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.

Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why?

• I'm proud that I came across as energetic and entertaining to my audience while presenting, I made what could have been a boring generic presentation into 9 minutes of enjoyment. I had anxiety throughout the duration of my waiting period, when I went up to present I immediately kicked into presentation mode and overcame that anxiety, that was a relief for me. 

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why you earned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

• I'd give myself a solid P, reason why is that I believe I fit all the necessary requirements. I had multiple sources to back up my claims and provide insight into my topic, I also gave a real life scenario for almost every point I made to show validity. Eye contact was fair along with voice projection, everyone told me they heard me loud and clear after the presentation, so I believe voice projection was met to an acceptable standard. Lastly I did demonstrate quite a bit of research in my content, it was clear that what I had learned was the culmination of 3 months of research.   

3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson?  How can you use that knowledge to give a better Lesson 2?

• Additions I would make would be going more into depth about my mentor, also elaborating more on what not to do in business rather then spending a huge chunk focusing on real life scenarios, that's my opinion. Next lesson I plan to go more into depth on my topic itself, business entrepreneurship, instead of talking about business failure I want to address the importance of business in the United States.

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

• I spend my mentor-ship volunteering at the very restaurant my mentor owns and works at. My tasks involve typical employee duties such as washing dishes, preparing food, and loading up storage. The tasks performed are meaningful in giving me hands on experience in the workforce. In contemporary to my work I receive lessons and lectures from my mentor explaining why each task is done and then going on to explain the business from an anecdotal fashion. 

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you? 

•  My mentor is a family friend and someone I've known my entire life. It didn't take much convincing to get him to be my mentor, he was glad to help me with my project and since he has spent a great deal of his life as a business man he felt he had a lot of knowledge to share with me. 

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person? 

• My comfort level is fine, as I stated before I've known my mentor all my life and he is like family to me, getting along or just being in his presence is as normal and comfortable than that with my brother or father. 

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

• The interview went very well, my mentor was well prepared and gave explicit answers on his background and experience. The message was clear, captivating at that where I didn't feel bored hearing his knowledge. I probably need to improve on time consumption, often my mentor would get a bit carried away and go off on a longer than expected anecdote which would eat up a significant portion of the interview time frame. I had originally intended for the interview to be 10 minutes but instead ended up being 14 minutes. I plan to deal with this by perhaps interrupting in a polite manner and moving on the the next question. 

Link to interview: https://soundcloud.com/dawson-khoury/interview-2-0

Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

• Currently I do have a mentor, the same one I've had since the summer. At the current moment I have not scheduled an interview with my mentor nor have I even contacted him about it. I do however plan in the next day or two to contact him and schedule an appropriate date. 

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons. 

• Two areas come to mind, the restaurant business is one of them in the sense of owning/managing a restaurant. The second area is less specific but a field that offers a lot of promising material to work with, entrepreneurship. This sounds broad at first glance but I have researched and found out that entrepreneurship is not exclusive to any business and is its own practice in of itself.  

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

• The internet has been my reliable source over the last month and a half, I don't see myself shifting from it in the foreseeable future. Experience will be my source in the next month, I plan to engage more in hands on activities from multiple different businesses (i.e. public events, advertising campaigns, and staff duty) and actually learn something that isn't from a computer screen. 

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

• What is the biggest risk an entrepreneur must take and what they do to overcome it. 

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal

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

• I plan on looking to different types of businesses to gain hands on experience in. The overall goal is to participate in events involving these different business. I want to help set up events, advertise products, and just have the opportunity to explore something I haven't done before. 

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

• To log my hours I will create a simple spreadsheet similar to that of the mentor ship hours and detail what I've done for my independent component. 

3.  Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• I will be able to work with experts who understand the field of entrepreneurship better than I do. This gives me the opportunity to interact with experienced businessmen and understand how they got to where they are and why. Hands on experience will also be its own in depth learning, I will participate in social events for car dealerships and possibly even a magazine; I want to not just know what it takes to have/work for a business but also how to sell that business as well.