week 11 : Design the Designers

THE PRESENTATION WEEK:

So finally here comes the presentation week.We have to give presentations on our Assessment 2.I was not nervous because i don't have a fear to stand in front of an audience and give a presentation.I am confident that i will do well.Some of my group members were saying they had a bit of stage fear.

We have worked hard for doing this assessment.I always have a positive attitude towards every situation.So this has helped me to present well for the presentation.

Even all our group members did well for the presentation.Our concept was  appreciated by our Professor.The topic was Digital Pizza table.We got good feedback after our presentation.we really think that we could have done it better.We took all the feedback positively which will help us to improve in the future.

Many presentations went on.We got to know about many innovative ideas.All the presentations were nice.I thanked my group members for being really cooperative and helping each other to make our Assessment 2, a successful one.And I also thank our Professor Firew Beshah for helping us and giving instructions in many stages in Assessment 2.

Week 10 : Design Entrepreneurial Fundraising Campaigns

In week 10 of Design it  lecture started  about sources of income for entrepreneurial innovations.which includes fund raising from business angels,crowd funding and giant providers.

I understood that fundraising is an important aspect in any business.Fund raising is a set of activities carried out in an organised manner for a specific time only to gain access to the set of resources.I learned how to introduce successful fund raising campaigns.


I was introduced to Bootstrapping which means starting a business without external help or capital. Such startups fund the development of their company through internal cash flow and are cautious with their expenses. Generally at the start of a venture, a small amount of money will be set aside for the bootstrap process.I learned examples of  bootstrapping methods.


                                                                       

fig 1: Examples of bootstrapping methods

I was thrilled  to learn about 3Fs .it  is the best for small investments but if we move for something big then other funding methods are required.I learned about the advantages and disadvantages of 3FS.3FS includes :

–Family

–Friends

–Fools

i learnt crowd funding which uses public or crowd to fund a project.I understood that it has also got advantages and disadvantages.Some examples of crowd funding are kickstarter,crowd funder and rocket hub etc.

Out of all the things learned,Business Angel was completely a new and interesting concept A Business Angel is an investor that provides development capital to growing companies or new companies. They usually want to be involved in the business in which they invest; either directly or as a mentor. Their investment is usually an equity investment rather than a loan to be repaid with interest.

It was good to study about Venture capital (VC) which is a type of private equity ,a form of financing that is provided by firms or funds to small, early-stage, emerging firms that are deemed to have high growth potential, or which have demonstrated high growth (in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, or both).

Week 9 : Design an Entrepreneurial Marketing Campaign

In this week I learned about marketing and its personas, competitors. initially we started by defining personas which is also called as the ‘target market’.

Marketing Campaign

It is regarded as the collection of all activities carried out systematically to raise awareness of ‘something’ (usually a product/service). Usually marketing campaigns are carefully designed with the audience in mind. Most markets are segmented in terms of demographic, geographic or psychographic factors. Usually customers are modelled using data from various reports and statistics collected previously. For a marketing campaign to be successful it must be very well crafted for the target market or personas.

Market Competition

Any marketing campaign should be designed with the market competition in mind. Market competition can be broadly classified into:

·        Direct competition

These are competitors operating in the same target market, offering similar or identical products or services.

·        Indirect competition

These are competitors operating the same target market, offering products or services that are close substitutes.

·        Future competition

These are competitors that are already operating in the same target market who are not currently a direct or indirect competition, but can be potential competitors soon.

The study of competition in the market and comparison to our own offerings is necessary to discern the success of our offerings in the marketplace. To analyse competition, it’s essential that we define the target industry precisely since an incorrect definition of the industry might give an incorrect list of competitors and eventually a false analysis of competition.

The Four P’s Marketing Mix

The Four P’s of marketing highlight the four key aspects such as:

·        Product

This regards to the variety, design and features of the product or service being marketed. Additionally, it stresses on the packaging, branding and most importantly the quality of the product or service.

·        Price

This regards to the appropriate pricing of the variants of the product or service. It also emphasises on discounts, payment periods and credit terms that enhance the appeal of the product or service to customers.

·        Promotion

This touches upon the various modes of raising awareness about the product or service such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and other public relation activities.

·        Place

This deals with the various channels through which the product is advertised and marketed, the market coverage of the product and the prime locations where the product is to be marketed. Furthermore, it stresses the importance of inventory management, logistics and transportation of the product.

Communication Channels for Marketing

Promotion and product awareness is a key factor in the success of any marketing strategy or campaign. These channels are also critical for gathering critical feedback from the consumers. Thus, it is imperative to know and understand the significance of the various communication channels that are available. The communication mediums can be broadly listed as follows:

Entrepreneurial Marketing

This is a marketing strategy that is radically different from the conventional strategies. This technique uses creative, entrepreneurial and design thinking to achieve greater throughput. The strategy also relies on inexpensive channels of promotion and customer involvement rather than conducting expensive campaigns and promotion events. Some of the techniques that classify under this category are:

•      Guerrilla marketing

•      Ambush marketing

•      Radical marketing

•      Viral marketing

•      Buzz marketing

•      Expeditionary marketing

•      Disruptive marketing

Design as Communication

The process of design of a product is a closed loop process that requires thorough communication between the designers and users throughout the design thinking process. It is also vital that the members of the design team interact with each other, with the top management and with suppliers or partners. Proper communication between all the elements of the design team ensures that the intention of the team is translated into a proper interpretation and eventually a well thought out design. It is essential that any ideas that we create are run past customers as early as possible so that there is enough leeway to make amends to the existing design before its implemented and hits the market.

activity:1




                                                                       

fig 1:Group discussion

This activity was to identify the target market or persona for our innovation.i have already studied that target market  will  depend on the demographic, age group, motivation or others, so we have decided to identify our target market  for our digital pizza table. so we have decided our personas as youngsters of age group below 25 the students of high school and inter college as people of this age are more attracted towards pizza since they enjoy a  party life.They would love to do a customization to Pizza.

activity 2:



                                                   

In this activity we have to define the industry type and then the main competitors we may face and collect some information about them.Since our topic is Digital Pizza Table  and we know that it is a medium scale industry.we already learned that the possible competitors are the nearest competitors who are working in the same field and trying to do something new in the market and which will compete with our product.So in our case pizza hut , dominos and pepperoni pizza are the nearest competitors we decided to find more info on their websites, social networking and marketing channels.The only way to counter act the closest competitors are to findout a way to act before them and lead the market with new ideas and promotions.

we have already studied  about the few of the marketing strategies but during the work shop we learned about entrepreneurial forms of marketing such as guerrilla marketing, ambush,radical,viral,buzz and so on.We found out that the best one which suits our product is viral marketing .So week 9 i can say that it helped me in enormous way to expand my knowledge about different target market or personas and also new marketing techniques.This is will help me a lot in my career.These topics are really important for an engineering manager. 

Week 8 : Design the Launch

In week 8, I learned the following things:

Design the launch (Learning Launch)

Introduction

The prequel to any product or service being launched into the real-world market is the learning launch. A learning launch is like an experiment in the real-world environment to seek quick, inexpensive feedback from the marketplace. The process is also known as “Play Testing”, and it’s important to be open to feedback in this phase.

            To execute a learning launch, one must plan the launch being cognizant of the following factors:

·        The nature of the product/service being launched.

·        Any assumptions to be tested.

·        Metrics crucial to the product/service success.

·        Financial capital requirements.

Execution

Once the planning phase is done, the launch is ready to be executed with tight boundaries such as goals and environment of launch. A diverse team with a mixture of optimists and realists is required to ensure a successful learning launch. The team must be having fast feedback cycles and must respond to issues that pop-up quickly. It’s crucial for the team to gather as much user feedback as possible using their interviewing skills.

Analysis

After an iteration of the learning launch the team must pool together their resources to critically analyse the market place feedback and be open to radical changes needed to enhance the product/service marketability. It’s important for the team to be mindful about the ethics when collecting, analysing and disseminating the feedback from the marketplace. After one or more iterations the team should be confident enough to get to a consensus on all aspects of the product/service so that they can decide whether to proceed with the launch or kill the idea. Once the green light for the real launch is voted, the team must start planning the actual launch.

The Real Launch

Aim at this stage of the life cycle is to offer the solution to real users and build momentum. The launch may or may not be supported with a physical event. During the launch planning stage, the product/service must have attained a fully marketable form by incorporating the feedback from the learning launch. Pre-launch promotion and narrowing down on the suppliers and locations are critical prior to the execution of the launch. At this stage the team transitions from a creative mode to a business mode and needs to expand the resources to support the same.

            Once through the planning process, the team must be clear about the approach to use, the launch timing and key players in the launch such as the press, early adopters etc. At this point the team would have developed a sound Launch Readiness Plan.

Activity:

This activity was just to present the launch of the product.lot of  students [presented well and i was noting important points from their presentations.I am not good at fast hand writing. I used to make use of the mind mapping technique to overcome this.Slowly i realised that design thinking has bought many changes to me.I have started to think like a design thinker.It made me happy.

we explained our prototype in class.The prototype was done along with my group members.The audience gave some suggestions to our prototype.They also asked some doubts regarding our concept.All the suggestions were noted by us.So we have enough time to edit the prototype before our final launch.We had done enough calculations and we can launch the product after modifying it carefully.We also gave some suggestions to other presentations during their prototype launch.I understood from this activity that i am not comfortable with uncertainities and some unpredicatable situations.I realised that this is one of my weakness and i need to change it.

I understood that Blogging is helping me to gain more knowledge about this subject.It is also increasing my creative thinking skill.Regular blogging is just helping me realise what all things happened in class and what all things i studied that day.So i would say blogging was a good decision by the 'Design it' unit coordinator and lecturers.