Super! For me the Learning Journeys theme resonated well with the Travel Agency for Superheroes concept, that we have been developing in Monkey Business recently, so here I’ll share the ideas that popped up while enjoying the dialogue at Liher’s session.
The style of the event was open and full of inquiry, such as: What is a learning journey?, that Liher asked from us. I made a drawing of the success factors of my kind of learning journey and here it is:
Then the dialogue moved into the learning journeys with a meaning. What’s your meaning of taking a journey?, was the question. What’s the trigger? There must be many, ne could go to learn about people, surf, Art of Hosting, SoL, food, the Hub’s, sports, learning, Team Academy, Kaospilots, fun, sun, snow, hot, cold, history, personal discovery or cultures – you name it!
As organizers of multiple the learning journeys we then wondered: What’s the needed agenda / structure for a successful journey? Connections, networks and the first night booking were the obvious first thoughts. But the type of the journeys Monkey Business arranges is preferably with open agenda and created in dialogue with our guests. We try to avoid arranging trips with predictable results (referring to the slogan in our Banana card ”How would you feel if someone gave a you banana that had been chewed already?”). Cornerstones of our journeys are Monkey spirit, TA spirit and knowledge of the destination with local friends. Challenges are to network even better in the world of facility providers, such as accommodators and restaurants so that we could concentrate on our main strenght which is creating experiences rather than booking facilities. However, we gotta build the network of trusted facilities as well!
After talking about the facilities Maria, a professor of MU asked: How can we move people into a learning journey? Because for sure learning journey does good, but only if a person is ready to take it and jump in. Can we create a need? Creating the need might work out by talking about the content / calling questions / topics of the journey, but what if Learning Journey guests come with the fear of jumping in and opening up for anything that might come? Fear is the one that blocks the most. So how do we overcome the personal fear and closure? That was the final question posed in the session, and stayed unanswered.
Now in the case of LEINN journeys, Liher and Monkeys practice the way to create a journey that takes off the fear. The fact is that in the coming September there are 60 people to come for a Learning Journey to TA Finland, and soon after that in March 25 people going to California and on the next autumn double to California and 25 to China… Liher, Monkeys are there for you to help you and for sure this concept of Learning Journeys deserves some thinking / dialoguing work. Maybe it starts from creating the Leading Thoughts for our Travel Agency for Superheroes? Who’s up to that!?
With Yellow summer mood,
Henna Monkey
p.s. I’ve just finished reading a book Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie, hence the artsy illustration trial. Note the nailpolish that acted as a glue and marker!
Seriously Yellow.
Jun 26th
Monkey Business keeps getting critics from the people who doubt our possibilities to be a ”real company” as we are. One day it’s about the unpromising name, the other day it’s about the seemingly small amount of work we do. One critical friend shared his opinion about the color, too: no serious company has a yellow brand! Yellow is associated with fun, joy, play, holiday…but not with serious business. ”Name me a serious company having yellow as a brand color?”, he challenged. Not that I’d be obsessed with a question, it just turned out that looking for serious yellow companies became a fun habit
Now, in the sunny yellow lightness of one of these Finland’s midsummer nights, I want to share some of these yellow findings, for example:
SOL Palvelut, a big grown Finnish service business offering laundry, clean-up and staff leasing services, employing 9000 people in 4 different countries and having made a turnover of 157 million euros in 2009. In SOL yellow means the sunny positivity and the culture of freedom and responsibility. Employees can decide how they want to work and what kind of working environment they like. They were in charge of the decoration in the headquarters, too, and therefore SOL City, the uniquely and wildly designed headquarters of the company, is one of the most desired visiting destinations for the international business groups visiting Helsinki. In the past I worked for SOL Palvelut, and still remember the very positive working culture in there. I felt like part of the team and responsible, but free from the 8am to 4pm routines and having all the power to improve my work and be in direct contact with our partners every day. It was seriously yellow.
DHL Express, a German transportation company offering tailored, customer-focused solutions for managing and transporting letters, goods and information. This company made it to this list for two recent reasons. Firstly because we spotted it’s yellow transporter at our yellow office parking place, delivering goods for one of the companies we are neighboring, and secondly because it offered us a smooth solution for serving our superheroe guest when she left to Paris forgetting her iPhone in Finland. DHL delivered it to her to Paris overnight, taking a service time of 10 hours with a price of 155,55 euros. 7 hours delivery would have also been available. Why DHL is recommendable for anyone in need of express delivery? 1) It transports phone batteries, unlike the express delivery operator recommended by the Finnish main post service Itella, for example. 2) Even being a German company, has it’s web pages nicely in Finnish unlike it’s US competitor FedEx, for example. These primary reasons made us to choose for DHL, and surely we supported the yellow color, too.
Eniro with yellow Pages. Not so long ago I received a phonecall from Eniro, the leading contact search company in the Nordic media market listed in Swedish stock. Eniro was renewing it’s Yellow Pages direct search media, and asked if Monkey Business wanted to be found from there. It could have been a traditional sales call, but the first line, a question of Eniro’s agent, changed the system radically. She asked: What is this Monkey Business doing? I went: We make the world more yellow by improving supportive communication systems. She replied: Hhmmm…ahhaa, sounding like trying to construct a thought in her head before voicing it out: “Then we are in the same business! Eniro Yellow Pages is trying to make the world more yellow by improving the communication systems by creating the connections between people.” It was a good talk with the senior sales agent of Eniro who made me think that in fact it would be cool to do one joint project with Eniro. As a company, Eniro plays in another league, but we share the yellow!
These were just some examples of the yellow and serious brands. What we as Monkey Business mean and want to communicate with the yellow color is that we are all about serious fun, positivity and good vibes in communication. Yellow is the mood of action that produces good feeling and good results by empowering people.
Can you name and describe more examples of the serious yellow companies?
With all my yellow (as Johanna would say!),
Henna Monkey
P.S. Bananas are yellow, too. And very serious business, too.










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