SOCIAL LEARNING POINTS
1. Severely underestimated the learning block that stops seniors from learning how to use technology
We thought that the desire to use the application and the simple application interface would outweigh their lack of ability to navigate on the phone easily and independently. During the pilot testing, there were pilot testers that dropped out because it was too stressful and difficult for them to learn how to use our application.
2. All elderly have very different lifestyles from one another
We assumed most seniors in Singapore, lead a very sedentary lifestyle and would be homebodies. We thought that all of them would have similar characteristics, but the seniors we got on board for the project were quite different from each other. Some of them took up jobs to stay engaged, some were retired individuals that usually stay home, some were retired individuals that really like to travel around Singapore.
COGNITIVE LEARNING POINTS
1. IT APPLICATIONS
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With the skills that we learned from IT application, we could apply it into our website by using the different tools available in WIX and our marketing collaterals
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Applied the basic video editing knowledge that we were taught for Premiere Pro to edit videos
2. Enterprise Creation & Development
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Applied analytical and innovative thinking for the business planning
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Utilised our knowledge on pitching of business proposals to external parties, acquired feedback and validation from these parties
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Applied knowledge on market analysis to understand our target market through primary and secondary research
3. Project Management Skills
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Sound bite is the most important for a business and through project management, we learnt how to curate a short yet precise sound bite that summarises our business
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Soundbite: How Are You is a social enterprise that aims to encourage seniors to create new connections with other seniors through a mobile application.
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Apply project management tools, develop a plan for people, time, cost, risk and events management
4. Marketing and Public Relations
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Through Marketing and Public Relations, we learnt how to choose appropriate marketing platforms for our target group. Thus, we choose our marketing platform as Facebook as seniors are more active on Facebook.
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Also, we learnt about different advertising methods, ( as our marketing was through Facebook, we decided to do paid advertising on Facebook to gather a larger pool of seniors
AFFECTIVE LEARNING POINTS
Cecilia
1. Task-oriented to people-oriented
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Through this journey, I understood the importance of considering the feelings & the underlying thoughts of others instead of being fixated on the project. While project outcomes are important in this FYP, understanding the various motivations & interests of others is also a deciding factor in achieving good results or developing a high-performing factor.
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2. The importance of self-management
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As a project leader, it is crucial to manage yourself & regulate your own actions, feelings and thoughts before managing the project or the caring for the people in the project. I see this journey as a test to develop my self-management skills through discovering boundaries for myself to connect with my subconscious state & understand my own emotions and the causes behind it
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3. The art of adaptability
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I realised that working in a collectivistic society, it is more important to respect people’s values, personalities, lifestyles or beliefs instead of insisting my own opinions. It is an essential life skill to learn how to change our actions, course or approach to doing things in order to suit a new or unexpected situation, instead of insisting my way.
Roshelle
1. Willingness to try something new
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During this FYP, it was my first time trying a new role, marketing. Having prior marketing experience during my internship, I wanted to push myself further to try something new independently and use this as a platform to improve myself. Hence, I took up this role. (Personally, even though I am not good at it, but I am willing to learn and try)
2. Improve my confidence
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One of my biggest struggles that I face thus far is confidence in my work. Personally, being in a team, doing group work, there is far more responsibility to hold as compared to an individual work. I always fear that my mistakes will let them down and I do not want to let my teammates down. In order to improve my level of confidence, I must learn how to handle the fear and be mature about it, to use my fear as a motivation factor when doing my tasks.
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3. Time Management
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Time Management is one factor that I would need to improve. Sometimes, I tend to procrastinate and on other days I tend to complete my tasks earlier. Therefore, I hope to pace myself better when doing work and try my best to complete my task fast.
Grace
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1. Staying disciplined in managing my time
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Rushing for deadlines were common in FYP. To avoid delaying any deliverables, I learnt how to stay focused despite all the distractions working from home. For example, coming up with a timetable plan to complete the wireframe to send our external app developer & keeping within the plan. Additionally, using a stress-ball was also beneficial in relieving the pressure within me & this improved my productivity.​
2. Liaison Skills
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Being in charge of liaising with the app developer, I learnt the importance of corporate communication through this FYP journey. Speaking with external partner such as our app developer has exposed me to being professional and clear in conveying my message to the other party. It has also helped me to gain confidence in communicating in a professional setting.
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3. Keeping a positive mindset
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Every project journey comes with challenges & difficulties. Throughout this FYP journey, there may be times when feeling negative, demoralised or giving up is common but I learnt how to enjoy this journey & see this as a learning experience to enrich myself. Having this mindset has encouraged me to disregard failure & seek improvements from the experience
Yi Shyen
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Acknowledging the work that I’ve done
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Throughout this FYP, I always felt that I haven’t been doing enough and I felt that I was a freeloader on the team. I later realised that this feeling mainly stemmed from the fact that I don’t do enough visible tasks and most of the tasks that I’ve done were group tasks. Due to the shared responsibility for the work that I’ve done, I couldn’t take ownership of the work that I’ve done which led me into self-doubt and incompetency. I relied on others often to reaffirm that I’ve done enough work when I should have learnt to acknowledge my own efforts.
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2. Communication; Learning to communicate differently with others
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One of the things that I struggled the most with during FYP has to be communication. Sometimes during group discussions, I have a hard time getting my point across. This led me to be selective about the things I shared with the team and that was wrong. I should have learnt the various communication styles of my team members and learn how to communicate in the way that they would understand best.
Rachel
1. Develop strong communication skills & have open conversations
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During our FYP journey, we had many misunderstandings and this led to conflict within the group members which led to unproductive work. I have learnt that developing strong communication skills is important to avoid any conflict, compromise and make better decisions. This is also the reason why we started to have more heart to heart conversations with one another.
2. To plan and manage time
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As we underestimate the time that we needed for all our milestones, we ended up not having enough time to complete certain milestones. Through this project, I have learnt that time management is one of the key aspects to working effectively and efficiently. Eventually, we started to have more back up plans for our milestone. However, I personally feel that more could be improved for this
3. Supporting one another
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During our FYP journey, we’ve been through many ups and down. Most of the time when we are feeling down or lacking motivation, the atmosphere becomes very quiet and everyone starts to lack the energy and motivation to continue doing. Through this, I have learnt that supporting one another in a team is very crucial for the team to meet its goal together. As a team, we should not be against one another, instead we should try to help one another when facing obstacles. This way, the team will also be more creative and productive.
Carina
Through this semester, project and working together as a team, I learned and improved my communication skills, thinking and acting strategically from a business perspective. While working on the project, I realised the importance of trusting my work, myself and my team to work together to support each other. Every setback and challenge was also a chance for us to improve on what we do. Although we live in a technological age, I also realised there is so much about technology that we do not know. It was an experience for us to develop a prototype based on research and feedback. I think that interacting with the elderly has also encouraged me that we are never too old to learn. Some of them mentioned that they just needed more time, training, and teaching to be familiarised with the technology. I hope to bring this mindset to continue learning on how we can improve ourselves and the business.