Each morning, residents of Robert Shaw Hall at Syracuse University encounter a frustrating and time-consuming problem. As each college freshman struggles out of bed and wanders down the hall to take a shower before class, he is thwarted. He opens the bathroom door and is immediately confronted with a line of (at least!) three others waiting for a shower to become available. These daily delays often result in lost class time, missing breakfast, poor dental hygiene and general grouchiness. What is the solution? Read on.
As part of the Entrepreneurship Project for my IST 195 class, I will blog about a new, innovative and dynamic system that will reinvent the morning for Shaw Hall residents. I am excited to announce the SSMS: Shaw Shower Management System. The SSMS will feature a web interface that allows residents to 'reserve' a place in the shower queue. Now, residents will never waste their time waiting in line! The system will display a countdown until the shower stall is available, allowing each resident to put every minute of their morning to good use. Shower times will be limited to twenty minutes per person, per morning. Residents using the SSMS will swipe their Syracuse University ID Card to turn on the water.
Professor Rubin lectured on Social Media this past Wednesday. He explained to our class that users spend more time on social networks than on any other website. I am excited to harness the power of social media to leverage my idea. I will use Facebook and Twitter to introduce the idea to my peers in Shaw Hall. Using Facebook and Twitter, I can gather feedback about the idea and recruit friends to serve as beta testers. I will spread the word about the SSMS and promote it through social media. I think using social media to publicize my idea will be more effective than creating paper flyers, as teenagers in today's world spend a significant amount of time on the Internet.
Check back next week for more details about the SSMS!
Great idea, lets hear the details of how it will work.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of reminds me of the laundry service that SU uses so that you can check to see when you're laundry is done. Resource constraints within dorms is always a hassle. My only concern for this type of product would be if someone on the floor didn't decide to use the service and they just started waiting in line (there is always one obstinate person on the floor that would do that) perhaps you could start off to solve that problem by making some of the showers exclusive to users of this product and the rest, people can wait in line. Cool idea.
ReplyDeleteHey Brian, This sounds like a great idea. It's very innovative and can help many college students across the country. I think it would be great to get the opinion of many college students across the Syracuse campus. You can utilize the various dorm groups on facebook to see your peers opinion on this product and how you can make it better. Just an idea, what if users could log into a specific bathroom on their laptop and reserve a spot in line before even leaving their dorm. I really love this idea and believe that it has the potential to improve dorm life for college students across the country!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea, and I can actually relate to it because I lived in Shaw! this is sooo true! and if there where a system where the availability of showers, and like GA's said, the laundry as well. It would save so much timee since one can check it through the computer! I would love to see this develop and seriously having it on Syracuse University! Awesome Idea!
ReplyDeleteSo genius! This could be such a useful idea for college students everywhere, and if you think about it, even in peoples homes. finally maybe I could get some quality shower time in the morning!
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