Out with the old, in with the new!

As an avid golf follower, I have witnessed the uprising of Jordan Spieth and the downfall of Tiger Woods. I can remember back to when the story of Tiger's affair became public and when Jordan Spieth won his first major championship. The times are changing and the younger generation of golfers seem to be taking over the game. In his prime, no one could compare to Tiger Woods, but ever since the night of November 26, 2009, he has never been the same. When he was exposed as a "serial cheater" many people changed their perception of Woods and he never recovered. From relationship issues to injury, the games biggest icon began to fade out of the picture. The golfing industry took a hit when they lost their star and they continued to see decreasing numbers of viewers. That is, until the new star of the game came knocking.

Jordan Spieth is a 22 year old golfing prodigy from Dallas, Texas. On July 14, 2013, Spieth put himself on the map by winning his first professional tournament at the John Deere Classic. With that victory he became the fourth youngest player in history to be a PGA Tour winner. Since that day he has not slowed down. He now has 6 PGA Tour wins and won the 2015 Masters and U.S. Open. This past year he won the PGA Player of the Year and PGA Tour Player of the Year awards, he was the PGA Tour leading money winner, FedEx Cup Champion, Vardon Trophy Winner, and the Byron Nelson Award winner. Not a bad resume for a 22 year old. 

This kind of play was much needed for the game of golf and who better to be the new face of the game than a young buck who has many, many years of golf ahead of him. Tiger changed the game of golf and while we will always be appreciative of the things he has accomplished, it's time for the next generation of golf to begin, and trust me; it won't disappoint.

Story Boards Are Fun

Would you say that you are good at drawing stick figures? Do you have an idea of a product or service that can better society? If you answered yes to both of these questions, maybe its time to start drawing up some story boards!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working with a group of class mates to try and think of a service/product that people 20-25 years of age would use that would help them make the transition from school into their careers. This has been a very fun and creative process that I didn't think would be as fun as it was. one of the funnest parts, in my opinion, was creating the story board to illustrate the issue at hand and how our idea of a product would solve that problem. multiple story boards came and went until we created one that truly explained how we wanted our product to be seen. I was given the task of doing the drawings and presenting them in a way that would be aesthetically pleasing. You can see our final story board below.

If you feel like you are a creative person and have an idea that could truly change the way we live, do something with it! You never know what could come of an idea. Every successful person in this world has came up with an idea at some point in their life that shaped how they live. Sure, not every idea is a great one, but when that really great idea comes, move on it, explain how it will better peoples lives, and create a story board to begin the process.

Happy Inventing!

1 Shot

Two hours ago I arrived home from sunny San Diego, California. I spent the last 4 days working toward passing my Playing Ability Test that is required to begin the PGA program. I was blessed to have my parents come with me and it turned into a little family vacation for 3 or the days we were there. On Sunday, I played my practice round at Encinitas Ranch Golf Club in Encinitas, California, about 30 miles north of San Diego. The elevation difference between Bozeman and California was a little tough to get used to as well as the difference in the grass and the way that the grass grabbed the club.

 Entering into Monday I felt confident that I would be able to play well and come back home with my PAT passed. The next morning I arrived at the course at 6:00 am to begin warming up (which was in the dark), and teed off at 7:00. When that shotgun sounded, 36 holes of nonstop golf ensued. As the day came to an end and we made our way towards the final hole, I was one stroke under the qualifying mark. A par on the final hole would mean that I passed my PAT and not have to take it again. As I walked up to the tee on the Par 3, 12th hole, one thought was in my mind; put a good swing on it and par the hole. As I watched my ball fly toward the green, I could see that it was going to be a little left of the green. When I approached my second shot, a soft chip shot was all I needed to get into position to par the hole. Unfortunately my worst fear happened. I bladed my chip over the other side of the green and needed to get up and down to get a bogey and still pass the test. As I watched my bogey putt fly by the hole, I could feel my chances slipping away from me. A 5 foot par putt stood between passing and failing. My heart sank when the ball lipped out and I ended up taking a double bogey of the final hole to miss the passing score by 1 shot.

In all my years of golf, I never felt this upset before. I knew that I had a passing score in my hands and I let it slip away. Now I have to try to pass again at another point down the road and I can assure you, I won't let that one slip by. All in all, it was a great trip with my parents. Do I wish the outcome would have been different? Of course. But the lessons I learned throughout my round will surely help me be successful the next time around.

Design Sprinting

Have any of you ever done a design sprint for a class, or for your job? If you have, I'm sure that you all know how fun a process like this is! I am currently doing a design sprint for my Consumer Behavior class. The premise of a design sprint is to brainstorm ideas of products that might be useful for society that do not already exist. It is a very fast paced creation process where ideas are turned into prototypes and those prototypes are used to see if a product like this would be liked by consumers.

The topic of our design sprint is creating a product that young adults would use when they are just leaving college and entering the workforce. I have had a lot of fun brainstorming ideas and revising our ideas to develop a product that we think is a great opportunity! The after our group developed our product that we believed would see the most success, the next step was to test our ideas with consumers. We did this by asking our friends and family that match our target market if they would use a product like ours. After getting very valuable information from all of these people, we came together to revise our idea into a similar product but updated to meet the suggestions for our group.

So far, this process has been very eye opening for seeing designing products as a fun and exciting process. I would highly recommend doing a design sprint for yourself  and seeing what kinds of ideas you come up with. Who knows, you may be the next Steve Jobs!