The college students would absolutely benefit from some real world analysis. Too much of my graduate experience was theoretical at best and never seated in solving actual current problems. Tapping into this resource benefits the students and college curriculum, and imagine if the students knew more about the issues in our community and were actually engaged in solving them.... free labor might start to address the issues our elected officials can not. If we get the students engaged (eg 25,000 at UB?) in our community, working to address some of the issues the area is facing, even on a small scale, and it's at virtually no cost to to the businesses / agencies they're supporting, how does anyone lose? My friend was actually involved in the Get Dressed study in his Medaille MBA program. It wasn't a hack job, it was true business case and market analysis, and just as Michael Atardo how he's fairing on Main St now (well once the snow melts).

great use of un-addled brains.

take this a step further and link up with a group willing to develop business plans for budding local entrepreneurs.

hypothetical exercises in an MBA program are as valuable and relevant as arguing with your snow-angel over the best Buffalo restaurant.

Sound like this is a win-win. Students get the experience of dealing with real clients and their needs and the smaller start up entrepreneur get a marketing plan that they might not be able to afford. Perhaps there should be a feed back into the program from (if any) long term successful businesses.

Plus it is much nicer to have on a resume that you worked on a real plan for a business that is utilizing that plan (ideally successfully) than a made up exercise about how a fictional business would or wouldn't work in Downtown.

It is funny that Medaille one of the smallest colleges around is doing this. Imagine the brain power that could be utilized if UB were to do something similar. But then I that might be asking too much UB is just slowly starting to think of itself as a part of the City again.