Day-Day-UP.com

Welcome to Day-Day-Up.com
This is a platform for early age children to learn knowledge in a playful environment. Our Team represents an early education center and we are in collaboration with an Animation Company to establish a virtual company named day-day-up.com which is conducive to increasing our competitive advantage in the emerging industry of early education.

Significance of Collaboration

Early childhood education is developing in recent years and our customers are children from age of 0 to 6 and the parents. According to a survey of early education market, it predicts that this industry will be prosperous with an increasing rate of 7% to 8% in the later ten years. On one hand, more and more parents pay attention on early education. They realize that early education is highly important for children’s growth. Therefore, they want their children get the best pre-school education. As an old saying in China, “Don’t lose on starting line.” On the other hand, children are always playful and curious about everything around them. As there aren’t any noted brands and definite regulations in the industry, most early childhood education centers are still seeking for development to occupy more potential markets. As a result, by cooperating with Animation Company, we can provide interesting anime products and services in various subjects to attract more potential customers.

The decentralized virtual organization is suitable for our collaboration. our innovations are relatively autonomous since the main part of innovation is the animation company and early education center is primarily in charge of giving advice and feedback to achieve the teaching purposes. Furthermore, the capabilities of innovation are relatively easy to get.

Our virtual communication is digitized since community members can correspond through BBS, MSN and Skype. Normally these communications are text-based for long-term and also can be archived though video or voice chats. Thereby, virtual community takes greater competitive advantages than corporate entity in the contemporary era since it can save time, lower journey costs and increase individual flexibility comparing to face-to-face meetings.

Unlike an entity, a virtual community is a collection of individuals who interact digitally to share common goals, process, knowledge and skills. Thence, this type of virtual collaboration can be beneficial to making talents with complementary skills and abilities together to complete relatively difficult or innovative tasks. For instance, our center provides talents with early education expertise and long-term design experience of early education products while Animation Company has creative anime designers and professional anime producing personnel.

Virtual Organizing

To establish a satisfactory virtual team structure, several requirements are needed to follow. Based on the Virtual Collaboration Model developed by Powell, Piccoli and Ives, there are four dimensions integrating the whole virtual collaboration which are inputs, outputs socio-emotional processes and task processes.

Except for the inputs and outputs playing the beginning and ending roles in the whole process, the socio-emotional process and task process are critically. Firstly, the socio emotional process is the same as relationship oriented process because relationship building needs the team cohesion and trust membership. In terms of task oriented perspectives, enough internal effective communication and friendly coordination are necessary in addition to suitable technology structure supporting.

In line with the above requirements, we can build a successful virtual community via online platform. In the beginning, we set up our mutual objectives and clarified responsibilities. For our collaboration, the prosperous future for both companies is our initiative consideration and what we want to achieve finally is to actualize the maximum economic values by providing diversified products, personalized services and an animation experience museum. In this collaboration we have a common recognition that our knowledge, skills and technical resources are complimentary and this professional integration will make a big profit for both entities.

Specifically, the first three vectors are the key access to keep the collaboration moving successfully in the long term as they play important roles to build connection among the early education center, Animation Company and customers in the whole collaboration process.

Virtual  Organizing
Vector	Form	Example
Visitors Interaction	New virtual  union	Online communication platform  (IM, BBS)
Asset   Configuration	Resources Coalitions	Fair  regulations, Sharing database
Knowledge Leverage	Professional Expertise	The combination of  early education expertise, animation design and  producing skills
Target Locus	Inter-organization	General and individual animation  preschool curriculums
Performance Objectives	Sustained innovation and growth	Create a “ Learning in Playing” environment

Visitor Interaction (Virtual Encounter)

We have a strategy to virtually connect with our customers which focuses on capturing information and leveraging knowledge. We collect customers’ (both children and parents) feedback on their website accounts. These information will be analyzed by the researcher and then stored in the database. We developed appropriate mechanisms so customers can reach us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We believe having good communications with customers is conducive to satisfying their needs better.

Meanwhile, the virtual company’s staff communicate on BBS as well as instant messengers like MSN and Skype.

Asset Configuration (Virtual Sourcing)

In order to achieve the mutual goals, we create a sharing database which is another significant part of the internal platform on the website. Within this database, we share our resources, knowledge and information to accomplish products and services design together.

Our organization has a logic of sourcing which means distinguishing the assets to manage inside from those that can be assembled via relationship in the business network. We have a systematic approach for identifying the modules that we can obtain from external partners. The corporations are increasingly relying on external sources not only for support activities but also for critical resources. In the virtual collaboration organization, each firm balances its leadership position relative to one set of resources, with secondary roles related to other complementary resources. What’s more, each organization is dependent on relationships for assembling complementary capabilities. We want to create interdependencies within our processes across organizational boundaries.

And we have also considered process outsourcing to allocate internal resources to high-value-adding areas. If the operation of collaboration organization is beyond the capability of our two companies, we consider outsourcing a best way to solve this problem.

Knowledge Leverage (Virtual Expertise)

Our collaboration organization recognizes the importance of knowledge and intellectual assets in creating value. Our ability to make processes effective is increasingly supported by improvements in IT functionality. We treat knowledge as a corporate asset. During the collaboration, the two parties develop effective routines for sharing knowledge and expertise.

Introduction to Our Website

Our official website is www.Day-Day-Up.com which is composed of two parts. One is the internal platform including database and BBS for information exchange of two parties. The other is external website for displaying products, downloading APP and creating customers’ accounts and so on.

Through our collaboration, we create three products and services to provide creative and professional curriculums for early age children including general products like Books, DVDs and APP, personalized service for VIP and a real experience museum called automated projectionist machine (APM).

General Products: Books, DVDs & APP

Books, DVDs & APP are our virtual company's flagship products which apply to all students of our Anime Early Education Center.

The preparation for our cooperation is each of the two companies should establish a core group to lay a solid foundation for the following virtual cooperation. For example, members of the core group in the animation company should specialize in different academic fields, have rich experience in early education and possess good interpersonal communication skills. Meanwhile, the group leader should define the goals as well as delegate and empower members.

Overall process

First of all, for early education institution, we upload the specific content of each course to the shared database and at the same time illustrate teaching purposes of each course to facilitate the animation company to come up with some innovative curriculum design and animation products imaginatively. Also, we are able to give some advice on viable and original design concepts according to our teaching experience.

Next, the design team and the technical
team of the animation company jointly discuss the manifestations of the content to ensure the playfulness and technical feasibility based on our advice and their ingenuity.

Afterward, the design team members produce different types of pattern, design various cartoon images and make these elements well organized creatively and the technical team members make the final product sample coordinated with outcome of their discussions by applying their specialized animation technology. In addition to BBS, we take advantage of instant messengers like MSN or Skype as mediums for the day-to-day communication with innovative design ideas and hold video meetings to deal with conflicts.

The standards of early education center's feedback on final products are if they can meet two demands as comprehensive content and interesting manifestations since achieving these two objectives can be helpful for children to grasp the early education knowledge comprehensively and effectively.

Content

Our main courses are Chinese ancient civilization, intelligence development and English. In addition, according to the children's age and ability to learn, all students are divided into two classes, junior (0-3 years old) and senior (3-6 years old) ones.

Firstly, for junior classes, Chinese ancient civilization is composed of two parts which are the Three Character Classic, and the Tang and Song. Listening and reciting Three Character Classic helps children to understand Chinese traditional virtues and be familiar with basic Chinese characters. Learning Tang and Song is conducive to cultivate good moods of the early age students. For the senior classes, Chinese history stories and fable are more suitable since these narrative articles are beneficial develop children’s reading and writing abilities.

Secondly, intellectual development is an indispensable part of the elementary education as it is the basis of learning other subjects. Effective curriculum is helpful to develop thinking and logical analysis capabilities. Junior trainees are suited to learning basic reasoning project like graphical and numerical reasoning. For advanced students, exercising four operations of numbers seems to be more fit and meaningful.

Thirdly, for an absolute beginner, being familiar with the alphabet, phonetic and common noun are very significant. Common nouns usually refer to animals, people and daily necessities. For advanced trainees, the learning content should be simple English sentences and day-to-day behaviors of the English expression.

Teaching purposes

(a) Chinese ancient civilization: learning the etiquette of life and focusing on character cultivation; being familiar with the commonly used Chinese characters and preliminary understanding of ancient Chinese literature common sense; nurturing memory and imagination capacity.

(b) Intellectual development: focusing on the training of thinking to cultivate logical reasoning and abstract thinking ability.

(c) English: adapting to an English-speaking environment, understanding the English pronunciation and learning English phonetic symbols; being familiar with English letters and common English words, learning daily English sentences and mastering simple English expression.

Advice in manifestations

Combining with our day-to-day teaching experience and curriculum research, we give some recommendations on how to use animation as followers:

Books & DVDs: The content can be expressed in a simple connection of cartoon pictures or completely dynamic cartoons. Thereby the content of the book is a DVD screenshot. According to each sentence’s artistic conception of the Tang and Song, the design team members design a depicting cartoon drawing and then technical group ones link them with appropriate recording. However, dynamic cartoons are more suitable for Chinese history stories and fable. Besides, in order to recognize different things especially graphs, four operations of numbers can be expressed as various animals, daily necessities and geometries. The most effective way of English teaching is to integrate English, music and animation closely. That is to say, the alphabet song and English nursery rhymes containing daily necessities and characters are easier for children to understand. 

App: The content on the App mainly adds some interactive parts in addition to all content on books and DVDs and all students of our early education institution can download the App from our official website free. 

For instance, for Chinese ancient civilization, we can set up some fill in the blank so that students write different verse according to different pictures. Moreover, for digital and graphic reasoning, doing multiple-choice is suitable for trainees and they are required to finish them by independent thinking. Furthermore, English songs with the dance moves or gymnastics demonstration can make children learning while dancing which is conducive to experience the fun of learning.

Personalized Service for VIP

VIP can create an account on our website“www.daydayup.com” and log on the individual service channel. In this special area, each child has a tutor from our education center to help the child formulate the child’s study plan.

Parents can provide the information of children’s personality, interest and their expectation on their personal accounts. Then tutors design individual courses for each child and upload the specific course content and teaching purposes to the database of VIP. When Animi Company completed the samples, parents can download them from our website and give feedback on their accounts directly. The Animi Company should revise the samples several times till parents are satisfied.

Experience Museum: Automated Projectionist Machine

Automated Projectionist Machine (APM) is an innovative application. The shape of APM is a machine like an automated teller machine in the bank with walls and a door. In other words, it’s an independent space which shows early education knowledge in different ways.

Ideas

The Automated Projectionist Machine’s function is similar with a cinema in which projectors are operated to show films. Children can see three-dimensional movies here. In each room there is one keyboard, a couple of headpieces with headphones, digital glasses and a toolbox. In this room children can choose different learning topics depending on their interests such as insect specimens collecting. In the toolbox, there would be a stick with a net in one end, a cage to storage digital insects and a machine to desiccate specimen in a quick and safe way.

Apart from small rooms prepared for individual learners, halls are provided to those children with friends or their families. When learners began to play, they chose the same course while use a bigger toolbox together. The cameras around would capture their actions and reactions to produce instructional videos about how to cooperate with others.

Specific Process

Our internal platform of the application is composed of two parts as payment system and information and resource system. Above all, parents should insert their payment cards into the card-punching system and the fees are determined by the courses and items. Take “insect specimens collecting” course as an example, the items here could be how many kinds of butterflies you can capture in the course. The more types that parents choose the more fees should be paid. The payment system includes education center’s account and Animation Company’s account. Once the parents defray, incomes are stored in education center’s account while the animation company could get the revenue it deserves after parents’ confirmation. Meantime, parents’ choices are reflected in the information and resource system. When the commands are received, information of responding animation courses and items would send to APM.

The effectiveness of natural learning is far better than traditional courses. They can understand the characteristics of insects more intuitively. In addition, children can utilize some tools in the toolbox which are applied in laboratories like test tubes, the machine to desiccate insect specimen and setting board for fixing insect specimens.

Challenges & Solutions

In the first place, as a virtual company, it is difficult to build trust among members comparing to corporate entities. Secondly, as a leader of virtual organization, how to manage all members effectively is an issue. Thirdly, building experience museum is costly since we should provide several digital equipment.

For the first challenge, we can take the two measures: one is holding a face-to-face meeting within the first week to establish a base of familiarity and trust and the other is having more maintenance communication like offering encouragement and discussing “non-work” issues online and so forth.

For the second one, we should encourage self-management to improve individual performance. The leader should take specific actions as follows: Firstly, providing directions and commitments for members. Secondly, encouraging small wins to reinforce team spirit. Thirdly, appraising both team and individual performance to improve engagement level.

For the third one, we can offer a trial. On the basis of the customer volume and the amount of costs and revenues in the trial period, we can predict the prospects of the application and be clear about how to set a price or reduce the costs. Moreover, courses and items in the experience museum should be innovative and attractive to expand our customer base. As a result, investing in the application is a good choice in the long run.

References

1. Darleen M. Derosa, Richard Lepsinger, Virtual Team Success, San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, c2010

2. Henry W. Chesbrough & David J. Teece, Organizing for innovation: when is virtual virtuous, The Innovation Enterprise, August 2002.

3.  Powell, Piccoli and Ives, Virtual teams: a review of current literature and directions for future research, The Database for Advances in Information Systems - Winter Vol. 35, issue 1, 2004

4.   Ashley C. Woodworth, Community and Identity in Contemporary Physical and
  Virtual Spaces: Toward Integration, Electronic Theses and Dissertation, May 2011

5. Charlene, The Challenges of Working in Virtual Teams, Virtual Teams Survey Report, 2012

6.   Golnaz Sadri & John Condia, Managing the virtual world, Industrial Management, January/February 2012

7. Wise Geek-What is a Virtual Community http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-virtual-community.htm

8.  Factors Influencing Virtual Teams http://www.seanet.com/%7Edaveg/articles.htm# Factors