Admitting it is hard, but realizing that I have hit a bump in the road is the hardest part. I tend to ask myself this a lot. When does work stop being work and actually start being something I enjoy. When does it stop being a hassle, a time that I don’t look forward to in my day. At first I honestly loved working in the marketing section at BlendZ, it was something I was profoundly passionate about it. However, over time that passion began to fade ever since I didn’t feel that I was adding enough value to the company. Yes I had been researching new merchandise, contacting several potentials buyers, and even creating several designs, but still I didn’t feel like all this merchandise was so necessary since our time working at BlendZ would be almost over and even more than that it would potentially cost a lot of money and our main focus was for Habla Roosevelt. Although I see myself as having failed this semester in my section, nevertheless I do believe that I learned something. Failure can teach you many things, but only if you are willing to accept and understand failure. I learned this the hard way and I don’t see myself having learned it better any other way. I learned that the hard worker doesn’t matter wether he is seen working or not because deep down he or she knows how much of themselves they put into their work. They know wether they feel proud or embarrassed. So now it has gotten to the point where it is time to say farewell to BlendZ and hello to a new project. As I had off my position I am finishing it with receiving the last bundle of merchandise for our company, the re-stocking of our shirts and hats. Although it is sad to let go something you started, it is astonishing to start something new. As I have finally moved on from BlendZ, but also still keeping the smoothie company close to my heart, I am again re-motivated to start planning for our IA service trip. The plan is to go to a place in Peru and teach secondary kids about the ideals that we learn in the IA. An example is teaching them things like design thinking in little workshops/seminars. That is where I come in, myself and a couple of my peers are deciding to begin creating and planning the seminars. The following week will be our first brainstorm. Therefore I have been contacting different schools specifically in Lima and close to our community to see if they would be interested. I was able to talk to a teacher at our school who might have some potential schools. As I am excited once again to see how this will follow through, I am ready for our team brainstorm. So far I have been thinking of doing a fun game incorporating design thinking and how important it is to ask ourselves the why the how and the what. However, I think it is important that the game about design thinking triggers a memorable experience in the students minds so that they can remember this and use it as a tool in their future work. Can’t wait to see how the brainstorm will go! “Changing direction can always indicate new possibilities and attitudes, even in the workspace” ~unkown
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In this past week there has been a slight change to the addition of things we have to accomplish in the IA weekly agenda. Planned by the entire group, we decided that it would be useful to watch documentaries and then analyze them. The reason behind this is because of our IA service trip in May. We will be filming our service trip to wherever we plan to go (we still haven’t decided yet) and serve there community there in an impacting and meaningful manner. Therefore we watched a documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi; which depicts a whole new meaning to how we view our job and how we feel about it.
Jiro Ono shows how even after doing the same job for 75 years, he still is passionate and believes that there is more to innovate and master upon. Besides this lesson he teaches of perfectionism he teaches a very important lesson that I took into thought: Falling in love with your work The majority of people now-a-days will tell you, chose an occupation that you love, that motivates you and persuades you into creating/doing the best of your potential. Although Jiro might agree with this, it is more profound than just that: “Once you decide on your occupation you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about you job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success and is the key to begin regarded honourably.” In order to fall in love with your work it takes discipline. A personal connection that I noticed with this lesson was of my floating idea of maybe being a painter. Although I love to paint, I hesitate in immersing myself completely because I am still open to learn new things because I am not exactly sure if I would fall in love with painting everyday. However, Jiro proves that his sons hated making sushi when they first began, but with handwork and discipline it seemingly paid off. Therefore, I feel that once I go to college I will be able to finally be able to test new things that I can immerse myself for completely in. “It takes discipline and commitment to fall in love with your work." In the IA I have realized that when working for Blendz, the majority of us do fall in love with our work. At times however I question wether we all actually do? Does the human resource team love what they do? In class this past week we did basically ask ourselves wether we love what we do our not because we changed up our different jobs once again. Those who seemed to not be in love with what they were doing were able to chose to begin working on our new service trip project, another option to immerse themselves in. In my case I have fallen in love with working and creating the IA merchandise, however, I do feel that I need to immerse myself more into creating more work in a quicker time span. This past week has been an incredibly successful one. Not only has it been an exciting one because we sold over 100 of smoothie but it was also the first pitch of the new BlendZ merchandise that I have been working on: the BlendZ cup. When pitching the idea I had to persuade my customers. In other words I made them believe in what I believed in, that the cup could really add not only a valuable change to trash problems at our school but also a great way to market our company well (a playfully healthy and sociably responsible smoothie company. I was able to pitch my idea and sell it well. After having practiced pitching ideas in the past I have realized that the practice really payed off. The reason is because not only did I sell the idea well, but I was able to persuade my same enthusiasm of the merchandise with my peers/customers. This was a big task that I felt proud of being able to accomplish. Take a look at my BlendZ cup portfolio -->
Upon finding a problem with the purchase of this cup I was thankfully able to come up with a quick solution, I applied my quick thinking skills at this point. As the cup can only be purchased in the US I am going to next visit Gamara myself to keep on researching for more options to our suppliers. If this doesn't seem to work I have other back up plans to figure out how to ship them to Peru. These quick decision of changing and fixing a problem are something that I felt proud of being able to do. It really made me feel like I was at my internship all over again, I felt like I was a professional again. Moreover, after deciding my next step I was also able to complete and finalize the orders of the extra 20 shirts and hats for our volunteers and upcoming juniors.
As these tasks were time consuming due to the research, emailing, and finalizing planned, I nevertheless began to realize how important it is to complete tasks and feel proud of completing it. I can honestly say that after completing a task I feel proud of the work I have done because I know that I have dedicated my best efforts to doing so. Senior year is coming to an end, but BlendZ will continue to flourish. Long live BlendZ. As we have discussed with the younger IA class, it will be in their hands to take care of BlendZ and innovate upon the unique smoothie business. They will have complete autonomy over the company once we seniors graduate. However as we still have a couple more months serving the company, we need to keep working hard to leave everything in one piece. Therefore this week everyone has been working incredibly hard to finish their goals for the company by the end of the semester. Wether it is for us to get the cart we have all dreamed of having on campus or even getting ready to launch our socially responsible part of the company: Habla Roosevelt. The company is moving, on wheels and quickly to reach their goals. Moreover this week I have focused my time on trying to contact our hat and T-shirt suppliers once again. The reason for this is to begin refilling our uniform inventory since now we will be having more volunteers. Even so, I have been trying to brainstorm a type of merchandise that would be perfect for BlendZ to market themselves with and at the same time satisfy our customers. At first I though that maybe selling a BlendZ hat or T-shirt would be ideal, but then I came to the realization that it is our uniform and it represents us the employees. In that case, after brainstorming several ideas I went from BlendZ socks to a BlendZ Tumbler cup. For those of you who may not be aware of what a tumbler cup is, it is basically a reusable plastic cup. Take a look at a rough idea of what I am talking about: The concept behind this reusable cup is that it will help against a trash problem that BlendZ is causing at our school. Not only will it help our school trash problem, but it will also provide a discount upon a following BlendZ purchase, if and only if the cup is reused to buy a smoothie. More research however had to be taken into account when looking at this idea. As I researched upon viewing several website, I noticed that the pricing for one is around s/. 30 to s/. 40 and in dollars around 7 to 15 $. One example is in Starbucks they cost 10 $ while at BlendZ we would be selling them at around s/. 20. Of course we would not only be gaining a profit since we would be purchasing them from a reliable source at 5.60 $ but we would also be marketing and satisfying our customers. Keep in mind that the profit we gain goes to our socially responsible organization of Habla Roosevelt. Therefore this purchase would be a great investment, however I did need to ask my self a very important question. Without any assumptions, would our customers be willing to purchase this cup. Check out the the results surveyed from our sale on Thursday. Please comment below any opinions or any ideas/concerns for BlendZ merchandise. Thank you :)
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BloggerMy name is Stefan Stangl and I am originally from San Francisco, California. Currently, I am senior at Colegio Franklin Delano Roosvelt in Lima, Peru. My passions are sports and art. Personal: @Stefan6 School: @fdrinnovationacademy ♫Tweet me ♫
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June 2015
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