the clock is ticking…

The first design of the app is done, and our programmers are working hard these days to finish up the first version of Sheets! The excitement is in the air, as we are preparing for our launch. Yep… Sheets, is about to see light for the first time and the clock is ticking.

All teams are now focused on finishing up final preparations before we launch in the end of May. The marketing team, led by Shany Hadad and Karin Nagler, has established a marketing strategy . A brand new facebook page was created as well as a funky landing page .

Computer ninjas, Roni and Uri, are using their magical HTML powers to finish up the BETA version that is due May 21^st.

As part of our promotion preparations, our content force, led by the two Omers , are producing  and shooting the Sheets promotion video.

Till next time!

sheets Team.

Hamutzim studio and the first design of “sheets”

 At our first meeting with “Hamutzim” studio, we worked together on the UI of the application. In a collaborative process, we decided to make the UI of the app to more minimal and less cluttered.

After a two weeks process of UI only, we started the design phase. We sent references of products that we like their concepts and inspired us and we got the first sketches. We were not satisfied, we had a long conversation with the studio, which we encountered some differences of opinion, about the required changes of the app design.

Now we continue the design process and try to overcome the design obstacles and reach a state where the design of the app will reflect the message that we want –on one hand order and organization, on the other hand a different calendar-an informal and somewhat cheeky.

Microsoft’s Presentation! :) “Sheets” is getting on the MAP!

So.. we are writing this post actually after the presentation we had done at the BIG house of Microsoft at Herzeliya.

This is the first time we are preparing to present our idea this kind of outhouse forom- people who will probably have something to say about it because of their rich experience in the field of computing and the apps world.

Uri and Coral was very nervous and tense before the “date”, because they were “the chosen ones”- the ones who had to present the “sheets” to the “panel of the judges”.

In the week before the presentation, we were preparing very hard. The content team (OmerX2) wrote the bullets that we wanted to emphasis, the marketing were working about the branding and the design and the presentors- were actually prepared themselves by present it to anyone who have interest in it (basically Mom, Dad and Ziv:)- but its only the begining..)

Shany, one of our marketing managers, was created a simple PPT presentation in which it’s purpose was to bring a little clue of the students life atmosphere in the presentation’s slides.

We all chose to “keep it simple” – which means we haven’t use a lot of words in each slide so the presenters won’t have to find themselves reading the bullets and get nervous when forgotten something. Another reason was the “clean design” we wanted to adopt also in our own app. It is very easy to put bunch of sentences and a floating background which is not connected to the content or the general concept.

What more difficult is to create a design statement which goes together with the conceptual idea.

We’ve also tried to create a demonstration of the app’s logo which appears in the top of each slide – to transmit more professional skills and make the judges connect to the baby brand. But hey! were not professionals at design so we will leave that to “Hamutzim” studio and hope it will be more than great!
The presentation itself went actually very good. Uri and Coral did their best and the responses were in concrete were nice. We took attention and will try to improve some of the advices- which we think that has to be fixed or imptoved.

One of the “judges” said he does not understand why we call it social- when it is not completely a social calendar so we decide to discuss about it in our next meeting. See what will happened next!

 

 

 

Teasing around

To illustrate the concept on which we decided to make the app we’ve created a short video, a kind of a teaser that shows in the most generic way the general idea of ​​our app.

The video will probably be represent on Microsoft’s next week presentation 🙂

Enjoy…

hooraaayyy! we’ve got a story!

We finally found theme for our application and most of us are satisfied with it.

We thought to do a gameplay with the word “sheet” and the word shi** t.
After the decision were made we divided again to groups and started to give our baby a character.

*Marketing and content teams worked together on the product marketing issue- inside and out.

*Presentation to Microsoft is almost ready..
Shany, Bibi & Omer wrote a script for the Teaser Video. The Omers then edit the video, based on the script.

*The wireframes design process has almost reached its conclusion. Marketing and content teams edit the content at the app and correct all according to the main theme and the content that we want to convey.

*UI team met with the developers in order to synchronize with each other.

The next step – Studio Hamutzin!
We are really excited!

Everyone, everywhere, loves a good story

So.. we are in the middle of a process to find our good story.

We had the second presentation in front of the mentors and their main critic was that we don’t have yet a story for the app.
The name we offered “sheets” got some critical opinions but we decided to wait before we cancel it up, as least until we will fell in love with another new story.

We sat almost for 5 hours to rethink another story and found some interesting ideas to make the app more cool and accessible to students in our age.

We wanted to focus on the incentives for those who actually will entering the content of the tasks in the App. We thought they supposed to be the “leaders” in their class.

While the concept issue is about to be solved, we also almost done with the first version of the wireframes. We create the MRD papers which supposed to be sent to “Hamuzim” studio as soon as possible, in order to get things on track.

In addition to that, our lovely Marketing team started to built their marketing strategy. They had been seeking for Opinion leaders, Magazines reporters and Influential bloggers in order to be able to cover the entire world of content and target audiences in which we want to get reach.

We are currently trying to split up to groups of expertise to make as many things to happen in a short time. The groups are of course the ones that had chosen by the mentor at the beginning of year, but we do involved in all processes of each other. That synergy is very important to us!

PEACE.

The first wireframes version

We are going into deep.. its time to be creative! 🙂

First presentation infront of the MENTORS

After much delayed, we decided that the idea that we want to present infronnt of our ​​mentors will be “The social schedule”.

Before the presentation Coral was practicint alot and we decide what do we want to emphasize in the presentation. we though it is very important to talk about our goals, the main features that we planning to add to the app, and of course , who is our target audience.

After the presentation we received a number of constructive criticism from the mentors, and it helps us to know what will we have to do to continue working on our project.

Immediately after the presentation, we met Ziv and summarised all the  important anecdotes that we need to consider for future work.  We decided among the many ideas being thrown into the air this month that it will be the best if we will run “The social schedule”.

We thought that the first ster is to make  sure that we dont trough to trash the other ideas so we run a questionnaire research in order to explore again the main needs of a students life in israel.

The idea that was selected by a majority vote was “the social schedule” and of course we have identified that there is a great need for time management in student life in Israel ( and apparently this is a problem in other countries) .

The next step was to make a deep & larger market researc about our competitors so each of us had to explore 2-3 apps that is doing almost the same and estimate their main features too.

Although the group is still divided – (there is still a struggle between two ideas and some of us still believe in the idea of ​​”Multi Screen” (Ahm ahm.. Shany&Coral) , we decided that in order to not waste our time – we must begin to focus on the idea of ​​”tha social-cooperative schedule” .

We hope that the success will go hand in hand with us and that we wont run into difficulties that can not be solved.

have a good week  and will keep you updated 🙂

Milab team.

 

From left to right; Omer, Karin & Shany is having fun at the Aquarium

IDC Herzelia.

 

Begin to move…

 

In our first brainstorming we had to think about some students needs that has to be solved in an interactive solution.

We started to think about content world and found out that there are too many under the Education issue.

So.. we tried to focus on 3 main subjects:

* Learning techniques
* Indoor Content
* Utilities to improve the student life

As the brainstorming goes deeper and deeper, each of us start to throw ideas into the air and we actually find that we’ve got to do a huge research in order to know more about students difficulties..
what we are dealing with in o-u-r student life is not enough!

We went home, divided into groups of 2 people and started to explore all the areas that interest us in the ֿֿ’Learning in the 21st Century’ subject.

After a huge and depth research we’ve choose 3 main ideas that we wanted to know more about them. We put a real emphasis on the market competitors…

* Multi-Screen- We found out that there is a problem in nowadays lessons. The fact that today the professors have full control at the presentation, make us think that maybe we need to change this ancient method of indoor learning. students should have the ability to control the lesson too, like an open conversation between the student and their professors. We wanted to give the possibility to function better rate of cooperative and interactive where students can also control what is shown in the class and also incorporate “social learning games” that could trigger the classroom during the lesson. the idea was an app that raise the engagement of the class and the level of attentiveness & participation during the lesson.

* Social Organizer- this idea was born from the need to arrange student’s time better. You all probably know the famous (but acceptable) excuse of “my dog ate my homework”. we want to make sure students wont have to make any excuses anymore.. basically for themselves. students work in a full time job, and try to make all the assignment on time, but then.. they “have” forgot to make one. with the social organizer that reminds you what to do and when you will never forget anything. it also syncs with your class mates’s assignments and make sure you know everything on time and be well prepared. the great benefit is that this organizer is social and not individual.

* Attendance APP- We know that there is a huge problem in some school to enforce this issue. each student was actually skip out of class one time (or many more). we wanted to create an app that help the educational institutions to follow the attendance in their classes. our developers thought that we could built an app which works in a “social-location base” way and can tell if you are present in class based on your class mates exact location. this idea was difficult for us to develop only because of the reason that its not helping in any way the students, but helps the institutions. so we canceled it right away…

Next Sunday we will decide which of the ideas we want to develop this year..In the following weekend were going to work on our first presentation..So we need you “GOOD LUCK” blessing…

W-e are going back to work! Have a great weekend!

C U SOON… 🙂

First Brainstorming