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Bloomington Herald-Times

February 12, 2010

$1 million gift to promote salesmanship at Kelley
By Mike Leonard
February 11, 2010

Indiana University's Kelley School of Business has received a $1 million gift from the 3M Corp. to build a new, state-of-the-art laboratory for teaching sales and communication skills.

"The Sales and Communication Lab made possible by 3M will move us forward in preparing students for careers not just in sales, but in all areas of business," said Daniel C. Smith, dean of the Kelley School.

Rosann Spiro, executive director of the Center for Global Sales Leadership at Kelley, said sales skills often are underappreciated by students but ultimately are extremely valuable in corporate leadership because sales experience is the closest link between a company and its customers.

"A majority of top executives somewhere along the way have had some sales experience," she said.

The business school has a long relationship with 3M, a Fortune 500 company. 3M regularly provides internships for Kelley students and hires Kelley graduates when they've completed their IU degrees. The company also is a sponsor of the school's Center for Global Sales Leadership and it brought its first Front Line Leadership Conference to Bloomington two years ago.

The $1 million gift will is the first major corporate contribution to the business school's $60 million capital campaign to renovate and expand facilities for undergraduate education. It also will count toward IU's overall $1.1 billion Matching the Promise campaign.

"What this lab is going to do is give us the opportunity to do a lot of things we can't do right now," said Spiro. "We'll be able to videotape students doing role-playing sales situations to other students and sometimes, actual corporate buyers. Then they'll be able to see what they did right and what their mistakes were. It's one thing to evaluate a presentation and another to let the student see themselves and how they came across."

Spiro said the proposed facility will include four presentation rooms and allow for team presentations similar to what happens in the business world. The lab will also be equipped with the same, cutting-edge software used in big business, enabling students to enter the job market familiar with the tools used in the contemporary business world.

Guest column
IU has two more reasons to kiss cars goodbye
February 12, 2010

This guest column was written by Bill Brown, director of the Office of Sustainability at Indiana University-Bloomington.

Indiana University Department of Transportation Services this week unveiled Zipcar car sharing and, at the same press conference, Indiana University Student Association's transportation director, Ilya Rekhter, announced that IUSA had approved an unprecedented two-year contract with Zimride, an online ride-share matching service.

These two experiments in transportation demand management, an when combined, have the potential to significantly reduce the number of cars coming to campus each August. Nearly half (44 percent) of the students, faculty and staff of Indiana University Bloomington get to campus in single-occupancy vehicles, according to a 2008 study.

Zipcar, an inexpensive rental car system geared toward students, may encourage some students to leave their cars at home, knowing they would have access to cheap transportation if they have to get to a job interview or go shopping.

Zimride, an online ride sharing and carpooling matching system, may complete that picture by making it easier for students to find rides not only to and from campus, but to go home on weekends or to work off campus.

Zipcar is the world's largest car-sharing service with 350,000 members and 6,500 vehicles in major urban areas and 150 college campuses in 28 states. Its success has a lot to do with a slick reservation system and an all-inclusive package for people 18 years and up that includes rental, gas, up to 180 miles of travel and insurance for $8 per hour.

Zipsters receive a Zipcard with a radio chip that can unlock the car, or users can use their iPhones. Indiana University started this week with four vehicles, including two Honda Insight hybrids and two Honda Civics, but plans to add four more.

IU transportation director Kent McDaniel noted that it costs about $700 per month to own a car, and it costs about $100 per month to use Zipcar. Zimride costs users nothing and it offers safe, convenient carpooling and car sharing in a very social way that interfaces with Facebook and Zipcar.

When combined with a beautiful, walkable campus and Indiana's most-used bus system, these two new services offer incoming students another viable alternative to bringing their cars to campus.

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