Reflection 2

http://writingforthepublicmasses.blogspot.com/2016/04/proposal-presentation-reflection.html

Reflection 2

Reflection 2:

Part 1

Things definitely could have gone better on my part of the presentation besides the way my voice sounds recorded. One big thing that I noticed was how I need to be more clear and articulate when presenting. Most of this was due to nervousness but I can definitely improve slowing down and really thinking about what I am saying. In terms of professionalism, this can be improved with being mindful of my stance, what my hands are doing as well as eye-contact. Overall, I think I did alright considering that speaking to a group has never been my strong suit.

Part 2

Our group is doing a great job of knowing what we now need to do to move forward. We have a plan that has been reassured by Big Hollow Food Co-op and plan to move quickly. Our presentation went well, and I think we all did an excellent job in preparation. Group wise, we seem to be in agreement with most of the things we propose to do and what steps to take forward. Together, we all work really well together and have a sense of urgency to get things done in the best way we possibly can.I am anxious about not getting everything done by the time the semester is over, which may be the case. I need to accept that some of our proposed ideas may just be plans without them actually being implemented.  I hope that Big Hollow Food Co-op likes what we produce at the end of the semester and project and I hope that afterwards the growth of the company will increase due to more student members.

Big Hollow Follow-up Email

Jeff,

Thank you for coming to our class yesterday and hearing our proposal. Your feedback was great, we can't wait to start working on the tasks given. If you think of anything else, feel free to convey your ideas and thoughts to us. We will be in touch. 

Here are the tasks that we understand you would like us to work on:

• Make the short video on what a coop is. 
• Would you like your workers to be in it, do you have any ideas for how you would like it to be, or do you want to trust our group to do the best job we can do?
• Internship requirements and specificities (nutritionist majors) (RSO: Wellness Ambassadors)
• Connect all social media to each other
• Instagram, connect to Facebook, at the very least.

If we missed any tasks you would like us to do, please feel free to email us back and let us know so we can get started on it. 

Linked to the email is the powerpoint that we gave with the link to the short video and other information that was given in our presentation!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GUIftry6oOyXlbyEOhLDRg5bNRfOGCYMzt-wIMyjWRU/edit?usp=sharing

-Group

Reflection 2

Part 1: Presentation: 
Overall, I feel that my portion of the presentation went fairly well. There are definitely many aspects of presenting that I could improve on, though. First, especially when I was discussing the seven cooperative principles, I could have made a lot more eye contact with the audience. Next, I also could have eliminated the amount of times I said filler words such as "um." In addition, I should probably speak up in the future. I did not realize how quietly I was speaking until I watched the recording of our presentation. However, in terms of communicating the necessary information to the audience, I think that my part of the presentation went well.

Part II: Reflection:
I think many aspects of our project are going smoothly. As a group, we work well together. In addition, our interaction with our community partner has been great. Jeff has been really easy to work with and has provided a lot of helpful suggestions. I am a little anxious about the completion of the video and the logistics of being able to create something effective for Big Hollow. However, I think we definitely have the potential to make something that will bring in more customers. For the rest of the semester, I hope that our effects will ultimately help Big Hollow, and we will be able to educate the community about the importance of co-ops.

Reflection 2

Part 1:

I feel like my part of the presentation went well. I was not able to be present, but I did my best to convey all the information I needed to our community partner. One specific part of the rubric I did not meet was inviting questions and engaging the audience. These two criteria were tough to meet as I was not present in class. Another criterion I struggled on was speaking confidently. I noticed I was a little quiet and timid, which is natural for me with public speaking. I could improve this by making sure I am confident on knowing the information I am presenting. I also was speaking a little slower than I would have liked, which caused my part to extend longer than I planned. Other than these issues, I feel confident about meeting the other criteria.

Part 2:

The Big Hollow group works very well together and each group member does a great job with pulling their weight on the project. We make the time to meet and work on our project when needed and are prepared for each phase of the project. Our interactions with our community partner could be improved. We have communicated with them really well through email, but I believe making more visits to the store and visiting with Jeff in person would benefit us a lot. The comments from our community partners after our presentation led me to believe they are excited about what we intend to help them out with. We will continue to interact with them regarding what they want us to focus our time on and what will benefit them the most.

The one thing I am anxious about is completing our approved tasks on time. I have no doubt that we will work extremely hard to produce a great product for Big Hollow, but I worry about the time frame in which we have to do it.

I hope to give Big Hollow some more insight into how they can promote to the college population to increase the membership of their store. Our group is excited to get the word out there on who Big Hollow is, and I know that the products we produce will bring the Co-op many steps forward in increasing their business. After this project, I definitely plan on making more trips to the Co-op because I support their philosophy and want to contribute to their overall goals.

LAMP Proposal + Followup Email

Link to Proposal Presentation - LAMP

Proposal

A Proposal to Present New Web Design Material to the Learning Actively Mentorship Program

For:

Rachel Watson, Mentor—Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP)

Charlamagne Belknap
Paige Bodily
Anson Lichtfuss
Anthony Rodd
Megan Rogge
Robert West
English 2035: Writing for Public Forums

University of Wyoming

A Proposal to Present New Web Design Material to the Learning Actively Mentorship Program

Introduction

The purpose of this proposal is to discuss the necessity and benefits of aiding the Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP) in developing significant and thorough content for their University of Wyoming webpage. This proposal will discuss: the background of LAMP and the students working with them, the problem LAMP has encountered, the proposed solution to this problem, beneficiaries of solving the problem, and a timeline of expected completion.

Background Information

English 2035: Writing for Public Forums is a class designed to partner groups of students with members in the community who have expressed need to further the achievement of their goals. This specific group is working with the Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP). LAMP’s plan is to transform core science classrooms into engaging, interactive environments through the use of active learning classrooms (ALCs). The ALCs this program has created are comprised of pods of desks and computers for ease of group-work, a central location for the professor, and white boards and projectors all around the room. The format of these classrooms are designed to get every student involved in the learning process and eliminate the idea of a front and back of a classroom. ALCs and small group work help students focus on the application of learning content as opposed to memorization. 

Some of LAMP’s goals include improving the quality of undergraduate science education, increasing the percentage of pass rates in entry level science courses, and achieving top quartile status in publication rates in PhD faculty (University of Wyoming, n.d.). Governor Matt Mead created the Science Initiative and the subgroup LAMP. The task force assigned to these groups plans to implement the success of LAMP by training two full time faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields to run the program, training graduate and undergraduate students as TAs and GAs in an active learning environment, and training most existing faculty by 2022 in using an active learning environment. Professor Rachel Watson is the interim leading role of LAMP and plans to hold this position until they begin hiring for two full time faculty.

As the leading role, Professor Watson is our primary point of contact for this ongoing project. With the information she has given our group and our diverse group of Accounting, Economics, English, and Computer Science majors we will provide different perspectives that can aid LAMP. We aim to conduct research and produce website content that will be useful to the long-term success of LAMP and its acceptance across campus.

Problem of Need

Overall, LAMP struggles with communicating its goals, helping other departments feel included rather than excluded, and a lack of web presence. Professor Watson also expressed a need to compile research from other universities on how their Active Learning programs have been successful.

LAMP’s relationship with the community is compromised because the community does not understand how their goals will positively affect them. This has led to an absence of support from the community and non-STEM UW faculty for LAMP’s mission. The lack of communication leads to tension within university departments.

This ties into the second problem: helping other departments feel included in the initiative. Since LAMP has received substantial funds to carry out its plan, it seems the departments not involved in LAMP feel left out, and possibly unwanted. This is not LAMP’s intention. Better communication with departments about LAMP and it’s purpose might clear up that feeling of exclusion. Professor Watson has identified feelings of exclusion from LAMP’s peers in non-STEM-field departments. Those feelings of exclusion arise from those outside fields being left out of implementation of Active Learning curricula and not having a good understanding of what exactly it is that LAMP is doing right now and what they have proposed to do in the future.

Another important thing that LAMP is missing is web presence. Currently, the LAMP page is very short and difficult to find. For a short while, the webpage could not be found, and we needed to search the Google cache to find a reference to the page (See Figure 1). The inefficient web presence affects students, government officials, and community members that might be researching LAMP and its purpose. With an online presence that is easily understood and accessible, LAMP will be able to communicate its goals, market its program, and update the community as the program progresses.

Proposed Solution

We propose to generate content for LAMP’s website. This will create a clear pathway for communicating its goals within the community. There are great examples of existing organizations working on similar projects, as well as specific techniques which we will use.

First, there are several other universities across the country that have already started up a LAMP program of their own. The University of Minnesota (UM) is one example. On the UM site (see Figure 2), common concerns and issues are identified and addressed, useful tools to empower professors were posted, and the whole site displays in a fluid, understandable layout. It can be seen that including each individual staff member can be a challenge, but websites provide a way for staff to uniquely engage the cause and make it their own. These websites also serve to educate several audiences in an effective manner.

There are also outside resources, such as an article written by Georgia Everse in the Harvard Business Review, to help guide our creation of completely new content for the website. Using the guidelines outlined in her article, the final product we write will be concise and meaningful (Everse 1). If it provides value to the reader in a way he or she cares about, we have succeeded. Such content may apply to anyone from a UW staff member to a state government official. Although the material will cover many topics, it will also stay focused and continually reinforce LAMP’s purpose (Everse 3). While we work to implement these strategies, keeping the narrative human and perhaps even telling a story will help extraordinarily (Everse 4). These are all keys to developing high-quality content, and we will actively use them for this project.

As we collaborate closely with LAMP staff, we will work hard to make this project a holistic representation of the program, clearly communicating its goals and how viewers might engage with them. The Active Learning Program is relatively new to the University of Wyoming, and this project will help disseminate positive information about this growing program.

Beneficiaries

Many categories of people, ranging from students taking core sciences to the entire state of Wyoming, can benefit from a successful implementation of a webpage for LAMP. For the purpose of this proposal, main beneficiaries will be the students of the University of Wyoming and the teaching faculty throughout campus.

Students at UW have heard little about LAMP, if they have heard of the program at all. By creating a better, all inclusive, online presence, students who are to participate in the courses LAMP intends to create will have readily available information regarding the methods of teaching they are to experience.With the incorporation of ALC’s and LAMP, their education, real world preparedness, and grades will also drastically improve.

Core science faculty will have better pass rates in their classes and more substantial curriculum. Faculty outside of the STEM-fields will have role models to observe the usage of Active Learning so they can implement it on their own in their own classes.

The proposed website design and information will benefit these community members by better informing them to LAMP’s purpose, and their existing and continuing work.

Timeline

We intend to have webpage material ready for LAMP to integrate into their new page by the end of the Spring 2016 semester. The final day for classes is May 5^th. In the interim, there will be several projects completed, including a presentation of this proposal to LAMP, and meeting with Professor Watson before April 7th.

Conclusion

The Learning Actively Mentorship Program (LAMP) seeks to aid students in successfully passing their introductory science courses. To do this, LAMP has begun to develop a new building with a more student-centered floor plan. In addition, the program’s members anticipate training new and current science faculty in Active Learning practices. As they work to complete their program, LAMP faces adversity by being unable to clearly define their purpose and how implementing new classrooms and Active Learning teaching will benefit the University of Wyoming and its students. To solve this issue, this group proposes to create better informed, clear, and concise content to be integrated into LAMP’s webpage. Once LAMP is fully unified into the University of Wyoming introductory science courses, the new webpage will better inform students and faculty at the University of Wyoming as to what LAMP is, what they do, and how the program will benefit them.

Works Cited

"Active Learning Classrooms & Learning Actively Mentoring Program." University of Wyoming. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Everse, Georgia. "Eight Ways to Communicate Your Strategy More Effectively." Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Publishing, 22 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

"Making Active Learning Work." University of Minnesota. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

University of Wyoming. "UW Science Initiative." UW Science Initiative. University of Wyoming, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016.

Appendix

Figure 1. University of Wyoming webpage; UW Science Initiative, Active Learning & Student Success tab;

Figure 2. University of Minnesota

Followup Email

Good Afternoon Rachel,

Thank you for coming to our presentation last Thursday. We are excited to continue our work with you for LAMP.

To recap Thursday's presentation, we proposed generating content for your website based off research and successful examples at other Universities.

In our conversation afterwards, we discussed possibly creating a video for LAMP as well as reorganizing and updating the new LAMP webpage.

As a group we have decided that maybe a video is out of the scope of this course. However, using our robust writing abilities and the skills we have practiced in Writing for Public Forums, we plan on refining and improving the webpage content.

We would love to meet with you in the next week to devise a plan most beneficial to LAMP. Is there a time that works best for you? Please ‘reply all’ to make communicating with the whole group easier.

Thank you,

The LAMP Group

MBNA Follow Up Email

Hello All —

Below in red are my suggestions/comments.  Your ideas are great.  My only concern is having enough tasks for an intern to do to earn credit that wouldn’t require a LOT of oversight from me :).

Thanks so much for your hard work.  Please be free to contact me with any questions or if you need clarification on anything.

Ellen

On Apr 4, 2016, at 9:58 AM, Alyssa Medina <amedina8@uwyo.edu> wrote:

Good morning, Ellen!

It was great to see you last week for our presentation, we can't wait to get started on the next phase of our project. We will be looking at contacting the Haub School of ENR this week with the intention of finding out what exactly their internship requirements are. This should help us to formulate and document a more cohesive plan for you and MBNA to work with. We'll be sure to keep you updated each step of the way. Until then, here's a quick list we came up with that entails most of the initial issues we discussed.  Please edit as you see fit; we'd love to know what isn't really necessary to you and what could be added:

Update website — We use a free google platform (google sites) for our webpage.  We like the free part (and the ease of editing).  I don’t know if it is possible to change the front page (I really haven’t spent much time with it…).  We are open to suggestions/changes, even regarding the platform, but it does need to be accessible to non-web-savvy folks like myself for editing purposes :).

• Connect blog to website (rather than 2 separate sites)
• Update event calendar — an ongoing issue!
• Streamline front page for easier access (combine links, fill out pages, organize links by importance rather than alphabetical?)

Manage social media — great ideas

• Interaction with fans on Facebook
• Take and share pictures of trails/events
• Brainstorm how to engage the community year-round (sharing user photos, ski tips, general questions?)

On-Campus Advertising  — again, great ideas.

• Design fliers/posters
• Organize and operate table in union
• Communicate with Nordic Ski Club

Miscellaneous

• Keep track of issues between different trail users and implement ideas to promote better signage/encourage sharing — a big issues but unfortunately our hands are tied as far as implementing — everything must be approved by the USFS
• Build/strengthen relationships with community businesses
• Anything budget-related (possibly in conjunction with advertising?) — this is all done by our treasurer so wouldn’t be in the purview of an intern.  Any spending requests over $200 have to be approved by the board of directors.  Other requests go directly to the treasurer.
• Help existing employees with daily tasks — Aside from the goomers, the ski school director and I are the only employees and neither of us have “daily" tasks.  A few things that might be helpful are setting up a database of members.  Right now I keep track of all of our members in an excel web site and it is tedious and not very efficient.  Helping with ski school is also an option — advertising/soliciting volunteer instructors/etc. (things that the ski school director does) could help.  The only other frequent task I have is responding to members — acknowledging donations by email and updating the excel spreadsheet.  A fair amount of my time is spent doing this and it might be something an intern could take over.

We'll be getting together in class on Tuesday to discuss where to go from here. Thank you for all of your input, it's been very helpful! 

Alyssa

Clarissa 

Lauryn

Stone

Kevin

Big Hollow Food Coop Proposal and Presentation

A Proposal to Update Marketing Tactics for Big Hollow Food Co Operative

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GUIftry6oOyXlbyEOhLDRg5bNRfOGCYMzt-wIMyjWRU/edit?usp=sharing

For:

Jeff Hubble and Big Hollow Food Co Operative Store

Chelsee Dellinger

Michaela Jones

Kelsey Lowrey

Colleen Dorfler

Emily Lescure

English 2035: Writing for Public Forums

University of Wyoming

A Proposal to Update Marketing Tactics for Big Hollow Food Co Operative

Proposal:

We are writing for approval of our plan to educate community members on why it is important to shop at Big Hollow Food Co-op, to provide information to the community on what a cooperative does, and to gain more student memberships.

Background:

The Big Hollow Food Co-op describes themselves as “A little grocery store with a big heart. We're located in historic downtown Laramie, Wyoming. Big Hollow offers an eclectic variety of specialty foods, international cuisine, beauty supplies, allergy–friendly products, local and organic produce, and a variety of other knickknacks” (Big Hollow Food Coop). Big Hollow supports local agriculture, provides foods at a reasonable price, and gives the local community a voice (Who we are).

Our group is composed of five individuals with varying majors and diverse backgrounds. We are all currently in the course English 2035, Writing for Public Forums, and our ultimate goal is to assist Big Hollow with their advertising needs. Additionally, as college students, we have been able to experience Big Hollow’s marketing tactics directed towards the University of Wyoming population. Our group serves to assist Big Hollow with advertising and educating the community about cooperatives.

With large competitors such as Walmart and Safeway, community members do not always acknowledge locally owned and supported food stores such as Big Hollow Food Co-op. In addition, many community members may be unaware that Big Hollow exists, and others do not understand why supporting a local co-op is so beneficial.  Our group intends to educate the community about the importance of supporting Big Hollow and other cooperatives. Our ultimate goal is to spread the word of what Big Hollow Food Co-op does and stands for. We hope to accomplish this goal by providing education to the community and teaching others about importance of co-ops. In order to educate others, we hope to add more informative content to the Big Hollow website and Facebook page.

The Problem:

Big Hollow, before anything else, is a small business. The co-op needs the support of the local community to keep their business running. How do we ensure that business is always flowing for Big Hollow; we must first figure out what is wrong. As a group, we looked online at not only their website, but their Facebook page. While doing this, our English 2035 group found that there is not much information about Big Hollow online. While they have an existing website and Facebook page, it is not as current as most people would expect a company to keep a website. With technology growing as rapidly as it is, businesses have to recognize that having a good looking and up to date data base is essential to a businesses success.

A problem identified by Big Hollow to the group was that they want to educate the community about how they are more than just a small business, they are a co-op (cooperative). A co-operative is a group or store that voluntarily cooperates with other small businesses and farms for their mutual, social, economic, and cultural benefit. Because of this, Big Hollow is helping the community, which is another reason people should shop there. How do we get the word out? Advertisements; Big Hollow does not advertise as thoroughly as they could. Not only do they not put their products online in a timely manner for receiving shipments, but they do not advertise their store as much as they do the food. While they are yes, selling their food, they are also selling the store, and why people should shop there instead of the chain supermarkets.

By addressing the problems that our group has seen, both Big Hollow and the locals of Laramie will benefit. Big Hollow, as a store, can benefit by our ideas; by addressing the problems that they have, and then going on and fixing the problems, they will of created a more constant form of advertisement that will be out in public for the average Laradite. Residents of the Laramie community will benefit by knowing about a local grocery store with heart healthy, local food as an option instead of going to the corporate stores like Safeway and Walmart.

Proposed Solutions:

After conducting extensive research on Big Hollow, as well as many other Food Cooperatives, our group has determined that in order to increase the membership of their store, Big Hollow needs to direct their focus on improving their advertising. One of the main mediums of advertising we have decided to focus on is updating Big Hollow’s website.

Big Hollow does a great job with their Facebook page and keeping it up to date on advertising products; however, the Co-op’s actual website needs to be updated to include more information for current customers as well as potential customers. A webpage describing Washington Electric Co-op goes into great detail regarding what a Co-op is, the importance of its members, the savings returned to the members, and how the Co-op works and is structured (“What is a Co-op”). Big Hollow does present some of this information on their website, but they could present their information in a more clear and concise way. Providing this information to the public is essential to increasing the awareness of the Co-op and why they are an important business to support.

More of our research indicates that making the name of the company stand out in any advertisement is crucial to getting customers into the store (Entreprenuer.com). If we can focus on getting more people to recognize the store and getting people into the store based on the advertisements, Big Hollow will benefit greatly by an increase in membership.

Another way we plan to improve Big Hollow’s website, if time allows, is to create a short video clip describing all of the above information on what a Co-op is. We will not only post this on the company’s webpage, but we will also spread it throughout the web to reach out to more potential customers in the area.

Research has shown that college students respond well to many types of advertising (Marketingcharts.com). Our group intends to work on improving Big Hollow’s advertising strategies in order to reach out to a higher demographic in Laramie, the college students. Once the students realize and understand what Big Hollow is and what they stand for, we are confident that the membership of the store will increase.

Timeline:

Below is a timeline that includes the benchmarks we will accomplish and when.

1st Presentations: March 31st

Revised Project Proposal: April 14th

Work on advertising updates and create the video clip (and solutions agreed upon with BH)

Final Project: April 28th/ May 3rd

Final Presentation: May 10th

Conclusion:

Big Hollow Food Co-op is a local grocery store that is dedicated to the Laramie community and is looking for more ways to reach out to its members. That being said, our group’s intentions are to help bring in more customers, as well as notify the community regarding information about cooperatives. In order to create more business, we believe that various forms of advertising will benefit the cooperative. Keeping Big Hollow’s social media updated and putting up flyers will hopefully catch people’s attention, thus bringing in more revenue. As for educating the community about cooperatives and why people should shop there, our group thought that a descriptive video would be the most fitting and interesting way to go about the issue. As a group, we have concluded that these ideas are all attainable goals and feel that Big Hollow will be able to benefit from our ideas.

Works Cited

"Big Hollow Food Coop." Big Hollow Food Coop. Big Hollow, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.

"Entrepreneur - Start, Run and Grow Your Business." Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur Staff, n.d.

Web. 28 Mar. 2016.

"What Is a Co-op?" Washington Electric Coop RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.

"Which Types of Ads Do College Students Pay Attention To?" MarketingCharts. Marketingcharts.com, 15 July 2014. Web. 03 Mar. 2016.