By interviewing different stakeholders using the different compass perspectives, I was able to learn a lot about “Living in Bintan”. I was able to learn how different parts of each of these compass perspectives was able to either hinder or support the livelihoods of the people, as well as why some concerns may have been raised by the locals. I was able to learn especially about how each of the different compass perspectives tie into one another and how one of the issues in a certain compass perspective can be very directly tied in to being a cause or an effect of an issue in another compass perspective.

I was able to learn that the degradation of the environment is heavily impacting the fishing livelihood (in terms of Nature), the preservation of culture was still treasured in the village and the children are still being taught to preserve and be proud of their culture (in terms of well being), the development of resorts in the area is seeing a large shift from fishing to employment in these resorts and as a result a higher average income (in terms of economy) and how the genders in the community can play very different parts, for example most of the men would go out to fish whereas the women ran private enterprises such as the production of coconut oil, or tailoring or the production of fake grass patches (in terms of society).

It was important to go through this process because, in order to create the most effective solution we can, we need to collect prior research and thoroughly research what our problem is in order to combat it. It was also important to look at these issues through the compass perspectives, because in order to create the best solution the problem needs to be tackled from all angles. There is a risk of only trying to tackle it from one perspective because there could be much more long term consequences to doing this; trying to solve the issue when taking all of the perspectives in mind means that the solution can last for a longer basis and whole it may not work as effectively in combating the concerns in some perspectives that others, it still finds solutions for most or all of these.

When my partner and I presented our compass perspective of economy, I think the thing that we did best in terms of content was that we were able to draw and clearly explain connections between all of the trends that we found, and how they all interconnect with one another and are leading to the final issue that we are trying to combat, which is a negative impact and the degradation of the culture and the environment. Showing a cause and effect cycle helped enhance my partner and my’s understanding of the economic trends that were affecting Bintan, and the way that we described each of the trends that we noticed helped this as well; the clarity of our presentation based on the language that we chose to use was key in this, I believe.

The trends that we found were also very diversified, in the sense that we did not stick to talking about a central theme but instead branched out and tried to think as out of the box as possible; I think that this is evident in our presentation, since we not only covered the occupations and livelihoods that are the main boost of the economy, we also talked about the government’s impact through its subsidies as well as the value of gender roles in the workplace and how the value of women’s jobs may well go up over time.

I think that something that I could work on while presenting,  is having more of a flow when I speak; I think that I can work on pacing myself better because at times I felt that I could ramble on much too fast. I think that another factor that I can work on is maintaining eye contact with the audience, even when I am not speaking. I caught myself shifting my head from side to side, or looking restless at certain points so I think that keeping that attention and staying on topic is very important.