Students Offer an Outside Perspective

January 7, 2013 by Taylor Studios in Other

For anyone who doesn’t know, our office is 22.01 miles (according to ) from Wohlers Hall, the home of the College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This college was my home for four years back in…well, it was my home for four years. When I graduated and moved away a year later, I never expected to be back in central Illinois nor did I ever expect to be all that involved with anything at the college.

Starting in 2008, however, I began working with the lead by . As stated in last semester’s syllabus, “The main purpose of the course is to contribute to the development of professional standards and practices in consulting and to provide direct experience in consulting activities.” Over the past five years, Jeff’s classes have completed four projects for us.

The first project was our marketing plan. We had a plan, but it needed to be fleshed out a bit more with deeper research into the puzzling exhibit design-build industry. With the multitude of research sources available at the , the consultants produced a very good plan which we used with minor tweaks until this year.

The next two projects were research projects that looked into possible new markets for us to target in order to diversify our revenues. Some new markets considered were themed caskets, art car kits, themed hospitals, and a haunted house. With the reports produced, we were able to make informed decisions whether or not it would be beneficial to pursue these seemingly outlandish ideas. We still very much like the idea of creating our own haunted house, but with new regulations surrounding haunts, it’s looking less and less feasible. It’s still in the back of our minds though. The hospital concept is one of the most viable and we have done a little hospital work, but would like to do more. The themed caskets and art car kits proved to be choices we shouldn’t pursue.

Most recently (last semester) I worked with a great group to once again revise our marketing plan. Anyone outside this industry typically has a hard time grasping everything we do. More often than not, when explaining what we do to friends or family, we get a nodding “huh uh” that clearly shows they don’t get it, but don’t want to say so. So, for these students to jump in and give us a plan that makes sense in less than 12 weeks is pretty cool.

It’s always good to have an outsider’s perspective from time to time. Many of the ideas offered in the new marketing plan weren’t earth shattering ideas, but having someone mention small tweaks here and there that we miss because we’re so closely tied to what we’re doing, is invaluable. This is one of the reasons I will continue working with the consulting classes. I love having the opportunity to work with these students and seeing our business from their viewpoint.

When we begin new projects for clients, we visit their sites on our own, as a visitor, first. This gives us the chance to offer our outsider’s perspective before meeting with the stakeholders. The Markets suggestions in an interpretive plan may not be earth shattering, but they will be action items that could have big effects if implemented. Same goes for exhibit designs. Many of our recommendations are based on our observations as first time visitors and may be pretty simple, but could have big impacts.

What’s one of the best tips you’ve gotten from an outsider that you implemented?