Markets, Innovation & Design - Spring 2020

Habits Reflection

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Throughout the semester I have been able to develop and improve my creative confidence. This has allowed me to be most comfortable using this skill outside of the classroom. Along with this, I think that I have been able to push myself to accept failure and use it as a learning opportunity. Prior to this class I would not share my ideas in a large group unless I had previously received approval of them from others or was very confident in the idea. I did not realize the importance of developing ideas and putting “crazy” ideas on the table. If my idea was not complete or seemed outlandish I thought that it was not worth mentioning but, I have learned that these ideas are almost the most important because they spark inspiration for other ideas. I thought that if my ideas were not developed further or put on a sideburner it was a failure, but i have since realized again that this was a result of being overly critical of myself and ideas and this is not a failure in anyway but, the ideas present an opportunity to be developed or worked into other ideas. These new understandings have helped me to become more willing to try things in regards to many topics. Since being home I have picked up some new hobbies such as embroidery, baking, and drawing. I had previously done all of these but always limited myself on complexity. I have noticed that lately I have been more willing to take risks in regards to being creative and if something does not turn out as planned I am less likely to throw it away like I had previously always done and more likely to try and turn it into something else. I also think that the development in my ability to accept failure has helped me to do things that are more outside of my comfort zone. 

By doing this, I have realized that I am a bit of a perfectionist and struggle to move past small imperfections in my work. Although this class has helped me to work on this I think that in order to fully be able to move past these small details I will need to work on this skill further. I have come to realize that the small imperfections in creative activities such as drawing make the work more personalized and may actually make it better instead of worse. In order to develop this skill more I want to continue to participate in activities that are outside of my comfort zone and push myself to go through with things even when I do not know the end result. Although I feel as though I have been able to develop my creative confidence and my ability to accept failure the most, I think that those are also the two habits that I still want to work on the most. 

A habit that comes naturally to me is a child’s eye. My entire life I have been a very observant person and have noticed small details that surround me. This may be due to my slight tendency to be a perfectionist that I am able to recognize such minute details. I have found that although this is a good skill when I want to consciously recognize my surroundings it is an annoyance when I am just relaxing. I find that in these times when I am not trying to recognize my surroundings is when I am able to do it best. Therefore, I hope to be able to hone in this skill and be able to use it more intentionally when developing ideas and working through problems. 

Throughout MIDE 300 I have been pushed out of my comfort zone and put into ambiguous situations. Because of this, I am able to come out of the class more comfortable in these situations while also building a more innovative character. This class has taught me how to think differently and consider all alternatives before moving forward with ideas. In the future I hope to use these habits I learned as well as skills such as mind mapping to further develop myself as a student and an innovator. 

Test and Iterate 2

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Since I have implemented my project I have been able to develop a habit in my daily schedule and have become much more productive. Because of this routine I realized that my project was not benefiting me as if it previously had. I did not need to plan out my day and remind myself of all the assignments I had coming up because I was able to remember similarly to being at school. Because of this I have decided to shift my daily schedule to be more fun as opposed to priorly being focused on academics. I want to be able to create variety in my day so that I can distinguish one day from another. To do this, I have adopted some of the ideas of my classmates and have created a list of activities to do each day. This will force me to do something different each day than I previously do which is watching netflix. I hope that creating an activity inspiration list will force me to give my days some variety and each be distinguishable from another. With classes coming to an end I also hope that this list will keep me busy once my days are not full of school work. 

I also have changed my journaling time to in the morning as opposed to at night. This has allowed me to participate in this activity for reflection and relaxation instead of one last thing keeping me up before I go to bed. I think that the journaling activity will help to keep my mind simulated once classes have ended and will allow me to keep staying positive in this crazy time of being quarantined. 

In my freetime, I have been enjoying decorating cookies. I hope to also continue doing this once classes are over. This is a good activity that allows me to be creative as well as bring joy to some of my friends and family. Once the cookies are decorated I have packaged them and delivered them to friends and family in order to brighten their days a little bit. 

List of activities/ideas: 

  • Decorate cookies for spring 
  • Decorate animal themed cookies
  • Play frisbee brother 
  • Do puzzle with family 
  • Read a book 
  • Paint 
  • Listen to a podcast 
  • Do DIY craft 
  • Go for a walk 
  • Clean closet 
  • Clean house 
  • Bake dog cookie 
  • Embroider clothes 
  • Themed meal 
  • Write letter to friend 
  • Make a fort 
  • Play with dog

Test and Iterate

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During this past week of using my schedule I have been able to learn a lot about how I can iterate on my design. Overall the schedule has helped me become more productive during the day and feel more motivated to do work. Being able to cross things off my to do list makes me feel proud and accomplished and motivates me to complete more assignments and tasks. Being able to see everything I need to do for the week has made my life more visual which has allowed me to fully realize all the work I need to get done. Seeing it all laid out in front of me creates enough stress in order for me to feel the need to do work. But, with that being said, I find it challenging to motivate myself to start working each day. It was challenging to hold myself accountable to the specific times I allocated in my schedule because there were no real repercussions for not following them. Something I thought of to motivate myself to stay on schedule is to create rewards at the end of each day such as extra freetime or more time to exercise. I have also decided to work on my mindset when going about following my schedule. This past week has been very laid back about following the schedule. If I missed a specific time by five minutes I would think to myself I might as well skip the entire hour. This is a bad mindset to have because I am just letting myself waste more time. In order to work on this I have decided to change my schedule a bit by creating less activities in the day but having each time slot last longer. I think that reducing the amount of times I need to switch activities will allow me to waste less time and be more productive. I have also decided to look at my schedule in a different way. Instead of trying to follow the schedule perfectly I have decided to make it just an outline for my day and allow myself to make variations to the schedule depending on what I need for the day. 

I have also realized that working in my room does not provide me with the best environment to be productive. This past week I have been working in my room but one day I randomly decided to work in the dining room. I was able to be more productive and less distracted in the dining room than in my room. I think that this is because it is a space that I can allocate for only work as opposed to a space that I use for all sorts of things. After making this change of where I do my work half way through the week I was able to follow my schedule better because I was less distracted by the things around me. The only problem I have found with working in the dining room is that my dog will come over to me and look at me with those puppy dog eyes saying “Come play with me!” This distraction was not in my room because I was able to close my door but it is now hard for me to resist because I love playing with my dog. In order to reduce this problem I plan to set aside time each morning before I start my work to play with my dog. This will hopefully make her tired so that she will not distract me once I start my work. 

In order to push this idea further, I plan to incorporate journaling into my day. After speaking with the class, I realized that a lot of my classmates really enjoyed their time journaling during this time. I hope to be journal each day and create a little story of my life that I could look back on and remember this crazy time in our lives. I think that journaling will also help me bring some sort of calm thinking into my life. Being able to reflect on each day whether it be my accomplishment or my struggles will help me to stay positive and motivated during this time. Journaling may even allow me to come up with new ideas to do during quarantine or help me explore previous ideas and innovate on them. 

Overall my experience with the design process has been rewarding. It has helped me become more productive in my house and has taught me some interesting things about the ways in which I work productively. I hope to be able to find a project to do creatively such as embroidering or painting. This will hopefully give me motivation to do my school work so that I can finish and work on something that I love to do. I plan to look back on the beginning of this process and get inspiration from all the opportunities I laid out for myself when we came up with 50 ideas. I plan to incorporate more of them into my everyday schedule and keep working to make my time at home more enjoyable.  

Prototype

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For my prototype I choose to organize my desk and create a proper workspace for me to do my school work. On my desk I included a to do list that I intend to use to write down the hw I want to complete each day as well as a goal list which is for more long term assignments. My goal is to create more structure in my day and allow myself to be more productive. I already created a rough prototype of my calendar during the sketching phase so I decided to focus more on prototyping the checklists. I made my checklist weekly so that I would be able to visualize what I hope to accomplish in days ahead so that I am motivated to not fall behind. The prototype is an outline of the checklist. It can be changed every week and anyone is able to use it so that I can share it with family members and friends. I have three categories on the checklist: school, exercise, and fun. I plan to use these categories to structure my day and reach my goals of being productive, healthy, and staying positive. I plan to use my scheduled class times to do work for those classes and work on assignments a few days before they are due. 

For the organization of my desk, I wanted there to be a large space to do my work. Having an open space will allow me to focus and be productive. Because my desk is in front of a window I was able to use the window ledge to put some fun things that will give me a little bit of joy when I am doing my school work. Here I included a little collection of turtles that I have collected over the years as well as a little train of my name from when I was little. I hope that having a proper workspace will help me to stay focused when I am doing my school work. 

3 concepts

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For my first sketch I decided to make a mock schedule for my week days. I have been struggling to get my work done at home efficiently and I think if I had more structure in my day I would assist me in being more productive. Because a lot of my classes have either done without the scheduled class time or chosen to reduce the time spent “in class” and made a more asynchronous schedule I have a very minimal schedule to my day which has left me unmotivated. I hope by sticking to my own schedule I will be more focused on my school work and feel more productive during the day. Last week, I did not follow a strict schedule and found myself sleeping half my day away and falling behind on homework, therefore I plan to wake up at 9AM – 9:30AM in order to optimize the time I have to work on school work. Because I plan to wake up early I need to plan to go to bed earlier than I have in the past in order to still get eight hours of sleep. In my schedule I have built in time in order to satisfy other goals that I set. For example, during my freetime I plan to spend that time with family, connecting with friends, doing puzzles, listening to music, or participating in other creative activities. By following a schedule I feel that I am satisfying many of the concepts in the hierarchy of designer needs such as functionality, reliability, and proficiency. 

For my second sketch, I combined a few of my solutions from the brainstorm. The first step was to pick a place that I would designate as my workspace. I choose my work space to be my desk in my room. This is the most optimal place in my house to do my work because I will not have to adjust my space according to my family member’s needs. In my workspace I encorporated ideas that would keep me organized in order to be productive. I first started out by making the calendar on the white board I have hanging near my desk. On the calendar I added all my hw and due dates for my homeworks and projects coming up. Since coming home I have been struggling to keep up on my planner. I think that this calendar will keep me better organized because I will be able to see all my assignments that are coming up at once and better plan what I want to get done for the day. I also included a note on my wall that says stay positive so that I will be constantly reminded when I look up from doing my homework. Lastly, I have set up a notepad for me to write my to do list and goals for the day. This will help me to stay on task and focused. Having the ability to check off boxes when I have completed tasks will make me feel more productive and give me motivation to continue working hard. This meets almost all of the designers hierarchy of needs. The redesign of my desk provides me with the basic requirements I need in order to get my work done, a table, chair, and school supplies. Because my desk is out of the way of my family it is reliable and consistent. Unless I decide to change it, it will always be how I left it and provides me with a sense of normalcy when I am doing my work. The redesign of my desk will hopefully assist me in being on top of my work and provide me with a better way of doing my work than I have previously. It will hopefully help me focus and work to my maximum ability as if I were in the library at school. Lastly, I have surrounded my desk with some pictures and nik naks  in order to provide me with a sense of fun while I do my work. This meets the creativity aspect of the hierarchy of needs because I have placed things in a way that provides me with the feeling that I want while I do my work. 

For my last sketch I have created a list of people that I would like to stay in contact with during this time. This list consists of many different people that I have met through all different stages of my life and provides me with a rough outline of who I feel it is important to reach out to. Staying in touch with friends and family is an extremely important way of getting social interactions during this time where we are all isolated from being inside our homes. Although there is not much going on in people’s lives right now, I think it is important to try to talk about things other than coronavirus. This virus can be overwhelming to some by keeping them inside, out of a job, lonely, or scared about the future and I think that many people need a break from talking about it. I plan to schedule times where my friends and I can watch movies together over facetime, play games or even just hang out. This will also help me achieve some of my other solutions such as staying positive and having fun. This solution satisfied the creativity and usability aspect of the designer hierarchy of needs. In order to stay in communication people need to be innovative and find different ways to participate in activities together and share time. 

Concept Board

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To start my concept board I started with the idea of productivity. This idea of working on becoming more productive has been in my mind since I have come home. Doing school at home has provided me with distractions that I am not used to and have had to adjust all my work habits. For my mood board I tried to think of ways that I would be able to inspire myself to participate in activities at home that would make me feel productive. 

I started this process on google images and let the pictures and provoking feelings guide my choices. I collected a lot of pictures that helped me to evoke the feeling of my goal and inspired me to work towards them. But, once I started placing them together chaoss occured. The slide I put together looked messy and incoherent. In order for my mood board to evoke the emotion and feeling that I had intended I needed to delete many pictures and try to make them a little more similar in color. Taking out pictures created some struggles but in the end I was able to realize that it was less about the individual pictures and more about the picture that the mood board created as a whole. 

Brainstorm

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During the brainstorming activity, I found it helpful to keep my mood board up next to my list of brainstormed ideas. This helped me to stay focused and brainstorm ideas that were related and would help me achieve the ideas I put in my mood board. I focused on brainstorming ideas that would help to keep me busy at home just as if I was at school. I found that I would brainstorm ideas similar to each other and then jump to a new topic randomly. I tried to just let my ideas flow without judging them before putting them onto the paper. After I brainstormed 50 ideas, I tried to focus on ones that I thought would be attainable but were not small tasks that would be completed after only a few hours. My main focus was to pick ideas that would be continual and habitual in my everyday life. The four ideas that I think will be the most impactful in my life are 1. Be active physically and mentally. I would imagine this to be doing creative activities, brain power activity, as well as exercising regularly. 2. Stay in communication 3. Set goals for my days. 4. Follow a schedule. 4. Do puzzles/draw/read instead of watching TV.

Constraint Map

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Creating my constraint map was a very inspiring activity for me. Reading about past pandemics and how they have been dealt with as well as positives to this outbreak has allowed me to reflect on my time stuck at home in a different way than I previously have. Learning about other pandemics and how they turned out provides a sense of comfort. The same types of social distancing measures were put in place during the SARS outbreak and proved to be successful therefore it has given me hope that it will prove successful again in modern times. 

It is amazing to see how communities are coming together to support each other during this difficult time. Many people are working to support the elderly from going grocery shopping for them to playing music outside their houses. Many business owners and service workers are forced to innovate as to how they will provide their customers with their service or products. For example many gyms are making workout videos for people to do at home whether they are a member or not. My mom owns a kid shoe store and is delivering shoes to people’s houses as well as facetiming them while she is in the store in order to show them the options and sizes. The camp that I go to has increased their social media presence by doing contests and instagram lives in order to occupy kids for a little bit. As well, many online learning platforms have made their services free for the time being. It is incredible to see how supportive people have been to each other during this hard time 

Although it stinks to be stuck at home all day there are many positive things that are coming out of this. For one, many factories are shut down which has caused a decrease in emissions. People have more time to focus on themselves, spend more time outside, and focus on their health and fitness. But, once this is all over I wonder if people will make a habit out of their actions or if this will continue to benefit environmental factors.

Week 4

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This week for inspiration I decided to set 30 minutes aside as a brain break while doing my homework over the weekend. I was not being productive doing my work so I decided that that was the perfect time for my inspiration for the week. During this time, I listened to music and had a mini dance party in my room by myself. I had planned for this to only last about 30 minutes but it ended up lasting almost triple that amount of time. This small brain break that I allowed myself to have eventually allowed me to be more productive at the end of the day. It successfully cleared my mind. From this experience, I truly learned to understand the quote “sometimes you need to take one step back in order to take two steps forward.” When I do my work I normally try to just forge ahead and continue on without taking breaks in order to just get the work done. But, I have noticed that I am so unproductive while working in this way. This has unstructured inspiration has inspired me to take more brain breaks in order to become more productive.

Week 3

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This week for inspiration I decided to cook lunch with my friend. We went to the hillel and used their kitchen to make breakfast for lunch. It was really nice to be in a real kitchen and have space to move and hang around that is not a space I sleep or do my work in. The meal was great and super fun to make but I realized at this time how much I miss having a third space like this. This space had no specific association in my mind and allowed me to feel more free in the space. This not only gave me more appreciation for types of spaces like this but also gave me the realization of how easy and quick it can be to prepare your own meals.  

Lately, I have been feeling very unsatisfied with the food option on campus and always thought that cooking my own food would take up too much time and be too complicated to organize given that I do not have space or my own kitchen. But, this experience allowed me to realize that if I were to just put a little bit of effort into making my own food it would not take up too much time in my day and would be very enjoyable. During the time I spent cooking, I felt less stressed and was able to not think about some of my pressing responsibilities such as upcoming tests and assignments. I was able to fully enjoy the hour I spent cooking as opposed to what I thought would be me feeling like even more stressed that I was wasting my time. 

Week 2

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This week I was unable to do what I had planned so instead, I went to a physics talk. This talk is titled How do we  know what is going on in the world of a super super super small: testing QED in neutral beryllium – 9. During this entire talk I was relatively confused because I have no technical knowledge of this subject. But, I still found it really inspiring. I was able to expose myself to another subject that is so different from the subjects that I am directly studying. I learned that although quantum mechanics is useful in helping us understand the universe something is missing from it and it is partially incorrect. Through this whole lecture I learned that so many theories within physics are wrong but can be tested to be true. There are two theories that are tested in labs and both prove the other to be impossible but both are true. This craziness of the world around us is so inspiring to me. I learned that everything is possible and things just have smaller or larger probabilities. For example, if it possible that if you touch a boiling pot of water your hand would get colder but, it is just extremely extremely unlikely. This was really interesting to learn about and has inspired me to broaden my horizons. The benefit of going to a liberal arts college is being able to explore different perspectives and become a more well rounded person. I find that I sometimes get caught up with the things I am directly interested in and dont always use Bucknell’s libreal arts curriculum and resources to benefit me in the best ways. After this lecture I am inspired to go to more lectures like this and make a greater effort to embrace the liberal arts education. 

Inspiration – Week 1

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This weekend, I attended the Sophomore Brunch. This gave me the opportunity to network with alumni in a more casual setting than most of the networking I have done previously. I sat at a table with three different alumni working in all different fields. I learned about what they did and how they got there and it truly showed that the major you choose in college does not define your job for the rest of your career. I had recently been contemplating whether or not I wanted to double major because I did not see it having a close connection to what I want to do in the future. But, listening to them speak, I realized that if I enjoy learning about it, then I should pursue it and not worry about whether it will help me in the future. Having this conversation with the alumni also helped me to realize that networking is not as stressful as I have made it seem. This has inspired me to reach out to more alumni and think of networking as a more casual event than a formal thing I have previously thought. After this brunch I have made it my goal to reach out to more alumni to learn about what they do and ask them for advice on how to reach my future goals. 

Embracing Failure

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This semester I want to put less pressure on myself to succeed in regards to the evaluation I receive from my professors but allow myself to measure my own success in regards to the level of learning that is taking place. Along with this, I am going to push myself to accept failure as a means of further learning rather than a barricade on the road. Prior to now, I am normally on the quieter side in my classes for the fear of saying the wrong thing and seeming stupid to my peers or my professor. In efforts to embrace failure, I plan to speak up more in my classes whether I think my ideas are correct or not. This will be the first step in helping to change my skewed perception of success that has been ingrained in my head from the pressures of getting an A in earlier learning environments.

MIDE 300 HUMANS

Abby Harris (21), Abby Hislop (21), Alana Bortman (21), Alexander Smith (20), Allie Kotowitz (21), Amisha Chhetri (22), Caitlin Tucker (21), Carly Binday (22), Claudia Glasgow (21), Collin Smith (28), Elana Smith (21), Emily Chopoorian (22), Emily Goldman (23), Erin Mooney (21), Faith Reilly (22), Hannah Moriarty (22), Jabril Mohamed (19), Jane Meng (22), Liam Moriarty (22), Lindsey Knutzen (20), Liza Heyl (21), Lucia Singer (20), Madz Cabico (4), Matt Cervon (19), Meg Coyle (18), Natalie Notz (21), Natalie Ring (23), Nikki Bott (23), Olivia DeNicola (21), Prof. Allen (1), Renne Venico (19), Rowan Beiter (23), Tarrin Earle (20), Zack Yoelson-Angeline (14)