My Customer's Avatar

My prototypical customer is a young adult, male or female, and will be an owner of a smart phone. He or she will have a need to transfer files, back up files, and create additional memory for a device. This avatar can really include any phone owner who is a young adult but could also be aimed towards students specifically.
My customer avatar would look something like this 
This would be a good customer avatar because she is holding the product, the computer shows that she may be a student and it is also a device that is compatible with the product. She is a young adult and resembles the target audience. I also chose a pretty girl because sexualization of adds can make for good marketing. It makes women feel included in what may seem like a more male dominated product and it draws male attention.

What I have in common with the customer avatar is our age, potentially we are both students, we both own computers and we are both white.
I don't believe that me and my avatar having things in common is a coincidence because that is part of the reason I chose it. I myself am a prototypical customer and therefore my avatar should resemble me in a least a couple of ways.

My Secret Sauce

1) Describe five ways in which you think you have human capital that is truly unique. What is it about you, exactly, that makes you different? Write this up in a detailed list. 

1 Strong personality - I don't settle for less, I know what I am worth, and I will stand up for what I believe in
2 Realistic - I see things for what they are and try to avoid bias when making decisions and I don't let my emotions cloud my judgement
3 Hard working - When I am dedicated I put in 110% effort, even when I am not dedicated (such as previous part time jobs) I still work hard than almost all of my co workers
4 Personable - I am easy to talk to and can be charismatic at times
5 Good communicator - I can present my ideas in a way that is easy to understand and am also good at listening and making compromises
2) Interview the five people who know you the best. Ask them what they think makes you different -- remember, focus on your knowledge, skills, abilities, emotions -- in other words, your human capital. Try to stay away from discussing your other types of capital (such as who you know). Record each interview. In your blog post, please post each interview, as well as a two-three sentence summary of each interview, explaining what your key takeaways are.

interview 1
interview 2
interview 3
interview 4
interview 5

3) Reflect on the differences. How do you see yourself, and how do others see you? Are there differences in how you assess yourself compared to others? What do you think causes these differences? Do you think your interviewees are correct about you? Finally, going back to your list from part 1, would you make any corrections to the list? How? 
Remember to proof read your post, to include "My Secret Sauce" in the title.
When you have completed this exercise, please share the URL to your post here. And don't forget to make your declaration!

It seems like I see myself similarly to others who know me. My mother, father and sister all said nearly the same things about me and I mentioned most if not all of the things they mentioned in the interviews. There might be slight differences in the way they presented their five things that made me different but in essence were the same things I had said about myself. I think the interviewees are correct about me because they had similar things to say about me as I did about myself and I think it goes back to being realistic and evaluating things honestly, including myself. No I would not make any corrections to the list but if there were more than five things there are definitely things I could add that others would agree with, for example, my father actually mentioned 7 things about me (interview 3) so I could have added the two extra things to my list.

Hilliar

Hilliar - made from Hillary and Liar

Used in a sentence - I wonder who will become the next president, Hilliar Clinton or Donald Trump.

Pronounced Hill-Liar

Only my girlfriend used my word but this is because I haven't spent much time with anyone besides my girlfriend in the last two weeks and Hillary supporters are probably not a fan of my portmanteau. Most people thought it was funny and I'm sure it would have caught on given more time around people that I shared my portmanteau with. I am not sure if I know any Hilliar supporters, but I'm sure they would scorn my portmanteau.

I think my portmanteau would have been catchy if I had spent more time around people aside from my girlfriend. The idea wasn't intended to be catchy so much as taking a stab at Hilliar Clinton.

Halfway Reflection

As if talking to a future student of this class

The behaviors I have used to keep up with this class are organization and perseverance. These will be very important to have/develop for this class.

Every time there is an assignment that we are required to do more than 15 minutes of interview I feel like giving up and every assignment that I have completed that fits in this category is an instance of pulling through. The experiences that most contribute to this are the experiences when I have received bad grades and the fear of not getting a good grade is this class is the soul motivation of completing the interview assignments. Make sure you count all of the possible points in the class and figure out how many assignments you will be able to skip and still achieve your desired grade, then subtract 2 from that number to give yourself a safety net. This way you can skip as many interview assignments as possible therefore living a less stressful and happy life.

If I had to give you 3 tips about fostering tenacity and developing a tenacious mindset the first would be to find something you are passionate about. Passion inspires tenacity. Passion will be key in fostering tenacity. Another thing you can do to foster tenacity is set goals. Having short and long term goals is a key characteristic of successful people. Tip #3 would be to make sure and find/create motivation. Motivation is also inspired by passion but sometimes you will have to do things that you are not passionate about (in my case it's the interview assignments) and you will have to find a motivation (in my case it is fear of a poor grade) to inspire tenacity.

Need Awareness and Information Search (unfinished)

The segment I am choosing for this assignment is the consumer.

interview 1
interview 2
interview 3

Reading Reflection No.1

This reading reflection is on the book "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future"

• I found a few things very surprising about Elon Musk. For one, he was born in South Africa and he had a tough upbringing regarding living with his father and his early schooling. Musk says that living with his dad was miserable, but not absent of good. Although Musk and the rest of his family say that his father was a miserable and horrible person to be around, he was nice enough to invest 28,000 into Musk's first start-up company. He also took Musk and his brother, Kimbal, on many trips around the country which the two remember as fun. During Musk's early schooling he was bullied very extensively. He was bullied to the point to where he was hospitalized and missed school for a week. The bullies even threatened his best friend to stop being friends with Musk and lure Musk out of hiding so they could attack him or else they would do harm to the boy. Musk did a lot of traveling in his life. He went from South Africa to Canada, to America, and didn't settle down until he made it to Silicon Valley. 
• I think the thing I most admire about Musk is his drive and imagination. He was thinking of things so many years ahead of what anyone else was thinking and had the drive to make it happen. His imagination of a better world and his love of science fiction is what seems to motivate Musk. He imagines a world where we colonize another planet and start to use technology such as solar power to make the world a better place.
• The thing I least admire about Musk is his lack of empathy. From what Musk's coworkers had to say about him it is clear that he has a hard time understanding that not everyone thinks the same way he does. This may have been a factor in his success as he doesn't take no for an answer and therefore no one else should do that either. His lack of empathy sometimes created tension in the workplace and sometimes lead to a lack of production by the individual he offended. 
• Musk definitely faced adversity although I don't believe he faced much failure. Musk is not one to fail as he is a do or die type of person. He had times in his life where he didn't have hardly any money and poured it all into a business venture which lead to him living at his job and taking showers at the local YMCA. He was not at a very comfortable point in life and still continued to push and fight until everything worked out in the end. He went from living at his job and showering at the YMCA to selling the company he was developing which landed him 22 million dollars and his brother 15.
• The competencies I noticed that Musk presented were his do or die attitude and never taking no for an answer. He also was very smart and read a lot of books from a young age. He put 110% into whatever it is he was interested in and has a immense amount of confidence in himself. The drive that this guy has is amazing and inspirational. He had dreams and he decided that he would do whatever it takes to make them come true.
• One part in the reading that was confusing to me was the part where it talked about his business Zip2. I did not understand exactly how the business worked and what exactly it was doing for companies that made it appealing and successful. The book did not go into great detail about the actually function of the company, just a brief overview that was confusing to me. 
• If I was able to ask Musk two questions I know one that I would ask for sure is - was there ever a time when you were unsure of whether you would be successful, in your eyes. Another question I would ask is - Was there ever a time you were discouraged or scared in between the time you were a teenager and before you started getting financial backing for your first company?
• I think Musk's idea of hard work is never giving up and never taking no for an answer. From what I've read you can tell he knows what he wants in life and he won't stop until he makes it happen. He is relentless and it has lead him to great success. I think that I do share this drive, but not all the time. I share this drive when there is something I am passionate about. The problem for me is finding and solidifying this passion. Right now I am not exactly sure what I want to do with my life, but if I knew for sure what I want to accomplish and I was serious about it, I would make it happen.

Idea Napkin No.1

1. You
I am a young adult with a lot of learning to do. My talents are talking to people, putting in 110% to things I'm passionate about, and thinking outside of the box. Some of my skills include listening, speaking effectively, confidence, teamwork, and problem solving. My aspirations include living a successful life, which to me is living a comfortable life that I am proud of. When I think of being a business owner I always think of making the business successful and then expanding from there. I think that this will play a large role in my life because I want to retire as early as possible so I can enjoy my retirement while I am still young.
2. What are you offering to your customers?
For this exercise I am going to use the idea of a gas station/convenient store again. I will be offering a wide range of products inside of the store and outside I will be offering gasoline. I will be solving customers' unmet needs by building this establishment in an area where most people have trouble getting to the store because of lack of transportation.
3. Who are you offering it to?
I'm offering this service to everyone along the stretch of road where the store would be built and also to anyone driving by, which is a lot of people everyday around 5 o'clock when work lets out and there is decent traffic on this road in general.
4. Why do they care?
They care because many of the people along this stretch of road don't have many other options. They need something convenient and this will be one of their only options.
5. What are your core competencies?
I believe that I think very differently from the majority. I have always had a very realistic view on life and I think it helps me see everything for what it truly is. Many people like to see things more as they would like them to be, but I see them as they are. Some people have confused me with being "negative" when I have simply made an observation, which goes to show they chose to see this observation in a good light and I just chose to see it unfiltered. I have a very strong mind and I will use it.
I am very good at noticing unmet needs of myself and others and I am good at coming up with ways to solve these unmet needs. Every time I see an advertisement, business, etc... I am always thinking of what makes them successful, where they need improvement, and how the idea could have been better. This is a quality that will help me create the best business I can.
Evaluation
I believe all of the previous elements work together. I think that if I want to make something happen, it will happen. The only thing that holds me back is my harsh criticism of my ideas. The reason I am so critical is because I know that many businesses fail and I want to be so sure that I know it can't fail. I think this is a good thing though and I believe it falls in line with my realistic view of life. Many people who open businesses that aren't successful or go bankrupt are most likely people who aren't as realistic of me. They probably thought their idea was an amazing idea but weren't being critical, or realistic, enough. I won't have this problem. When I make my move into the business world it will be a carefully calibrated decision and it will be a success.

Elevator Pitch No. 1

This is a post for an assignment where I am to do an elevator pitch of approximately one minute and thirty seconds. My pitch ended at one minute and fifteen seconds. Below is the transcription of the audio from the video which you can find here. I realize I say "and" too much; feel free to roast me in the comments. I recorded this off the top of my head and it took me about 20 takes. Thanks for watching and reading.



 Hi, my name is Cameron Hellstrom, inventor of the Quickstick - the Quickstick is like a memory stick for your phone. Now I know that you might say there a lot of memory sticks out there, but this one is different. This one will be compatible with iPhone and Android. You will be able to transfer files from phone to phone, phone to computer, and computer to phone. And you will be able to do it in style; with a lot of different colors and styles the Quickstick will be right for you. And it also comes in a lot of different sizes. Quickstick can be used to back-up files as well, so we have large storage options so you can back-up your phone, computer, whatever device you'd like. And it will also have small storage options in case you just want to transfer files to family and friends, your a student and need to upload files to the computer, nothing huge, it's there for you. Now we also have customer service and technical support 24 hours a day in case anything happens to go wrong, but that's very unlikely because Quickstick comes with security. It comes with an encryption and you will be able to choose your own passcode so nobody is getting in but you. We'll see you in the future. Once again I'm Cameron Hellstrom with Quickstick.

Tweaking the Innovation

This post is about exploring the levels of a product and service. For this post I will use the venture of a device similar to a memory stick that I proposed in my "My Solution" post.

Flash drive device compatible with iPhone and Android phones

-Different colors
benefit = certain colors are more attractive to certain people than others or signify certain things to certain people

tangible = Color is something that you can see and touch it is something that gives the device its identity

augmented = N/A

innovations = instead of just painting the device a basic flat color maybe it would be a good idea to have a glow in the dark option, colors that react to sunlight, or other fun color schemes which would be a result of a change of the core.

-Different storage sizes
benefit = Different people will have different needs for the device so making smaller and larger storage sizes will accommodate the user depending on the amount of storage they need. These different storage size devices will also differ in price giving the customer the option to save money if they don't need a larger amount of storage

tangible = Storage size is something within the device that contributes to customizability and functionality of the device

augmented = N/A

innovations = i'm not sure there is much innovation to do with storage size except increase the storage, but maybe instead the focus would be on optimizing the speed of transfer between devices which would be a change of the core.

-Different styles
benefit = people have different ideas of what makes something attractive so having different styles along with the different color option will increase the personality of the device and therefore the consumers relationship with the device

tangible = different styles is similar to different colors; it is something that is mostly appealing to out sense of sight but it is also something we can touch

augmented = N/A

innovations = when thinking about tangibility, and therefore our senses, I thought, maybe we could enhance the device to appeal to an extra sense than it would already appeal to -- sound. the device could potentially make noises to let you know it is connected, speak to the user or prompt the device it is connected with to communicate with the user which would be a change of the core.

Another idea is also a change in the core, i could design new styles based off of things that already exist - device shaped like movie characters and famous items, etc...

-Security features
benefit = some buyers will want to use the device to transfer sensitive information and want to know that their information will be safe and secure in the event that they lose their device or if it is stolen

tangible = security features aren't a tangible thing but I suppose we could consider it tangible in the way that you would be able to call a real person with issues concerning device security and problems you may run into

augmented = This product would come with customer support

innovations = there is always optimization to be done with security. the device could come with customer support and device support that would enable auto-updating of security when an updated version of security is released which is a change in the augmented level