The UO NVC idea elevator is back!!!

In the actual NVC elevator pitch competition, competing MBA teams have one minute to sell their business venture to a panel of judges.  As a campus awareness piece to promote NVC 2009, we brought back the NVC idea elevator.  Not only does the idea elevator raise awareness for NVC, but serves to teach students the importance of being able to give a succinct pitch of one’s business idea in the time it takes to ride an elevator.  Here’s a student pitching an idea during day one:

The NVC idea elevator booth with continue today and tomorrow from 10-4 in the Lillis atrium. Come pitch your idea!!

Prizes include: $100 UO bookstore gift card for the best idea, $100 UO bookstore gift card for the worst idea, and an iPod nano will be raffled for general participation

Prizes will be announced on the NVC website 03.09.09

Here are the results from last year’s NVC UO idea elevator, will this years ideas compare??

NVC Ignite Portland video

So, here it is!  The video our AHA team created for NVC‘s Ignite Portland sponsorship (extra extra extra special shoutout to Josh & Andy for their wonderful video skillz…with a z!)

All strategy, art directing, acting, and music was created and produced from/by members of our AHA NVC team:

a day in the life of a student run ad. agency

I always seem to be talking about AHA and NVC, but I don’t think I have done a great job explaining these crazy acronyms.  

AHA stands for Allen Hall Advertising. AHA is not pronounced as A.H.A…it’s AHA! As in…Eureka!  We are a student run “ad” agency…or communications agency…or how about idea agency?  We have three accounts, UO Sustainability, Talk, and NVC.

NVC is an international MBA business plan competition hosted by the UO Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship.  Through a generous endowment from Tim Boyle/Columbia Sportswear, the AHA NVC account runs the branding and communications campaign.

This year…Kristin and I are co-managing the account – Kristin as the “external liaison,” serving as the Account Coordinator and myself as the “internal liaison,” serving as the Account Planner/Strategist.  It’s been quite the journey with a steep learning curve, plenty of trials, tribulations, sleepless nights, overflowing email inboxes and of course F.U.N. FUN. (=

So without further adieu, I thought it might be fun to show a little of a day in the life of AHA and NVC:

One of our first meetings back in Sept. – we began to brainstorm for our campaign by drawing.  Thinking abstractly of a business plan competition is actually quite helpful. 

If NVC was a mode of transit, what would it be?

Our team conducted about 30 in person interviews as well as data from an online survey.  This is during an interview Anna and I gave:

Team bonding is very important for good work:

Working on the press kit at 3 am is a must: 

Again, a solid team comprises people you would want to see outside of work!

Last week AHA brainstormed past failures and successes of AHA accounts…and how we can use these as learning experiences:

here’s one of the successes – Sustainability’s garbage monsters as a UO campus awareness piece:

Here’s another success – from last year’s NVC team – the NVC idea elevator which also served to raise awareness at UO:

ah, watching the NVC magic happen:

hhmm sometimes odd things turn up around the j. school; however, that’s what keeps things…interesting…and to be interesting we have to be interested, right?

Our team, as drawn by Evan:

Cell Phone Photojournalism: Part 2

The Vintage – amazing food in Eug.

The Hand Clinic has a festive duck

UO ad. portfolio class

Look at all these idea books!!

a day in the life OF NVC!!!!!!!
editing the press kit until 3 am is f-u-n.

taking a break from NVC/press kit

I did a project finals week: i started a compiling everything i found in ballmer during finals week. conclusion: j. school kids are messsssssy

trying to study in Lillis, Thursday night of finals week is never effective. so, why not take pictures?  and p.s. I also realized at this time what a nice b. school building UO has.  Could you imagine if our J. School building looked like this???

PUZZLE!!! found for $1.99 at Goodwill. Purchase of the century

my street is a giant downhill sheet of ice/death trap…this is day 1

pencils, frisbees and candy

This past week I went to Ignite Corvallis.

I think my favorite part of the event was the trade show.  For a more serious reason, I was able to talk with the OSU business school representatives, specifically about the entrepreneurship program.  As I am eating, sleeping and breathing NVC these days, anything related to new ventures, business schools and MBA entrepreuenrship programs catches my eye.

The single most important question I like to ask is: Why do MBA students choose your entrepreneurship program over other programs?  The answer from the OSU rep. was because it has a flexible schedule with night classes that allows students to fit the program into their schedules – entrepreneurs are also brought in at the end of the term to have the students pitch their ideas and receive feedback.  One interesting thing about OSU’s program is that there is a resident hall specifically for these students to live in order to create a community of like-minded individuals.

When talking to MBA students in the entrepreneurship program at U of O as well as international MBA students who compete in NVC, it seems that the single most important aspect is the experience.  Both seem to be more “full time” than “part time” and the community feel and educational aspect provided by the community of MBA students, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seem to be repeated qualities of both U of O’s Entrepreneurship program as well as NVC.

ANYWAY, onto the more exciting part…the tradeshow…

Why is it that companies feel obligated to supply pencils (with erasers that smudge the lead), XXL t-shirts with the company logo, frisbees, candy in a bowl (usually the candy no one likes), text heavy pamphlets, and employees in khakis and matching colored polos??  Out of all the things one could provide to represent a company – why pencils and frisbees???  I just. don’t. get. it.

I did like this guys booth though – I have no real interest in his product, but I stuck around to look through the board because it was an interesting visual element: