My ‘ Speed Dating’ Experience
As a student at the advertising and public relations department I participated in ‘Speed Dating’.
Each team was sitting on a table and every member moved around changing tables, so that everyone had the opportunity to participate. We had three roles. First role was to pitch to one of our peers from another team. Another role was asking two questions and giving feedback to the pitching person. And the last one as an observer was to give feedback to both the pitching person and the questioner-feedback person. I think that it was a unique interaction experience because we had the chance to tell our ideas and then give advices-feedback, make questions and observations in order to improve ourselves and others.
My team and I ( The Innovators) have a start up project which mainly offers a water extreme sports experience. Our facilities are located in Varkiza and include not only water sports but also accommodation, parties, tournaments and exhibitions. We have a complete package for all kind of people who can come close to nature, exercise and meet new people. In our web site we have all the information you need to know about us. https://theinnovatorswater.wixsite.com/website/activities
The fast-dating pitching experience was something unique for my peers but also for me. Everyone was excited and wanted to make questions and give advices in order to improve themselves and the other teams.
Each member learned something from this experience. By pitching to my peers-students I learned to be quicker while making a presentation because of the limited time. Moreover, I learned to communicate with different people and work fast. Furthermore, I learned to stay in context and to be precise so that the audience stays interested. Then by responding to questions and feedback I learned to be more realistic about the ideas of our start up project. Also, I used the feedback and I added an application regarding the weather so that the athletes are able to get information about wind direction, wind speed etc.
In addition by asking critical questions and giving feedback to my peer-students I learned to concentrate on their word and listen carefully. In this way I was able to give more useful advice.
In the end of the process as an observer I learned to watch carefully every reaction of the speaker and note quickly everything that was useful.
As a conclusion, I would like to refer how this fast forward combined methodologies ( Speed dating for startups and World Cafe methodology) helped me in further improving my project. The first methodology helped me to compare myself with other members, make observations and get feedback in order to become better. Furthermore, I learned to understand better what I have to do and focus more on things that are more crucial. The second methodology helped me being faster and communicating with multiple and different people. Both of these methodologies helped me to improve my start up project.
