A Practical and Inspirational Path to Work/Life Balance

BACKGROUND Many college students do not know what they want to do with their lives, even after graduating. University alumni departments support their grads with services intended to lead to a career or an internship. It is well-documented in findings of Gallup, McKinsey, and Manpower, among others, that 70% of the workplace is dissatisfied. Many become highly stressed in their jobs. Consistently shown is that this stress can lead to physical and mental illness, dysfunctions, and addictions. In a kind perspective, it is no one's fault. Many educational institutions believe that a key measure of doing a good job is largely based on the income their graduates earn. In fairness, notions of a true “work-life balance” are relatively new, and realistic pathways to accomplish it are few. Passion Spark offers students a highly interactive, results-oriented, guided curriculum leading them to “do what you love and earn a good living,” treasured outcomes of a true work-life balance. A summary of the “how" is offered at PassionSpark.org/leaders . ABOUT THE PROJECT Challenge : Throughout the United States and Canada, a surprisingly large percentage of university graduates and alumni have not found placement in a satisfying career or internship matching their degree. How can we support university graduates, and those approaching graduation, to achieve a career placement that will be fulfilling, long term. Specific Project Objective : How to best collaborate with universities to provide Passion Spark Retreats to their near-graduate and post-graduate alumni. Potential Specific Activities of University/College Student Interns • Overall: This project is imagined as an experiential opportunity to engage the theories learned from relevant university coursework and to then manifest these learnings into specific recommendations for actual project implementation. • Political Challenge: Potential career counselor resistance to outside vendors impinging on their domain and responsibility. • Economics : Identifying which department line budget would be most appropriate or most agreeable to covering the Retreat tuition. Developing process for students to apply to their university to pay for the Retreat tuition. Developing alternative shared payment scenarios such that individual students pay a portion of their Retreat tuition. • Bureaucratic: Identifying the best approach to gain bureaucratic buy-in and approval. • Agendas : Preparing realistic and actionable agendas for moving the project forward on two fronts: 1. To support engaging with Passion Spark management to best support the projects development; and 2. To support engaging with the university’s administrators and decision-makers. • Program design: Prepare recommendations for modifications to program design, if any, to best fit the university’s structural needs, and other. • Implementation: Prepare a detailed sequential set of recommended steps for implementing Passion Spark at a university to serve either one or both of these student populations: near-graduates and post-graduates. Steps to be rooted in the actual realities present in a university, to address the challenges noted above, beginning with, for example, to whom should the first call be made, or email sent, and what initial information should be provided during this initial contact. Project activities might include but are not limited to: [Note: At the discretion of the students, as useful to accomplishing the actual “Implementation” goals noted above, will be embodied within the activities related to “ Potential Specific Activities of University/College Student Interns ” noted above.] • Describing the development of public administration in the cases of specific countries and levels of government • Comparing the major administrative, institutional, and organizational theories • Applying knowledge of the dimensions of public management and leadership • Analyzing public organizations and to make recommendations to improve effectiveness.

Tana McNicol

I am an independent real estate agent that works under the broker name Royal Lepage Wolstencroft Realty. My challenge is the real estate indusry is saturated and there is always a sea of realtors advertising continually through social media. It is trying to come out with a marketing strategy to stand out on several different social media platforms. In our industry we never really work within a specific target market, therefore it is difficult to direct marketing efforts to one demographic group without the public mistakenly thinking that I only work with that specific buyer. Our buyers always come in different shapes and sizes, age groups ethnic backgrounds etc. That is often the good part of the industry is meeting all kinds of different people. I am very much in need of more polished posts on facebook and Instagram and other platforms that you may feel are important. I would need an on-going digital presence such as videos that brings value to prospects. Search engine optimization for my website would also be a necessity. I am very open to ideas and suggestions. Thank you in advance Tana McNicol (604) 313-1410 mcnicoltana@gmail.com

Marketing and design of NO! SUGA (sugar alternative)

It’s important for us to have a better understanding of how our target audience perceives our brand and competitors. We want to develop clarity on our competitive advantages and optimize our marketing strategy. This project will include: Summary Business strategy Other Communications Market research Product or service launch Marketing - General Design - GeneralThrough their studies, our students have gained a thorough understanding of advanced level techniques in Adobe Illustrator. Students have examined advanced level tools within Illustrator to create technically sound vector artwork. Our students will examine and implement industry standard best practices for vector artwork creation while working with your company.By the end of the project, students will have ideally created advanced level vector graphics for output, and for use within digital and print-ready files. What can our students do for your company? Using Adobe Illustrator, individual students will apply their design skills to customize a file of your choosing. The file can be a template or can be created for a specific one-time use and include written content and images that you provide. Examples include, but are not limited to: Logo/branding Icons Badges Infographic/Data visualizations Digital illustrations Patterns An internal or external newsletter A poster A marketing flyer (both for print and online) A brochure Interface design revision of your website A case study template A 2 to 4-page branded whitepaper with design layout A marketing collateral piece agreed upon by client and professor digital marketing branding problem analysis logo creationAn identification of our current competitors An identification of potential future competitors (eg. a large company in a similar industry who may enter the space) The creation of a matrix identifying features shared across the companies and those that are different. A summary of 2-4 paragraphs describing our competitive advantages and disadvantages relative to the competition identified. This could be done in the form of a SWOT analysis. We will give you access to organizational assets to support this project such as personnel, website analytics, sales and brand collateral, and more. We can suggest names of competitors to research. Objective We hope to gain a comprehensive understanding of the competitors in our space and how we can differentiate ourselves through our product/service offering, and our messaging. Marketing We aim to find suitable markets and retailers to capitalise on a fabulous product that will be well received