Identifying Local Opportunity

1. Campus blue lights not used for emergency situations often, data shows

https://www.alligator.org/news/campus-blue-lights-not-used-for-emergency-situations-often-data/article_18d5adfa-4407-11ea-8944-73d007b022df.html

This article goes hand in hand with my previous blog entry on the safety of men and women. This article explains that the emergency lights on our own campus are often not used for emergencies. The article describes the importance of these lights and what they can do for students. Within the article, however, they asked a student about why it might be that the blue lights are not used often and he replied that it could be because they are outdated and that a student can much easier contact police on their cell phone. I think this is true, the blue lights are spaced far apart so if you're in between two and something happens, you have to run to one of them. To continue, the police response is not immediate after you activate one of these lights. 

2. Gainesville Is The City Affected The Most By Poverty In Florida, Analysis Reports

https://www.wuft.org/news/2019/08/19/gainesville-is-the-city-affected-the-most-by-poverty-in-florida-analysis-reports/ 

This article explains just how bad poverty is in Gainesville. The article starts off with interviewed responses from a local teacher who says that her full-time job, as well as her husband's, are just able to make ends meet for them and their 15-month-old daughter. The problem here is the wages people make versus the cost of living. The ratio is just too high for the average working person. Many people across Gainesville are experiencing this problem. 

3.The battle over Lake O levels: Toxic algae, water supplies at forefront

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20200131/battle-over-lake-o-levels-toxic-algae-water-supplies-at-forefront 

This article is one that is relevant to the surrounding area of where I grew up, Stuart, Florida. Lake Okeechobee, being an hour from where my family is from, is infested with toxic algae. The efforts to combat this has been a problem due to the water levels of the lake. This is causing drainage to counties such as Martin, where I'm from, and Palm Beach. This affects not only those in Okeechobee but the residents of Martin and Palm Beach counties as well. 

4.Potholes plague Gainesville

https://www.alligator.org/news/potholes-plague-gainesville/article_b3876c2a-7e66-11e8-b4c0-f70fe6c32992.html

This article explains the problem Gainesville has with potholes. This may not seem like a huge deal but this is a problem many can relate to and fall victim to. Many motorists can find themselves in a pickle much like Justin Green did. Potholes are doing things like blowing tires and just ruining cars.

5. Living in Gainesville: From tents to shelters, the homeless hope for a home

https://www.alligator.org/news/living-in-gainesville-from-tents-to-shelters-the-homeless-hope/article_5ebc0e02-46e9-11e9-9475-2bf166ec87b7.html

This article can kind of relate to my first one. This article explains the homeless problem we have in Gainesville and the greater Alachua County area. Many people are affected by this problem. Those who are actually homeless, those who see the homeless on the roads, and those who use their money and time to help the homeless. While the number of documented homeless people is declining, they did count an estimate of about 641 homeless people in Alachua County.  There are homeless shelters but they can only house so many people. I think that this problem affects a lot of people and there should be something to help. 

Forming An Opportunity Belief

I believe that many people can relate to my opportunity. Women (especially those in college) find it nervewracking to transition to being on their own in general. Aside from that, women find it stressful and scary walking alone in an unpopulated area, especially at night and this has been happening for decades. From the spree of different serial killers in the 70s and even cases with things like Uber today. I feel that when women are not in a place like a campus that has emergency call towers it's important to help them feel safe. Sure, there are apps and gadgets, but women continue to get taken and hurt every day. I feel that there must be some better way to ensure the safety of women when they find themselves alone.

I spoke to two different women and one man to see the differences in responses about this issue. The prototypical customer, in my opinion, would be women, and maybe men, who don't feel safe being alone in public.

My first interviewee was my mother. I wanted to gain an outside perspective to see how it has been to both be a woman who has been scared walking alone and being a mother to women who have the potential of being hurt. My mom said that to this day, she is frightened of walking alone especially at night. With this, she continues to say that she is nervous about all three of her daughters being on a college campus and far away. Personally, when I am walking alone at night I always call my mom so that I have an added sense of security and she does the same. It's adequate for now but not all realistic. If I was taken, what could she do being 4 hours away? How would she know who took me and where they were taking me? She explained that she is almost always aware of the problem as she thinks about it often. She has had a fear for years upon years. She even stated what I briefly described in my introduction. My mom was born in 1964, so in the '70s as a teenager in Florida, the news about Ted Bundy is what sparked her fear. Hearing about the girl in Lake City as well as the girls at FSU really made her nervous about her security. When asked about finding a better solution to this problem, she said if I were able to find a good solution that would help ensure security no matter where I was that she would definitely support it.

My second interview was with a girl on campus names Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn is a graduate student who lives off-campus. I asked her if she had that certain fear of walking alone and being alone at night to which she replied: "Absolutely, don't we all?". This made me feel like the opportunity that I thought could have great potential to help a lot of women-and men-everywhere. I asked her how long she has had the fear. She told me that it was always instilled with her that it is important to be safe at night and avoid being alone. Kaitlyn is from Boca Raton, Florida and when I heard that I asked her if she's heard of the Russian gang that has recently been trying to take women in that area. She said, "oh my gosh yes, it scares me so much, I have a little sister back home and the thought of anything happening to her would just break me". At the moment, Kaitlyn and her family track each other on their phones. They all know each other's location at all times. I personally think this is smart as my family does the same. She did explain, however, that she was still nervous about those kinds of things and that she would like to be more educated on what to do if she was in that situation. I feel that I could make something to help Kaitlyn!

My third and final interview was kind of short and sweet. I spoke to a man on campus, Ricky. I asked Ricky if he was aware that women had these kinds of fears. He explained to me that he had due to the fact that he was raised by his mother and two sisters. Because of the environment in which he grew up, he was very in tune with women's feelings and insecurities. I then asked him if he thought other men were aware of this problem. He said that he's sure some are but probably not all. I then asked if he or his family do anything to help ensure safety at night to which he said not to his knowledge. I then asked him if he thought that it's important for women to feel and be safe walking alone at night, he said that he did, he hears about all of the cases on tv of missing women and those who have been hurt. He said if there was a good product out there that he would advise his sisters to get the product.

Reflection:

I wasn't surprised at the feedback I received. I have personally felt this fear and I knew that many others feel this fear also. I think that this problem is something that could be resolved better than current technology and strategies for safety. The most surprising thing that I learned was what Kaitlyn said about becoming educated on what to do if something like that were to happen. This gave me ideas toward my problem and finding a solution.

Summary:

In total, I feel that creating a better solution to this important problem would be beneficial as it would help a lot of people. At first, I was thinking about a way to ensure safety, and while I'm still doing that I am now also exploring other solutions to the same problem. This could be educating people on what to do if something terrible did happen to help them get out of a bad situation. I think that the opportunity is more accurate and a little more detailed than it was before. I think it's really important for entrepreneurs to adapt their opportunities based on customer feedback because the customers are the people they are trying to provide for and the customers are the people who will be giving the entrepreneur business. It's important for them to like and use the product that you're offering.

My Entrepreneurship Story

I was first introduced to entrepreneurship at a young age. I think most of us were if we think about it. From girl scouts to holding a car wash, or even owning a lemonade stand, entrepreneurship has been instilled in us before we even knew what it was. For me, I am deep in the entrepreneurship world due to me being in the innovation academy here on campus. In our program, we work to identify problems and find solutions to those problems. With our solutions, the next step is to make it happen, make it into a real thing. That's where innovation comes in. We work to create a real-life solution to a real-life problem. In past courses, we've had to make inventions that were solutions to certain problems and think about things like our target audience, marketing, production, and costs. It's when those things come into play that innovation meets entrepreneurship. In my last innovation course, many groups competed to make the best device for children in primary school that would help enrich their education. My group chose to focus on children's feelings and how unresolved emotions can impact the ability to learn. We created the "Feelie Friend" to help with that. The feelie friend was an interactive teddy bear that based on the emotion of the child would offer healthy coping strategies in order to help the child through that emotion. Even outside of college, even dating back to those lemonade stands, kids are running their own businesses and providing a service. Entrepreneurship is everywhere, you just have to look! I enrolled in this class because it is a requirement for my minor. I hope to gain useful knowledge that can help me make future business decisions in my career and help me get to know the business world a little more even as a consumer!

Bug List: Assignment 2A. Jenna Paton.

For this assignment, I've broken my bugs into categories:

Home-

1. Loud neighbors/ stomping from above (Because I have thin walls)
2. Doors that don't close all the way (The little locking part is broken)
3. Cat jumping on counters and dining room table (Begging, trying to get away from the dog)
4. Roommates that don't put their things away (They're lazy or tired)
5. Places that don't recycle aka my apartment complex (Too much work?)
6. Cat walking on my laptop while I'm working and messes up my work (Wants my affection)
7. Paper jams in my printer (Something is wrong with the alignment)

School-

1. Thermostat in class goes from really hot to really cold 
2. Far walks between classes with only 15 minutes (Buildings are far apart)
3. Having a tiny classroom for a lot of students- no room to walk (The university chose that class)
4. Not having a seat in class and having to sit on the floor- our class (The university under-compensated for how many students there were in that class- not enough room for everyone)
5. Having the same class be in different classrooms throughout the week (University choice)
6. When professors go through the notes too fast so you can't write it down (They need to get through the material)

On the road-

1. RTS constantly stopping ahead of me (They have to stop at every stop)
2. Having to wait in the cold for the bus just for the bus app to malfunction and say the bus is going to be way later (App malfunction)
3. My car randomly accelerating although it is new (I actually don't know why this is happening)
4. Steering wheel makes a clicking noise (The coupler needed to be replaced but I got it fixed)

Misc-

1. When mail gets lost (Somewhere in the journey someone misplaces it)
2. Having a long line in the deli section of the grocery store (Not many deli workers)
3. When someone with a full cart goes into the express lane (I don't know why this happens)

Reflection on this assignment: 

Overall, I did not find this assignment too hard. I focused on my surroundings in many different settings and when I caught myself feeling annoyed or bugged, I made a note of what the bug was and where it happened. I also thought about some other people and what they might get annoyed at too!

Test Post!

This is my test post! :)