And relax.....

Feels great this morning, to wake up and know that all the presentations for the semester are done and dusted and Christmas time can really begin. The app project was a really great learning tool and covered a huge scope. As I've said before the main difficulty was knowing what to focus on but I think we managed to put together a well constructed document. I hope anyway. 

Having missed the presentations last night I can't comment on that aspect of the project, other to say that I was sorry to miss it. It feels weird to half do a project and not see it presented and not know how that all went. I contributed to the presentation in terms of the preparation of the powerpoint slides and deciding how best to approach it with the team. It was hard to know what was most helpful here, as designing a presentation you're not going to be a part of might actually be more harm than good as the presenters on the night don't have ownership of it then. But I think we reached a good balance between me leading the work and everyone contributing their sections to it. 

I was happy with my level of involvement in the project as a whole despite missing the presentation. Sometimes I've felt frustrated in the group projects as I've felt by dividing up the work you don't necessarily gain the benefit of the whole process. But there have been definite benefits to the teamwork, as well as frustrations, and all in all I think it's been a worthwhile learning experience. This being such a potentially wide topic I got to explore things like app design and the app market and did a lot of research that wasn't necessarily needed for the marketing plan in the end. The process exposed me to a lot of information that I had no need to know before this project which I found beneficial. 

So now the time comes to relax......for a few days. And then study for exams starts. So relaxing in January? Maybe?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!

Project Update

Since I last posted we've achieved a lot regards our app. I suppose we've kind of managed to stick to our time line and by this time last week we pretty much had our app laid out leaving us with a week or so to get the marketing plan written. Although, again, the group dynamic has made this part hard for me as the different levels of investment and attitudes to time mean that everyone is on a slightly different page when it comes to putting together and keeping to schedules. Also, with 5 in our group this difficulty is compounded. I've learned that for me more is more difficult when it comes to group numbers.

For my part I've been doing a lot of the organising of our group. I'll be collating everyone's work into a final document and so possibly have felt the time pressure more than others as I'm waiting for people to send on work before I can try and sculpt it into the final report. I've also been doing a lot of work on the general app design and product description. This has been tricky as it's challenging to include so many people's different ideas and input without rolling over any one person's thoughts and all the while creating a product idea that is simple and easy to use.  I have also dealt with the budgeting section and the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the product.
I've found it a little confusing at times to know what's important and what's not in this project. You could really go as far as you like with regards design and estimating breakeven points, sales figures, sales projections etc. It has been hard to know what was expected in terms of limitations and I feel this could have been made clearer earlier so we knew what we were aiming for.

Our app now bears little, or rather no, resemblance to our initial idea. We shelved the safety based app, as we thought it too complicated and hard to market, and are now focused on a food based recipe database app. We think the market for food apps is good right now, as food and home cooking are experiencing a real surge. This is even more relevant to our app when we put it in the context of the rising prominence of food bloggers and internet chefs. Food is all over the internet and we think there's room for apps that organise that and bring it into your kitchen.

With three days left until our presentation we are in a good position with the report nearly finished and time over the next few days to hone our presentation. Thankfully, the feelings of panic felt during my last post, have mostly subsided and the end it in sight.

App design 101

'Where am I ever going to find the time to create my app??'....is a question I never thought I'd ask myself. To say that the last three weeks have been busy is an understatement. What with work and assignments and then life on top of that it's been an overwhelming few weeks. Finally, with one group project completed and another two to get through I've a bit of space to start thinking about app creation.

I've been quite excited about this project as I like the creative aspect of it although the technological side of it has me somewhat daunted. It almost feels like two immense independent tasks. Create and design an app and then go about applying the tools we have been learning to market it effectively. The time you could spend on the first aspect alone is almost infinite. How long is a piece of string?

I suppose that's been one of the major challenges of these group projects for me is the time management and the management of expectations. There is only so much that a group of people, who in reality spend very little time in the same room, can achieve. So the challenge here is getting thoughts down on paper and transforming those thoughts into something cohesive in as time efficient and painless a manner as possible.

With that in mind the first task is to set out the design and functionality of the app. Discussion over the last couple of weeks has led us to adopt a locations based app as our project material. The app will be map based and have a number of features ranging from social to safety. There are a range of location based apps out there but few combine the features of location sharing, safety alerts and messaging, so there would appear to be a gap in the market for a one stop 'here I am, come join me or come help me' type of app. There are a range of features that we would like to include, and I can already feel stumbling blocks arising. Surely the more complicated the app is the harder it will be to visualise and understand. Also, the question of technology rears it's ugly head. As I mentioned I'm no coder and I have limited knowledge as to what smart phones are even capable of these days. Maybe an attitude of 'think big' is required and it can always be reigned in from there.

So there are thoughts there. The task at hand is to organise and refine those thoughts. Ideally we would have our app designed by early next week and then we have just over a week to write the marketing proposal and come up with our powerpoint. Hopefully a lot of material required for our marketing plan will become apparent during the design of the app and the first task will inform the second. We should have a good grasp of the product, who we're intending to be our target market, where they're most likely to gain access to the app and how much if anything they are likely to pay for it.

On reflection maybe it's not two mammoth tasks after all. Here's hoping.

I'M HERE!!!!!!!