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Through the Innov8 expo, I have gained more insight into how to communicate my thoughts and ideas to strangers and break down my pitch so that it wouldn’t be too long, but also kept engaging. Furthermore, the developments of my communication skills have also been supported by creative and critical thinking, cutting down the pitch to only 1 minute, allows me to be creative in how I could be able to do so and keep the same level of information, but also key points I should include to be able to convey the message across.

My communication skills have developed through the constant need for them to be used, where communication was essential in preparing for the expo when setting up our stalls and being organised, but also pitching our product to the people who came to our stall. Action project has also allowed me to develop my creative thinking, where the use of divergent and convergent thinking has helped me think outside the box, but also become more considerate in the choices I make to create the best possible outcome. Furthermore, my critical thinking has been developed to allow me to be able to point out the key parts of my pitch, condensing it to a 1-minute pitch to only include the key aspects of our product to present to the audience.

Creative and critical thinking, but also communication skills developed can allow me to be more simple and direct with my communication without the need to explain unnecessary topics. Furthermore, it can allow me to be more creative in my thinking processes through the use of divergent and convergent thinking, considering more creative, but also more effective solutions that may not have been thought of before.

During the Innov8 expo, I was feeling quite nervous as I would have to speak about our group’s product to a group of strangers, but our stall wasn’t as captivating as others with no interactive aspect or pleasing aesthetics. But by thinking of how much effort has been put into making our pitch engaging and direct, but also persevering through the expo, perseverance being one of my character strengths, I was able to get through the nervousness I was feeling. As a result, by the end of the expo, I felt proud but also relieved to be able to present my product to strangers, but also being able to do it effectively.

I have developed my divergent and convergent thinking where before, I didn’t even know what they were, but now, I am able to use them to both break down and find possible solutions to a problem. Furthermore, it has allowed me to think outside the box and be more creative with my thinking, where by using divergent thinking, I have been able to be more considerate about all the possible solutions, lowering the possibility for more effective solutions to be unthought of.

Through Action Project, I have been able to learn that I am able to work quite well in groups, where I can communicate my ideas to group members, but also be able to listen and expand upon their ideas to be more effective and creative solutions. As a result, it allows for a connection to be established between group members, allowing for better teamwork and collaboration within the group.

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After the Innov8 pitch, we gained critical feedback on what we should improve upon on our pitch and product to be more effective when selling it to other people, this feedback is more research into why our problem is a problem and fixing up our finances to be less exaggerated. Furthermore, with the idea to also start preparing for our Innov8 expo, we started to write up our 1-minute pitch, but at the same time, start to include and fix all the aspects that needed improvement. This allowed us to use our Creative and Critical thinking skills, using skills to be able to multitask our work such as adding all the feedback to our pitch and being able to complete everything for the day of the expo. Additionally, we also had to use these skills to be able to condense our pitch down from 5 minutes to 1 minute. This was done by breaking down the pitch into distinct parts, these parts being the problem, solution and our finances. Then from these parts, we picked out the key ideas, only including them in our 1-minute pitch to not only keep it short but also be able to convey the most important parts of our idea.

When preparing for the expo, we also created posters and pamphlets to be able to convey our ideas through other means besides the pitch, which the audience could read after or before our pitch to be able to keep them engaged. The use of these posters will also try to attract people to our stall, keeping our others both simple and colourful to be able to stand out from the other stands and allow the audience to become interested in what our stall is about. The pamphlets will also be used to provide additional information about our product besides the posters and our pitch but also will serve as a takeaway item to allow the people who walk by to be able to not forget about us and what our product is.

As the amount of work that needed to be done before the expo, we communicated with one another on what parts needed to be completed before the start of the next lesson, which helped us be organised throughout the lessons before the expo. Moreover, we also collaborated to be able to put together the posters and choose what information to add to them, as well as adding new and extra ideas such as improving the rewards system to be more rewarding to make our product more appealing to the students rather than just giving them a customisation system, which was also said to be potentially distracting by the judges.

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31/10 Action project marketing pitch presentation

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31/10 Action project marketing pitch presentation

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After pitching our idea to the judges, we received feedback on how well we were able to market our product to them. Some of this positive feedback included how we based our product on learning, the description of how our product worked and the prototype pf what our product looked like.

However, we realised that we still had a lot of work to do until we were ready for the expo in week 6. Some of the parts included the finances where it was a bit too overestimated, more research into existing ideas similar to ours so that we could be more unique and stand out more, and the reward system of our application to allow it to be more rewarding for the students but also improved and new functions that could enable our application to be a more effective learning tool for students and teachers. As we continued to prepare for the expo in week 6, we should continue to collaborate to be able to share ideas on how we can improve our product but also think creatively to add and identify any parts of our idea that we could add, but also refine to be able to make our product more effective for solving the problem we have picked. As a result, this pitch was an excellent way to identify the parts of our idea that we were strong in, but also parts that we still needed some improvement in.

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Refining our INNOVATE Marketing pitch 24/10

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Refining our INNOVATE Marketing pitch 24/10

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Continuing our innovative marketing pitch slides, we were nearly finished with our slides, however, there were a few parts of it that were still unclear, such as our partnerships and how we would distribute our product, not having been able to confirm how we would do either of them. As a result, we collaborated and brainstormed the possible partnerships that we could create for our product, concluding on partnering with Google, local schools, and the Department of Education, with each partnership providing benefits for both parties. Furthermore, the plan was initially for teachers to buy subscriptions to our product to use it, this being linked with their Google account, but realized that it was too inefficient and would cost the customer side. Thus we finalized the school itself purchasing the product, linking in with the Department of Education as public schools will get a discount, while private schools will have to pay the full price.

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Working on our INNOVATE Marketing Pitch 17/10

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Working on our INNOVATE Marketing Pitch 17/10

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As we continued to work on our Innovate marketing pitch, we started to assign roles to one another and conduct research on our problem. At first, we had trouble communicating on which parts each of the group members could work on, thus we separated the slides into three parts. As a result, it made it easier to assign the roles, but also an idea on what each part focused on, for example the design of the slides and presenting the solution. Though having been able to sort out roles, this was done pretty late into the lesson, which gave less time for us to be organized to focused on a singular goal, and instead left us in confusion on what we had to do during the lesson. Next time, we could have communicated more effectively and much earlier so that it would have allowed us to be more progressive and organized, thus allowing us to get more work done.

During this lesson however, we did change the problem a bit, where before, it focused more on people not being able to complete homework and having lower grades, but now, it also includes students being stressed form the amount of homework, thus resulting in lower performance rates in class. This was the result of some other benefits that we found that our product had, where by allowing students to focus more in class due to our product, it can allow for students to be less stressed of upcoming tests and assignments due to already having studied for it.

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Improving our solution for our Marketing Pitch 28/9

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Improving our solution for our Marketing Pitch 28/9

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Upon making a solution and product for our marketing pitch, we started to improve on our product and find ways we could make it more engaging to use and more appealing to customers who would like to buy our product. The teacher gave our group cards with prompts on them that gave ideas on ways we could improve our product. As a result, we collaborated to share ideas on what improvements we could make based on the prompts, using divergent and creative thinking. After discussing possible ideas, the best ideas were chosen, and some of them were even combined to create the most effective improvements that could be made. This further allowed our product to be more effective and more fleshed out, now having fewer loose ends that could confuse people about how our product works.

When coming up with ideas for improvement, I was hesitant to provide ideas that would definitely not be included as I considered them to be not as useful. As a result, not all my ideas were shared and this could have potentially led to less creativity in our product as the more creative ideas were not spoken and only the logical ones were. If doing this type of brainstorming again, I would first share all the ideas I have to see what we could use to enhance our product, then use convergent thinking afterwards to flesh out the ideas I have to choose the most promising, but at the same time, having the possibility to gain inspiration from the more creative but absurd ideas.

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Marketing pitch: Coming up with a problem 14/9

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Marketing pitch: Coming up with a problem 14/9

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To begin preparing for our marketing pitch, we first decided on a theme, education. After deciding on a theme, we started to list all the problems related to education, using a mind map as a collaboration space to share our ideas. As we finished listing out all the problems that were related to education, the problem of stress was chosen to be another group of problems to work with. After further convergent thinking, we settled on students not having enough time to finish homework to base our solution. Using divergent and creative thinking, the possible solutions to the problem that could potentially solve students' stress were listed in a shared document, then using convergent thinking, we narrowed down the solutions to the top 8 most promising and effective solutions that we could base our marketing pitch on. As a result of communication with group members, the group was able to choose a problem and solution that everyone was satisfied with, without any disagreements.

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The effectiveness of our informercial 5/9

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The effectiveness of our informercial 5/9

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Looking over the infomercial we created, there were problems that we found that reduced the effectiveness of the product, one of them being that we focused too much on the problem rather than the solution. As a result, the solution wasn't explained in a lot of detail to the audience to give them a better understanding of how the solution will solve the problem. Furthermore, the statistics shown in the infomercial were not seen to be sourced, which decreased the effect of ethos within the film as no reliable sources were mentioned. To improve upon this, the sources that we gained the statistics and information from could be mentioned to add credibility to the infomercial.

Though improvements could have been made to the infomercial, there were also parts of it that were effective in persuading the audience. By using much more time to explain and convey the problem, it was able to convey the impact of the problem to the audience and create pathos. Pathos was created through how the mother was conveyed, being sad as a result of being unemployed, which conveys sadness to the audience and sympathy. Additionally, the structure of the video was also quite clear and well done, where it didn't have any gaps that broke the flow of the infomercial, but also The different parts in the infomercials could be distinguished, with the audience knowing what was being explained

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The creation of the Spin-off task informercial 5/9

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The creation of the Spin-off task informercial 5/9

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As we finished planning out the infomercial and what was going to be included, new roles were assigned according to our strengths and liking, Vong being the cameraman, voiceover and artist due to him being a good drawer, Elisa being the actor, being the most confident our of the three and me being the editor due to being better at editing than the other roles.

Through collaboration with one another, we shared our ideas on how the scenes in the infomercial would be shot, testing each one until we were satisfied with one of them. this allowed us to experiment with different ideas, but also allowed for alternatives to the initial plan, where if the scene planned beforehand wasn't as good, we could choose another idea to base the scene on.

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How was information from the research conducted chosen to be used in the infomercial 5/9

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How was information from the research conducted chosen to be used in the infomercial 5/9

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the use of divergent and convergent thinking was used when researching and choosing data for the infomercial, which includes the use of creative and critical thinking. Convergent thinking was first used to record all the statistics and information on unemployment and its issues were gathered to allow for communication between group members by sharing our research and ideas. After doing such research, divergent thinking was used to sort out the data we had collected, choosing the most relevant data for our problem and service so that the infomercial could be focussed on our problem and be able to convey the negativity of our problem, appealing to the audience through logos.

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What did we do to do our research for the spin-off task most effectively 5/9

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What did we do to do our research for the spin-off task most effectively 5/9

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as we sorted out what problem we wanted to create an infomercial for, we started researching more on our problem and how it affects the Australian population, which included statistics, services that already help with the problem and the issues with our problem, the problem being unemployment. To begin our research, we collaborated and split the problem into different parts with each member volunteering which part they wanted to research, making it more efficient to collect and communicate the data and our thoughts on the issue, all this being put down in a shared document. Furthermore, resources such as the Australian government and surveys were used to gain statistics for the infomercial being trusted sources, which allows the audience to appeal to ethos. the information from these sources also resulted in changes in what our solution was, where we found out that people who were unemployed had limited access to necessities such as food and toiletries. this information led to our solution being a service for unemployed people that provided them with the essentials they were lacking.

Links: https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/unemployment-rate-rises-37-cent-july

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Unemployment Planning an Infomercial 2023

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Breaking down the Problem - Spin off task 22/8

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Breaking down the Problem - Spin off task 22/8

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After coming up with a problem that we wanted to solve, we started breaking it down with an empathy map to know more about the problem and what people feel when experiencing it, the problem being unemployment. After doing this, it allowed for us to come up with more possible solutions that could solve this problem, being that now we had a better understanding on what the problem is and the impact it has.

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-  What skills will we be developing in action project and how will these skills be developed?
- how will the expo at the end of the semester work?

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Coming up with a problem to base the spin off task off of 18/8

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Coming up with a problem to base the spin off task off of 18/8

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During the planning stages of the spin-off task, the problem that was to be solved was yet to be found, this being due to the limited ideas that could be made for each problem resulting in the problem not being as liked by all the group members. As a result, research was done to find problems within our society, listing all of them in a Google doc so that we could see all the problems to find a potential solution to. After listing the problems within society, using creative and critical thinking and collaboration, as a group we looked through all the problems and came up with possible solutions to such problems, and after finding a problem in the list that we thought to be a good problem to make a service from, we selected it and centred our spin-off task around this problem, this being 'the lack of support structure for unemployed people'.

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After completing the VIA character strengths survey, I found that my top 5 character strengths were: Honesty, Perseverance, Judgement, Humility and Kindness, while the bottom five were: Bravery, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, Zest, Perspective and Leadership. Looking over the survey results, I somewhat agree with the character strengths that they assigned to me, while at the same time, disagreeing with some of the character strengths. for the top 5 strengths, I felt that perseverance and judgement would apply to me, where I would usually do my best to finish what I start such as any chores or work I do. For judgement, if people pitch their ideas or thoughts during group work, I would try to consider the thoughts of other group members before going on with the task, making sure people would agree with the ideas that have been suggested. out of the bottom 5 character strengths, I found that most of them would apply to me such as bravery, zest and leadership, where I wouldn't necessarily take risks, be energetic throughout the entire day or have the courage to lead a group of people and at the same time feeling comfortable. during action project, I would try to improve my bottom 5 character strengths though the many activities and presentations that will be done. for example, I could develop my bravery and zest when presenting to the class and leadership when working together in a group.

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The task was quite simple to start with but as it progressed, it became harder to be able to come up with any due to all of them having been thought of. As a result, being creative and thinking outside the box had to be done as it would allow for more ideas, no matter how absurd they were, to be generated. After doing the task a few more times, being able to think outside the box became easier, whereas by not considering the ideas that would be more reasonable and focussing more on those which were more absurd, unique and different ideas were generated which contributed to the prompt that had been provided. for example, when painting the elephant, ideas such as using a paintbrush and pouring buckets were included as reasonable methods, but later on, unique ideas were generated by thinking outside the box such as waterboarding the elephant in paint.

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An empathy map can tell information about the client, where it gets to know more about the problem the person experiencing as if you were experiencing the problem yourself. Furthermore, it allows the person to find a solution to the problem to understand more about how the person feels when experiencing this problem. an empathy map can also allow for a problem to be broken down easier, where it breaks the problem into sections such as what the problem is and the reason for it, which can lead to a solution being created much easier as well. this results in less time having to be put into solving the problem, as well as understanding more about the person and problem you are dealing with, as solutions can differ depending on the problem and person, and you have to come up with the most effective solution to be able to fully help the person with the problem.

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5C's used when breaking down a problem using an empathy map and finding possible solutions to that problem 4/8

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5C's used when breaking down a problem using an empathy map and finding possible solutions to that problem 4/8

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re-write of problem - "Hardworking and tried high school students look forward to their recesses and lunches as it allows for them to be free and take a refresher from all their lesson by going on their mobile phones, being a form of connection between their friends and peers. As of recently, there has been a new phone policy which bans the use of mobile phones, taking away high school student's only form of communication and reason for their recesses and lunches."

When breaking down the problem and finding solutions to this problem, some of the 5C's were used, such as creative and critical thinking and character. Character was applied when breaking down the problem, where you have to be empathetic with the audience experiencing the problem to understand more about how they feel as a result. furthermore, during the solution phase of the problem, divergent thinking had to be used, which fits in with one of the 5C's: creative and critical thinking. Due to the solution phase needing for solutions to be found no matter how absurd they were, creativity was used to be able to do so, but also critical thinking to propose sensible and valid solutions to the problem.