Quad Projects // Update 03.14
March 14, 2019
Over the past few weeks, our innovative consulting teams have been working hard developing solutions to issues provided to them by their clients. Four out of Five of our teams were scheduled to deliver their mid-point presentations to their clients last night. These presentations were well rounded and thoroughly practiced.
However, due to the weather incurred in the Pikes Peak Region and across the state of Colorado, teams were unable to move forward with presenting and have moved their presenations to April. An exception to this mid-presentation delay is our Venetucci Farms project team who will still present to their client this Friday as scheduled. Below is a sample of each team’s progress over the past few weeks. We look forward to bringing you another project update when teams return after spring break!
The Altia team had a chance to meet and brainstorm ideas with Jason Williamson, VP of marketing at Altia. In order to stretch their thinking, the team utilized sticky notes and covered the wall in our Quad space with the possibilities of automotive augmented reality. Ideas on how to utilize automated automotive augmented reality were explored. The teams ideas encompassed deliverables from simple and practical to advanced and superfluous. The exploration exercises helped the team expand their thoughts about what augmented reality could be, as well as encouraged their creativity as they researched different ways of approaching automotive augmented reality.
The team had a chance to make an onsite visit to the Altia headquarters a few weeks back and had a meeting with the CEO, Mike Juran. That meeting proved productive and informative.
As the Altia team meets once a week they have learned to hone their online communication skills. Use of the programs Slack and Trello are new to the team. Even so, they are seeing the potential for these tools to keep them on track and focused on their goals. Ryan O’Meara has identifyed key industry leaders, influencers, and competitors. Chris Blackburn has examined current market aspects and near ready technological developments, while Michael Miranda has secured projected numbers for the automotive augmented reality market. In addition, Ricci Kumpost has discovered barriers to adaptation such as consumer assumptions and safety feasibility. The team has created a broad picture of their deliverables and are ready to present to their client when they return from break.
Over the past few weeks, the Affordable housing team took to visiting a variety of senior living facilities with different socio-economic statuses to gain a well-rounded understanding of what is offered at each facility and for what price. After some brainstorming, the team begin developing a wide scope view of what the end product and deliverable would contain for their client. The team visited McKenzie Place to gain and understanding as to what a high-end senior-living facility looks like.
Meeting with Chelsea Gaylord, Project Manager of Economic Development in Colorado Springs, to discuss opportunity zones in Colorado Springs, the group gained a better understanding of what opportunity zones are, and dug deeper to understand if opportunity zones could be used as a tool in the process of planning affordable housing for seniors in Colorado Springs. After their meeting with Chelsea, the team divided into three smaller research groups, developing a narrowed plan of action.
A challenge facing the team is understanding how they can construct an affordable housing model that is within the price range their client has requested, yet also ensure the model produces a happy and vibrant space for seniors. The team is addressing this challenge by researching best practices of building construction and operation costs a senior living facility with a host of services. In order to fulfill the request of their client in regards to pricing, the team will explore creative ways to provide services to residents while still keeping costs in the range requested.
Over the past few weeks, our Venetucci Farm team focused on setting goals, exploring how to achieve them, and developed a working schedule allowing them maximize productivity. The team has continued to create and flesh out “one pagers”. These one page documents contain robust information on each of the potential proposal elements designed; including information pertaining to feasibility, revenue generation potential, benefits it will have on the community, and relevant tie ins to the Venetucci legacy.
The team faced some minor issues creating these one pagers such as how they might standardize the level of work each team member put into each. They solved this issue by improving upon a template the team had originally created. The team also discussed what elements they needed to include during their mid-point presentation and then reverse engineered what steps they needed to take to reach their end goal. The team was also able to visit Venetucci Farm to understand layout and what levels of work would need to be completed to make their ideas a reality for the farm.
Over the past few weeks, our El Paso County Public Health Food Access team researched food dessert and swamp areas outlined by their client. After attending a townhall meeting at the Hillside “hub”, the team had a better understanding of already occurring efforts to address food access in Colorado Springs. They found that ideas such as community gardening, gatherings and education were working well for that community. The team will use this information to inform further research and recommendations for the remaining three food dessert/swamp areas in Colorado Springs.
The team held their first client meeting with Aubrey Day, their contact at El Paso County Public Health. They were able to ask clarifying questions to ensure they were on track with delivering the solutions El Paso County Public Health was looking for. After their meeting, the team was able to regroup and lay out a plan and schedule to complete tasks and prepare for mid-point presentations.