Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
On Saturday 4 June, the Second Session of the Creative Republic of Bihać will be held. It will open with a lecture by the very successful Croatian entrepreneur Kristina Ercegović, whose project, Business Café, has become a regional hit, and is rapidly expanding throughout the region.
Every day of this week we will present one speaker from the roster of the Creative Republic of Bihać. It’s only fitting to begin this whole story with Kristina Ercegović, who will be involved in many activities in Bihać on Saturday.
Media Marketing: You have the privilege to open the Second Session of the Creative Republic of Bihać with your lecture “Take everything, but leave my contacts”. It’s a very interesting topic title, and also crystal clear.
Kristina Ercegović: That’s right. In business, the crucial thing is who you know, plus we become a conglomeration of the 5 people we spend the most time with. The most valuable thing in business is our contacts and relationships. At a training I attended I heard the sentence my networth = my network, and Branson also says in his book “Not working? Try networking”. I remember a lecture from university long ago. The professor raised his address book high in the air and said: “This is the most valuable thing I have. For this I would kill half the city.” I’ll talk about the importance and the power of networking, but also on how to do it well. How to efficiently use all the trips to conferences and your new contacts. Even my presence in Bihać is the result of networking over the last couple of years.
Media Marketing: “How small becomes big” is the title of a panel in which you participate with a couple of other guests from the region. It’s also something you deal with in your Business Café, which has spread like a virus through the regional entrepreneurship community. What is your recipe for the growth of SMEs?
Kristina Ercegović: Life has no replays. It’s all there is. So it’s crucial to listen to yourself, your intuition, do what makes you happy, something that leaves a trace and makes this world just a little better place. And never give up. The only way to fail is to give up.
Media Marketing: You will also be a moderator on a panel on branding in tourism. It’s perhaps the most important topic of the day, because the greatest potential for the development of Bihać probably lies in tourism. Who are the guests on that panel?
Kristina Ercegović: My guests on the panel will be Božo Skoko, Vanja Cuculić (he did the creative work for the city of Ogulin, the home of fairytales, and the visual identity for other destinations), Slobodan Coba Jovanović who did the creative work for the tourism brand of Serbia and Amarildo Mulić, director of the National Park Una, se we will include the local community.
Media Marketing: Will we perhaps see a Business Café in Bihać soon?
Kristina Ercegović: For Bosnia (along with Sarajevo) our plan is to be regulars in Banja Luka and Mostar. We can visit Bihać on our tours, as I agreed with my colleague Amra Hašimbegović who owns the license for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Media Marketing: News about the Business Café comes almost daily. Can we have some exclusive news that will hold out for at least a couple of days until some other news leaves it in the dust?
Kristina Ercegović: Here’s one exclusive piece of info that we know internally only, and you don’t have to be a silencetologist about it :) . We are planning the second EKIPA ZA USPJEH (Team for Success) from 6 to 9 October (we did the first one last year on the same dates with Bane Brkljač in Mokrin). The point is that we want to gather all of our speakers from all the Business Cafés together in one place and to network them. There were more than 300 speakers, from six countries. They are an inspiration and a role model for others in the region. I believe that, when they meet each other and network, they will also learn something new. And have fun, of course, make new friends and new projects. It will be great :) . And it will be a new, concrete stimulus in the region. Where it will be held we still don’t know – we are looking for a location somewhere between Dubrovnik and Split. We will organize at least one day of fun, work and learning on a yacht on our – let’s be objective – beautiful seaside :) .
Save the date Ekrem. You were our speaker at the Business Cafe in Zagreb, and here, you’re the first invitee to the Team for Success).