​
The LinkedIn course on Project Leadership is about developing strategic skills & soft skills as a project leader.
In summary, I learnt that project leaders should be serving the team whilst the team members serve the project. While project leaders do not hold full command in the project, they are the ones who are accountable for the project. For instance, the role of a project leader may not involve establishing the project vision, outcomes or goals but they are responsible for communicating it to the team.
LinkedIn Course on Project Leadership
​
​
- Cecilia (Team Leader)
​
The e-Event is about developing visible & inclusive leadership. Through this e-Event, I was able to explore the concept of leadership in the area of showing empathy.
I learnt how to improve my people management skills by being more aware of my own emotions and mood, and those of others. For example, recognising my negative emotions & figuring out how to calm myself down by setting certain boundaries. It has also taught me the importance of giving members a sense of support as a leader & providing them a safe space to heal in whatever situation they are going through. For instance, having courage to invite team members to share their troubles & attempt to connect with them by putting ourselves in their shoes.
Leading with Empathy Webinar​
​
- Cecilia (Team Leader)
​
The online webinar talks about how one can build a brand effectively. Through this session, the speaker shared a lot about the definition of a ‘brand’ and also a framework which guides me towards building a successful brand for the business.
One thing that changed my perspective was learning and understanding the difference between a brand, marketing and sales. Additionally, I personally always thought that a brand is our product, logo, our social media following and website. However, after going through this talk, they shared more about one’s unique identity and DNA (of the business).
Moving forward, as my team and I take a step back in growing the business, with these techniques learned, I could better apply them and effectively build a brand for our business, creating more awareness in a social cause that we are passionate about and getting more seniors and organisations to support our business.
Building a Brand from Scratch
- Roshelle (Marketing Leader)
​
In this webinar, the speaker shared with me more about ‘Google My Business’ (GMB), a platform that businesses and organisations could use across Google. Following that, he shared about the different functions of GMB and their purpose.
Through this session, it has expanded my knowledge and awareness of other marketing platforms that the business could possibly tap on other than those common social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
With these knowledge, it will be beneficial to me because if the business is good and expands to other platforms, my experience will allow me to bring the business to greater heights through a new platform. Also, being exposed to newer platforms gives me ample opportunities to try and discover how these platforms can bring the best out of the business.
​
​
- Roshelle (Marketing Leader)
Digital & Social Media Marketing Webinar
​
​In this course, they mainly talked about different areas of marketing such as Social Media Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing and the different marketing tools and platforms I could use. Other than learning the different tools, a few things that I learned from the session was to establish goals for social media (e.g what is your social media for?) which is something that I did not do when I first started out How Are You’s social media page. Next, authenticity. Users would need to understand our values just by looking at our posts and lastly, I should avoid spamming user’s feed and try to build rapport with users rather than “hard selling” our product/services.
​
These knowledge will be beneficial to me in the future as being in charge of How Are You’s social media platform, my knowledge would benefit the business in terms of taking the right approach to build relationship and bring our brand across to other users. Also, considering to work as a publicity member (e.g video editor, social media, posters, etc.) for an orgranisation, these knowledge would benefit me in terms of being able to value add to other organisations.
​
With these knowledge, it will be beneficial to me because if the business is good and expands to other platforms, my experience will allow me to bring the business to greater heights through a new platform. Also, being exposed to newer platforms gives me ample opportunities to try and discover how these platforms can bring the best out of the business.
%20(1).png)
Digital & Social Media Marketing Webinar
- Roshelle (Marketing Leader)
​
​
In this developmental opportunity, I learnt how to better design a good website that will be eye-pleasing to everyone and user-friendly. To better design a website, the website layout and colours have to fit our target group to serve their needs better. For example, if a person mentioned that a button is not working, we will have to find the problem. It can be due to the size or layout of the website. And from there, we will edit the website accordingly to better suit their needs.
​
This will help me in the future when I design a website for my portfolio or a website in my future career if I have to do so. Gaining knowledge through this development opportunity, it will help me to develop website better.
HATCH - Website Design 101
- Grace (Production Member)
​
In this course, I was being taught on how to design a good user experience of the product for our target group. The three main points to give a good user experience are when the product solves the problem, it is user-friendly and it gives a positive experience for users.
The first and most important step that we have to do before curating the product is to understand the users through researching and community mapping. This will help us to curate a product that better fit our target group.
​
This has made me realise that during our FYP, it would be better if we could have done a more in depth research and interview about our target group before curating our product and to not assume what our users want. For example, we assume that seniors will have no problem starting a conversation. However, we were wrong as some of the seniors faced some difficulties starting a topic. Thus, we send them Topic of the day to kick start their conversation. Knowing more about our target group will definitely help us to curate a product that will benefit our target group even more.
HATCH - UX 101
- Grace (Production Member)
Yi Shyen (Production Leader)
From this session, I learnt about User Experience Design and how it’s a very human-centric process. This opportunity made me realise how hefty of a mistake it was to not do up a more extensive and proper user research. When we did up the prototypes, it was based on secondary research and intuition. This was the very first mistake we made which was assuming the needs and wants of our users. For example, we initially assumed that we thought that seniors would be able to start conversations with others independently and keep it going.
Fortunately, we managed to find out from our conversation with SGAssist, who had bountiful experience interacting with seniors, that some seniors might not be able to do so. That was when we decided to send out Topic of The Day messages to the seniors and later on, during the feedback session, most of our testers actually relied on our Topic Of The Day messages to sustain conversations with other users. Through the session, I also learnt about the 3 factors that create a good User Experience: Usefulness, Usability and Desirability.
-- Yi Shyen (Production Leader)
OpenJio - Dare To Be course
When I attended this course, one of the sessions stood out to me; it was Trust, Safety and Connection. I learnt that within a group, if there is no trust between the members of the group, it is hard for the group to feel safe and it creates a toxic culture where the members are afraid to share with others and potentially backstab others, leading to conflicts.
I felt that this session was very relevant for me because I felt that there was a period of time during the FYP that all of us felt unsafe and were afraid to share ideas with others. It affected the group and all of us were unable to collaborate well with each other. Through this session, I found out that I tend to utilise criticism to deal with conflict. When I can’t handle conflict, I tend to criticise the personality or characteristics of others. This does not help solve the conflict and just cause distrust among the group.
Through this session, I became aware that I had to be intentional and try to build trust within the group by being more honest with my feelings and expressing a positive need, instead of being so hurtful towards others.
-- Yi Shyen (Production Leader)
OpenJio - Dare To Be course
​
As a member of the marketing team at the start, I wanted to understand and explore the methods and techniques marketers use to promote their product/services online. Especially in the global pandemic, many people are on social media.
Through this lesson, I’ve learnt to understand that good marketing catches people’s attention. One of the key learning points that I have taken away is Hook ( think of those of the people whose attention you want) , Bait (think of what might catch their attention and get them curious) and Sink (think of what they will like and remember you for).
As we assumed that we could get elderly easily on Facebook, we decided to use Facebook as our marketing strategy. However, we did not put in much consideration when captioning our post which could be the reason why people were not attracted. Eventually, we changed the way we caption our post and added emoji and bold words to ensure that our post could deliver the right information and catch people's attention.
​
Another thing that I’ve learnt is the importance of sharing your brand to others so that people can trust you and your business. When we first posted on Facebook, nobody knew who we were which could also be the reason why our engagement on facebook did not reach a large audience. Afterwards, when people reached out to us, we started explaining to others what we did and that eventually got people to trust us. Through my experience, I’ve learnt that it is important to research the way people behave and their reaction when seeing marketing collaterals as user-centered design is the core of digital marketing.
- Rachel (Liaison)
HATCH - Digital Marketing 101
​
​
As the liaison member, I decided to learn more about effective networking as my role was to liaison with organisations as well as seniors. Through joining this lesson, I’ve learnt that developing my interpersonal skills is important as effective networking is dependent on successful communication.
Initially, we wanted to tap on SG Assist & SE CDC for their pool of elderly to join our pilot testing. However, no elderly sign up for our pilot tester. After much follow- up with the organisations and sharing how much we would love to hear from them, we managed to secure them for validation by pitching to them our business idea and gathering feedback and comments.
Through my liaison process, I have learnt the importance of developing relationships and connections within my network to have opportunity.
Effective Networking by Google Digital Garage
- Rachel (Liason)
​
Critical thinking is an important skill and a tool for assessing information quality and relevance. It is also about knowing how to evaluate and make relevant decisions about what to do or what to believe.
This course shared information on how I could separate facts from opinions, examine an issue from all sides, make rational inferences, and withhold personal judgment or biases that may affect critical thinking. Through the course, I also learnt about counterfactual thinking which is uncovering possible alternatives to outcomes from past events, which we applied to find out what we could have done better.
Critical Thinking for Better Judgement and Decision-Making
- Carina (Finance)
Project Management Foundations: Budgets
​
Although we had learnt about cost management from Project Management previously, I attended this course to improve my budgeting skills. I learnt that to create realistic estimates, what kind of research can be done, the importance of contingency funds and what type of estimation to be done. The course also reaffirmed and emphasised that research and planning are vital to ensure that we have sufficient money for the mandatory expenses.
- Carina (Finance)
​
​
​
Through this course, I learnt more on how to communicate my message to others. This course mentions that there are four building blocks that form the foundation for successful communication: The people, the message, the context and effective listening. Everyone has mental filters, where we focus only on the negative aspects of a situation, therefore it is crucial to try to understand from the other’s perspective to communicate clearly. I also learn that when explaining, I should try to flex to the learner’s needs, be clear about the process, explain the importance and reason for the task and let them practice what they have understood.
LinkedIn Course on Communication Foundations
- Carina (Finance)
During the FYP journey, most of the meetings had to be conducted virtually and even when we met in real life to discuss the project, and I realised that communication was an area that
I had to improve on.
Communication is crucial as it will allow others and myself to understand information more effectively. Additionally, help to foster a good working relationship between my team. This course taught me to apply communication principles and techniques for in-person and virtual teams, hone my communication style to persuade better and influence others, and conduct practical work meetings.
- Carina (Finance)
Communication Strategies For A Virtual Age