Victoria Pilate, Ph.D.
Shoebox Projects (10-13) - Supplement Information
Shoebox Project 10  -- Egyptian Tomb Beer Project
Your job is to organize the opening of an art exhibit and associated
fundraising activities.  You should consider issues from advertising, press
coverage, and cultural sensitivities.  

You work for the Thomas Museum which has a cooperative arrangement with
the Cairo Museum in Egypt.  The museums work together on traveling exhibits
and on excavations.  Recently, at an excavation, inside a tomb archeologists
found seeds and barley (large barrels full of each) in a 5,000 year old tomb.  
Some of the barley was sent to an American university for research and
scientists there successfully fermented it into beer.  

The artifacts from this excavation are ready for exhibit and tour.  The museum
director wants you to work on developing the ad campaign for the exhibit when
it arrives at the Thomas Museum in the U.S. but in particular she wants you to
work up a fundraising angle with the beer.  

Egypt is now a predominantly Muslim country; observant Muslims do not drink
alcohol. Do you foresee any problems with the beer fundraising campaign?  
The campaign is only for the Thomas Museum.  Before the beer fundraiser
was conceived, the Cairo Museum had agreed to give and did give the seeds
and barley to the Thomas Museum.  The artifacts are strictly on loan. Some
other artifacts found were the first mummified lion ever found, fabric, and
many scrolls.  The tomb was that of an influential queen to a Pharaoh.  

The museum has had generous benefactors both private individuals and
corporations.  Part of your team’s job is to get sponsors for this visiting
exhibit.  Speak to any issues you may face in doing so and/or any corporations
you want to target for sponsorship.  

The museum director strongly believes there is an unexploited fundraising
opportunity with the barley and beer.  In fact, she has somewhat of a gift in
quirky marketing. She previously worked on public relations for a Japanese
restaurant and an upscale American restaurant. Among her successes were
a successful launch for the Japanese restaurant of “Ice Age” water, a glass of
iced water made from drilled out Arctic ice selling just under $100 a glass.  

Kindly note also this exhibit and the current King Tut exhibit are the firsts to
come out of Egypt since 1982.  The Egyptian government had banned such
loans after an artifact was damaged in a German museum.  This is a unique
opportunity for which the Museum wants nothing to go wrong.  Suppose Egypt
becomes concerned about the beer and believes patrons may become
drunken and damage the artifacts.  Suppose further they demand that extra
security measures be taken; the security they want adds another seven
percent to the cost of the exhibit.  That's much more than the Museum has
budgeted for unexpected additional costs. A contract was signed before these
new demands were made.  What are your options?

Shoebox Project 11 - the Department Store Reinvention
Retail shopping continues to evolve with the changing demographics of the
country.  Increasingly, household buying decisions are being delegated within
American families to teenaged children. As well, teenagers have incredible
buying power of their own from allowances and part-time jobs.  Adult women
continue to control buying and reasons for buying are changing.  

You are a new hire to a small regional department store chain.  The chain is
doing well enough but has, like many department stores seen decreases in
some areas (electronics, cosmetics, some clothing, household items).  The
new CEO has decided to reinvent the department store as an upscale retail
store and, because of favorable conditions, has purchased as small similar
French store chain which has four stores in Paris.

Your team’s job is tri-fold.  First, who will your customers be?  Consider the
demographic data and buying data available.  Next address which lines
(children’s apparel, teen apparel, household goods like china and flatware,
etc) should stay and/or be the “stars” of the reinvented store?  Allocate floor
space according to the lines you’ve decided should stay.  In addition to square
footage, consider choice locations in the master floor plan for stores.  In your
presentation, you may discuss ranking of floor space rather than attempt to
assign an actual amount of floor space.  

The main store of the old American store was famed for its fine jewelry
selection. In fact, it was dubbed the Midwest's Tiffany's.  With the economic
fluctuations of the last two years, there have been problems of demand.  
However, your group notices that the store enjoys strong sales from foreign
visitors. In particular, sales staff report the majority of sales have gone to Arab
and Asian visitors.  The Arab buyers tend to be male and the Asian buyers
tend to be female.  The sales staff report also that sales dropped nearly a
fourth when the retail floor space was reorganized and the "private shopping"
area (the private shopping area was a store within a store but technically open
to all store visitors) for fine jewelry was eliminated and fine jewelry now
shares floor space with costume jewelry.  The reorganization was planned to
save money and encourage more high end sales. However, as one sales
staff member put it, "Rich Japanese women don't want to shop next to teeny-
boppers." Sales from the old high-end clientale dropped off and new sales
did not increase by the same proportion.  Discuss how to handle this
phenomenon.

Consider the articles and data on shoplifting and racial profiling.  Although
your employer has not had such high profile cases of people being wrongly
accused of shoplifting, you should consider preventative measures against
“retail profiling.”  Also pay close attention to the types of shoplifting noted in
one article.  Discuss issues related to employee theft and shopper theft and
ways to address them.  

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/print/0,2361,288715,00.html

Lastly, consider the international acquisition of the French stores.  The team
leader has set a site visit for July 14 and the rollout of the revamped stores
with huge sales will be second week of August.  While talking a mile a minute,
the team leader summarizes plans on a conference call to the French
counterparts.  As she concludes the call, you distinctly hear one of the French
employees utter  "bete vache" under her breath.  

July 14 is Bastille Day, a national holiday in France.  
August is the single most popular month for vacations in France with as many
as 60 to 75 percent of the French taking days off during that month.
Sales are regulated by the government and may occur only during a handful of
days during a year.  
Calling someone a cow in French (vache) is the same as calling someone a
bitch in English.

Shoebox Project 12 -- Primary Education in Africa
Unlike other groups, you have little background information to use. You work
for the Gates Foundation (as in Microsoft’s Bill Gates).  Bill Gate, Sr. (father of
the Microsoft founder) wants to do something about lack of educational
opportunities in Africa; if successful, he wants to expand the program to Asia.  
In particular the elder Gates is excited about the idea of satellite learning;  
Microsoft uses satellite and internet technology to have meetings and
distance education sessions.  Mr. Gates believes such technology would
work for Africa. He has worked extensively (and tirelessly) on AIDS and
immunization projects in Africa--South Africa and the Central African Republic
in particular.  

The current educational system in much of Africa can be described as poor in
both resources and quality-- rundown facilities and few educators.  Teachers
are poorly paid, if paid, and often have hundreds of students with few books
even chalk boards.  Pencils and paper are luxuries for many students and
schools. Absenteeism for teachers is often high as teachers must support
themselves with farming and their teaching jobs take a backseat to feeding
their families.  

The typical classroom of the African countries targeted by the Foundation is
without electricity and plumbing.  School libraries are generally nonexistent for
the targeted countries.  Gates believes that satellite technology can be used to
have American (or French speaking Canadian) teachers broadcast to Africa.  

Speak to how this could work.  Mr. Gates wanted live broadcasts of
American/Canadian classes; however the African countries are six hours
ahead of the Eastern time zone.  Money is less of a problem as both Gates
have indicated willingness for full funding but the devil is in the logistics.
Speak to issues in that in African countries in which distrust is high of
government (and in some situations distrust of schools is high) and
corruption is rampant.  Solar power is an option but theft is a real concern.

Consider the idea of the brief article in your shoebox on overhead projectors.  
The article suggests this as a way around the technology divide and an
alternative instructional device.  Weight the options. In your presentation,
speak to the pros and cons of either option.  Remember with this overhead
projector option, there must be teachers on site to teach but with the satellite
learning the teachers would be in North America.

Can this work? Your presentation should speak to challenges and
opportunities as well as ways of overcoming some of the challenges.


Shoebox Project 13 - - AIDS in America
You  work for the federal Department of Health and Human Services.  You've
just been hired and your first project is to develop strategies and a program to
address AIDS in America, in particularly among racial and ethnic minorities.  
Below and in your shoebox are information about AIDS and sexual behavior.  
Address general issues of developing a such a program and how to
overcome the myths about HIV and AIDS.  Next, develop a program to address
"down low" behavior of African American men (homosexual black men who
led public heterosexual lives).  This program will be used at college
campuses.  What problems do you anticipate with such a program? How will
you get people to participate (you would need people of all sexual orientations
and both genders to attend for the program to be effective)?  Lastly, how would
you evaluate the effectiveness of such a program?  Speak to overcoming the
reluctance of heterosexual men to deal openly with homosexuality.  Also
speak to the myth among homosexual and bisexual black and Latino men
that "gay" (homosexual) means Caucasian and effeminate.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/01/MNG4TCID0F1.
DTL&type=health

http://www.expressgaynews.com/2004/9-10/arts/cover/linking.cfm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5095-2005Feb7.html

http://www.blackwomenshealth.com/HIV_AIDS.htm

http://www.macalester.edu/~ostrove/wgs/HIV among Black Women.htm

http://www.aegis.com/news/wb/1999/WB990901.html

http://report.kff.org/archive/aids/2001/3/kh010316.1.htm