Minor FTS

We had our meeting last August 22, 2014, Friday, on our subject FTS (Field Trip and Seminars). We discussed what to wear, bring, and what to do on our Minor Field Trip here in Davao at Concentrix located at Damosa, behind Choice Mart. We also talked about what to wear on our company visits on our Major Field Trip in Manila. Also, to note, because of what happened on the Field Trip of the students at Bulacan State University where 7 students died of an accident, we were warned and asked if despite what happened are we still willing to continue our trip to Manila. For me, I’d still be willing to continue despite that tragedy. In my own point of view, if we are going to die then I guess it’s our time. Also, it’s not like were immortals or something. Y.O.L.O as they say. I really hope despite what happened at BSU our trip will still be continued *crosses fongers*.

Mystery 101

The world is really full of mysteries, do you not agree?

Ahem…

Just last August 09, 2014, I just found out that the 10 minutes is the new three hours, isn’t that quite amazing!? Oh come on be amazed! It is a mystery we need to solve... not! Well I may not be that serious but I was not kidding. What do you take me for, a liar? Seriously our facilitator said he is just going to discuss his new inputs for just like 10 minutes but it really took him three hours, three hours I say! Phew! Well it is not really something new because his discussions really last that long but I was just kind of not in the mood for a lecture since it was a make-up class (not the kind of make-up where you transform to a different person lol) and what is worst is that it was freaking Saturday! My lovely weekend just got cracked ToT. Anyhow, I am not really that upset in coming or attending to this make-up class because as I was listening to our facilitator I also kind of daydreamed leading me to a new and creative idea.

Our class started early at 8:00 am so, as I mentioned, I was not really on the mood to listen because I was still kind of sleepy (you can’t blame me because it was Saturday and I’m supposed and I deserve to have a really long sleep during my weekend, right, right?) but still, I did somehow listen… bit by bit teehee. Well to sum up what our facilitator had discussed, as far as I can remember, it was about how we can make, create, or think better or should I say best ideas that are novel, which would really change how the world orbits! (not really).” How?” you say? Typically we need to go back a few pages and come back to what we would like to call the SEED curriculum. It kind of has to do with Self - mastery but oh well before we proceed let us first have a brief review or discussion on what the SEED curriculum is all about to get an idea on how will this help aspiring technopreneurs to innovate. So now let’s talk about the SEED model. S – stands for “Self-Mastery”. First E – stands for “Environment Mastery”. The second E – stands for “Enterprise Master”. And last but not the least, D – which stands for “Development”. Self-Mastery is a passion that comes from knowing yourself. Discover your weaknesses and strengthen your most valuable skills and capabilities. Knowing yourself better before anything else is very important. This is like mastering your skills and talents and taking it to the next level and the same time strengthening your weaknesses to decrease you vulnerability when a problem comes. Knowing yourself much better can help you, as an individual, determine your skills and how far your creativity takes you in innovating something new, something original with a purpose. As I said before, I did have regrets choosing this line of course. I could have been an artist, a detective, a technician because I know I have the passion for arts, and even though being a detective is not a game I think it’s fun, and most of all I have the knack of tinkering through broken things and fix it. And now I’m thinking why not ring those passion and talents to the IT industry? It’s all about how you handle yourself in different situations with the best of your abilities. This is a very big help for me and for us to discover what will be our possible future in this area of Information Technology. In order to be a good technopreneur, you should master and know yourself better. The first letter E in SEED means Environmental Mastery. It usually involves generating business ideas, plans, and seeking for opportunities out from our environment through different style like serendipity walks, crisis, trends and anything under the sun. Just like what we did in our previous activity, we visited business establishments, observe these places, look for flaws or rather any inconveniences, and think of something we can innovate to simply business operation and make the customer’s life easy and comfy. These wild and creative ideas are just examples of what could do to contribute in today’s technological era if we ever manage to pursue it and if, of course, our idea is actually pretty decent, original and full of purpose. Every one of us has experienced crisis and hardships. From that, we could make it a motivation to think and create ideas pertaining to those hardships we encountered in our life. We need not to be afraid of failures. Instead use those failures as fuels to light up your burning desire to succeed. Take it as lesson learned, never make it happen again. Move forward and dream high. Our own hobbies could also help us think of a playful, unique but also an idea with a lot of purpose. Just open your imaginative mind to create something new which could progress the quality of life. The second letter E stands for Enterprise Mastery. The word itself describes an idea on how to run business operations such as companies and marketing, and other business establishments. Lastly the D stands for development which refers to the development of the business itself. Planning the business starts here where you need to brainstorm with your team mates, write your ideas, present and defend it.

I said it was going to be brief but I kind of made it very long but oh well. So were gonna leap back and go again with self-mastery. Another way to know yourself better is the internal analysis. Internal Analysis basically means mastering oneself through asking the following questions:

· What you Love?

· What you are BEST at?

· What are your irritants?

While our facilitator was discussing these, this is the part where I started daydreaming. What do I love? I’ve started drifting off to reality and imagined all the things I love, anime, video games, you name all what otaku loves, it all became so clear to me what I really love. I started imaging things, generating ideas from the anime I’ve watched and BOOM! It hit me and the light bulbs just brighten and brighten until it blinded me that I snapped out of my self-induced hallucinations. What you are best at? I’m not particularly good at anything but I’m pretty confident with my drawing skills so why not something that involves graphics or anime characters. Ideas just keep on popping that I really had the urge to create a new business model canvass base on the idea that had me entranced and before I knew it the discussion was over. That particular discussion really helped me think an innovative idea or two and well what do you know I actually proposed it (I gave the idea to a friend for her presentation but she kind of got nervous and lost her concentration in explaining but I don’t blame her, it’s kind of really nerve-wracking when proposing to our facilitator) but still I gave it a shot and defend and explain it and luckily he approved it and it really made me happy and that really cheered me up because I was kind feeling down before that but I’m not going to tell why lol because it’s already kind of personal.

My Thoughts on the Business Canvass Model

The business model canvass, truly, is a big help to entrepreneurs and technopreneurs alike and a much greater help to those who are just about or planning to start their own businesses. Why? Because it simplifies how you describe and represent the core aspects of a business by creating a visual chart. This type of business model really helped me in illustrating what I want and what I want to do in my business proposals. Lastly it is also very helpful for the investors to determine the primary concept of your business.

Breaking the Wall and Building Teamwork

There are a lot of different people, personality wise, in a class, therefore it is expected that the class would be divided into groups who share the same interests (and this is very true). So with the class divided we won’t get a chance to know more about the people outside your group. There would always be barrier and especially for us because we don’t get to mingle with the evening students that much. So what can we do to break this thing we call “barrier”?

There are actually a lot of ways to crush or maybe just climb over this certain barrier in order to know a person much better and of course to build up teamwork with them but I’m only going to mention one which is our key topic for today. And by that I’m referring to the term Team Building. Team Building, according to Wikipedia, refers to a wide range of activities, presented to businesses, schools, sports teams, religious or nonprofit organizations designed for improving team performance. Team building is pursued via a variety of practices, and can range from simple bonding exercises to complex simulations and multi-day team building retreats designed to develop a team (including group assessment and group-dynamic games), usually falling somewhere in between. It generally sits within the theory and practice of organizational development, but can also be applied to sports teams, school groups, and other contexts.

So with all of that we had our Team Building and Interpersonal Skills seminar last July 21, 2014, Monday as a part of the many requirements on our subject Field Trip and Seminars (FTS). Actually, I was the one who was assigned to do and make the backdrop for this seminar and activity, with the theme “Journey To Inner Space: key to effective interpersonal relationship”, so I came, just as I was to told, 6 o’clock in the morning just to find out that the Social Hall in our school, which is our venue, was still locked and what is even worse is that none of the officers (not that I’m complaining or anything) came later than the said time for meeting. Well, we were supposed to come earlier because we still need to prepare, clean, and arrange the social hall for the said activity. Still though, there is not much point in coming earlier because, as I said, it was locked and the key holder did not arrive until at least 7 o’clock and we were supposed to start at 7:30 so basically we only had more or less 30 minutes to prepare which is pretty much not enough considering I had not, together with one of my classmate whom I asked to help cut, finished the letterings for the said backdrop and the worst case scenario just happened: some letters were missing or should I say lacking. So we had to make it from some leftovers and we happen to finish all of it because of everyone’s help. At that point, before the seminar and the activities even started, I can say that we already started our own way of team building. Everyone, who had a pair of scissors, helped in cutting out the outline for the letterings. Then some, after the letters are cut, stuck it to the wall. I’m actually really grateful so thank you very much classmates :3. It was teamwork that we finished the preparation, not on time but well it did work out right?

After that somewhat tiresome preparation, we officially started our seminar first a prayer, then with an opening remark. So on our first activity, we were grouped into five. The groupings were done through a count off so that we can interact with our classmates whom we don’t get to mingle much. So activity started by picking up, I mean choosing a leader. Of course, in a team, a leader is necessary to lead the group, to ensure a collaborative atmosphere, to build the team members confidence, to set the priorities, and to manage the performance of ever team member through feedback. Choosing a leader is definitely crucial because he or she will be the one who will lead the team to either victory or downfall. Well, to be honest I’m not really fit to become a leader so I would really take down the offer if it comes down to that. It’s just my own opinion of myself anyway judging from the confidence that is stored in me LOL. So we went and chose a leader and we made a great choice! We named our group “Team Bangan” (suggested by our team leader), which is derived from the Filipino word “timbangan” or in English a weighing scale like the one you see in the symbol of Libra. This symbol represented our equalness and that our group is balanced, “walang labis, wlang kulang”. It was just a simple pun at first but if we think of it more there’s actually a deep meaning behind it like what we just deduced so it was decided. Next thing we did was to share and write our expectations and what we can contribute (as a group) on this seminar and team building activity in a manila paper then finally share it to the whole class. We actually had mutual expectations so the task easier to complete. We wrote the following (not too sure because my memory is a little vague):

Expectations:

• Build self-confidence
• Build new friendships
• Fun

Contributions:

• Cooperation
• Skills
• Talents

Pretty generic, or should I say common expectations and contributions right? Well what more should we expect? These are also the primary goals for this seminar. To build self-confidence, which is pretty much self-explanatory. Building new friendship, well, it doesn’t hurt to make more friends right? Of course this is also given since we need to foster friendship in a team to avoid conflict and discord among team members. Fun! As what one of our classmate said, it’s or should be fun because there are no classes LOL and I one hundred percent agree with that! :D

The next activity we did was called “Paper Clip Story”. As what the title suggests, we are going to use paper clips. For what? To explain, I’ll just have to tell the whole story on what we did. Well, for starters, each one of us was given a paper clip. We need to choose the color that we thought would best paint our personalities. After that we need to shape the paper clip (bend it however we like) into a symbol or thing that would best describe us. As for me I picked white and no not because I’m pure or anything. I guess this color would best represent me because, despite my awkward behavior, I’m actually quite adaptive just like the color white, whatever color you paint on it, blue, yellow, red, name them all, those colors will vibrantly retain their colors when painted on white. As for the symbol I’m really sure what to shape so I just turned it into a stick and decided it was a skyscraper. Well ever heard of the song Skyscraper by Demi Lovato? That was the song that came up my mind. “You can take everything I have. You can break everything I am. Like I'm made of glass. Like I'm made of paper. Go on and try to tear me down I will be rising from the ground. Like a skyscraper. Like a skyscraper.” I’m the type of person who does not easily give up no matter what the circumstances are. I always take on a challenge wholeheartedly and I don’t want to do anything half-assed. I think that would definitely define who I am. I’m strong yet weak as paper and fragile as a glass. This does not end with my story though. This activity is also aimed so that we could know more about our team members so I’m going to share the stories of our team members at least if I can recall all of them and their respective meanings. So uhm I actually forgot the color she picked but I’m one hundred percent positive she carved a pencil out of that paper clip. She chose the pencil to describe her because just like a pencil she also writes down her own destiny and because pencils has erasers she could erase and correct the mistakes she had done in her life. Another one created a musical note. He said he created it because he’s a musical junky. Another made a paint brush and another one made a heart then another is a key which meant that he opens doors to others or simply he is approachable in my own terms. Another one made the symbol of Hakuna Matata which means “don’t worry, be happy” which she said describes her all the time. Another one made a pasta, a spaghetti pasta. Funny right? LOL Well he actually just made it out of pure entertainment and well because he can’t think of anything that would best describe him but in the end he thought of an explanation as to why it’s spaghetti or rather pasta. It’s quite the same as to why I chose the color white. First because it was his favorite food then he added because we can make a lot food using pasta and there a lot of recipes that uses pasta and just like him he can blend and mix well with other people other than his common group. Pretty clever, right? The next thing that we were instructed to do was to gather all those paper clips and create a new shape using those. So what we did was we formed it based on our group name “Team Bangan” so we made a scale that represented that we are well balanced, some have weak personalities but the strong ones makes it up to them and that’s how out team worked. It was the best team I dare say haha.

The next activity we did was called “Family Dinner Table”. This is done individually.  In this activity we are to draw an illustration of how our dinner table looked like from when we are 12 yrs old or younger. Basically draw a table, draw where your father and other family members usually eat with a symbol then after you are done share it with one or two of your classmates. This will help you open up more and to tell the truth some of classmates cried while explaining or telling their dinner table story. I’m quite emotional that time but I did not let it show although I think the two I shared with knew I shared my story with a little heart break. (Yikes!). And yeah this really helped in opening up to people more because with it you’ll get closer to their hearts and would help you understand their actions before judging why they do it.

After that we had our lunch break.

After lunch, the activities were more exciting. It’s is time to play some games! I was actually looking forward to the games because, first, well it is entertaining and second, I’m quite competitive myself but I don’t let it show because competitiveness may become a hindrance in a team building. Well the games went pretty smoothly and it’s very enjoyable. And yes our group won at the three games our officers prepared for us and I’m really happy and quite worked up haha. We had teamwork at least as far as I can see. We plan before we started every game and had loads of fun.

The last activity that we did was to write down the things that we will start to do, continue to do and stop to do in accordance to activities and the seminar we just experienced. What do we need to start doing in order to enhance our interpersonal skill? What should we be continue doing? And lastly, what do we need to stop doing that would hinder us in interacting with other people? These are the questions that need to be answered. This is like an evaluation of the current you.

Before I end this I would like to stress out that we need this kind of seminar and activities so that when the time comes when problems arise in the upcoming field trip, we can support each other with a concrete foundation.