Organization Revamp Plan/Technology for Sustainable Development/1

Organization Revamp Plan

For

Technology for Sustainable Development

Organization Revamp Plan/Technology for Sustainable Development/2

Introduction

The organization ‘Technology for Sustainable Development’ has been recently founded and the mission

is very interesting and different from other student organization. The mission of the organization is clear

but such ideas need more general understanding to cater widespread audience. In this report, I have

took an external view point to understand the problem faced by your organization. I have provided my

suggestion based on my more than 6 years of event management experience. Hopefully it will help you

to plan things better.

About the report

The report contains various subsections to address each specific issue. All the recommendations were

provided with short explanations for better understanding. The philosophy on such suggestion is more

towards people centric approach by asking people to do what they want keeping the vision of the

organization intact.

Improving Web/Print layout

It will be difficult to bring drastic change on the website due to University policy. However, some easy

changes can be made.

- Put up photographs in the ‘About us-> Organization’ page. It make people easier to find you out

as not everyone likes to drop e-mail for everything. Sometime face to face communication can

be initiated in such way.

- The Front page displays ‘Linkedin’ logo, I suggest is to replace it with ‘Facebook’. Facebook is

more widely acceptable website than Linkedin.

- Let’s look at the activity page; it has everything but first glance is very boring. You can display

some photographs attached with the event information. Ex: ‘War in Africa’ can be displayed

with African Map. Visual observation gives more significance than just texts.

- Approach university newspaper/magazine to get your events covered by them. Many of your

events targets wider set of audience, so even inviting your city newspaper will be a wise

decision.

- If your university has no restriction and your organization has sufficient man power, having

website in both Dutch and English will increase your visibility.

- If possible, you can record events and then list on the website later on.

- Going one step further, in future you can live stream your events. In such cases you can invite

the partner universities students also to take part in online events.

Improving PR campaign/outreach efforts

Your activities can also find interested people outside university campus. Also, the kind of description

you have used to describe your organization is too lengthy and very much descriptive. I rather have

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some pictures to understand it better. It is also a good idea to use more simple languages which can

make everyone understand the information easily.

The Organization description is very vague in nature. Display the photographs of the responsible people

along with the e-mail ids. I have tried to provide organizational structure in the separate paragraph.

Dividing/sharing responsibilities and displaying on the website will make your organization look more

professional. It will also remove confusion to other people on whom to contact for the desired purpose.

You can improve outreach/brand image by:

- Putting posters in both Dutch and English to cater both set of audience.

- Inviting high school students from nearby schools (I assume they speak English) to inform them

about the global causes. It is bit tedious but you will be applauded for the awareness you are

spreading.

- Local municipalities can also be invited to include broader set of audience, as they deal with

problems like providing hospitality to other countries etc.

- Keep your information as simple as possible. Your events, message and communication address

the problems which are general in nature, the scale might differ.

- Experience sharing sessions from the audience. It can be possible that someone from your

university might have visited such places. Encourage such people to share their story. Cultural

issues, languages and all such things are there which you can cover.

Type of Events

As the scope of your organizations work is very wide, there is a possibility to organize various different

kinds of events. Some of the suggestions, I am going to mention, has been already taken into the

consideration. For those events, may be you can collect feedback from the people

- Economy: Focusing on economic condition of the emerging countries and how it will shape the

path of combating the challenges faced by those nations.

- Career Services: There is no hidden truth that Economy of Europe is declining and people are

focusing on other countries in search of carriers. Emerging economies will be good bet for such

people. It might be drifting from your missions, but lot of people wants to go for

internship/volunteer services. You can pair up with organization which sends people in such

countries and provide an event related to career.

- Group discussions/Workshop: It is self-explanatory. Rather than someone giving lectures,

involving people in the discussion makes it more interesting.

- Competitions: This can be one of the events where you can collaborate with other student

organization. You can provide theme of competition along with partial funding and other

organization can take care of event.

- Documentary: You are already organizing such events. Decision on the topics can be decided by

suggestion from the people.

- Trip: It has been already taken into consideration.

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- Departmental visits

- Workshop on improving skills (Cross cultural competence/Disaster Management)

- Photo exhibition: The exhibition of photos from other countries (your focused one).

- Ethnic Day: University boasts healthy population from other countries. One day can be reserved

to organize ‘Ethnic Day’. Each of the countries can be represented Including food, dresses and

some more cultural extravaganza. This is completely off beat events, but to address the problem

of a country, you also need to understand the country.

Organizational Structure

I like to propose following rough structure at the student level which is currently known as the

activity team. This is just a draft and can be modified as per the needs. Student governing body

is the board among students consists of a president and remaining coordinator to carry out

different tasks.

For better organization among the team, following practices can also be adopted.

� Assign a team responsible for every event. Rest of the members will support him in organizing

events. This way you will continue rotating leadership role and also giving chance for people to

learn.

� Create a central database place, where you can keep the documents and can be seen by every

member.

� Plan things in advance, especially events.

� Try to organize meeting once in every 2 weeks and upload the minutes of meeting somewhere

so that absentees can see that.

� Collaborating with other club can be the responsibility of the student governing body. Also they

are responsible for communicating with University Student Organization and with the Executive

Board.

Student Governing

Body

Executive Board

General Board

University student

association

Other association,

people

Consist of:

President

HR coordinator

PR Coordinator

FR Coordinator

Secretary

Volunteers

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Retaining new members

� Give them new responsibilities; rotate their task to keep them engage in the work.

� Assign a senior member as a mentor to every newcomer for smooth induction into the group.

� Open Day/BBQ

� Events only for the members to boost up the confidence

� Knowledge Transfer workshops where experienced members will share their experience with

the new ones.

Developing Core Competence of Members

Your university is a core technical university, so attracting people to develop soft skills can be a great

way to retain new members. People can also be attracted by the words of developing their skills in

management, team leadership, and event management. Encourage new members to take part in the

workshop to develop their skills according to their interest.

Networking with other organizations

- Initially, organize events with a new format on your own to get your member some experience.

- Either approach organization for the collaborative events like lectures, discussions.

- Or approach them with events either supporting them through money or manpower

Example: Organizing competitions. I agree that this is not your area of work. But other

organization like BEST has mastery in such events. You can help them by putting a theme based

on your organizations objective and then can organize events.

Execution Steps

Discuss the

suggestion in

the next team

meeting

Assign the

responsibility

to the

members

Make an event

plan with clear

dates checking

availability

Find/assign an

event

responsible

for event

Event planning

in advance,

making

arrangements

Collect

feedback after

every event

Have meetings

more often

and use virtual

working

Keep the

communicatio

n channels

going on

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Budget

It will be possible for me to comment on Budget plan after getting knowledge of the cost/revenue

sources of your organization.

Summary

Event Management goes less about theory books and goes more about peoples approach. Due to the

same reason it is called 90% execution and only 10% planning. It is better to invest time in the people

with planning and give them adequate freedom and responsibilities. Each one of us has an event

manager among us, just that it has to come out.

I hope that my suggestion will help you in some extent. Feel free to revert back to me for any

clarifications.

Regards,

Ankit Khandelwal

Kota, India

19.11.2012