Want to take the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business to prom?

Serious Facebookers love being “liked” on Facebook. It shows that their friends enjoyed the post that they just put up.

I’m feeling a little too “liked” recently. Last Thursday we invited every architectural firm that might be interested in bidding on our new building to attend an information meeting here. In fact, it was a mandatory meeting. If they wanted to bid, they had to come to the meeting. As it turns out, there are a lot of them, more than 20 of them, who would like to be a part of the history of the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business.

The truth is, that I only want to work with an architectural firm that has either designed a business building before or architects who are partnering with another firm that has already tackled such a project. So as not to get the other suitor’s hopes up, I explained this requirement and tried to make it very clear that we want a firm that has the right kind of experience. Not everyone need apply. We only get one prom and it has to be outstanding.

Have you ever seen an architectural proposal? If you want to process it properly, as I do, just one can be a little daunting. If I get a stack of more than 20, that will seriously cut into my summer reading plans. I’m more than willing to invest the time in this important project; but if I already know the proposal is going to have a disappointing ending, then I’d rather not read that book. That’s some summer reading I can do without.

I hope they got the message. They now have one week to submit questions about our expectations and needs. After that week, we will answer all their questions, share our answers with all who have expressed an interest in our project and then we’ll get proposals from those select firms that can tap the unique expertise we need to design a top-tier business school.
I know there are some outstanding firms interested in helping us. If all goes to plan, the proposals I get will prove very interesting reading. It’s going to be an awesome prom. I’m going to like that.

Ken Snyder