Sunday, 18 August 2013

Weekend over

I do not know if it’s just me but the weekend always seem to pass so quickly. But anyway I am looking forward for this week especially for the Management Theory in Practise (Mtip) lectures. This coming week we will be focusing more on personal and organisational effectiveness. We started this topic last week and so far I am enjoying. We focused on the individual values, motives and problem solving skills so as to understand organisational effectiveness using the competing values model. Competing value model basically aims to help organisations to become adaptable, flexible, stable and controlled.  On order to understand this principle we had to answer questionnaires based on your problem solving, values and motives as leaders. I realised that my main strengths as a leader in team building, setting the direction and clearly defining the roles within the group. It was quite an interesting exercise and I am looking forward to learning more about tour group management which is going to be the focus for the next session. 

Saturday, 17 August 2013

Time so for some rest

I think after such a hectic week, everyone is glad that it’s Saturday, time to rest and breathe for two seconds. I mean literally seconds because we have a lot of work to do in terms of building our brand. We have been thinking of couple of ideas as to how to go about this but it is such a mission to make everything work. But we are entrepreneurs, we make things happen therefore I think this weekend will serve just that by brain storming on developing creative ways of building a strong sustainable brand.

I think I will leave it short and sweet for today because I need to do more creative thinking our brand.

Friday, 16 August 2013

Oral presentation

This week has been quite hectic, preparing for the exam and oral presentation while also running a business and also not forgetting going to lectures. It was a very intense week. Our oral went fine (Even though I feel I could have done way better). Like I said yesterday, I really appreciate PCU because I have learned so much from it. They are equipping us with all the necessary skills and knowledge that will help us to communicate effectively at work, conferences, etc. This is also helpful to us as young entrepreneurs.

We have learned that in order to deliver a good business presentation, one need to do the following:

1. Know your audience

If asked to speak or pitch a session, then the first step is to research your potential audience to know about things such as their level of experience in the area you are presenting, topics of interest, etc. If you don’t do this, then you are guaranteed to fail.

2. Construct a plan

This can be achieved by using the plan that suits your style. Having a plan is important because it helps to contrast a coherent and logical message. Then once you have clear idea, you can start thing about what you will say and what you will show using PowerPoint slides flipchart posters, etc.

 I have really learned a lot from this course. Anyway I will here for today.

Thursday, 15 August 2013

PCU (Professional Communications Unit) EXAM TODAY

I cannot believe that the day is finally here to write PCU exam. Wow, this year has gone by so fast. I remember it was just few months ago attending PCU lectures and today is the day to write the actual exam. I really do not know how I feel about it but one thing I can say is that I am very grateful for those input lectures and workshops because they taught us a lot about working in a group. Some of the lessons I can recall from those lectures were how to build team spirit and group dynamic.

I learned that in order for everyone to have the same team spirit, we need to work towards the same goal; we need to have shared responsibilities, resources and benefits. In addition, each member needs to feel a sense of belonging to the group and this can be achieved by being good listeners and having a non-judgemental working environment.

I have also learned that as a group we can foster team spirit by celebrating our achievements as a group, giving credit to individuals (by praising them for the job well done), identifying each other’s unique strengths and then allocate task according to each members strengths and then lastly encourage a sense of unity (maybe by having a panic as a group).

So all in all I can say that I have learned a lot from PCU both as an individual and as a team player. I have also improved in my business report writing skills which was a struggle for me at the beginning of the year.

Oh, I almost forgot that tomorrow we have our PCU oral presentation rehearsal with Christel (I will speak about that tomorrow).

That is all for today (as I need to finish revising for the exam at 17:00). 

Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Great lessons from the Genesis Workshop

Wow. Today I was so inspired and encouraged by the lecture given by guest lecturer, Tim Shier, during our weekly Genesis workshop. Tim shared with us some of the most important lessons he has learned as an entrepreneur. These lessons were quite informative and applicable to us especially now that we are official entrepreneurs, running our own business.  Some of the things he shared with us are key attributes that Stuart has always preached to us. So here are some of the lessons he talked about (I will just list five as they were too many to write all of them down)

Kim and Sarah sellng the backpacks

1. Failure is a key learning process

·         Learning is about change and failure provides us with the feedback necessitating change. He also mentioned that as entrepreneurs we are always pushing to be innovative and therefore it will difficult to be innovative if you are afraid to fail.

2. Give more than you take

·         Always be willing to be the helping hand in the community whenever you can.

3. Always live by design not by default

·         Stuart had also touched on this subject and now we are hearing about it again, so it means it is important. Living by design, means setting your own goals and purpose in order to achieve your desired outcome instead of following the society norms and way of doing life.

Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

4. Only do things you are passionate about

·         If you do only things you are passionate about, you will do it well. It will be more like a hobby to you than actual work.

5. Empower your team

·         This is very important as it can increase the morale and team spirit as each member will feel valuable to the group and as the result perform very well. It also increases the group dynamic and the workplace become fun and non-judgemental one.

I really enjoyed this workshop today and now I am ready to face and conquer the world.

Later...

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Strategic plan forward

Today we had out weekly meeting and everyone shared what they learned from the Young Entrepreneursr Product launch, whether it was in direct relation to the product itself or related to team work.  We discussed the way forward in terms of creating more brand awareness. We are still busy constructing our website, which should be up and running before the end of this month. Having a website will further help to get more exposure of our product to a broader market segments as we are planning to make limited backpack edition for corporate market and also have a leather range of backpacks (as it seemed to be the favourite). In addition, we are also planning to create a cool advert video which will be out in mid-September in order to position our brand in the mind of our target markets. This is very exciting and we are keeping our fingers crossed that all goes according to plan.

Yeah. That was all for today.

Monday, 12 August 2013

Lessons learned for the Launch

The Young Entrepreneurs Product launch is over and I am so thankful that it went well. Albeit I was worried about it because of insufficient advertising of the product, however everything went better than I anticipated as the students responded well to our product. Some of the things we learned during the preparation and on the actual launch day are discussed below and tomorrow, during our weekly group meeting, we will perform an after action review and make all the necessary changes. These changes will ensure that our business expands in terms of market share.

Setting SMART Objective

Setting clear and SMART objectives within the group is vital as this will keep us in the right direction and ensure that everything is done during the time it was suppose to be. This was a very important lesson learned especially with regard to production. We did not have clear and realistic planning with our CMT and as the result we only had 90 backpacks on the day of the exhibition as she was still making the other 60 bags. This caused a lot of pressure and stress within the group and our CMT. I think we failed to plan and communicate with Evette (the CMT) effectively about our launch date so that by the exhibition all the bags would be ready. Everything had to be rushed, you can just imagine the quality of those bags. But thankfully because we have a CMT that has been in operation for more than 20 years, they were able to at least deliver 40 backpacks out of the remaining 6o which were of good quality. However the stress and panic we had to go through was too much.

Putting the team first                                                                                                                  

 I have learned that as a team player I need to put my team first at all times, therefore all my priorities have to be towards enhancing the group dynamic and performance. This also means that I need to trust my team and they need to trust me, as trust is everything. The team trust is earned through integrity, consistency, honesty and transparency to just name a few. Therefore I have learned that it is my responsibility to always conduct myself in a manner that will reflect these principles to ensure the success of our group. I saw that during the launch, we needed to support each other and help in the sales our backpacks. For instance since I am in the production team, I cannot say that I will not help the sales team. I was very happy with the group because I saw that we all exhibit qualities of a sales person.

This has taught me that as a team member, I should not wait to be told what to do by others but I should take initiative and set an example within the group. Instead of worrying about lack of performance, productivity and commitment of others, I should simply set the example and show my team what hard work, passion and commitment is.