#usciya

[linnagriffin]

Process Journal: Evaluation

The group will be meeting on Wednesday to discuss how well we stuck to the team norms documentation that we put together at the beginning of the project as well as weigh the different methods by which we will be grading the projects of our peers as well. There were several different tools in the coursework that go over how to review the different steps that we took in the Creative Problem Solving process that we can use in order to rank our own performance as well as how effectively we addressed the problem. Individually, we may also go over our independent contributions by utilizing the critiques of the jury of peers method.

To start this process we will likely need to go through each step that we took as a team starting from Unit 8 with the Acceptance and analysis. The Pay as You Go Method will help tremendously in this effort as we can write out and return to the goal-fulfilling criteria. By asking ourselves “What was the goal of this part of the assignment?” And framing our responses subjectively “We accomplished X in order to meet Y needs, I contributed through Z” we can remove all emotional hang-ups from the process. In this manner I can appraise how well the team and I did in the project and we may also reflect as a larger team where we could have done better as a group. For the rest of the teams, our peers, when we review their projects we can use the same rubric with some modifications.

[linnagriffin]

Implementation Part 2

This week’s Implementation process was a bit stressful as we had to examine where our first version of the project, the customer journey map fell short. We also had to separate out the difference between the final prototype and the final deliverable. The difference between the two is important as the final prototype is a combination of a marketing campaign, website, and business plan while the final deliverable is that presentation combined with our team process documentation. Because of that we have several deliverables due for the next week in order to best present to both our class as well as to hypothetical investors and customers.

We have had several different failures with the business plan that can be chalked up to a breakdown in communication. This occurred when one team member presented a planned rollout without the consideration for where we may be sourcing the adobe from, and so we will need to scrap that timeline as it is no longer aligns with our goals. Additionally the team took the time to painstakingly outline the look and feel of the home and collect imagery to be used in both the marketing campaign as well as the website. The plan was to use this to help model the home before as a drawing I made first before handing off the design to Lauren to model in 3D. As I spent the time to begin to draw a different team member who was not able to attend the meeting presented a separate model that I will now need to integrate with our design or request they re-model it with the aspects of the design that were approved by the group for our next prototype presentation. 

The timing of these models are important to get done this week and early next week as the imagery and copy for the website and marketing campaign are dependent on these deliverables. If this cannot be finished this week it will cause a bottle neck in the project plan and cause us to rush over the course of the next two weeks which should be avoided if at all possible. What we can plan for next week is a Design Style guide to be implemented on the marketing campaign which includes fonts, colors, and other aspects to keep the brand language succinct.

[linnagriffin]

Process Journal Implementation

In our Implementation within the time constraints of the project we decided to scale back on our consumer group to early adaptors for the sake of simplicity. The next step was to begin story boarding a potential set of circumstance that would lead to a use case scenario. This allowed us to develop a persona, a prototype user journey map, and key drivers of success. Another team member, Lara Dean, is already prototyping a display webpage to use in the assignment but with this iteration of a user empathy story, we can use the narrative that it creates as the structure for the following deliverables.

With the key drivers and steps to creating a pitch outlined this week, we will be able to begin pitching a Marketing campaign with an attached business presentation. In this manner, we can demonstrate our value proposition to our target market while simultaneously demonstrating how business to consumer interaction would take place. With the addition of a cost and margin breakdown, we could also pitch the same product to potential investors and contractors looking to work with the team. For the next step of the process, we will likely need to follow up and start building out renderings and models of a standard home model. As Roberto Doumet Eljuri has stated, there will need to be different modular designs that could work within the same floor plan and so I will need to begin drafting renderings and sketches of each to use for both our website mockup and advertising.

[neildalikezeldaatusc-blog]

Process Journal: Ideation

Reflect on the methods and techniques that your group used to come up with ideas to address the problem you defined in the previous unity and summarize those activities in a new post in your process journal. What ideas were the outcome of your group brainstorming exercise? What were some of the standout ideas and discussion points that came out of the debriefing session? During our last class session, we shared our original problem definition and received feedback regarding its length. Our original problem definition was:

“Annually there is 1.3 Billion tons of food waste, from the supply chain to the consumer endpoint. Combined with this is a portion of 270 million tons of global plastic waste. How might we create a solution that increases awareness and accountability that leads to change consumer behaviors, that lead to healthier outcomes and support better community-oriented shopping experiences?”

There’s a difference between a problem statement that is read versus what is said and pitched. This original problem statement is great to read and sest the stage why we’re solving the problem, but it’s not straight to the point. We then revised it to the following?

“How might we change consumer behavior to reduce food and plastic waste?”

This new question set our intention for ideation. Throughout our prior group meetings, we’ve always allocated time to ideate but didn’t set it as a priority. However, we did collect those ideas and revisited them to kick off our ideation process. 

The software we chose to use was Google Slides. We created a section called “Brain Dump” where each of us collaboratively went crazy with ideas that came up during our team meeting. Afterward, we sorted each idea into categories: education, community, application, program, shopping, policy, development, and campaign. Once that was completed, we created slides for each category and put each idea on a digital post-it note and placed them on a matrix: easy-hard to implement and low-high impact.

From this exercise, we then took the top 5 and sorted them in the same matrix. 

Personally, I felt that our ideation process worked well considering our remote team. However, I am curious to know what the experience would be like if we were to work together in person for this exercise.

[neildalikezeldaatusc-blog]

Process Journal: Definition

Reflect on the methods and techniques that your group used to define the problem and summarize those activities in a new post in your process journal. How did you come to a consensus on what characteristic of the problem needs to be addressed?

This week, my group and I put together a problem definition that combined each of our individual definitions. Below is our process:

1. Prior to our meeting this week, my group and I decided to tackle the problem definition individually and wrote it down in a shared document. The problem statement I created was:

“There are 270 million tons of global plastic waste and 1.3 billion tons of food waste per year. Grocery stores are the largest contributors of plastic waste, yet plastic is necessary to decrease food waste. We need an alternative non-plastic food packaging solution.”

2. When we came together, we each shared our individual problem definition and explained our thought process behind it. After each person shared their definition, we all highlighted keywords that stood out to us and compiled that list at the very bottom of the document.

3. From the list of keywords, we then grouped them together based on similarities and themes so we can organize our thoughts and come up with the problem statement.

“Annually there is 1.3 Billion tons of food waste, from the supply chain to the consumer endpoint. Combined with this is a portion of 270 million tons of global plastic waste. How might we create a solution that increases awareness and accountability that leads to change consumer behaviors, that lead to healthier outcomes and support better community-oriented shopping experiences?”

Our group tends to start moving towards coming up with possible solutions, but we leave enough room for that and record those thoughts to revisit at a later. However, it is perfect timing because next week, we will be going through the ideation process of this project.

[neildalikezeldaatusc-blog]

Process Journal: Conjunction Junction

The purpose of this is to explore how to reframe your thinking by replacing and with but. Let’s see how we can reframe our thinking about the details of a subject matter by forcing ourselves to describe it in a different way. Below are five things:

1. My MSI GS65 Stealth Thin laptop is my gaming laptop and is VR compatible. Compared to my Alienware 15, it’s thinner and lighter, and it’s easy to carry around. It’s black, gold, and sleek. It’s a strong laptop and different from using a MacBook.

My MSI GS65 Stealth Thin laptop is my gaming laptop but is VR compatible. Compared to my Alienware 15, it’s thinner but lighter, but it’s easy to carry around. It’s black, gold, but sleek. It’s a strong laptop but different from using a MacBook. 2. I recently purchased a pair of ankle boots that are leather and black. The heels are three inches tall and comfortable. They are similar to my favorite shoes and they go well with a lot of my outfits.

I recently purchased a pair of ankle boots that are leather but black. The heels are three inches tall but comfortable. They are similar to my favorite shoes but they go well with a lot of my outfits.

3. The standing desk I have at home is the best and I bought it from a friend. It’s height adjustable and I can adjust it by pressing some flat buttons on the surface. It has a feature where I can charge my phones using the USB ports on the side and it’s quite convenient. The desk is already my favorite desk and I’ll be keeping it for a long time.

The standing desk I have at home is the best but I bought it from a friend. It’s height adjustable but I can adjust it by pressing some flat buttons on the surface. It has a feature where I can charge my phones using the USB ports on the side but it’s quite convenient. The desk is already my favorite desk but I’ll be keeping it for a long time.

4. My dog, Haku, is cute and playful. I adopted her when she was 1 year old and she is now four years old. Her best friend is my family dog, Buddy, and they love to play with each other all the time. Her personality is quite dainty and curious.

My dog, Haku, is cute but playful. I adopted her when she was 1 year old but she is now four years old. Her best friend is my family dog, Buddy, but they love to play with each other all the time. Her personality is quite dainty but curious.

5. Croatia is a beautiful and small country. When I traveled there a few years ago, it was during the month of November and it was cold. I visited Dubrovnik’s historical and famous city. Game of Thrones was filmed there and there are quite a few tourists who want to explore the different filming sites. It’s quite far away and I want to visit it again.

Croatia is a beautiful but small country. When I traveled there a few years ago, it was during the month of November but it was cold. I visited Dubrovnik’s historical but famous city. Game of Thrones was filmed there but there are quite a few tourists who want to explore the different filming sites. It’s quite far away but I want to visit it again.

[well-being-tech]

IDEATION (Group): Team OnSpyre (Warren @warren-usc Shannon @shannondseeger and Nelson @well-being-tech) used a combination of Ishikawa fish-bone root-cause analysis, brainstorming and affinity-mapping to flesh out various ways in which we might modulate body and mind to avoid accidents, in this IDEATION stage of the creative problem solving. Here, you can see the gradual development from root-causes of our problem definition, to potential user requirements, to potential ways of satisfying those requirements.

[well-being-tech]

Picturing Success

Picture Success exercise Nelson Abreu, USC-IDBT, P&P, Cohort V

Imagining the successful end of the project can motivate us to succeed. To related to the feeling, I can even back at how it felt to accomplish a successful presentation of well-researched novel concept, I can project forward that same feeling of satisfaction and pride (and happy exhaustion). In the best case scenario, the feedback from peers and experts might point to an exciting post-class incarnation or offshoot of the project. Ideally, the team and the entire presentation audience will benefit from our success: at the very least, by acquiring some morsels of new information, new benchmarks and inspiration. Locally, our success might energize the USC innovation community. Globally, it is possible that our project can impact the related industries.

I do not expect that we will reach a fully fleshed out product in just a few weeks, but we can determine whether or not it might be worth pursuing such a product thereafter. There will be intellectual reward, but there is an outside chance of financial reward. Either way, this process will further my career by learning more about safety, applied mindfulness, product design, and entrepreneurship. I am particularly motivated to success because I am passionate and curious about the theme and want to make the most out of this program. I believe that it is important to study consciousness, mindfulness, or the depths of the human mind which affects our well-being, personal growth, relationships, sense of meaning, happiness, how we feel and understand ourselves and the world. It can also act as source of many of our ideas and insights. Technology and techniques might help us tap into our own well of potential and well-being. I’m fascinated at the potential means and applications, including in areas like industrial safety, which is part of my professional experience working in high-voltage and construction environments.

The connection between mindfulness and safety is not obvious on its face, therefore exploring the viability of an innovation in this space - one that can save life or limb - seems compelling to me. I will invest around 15 hours weekly to make sure we succeed, even though I am already working nearly 60 hours on other projects. We will all learn from this process and obtain insights, skills, knowledge and experiences that we can apply for future projects. We may also discover that we want to continue working on this project even after the course is complete. #TeamOnSpyre