I believe one of the skills I learned from working on this project is prototyping. I had already understood the concept of prototyping and the role it plays in new product development, but I did not know how to do it myself. Also, I never grasped the understanding that prototyping is simply a representation of the product – its dimensions, weight, style, color, etc. I always thought that prototyping meant that a complete product had to be created – one with moveable parts, electrical wiring, functioning gears and motors, etc. I remember being overwhelmed with this aspect of the project because clearly a group of students with a limited budget cannot build an electronic device out of scraps. But the key understanding to prototyping came to me when our group asked you about our prototype and you claimed that “we are not prototyping a lamp.” Obviously, everyone already knows what a lamp looks like so a simple representation of a lamp would help the audience understand that the lamp is apart of the whole product – a room in a box. That way when we started building our prototype, our team did not go for this perfect one tenth scale model because it was not the actual individual pieces that mattered. It was the collection of pieces gathered into a box that was a representation of our product.

Another topic that the project helped me learn is the idea of gaining insights to develop products and services that are new, creative, and unique that consumers would never have thought of on their own. It is basically the idea that consumers do not actually know what they want or need. This was an interesting topic to explore for me because I had always thought that the products and services available to the public came from consumers voicing their opinions and concerns. However, as this course has demonstrated, hundreds of products and services come from evaluating insights – consumers’ behavior, psychographics, and emotions – to bring to life a product or service that scratches an itch. For example, in class you talked about how the iPhone has a feature where you can scroll through your voicemail messages and select which ones to listen to instead of the traditional way of listening to all the messages in order. No consumer knew that this was something they wanted. But Apple did extensive research to discover that this is a need or a want that consumers would like to have available. For our project, our team had to conduct email surveys and distribute photo journals so that we could get in the mind of our segment (older single dads). Through this process, we discovered that the bedroom is used for mostly functional purposes and has plain, simple colors and decorations. These were the key insights that our team used to develop a room in a box (The Simple Space). But this is a product that our segment would never be able to describe to marketers because they did not even know that it was useful. These older single dads were content with their current rooms and did not realize that something out there could revolutionize the look and feel of their room.

One of the key emotions I felt throughout this project was frustration. The reason I felt frustrated was because I did not see how each separate piece of the project (the updates) contributed to the whole of the project. Also, each individual part felt like it was a rehash of the one before it, so we were being redundant. However, by the end of the project when we were finally putting it all together, everything seemed to fall into place, and I realized how each step of the way contributed to the whole process. So in the end I would say my emotions were ones of satisfaction, success, and relief. As for my teammates, they were all very good at contributing and working with a collaborative mindset. It was frustrating when certain group members would not show up at group meetings, but they seemed to pull their weight in other areas to make up for it. I would also say that I thoroughly enjoyed our last meeting when we were building the prototype and running through the presentation because we all really got to know each other better. We were all together for six hours so the conversations expanded beyond the usual superficial banter. And I really appreciated the support from the professor. You always encouraged us and made us feel like we were on the right track (even when I felt we were way off). My only recommendation I would say is be consistent with the information regarding the project and encourage the whole way through. That way students do not feel like they are blindly navigating their way through this project. It is the support that got us through the whole ordeal.