Nikolay Yorgov's guide to the galaxy

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WEEK 5- Work teams

Ok, Its week 5 now and everything is going pretty well. This weeks theme is team. It's always great to have a little thinking in that direction because it's the base of every organization and every company in the world. 

Let's look at our awesome group now.  I think what is really going well with us now is that we get along pretty well. There is a generally good mood among us and that helps us and motivates us to work better. On the other hand we find some trouble organizing a group meeting during the week, so we can assume that the "out of school communication" is kind of a problem for us. I actually consider this for not that big of a problem because nowadays there is facebook, emails etc. and so much sharing possibilities and if we use them well enough we'll be just fine. We have to communicate more actively and considering most of us are living pretty close to each other it should not be problem to organize a meeting for the group.  What is impact of size? Well, we can say that this is pretty obvious because we can simple say "two heads think better then one". The are more ideas incoming when we work as a team and we can always choose the best one and of course a well organized team has a lot bigger rate.  In our group there is a huge variety of different cultures. In my opinion this is beneficial when we look at the fact that we are solving a task for our NGO considering their offices around the world.  To sum up, I find my group great and full of bright minds. We will deal with all our tasks perfectly if we overcome some small problems. 

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The Final stretch

I find the wast couple of weeks to have been really helpful for me and as i can see to my classmates too. All of the topics we've been trough have their own specific benefits and all of them are going to be useful in the future. Of course I have to say which one I learned from the most and even if I want to say- the whole thing, I can't. So I'm going to go for the thing which I think was the main one and the one which can actually define the whole picture and it is TEAMWORK. 

During my previous education almost all of my tasks and assignments have been personal and we barely did group ones. Considering this I can say that I didn't have any experience with teamwork. I have noticed the benefits of it and of course some of the cons. For example I noticed that when there is a problem in front of you It's easier to solve it as a team than by yourself, also 4 or 5 heads think better then just one. I have also seen that sometimes may be a difference in the characters and the situation can get a little edgy and some points but that's why the other members are there to balance the difference and solve the problem. I can compere this topic to our NGO because basically they are, as well as all of the companies, a big team and in order to be successful it's crucial for them to have a good working team. 

I'm also going to talk a little bit about my design principles here. I believe that any product should be simple and friendly- because it's easier  for the client to understand it and to be able to handle it and of course, why make their lives even more difficult. Secondly it should be extremely efficient because we don't want to disappoint our clients and we would like our product to be the best of it's kind. So now we have "simple" and "efficient", looking at those together what we may think? BORING, or at least most of the people will think of that and we know that this could be a major problem so we are putting our best efforts in that direction. 

So what can I say to the next year students? This project was special because it is so early in your education but at the same time really serious but to be able to manage it easily the basic thing are to always pay attention to your task be really goal orientated and always seek for solutions. Another thing is that you are gonna be placed in teams and you should try to have the best possible communication and you have to have patience with the other members in your team. 

I had a GREAT time. 

[nyorgovn-blog]

WEEK 7

During those 7 interesting weeks we've been going through different themes and topic which can help us with  solving our NGO's unmet needs. Personally for me I find three of the topics most useful for our aim and they are Teamwork, Crowdsouring and marketing.

I know i have to choose only one and that's why I'm going to choose Teamwork. This is not only important for our group insides but for Solidaridad and by our platform we are working also towards improving their teamwork too, because it is really communicative orientated. 

The first reason I think that teamwork is helpful is really simple: two heads think better then one. A team can come up with more ideas, write them down, evaluate them and then can choose the best one, so this pretty much acts as a motivation and effectiveness. 

The second reason is that i think that when time passes everyone in the team is getting more comfortable with the environment and with his teammates and this creates a bond between them making the work and communication easy. Also that variety of personalities and cultures makes everything really creative and productive which is always a positive. 

Third reason is as important as the last two. Just as a productive chain a team can me a lot more productive then from separate people. The work can be done fast and efficient if the team is well synchronized and everybody knows that being fast and productive wins not only money but time and saves effort. A team can really make the work towards a goal better. 

As a solution to the problem me and my group decided to make a platform which stimulates communication and information sharing. This is of great importance because everybody knows that who has the information has the world. This platform will really help our NGO information sharing, communication and inside awareness which will benefit their work a lot. 

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WEEK 6, Crowdfunding , Crowdsourcing

This week assignment was all about crowdfunding and I have found it really interesting and it showed me a couple of ways to do that.  When i got home I started thinking about crowdfunding and i came to the conclusion that for me crowdfunding is all about two things: the first thing is the IDEA and the second thing is the Believe. If those two component find a match between each other then the crowdfundking process can start and it will most sure be successful, because if one mans idea is or becomes many peoples believe then you got yourself a pretty solid group of people who will fund you.

I think that most of the designers should not seek money from the people but to seek funding from sponsors, corporations, firms who are interested of your product etc. In this case we have an NGO and every organisation of this type is people orientated and their main goal is to help society in need. My opinion is that in this case crowdfunding is really possible and it is maybe the best way to raise money for your cause. On the other hand when you get yourself going with the crowdfunding there is huge responsibility on your shoulders and you just have to show results, to be able not make the people stop trusting you and your ideas and causes. 

Now  some of the designers don't prefer to go with crowdfunding but with crowdsourcing. My personal opinion is that they have samo good reasons to do that but it's not completely right.

Crowdsourcing between designers is a good thing because basically sharing is caring :) it can always help you come up with some ideas if you are stuck, working with a group of people has 90% more chance of producing better product then working alone. Usually another good thing is that you can get more neutral feedback from other designers, and they can show opinion if you hesitate on a project or idea. I think that crowdsourcing is also good because basically you don't know everything or you don't have the resources for everything so a little bit of help can always come handy. 

When we start thinking about cons we start to talk about copyrights, pride, ego, not meeting requirements.  Yes, of course that somebody can steal your idea, but that's why you should always work trustworthy people. Some designers may got too much of an "ego" to work with other people and that may hurt their pride but i think that too much ego is always bad for you and you wont be able to get very far. Working alone also can be a problem because you may not be always able to meet requirements or deadlines, if you have too much work to do. 

To sum up, basically I can agree that both crowdfunding and sourcing can be really useful for you and your work as a designer, but on the other hand you should approach carefully towards them. 

Nikolay Yorgov ;)

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Digital Mind

Today it's important to have good technological skills and to be able to use computers good and to understand then, because our environment is becoming more and more digital.  Personally i can say for myself that i started using computers when i was little around 10 years old and now there is almost nothing that can surprise me. It's also important to have good power point and excel skills because you need to use them every day. I'm keen on teaching others and giving them advise on how to use a certain computer applications. Since every other group posted their spidergram we can have a good view of their NGOs "unmet needs" and we'll be able to analyse it.The technological skills and expertise of me and my group may help for the "unmet needs" of the others.

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A New Challenge

Hi people! I think that this project is a new type of challenge for all of us, but i also think that it would we extremely useful and interesting. First of all I'm really happy that we would get to work with a real NGO, it's going to be hard but... that's the point right? We have a variety of characters in our group and everybody can contribute on its own unique way and also gain a lot of teamwork experience.  Solidaridad is our NGO, their main goal is to obtain more sustainable and good ways to producing goods, crops, and farming lands. As they are in the agriculture sector and they work worldwide, there are different challenges in every spot on  Earth. That's a pretty hard thing to deal with, but because we have such a variety of cultures in our group, we think we have an advantage.  To sum up, me and our group find this project really intriguing and we are looking forward to do our best. This project will give us important experience and a taste of the NGO sphere. 

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HELLO

Hi, i'm Nikolay Yorgov and this is my blog for the project community. I find that project really interesting and I'm looking forward to it.