1. Paper Campaign (Sustainability): Place a months supply of paper reams - which is 610 - by stairs to dramatically show the huge amount of paper used, and watch it quickly dwindle away as it is used. Alongside, each student will be emailed their individual paper totals each month (possibly with the average use among students for a benchmark), along with publicly displaying the total paper use numbers on the TVs throughout the building and percentage increase/decrease from previous month.
2. Massage Therapists (Morale): Partner with the Natural Health Institute (or other academy) to come in once a month to offer massages. We would reserve library rooms and sign ups for time slots could possibly be done online through GPS. The institute needs bodies for students to practice massages on, and Owen can provide those bodies. It is a win-win.
3. Owen Gear For Incoming Students (Awareness and Branding): Currently, the Vanderbilt name has much greater awareness and esteem than the Owen name. And while our solution is something small, it is something that we are surprised is not already done. (This might have been done in years past, but it didn't happen this year.) First year students were not given anything with Owen branded on it. Nothing. We would simply work with the school to provide simple items such as car stickers and coffee mugs to incoming students at orientation. Students are excited about being a part of Owen and will use them with pride, which will get the Owen name out there. And for the amount this school costs, the absolute least thing they could do is toss in a window sticker.
Cheers,
The Idea Distillery
(Brian Burchfield, Vineesh Kapoor, Blake Knight)
Interesting ideas guys. My ranking is 2, 3, 1 in terms of priority.
ReplyDelete2: Great idea in that I would be super stoked to have a monthly massage. Not sure how we can budget this in, but if you can please, please do it!
3: Branding is a great idea. It's a long road ahead, but if the school has the goal of being top 10, then branding is critical.
1: While I know being green is important (I'm from SF), putting up a pile of paper makes me almost want to be more wasteful. I hate when people try to impose their will through dramatic gestures. Maybe it's just me, but it makes me want to act out against and be more wasteful. But maybe I just have problems with authority.
My favorite idea is #2. Students are overworked and overstressed at Owen, and this would be a great selling point for prospectives!
ReplyDeleteMy least favorite idea is #1. What an eye sore!
For #3, many of the clubs provide owen gear - the GBA does mugs, the VMA sweatshirts, 100% owen - t-shirts, AMPED - hatch print... you get the idea. These primarily work as fundraisers for the clubs, so I would hesitate to take away from that, but maybe you can do something to COLLABORATE with them on Owen gear.
#2 is awesome. I would pay $20-$40 per hour for a massage. I think most students would sign up for the massage as well. We'are all stressed and tired. What better way to recharge our batteries.
ReplyDeleteI dont know how feasible the idea is due to its cost, but #3 is a winner to me. It is HORRIBLE that we do not receive any Owen/Vandy branded clothing. Polo shirts, t shirts, hats? How much can this cost our school? Basketball/Football/Soccer players receive free clothing to advertise the school and their respective programs. It's about time Vandy and Owen got serious and started offering the same incentives to Business School students (we do pay over $42K a year to attend). For starters, give Owen students the football teams clothing budget. They don't deserve to receive free clothing this season...
Great ideas!
ReplyDeleteNumber 1 is a great idea - I think it's imperative for Owen to be more "green" minded. We definitely like to talk the talk, but we're not walking the walk.
Number 2 is a cute idea, but I'm not sure how long this idea would last. Seems like it might have some excitement at first, but might fade away. Are students paying for this?
Number 3 is great!!! As a marketing person, I think there is a lot of room for improvement in this area. We are the best way to spread the word about our brand and all we need are tools to do it! Plus we would get free stuff! Love this idea!
My all-time favorite idea: MASSAGES!!!! If you could make this happen, I'll change OUR innovation idea to hanging a portrait of your team in the downstairs hall.
ReplyDeleteYour third idea is a great idea. Building a brand by simply having t-shirts and sweatshirts is a great idea. Designs must be approved for the use of Vanderbilt logos, but it's a great way to show some school spirit. Justin Hawkins is a good person to speak with about the process.
ReplyDeleteI think idea # 3 is absolutely necessary and severely lacking from a branding perspective. This appeals directly to me as a Marketing person (like Kimberly) and I think there is tons of room for improvement! It's almost somewhat embarrassing the lack of Owen branded items we currently sell on campus, not to mention the fact that most of it is super cheesy and not "fashionable." :) I think not only is it important to get buy-in from first years by giving them some Owen branded items, but I think it's important for marketing the school as a whole to have viable items that people will be proud to wear or show off! (sweatshirts, t-shirts, coozies, bumper stickers, etc.) Go Owen! Go Vandy Business!
ReplyDeleteI really like ideas 2 and 3! I worked at a company that brought in students frmo a massage center to offer discoutned massages. You're right - they need practice. Many of them offer discounted rates since they're in training. Many students also have limited budgets. This is a good match! It could do a lot for morale at Owen.
ReplyDeleteThe Owen gear would be really popular! Do we know why this hasn't been done? Is it merely a cost issue? If so, maybe it's worth thinking about a cost you could cut from Orientation to reconcile the extra spend. What was something you found unnecessary or not as valuable as this other stuff would be?
Nice variety of ideas!
I really like the #2 and #3 ideas as well. I was definitely a little disappointed to not receive any Owen gear during orientation and it would help a lot with branding. I would love to see the Owen name more representated vs. just Vanderbilt.
ReplyDeleteI like the massage idea, and agree that it could be a great fit. My only concern is that some people might find it awkward to get a massage at school, just like people find it awkward to get one in public places like the mall.
I agree with the branding idea. I am shocked that you all didn't receive anything during orientation - we did last year and I believe they did in years prior? I would be interested to hear how you all would go about building this branding and what buy-in you would need where, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe massage sounds fun! (We used to get those once a month in my old office, and it was such a fun perk!) My thought is, though, that a massage is not something that I want Owen to be spending my tuition dollars on . . .so, if club or group wants to organize a fundraiser and then people can sign up or something like that, I'd be all for it. Otherwise, maybe not.
Idea #1 is brilliant. Not only would it be effective in reducing Owen's egregious paper waste, it would function as effective PR. That's the kind of thing one might find in an article written about the school. It's a very high-visibility type of idea -- something that would be routinely remarked upon -- and it's feasible and practical. Love it.
ReplyDeleteI love the massage idea! Would it be offered for free to at a reduced cost? It would definitely help reduce my stress level and I would complain less about being in school =)
ReplyDeleteI would also appreciate some Owen gear, as a lot of university-labeled gear is greatly overpriced. I'd definitely start wearing Owen clothing to the tailgates!
I'm not sure about the logistics of #1. How would you track individual paper usage? Would it be with a printer card as suggested in one of the other projects?
I really like idea number 3. I don't understand why this year's class didn't receive any Owen paraphenalia. It is the perfect marketing/ branding. Idea number 1 would be cool if there were really a way to measure each students paper usage.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I like your ideas!
ReplyDelete#2 is my favorite. I need the message! In terms of #1, some ideas are suggested on COPA's post as Cindy mentioned.
Lots of good ideas here.
ReplyDeleteYou are right--paper use should be monitored (and charged for). This has come up a few times in the past, but the people with the power to do it are afraid to since they perceive that students will be violently averse to it. (It is well known across campus that Owen is one of the few places with free printing so lots of people actually come to Owen to print. or they print to Owen and fail to come pick it up.) If we are training to become pseudo-economists, let's put the cost where the consumption is. Feedback about consumption will change behavior (as will locking out outsiders from across campus.)
Getting a massage "at work" seems weird to me. (But maybe I've been away from California too long!) Could signal a lot of different things, not all of which are positive. (e.g., students at Owen are so stressed that they need on-site massage.) How about chartering a bus that takes student members of the "4-handed massage club" over to the parlor each month.
Owen has gear made, I'm not sure why they don't let the students buy it. Ask Yvonne Martin-Kidd about that one - that's a no-brainer. Even a display case-based company store that has hours only once a week would work. (Would also be open on Welcome weekends and like.)
Nice ideas
ReplyDeleteFor Paper Campaign (Sustainability), how are you going to keep track of who is using the paper and who would be compiling and emailing students of their individual usage.
Have you thought of keeping track of the paper we use as a school for a month and converting it to the # of trees and informing students of that? That may be dramatic but i think it could be effective and easy to implement
BTW - your second idea is awesome! You could even charge a nominal fee which can be donated to charity!
ReplyDeleteThese are great ideas! I think that option 1 does not directly address your main goal though. It's a great idea, but will it really enhance the students' experience? It might actually make it more frustrating if you have to worry about the amount of paper you use to print (I'm totally for this idea, but I'm just thinking it doesn't directly relate to your main goal).
ReplyDeleteOption 2 could definitely be feasible. My company used to do this actually. Every other Friday a massage therapist would come to a conference room and you'd sign up for a 15 minute slot if you wanted a massage. I think it cost like $15 and you would just pay her on the spot. It was a nice feature of the company, which was voted one of the best companies to work for a few years in a row. I think this could be easy to do and if the cost were fairly inexpensive, students would go for it.
Option 3 meets your objective and is easy to do. Our class (2011) received water bottles with the Owen name last year and I definitely still use mine.
I agree with some of the other comments that you're not really improving the experience with idea #1 unless your overall goal relates to sustainability. With that said, I like #3 the best. It is amazing that there are so few avenues to show our Owen pride; by providing Owen gear to Owen students during Orientation you would take a giant first step in that direction.
ReplyDelete