One of the main difficulties with the pandemic is that it has made it more difficult to solicit assistance from my mentors. This has not interfered with my ability to create content, though makes receiving critique more difficult. The break due to the pandemic has allowed me to create what I think is my best piece of content so far, in which many of the principles taught in the chapters are applied to find a fair price for a business with an impending IPO. This piece also allows for reflection on market conditions surrounding start ups, and whether it is good that investment capital has become so plentiful. I look forward to demonstrating the presentation version of this case soon. As a project situated primarily on computers the pandemic should not dramatically impact the final product.
If you are interested in the Business Valuation Presentation sign up here: https://forms.gle/GMvVxagrnMVD6i5G6
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With an impending global catastrophe, there is no better time to take a break. However, once regular business ends at 3:00 PM on Friday, March 13th, intensive Fellows work resumes. Over the past few weeks I have worked on incorporating the edits of my mentors into the text I have already written. Now I intend to transition to a different aspect of my project. I intend to use the break to complete the videos for the remaining chapters. This task should be relatively easy; however, my shaky hand has made some of the drawing in the videos a bit "wobbly." Thankfully, spreadsheet videos do not rely on the often absent stability of my hands. After I return from break the remainder of the work should primarily be polish and implementation.
It might have been overly ambitious to promise four chapters of work over Christmas break, but I have done it, and completed the questions for three chapters. The hardest of these chapters was the first I worked on stocks and funds as it required the most research and writing to cover the breadth of the topic. The chapter on taxes offered was the easiest to write and includes the longest introduction to accurately cover complex issues.
I have diligently worked on my fellowship project. I have added four new chapters of writing to the project. Having laid down the final paragraph of the seventh chapter yesterday, I have completed at least a first draft for each of the seven chapters. The Google Drive Folder containing copies of all my work so far can be found using this link. The research I have conducted to create informative content for the end users has helped broaden my own perspective. A highlight of the work I have conducted is learning about technical analysis. I had previously believed that a stock price chart was simply a line graph of the historic equilibrium price of stock. While in fact, these charts can be used diagnostically, and certain patterns can indicate whether an investor should buy or sell a stock. Looking at these charts in a new light was fascinating, and I intend to bring this insight to the members of the Severn Investment Club to use in their stock trading simulation. Another highlight was finding relevant business news for each section. Most notable was researching the WeWork IPO failure and applying some of the knowledge I gained to create a useful analysis of how the market returned the fool hardy company to earth from their “unicorn” valuation. Going After an eventful summer of creating three chapters the first introducing the material, explaining loans, and detailing risk. I scoured the internet, textbooks, and the additional resources Mr. Meyer lent me. After completing the research I began to synthesize the research for each chapter I began rewriting the information in a level that was sufficiently advanced for High School seniors and compiling the disparate pieces of information.
Once the chapters of text was at a level acceptable for a draft, I began incorporating the multimedia elements of the project. I started by using several pieces of screencasting software, due to issues with file compatibility, the combination of the two software pieces successfully created a usable product. Editing with PremierePro was surprisingly easier than expected, and no additional peripherals were necessary to make a voice over. After completing the videos, I used Photoshop to create covers to each chapter to make the text more engaging. I enjoyed the artwork as it broke up the monotony of writing, researching, and doing calculations. Next I did even more research to find images to break up the text and make it more engaging, and did a second pass to make the text more engaging using my experience from textbooks to modify the content to create a better product. Before May I will need to finish the writing and recording for the remaining chapters on Stocks, Bonds, Banking, and Tax Policy. I hope to complete the chapters on Stocks and Bonds before winter break and the chapters on Banking and Tax Policy by the New Year. Using the processes I have developed so far to create draft chapters. After completing the chapters I will edit them to remove grammatical, typing, and mathematical errors. I will also once I have completed all the writing and recordings for all the chapters I will need to find a Learning Management System to host the information, and begin testing by Spring Break. After an eventful summer the time to return to school has come. Though the long warm days are sure to be missed, the time has come for the first update of the fall season. The first full week back was spent preparing my presentation, after looking through MS PowerPoint for a suitable template I wrote down everything I accomplished in the summer. In my efforts to engage my audience of advisers I decided to implement a construction metaphor, where the beginnings of the project were the foundation and the future plans a blueprint. This was well received as they believed that my few minutes of research on construction was in fact a common practice in business. Though the presentation style was great, the content was the most important part and my summer work was deemed an acceptable amount of progress to continue, though scope remains an issue.
My first post-summer work on the actual product has come with the beginning of the fourth chapter on stocks. I began with collecting another vignette this time Saudi Aramco fit my needs with their looming IPO, opened Google Search, cracked the spine of the books, and got to work. Adobe Photoshop (and Canva) has helped me create the following cover pages for the unites I have completed. Following this I added the forms, and imputed the goals I had for summer and how I accomplished them along with future goals. On the very last week I will take advantage of the research I have been doing on video editing and add the voice over to the screen casts I have produced. Please read the process section of the website for a summary of my summer accomplishments. This is just the end of the beginning.
It is a period of great change for the website. After about two and a half months of having a dreadful looking website, TEDDY CROMWELL, has decided to begin the re-design. After spending all morning fighting against the forces of ADOBE PHOTOSHOP, he has produced this homepage. There is now hope for the galaxy, well actually just this website, but there is still a lot of work ahead before it can be presentable. Pursued by the demands of people who like things to be visually appealing the site will be continued to be improved.
At the end of these two weeks I have completed the drafts of the proof of concept chapters. The last chapter I worked on on loans took the longest out of all as a consequence of it being longer than the rest, but also as a consequence of having to carefully tabulate the math behind many of the practice questions. During the time between blog posts I have continued to avoid taking on editing, but believe that adding voice over to my existing recordings should not be to difficult once I have a script in place. Lastly, this next week I intend to upgrade the website so that it is at least somewhat presentable. So I suppose I better get to work with the Adobe applications Premiere, Photoshop, and Illustrator here I come.
Section four of the summer was the time I decided to skip ahead to the third unit I intend to complete over the summer as it represented a smaller task than the second chapter on loans. The chapter on risk went much faster than the introduction chapter due to having both fewer sections, three instead of four, and shorter sections. It was also easier to complete due to my experience from the first chapter and having a concrete central theme; rather than a broad introduction to a topic. A bit unrelated to the rest of the update, in an effort to entertain myself, and you, I have decided to incorporate the names of the other Fellows into the practice questions.
The third stint between blog posts has been very productive. I began by completing the exercises for the first chapter, and created a balance of multiple choice and free response questions. Making sure that the format can be integrated within the confines of the planned website. During this past week I decided to skip to the chapter on risk as it was short, but would be an important part of the curriculum. This chapter went much faster than the first chapter due in part to both being shorter and already having experience on how to create a cohesive chapter. Over the coming weeks I plan to finish the third of the chapters I have planned to complete over the summer, edit the screencasts, and begin to devise the best way to test the material. I will also work on creating a proper bibliography for the project after completing these tasks.
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Update ScheduleI intend to post a progress update every second Sunday, some more intermittent posts may be made if anything interesting happens Archives
April 2020
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