Case Study / The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship

What Do We Do?

The Rice Alliance had a problem. “We are growing at a great pace but nobody really knows what we do?” stated Brad Burke, Managing Director of the Alliance. The Rice Alliance was a resource, networking opportunity and somewhat of an incubator but nobody really understood where they fit. The Alliance had just gotten a Grant that would enable them to put on three new Entrepreneurship Workshops and was about to begin work on its fifth annual report. That’s where BrandExtract came in.

The Alliance had been working with multiple design firms, many of which were pro bono, each with their own style and approach. The first thing BrandExtract did was to unify the look and feel and help modify the way the Alliance talked about itself. “The Alliance had already defined who they were, they just needed a vehicle to communicate it clearly. And, that’s what we gave them.” BrandExtract helped to develop the Entrepreneurship Workshop series, the Annual Report and the materials for the Business Plan Competition in collaboration with the Alliance.

BrandExtract used simple industry imagery to communicate the industries that the Alliance served and helped focus the message of “serving technology ventures in the engineering, high-tech, biotech and energy industries.” Working with Liz Crawford from the Alliance, BrandExtract worked to define three key drivers for the group – education, collaboration and research. The firm then developed an annual report that spoke to those three initiatives using the events, success stories and it’s affiliation with Rice University to explain how the Alliance works.

It was exciting working with a group of people that are starting new ventures and working to bring both new technology and industry to Houston. The growth of the Alliance has been phenomenal and their ability to serve the entrepreneurial community is even greater now that people understand better who they are.