There seemed to be a theme throughout the day that tied all the presentations together in a way I didn’t notice last class. The focus was around community and the gaps within them, which seemed appropriate for our last day in a class I have very much enjoyed.

I enjoyed this set of presentations and thought they were well thought out overall.

The first presentation was on Evergreen Hospital and the Millennial connection. This was a very interesting concept. I also thought they did an excellent job pairing down their prompt into something digestible while still hitting the key points.  I know personally, I do not like taking time to go to the doctor but I also like to have a little better communication with them if I feel like I may be having a reaction to a medicine or on the boarder of getting sick. The three options proposed seemed to fit nicely into the lifestyle of the Millennial. The one piece that bothered me throughout the presentation wasn’t really an element that could be addressed by the presentation- how the doctor would find time to manage this new communication and how to set up limitations so that people do not become overly reliant on their doctors. I understand this wasn’t the point of the presentation, so I wouldn’t say it was lacking in explanation but it would be a huge consideration as well as a push back point for many doctors if this was real life. Overall, I greatly enjoyed the videos and “user” testimonials. It brought life into the presentation.

The second presentation on Asana flowed somewhat like a sales-pitch. From general experience, there hasn’t been a good collaboration tool that really works for the needs of a specific company. This was verified by the team after their presentation when they admitted to the class, you shouldn’t actually consider using Asana.

However, despite the obvious limitations of the tool, the presentation was still well done. Focusing on mobile trends and moving away from the weight of emails was a good way to frame the presentation. As far as marketing techniques, I liked how they linked to the Coke website and how they focused on a campaign based on testimonials. I wasn’t totally convinced that their contest would be successful, but the idea was founded on sound research so it is worth a shot. My other concern, was the ability of the younger generation’s ability to effect such a large change within a company.

The next presentation was on a new service called #pikshare. The concept of the product was great. I loved the idea that instead of a company having the rights to my photos to do with whatever they liked, that instead I could be rewarded for my brand loyalty. As came up in the questions, there did seem to be a lot of concerns over monitoring submissions and creating guidelines to outline these rules. The other element I was concerned about was the ability to get small businesses on board on a local level. Are we planning to have brand reps and sales people proposing this idea to local businesses?

After lunch we watched a clever presentation on communication within Amazon through a new system a to z innovation collaboration platform. This posed many of the same issues as the Asana, company buy-in, ability to actually solve issues presented, etc. However, I thought that the slides were beautiful and that the education portion was very well presented. I already knew about the adoption curve, but it was presented in a way that was helpful to understand. One element of the presentation I didn’t really understand was how the pages on our desk were meant to be utilized. Everyone at my table was the same group of people so it was unclear if we were supposed to be responding to the questions that followed with that mindset or if it was just further explanation on one group of people. The scrabble idea did a good job of representing the idea that collaboration will lead to much better results.

Finally, the team that must have been itching in their seats for the last two weeks, Gennect. This was one of the more interesting topics and maybe best saved for last. It was incredibly informative about the differences between the generations and what could have led to these differences. I also enjoyed learning how many of us are out there for various generational groups. Another plus is the fact that there is a wide range of generations represented in the class. Another element that could have been interesting to discuss would have been the reverse. As a millennial, how do I work with the older generations? What do I need to do to get along better with them? This was answered in the question and answer portion by one of your team members of one of these older generations and I completely agree. The best way for Millennials to learn to work with the older generations is to take a moment and stop driving forward, forward, forward and to listen. There are years of wisdom available to us. We do not need to remake the wheel or all the same mistakes. They are here to help if we would just take a moment to listen.

Thanks again to everyone who presented this week. I really appreciate hearing from everyone and learning about these topics from a variety of perspectives.