Looking back at the course, my experience has been a very positive one, and has given me experiences that I never thought I would have received in a class. At the beginning of this class, I took it because I recognized it as a marketing class, and I thought it would give me good skills for a future in marketing. However, what I did not realize is that it would give me skills that would stick with me for the rest of my life and a background in a subject that I knew little to nothing about. This topic changed my thinking completely about my future, and what I can bring to a company or what I want to pursue as a profession. This course has made me think more in-depth about ideas, and learn that ideas take time. These ideas that we come up with for projects do not just happen overnight. They have to be tested, understood, read about, and analyzed before you can even think of rolling it out. One idea that one person thinks of does not rule the group entirely. Instead, it has to go through a process to understand the idea fully. These topics I learned are prototyping processes being critical to any success in a business, evaluating your idea and pivoting does not mean you failed, better to fail early rather than later and not to be discouraged if it happens, sustainability is not at the forefront when it should be, and personally, I need to be better about narrowing my ideas and not to be insulted if my ideas do not work out.
Focusing on the course material, the prototyping phase was unlike any direction I have ever gone in a class. Usually, we come up with an idea and run with it until the end of the semester. Then, we learn the problems with the idea and it potentially falls apart while we are presenting. That is not what prototyping does. It forces you to understand your idea physically as opposed to having an abstract concept of your product. Once you think of that product physically, you get a picture in your mind of what the product should be, and you know what needs to be fixed. For example, with our American app, when we prototyped the app, we were able to understand that the app had an accountability problem. In concept, it sounded like a good idea because it gave all the power to the consumer, which is what we wanted. However, keeping the product abstract can make you not prepared and not see flaws in your idea. Without seeing these flaws, you will present on a product that could fall apart very quickly. Instead, with prototyping, we were able to address the problems quickly and efficiently. Addressing these problems in prototyping was something I had never experienced before, and I loved every part of it. Being able to go into class and just focus on making the product was such a cool concept because you can see the ideas change as you go along. You can have an idea at the start of the project, but by the end of it, the product could have entirely changed. As the person who is prototyping, you have an image of that along the entire way. Being able to see the development of the app is in my mind the best part of the project. Development and analyzing your idea is critical to success, and I loved being able to get work on a true prototype. Working on a real prototype gave me that experience that is applicable in the real world, and that is something you normally do not get from a class. Overall, prototyping is key to any successful product, and I will make sure I use this step in the future.
The second lesson I took away from the course is evaluating and pivoting your idea is not a bad thing to do at all. Pivoting from your original idea does not mean you failed because it is a part of the design process. Having a wrong idea is not a bad idea. It means that developing a new idea will help your product cater to your consumer more. Pivoting shows the consumer that you are trying to especially cater to their needs, and that is the most special part about the evaluate phase. Being able to pivot means that you are flexible as a company and that is critical to success. That does not mean you failed. Changing and pivoting allows you as a company to become more receptive to the consumer. Feedback will help you cater to the consumer better, and that is the entire point of the design phase. You hear what the consumer wants from you as a company, and then you can pivot. Without feedback, pivoting would not happen and companies would not be successful. In the classroom setting, the pitch day was our main feedback from the consumers. Most of the consumers we interacted with were big flyers on American, and they were able to give us the best feedback. Finding a market that uses your product the most will help you develop your product more effectively. Not only was the pitch day effective because of the feedback, but because it gave us valuable presentation skills. I was normally a good presenter on classroom presentations, but now I feel confident in my ability to pitch to a company. Pitching to a company was always something that had concerned me, and now learning that a pitch is not just one script makes me more comfortable to pitch and talk about my ideas. Changing these ideas over time means that your product is still developing, and that is apparent in this type of setting because the product is everchanging. We tried an idea, and now we know what the consumer wants, so we can cater to them specifically. Changing the idea is a good thing because you are showing your consumer exactly what you want. That is what the evaluate phase shows when you do it in a real world setting, and it gave me presentation skills I will continue with for the rest of my life.
Lastly, on the design phase, learning that failing early is better than failing late is a hard concept to understand. However, I was able to understand that failing at all during the process is not a bad thing. As William & Mary students, we are always focused on the fact that failing means that you have lost in some way. That same ideology cannot be applied for the design phase, and it cannot be applied throughout our careers. Failing is a relative term and does not necessarily mean your idea is terrible. It means that there is room to grow and develop your idea. Once you do fail, you must continue and not give up because that is common for us to do once we fail the first time. Dealing with rejection is hard, but it is critical to any successful company or career. Our idea “failed” during this process because we did not consider the accountability aspect. However, we did not just stop with our project or decide to not pivot. We pivoted and changed our idea because it was an easy solve. That rejection helped us create a more sound concept within the app, and now our idea was much better than previously. Failure is always driving change, and that is where the change is most effective. The best companies do not change because they succeed; they change or pivot because of failures within their company. Being discouraged because your idea “failed,” is the wrong way to consider your idea. If you fail with your idea, you should be encouraged because that means there is a chance for your product to grow and become better. It is a blessing in disguise, as your product will continue to develop. Your best responses and most well-thought out responses will come from failures. That is something that down the line I will never forget because of this class. Having to change my idea because of a failure showed me that even in a classroom setting it is normal to fail, and that made me encouraged and feel better about my future.
Looking at the sustainability side of the course, this topic is not talked about nearly enough, and is put on the back burner quite often. At the beginning of this course, I had no idea how significant sustainability is and how easy it is to be sustainable. It was never a concept to me that I had ever considered. Seeing that it was not at the forefront at all was prevalent to me when we did our project on Thistle Farms. Of course, the assignment was to focus on a smaller company as opposed to a big company, but it was easier to find concrete ways that a company was being sustainable when they were smaller than a big corporation. That was especially alarming because the leaders in the industries are not trying their hardest to be sustainable and save our Earth. Companies usually think it is too expensive or too overbearing, when in reality they only have to change a few processes. These changes are not big ones and in fact will not cost them much at all. In fact, it is almost harder to be unsustainable because you will have to deal with the consequences down the line. People are never thinking in sustainable ways. Usually, we are only concerned with sustainability when it affects us personally. Some people are starting to respond, but it is not nearly enough as we should be responding. One thing that I remember from the beginning of the semester that alarmed me was that the climate won’t affect us until 2040. However, that is 20 years away. Unfortunately, it seems like people won’t start caring until 2040 because that is when we will have to change our practices. That is absolutely terrifying to me. The changes in our habits must start now because we are consuming too quickly to be sustainable. It is an entirely terrifying concept. Sustainability is an unselfish practice in a selfish world, which is something we must realize when being sustainable in our own practices.
The last main takeaway for myself is that I must work on the ideation portion myself, and not be too insulted when my ideas are shot down or disregarded. During ideation, I came up with a ton of ideas. Sometimes my ideas were taken down and it would bother me because I would want my idea to be the one chosen. I would think that my ideas were not good enough, and that bothered me. Near the end of the process, I started to get better about the ideas portion because I felt like I had contributed to the group. My biggest concern when my ideas were taken down was I believed I was not contributing to the group. I have to learn, as talked about in this class, that no idea is a bad idea when generating the multitude of ideas for a product. One day a person’s ideas may be a lot better than my ideas may be. That is the nature of the process and project. It is not a one size fits all process. For me, I must learn that generating ideas is a process where everyone can contribute, even if that means your idea isn’t chosen. We all want our ideas to be chosen, but in reality it will be hard to when in a group. The design process is meant to challenge you and your ideas. It is not meant to get one idea and be done with the process because that is not how to get the best idea either. Being patient and generating many ideas is the way to be successful. I cannot be discouraged when my idea gets shot down. Instead, I need to consider what I can do to improve my ideas and go through the steps again to be effective. When I went through these steps, I realized that the process helps us end up on the right idea. I was encouraged by the end at the progress I had made since the start of the semester, and felt that I could effectively contribute in the future. Whenever I need to create a new idea, I want to go through the design process on my own. It makes the most sense to me in a generating ideas sense, and allows me to narrow down my options, something that usually I am not effective in.
As just a personal side note, I felt that this class was one of the most beneficial classes that I have taken at the business school, and at William & Mary as well. The lessons that I have learned throughout this past semester have taught me so much about a potential career and how to approach my future job. The skills that the class has given me are invaluable for the future, and it has truly changed my thinking when it comes to sustainability and any project generation. Overall, this class has been one I will remember for the rest of my life because of the skills it has taught me, as well as the lessons I will take from it as a whole.