My Innovative Company

From Innovationclass

My Innovative Organization - Hear Me Out...

I’ve decided to run my own school club here at CU devoted to campus-wide education on a variety of issues. It will be called “Hear Me Out…” or HMO. We have only 25 members who are interested in starting this club but hopefully we end up growing. While I know that there are numerous similar clubs already in existence, this one will be interested in involving and organizing all of the current clubs but also bringing “actual issues” into the face of CU students while also informing the community of these issues.

While creating this educational club, I began with environment and then considered the structure of the club. First off, we will not meet in a room rented out of the UMC. Instead there is ample housing available on the Hill where we would have our headquarters. The house we chose is a two-story brick house located on 12th and Pleasant. The second floor is devoted to the clerical and office duties. Here you will find the phones, computers, desks, copy machines, etc. Here is where we do all of the planning and organizing for each event. Each room has a different theme. These themes are based on different song lyrics, which would be painted on the walls and would be changed every other month. Also, instead of filling each room with standard desks, there will be a few beanbag chairs on the floor and lap desks for those who desire to change things up. The first floor would be completely different. It would be a student lounge and game center. The first thing that students would see is a text screen surrounded by a white board. Students could text anything they want (within reason.) There is a TV. in one room equipped with a Wii and an Xbox. Outside will be a basketball court that can be converted to a skate rink in the winter. There is also a computer room with three computers in it for encouraged blogging, IMing, and searching. The kitchen would be stocked with a stove, grill, margarita machine, and a refrigerator. Food would be donated from restaurants on both The Hill as well as Pearl Street in exchange for free promotions to CU Students. Students would receive meal coupons for attending events, good grades on tests, and just random involvement at the HMO house. Coupons would be good for a meal or drink. Drinking would be encouraged because a lot of us (students especially) are more inclined to speak their minds or even get more creative with alcohol. The catch, however, is that there would be a three drink limit (similar to the Rio) and B.A.C. would be monitored randomly—to encourage a better understanding of alcohol and its effects on each individual. With every activity, information cards would be placed about the history of that activity and the innovations within that category For example, on the basketball court, there would be note cards stating the history of the game and fun stats as well as MVP quizzes. There are also lunge chairs and couches in the main room available at any time. The last room would be a sound proof bedroom available to any quest speaker that comes in.

The team would be on a volunteer basis only but all volunteers would have to go through an interview process with at least 15 of the 25 original members. There isn’t one single person in charge of everything but each event will have its own committee and that committee would choose an individual to spearhead that specific event until it’s completion. The benefits of being the leader include exclusive meals/activities with the speaker for that event. Anyone can be on however many committees they want at the same time but you are only allowed to spear-head one at a time and you are not eligible to be elected for two events in a row. This is to encourage group work as well as personal quality because everyone wants to prove that they are qualified to head an event (since their peers are the ones electing them as the leader) so they will give each event their all but will also be required to have “down-time” to rejuvenate and not get burnt out since you cannot lead two events in a row. Once a week, (generally on Mondays but not necessarily every single Monday) we will hold a team meeting to update everyone on the status of current events as well as plan new events. This is where we will also make the elections that determine office room lyrics, event leaders, and the location of the next meeting. This is because we will never hold a team meeting in the HMO house. Instead it will be at a different location in Boulder each time. No repeats. They can be held anywhere, the UMC, Rec Center, restaurants, parks, hikes…it doesn’t matter. This will encourage us to know more about the county that we all live in as well as come up with the most creative idea AND sell that idea to the entire group. One member of our staff would be scheduled to monitor the texting screen for ideas, comments, and general entertainment. This person would be required to write down everything (regardless if they see a purpose) because the only way to remember everything is to make it tangible and save it. That way we could look back at the comments during our staff meetings.

The main purpose for out environment and our organization is communication. By having casual discussions and encouraging a community within the school but separated from it—we hope to have a better pool of ideas generated.