As a requirement of the Entrepreneurship in Cybersecurity course, I am required to keep a daily log of my activities for each day worked. Generally speaking, in this journal I specific questions posed during the week.  Without further ado, we’ll start at week 1.

Week 1 Journal Entry Questions:

• Am I an entrepreneur?
• What is success?
• Am I a self-starter? How well do I follow through on my ideas?
• How does ODU view entrepreneurship
• What is my role in this ecosystem?

I am an entrepreneur in that I truly believe I can put forth a reasonable idea and product that will allow individuals to easier navigate their way into the cybersecurity profession.  Success, in this capacity, will be clear by my ability to define a problem and back-plan from that problem, to creating a solution. Along the way, there will be many failures; but failure is a sign of growth and progress so to that extent, success will be driven by troubleshooting these failures.  I am a self-starter and I will look to establish benchmarks along the way, showing follow-through on these ideas.  Old Dominion University views entrepreneurship as the ability for anyone “from any profession, experience, or background” to turn ideas into a business. I feel my role in this ecosystem is to utilize my current skills in research to help craft a product that makes it easier for students or professionals to chart their path into one of the many fields under the cybersecurity umbrella.

Week 2 Journal Entry Questions:

1. What is design thinking? Design thinking is neither a science or art; but rather a combination of them as it pertains to product development.  There are 5 parts of the design thinking framework:
   • Understanding the problem you are trying to solve involves generating a design challenge question which helps isolate the problem you are trying to solve. You must also develop a team to assist in the solving of the question of what the problem might be. Having folks on a dedicated team helps ‘cover down’ in the event of absences so that work can continue.
   • Ideate: Thereafter, the team has to collect data to develop insights so that additional ideas can be generated
   • Selection is when the team is able to refine their generated ideas (either original or combined) that meets certain criteria: feasibility, viably, originality.  Is the idea reasonable? Can it be achieved?  What is technologically and organizationally possible?  What are the costs associated with the viability? How will we fund this? Do we have partners? Is this product/idea different from what is currently on the market?  Do patents for these ideas currently exist? All these questions are answered in the selection section.
   • Prototyping: This is when action is taken to bring the idea/product to a testable, final end-product.
   • Validation: is when a company receives input from users about whether the prototype was liked/disliked, if the product fills a need, any areas of improvement, whether the sponsor is content, and if the company has the green-light to continue.

2.     How has design thinking influenced a product I use?  Look no further than the current iteration of the iPhone to easily see how design thinking has influenced the evolution of Apple iPhones.  With the first-generation model, the storage was very limited, the camera had no flash, and the applications could not multi-task.  Fat forward to today, and Apple iPhones have facial recognition, a digital assistant (Siri), multiple cameras, applications that multi-task, and a wide array of peripheral devices (Apple Watch, AirPods, etc.).  It is very clear from looking at the device, objectively, spanning years that Apple has been in a continuous pursuit of understanding and resolving problems.

3.     What are the connections between opportunities and planning? When it comes to understanding the connections between opportunities and planning involves establishing a very good structure of product research.  Which opportunities and, conversely, threats are the most relevant to the creation of this product?  The company has to perform significant research and a well-established action plan to ensure their product comes to fruition and enters the market. Even fantastic ideas sometimes flop because companies can lose focus.  This is the importance of structure. Further, opportunities and planning consist primarily of three items 1) What is your idea? 2) What does the market want you to do? 3) How can you do it?

4.     What opportunities have I missed?  To be completely honest, I have not encountered any opportunities in entrepreneurship that I could have taken advantage of.  That is, I believe, as a result of the types of careers I have held (primarily Federal) I would not really know or network with anyone that is in product development or entrepreneurship.  There have been no entrepreneurial opportunities I have missed that I can think of. 

5.     Can a successful venture be unethical?  By answering this question, we would have to have personal standards as to what successful might be defined as.  Can a venture make money or bring a product to launch while simultaneously be unethical?  Yes, it can.  At least initially.  However, bad ethical practices will soon turn into company turnover, a stunted growth, and a lacking of innovation via recruiting talented employees.  So, in my opinion, a venture lacking in ethnical standards and behavior cannot be successful in the immediate and/or long-term.  The business idea/product, no matter how innovative, will not thrive under unethical leadership.

Week 3 Journal Entry Questions:

1. Why do ethics matter in entrepreneurship? Ethics in entrepreneurship matters because starting a business, hiring folks, and ensuring your business practices conforms to high standards of ethics helps to ensure your business is successful in the long-term. Will short-term success be possible with unethical standards? Possibly, however, if a business engages in unethical behavior and standards everything that makes up that business will suffer; from recruitment of top talent, retention of current talent, and quality of your product. This is why ethics in entrepreneurship matters.
2. How does my own personal budget related to an entrepreneurship budget? A personal budget is related to an entrepreneurship budget in that everyone has to successfully manage their own personal budget to be successful individuals away from work. If I am unable to successfully budget my finances at home, then there’s no way I can be entrusted to, or be successful at, managing a budget that oversees employees. There is a definite nexus between success in both areas and this is how they are related.
3. Why do we need budgets? Budgets help an organization in a multitude of ways. It’s a financial tool that allows entrepreneurs determine the viability of the organization in a way that allows the entrepreneur to track, modify, and improve their business plans. Having a strong business plan and budgeting history is also another way that an entrepreneur can attract investors.
4. What is social entrepreneurship? Social entrepreneurship aims to apply principles of business to help address social problems. An example of a social entrepreneurship might be a bank specifically aimed to serve lower-income folks that would not ordinarily have access to banking services. The aim of this business is to help provide relief of such a social problem.
5. What are the most significant legal issues entrepreneurs face? One of the most significant legal issues entrepreneurs face is ensuring their product is not subject to intellectual property, copyright infringement. That is, the entrepreneur has to do a lot of research into products (and their own) to confirm that the idea/product they are creating, has not already been created by another individual or corporation.

Week 4 Journal Entry Questions:

1. Why do entrepreneurs get in trouble with the law?
   Entrepreneurs get into trouble with the law by now following Federal compliance law, not filing taxes properly, and copyright infringement. This is not an all-inclusive list but some of the key reasons why entrepreneurs might face legal hurdles early in their organizational development.
2. What does psychology have to do with marketing?
   Marketing and psychology have the nexus that when a customer purchases or invests in an item, it’s an emotional response to an external or internal stimuli. That is, it’s deeply personal. Some purchases and investments are more personal than others. However, the way a product is marketed is a key decision-point in getting the product out of development and into the masses.
3. What types of marketing sway my decisions?
   Me being a huge Star Wars fan, I pay significant attention to some of their action figures and packaging. The ones that pique my interest the most are those that speak to my sense of nostalgia from my childhood. The more nostalgic an item appears and is packaged, the more I will be interested in making a purchase. For me, it’s an emotional response to that nostalgia that makes me want to buy a product.
4. How can I pitch ideas better?
   I can pitch ideas better by developing and reciting an opening script that would allow me to speak to potential investors. I tend to trip over words and dialogue when I am excited about an idea that sometimes my messaging is unclear. Doing this would ensure a smoother opening pitch.
5. What are my strengths and weaknesses in pitching?
   As mentioned above, developing and reciting an opening script is certainly a weakness, as is coming up with answers to potential questions posed so as to provide a clearer picture of any given product. One of my strengths in pitches is being able to relate to a potential consumer on a personal basis. I don’t come across as disingenuous.

Week 5 Journal Entry Questions:

1. What are the connections between the disciplines addressing entrepreneurship at
   ODU?
   In my case, cybersecurity, business, and entrepreneurship kind of go hand-in-hand.
   Cybersecurity is 100% a business decision that should be engrained in everyone from
   the top of the organization down to the lowest-tiered members of the organization. In
   that respect, the connection between disciplines at ODU are clear: putting together a
   strong cyber-hygiene is paramount towards safe and expedient online access so as to
   minimize attack vendors of would-be cybercriminals.
2. Is entrepreneurship an art or science?
   Entrepreneurship is both an art and a science and I don’t believe it can be solely one or
   the other. Entrepreneurship is an art in that it has to be learned by going through the
   process. It is experiential. It is also science because there are very definitive
   processes that can be followed to assist the entrepreneur in becoming successful; a
   framework. However, both the art and science of entrepreneurship feed off of one
   another creating synergy for the individual/group of people hoping to make an inroad
   with their business plan.
3. How is failure good?
   Failure in entrepreneurship is good because it helps promote business-oriented growth.
   With failure, you can learn a multitude of variables that can translate to later success.
   What went right with this product? Why weren’t folks receptive to it? What can be
   modified? Did we misread our target audience? All of these types of questions can be
   seen as questions driven by failure but with these questions comes growth and a better
   product. This is how failure in entrepreneurship can be a good thing.
4. What have I learned from failing?
   Through failure I have personally learned whether certain activities, academics,
   employment were a right personal fit. It is an important mode of progress to become
   exposed to certain elements that are foreign. For me, it was taking courses in computer
   networking. Although I was successful at the courses, I learned very early on that I
   didn’t like the course material and subject matter. I wouldn’t classify this as a complete
   failure, but the point I am attempting to make is that by going through something
   experientially, whether you failed or simply disliked it, has value. In my case, I knew to
   pursue a different course load for the next semester.
5. What ethical issues might arise related to what I am working on?
   The main ethical issues from the project I am working on is to ensure the confidentiality
   of those that submit a questionnaire. In my normal day-to-day job, maintaining
   personally identifiable information is extremely important and if there ever was a leak in
   personal information, that could potentially be an ethical violation. Being able to
   maintain that confidentiality with the project I am working on would be paramount. The
   other ethical issue is to not, in any form, relate the results to any vendor certification.
   The whole idea in this project is to provide information to the individual and to better
   inform them of their career likes/dislikes. Mentioning any certification could make it
   seem as though I am pushing for the individual to pay money for certifications. This is
   not the case