Client:
Director of Alumni Relations (Marshall Turnbull)
Revised Problem:
Marshall has an office in the Owen Management Building that not everyone knows about. Her problem is VISIBILITY.
- Visiting alumni do not about her or her office.
- Some current students do not know about her office.
- Both visiting alumni and current students are not aware of her whereabouts.
- Both visiting alumni and current students are not encouraged to visit her.
(3) Solutions:
1) Create a Business Reply Card (BRC) for visiting Alumni that asks for updated information and invites them to visit Marshall (description of where her office is). Train the receptionists in CMC to give them out to all visiting alum. In the event Marshall is out of the office there will be a mailbox outside her door where the alumni can leave their BRC.
2) Signage - develop a new signage strategy. Ideas include:
· signs in front of both main entrances
· a sign at Marshall's office
· a programmable LCD sign in front of Marshall’s office that could also be used for Welcome Alumni greetings.
3) Create a new process where a weekly calendar is generated through OCNS for Marshall. She can decide whether or not to invite visiting alumni to her office prior to their arrival. In addition, the greeter at the CMC will have a system of notifying Marshall when alumni arrive (buzzer, intercom, email, phone call etc.)
The Innovative Affair's "Where in the world is Marshall?"
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I reall like the idea of dedicating an LCD screen around Marshall's office posting upcoming Alumni news etc. In addition, there should be a sign as well. Increasing her visibility is important with students but more important with Alumni. The BRC seems plausible as well.
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ReplyDeleteI think #2 is a great idea to allow more visibility towards alumni relations at Vanderbilt. This will allow updated information for alumni visiting campus but what about alumni that are in other cities? Implementing a better program through internet/email, would be a suggestion.
I think #2 is your best bet - signage. The other two ideas require people to cooperate and you can't count on that. People get busy and lazy. A sign will always be there to do its job!
ReplyDeleteI like the signage idea. I believe there might signs outside her Owen office, perhaps what she needs are better signs in better locations. The LCD sign might be hard to implement, but would be pretty cool.
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ReplyDeleteI think that #2 is the best solution for solving the problem you are describing. Because I think that the other solutions just will solve small parts of the problem while #2 is a more wide solution.
ReplyDeletesignage might be difficult to place and be awkward in that location. i like the ocns alerts so marshall can get in touch personally with visiting alumni. creating a card would just give more paperwork to visitors and it would just get thrown out anyway. if the ocns alerts are automatic, it wouldn't require a lot of effort to maintain.
ReplyDeleteBoth the 1st and the 2nd solutions are very desirable. If you show the detail type or fuction of LCD in the 2nd solution, your innovation will be greater.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in your signage idea as I think the signage is pretty bad overall at Owen. Maybe there could be something (like on the vanderbilt website) that presents a "map" of the building based on their "role". prospective students would see one map - (e.g., they may not care where "executive programs" office is, but may care more about "admissions"). Alumns would see another map (maybe with Marshall's office highlighted, and a few old-timer faculty offices listed as well), etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteIf it were a cool touch panel near the Owen entrance that would be REALLY cool and it could also have a mechanism for showing (to those of the appropriate need-to-know roles) whether she's in and if not, where she is.
Does she want to be "tracked" passively or does she want it to be "active". You might pursue a different line of solution based on her feelings about this.
There are a few things that are already being done on this front. The OCAP (Owen Corporate Ambassadors Program) has been setup by Dean Bradford and Peter Veruki to be take care of a few of these things. For example, the Corporate Ambassadors will connect with different people in the building, espicially the Dean's office and Marshall/DAR to let them know about alumni and corporate visitors.
ReplyDeleteI think the signage is a good issue, both for marshall and for Owen in general. The OSGA is taking a whole project on redoing all the signage at Owen. I dont think we thought of a touchscreen map like Dave mentioned but we are working on a plan for better, more professional signage. Asif Shah Mohammed is the point person for this project in the OSGA. If we work together, we could make this happen quickly - or at least get the ball rolling in the right direction.
Also - Amy Zimmerman puts down every alum that is visiting on behalf of the CMC in the main OCNS home page when you login.
Great ideas. Good Luck!
Great problem to tackle! Marshall definitely needs a P.R. campaign!
ReplyDeleteI really like idea #3 - especially if you extrapolate on it more. Using a "real-time" process that provides Marshall with insight regarding her opportunities to contact potential visitors would be helpful. It doesn't seem like alumni are the only ones who don't have enough information; but Marshall as well needs more access to information about visitors so that she can target her strategy for making connections.
Anything that provides Marshall with more information could be incredibly powerful. . .
I think this is an extremely compelling issue and one that is definitely worth investigating. As a future alumni, and maybe this happens already, but I would love to have Marshall stay in regular touch with me about how I can help current and future students at Owen. I think deeper involvement in the curriculum to some degree even as early as Orientation could also help along with the solutions that you all have suggested. I really like solution 3; an expansion of this to include in some way alumni beyond just the ones who are actually visiting campus would be ideal.
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