Over the weekend, our team put together the first draft of our proposal. This was a very challenging process because we had to figure out a way to all work together to put our ideas into one concrete document. We had a long discussion to narrow down our ideas and figure out the details. It was very productive, and going into the week, we had a good idea of what we were trying to accomplish. My role in writing the proposal was to write the conclusion and to edit everyone else’s work together to make it a single, flowing document. My writing skills as an English major were put to the test. I had never attempted a task like that, and I learned a lot from it. I experienced some very challenging situations throughout the editing process. I was constantly worrying that I would offend my team members by correcting them or by making changes that they did not approve of. I did my best, though, and it was a valuable experience.
We had our team member evaluations, as well. I found it very challenging to pass judgment on the other members of my team. I do not like the responsibility of telling people what they are not good at. That is something I hope to change by learning how to constructively criticize without offending people. I was pleasantly surprised by the feedback I got from my group. For the most part, they seem to appreciate my contributions. However, I need to work on encouraging other members to participate more.
On Wednesday, we set up a prototype news room. Watching how people spent their time there was far more valuable than we anticipated. One of the participants was from France, and he watched some French news. We had not considered the fact that the business school has a large number of international students. They may want to see news from their home countries in their own languages. American students may also want to see foreign news because it is presented differently in each country and it helps to create a balanced view on different topics. At first, we had envisioned this room as a quiet place, but as the participants saw stories that interested them, they discussed them. These discussions led to the participants sharing related stories with each other and following up what they heard on other internet sites. The observations we made in the prototype will help us to improve and shape our project.
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