THANK YOU!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank You to everyone from my class and especially to Noemi and Alyas for their support, encouragement, contribution and understanding throughout the entire course. I very much enjoyed working with all of you and thank you again for providing me with the knowledge I gained from each and every lecture. As you may know this is my last semester, and may be I sound very emotional but I want to say that I am going to miss Regents, Teacher, Friends and all the People I know from our university who made my studying period very interesting and exciting. I will try to do my best and meet your expectations.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Process Blog

Process blog was something different for me because I have never done anything like that. I think it is a very good idea to transform process handbook into process diary and I think it is also sustainable and less paper consuming. It was easy for me to be in track as I am always working from my laptop from all the assignments and I have the access to the internet almost all the time. Another advantage of the blog is that you can not only put and share different pictures but the vedios as well. I also think that it is less time consuming in a sense that there is no need to rewrite your notes, search for pictures from the magazines, then cut then and stick to the diary. However I found it different in the way to manage the blog and recording all the information because when we had process handbook, I used to have it on my table and everytime I looked there it reminded me that I have to record something or do some research, whereas with the blog it is different, until you log in and open the website, the is not so much to remind you that there are still things to be done, and also not everyone get access to the blog or the internet in the daily basis. Another point I would like to add is that may be blog is less creative, because you can not cusromise it very much, may be only backgroung and pictures. There is less freedom for creativeness comparing to process handbook, however still there are ways to make it different and eye catching.

DSM 6410: How was it?

DSM 6410 was one of the most difficult subjects of the entire degree, very time concuming and lots of work to do. The module covered three different areas such as design, sustainability and innovation, therefore in the beginning of the course it was not really easy to undestand fully the subject. However I found it verry different and I am sure that the knowledge I gained from the lectures will be very helpful in my future career. This module helped me to improve my teamwork, organising and management skills. In addition to that, the projects we ran through helped me to understand the subject and being able to apply the theory to practice. Even though it was difficult and requred a lot on engagement it was very useful. I was also writingmy final dissertation this semester and other 2 modules, so I had to manage my time wisely and make sure im on track and I complete all the work on time.

THE Event

The event went very well. It was very well organised and the entire group made a huge effort to make it all happen. Everyone was motivated, we had no disagreements or even arguments, and you can see it from smiling faces in the picture :D That means we worked not as a team, but as a big happy family. It was amazing how the group of 13 people made the event exciting and memorable. The room layout was well designed, we had to screens that was very helpful in order to prepare each presentations. We all had same t-shirts and this looked very professional and eye catching. (and warm as well). All the decorations were designed very well and I have helped the grout to decorate the room in a nice and proper way. The only difficulty for me was that I just slept few ours, because I wanted to make sure that my work is properly done and the presentation is revised, and I also had to come to uni at 7:30am on monday to meet with Joyce and put the program, attachment and the ribbons together. Each and every presentation was well done and it was very interesting to listen to different knowledge of sustainability in various countries. I know that everyone was stressed before the presentation but at the end every group member made it in very professional way. Still some presentations went over the time limit, though we managed to finish everything on time. We did not have many guests and one guest speaker could not make it to come for the event due to personal reasons. However I had the highest number of guests, 4 people. 3- from colledge and one friend of mine from UCL. I don't even know how I was able to encourage them to come on Monday morning, as they had no classes and reasons to come to college. I was surprised that the all came to the event and showed their support and respect. They All enjoyed the event + they all received t-shirts that made them even more satisfied. The rest of the day we were talking about sustainability with my friends as they all were interested in this topic. I admit that this project was like no other project I had in this degree, and YES it was difficult and time consuming, however I made an effort to do it well as it is my last semester. I believe that I managed my main role/task of designing the program and making sure the timing and the titles are right very well and I had no problems doing that. Now I can proudly say that I was a part of the group who organised and ran an event on such an important topic of today's world.

Reflections on the report and the presentation

I found project B quite difficult, firstly the topic of it - barriers to sustainability innovation, is relatively new and there is a lack of information on this subject. Secondly, the project consisted from 3 parts: presentation, event and the report.
Report: The report was 2000 words, first it was very difficult to find information on sustainability in Kazakhstan, and the main reason fot that is not that the topic sustainability is very new back, but because Kazakhstan uses web less and does not publish a lot of information online. I managed to find at least some information on fashion industry and programs undertaked by the firms toward sustainable world. However books on sustainability, design and innovation where helpful in order to find and identify barriers and apply them to my case. Then I tried to find out the reasons for these barriers, and found few of them, because I thought it is important to see why the barrier occur in order to see opportunities. When I only started writing the report, I was a bit worried that I will not cover 2000 words because of limited sources, however towards the end I had reasonable number of sources and even had to cut some words to fit to the limits.
Presentation: After I have completed my report, I started designing my slides and putting all the key information. I only had 6 slides including title page because we had to fit in 5 minutes to present. I did not want to put a lot of word on my slides to make it simple. "Less is more". I made notes for myself for the presentation in order to rehears and to use them for the presentation if im going to forget everything on the day of presentatiom. I always do notes, BUT at the end I never use then, however I feel more secure to have them in front of me, even if I never look at them. In my opinion, the presentation went very well and I covered all the main points, and I don't think I missed anything. On my report I identified 2 main barriers, but for the presentation I have used only one barrier, to make it more clear. I did the presentation in exactly 5 minutes. I was a bit nervous, because there were people outside of the college and I felt less confident, but I think that no one noticed my nervousness. Overall I liked my presentation, I think it was streight forward and easy to understand what I was saying.

10 steps to become Green!

1. Recycle as much as u can
2. Switch off the lights when you are done using house amenities
3. Take shower instead of the bath
4. Use public transport or bicycles, better for your body shape and mind
5. Bag it! use ure own recycable bag to shop and reduce number of plastic bags
6. Shop at your local farmer place
7. Use eco-friendly packaging
8. Buy green and sustainable products
9. Save on paper! Don't print too much and reuse paper
10. Travel by train not plane

Notes for the presentation..

Introdution:

• I am going to talk about fashion industry in Kazakhstan and identify possible barriers to sustainability innovation
• My topic is Fashion can't say no to sustainability in Kazakhstan
• I chose to do Fashion industry in Kazakhstan in order to research and understan the issue around the notion of sustainability in Kazakhstan
• One of the biggest challenge for any organisation's competitiveness is to become sustainable
• However barriers and resistance to sustainability innovation still exist due to various reasons.

Company Background:

• Fashin industry
• Symbat

Barriers to Sustainability:

• By looking at Fashion industry in Kazakhstan number of barriers remain for businesses ti implement sustainable practices.
• Rossel and Fur identified 6 main barriers to sustainability
• List the barriers
• 2 main barriers:
• Mindset barrier is significant in case of Kazalhstani fashion industry and symbat fashion house in particular.
• Even if people are willing to make more sustainable choices, they still tend to act according to their habits.
• Traditional mindset makes it even more difficult to implement sustainable practises as one of the main part of businesses development
• The main reason for that is because Kazakhstan used to be communist republic when the country was a part of the Soviet Union untill 1991.
• Even though after gaining independance country becan to change ist strategy, the communist mindset remained, and this is a huge obsticle.
• People in Kazakhstan believe that they are alone in their concern and small changes won't make any difference.

Conclusion:

• The word sustainability is still not used in broad terms in Kazakhstan.
• Therefore the main challenge is to change the traditional mindset and convince people that little changes can make a huge difference and can be seen as a huge opportunity.
• It is also vital to increase awareness about the notion of sustanability innovation to make the change towards sustainable world possible.

Layout of the presentation

This layout was used for all our presentations. We had to choose one from few backgrounds and communicated via e-mail in order to decide which one is going to be used for finally. This one was the most popular one and everyone agreed to have it. Although not everyone received the final background that was selected on time so Jean had to forward them again. The background was in new version of powerpoint, therefore I had few problems in order to make it work on my laptop and spend some time fighting with technology. At the end I have sorted everything out and eventually was able to put my slides together.

What Is Sustainability?

What is sustainability? <--- this question is what one will hear in return when he/she will try to expand on this topic. Especially in Kazakhstan, where sustainbility is quite new topic and not everyone is aware about the issue and importantness of it. Therefore I believe that it is vital to increase awareness on this subject and force people to think about the environment before it is too late.

Stand out from the crowd

When writing my report and identifying main barriers I found 2 barriers related to fashion industry in Kazakhstan. When I was researching for the mindset barrier I went online to find some appropriate visuals. I found this picture very interesting and it does really 'say' something. In terms of mindset barrier, where I was talking about people in Kazakhstan, I was explaining the way people behave and stick to their habbits. They are afraid to stand out from the crowd and share their view with others, they believe that they are alone in their concern and do not belive that little changes made by them can make a difference. I think that this picture will incourage individuals to think differently and not be afraid of standing out from the crowd and make change.

Identified barriers to sustainability innovation in Kazakhstan

There are 2 main barriers identified within Kazakhstani Fashion industry are: mindset and ‘sustainability’ as a term.
- Mindset barrier is significant in case of Kazakhstani fashion industry as lack of mindfulness is the reason why people refuse to help the environment and act towards sustainability. Even if the population and people from industry are willing to make more sustainable choices, they still tend to make them according to their habits.
- Traditional mindset makes it even more difficult to become more sustainable and implement sustainability as the main part of their businesses. The main reason for that is because Kazakhstan used to be a communist republic when the country was a part of the Soviet Union until 1991. Even though after gaining independence, the communist mindset remained. In addition to that, people think that one individual’s act will not make a huge difference, as they believe that they are alone in their concern.
- The main challenge here is to change the mindset and try to convince people that little change can make a difference and that being ‘green’ and acting responsibly towards society and the environment is actually ‘cool’.
- the term ‘sustainability’ itself can be considered as another barrier facing not only fashion industry in Kazakhstan but “Symbat” fashion academy as well. Sustainability means different thing to different people and can also be measured differently. Misunderstanding the word still remains an issue, because if it is not clear to the public what sustainability means, no actions can be implemented.
- While conducting the research it was difficult to come across with information on sustainable development in Kazakhstani fashion industry. However it was noticeable that the industry is actively participating in number of charitable events and ‘Symbat’ fashion academy is not an exception.
- The word sustainability is still not used in broad terms in Kazakhstan. People tend to use words such as ‘green’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ rather than using the main term sustainability. Therefore the key meaning of the definition can be lost and will stop organisations and government to implement sustainability as one of the main part of country’s development.

Role of the design

I believe that design can be seen as an effective tool to manage change successfully, and change toward sustainability innovation is not an exception. Levels of awareness about sustainability in relation to fashion industry are very low. It is not easy to access information, resources and appropriate training. Therefore it is important to address the barriers using design, inspiration and raising the awareness about sustainability in relation to fashion industry.

RESEARCH on sustainability innovation

- "sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". (Bettina Von Stamm 2008:281) It goes beyond environmental concerns or developing products that use less energy and can be easily recycled. It is about developing them in a way that will not deprive future generations. (Bettina Von Stamm 2008:281)

- Sustainability has entered the scene of a broader idea of performance for the economy, individuals, and organisations. (Soderbaum 2008:1)

- In terms of design, sustainability takes holistic approach and includes issues such as reducing, recycling, refusing at all levels, applying energy efficiency, using materials wisely and making a complete assessment of site conditions. (Borja de Mozota 2003:31)

- According to Porter and Van der Linde (1995) properly designed environmental standards can enhance innovations that can lower the total cost of a product or improve its value. Such innovations allow companies to use a range of inputs more productively, therefore balancing the cost of improving environmental impact. (Bruce and Bessant 2002:256)

- Sustainability and innovation does not come along, they appear through a change. However change is often difficult to implement because of the heritage of resources and organisational culture. (Johnson et al 2008:6)

- Mintzberg et al (1998) argue that any change, including a change towards sustainability can be ignored, resisted, responded to and created. (Bessant 2003:48) It is not easy to bring change in so that it will receive the acceptance of those affected. (p. 48)

- According to Harding (2008) sustainability is increasing interest in a new type of activity. However, traditional views of sustainable fashion focus more on choice and origin of materials. A more complete, creative and innovative view of sustainable fashion embraces both these materials-based or technical innovations and social change. It is only in innovating to develop different solutions that the industry will start to experience more sustainable change. It will only succeed if consumers, producers, retailers, designers, community groups and international corporations connect together and jointly recognize their influence in promoting change. (Innovations Report, 2008)

SYMBAT Fashion Academy Kazakhstan

The Kazakhstani fashion started in 1947 from sewing laboratory which is now known as “Symbat” Fashion Academy. Twice a year the Theatre of fashion presents brand new collections Haute Couture to audience and prêt-â-porter on international fashion weeks. More than 150,000 exclusive pieces have been presented over 60 years of company’s existence. Since 1972, “Symbat” participated in about 40 festivals, competitions and presented Kazakhstani fashion abroad during fashion weeks in Dubai, Moscow, Washington and Siberia. Today “Symbat” Fashion Academy is a distinctive Holding, which apparently includes VIP- Fashion Salons, Clothing – knitwear, shoe manufactures, Fashion Theatre, Trade complex, Educational Institution(Symbat, 2009)

The President of Fashion Academy “Symbat” – Assanova Sabyrkul is a candidate of economic sciences, doctor of engineering sciences, and corresponding member of Engineer of Kazakhstan. She is an author of a number of books on national clothes, costume history and terminology dictionary. (Fashion week in Moscow, 2009) All these years “Symbat” adhered to the main principal of its creative activity with care kept up the traditions of national dresses, embodied them harmonically in modern fashion and formed a new fashionable image of Kazakhstan. (Vendenty, 2009)
I have decided to look at “Symbat” in order to identify possible barriers towards sustainability innovation and find opportunities because I am interested in fashion industy and I am conserned about the sustainability issue back home.

Sustainability

Today, people are more and more concerned about the global environment and willing to see the importance of sustainable issues. However, the resistance to become sustainable still exists due to various reasons. Mostly it is because sustainability is more about environment and nature rather than profit and turnover. People tend to be lazy and do not want to put any effort to become environmentally friendly and pay attention to environmental and ethical issues. In developing countries, people tend to think more about the growth of the economy especially during financial crisis, rather than becoming more environmentally friendly. Kazakhstan is not an exception. People and businesses over there less conserned with environment, and the issue os sustainability is not well spread and popular as yet. However there is evidence that the government and especially the Department of the environmental protection.

Final Draft of The Program

This is the final version of our program. I found it very inderesting to design it, although it was not hard to do it. However I had to change all the titles of each student as we decided to rewrite the titles so they sound properly. At the workshop Noemi and Alyas made further suggestions and slightly changed the timings and the order of the presentations as well. I had the overall design of the program, so it was not hard to make all these changes.

Programme

Apart from group tasks and activities, my main task was to design and print the program and make sure that everyone knows when is their time slots. During workshops we have decided that the program will be A4 size but folded like a booklet. Me and Joyce have agreed that the backround will be white (so it will look nice and fresh), we will have the main design of the event on the front, logo of the school at the back of the program, together with the address and the entire program with all the timings and introduction inside of the paper. The main headings will be in green (in order to highlight main points), whereas the text will be in black (to make it simple and easy to read)and also these colours look good with the main logo. Joyce came up with the idea to have the ribbon for each programe, and I thought that it will be nicer to have it ih red colour, than any other mainly because the logo is in black and white, however 'toward the sustainable world' is written in red. Inside of the program we will also include paper with "10 tips to be sustainable" and Joyce was going to print them out. Im going to print all the programs in nice silky paper so it will look professional.
Here are some designs of programs I found online:

Reflections so far

The project is still in the development stage of it. I found this project very difficult and time consuming, especially when writing my final dissertation. We have devided all the tasks so far and tried to sort all the activites that has to be undertaken and who is in charge of each. I am in charge of Program together with Joyce and before actually designing it we need all the topics of the presentations and the names of our guestspeakers, and this takes a lot of time to finalise. Apart from my main duty I also have to participate in other activities, such as invite design and room set up. I can understand it because we are working as a group and we all have to make sure we know who is doing what and how the process is going. So far I admit that this project is not easy at all and requires a lot of time and things to do, but we are on our last year and I can understand that we are required to do a bit more than we used to. I like the overall idea of the project and I hope that if we going to work as a group, we will deliver very good results.

Tasks...to be done for the event

Priorities

1st.

Room
Equipment
Topic list

2nd.

invites
guests
industry
lecturers
alumni

3rd.

catering
room set-up

4th.

t-shirts
programme
decorations
posters
give away gifts
news
photographs

Week 10: class notes

Barriers to innovation;

focus innovation culture

What makes innovate culture

• It is important that the group has the ideas and motivation to innovate.
• For problem solving flexibility is important
• Operation and support for purposes of creation or control
• Working together in a group

+ share of responsibilities

• If the group is well motivation, and everyones is enjoying working in groups it stimulates creativity

Need to know how to motivate the group + work dynamics is also important factor

Disagreements can actually generate better solutions

• CREATIVITY + IMPLEMENTATION- have to implement the idea or apply it

-If Implementation process isn't there at the end, then the whole thing has no meaning--} therefore it is a barrier in some sense

Organising for innovation

• it is not enough for the company or organisation just to innovate, there are more factors to consider
• resources is a huge factor to look at
• there is a need of a leader
• clearly direction is a reason why organisation needs do innovate
• there is a need to communicate, energy of a team is important
• think through
• self-development

one needs to be interested in doing something

inspiration is a drive

• HR theory is useful
• Other resources to enable innovation to happen
• cross boundary work( collaboration )-is the key
• Appropriate structures- make sure all the things fit together
• Learning requires creating mistakes

if the company doesn't appreciate mistakes, the work is not going to go further

Building an innovation culture

- the notion of routines is important because it can enable and support the development of innovation culture

- 3 levels - individual, group work and organisational level

All of these term can be applied to sustainability

Managing an innovation culture

- is difficult!

How to measure?

· Fostering creative climate

· Structural arrangements

· Process-based approach

- barrier will by by just thinking about the outcomes

‘total quality management is a journey not a destination’
Bessant, 2003

it is about the process rather than outcome

Strategy: Where we are?

Where we want to be?

How do we get there?

how far and how fast

Learning from others- sharing problem solving

Hugely important for both cases

High-involvement vs. focused development of innovation culture

Organisational archetypes: organic and mechanistic
- mechanistic is concerned with maintaining the status quo and managing the operations that keep the organisations going
- organic is concerned with creating the future products and processes

· High-involvement innovation does not focus on occasional radical innovation breakthroughs but concerns itself with creating culture in which innovation is a way of life
· Focused development of innovation means creating innovation culture amongst a relatively small but influential group within the organisation

! Value of innovation culture- the value that works for people

-need to know how to get the balance right

INDIVIDUAL PROJECT

The main purpose of the project B is to research and understand the issues around the topic of sustainability and try to identify possible barriers to sustainability innovation. We were asked to choose a company/industry from back home in order to analyse the issues that stops businesses from sustainability innovation. The industry that I have chosen for this project is fashion in Kazakhstan and the example of “Symbat fashion academy” which is very well known and well establishe brand. For this assignment I found that it will be very difficult to find a link between the barriers to sustainability innovation and the impact of design due to lack of secondary data available not only about kazakhstani industry but also the businesse in particular.
It is significant to understand the notion of sustainability and be able to apply it to the organisation as a new business opportunity. Therefore I believe the class lectures and the academic literature will help me to complete this project successfully as we are learning about sustainability issue in our lectures and the base material is provided to us. We also have the freedom come up with our own identified barrier, not only sticking to the ones that were already identified.

FINAL IDEA

INVITE IDEAS

T-SHIRT IDEAS

This layout is the final one to be used on the t-shirts, invites, posters and the program. I like the idea of big letterings although it looks a bit confusing at the first sight, but the white background and combination of colours selected wisely. The only concern I found about the final selection of the final layout was done with only few members of the group as they met separately on thursday when not everyone could be present for the meeting including me as I had class at that period. Therefore the final decision was made with only few people. However we all have received an e-mail to confirm the idea. I think that if everyone would have been present for the meeting will be much more effective and well communicated.

This was the previous idea for the logo and the layout. The main message was that there is a tree on the background and STOP sign. The STOP sign represents the idea of the barriers that stops sustainability. I really liked the tree design on the background, however STOP sign is negative in a sence, so the first impression when one sees the picture will be like 'beware'. That is the only disadvantage I found about this layout.

Week 9: Class notes

Quote of the week: "Even useless can be useful"

Barriers to innovation: Focus sustainability
Research:
Structural barriers: ".. making sustainabile choices feels like swimming upstream. In particular, sustainable alternatives cost more and/or less convenient thn the status quo" (Rossel and Fur, 2006)
Problem of being creative is difficult because people bring conformaty...
-Mindset barriers
... missing the assumptions and expectations..Force habit-is a key driver how we/businesses do things. Nation of consuption exists.
Different parts of the world have different understanding of what is good and what is bad. GOOD LIFE. To be sustainable you dont use innovation.. the question is how to engage innovation..
-Structural and mindset barriers are quite close to each other.
-Information and communication barriers, when there is lack of information, if information is lost or its unreliable. People say thet there is a lack of reliable information. People behaviour differ. Product labels- UK is very strong about putting information about products energy etc. ecological or social footprints.
The measure nations use to assess performance (such as GDP)
Measurement system is a huge barrier. Using innovation to get around with barriers.
What is true and what isn't, we dont know who to believe.
-Trust barrier
...people misstrust to things they don't know, for example the notion of sustainability.. Government- 'in god we trust'..
-Isolation
...weak sense of communication and engagement, less u engage less outvome u get. Design place yet another role, not about creating a new product. It is about creating emotional communication.
The term 'sustainability' itself
Disengage...sustainability as a barrier..It is difficult to engage with complex problems..it is a challenge for us..

Project B individual assignment

One to one brief on the project:

1. Selecting the company

• from back home eg. Kazakhstan

2. focus on barriers of sustainability innovation

• for example: sustainability innovation in terms of technology
• communication

3. History

4. Keep it narrow

5. Word count 2000

6. Innovation that implements principles of innovation

• Structure

1. Introduction- overview of the company
2. background theory, links between
3. Main body

barriers

use of design

future trends

ways of overcoming the barriers

4. Conclusion

My Ideas for the T-shirts

I found this image online and i think it is very different and innovative. The backround is black, but the boarders are very bright, green and blue. Green represents sustainability and being green, friendly to the environments, blue colour represents the world and sky. Blue colour therefore means freedon, no boundaries. Therefore it will feet with the theme of our event, if we will have black t-shirts with this kind of image and names of the country we come from.

The image of hands holding the world has a deep meaning. In my opinion the meaning of this image will be that everything is in our hands, and we can make change, but we need to handle the world carefully, in order not to damage our world. We can use this image on our t-shirts, but i am not sure that it will be innovative and creative enough, because we can see similas images everywhere, it is a bit obvious, but ofcourse if we add something to differentiate, it would be nice.

This an example of how we could show the place we are from on the map, on our t-shirts

We can also come up with a slogan for our event, something like 'Breaking the barriers for more sustainable planet' or 'sustainable innovation is the key' :)

This is another way of highlighting the country, in this case it is Kazakhstan, highlighted in red, but we can make it green to represent sustainablity.

Holding hands is also very interesting idea, firstly because we are working in groups and we want to show that together we are more powerful, and therefore If the world will unite, and act togother for the sake of our planet, we will win!

Responding to Ideas...

I really like the idea of globalisation as a theme for our project as it includes sustainability and innovation. As the world is becoming more and more global it is very important that people pay attention tho the issues of present time, and sustainability is one of the most important issues. Innovation and sustainability can make a difference to save the world and make it much better.
Taking into account that our project is about innovation, and the barriers to sustainability innvation it is useful to brainstorm ideas regarding this subjects in order to organise event. As a group, we all agreed that the main theme of the event will be innovation, therefore we all had to come up with more ideas about the presentation as well as clothing. We wanted to have a globe of the world (map) and countries names on the t-shirts. Therefore it will represent globalisation and the countries we are from, which I think is very nice idea. In addition to that we had to find out how much it will cost to have some prints and pictures on our tshirts to fit the budget.

Brainstorming ideas, from Milana (e-mail conversation)

From: milanaschoeller@aol.com
Subject: Re: Design group work! Ideas for T-shirt and invite
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:55:46 +0000
CC: faliq.somers@gmail.com; torresptd@gmail.com; chowdhury_girl@hotmail.com; annakravchenko@me.com; latifal@gerents.ac.uk; cefurt@gmail.com; joycekstevenson@yahoo.co.uk; zhanel_89@hotmail.com; sebastian@ilzig.com; jeandemallmann@hotmail.com; chrisbehlau@gmail.com; emresungerichlioglu@hotmail.com; urvi_jindal@hotmail.com

Ideas for T-shirts! Print Images on them:

Tree-Hand- I very much like this image because globalization means working together with different nations (h

and in hand) but if we bring sustainability into the picture, this also means working together with nature to sustain it. Thus this image represents working together globally with the environment for

me. the T-shirt would either be white or green. This image was also an idea for the invitation.

Apollo 8 Picture of Earth:This I thought would also be a great picture for for the T-shirts. The T-shirt would be black with one of the first pictures of planet earth on the back. The reason I think this picture would be inspirational is that it was this picture that was a part of starting the environmental movement, which contributes hugely to sustainability. It s this planet we are trying to save, because it is the only one we have. This is also a clear sign of globalisation, it shows that the planet is not infinite, and that it does have limits, and in fact is not as big as we think it is. I think the invite would also figure this picture at the back (completely black, the front has light blue and white text, and the back shows this image.

Hands Holding Earth: Or this image of the hands holding planet earth at the front of a black t-shirt. at the back of the T-shirt you have in big letters the sentence: THIS IS IT! this is it, this is our planet, and we are ruining it as we know it. This is it, we have to wake up and start identifying how we can change the way we consume, waste, and act towards our environment (and not just trees and air and water, but also the people and animals that share this one planet). This is it, scientists are forecasting the "perfect storm". This is it, last call, it is in our hands to change. (same can apply to invite).

What do u guys think? Do you have any suggestions? Has anyone found some good gadgets already? How is the location coming along?

Where can we get the t-shirts from?

Please let me know if you have thought of anything, doesn't matter what, can be about t-shirts, programm idea, location, inovite, what food we should serve etc.

x

Class notes: Week 8 (3)

Class notes: Week 8 (2)

Class notes: Week 8

Overview of group thoughts: (e-mail)

On 2 Nov 2009, at 12:09, milanaschoeller@aol.com wrote:

Quick overview of our thoughts:

Theme: Globalization, which feeds in nicely because we all have such a diverse background
Location: Art Gallery? Regents College? lets try to get it for free
Number of people to attend: 25
'Gadgets': White T-shirts + our country name printed in the countries flag colors, or green (for environment)?, Globes for the tables, a big map of the world where we put little dots of where we are all from.
Guest speaker: Zac Goldman? editor of the Ecologist?

To do this week: lets gather some options for locations, so we can see if we get it for free, Lets find out how much it costs to do 13 t-shirts, so we can start allocating the budget. Find out if we can get Zac Goldman, gather some fun ideas for the Theme Globalization, (eg. Bule, white and green drinks).
Email me to keep me up to date with any ideas you might have.

Reflecting on week 7th lecture..

This week was more like a workshop where students had to think of ideas for their new project. Teamwork for this project is very important. We had to first define tasks that have to be undertaken in order to complete the project and then allocate the tasks between members of the class according to the scope of work. This project involves not only a good group work, but also ability to organise the group, event and make sure that everything is in order and on time. I think that this taks will improve our organisational, communication, teamworking and leadership skills, that are very important in business context. It is also highly important to be responsible, as you work not just for your owwn benefit for this project, but for the whole group. Therefore it is important to understand and communicate in such way to build trust between each other.
Creative approach is also a big part for this project, because student are asked to come up with creative ideas in order to organise the event and use the knowledge gained throughout the learning process.

"IDEAS ARE FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE"

"IDEAS ARE FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE"- this was week 7th quote..
I agree with this statement, because I think that ideas are fragile. If one has idea, and then it is not implemented or not properly developed, then the idea has no value lately. If you want your idea to become an outcome or transfer it to tangable thing, then it is important to make sure you are taking care of it, work on it and develop. That is how i understand this quote..

LECTURE NOTES: WEEK 7

Quote of the week!

"Ideas are fragile, handle with care..."

Agenda:

1. Feedback on our Process Blogs

• spend more time
• reflect and link it back to the topic
• record the process (WHY?)
• reading! add more sources

2. NEW Project B brief

• due: 30th November
• both group and individual
• mini symposium

• individual:

1. choose 1 area of sustainability from the article
2. choose an area (business context environment)
3. + 2000 words essay (min 10 sources)

• group:

1. design and send out invitations
2. catering
3. book and design event venue

3. "Have alternative fuel cars reached a 'tipping point' or are they just a fad?"

• discussion on sustainability
• from three perspectives
• barriers
• ways of improvement

4. Essay structure:

• intro
• background
• main area of research
• future trends
• conclusions

5. Plan:

Who is in charge of the group? Chris, Milana

Tasks:

• book a venue and catering: Jon, Sebastian, Anna
• invitation design: Faliq, Shazia
• setting a theme: Group, Paulina, Urvi
• Program: Zhanel, Joyce
• Budget: Emre
• guests and guests speakers: Chris
• IT: Anna, Zhanel

Overall Reflections

By: Zhanel Zhanablova

In my view sustainability is one of the most important topic of today’s world. However most people have a lack of knowledge about this issue. Now as the world is being more global such issues as ethical, economical, environmental are rising day by day. Being sustainable is being ethical in every sense, being friendly to the environment, with people around you and with the nature. It is not only about going green. That is my own understanding of sustainability. I would say that sustainability is a broad area that explores what it really means, the ways to be sustainable and what people should do in order to be friendly to the environment and people around them. Sustainable development is more of seeing sustainability in practice, when people start to act after gaining knowledge and when you can actually see reasonable results.

The issue here is to actually involve design and engage designers to create sustainable around us for instance by designing sustainable packaging and ability to re-use products. That is why it is important to come up with creative solutions and be able to spend less money, but to get reasonable outcomes. Human factor here is the most important resource in order to make sustainability work and receive pleasure as a result.

Innovation is another driving force for sustainability. It helps to come up with new and innovative solutions. Again designers are the ones who will be involved in the development process and be able to apply these ideas into practice and make sure they will work.

Think Tank is a web-based forum designed for Regent’s Business School design management students and Australian students. It allows us to communicate, share our views and ideas on different topics including sustainability, pleasure and innovation. This forum is a huge opportunity for all of us to communicate, discuss different issues, see various views and be able to come up with innovative solutions. For me it is rather hard to express by feelings in big audiences but at Think Tank I felt more confident to write about what I feel and what I think because I was surrounded by same students as myself and it was non face-to-face communication. It was very important to see how people react and the way they answer stated questions. It was very exciting to hear so many views, to learn something from it and make own conclusions. The questions in this forum made me think about many different things that people usually take for granted such as sustainability, pleasure, biomimicry, consumerism etc.

First we had to answer "What is pleasure?" That was my answer: "Pleasure... pleasure is a very sensitive word because of its nature. There is no single word or single definition to define PLEASURE. Everyone can have a different feeling about it, and you can't go wrong. In my view pleasure is not only about the comfort and satisfaction. It is more about harmony within yourself AND the external environment. It is a feeling of fullfillness and delightfullness. It is also the state when an individual finds peace and balance. Some people can feel pleasure during shopping, buying a new car, eating chocolates etc. In other words, pleasure can be seen differently by individuals, but it is always a positive feeling.”

First weeks of the discussion I found very intense and exciting and we had less topics to talk about. Later on we had more and more discussion boards and more participants that made it a bit difficult to navigate throughout the questions because student were posting opinions almost at the same time and we had a lot to read before replying to any, but still it was fun and I gained a huge experience out of this forum.

I believe that Think Tank helped me to “think outside the box” and explore creative ideas and thoughts. Also it was useful to explore interactive learning experience. Now I will be able to apply everything that I have learned and gained while communicating with people in future. Better understanding of sustainability issue, pleasure and innovation broadened my mindset.

Innovation, sustainability and pleasure weighs a lot as it has different meanings attached to it and has dissimilar concept of working, these influence customers these days and therefore industries need to compete along to make these terms unique and maintain it in the future

Video: Sustainability as Pleasure! Olympics 2012 (Cycling)

Group meeting #4: 11.00am Sunday, 18th October 2009

Cutting (editing) the video and report

OK. Today we had our last meeting with the group on our Project A, part B. We met in the library to edit the movie all together. First we were all unaware on how it actually works, how to crop, add, edit, add slydes, pictures, words, effects etc. We were lost. but as soon as we started doing it we found it easier than we thought, however we've spent some time doing that. We had fun doing it and we did the movie quite well despie the fact that we actually didn't know how to work with iMovie. It was a good experience for me.

Structure of the video:

1. Starts
2. Introductory slide
3. Cyclers
4. Park road with cars (pollution)
5. Second slide with our 1st idea
6. Charity slide
7. Student interview
8. Bicycles (parking)
9. Third slide with 2nd idea
10. Interview with the lecturer
11. Thank you

• background music: ATB -Obsession

Ideas...

Main ideas:

1. The cycling will take place at Regents Park. There will be 3,000 temporary seats used for guests. Our idea is to donate seats to primary schools and orphanages after the games.

This way the seats will be reused and we will help children who needs them.

2. Another idea is to re-use staff and volunteers uniforms that is made out of recyclable fabrics after Olympic games by donating to Charity organisations for homeless people. This is again sustainable, and will give pleasure while helping people who need clothing.

Group meeting #3, 1:30pm thursday 15.10.09

On thursday we met 3rd time with our group to finalise our ideas for the video project. As it was mensioned previously, our first idea was to do with tennis. However it was guite difficult to come up with sustainability and pleasure issue here. We had some ideas but we thought that they will not work as good as others. Therefore we had to do something else, and we thought about cycling because its seems to be more appropriate to our project as it is sustainable, environmentsally friendly and healthy sport. We went outside to film cyclers, bicycles, bicycle parking and Regents Park (as it is the venue for london olympics for cycling). It was very fun, and everyone tried to be a videoguy, so we all participated and brainstormed our ideas throughout the process. Then we tried to conduct interviews. We found some student who were very kind to talk about sustainability, cycling, pleasure and olympics. After that we went back to college and interviewed our lecturer. Interviews were very helpful in order to finalise our project.

Have to watch this video!!!! Its amazing

Research on strategy

As this weeks lecture was dedicated to the strategy I thought that it is going to be usefull to find out what the strategy is actually is, how its applied and what it covers.

According to Gerry Johnson et al (2008) "strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term, which achieves advantages in changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences with the aim with fulfilling stakeholder expectations." they also argue that strategy can involve hard decisions about the scope of the business, its management and its organisation structure.

Source: Gerry Johnson et al (2008) "Exploring corporate strategy", 8th Ed. Essex, England p.3