Operation Improve Student Life at owen

Our stakeholder is Jeff McCullen. He is a first year Owen student. He is an athlete and all around laid back guy. He finds himself spending significant amounts of time at Owen and his eating habits, social life and athletic ability have suffered. He gave us little direction but feels that pretty much anything we do will help improve his situation.

Three Concepts:
1- Lunch Orders. Wouldn't it be nice if you could log onto Owen Central right before your first class and input a lunch order so that by 12:50 you would have your lunch delivered to you? No more wasting time walking to Subway or fighting the evil Wendy's across the street. Grab lunch. Head to meeting. Continue on with life.

2- Owen Football. Long day of classes? Didn't have time to hit the gym? Wanna tackle the cute co-ed in your ops class? What about tackling the professor who gave you a lackluster P for what surely was a SP performance? Sign up for Owen Football!!

3- Owen's Got Talent. You spent 24 years of your life playing an instrument. You have perfected your singing voice. Or maybe you are a poet or a dancer. Time to showcase your talent at the Annual Owen Talent show. Even if you don't have a talent you can respectably showcase to your classmates - it is always nice to see others perform. Maybe your favorite professor will show you his ballroom dancing skills.

Tell us what you think.....

24 comments:

  1. The first idea is fantastic. I would imagine that it would be easy to set something like that up with Jason's Deli. They already do takeout. I would use this service all the time.

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  2. I like the lunch idea. It is a great way to control ur eating habit and be more healthy

    And football seems fun but its not for woman :-(. We can do a gym class in Owen (some first years are doing it by transfering classroom to a gym area where u can do aerobics).

    Owen's got talent is a great idea. I used to live in a dorm (back in Sydney) and we had IH Idol which is same with American idol. This annual event was very refreshing for the dorm residents and was a great chance to socialize every time we attend the rounds. I can imagine we have something like that at Owen.

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  3. A lunch ordering system would be ideal for Owen students. Although I'm not sure it'll help enhance anyone's ability to opt for healthy choices during lunch hour, the perceived benefit would be huge for current students. I would only suggest that you educate everyone on the payment process - could we participate in some form with a Commodore Card?

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  4. I love the lunch ordering system! I bet there are some businesses that would love to do more lunch business and would be willing to have an additional employee deliver meals here if the quantity were large enough. I agree with Beeland - I would use that service daily! Great work - I hope this comes to fruition!

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  5. Lunch ordering system would be incredible at 8:10. Even just having a few pizzas delivered daily for students would be a great way to get started then charging per slice, or splitting a pizza between a few students.

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  6. I've heard several students suggest this lunch idea. The 810 Cafe owners would probably be up for it, Laura has been asking around to see what we all want.

    If it could be ordered online, that would e ideal. Order on our phones during class.... pick up after class and go on with our day. Fabulous.

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  7. Ideas 1 and 3 are great. 1 would be easy to implement and would get great use. A link on Blackboard would be a great reminder, it could be as easy as reserving a room.

    I like idea 3 as well in terms of improving the culture of the school. It would be fun to see the talents of other students, but I think you would want to make sure we could get some people willing to perform. Great stuff!

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  8. Idea 1 would be awesome!! That would be a great help to all students - especially with all the meetings in between classes where we don't have time to grab something to eat. I'm not sure technically how you could do this, but if you could, I would use it!

    Idea 2 is necessarily for me - not a football player type of gal.

    Idea 3 would be lots of fun - great Kegs idea.

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  9. I think ideas 2 and 3 are great ways to continue building the Owen community, whether it's football or any other type of games/competition. There are potential benefits to these activities to enhance relationships among 1st/2nd years, and MBA/MAcc/MSF students (e.g., roster requirements for having players from different class/program).

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  10. Great job, I really like all of your ideas! I think that idea #1 is awesome and would be used by so many students here at Owen! It's tough to remember to pack your lunch, or let's be honest, to take the extra time to do it! That being said, lots of students are scrambling around during the lunch hour to get something quick (especially if they've got a meeting during lunch!) and this would help solve a lot of their problems and save lots of time while doing it. An online service would be super convenient and we could get the support of local area restaurants/businesses who would love our business and maybe even give us special discounts or coupons! ;)

    As a football lover, I think idea #2 would be lots of fun too! It's a great way to bond with people and bring the Owen community together. Like Jake said, it doesn't have to be just football, you could expand to other games. 100% Owen has thought about doing this as a *Clash of the Classes* event so if you have any interest, feel free to talk to me or someone else on the board! Good job!

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  11. The lunch idea is brilliant! I hate having to battle the lines, although it is the only time I see daylight on many occasions. How would such a system be managed? Online ordering isn't available in one place from many restaurants in Nashville right now. Would you coordinate with the 8:10 owners? Would you hire someone to deliver and distribute lunches to students? What is 200 people order on the same day? Not likely, but possible.

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  12. Great ideas! Like everyone, I love the lunch-ordering idea. Could it be extended to breakfast and dinner too? I think there are people who would order in the morning and at night too. Maybe there could be a 7:30am or 9:15am service as well as a 5:30pm or 7pm service.

    Also love the talent show idea and it made me wonder if there is a way to leverage people's talents to meet others' ambitions. For example, if I wanted to learn guitar - how could I identify an Owen student who knows how to play and might be willing to teach me - for money or for free or whatever? This could help students become aware of each other's talents and also foster exposure in a more continuous way than one talent show - and maybe help us meet people we wouldn't otherwise meet through class/social circle/work group/etc. But I love the talent show idea too!

    Awesome brainstorming!

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  13. I really like the lunch ordering idea - maybe if certain delivery places were selected for each day of the week? That might make the lunch delivery process a little easier.

    I also really like the Owen Talent idea! Maybe we can incorporate this into Follies? Or maybe that isn't the right forum? I think kegs might also be a good opportunity for the Owen Talent show.

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  14. I don't like No.1. First-years already focus a lot on group working or meeting stuff, you need some fresh air! But I do like No.2 and 3. It would be very interesting to see the sports going on in Owen and make the students and faculty even closer, which sounds good. No.3 would be a great way to know more about your classmates and definitely more fun after class.

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  15. As for idea 1, while it's a fantastic idea, it's an idea that's already been very well-served by online delivery service vendors in the past and not something I suspect you will be able to improve upon in the scope of this project. Although... having said that, the likes of delivery.com and seamlessweb.com haven't really made it to Nashville. All we seem to have is campusfood.com, and there you have a handful of pizza places and one chinese restaurant (not that I've looked or ordered lots of junk food from there or anything).

    So... if idea 1 can be implemented, it's a winner. It's done well in other cities, and why shouldn't Vanderbilt take the lead on developing it in Nashville? Perhaps you can focus on restaurants that offer healthy food options -- as opposed to Chinese food and pizza :). If I could order a nice Cobb salad for 1p everyday, I'd do it in an instant -- convenient, full of bacon, but it has tomatoes and lettuce so I can fool myself into thinking that it's healthy.

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  16. Heck -- if you could work with the Law School's surprisingly delicious cafe on an online pickup reservation system, that'd be incredible.

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  17. Big fan of idea 1, you just need to be clear on clearly establishing a defined process. Who will meet the drivers upon delivery? The key is to develop a streamlined process to make things easier to coordinate since it might be hard for the restaurants to make a bunch over trips over to Owen. Maybe have two order submission deadlines-one at 9:45 for delivery at 11:45 and another at 11 for delivery at 1.

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  18. Like everyone else, I really like your first idea. Working with the 810 cafe owners to have them implement would alo make things easier for you.

    For #2 - there are already people participating in an Owen flag football team. How would this be different? Would all teams be Owen teams?

    #3 - I really like this idea! I would love to see the talents of everyone at Owen. Would you do this at the end of the year? That might make it hard to implement in our timeline... but it could also be a really fun Thursday night kegs. Who would be responsible for organizing (i.e. would you pitch this to a club to take over)? If a club handles it, I think it would have more chance of becoming a regular event.

    Great ideas!

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  19. I really like the Football idea; I would like more of an ultimate fighting experience.

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  20. I vote for Owen football. I mean, we have health insurance, and a first-rate hospital, like, next door, right?

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  21. All ideas are unique and relatable..
    #3 sounds most doable..

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  22. I like the idea of Owen Football but think similar exercise can be gained from a sport that would require less preparation and equipment.

    That said, I understand hockey is very popular at Tuck and that they have entire leagues for first time skaters.

    Whatever the sport, I think the team aspect must be maintained as this is in keeping with the collaborative ethos of Owen.

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  23. Since football is expensive and can only be played outdoors, how about Owen ping pong? Apparently it's getting very hip: http://newyork.spingalactic.com/dirtydozen.php Maybe an Owen tournament could be fun - or even just a table somewhere in the building. (That's real ping pong, not beer pong.)

    There is a pseudo talent show called follies that happens every year at Owen. It can tend to be a little mean-spirited and so your idea for a talent show (a celebration of people and not a ridicule of them) may be a big improvement over that. Even a physical or online "gallery" of talents would be neat - instead of the glass case of dusty books! A student "Talent Council" could curate the talent gallery each mod.

    I see the problem you are addressing and since it is a little vague you have lots of different directions to move out (which can be good or bad). I invite you to consider how to get your ideas to align more closely with something in the school's strategy or mission or culture. That will give it more adoption power and longevity by beyond the life of the assignment for this class.

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