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Well, the trip is officially over. On Saturday, we headed to the Golden Gate Bridge. While many people decided to go for a bike ride, a couple of us decided to take another route a ride a bus across. We started at the Golden Gate Bridge Welcome Center to check out a couple small exhibits on the history and physics of the bridge. Then, we hopped on the bus, however, it went a little further than we thought it would and got a little lost for awhile, but eventually we found our way back to the other side of the bay. Even though it was a little stressful at first, it was still fun since we got to see some amazing views of the city and even Mt. Tamalpais! Once we were in the city again, we came back to the house for a treat of a group dinner of shish kabobs and fettuccine alfredo! It was delicious!
For our final day in the city on Sunday, I got to check out some fun little hidden gems of the city. We started in Chinatown at a little fortune cookie factory to see how they do it. We grabbed a bag to share with those who weren't able to some with. It was especially fun since we could eat the rejected ones for free! Then we headed a few blocks down the road to the Cable Car Museum in the cable car powerhouse that runs the entire system. It was very cool to see how each of the routes leads to a single powerhouse where a single cable on a spinning wheel makes every car on the route move. Yesterday, our official last day was a travel day. We left bright and early for the airport. After 4 trains to get there, we headed to check in and made it through security. As soon as we landed in Minneapolis and got our luggage, I ran across to the other terminal to catch my next flight to Chicago. After twelve hours of travel, I have made it home and have no rest before thinking about spring semester next week! I can't wait to see what new adventures I have in store as I go on! That's all for this trip! -Claire
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Yesterday was one of the highlights of the trip for me! We started the day with a meeting at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Unfortunately as I mentioned in my last post, we weren't able to meet the famous Ann Winblad we had heard so much about, but we did meet Steve Kishi, one of their partners. He told us a little bit about what he is looking for when considering a company to invest in. First, from experience, they try to find business to business companies as they typically receive higher returns. Then he also thinks if he believes they will receive their full investment back when the company is bought or goes public (which he calls a dragon). Then, he gave some tips for when you are presenting to a venture capitalist (VC). First, knowing the VC's own business model. Each one will have a different type of business they specialize in investing so you need to know which your company falls with. Also (and this was his biggest tip), focus on the business while presenting, not the product itself. It helps to get to the true meaning or service for your business, assists in finding comparable, knowing the market for your business, and knowing where you need to eventually be if you aren't there already. The final piece of advice was to think of your first meeting as nothing more than getting the next one. That way, you won't give all of your information and will still have something to say at the next one by leaving the VC curious.
It was quite interesting to hear a completely different view from two different VCs on this trip. The last one we talked with felt that there were too many start-ups that had inflated valuations and the market would soon not be able to handle it and "pop" just as it did around 2000. Also, the previous VC looked for businesses focusing on big data as this was "the only business model left that will work". While Steve Kishi does not see a "pop" coming and is open to all businesses although data is not a bad business to go into right now according to him. After our meeting, we headed right around the corner to hop on the ferry to Alcatraz island! It was amazing to walk through the cell house with the audio tour. There were so many interesting stories from both officers and inmates who had been there. Especially when we had the treat of meeting a former inmate while he was signing copies of his book in the gift shop while we were there. It was also very informative to learn about the history of the island as it was only a federal penitentiary for about 30 years. It started as a Civil War military fort, then transitioned into a military prison and disciplinary barracks, and then turned into the federal prison we know today from 1933-1964. The prison closed due to wear and tear from the sea water that became too expensive to maintain. After the prison closed, Native Americans occupied the island for a couple years as a Native Rights movement. After the government forcibly ended the occupation, it became a national park in 1972. Not only was the island rich in history and have many interesting stories, it is also full of nature. It is a bird nesting ground as well and has a few beautiful trails to follow as well. Finally, it has fantastic views of the city! Once he headed back to the mainland, I had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe before we headed back to the house to bunker down for the night. Today, we are going to head to the Golden Gate Bridge for more sight seeing! I can't wait to talk more about our final adventures on the West Coast as we close out our final weekend before flying back to the Midwest! That's all for now! -Claire It was another great, relaxed day in San Fransisco! First, we started with a book report on The Art of the Start. Which was quite interesting as it was by the same author as another book we heard about, Reality Check. They had very similar content but it was interesting that each presenter had a little bit different takeaways to discuss. While one focused more on mistakes to avoid, today we discussed more of what you should do. We thought a lot about mission statements or better yet, a mantra to narrow down what exactly your company values and what drives you to start the business. We also talked about the 10/20/30 rule for presenting where you should have no more than 10 slides, 20 minutes, and no smaller than size 30 font. This will ensure you know what you are presenting on and reduces the possibility of your audience becoming disinterested.
Since our meeting for the day wasn't until late in the day and we had a few hours to do some sight seeing, I decided to go out with another classmate to do a famous house excursion. We started at the house used for the show Full House and took some pictures. Then, we headed to Alamo Square Park to see the "stair step" houses that are a classic view of San Francisco seen on any TV show that is set here. Finally, we went to the home used on That's So Raven, an old Disney Channel show I enjoyed when I was younger. Then it was time to head back so we could change for the meeting with Safegraph. Safegraph is a great little start-up with around 25 employees that looks at location data. They explore where people are visiting and the frequency in which they go to certain locations. It was quite the experience to meet with the CEO for a few minutes along with another Luther alumni. The CEO and founder had some interesting insights. It was fun to hear that the idea for the company came from one of his favorite science fiction stories on compiling all of the world's data in one spot. Also, he gave us the advice of allowing ourselves to not know everything when we first start. It may give us insights and we may be more willing to try new things if we don't know every piece of information about what we are doing. Also, he said that there are some things you just need to learn for yourselves to fully appreciate the knowledge. The Luther alum also had a lot of great insight for us. First, he had a story about the previous company he had worked for and the acquisition process he had experienced. Since we heard from LinkedIn about their relatively recent, smooth acquisition, it was interesting to hear from a different perspective on an acquisition that did not go quite as smoothly. We also heard the importance of finding the right company for your personally. It is not enough for a company to like you and hire you, you need to mesh with the company as well. Similarly, in the interview process, sometimes the decision can be out of your control. Sometimes you just don't mesh with the company, you have an interview with someone who's personality clashes with yours, someone is having a bad day (you or the interviewer), or any number of issues that have nothing to do with your abilities. Another great piece of advice given was to not reinvent the wheel. If you have resources already available, don't spend the time starting from scratch. Finally, he talked a little bit about their company culture and how they used strengths finder to get to know themselves and their coworkers a little bit better. It was interesting to hear how this is used outside of academia since we had all taken it at Luther before. After the final visit of the day, we headed back to the house again to chill and hang out as a group. We had another amazing pancake dinner as a class while we jammed out to some music and watched a TV show we have all gotten into together. It is hard to believe our trip is quickly coming to a close with our final office visit tomorrow at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners! Unfortunately we won't be able to meet with the Ann Winblad we have heard so much about from our professor, but it should still be a great meeting! That's all for now! -Claire Today brought two companies that at first seem like complete opposite cultures, but have the same goal - to serve other companies. We started the day with a visit to W2O, an advertising and PR firm. We had the pleasure of meeting with their CMO (Chief Marketing Officer). He gave us great advice on what employeers are looking for as they are hiring and tips on how to network and create those connections. Afterwards, we had a few hours until our next visit, so a couple of us headed over to Pier 39 to find some lunch of fish and chips and see the sea lions again!
For the afternoon, we visited at Kiva, a nonprofit company that uses crowd funding to help give microloans to those who would otherwise not be able to receive the funds required to start a business or meet normal daily needs for the community as a whole. These loans are typically smaller, 0% bearing loans given to entrepreneurs in third world countries. It was great to hear that a large percentage of these loans are paid back in a relatively short amount of time. Our host also told us a little bit about possible fraud and the steps taken to minimize the amount of fraud that goes through their company. Since it started to rain, we all headed back to the house pretty quick after the meeting. However, a group of us braved the weather to walk to the nearest Safeway to pick up groceries to make tacos as a group! I just hope the weather is better tomorrow so we can do some more exploring of the city! That's all for now! -Claire It's been a great couple of days in San Francisco! First, on Monday, we all met up in the living room to hear a couple book reports on Founders at Work and The 4-hour Work Week. Founders at Work is a compilation of several interviews with founders. There were four major themes touched on that we discussed in detail including origin of ideas, qualities of a founder, luck, advice, and failure. Our discussion on The 4-hour Work Week was quite interesting as it was different from every other discussion we have previously had. With this book, we discussed several issues presented that many of us did not necessarily agree with. The only way to truly obtain a 4-hour work week seemed to be through manipulation, passing off tasks to others, making others bend to your schedule, and streamline things almost too much. However, as I think, when their is a lot of communication and everyone is in agreement and coordinates well, it may be possible for all involved to be the most efficient the company possibly can. On the other hand, a 100% efficient company may not be the most pleasant to work in with absolutely no social interaction and relationship building with coworkers which could cause problems down the road.
After our discussion time, a group of us headed out to Fisherman's Warf to do some sight seeing. To get there, we were able to take a cable car through the streets which was a fantastic ride with the hills! We started on pier 45 were we went in a fun antique arcade where you could still play the games! There was even a sorting hat fortune teller machine from Harry Potter! Next, we stopped by the dock and looked at a WWII ship and submarine that are docked there. Along with the vessels, there were some informational signs to read along the way. Then we took a stroll down Pier 39 checking out the food and shopping. At the end of the pier was a fun treat - sea lions! They were domesticated in anyway for an aquarium or zoo. There were wild sea lions just hanging out on the docks nearby. After a quick food stop at In and Out Burger and Krispy Kreme, we hopped back on a cable car for home. Since it was still early and we had a full day of walking, we just had a relaxing night in for another full day today. Today, we had a similar schedule of book reports in the morning and sight seeing in the afternoon. This morning, I presented on the book that I have been reading called, The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off While Others Crash and Burn. I lead a discussion about just how to ensure that the new technology you make is successful. The book describes how many technology developers are in the wrong mindset and are very supplier oriented while they need to be customer oriented to be successful. Suppliers must figure out what the consumer sees as a problem and address that. Additionally, we heard from another student on the book entitled The Lean Start-Up. This book shows one way that companies can introduce either themselves, or a new product to the market. It involves only putting out a bare-bones version of the technology and then adapting it to exactly what the consumer wants once it is already out on the market. Once again, after the book reports were finished, the entire class headed to The Exploratorium which was a fun and interactive experience. There were many, many scientific experiments to play with and explore with a wide range of topics from electricity and magnetism to mechanics to light and sound to even social/psychological experiments. There was so much to look at there, it was hard to try everything offered. When we got back to the house, we made use of the grill on our patio and had a group cook out for dinner. Once again, it was a full day so we all stayed in to relax tonight before we head out bright and early to start visiting companies again tomorrow! That's all for now! -Claire The last couple days, we have been transitioning into the house we will be staying in for the remainder of our trip. Yesterday, we packed up our things at the hotel and loaded up the van. On our way into the city, we stopped at a state park in the Redwoods. We got to spend a little bit of time hiking around the park and enjoying the nature of the area. It was nice and peaceful being in the woods for awhile after being in cities with a lot of hustle and bustle for the last couple weeks. Then, we continued on to the house in San Francisco. The house is a beautiful Victorian style house with several bedrooms and a great loft stocked with a ping pong table and games galore! After we all got settled and found our spots, a group of us headed down the street to find some food. We found an amazing burger shop that was all organic and had vegetarian feed beef. On our way back, we stopped and got some groceries for cooking the rest of the week. Since it was still early, we got to hang out around the house, watch movie, play Mario kart, and start an ongoing ping pong tournament!
As for today, we had a free, lazy day which is quite refreshing after the constant moving done lately. We all slept in some and slowly got ready. After lunch, some of us headed out for some desert and to explore our neighborhood. We found an amazing ice cream shop that makes fresh batches each morning with all organic ingredients and had many intriguing flavors such as brown sugar, snicker doodle, citrus sorbet, and honey lavender along with classics like cookies and cream. As we continued on, we found an amazing ally full of murals, each with their own message. On our exploration of the neighborhood, we found out that we are next door neighbors to the U.S. mint! Finally, we found a park and played on the equipment for a little while. It was so much fun being able to let out my inner child and climb around on the jungle gym, swing, and spin on the merry-go-round! Once we got back, I took some time to myself to do some reading while others watched the Viking's game. Then, we headed downstairs for a homemade pizza night as a group! Now, a few of us are watching a Disney movie as we work on our various projects! I can't wait to see what our first day out with the entire group brings tomorrow! That's all for now! -Claire It was a full day! Two company visits, a book report, a quick tour of Stanford, and a movie night!
First, we started at Benetech, a nonprofit company who is "going where the market fails" They find a cause that they are passionate about and look to improve technology in that area. For example, their largest product, Bookshare, puts literature in a format that anyone with a print disability can read whether it is having them in audiobook format, highlighting as they read to help follow along, and more. This company had such a different culture and business model than any other we have visited solely based on its status as a nonprofit business. Since they are not looking to maximize their profits, the employees are typically extremely passionate about their work. It is also nice that they are able to measure success by more metrics than only profit. They measure based on both profit (need for sustainability) and impact. The company can look at how much they are making a difference and if they are "putting [themselves] out of business" by leaving such a sustainable legacy. However, there are challenges with the nonprofit model. It can be harder to gain capital funding since there isn't as high of return and the work may be slowed down without that funding. Then Benetech was kind enough to borrow their conference room to hear another book report. This one was on the book Sound Recording which told about the life cycle of technologies that dealt with sound recording from phonographs to ipods (it was written a few years ago and did not have streaming yet). We discussed how technology builds on itself and if there is any limit to the advancements that can be made. Since we had some time before our next stop, we had a quick drive through tour of Stanford's campus and stopped at the bookstore for a few minutes. Once we got to our next company, Tibco, we grabbed some lunch from their cafeteria before our meeting with a Luther alumni. The alumni had been working for a small start-up that was eventually acquired by Tibco. He told us about this process and gave some advice based on some issues he had faced during this time and mistakes he made. Since our visits were relatively short today, we had plenty of free time to spare for the afternoon and evening. Therefore, we decided to have a movie night as a group. We watched National Treasure, one of my favorite movies! It was great having even more time to bond with the class and get to know each other a little more in a more relaxed setting. Well, tomorrow is our travel day as we move into the city so we'll see what our next and final location brings! That's all for now! -Claire This may rival the visit to Google yesterday. Today included a visit to LinkedIn, a professional networking site. LinkedIn was extremely welcoming and made our visit an extremely smooth process. First, they had signs in the parking lot welcoming us and directing us where to go. Once we got checked in, the husband of a Luther alumni put together a panel of employees from many different departments of the company. There seems to be a recurring theme when our presenters give us advice. They all say do what you love and follow your passions even if it means transferring jobs whether internally or externally. This is something that has surprised me about this trip. It is astonishing just how many positions people have held. Some switch jobs every two-three years. The dynamic, ever learning atmosphere is quite a change from what I have seen in the Midwest where people have held the same job for 10-20 or even 30 years. Not only did we get to hear some advice, but we also had a presentation on their internship programs which gave a very good image of the culture present in LinkedIn.
Finally, we discussed what changes have been seen through Microsoft acquiring the company. There seemed to be a consensus as to the changes being from neutral to positive. On the business side, one compared it to the acquisition of YouTube by Google. While YouTube was doing well and was in no danger, Google allowed the company to go to the next level and become just that much better which is how they say it has helped LinkedIn. As to culture and the politics of being acquired, it was interesting to hear the impact the CEO of Microsoft had in making the transition as smooth as possible. He genuinely seemed to want to make this a positive relationship with the employees. The CEO went out of his way to spend time there and talk with everyone in the company who wanted to. After a wonderful lunch in one of their cafeterias, we all loaded up in the van to head over to the computer history museum which was interesting to see the evolution of technology from abacuses all the way to self-driving cars in modern day. It was quite interesting to see the approximately three feet print out from one of the first computers just for it to calculate a simple math problem that takes only a fraction of a second on a phone today. Once we got back to the hotel, we heard one of the book reports from a classmate. The book, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, lead to a lot of discussion on ethics of technology. It also lead to some interesting discussion on the definition of a new technology, who deserves credit for creating that technology, and the barrier as to who should have the most influence on the design and features of the product. Finally, we had a little bit of time to rest before heading out for a nice group dinner at a nearby Mediterranean restaurant. We started with some appetizers of hummus, falafel, stuffed grape leaves, and more. While the food I ordered wasn't exactly what I had expected, it was still very tasty! Then we even got some baklava for desert! This was delicious! Tomorrow, we will be visiting Benetech, a nonprofit technology company. This should be quite a different experience as it is nothing like the other companies we have visited. That's all for now! -Claire Today was one of the best visits we have had the pleasure of going on today! We spent the entire day at the Google campus. It started with a quick intro from a Luther alumni and then we got to speak with people from various departments such as a corporate operations engineer, a product manager, and engineering education managers. The corporate operations engineer was another Luther alumni. He explained his role as an internal tech support for employees. Then, he explained a little about rotational programs that can be done right out of college. You are able to spend two years learning a little more about the company by spending time in a couple of fields for software engineers to receive both training and to learn a little about the different possible positions before transitioning into a full time engineering position. We then discussed how to manage the numerous projects that you could be doing at one time. However, we also talked about some side, non-work related projects. Google is extremely willing to help by giving time and donations to whatever volunteer initiatives you want to pursue.
Next, the product manager explained the importance of good management for a team. Not only does the manager need to be passionate about the product, but they also need to drum up the enthusiasm of the whole group. He told us that a business and management experience or education may be very beneficial for a role like this. Finally, some engineering education managers came to tell us about their initiatives. Their main goal is not only to educate internal employees by arranging training and mentoring, but also trying to help schools establish computer science programs or bring up excitement and an interest for computer science in students. After a free lunch in one of their many cafes (for employees and registered visitors), we got a tour of the campus. Mostly, we walked through the Googleplex (the first four buildings made for the campus). This is where the co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin give weekly updates to any employee who wants to stop by. Here, we got to take a peak at some of the amenities that are available for employees to take advantage of. In addition to the free cafes, there are rock walls, pools, gyms, bikes to use around the campus, ball pits, massage chairs, and many more. On our way through, we found quite a few great photo opportunities! Finally, we ended at the visitor's center with a very brief history of the company as well as some interactive exhibits on Google Earth. The visitor's center also had the Google store with the traditional gift shop items. While we were at the store, we were approached by a couple researchers who wanted to run some tests and receive insights on a product. Unfortunately, we only had time for one person to do the trial, but I was the lucky one! I got to check out something Google is researching and give some feedback! It was an amazing experience to see Google's process of product development in action! That's all for now! -Claire Today, we got to hear a new perspective on the topic of venture capitalism from the capitalist view. He gave us a brief view on what he is looking for in a new company before he invests. He described that it does not matter what type of technology is being made, but the business model behind it. It almost sounds to me like he is focusing more on the service side rather than the physical product. He looks for the WHY someone should buy it rather than the WHAT the company has. He specifically talked about a data business model of creating products for the company to collect data from and use the data to target sales or assist the customer. This is in contrast with the physical code or app created. Additionally, we were given advice on how to expand and keep a professional network by meeting people for lunch and establishing relationships.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped for lunch at a local burger place and stayed on their patio for a group book report discussion. My classmate spoke on the book, Reality Check. The book is a collection of blog posts with advice on various matters such as starting your own business, running a business, and work life in general. A few interesting ones that were shared included a list of lies told by engineers and lies told to venture capitalists. We then discussed how we may not think of them as lies when in the moment and saying them, but it will happen they may not turn out to be whole truths if any truth at all comes of it. After our discussion, we headed over to the Apple campus to check out the visitor's center. They had several iPads, iPhones, and Macbooks out to try. There were also some history books on the evolution of their products. Since they were not able to give tours of the campus, they provided an augmented reality version of the campus to interact with and learn more which was an extremely clever way to do so. Since we ended the day early, we now have the chance to sit back and relax for the night. It will be a welcome change of pace from the city life experienced in Seattle. That's all for now! -Claire Hello again!
It was a great couple of days to close out our time in Seattle! On Sunday, several of us got together to head over to the Seattle Center. While we didn't go up, we stopped by the Space Needle and went in the gift shop to look for souvenirs. We then continued the day by walking around the park area around the Space Needle. There were many fun, creative sculptures and some interesting architecture. Next, we headed over to Lake Union Park to see some boats. There was even a small steam engine from the early 1900's, Virginia V, we were able to go on a short tour of. After a full day of walking around the city and a quick snack break back at the condos, what did we decide to do? Go on a walking tour! Since we had heard so much about the Seattle Underground Tour, we thought it would be a good idea to try it out. Our tour guide took us down through some tunnels that were the original sidewalks of the city. You could see some of the old store fronts and peak inside the windows to see some old abandoned basement/first stories (it is a really amazing story of how the came about). Our tour guide was hilarious and made it such a fun experience! We then had the chance to sit and rest for about an hour before we changed for a nice group dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant, La Vita e Bella. I was fortunate enough to have a pasta with cream sauce, smoked salmon, and leaks. The food was outstanding and it was another amazing night of bonding for the class. After dinner, it was finally time to start wrapping up our stay in Seattle by packing up before we left early this morning. We headed out around 7:15am to catch our train to the airport for our 10:15 flight. Landing in San Francisco around 12:30, we grabbed a rental van for the duration of our stay in Menlo Park. Once we settled in at our hotel (Red Cottage Inn), we headed out for a lunch at a local diner down the road. We ended our day with one of the book reports from a classmate. He presented on a book entitled, The HP Way. It is a story about the computer company, Hewlett and Packard, how the company was started and how they established a deep connection amongst employees through a couple values statements. There were many things the book explained that we have had the pleasure of seeing play out in other companies as well. For example, when the two partners were first starting, they weren't sure what kind of product they wanted to create. Therefore, they waited to have customers tell them what they were looking for before manufacturing their product to its fullest. This is exactly like the lean start-up concept heard about at Tignis on Friday. There was also a lot of focus on their values statements. The class compared and contrasted this with Amazon's values presented to us during our visit there. Something that was given to think about though is while we are specifically studying technology companies, how can this work with non-tech companies. I would argue that being non-tech would change anything about how a company is run. It would only change the product being made. Through the book I've been reading, The Change Function, I think of almost any product as technology. There are certain things that must happen to be certain the public will adopt your product. You need some sort of innovation to ensure you will receive sales. This is why I do not believe that a different product will not change the way a business should be run. Well, after a long week, it has been very relaxing to have an early night with not much to do. Tomorrow morning we are off to meet with a venture capitalist and here about the process from the other side. New city, new adventures! That's all for now! -Claire I'll start by apologizing for a long post, but yesterday was jam packed and I didn't have the chance to sit down and write.
To start, Friday we had the great opportunity to meet with a true entrepreneur, John Herlocker. He is currently in the midst of beginning his new start-up company, Tignis, working on data monitoring to find issues. Coming from an accounting focus, I was truly grateful to hear a little bit about the funding and finances behind a start-up and just how companies get the capital needed. John explained how the venture capitalist route works as this is currently the process he is going through. We also heard about a similar process with angel capitalists. The final route discussed was bootstrapping and how some companies used pure hard work to raise the funds needed. Next, John brought in his employees to tell us about their experiences working at a start-up. We then closed the meeting by John explaining a little about his business model of a lean start-up where they wait to finalize a product until they have orders and hear what their customers are looking for. After a quick bite at a local sandwich shop, we headed back to hear a book report and have a discussion from one of the other students on the trip. He talked about the book, The One Minute Entrepreneur. In the book, it gave a long list of attributes that a good entrepreneur should have. Some from the list that stuck out to me were ambition, focus, and visionary. I feel as though I set high standards for myself and always make ambitious goals to reach my vision for life. Once I have that goal in mind, I can never stop thinking about it until it is achieved, and if am unable to attain it, I continue to focus and figure out what I can do better the next time around. While this can lead to overthinking, it is important when trying to find solutions. If I am always focusing on it, it could lead to a solution. Next, a friend of one of the other students who is a Luther alumni, came and took us to a fun local restaurant called Mox's boarding house. Here, they have a library of games to chose from that you can play while you eat. It was so much fun and we got to learn a few new games too! Then, she took us around town to some amazing look-out spots where I was able to get a few great pictures. This morning, a group went on a ferry ride to Bainbridge island to do some exploring. A couple of us decided to hang back and explore here in the city. We went down to the piers and got to walk around and check out some of the rides. All around the piers was art of every kind! There were murals, sculptures, street performers (music and comedy). It was amazing to see all of the hidden gems that you could find around the streets. Near the pier, we found the popular Seattle Antiques Market where we saw everything from pinball machines and toys to dishes to a phone booth and even an adult sized rocking horse. The last stop on our journey took us back to Pike Place Market where we walked through some of the alleyways to peek in the shops there. We even got to stop at a flying fish stand where the workers throw the fish back and forth to each other. After a full day of exploring, everyone got together in our condo to make a group meal of pancakes and sausage. We got to bond a little bit, talk, and play some games. Now, we are once again resting after a full few days. I can't wait to do some more exploring tomorrow! That's all for now! -Claire Well, it was a long visit day, but a great one!
The next stop on our visit took us across Lake Washington to Microsoft. To reach our destination, we hopped on the public bus. Unfortunately, we missed our stop and got off a little bit late and had to walk back, but it wasn't too bad of a hike. To start the visit, we had the pleasure of touring their exhibit on their future plans for how they will continue to innovate in the near future! Then we went over to Building 1, the first building made when they began to build their expansive campus that holds We first spoke with one of their language developers who is currently working on C# code. He explained the process behind creating a new language and the updating process it must undergo. While I am not a coder, there was still a lot to learn about product development from this process. For instance, when making a change, it is important to only make small changes at a time. If there is too much for a user to learn or an update causes previous habits or codes to break, the user will become frustrated and may switch to a different product. Similarly, the product must be very diverse. If it only serves a single purpose, only those few people who want/need it will adopt it. However, if it is useful for many solutions (ie: coding that can be used for images, mathematics, dictionaries, etc.) the market greatly increases and it is very possible the number of users will increase as well. Then, we ran acrossed the street to their cafeteria to grab some lunch and came back to meet with an AI researcher to hear exactly how this works and the machine learning behind it. It is interesting to know that even though a digital assistant such as Cortana or Alexa or Siri may appear to know what you are thinking, it is still only able to transcribe your voice and pick up on key words rather than true intelligence. The researcher attributed this to a lack of training data from a low number of users. This made me wonder though if there is a marketing issue causing the lack of usage. This being said, we were able to hear from the marketing side from one of the marketing directors for Microsoft 365. Hearing aspects from the marketing courses I have taken was great to see how they are used outside of the textbook. As she had been with the company for several years, she has been able to see a shift from localized, paper, phone call oriented marketing to customers to a very strongly global, technology based approach. She also explained how as the company grew, the previously used methods have not proven to be scalable and have been difficult to control consistency with. However, with the increase in AI, it has become easier to target potential customers and reach them through more tech means by placing ads on social media, e-mails, and still a few phone calls upon request. While marketers had "scored" potential customers as to how likely they were to buy the product in the past, now AI has the ability to do that and show customers products they are more likely to use. As I am reading the book, The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off While Others Crash and Burn, I was able to connect well with her comment on marketing being the bridge between engineers and the customer. It is the marketing department's job to see what the customer is buying and relaying this back to the engineers so the proper features can be added or changed. Finally, we were able to talk with some Luther alumni working at Microsoft who were able to give us some great insight into working there as well as great advice to prepare us for the workforce. They suggested that we find something we are interested in and messing around with it. Do research and analysis on what gets you excited. This will make it very easy to talk about in interviews as well as get you ready for the type of work you will eventually be doing. However, they also let us know that it might be scary entering the workforce but even if you don't feel qualified, you were hired for a reason and they saw something good in you. After the bus ride back to our condos, my housemates and I cooked up some pasta from the groceries we had gotten the other day and had a nice dinner together before running out for a quick window shopping trip. All in all, it was a very interesting day hearing about the innovation Microsoft is looking at in addition to getting to see the city a little. Tomorrow, we are heading to visit with the founder of a new start-up to hear about that process! That's all for now! -Claire One word: Amazon.
This was the company we had the honor of visiting on our adventures today. A panel of recent Luther alumni were able to take the time to come and speak with us along with University of Minnesota alum, Danny Tormoen. They were able to tell us stories about their experience working for such a large, well-known company, and a little about their daily lives. As Amazon has a very team based culture, it was interesting to hear about how that plays out in doing daily tasks at work. Each employee is set up with a mentor from their team to help guide them. It was also nice to hear about the different project management styles and techniques used such as Agile and Scrum. However, as each team is fairly autonomous, each person had a different story to share. While the majority of the panel consisted of tech employees, it was also nice to hear from the other side of the company from a non-tech recruiter, Jacob. We heard about the similarities, differences, and how the two sides work together. While both use a team-based approach, the recruiting department doesn't necessarily meet and work as closely as the tech teams need to. This shows an interesting culture climate that I think is very useful for a large company the scale of Amazon. Each department is able to work in a way that best suits them while still having the communication required. It was also very informative to hear about the company's leadership principles as well. Not only did it tell me what Amazon itself values, but they are good guidelines that are pertinent to any company. Some principles that stuck out to me were customer obsession, ownership, earn trust, deliver results, and set high standards. I hope to keep these in mind as I continue my job search for an internship and use them as a way to measure myself as to how far along I am in developing these traits. Once we had finished, we got a chance to walk along the street and have a peek in the window of the Beta test store for Amazon Go where there are no cashiers. You are able to check in when you enter and with camera technology, they are able to tell what you take off of the shelves to charge your account as you exit. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go in as it is currently only open to Amazon employees. After a nice lunch at Kiki's Ramen down the street, we headed back to the condos to hear from none other than our own professor, Brad Miller. He was able to give us his story of entrepreneurship as a founder of the business Net Perceptions, a software company that sold recommender software to various businesses including one of their first clients, Amazon. Throughout the story, I was able to gain many pieces of advice when dealing in business in general. First, you should always think, what is the worst that can happen. If you are passionate enough and it is the project you should be working on, this consequence will not phase you. Also, the hardest thing to do at times is knock down the lead pin so to speak. Once you get just the right starting customer or think of that one great solution, there will almost be a domino effect and everything will fall into place with more customers or solving the problem you are looking at. Finally, you should always set goals. Post them in a prominent place where you will see them everyday to remind yourself why you are doing the work you are. But make sure these goals are measurable so you can check in on your progress from time to time. Once we took a little rest, we got some dinner down the street at Belltown Pub. Now we have have the chance to relax and get ready for an early start to our next visit at Microsoft. It sounds like we have a full day planned for tomorrow! That's all for now! -Claire Today on our trip we had the pleasure of meeting with several employees of Snapchat and a cybersecurity company, DomainTools. While at Snapchat we had time to sit and talk with John Rouser, one of the Software Engineers of the company. He told us a little bit of his background and how he ended up at Snapchat. Then, he told us stories about his experiences and gave us insight into the world of tech. Our main focus was on the difference between the various types of companies from a small start-up to large established companies such as Amazon and everything in between. We explored topics such as culture, work ethic, and team building.
Next, we took a break for lunch. A group of us headed over to Pike Place Market to find some food before we headed to DomainTools for the remainder of the day. We got to talk with not only some of their employees, but also the CEO, Tim Chen, and CTO, Bruce Roberts (chief technology officer). We started with an introduction to the market of cybersecurity and then were able to ask questions, received good advice about how to make networking connections, and how to navigate work life in general. That's all for now! -Claire Today was the first day of our little trip. It began with a 4:30am wake up call to head to Midway airport in Chicago. Going through security went off without a hitch and I made it to my gate with plenty of time to spare. Thanks is in order to my cousin, Emma, who helped me through on the way to her own flight. We boarded at 8:40am and for my first ever flight, it was very smooth and there were no hic-ups along the way!
After hanging out in the Minneapolis airport for a couple hours, I met up with the class at 2:00pm to head to our next flight at 4:30pm Central Time. We landed in Seattle at 6:30pm Pacific Time and then found the train to head to the Belltown Court Condos where we'll be staying here in Seattle. Once we got settled, it was time for dinner! We just went downstairs and next door to Belltown Court Pizza. It was no Chicago style, but it still tasted great with some flavors I had never had such as the pesto with mozzarella! Well, as I write this now, it is 10:45pm Pacific Time which means it feels like almost one in the morning. I think a good nights sleep is in order. We meet tomorrow at 10:00am to head over for a meeting at Snapchat! Can't wait to see what this trip brings! That's all for now! -Claire |
AuthorClaire Hess is a junior at Luther College studying Accounting and Management. She is excited to travel and see what the world has to offer! ArchivesCategories |