Stress was high this week. During the afternoons, teams were working hard to solidify their business plans based on feedback from the previous week and constant feedback throughout the week. Prototypes were coming along well, as most had some functionality at the start of the week itself.
During the morning, lectures were relaxing and fun. Aside from a quick TAM Review at the beginning of the week, and a quick overview of Demo Day presentations, lectures were focused on negotiating and were filled with fun activities. One activity was for the students to arm wrestle each other without talking. Every couple minutes, everyone would switch partners. By the end of the activity, most students had 1 or 2 points, with the most being 5 points. Suki and I then demonstrated to the class that by cooperating and keeping our arms relaxed, both of us could get 20 points in 10seconds, just by alternating whose hand touches the table. This showed the importance of trust in negotiations, and that giving something or sharing a piece of the pie can gain more for you.
Another negotiation activity was to negotiate a job offer. In all cases, the recruiter either ended up with more points or the same amount of points as the job candidate. This showed that the recruiter had more power in the situation. Randiel won this activity as the best negotiator, as he had the most amount of points.
At the end of the week, we ran through all the Demo Day presentations that the students had been working on in the afternoons. Business plans and presentation content had improved greatly since the previous week, but there was still a lot of room for improvement.
