Final Blog

This class has been of great value to me, because of this group project. In most classes, there is not a real hands-on approach. Granted, there are group projects and speeches, but who cares? Those projects didn't put much of a real life sense into it, if that makes sense. But to give us a goal “build a prototype for the persona you have created”, was great because we were the actual marketers. We could do everything our own way, whenever we wanted (granted that we had our updates on time, but I assume that's pretty accurate with what real marketers are faced with)! Here are a couple of the things I've learned:

One skill that I really kinda “underestimated” was obtaining feedback. In my head it was kind of like a checklist system. I build the prototype, take it back to the parents and have a few questions, “Would your child play with it, does he like the colors, does he like the overall design”..But to get to the customer insights, you have to dig deeper than that. You have to probe in between the questions to really find out, what they would rather have in a toy. Because if prompted with a “yes or no” question, then they will most often choose yes because they don't want to disappoint you, and then you will end up making a prototype that won't sell on the market. Questions like “tell me a couple of concerns you have with this product”, or “what colors would you rather have on a toy like this” are questions that get the customer to become proactive. Also, to go in and actually see the toys they already play with and take pictures is what gaining customer insight is all about. This experience has exemplified the lecture in class on prototypes and made it real. Its a whole different world from the class room to actually gaining feedback.

Another thing that I've really improved on and understand better is the whole prototype process (idea generation, building, rebuilding, rebuilding, etc.). One thing that was difficult for me to overcome was to understand that the prototypes can look like crap and its ok(except for the final prototype of course). If I build something, I want it to work, and to see it and admire it. But building prototypes and updating them here and there was definitely different for me, because soon as the basic “features and functions” were there, I had to drop it no matter how ugly it looked. But more than anything, the lecture I discussed before greatly helped us in building our prototypes, because we kind of got a peek at what materials are preferable for what. More than anything, building a prototype was fun! This isn't exactly building a bird feeder for mom, we are building a product to attract customers, then getting our feedback and rebuilding, and so on and so on. It really lets the imagination do some work.

I definitely think working with my group contributed to my learning. The topic that my group chose was one that I lacked knowledge in, but its kind of crazy to think that I know a lot about that persona (5 year old boy) and I could design many other things for the bathroom that would probably benefit him and the mother. Usually, when I work in groups there are a couple/few guys in the group so the overall discussion and outcome of the project is male influenced (if that makes sense?). But in this group, working with 4 girls was a challenge at first for me. It was difficult to adapt to, but in the end it was a great learning experience for me, and to be honest, I don't know who else I'd rather be working with on a prototype for a 5 year old, than 4 girls. As far as experiences(emotional) with the group, the girls are really nice and outgoing which made it nice us to get different opinions in. As with the process itself, it was pretty relaxed up until the presentation, which is how it always goes. Then everyone just tries overly hard to prepare for their part of the speech, which isn't a bad thing. And as for the professor, didn't come in contact with him much, but feedback was always good on our updates, so there obviously wasn't any kind of conflict of ideas or anything.

One thing I'd like to mention is the fact that I definitely underestimated this project, because just about every other project in McCombs (that I've done), has been very easy and mundane. And at the start it does seem like a burden, but once I started to find a place in the group, and understand the work, I started to enjoy it and in turn it all became easier.