Customer Interviews- Week 4

I believe an opportunity exists to create an app or website that consists of all the clubs, organizations, and Greek life on campus.

This problem is mostly faced by new students, who are overwhelmed with the size of a college campus.

After talking to 5 potential customers about the opportunity I found, I determined that there really is an opportunity for an app or website that serves as a central page to all of the clubs, organization, and Greek life around campus.  Most of the time, people find out about these organizations through word of mouth, but there are a great number of groups at our University that have trouble getting members because information about them is not often spread through word of mouth. Word of mouth is also not a very efficient way to advertise organizations, and emails are often not very efficient because students already have to spend hours sorting through junk email and important ones.

I found that I did not have as hard a time interviewing potential customers because the group I was focused on was my fellow classmates.  I went on a couple of floors of my dorm to interview people I found in the common rooms and I interviewed a few that were sitting at my table when I was studying at Marston Library.  The hardest part is getting up the courage to say “Hi” but after that, I found the interviews to be fairly easy (although each one took a few takes).   

For some reason the blogger video is not showing up on my blog, in an emergency effort, I uploaded it to YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx7KHylLOnk

Blogger would only let me load a file this large, my fifth interview dialogue is here:

"Are you in any clubs or organizations at this moment?"

"Yes, I am in the honors college, I'm also in a video game club where we play games on STEAM as well as card games."

"How was it that you found this organization?"
"I found out about the honors college through word of mouth, same with the video game club."

"How easy is it to find information about clubs that you are interested in?"

"It was pretty easy for me to find the clubs I'm in now, but I have had difficulty trying to find information about potential clubs."

"Do you feel that you have a good idea of all the clubs here at the University?"

"No not really, there are so many and I don't know of any place that has them all in one place, I mostly receive emails and see things at Burlington."

"If you were starting a club, how would you go about trying to advertise it?" 

"I'd probably try to pass out flyers, and have it advertised at other established clubs that might have kids in it that would be interested in my idea."

Reading Reflection - Week 4

1      The piece of the reading that stuck out the most to me was the section about the creative process.  I’ve always considered myself a fairly creative person so it was interesting to read about the 4 commonly agreed upon phases of the creative process.  Although most people never really think about it as phases to go through, any creative ideas I ever have are a result of all the phases discussed in the text being done subconsciously. 

2      This chapter of reading was not very confusing in general, the most confusing part of the reading was the Arenas of Creativity section.  I don’t generally think of all these activities as being creative, as they are normal every day activities.  Although I realize that there are ideas being created in these activities, I do not believe they are necessarily categorized as being creative, just novel thinking.

3      One question I would ask is why he included the section titled “Terrorism Ignites Innovation”.  Another question I would ask the author is which habits or muddling mind-sets do you believe to be the biggest barrier to creative thinking?

4      There is no where in this chapter that I disagree with the author, however I question the need for the section Arenas of Creativity.  Although I understand the seven categories shown, I’m not sure it was necessary to separate all these thoughts.

Top 5 World Problems - Week 4

Ranking the 5 Biggest Problems

1.  The economy is in a very fragile state and although I don’t know much about how the economy exactly works, I know that there are a few potential problems that could cause disaster like what is actually stored in Ft. Knox and all of the money that is in digital format.

2.  The Syrians fleeing their country because of war face a difficult issue, as other countries seek to be caring for these people, however they also have a duty to protect their own citizens from possible terrorists hiding among the fleeing people.

3.  Terrorism is on the rise as groups like ISIS and Al-Queda promote violence to Western people.  Islamic Terrorism is the main form we see but this does not mean it is the only form, as there are many other radical groups that seek to harm others that do not share their ideals.

4.  Global warming is causing significant changes in our weather conditions.  Although it may be a sort of cycle, nothing we are doing is helping to prevent this cycle and we have almost accepted that there is no hope to stopping it.

5.  The distribution of wealth is at an all time min and max.  The middle class around the world is shrinking at an exponential rate while the number of upper class rise, as well as the number of lower class rises.  The rich just keep getting richer and although I am not at all a socialist, I believe something needs to happen to try and balance the quality of life for people.

Rank Ordering the Most Implementable solutions

1.    The answer is clear, we have to learn how to use water more efficiently and sustainably. This means doing things like: shortening showers, not washing your car as much, etc.

2.    In order to better our education system, we need to fund more research in education studies to help modernize education.

3.    Subsidize the medical field by offering more medical scholarships to students so that their passion is not diminished by practicality of paying student loans.

4.    The answer is obvious, we need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and decrease our overall energy consumption.

5.    A possible solution to this dilemma is to try and go a few hours each day without any technology and see how what new things you become aware of.

The reason I picked the top problem I did was because I feel it has the most catastrophic possible outcomes of all the problems I mentioned.  Even though terrorism is a deadly problem, I feel that if the economy is not solved there could be wars resulting in many more deaths than any terror attack could.  The solution I picked as the most implementable was chosen because it is very easy to reduce water consumption.  The desire is the part lacking from this, but if it were implemented in the form of a law, it would not be too difficult for people to adjust.

Week 3 Reading Reflection

1      I think the part of the reading that stood out to me the most was the amount of research being done regarding entrepreneurial cognition.  In my mind it has always just been a natural part of how I live, but it is interesting to see that there really are a lot of specific cognitive aspects that indicate the mind of an entrepreneur.  Another part of the reading I found interesting was dealing with stress.  I think it is important to note that stress is commonly thought of in a negative context but in reality, without stress, it would be extremely hard to work efficiently and successfully.

2      The most confusing part of the reading was the part about managerial rationalization, especially where the book classifies the actions as “against the firm” or “for the firm”.  The way I see it, all of the examples listed have a direct effect both against and for the firm.

3      One question I would ask the author is why he included the section on The Entrepreneurial Ego?  I don’t necessarily think these are traits are important to talk about when addressing entrepreneurs specifically because they are traits of really any person in their career.  I would also ask the author why he mentioned the popularity of having a code of conduct although right before that he talked about how ethical codes are often too difficult to have a explicit set of guidelines.

4      There were no parts of the reading I felt that the writer was wrong about.  However, I do feel that my opinion is different than the author concerning ethical leadership of small business owners being more powerful than that of corporations.  I think that even in larger companies, ethical leadership is just as powerful as the desire to move up the ladder is always present for sub-managers.  Although employees have more contact with small business owners, this means it is easier to not follow the guidelines when the owner is not around; whereas with larger companies, there is always a hierarchy of managers around employees so it is harder to operate outside of the ethical guidelines.