We had two full days left in Japan and my students needed to take everything they’d seen/heard/learned (also known as data) and use it to write the create the final project. The final project was a paper and is outlined here. I met with each student team – primary and secondary – to review their area of focus. Â I was very happy with what I saw and was excited to see the final project.
Later on the day of the 8th, I met with the team and asked them how the class/trip were. I got some great feedback.
- “Dedicate one class to review the qualitative findings of the US interviewees as a class before heading to Japan.” This was something that I did not do and will definitely do in the future.
- “It would make it easier to write the document if we had a client in mind.” This is true BUT the focus of the class was mobile consumer behavior and the students were tasked with documenting items that needed to be considered for any business considering a mobile strategy in the US and the Japan. This is easier and simultaneously harder. This was mentioned by students that had what’s called a GO Class at Daniels, but that was not the focus.
- “It would have been great to conduct some interviews in Tokyo to see how they differ from our Kyoto interviews.” 100% agree. If we were going to do that we would have found ways to conduct interviews in NYNY. In my mind Kyoto = Denver and Tokyo = NYNY.
- “The sample size in Japan could have been bigger.” Agreed! The team helping us gather people in Japan to take the survey, underestimated how hard it is to get someone to take a survey. Especially when it’s long! I’m going to use Mechanical Turk to gather some real numbers and then see if the data changes.
It was great to get feedback from my students on how to make the experience better. They’re an incredibly bright group of people.
During a break, I walked down to Starbucks and walked inside. As IÂ entered the space IÂ looked out the back through a massive glass window and saw a beautiful temple encased by high-rises. It was pretty shocking to see it in the back of a Starbucks and it reminded me of the Holy Ghost building in Denver. Modernity enveloping the past.
