Key Questions

I've been meeting with several people interested in assuming the important position of writing for this blog. (There are other responsibilities, too.) It has felt strange, as though I'm some impostor pretending to speak authoritatively about a job I've only just settled into. It has felt forced, as I try to distill a rich, complex experience into short answers (and failed). It has made me reflect and that has illustrated for me some leadership choices that I made. Some I had forgotten I made and some I never really realized I had made until now. One that falls into the latter category is disengaging with the structured social scenes at individual services. I think now that my prioritizing other things over being visible at service events was well-intentioned but misguided. So I'm telling people that, because if I had another year, that's something I would concentrate on. But it seems that what I'm doing a lot of, more than giving answers, is asking questions.

We have an expansive and wonderful ability to take ourselves seriously, to soul-search, and commit emotional and cognitive energy into figuring out the Corp, figuring out its problems, idiosyncrasies, inefficiencies, and virtues. Engaging in these conversations is a blessing of transition time. We get to talk about the Corp and grapple with issues, like others have before us over and over again. The ratio of strategic thought to action in the Corp is, I think, probably very high historically. This is an examined organization. Over and over, we ask questions and demand things of ourself and our organization. And again, this year, I can see that a group of talented and devoted Corpies will continue that tradition.

I had intended to list the questions that have engaged me and the people I've talked with here in this post. Suffice it to say that there are many of them, and if I had another year, I might succeed in making betters sense of half of them or even making progress on a tenth. I think Corp leaders' strong tendency to wonder whether we're good enough, making an impact, or improving the organization stems from our own set of questions, which are unique to each leader's experience and continually evolving. So I'm not going to list mine. But I hope you try to list yours, or at least be unafraid to engage with them. Having the opportunity to delve into and wade through the key questions of an organization that you love enough to do it over and over again is one I will certainly miss.

Is it sustainable?

I didn't know the word "sustainable" when I got to Georgetown. It was one of those moments in discussion section when someone said "I just really don't think this is sustainable" and then felt really proud of him/herself that I realized it was something I should learn. Sustainability is like a religion of Corp leaders, who demand high standards of sustainability, lest their ideas and efforts last a mere 1-12 months and be duly noted in the little-read annals of Corp history.

I'm now meeting with people who are interested in my job - to be CEO of the Corp. And over this past weekend, we had a mini-retreat that encouraged all of us to look back and evaluate what we had accomplished as a Corp Upper Management. And I'm proud of what's been done, but I increasingly worry about our ability to transfer it to the next group, even with the best of intentions.

Take this blog, for instance. I think it's a valuable look into what it's like to be a Corp officer. I started it because I wanted to leverage one of my strengths--writing. The next CEO might not enjoy writing, or writing a blog that encourages public introspection. That's fine. But what about DPAC? How do you transfer all the work that went into DPAC Director applications, effort that produced real, creative, and useful knowledge capital for the Corp? Sure, it's on the website, but you have to take the time to look at it, to recreate the context, to value it, and to revive it. I'm worried about this. I'm worried that it won't happen, despite the efforts I'm going to make in transition season--but sustainability isn't in my hands, and I think I've missed the boat in that sense up until now in my job.

It's not about how much I want it to be sustainable. It's about how good each initiative is. It's about its quality, how impactful it is, how much people like it. Sustainability is achieved at the mercy of the next generation of Corp leaders, who will be tempted to look only to the future in their ambitious agendas. And who am I to demand that they look back? In a few months, just a shift manager at Vittles. So I hope, I really hope, that the people who take the leadership jobs are keen to continue on what we've started.

And by that I mean, I hope what we've done deserves their attention and buy-in. And by that I mean your attention and buy-in. Here's hoping The Back Hallway is still around come November 2010!

What would a consultant say to the Corp?

So I just spent the last few hours studying for case interviews at consulting firms. A case interview contains one or more business problems that the interviewee has to analyze and recommend a solution for. The Corp has plenty of business problems, like the ones we worked through at the last Managerial Training Seminar. Taking an example from MTS, we talked about a marketing response to a new competitor in our core market. That is, Starbucks getting all up in our [Center] grill.

Corp leaders often approach their jobs like consultants. What's the situation? Student-run business. $4 mil annual sales. At this point, the new service director or officer has a pretty good idea of what the Corp is all about and can state the situation, but what are the problems? What's the complication? One of our struggles in transition is going to be communicating exactly what the top problems are, what we've done, what hasn't worked, and what they might try. When we came into our jobs, we had a list of priorities, which was helpful, but the temptation is to take a complex issue ("DPAC") and start digging around for problems. Not everything is a problem worth tackling, and the problems we can identify aren't all the problems that exist from year to year!

I doubt the Corp will be hiring a consulting firm any time soon. But we can pay more attention to keeping some sort of coherence in our focus from year to year so that more progress, meaningful progress, can be made on a few key issues (see: vendor negotiations, internal service integration).

Back to the preparations!

Wild ride.

Since I last posted in late August, it's been tiring. And it should be tiring, but always in a good way that keeps burnout at bay. Around this time every year is when Corp leaders can get just a little more tired and bounce back just a little slower. Lots of reasons why - school, jobs, senior year, rough landing from summer fun, etc. One that isn't mentioned often, but that I think plays an important role is that the ends of our terms are now a lot closer than their beginnings, and with talk of transition and handing things off to "next year's people", the conversations change tenor. We start to realize the limits of the limitless potential that comes with the first few months of the job.

For those of you reading thinking about applying for officer, remember that the potential is still limitless for you to shape the Corp and make it even better! It's just that we've now done most everything we're going to over our first nine months. The most important thing we have left to do is pick the right people to have our jobs next year and give them everything they need and want to do a great job, have an amazing and exciting year, and be proud of their year as officers.

Corp leadership jobs both demand and engender intense devotion to the company. What tires us also keeps us from going to sleep late at night and gets us up in the morning. It's often different from person to person, but I think at the core of it is just that the job is cool. It's creative, fun, and powerful, in a business sense. And while the resources at our disposal earn the Corp superlatives, one that can't be measured like our revenue or employee base is how much people care, and it's the most important one, far as I'm concerned.

Because Corpies care about having a good time, running a quality business we can be proud of, and improving themselves and the Corp, they're willing to put in the hours and put up with being put in unfamiliar situations, passing up more lucrative job opportunties, and staying self-motivated. That's a priceless resource for the Corp's leadership, but also a source of pressure to direct the company in a way that's deserving of these employees' devotion.

And once the end of that responsibility and the end of that pressure on you draws near, the conversations change from "how do we do a good job?" to "did we do a good job?". Asking the latter means confronting the mistakes, failures, and frustrations, which is one way I think burnout can creep in. Keeping that at bay for me is knowing that there are Corpies out there that are willing to take a crack at fixing what we didn't have the time, energy, skill, or creativity to get to.

So, no post in September. My apologies. Things were a little busy. And I got a little tired. But I'm damn glad to be back, damn glad to be here, and damn glad to be a Corpie.

I'll be 22 tomorrow. How did I get to be so freaking old...?

Corp Summer Wrap-up

So, tomorrow is the start of NSO, and if you ever wanted to seize control of the Corp, this next week will be the time. There are lots of Corpies involved in NSO, including me, and we'll be under the benevolent rule of Acting CEO/COO/CFO and Director of Vittles Mr. Dave Shevlin until school starts. Maybe I can get him to write a blog post in my absence. But with the start of NSO also comes the end of Corp Summer, one that I (foolishly) expected to be one of the more gentle and relaxing of my time at Georgetown.

Summer is when everything gets done. Everything you want to do gets done during summer. I've heard it over and over from Corp elders, putting the pressure on the summer crew to fix what needs fixing, start new projects, finish big projects, and generally just crush it. I suppose that means it's time to look back on what we accomplished this summer and see how we did, since we've now done the majority of what's going to get done this year. It's of course true that not having to worry about/attend/worry about not attending class leaves us free to concentrate on the Corp, but it's also true that the projects we save for the summer are complicated, important, and time-consuming.

Subscribing to an attitude of doing a few things well the first time means we need to learn to be satisfied with a shorter and less ambitious list of projects and be willing to concentrate on details that can seem trivial and annoying. Making something sustainable isn't necessarily the fun part. The fun part is saying "hey, we're students, and we can change whatever we want! Let's change X, Y, and Z into A, B, and C". Problem is, two, five, or twenty summers ago, someone may well have said "let's change A, B, and C into X, Y, and Z" and did an OK-but-not-great job at it.

While we will certainly repeat some mistakes, I'm proud of what we've done so far, and if we can finish everything we started, get people to buy into a new way of doing some things that haven't been done as well as they could have been, keep up the enthusiasm and Corplove and keep down the burnout, we'll be in great shape come spring. To give you an idea of what exactly we've been up to (besides getting up to our -ahem- summer weights and acquiring respiratory infections) I'll hit the highlights of Corp Summer 2009.

New pastry vendor means no more cardboard cookies. Cr-ice-is continues, but ends in new ice machines in every coffee shop. DPAC director is Joel; great applicant pool and enthusiastic support from Corp focus groups. GeorgetownYou revamp with online design tool. New age in HR: interview training, hiring reform, and performance reporting. Online system lets you submit praise for employees or complain about a terrible shift. Corp off-site storage organized (to any alumni reading, I blame you...) and audit successfully completed thanks to HUGE performances across the Corp. Catering continues to make moves, ready to make a splash. Vittles completely repriced. Negotiated better cup deal to save money and get sweet cups. Made contact with 1100 alumni, new age in alumni relations. Crossovers, administrators, and cash counters. Sweat. Love. Summer.

(Stay tuned for details.)

What do people see when they see the Corp at its best?

I was talking to someone who is not in the Corp last week, and as we were talking about the Corp's image, she said something that was pretty straightforward, but that has stuck with me since she said it. After I had said something along the lines of "yeah, we're working on making the DPAC Cafe a little more professional, a little more classy," she responded with "but you guys have to make sure you stay cool...you know, like the funny tip signs...they're what makes the Corp great."

I, for one, haven't made a new tip sign in a while. When I was first hired, I was really into it and poured a not insignificant amount of energy into making tip signs that were funny, attention-grabbing, and/or pathetic to encourage people to leave change. Full disclosure: I have never received more than $5 in tips in a shift, and I was even a lunch rush specialist freshman year. I hardly think about it anymore, though. When I buy food at Vittles, I can count on there being a tip sign there, more than likely one that makes me laugh. But when I think about what people appreciate or criticize about the Corp, I would never have thought about tip signs, and that was the #1 attribute in this girl's mind.

Makes me think, as the CEO, what I really should be encouraging and pushing for. To "Serve Students", what should we be thinking about? Does that kid in our discussion section want consistency and professional-quality appearance in Vittles? Does the student leader want more money to be given out by philanthropy? Do the new students visiting the DPAC Cafe want to see something with the gleams and polishes of a Cosi?

Or...do they want a funny tip sign? To see a casual, cool fellow student behind the counter, to hear the same music that's on their most recent playlist, to order drinks with creative names and to leave the store in just a little bit better of a mood than when they came in? Isn't that our most important customer - the one that finds what they're looking for in more complex ways that just caffeine -> mouth or boxes -> storage?

I suppose in my position, it's my job to push for the things in the first paragraph so that they can sustain the existence of this company and its reputation for providing needed services well. But it's also my job to help craft the Corp's image, and that's a challenging balancing act. Because if there were no tip signs, boring names, scripted customer service, and Musak, would we still be serving students? This is especially pertinent for the DPAC Cafe, where I really do believe enhancing the quality of our equipment, the precision of our planning, the training of our staff to a level the Corp has not yet demanded of its services will pay off in so many ways. So when we seek to preserve the Corp's identity in a new form...how can we make those mesh?

I'm not sure. Still working on it. I guess there's just a faith that I have that the virtues that make the Corp the Corp can be preserved while eliminating those faults that make the Corp (sigh...) the Corp.

And do not get me started on equipment maintenance. Argh.

Dear diary...

It's 3:15 and the accounting office is still buzzing. Phil is compiling financial statements ahead of the yearly audit, I am coordinating the DPAC Director selection process, and Billy is organizing inventory. Earlier, but still late, Shannon, JM, Stacy, KJ, and Dave were helping out entering costs for Billy's project and Pat was doing payroll. There was a Vittles UM meeting before that and Kelsey was settling our accounts with some incredibly uppity vendors. I wrote an e-mail (one of several tonight) to the Corp UM going through all of our active projects, a message that would not have gone through an hour earlier because the internet was down. That one was my fault (note to self: don't go screwing around with router settings you have no business screwing around with).

This is really the peak of summer Corp work - the audit is breathing down our neck, which means that everyone becomes an accounting employee in addition to working on the projects that are reaching an implementation phase or requiring major decisions. And every year, without fail, the server goes down the week before the audit. We'll have a new router tomorrow, but for a while this afternoon I was the ranking IT professional on site, which is not comforting.

Before that, I met with a possible vendor for the DPAC cafe who reminded me very much of a Corpie - loves his job, loves the people there, does it on the side with a more academic pursuit occupying much of his time. Except for us, it's class and for him its a rocket company. Like the kind that launches things into space. At least once a week, I get to do something sweet like meet with this guy, and just because of the Corp.

The meeting before that was less exciting, but not less important - JM and I talked to a paper guy. Sort of reminded me of the Prince Paper Company episode when the sales rep told me he had four kids in college. How much would it take for you to abandon Corp-branded cups and go with Mayorga-branded cups from this company? Probably a lot, right? But how much is it worth to see MUG's logo on the clutch on the cup in the hand of your classmate at 9:20 and think, damn, should have gotten coffee at MUG? What if we could save $15,000? If you think about everything in terms of philanthropy, our mundane business decisions seem more important. I mean, it's just cups. But cups alone could get student groups 50% more money. So someone should probably be looking at cups, right? Along with everything else, absolutely.

And then before that I worked at MUG. Super busy. Burnt the hell out of my hand trying to fill up a coffee while ringing it up at the same time. That's about all I remember. As with many days, my promises to Brad and Phil to be in the office by so-and-so time ended unfulfilled, so my 10a shift was the start of the day. And this is the end...I should probably get some sleep before the UG opener. And what better place to do it than IT+M?

Victory.

Often in the Corp, we make changes and hope that it makes things better or assume that it does and don't bother to follow up. If you remember back in the ancient pre-bagel switch days, we used to have three separate vendors for bagels - one was a little more expensive, and one was a lot more expensive. The last one was MUG's - and their bagels were good, really good. But it wasn't worth it, Brad and others decided, and UG, Vittles, and Catering went along to Midnight's vendor, who was the cheapest. It was a little contentious both within the Corp and with some of our customers. But we did it, among other reasons, so we could make more money.

So when I heard from Bill that we've saved $1632.58 just from the bagel switch, and just from the end of March through right now, I was excited for two reasons: (1) because we're evaluating our performance retrospectively and (2) something we did worked! Now, it's not all about money - if we're driving customers away because they don't like our bagels, then it doesn't matter how much money we saved - but that doesn't seem to be the case.

For those of you who are curious, Bill just used POS to figure out how many bagels each store sold since the switch, and compared what they would have paid to the old vendor to what they actually did pay (a lower price). This is pretty uncomplicated POS work; hopefully in a few years, more advanced analyses will be used as frequently (and as usefulyl!) as these kinds of analyses are.

NScOrp

Back Hallway shout out to Dolan, KJ, Jenna Kelly, Lauryn Kulinski., and Pat Lenihan - the five NSO Coordinators for next year...and all the Corp Captains who are working to make NSO 2009 a raging success. And all the Corpie OA's I saw at full staff training today. It's fantastic to see you all running shit...can't wait to be a foot soldier in the NSO machine in August :)

What is retreat?

I asked that very question, having never heard of retreat until I became a Corp UM member, around this time last year.  The looks I got back were priceless, often accompanied by an "ohhhhh yeah, retreat."  It's not as though we're trying to keep it secret.  Every year, the day after graduation, the Corp Board and UM pours into a few cars and drives over to Rehoboth Beath, DE (the classiest of beaches).  We rent a beach house for a few days and talk about the Corp for several hours each day.  

It's timed to take place when everyone feels comfortable in their new positions, has a sweet team of Corpies in place to help them maintain and improve their stores, and is ready to get to work over the summer with the most detailed and time-intensive projects, when we can all devote our full attention to these sorts of things.  Retreat is where we bring it all together, take a break geographically from the Hilltop and figure out where we've been (since Feb./Mar.) and where we're going (till next Feb./Mar.).  Last year, we talked about DPAC (still working on it!), a coffee shop in the MSB building (shame, that.), customer service and professionalism, Corpientation, CPC restructuring, and a ton more.  It's exhausting.  Well, it was exhausting as a participant.  I imagine planning it will be insane.  So I'm starting to think about it now.

If there's something you think we should be talking about at the highest levels in the greatest detail, let me or your service director know and we'll take care of it.  Anything where you've said "We should really have a conversation about _____" qualifies.  And yes, that means you, whether you're a seasoned Corpie, alum, or new hire.  Make that your (first or next) sweetideas@thecorp.org e-mail.

Sticking it to the Man.

Tear gas, protestors, anger, separation, litigation. Those are the key terms from the Corp's creation myth, which is always fun to tell parents and journalists. Things were complicated back then - we were wholly independent legally, but it wasn't until the early 90's that we spun off completely from student government. The President of GUSA used to have a guaranteed seat on the Corp Board of Directors and for a while that person was automatically Chair of our Board.

Ever since 1972, our identity has shifted steadily toward the commercial and away from the political. Since I've been a part of the Corp, I've come to understand it as an enterprise that, among other things, generates profit in order to give it back to the community. This service (philanthropy) has come to be seen as a vital campus resource, but as always we have conversations what other purposes we can serve, fitting with our mission.

CSOC came out of one of those conversations. Hopefully by this time next year everyone will instantly know what I'm talking about. At the moment, the Corp Service and Outreach Committee is growing to fill a certain vacuum in Corp-Georgetown relations. Its chair (Pat Lenihan) and vice-chair (Bill Ward) will be taking the vision (a great deal of which we owe to Jesse) and making something new, valuable, and unique out of it. If everything goes to plan, student groups, Corpies, populations in need, and the University administration will all be better served by what CSOC accomplishes. Stay tuned for applications, which will be out soon.

We told "the University" about it yesterday, when six Board members met with Georgetown VP's, as we do every semester. Jesse, Phil, Brad, me, Omar, and Pat met with Dr. Olson (VP of Student Affairs) and other pertinent administrators to talk a little bit about the Corp's place in Georgetown and our interactions with the University. Until having this job, I had always seen the Corp as super-autonomous from them and independent in every sense of the word. There's a shorthand way of talking about our relationship with them that I use frequently - "the University is our landlord, nothing else". And while that's useful for touting our independence, it doesn't do justice to the subtle interdependence that has developed since 1972.

We are a valuable partner for many reasons, at least how I see it. We provide on-campus employment, including work-study employment, for over 200 students. Our employees gain management and professional experience that enriches their university experience and will serve us for the rest of our lives. We can be a source of prestige as the world's largest entirely student-run company - it might take a little while to sink in, but once it does (as an important part of Georgetown's student-run culture), we can provide texture to Georgetown's image, too often reduced to a number . Tour guides mention us for a reason. We can weave that texture into the entire Georgetown community: giving scholarships for outside-the-box reasons, funding innovative and oft-neglected student initiatives, and organizing campus-wide events. And we can connect alumni back to Georgetown, especially now with our Director of Alumni Relations and Professional Development, Lauren Janson. As a side note, we also provide a substantial amount of money for rent and 5% of every GoCard purchase straight to their coffers.

What does this get us? Too often, it seems like too little. I relayed a somewhat less coherent version of the above paragraph to the administrators we met with, referencing the Starbucks decision. But of course there are lots of factors at play, and the best we can do is position ourselves as best we can to generate opportunities and take advantage of them when they come around. Though it may grate our activist sensibilities, every service we operate was borne of a cooperative venture, independent though we may be, and every future service will have to be a cooperative venture as well, unless we're planning a takeover of the tattoo parlor across from Dean and DeLuca.

Enter CSOC. No lease, no Evil Corporate Competitor, no service fees or Facilities calls. Just the Corp connecting with students, coordinating service opportunities, and leveraging our professional relationship with the University to best address the community's needs for dialogue and cooperation. That's what we're throwing our weight behind to do justice to our mission, and it's cooperative, not antagonistic, with Georgetown administrators. Far after we're gone, they'll still be here, and its the relationships we build up that will best serve Georgetown students in the future. If not, we come back to the discussion. We'll come back anyway, because that's what we do. But I hope that we can all get behind this initiative early so that it becomes as robust a part of the Corp as philanthropy is now. Five years ago, things were very different in that arena as well. Not to mention 37 years ago.

Sorry for the epic length. It's a nuanced subject, and I hope I fleshed it out somewhat completely. I also have Russian homework and a paper outline that I don't want to do. And one last thing - as you all know, Mayorga is starting Thursday, thanks to the dedicated work of many, many Corpies. Very, very exciting.

Whatever job you have, knock the shit out of it.

That line has been bouncing around in my mind for the past couple of days. I'm pretty sure I heard some variant of it from Ted, two CEO's ago and it popped back up after the recent selction of Corp Middle Managers. Corp transition is a long, energy- and attention-sapping beast, both our source of continuous innovation and our greatest limitation as a company. But now, after five transitions, everyone's in place - from the Board to the middle managers at every store, and most every position is occupied by someone new. Even if you're in the same job, you get a chance to make it your own, and yes, knock the shit out of it.

This can be a problem if you think that you can completely disregard what has gone on before you in that position. It should be the job of your supervisor to make sure that you don't do that, and keep up the progress that was made last year. But every position in this company has room for improvement - I guarantee something about your job can be done faster, easier, cheaper, or otherwise better. And that includes cashiers, grinders, and stockers. What you choose to do with your position is up to you. If you put in the requisite amount of effort, go to the meetings you're supposed to go to, call the right people, and generally enjoy it, you'll do a great job keeping this company running.

But you can also go down the road toward KTSOOI ("kat-sue-eye"?), and set the standard for every Assistant Director of Marketing for the next five years. And then next year, that person will say "yeah, Ryan was great, but I'm going to do even better". Because we're Georgetown students, and Corpies, and we're competitive and energetic and care about making the Corp a little bit better than last year. So harness that, and put it toward your position for the next 9-12 months. But how? I have some general ideas that I'll list here, but I bet other people have better ones that might apply directly to your position, like "if you could fix ____, that would be HUGE).

1. Consistency. Nothing will make a Corp leader happier than knowing without a doubt that something that is falls within your responsibility will get taken care of every time. Often, there are situations where we're challenged by others: vendors, administrators, customers, other Corpies - and being able to take it to the bank that something was taken care of, right away, in the right way is incredibly helpful. It's the difference between saying "well, something could have happened on our end; I'll check with my people and get back with you" and "this is unacceptable and you need to take care of it right away". (see: KT at Accounts Outstanding)

2. Throwing energy into a project not just while you're talking about it at a meeting, or for one night or a few weeks, but several months. From planning, to coordinating, through that death zone in between idea and fruition, all the way to making visible, tangible changes. One of the most disheartening things in Corp leadership is coming across your same idea on a memo dated 2005 and knowing that we have known about a problem for four years and done nothing about it. More likely, something was done about it that got dropped after a few setbacks, distractions, or leadership changes came up. I am as guilty of this as anyone - it's very difficult to maintain sustained effort in improving something in the Corp. Nevertheless, there have been and continue to be a few terrific employees who keep at it, week after week. (see: Lauren Goodman, Alex Klein + the Catering staff)

3. Showing up during the inconvenient and most stressful times to help out your fellow Corpies. No one's going to speak ill of you if you don't take extra Ironman shifts, help Accounting look up costs for summer inventory, or help out Midnight during finals. Really, no one will. But those Corpies with the unfortunately-timed or high-stress responsibilities will really appreciate it (your moving boxes), and it will help them do their jobs (supervising the moving of the boxes) better. (see: Jamie and Scott during Booktastrophe '08)

4. Asking questions. First, asking questions if you don't know how to do something and could use some help from other people who have been there (even of alums). Making sure you do it right the first time is even more important in the Corp, where chances are the person who tries to revamp it won't have been a party to all the conversations you had in planning. And second, figuring out what's going on at all levels in the Corp and trying to get involved with what interests you the most. (see: you, for reading this entry!)

That's all that comes to mind right now. Hope everyone has a relaxing Easter break and is ready for the mayhem to come over the next four weeks.

Incoming!

In the next month or so, a Starbucks coffee shop and Cosi cafe will be opening up in the Leavey Center.  There was no Saxby's when I was hired, nor Epicurean.  Campusfood.com has grown considerably in the last few years, removing that pesky requirement of actual conversation with a human being in ordering delivery.  Leo's has gotten better, noro notwithstanding.  Bottom line: the "Corp monopoly on campus" is being challenged.  

(Side note: some people don't realize that in exchange for our sweet locations, the Corp pays rent to the university.  Oh sweet Jesus, do we ever pay rent.  It's a downside of being completely independent - almost 300 G's worth of a downside.)

I once heard a story that the Corp was mentioned by name in a Starbucks corporate document as an example of a competitor currently in control of a lucrative market.  On a related note, the CollegeBoxes company has (more than once) offered to buy out Student Storage because we provide a better service at better prices, and that's not good for their business model.  As far as I can tell, that consists of charging more in exchange for less.  Same goes for Starbucks.  But still, many students use these outside companies for on-campus services - why is that?  The general battle the Corp fights for those hearts and minds is one of legitimacy and professional quality of service.  We're winning in the storage game, and we can win in the coffee game as well.

A few ways to overcome that: first, word-of-mouth marketing.  Many of your roommates and friends will default to whatever corporate solution comes up in a Google search for college summer storage instead of a better service that's local and reinvests in the Georgetown community.  So tell them, and be honest about how good it is (very good).  Same goes for our new coffee (!) and how 10% of what we pay will go to the Fabretto Foundation.

Second, we can just flat-out compete.  I will not accept that Starbucks have better-tasting coffee, better-made drinks, or more consistent service.  On all of those fronts, we are more than capable of competing with our existing practices or adapting them to be superior.  We will have no reason to be worried about businesses encroaching on our territory if we dismantle every argument for their being better competitors.

And last, we're Hoyas, which means we share a culture, frustrations, and demands with our customers, and all of those should help us do our jobs better and make our fellow students more comfortable, satisfied, and likely to come back for more.  Customer loyalty has probably never been as important to the Corp as it is today.

What's going on with _____ ?

What's up, Corpies. This blog has been growing for a few weeks now - you might want to scroll all the way down and read from the beginning to get a sense of why this is my gchat status right now and why I'm glad you're here reading.

...

Welcome back. Once the employee website is revamped (the next few months), this blog will be embedded there as part of a larger project to disseminate information as best as possible within the Corp. So, what more do you want to hear about? Comment and let me know. If I don't know the answer, I'll find out and post an answer for everyone to see, so that instead of just hearing rumors about "DPAC" or something with t-shirts, you can be as well-informed as possible.

I think there are several benefits to this - first, if you have a particular desire to work on a project, we can often use extra hands/minds to contribute, because we all do our best work when it's something we like doing. Second, you probably talk to your friends about the Corp, and they come to you and ask you "what's up with ____ ?". You can also tell them what's going on with the Corp, or speak confidently about some of finer points mentioned below that can influence their perception of the organization and what we do. And third, you may have concerns about a path we're taking, and in hearing what our thought process has been so far, you could respond with constructive criticisms through your service UM or director.

One random plug - if you don't already use Google Reader, it's worth looking into if you check blogs or the news regularly and want to pull all those different sources into one place. You can also subscribe to this blog by clicking "Add a Subscription" on the top left hand side.

I have a shift in half an hour

When I was a young Corpie, I always thought it was kind of curious to see the people in charge of the company taking shifts like I was. Why wasn't their time taken up by Important Business Decisions - and if they were on the contact list as Director or CEO, why were they on the schedule as Stocker or Cashier? At the time, I didn't understand it, but I think this says a lot about the Corp as an organization.

Not every student-run company does this - you don't see the GUASFCU Board working shifts as a teller. Nor would managers in most firms do the same work as an entry-level employee, even occasionally. And not that that's bad - everyone in any leadership position has to focus first on his or her particular responsibilities, or the organization would suffer. But that's not to say we in the Corp can't do our jobs better if we maintain a presence and familiarity with the critical point of customer interaction - face-to-face contact between the Georgetown community and a Corpie.

In many companies as large as ours, it would be impossible, or at least frowned upon, for the people in charge of long-term planning and broad projects to also have an intimate knowledge of operations at the level of the individual employee. Too many meetings. But I think we find this pattern throughout the Corp, at every level - as a shift manager, you know why a drawer might be off from having worked as a cashier and as a service director, you know how best to communicate with your employees because you were in their shoes maybe just a semester or two ago. And while we're at it, the shoes aren't all that different. I think one of the most important attributes for a Corp leader to have is humility - by definition, we're all pretty new at what we're doing. It's odd for someone to hold the same position for longer than a year (think if the real world operated that way!) and we're all going to make mistakes.

Of course, we're also capable of directing a lot of creative energy and Corp love toward making the place a little better. So how do we do that? Well, whatever it is that you pursue as a Board member, service director, or service UM/MM member, it will have to be realized on shift. Your project will inevitably manifest itself in the on shift environment - be it in a new drink, new POS structure, new attitude, anything. And by staying intimately familiar with that experience, you can couple that with the critical attitude of a leader and figure out what's good and what could use some attention. So with that in mind, I gotta go cash.

If kids ran the world...

The Corp Board of Directors recently chose the next four "external Board members" who will join me, Brad, and Phil over the next year to serve as the highest decision-making body of this company.  As the people in charge of the Corp's long-term vision and planning, they mirror other organizations, where the Board serves a similar function.  At many other student-run companies, the Board includes adults from the University or alumni.  Ours does not - hence the "entirely student-run".  

It took me a very long time to understand what our Board does and what their conversations are like - in fact, not until I attended my first Board meeting.  Why does this matter?  Well, for one,  Board members get the Corp discount.  So you might want to have something to talk about when they answer "I'm on the Board" to your inquiring about where they work.  What's more, it's sometimes difficult to explain how students are our "shareholders" or how we're a non-profit company dedicated to serving students, and knowing a little bit about the Board helps you understand the identity of the Corp a little bit better.

There are four students on the Board who have never worked for the Corp before.  The three officers (me, Brad, and Phil) are Corp employees.  So Corp employees have three votes and non-Corp employees (representatives of the Georgetown community) have four votes.  These external Board members or "Members at-Large" are campus leaders and general Georgetown all-stars that are chosen to advise the Corp and provide some oversight of our activities on behalf of the student body for a year.

So, hypothetically, if the Corp decided to spend money on Rolexes for the Corp Upper Management instead of spending money in the best interests of the student body, the Board could step in and prevent that.  Since of course we don't try to do that, the Board can act in a more cooperative role and help us keep in touch with our mission while we (the Corp Upper Management) concentrate on running the most innovative, efficient, profitable business possible.

That's not to say that the Corp UM doesn't think about Students Serving Students.  In fact, many of the conversations at Corp UM meetings are very mission-driven, and that's awesome.  But UM members also have a responsibility to the company to run the best services they can, so that's their main focus.  The external Board members have specific roles too, but their positions connect directly with the Corp's softer side and its long-term health.

At some companies, the Board will meet every quarter (like in Dayton, mentioned below) or even less frequently, just to make major decisions and generally keep tabs on what's going on.  Ours meets weekly, or a little less frequently, and stays up-to-date about what's going on, looking for opportunities to lend some time, effort, and expertise to the Corp through task forces, thoughtful conversations, or formal proposals that help keep us a healthy, responsible company.

They're Omar, Sunny, Nick, and Pat.  They'll be working with me, you, and the Corp to leave it at least a little better than they found it, just like all of us.

Twitter is not the solution.

So I made a twitter account a couple of weeks ago and named it 'corposaurus'.  The idea was that I could use twitter to...well, I'm not really sure what the idea was.  But now I'm addicted to twitter and haven't accomplished much of anything Corp-wise.  

I think what I'm trying to do is give Corpies a good idea of what it's like (awesome, challenging) to be in a leadership position in the Corp.  I also would like the Georgetown community to see the Corp as less of a clique and for our leaders to be more publicly accountable to the student body we aim to serve.  I think if we better expose the sorts of conversations that we have and the initiatives we choose to take on, our reputation will benefit.  Now, those are two separate goals with two products - an internal blog and an external blog.  I don't know if those can be the same thing, but I figure starting to see what sort of things I would want to put on here would make that decision for me after a trial period.  And feedback from those of you I share this with.

I had started this blog at like 3am a couple weeks ago after seeing this one, written by the CEO of Flyer Enterprises, but had forgotten about it until I got a sweetideas e-mail from Shannon suggesting something like this.  I love sweetideas, and I've now gotten about twenty of them.  I hope people continue to see it as a way to have their ideas heard outside the traditional flow of information in the Corp - and maybe come to see this as a way to see Corp leadership outside its traditional structure and outside of parties.  I wouldn't mind to get all three officers on here, or Corp UM members, and have this on a revamped employee website on thecorp.org.  I think it has potential.