information package final

Information Package Prepared for: Mary Holland, Program Coordinator Prepared by: Nedda Sarshar, Intern at WLI May 7, 2016

!1 Nedda Sarshar, Information Package

WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE

INFORMATION PACKAGE 1 ELEVATOR PITCH 3 CREATIVE BRIEF 4 USABILITY TESTING 10 DESIGN NARRATIVE 13 ARTIFACTS 15



ELEVATOR PITCH

I will be delivering three products that I believe will promote the mission of the Women’s Leadership Initiative to Syracuse University students.

A t-shirt design will help brand the initiative to Syracuse University students. Distributing a t-shirt around campus will make WLI more desirable to many students, who want to feel that they are part of the group and stand for its values.

A ‘Leadership Spotlight’ on the Facebook page that involves interviewing women leaders on campus, and posting about their accomplishments. The Leadership Spotlight will draw more attention to the Facebook page, and will make people more aware of how WLI can be recognizing their accomplishments.

A handout promoting a workshop series that the Women’s Leadership Initiative will be launching next semester will promote the different skills that students can gain if they attend the workshops. Students may look at the handout and associate the professional skills and opportunities advertised on it with the Women’s Leadership Initiative, thus increasing respect and awareness of the program.



CREATIVE BRIEF

CLIENT BRIEF

The Women’s Leadership Initiative is an initiative through the Office of Student Activities. It is one of the few leadership-centered programs available to students by University Departments, and the only one that has a primary focus on women rights and leadership. The Women’s Leadership Initiative is fairly well-known for hosting monthly luncheons that host panels of women leaders, usually in the Upstate Syracuse area or alumna’s of Syracuse University, who speak of their experiences with students over lunch.

CONTEXT FOR PROPOSAL

The Women's Leadership initiative could have a much larger presence on campus. The Office of Student Activities is under-employed, and is very occupied with dealing with the day-to-day happenings with student organizations and the bureaucratic politics that comes with being a University department. For this reason, not enough time and attention have been able to be devoted for WLI to have a more active role in Syracuse University.

As with anything else in the University, the Women’s Leadership Initiative can only get the institutional attention that it deserves if it manages to convince the University administration and community that it is a vital resource that must continue to be supported. The artifacts presented in this proposal will build student awareness, that will bring institutional support and attention.



INTENDED AUDIENCES

The audiences of this project encompass virtually anyone in the Syracuse area, who would be able to help promote and support the Women’s Leadership Initiative and who may not know about it just yet. Specifically the audience includes:

• Syracuse University undergraduate students—particularly undergraduate students who identify as women

• Syracuse University administrators, specifically the Dean of Student Affairs who has a lot of say of what departments get the most attention come budget season.



ARTIFACTS

The following projects are being proposed to help the Women Leadership Initiative become a more dominant presence on campus, and for students and staff to become more aware of its efforts:

1. T-shirts that advertise the Women Leadership Initiative

a) The t-shirts can be designed to showcase the brand of the Women Leadership Initiative, and to advertise to students to ‘join’ and attend events.

b)T-shirts are an effective way of recruiting students to come to attend events, and to feel that they belong in a particular program.

2.A “Leader” spotlight on the Facebook page

a) A task for the student intern of the Women Leadership Initiative should be to recruit individuals to be interviewed and highlighted for the Facebook page of WLI. This will not only attract more attention to the Facebook, but it will also allow expand student knowledge and appreciative for WLI.

3.A hand-out of the WLI Workshops

a) WLI is launching a series of professional and personal development workshops next semester. An 8.5x 11hand-out that is spread across the University can help promote the workshops by advertising the skills that students can learn upon attending them. The handout will also have the social media information of WLI, so that students know where to look for dates and for further information.



PROJECT OVERVIEW AND REQUIREMENTS

All artifacts and initiatives carried out in the Women’s Leadership Initiative must be approved by Mary Holland, the Programming Coordinator and head of the Women’s Leadership Initiative.

MATERIALS

Materials needed to complete the projects:

• A working Facebook-promotion plan

• A t-shirt design

• Printing paper, to print out the workshop handouts

RESOURCES AVAILABLE

The Women’s Leadership Initiative is fortunate to have a budget that is not easily depleted by the frequent luncheons. A couple thousand dollars is available to implement all initiatives and programs, which is more than enough.

Another benefit to being a University department initiative is that WLI is not prohibited from purchasing food the way that student organizations are, and is also able to purchase and distribute t-shirts.



BUDGET

A budget should be considered for the following artifacts:

• Purchase of t-shirts (No more than $500.00)

• Printing of workshop hand-outs from Schine Box Office (No more than $150.00 for over 200 hand-outs)

The Facebook posts will not cost any money.

Key Dates

March 28th onward—WLI will begin posting weekly “Leader” Spotlights on the Facebook page.

April 13th—A t-shirt design will be submitted to the Women’s Leadership Initiative.

April 25th—The outline of a hand-out should be sent to the Women’s Leadership Initiative for approval.



EVALUATION

The distribution and execution of the proposed artifacts should result in:

• More Facebook likes on the WLI page

• More attendance at WLI events

• An expansion of the WLI listserv

• A higher recruitment rate than previous years for membership in the Women’s Leadership Initiative



USABILITY TESTING

The objective of this usability testing was to determine the effectiveness of the proposed artifacts in this Information Package that will be used to improve student awareness and campus involvement in the Women’s Leadership Initiative. Test Objectives:

• Find out the most effective methods to get people to like Facebook pages and be interested in initiatives

• Determine the most effective and attractive t-shirt design for people to be interested in WLI

• Get feedback on professional and personal development workshops• Determine the most effective way to circulate workshop hand-outs

around campus

Methodology/Procedure: I interviewed members of the Syracuse University campus on their knowledge and understanding of the Women’s Leadership Initiative. I interviewed 5 members who were not involved in WLI, and 5 that currently were.

I showed all participants different t-shirt designs, different workshop handouts, and Facebook posts in order to determine the most effective design that attracts students.



RESULTS

Participants involved in WLI:

• 4/5 participants mentioned that the Facebook page could be more active than it currently was.

• 4/5 respondents said that a leadership spotlight was a good idea because it would attract more attention to the Facebook page, and students would feel good to have their faces promoted.

• 5/5 respondents said that they would attend a professional and personal workshop upon seeing the draft of the handout.

• 5/5 respondents recommended that visuals be added to the workshop handout.

• 5/5 respondents agreed that t-shirts would help them feel more attached to the program.

Participants not involved in WLI:

• 5/5 mentioned that Orange After Dark was an organization that they were most aware, because of its powerful branding around campus and its social media presence.

• 4/5 mentioned that personal and professional workshops were important and not offered/advertised enough around campus.

• 4/5 stated that they would go out of their way to attend a workshop offered by WLI.

• 4/5 stated that t-shirts were one of the most effective promotion methods of an organization on campus.

• 5/5 stated that if WLI would offer t-shirts after events, then they would be more willing to attend these events.



CHANGES MADE

T-shirt Design:

• It was determined that the #UpLiftHer worked better on the t-shirt than the #WomanLeader.

• A Facebook link was added to the t-shirt for further reference.

• The color red was the most attractive color.

Workshops Handout:

• The handout was more effective with visuals next to each of the workshop descriptions.

• A list of workshops, and topics covered during the workshops was more effective than a flyer that simply stated ‘Workshops Offered by the Women’s Leadership Initiative’.

• The visuals were more effective if they were different colors, than if they were all just black.

Facebook Page:

• The #UpLiftHer was added to each ‘Leadership Spotlight’ picture.

• The nominator’s name was added to each post.

• The list of ‘current involvement’ was added to each post.



DESIGN NARRATIVE

SUMMARY

The designer firmly believes that the more student-involvement an organization has in a University, the more successful the organization is in making an impact on the student body. All three artifacts require the Women’s Leadership Initiative to take into consideration the role of students in distributing the artifacts and taking the time to comprehend the message on the artifacts.

CONTEXT

The Women’s Leadership Initiative is not a student organization. Therefore, it has more freedom to operate. However, in the past, interns at the Women’s Leadership Initiative have not had such an active role in trying to improve the organization. Luckily, Mary Holland, the Program Coordinator, is very student-oriented and was always willing to listen and offer feedback on prototypes that were shown to her.

CHALLENGE

The artifacts needed to be effective, but also easy to recreate. It would not be useful if the artifacts could only be created for a specific year or a specific group. The designer tried to find ways to allow the artifacts to continue to be used for years afterwards. This was done by providing a template of questions that could be asked by the WLI intern when interviewing students, and also by not including any dates on the workshop handout so that it may continue to be recycled each year.



RESULTS

The T-shirt Design:

Originally, the design for the t-shirt included more words and more visuals. However, the budget for the t-shirts needed to be taken into consideration. Usability testing helped to establish red as the most effective color for the t-shirt, and the #UpLiftHer was chosen over the #WomanLeader.

Student Leader Spotlight:

In order to create coherency, it was important that the #UpLiftHer was also attached to pictures of each of the Facebook posts so that a connection could be made between the t-shirts and the posts. It was also important for there to be a section on the picture that would highlight the student’s name, class and major so that even if someone did not read the interview questions they would still be able to grasp a general understanding of the person being spotlighted.

Workshop Handouts:

The workshop handouts could not be too wordy, but they also needed to provide enough information so that they would be interesting to students. By providing information through bullet notes, students would be able to quickly grasp what each workshop would teach without becoming bored with reading too much. The visuals were also important to help students associate a particular workshop with an image that they may recognize or relate to. The images also made the handout look more attractive, and the different colors on the images would make the handouts stand out more nicely. In addition, the use of the feminist symbols in the title of ‘Workshops’ would also help spread the brand of the Women’s Leadership Initiative and catch the interest of a potential reader.



ARTIFACTS

ARTIFACT #1: T-shirt design




ARTIFACT #2: Facebook Posts




____________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Presentation Skills

Student Activism Leadership Positions

Finding a Mentor

Networking Work-Life Balance

Personal Branding Personal Strengths

• Public Speaking• Interviewing• Writing Emails

• Targeting People• Outreach• Building Relationship

• Conflict Management• Professional Assertiveness• Influencing People

• Critical Thinking• Advocacy Skills• Passion Planning

• Conversation Building• Sales Skills• Reach out

• Scheduling• Priority Listing• Time Management

• Resume Building• Online Presence• Crafting Your Story

• Strength Finding• Confidence Building• Pursuing Goals

/SyracuseWLI @SyracuseWLI

ARTIFACT #3: Workshops Handout


information package final

Documents