Blog 24: Last Presentation Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your block presentation and/or your senior project? Why?

• For the presentation, I felt I did alright. However, hearing feedback from everyone in the room they all told me I had a lot of examples to explain why so many businesses failed. With all those real world examples of companies like Blockbuster and Kodak, I was able to help the audience relate to what I was teaching.
• I got feedback saying I looked very comfortable up there speaking, like I could talk for forever. Definitely something I felt proud of considering how nervous I felt up there.
• Research was also abundant to support my lecture, and the class felt like they learned a lot from what I was saying.
• The thing that made me the happiest was my activity of replicating shark tank. Everyone was having a good time participating and it was just fun all around. 

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your block presentation?  Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

AE       P*          AP       CR       NC

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project? Use the component contract to defend that assessment.

AE*       P          AP       CR       NC

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

• I'd say researching. There was endless amounts of sources and examples to research into and use for all components regarding my senior project. 

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

• I talked too fast in my presentation. This was something I could have easily avoided had i not gotten ahead of myself and just taken a deep breath while presenting.

(5) Finding Value

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

• I feel like the project itself helped me understand in hindsight things I could of done better. i feel like it improved my writing with the i search papers that would reflect later on in college. It gave me more public speaking opportunities that allowed me for once, to teach a lesson in front of a large group of people. It has definitely been helpful, and it was good practice for any future projects that involve long dedications of time. 

Blog 23 Exit Interview

1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

• What is the primary reason so many businesses fail? Among the many answers I've come across the prime 3 are as follows. 
• Failure to adapt to changing times.
• Competition.
• Not understanding consumer base. 
• Of the three my best answer is the first. 

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

• My interviews with my Mentor Justin Khoury helped provide insight on a real world business that failed because they didn't adapt. On top of that Forbes magazine and many other business websites authored by entrepreneurs explained how renowned businesses failed due to their lack of evolution, such as Blockbuster.  

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

• My only problem was trying to narrow down all my answers since I had so many of them. I fixed this issue by looking at real world examples of each of my answers and assessing which ones occurred the most. 

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

• http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/09/12/five-reasons-8-out-of-10-businesses-fail/#1ea0ac8b5e3c
• https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/83764
• These sources were the most significant because they offered the most versatile information. They didn't just give me one answer, they gave me 20. It was a lot of information to work with and gave me options. 

Blog 22: Independent Component

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WgqLktrU0CYNuknB0IgshQ2Z0vPMY2L9SNaT6ldt48I/edit

Blog 21: Fourth Interview Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

• I learned about the chamber of commerce from my interviewee, essentially it is a local gathering of business owners who get together and help each other out. It allows for more flexibility with your marketing and offers opportunities to expand. Social media is also a great and innovative way to market your product and business, it's essentially the future of advertisement. 

2.  How will what I learned affect my final lesson?

•  There is much to expand upon with finances and loans. I have a lot more material to work with now in my final presentation. I'm going to expand more upon small businesses and how they work, what they should and shouldn't be doing, and why they particularly fail compared to big businesses. 

 https://soundcloud.com/dawson-khoury/interview-4

Blog 20 Interview 4 Prep

1. Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

• I plan to interview my brother, Justin Khoury. He has had past experience owning businesses and managing them, along with a profession in marketing, sales, and communications.

2.  Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. Your focus should be finding answers to your EQ.

1. What mistakes do you think lead to businesses failing?
2. What reasons do you think prompt people to become entrepreneurs?
3. When you were a business manager, what activities did you engage in to adapt to changing consumerism?
4. Can you name a case of a business that failed and why?
5. List off reasons you think businesses fail?
6. What struggles to business owners have to face?
7. In your opinion, why is Apple so successful?
8. What advice could you give to a starting entrepreneur.
9. Do you agree that businesses primarily fail due to not adapting to changing times?
10. Many people start their businesses on a loan, is that a good idea?
11. What recommendations can you give to find more answers to why businesses fail?
12. What do you know now that you wish you knew back when you managed a business?
13. How can one improve their marketing techniques?
14. How does a business effectively manage its finances?
15. Can you tell me what qualities a successful business has?

1.  

Blog 19: Third Answer

•  EQ
• What is the primary reason so many businesses fail? 
• Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*
• Businesses fail due to the business not understanding its customers. 
• 3 details to support the answer 
• The consumers are key to a business surviving. To lose them is to lose your business.
•  Apple made their products simple, aesthetically pleasing, and luxurious which appealed to the masses.
•  My mentor lowered his prices for food to attract college and high schools who didn't have much capital to spend.
• The research source(s) to support your details and answer
•  http://www.inc.com/paul-schoemaker/5-ways-to-know-what-your-customer-wants.html
•  http://readwrite.com/2013/01/29/why-do-americans-hate-android-and-love-apple
• Concluding Sentence
•  Businesses need to establish a communication with their very consumers. Relate and understand them to provide the right product to get desirable sales.

Blog 18 Answer 2

1.  What is your EQ?

• What is the primary reason so many businesses fail? 

2.  What is your first answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

• Businesses fail due todue not adapting to changing times.

3.  What is your second answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

• Competition can be deadly for businesses, constantly there is someone else trying to put you out of business. Business is all about competing for customers, this can be done through superior products, customer service, marketing, ect.  

4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-world application for each.

• You must adapt to beat the competition. Hummer went out of business because it could not adapt to meet consumer needs. in a time where other competitors were averaging 20 mpg Hummer was averaging 10. 
• When you are trying to get a loan to launch your company almost all banks want to see your business plan, so this is the first thing anyone should do when starting a new business endeavor.
• Lack of planning can hurt in many other ways as well, another example is not having enough products to meet the possible demand you may encounter. Thinking everything through beforehand is a must, as well as knowing what you need to start off successfully. 

5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

• http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/

6.  What other source supports your answer?

• http://www.businessknowhow.com/startup/business-failure.htm

7.  Tie this together with a concluding thought.

• Without an organized plan in place to conduct a business one such function cannot survive. With so many factors and complications being presented to bring down a business one must learn to adapt and rival its competition. 

Blog 17 - Interview 3 Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

• I learned that I need to explore the aspect of marketing more in depth than I have done so in the past when looking to answer my EQ. While originally I did think it as a primary factor of my EQ, I did not hold the belief that it was the primary reason that so many businesses fail. Justin gave me insight through his own experience as to how marketing was essential for his business to survive, then went off on the tangent of how major corporations today are suffering because of inferior marketing i.e. McDonalds. 

2.  How has your approach to interviewing changed over the course of your senior project?

• My questions became more narrowed down to my EQ rather thna my actual topic. Quite frankly, I don't need to interview anyone to get adequate knowledge of what business is and how it works, so instead I vitalized the resource to focus on something that the internet could not compensate to a manner, my EQ. I asked questions about my EQ and aimed to gain my interviewee's thoughts on the matter, asking for suggestions and reasons to improve my own knowledge of the topic while in tandem gaining insight on my own EQ.  

Link to audio:

https://soundcloud.com/dawson-khoury/interview-3

Blog 16: Independent Component 2 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• I plan to work with Toyota of Glendora on advertising and marketing. I was recently offered the opportunity to actually work for a few days part time to advertise their sales on new cars and actually receive a salary for it. Currently that is the only specific detail I know about what I will be doing, outside of the sign advertising I will continue to work and help out with their adverting campaigns.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• Essentially I will work alongside my brother at the dealership and perform at least 30 hours of volunteer work. I will log these hours on my working bibliography and have my brother confirm them. To provide proof there will be picture evidence of me working.

3.  Explain how this component will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• Marketing is a big part of my senior project, business. The failure to market is a failure to adapt and keep up with competition. The component gives me hands on experience with actual marketing and will expand my knowledge as to how and why it is such an important imperative in the business world. I got a taste of it in my first independent component and hope to capitalize on it with my second.

4.  Post a log in your Senior Project Hours link and label it "Independent Component 2" log.

Independent Component 1

• LITERAL
  (a) Write: “I,  Dawson Khoury,  affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 32  hours of work.”
  (b) My brother, Justin Khoury, was my source in my independent component. He worked for the avenue magazine and Toyota of Glendora and essentially gave me the connection and utilities to do and complete my independent component. Since he is the social media director for Toyota of Glendora he is the ultimate authority on their marketing. 
• (c) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xuJ7C4uc5NE8aspcKTXR7KL8NmlYp4pj_9k9n9k8480/edit#gid=0
• (d) Explain what you completed.    
• I worked with my brother to conduct marketing campaigns for Toyota of Glendora and the avenue magazine. Through these campaigns I have helped put together parties for advertising the avenue magazine and Toyota, participated in the Glendora Christmas Parade showcasing the brand new Toyota Tundra while taking pictures and videos for social media, and did photography for all these events including a car show in downtown Glendora. 
• INTERPRETIVE 
  Defend your work and explain its significance to your project and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  
  
• Marketing is a big part of my Senior Project. It is one of the essentials of business and staying ahead of the competition which is actually one of my answers for my EQ. I wanted to get hands on experience with it and did so by participating in public advertising campaigns for Toyota and the avenue magazine. For Toyota it involved me doing photography for social media and setting up/conducting the events. In regard to the Avenue magazine I simply helped set up launch parties in which hundreds of people would come, the purpose was to advertise the magazine which had a partnership with Toyota by bringing people in and taking pictures next to the Toyota. As an add on new vehicles from Scion and Toyota were featured at all these events. For months I worked on these campaigns and gained actual hands on experience with marketing. 
• This picture was taken by me when going through the Glendora Christmas Parade, my brother was on the back of a Tundra talking on the megaphone about Toyota's Christmas deals. 
• 
• This was the Tundra that I decorated for the parade
• 
• This is a picture that was taken by someone who was watching the parade who knew my brother, what a coincidence. That's me in the Christmas hat.
• 
• These are the two owners of the avenue magazine standing with my brother as we get ready to start the launch party, I took this picture. 
• 
• For public events, we would have people walk up and take pictures either with their family or with my brother by the logo sheet so they could put it up on their social media. the reason why my brother is the one always in these pictures is because he is the social media director for Toyota, he makes the commercials and essentially is the face of the dealership's advertising. 
• 
• APPLIED
  How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate this. 
• I understood the effects of marketing and what benefits community outreach actually has for a business. Toyota of Glendora is located right next to Ford and Hyundai, thus it needs to compete to bring in customers. Through these marketing campaigns Toyota established familiarity with the community which would provide incentive them to buy a Toyota if they were ever to look for a car. The foundation is that reputations take time to build, and smart marketing is the method of which to build that reputation and have a business prosper. 
• My brother explained to me the importance of community outreach. Throughout the campaign we received positive responses from Glendora citizens, we would actually set up booths and tell bystanders that if they took a picture next to a Toyota or by a logo boards and post it on social media then they would get a prize. It's the little things that built the reputation and put Toyota of Glendora on the map. 

Blog 15: Lesson 2 Reflection

1.What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?

• I improvised my presentation to a degree I found suitable. Certainly not the best presentation I ever gave but it did give me experience as to how to conduct myself better in the future. 

2. a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

       AE       P  *        AP       CR       NC

     b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

• I filled all the minimum requirements on the contract. My time was adequate, presentation carried varied details, and effectively answered the EQ.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

• My activity, I thought it would of failed spectacularly but instead it went smoothly and from what I was seeing everyone was having a good time doing it.  

4. What didn't work? If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

• Defiantly structure my pacing better; I wanted to put more time into actually making the presentation to make it more aesthetically pleasing to the audience. I think what didn't work was just how I presented myself. I had too much to say and not enough time to say all of it. 

5. What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?

• My answer #2 would be the reason so many businesses fail is because they fail to adapt to changing times. This means they don't keep up with the changing competition and lose touch of the direction its consumers are going. 

Blog 14: Third Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

• I plan to interview my brother, Justin Khoury. He's had experience in a wide variety of fields all of which are different branches of business. Such extend to automotive repairs, car sales, advertising, Toyota dealership managing, social media directing, magazines, and managing stores. He currently works with Toyota of Glendora as the social media director and marketer. With all of his experience I see myself gaining valuable input from him on how well structured my EQ is and what answers it can lead to. 

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the 
interview? 

• I set the date and time with him on Sunday January 24 at 4 p.m.

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

• What mistakes do you think lead to businesses ultimately failing? 

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

• When you were a business manager, what activities did you engage in to adapt to changing consumerism? 

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ. 

• Do you think my EQ tackles one of the many controversies in the field of entrepreneurship? 
• Businesses fail for a plethora of reasons, what reason do you think sticks out the most?

Blog 13: 10 Hour Mentorship Check-In

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

• I am currently doing my mentor-ship at the Cantina Grill restaurant a couple blocks down from I-Poly. 

2.   Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

• Currently I have two contacts, Saab Shammas who is the owner of the restaurant, and his daughter Cathy Shammas who is the manager. Saab (who also happens to be my mentor) has been in the restaurant business for over 20 years, owning multiple successful restaurants in the due process. Cathy has only been in this line of work for a couple years, but while she lacks the extent of experience that Saab carries under his belt, she does know what she is doing considering the fact that she has been running the restaurant as a manager since she has worked there.

3.   How many hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog).

• I have so far done 10 hours of mentorship so far. 

4.   Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.

• In the restaurant I work pretty much whatever the employees want me to do. This includes washing dirty dishes and placing them for the next orders, cleaning tables and trays to promote sanitary requirements, make the spices for the orders such as guacamole and salsa, cut tomatoes, lettuce, and onions, and help cook the beans. It differs day to day on what i do considering that there are employees who are already doing these tasks. In the future I plan to complete my hours by simply just going after school and working my shifts there. It's convenient and orderly so it shouldn't be too hard. 

Blog 12: Holiday Project Update

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you do over the break with your senior project?

• I did one hour of mentor ship at the restaurant I volunteer at. More or less I figured out how my schedule for service hours was gonna work, instead of coming on Saturdays when business is slow, it's best I come directly after school when business is on the rise. It simply is better considering that there is always something to do. On Saturdays I can find myself standing bored because most of what usually needs to be done is already taken care of, that's how slow Saturdays are.  

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did, and why?  What was the source of what you learned?

•  I didn't learn much to be honest, mostly all I figured out was how I was to conduct my mentor ship in a timely manner. I know now what schedule works for me, but aside from that not much new has happened.

3.  Your third interview will be a 10 question interview related to possible answers for your EQ. Who do you plan to talk to and why?

• Two people come to mind, my mentor and my brother. Both are actively engaged in business concurrently and have worked with me in the past regarding this project. My mentor I believe can give me great feedback since he is after all heavily experienced in this field. My brother on the other hand doesn't have the 20 year experience, but does have a more modern pretext knowledge about modern business, Such include knowledge of social media advertising, marketing, community outreach, sales, and taxes. I know I can learn different things form both of these people which is why they are my top two choices.