Independent Component 1

LITERAL:

(A) I, Sara Baggia, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 36 hours of work.

(B) Sources that helped me with my independent component 1:

• "Plant Gift Guide - 1-800-FLOWERS.COM." Plant Gift Guide - 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. N.p., n.d. Web. 2015. http://www.1800flowers.com/plant-gift-guide?flws_rd=1.
• http://conversations.com/
• This website was useful because I was able to study their investment management and yearly reports. http://investor.1800flowers.com/
• Julie Mulligan Floral Lifestyle Blog http://www.1800flowers.com/blog/julie/
• This website taught me floral and plant care as well as useful handling tips. http://www.1800flowers.com/blog/

(C) Independent Component is pink section under Senior Project Hours Log.

(D) Explain what you did:

Throughout my SME senior project, I have focused more on the leadership aspect and in return neglected the most important aspects of the stores, which are the fruit and flowers which is now the highlight of my independent component!

I want to outline my independent component 1 to make it more clear to break down and explain:

1. Research: The basis of what I did was mostly my own research on how to design the fruit and flower arrangements. Whenever my mentor hires new employees, he has to make sure they have just the right amount of experience in floral and fruit design. Not too many years or too less months. Here is why. In order to be trained for 1800Flowers based arrangements, you have to be very flexible. You need to be able to adapt to different designs based on what the customers order. Keeping in mind, sometimes the customer orders with specific instructions. When I started my training for independent component, I worked with 2 women named Blanca and Maricela. I would say they are also part of my research. Most of my research as you can see above is from the 1800Flowers websites. I also have books that they provide for every season, which are posted below under "Interpretive". These books have pictures and instructions for each arrangement.
2. Studying: In order for you to be an owner-manager for a business you would need to understand what your employees are doing. In a fruit and flower shop business I discovered that this means studying the names of the flowers, plants and fruits. I spent many hours with flashcards trying to study those so that when it was time for me to make the arrangement I knew what the instructions were about, even without looking at the pictures. This also helps with time. I can not waste valuable time as an employee trying to figure out the names of our products. This also includes names of arrangements. On the wall of our flower shop, we basically have a mural of all the arrangements. But during crunch time we can not focus on trying to find them.
3. Fruit Design: Before my independent component, I was already an employee at the fruit shop. I already know the basics of fruit design and chocolate covered strawberries. During my independent component however, I feel like I have mastered this art to its full extent. I can now create any fruit arrangement. I still need to manage my time, an arrangement should take no longer than 30 minutes to create. This helps me understand my employees. By mastering this myself I am not only able to lend a hand anywhere its needed but I am also able to teach new hires.
4. Flower Design: I have never worked with flowers in my life. Surprisingly it is more difficult to work with flowers than it is to work with fruit. Since our flower shop is barely even 1 year old, this is my first time actually working with flowers. I had to read many blog posts from http://www.1800flowers.com/blog/ in order to learn the basics. I also had help from our two employees, Maricela and Blanca. They demonstrated, I learned, I made. I made a few arrangements which are posted below under "Interpretive". I picked some of the more difficult arrangements so that I could start strong. I am still trying to master the art of floral design.
5. Managing: Sometimes my mentors take a break and so they let me manage the store for a few hours. Managing the store is basically managing the employees and making sure the right arrangements are made ready for the drivers to deliver.

In summary, my independent component is  compilations of my individual contributions to the stores as well as my independent training of creating and designing the arrangements. I trained myself because I was already observing how to make it from my mentorship and my research helped quite a lot.

INTERPRETIVE:

Defend your work, explain significance, and provide evidence.

I created/designed these arrangements:



Blanca is demonstrating how to make a bow in slow-mo. This is the bow seen in the flower arrangement on right picture above.  

These are examples of the books that contain orders we have to create from 1800Flowers. These books give specific instructions like a cook book. I had to constantly use them for my reference when I practice. There are different books for each season. Right now we are using the one on the bottom left.

APPLIED:

Include examples to how your independent component helped you understand the foundation of your topic.

My project is Small Business Management and my Essential Question is "How can a fruit and flower shop owner-manager best organize and grow her family business?"

In order for me to understand how I can organize and grow our family business first I need to start from the bottom:

I need to relate with the employees. The only way I can do this is by working along side them and learning how to make the arrangements myself. That is why I focused this component on training myself.

I need to understand basic terminology. I worked on memorizing and learning the different names of the arrangements, flowers and fruits. I can not waste my time looking through pictures and pictures to find out what a word means.

I need to learn management skills on my own. What I discovered is that there are many management books I can read but unless I actually place myself in that position I will not be able to realize my strengths and weaknesses. I can relate to this because of my leadership in Robotics and Diversity clubs.

These 3 elements combined with my previous understanding of how our stores function helped me understand the foundation for my topic.