Individual self-reflection (CHAU Hiu-tung, JOE 52923375)

It is a fresh experience to organize a group project with another group who are in different class. The difficulty is thus unexpected. 

Welcome CHRIS!! Our 90 days Tour in constructing Blog!!

Internally, I need to communicate with teammate Chris. He is a busy businessman who usually need to attend different workshops and meeting with his business partners. For me, I need to work in shift, sometimes working overnights due to the unique business characteristics of my organization - The Hong Kong Jockey Club. But we do frequently communicate on the project, as we both know the difficulty of this project mentioned before. To illustrate, we would discuss during the break of or after the lecture every Tuesday. It takes a least one-hour to review the progress and share some new ideas. 

Besides, we would discuss about the content generated from the morning team. It is to ensure both team are in a connected way. The above discussion will perform through telephone and email. It is to ensure the communication limited in one way. For telephone, it is about two to three days, mostly at weekends. It is one of the most efficient ways of communication. 

Once problem or clarification is needed, we would contact each other to derive the answer. Email used is in a seldom way due to its inefficiency due to infrequent checking of personal email. If I send the email to Chris, I need to wait for his reply and sometimes takes a few days to get one answer. Thus, I prefer to use phone or whatapps. 

For morning team, we would use email and Skype to communicate. As the former mention that they would usually use bring computer during their full time study, there are many opportunities using email communication. We communicate around twice a week. 

The content is about the sharing of some ideas or asking for clarification on some points. For instance, I would ask the ground the morning team chooses AIDS caring and which organization is the beneficial one receives the donation. Besides, we would use Skype to communicate and take about one week. It is more interactive because many feedback and suggestions can quickly be obtained. 

Over the last 10 years, technology advancement created a profound difference in the way taught graduate students communicate

Actually, the technology has improved our communication between two teams. To illustrate, I believe using chat room as Whatapps is one of the most convenient ways to obtain timely feedback and clarification. All teammates can get the instant information in the same media. The innovation of Skype greatly improves our communication. It offers voice with video that constantly detects the bandwidth. Thus, it can determine how it shall handle the line of communication. Actually, I think Skype offers the real discussion place, exactly like a meeting in a conference room. Besides, the calls are clear and equipped with cameras that facilitate video conferencing. Actually, the video would not hinder the connection as well as the speed too much. It is so much more valuable to see both teammates on the other side when performing business.

 As mentioned before, this project is not an easy one. Our team should get well prepare internally and then cooperate with the morning team to achieve results. Thus, both Chris and I would allocate suitable job to follow up. For instance, I am responsible to generate one idea, e.g. Video for Charity. Besides, I am delegated to build up and maintain the blog. For Chris, he would be responsible for another creative idea, e.g., Charity Dollars, and the idea of six factors that enhance creative potential.  We would set a clear deadline to ensure the smoothness. 

During the process, we would seek the advice and comment from the other. If there is adverse comment, we shall use the interest based negotiation approach. It means would collaborate to find the possible solution to make the goal achieved. 

Team Conflict is inevitable because all teammates are from different background

The first conflict we encountered with morning team is about task conflict. It implies the unclear content and goal of the work. To illustrate, the purpose for this group project is that each team should represent a company from a different industry to creatively combine resources through building a VirtualXXX.com. Our team chose the Community Chest while the morning team selected a hotel. However, the latter did throw the idea of creating an “Exhibition” about caring children with AIDS. There is no connection of using VirtualXXX.com for both companies. Please refer to the attached email communication.

Extracted from email communication on 13 Mar 2013

Dear Joe & Chris:

This is our group's idea.

Our hotel want to arrange some charity activities with your community chest.

It contains holding an exhibition about caring children with AIDS, a charity party to collect donate from society, and showing the products in our hotel's web. (this topic can 
be discussed ) Can you show your idea to us?

Extracted from email communication on 15 Mar 2013

Dear Joe & Chris,

Actually we purpose a project which could collaborate with your sides as below. 

It contains holding an exhibition about caring children with AIDS, a charity party to collect donate from society, and showing the products in our hotel's web.

Obviously, the morning team has overlooked the goal of using two separate companies. It is not simply to create a physical event as an exhibition, but to practically use VirtualXXX.com to bring benefit to both companies in virtual expansion. As the goal is starting to deviate from the original one, we voiced out in the email after discussion with teammate Chris. 

The second conflict is the process conflict. Recently, our team has found the inefficiency to get the work done with the morning team. To illustrate, I have proposed the creative event “Video for charity” for comment from morning team. However, they have never provided any comment or suggestion. During our discussion through Skype in later stage, they ask for the detail of the event, e.g., how does it operate, the tangible returns to their Group and the Community Chest. As the answer is easily found in the description from my email, time is wasted on unnecessary areas. 

Another conflict is the difficulty to compromise a time to have a meeting. As both Chris and I have full time work, even I have to work in shift including overnight, it is not easily to compromise a time with morning team to have a Skype meeting together. To morning team, they are full time students who have relatively more free time; the time availability is more flexible than our team. I believe regular meeting, say once a week, can greatly strengthen the communication and progress review on our project. The consequence of lacking regular meeting is that the project quality cannot be guaranteed. Initially, both teams have chosen to ignore the existing problem, however, we compromise to have a regular meeting on Thursdays. 

Attached is the email communication for reference.

我們有一些討論的細節需要統一一下：

1. 我們是通過skype進行網絡會議，時間爲每週週四。(OK) 

Once I joined the group, I have the chance to work with Chris who is in partnership in previous subjects. We have synergy effect, as we both know the strength and weakness of each other. There is no communication barrier between us. 

For our project, there are two challenges. First, it is to coordinate with the other team of other class. You may say it is often to cooperate with others in any group project. However, we started our project with group who is not at the same class. The communication cannot be available during the class. Much more time is spent to understand the background and the characteristics of the teammates. 

Blog presentation should be widely spread as a medium of course assignments

The second challenge is the blog presentation. To be honest, I have no experience in creating blog. I should keep consulting different friends or classmates. Per experience, we need to submit homework either by written assignment or PowerPoint, but never using blog. Another unique difference is both written assignment or PowerPoint does have their privacy. It means I submit my assignment to Professor. Other classmates would not know the content. However, the blog is open to the public. The ease of accessibility made the content more transparent. I should take extra care on what I have written. It seems like public monitoring and no mistakes are allowed. I have shared this concern to Chris but I promise to accept this challenge, i.e., to be responsible for blog creation and maintenance. Chris encourages me to try the best to make it fruitful. Even it is not the best among teams, it is above our pre-set standard. 

There is one thing I have not shared with the group. It is the burden of workload. 

To illustrate, I am the one who pursue the tidiness and visual effect. Thus, I would try to prepare well before each presentation, e.g., spending a lot of time on beautifying the PowerPoint, making some colorful posters for class presentation, searching different sources of idea to make the blog a fruitful one. Obviously, apart from the above, I should prepare my own content. Even I have allocated efficient time for myself, I could not control the external factors. For instance, I may receive the part from other in late night for my consolidation on the PowerPoint. 

The most important point is that I always set a high target on myself for the high quality of the PowerPoint or posters. I would repeatedly review the PowerPoint or posters. Extra pressure appears. Although extra effort is put, I would get satisfaction once the other appreciate the final outcomes of the charming PowerPoint or posters. 

As pursuit of consistent satisfaction is one of my personal traits, I would not share to teammates, even Chris. I mean I would not tell him I have put many effort on building blog and PowerPoint. 

Understand my strengths and weaknesses through 90-days tour of Virtual project

To conclude, I believe each teammate get strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I am capable on brainstorming idea and creating technical tools, e.g., PowerPoint. But I am relatively weak in analysis. The situation of Chris is opposite to me. Thus, we can connect together to supplement each one to perform a high quality project. During the process, we have several arguments but it comes a positive outcome after collaboration. 

Does the learning experience practically apply to my work?

I have shared my interesting experience in studying at this class to my superior in the Hong Kong Jockey Club (The Club). They wonder the excellent implementation of interactive mode of study. As in the Club, we would educate the part time staff by spoon-feeding. The latter would receive the job knowledge through different handouts and have a paper examination only. Although staff finally gets the job knowledge, they easily forget because they may not have chance to face different real time scenario. 

I suggest to my superior, the Club can use more time to have a role-play to the newly joined staff. Same as class presentation, we can be trained up through facing the public to speak. The staff can get more confidence after several role-plays. Equipped with substantial job knowledge, the staff can handle the customers in an efficient way. 

Finally, my superior promised me to voice out in the Management Meeting. I told him I volunteer to be the in-charge if it comes true.

This project gives me a lot of valuable experience and I would further share it to my colleagues and friends. 

Thank you very much!

Individual self-reflection (FUNG Tsz-kit, 53013421)

Virtual collaboration is an interesting experience because it is full of challenges!!! 

TEAM COMMUNICATION

Virtual collaboration is interesting because I cannot meet the morning class counterparts in person. It is well known that in a communication, only 7% is about the words; the other 93% is contributed by tonality, facial expression, eye movement, etc. It is a challenge if the communication is only through emails and text messages. Luckily, skype is allowed as one of the communication channels in working out the virtual project. Both morning class counterparts, Jake, Ricky, Monkey (Splendor) and my group (CONNECT) partner, Joe, agreed that it was the most effective way other than face to face meeting. At least, we were able to read the body languages when we conducted meetings.

At the beginning, we did not fix a regular time for our team meeting as you can see from our whatsapp communication messages. We simply based on email to share the initial ideas of company that we picked and the potential collaboration areas for the virtual project. It leaded to low commitment in timely update to each other and later on, both Splendor and CONNECT groups agreed to hold regular meeting on every Thu. The duration is up to 60 mins each time. 

Instant communication is also critical for quick decision making and notification to others for change of meeting schedule, for example. Splendor Group suggested to use the Apps “WeChat” for communication. Joe did not try “WeChat” before and counter proposed “Whatsapp”. From the email conversation, I was surprisingly to know that most Mainland Chinese students did not use “Whatsapp”. I use both apps but I also prefer “Whatsapp” to “WeChat” because we can export the text from the group chat to a document. We introduced this unique feature to Splendor Group and finally they all downloaded “Whatsapp” for instant communication. We created a group name “Virtual Team” for the group chat.

  

WAYS OF WORKING

Flexibility and high commitment are the success elements in working across team members. Joe has to work on shift duty that in 1 to 2 occasions he had to be excused from the skype meeting. In these cases, I updated Joe next day at lunch time for a phone call about the progress. Joe also showed very high commitment in delivering his responsible tasks. Skype is an effective communication that allows us to read other people’s body languages. However, there was technology problem that we did not able to connect on time that resulted in delay of the meeting. 

    

COMMON GOALS

For every single decision to be made, all of us (Jake, Ricky, Monkey, Joe and I) had a common consensus. In fact, it is quite simple. Our goal is to achieving a win-win collaboration with 2 major criterions:

1. Make a “WOW” effect to the market

2. Must be “Creative” 

OUR CONFLICTS

The first minor conflict was about whether we used “WeChat” or “Whatsapp” as our instant communication platform. Splendor group initially insisted to use “WeChat” but Joe and I got a point that “Whatsapp” can export the conversation for documentation purpose.   

Under certain situations, like at the storming stage of team collaboration, Accommodative Strategy in Negotiation can be quite useful. In this case, Splendor Group sacrificed their preference in using “WeChat” so as to build the relationship with Joe and I.     

Negotiation is defined as a process in which two or more participants attempt to reach a joint decision on matters of common concern in situations where they are in actual or potential disagreement or conflict. From the lecture knowledge, it is always good to use collaborative strategy to achieve win-win bargaining that each party gains without a corresponding loss for the other party. We were able to apply collaborative strategy to other 2 conflicts.

After we confirmed to build the www.virtualspcc.com, there was conflict in resources contribution including capital and manpower. First of all, the Hong Kong Community Chest do not have budget for building this website. Besides, we just have a part-time IT expert to maintain the basic update for the organization website.

Splendor Group has an IT support team to maintain the company website as well as the online shopping system. Therefore, we asked for Splendor Group to own this task in setting up the website and maintenance. However, they are reluctant to do so even though Joe and I applied both Hard & Soft negotiation technique. As Splendor Group stood very firm on this point, we also evaluated the competence and commitment of our part-time IT staff. He was interested in this project and had the relevant knowledge to set up the website. However, he estimated that 2 hours per day will be the additional working hours after his half day work in the Community Chest. We needed to pay him 2 hours extra salary. We then used “Interest-based” negotiation to confirm that Community Chest can take up the manpower resources but there was no budget for the extra working hour salary of our part time IT staff. In previous negotiation dialogue, we notified the baseline of Splendor Group was that they did not want to give additional workload to their existing IT team members. As a result, they were willing to take care the extra hour pay for our IT colleague. 

   

Another conflict happened when we discussed the details for the video taking competition. Splendor Group insisted to issue their “Sunny Market” products as the gift to the winners of the video taking competition. But from the Hong Kong Community Chest perspective, we just simply want to give out money as the prize. As the “Interest-based” negotiation worked well for the conflict about website building and maintenance, we also aim to work out a win-win solution and we finally agreed to give both Splendor Group product and HK$1,000 cash to the winner of the video taking competition. The cash amount is responsible by the Hong Kong Community Chest.  

THE FIRST MEETING

18 Mar was the date that we created the group chat “Virtual Team”. Later on, we confirmed to set up our first skype meeting on 27 Mar. In our first skype meeting, it was a brainstorming session in generating creative ideas for the virtual project. We (Splendor and CONNECT groups) just formed this virtual team and we almost forgot that we were at the “Storming Stage” in which active listening, clarifying were required to move the team to the next stage. It was not an effective meeting because of “Blocking”, “Evaluation Apprehension” and “Personality Face Off” issues that I already mentioned in the blog. 

OUR COMMITTMENT

After our brainwriting skype meeting, we all agreed to arrange weekly skype meeting for update. This is a high commitment to attend and even though not all of the 5 team members were included in every single meeting, we had at least one representative from Splendor and CONNECT groups. From the start, we were able to conduct skype meetings as planned.

RISK MANAGEMENT

For the “Click to Donate” campaign, the technology support is quite critical to the success. I have shared this concern among our group. If I were a donor and try to make donation to the Hong Kong Community Chest, I will try to use the earned charity dollars to do on-line shopping at “Sunny Market”. A simple and easy procedure to redeem the charity dollars is expected from donors. If the workflow is very smooth, good words of mouth can be spread among friends and peers to further promote the “Click to Donate” campaign. Vice versa, it will be a risk if the system management is not working well. We both agreed to take several rounds of testing before the www.virtualspcc.com goes live. 

For the video taking competition, we had an assumption that the public response will be good. We do not have backup plan in doing advertisement to promote this campaign. I think our group should also take this into consideration that I have not shared my concern before. 

THE SUCCESS

Charity Dollars and Video taking competition to promote online donation are definitely innovative ideas to create the “Wow” effect. As far as I know, there was no similar idea in Hong Kong before. The success of the virtual.com project must bring benefits to both companies. Online donation can generate more income to the Hong Kong Community Chest and Splendor Group can also raise their corporate social responsibility and at the same time, increase the exposure of Sunny Market online shopping to the public.

MY LEARNING

This is the first time I work with other people in a virtual environment. 

Virtual collaboration is interesting because I have limiting beliefs! Joe and I are part-time students with quite a number of years working experience, whereas the morning class counterparts, they are full-time student. I had a perception that I need to apply directing approach in working with Jake, Ricky and Monkey. I tried to give directions in establishing goals and explained how to achieve them. But in fact, they were very clear about their roles in working with Joe and I for the virtual project. 

Virtual collaboration is interesting because the value system is different between Splendor group and CONNECT group. From the Korthagen’s reflective onion model, we shared common mission in achieving a win-win outcome between the Hong Kong Community Chest and the Splendor Group. As Jake, Ricky and Monkey are students from Mainland China, the growing and education environment were very different from Hong Kong. During the discussion, morning class team members were genuine in expressing their feelings and opinions, sometimes were quite directive. We need to apply framing and reframing technique to talk to their unconscious mind in order to get alignment.    

To conclude, it is an interesting experience to work with full time students of much younger generation. Through the whole project process, it reminds me the importance of respect and active listening and it is always a golden rule in the real world, no matter in the company or family 

The Community Chest of Hong Kong is a corporation established under ordinance in 1968. It is an independent, non-profit making organization neither funded nor operated by the Government. The Community Chest is governed by a Board of business and community leaders who contribute their time voluntarily.

Under the Board, there are the Executive, Campaign, Public Relations and Admissions, Budgets & Allocations Committees whose work is supported by over 300 volunteers serving in various sub-committees. Daily administration and implementation of all fund-raising activities of the Chest are undertaken by a team of some 40 staff members, headed by the Chief Executive.

The administrative cost of The Community Chest is subsidized by a generous annual grant from The Hong Kong Jockey Club and returns from our prudent investment. Therefore, the Chest is very proud to be one of the few fund-raising bodies in the world who assure our donors 100% allocation of funds gathered to our beneficiaries without any deduction for administrative expenses.

The Chest has developed a highly flexible and transparent allocation system. Funds collected are directed in the most effective and efficient manner to areas of most need and to services which are not subsidized by the Government. Every year, over 2.1 million needy benefit from your generosity.

Walks for Millions, Community for the Chest TV Show, Corporate and Employee Contribution Programme are the routine fund-raising events that contributed significantly to the Hong Kong Community Chest. In each new financial year, we aim to raise more money for the less fortunate members of our society. In an era of internet, it is worth exploring the potential of online donation. In 2013, we selected Splendor Group as a partner to promote our existing online donation, by building a virtual.com platform, www.virtualspcc.com

Splendor Group is a listed corporate in Mainland China and HK. It was established in 1996 and has more than 3,000 employees. They have chain supermarket & chain hotel with 5 Stars in Mainland China and HK, and a travel agency in Mainland China. Their supermarket is called “Sunny Market” and there are 2 stores in Shatin & Tsuen Wan in Hong Kong market. 

Virtual organizing: 3 vectors & 3 stages

Vectors and characteristics	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3
Customer interaction	Work-unit expertise	Process interdependence	Sustained innovation and growth (MVA)

Vectors and characteristics: Customer interaction

It is defined as dealing with the new challenges and opportunities for company-to-customer interactions. In our project, it is a fresh idea to link the Splendor Group with the Community Chest (Charitable organization). Through www.virtualspcc.com, all people can easily experience the service of Splendor Group and give donation to Community Chest.

Stage 1: Work-unit expertise

Although www.virtualspcc.com looks like a website only, the set up and maintenance are indeed complicated. Expertises from different teams have to involve achieving the consistent performance improvement. For instance, the Splendor Group has to provide technical support knowledge to the Community Chest for database linkage to their online shopping platform.

Stage 2: Process Interdependence

There are many processes in www.virtualspcc.com project. Both the organizations have its own accountability on each process. It is to facilitate the management based on strengths of each organization.

Stage 3: Sustained innovation and growth (MVA)

As the website for online donation will become popular after the success of www.virtualspcc.com, more charitable organizations will use copycat approach. Thus, consistent innovation is important to stand out the values. For both organizations, it would be better to regularly review the process, adding new elements to the website. For instance, expanding the channels of using Charity Dollar, to keep the growth. 

The Hong Kong Community Chest welcome Splendor Group as one of our company partners in the donation programs and we are very much appreciated their innovation effort in working together for something creative. There are 3 representatives from Splendor Group, Jake, Monkey and Ricky who are based in China. We mainly used Skype and email as our major communication channel with whatsapp as instant update for the project progress.                 

Chris Stevens defines creativity as the ability to generate and use insight. Initially, we set up Skype for a brainstorming meeting. There are some basic rules of brainstorming:

• No criticism whatsoever
• Free-wheeling is welcome. The whackier the idea, the better
• The more ideas, the better
• Building on others’ ideas is encouraged

However, it was not a productive experience even we shared the basic rules before our meeting. We analyzed that it was due to 3 major reasons:

1. “Blocking” 

This is the number one deficiency in brainstorming: only one person can speak at a time. At the brainstorming meetings, representatives from Splendor Group elaborated their ideas in very details. In most of the time, we cannot share our ideas because we have to wait for them to describe theirs, and we ended up in making comment or editing their ideas. This was a problem because our short-term memory cannot effectively develop new ideas while keeping old ones in active storage. Even when we got a chance to describe an idea, we only able to contribute one or two comments and Splendor Group representatives just quickly broke in and comment. This may be cultural difference but in fact making comments to ideas was a very natural response in our collaboration, which hindered the level of creativity. 

2. Evaluation Apprehension 

We observed that one of the representatives, Jake, was not very engaged in the latter part of the brainstorming meeting. He just followed the direction of his 2 other colleagues. This may relates to the fact that group member(s) avoid expressing what they consider to be wild ideas based on how the other members judged them. It may due to the fact that we commented Jake’s idea in a very directive approach. 

3. Personality Face Off 

Our Brainstorming sessions ended up with clashing human personalities. The other 2 representatives are overpowering people trying to dominate the session. And sometimes, we may be a bit stubborn in getting overprotective about our ideas and not accepting others’. 

Thus, the first 1 hour meeting was indeed very non-productive. We decided to apply Reflective Practices to promote our collaboration experience with Splendor Group. At our reflective meeting, we identified the root causes of ineffective brainstorming were due to criticism and lack of active listening behaviour. 

We were aware the difference of values and beliefs between Hog Kong and Mainland China. 

Ideally, we needed to respect other people’s model of the world. But in reality, it was not easy to handle the mindset issue. 

As the outcome of our brainstorming meeting was not positive, we used chunking up questioning technique to align with Splendor Group our mission is to working out a creative way for online donation and both companies benefit from this project. We had negative feeling at the first meeting. By asking questions like, “Why are we here?” and sharing the dissociation technique to let go of our negative emotions, we then used reflective practice to change and improve what was not working well and challenged practices that were taken for granted. We were able to demonstrate Reflection on action to learn new ways of working and Brainwriting was the agreed format for our second skype meeting. 

Brainwriting is a technique that can easily lead to more than double the ideas generated in a typical brainstorming session.

In Brainwriting each participant thinks and records ideas individually, without any verbal interaction at the early beginning. This tiny change results in a huge difference in the idea generation effectiveness.

We called for a second skype meeting and before that, we sent out several interesting pictures to stimulate our thinking. 

 

Chris played the role of moderator and took the following steps in enhancing creativity through the brainwriting activity.

1. First of all, Jake, Ricky, Monkey, Joe and Chris got a sheet of paper with the same objective written at the top, “How to generate new insight for online donation?”  

2. Joe and Chris had 3 minutes to write down 3 ideas on the sheet of paper. 

3. When time is up. Each of us passed the sheet of paper to another person on our left. As Joe and Chris were in the same room and Splendor Group representatives were in another location. We worked in pairs while Jake, Ricky and Monkey worked in group.  

4. Each participant read the ideas that were previously written and a new three-minute round started. Each participant must again come up with three new ideas. Participants were free to use the ideas already on the sheet as triggers — or to ignore them altogether. 

5. We repeated for 3 rounds in total and the group agreed to stop because we already felt exhausted. 

6. The ideas were shared, discussed and consolidated under Chris’s facilitation.

As ideas were generated simultaneously, we did not have a chance to block each other. We still got to build on each other’s ideas. The beauty was that ideas were recorded the moment we got them: no ideas were lost while you waited for a chance to speak. Everybody had an equal opportunity to share, regardless of individual character. 

Under this brainwriting task, all of us were very engaged including Jake. There was no fear of being openly judged by others. Everyone was given a clear task: to write down 3 ideas each round within 3 minutes. The quota added an element of healthy pressure that can help unlock your creativity! Finally, we confirmed 2 creative ideas for our virtual project:

Earn Charity Dollars by  “Click to Donate”	Video for Charity –  Video taking competition

Earn Charity Dollars by “Click to Donate”

There will be floating banners or eye catching icon on websites of both Hong Kong Community Chest and the Splendor Group. By clicking the banner or icon, internet users will be diverted to www.virtualspcc.com 

Online donor is requested to fill in very basic personal information, firstly, for tax exemption purpose; and secondly, to create an online donation user account to earn Charity Dollar. 

For every RMB/HK$100 donation, donor can earn 10 charity dollars, up to 500 charity dollars for donation equal to or more than RMB/HK$5,000, as shown in below table. ONE Charity Dollars is equal to ONE RMB/HK dollar. The charity dollars earned can be used to buy goods from Sunny Market on-line shop with free delivery service. 

Donation to Community Chest	Charity Dollars Earned
RMB/HK$100	10
RMB/HK$200	20
RMB/HK$300	30
RMB/HK$400	40
RMB/HK$500	50
RMB/HK$600	60
RMB/HK$700	70
RMB/HK$800	80
RMB/HK$900	90
RMB/HK$1,000	100
RMB/HK$≥5,000	500

Video for Charity – Video taking competition 

In recent years, the use of Internet media becomes popular. To illustrate, you may awake nearly all of the people are using smart phone with Internet function. In commercial world, a lot of merchants will post advertisement through Internet, mobile apps etc to broaden the target customer size. There is a great room to increase the awareness of online donation. We would organize a video taking competition named “Video for Charity” to achieve the result.

Obviously, the target audiences for donation are people who have online habit.  

For the creative idea in this competition, the participants can take a short video about encouraging other people to donate and upload the video to www.virtualspcc.com. All network users can donate money and vote for the winner and get the Charity Dollars. Moreover, www.virtualspcc.com can serve as a platform for either video competition's participants or network users to check their Charity Dollar status. It enables them to check the validity to redeem their favorable products. Furthermore, the web www.virtualspcc.com provides a hyperlink to both the Community Chest and Splendor Group. As mentioned before, some floating banners or eye-catching icon will be shown on websites of both Hong Kong Community Chest and the Splendor Group. By clicking the banner or icon, all Internet users will be diverted to www.virtualspcc.com 

The rules and regulations of the competition

- Participant will take a short video no longer than 2 minutes using different tools

- All the videos should be only uploaded to virtualspcc.com/videocompetition2013/uploadnow. No change is allowed after submission

- The video for charity submitted must be the participants original video without infringing on any copyrights or any other rights of any third parties

- Participants will reserve all ownerships rights to video submitted

- Winners are chosen by all online donors

- All entries will be judged equally based on four areas

1/ Impactful messages to promote online donation

2/ Originality of content

3/ Production and post-production

4/ Image and sound quality effect

- Participants for all ages are welcome. While those under 18 years old, signature of guardian or parents is necessary

- The Community Chest and the Splendor Group reserves the right for final judgment

For this virtual project, there are several benefits for Splendor Group and Hong Kong Community Chest:

Benefits for Splendor Group

1) First of all, the brand awareness of Splendor Group. It is a big corporate in Mainland China but not many HK people are aware their presence.  

2) The Charity Dollars earned by Donors can use to buy goods from online shopping of Sunny Market. In fact, these goods can be regarded as donation from Splendor Group to online donors to the Hong Kong Community Chest. Through this support, the Corporate Social Responsibility image is raised. For the video taking competition, the Splendor Group can take advantage to expand the market into Hong Kong. The launch of the campaign can provide the advertising effect. The public can access the information of the Splendor Group easily through www.virtualspcc.com.

3) Online shopping is a growing trend in Hong Kong Supermarkets like Park n Shop and Wellcome. By using the Charity Dollars, the online shopping behaviour can be built for those donors.

Benefits for the Hong Kong Community Chest

1) First of all, we have set the objective to achieve the donation amounts with HKD3millions from the online platform. The campaign duration will last for about 7 months, i.e., from Jun 2013 to Dec 2013.

2) Secondly, as the figure from online donation is extremely low, about 2% compared with other channels. There is a big room for improvement on online donation. With the first experience of using online donation, it is believed that the donors will continue to use the same way for donation in the future. The situation is like the success of most bank encouraging the clients to use online banking. 

3) Thirdly, the launch of the campaign can provide the advertising effect. The public can access the information of the Community Chest easily through www.virtualspcc.com. Besides, it ensures more funding through online channel for fund raising. The channel will not be bound to traditional donation methods, e.g., pay the cash to the Charity at bank. It provides an easy and time saving way for the donors by just using online donation.

Win-Win Negotiation

It is the first time our organization (The Community Chest) to organize the virtual project, namely www.virtualspcc.com with the Splendor Group of the morning class. Many items have to be discussed and decision must be made at each stage. Sometimes, it seems that we have to fight our corner aggressively for winning the resources we require. Even, both organizations need to struggle to obtain what each wants from the people who can help us. It would be even better if we had a chance to brush up our win-win negotiation techniques.

Both the Community Chest and the Splendor Group have to protect their own interest and benefits. Thus, conflicts are inevitable and effective negotiation should apply to resolve the situations the project result. The purpose applying win-win negotiation is to reach a solution that is acceptable to both organizations, and leaves both parties feeling we both win after the project. It implies that both of us feel more satisfied than they were at earlier stage.

In organizing the project, we encountered two major conflicts. The first one is the accountability issue for managing the www.virtualspcc.com. The second one is the prize distribution issue for winner in the video taking competition. 

At the regular meeting, we set the objectives of the negotiation as below.

• Define the elements of the "win-win" approach to negotiation.

• Understand the alternatives to use anchor points to our advantages.

• Investigate the characteristics of win-win negotiators.

• Create some options to maximize all opportunities to achieve a win-win outcome.

Firstly, there are three styles of negotiation

-Hard negotiation (Compete)

-Soft negotiation (Accommodate, compromise)

-Interest-based negotiation (Collaborate)

  

At initial stage, we used the hard negotiation (Compete) approach. As we did not want the project going into the wrong track but achieve the pre-set goal, we insist our standpoint and seldom make concession. Certain pressure has been applied into the morning team. From Fig. 1, the situation is best described as the top left corner (Competition - my way). We were at high assertiveness level but applied low concern on relationship. Not much cooperation and compromise will be resulted. To give example, our Community Chest does not agree to fully take responsibility for the www.virtualspcc.com, even though all donations will be credited to our organization.

At later stage, we used the interest based negotiation (collaborate) approach. After several discussions with Chris, we conclude that each team has responsibility to protect the own interest and thus appropriate collaborations should apply for long-term relationship building. In Fig. 1, it is best described as the top right corner (Collaboration - our way). We tried to seek to integrate the interests of both companies. There are high concerns for both relationships and goals. To give examples, both teams have aligned to support the www.virtualspcc.com together. The Community Chest was responsible for the design and maintenance while Splendor Group supported the website from the financial perspective. 

Figure. 1

Conflict Resolution

In our project, it is inevitable to face different conflicts while the major are task conflict and process conflict. In the following paragraphs, the details will be thoroughly discussed. 

The task conflict implies the unclear content and goal of the work. To illustrate, the project purpose is that each team should represent a company from a different industry to creatively combine resources through building a VirtualXXX.com. The morning team and our team have chosen the Splendor Group and the Community Chest respectively. However, the latter did throw the idea of creating an “Exhibition” about caring children with AIDS. Obviously no connection of using VirtualXXX.com is found for both companies. 

It is believed that the morning team has overlooked the goal of using two separate companies. It is not simply to create a physical event as an exhibition, but to practically use VirtualXXX.com to bring benefit to both companies in virtual expansion. To avoid deviation from the goal, we tried to highlight in the email after discussion with Chris. 

The second conflict is the process conflict. In one of the skype meetings, inefficiency was observed to get the work done between two teams. Our team has proposed the creative event “Video for charity” for comment from morning team. However, there is no appropriate comment or suggestion. During our discussion through Skype in later stage, they ask for the detail of the event, e.g., how does it operate, the tangible returns to both organizations, etc. As the answer is already here, time is wasted on unnecessary areas. 

The situation has been improved after our reflective meetings 

Firstly, we are willing to forgive. We are aware that it is impossible to resolve conflict if no one is willing to forgive. Solving lies in releasing the urge to punish that can never compensate for losses and only adds to injury through further depletion. 

Besides, we tried to make focus on the present. It is not necessary to hold on to grudge based on the past unpleasant experience. Rather than looking to the past, both teams have to put focus on what we can do in the here-and-now for conflict solving. 

Moreover, through different discussions by Skype with the morning team, we listen patiently on both needs and emotions. More concerns are put on each other and it is easily to discuss in a harmony environment.

To conclude, this virtual collaboration is full of challenges but both teams were able to make good use of knowledge that we learnt from the class to solve the problems. We look forward to the success of the two campaigns through the www.virtualspcc.com platform.  

References:

1. The Hidden Challenge of Cross-Border Negotiations, James K. Sebenius, Harvard Business Review Mar 2002

2. Organizing for Innovation: When Is Virtual Virtuous?, Henry W. Chesbrough and David J. Teece, The Innovative Enterprise Aug 2002 

3. Building Innovation Factory, Andrew Hargadon and Robert I. Sutton, Harvard Business Review May-June 2000

4. Real Strategies for Virtual Organizing / N.Venkatraman. John C. Henderson

5. Leadership, Peter G. Northouse, SAGE

6. Management / Stephen P.Robbins, Mary Coulter. - 7^th ed. p. cm.

7. http://litemind.com/brainwriting/

8. http://www.commchest.org/en/home/