CAPSTONE!

Blog Post 1

Hey everyone!

Hope you guys have a nice start with the new semester, my capstone project is Mercy McAuley high school. Mercy McAuley High School is a new all-girls, college preparatory Catholic High School sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.

I will be working with my clients Patricia Pagio (president), and another Patty (Marketing director) for this project. I'm really exciting to help them with their marketing strategy and analysis their current data to help them be able find the marketing standing point for new market, and understand which age of student they should be introduce their school and why people choose or not choose the school.

For the starting point of the project, I went to the high school meet with my client, and I got a really nice tour. It helps me get more ideas about this high school and where I can start help with. By the time I was waiting for their data set, I start draw the high school with AVM (Feature - benefits - value map), this is the big picture strategy I learn in the marketing strategy course, I think it's really helpful to me to understand what's the benefits that I should choose to delivery consumer value. My next step is draw the big picture for the school to understand which direction I should go for helping my client show their value of their school.

The most challenging part of this project could be the school policy, the marketing cannot directly go to competitors, middle school or mail directly to any family. It could be block for me to think more marketing ideas to help with project, but I’m still really confident and positive, I will be have a right marketing strategy to help build a better brand and develop the value to the consumers. 

 

What i would like to say to you

Time flies so fast, and it is close to the end of this project. Looking back at the whole process, I found that although I was confused, I finally find myself very rewarding.

In the process, I find out how those marketing tools/ methods which we learnt during the courses before are useful and crucial and they can be used to solve many practical problems.

The second finding is how to deal with the relationship with my client is also very important. We are doing a real project now, so many things are not idealized. Clients are doing real business and really busy. They don't respond to our emails as fast as our professors or assistances do. What’s more, when to set up the meeting, how to talk with them, which words should be used and what do they want to express if they say in that way…… I still have lots of things to learn.

The third is we should learn how to hand ambiguity and uncertainty. In many cases, clients only give an ambiguous goal, but we have to understand and expend it according to our own understanding and researches. There is a lot of uncertainty, but please be sure to have confidence in yourself. We are already a graduate student who is going to graduate soon, so we must believe in our professional ability. Do what we can and believe in ourselves.

I hope the capstone project will be a very interesting project to you and everyone who is taking or will take this course have a pleasant learning journey.

week 11

When I opened this website, I found out that this would be my last blog. Time flies so fast and everything is going to the end.
Looking back in this project, lots of confusion and anxiety, and some expectations were my feelings in the initial time. I hoped capstone can bring me to the real business world from the world built by the theories learnt from books.
Later, some emergencies occurred, which changed my client and made me do this project alone. To be honest, I was very sad when I heard this info. I had no confidence in myself and I didn't know what I should do next. But when I first met my clients—Jordan and Steve, they were so kind and friendly. And they also listed the work I needed to do, and the detailed work requirements really helped me a lot. Although I only meet up with them twice throughout this project, I think it is understandable. Because they are doing real business and very busy. I really appreciate their kindness and their help.
Another person I really need to thank to is my professor--Drew Boyd. He really gave me a lot of help, encouragement, and suggestions. During my PR2 last week, he also gave a new suggestion which was useful and worth to be added into my report. He patiently told me the difference between Eastern and Western cultures. In my culture, the customer is God. Everything I do is to get the recognition of my customers. I always hope that my plan can be recognized and adopted. This is my old thinking and what my culture teaches me. However, Drew told me that in Western culture, the only thing I need to consider is whether I did my best. Being responsible to the work is important and don't need to think about whether the plan will be adopted. The cultural differences between East and West are also one of the reasons why I came here. I really learnt a lot.
The next step is to give a presentation to my clients. Compared with other students, my oral English may not be as strong as them, but I will also practice a lot to make sure I can do a good job. Do the best for what I should do. This is also a performance of my responsibility!

week 10

During this week, I continued to focus on my final presentation and report. And I think I have done a good time management, because I have almost done my report and am polishing a solid final presentation and report for the project. This is what I need to do during the next week.

Unluckily, I haven’t gotten connection with my clients since I sent an email to schedule a meeting 2 weeks ago and a reminder letter last week. To be honest, it made me feel disappointed and ignored. I lost my clients! I am pretty unsure about myself, because my suggestions haven’t been checked by my clients yet. I have to say there wasn’t a day I didn’t think of the Capstone project.

Looking forward, I still need to keep working on my project, because I will have my 2^nd project review with Professor Drew Boyd next week. I hope Drew can give me some useful suggestions about what I have done.

I think I have a good start so far, and I look forward to continuing my drive to the finish throughout this week!

week 9

The end of the semester feels like it is not far away from here, and the deadline of this project is approaching faster and faster.

During this week, I have almost completed my deliverables, including the current competitors and potential clients name lists, and modified promotion strategies luckily.

It is not easy for me, because I need to finish collecting, gathering and compiling all the information by myself, and I used some of the marketing metrics to evaluate the company and its competitors. this week and the week after I will start working on finalizing the reports and presentations. It will be a hard assignment to analyze the outcomes from the information and data collected before.

However, I feel positive about the direction my project is going and I hope to make it even better in the upcoming weeks. Keep moving!

week 8

This week was a very busy week for me. I had a meeting with Drew and my clients--Steve and Jordan. The meeting was aimed at making Drew to know the basic information about my clients and their company, because the company is a young startup and it is the first time for my clients to work with UC Marketing Program. what's more, it needs professional guidance of how to position itself, that is the reason why we invite Drew to attend this meeting. And it is a good chance for me to get a better understanding of clients' real needs and wants. The meeting went really well, and Drew gave me a brand-new working direction.

I am working on the recommendations, and since my clients didn’t do any thing about promotion, it gives me a lot of space to “create”. But I am also very nervous and unsure about my suggestions because i haven't shown them to my clients and my clients are so busy, so it is not easy to set up a meeting with them in person again. I am still working on scheduling the meeting, as well as the recommendation part.

However, I think I should be confidence in my work no matter what happens, it will be nice to finish my first solo business and learn a lot from it.

week 7

I was glad to finally have class last week to get a better understanding of our project and that also make me aware that my presentation is not far away. As the deadline gets closer I feel a little bit nervous and anxious about my project complement and all the goals i need to achieve.

This week was quite productive, and I completed the current channel and social media strategies of my client and other competitors. The next step will be give some suggestions based on the current strategies and my research.  And Drew plans to set up a meeting with my clients and me this week to go over all the thing I have done. I look forward to meeting up with them, because so far I have only met my clients twice and I still can’t gain enough insight on the areas i need to improve my work. And I hope with the help of Drew, I can get have more clear ideas in mind and their opinions about my work so far.

The next week will be quite a productive one for me, so here's hoping that everything will be good. 

week 6

This week I'm feeling like everything is falling into place. I finished up all my analysis of my interviews, and I'm in the process of setting up my database and turning it into charters. It's nice to be able to start checking things off the list, but I'm still a little nervous about continuing to stay on my timeline. My client has a couple other things to do that she is out of city and can’t reply to me as quick as I would like it to be. And I'm having a little trouble with is getting alignment on times for meeting, so we can’t stay on schedule.
Another thing I am working on is the quantitative study. I have done a simple questionnaire, but I need to show my client first. I’m a little nervous about getting a representative sample size but I’m really excited to get some numbers behind the work I’ve been doing, but I really like doing this thing.
Looking forward to a great week of work!

Timing and Decisions

Timing and Decisions   

At the start of our class, we were warned that time management will be a key factor is our success (or lack of) for this class and our project.  Along the way, I have had moments of concern, but I established a timeline early on and then proceeded with that timing in mind.  I am not significantly off-track, I have dual-pathed some elements, but the changes I have made are not unreasonable, and I’ve made some changes in my personal life to help free more time to focus on school

Even last week, as I wrote out my Project Charter, I felt relatively good.  This past week, I made good progress on documenting what I know, what I need to know, and a plan to fill in the gaps.  Nothing significant has changed, so why do I now feel so behind on timing?  As I took a step back to examine the panic (only a slight exaggeration), I have realized that it is because the more I learn, the more I feel that I need to learn before I can make a choice, a decision.

I have always been slow and considerate when making choices and decisions, especially when school work is at hand, and regarding choices in my career.  However, I have felt relatively sound on my knowledge of this category until two weeks (or so ago), when I learned more about the emotion and personal drivers in decision making.  Now, I seem to feel that they is more to be learned and more “new” detail that needs to be added to my consideration set before I make choices and proceed. 

Additionally, I feel that putting my thoughts on paper seem to make them more “final” for me.  I am my own client, I am focused on building my own business.  If Kate “the consultant” makes a reco, there is no reason Kate “the client” must proceed that way. 

In retrospect, this writing makes me wonder why I am so nervous about making a choice that only affects me.  I can make reco's to a client and feel confident, why can't I do the same for myself as client?

 

week 5

Capstone is going relatively smoothly for me, compared with the pervious several weeks. The main lesson I have learnt is the importance of flexibility. Due to the reason that our clients are out of Cincinnati because of their personal business, this is to no one's fault and I can totally understand them because they are so busy. However, I have to handle delays in the finalization and signing of the charter, which may delay several components of project. it made me realize I need to remain adjustable to face other unpredictable situations in the future.

During this week, I am working on the current big picture based on my schedule and doing a lot of qualitative researches and feel like I’ve made a good amount of progress on gathering information for my capstone project. I’m still feeling confident, even though I know I have a bunch of work and researches to do. I feel like I’m on the right track because I’m sticking to the objectives as outlined. My plan for now is to continue the pace and try to dig deeper.

Reflecting on the 1^st physical class, I was excited to have class with professor and learnt some very useful tools and feedback. I will definitely use some tools in my own project.

Time is the first enemy, and the clock is still ticking. Keep working!