I am a rookie in the world of marketing. Although engaged in the marketing industry for a whole year, my knowledge represents a tip of an iceberg, and every new experience makes me fell enthusiastic, happy and eager to advance and learn.

That is how I felt at Japodian Islands, at the three-day event gathering more than 70 young leaders in the communications industry from the Balkans. In the national park at the river Una, we had an opportunity to meet young peers from the region, share experiences and learn a lot from great lecturers.

As early as after an intro speech of our host, Ekrem Dupanović, a publisher and editor-in-chief of web portal Media Marketing, positive energy among the young leaders was full of new motivation. Using examples from his 50 years of experience in this industry, he assured and encouraged me never to give up. He reminded me that I should stay brave and curious and that an initiative was always in my hands.

Needless to say, we were all delighted after a Skype call from Saša Savić, who led agency MediaCom in the USA to amazing successes and who talked about the beginnings of his career, big changes in marketing throughout his career and advantages of new technologies. He revealed to us that the secret of his success was in self-confidence – anything but winning was unacceptable.

Ajla and Amir Mulalić, the team who set up Invision Consulting in BiH, taught us through numerous arguments and psychological analyses that there was no such thing as a person with weaknesses as natural traits and that specific situations were those that required individual traits or not. There are no wrong people, only people at wrong places, with natural talents and skills not utilised properly.

We had an opportunity to listen to Lazar Džamić, one of the most renowned brand and marketing educators in the region, on two occasions. First he shared with us what was necessary for successful branding in the ignoring world. Some of the first challenges for young people in the marketing industry are of ethical, rather than professional nature. In his second lecture, Džamić covered 4 ethical challenges of modern marketing, and I felt like living in the dystopian world illustrated in the “Black Mirror“ series.

In his witty way, Miroslav Varga, a certified Google coach from agency Escape in Osijek, assured me of the importance of analytics and numbers in advertising and of my own feeling as the main criterion in making decisions. With his lecture on what is normal today and what will be normal tomorrow in advertising, he closed the conference of young leaders at Japodian Islands.

And finally, I cannot but highlight the beauty of the river Una I enjoyed so much and friendships I made during the stay at Japodian Islands. I returned to Belgrade with some new photos and many impressions, which have filled me with enthusiasm that won’t let go.