Session 10 Review

The seminar today discussed about Business Planning. At the end of the seminar a short time was also taken to talk about story telling.

During the part about business planning we discussed about how different small businesses like limited liability partnerships (LLP) could be run. Firstly, let me tell you something about small businesses. A small business is one which is independently owned and operated by the owners. In such businesses the control over decisions and operations are done by the owners. Business equity is not publicly traded and business financing is personally guaranteed by the owners. Such types of businesses usually have less than twenty employees. Another condition is if the employee count is below ten, it is termed a micro business.

We also spoke about LLP's which was a very new idea to me. I have been totally unaware of such a possibility in business and such ideas obviously encourage people to go into business wihtout having to worry so much about the cost of failure. Such a type of business hsd elements of both a partnership as well as a corporation. What happens is in a LLP all partners have a form of limited liability which is very similar to that of shareholders in a corporation. All this tends to make LLP's more suitable for businesses where each investor would like to take an active role. (Source: Wikipedia)

We then went about discussing how to actually get banks and potential investors to loan money and invest in your idea. This is the part where the business plan is key. What I found really interested is the part where after going through the financial data investors tend to look at the management team. I actually believe a good team could really be the key into getting a an investor to invest in a business. Most of the times market research and a lot of homework on the product and market will enable us to give a good financial production. This is probably the reason behind people also chasing their idea. But the difference is really in how well people can execute that business idea. All this is down to the team, how qualified and skilled the people are, past achievements in different fields, and in the end the working chemistry between each member of the team. A team full of superstars that cannot get along with one another and are not coherent is never a good team. All this actually reminds of a seminar we had a while back on the power of thinking in a group and individually. I can really relate that seminar to this now.

Next we also had a brief overview as to why businesses fail. I thought incompetence to handle it and inexperience were definitely up there and I was right about that. I believe if the management is competent and with a bit of experience funds can always be generated. Ofcourse there are certain circumstances where this does not occur and the business falls due to lack of funds. Another thing that struck me was also the passion to work for your business. A human mind is such that a lack of interest in anything will always result in that person not wanting to do it. So all in all we went throught the lifecycles of small businesses and I must say it was interesting. Though, I do no I probably will never start my own business, I think it is not about lack of passion and interest for me, but rather in my personality which is more likened to enjoying work in a large multi-national corporation.

Towards the end of the seminar we went through something called storytelling. I am quite sure I do not need to talk about what it is since we have all been told stories and have also told them and will them at many points in time. But what was important from this part of the seminar was the effect a good story teller might have. I believe a good leader is someone who can actually literally tell real or even ficticious stories to motivate, inspire and lead his team. Story telling is also a wonderful way of communicating with different types of people.

I believe story telling is an art and not something that can really be learned that easily. It is the ability to do it better that actually defines and separates out the outstanding individual with leadership and better potential from the rest. Story telling to me is all about creativity.

This was a different type of seminar where Prof Gilbert had a lot more to say than the class but there was still some participation for us. The main reason behind it was actually to get us to realise your reports are due in a week or so and how to go about doing it.

Session 9 Review

The seminar this week was used to discuss about scenario planning. So what exactly is scenario planning?

Scenario planning is a method for learning about the future by understanding the nature and impact of the most uncertain and important driving forces affecting our future. It is a group process that encourages knowledge exchange and development of mutual deeper understanding of central issues important to the future of your business. The goal is to craft a number of diverging stories by extrapolating uncertain and heavily influencing driving forces. The stories together with the work getting there has the dual purpose of increasing the knowledge of the business environment and widen both the receiver's and participant's perception of possible future events. The method is most widely used as a strategic management tool, but this and similar methods have been used for enabling other types of group discussion about a common future. (Source: Well.com)

Now that I have given you a scholarly approach to it above, let me go ahead and explain it in my words. Everyone has a habit of wanting to predict future moves and decisions. The method we actually use is by trying to figure out what is going to happen in that future and how we could react to it. That is probably my most simplistic understanding of scenario planning.

So how do we go about building a scenario? Well, the standard process involves: (Source: Net Based Management.net)

• identify people who will most likely contribute to a wide range of perspectives
• comprehensive interviews/workshops could be done so as to understand all likely future changes that can affect oneself and the company
• cluster the different views together to form a pattern
• from these draw out a list of priorities i.e. the best ideas
• create a rough picture(scenario) of the future based on these priorities
• work further to now detail the impact of this scenario on the company
• mark out early signs/warning signals for each different impact
• moderate, evaluate and review scenarios

This now gives us a rough idea as to what exactly happens in scenario planning. I am going to paste something below I found rather interesting. I pulled off the web and I think its important to read it as I am quite sure at some point in our lives we will have to use the scenario planning tool. (Source: Net Based Management.net) Now that you have an idea about what we discussed I will continue ahead with my thoughts on the seminar.

Some traps to avoid in Scenario Planning:

1) treating scenarios as forecasts
2) constructing scenarios based on too simplistic a difference, such as optimistic and pessimistic
3) failing to make scenario global enough in scope
4) failing to focus scenarios in areas of potential impact on the business
5) treating scenarios as an informational or instructional tool rather than for participative learning / strategy formation
6) not having an adequate process for engaging executive teams in the scenario planning process
7) failing to put enough imaginative stimulus into the scenario design
8) not using an experienced facilitator

Now that you have an idea about what we discussed I will continue ahead with my thoughts on the seminar. Prof Gilbert did explain all the above and said that scenario planning is a common corporate tool and was actually derived from military planning tools and intelligence methods. I think what I realised is most important is not to predict the future but to look at all the different possibilities that can occur. Each and every possibility has the same likelihood of occuring as the other. The aim of the scenario planning is just to keep you prepared for different types of occurances. At the same time it will also teach you and prepare you on how to handle the different future scenarios. Once the whole analysis process is over you get what is known as a scenario matrix. It is short, concise but tells you exactly what you need to know and is extremely useful. I love the idea of such a simple yet powerful table. It makes something difficult to think about and understand seem so simple, yet organised.

		VARIABLE 1
		Outcome 1A | V	Outcome 1B | V
V A R I A B L E 2	Outcome 2A -->	Scenario 1	Scenario 2
	Outcome 2B -->	Scenario 3	Scenario 4

It was really great learning about this tool. I think it really is useful to students, corporation and ofcourse the place it all started: the military. There is loads of information about it on the web and most of it is actually really useful.

The last section of the seminar was about making presentations for a case analysis. It was an optional part of the seminar but the whole class stayed back for it. It was a nice summary on what should really be done and I learnt a lot of new pointers from that presentation. An interesting one was that for a competition it is important to create a presentation targetted at the most influential judge (the consultant) so that he could influence the remainder of the judges. Other interesting points brought forward was also how to break up the time to create the presentation. One thing that Prof Gilbert said that really struck me was dont assist the powerpoint, but let it assist you. I realise now that it is so important that a presentation is made for the purpose of complementing what the presenter is saying and not vice versa. Think that is probably the most common mistake we make and I hope I learn in the future to avoid it.

All in all it was a detailed seminar but never the less filled with ideas. Gosh with so many ideas and details coming through every week I am beginning to worry about the exam! So confused about what can be asked! Just a month to go...oops!!!

New Wireless Profile!

Well just an update on the new 802.11n wireless profile since we touched on the topic earlier. I read this piece of news earlier on the web. Click the title to read the post.

802.11n Draft 2.0 Approved, Will Be Fully Compliant With Final Draft

Session 8 Review

This week involved the proof of concept presentations by different groups. It was a shorter class but none the less involved a great number of ideas and interesting discussions! My team put up a short introduction our project Integrated Information Distribution System for Jurong Bird Park in powerpoint slides.I've decided to use the SlideShare site we had discussed about in one of our earlier seminars to try and share my group's presentation. I do hope it shows fine!



I was really impressed with some of the groups ideas and presentations. Infact one groups (team visionaries) managed to come up with a flash presentation of the interface which was really impressive!

The rest of the seminar was used to discuss about 'Interactive Designs'. Critical Design Trends that should be implemented into applicationwere discussed about. Prof Gilbert showed a very simple game with us to illustrate the importance and power of design. The game requires two players to each take turn to choose a number from a set of numbers between 1 to 9 till either sidehas a summation of 15 from the selected numbers. He then went on to explain to us the concept of the same game could be made easier to understand by using symbols like X and O; and making it Tic-Tac-Toe. This illustration of effective design concept show us how interaction, ease of use and 'visual'-ness aids in a customers experience. It can be applied to almost any design and can help a customer have a better and more enjoyable experience.

This led up to the discussion on Used Case designing concept that helps in the process of system designs. Used cases are used in the analysis stage of a project. They help identify different functions and use what is called a used case diagram. The diagram doesn't actually tell you a whole lot but conveys the idea of the structure of the case. These diagrams are not that interesting and useful when views without the accompanied text, but along with the text form a very organised and structured analytical view of the topic. A Use Case Diagramc contains the following:

1. Actors: An actor represents any entity that performs certain roles in the given system. These different roles are actually the business roles in reality of that system. An actor in a use case diagram interacts with a use case.
2. Use case: A use case is a visual representation of a distinct business functionality in a system. To identify a business process as a use case, it is important to make sure the business process is discrete . Each business function can be thought of as a potential use case.
3. System boundary: A system boundary defines the scope of what a system will be. Every system reach a limit as far as its functionality is concernced. Similarly, use cases must have a limit. A system boundary of a use case diagram basically defines the limits of the system.
   

I hope after learning about used case concept I am able to use them in my project and go on to improve it. I enjoyed this seminar, thought there was not much discussion, because of the new ideas that surfaced in presentations as well as learning new concepts. Looking forward to next week by which time my group has to submit our technology plan.

Session 7 Review

This was the last seminar before our mid sem break. Prof Gilbert was really kind in finishing the class off an hour earlier! I must say though short, the class was interesting. The main discussion was on podcasting and how it can affect business today.

I have been looking forward to this class for a while now. I do subscribe to quite a few podcasts ranging from news to comedy to hobbies and even general knowledge. But this class actually got me thinking about it a little more than just a source of entertainment. I was never really sure about the technical aspects of a podcast. Infact I had always just assumed it had something to do with an ipod because of the similar 'pod' in the names. And well I was right! A podcast is basically a media file that can distributed over the Internet and can be played on mobile devices and computers. This allows them to be extremely portable. At the same time a podcast can be created by almost anyone. As long as you have a mic and the correct software your good to go!

The seminar discussed how podcasts are being used by numerous well known companies both as a means of internal and external information distribution. The great advantage here is that people can choose which podcasts to view and listen to. At the same time they can keep viewing them over and over again once downloaded. I believe podcasts can be used a method by higher management to pass certain messages down to their suboordinates. It would represent a fun element into working life and at the same time prevents potential problems being caused in the form of coordination of times of meetings as well as boredom in meeting process.

At the same time podcasting can be used a medium of education too. It has tremendous potential in such a field. At this moment I am using podcasts to learn Spanish. I must admit I have just started so I am still trying to get the feel of Spanish but podcasts give students and working people so many options. The podcast I am using is "Learn Spanish with Coffee Break Spanish" and can be downloaded using iTunes software. There are many such different podcasts to learn, the video ones ofcourse helping more in terms of science subjects. It helps kids learn and at the same time introduces that new "fun" and "cool" element to studies.

Most of the working crowd actually spends a considerable amount of time on travelling. And while travelling they also spend a considerable time using a portable media device like a laptop or mp3 player to play music or watch movies. This gives podcasts such a huge market to dive into. I really do feel the potential is tremendous. It need not always be in the form of a video podcast but could even be in the form of a simple tag line in an audio podcast. I remember from my National Geographic podcasts, each episode actually begins with a short 15sec ad for AT&T. The point is after a while of subscribing to podcasts users will tend to have the image of such ads permanently in the mind and I think that really helps so much in spreading a brand image.

I had followed a show called One Tree Hill for a while (not very interesting, but thought about something from it), where one of the characters uses a podcast as a method to talk out her feelings and also her life. So it kind of served as a diary for her in terms of her thoughts and feeling towards people, life and all sorts of issues. To me that makes podcasting a way of actually having a digital blog. You can't really see and read it but you can listen to it and still get everything you would from reading it. Just a different point of view I wanted to share.

Anyway back to the main topic. Podcasts can be created using different types of software. Depending on how good and professional you want them to be your costs would vary from $0 to thousands. Yes thats right, you can actually create a podcast for free if you own a mic and can download basic podcasting software. One such free software is Audacity. I have not tried it yet and am not fully aware of how to use it. I am going to try though and see if I can put up a podcast on of my blog entries just as a test and to record a few thoughts. I am not going to list out how you do it because one of my class mates has done an excellent job of it! Here is the link if you want to learn how to create a podcast!
(Thanks for sharing Arinto)

I hope you guys do try podcasting, if not creating atleast listening to some. I've always thought of a podcast as something that can be entertaining, educational as well as upto date! I use them for so many things: news, music, comedy shows, wildlife, philosophy, and languages. Anyways I do hope you try it out and enjoy it... that's all for me as I head into my mid sem break =)