Blog post #6

Though I thought that our presentation last week went well there are things that I can do to improve our next presentation. I was incredibly nervous for our first presentation. I think the fact that I have had one under my belt will help me. In order to be less nervous I think I will practice my part in a bigger room, ideally the one the presentation will be given in(1). This will help with my nerves but also with the sound of my voice. Sometimes I talk to quietly for people in the back of the room to hear me(2). On top of this I would like to practice motion while talking(3). I feel that it is less awkward than standing in one place while presenting and also helps the viewers see how invested you are in what you’re talking about. Another thing that should help me sound more genuine would be memorizing less(4). I want to look and sound as comfortable as possible while being relaxed enough to give an informative presentation.

Material wise there are a few areas I would focus on. It seemed that people missed the reason why we were growing mushrooms. I would focus on this area more(5). For the next presentation I also want to focus on the order that we present information. I feel we could be more cohesive in informing our audience. I think our group was afraid to reformat our structure for our presentation and next time we should try and finish our slides earlier so we have more time to rearrange our items(6). Something else that will be easier for our next presentation will be the visuals. I think we didn’t give the viewers enough to interact with on the screen. Including photos of ourselves and what we are doing will enhance the presentation(7).

I felt that the responses to our presentations went we. We all had good things to add to the questions. However, I don’t think its necessary for all of us to have input on questions. Talking less would allow for us to answer more questions. We should focus on the most consequence way to answer the questions given to us instead of giving more complicated answers(8). On top of this my group didn’t spend enough time thinking of what questions we would be asked. We should do more of that for next presentation(9). I thought that our business model would be the focus of the questions when in fact the mushroom topic was much more questioned. I would also like to learn more about the judges. There were a few members of the audience who were familiar with our project but that I didn’t know. I think knowing at least the names and jobs of the people who are asking us the most questions would be helpful(10).

Another topic discussed in seminar was IRB strategy. My my focus on my venture right now is growing mushrooms. In this way our work does not require IRB strategy because we areĀ  not working with humans. On top of this our venture is not aimed at research or research related goals.

In our logic model for our venture we have outlined what we need and what we aim to achieve. Our inputs include money from world hope, and agriculture waste such as rice straw to use as substrate, other materials we need to build our mushroom houses, and plugs. Our outputs will be the mushrooms themselves, and jobs. The desired outcomes are a higher quality of life, a more nourished diet, and to stimulate the economy. All of these can be achieved whether we sell mushroom houses or start our own venture producing mushrooms. We can measure our success based on the profit we create, the amount of mushrooms we sell, and the salary of our employees.

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