| The
evolution of a group project: The Salt Lake City
Marathon
By Marshall Young
April 23, 2008 | The Salt Lake City
Marathon didn't know they were getting a great thing
when The Summit Group agreed to take on our public relations
group project. We went in to the project with the attitude
of trying to bring something new and unique to the event.
Like most things in life, group projects
evolve more than they flow together to create a seamless
product. For my agency class, things certainly changed
colors more often than a chameleon.
My group was definitely capable of
doing public relations. At first, we all had so many
ideas on how we could help the marathon and different
ways with which to verbalize them to each other. We
all wanted to be a part of the project, and have our
ideas heard and discussed. It took a while to agree
to terms of how our group was going to work. I think
the moment we all decided to swallow our pride and listen
to each other all the way through their thoughts was
the moment we were able to get the ball rolling.
I think that some of the ideas were
great. The main focus of our project, the creation of
the collegiate fitness/pride challenge named the Marathon
Melee, had so much potential. We wanted to have each
school's mascots wandering the finish line. We imagined
a mass of school spirit being manifest through special
performance jerseys in the color of each school. Wouldn't
it be cool to see Utah, Utah State, BYU, Weber State
and more running in herd-like groups to show both school
pride and commitment to a healthy lifestyle?
These ideas were nearly realized,
but the tight timing we had didn't allow us to accomplish
some of these dreams. When we found out our special
jerseys wouldn't be produced, we were definitely bummed,
but we kept at it and found a way to reconstruct some
of our hope for the project. We did many things like
write press releases, construct media kit templates,
and pitch stories to various newspapers throughout the
state. Instead of unique and colorful jerseys, I had
the chance to design a logo, and we had some wristbands
produced in the colors of the participating schools
with it on them.
Being able to be a part of creating
those wristbands really made my part in the whole thing
memorable, but that wasn't the only thing. I loved the
weekly phone conference calls we had to communicate
and talk about our work with the professionals at The
Summit Group. They worked extremely well with us, and
wanted to give us all the opportunities we could take
to help out and be a meaningful participant in their
public relations effort for the marathon.
I'll remember forging a friendly
relationship with everyone in our group. The night before
the marathon, we all had a great time laughing, hot
tubbing, and talking about watching television.
The day of the marathon started before
sunlight for us and I had the great opportunity to walk
to the Gateway and help out with the radio communication.
One of the unexpected things I learned was how to tie
knots. It's really been a long time since I was a scout,
and that was fun.
The runners soon came in from the
different events, and standing in the sun the whole
time was hard. I enjoyed watching the endless stream
of sweating runners cross the finish line and collapse
in joy over finishing the race.
I must say that this project was
my favorite one I have done throughout my collegiate
experience. In fact, one of the main reasons I transferred
to Utah State was for the opportunity to have this type
of working experience. The key, in my opinion, to having
a good group project centers on each individual being
able to let go of his/her ego and be willing to actually
go out and help. That is what we worked on, and I feel
we did a good job.
DM
DM |
