I-E-100 In Pursuit of Innovation 2014-15

Assessment of Project Presentation: BOOK CIRCLE

Students in I-E-100 delivered final project presentations on November 17-19, 2014. The audience included I&E enthusiasts and potential investors such as Alan Stewart, David Calle, Rick Peterson, Jennifer Stone, Professor Ron Tank, and representatives of local and national charities along with the class. Through these presproentations, the project teams reported on their innovative and entrepreneurial ventures during the past term. The presentations focused on project ideation, design thinking, the use of a business model canvas, an appreciation of lean-startups, prototyping, iterative execution, business planning, financials, matters of intellectual property, and market research. The following statement assesses the presentation by the BOOK CIRCLE group consisting of Vincent Tran and Phil Luongo.

The BOOK CIRCLE team began by describing its goal to develop a Lawrence-based organization, perhaps a club, whose purpose is to supply books to Lawrence students in various ways that would guarantee substantial savings. By collecting books at several sites, assessing their current values and usefulness (after canvassing the 150 faculty members to determine which books would likely be adopted in future terms, relating therefore to perhaps as many as 500 different courses per year) and then by selling or renting those collected books that appear to be useful — the BOOK CIRCLE hopes to address its lofty aspirations. Mr. Tran lead off the presentation by welcoming the audience and showing several amusing visuals — visuals about Lawrence that soon brought the presentation back to the primary aim of the group — that of reducing the cost of college books (at present that cost is typically about $1000 per year). Mr. Tran suggested that if BOOK CIRCLE can achieve its aim, then Lawrence students who avail themselves of membership in BOOK CIRCLE (or who take advantage of its services) may be able to reduce their cost of books to perhaps $300 per year. Mr. Luongo and Mr. Tran then described various details that would need to be addressed in forming BOOK CIRCLE. They also provided a timeline for developing the enterprise in a form that stands some chance of lasting a while at Lawrence. Details such as membership costs and/or donation credits were discussed; a future website was promised, and various other mechanics of the desired organization were speculated upon.

This presentation showed that Messrs. Luango and Tran have indeed made progress in the past two weeks, but the presentation also revealed how challenging this venture is going to be if indeed it is to be realized. The collecting of an adequate number of useful books is a big task in itself; then the operation of the organization (which was compared to a library with checkout facilities), the forming of the club, and the attracting and satisfying of the original group of several hundred members, will not be easy. This whole enterprise, laudable as it is, is showing itself to all — and especially to Messrs. Tran and Luongo — as a major undertaking, something for which the logistics and various functions are substantial. Messrs. Luongo and Tran seem to have come to realize that they have been pursuing a potentially unwieldy venture. Perhaps this fact is one of the most important lessons that has been learned in this effort. Individual grades for the final presentation component of the overall project: Vincent Tran: A. Phil Luongo: A.