Jamie Moore Reflection

Jamie Moore is the Director of Sourcing and Sustainability for the Company Parkhurst, the family owned company responsible for UNE’s dining services.  His career began at a young age working for Eat’n Park, a small chain restaurant that soon became a large group that incorporated Parkhurst. Moore, a major fan of food, has made that the center of his whole life.  His primary focus is to make sure that the food that comes into this school is from sustainably grown sources. He has been visiting places all over New England that source the food we eat and enjoy everyday. Who is he visiting?  He is visiting family owned businesses that put a major focus on quality and sustainable food sourcing. This stuck out to me the most of all of the topics he brought up over the course presentation. I thought it was incredible that a University, which holds thousands of students, can be supported by small locally owned food production businesses while being able to satisfy everyone.  

Moore began talking about the delivery of food and what goes on behind the scenes of the food transportation process.  I never knew there were so many different ways of transporting food from farms/sources to schools and businesses that need it.  He explained the Milkman Model, a less sustainable method where the food is produced on farms and then immediately transported to the customers.  Next was the Hub and Spoke Model, which is when one distributor goes to farms from all over and then transport it to locations from one central hub.  Lastly, he brought up the Distributed Delivery Network, which is a bunch of Hub and Spoke Models that all go back to one central hub and then gets transported from there.  This is common for large corporations such as Target and/or certain products that are hard to be taken from the source directly.  

The food label was another part that got my attention.  I knew of the ecolabel that is put on Tuna cans if they are proven to not include dolphin or other species of marine life.  I didn’t realize that there are labels on chicken eggs, proving that they are either cage free or not. I feel as if this is a crucial topic that he discussed, simply because it is good for people to truly understand where their food is coming from.  If they don’t know where the food is coming from, they could be supporting corporations that are acting in non sustainable ways, leading to further harm to what is involved. I think it is important for people to know where their food is coming from and that it is being produced in a sustainable way.  Eggs are eggs right? If that’s the case why don’t you get the best, most clean form of eggs you can get?

 How has the e-portfolio enhanced your learning?

This e-portfolio has enhanced my learning in a couple ways. The first is that i learned how to truly use it the proper way. Before this class I knew a little bit about this program but not the the scale I know now. I have found that I am better at posting assignments because there is a better layout on the e-portfolio software. I can easily submit something to the correct space with word press. I find that my organization got better once I figured out how to use the e-portfolio to its potential. I am glad this tool had been implemented because I can now use the skills I learned here in other classes that may include the e-portfolio. It is important to have these skills and I feel as if it is something I could see myself using in the future and now seeing that I have had a lot of experience using this for the e-portfolio. I see myself using this in my career for projects that may pop up over the rest of my life. I am glad I got to experience this and learn from what it has to offer.

How have we communicated during the Coronacation?

Over the course of the online learning phase of our semester, communication has actually been really easy with Professor Cariddi. As soon as the whole online learning process began she immediately reached out to the whole class and began getting us started. With this came the ability to reach out just about any time with her to discuss any issues we had. She made it very easy on us to get through this, a lot better than some teachers. I was able to ask her any questions through the zoom platform during one-on-one meetings as well as after discussing the process with my partner. She was able to help me through the final project as a whole and make it an easy transition for me when the school got switched to online. I honestly appreciate how on top of this she was and how easy she made it to communicate. She is definitely one of the best professors I have to communicate with. She made it easy for me to not have to many questions meaning that I could easy flow through the remainder of the course.

Project Management Tool

Why did we choose asana?

Asana was what we felt to be the easiest and most user friendly site. We went through all of the offered sites and we read information on each and every one. We then created some accounts and attempted to put in the information we needed. With some, this was no problem, but with others, we had a hard time navigating the site, making it a difficult experience and ultimately turning us away from those sites. Asana was the one we found to be best fit for what we needed and it worked out for us for the rest of the semester.

What is asana?

Asana is a project management tool, as we all know, but it is able to break down any project you have into many different sub categories to be able to break down the assignment into parts. Also, Asana allows you to assign different parts of the project or assignment to group members and have them work on separate things at the same time. This is mainly what we used Asana for, to create deadlines and assign one of us to each subtask. You can also share what your project is with other people, make comments about all of the tasks and sub tasks, create normal reminders that are not necessarily task but just normal to do items.

How good is it?

Asana was what we felt to be the best of all of the soft wares. It does a great job at keeping you on top of your work and will instantly remind you if something is approaching that you haven’t completed. We found it very easy and very reliable to keep ourselves ahead of the projects for the most part. If something is not checked off, it will tell you. Asana keeps us focused on what needs to be done for when, without it I certainly could have fallen behind. Asana works just as it is described and I couldn’t think of anything to change if I tried.

How much effort to learn?

Asana was very easy to learn because it told you exactly what to do right when you signed up. It told you how to create tasks and mark them as completed. It told you how to assign people to certain tasks and make comments on what needed to be done. It told us everything we needed to know. The best part was we only needed a certain amount of the software to get what we needed done so it was very easy for us to learn it.

Any problems and rating?

I personally did not have any problems with this software, I felt that it did everything we needed it to do easy and effectively. I would give it a 5 out of 5 for what we needed to do. It did everything perfectly and I am glad we chose to use this software.

My final verdict?

I can see myself using it in the future, I don’t know how much, but I definitely foresee it. I don’t see it being mandatory but I do feel that if I have a project to complete, I will know how to use this and what its capabilities are. I think if I am struggling to keep myself focused on tasks, I will use Asana to help me in my future years.

This shows us creating tasks, checking them off as complete, and commenting/providing information on the process and topics.