Final Reflection

Introduction

Corrine’s The Creative Economy class embraced the theory and practice of entrepreneurship. It started from design thinking, which taught us how to generate bright ideas and how to develop it for business. Even though Corrine’s class seemed to focus on innovation and how to find a market for business, it enabled us to practice creative leadership and how to manage a creative organisation as well as financial issues. In addition, it helped us to realise simultaneously how competitive the real business world is and how potential it is. Moreover, it was the process to find myself in the creative industry and in the creative organisation, which means that it enabled me to recognise my weakness and strength as a designer, a leader, and an entrepreneur. Design Balance, our company, started 3 people at the beginning and it combined with team 9, whose company name was Art Bridge, from the second semester by Corrine’s suggestion. This means that our company experienced more than any other groups in our class. The performance of Design Balance shows the reason why fail early and often. The main advantages of the module were not only learning from the tutor but also from the classmates. They fully presented their creativity and passion for learning. Corrine’s approach to teaching was creative and fresh. She gave us several ways of learning and practicing, especially learning by doing. It has been my pleasure to keep up with my classmates and Corrine’s teaching.                   

Design Thinking

Friday 18^th September 2009, Corrine’s first lesson was totally shocking for me. I experienced differences of culture and approaches between western and eastern. First of all, Corrine let us take off a shoe and put on the desk. Soon after, Corrine questioned us why we bought the shoes. A few students went in front of us and advertised their shoes.

Alice explained that her shoes were her mothers’. Alice’s shoes were not standout but she caught our attention by story. It was the first moment that we experienced how important storytelling is.

After a while, Corrine let us to interview people, to research what is the unfulfilled need and to make prototype. I was in a group with two Chinese classmates. Although we felt awkward to talk to unknown people outside of the classroom, we interviewed people followed her instruction, but we did not even know what prototype was. I was even confused between prototype and mock-up. We kept asking each other why the tutor brought that a big roll of vinyl, which is used for protecting fragile stuff, and what we should do. I found that other classmates were busy to make shoes by using the vinyl. They did not hesitate to make prototype and to present their ideas. They even used digital camera and laptop for the presentation. It was kind of improvisation. We, Asian students, might have been used to attend passive way of lesson, which a tutor gives a lesson and students listen to the tutor. Therefore, I felt kind of culture shock at that time. Corrine showed us the process of design thinking and innovation from insight to presenting prototype at the first day of the lesson. It was kind of overview of the module.

UK Department of Trade and Industry defines innovation as “the successful exploitation of new ideas” (DTI, 2003, p.8). According to DTI, innovation is a key to deal with international competitors. We learnt how to generate basic ideas for innovation and how to develop it through the course.

 

How competitive the real business world is

Corrine helped us to make blog and to use twitter, which was totally different world for me. It was not easy to access those things at first, but I am happy to keep up with them because it allowed me to recognise the exponential power of the internet and to get into it. Katz (1955) argues that technical skill is crucial for leaders to inspire members to achieve their job. Although I want to be a great leader, I was lazy to learn technical stuff like blog or twitter things because I did not need to use it when I worked. From my previous perception, those are for fun not for work. Soon, I found that blog is used by other module for submitting assignment and share ideas with group members. It is kind of mean for communication.  

Every team was assigned a video camera for documenting group meeting, it was used for presenting storytelling and personas as well. I still remember the moment to watch Creative Control’s video: Three Empathic Methods, 23^rd October 2009. It was the first video we had seen in the class and it was so nice and creative. I felt kind of intimidation because I had never taken video, so I did have no idea how to make video for presenting our team. I was eager to do something to catch up with such creative and talented classmates. Otherwise our group would stay retrograde status. Moreover, at that time Susan left Mace for studying architect, so our team remained just two of us, Jay and me. Jay was not sure he could make video, so I tried to make a video for storytelling but it was not good enough to present in the class. This clumsy video I made helped me to get a chance to learn video editing from a classmate later. Our team’s video, which made by Jay, won the best consumer and market research award on 30^th October 2009. Although 7 out of 9 teams won awards at the week, the award encouraged us significantly.

To practice creative leadership in Design Balance

During matching a team, I was desperate to find someone having the same direction as mine and to show me off for getting attention from classmates. I sent emails to people who I wanted to be with a team and published my simple version of portfolio at my blog. Yet it was not successful. Even though I was not able to get classmates’ attention, I do not regret it because I tried what I could have done. Through the process, I learnt what problems were and how to approach people. Since we could not find suitable people for each other, Corrine helped our group fix to combine with 3 people, Jay, Susan, and me after several adjustments. Jay, Korean, is from fashion industry. Susan, Nigerian, is an architect. I am Korean and an interior designer. Although we did not choose each other for our team, we tried to get on with well.

At the beginning of our group performance, I was proactive as I did when I worked in a design company. Most of us hesitated about presenting our ideas because no one was sure what we are going to do. I prepared summary of assignments for the meeting and booked seminar room in the LRC as a meeting venue. They gave me a role as an overseer in our group because I have several years of work experience.

I believe that a leader must be stronger than members in a way. Although I have experience of being a leader in my career, it was not an easy task to lead a group with uncertainty. Therefore, I focused on understanding the context of the lesson, planning for assignments, and explaining to members what I understood rather than listening to the members’ ideas. Since we were doing two modules together as a group, The Creative Economy and Contemporary Issues in the Creative Economy, I had to prepare two modules of context for the meeting. The way I lead our group enabled us to move forward but made the members passive. I found that the members started to show me their planning when I stopped presenting my ideas. Ibboson and Darsø (2008) point out that good creative leaders balance their interventions with listening as well as observing. According to them, a leader encourages creative communication by using openness and empathy. This means that the way I lead my group was not suitable to generate creativity from members. I realised that I need openness and listening for promoting my leadership. I might not have noticed it if I had not experienced to be a leader of team 8.

Cox (2005) emphasises that creativity is a solution to success of future business and national property. It seems that either a leader or an entrepreneur needs to foster capabilities to manage creativity for successful operating organisations. Design Balance allowed me to test my leadership in different circumstance from I used to. Entrepreneurship closely involves with leadership. I believe what I learnt from being a leader of team 8 is valuable for my future business.

Thanks to Corrine’s suggestion, our team combined with team 9 from the second semester. Through the discussion about our business, we decided to keep the main concept of Design Balance’s business plan and to do fashion accessory as a product. Monesa, who is Chinese and doing fashion, was given the role of a leader by the result of voting. It gave me space to observe members personas and circumstance of group performance. In addition, I learnt from different approach to leadership from Monesa.       

Managing Creativity and Innovation for Entrepreneurship

We learnt how to generate bright ideas and innovation in the class. Following Corrine’s instruction, we interviewed for empathy, analysed it by empathic methods, made prototype. At the beginning, we planed to provide caps for KU students with KU logo because we found that it did not exist in KU. Wilson and Gurling (2007) argue that networking plays the main role of getting useful information in entrepreneurial perception. Since we are all international student, it was not an easy task to build up networking for business. We framed our target in our daily life, Kingston University and started to build up useful networking. Networking allowed us to get information about our target market and competitors. Since we spend most our time at Kingston University, we were able to get preferences our potential customers’ by daily insight.

Toffler and Toffler (2006) argue that it is possible to generate great outcome by insight, as an example of Yahoo. We found that students tend to seek fun and novelty.  

However, we had to change our business product after taking finance lesson. According to manufactory research, it was too expensive to make caps for us. They demand minimum quantities for making. Moreover, small amount of quantities were more expensive than large amount of product. Therefore, we decided to choose product which we could make ourselves in workshop. Osborne (1995) argues that it is a matter of consequence for entrepreneurial strategies to foresee risk and to prepare for the worst. For business, financial issues are the most important. We had to consider our budget for business. It was time to consider whole aspect of business as well as our abilities.

Catherine’s finance lesson in 2009 gave me different perspectives of loan for business. It also gave me possibility to set off my business in the UK. I used to consider the loan as a debt, so it was too risky to use it. The idea of using a loan was totally out of my consideration for business before her lesson. Catherine showed us how to negotiate with bankers for taking out a loan by performance of designated classmates in the lesson like improvisation.

By considering our budget and capability, we were able to have an agreement about making scarves but it was difficult to have an agreement about design. Since we had 4 designers in our team, we brought 4 different ideas for scarves and 4 of us wanted to embody it. I suggested making scarves by dyeing colour for uniqueness but I decided to withdraw my ideas for group and to help them to make scarves. Team needs collaboration. In addition, our company needed to test making capability of product as a design company. Best (2006) argues that design embraces the process of ideas and the process of making a product. This means that it is important to have capability to embody ideas as a designer. This notion can be applied into a design company as well.

Companies, which serve customers with design, must have ability to make it no matter how to produce it. Howkins (2002) argues that everyone is creative in their own way and creativity does not need to bring an economic outcome, but it can do so if it generates economic implications. It seems that creativity exists everywhere, so the key to create innovation is how to develop it.

Moreover, we did not have much time to spend on discussing design, it was time to make product and to sell it. Sosa and Bhavani (2005) introduce IDEO’s prototyping method, which is called by its founder as “fail early and often to succeed sooner” as a good example of design process. It seems to stress the importance of trying ideas. The notion of “fail early” can be applied many places such as testing possibility of business. We decided to make several design of scarves and got feedback from people when we attended the trade fair. Our next step was to sell in real market.     

Selling Scarves

26^th April 2010, we sold our scarves at the main reception at Penrhyn Road Campus. Selling product to people is not an easy task, especially they do not come for shopping. I used the tips, which I learnt from interview for shoes at the beginning of the module. I had to talk to myself ‘do not afraid of being refused or ignored, be positive’ for pretending confidence in myself. I experienced it worked and I felt the talking skill to unknown people developed by doing more and more. I explained not only our scarves but also who we are and what we are doing like storytelling. I realised that people buy product not just because of product itself. This is why storytelling is necessary for business. Storytelling makes product more impressed and valuable. People might buy product because of seller’s passion and attitude. During the selling event, I learnt strategy from our members. Monesa and Yang prepared chips and handmade bags as a gift. They also used buy 1 get 1 strategy for hair band. Jay tried to sell outside of the reception like guerrilla. I could imitate them to sell scarves. At the event, we tried almost every strategy we knew. I also learnt useful tips for selling. At the reception, try someone who shows their interests in our product, but do not spent too much time on explain product, try to talk about the person such as where did you get the tattoo? It might be helpful to build up empathy between a seller and a buyer. If the person looks interested in us, then explain our product including advertisement, business, and members. On the street, try people who look happy and positive, maybe someone with a girlfriend or boyfriend, they might not want to look mean. As a result, we sold 7 scarves at the event. It was the most memorable moment because we tested our business possibilities in real market and we tried what we had learnt from the class. We felt good fellowship during the selling event. In addition, we were able to encounter feedback and reaction from customers.        

  

Methodology of Corrine’s lesson

Corrine helped us to experience variety of methods for learning such as blog, video camera, presentation, and so on. Because of my weak English, I was not able to understand the context in the class at the beginning. I even draw shoes in a box when Corrine let us to draw circular things for brain storming. As soon as she knew my difficulty in English, she uploaded the summary of the lesson on our MACE blog after the lecture finished every week. It was really helpful to understand for me. She also tried several ways to encourage us to keep developing such as week award. Although the week award was not too competitive to win, it made us happy when we got the award. It also encouraged us to keep an eye on what other teams were doing.

 

Conclusion

Corrine gave us various opportunities ranging from generating bright ideas to treating customers. Learning by doing is the most meaningful aspect of the course. The course promoted my capabilities in several ways. Firstly, it gave me tendency to make prototype for developing my design. Secondly, it allowed me to realise my type of leadership and entrepreneurship. I need to promote openness for leadership and to be more positive for entrepreneurship. Wilson and Gurling (2007) state that there is entrepreneurial personality trait: overoptimistic. What is the most impressed thing, through the class, is fostering proactive behaviour and being more optimistic.

In terms of group work, we experienced a dispute, it helped us to learn how to deal with different culture and people. In addition, it was a great experience to have fellowship with people from different countries and background. Our performance might have been clumsy through the process of business. It was great to watch member’s enthusiasm about business.  

To sum up, I learnt and practiced design thinking, creative leadership, and entrepreneurship through the class. I am sure that I will be a great leader, entrepreneur, and designer in the future based on what I gained from the course.

 Bibliography

 Best, K. (2006) Design Management: Managing Design Strategy, Process and Implementation. Lausanne, Switzerland: AVA Publishing SA.

Cox, G. (2005) Cox Review of Creativity in Business: Building on the UK’s Strengths. [Online]. Available at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/coxreview_index.htm (Accessed: 22 February 2010).

DTI (2003) Innovation Report: Competing in the Global Economy: The Innovation Challenge. [Online]. Available at: http://www.climate-tech-policy.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2003/DTIinnovReport12-03.pdf (Accessed: 10 May 2010).

Howkins, J. (2002) The Creative Economy: How People Make Money form Idea.London, UK: Penguin Books.

Ibbotson, P. and Darsø, L. (2008) ‘ Journal of Management & Organization’, Directing Creativity: The Art and Craft of Creative leadership, 14 (5), pp 548-559. 

Katz, R. L. (1955) ‘Harvard Business Review’, Skills of an Effective Administrator, 33 (1), pp.33-42.

Osborne, R. L. (1995) ‘Management Decision’, The Essence of Entrepreneurial Success, 33 (7), pp.4-9.

Sosa, M. and Bhavani, R. (2005) ‘Fail Early, and Often to Succeed Sooner – IDEO Service Design’, Managementtoday, 05 August [Online]. Available at:

http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/search/article/548074/fail-early-fail-often-ideo-service-design/ (Accessed: 01 October 2009).

Toffler, A. and Toffler, H. (2006) Revolutionary Wealth, New York, USA: Random House.

Wilson, N. and Gurling, C. (2007) Managing Creativity and Innovation. Surrey, UK: Kingston Business School.

We sold our scarves today

At the beginning, it was awkward to sell something to people especially they did not come for shopping. Moreover, it was the first time I have ever sold something to unknown people. Most of the time, either I simply give friends my stuff, which can be sold as a second hand, or using internet for searching customer. However, I was able to sell a scarf to KU student today. As a group, it was better to talk to people about our scarves and I could imitate our member how they did for selling. Monesa and Yang explained design and helped people to try scarves on, Sujee tried to introduce our scarves to walking people, Jay, the most surprising approach, ran out with scarves to outside of the reception, which was designated place for us to sell our product.

Jay tried to find customer outside of the place instead of waiting for purchaser. His proactive strategy was successful. We sold more than half of scarves and most of them were sold outside. During I tried to sell, I brought to mind what I learnt from the first lesson from Corrine, which was interview people about their shoes. What I learnt by the interview is.

Tips for interview

   1. Don’t be afraid of being refused.

   2. Try to get interviewees as many as possible. (quantity>quality)    

   3. Try someone with nice shoes and say ‘Wow, I like your shoes. It’s nice’.

      This way is much better than asking whether they have time for interview.

   4. Try people with friends. The rest of friends may give you answers voluntarily before you asking.

In this time, I tried to say ‘why didn’t you come to us earlier because we were struggling to find a model for our advertisement. You look nice, you should have helped us to appeal in our advertisement’. They were happy to listen to what I was saying and allowed me to take photo and I promised them sending photo. I also said ‘you have an opportunity to take photo with designer’. I finished sending them photos. I hope the photos arrive to the right person.

I am very happy to sell our scarves with my members and to learn practical knowledge through the event. Now I am going to stop writing and to send our lovely customers their photos 🙂

 

I am explaining variable application of scarf to people, who does not want to be taken photo.(Jay, thank you for taking me photo and concern about me. Most of time, I don’t appeal in our group photos because I am the one who take the photos. He concerns it.)

I am showing her our advertisement.

 

I sent our customers  email with their photos.

Thank you for purchasing our product and support our study. I’ll attach your nice photo. It must be the most memorable moment for us through whole our business practice at Kingston University. Hope you enjoy your photo and our scarf. Thank you very much.

 1.Gozde.kxxx@yahoo.com

2.Shaddy_bxxx@hotmail.com

3.Oac_oac_pxxx@yahoo.com

4.Kerron xxx@hotmail.com

5.star xxx@hotmail.co.uk

 6.a.lewis@kingston.ac.uk

Kind regards,

Jong Hwa

Design Balance

Kingston University

Reflection of 12th March

Worldwide breast cancer

This Friday I experienced different process of brainstorming. It was really interesting and helpful because I am always curious how generate bright ideas efficiently.

I was sitting at the table which was written CANCER ORG PARTNERSHIP with Jay and Sujee.  

 

I wrote list of possible organizations on the table:

Hospital

Doctor communities

Patient families 

Nurse communities 

Media (newspaper for showing their consideration of sick people as an advertisement) 

Women communities (hobby, career) 

Race for life (Cancer Research UK) 

NHS. 

Corrine let us look around other table and add our ideas. When I saw lemon bikini on other table, I got an idea of fashion show with glamorous models wearing sick lemon bikini. It might give messages and get attention of male and female. 

When Corrine made us to write down our ideas on the paper, my ideas were developed linking on the internet.

Lemon bikini – fashion show – making video – youtube – worldwide breast cancer

It was really nice for me in that I experienced that my ideas were improved efficiently by others’.

 

Reflection of 05th March

Stuff Brand Process

Stuff International Design Limited (“Stuff”) is doing branding business. Although we had been given its presentation, we were not sure what their business was. We discussed our understanding. From our interpretation, they are doing business, help companies to improve their identity and value of product. In other word, they do like a chef because chef makes good quality of food using raw material. Before meet Stuff, normal company might be state of raw material but the company might became a high quality of product like designer product. The concept of their business needs to articulate for potential customers. Without clear understanding of their business, it is difficult to attract customers, especially Asian counties. Since they want have international on-line business network, they need to show their business clearly. Using images or cartoon may useful. It might be helpful to hold design competition in order to gather ideas from different countries. It also be useful to get recognition of potential customers. It does not need to huge scale of competition or amount of money. More important thing is frequency to get attention by competition. Therefore it might be easy to get award in order to inspire people to apply frequently. Through the application people feel familiar with Stuff and clear what their business is.   

Design of scarf (Design Balance)

I designed a few scarf  for our business.

It might be put letter ‘Who am I?’ in front of the scarf and put letter ‘I am KU’ in the back when people wear.

About The Apprentice Challenges (26th February)

Our task was to create awareness and stimulate involvement in GRMTV through:

1. A launch strategy: should it start in the UK and then go abroad? Or should the launch happen worldwide from the start? How should this be done within a limited budget?
2. How should GRMTV build their audience and encourage interaction and feedback?
3. How can GRMTV generate revenue from their audience or other partners?
4. How should the format of the show be presented so as to generate the most interest?

GRM.TV, is for the 18-25 yr age group and specialises in new, unsigned and undiscovered musicians and bands.

‘grm.tv: everyone has to start somewhere’, it is found face of their website.

As they publicise, I considered a starting point of bands, how to get people familiar with their unsigned fresh band’s song. I think people listen to music subliminally at first, may be on the street or shops.

What if people can listen to unsigned band’s music at pubs when they drink beer.  

What if people can listen to unsigned band’s music when people buy clothes or mobile phone.

It would be great to have chances to get attention from people!

Jay and I decided to interview people at the shop, especially shop managers.

We asked to managers that if we could provide new band’s fresh song, could you play at your shop or give them a chance to perform in front of your customers.

Most of their respond were quite positive and they recommended us to contact their head-office. They seemed to expect fresh songs since they listened to similar songs everyday.

There are full of strategies and information at internet. We wanted to find out real reaction from potential market and possibilities. We presented what we focused on for grm.tv and we got the second award. We are very happy with it.

Our questions: If we have unsigned band,

•  
  1. will you give them a chance to perform in front of your customers? (for pubs)
  2. and we provide you their CD, will you play their music at your shop?(for pubs, clothes shop, mobile shops)
  3. and we provide you their CD, will you provide the CD to your customer as a bundle, when they buy your mobile phone?

Our Interviewee

1. Kai’s (Thai food & pub): They don’t have licence at the moment but they will do, when they have licence.
2. DRUIDS HEAD (pub): They have licences so it is possible.
3. UNIQLO : Please contact head office (helpme@uniqlo.co.uk)
4. Phone 4 you (mobile phone shop) : Please contact head office (talktous@phones4u.co.uk)
5. T-mobile : Please contact head office

Reflection of 19th February (website)

It has been long time to write reflection. I thought that I would catch up with what I missed since my last uploading. Every time I tried to write something, there were too many things to do, so I put them off next time.

It is not so difficult to find that postpone something makes thing more difficult.

Today, I’ll start to do my reflection.

 

Making website

Last 19^th February, we learnt how to make website.

What should we consider when we make website? Layout, image, logo, contents, reaction and so on.

Their performance presented reaction of website. We experience that some website don’t react when we click icons.

We made prototype of website. Tried to layout of images, logo, text.

In my opinion, it is important to attract people by visually, which shows simple and easy to understand. After that provide information what people want. My prototype might look familiar because I like to find out easily when I do web surfing. 

What I did on 25th January (for Specialism)

Happening

Paper is probably the most common material around us. We use paper everyday. Though it is a very simple material, its quality is broad and it can be transformed. It can be strong by using layers. It can form 3D structures by folding. It can create layered images by usingthin paper. It is the most boring and exciting material at the same time.

I made a video for presnting our Happening. Please find attached below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_8JNkn5VNY  <–click here

About Fair Trade (10th December 2009)

I almost gave up the trade fair in that I was struggling with writing the essay for the Contemporary Issues in the Creative Economy, which was heading to the deadline, the following day of the trade. Jay encouraged me to do something for the trade. He brought up ideas as well. I was just able to do what he asked me to do. It was making our business cards and designing label for our clothes. We were happy to join the trade even though our ideas were not standout. It was quite interesting to watch what ideas our classmate brought at the fair. We learnt a lot from them. I am very pleased to be their classmate.

I will attach what I designed for business cards and labels.

Please click to find out attached below.

Business Card   <– click

LABEL-1 PDF    <– click

Story Telling

I made a video file for story telling after watching team 3’s video on 23th October 2009. I really wanted to present our team by video like team 3. At that time, I did not know how to edit it but I did my best to make video. I felt bit ashamed of what I made since I just took it without stopping. It might not look intriguing but you might guess how much I was eager to do it.  I regret not to finish off the story yet.

Please find attached link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEnTZPIf6aE