Week 4 Reading Reflection

1. The thing I was most surprised that the author said was not to dream too big with innovative ideas. I feel like I have generally been told to reach for the stars when asked to come up with ideas for things, but to remember to be extremely practical and simplistic is something I found shocking but also helpful.

2. The creative exercise where you had to come up with unconventional uses for people and objects was confusing to me because I wasn't sure what to put for the people. I had a decently easy time thinking of uses for objects because it's easy to see the use in them, but every time I have done this exercise in the past it was never consisted of people so it required a lot more thinking for me.

3. If I had to ask the author 2 things I would ask the author to explain in more detail how security hunting hinders creativity because I classify myself as someone who searches for the right answers and as someone who is creative. I wold also ask the author if they consider themselves more of an adapter or an innovator. 

4. I believe that the author was wrong in saying that creativity is something that can be developed. I believe that people are naturally creative to different degrees and that is something that cannot be changed after a certain point in life.

Top 5 World Problems

Most Serious
1. Educations
2. Harmful Hacking
3. Climate Change
4. Refugees
5. Animal extinction

Most Possible to Implement Solutions to
1. Education- If more governmental spending was put towards public education and countries exported education(teachers) to countries where education and funding is lacking, we could significantly increase education worldwide. I believe this is the most implementable solution out of all the solutions to problems that I offered because we have the means to do this immediately, however, governments just chooses to put their money in order places.
2. Animal Extinction- The issue of animal extinction could have been prevented entirely if stricter regulations were in place and if people were educated about the harm that the threat of animal extinction poses. All it would take for this issue to be eliminated would be stricter regulations which is entirely feasible.
3. Climate Change- If the government could find alternative solutions to fossil fuels/gas emissions, etc., climate change could be rapidly slowed. I believe the solutions are out there and just haven't been looked into enough which is why this issue is at the middle of my list.
4. Refugees- It was difficult for me to be able to explicitly come up with a "solution" for this "issue" because this is an issue for the refugees as well as for the countries the refugees are fleeing. I believe this "issue" will be one that is hard to fix because it will take a lot of countries to work together.
5. Harmful Hacking- This is an issue that I believe is often overlooked. This issue is one that is not going to be eliminated anytime soon, if ever. Hacking will always exist and although I do not believe it can be stopped entirely, certain precautions can be taken to help limit this, hence why it is on the bottom of my list.

Very Short Interview No. 1

Mike Baker is my friend's grandfather who opened a furniture store in Boca Raton, Florida called Carl's Furniture. He is an entrepreneur who moved from Ohio to Florida. 

1. What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?

"Being an entrepreneur means working to solve customer's problems." 

2. What was the most difficult part of being an entrepreneur? 

"Persevering through the tough times and remaining hopeful when it seems like you will fail"

3. What do you wish you had been taught in school before setting out on your own path as an entrepreneur? 

"I wish I had learned more about managing finances and bookkeeping, because I didn't have much of a business background when I went to school. I think if I had studied business in college it could have helped me more initially."

World's Biggest Problems

1. Climate Change. Climate change is, in my opinion, the most underrated and overlooked global problem today. Of course there are many people struggling from huge issues today, however, this is an issue that will leave an impact forever if we do not take immediate action against it.
A practical solution would include getting the government increasingly involved and having them implement stricter regulations.
2. Education. 775 million people today are still illiterate. The issue of poverty coincides directly with the issue of education. If people are uneducated, they are unable to learn skills or acquire jobs to earn income.
Even in America, the education system is lacking, and I believe that if all counties focused more governmental funding on public education and outsourcing educators to incapable countries this issue could improve.
3. Harmful Hacking. 97% of companies are aware that they have been hacked. It is nearly impossible to entirely prevent data from being tapped into and if governments aren't careful enough, they can be penetrated by potentially harmful people.
In my opinion, cyber security is an issue that will never completely be able to be resolved, however, putting more effort into fraud detection can help prevent this as much as possible.
5. Overfishing. Humans are overfishing in the ocean and many different species of fish and sea creatures are becoming extinct. Since most people don't actually see this going on they don't really understand that it is actually an issue.
Stricter regulations should be enforced.
5. Animal Agriculture. There is not enough land space and water to sustain the amount of humans on earth and the amount of meat they demand. People typically think that they require meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner but it is completely untrue and unfeasible.
People should consider limiting their daily intake of meat consumption.
6. Student Debt. Student debt is an issue that I do not believe most people take seriously. Countries are already in so much debt and lending out more money to students who will not be able to entirely pay it back is setting everyone back substantially. Currently, there are only 5 countries in the entire world who live debt free.
Lenders need to increase the interest rate on student loans and have stricter background checks to see if the person they are lending money too will actually be able to pay them back.
7. Refugees. The Syrian refugees are currently dispersing among any countries that will accept them. This is creating a huge issue not only for Syrians but also for the countries accepting them because they have to decide on and implement new regulations.
Stricter regulations should be intact for incoming refugees in order to prevent more harm than good.
8. ISIS. I do not believe that any group of people causing harm to others should be tolerated. I feel personally threatened by ISIS as should any person. We should not tolerate terrorists and should be actively fighting this group of individuals. I like to believe that humans are innately good and I do not understand why someone would intentionally follow orders from someone demanding them to cause harm upon innocent people they know nothing about.
Countries that are opposed to ISIS need to stand together and actively fight against this group.
9. Gun Violence. Although I do not personally believe that personal gun licenses should be banned, I do believe that this is an issue for many people. I understand that there is a lot of fear involved in peoples' possession of guns, however, I believe bad people will still do bad things even without guns and there is truly no way to prevent it.
Education would be the key to preventing gun-related crimes.
10. Water. Water is diminishing at a shocking rate. Only .3% of the water on the Earth is accessible and usable. I know that I personally don't think about this statistic, especially when taking showers.
If people were better educated on the lack of accessible water I believe that they would be more willing to conserve the amount of water they use.

Bug List

1. iPhone charger takes too long to charge phone. (All chargers in general)
*Only a certain amount of energy can surge at once through the chord
2. While watching tv/movies, the volume is inconsistent and I constantly have to increase/decrease the volume.
*Some parts of shows are supposed to draw more attention/are more dramatic
3. Pairing apple products to non-apple products. For example, I have an iPhone and it in difficult to sync it with my PC but extremely easy to pair with my MacBook.
*Different companies want you to buy multiple of their products verses giving your business to other companies so they purposefully try not to make it easy to pair their products with other companies' products.
4. Bluetooth gives me a lot of trouble when connecting to different devices now that I have such a wide variety of devices paired to my phone.
*Phones can get confused if multiple bluetooth capable devices are in the same proximity.
5. When Facebook tries to tag people automatically in your uploaded pictures and it matches the wrong person.
*No technology is perfect, especially something this intricate.
6. Going in person to redbox to return movies is frustrating. It is my opinion that if it was strictly online they would receive more business.
*Some people prefer having the physical DVD and online services would require users to have internet access.
7.  Hair straightener doesn't turn off automatically is left on accidentally, despite the passing of time.
*Technologically unable to make the straightener shut off after a certain time.
8. Having to insert things into my digital calendar and my physical planner. It would be nice if it would copy digitally as I inserted manually.
*There isn't technology to do that yet
9. While waiting on food at a restaurant, it would be convenient if you could see the estimated time for your food to arrive without having to ask the waitress.
*It is inconvenient for restaurants to have this system available.
10. When going grocery shopping, there have been numerous times I go to get a specific produce item that is out of stock when I get there. There should be a way to see how much/what fresh items are in stock.
*Extra work for the grocery stores.
11. It is frustrating to have so many paper loyalty cards in my wallet taking up space. All places should have electronic/mobile systems to allow customers to keep the loyalty card handy/easily accessible at all times.
*It is expensive for retailers/restaurants to create these systems from scratch or to hire someone to make the app for them.
12. Finding your car in a crowded parking lot is difficult and could be easily solved by having a sort of tracking system on car keys.
*Expensive and highly technology-dependent
13. Airport security could be improved to be more efficient.
*Costly
14. It seems that servers are always asking if you need anything when you are fine but as soon as you need something they are nowhere to be found. If a system was implemented to notify servers when you need something it would be better.
*Some restaurants are resistant to using new technologies.
15. The clothes dryer always over dries or under dries my clothes and I wish it could automatically shut off as soon as my clothes are just dry.
*Technology isn't up to date yet
16. Microwaves should be able to analyze the food inputted and adjust the cooking time accordingly.
*Technology isn't up to date yet
17. Too many apps on my phone. I wish instead that there was an app that could combine all social media, planning tools, etc.
*Apps like being their own
18. I wish that there was a way to change music through headphones connected to the phone rather than solely through the phone.
*Headphone providers probably deem this an unnecessary feature.
19. It would be highly convenient for all utilities to be controlled by one remote.
*Difficult to set up
20. GPS systems often lead to the wrong place and it is frustrating.
*Systems that intricate are bound to make mistakes.


I found it extremely difficult to think of 20 things. The first few things are things that occur each day so they were easy to think of, however, the further down the list I got, the less relevant the issues became. I think if I had spent more time dedicated throughout the week I could have made this assignment easier on myself, however, it was difficult to remember.

My Entrepreneurship Story

My father is my role model and my absolute favorite person on this Earth. My dad has started three technology/software companies on his own throughout his life and they have all been very successful.  I admire his work ethic and have had the privilege of growing up around someone who instills the same drive, passion and dedication that he possesses in me as well.
My dad's current company, iMobile3, is a mobile application development company that processes 3,000 transactions per second. Pretty incredible stuff! iMobile3 has provided payment process/loyalty solutions to over 200,000 companies including Moe's, Tropical Smoothie, and Target.

I have attached a picture of my dad, Bob Leonard, presenting to Coca-Cola as well as the link to his website.

Introduction

Hi everyone! My name is Amy Leonard and I am a third year Information Systems major in the combined degree MSISOM program. For those of you that aren't familiar, MSISOM stands for Master's of Science in Information Systems and Operations Management. I hope to one day become the CIO of a company, but for now my goal is to do business analyst work.

Jacksonville, FL is my hometown and I have two sisters, one of whom also currently attends UF. 

I am very passionate about traveling and obtaining new experiences, technology, and music. I enjoy playing piano and guitar in my spare time.

This past summer I had the opportunity to go on a missions trip to Haiti and also to study abroad in Brussels, Belgium and visit 8 different European countries. My favorite place that I visited was Ireland and I already can't wait to go back!

That's all for now,

Amy

Entrepreneur's Mantra

Test Post

This is a test post to see if my blog is working. I'm excited for this class!