4shotB

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
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4,631
You can reach out to them and donate at ATFund.org . Also, if you feel that there are many who would donate if the GTAA reached out to them, send a message to the GTAA and let them know you feel that way. If they get get lots of messages about different types of marketing, they are likely to listen.

RonJohn - I have been suggesting for awhile that one way for the GTAA to get more money would be to suggest exactly when and where the money be used for improvements. In other words, rather than ask for donations or hand outs, approach it as a request for capital with supporting justification. Following your suggestions, I sent a short, polite email to this effect to Mr. Stansbury at the email address I obtained from Ramblingwreck.com. This was on Monday.

To date I have not heard anything. Not even a polite form letter or email.Even checked my spam folder. I do not know what kind of work you do or did in your professional career but would you or your company or the company you worked for ever fail to respond to a customer's inquiry in a timely manner??? I have had careers in both public and private sector and in both, replies or responses to stakeholders was considered at the very top of things considered to be critical and even non-negotiable. Even if I could not respond directly, that task would be delegated to someone in the engineering, sales, customer support or quality departments. If the request was not something that could be answered immediately, the customer would get an email to that effect along with a timeline of when to expect a final answer or resolution. A customer ALWAYS received some response (email, phone call, fax, whatever) within 24 hours of initial contact.

Perhaps my background is unique and thus taints my perspective. Perhaps expecting a reply or response was rather naive on my part because, quite frankly, my donations over the years have not been significant or impressive. However, that is a chicken and egg type of question..since Dr. Rice left, I have never really felt comfortable with the leadership or direction of the GTAA. My experiences with them oftentimes are similar to this one...they behave in the exact opposite manner of what I would expect from a well run organization.

Again, I may be naive. I accept that. But if I were running the show there, if someone communicated with me or the GTAA in ANY constructive manner on ways to engage the fan (customer) base or improve operations, they would receive a reply. Even if I had to create a file of canned form responses, the person would receive a quick response along with a "thank you" for being concerned enough to write. What is the old business adage about being grateful for the customer who complains rather than leaves quietly? I think it is appropriate and true.

Anyway, I thank you for your suggestion to follow up. I thought you might be interested in the outcome.
 

GT_05

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,370
RonJohn - I have been suggesting for awhile that one way for the GTAA to get more money would be to suggest exactly when and where the money be used for improvements. In other words, rather than ask for donations or hand outs, approach it as a request for capital with supporting justification. Following your suggestions, I sent a short, polite email to this effect to Mr. Stansbury at the email address I obtained from Ramblingwreck.com. This was on Monday.

To date I have not heard anything. Not even a polite form letter or email.Even checked my spam folder. I do not know what kind of work you do or did in your professional career but would you or your company or the company you worked for ever fail to respond to a customer's inquiry in a timely manner??? I have had careers in both public and private sector and in both, replies or responses to stakeholders was considered at the very top of things considered to be critical and even non-negotiable. Even if I could not respond directly, that task would be delegated to someone in the engineering, sales, customer support or quality departments. If the request was not something that could be answered immediately, the customer would get an email to that effect along with a timeline of when to expect a final answer or resolution. A customer ALWAYS received some response (email, phone call, fax, whatever) within 24 hours of initial contact.

Perhaps my background is unique and thus taints my perspective. Perhaps expecting a reply or response was rather naive on my part because, quite frankly, my donations over the years have not been significant or impressive. However, that is a chicken and egg type of question..since Dr. Rice left, I have never really felt comfortable with the leadership or direction of the GTAA. My experiences with them oftentimes are similar to this one...they behave in the exact opposite manner of what I would expect from a well run organization.

Again, I may be naive. I accept that. But if I were running the show there, if someone communicated with me or the GTAA in ANY constructive manner on ways to engage the fan (customer) base or improve operations, they would receive a reply. Even if I had to create a file of canned form responses, the person would receive a quick response along with a "thank you" for being concerned enough to write. What is the old business adage about being grateful for the customer who complains rather than leaves quietly? I think it is appropriate and true.

Anyway, I thank you for your suggestion to follow up. I thought you might be interested in the outcome.

I agree that you should get a timely response. However, I would bet that TStan has more than one email address. One email address is public facing, like the one you sent your email to, and he probably has another one that is unpublished that he uses for official business. The publicly published email address is probably monitored by TStan’s staff which could create a delay. I think that multiple email addresses are probably common with public figures to help filter out the “crap” emails that these folks are likely inundated with. Regardless, even if this is the case, someone should have responded to you by now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

TheSilasSonRising

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,729
You can reach out to them and donate at ATFund.org . Also, if you feel that there are many who would donate if the GTAA reached out to them, send a message to the GTAA and let them know you feel that way. If they get get lots of messages about different types of marketing, they are likely to listen.

Does not “the Hill” or the alumni organization (Roll Call or whatever) deny the GTAA the right to access their lists? Have read something along those lines.

If so, it is a sad commentary because AKAIK a majority of schools are proud of the young men and women representing the school on various playing fields and are proud to let the ENTIRE alumni population have information regarding ways to support those S/As.
 

TheSilasSonRising

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,729
RonJohn - I have been suggesting for awhile that one way for the GTAA to get more money would be to suggest exactly when and where the money be used for improvements. In other words, rather than ask for donations or hand outs, approach it as a request for capital with supporting justification. Following your suggestions, I sent a short, polite email to this effect to Mr. Stansbury at the email address I obtained from Ramblingwreck.com. This was on Monday.

To date I have not heard anything. Not even a polite form letter or email.Even checked my spam folder. I do not know what kind of work you do or did in your professional career but would you or your company or the company you worked for ever fail to respond to a customer's inquiry in a timely manner??? I have had careers in both public and private sector and in both, replies or responses to stakeholders was considered at the very top of things considered to be critical and even non-negotiable. Even if I could not respond directly, that task would be delegated to someone in the engineering, sales, customer support or quality departments. If the request was not something that could be answered immediately, the customer would get an email to that effect along with a timeline of when to expect a final answer or resolution. A customer ALWAYS received some response (email, phone call, fax, whatever) within 24 hours of initial contact.

Perhaps my background is unique and thus taints my perspective. Perhaps expecting a reply or response was rather naive on my part because, quite frankly, my donations over the years have not been significant or impressive. However, that is a chicken and egg type of question..since Dr. Rice left, I have never really felt comfortable with the leadership or direction of the GTAA. My experiences with them oftentimes are similar to this one...they behave in the exact opposite manner of what I would expect from a well run organization.

Again, I may be naive. I accept that. But if I were running the show there, if someone communicated with me or the GTAA in ANY constructive manner on ways to engage the fan (customer) base or improve operations, they would receive a reply. Even if I had to create a file of canned form responses, the person would receive a quick response along with a "thank you" for being concerned enough to write. What is the old business adage about being grateful for the customer who complains rather than leaves quietly? I think it is appropriate and true.

Anyway, I thank you for your suggestion to follow up. I thought you might be interested in the outcome.

Have talked to at least 6 supporters of GTAA that had the exact same experience as you. And we are not talking about any “negative” communication to TStan - simply questions or “has any thought been given to trying ....” type things.
 

Milwaukee

Banned
Messages
7,277
Location
Milwaukee, WI
Question: if you guys emailed PJ and asked him if he's put any thought into trying XYZ, because you feel it may be helpful, and he didn't respond would you come to a message board and ***** about it? No.

Let TStan and staff do their job, they are qualified to make the decisions and don't need your input just like CPJ wouldn't.
 

Jmonty71

Banned
Messages
2,156
That’s a really good way to make sure you don’t lose the game. We’ve let leads of 20 and 28 slip away under CPJ. Gotta keep the pedal on the gas these days...
I'm talking about keeping starters in with 5 minutes left and passing the ball to try to score 2 more times.
 

4shotB

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
Messages
4,631
Question: if you guys emailed PJ and asked him if he's put any thought into trying XYZ, because you feel it may be helpful, and he didn't respond would you come to a message board and ***** about it? No.

Let TStan and staff do their job, they are qualified to make the decisions and don't need your input just like CPJ wouldn't.

CPJ doesn't want anything from me. TStan does (I am guessing, one never knows with the GTAA). That thing is called money. Changes the game a bit don't you think? Or are you in the habit of ignoring your customers too?
 

4shotB

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Retired Staff
Messages
4,631
Don't be dramatic. TStan has staff in place to make these decisions.

I think you are making assumptions . How do we know he does if no one has responded to my inquiry???. If you read back hrough this thread, my case is not a "one off". Look, I don't expect a letter from the CEO from Ford when I am having trouble with my truck or local dealer. But I do expect that there IS a process in place to respond to any issue that I have. Either - A) we don't have a process in place at the GTAA or B) we have one but it does not work. I'm not sure which of those 2 is the correct answer. Either way, it does not reflect well on the organization.
 

Milwaukee

Banned
Messages
7,277
Location
Milwaukee, WI
So you're upset that you didn't get an email returned, or because your suggestions weren't heard?

We're splitting hairs though, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
 

4shotB

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
Messages
4,631
So you're upset that you didn't get an email returned, or because your suggestions weren't heard?

We're splitting hairs though, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Perplexed, astounded or amazed would be better choices than upset. I have other ways to spend the money.
 

Whiskey_Clear

Banned
Messages
10,486
We still talking about Wisconsin? No? Ok.

Email replies...chances are Tstan may be getting more individual emails than he can properly respond to. He also hasn't been on the job very long and probably has a lot of constraints on his time.

If you have other places to put your money, and they are a greater priority than supporting Tech athletics. Good on ya; I got no qualms with that.

If you have money you are interested in allocating to Tech athletics, but require some kind of personal correspondence with the AD before writing that check...maybe you should check your ego first.

If you donate in the hundreds or less and expect a face to face meeting with Tstan, you might be waiting a while and again, probably need to check your ego at the door.

If you sent an email and gave advice or input or grievance or request for info, and aren't a fairly significant donor, and believe a mass communication to the fanbase answering the majority of such communications generally is not sufficient; and expect individual replies instead, you might want to....well you get the idea by now.

Maybe Tstan will eventually manage to find time to reply to every communication he receives. If so, God bless. But I personally would prefer to see him utilize his time to improving our athletic department instead.
 

4shotB

Helluva Engineer
Retired Staff
Messages
4,631
Maybe Tstan will eventually manage to find time to reply to every communication he receives. If so, God bless. But I personally would prefer to see him utilize his time to improving our athletic department instead.

let me be as concise as I possibly can...I don't expect a response from TStan. I am aware that I am not big enough of a contributor. I get that...seriously, I do. I would expect to get some sort of canned response from someone within the organization however. Ultimately, this is based on my experiences in dealing with customers or potential customers. Apparently, some of you have different experiences and expectations. I have to make the assumption that many of you who feel this way were in some technical or engineering or line management function that had no customer interactions.

Let me ask you a simple question...if you emailed Southwest Airlines or Toyota with a suggestion or concern, would you expect a reply? If your answer is no, then you simply have a different set of expectations than I do.
 

Whiskey_Clear

Banned
Messages
10,486
let me be as concise as I possibly can...I don't expect a response from TStan. I am aware that I am not big enough of a contributor. I get that...seriously, I do. I would expect to get some sort of canned response from someone within the organization however. Ultimately, this is based on my experiences in dealing with customers or potential customers. Apparently, some of you have different experiences and expectations. I have to make the assumption that many of you who feel this way were in some technical or engineering or line management function that had no customer interactions.

Let me ask you a simple question...if you emailed Southwest Airlines or Toyota with a suggestion or concern, would you expect a reply? If your answer is no, then you simply have a different set of expectations than I do.

I'd expect the canned response you refer to. Which has less value to me than a single sheet of toilet paper. Because it's meaningless. Pretty much says "Thank you for contacting us, but we didn't read a damn word you actually wrote. Have a nice day and come again."

That's just me though. Anyone in marketing would agree with you over me.
 

JorgeJonas

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1,147
let me be as concise as I possibly can...I don't expect a response from TStan. I am aware that I am not big enough of a contributor. I get that...seriously, I do. I would expect to get some sort of canned response from someone within the organization however. Ultimately, this is based on my experiences in dealing with customers or potential customers. Apparently, some of you have different experiences and expectations. I have to make the assumption that many of you who feel this way were in some technical or engineering or line management function that had no customer interactions.

Let me ask you a simple question...if you emailed Southwest Airlines or Toyota with a suggestion or concern, would you expect a reply? If your answer is no, then you simply have a different set of expectations than I do.
If I emailed the CEO of Southwest or Toyota, I would not expect a response.
 

4shotB

Helluva Engineer
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Messages
4,631
I'd expect the canned response you refer to. Which has less value to me than a single sheet of toilet paper. Because it's meaningless. Pretty much says "Thank you for contacting us, but we didn't read a damn word you actually wrote. Have a nice day and come again."

.

So true. and the lack of response is this... "we don't know what you wrote nor do we care. In fact, we don't even think it is worth 30 seconds of an unpaid marketing intern's time to type up a prepackaged response that we have crafted and send it out under Todd's emsail signature. Have a nice day!"

Just speak's to the lack of business savvy in that organization. You admitted to expecting a form letter (which you wouldn't put much stock into) from the organizations I used in my post. Aside from the fact that it is our alma mater that maybe you feel some type of emotional connection to and with that you don't have with SWA or Toyota or Coca-Cola, why do you give the GTAA a pass on this? I'm genuinely curious. Do you feel as if marketing strategies and tactics are unessential/unimportant in conducting to business? Despite my engineering nbackground, I think they are essential components to any organization that is competing with others for the customers' attention and dollars.
 
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