The evaluation process overall was a great experience. I really appreciated how we were able to build our way up to a full elevator pitch. On Tuesday, our group was paired with Olay and they provided us with great feedback concerning issues that we hadn’t thought about. We used their feedback to adjust our pitch a little bit for Thursday’s presentation, and then used Thursday’s feedback to tweak our pitch for Friday as well. It was rather fascinating to see the types of feedback we got, especially on Thursday and Friday. We heard a lot of concerns about loitering, time limits on the pedaling, and sanitation quite frequently. I found this to be really helpful and intriguing because these were issues that our group had not thought about, but were evidently something that were of concern since so many different students and faculty brought them up. It’s crazy how a third-party person can see something you, as a group member paying such close attention to the details, missed.
Another aspect of the evaluation process that I thoroughly enjoyed was all of the feedback. I appreciated that the in-class elevator pitches were low-key and more about the dialogue between the presenters and the audience than it was about selling a product or service. I stated earlier that it was extremely helpful to hear about the concerns that others had that my group members did not originally think of, but the most helpful and exciting part were the ideas others provided. It’s truly marvelous how creative people are. And hearing from outside sources unique ways to change and adapt Chipedal helped us spawn our own new ideas that we plan to incorporate into our prototype.
Friday was very helpful both for the project but also with real-world experience. I currently intern at the Skinner Law Office. For my internship, we do a lot of brainstorming sessions and idea pitching to organizations and potential clients around the Williamsburg area. Because of this, I have had a lot of experience with the format of these elevator pitches and the layout of the room. Even so, I found this to be great practice and a way to boost my confidence for when I am presenting for the law office and later in my own career. In my opinion, this real-world experience was the best part of the evaluating process because it taught us how to apply the ideas and concepts and tools that we have learned in Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design into our future careers.