Day 6. May 31, 2007
At 7:00 AM, teams were doing “dry runs” of their presentations for MAPCO tomorrow. We began Day 6 with a session on Innovation lead by Dr. Owens. The teams focused on factors that constrain innovation and the process of innovation.
At 9:30 AM, we loaded the bus and headed off to our next big adventure – the launch of Project 3 – Gomez Photography (www.gomezphotography.com). As we arrived, the Accelerator teams walked into the middle of a swimsuit photo shoot – a male model was reclined on a motorcycle – female model was in the makeup chair. Michael Gomez (Nashville photographer of the stars) spoke to our 5 Accelerator teams about his company. His business has grown solely by “word of mouth.” Gomez has challenged the teams to help him develop a strategy to expand his brand and enhance his client mix with additional “lifestyle” clients.
In the middle of the launch, Gomez selected 2 of our Accelerator participants – Meg Clayton and Emanuel Gunn – for an impromptu photo shoot. Both young people were put in the makeup artists chair and then set up for photos. Emanuel was set up in a cell phone ad photo shoot, Meg in both a coffee and a retail clothing ad. I’ll post both pictures tomorrow.
Over a working lunch, the teams met to assign their team roles and set up their strategy.
Team 1 (Moreno, Fox, Carpenter, Bowling, Mayer, Black, O’Brien, Bernard, Oetting) selected Travis for their team lead on this project. Team 2 (Patton, Taylor, Lindsay, Reese, Ledlow, Clayton, Dornfeld, Jaimes and Sindel) selected Lauren for their team lead on this project.
At 7:00 AM, teams were doing “dry runs” of their presentations for MAPCO tomorrow. We began Day 6 with a session on Innovation lead by Dr. Owens. The teams focused on factors that constrain innovation and the process of innovation.
At 9:30 AM, we loaded the bus and headed off to our next big adventure – the launch of Project 3 – Gomez Photography (www.gomezphotography.com). As we arrived, the Accelerator teams walked into the middle of a swimsuit photo shoot – a male model was reclined on a motorcycle – female model was in the makeup chair. Michael Gomez (Nashville photographer of the stars) spoke to our 5 Accelerator teams about his company. His business has grown solely by “word of mouth.” Gomez has challenged the teams to help him develop a strategy to expand his brand and enhance his client mix with additional “lifestyle” clients.
In the middle of the launch, Gomez selected 2 of our Accelerator participants – Meg Clayton and Emanuel Gunn – for an impromptu photo shoot. Both young people were put in the makeup artists chair and then set up for photos. Emanuel was set up in a cell phone ad photo shoot, Meg in both a coffee and a retail clothing ad. I’ll post both pictures tomorrow.
Over a working lunch, the teams met to assign their team roles and set up their strategy.
Team 1 (Moreno, Fox, Carpenter, Bowling, Mayer, Black, O’Brien, Bernard, Oetting) selected Travis for their team lead on this project. Team 2 (Patton, Taylor, Lindsay, Reese, Ledlow, Clayton, Dornfeld, Jaimes and Sindel) selected Lauren for their team lead on this project.
Team 3 (Watson, Gottfried, Grumney, McGill, Shafer, Carpenter, Kierstead, Puchon, Agostino) selected Mark for their team lead on this project. Team 4 (DeBenigno, Carroll, Gunn, McGuire, Smith-Mui, Nordholm, Peterson, Klaevemen, Fettig) selected Charlie for their team lead on this project. Team 5 (Reif, Taylor, Zhang, Kemph, Hennessey, Smith, Aro, Denman, Daugherty) selected Burleson for their team lead on this project.
We returned to Owen for 2 follow up classes. The first was led by Kimberly Pace on how to build “Word of Mouth” marketing campaigns. The second was led by Cherrie Clark, formerly with Bain Consulting – covering the basics of being a consultant.
At 5:00 PM we did a briefing for tomorrow mornings business breakfast – we have 25 companies visiting Accelerator 2007 from 7:00 AM – 8:00 AM tomorrow. Students will be doing their elevator pitch tomorrow morning as they introduce themselves to these companies. They’ve been equipped with business cards, portfolios and bios on the visiting companies. This will provide an exceptional laboratory in which to practice meeting people in business, building relationships and making a first impression.
After a fast dinner, the teams returned to their Team rooms to finish assigning team roles for their Gomez project, Clarify the data on hand and begin market research. Speaking members of the team for MAPCO huddled to do final dry runs of their MAPCO presentations The teams clocked 15 work hours today. Thus far, we’ve clocked 80.5 work hours in six days. Tomorrow is a GIANT day – Business Breakfast, Presentations to MAPCO and a Fortune 100 Corporate visitor. Carol, Kristin and I sat through team dress rehearsals and turned off the 810 Café lights at 11:30 PM after the last team finished. Whew…
We returned to Owen for 2 follow up classes. The first was led by Kimberly Pace on how to build “Word of Mouth” marketing campaigns. The second was led by Cherrie Clark, formerly with Bain Consulting – covering the basics of being a consultant.
At 5:00 PM we did a briefing for tomorrow mornings business breakfast – we have 25 companies visiting Accelerator 2007 from 7:00 AM – 8:00 AM tomorrow. Students will be doing their elevator pitch tomorrow morning as they introduce themselves to these companies. They’ve been equipped with business cards, portfolios and bios on the visiting companies. This will provide an exceptional laboratory in which to practice meeting people in business, building relationships and making a first impression.
After a fast dinner, the teams returned to their Team rooms to finish assigning team roles for their Gomez project, Clarify the data on hand and begin market research. Speaking members of the team for MAPCO huddled to do final dry runs of their MAPCO presentations The teams clocked 15 work hours today. Thus far, we’ve clocked 80.5 work hours in six days. Tomorrow is a GIANT day – Business Breakfast, Presentations to MAPCO and a Fortune 100 Corporate visitor. Carol, Kristin and I sat through team dress rehearsals and turned off the 810 Café lights at 11:30 PM after the last team finished. Whew…
