Assignment 19A - Idea Napkin No. 2

1.     I’m Chris Mercandetti, a Junior Finance Major at the University of Florida. I have learned my leadership and effective communications skills through the Dale Carnegie leadership training course that I attended a few years ago. Getting one’s point across effectively is crucial in convincing someone to listen to your idea. Constantly being put in situations that push me out of my comfort zone allowed me to grow and hone these skills. I have also learned how to successfully manage hundreds of people at once through running the recruitment process in my fraternity. I aspire to show UF why this increased seating option is going to benefit them and get them to implement it.

2.     What I am offering to customers is a chance to expand the libraries at UF, not only with more seating, but by pushing forward their boundaries by making the books electronic. Revolutionizing University libraries is a big step forward and UF could be the first one.

3.     I am offering this to the University of Florida. Specifically, administrators in a place to make decisions regarding the libraries on campus. These are the people who have the power to make these decisions and selling them on this point is crucial.

4.     UF cares because not only will this benefit the school, it will also benefit its students by allowing them to study more, which will help them do better in school and raise the schools rank. They will care because it will make them look better and actually increase their standing.

5.     I think what sets me apart from everyone else is my social network and my ability to communicate effectively with others. I feel as if I have built a solid network that will be able to aid me with my project. This project is a huge undertaking and having support is crucial for its success. Also throughout my life experiences, such as the Dale Carnegie Leadership course I have learned the importance of effective communication and I have been able to apply that to my everyday life. This will enable me to get my point across in a warm and positive way and ultimately get the desired outcome.

I think that most of these elements go together. Being able to get my point across clearly and effectively about the seating at the UF libraries along with letting UF administrators see how it is going to benefit them is extremely important. The one thing that I think is lacking right now is the resources to pull this off. That being said, I am selling the idea to them, not so much a product so that isn’t completely necessary at this time.

The two things that I took away from my feedback were to emphasize my effective communication skills and to realize the resources that this project will require. This is not something that can easily be done overnight as it requires careful planning and thorough execution in order to insure that the job is done correctly. I am going to need support as this is not something I can accomplish on my own. I incorporated this feedback into this assignment by elaborating on my effective communication skills and including more reasons why in each question.