Week Three: Lecture (Important points)

We had a variety of people who have previous experience with collaborating with other designers speaking to us during this class. A lot if the information that they were giving us is  very valuable for our team to keep in mind as we go through the stages for this project. 

Previous Student Lecture:

Participants in this paper from last year came to share their knowledge with us. These are the important points that they made:

Josh:

• Communication! It is key! When doing your individual tasks, make sure you are telling each other what is going on and how you are going. 
• Stay connected (FB is a good communication tool).
• Don't expect everyone to put in 100% effort all of the time.

Michelle: (Glow in the dark golf team)

• Meet up regularly, ensure everyone is on the same page. 
• Coming together with other teams, talking to them on FB.

Caitlin: (Tea team)

• You can not control/ do everything, step back sometimes.
• Don't be afraid to be firm with any slackers.
• Think about your audience, not just what will be fun for you to do. Who are they? what do they feel? When is the event being held?
• Don't be afraid to make changes to your idea.
• Remember to be really creative, keep pushing the ideas further.

Tom: (Glow in the dark golf team)

• Remember that all of the small jobs are actually really important.
• Get someone from outside the team to give you critique.
• See who is around you in the market, how your offerings will work together.

Q&A with Josh, Michelle, Caitlin and Tom:

• Get onto it sooner, and get to really know each other.
• Making sure everybody is there all the time, getting everyone together.
• No assumptions, explain what you have all been doing.
• Let the team know when you have things due/ events coming up that will take away your time.
• Listen to ideas, Understand it before you shut it down.
• Regular, scheduled meetings.
• Encourage anyone who is quiet in the team to share their ideas.
• It is a student to student market- people we know and understand. Our age people at Massey re our target market.

Technical Facilities:

 The departments from the different disciplines around Massey are available for us to use. There are a few guidelines/ procedures that we must follow to use them though. 

• We are expected to be using the skills we already have, don't expect the technicians to teach us new things.
• Get your proposal signed off with the technical staff of the dept you will be using.
• All resources have a cost value- ask the technicians before you take anything.
• Treat spaces, staff and students with respect.
• Be sure that you have been inducted (by a staff member) on any equipment that you want to use. 
• Communication is key.

The technicians are:

Uli- Industrial workshop

Amy- Textiles

Hannah- Textiles

Carol- Fashion

Jess- Fashion

Ollie- Spatial

Wendy- Fab Lab

Previous Collaborations:

The lecturers for our streams shared some wisdom that they had picked up from their own personal experiences with collaborating on projects with other designers. 

Anna:

• When something is suggested, say "Yes, and" rather than "No, but".
• Using "We", not "I".
• Who does what, when. Work out how you will structure your time.

Shannon:

• Collaboration isn't always equal amounts of work at all times.
• Develop and facilitate.
• Have an understanding of who each other all are/ where we are from.

Kalya:

• Be brave, let it get away from just your practise/ what you know. Get out of your comfort zone!
• Improvisation- say  "Yes" to everything.
• Expect the unexpected.

Natalie:

• Collaboration- pooling your skills, achieving more, working further.

Sharing Ideas Session:

All of the teams uploaded our favourite four ideas onto a google doc and then pitched each one. From this we discovered:

• There are lots of ideas to do with light, photo booths, candle making, another team thinking of life sized board games, origami.
• Many aspects of our ideas were pitched by the other teams. Do we collaborate with them or try to develop our idea into something totally unique and exciting?
• We also need to think of an overall theme or idea for the whole market place. 

Other important notes from the class:

• Remember the existing architecture of the location. How can you work with it?
• Thinking about why the customers would come to our offering, why would they want to take part in it?
• We can do surveys to find out the sorts of things people would like in relation to the ideas that we come up with. As a way to gauge how effective our idea would be and get ideas for how to make it better.
• Remember that the idea has to fit into a suitcase.
• Think Door to Door Sales. Mobility, fluidity.

How to choose your most successful idea to develop further:

• Identify what you have to work with. E.g. suitcase, the time of year, potential customers etc.
• Chat and discuss your ideas with each other. Which idea do you naturally end up discussing more?
• Looking at practicality, cost, merging ideas.
• Get lots of feedback.
• Consider the amount of time you have to set it all up and pack it away (not yet confirmed, but will not be a long time)
• Remember that your pitch isn't final/ binding.
• Look at which ides already have potential for development and which ones have already been developed to the max. 

SH