Examples of my capabilities, business strategies, and qualities as a team player
The business world is vastly different from the consumer world. Plans need to account for far more than immediate consequences, perceptions need to not only be predicted, but tempered before they even exist, and the scales are much, MUCH higher than they’ve ever been for me. My time at i.c.stars has not only put that into perspective, but also taught me how to shift my mindset into one that can fit with the vast wealth of foresight needed.
Creating Joy And manifestations
Myself, Antonio Banks, Connie Edwards, and Michael Criswell made up the company Creating Joy And Manifestations, or CJ&M. Our rag tag team were on the higher end of average age, lower end of tech literacy, and on the slower end of preferred work flows. We first got together at a boba shop called The Fat Bee, sat down, and learned a bit more about each other.
From there, we would decide who would take what roles. Being the most tech literate person in our group, I would take on the role as Data and Solutions Engineer, being the teacher and one of the primary developers in our team. Staying up late nights, researching documentation after documentation, and seeking resources to aid us in our creation of PhilanthroPoints.
The Project that Started it All
Ms. Benita Webber had herself a opportunity she needed fulfilled: her marketplace wasn’t optimized for the member’s experience, and she tasked us with creating a viable solution for it.
Myself and my team CJ&M rose to the challenge by analyzing what she disliked and what optimizations we could find, both according to the RFP and hers and our observations, designing layouts and solutions, and researching tools to achieve her wishes.
I myself focused on branding by matching Ms. Benita’s Branding Guidelines with our CSS, incorporating SMTP for notifying those in need when orders have been placed, and educating the rest of the team on our tech stack for shared success!
Our Proposal
Our focus for our presentation was simple. Keep it simple, leave it simple. Admittedly this was not our best strategy, as that simplicity felt to be missing a number of details that we would have been better mentioning. This is something we realized we would need to change with our final presentation, to be more detailed about the solutions we presented.
Learning Lessons from Mentors
During our time we had a number of mentors we were provided to learn from, ask for help, or even just converse with. If we took initiative, we even had some from our tea guests! Out of the mentors I had reached out to during our program, 2 stand out as being the most influential:
Blake Rooney
Blake Rooney, CIO of Husch Blackwell, may not have been assigned to any of us, being a board member of i.c.stars, however I and a few of the cohort reached out to him to have coffee chats. I had not only learned more about the technologies that plague the data privacy of the average citizen (such as Palantir, Pegasus, etc) but how someone in his position goes about creating solutions for storing his company’s data.
Asa Reinke
Asa Reinke, a software engineer for H&R Block, took on the challenge to be my mentor, and boy did we have a blast doing so. Going over everything from techniques to slip by ATS to using linked in even as people not truly predisposed to doing so. With a family history in entrepreneurship, he also was able to suggest some tips going that route as well. All in all, of all the mentors we could have had with H&R Block, I’m glad Asa chose me.