Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Block Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?


That I made time! I spent the whole weekend before thinking I wouldn't and it's kept me up for so long.

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Block Presentation (self-assessment)?

AE       P          AP       CR       NC

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

AE       P          AP       CR       NC

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?


Using the database from Cal Poly Pomona. It's really helped me give a lot of legitimate sources for my answers and arguments.

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?




To be honest, I would change my topic entirely to college admissions. I feel like I would have a better time because I feel myself to be more passionate about that. But, if I had stuck with the topic of music store operations, I would've started my research on business operations rather than instrument maintenance instead.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples

Senior project has pretty much whipped me into shape so I can be ready for long term projects similar to senior project. In addition, it has also trained me in researching, internships, and contacting establishments (as I have done in order to get supplies for my activities). This would be very helpful in business-type settings.

Blog 21: Mentorship

Literal

Log is on the side of my blog.

Contact

Gene Iacono or Cody

(909) 598-1921

Interpretive

What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

From this experience, most importantly, I had received an up-close look into the workings of a retail music store. There's reading about it, and then there's actually going through the experience and procedures. It's hard to explain, but it's just a completely different feeling.

Applied

How has what you have done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

Being able to be present inside a music store on the other side (the seller side) has been an enlightening opportunity in that I was able to see the principles I have read about in my research at work. It showed me the immediate impacts of certain behaviors and actions as detailed upon by my research, which provided to me further support to my three answers for my EQ.

Monthly Blog Post: Anecdotes and Stats-edotes

In some fields, knowledge, techniques, and expertise are at most passed down and spread largely by word of mouth. Most of these three knowledge (which I will now abbreviate to KTE because it's a pain to type out the whole thing) often have no basis in their establishment except for gut feeling and personal experience, both of which allowed a large space for bias from those who tout their KTE's.

I came across that issue myself in my research venture for my senior project. Many of the advice I had received, whether from mentorship or from advice articles of music retailing magazines, were never really tested in their validity. For a long time, I thought that was the most I could work with.

However, I fortunately began to reach out in my research and discovered the field of retailing research, where hypothesis regarding aspects of retails, like importance of service, branding, and differentiation, are actually tested with the scientific method and peer-reviewed by academic retail researchers. I would've never believed this field to have existed if not for the experience I gained from my senior project, and I extend the lesson I've learned in doing proper research to find a goldmine for your topic that you initially thought had never existed.

Blog 20: Exit Interview

1. What is your essential question and answers?  What is your best answer and why?

My Essential Question is What is the best way to profit as an independent music store?

My answers are

1) One of the ways an independent music store can profit is to connect to the people (employees, customers, and community) of their business.

2) Another way to profit as an independent music store is to be knowledgeable in your business.

3) Another way an independent music store can profit is to be specialized and unique.

2. What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

Connection with the people:

A combination of my experience in my mentorship, my interviews, and my research led me to see the importance of a store's connection with its people. After all, retail is a people business, and this is a sentiment I've echoed very frequently because it's true. It's only because of people (employees) that our business functions. It's only because of people (customers) that our business profits. It's only because of people (community) that our business expands.

My mentorship and my interviews emphasized the importance of a good relationship between all three types of people. An employee I often work with and have interviewed twice often said to me the importance of paying your employees on time and training them well, the latter key to the development of the employees as a worker. He also stressed the importance of treating your customers well to increase their chances of returning.

My research articles similar say the same thing, but with addition of tangible data to support their claims. Frank Helsing and et al.'s journal piece, "An Intersector Analysis of the Relevance of Service in Building a Strong Retail Brand.", showed the positive effects service has on the identity of the brand, and therefore the loyalty of the customers. Articles from magazines geared towards music retail employees also gave advice that emphasized the importance of personal touch with customers; some even claim that it is our main strength against large music chain stores.

Knowledgeable in business:

This answer was created in a similar way of my first answer. My experiences and my research all led to this answer as well.

The employee and my mentor, owner of the music store Gene Iacono, had briefly touched on the importance of knowing what you're talking about in my interviews with them. Even more so enlightening was my experience in my mentorship: one day, a customer had came in asking for a guitar jack parts. The employee I was with then had no clue what to do, so we decided to redirect the customer to another store that specialized on guitars. When we later talked to the owner, we found out that there is a proper procedure for customers who came in for guitar parts or other things that we currently do not have in our stock: consult our catalogs. As it turns out, we have catalogs and connections to music equipment suppliers, and we could have ordered a guitar jack or anything else from these catalogs for the customer. That very experience was important in the shaping of this answer.

My research articles also contributed to the creation of this answer. Joanne Phillips Melancon's research article, "Synergistic Effects of Operant Knowledge Resources." showed the importance and the positive effects of knowledge of customers, firm practices, and industry on the firm's capability of meeting their customers' needs. Some articles also showed the importance of proper training of employees for, in a similar conclusion to Melancon's, their capability to meet their customers' needs.

Unique and individuality:

This was key for the independent music store. All through my research, I often see the common problem of independent music store needing to be able to compete evenly with larger chain music stores. While some articles of magazines for music retailers differentiate the whole entity of independent music stores from large chain music stores with their ability to better accommodate customers and their better capability for customer service, some independent store owners of my research also put forward the importance of an individual, unique identity to the attractiveness of their store. Shane Kinney, an owner of a specialized store for drums, said in his article, "Tips for Interior Retail Display." the necessity of a store reflecting the values and personality of its owner; it creates a personalized feeling to the single store.

Similarly, the same themes appeared in the talks I would have in my mentorship. An employee also talked about the importance of being unique and, as he would put it in his own words, "cool."

This was supported by research articles as well. In Frank Haelsig and et. al.'s article "An Intersector Analysis of the Relevance of Service in Building a Strong Retail Brand", the researchers put "differentiation" as one of their key factors in building a strong retail brand.

3. What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

In the first half of my research, I would always come across these music retail articles written by music retailers themselves that would put forward their beliefs (such as in personal touch, individualism, and expertise). But I would always had an issue with their lack of factual basis behind these theories and beliefs; they are, after all, very anecdotal, and perhaps even biased.

I managed to resolve this issue by searching into retail research journals, and managing to find articles that actually provided scientific and factual evidence and support behind the music retailers' hypotheses. Not only that, it confirmed the validity of the music retailers' claims and expertise; it really made the point that these retailers very much knew what they were talking about.

4. What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

Two most significant sources I used to answer my essential question (so far anyway) is my mentorship and Frank Haelsig and et. al.'s article "An Intersector Analysis of the Relevance of Service in Building a Strong Retail Brand". I chose my mentorship because while I didn't physically do much, I gained a lot of information and insight from the discussions we held about retail and business and the little experiences I had. On the other hand, I chose Haelsig's article because it is my go-to article in a tangible basis to the argument that employee and firm action creates actual effects on their sales.

Blog 19: Independent Component 2

LITERAL

I, Regina Ongowarsito, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

My sources are my mentorship and the Coursera.org course I'm currently taking, "Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship".

Independent Component Log #2 is on the side of my blog.

To fulfill my Independent Component #2 requirements, I took an entrepreneur class online and did extra mentorship in addition to the 50 hours required for mentorship. I've also been taking music classes in a music store, where I was able to experience the store from the customers' point of view.

INTERPRETIVE 

Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  

I created blog posts chronicling my experience in the Coursera class. Each post contains screenshots of the videos I have to watch and the quizzes I took. Here are links leading to them:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

The following are PDFs my teacher shared with me in some of our lessons. They are for me to practice bass.

Alice in Wonderland

There is No Greater Love

I Could Write a Book

Autumn Leaves

Pink Floyd - Brick on the Wall

I keep notes on my mentorship experiences. It used to be that I'd write them on an actual notebook, then I'd scan them up, but I decided to change it some time ago to this document. It felt easier to me.

Mentorship Notes

APPLIED

How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped

The entrepreneur class taught me to see businesses in general from the eyes of an entrepreneur. What I learned from this class expanded upon the knowledge that I gained from my research about businesses and furthered it.

From the class, I learned various business topics like segmenting markets, the entrepreneurial mindset and behavior, the process involved in the design of a product, and the importance and complexity behind addressing consumers' needs when developing a venture. These are all general entrepreneurial lessons that are more-oriented to company developments, but I find it very easy to apply them into a small business context. For example, Professor Green of the class talked about using your knowledge of consumers' needs to your advantage. It made me think about specialty music shops, and how their success lies on addressing a specific consumer need that not many else provide.

As for my mentorship in The Music Store, it was an opportunity for me to learn first hand of what goes into the operations of a music store. Over my long tenure there, I gradually got the chance to address customers myself, to help with closing every night, and to help with sales of items.

From my music lessons in the store, I became aware of what customers want from a music store, as I was able to receive an experience to be a customer myself. It helped shape the ideas I had of the best way to profit from a music store, but in a way that will also benefit the customers as well.

Independent Component: Week 3 of "Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship" course in Coursera

(It's really, really, really a good thing I watched the videos in advance. Phew.)

Independent Component: Week 4 of "Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship" course in Coursera

I'm going to do Week 3 some other time, because Week 4 was due tonight.

 Total time: 3 hours and 5 minutes