COMM 388 Final Reflection

April 2nd, 2013 • Uncategorized

In the beginning of the course we learned about design and creative thinking as well as the importance of it. However, at that time we only knew it was important to think creatively and didn’t know the exact approach and techniques to use to achieve this.

During the course, we got to build on and evolve our thinking process through doing activities, readings, practicing techniques, and thinking strategies individually and collaboratively. As a result, I had the chance to experience different ways of thinking and realized what approaches I can use in the future to help with my thinking process.

The Ask, Try, and Do approach is a toolkit that I will find useful for the rest of my life. The “ask” stage is essentially brainstorming, but my personal favourite strategy in this stage would be the “story sharing” approach since it helps expand and stimulate ideas from past experience. The “try” stage focuses on experimenting, and my preferred strategy would be the prototyping concept. Through sampling, the feasibility of a product can be imagined or even experienced to understand the full function of it. Lastly, in the “do” phase, I find journaling a useful tool in laying out all my ideas to finally select one.

Also, several readings I came across in this course have guided me towards an alternate way of thinking. The article regarding the good use of BadIdeas has taught me to rethink impulsive ideas before disposing those thoughts. Most often, bad ideas are ideas at the most basic level, yet when presented are seemingly irrational. The reading illustrated 5 steps before disregarding a bad idea. Among these 5 questions I found the question asking to view a bad idea in another perspective the most valuable. The article further elaborates ways in refining bad ideas into good ideas. By tackling these bad ideas and problems that can be dealt with, the reason behind this being branded a bad idea, good solutions are usually brought up. An example from the article would be an inflatable dartboard, and a solution would be to use non-puncturing darts.

In a previous student’s – Melissa Benjamin – blog, she states that people who share the same mindsets make the same decisions. Relating this to another article that talks about the 10 faces of innovation, I think if people from different face groups were put together in making decisions, this would stimulate more ‘outside’ the box thinking. For example, the anthropologist plus the experimenter would create a humanistic yet risky approach instead of all experimenter or anthropologists.  Ideas can be risky since there is always the Director to analyze this risky humanistic approach in a broader aspect and knowing if the risky idea is applicable to the organization.

For the Climate Smart project, our group got to work with a start-up company, EcoTaxFile. This is when we finally got to apply our learning from this course to the actual world.

While working with the CEO Brad and my team, I learned to think differently than how I would have usually. In the beginning of this project we took the same approach as other groups because we thought the typical way of an analyzing approach was suitable. However, EcoTaxFile is at an overly infant stage to analyze. We realized EcoTaxFile has no specific target segments and was unclear about its value proposition. This is when the ASK stage of the design thinking process began. We identified problems and think of ways to tackle them. From there we decided to run a workshop for the CEO and Michelle from Climate Smart. We moved on to the Try stage, we used the scenario technique. We imagined different customers segments and how these different customer segments will affect EcoTaxFile’s business. After evaluating all parts of the business canvas we completed the design thinking process by developing a complete business model canvas for EcoTaxFile. Carrying out this project in a completely different way than we thought we would.

Overall, I think this course has acted as a stepping-stone for me. The short amount of time has not allowed me to fully grasp the essence of these various designing strategies, and I am certain my learning will go on as I have more opportunities to apply the knowledge I learned in the future.

Relfection d-studio

January 15th, 2013 • Uncategorized

The Jump Start Readings by Pink, Martin, and Lockwood emphasis on the importance of design in our thinking process. As a finance student I hardly get chances to think creatively, most of the time what we do is dealing with numbers, past data, and formula. I realized that I no longer get to be creative in any of my core classes; however, I didn’t want to lose my ability of being artistic, creative, and original. And this is the main reason why I chose to take design strategies for business innovation; to develop the right side of my brain.

In Martin’s book he talks about analytical thinking and intuitive thinking and that in order for businesses to grow we need design thinking. I agree with his idea because with only analytical thinking new things cannot be created and with only intuitive thinking it is too dangerous and risky for most businesses. His book reminds me of a course I took in high school called “Theory of Knowledge” in which we learned about thinking from different prospective for example knowing and thinking about the same issue using different areas of knowledge such as mathematics, sciences, arts, and history, combining reasoning, evidence and creativity. After taking this course I started to understand why it is so important to think outside of the box and to be a critical thinker. Similar to what Martin was addressing, in the future, thinkers need to be both analytical and intuitive or that we need to find a way for these two types of thinkers to work together to make businesses more successful.

All three authors make a similar point convincing readers that design and creative thinking matter in the business world and that analytical ways of thinking alone is not enough to add value to businesses. Evaluating my thinking process, I think that I use both analytical and intuitive thinking depending on the problems that I’m solving. For instance, when I’m doing a financial problem I barely need to touch on my creativity, all I need to do is to plug in numbers and I get a result or answer. In contrast, other times when I’m brainstorming for ideas I might not use analytical thinking at all. I have to admit at times I will let empathy come into my thinking process and let emotions and intuition take over my logic. Sometimes intuition will bring me a conclusion right away whereas when I think about it sometimes I get stuck in my own thinking process, the more I think about it the more confused I become. When this happens I often have to talk to my friends and families to help me out.

I don’t think I have a set thinking process that I use every time. It is interesting how I think everyone knows that we need to find a balance in between analytical and creative thinking but not everyone can achieve doing so. I think that most people use a mixture of these different types of thinking but some people are more towards the extremes of the scale and some towards the middle.

Comments:
Reference to Phil’s blog
Phil approaches this assignment different than I did. He thinks his thinking process starts from encountering a problem and his experience will help him solve this problem. For example when his computer shuts down on its own he will fix it by doing what experiences have taught him. I think for myself, thinking process starts whenever, sometimes when I’m bored I will think about random things such as “if a situation like this happened, what would I do?” or just to think about what would happen in the near future of my life. Like me, he also seeks for help from friends when he can’t come to a conclusion using his own thinking process.

Reference to Michelle’s blog
I think Michelle knows her own thinking process pretty well. She thinks that she usually think more analytically than intuitively because it has a more predictive result. This surprises me a little because I always thought marketing students think of themselves as a more creative thinker than an analytical thinker. She also uses symphony a lot in her thinking process and I think this is the more creative side of her where she can relate two seemingly unrelated things.

Friend Request From Your Unborn Child

November 30th, 2011 • Uncategorized

Many companies have used the internet to advertise their products. There is one example I found on ADWEEK that I think is very interesting. Olla, a Brazilian company that produces condoms created a facebook ad campaign. The company sent out facebook friend requests to men from their “potential future babies”, when they accept the friend request, there’s a link on the baby’s wall to the company’s website. “Olla condoms has discovered that responsibility can be more effective than the threat of hideous disease.” I would say this is innovative, maybe a bit creepy. However, this doesn’t cost as much as other ads, it probably just need to hire many people to send out many friend requests. I also think this ad campaign is effective because if I was a guy I would be scared to not use condoms/have babies and the first condom brand I’d think of when I have the thoughts of “potential future babies” would be Olla.

Here’s a video of their campaign:

“Pricing the Unpriceable” reference to Kristoffer’s blog

November 23rd, 2011 • Uncategorized

Kristoffer Lien‘s last blog post talks about pricing the unpriceable, meaning that we price the externalities of consuming the products and paying fair prices. I really like this post, because it makes me think about issues such as workers in less developed countries are under paid and how some consumers are not being charged “the whole” of the products they consumed. For workers’ wages, there is Fair trade monitoring that the suppliers are being paid fairly, but for charging buyers what they needed to pay appears to be a problem still. It is almost impossible to charge these buyers the full price: the manufacturing price of the good as well as the impact the product brings to the envir0nment and society, because it is so hard to measure the negative impacts that these goods will bring to the third party. At the end of Kristoffer’s post, it mentions that “According to the Harvard Business Review, companies are beginning to price the “unpriceable”. Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy are working together with PriceWaterhouseCoopers to come up with ways to value ecosystems. Perhaps accountants will become one of the greatest contributers to counteracting climate change.” This is very good to know, as when the correct prices are being charged, maybe people can know the damages they cause, when the damages are measured in money amount and they will think more about the environment.

“BlenTec + Youtube = Success!” reference to Brad’s blog

November 23rd, 2011 • 3 comments Uncategorized

I was reading Brad Koenig‘s blog post, “BlenTec + Youtube = Success!”. I agree with him that their Youtube videos are very entertaining to watch. Although they might not actually increase sales, they definitely increase the popularity of their blenders. His blog also mentions that companies are now moving from TV commercials to online advertising, such as youtube videos. I think online advertising through Youtube has become so popular is because that it is more cost effective, and when companies turn their commercials into Youtube videos, the ads become much more entertaining and compelling to viewers. The audience can also share the videos with friends, whereas if it was on TV, viewers don’t get a chance to share it, and usually they just switch the channels. The following Blendtec Youtube video has over 12 millions views:

Same but Different

November 14th, 2011 • Uncategorized

I was at Superstore the other day, and I saw a few shopping cars filled with products. At first I wasn’t sure what it is, after I realized that they are cars filled with goods of different brands, or with generic brand goods. It shows you how much you can save from buying all the generic brand goods in the shopping instead of the car filled with branded goods. This is interesting, as it tells you how much you can save as well as how important packaging and branding are.

Go Behind The Cover.

November 8th, 2011 • Uncategorized

Dermablend Pro is a make up company owned by L’Oreal, they produce products that can cover skin imperfections, scars, and other blemishes. They did an advertising video campaign where many make up artists use its product to cover up the most tattooed guy- Zombie Boy, “his entire body is covered in tattoos, including his face, chest, neck, and arms”. (He was also in Lady Gaga’s music video). In the video they demonstrate how effective the product really is! The video is played in reverse, starting from the Zombie Guy looking perfectly normal and slowly removing the make up on him. The video is part of a larger overall campaign the company is running called Go Behind The Cover. I think this advertising campaign is very interesting and it makes me want to visit Dermablend.

Where will happiness strike next?

October 31st, 2011 • Uncategorized

I think the idea of delivering happiness is amazing. It is so successful that even by just watching the videos makes me happy. This creates a happy/positive feeling towards Coke. I also think this is a good way of marketing its product indirectly, because when I view it, it makes me want to have a can of coke too. Moreover, the music as well as peoples’ laughters enhance the effect, the music like a baby lullaby, when people hear it, they feel as if they were back in times when they were young, happy and stressless. It’s a great idea, this shows that “companies can make friends, and money, when they lighten up and look at emerging media as an opportunity rather than a threat.” One of the video has been viewed more than 4 million times on youtube (Vending machine at London university). The one I like the most is the one I posted below, “A Coca-Cola delivery truck is converted into a happiness machine on wheels delivering “doses” of happiness in the streets of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. “

Taking a bite out of the cookie market

October 25th, 2011 • Uncategorized

At Lesley stowe fine foods, they have been creating and sharing delicious food from their kitchen for more than twenty years. The delicious raincoast cookies are all natural and baked in small batches using only the finest-quality ingredients. Despite its prices being slightly higher than its competitors, Lesley stowe says “We have no problem with demand”. While I was reading this article, I started to think what it is, that is making her business so successful. It’s about targeting the right segment: people who are cautious about how they are spending their money but they still want to treat themselves and people who want to eat healthy with a style. Lesley stowe always maintains good relationship with its retailers, a number of years ago, Costco came to her and asked if she would supply them her cookies. She refused for two reasons, one is that her current retailers are competing with Costco “we had built a following of different stores that really were supporting us. Those other stores compete for business with Costco.” also “To do something for Costco would not enhance the brand.” because Costco sells goods in large quantity and its less sophisticated.” I think she is doing a great job marketing her cookies, and she is actually creating values to her customers and this is the reason that consumers keep coming back even during recessions.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Taking+bite+cookie+market/5604955/story.html

Groupon

September 21st, 2011 • 1 comment Uncategorized

I didn’t know about Groupon before I was introduced to it in my marketing class. It was one of the options we can choose from to research on. The idea of Groupon is very new to me, the way they make money and does their advertising is so different from most businesses. On its website, it tells us how Groupon make money, “Quite simply, we only make money if you do. When you work with Groupon, you’re investing only in the customers Groupon actually brings in. We keep a portion of the revenue from each Groupon sold and send you the rest.” This makes the customers feel like Groupon is part of them because Groupon only makes money when customers get discounts(make money). The idea of such a way of making money is very creative and unique. Also, Groupon does not have any classified advertising like the majority of companies, “Groupon collects personal information from willing consumers and then contacts only those consumers, primarily by daily email, who may possibly be interested in a particular product or service.”. The media such as Wall Street Journal, The Times, Washington Post..etc, have news articles about Groupon, therefore, this could be one of Groupon’s marketing strategy, as using the media to advertise its website and its coupons.

Reference to: http://vouchercodes.ca/bargains/groupon-canada/