Systems thinking applied to a telecommunication startup company : The nexiwave case

Telecommunication technology has had a profound impact on our daily lives. It has enabled organizations to be more competitive by reducing the need for physical proximity and fostering collaboration. In recent years especially, data networks have been especially prominent, with the obvious example being the Internet. Work that was once conducted by phone and fax is now increasingly being done by VolP, e-mail and IM. For years telecommunication companies had focused in making available communication between person-to-person as well as multi-person and mobile communication, but none had focused on the content of the voice communication. This thesis presents a functioning product to address the needs of such users by applying a systems thinking approach to visualize and manage complexity through the whole process from the product idea generation to the business model. A detailed assessment of the users' needs and description of the product's user-centric design is provided. User experience design principles and legal constraints were considered throughout the development process. We propose to add value and differentiate the product by providing users with options to manage the content of their calls. At the most basic level, we give free audio-to-text transcripts with built-in features that could users save time and be more productive. nexiwave was built using principles promulgated in the System Design and Management Program classes.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Authors dc:creator

• Munoz Jugo, Cynthia
• Jiang, Benjamin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Maria Yang.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55208

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/55208