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A Reporter’s ODT Experience

This is a report and might not be a piece of news though a report can also contain some news but the aim of report writing might be different.

This is a report by a first person.

ODT related news programs have appeared on the website three times so far and have been discussed from different angels (visit here). Therefore, I decided to write the news about this course in a different way.

Since I heard from one of my friends at a special school about a program called ODT by one of the companies active in the field of marketing and advertisement the follow up about participating in this program was started. At that time the name (ODT) sounded somehow strange. I am a person who has searched various books about the work process at advertisement companies and their organizational structure. Therefore, I had perceived an abstract image of the process of communicative activity had been shaped in my mind.

About nine months have passed since I heard the news and today as a participant I am present in the program; a participant who had since a long time ago and through the same friend had become acquainted with dnaunion and was active as a domestic desk reporter. And today I have found an opportunity to become familiar with different parts of the holding and closely meet different people and see how a communicative activity is implemented from zero to one hundred.

The program was expected to begin at 8:50 hours. The first person who received the participants was Managing Director of dnaunion Holding Nasser Pashapour. I arrived at the place with a 20-minute delay and the program had started on time. The delay was partly too expensive for me (and the reason is quite obvious) and from that point learning started. A couple of weeks ago, the participants who were mainly MBA students from Sharif, Shahid Beheshti and Research and Sciences (affiliated to IAU) universities had been asked that in addition to their presentation form prepare a design by assuming that they have a billboard in one of the city highways. In the first part Mr. Pashapour had asked each of the participants to say in what position they expected to be in the next 10 years. Then their billboard would be presented without that person having the right to make any comment about the design and only those who were present would comment. It was my turn. I did not pay any attention to the rules and gave a brief description about my billboard. My billboard was not presented and this was my second lesson to learn.

After each participant talked about their position in the next 10 years as well as about their billboard, Pashapour put a mark in front of their names. He had three options: triangle, square and without mark. In a group in which I was a member, only one received the triangle mark and almost the remaining had received the square mark. It had provoked my jealousy for not being able to win a triangle although I knew that despite the fact that my billboard was not presented at all, this mark was too much for me. The marks had been given but no one knew their meaning and this question remained until the end of the program and would remain so for the readers of this report until presence in an ODT program.

Then it was Mr. Pashapour’s turn to sketch the position of the next 10 years for the participants. At the end of his speech a film was shown on the history of the dnaunion Holding which defined the ups and downs in reaching a successful business in a story telling language. Finally I realized where the name dnaunion generated from. According to Pashapour, DNA is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus, but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria. He said dnaunion is a paradoxical name which reminds us of the story of the Phoenix and Attar’s Phoenix. As for our company, different dnas which are the same companies of the group have joined each other and formed a dnaunion.

After Mr. Pashapour left the meeting, the first presentation was introduction of EMRC (market research company) which was made by the young Managing Director of the company Kamyar Emami. After the presentation, questions and answers took place and different parts of the company and its products and services were explained to the audience. Then a reception was held for the guests. Familiarity with other MBA students was an interesting experience for me, especially that most of the participants had passed their undergraduate courses in the field of engineering. This provided a good opportunity for chatting with them.

By returning to AVV class which was the venue of holding the program, Pouya Ghaznavi, DMN Managing Director, presented the activities of his company by demonstrating two cases of its projects. In the first presentation, Kamyar Zolfaqari, the Senior Account Manager of Eshareh Company joined the program. The presentation was continued with jokes between Ghaznavi and Zolfaqari about BLT activities which lay the working foundation for DMN Company and ATL activities which are the basis for the activities of Eshareh Company and comparison between the two. Of course, these two companies have had abundance of close cooperation and the next presentation was exactly the story of such cooperation.

The next program was to serve lunch. Perhaps it was the most interesting part of the program not due to the pizza we were served but for the company of the experienced managers of the companies of the group. I personally had a lot of questions which were answered patiently and kindly.

After having the lunch, Maryam Manavi and Farzaneh Mojtahed who had worked hard to organize the program accompanied us for a visit to EMRC Company. EMRC had always been a safe deposit box for me which was very difficult to find out what was inside it. Perhaps it is due to the building façade because when you stand in front of the building which is adjacent to the main building of the Holding, you will notice that the two buildings are somehow twins with the difference that there are protective bars in front of the EMRC windows. On the other hand I knew that inside the building there is a room for central meetings which like the confession rooms there is a mirror through which you can see the interior of the room.

I entered the EMRC with a little bit of fear. But everything was different from what I had thought: Again, nice attitude of the staff in responding to the questions of the visitors and their openness about putting information at our disposal. When we entered the EMRC its staff members were extremely busy with their work and the difficulty of the work was quite obvious.

The tightly scheduled program had somehow exhausted the participants. On the other hand, the program could not meet all the demands of the participants. After visiting the EMRC we headed towards Eshareh Company in vans parked in front of the company. The first thing that attracted every one’s attention was posters of music album covers which had been drawn on the company walls as well as attractive and interesting comics which decorated the walls with the help of elements such as sockets, lighting plugs, cooler channels, etc. Later we noticed that they were the works of the Innovation Manager of Eshareh, Siamak Pourjabbar whom we met later. The story behind the posters was that every month with the presentation of a subject the colleagues of different parts of Eshareh Company would be asked to send their selected relevant works to be placed on the company walls and these works.

Eshareh due to having three different business units had confused us to some extent as in each unit there was a separate innovative section which was specific of that section. But again, with some explanations that were provided, this confusion was removed to some extent.

After visiting Eshareh and its different sections we returned to the first place. There Mr. Pashapour again came to us and had some jokes which showed he had remembered all the information we had provided at the beginning of the program about ourselves. After expressing viewpoints and proposals, Pashapour spoke about the marks and here I received the third lesson.

At the end of the program gifts were handed out to the participants on behalf of dnaunion, and a group photo was taken. After speaking with one of the participants whose area of interests was close to the activities of mbanews.ir, I invited him to participate in one of the sessions so that if interested he could start cooperation with us. Then we said goodbye to dnaunion and left the place.