The Star Ledger reported today on Assemblyman Pat Diegnan’s idea to have Rutgers feature a reference to NJ in its logo. I’ve got many friends out of state who never knew Rutgers was our state university. I like Pat’s idea and many other state universities use their state logo, except those where the state is part of the name (Florida, Ohio, i.e.). Unfortunately, Rutgers spent almost $600,000 in December for marketing experts to create a new logo? $600,000 to come up with a red “R” at a time when the university is struggling to keep tuition in check and keep sports programs active?!? We make things too complex today. A contest for students and residents to come up with the logo could have been just as easy and generated some great attention. I know marketing gurus will tell us that polling, focus groups and teams of creative artists were required, but this was not a mapping of the human genome – they created a red “R”.