19A Idea Napkin 2

1) You.

I am a 20-year-old student at the University of Florida. I am pursuing an undergraduate degree in business management here at Heavener School of Business. I consider myself very driven, independent, self-motivated, and hard working. I have had many experiences ranging from volunteer work, to paid part time jobs, to involvement in organizations across campus. My experiences have given me many skills that I can apply to the world of entrepreneurship, such as the ability to cooperate and work on a team. I am also skilled in organizing tasks in a team setting and usually feel personally responsible for partial leadership for the groups I am in. My aspirations are to work in a management position where I can exercise my skills and sense of leadership.

2) What are you offering to customers?

I am suggesting the implementation of more parking structures on campus for students to be able to travel to campus and not have to worry about parking. This would include more garages similar to the Reitz, and the inclusion of indicators of available spaces at the garages so that students are not spending their time looking for a spot that is not vacant. If more garages are built around campus, an app system can be implemented that is a live-update of where available spots are. With this, students will not have to waste any time driving around, and if there are no spots available they can seek alternatives.

3) Who are you offering it to?

The group of people that I am offering this to are people who travel to the University of Florida campus and need a place to park. This is mainly directed at students who are offered very limited parking spaces and can only purchase decals with restrictions. However, this can also apply to faculty who do not have the parking space they need, and general visitors to the campus for things like sporting events.

4) Why do they care?

People who park on campus already have to pay. Students and faculty have to pay for decals, visitors have to pay to park in garages like the Reitz. However, people are paying for these services and not even being able to use them because there is not enough parking spaces, so the incentive to utilize this business venture is ensured because people are already paying for this.

5) What are your core competencies?

This idea is vital and is set apart from others because as of right now there are no steps being taken towards a solution. There is no talk of furthering the parking spaces available for students, just a lot of complaining about the lack of parking. The University of Florida is garnering national attention, which is only increasing the amount of people visiting the school and needing to park.

I do believe that these elements fit together, as there is a need for this problem, a lot of discussion regarding this problem within the group of people who need it, and ideas that could solve the problem. However, I do think the drawback is that this would be a very large project to take on, and it would be hard to actually set the project in motion aside from people verbally agreeing with it.

I did not receive any comments on my first idea napkin, but the subject is similar to 16A in regard to our core competencies and human capital, so I can reflect on that briefly. Some of my feedback included being specific about what I am offering to people, and therefore I have revised number 2 above. Also, some of my feedback pointed out that assignments like these, where we are evaluating ourselves or asking others to evaluate us, are very insightful because other people have the ability to tell you things about yourself that you may not notice.

18 A Create a Customer Avatar

The typical person in my segment is a student at the University of Florida. That being said, there are some shared characteristics of UF students. My avatar is 20 years old, and has many stereotypical hobbies of college students. They watch Game of Thrones on Netflix, they spend a lot of time in the library, they go out to the bar occasionally. They drive a black sedan somewhere between 2005-2015 depending on their financial situation. They do not have children. They are involved around campus in things like Greek life, dance marathon, camp kesem, green greeks and so on. They are in the business school.

I have a lot in common with my avatar, likely because I am also in this segment. We are the same age, we are involved in similar organizations around campus. We are both in the business school and we both spend time in the library and out with friends.

17 A Elevator pitch 2

The feedback on my first pitch was very constructive. A lot of people mentioned that the hook was good, as it puts you in the shoes of the potential customer. Many of the comments agreed with the problem and thought the solution of building up was good. One constructive criticism was about the flow of the pitch and connecting the solution to the problem. I have attempted to remedy this by explaining how the problem relates to the solution at the end of the pitch.  

16A Whats Your Secret Sauce?

I think there are several things that make me unique that would contribute to me being a successful entrepreneur. First, I think that my attitude in bad situations is part of my unique human capital. I always have a positive outlook on situations even when they are not going the way that I want, and even if they are going truly badly. I find that having a bad attitude really makes the problems worse. Second, I think that my patience is very good. I am willing to wait for people and be understanding of situations that may make them late to meet or get something accomplished. I find it very awkward when people get furiously angry about people being late, and think that being more understanding would really benefit any situation. Third, I think my desire to make people happy makes me unique from others. I go out of my way frequently to make my friends and family feel special and cared for, because that is what makes me happy! For example, I go all out on things like birthday gifts for my friends because I know they will appreciate it. Next, I think that my experiences make me unique. I come from a large family, and have seen everything from really good life choices to very, very bad life choices. From this I am able to decipher right from wrong and make correct judgement about situations. Lastly,  my self-reliance is part of my human capital. I rarely ask other people for help doing tasks unless it is for feedback. This has helped me become a task-oriented person.

For my interviews, I interviewed my brother, my roommate, my mom, my dad, and my friend Daniela. I asked them what they would consider my unique human capital to be, such as knowledge, skills, abilities, or emotions. The following link is their responses.


https://soundcloud.com/caroline-jungels/new-recording


Brother - My brother said that he thinks that my familial sentiment sets me apart. This is not something I had noticed before really. He also noted that as the youngest child I have seen the good attributes of my siblings and I am now a product of them.

Roommate - Nikki said that I am smart and have good time management. I do agree with the time management statement, as I always ensure that I complete tasks by the deadline.

Mom - My mom said that my most unique aspect of my human capital is my ability to empathize with others. She put it well when she said that I am able to share in people's feelings and emotions and make them feel as though I felt their experiences with them.

Dad - My dad pointed out that I am intelligent, saying that I was writing in cursive at 5 years old. I did not remember this of course, but it speaks to the eagerness to learn new things from a young age.

Daniela - My friend Daniela noted that I am hard working and take school seriously. She also said that I am there for my friends whenever they need help.

I think that these people are able to adequately describe me as they really do know me well. My brother said some things that I had not considered before, but in reflection I do agree and would potentially add them to my list of human capital. He mentioned that I am a combination of all the good traits of my older siblings, with careful choices of eliminating the bad traits. He also said that among our family, I am the closest with everyone. This is something only noticeable from the outside and I found it very interesting to hear.

15A Figuring out buyer behavior #2

Throughout the interview process I heard a lot of information that I have already heard in previous interviews. It seems that most people have the same general ideas regarding facing the parking situation at UF. The list of alternatives gathered in these interviews is as follows: walking, bicycling, skateboarding / electric skateboarding, taking the bus, Uber, and scooting. For my segment, which is college students at the University of Florida, there are many factors that go into choosing from these alternatives. Different students have different requirements and concerns for the products they choose. For example, products like scooters and electronic skateboards can be very expensive when considering that taking the bus is completely free. Students have to weigh the cons of taking the bus, being that it can be irregular and inefficient, when considering if an expensive product is a good investment. I bought a scooter my freshman year, and justified the purchase by considering that I would get four years of use out of it, save myself a lot of time, be able to travel on my own schedule, and then ultimately sell it when I graduate and make some of the money back. When mentioning if style mattered in the decision making, the people that I interviewed basically agreed that this factor did not drive their decision. They seemed to agree that every student on campus faces the same decision and will not cast judgement for the choice another student makes. However, they did suggest that when it comes to a student that is purchasing an expensive product either way, the style differences between the products was an influential factor. The most common place the transactions occur is in a store. Most people do not buy scooters online (although I know one friend who did), because there are two popular scooter dealerships in the area. When customers think back on their purchase decisions they consider the benefits they receive from the product versus the cost (money, time, etc) required. Based on these interviews I see that there are many alternative options for students traveling to campus. Each of these alternatives has pros and cons based on factors like efficiency for students and cost.

14A Halfway Reflection

1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course?
There are a lot of traits and habits that I have that I apply to this course, and that I have developed in response to the requirements of the course. One thing that is very important in this course is being able to understand what someone else is talking about and compare it to your own experiences and personal thoughts. A large part of this course is feedback for your peers, and the feedback we provide is crucial for developing further assignments as they all connect to each other. Being responsible of your work deadlines is very important, as it is all laid out in the beginning of the semester. This makes it very easy to stay on track or even ahead if you just be responsible.

2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?

My first semester of college my freshman year I was enrolled in Calculus 1. I was fresh out of high school, where I took calculus, and I did not think it was going to be too hard of a class because it was such fresh material to me. I always considered myself fairly intelligent and capable of keeping up with my workload granted that I planned out my schedules. My very first exam of college was in this class, and I studied for it more than I would have studied for tests in high school, but I got a 65%. Receiving that D exam grade in my first exam of college made me really worry about my future classes, especially coming out of high school as a straight A student like most of us were. Really what pulled me through was my own self-motivation and confidence, I knew I was smart and capable of getting an A in this class. I got a 117% on my midterm and a 96% on my final for that class, and with the lowest exam score being replaced by an average of the exams, I was able to pull an A in the class altogether.

3) Three tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?

1. Let yourself be vulnerable. Allowing many other students to see all of your work is a little bit scary. It is okay to be ambitious with your ideas, as your peers will continually help you keep them in the right area.

2. Don’t let assignments that seem awkward make you nervous. When I read the elevator pitch assignment, I did not like the idea of recording myself and posting it for everyone. But everyone’s comments were positive and there is something reassuring in being able to see everyone else’s elevator pitches too.

3. Think differently than you normally would. All of the assignments give you the freedom to develop independent ideas and gather feedback on them from honest peers. This is a great opportunity to see if an idea you have gets positive responses! Thinking outside the box is always a good thing. 

13A Reading Reflection No. 1

I chose to write about the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. This biography contains information about all walks of Steve Jobs’ life, from his childhood, to his education, to his career, to the end of his life. I learned a lot of things about Steve Jobs that I have never heard before, despite having previously felt like I had heard a lot about this man and his career. I had never known that he was adopted, as he was put up for adoption because his biological parents’ relationship was deemed unacceptable because of their backgrounds. The book regards Steve Jobs feelings of himself during his early life as “Abandoned. Chosen. Special.” I find this to be a desolate, yet hopeful way of viewing the situation.

I was surprised to learn that Steve Jobs experimented with drugs in high school and was not what one would consider a “straight edge” kid. I admire that although this was his beginning, he did not make it his end. Although he dropped out of Reed College where he attended school, he is still one of the most prominent names in technology. This clearly shows that Jobs encountered failure in his life, even from early on. As a young college student, it is hard to face the idea of dropping out and not being able to finish what you started. However, it appears Jobs did not see it as such, but rather as an opportunity to create something different for himself that would be profitable and more in tune with his preferences.

I noticed that Steve Jobs seems like a free spirited individual. Based on the reading, it seems that he did whatever he felt like doing whenever he felt like doing it, especially in his earlier years surrounding his departure from formal college. This is a beneficial character trait that not many people have, because Jobs had the ability to stop what he was doing to pursue something else if it seemed to be more suitable to him.

I thought it was funny that the origins of the brand name Apple come from the fact that Jobs was physically at an apple orchard when he was deriving a name for the startup computer business him and co-worker Wozniak were creating. I also noted the slight pettiness, for lack of better words, that Jobs chose the name Apple because it came before Atari in the dictionary, his previous employer.

I think that Steve Jobs very much knows the value of hard work, and what is means to be a dedicated and diligent worker when there is a task at hand. In the reading, it said that Jobs and Wozniak made 100 computers of the version Apple I in just one month, making the computers profitable in only thirty days. When the Apple II was released, with the sought-after help of a millionaire friend for financing and publicity, it sold over 6 million units.

One part of the reading that I found confusing but also interesting occurred in chapter 8, where Steve Jobs quotes “Picasso had a saying, ‘good artists copy, great artists steal’, and we had never been shameless about stealing great ideas.” I found this strange because for a man of great dignity and poise in his later years, that’s an interesting thing to admit. I also thought it was confusing that Steve Jobs personality clashed with a lot of people, so much so that he was demoted and not allowed to manage major projects within Apple during the 1980’s.

If I could ask a question, I would first ask about the part of the book where it states that Jobs paid some of his earliest employees on an hourly basis and not salary basis, despite that he was worth over $200 million at the time. It states that partner Wozniak gave many of his stocks to these people, but I wonder why that was the scenario in the first place.

I would also ask about this so called “reality distortion field,” as people called it, where they said that Jobs could convince people that anything was possible by “distorting reality.” This begs some questions of ethics in my mind, along with the quote by jobs that there are only two kinds of people, you were either “enlightened or an asshole.”