Wrapping Up the Semester

So, over all, this semester has been great! It has been super crazy with all my school work and hard exams, but I still had a blast. If you recall from my first blog post, I finished my mission on New Year's Eve last December, so it has been really fun getting back into school. Even though I have had large amounts of work throughout the semester, I have also been able to have a great time! Here is a link that will pretty much sum up my winter semester; skiing :) I love to ski, it is my greatest passion and I was fortunate to be able to go many, many times! All the footage in this video was taken by my GoPro on a family trip to Snowbird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9kPXNV8FfE&list=LLNu05zssET63ZquMogrqkiQ&index=2 

First Experience with Qualtrics

So this week I decided to try out Qualtrics. I have seen a couple surveys made through their site and they are really cool! I made my own survey two days ago, and to my surprise, 55 people have already completed it! It is way cool to mess around with it and see how it works, and of course the best thing about it is that it is free :)

Here is the link to the survey if anyone else would like to take a look:
https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8CvbXa2tU55yXOd

The cool thing about Qualtrics surveys is that it also shows reports. Here are the links to the report given by Qualtrics and also the report that I exported into a Google Doc
https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/CP/Report.php?RP=RP_9LxR57cYVhSlRHv 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uG0dcEprvRraE-AQM5iDqiX6itbpmwq0jLkJvfNHOic/edit?usp=sharing

I thought that all these things are super cool and I will for sure use this again in the future.

I Guess Blogs Can Work....

I just wanted to write a quick blog post testifying that blogs actually can be successful. I never really understood the importance of learning the basics of blogging because I never really thought that it could make a difference. I was wrong :) One of the topics in the mini conference is about blogging and how it can be used in a business manner and not just recreation.

What really proves this to me is my sister's blog. About 4 years ago she started a very simple blog with just some creative ideas of things that she had made for her home and her infants/toddlers. So many people liked her ideas that she began to sell clothing patters for children and some house decorations. Now, she has professional models she makes tons of sales and makes lots of money because of the simple blog that she had started.  Here is a link to her blog if you would like to check it out!

http://www.peekaboopatternshop.com/

I'm Starting to Feel Professional!

This was a very fun week in MCOM. I got two see two different styles of presentations that I enjoyed very much. Even though they were two very different styles, they both communicate the purpose in a very clear and effective manner.

The first style of presentation that I watched was a very formal consulting presentation. This style of presentation involved a very professional PowerPoint and team participation. Each team analyzed multiple complaints for a company, wrote a formal report with recommendations, and presented this information to the ‘board of directors.’ There was a very professional feeling in the room while each time was presenting.

The second style of presentation was a conference presentation using a flip chart. This presentation was especially interesting to me because I have never used a flip-chart, or even seen one before. A flip-chart presentation, even though without a very organized PowerPoint, is a great way to present information in a very friendly and effective way. I was surprised at how well this style captured my attention and how easy it was to understand and learn the topic that was being presented.

 I have already presented my formal consulting report, but am yet to present at the business convention. I learned a lot about formal presentations and working with PowerPoint and am excited to see how I do working with a flipchart. I am sure that I will learn just as much with this style as I did the former. I am sure that I will be applying the skills that I have learned/will learn about presentations in my future work career.

Good Work Team

Man, am I glad that this week is over. I really enjoyed doing the team consulting project and presentation, but it was so much work. I have never met together with a group so much. Our group, Brethren Consulting, met up on Saturday mornings and late at night; we even got kicked out of the Tanner Building because it was so late that the building closed. Even though it may not have been so enjoyable working so much, I feel that we worked very well as a team.

We presented on Thursday and we rocked it. Our presentation went really well! After doing all the work on this assignment I started to feel like a professional :) One thing that is cool, is that we did so much research about our topics that we really did become 'professionals' in that branch. When questions were asked at the end of our presentation, we were able to respond with a clear, concise answer.

Even though we finished one presentation, there is still a big one coming up! I will be presenting my five-minute masterpiece in a couple weeks. I really like presenting, so I think that it should go well!

Professional Networking Event (extra credit)

Today I attended an event of the BYU Management Society. It was located at the clubhouse of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Orem. I thought it was super awesome and I learned a lot. Also, lunch was included : )

The topic of the meeting was about innovation; DNA of an innovator. It was interesting because the speaker, Jeff Dyer, talked about many things that I am currently learning in marketing and in MCOM! It was really cool to see how some of the things that we are learning actually apply in the real world. In this post, I will talk a little about what I learned at the event.

The first thing that I learned is that innovators love to challenge the status quo. They like to think outside the box and do something that, sometimes, is not completely normal. However, it is by this way that the next billion-dollar idea can be brought about.

Second, the speaker emphasized that we are all more creative than we think. Part of our creativity is genetic, but we can develop our creativity. We can do a couple things to help spark a creative thought. One, we can modify things that already exist. If we do this, we already have a HUGE head start. This gives us a strong basis to follow. In addition, he explained that creativity loves constraint. It is hard to think of ideas when we have no constraints. When we have such a broad topic, it is hard to narrow down on a solution. If we have, however, specific constraints, we will develop specific answers.

The last thing that I really liked was the idea of acting differently. Sometimes people believe that innovators need to think differently. However, innovators need to act differently, and this will lead to a different thinking process.  

Overall, I loved the event and I took many notes. I plan to apply all of these things while I am here in school, but also later in my future career.

Go Team!

By this part of the semester, we have moved on to doing less individual work and more teamwork. I really enjoy working on team projects because I feel that this is what I will be doing most during an internship or my future career. The assignment for the team analysis project was introduced to us not that long ago and we have to write a multi-paper consulting report and present next Thursday! It has been a little stressful trying to get everything done, because we are far from it, but we have been working together very well as a team. Multiple times already we had met together to plan the next step and work on our report.

For our project, we chose to research and present a consulting plan to Vivint. We decided to select this company because they are a relatively new company and they still have many things that they need to improve to have better customer satisfaction. What we overlooked, however, is what kind of solutions we could possibly develop. After analyzing many complaints for the company, we realized that it will be a challenge to develop plausible solutions. Many problems deal with ethics which is a hard thing to change. The best solution is to replace management, but that is not really something you can do. By meeting together and planning, we were able to develop some logical solutions that will fix this problem.

Remote Meeting

The way that our group works together without being together is through Google Docs. For all of our team projects and presentations we have created several Google Docs so that everyone can participate and work together without needing to meet up. This has been very successful. At any time, we can add to our projects and edit what others have already written. I feel that this is one of the most effective ways to meet remotely because we can literally work on the project and not just talk about what we want to do.

The only downside I see with Google Docs is if we have a question about the assignment. If this happens, then we have to meet together or use a different form of communication because its hard type out clear questions and answers.

Brethren (Team WSB Presentation)

Today we presented chapter 8 as a team from our WSB book. Our presentation was based on solving problems and writing proposals. As a team, I feel that we did really well! Before presenting in class, we got together as a group two different times to format our slides and practicing the timing and speaking part of our presentation. I will do an evaluation on a personal and team level.

Personally, I feel well about my part of the presentation. I practiced a lot and I feel that it paid off. One thing that I feel that I did well was maintain good eye contact with the audience. Not once did I have to look back to my slides for help. In addition, I feel that I spoke clearly and in an engaging manner. One thing that I could have done better was my hand motions. I feel like I could have made more emphasizing motions. 

As a team, we worked really well together! As I said, our practice paid off. I think that all of our transitions were smooth. Everyone knew when the needed to speak and stepped up front to draw in the attention. In addition, I thought we looked great as a team. We dressed up with matching ties to look nice and snazzy! I also like how are slides turned out; I thought that they looked very professional. Even with all of our practice, we were a little rushed at the end. We probably should have taken some information out of our presentation to make everything a little more clear. 

My Life Now=Proposals

Well, if I did not know what a proposal was before, I definitely do now. This week I learned a TON about them for a couple reasons. First, because we have been working on them in class. On Tuesday, we started doing the research for our briefing article. For this assignment, we had to get a specific proposal passed off with Professor Middleton and we will be writing a brief report about that topic. Not only do we have this assignment, but also a new one was introduced to us today in class. In our teams, we will be writing a consulting proposal for a company. We will study the complaints filed against the organization and come up with a solution on how they can fix their weak points. In class today, we decided that we will study and write our report for Vivint.

Also today, my team presented about solving problems and writing proposals. I feel that this will help a lot in our team project because that is exactly what we will be doing. I had never really understood what a proposal is or knew how many different types there are until I studied about them for our presentation.

There is just one type of proposal I will not be doing this week....

These next couple of weeks will be a little stressful in this class. We went over the remaining assignments for the semester and there are many things that we need to do still. I will have to go into fifth gear to keep up with this class and all of my others.

Online Interview

I actually enjoyed doing the online interview. I was a little nervous at first because I had never done one before. The interview online definitely had a different feel to it than doing one in person, for this I am grateful that I could practice! A challenge that I had was to not look down at my resume while speaking. In person, the interviewer can tell what you are doing, however, online it may appear as if you are scared or nervous. Not making eye contact usually is not the best idea in an interview; you need to appear to be confident!

As well as being interviewed, I also enjoyed doing the interview. This part didn't feel that much different to me from an interview in person; you do not have to worry about as many things as being interviewed. While starting the interview, we had some technical difficulties and lost connection. I am happy that this happened because it gave me a small taste of the real world. Something like that could happen, so now I know how to react in that situation! Overall, I loved the experience.

My employer: Coleman Edwards (5)

The Good, the Bad, and the...Persuasive?

What I enjoyed most this week was practicing persuasive and bad news writing. Before studying this topic, I had never really realized that there is a difference in the writing style depending on the message. We learned that for good news, you put the main idea right at the beginning to motivate the audience. For bad news, you hide the main idea a little in the text so that you can warm them up to it.

For my persuasive writing assignment, I chose to write a girl why she should date me and for my bad news letter, I broke up with someone. I learned many things during this assignment, but I believe the saddest is that I discovered that I could more easily break up with someone than tell them why I am dateable. I hope that it is not too big of a problem :)

As a team, The Brethren, we started to work on our presentation; it will be on Thursday. It was enjoyable to get together as a group and work together; one of the things that I love most is working as a team. We were able to design all of our slides and get the master copy ready, all that we need to do now is practice!

One Step Closer to the Future

I feel that this week was the week that most inspired me. We did many things that I will be applying through my whole college and job career. The two things that were most inspiring to me were learning about resumes and job interviews. This is something that I have always wanted to work on, but never really knew where to start. The last resume I had made was in high school and my last job interview was when I was a junior in high school. Before, I only had a very basic knowledge of how to create a professional resume and present myself in a professional way. I was amazed at the resume I was able to create with the instruction we received in class and in the book.  

What I most enjoyed during the week was doing mock interviews. I felt as if I were able to speak well and clear. However, at the same time, I was able to receive some great feedback of things that I can do better. I will be sure to remember what I learned and apply it when I have to do a real interview.

The ABC's and Clouds?

We only had one class period this week due to the break last weekend! Two writing assignments were assigned to us last week that we were work on. It is funny, because I really do not enjoy writing one bit, but I actually enjoyed these assignments! With one assignment, we practiced writing paragraphs applying the CLOUD principle:

• Coherent
• Length
• Organization
• Unity
• Development

Our other assignment was to write a business memo applying OABC:

• Opening
• Agenda
• Body
• Closing

I liked these assignments because I feel like I really understand this part and I can see the improvements in my writing already. I will be sure to apply this in the future!

As well as the writing assignment, I loved our guest speaker. I had many questions about internships that she was able to clear up and made me excited to apply for some in the near future! In addition, I loved how she spoke about interviews. I feel that job interviews need to be executed very well to get a job. She was able to help me understand a little more about what I need to do. 

Lights, Camera, Action!

So, this week made me super excited! I am not going to lie; I am super excited that the grammar unit is over. One of the things that I love most is public speaking. This week was so great because that is what we really focused on. We had some great classes about how we can be powerful public speakers. One of my strong suits has always been talking and presenting to an audience, but after these last couple of classes, I have seen that there is still a lot of things that I can work on. That is why I am so excited! I can take a strong point and make it even stronger. I feel that this is something important because it is always used in the business world. 

As our book stated, you never know when you will be called out to give a report with little, or no notice. The class that I enjoyed most taught us how we can use the floor, eye contact, and hand movement to enhance our presenting abilities. We did some fun exercises that made me feel a little awkward, but helped a lot. In these next couple of weeks, we will start our presentations individually and in groups. I am excited to see how I can apply everything that I am learning and see the effects of the application. 

Ready. Set. Even if You're Not Ready, GO!

I believe that all of us are a little nervous for the upcoming exam. I am trying to decide if this week was more of a comforting week or a stressful one. It was comforting in the sense that we had a lot of review and practice for the exam.  However, it was a stressful week because I saw that I still do not fully comprehend all the grammar rules.  English has never been my strong point; therefore, all the nit-picky rules are a big challenge for me. Although this class will be a huge challenge for me in the grammar aspect, I am excited because I know that it is something that will make a big difference throughout my life.

Something I learned this week that I have always struggled with is the difference between the words ‘lie’ and ‘lay.’ In our textbook, I learned that there really is a difference; before I always thought they were the same thing! We use the word ‘lie’ when we refer to reclining something or somebody, and the word ‘lay’ when we refer to setting down an object. Two examples would be: (1) I am tired, I think I will lie down. (2) Can you please lay my book on that table?

With steps like this, one-by-one, I will slowly master an understanding of English grammar.  

First Presentation (Team Charter)

On Tuesday we presented our team charter. This was our first of many presentations we will do in this class. Of all the types of communication, presenting is one of my favorites. I love standing in front of a group of people to express and share my knowledge to others. One of the blessings that often goes unnoticed by members of the church is that in the church we develop great public speaking skills. We start to present ideas and talks when we are kids in the primary and will continue for our entire church career. Our presentation was really basic and went well. What I liked most were the evaluations that we did as a class afterwards. Professor Middleton introduced a method to evaluate our work that I really liked. By asking three simple questions we can do a solid evaluation: What went well, what should you stop doing, and what should you start doing? Throughout my college career I will continue to evaluate myself using these three questions.

Team Charter

One interesting thing that I learned this week is the difference between the words "whom" and "who." I have always had trouble knowing how to use these words correctly in a common text. The textbook explained this in a very clear manner that I will always remember when I have to decide which of the two words to use. 

Another interesting thing that I leaned is that using big, fancy words isn't always the best. We did a really fun exercise in class that made it pretty clear that short, to the point speech is more powerful. Professor Middleton taught us that we shouldn't talk in a way that people will understand, but rather talk in a way that people won't misunderstand. I feel that this is a simple tip that will affect the impression I leave in my work setting.

A Sigh of Relief

This post is called, "A Sigh of Relief," because it was really a relieving class period! We met up in our groups today and finalized the finishing details for our team charter by picking a name and logo. Having a group of 4 guys, we decided to name our group, "Brethren." We also designed our group logo on paper and JD did an excellent job making it a reality. 

Another sigh of relief was that after another difficult grammar quiz, Professor Middleton informed us that the grammar quiz grades would not count towards our class grade. At this moment, everyone made an audible sigh of joy. However, these quizzes are still very important; they will help us prepare ourselves for the exams.

The other aspect of the program that I loved was the opportunity we had to ask personal questions to the class. We wrote down three questions that we wanted answered and asked them to our fellow classmates! This was perfect for me because one of my questions was how I can reach out to know more people. My professor answered me by telling me to do exactly what I was doing in that moment. I really liked her response and I will keep it in mind. To reach out, we really just need to approach people and talk to them. It is as simple as that! This will be something that I will continue to apply throughout my college career; I will take advantage to talk with others when I am next to them.

I am anxious to see what else I will be able to take out of this class and apply in my daily life.

And So It All Begins

Well it is hard to believe that I have started yet one more semester here at the glorious university of BYU. In 2011 I completed a summer term and fall semester in the engineering program. I finished my mission to Brasil on the 31st of December and will be continuing my studies, however I decided to enter into the business program. So normally the life of a returned missionary is a little strange, but I got back into reality as fast as I could. Some of the activities I have already done since my arrival two weeks ago are snow hiking, pheasant hunting, snow skiing, and taking classes here at BYU.

I think the most adventurous thing that i have done since coming home was entering into the M COM 320 class. I had my first day today, which i knew would be good because music was playing, and we got divided into teams. I am already loving this class because teamwork is something that I have always needed to work on. I'm really looking forward to finding my strengths and fortifying my weaknesses so that I can be a powerful figure in my work setting. This class may be a little tough in the beginning because i still speak English with Portuguese grammar sometimes :) I am here to learn, so that is what I will do!