Development of social work projects for Student Studio

Thanks Oli.  I look forward to hearing from Sheila.  I will speak to both the contact in the North and London later today hopefully.

I have just spoken to Diana and explained my thinking.  An FE college I am working with has a strong Social Work department and close links with local borough councils.  I report to the Vice Principal responsible for Business Development who is very open to new ideas.  I will try and find time to discuss it with her when I see her on Monday and report back to Diana on progress.

That’s great Sheila.  I look forward to hearing from you.

There is a story in the news about the development of “Sun Cream Pens”.  Anyone who has ever tried to apply suncream to a small child will appreciate the value of a product such as this.  This news item made me think about how we are trying to bring the Student Studio product to market.  I believe that Student Studio could have as much value to employers and work experience students as the “Sun Cream Pens” have for parents and carers (and of course the children).  But I wonder if we need to be more creative and innovative about how to draw it to the attention of people?  How can we make it newsworthy so that we generate interest in the product?  At this stage we want people to pilot the product but even that is proving a challenge.  Is there any mileage in exploiting the real triumph of the Velodrome by linking it with Student Studio??  I think we need to find an answer to the big question “How do we bring this to market?”  Do we agree that this is the big question!!?  And yes I will be out there buying the “Sun Cream Pens”- once I have of course satisfied myself that the cream in the pens is fit for purpose!

I had an interesting phone conversation with my contact in the North East. It was too complex to go into detail but the “headings” were

1, Marketing to schools.
2. Selection and matching process.
3, Three way contract (LA, School, Thinkup)
4, Insurance policies.
5, In situ parachute/fall guy.

I will try to phone Diana over the weekend. Does she get time and a half for Saturdays and double time for Sundays?

Terence

Two responses in one
Di- in order to generate interest in Student Studio in the construction sector this summer, we will seek to place 50 students in companies around the UK. Our intention is to get endorsement of this scheme from organisations such as ICE in order to be able to publicize the scheme rough their networks. That way we can seek to gain the media interest that we would like without having to buy advertising space.

Terrence, your list is comprehensive. I have developed a similar one as part of the process of placing these fifty students. I would be happy to set up a phone meeting to discuss the detail of these headings.

For the last three days I have been at the Big Bang Science fair talking to teachers and seeking partners to test Student Studio. I will be contacting them in due course, and inviting them to discuss their thoughts in a parallel forum thread to this one. 

This website offers an interesting example of a pre-qualification tool to see if students would be interested in taking on the work experience student. It could help assure host companies that the students are indeed motivated.

http://engineeringadvice.apprenticeships.org.uk/

Hello Oli,

Not sure what your working hours are but a phone convesration tomorrow (Sunday) would be good. Diana has my home number and mobile. I said to my contact that I would try to call him Monday. I guessed that you would already have done stuff on marketing, contracts, insurance etc. I think he might not want to get too close to the actual placement in case it went wrong. I think he would like someone to come to North Tyneside to undertake the physical introductions and oversee the day to day of the first placement. I have family up there and conceivably could combine a holiday with them with being the on hand scape goat if it all went wrong. I plan to phone Diana tomorrow afternoon some time. Does she have your number I wonder.

I now realise there is little point in talking about Student Studio to companies who do not take work experience students.  It sounds like your venture Oli has real possibilities.  Good luck with it.

Hows the work going? any progress yet?