Expert Innovation

[magickarlmagic-blog]

Enter to win!

Of the two websites we researched I think that the only website we could use would be IndieGoGo.com. We also researched Kiva.org which purpose is to help entripenurs in developing countries be able to find investment opportunistic to start business. IndieGoGo.com on the other hand would probably be one of the best ways to gain funds for a design challenge. This is because that indiegogo focuses as much on the investment part as they do on social media expose. This exposure would be an amazing way to be able to reach as many people for the challenge as possible. It allows for people from all over the world to find out about the contest (if I wanted to make a world wide competition) and to bring their own contributions in monetary and the contest itself. I think it would be silly not to use indiegogo because there would be next to no downside. 

So yes i would use one of the websites we have researched. 

[magickarlmagic-blog]

Group contributions

My largest contribution and and one of the only individual assignments we have had in our group was to learn more about IndieGoGo.com; the history, people who work there, and the overall goal and accomplishments  In a group setting i think that my contributions have been different. When we studied in the first weeks what type of personality you can bring to group work, I tried to hold onto what my role was deemed ''best'' at. Bringing in fresh ideas and looking for solutions out of the box. Though it would be silly to limit myself as i see it to only fulfill one role, I have been focused on creating myself as that type of person with in the group setting. 

As the group work has been mostly based on conflict resolution and group discussion with in our group, it would be easier to look at how we as a group have grown together to face our disagreements. We have struggled as a team to have what I would call a good sense of teamwork. Michael Schumacher says it best in his quote: ''When you start out in a team, you have to get the teamwork going and then you get something back.'' We as a group have to overcome this to really produce a good product and be able to deliver at the end. As a larger class group, we have had hardly any interaction with any other group apart from a little from group 7 as they have the same task as we do. 

[magickarlmagic-blog]

Facilitation of new ideas and group dynamics.

The largest difference between the teachers and students teaching me is that while the teachers explain and facilitate the pure learning experience, my peers allow me to make use of this learning. The lectures are quite interesting and allow the introduction of new ideas, this helps build a base of what my knowledge is. My interaction with the other students is a key part of my learning experience. The ability to exchange ideas and thoughts and get direct feedback is a form of learning that I hold to the highest regard. But having teachers there to coach and guide us through more difficult problems is quite a feat in its self. Probably the most useful way that we have learned is through our small talks with Nancy. She has cleared up many issues that we have had and gave very direct answers that we have been looking for. Thumbs up for that! Losing a group member has been quite a change for us as we have had to divide research and even though it has been a little tougher at times, we have compensated eloquently. This said, our group is not without its problems. Something that I would love to have within the group is a better group environment and dynamics. Being people from vastly different cultures and places gives our group a very strong multinational base but also adds tension to the mix. This could be one of our strong selling points towards customers and it is being squalled by group conflict. I feel that I try to always stir up ideas, where we try to look at them from a different point of view. A different perspective while problem solving helps to stir up and can lead to really innovative ideas and allows for quick response to changes in our group dynamic and the problem at hand. 

[magickarlmagic-blog]

Exploring weaknesses in a group and personal setting

I feel that our group, East Field 72, works best either before our class/coaching section or directly after a break where we have all had something to eat. Most of the time though, someone has to take charge to make sure that our group work and team activity's get done. Though it sounds hectic we do end up finishing the group. Same thing cannot be said about my personal blog and my Tumblr experience. MY inability to to post concise and on time material. I can sit here and discuss excuses as to why this is happening, but I wont. This is a problem I have addressed and will be solving.

Some small ideas i have that could possibly help my group and myself are: 

Meeting up either before or a different day then class.

This could really help take away some stress that our team is currently feeling and help create better and bigger ideas.

For myself I need to take the time and just frankly put in much more effort as to not let down my group as a whole. 

[magickarlmagic-blog]

Test

[magickarlmagic-blog]

Online social interaction

All forums and other content based websites thrive on people submitting and creating their own content. It takes special people that spend more time creating content then viewing it to keep these communities alive. On one website that I am active on releases data on their web traffic for their users and it is always surprising to read. They normally average around 90% of comments and posts to around 10% of their total page views. The website receives around 200,000 page views a day, which means that their content is generated in 20,000 page views is enough to keep the other 180,000 people coming back. This clearly shows the producer/harvester mentality of people in online social communities.

I am a harvester; I scour the internet daily for random tidbits of information and rarely produce my own content. The one exception is the website I mentioned in the above paragraph. I have been a member since 2009 and read through and post on most days. No other social community has the same effect on my posting habits. To try to change this, I decided to finally try to start posting and contributing to probably my most visited online community; Reddit.com.

Their system allows for user to posts interesting pictures/news articles/cats/dogs/ect to be ''upvoted'' by others in the community. This moves the position of the post closer to the front page where the majority of the 1 million unique visits see. The same is done for comments so that they move up and down in the comment section of the site. After some unsuccessful posts of original content I decided to try my hand at posting comments. Their comment section allows users to reply to comments as well creating chains of conversation between users. After a minor successful start (2000+ karma on one post) I have decided to keep posting and try to force myself to comment and contribute to another online community. This is moving me out of my comfort zone but will eventually be helpful.   

[magickarlmagic-blog]

My friends don't read.

So I have learned that the only way for me to get a strait answer from any of my friends is not to post an open, intellectual question: But to forcefully ask and demand an answer.  The main consensus I got from my friends is that we as a people need to develop a larger sense of community outside the internet for a multicultural group. They unfortunately left out how this was supposed to work, but they gave some advice. ''How about you just do it, Karl?'' This made me feel bad at first but then it hit me.

I was not doing anything to improve the situation.

Even though I don't think they got the point of these questions, they made it clear on just exactly how much I was contributing to the solution and not the problem.

-MagicKarlMagic