Peak at Pcc #3

>>KATE KINDER: You'll hear people say, oh, if only we could do this! Or I had this great idea; I was thinking we could do this. This is an avenue to actually get those ideas into action. >>ALEX deROODE: Getting double-sided printing as a standard would be, would be good. >>NEAL NAIGUS: What are we doing now that we can change? What are we not doing that we could be doing? >>GWEN BRUNTON: Everything's electronic. Why not the holiday cards? JILL DUNAWAY: What I really wanted was to be heard and to have a way to, to say hey, you know, here's some ideas. >>KATE KINDER: When people see the ideas that were selected and see them being implemented across the campus, I'm hoping that will prompt more people to give us their good ideas and to know that they could become a reality. >>GREG RAPP: If we truly embrace change and think more innovatively, we'll find ways that we can serve our students even better than we are now. >>NEAL NAIGUS: What is an entrepreneur? That's a really good question. To me, an entrepreneur is somebody who creates and thinks innovatively, comes up with an idea, and finds a way to implement it. >>SHEILA MESERSCHMIDT: Entrepreneurs are individuals who see opportunities for innovative change. >>GREG RAPP: An entrepreneur is a person that, that has an idea, but also has the conviction, the fire in the belly, to go out there and, and make a difference and make their dream a reality. >>GREG RAPP: PEAK is the President's Entrepreneurial Advisory Council and it was started in March of 2011. Dr. Pulliams pulled this group together... >>NEAL NAIGUS: Membership is made up of representatives from all the campuses and centers and all classificiations throughout the Portland Community College district. The President sent out a notice to the college community asking people to volunteer who were in interested in coming up with innovative approaches to revenue generation, and the people that volunteered were selected to be on the committee. >>KATE KINDER: We reached out to the college through various mechanisms. There's some great videos, through some emails, through meetings, to really try to get the word out to staff what PEAK was and how they could submit their ideas >>DR. PRESTON PULLIAMS: I want to extend this open invitation to everyone in the organization to be part of this effort. >>CHERIE CHEVALIER: What is it that we can do that will help us raise revenue, ongoing revenue, or create cost savings for the college? >>GWEN BRUNTON: The reason I decided to get involved in PEAK and provide a suggestion was I, that a little flyer came around one of my co-workers put on my desk. And it kinda caught my eye. I thought, wow, this looks like an avenue for me too give some feedback and give some ideas about how we can save some money. >>KATE KINDER: We had a lot of fantastic ideas that came in, and one of the things we looked at is how much it could save the college money, how much money it could generate, and how innovative the idea was. >>GWEN BRUNTON: I submitted the idea of changing from a paper, regular mail holiday card for the employees to an electronic holiday card. When I go to open my Christmas cards I realize I have a lot of Christmas cards, and I thought, hmm, PCC does a very nice job sending out Human Resource notices and other kinds of correspondence electronically; they could probably save a lot of money by doing holiday cards the same way. So, I submitted my idea via email. Then I found out that they had selected this particular idea. I was pleased because it was something that was so simple and yet could save a lot of money in the long run. >>GREG RAPP: One of the great things about PEAK is it created a forum, a process if you will, for people that, that had ideas to easily submit their ideas, to have it reviewed, and provided a means to give some financial support to these ideas so those ideas could be implemented in the years ahead. >>ALEX deROODE: The idea I submitted to PEAK was for a paper use reduction initiative. I came up with that idea with a group. The college purchases about 92,000 tons of paper per year. This is going to a landfill. You don't just throw it in the trash and forget about it. It's going somewhere. >>VOICE: Right. >>ALEX deROODE: ...and it's going to be there for a while. So, we projection that the paper use reduction initiative would, in the first year, save the college approximately $6,000 a year. And with a continued reduction in paper usage by about 5% a year, we could be saving the college approximately $32,000 per year. With the, with our PEAK efforts, we're going to reduce the amount going here in the first place, but then if we do have paper, this is where it should end up. >>NEAL NAIGUS: We would like to make this a cultural shift within the college so that everybody at every level is thinking more creatively and more entrepreneurially. >>GREG RAPP: I think there's a lot of excitement about PEAK and, and that comes from the people that are involved. They want to participate. They want to have their ideas heard and implemented. They want to make a difference. >>SHEILA MESERSCHMIDT: CLIMB Center for Advancement submitted a proposal to PEAK. CLIMB is the continuing education arm of Portland Community College, serving working professionals and business. CLIMB stands for "Continuous Learning for Individuals, Management and Business" and provides professional development and job training through contract training, health professionals and the small business development center. The proposal that CLIMB submitted to the PEAK council is two-fold. The first portion was to remodel a series of rooms at CLIMB in order to expand on the flexibility of those rooms and increase the type of courses that would could offer while retaining the functionality of those rooms for anyone to use through PCC and our business partners. The second portion was to expand our ability to create and deliver e-learning courses. >>NEAL NAIGUS: The results of the first round of PEAK have been some really, really exciting new ideas that, that show that people are really interested in finding new ways and entrepreneurial efforts to, again, save costs and increase revenue. JILL DUNAWAY: My colleague Jordan and I had the same idea. The idea my colleague and I submitted to PEAK is e-payables, which is a different method for paying the college's vendors. Currently, the college issues checks to our vendors or an electronic payment. E-payables will allow us to pay our vendors via credit card. So here's the analysis from the bank of potential vendors. It looks like we have 15 vendors that the bank feels confident will enroll in our e-payables program. E-payables will create revenue by increasing our rebate from the bank. The potential rebate is about $150,000 a year. It will also allow us to earn more money on our investments because we will have our cash longer. And it also will, will have a cost savings in reducing the amount of checks that we're heading and mailing out. I do like to think of new ideas and ways to work better. And if there's a savings to the college or potential earnings then that's even better. >>GREG RAPP: PEAK really re-emphasizes what we've done all along here at Portland Community College. We are very innovative. We've always been very innovative. >>NEAL NAIGUS: As we look down the road in the next 10, 20 years, if we can't increase our revenue and we're still trying to provide quality service to the community, how are we going to do that? Everybody has ideas, and this is a way that there's an avenue for them to communicate those ideas. >>SHEILA MESERSCHMIDT: I mean, that's what entrepreneurialism is about, right? You seek opportunities that aren't already there. You're willing to take the inherent risk involved. And then you transform society. >>KATE KINDER: We've met all our timelines. We've been able to implement ideas and would like to continue doing that and growing that in the next fiscal year and getting more people involved in PEAK. JILL DUNAWAY: I do think that a group like PEAK is important to the college because people do have ideas, and it may just be a thought, but this leaves you an avenue to be able to make something happen.