Paternoster Square
Brief from the Owners
The owners of Paternoster Square have received feedback and complaints that the large, open, public space that the square provides is ‘lifeless’ and is a ‘lost opportunity’ to provide people who work, live and visit the area with something more vibrant, useful and engaging. The complaints cite other public spaces that are used for regular events, seasonal activities, business promotions etc. The owners have decided to respond to public feedback and select a strategy consultancy to develop and initiate a range of creative ideas for the square.
The contract will initially start from July 2013 and last for three years. There has been a great deal of interest from consultancies that want to bid for the contract. The owners have asked all interested bidders to submit a poster as part of the bid process. The poster should demonstrate an understanding of the Square and its users and outline ideas about how to use the space more imaginatively. The poster will be used to develop a short list of possible consultancy firms who will then develop a more detailed bid.
Brief from Your Line Manager
You have recently joined a small strategy consultancy and have been given the task of producing the poster for your firm. Time is money and you have been allocated 4 hours to do the work. Your line manager estimates that it should take you about 2 hours on desk based online research and 2 hours to write up the work as an A4 electronic poster in either PowerPoint or PDF format. In particular:
1) Range: you should offer a range of suggestions for the Square e.g. different events, activities, promotions etc that cover different types of users and different hours of the day, days of the week or times of the year.
2) Practical: there is very little budget to implement ideas so some of the suggestions should be ones that will generate a profit for the owners that could then be used to fund other suggestions – make sure your suggestions are suitable, acceptable and feasible.
3) Creative: the suggestions and the poster itself should demonstrate that the consultancy is creative, innovative and professional.
4) Research: the poster should demonstrate that the consultancy has a good understanding of the Square and its users (your online research should help with that).
5) Data Collection: you should provide good evidence of desk based research e.g. references for websites or other sources. You might record how many people you see, is it busy or quiet, what type of people, what type of facilities are already there, what other facilities are close by.
6) Presentation: the poster should be visually appealing, well structured and easy to read (no smaller than size 8 font). It should be an A4 size PowerPoint slide (set this using the Design tab – ‘Page set up’) or PDF file and should be submitted online as an attachment to a Learning Journal entry (it does NOT need to be printed).