As you may know, Capstone presentations are coming up. We had to record our presentations two days before the actual one. This was because it was stressful performing in front of the parents alone, but also knowing someone is recording you makes it worse. So today I will show you how recording went!
A group of five people were supposed to go to the computer lab at a time. I was in the first group. That made me very scared, because I did not feel ready at all! I decided that I wanted to go last. When other people were performing, I was reading over my cards and panicking! Finally, I was my turn. Since the second group already came in, I had to perform in front of 5 kids and Mr. Casal! This made me very nervous. Most of the time I looked at the screen and at the cards, because I was scared. After it was over, I was very relieved. I think it was helpful to do this because I was able to have the experience of presenting while someone is recording. It motivates me to do the best I can, since a lot of people were watching. But it was also very scary. I think the hardest part was knowing that someone was recording you. I think the easiest part was summing your presentation up, because you were finally done.
This entire Capstone unit was really different for me when I first started it. There were some hard times and some easy times. There were also boring parts and fun parts. At the beginning, I didn’t know how much we would have to work on this and how hard it was going to be. I also didn’t know that things were much more complex than I thought. I think the hardest part was researching. This was because you might not find enough research for your sub-question. I think the easiest part was sourcing. All you had to do was copy and paste your links into a website, which makes the sources for you. The most fun part was making my slideshow. This was fun because I liked finding cool pictures. The most boring was writing essay. This took so long and I disliked it a lot. It was very frustrating. At times I wanted to give up! But still, I learned a lot from capstone.
Overall Capstone was so fun. I learned so much it, and I hope you did also with my blog posts!
Have you ever had to present a big project before? Well I have to, and so does everybody in our grade. Today I will be telling you how I have prepared for this capstone project.
First off, we had to make a script. You had to take the most important reasons out of your essay and put that in your script. When you are done with your script, it should be 5 to 6 minutes. At first, mine was 7 minutes. That was a minute too long. So, I had to cut down some things that I thought weren’t necessary and as important. Then it went down to six minutes. However, another time it as 5:30. So I guess it depends how fast or slow you talk, and the pacing of the words. Here is my Script: Slide 1 (done)
Speaking: Hello, my name is Meera, and my capstone project is about Starbucks. I have always loved Starbucks and would go there a lot. But have always wondered why Starbucks is so successful. Today, I will be answering that!
Slide 2
Speaking: Starbucks was founded on August 18th 1987. The owners were Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. Starbucks was created in Seattle, in Pike’s place market, They created Starbucks because Baldwin, Bowker and Siegl thought that Seattle needed a better high quality coffee shop.
Slide 3
Terry Heckler, their advertising agent helped come up with the name! He thought it should start with “st” because he thought it was very powerful. At First, they first settled on Starbo. However later they decided on Starbucks, which was from the book, Moby Dick.
Slide 4
At first, starbucks only was selling and roasting coffee beans, and wasn’t actually selling coffee. Later on, Howard Schultz convinced them to sell coffee and not just the beans. This made a lot more people come to their shop. and that was how Starbucks started its road to success!
Slide 5
So many many people will come to Starbucks. But how does Starbucks attract all these people? When Starbucks first started to expand into colder places like Chicago, people wanted something warm. Starbucks took this as an advantage and start selling drinks like hot chocolate.
Slide 6
Advertising is very important when it comes to getting people’s attention. That’s why Starbucks advertises their drinks in movies and TV. If someone sees a really cool drink, they might want to check it out.
Slide 7
Variety is key when you want more people to come. That’s why people come, because they have drinks like coffee, refreshers and frappuccinos. Also Starbucks has food which is good people who are hungry and don’t just want a drink.
Slide 8
Starbucks has to expand their business in order for it to become popular and well known. There are many ways they expanded. Back in the early ages of the company, Howard Schultz was the one who thought they should move starbucks into other states. This was a very big deal because if they hadn’t of done this, they wouldn’t get nearly as much business.
Slide 9
Starbucks also has fancier shops, which are called Roasteries. They make these shops because they want their business to have higher quality shops that has a different experience than a regular store. I got to check out a roastery in New York city and it was really cool. Inside they have a big coffee roaster, which is where they roast all of starbucks coffee beans. Pretty cool right! Also, they have totally different menu items, which are really good! Overall I learned they have these shops because they want people to enjoy something fancier and different.
Slide 10
People come to Starbucks because of the yummy drinks that the baristas make. But how does Starbucks make motivate to come and help them work? Turns out, there are tons of perks you get if your an employee.
Slide 11
Starbucks has a bunch of health coverage for their employees. If you are a full time employee, Starbucks will pay for your health care.
Slide 12
Since you work there, you can can things free and discounted. Every week, barista’s get 1 or 2 free things. Also, everything they buy from Starbucks is 30% off.
Slide 13
Vacations are very nice. But it is even nicer if someone will pay for some of it. Well, that’s what Starbucks will do for full time employees.
Slide 14
If you are a successful store like Starbucks, you probably have a lot of competitors. Starbucks biggest competitors are Starbucks and Dunkin. SO where Starbucks rank among its competitors and why?
Slide 15
There are many ways why Starbucks is a super good and successful shop. For example Starbucks has really quick service. It only takes 5-10 minutes, and for a super popular store, I’d say that’s pretty quick! Also, they have very high quality machines, that make really good drinks. The barista’s there help make the drinks too, which they know really well and can perfect every drink. Starbucks Cleary has a lot of reasons why there a very good store.
Slide 16
Now you know that Starbucks successful because of all these reasons. But still, they can become less and less popular. So how does Starbucks maintain its success? One way Starbucks does this is by having a nice and comfy store. I don’t know if you have noticed, but Starbucks stores has lots of chairs and comfy ones too. The environment is very cozy, which is why many people come there to get work done. Starbucks creates this atmosphere because it makes people want to come.
Slide 17
My interview told me that Starbucks refers to themselves a third place. I know thinking, what does that mean? Well, basically it means that you have 3 places you spend a lot of time at. The first place could be home and the second one could be school/work and Starbucks is supposed to be the third place. They want people to go there often so they try to make it a very enjoyable place.
Slide 18
Overall I learned that Starbucks success is because of all of the hard work they put in to make sure you have the best experience and want to come back again and again.
Slide 19
Thank you for listening. For more information, please check out my blog or scan this QR code. I hope you enjoyed it!
After we were done with our script, we had to practice. I am still practicing to this day, because I need to memorize it. I have everything on index cards, so it is easier to read off of it. I think this is very hard, because you need to feel confident with your words and not stumble over them. I also had to make a slideshow to go along with my script. My slide show consisted of only pictures, until the end, where I have the link to my blog. It was kind of hard to choose all the pictures. This was because if we used the pictures google slides suggested, we wouldn’t have to source them. However, there isn’t that many choices. If you search them up on google, you will get more variety, but you will have to source. Sourcing takes a very long time, and you feel that you are wasting time.
Overall, I worked very hard on my presentation, and I can’t wait to present it!
Have you ever wondered why Starbucks is so successful? This is something that we might not really think about, but the long lines, multiple stores and the amount of drinks they have to make proves it. Although it seems like it was always this successful, that is not the case and there is a big story behind this multi – millionaire company.
Starbucks was founded on August 18th 1987. The owners were Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl. Howard Schultz, who is currently the CEO, was not the original founder, he was a marketing manager, but still helped them make key decisions that related to their success. Starbucks was created in Seattle, first on 200 western avenue, but then later moved to Pike’s place market, which is a place in Seattle They created Starbucks because Baldwin, Bowker and Siegl thought that Seattle needed a better high quality coffee shop. Starbucks had a lot of agents to help them make big decisions. Terry Heckler, their advertising agent helped come up with the name! Heckler thought it should start with “st” because he thought it was very powerful. After some brainstorming they first settled on Starbo. However later they got the idea of the name Starbucks, which was based off the famous novel, Moby Dick. Starbuck was one of the characters. After they came up with the name and brand, they had to start selling things! At first Starbucks only was selling and roasting coffee beans, and wasn’t actually selling coffee. Surprising right? Later on, Schultz convinced them to sell coffee and not just the beans. This made a lot more people come to their shop, and that was how Starbucks started its road to success!
The reason Starbucks has gained its popularity is because of all people that come and buy from their store. But how does Starbucks attract all these people? Well, when they started to expand to places like Chicago, it was very cold there. Starbucks took this as an advantage and started selling warm drinks, which made a lot of people come there. I mean who wouldn’t want to cozy up with hot chocolate when it’s cold outside! When they started to send coffee beans to other states, it wasn’t really that fresh when it arrived. So they started to use “flavor lock” bags. When they put it in with the beans, it made them still flavorful and fresh when people got them. Variety is key to getting more customers. So when they introduced frappuccinos, people were going crazy over it! Starbucks also tries to include everyone. That’s why they opened a store, that has employees that speak fluent sign language, so people who are deaf can feel comfortable there. Something else that is really important is the environment of Starbucks. I don’t if you have noticed, but a lot of Starbucks shops have nice chairs, lots of places to sit and much more! In fact, the Starbucks in the Golden Horseshoe, even has card games for you to play! This makes more people want to come. They keep in mind everyone’s wages, and has good prices compared to the quality of their things. Also since they do a lot of advertising, (like in movies, posters ads etc…) more people will find out about their products and will stop by and buy something, which will make they business successful!
Expanding your business is very important because more people will know about it. That is why more stores results in more customers. Starbucks has a lot of shops around the world. Even planes carry it! But how did Starbucks expand its business? Well, way back in the early ages of the company, Schultz convinced them to expand out of Seattle and into other states. Also, when they started sharing stock, it was a big success and they actually gained $29,000,000 from just that alone! Isn’t that amazing! They used a lot of this money to expand on more shops. Also since they made a Starbucks app, people are able to order even when they are not there. This expands their business to something online, which allows more people to access Starbucks. They also expanded their business by making more high quality shops that have fancier items than usual. These shops are called a roastery. Inside you can actually see a big coffee roaster inside. There are tons of cool options you can get there, like coffee poured on ice cream and other things like that. They make these stores because they want to expand they shops and make a shop that has a really different and cool experience. It is also very easy for them to expand into different countries, because all they have to do is show them their existing business model. Expanding their shops is a way for everyone to enjoy Starbucks and also help Starbucks itself make some profit.
When you go to Starbucks, you order something that is made by the barista’s. But how do they get all these employees to come work for them? “Starbucks has taken an innovative approach that will increase employment opportunities” says Howard Rosenblum. There are some awesome things you get when you work there! Starbucks wants to help everyone have a happy life. That’s why Starbucks hires tons of refugees and is planning to 10,000 refugees by 2022. Also they are helping veterans and their families. Starbucks has employed 22,000 veterans! Additionally, Starbucks helps give the veteran education opportunities. These people all come because they need a job for their families, and Starbucks will help them because of all the trouble they have gone through. Now, once you start working there, things get pretty cool. Every week, employees get to have 1 or 2 free things. Also, anything they buy will be 30% off. If they are working hard and work for 1 year (this means no extra breaks or long absences) they can get 50% of the stock grant for the year. Full time employees also get health care and other medical needs. This means they have a very small part of the company. When make money, you make money. Did you you Starbucks will pay for your online college tuition? I know, shocking right?! But, you have use an online college from Arizona universities. When you finally take some time off and go on a vacation, Starbucks will actually pay for some of it! Starbucks will $10,000 for your newborn and time off. People work at Starbucks because of the cool things they get!
Being a really popular store means you will have a lot of competitors, which is exactly what Starbucks has to deal with. Starbucks biggest competitors are Dunkin and Mcdonalds. They are also competing with Maxwell house and Folgers. But where does Starbucks rank among its competitors? Sometimes it is hard to compare stores, because they are all different. Starbucks and Dunkin are heavily compared, Starbucks is more of a coffee shop, and Dunkin is more about donuts and food. But Mcdonalds is also very successful. This is because Mcdonalds was already super popular with its fast food items. So when they started to introduce coffee, it was automatically a big hit and many people bought it. Starbucks leads with 59.2% of how popular they are. Starbucks does have a lot of reasons to support they are better than their competitors. One thing that proves there awesome is that they have really quick service. Starbucks pretty much always makes your drink 5-10 minutes, and for the customers they have, that is super quick! Other stores that are popular, don’t go as quick. When you get your drink, you are never getting something really old. In fact, everything is super fresh and nothing is older than 30 minutes. I’m pretty sure most stores don’t do that! Starbucks is also more of a workplace than other stores. Starbucks offers free wifi so that you can work there. This makes them better than there competitors because they allow people to work there. It also helps their business because more people will come and buy things. People also buys things from Starbucks because of the great quality they have compared to other stores. They have really high quality machines that make delicious drinks. Also, the employees are super good and have perfected each and every drink. Starbucks ranks high among its competitors and will become even more successful!
Starbucks has done all of this to become really successful. But still, they could start becoming less and less famous. So how does Starbucks maintain its success? Well one big thing is making sure they make everyone happy. That is why they have a variety of choices and is pretty flexible too. They carry, regular, almond, coconut and soy milk. This is because more people will come again because of all the variety. They also have these many options because they are aware of allergies. If you are lactose – intolerant, you could have almond, coconut or soy milk. Or they could just remove the milk for you too. People may be hungry and not want a drink. It is very nice to also have food too. In fact, 20% of Starbucks sales are food. If you have a different array of things in your store, more people will keep on coming. This is because there are so many different things to try. Pretty much everyone knows what Starbucks is, because it is a very recognized brand. This means people will feel that they have a reliable coffee shop, which means they will keep on coming back since they know they can trust Starbucks. People also want to come back because of the cozy atmosphere. This is related to attracting customers too. But since it is so nice there, they will come back again. Marketing agents say one of the most important things is how they refer to themselves to the 3rd place. This sounds very confusing but basically this means you have 3 places you go very often. The first one good be your house, the next could be home/work and the 3rd one is supposed to be Starbucks. This implies that you would go there often. Getting people thinking like this, makes them go there often. Cleary, there are so many ways for Starbucks to maintain its success.
This all proves how Starbucks became is so popular. Something I learned that it could start from from just selling coffee beans to making a huge company. You have find ways to make your business strong just like Starbucks. So now I’ve answered my question. This all is why Starbucks is successful!
“Starbucks Outlines Growth Agenda and Announces Expansion of Starbucks Delivers in U.S. and China at 2018 Investor Conference.” Starbucks Corporation – Starbucks Outlines Growth Agenda and Announces Expansion of Starbucks Delivers in U.S. and China at 2018 Investor Conference, investor.starbucks.com/press-releases/financial-releases/press-release-details/2018/Starbucks
Have you ever been to Starbucks? I’m guessing you probably have. But have you wondered where they got all there drinks and coffee? Well I got to check it out for my site visit.
I went to the Starbucks Roastery In NYC. It actually ended up taking the whole day, but it was totally worth it! I decided to go to the Roastery instead of a regular Starbucks because i go to Starbucks all the time, so it was nothing new for me. Also, I thought it would be very cool to actually go see where they roast the coffee beans. When we got there, it was super crowded. As soon as you walked in though, you could see a big brass machine which was the coffee bean roaster. Luckily, we got to speak to 2 different people that would help learn about this place and also about Starbucks. The first person told about the roaster that they used. She told that in every Starbucks Roastery they have something that makes them unique. Like in Tokyo, they have Cherry Blossoms on the roaster. I thought that was really cool! Also another person who was a coffee bean roaster helped me. She showed us the process of how the roasting worked. Did you know that coffee beans actually start out green before they roasted? I never knew that! I also got to have their food of course. I got this dessert where they put coffee over ice cream, and it was so good!
Something that i learned was about efficiency. Since there are so many Starbucks shops, they need to make sure they can work quickly and get things done This is why they have a complex machines so that they can make sure they get everything done. They have even bigger machines in a factory so they can get more done. Going to the Roastery lets people understand how making the coffee works and how it starts from uncooked green coffee beans to the cup in your hand. I Think this was a really good experience because you actually get to see where you get your drink and see how awesome the process is! This me and my research because efficiency helps them make more coffee which helps them make enough so more customers can come. Also, It shows that they maintain their success by having these Roasteries to roast their coffee bean and also have a shop with so they are working and getting business.
Overall, I really think my Site visit was helpful and helped me answer my main inquiry question!
For part of the researching process, we needed an interview that will help us learn more things about our topic. Today I will be talking about the interview!
Since I was researching about Starbucks success, I thought someone who worked marketing would be good for me. I interviewed a man named Nikhil Gharekhan, who works in marketing. He works at a company called Ogilvy & Mather. Since he works in marketing he wouldn’t be expert on drinks and the flavors. This meant that a with my interview questions It had to talk more about advertising and expanding their business instead of the food and drink designs. Still making interview questions got really hard. My mom had to come help me because I got very frustrated! At the end, I got my questions done. Then, of course, I had to go interview him! He was really nice and was excited to give me more information. And get this, he actually does marketing for Starbucks! This meant that he could tell me a lot of information that a lot of people might not know. I was really excited once I heard this and was ready to start Get some information!
I learned some really important things from Nikhil. One major thing that he told was that they are your “third place”. I know what you are thinking, “what does that mean?” Well, basically it means it is the third place you spend time in. For example one place could be school or work, then next is at home and, the last place is supposed to be Starbucks. This means you spend a lot of time there, which is what they obviously want! Also another thing I learned was that people often come and stay at Starbucks because of the nice experience. I don’t know if you have noticed, but Starbucks a ton of seating options and gives you a cozy vibe that makes you want to stay! In the Starbucks in the Golden Horseshoe even has card and board games for you to play! Isn’t that amazing! They do this because maybe if you stay longer, you will decide you want another coffee or more food, which helps their business a lot! This is unlike other stores which gives an advantage to Starbucks and makes them nicer than other competitors!
Overall, the interview was super helpful and he taught me things I never knew before! Now, next stop: My site visit!
For our next step in the project, we had to find main inquiry questions and five sub-head questions. Today I’m going to share the experience of doing that!
A main inquiry question is a question which is supposed to guide our research. This also helps us make our topic more specific and narrowed down. Finding main inquiry questions was not that hard to be honest. When I picked my topic I kind of had a idea for my main inquiry question. Mrs. Cooper helped us brainstorm by giving us template and seeing if our topic fits into one of them. This did help get me to think of more questions. I was debating between two questions, “How has Starbucks evolved over time?” or “How did Starbucks become so successful?” At the end I decided on “How did Starbucks become so successful?” I picked this question because I really wanted to know all the marketing tricks they used and how they started from nothing and now is a super famous business that so many people know about. I really love my question and I think it will be super fun to research about!
Now that we had our main inquiry question we needed at least five sub-head questions. Sub-head questions also helped us guide our research. But sub-head questions also make sure we know what we need to research and keeping it organized. This was much harder than picking a main inquiry question because I had to find lots of questions instead of one. Something that did make a little easier was that it didn’t have to have questions that can’t already be known. One or two of them could already be known. Still, I got super frustrated at times. One challenge was that I didn’t know he wording for some of the questions. I would know what I wanted to research with that question but just didn’t know how to put it in a question. Thankfully I did get help by my teacher aid and interns and got ideas for word choices. In fact I ended up having six questions! My six questions were : “How did Starbucks get created?”, “What did they do to attract customers to come to their shop?”, “How did they motivate employees to come and help them work?”, “How did Starbucks expand its business?”, “Where does Starbucks rank among its competitors?” And “What does Starbucks to maintain its success?”
I think my sub-head questions and main inquiry question our awesome and that capstone will be a wonderful time!
In school we are doing a project called capstone. Capstone is researching a topic of your choice and making a big presentation about it. For the first part of this 7-8 week project, we had to choose a topic.
Coming up with ideas was a big thing because we had to choose a good topic that would keep us occupied for a long time. Mrs. Cooper helped brainstorm a lot in class and gave things to help us find the best topic. She gave a packet with a bunch of questions like what are your interests? Or who is someone you look up to? These were just a few of all the questions that were in the packet. Another thing to help us was a poster with different topics like economics or art. We were suppose to correlate our topic with each of those topics and make questions. This was to help look at our topic in new ways. After this I had a couple of topics. I was thinking of doing Netflix, Starbucks, or Hollywood! This process was challenge because at first I didn’t know what to do. I was so worried I wouldn’t get a topic in time! Thankfully I did find a few topics I liked.
I did have to finalize my topic and choose between all the ones I liked. Mrs. Cooper helped us do this by trying things with all our topics that we had and see which you could get a lot of information from. Like I mentioned before, we used a poster. But not just once, because we had to try a bunch of topics so we could see which one is the best! She also talked to us about what makes a good topic so that we could eliminate the bad ones and just be left with one or two that was really good. Brainstorming and finalizing the topic took about a week. It took a decent amount of time but not a lot. This was a very important week because it was the beginning of our entire capstone project. At the topic chose was…. the history of Starbucks! Even though it was hard I did finalize my topic.
Overall I’m really happy with my topic and I think it will give me a lot of information about things I never knew. I think capstone is going a super fun experience and I can’t wait!
I was super excited to interview my mom and find out a bunch of new things! Even though She is my mom and I know her very well, we never talked about her Immigration experience. From the interview l learned so much and learned some interesting things. I also had challenges though.
One challenge I faced was with my questions. My mom was only 3 when she immigrated so she didn’t really stay in her homeland for long. This meant she couldn’t really remember what her homeland was like or how was it different from America. This meant I had to change some of my questions so that she could answer it. Coming up with questions was pretty hard. I didn’t know a lot of questions that I could replace them with. Since I couldn’t find questions to replace all of them with I ended having less questions than what I started with. Instead of 12 questions, I had 10.
The Interview was really fun! I learned super cool things about my mom and their experience! I think the most interesting thing I learned is that the haven’t seen a lot of the same machines and technology we have. What I mean by this is that she and her brother had never seen an elevator or escalator before! I wasn’t until they reached America that they discovered all these things.This was surprising and interesting to me because these are something we use so often and we wouldn’t think that they are weird or different. But for their family who came from India it was new for them.
Overall, the interview was a really nice experience for me. I discovered a lot of things I never knew before. I now know her story and can’t wait to make it into a video!
We just started our immigrant interview project about a week ago. So far, we have made a lot of decisions. We had to make our interview questions and find a person to interview. Here is how we prepared for our interview.
The first thing we had to do was find a person to interview. This was a super easy part for me because I knew someone right away. The person I choose was my mom. My mom immigrated from India when she was a toddler. This was really easy but there was still more parts we needed to prepare. This part was the choosing interview questions.
Interview questions had two parts. One was coming up with the questions. The second part was organizing the questions and putting them in a order. I didn’t have a lot of problems finding questions, in fact I found a lot of them! But we needed open-ended questions. These were questions that you could elaborate on and not answer with a simple yes or no. However, organizing questions took a long time and was pretty hard because I didn’t know what her trip exactly was like and which came first.
Overall Rube Goldberg was really fun. Alina and I had many ups and downs but got through it.
One of the easiest things was collaboration. We worked well together and didn’t fight much. When we did, we would stop arguing quickly. We also learned to compromise well.
The hardest thing was definitely building. We realized so many errors with our design. We had lots of problems we didn’t think we would have. Also it was hard to find the materials we needed.
I am very sad that this is over and I had such a great time!
