Matching Items (4)
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- All Subjects: Collaboration
- Creators: Peck, Sidnee
Description
As part of the InnovationSpace program, interdisciplinary teams of five undergraduate students from the areas of business, engineering, graphic design, industrial design, and sustainability are responsible for creating a product idea that addresses a societal need. My team, Flo, was tasked with finding a product/service solution that will increase collaboration or creativity in a workplace environment. After deciding as a group how to define collaboration—working with others to achieve a common goal—and creativity—getting to an end goal in a different way than is expected—we spent the fall 2014 semester researching pain points and areas of interest for potential customers and users. We learned that one of the barriers to productivity for our target users in startups and mature corporations is that they often lack the right mix of private and collaborative spaces. From this insight, we created a product system called Trenz.
There are benefits and drawbacks to both collaboration and individual work. Trenz sits at the intersection of both work styles, thus aiming to negate the downsides of both and harness their benefits based on real-time user needs. Holistically, the corporate workplace furniture industry is stagnant, despite several trends that pave the way for future innovation. Even though studies are consistently released on the benefits of natural light, flexibility, and activity in the workplace, the furniture industry has not yet responded with a solution that successfully solves all three while keeping the user in mind. As such, Trenz is a product-service system with the potential to create a new segment in the market because of its user-centric design, the support of individual/group work dynamics, and its feature set that can accommodate a diverse group of users.
There are benefits and drawbacks to both collaboration and individual work. Trenz sits at the intersection of both work styles, thus aiming to negate the downsides of both and harness their benefits based on real-time user needs. Holistically, the corporate workplace furniture industry is stagnant, despite several trends that pave the way for future innovation. Even though studies are consistently released on the benefits of natural light, flexibility, and activity in the workplace, the furniture industry has not yet responded with a solution that successfully solves all three while keeping the user in mind. As such, Trenz is a product-service system with the potential to create a new segment in the market because of its user-centric design, the support of individual/group work dynamics, and its feature set that can accommodate a diverse group of users.
ContributorsDicicco, Ryan Paul (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Smith, Jacqueline (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
As the shift to more innovative and open workspaces continues gaining popularity, millennial-heavy trends are now influencing businesses to create a more "Google-ly" and open atmosphere that caters to the needs of different personalities in a quirky, fun and innovative fashion. Millennials are becoming even more central as they begin to dominate the work force and replace more than 75 million older workers who are nearing, or are currently at, retirement age (Twenge et al., 2010). These Millennials have high expectations of their employers and will quickly leave their job if these needs are not being adequately met . One of those expectations is a push for creating spaces that optimize creativity and collaboration among employees. Team n o o d l e aims to address this problem by tackling the issue of underutilized conference rooms that dominate traditional business environments. Team n o o d l e is introducing a product that aims to eliminate the inefficiencies of traditional brainstorming sessions, such as time spent prepping, sticky-note usage and clean up. Otlet is a multi-functional conference table that doubles as a recreational gaming center. Otlet combines work and play by creating an open and engaging environment for sharing ideas. It serves to enhance creativity and collaboration among workers, and in the process may be a catalyst to transform the culture of that workplace. Academic research has begun to validate the importance of fun in the workplace. A number of studies have demonstrated that fun relates to employee attitudes and affective states, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, engagement, positive mood, and positive emotions . (Fluegge, 2008; Karl and Peluchette, 2006a, b; Karl et al., 2007, 2008; McDowell, 2004). Today, a business's online presence is everything. A 2013 poll by AT&T revealed that 67% of businesses are using their website to market to customers . Additionally, 66% of small businesses are maintaining or increasing their spend on digital marketing . The rise in popularity of digital marketing and the Internet is, for the first time, empowering small businesses to compete with businesses of all sizes. The ability to reach audiences across the world has evened out the playing field and leveraged small businesses to compete on a national and global level. Otlet's success will be dependent on an effective and innovative digital marketing strategy. With that being said, I recommend that team n o o d l e implement an initial digital marketing strategy for Otlet that includes a website, paid ad campaigns, a search engine optimization strategy, landing page development, and content marketing.
ContributorsLynch, Ryan Anthony (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Boradkar, Prasad (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to convince readers of the benefits of cross-functional collaboration and innovation within the W. P. Carey School of Business. Specifically, cross-functional collaboration is the "innovation" that is being discussed and will be presented. Written from the perspective of a current business student, this thesis incorporates secondary research as well as personal experience to explain why this would benefit the business school at Arizona State University. The research conducted stems from online resources such as the Harvard Business Review, Kai Nexus, Forbes and other websites and explains why the author decided to pursue this topic. Cross-functional collaboration is seen in the everyday workings of the business world and are a utilized by a multitude of successful companies \u2014 Dell, Intel, Amazon, Apple and other similar companies. Therefore, it should be taken advantage of within undergraduate education in order to better prepare students for what they may experience afterwards. In addition, a majority of the paper is dedicated to recommendations for how exactly cross-functional collaboration could be incorporated, as well as examples of successful cross-functional courses and teams. These recommendations will be beneficial to business and general faculty members and can contribute to positive organizational change at the university.
ContributorsThompson, Trevor N (Author) / Trujillo, Rhett (Thesis director) / Peck, Sidnee (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05