Thursday March 21st

A very long lunch with Matt 

Today was a very productive day. We got together to continue with our product development.

 One of our directors, Matt Browne, joined us to help out with the process. Matt’s enthusiasm was infectious and we were all really excited to get some great ideas together. We did some divergence exercises on a few products then did some convergence to try and find the best products and ideas. We got some great value from this exercise. We began to see our potential products coming together. Now we need to go out and do some research about them to see which ones prove popular with students and what else we can learn to improve them further.  Then we will need to work out how to prototype them and get the best possible product to market. We are still at the  idea finding and solution selection stage of our product development. 

This was a very fun and exciting part of the process and we are looking forward to developing our prototype and getting down to the nuts and bolts of starting our business. Now if you will excuse us there is a small pile of readings that need to be read.

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Wednesday March 20th

Last Day of Term! 

The first whirlwind term of the Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship (PDE) came to an end. We felt it was time to party a little.

 We had a team building braai just to get to know each other a bit better outside of work and the university environment.  Craig kindly offered up his house as a venue. Meat, drinks and Thirty Seconds were the order of the day, the skottle was lit (it seemed strange to be using one to cook things other than boerewors). After all eating too much and learning some interesting things about each other (such as Mo’s impressive triple jump skills) it was time to head home for a full night’s sleep to get us ready for the first day of vacation. 

By vacation I mean the time where we all try to catch up with the reading we have neglected, decide on and develop our prototype, do our entrepreneurial strategies project and start on our marketing essay. Never mind the learning for the rush of tests in the second term or our planning for cake sale 2. Well at least we get one full night’s sleep.
 

 On a more serious note it was good to get to know each other a little better as individuals.we definitely feel closer as a group after spending some time just hanging out not stressing about work (at least for a few hours)

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Tuesday March 19th

Today we had another work shop with Ian and Ali Corbett about product development. It involved a continuation on from the previous weeks work on creativity.  The focus had shifted from divergence towards convergence and the rest of the creative process leading towards prototyping.  We felt that we needed more divergence before we tried to move forward. So we spent the time continuing to work around the needs of students and problems they face.

Here are some of the ideas we came up with 

• A belt buckle that is a watch
• A scarf that has a built in rain jacket
• A cap that has interchangeable logos/messages
• A bag with a built in charger for your cell phone
• A desk for your bed/ a folding mini desk for campus
• A bangle or necklace that holds money or a card
• A folder including everything a student might need
• A water bottle /flask made from bamboo
• a wallet that is built into a phone cover

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