Month: March 2020

1.

• Remove barriers to adoption (flatten the learning curve, make it easy for people to use it especially because this is generally the largest obstacle for adoption of new technology); don’t ask people to do something you wouldn’t do yourself #PlayLikeUmeanIT
• Make meaning, not money (the nature of our project focuses on preserving cultural heritage about the local history and geographical feature of the LV watershed which in essence is about local significance, not profit); also, this technology which we are working on may better the lives of people who cannot go out to see these environmental features themselves which increases quality of life. #CulturalHeritage
• Don’t limit yourself to a target projected audience (enable test drives to see if your product would make sales and be successful, don’t focus your sights on who you’re “supposed” to be selling too because the important point is that your product is selling)
• Always run your ideas through women! As Guy playfully said on the video: “men have the ‘killer gene’ — a fundamental genetic flaw”, they will always try to put new ideas or long standing ones down.
• Don’t be afraid to polarize people; “if your product doesn’t polarize people, it probably isn’t a very good product (ex. Apple)”. Be authentic, think differently. 
• Find the true influencers! Embrace your evangelists, their genuine beliefs about the product will translate in their outreach endeavors.

Current (and Future) Market Segments

Niche – Since we are using one of the most recent entertainment technology devices — VR headsets — and the development work for this product is very scarce and non-centralized. 

 

Multi-sided platform – At the same time we are targeting the Lehigh Valley inhabitants that would likely visit our informal education partners (e.g., local public libraries, STEM educational centers), there is also high interest and demand from the research and development team at Lehigh University regarding the initial reaction and subsequential data collected about our innovative educational intervention using immersive VR. 

 

Segmented – In the long term, after our product has been implemented, tested, and validated, a following action would be scaling it up to be used by other educational entities located in watersheds located in other states or even in other countries.

 

Total Available Market: Lehigh Valley population at ~800,000 people who are either residents or visiting the area.

 

Total Addressable Market: With our current number of headsets/equipment and the limits of the nature center/public libraries, we expect over 4,000 participants across several local public libraries and STEM centers over the entire grant period of 5 years (if our submitted proposal is accepted). 

 

In Dr. Garrrigan’s Entrepreneur class, we defined an “innovative entrepreneur” as “one who creates a business or program that creates a new service with the intention of making an impact.” We also narrowed down five repeated traits of the innovative entrepreneur (VIPER):

1. Vision – imagining how and when a particular opportunity may occur or the potential market or success of an innovation or initiative.
2. Innovation – comes up with and identifies new ideas that could really work. Often comes from prior study or expertise.
3. Passion – the burning desire to have an impact.
4. Endurance/Perseverance – working hard with unwavering faith in face of difficulties,  obstacles, and failures.
5. Risk – willing to take financial, career, and personal risks.

Given the direction of the class last night, I thought this was particularly relevant. More can be found on his website https://mentaledge.us/innovate/innovate-entrepreneur-links/

– Summarize and report out on the results of the SKS exercise.

I think communication is a big idea from the Start doing category and to improve ours, I am going to make a more concerted effort to initiate communications with the other members of my team by utilizing platforms such as Zoom or Discord. The big takeaway from the Keep category is following the development plan devised by our project leader and continuing to create based on the task allocations. We should stop limiting ourselves in scale as well as not tracking project management together. 

 

-Develop a detailed Collaboration Plan for your team clearly articulating your Goals (Small g and Big G), Roles, Procedures, and Relationships.

– Summarize and report out on the results of the SKS exercise.

I think communication is a big idea from the Start doing category and to improve ours, I am going to make a more concerted effort to initiate communications with the other members of my team by utilizing platforms such as Zoom or Discord. The big takeaway from the Keep category is following the development plan devised by our project leader and continuing to create based on the task allocations. We should stop limiting ourselves in scale as well as not tracking project management together. 

 

-Develop a detailed Collaboration Plan for your team clearly articulating your Goals (Small g and Big G), Roles, Procedures, and Relationships.

My small, personal goals for this project are to improve my skills working with programs like Unity and Blender, which will help me to create my own video game assessments, I would also like to work more closely with the cooperating organizations to create relationships that will last past this project. I believe that education can be fun, in fact, I believe that when we learn in a fun environment, we open ourselves to being more creative. I like the fact that we are working with non-traditional educational environments in real life situations.

The Big Goal of this project is to complete development of the virtual reality headset game and distribute it to non-formal education centers to inform people of the significance of their local  watershed in the Lehigh Valley. We are implementing an alternative style of environmental science education for English language learners and students who may struggle to learn with traditional teaching methods. 

While teams have members whose roles will overlap at different times, there are certain established roles that might fit a certain person more than others. Of the three of us in this team, Junior is most likely to be the Implementer and Specialist because he has the most experience with the project and is the one actively doing development work via Unity as well as mentoring new members on how to use the program. Jennifer is the group’s Shaper and Resource Investigator because she leverages her experience in teaching and formal education to bring a new perspective to the project. She also reaches out to collaborative partners for resources such as media/historical photos for our game. Beigie is currently satisfying the role of Plants because she is the newest member and contributes to creative development during meetings with fresh insight and ideas. With time, she will be catching up with the knowledge of how to use Unity and become a fellow Implementer as well.  

Team procedures for decision making usually switch between coming to a consensus after discussion or deference to expert in the relevant field. Decision making is done at team meetings where we attempt to give everyone a say because this project is not one which might require more authoritative leadership, and it is important that we allow everyone who is a part of this project to voice their opinions. The process of our meetings is generally going over status updates quickly and then reviewing things that require either editing or decision making; everyone has access to the minutes, but it is usually one person making direct edits while others leave comments. Communication methods involve email, Gdocs, Zoom, and Discord since some platforms are more convenient for different purposes. Whole team meetings occur every two weeks for about 2 to 2 and a half hours. Responsiveness is very high and not a problem for our team because everyone is very on point with checking their emails; at most, it will take a day for a response due to time zone and location differences. 

Our interpersonal relationships are getting better and better with frequent communication and trust building exercises such as the activity done in this past CINQ class. Not only are we learning more about each other’s strengths and assets but also different perspectives on the value of technology and things we lack that we can help each other make up for. It will be good to continue improving ourselves and the project by collaborating and giving each other constructive feedback.

The Big Goal of this project is to complete development of the virtual reality headset game and distribute it to non-formal education centers to inform people of the significance of their local  watershed in the Lehigh Valley. We are implementing an alternative style of environmental science education for English language learners and students who may struggle to learn with traditional teaching methods. 

While teams have members whose roles will overlap at different times, there are certain established roles that might fit a certain person more than others. Of the three of us in this team, Junior is most likely to be the Implementer and Specialist because he has the most experience with the project and is the one actively doing development work via Unity as well as mentoring new members on how to use the program. Jennifer is the group’s Shaper and Resource Investigator because she leverages her experience in teaching and formal education to bring a new perspective to the project. She also reaches out to collaborative partners for resources such as media/historical photos for our game. Beigie is currently satisfying the role of Plants because she is the newest member and contributes to creative development during meetings with fresh insight and ideas. With time, she will be catching up with the knowledge of how to use Unity and become a fellow Implementer as well.  

Team procedures for decision making usually switch between coming to a consensus after discussion or deference to expert in the relevant field. Decision making is done at team meetings where we attempt to give everyone a say because this project is not one which might require more authoritative leadership, and it is important that we allow everyone who is a part of this project to voice their opinions. The process of our meetings is generally going over status updates quickly and then reviewing things that require either editing or decision making; everyone has access to the minutes, but it is usually one person making direct edits while others leave comments. Communication methods involve email, Gdocs, Zoom, and Discord since some platforms are more convenient for different purposes. Whole team meetings occur every two weeks for about 2 to 2 and a half hours. Responsiveness is very high and not a problem for our team because everyone is very on point with checking their emails; at most, it will take a day for a response due to time zone and location differences. 

Our interpersonal relationships are getting better and better with frequent communication and trust building exercises such as the activity done in this past CINQ class. Not only are we learning more about each other’s strengths and assets but also different perspectives on the value of technology and things we lack that we can help each other make up for. It will be good to continue improving ourselves and the project by collaborating and giving each other constructive feedback.