Deconstructing WeGo
For those of you not familiar with WeGo (first-years especially), this is a service that allows the student community to advertise items they are selling or seeking. Those who do not want to receive advertisements can opt out.
How can students utilize WeGo? The common themes are set up around Buy & Sell, Polls, Travel, Apartments & Roommates, and of course the miscellaneous section of Everything Else, which can list anything from lost mobile phones to latin dance classes. For example, if you need to sell furniture or are seeking a certain piece of furniture, you can do this through WeGo. If you are traveling for the weekend and looking to see if anyone wants to share a cab to Logan, you can advertise on WeGo. If you are seeking an apartment or another roommate to share your place-you guessed it-WeGo streamlines that process. But if you want a date for Saturday night…I wouldn’t suggest going on WeGo. Get in touch with Auntie Sam instead!
WeGo provides an effective way for students to advertise while avoiding spamming unwanted information to the entire HBS community. Remember, you only receive the topics you choose to receive, and you can change your options at any time. The messages that others send are also consolidated so that you’ll receive one e-mail that merges all the different postings together. If you’d prefer to receive the e-mails separately, you can choose that option. You can also decide not to receive the e-mails at all. You can still view all messages on the SA website if you select this option.
To take advantage of WeGo, however, you need to sign up for its services. This includes both sending and receiving messages. To sign up, logon to the SA website at //sa.hbs.edu/ and click on SPAM for the polls, travel, apartment/roommate and miscellaneous topics or BUY & SELL for those respective topics. Select your topic of choice (on the upper left corner) and then click on “My Discussion Subscription” to manage your account. A more detailed step-by-step process is outlined in the FAQ section of the SA webpage.
WeGo is more than a memorable character from last year’s HBS show. It can be a handy service if you want to get a message out to the general HBS community. Trust me-this is how my friend got rid of a couch that couldn’t fit into his doorway at SFP! It’s also a great gateway to the SA Club and section sites.
New Senators Dive In
In their first regular SA Senate meeting since being elected, the RC senators immediately jumped into the fray, seeking answers to questions raised by their sectionmates about life at HBS.
NH Senator Darren Jackson asked about whether there was any way to control the extreme volume of e-mail messages and paper distributions HBS students get through their Aldrich mailboxes, noting that they are often redundant.
Jennifer MacCuish, who oversees the distribution of Aldrich notices from off-campus sources, said the volume was likely to decline after the recruiting season ends later this term, and noted that in the meantime, the distribution system earns money for the SA, which is used to support campus events like the TGIF happy hours.
On the online side, SA Presidents Mark Plunkett (OK) and Lori Schock (OD) said the committee of section technical representatives, which oversees the school-wide e-mail listserv is working hard to enforce a cap of three mailings about any individual event, although that cap doesn’t cover mailings directly to a club’s membership.
Bus Adjustments
After attracting only moderate ridership in its first few weeks of service, SA Ventures is scaling back its New York City bus service for next month. The bus is currently only scheduled to run on the Veterans’ Day and Thanksgiving holiday weekends, and Ventures staff is asking students to make early reservations to ensure that the service breaks even.
The bus needs at least 23 riders to break even. On the first trips, it averaged only 11.
Although students generally support the service, the departure times and conflicting EC and RC schedules have proven to be a barrier to higher ridership.
However, if demand stabilizes, Ventures officials said they will run the bus whenever it makes economic sense. And already, the Thanksgiving trip is looking like a winner, with several spots already sold.
