Recommended format for creating an Neat Ideas Fair Poster

1

• Who are the target customers? Who, and
  approximately how many, will benefit from the
  adoption of your idea and in what way will they
  benefit?
• How will your idea hold up against the
  competition and create barriers to entry?
• How will you execute your idea? What is needed in
  order to take the next steps in developing your
  idea?

Title
What specific problem or opportunity are you
addressing? What is your product,
service, and/or solution idea how does it
work? What unique benefits does your
product, service, and/or solution offer?
Email your poster file to svce_at_cob.sjsu.edu by
1159 pm on 11/23/2008 for printing. Please keep
your background white.

• Recommended format for creating an Neat Ideas
  Fair Poster
• This slide set includes Neat Ideas Fair poster
  introduction guidelines (this page), descriptions
  of the various elements of the Neat Idea Fair
  poster and what is generally expected within each
  area of the poster (slide 2), and, a blank
  template for your use in creating your own Neat
  Idea Fair poster (slide 3). Be sure your
  finished Neat Ideas Poster is completely
  contained on ONE page.
• Leave the Blue Headings/Questions in. Simple,
  concise answers help people understand your idea.
  
• . Do NOT change the poster size (36 x 48). For
  a printed 8.5 x 11 copy, use the Scale to Fit
  Paper option.
• Avoid pixelation! Many images look good on your
  computer screen, but will lose quality as they
  are enlarged to poster size. A good rule of thumb
  is to use a graphic that is 200-500 KB (large
  enough to have good resolution, small enough to
  save space.) When in doubt, do a full-size test
  print.
• Compress your pictures! Double click a picture in
  the poster the Format Picture dialog box
  will appear. In the lower left of the dialog
  box, select the Compress button. Select All
  pictures in document and click OK. Click
  Apply if a dialog box pops up. Click OK to
  close the Format Picture dialog box.
• The minimum font size is 20-22 pt in order to
  allow the poster to be read when it is printed
  full size. Please stay with standard fonts on the
  outside borders using common fonts like
  Garamond, Arial, Times New Roman, Sans Comic.

2

• Who are the target customers? Who, and
  approximately how many, will benefit from the
  adoption of your idea and in what way will they
  benefit?
• The Value Proposition summarizes the unique
  benefit delivered for a given price. Both unique
  benefit and price (which can be stated in
  relative ways) should be clear
• How will your idea hold up against the
  competition and create barriers to entry?
• How will this idea hold up against competition
  over time? Competition may come from alternative
  ways to get to the same benefit, or a more direct
  assault on the idea itself by copycats. An idea
  is judged as more robust if it provides a higher
  level benefit/cost ratio than alternatives, and
  if the idea has a defensible barrier to entry by
  copycats.
• How will you execute your idea? What is needed in
  order to take the next steps in developing your
  idea?
• Who is on the Team?
• Names.

Title
What specific problem or opportunity are you
addressing? Explain A. the fundamental problem
that exists in terms of the costs being incurred
(e.g., monetary, time, emotion, quality of life,
etc), and/or B. the opportunity that exists to
improve productivity, lower costs, increase
emotional satisfaction, quality of life,
etc. What is your product, service, and/or
solution idea how does it work? What are the
chances that such an idea can be delivered?
Execution includes the ability to produce the
product or service at a reasonable cost/unit, and
the cost of developing and marketing the product
or service. Judging should be done based on the
teams ability to explain their execution plans.
Use the middle section to visually catch the eye
of the viewer and more fully communicate your
idea, its use, and its benefits within its
intended user environment. May show before and
after scenarios, etc and utilize a combination
of drawings, graphics, pictures, some limited
text, to tell the story (remember ,a picture is
worth a thousand words). To complement the idea
poster itself, you may want to display a demo,
samples, handouts, and/or other embellishments
to enrich your presentation and more fully and
tangibly communicate your product, service /or
solution idea.
What unique benefits does your product, service,
and/or solution offer?
Is this idea providing a clear and useful
benefit? Benefits can take on many dimensions
financial, time or effort saved, emotional,
entertainment, medicinal, knowledge, etc. A
benefit answers the question what is in it for
me? for the customer. Level of quality is
judged by how much perceived value and uniqueness
there is.
3

• Who are the target customers? Who, and
  approximately how many, will benefit from the
  adoption of your idea and in what way will they
  benefit?
• How will your idea hold up against the
  competition and create barriers to entry?
• How will you execute your idea? What is needed in
  order to take the next steps in developing your
  idea?

Title
Imagine if
What specific problem or opportunity are you
addressing? What is your product,
service, and/or solution idea how does it
work? What unique benefits does your
product, service, and/or solution offer?