As a part of this group, I fully understand that in order to create a substantial benefit to furthering this group’s progress, I need to fully devote myself to coming up with innovative ideas, accepting criticism, and follow through on what I say rather than wait for someone else to start it. Initiative is an important aspect because without, nothing gets done and this group would sink into a hole. The creative ideas are fluctuating and seem never ending, teams that work well together are efficient when coming up with new ideas, critiquing group members’ ideas for a new line of work, and overall have good communication. Groups that are not successful fail on the basis of a lack of communication. With different personalities within in a group, members are going to have different ideas, which is fine, but the group needs to be clear on who is doing what. Everyone has their own role when creating a project, when people get confused and do not clarify who is doing what, it becomes chaotic and the group will most likely shut down.

This week we decided on 3 ideas for what the project should be. The workday of a HuskerVision student intern, following around the Husker Cats, and an idea where we make a cooking show. My personal contribution was asking about a cooking show since I have a passion for cooking, I had volunteered to make myself the subject of the documentary. I also had a few ideas that were shutdown, but the whole group was critiquing each other respectfully on which idea we should roll with. We hope to finally decide on a solid project subject with the rest of the class in the near future so we can get to work, we are all very excited to make progress.

I believe as an individual on this team, in order to help us succeed, I need to have a proper understanding of what the group consensus is and the personal responsibilities that I have. As a randomized team it can be hard to properly communicate ideas and be comfortable in doing so. A good team makes sure that all of their members feel they have a role and that each member knows what is expected of them on a weekly basis/in general for long run. A major contributor for a team not working together properly is not communicating but also a lot of it lands on the individual.

This week I contributed ideas towards the main ideas of our project and helped land our top three ideas and some of the specifics surrounding them. Some challenges were mainly about the probability of the ideas and if they made sense or were too close to previous ideas, and how we could be unique. Something we could do different next time is research previous projects more and how successful they were.

A random group of team members put together can sometimes be interesting. You often get people who will struggle to work together and struggle dividing up responsibilities. With having the contract, made last week, I believe this will take a majority of the responsibility away from the group’s problems. We have set boundaries in every category and if there are any conflicts, we have the contract to back up the consequences. Characteristics of a group that work well together can include many things but I believe having respectful group members, good communication skills and plenty of participation, you will succeed. Honestly, if you just hold each and every group member responsible for their actions and their tasks, you will succeed. Teams that struggle to work together lack good communication skills and don’t set boundaries at the beginning. Group members will try every way to get around what they are supposed to do and push it off to someone else. This is why I believe having a group survey at the end of the semester is the smartest way to prevent this.

This week, my contributions included initiating a conversation in the group chat about the next class and brainstorming more ideas for our group project. Challenges we are currently battling are the struggle of coming up with the idea.

As a group, Team Teamy seeks to showcase an element of the Lincoln community that is not often shown or perhaps bring a new light to said subject. Potential communities we would want to highlight are groups that make a positive impact on the community such as the local food drive, the humane society, or the homeless shelter. With these subjects we would focus on the more serious, impactful messages of these programs and seek to convince the viewer to contribute to the cause. The only idea that has been fully thought out in this regard would be to document the process of adopting a shelter dog. Especially with the freezing cold temperatures that come through Lincoln, we thought rescuing a dog would be a great idea for this project. Within this project we would dive deeper into the process by interviewing people on both sides of the interaction, from the pet adopters to the humane society workers who aid in the process of re homing these animals.

In terms of the group dynamics of this project, so far we have all been in the brainstorming phase to find out which idea we will pursue. My particular set of skills would be very useful if the group decides go with a video format for our project. I have years of experience in shooting and editing video and with the help of my teammates to storyboard this project we should be able to create something special.

As a group, Team Teamy wants to showcase making a difference with our project idea. There are many ways to positively contribute to your local society whether that be food/coat drives or tutoring lessons for students. There really are so many ways you can get involved. I believe, especially in the winter time, those who could benefit the most from our help are animals, more specifically dogs. There are vast amounts of rescue dogs/cats at your local shelter that are barely surviving in these brutal weather months. So, what Team Teamy has decided to do is help bring to light the process and benefits to adopting a rescue animal from a shelter (i.e The Human Society). Most people are aware of what the Humane Society is on the ground level but we want to highlight the journey people take so others can learn from it. In order to research and better learn about our topic, we can conduct thorough interviews with people who have previously adopted animals from shelters or people at the shelters themselves. Everyone loves animals, which is why this could also be challenging. It can definitely be a sore subject for some people and a lot of students may not be able to afford or care for an animal, additionally to themselves when they’re a full-time student. But we just want to show everyone a good organization that is doing ethical work and helping animals off the street or from abusive situations. Adopt don’t shop!

As for contributing to the group project, I believe I have some good ideas for the layout and project in itself and I think we have communicated strongly between us all. One challenge we encountered early was the team name dilemma, which took us longer than expected to figure out. So, in the future we’ll just have to try and be more concise but it’s good that we all have an opinion on the matters.

What is one of the things in this world people love the most? Dogs! Our project should begin to head in the direction of the process of adopting a dog from the Humane Society. Dogs are a special companion for mankind and it is heartbreaking to see that dogs are left behind due to poor ownership and care. As someone who actively participated in the adoption process for a dog at the Humane Society last September, I think it would be a great idea to make that Team Teamy’s focus for the semester. Here are a few good ways we could accomplish as a team with various skillsets: Video/editing, video is what gives people a light in which to see the world in someone else’s perspective, using a camera that is right for the job, one could capture the essence of why people should adopt dogs and not always buy directly from the breeder. Every member of this group has at least SOME experience editing video. Once we can put our minds together with good color grading, creating powerful moments, and adding some extra knowledge, the possibility to create something special is limitless and imminent. However, with every great idea, comes a number of challenges. It can be difficult to find the right quality of camera that isn’t a generic JVC that could capture good video, along with my group possibly having conflict in schedule or in ideas. Challenges can be overcome though, with communication and organization for getting the job done, nothing can become too great of an obstacle.

Although this week was mainly an introduction to the group, the assisted in coming up with a name for the group along with getting contact information to set up a GroupMe, making communication easier and more fluent. Before next Friday, I hope to come up with a finalized idea of our plan for the semester and do what I can to make the process as smooth as possible, I also plan to help with any edits that need to be made along with anything regarding video that are done in the field. I hope to present more ideas and innovation to the group in the near future.

It sometimes can be tough to begin generating ideas for a group project and this project is following in the same steps. When you think about a team name for 5 minutes, you know that thinking of a story to tell may take more than 5 minutes. I believe if we start with expanding off UNL’s campus, that will open up many more opportunities. I believe a subject off of UNL’s campus that would be interesting and easy to tell the story would be adoption of an animal. We would go to the Capital Humane Society and show step by step of how the adoption process goes. This is something I have done before with my family and I think it would benefit others thinking about adopting a pet from there. There are so many different animals at the Humane Society that have just been sitting there for months or even years that deserve the chance to have a family again. Not only does it open room for other animals to come in, but it is much cheaper to adopt a dog from there, rather than buying a dog from a breeder.

This week I creating the blog website for our group and inviting all of our group members. I also found a contract template to use for our team contract and turned it into Canvas.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.