Week 10 - sending email and PDR

i did not manage to make this session as i was doing other university work as i let workloads pile up, which meant i had to sacrifice the session in order to get other pieces of work done to a standard that i was happy with. This is something that i am going to learn from in the coming years at university; stay on top of your work. i caught up with the group and understood where we were in regards to the project and what we had to do. we are ready to send the email to the clients which excites me as it will finally give us the opportunity to get some insight into the working marketing environment.

i have started my PDR and am on my way to completing it. it is not my usual style of writing; writing about myself and my performance, however i feel it has enabled me to reflect well on my performance; what i can do better next term and how to improve in general. 

i am keen to get back on track with the project after uni and will be putting in extra effort an hours in order to do so.

week 9 - sending the email and PDR

i did not attend this seminar, do to a lack of motivation about the project. however after catching up with the group after it boosted me on to get more involved. we finally got round to devising and email to the potential clients about the big agency and sent it to Bex for her to check over it and make sure there were no mistakes in it and make sure it was to a professional standard to give us a bigger chance of being successful with the clients.

i also learnt this week that i had to do my PDR, although this was more work to do, i was keen to get on with it and i also felt i had a fair amount to write about and express how i felt about the project and how i thought i was doing individually.

week 8 - constructing an email

in this week we were suppose to have devised an email which we were to send to clients explain who we are and what we need them for. however due to i think lack of motivation within the group, we have not been putting in the effort that needs to be put in, in order to obtain the final grade that we would like. we all need to improve on our time management skills to make sure that we are all there so we can discuss what we have to do in the coming weeks. we will devise the email in this coming week and get it sent off as soon as possible.

week 7 - class feedback

in this session we were introduce to stand up meeting, which basically is a recap of what the group has done over the previous week which was presented to the class, for example the tasks that our group have completed, and also some of the problems that we were facing and how we were going to overcome them. This is a good way to improve our public speaking skills and also gives us a chance to reflect on what we have been doing in the previous week and made us realise that 'we have a lot to do!'.
we also needed to complete our ethics form which would enable us to be able to carry on our research.

week 6 - professional development week and PDP

in professional development week i took the opportunity to go home and take on extra shifts from my work place and also catch up on university work and start my assignments. the job is working front of house in a golf club restaurant, waiting on, this gave me the opportunity to work on my communication skills , as i have to deal with customers on a daily basis, and also my team working skills as we often hold large functions which have to flow smoothly. Working in this kind of work place provides experience for the future as i hope to within a team in future jobs because this is where i feel i excel.

in this week also we had to fill out our PDP form which is basically a personal development plan, so what areas i was going to improve on how i was going to do it. the areas were split into different categories being; behavioural, attitudinal, and competency outcomes.

Week 5 - The big Agency project.

After being unsuccessful with the 'part in the park' pitch, we were assigned another project. in order to start the project we devised an email in order to get in touch with our client, Bex, lucky Bex works in the university so it was easy for us to organise a meet up. we met up later in the week and we talked about potential clients which we were going to be working with - for example code was a major one. we put forward ideas and suggestions and came to the conclusion that we were going to be shooting short videos of the clients showing students what the big agency can offer to them and also what the employer can expect. we devised a range of question in which we would ask the contacts what they think are the fundamental factors they are looking for when looking at students professional development.

week 4 - feedback on presentation

This week we got feedback on our presentations and what we did well and what we did badly:

What the students did well

·      Got the sense of ‘a pitch’ at the beginning in tone

·      Clearly prepared & rehearsed – good team spirit

·      Sense of research, and focused on what will do

·      Understanding of characteristics/team

·      Academic understanding

·      Research event

·      Campaign

·      Like screenshots re uses – source?

·      4 minutes

·      Dealt well with Q&A – a little vague in some answers, but confident

What the students could improve on

·      Talk to us, not your notes

·      Who is the audience?

·      Too much time on explaining who they are – introduce selves when talking about individual traits

·      Lack confidence in their own script

·      Lacking experiences

·      Aims & objectives not clear

·      Belbin – how applies to this project? (90 secs on this = too long)

·      Is the academic theory relevant to this pitch?

·      Care with description re getting job done. Give a sense of HOW? 

      i feel that the given improvements are fair as the presentation was not as clean and as practiced as it should've been. For future presentations and pitches it is important for us to be confident about what we are pitching for, because if we aren't confident then how can employers and investors be. We could also improve by only including relevant material and not spending too long on things which only need to be mentioned briefly mentioned. unfortunately we were not able to win the pitch for party in the park however were given the opportunity to work with Bex on 'The big Agency' project itself which we would look into more detail next week.

week 3 - 5 minute presentation

in week 3, the 3 big agency groups came together in order to deliver our group presentations. in my group is Keddy, Ryan, Chris, and Matthew.  we were asked to deliver a presentation which showed a passion about the chosen agency, and a sense of familiarity with it and a clear sense of why we should be chosen for the job over our competitors. however whilst watching other people's presentations we learnt that there was more than one group who was pitching for the party in the park.

week 2

This week we looked closer at our Belvin result in more depth in order to form groups with array of different personalities in order to do the best possible job of the group assignment. In the second week we got introduced to our tasks and went through a few possibilities which our group would go ahead with. in terms of the group which i chose to go with, i went with member of the group who i have worked with previously as we all know we work very well together and know we will do the best possible job. when looking at all of the groups Belvin test results we recognised that we all had different strengths and weaknesses, meaning that it will enable us to help each other overcome weaknesses. in the end the project that we decided to go with was the 'party in the park' and the marketing company we would be working for is 'wireless'. in order to get our preferred choice of 'party in the park we had to prepare a 5 minute presentation which is to be presented in week 3. We came up with a team name "markup manchester". we used Microsoft powerpoint in order to present the powerpoint. we met up several times in order to discuss who was doing what and researching what.

week 1

In the first week we looked at the task of the big agency and what we are going to be doing in the coming year. the first question that we were asked was what motivates us. A huge factor which motivates me is getting a job done to my desired result. another thing that motivates me is being around other people with the same goals and ambitions. another thing that we look at in the first week is the Belvin test which shows us by answering a range of questions what position in a group we play and our strengths and weaknesses. For me my main strengths are that of a 'driver' - i am energetic and ambitious, i am a strong motivator and this should brush off against my fellow team mates motivating them to participate to the group.