Marketing Summit 2010: The Varsity Marketers

As part of ongoing series of perspectives from the Wake Forest marketing summit team, this view of the inside comes from Matt Starker, a second-year full-time student.

The 2010 Wake forest Marketing Summit is less than a week away and the anticipation is exponentially building inside the Worrell Professional Center. As the Summit Chairs and countless volunteers put the final touches on preparation plans, “the Varsity Marketers,” as we have self-appointed ourselves, are hard at work getting smart on IBM.

The 2010 Wake Forest MBA Team is comprised of Katy McClure, Ian Jankelowitz, Joe Parry, Andy Rinehart, Vaishali Shah, and myself. This year’s team is extremely well rounded with significantly diverse experiential rolodexes. The team’s backgrounds range from a former Army Officer who has actively served his country to a past director of consumer experience to the ex-managing director of a top US independent film festival. We hope to utilize our diverse experiences to provide the sponsor with innovative and insightful solutions to whatever issue is thrown our way.

Even though the team is usually hard at work, with school and prep alike, one can imagine that we have our fair share of fun. What was supposed to be a standard, quick head shot picture session between classes, turned into a full on photo shoot with glamour shots galore. I have to give Katy most of the creative credit on the shoot and I am sure that a few incriminating photos will hit the blogosphere soon.

The entire team is extremely honored to be donning the black and gold and representing the Graduate School of Business in the 2010 Marketing Summit.

More updates to come as we get closer to the competition!

Go Deacs!

An Inclusive Society: Diversity Panel Preview

Andres Tapia, the chief diversity officer at Hewitt Associates, took a few minutes from a busy schedule to discuss his expectations for the Diversity Roundtable set for Friday, Feb. 5, as part of the Wake Forest University Marketing Summit.

Paul Davis of Firsthand Experiences conducted this online Q&A, giving a hint of what to expect in just a matter of days:

PD: What do you hope to accomplish from your appearance on the panel?

AT: To be part of making the compelling case that each graduate going into the workplace can make a significant contribution to creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace that ends up being profitable for business, employees, society, and our communities.

PD: Do you have a particular message to share with attendees?

AT: Don't fall for the either/or, zero-sum, polarizing thinking currently strangling us all. Instead become part of creating a both/and, win-win, inclusive society. Let's stop demonizing those we don't agree with and instead create bridges of understanding. And this goes beyond just understanding each other, or tolerating each other, or being sensitive to each other's differences. Instead it means embracing that "I need your difference … and you need mine."

PD: What is your company doing to foster diversity?

AT: Many things! But too many to detail here. In a nutshell, for us at Hewitt it's doing the classics of diversifying our sourcing and creating an attractive value proposition to all kinds of talent. And just as important, continuing to create an inclusive environment that not only is ready for those who look different, but most importantly, think different.

PD: How would you measure the success of those efforts?

AT: Diverse representation from the bottom to the top of the organization A highly engaged and motivated workforce that wants to say they work for a great company, want to stay, and want to serve. Greater product and service innovation. Increased quality. Increased efficiency. Revenue growth. Margin growth. That's all!

PD: How well do you know the other participants and how would you size up the quality of the overall panel?

AT: OMG! It's an awesome panel. These D&I leaders are the real deal. Not only in terms of deep running rivers of passion but also in terms of mind-bending knowledge and, most importantly, irrefutable results

PD: What is the optimal work environment from the perspective of diversity?

AT: I believe that diversity is the mix and inclusion is making the mix work. You can have mix but it may not be working well. You may have inclusion but not have diversity. An optimal environment is where you have both diversity and inclusion in spades. Where people from all walks of life can come and do their best work and, in the process, make our world -- through our companies -- a better place.

Starting at a Sprint

We have only been back a few weeks and we've already had one mid-term! Not to mention the Marketing Summit Volunteer kick-off, our third Action Learning Project kick-off, and our mentoring program orientation! It’s been quite a busy few weeks here at Worrell.

The Schools of Business are humming with the approach of the Marketing Summit and the anticipation of the students. Not only is it a great experience for the teams chosen to compete against one another, it’s an opportunity for all the students to network with the different people that attend. I’m really excited about the opportunity to speak with some of the corporate attendees such as representatives from McKinney, BBDO, and case sponsor IBM. Also, the significant international component (teams from Canada, the U.K. and Spain) to the teams invited this year is exciting and will add a unique spin to the experience.

Our Action Learning Project is underway, and my team met with our client, ISP, once again this morning to gear up for our second-to-last project. It’s been really helpful to have a corporate perspective on the work we present and have projects from the corporate world. It enables us to have a preview of what we may be doing once out of school and also gain perspective into such a diverse industry.

The MAs are also buzzing about our new Executive Mentorship program, wherein each student works with a mentor from the business community around Wake (for most of us). I’m looking forward to some increased insight into the marketing agency world and learning a bit more about being a business professional. One thing Wake has taught me both in undergrad and graduate school is that your intellect is only one component of what you can bring to the forum, and Wake has done an amazing job of helping me build other strengths in my personality and character. The kick-off will be in the next week or so and we are all excited about finally meeting and connecting with the people we hope will really help us make those final steps into the business community.

Those final steps are only a few months away! The atmosphere of the MA classrooms is significantly different this semester as opposed to last. Far more aware of the looming May graduation and subsequent entry into the real world, the MAs have settled in a bit more and are very obsessed about job searching. Anxious, nervous, excited are all emotions that seem to reflect my feelings towards the final leave of school and the world of academia for the “real world.”

My job search has narrowed and with the help of the Career Management Center, I’ve been able to reach out and really pursue what I want to do. I’m slowly reaching out more and more to agencies and beginning to narrow down on locations and cities that I’m interested in.

For now I look forward to my afternoons when I have a chance to relax after class, write my thank-you cards, and review my resume to add in all my experiences over the past five months. And of course, get ready for the Marketing Summit that starts this Thursday!

~Jen Ratliff

Marketing Summit 2010: Building a Case

We are proud to feature a Q&A with Herrin Hood, a second-year full-time MBA candidate in the Wake Forest University's Schools of Business and co-writer of this year's case studies for the Marketing Summit.

Lauren Collins conducted this exclusive interview for Firsthand Experiences, providing a sneak peak into the process behind what are sure to be engaging and challenging cases for the summit’s graduate and undergraduate teams.

*****

LC: How did you get selected to write the case?

HH: Last year I helped the case writers by keeping time during the teams' presentations. This year the Marketing Summit co-chairs asked me if I was interested in helping to write the cases. Roger Beahm, the Marketing Summit faculty sponsor, then interviewed me, and I was selected as one of the case writers.

LC: Who did you work with in writing the case?

I worked with my fellow classmate, Robbie Shappley (right). I really enjoyed working with Robbie and I think we put together a couple of good and interesting cases. Additionally, Dr. Derrick Boone provided terrific advice and guidance as our faculty advisor.

LC: What was the general process (meetings, research, etc.), and how long did it take?

HH: Altogether it took us three months to complete the cases. Once we knew that IBM was going to be the summit sponsor, we started doing preliminary research to get a feel for the company and its businesses. In early November, IBM gave us more-focused topics for each of the cases.

Robbie and I met numerous times during November and December crafting the first drafts of the cases. In conducting our research, we used internal IBM resources, library resources and online resources. We would like to thank the business school's librarian, Bob Hebert, in this effort. In early January we delivered our first draft to IBM, meeting with company executives. After our meeting, we spent January fine-tuning the case. In the last week of January we finished the final drafts of the cases and gained IBM's approval.

LC: What general advice would you offer to the teams?

Take initiative, use all of your resources within the rules, and try and get a good night of rest before you come.

LC: Did you collaborate on the graduate or undergraduate case?

HH: Robbie and I worked collectively to write both of the cases.

LC: What are you hoping to get out of the Marketing Summit? Which event are you most excited about?

HH: I hope that the Wake Forest Marketing Summit enables some of the brightest emerging business minds in the world to develop unique solutions that create real value for IBM. Personally, I learned that there is an art to accurately framing and presenting a problem in a manner that does not rely on paradigms and that permits creative solutions.

I'm very excited to hear the teams' recommendations during their presentations. Also, the Marketing Summit Gala is always a great event and I'm looking forward to that as well.

Marketing Summit 2010: Blast from the Past

Anxious to get this year's Marketing Summit under way? Pass the time looking at an overview of the event. The bar was certainly raised high last year with sponsor PepsiCo!

Also visit BusinessWeek for a slideshow of last year's event.

Marketing Summit 2010: An Inside Look

This is the first in a series of blogs from students participating in the Market Summit as part of the Wake Forest University's Schools of Business. There will be additional internal blogs in coming days designed to provide a look inside the workings of the summit's home team.

This inaugural perspective is from Joe Parry, a second-year full-time MBA candidate who is also president of the Student Government Association. Click here for a more-detailed profile of Joe and his personal and professional background.

For more on the summit, up-to-date notices will be available here (and at the event's official Web site starting on Thursday).

*****

It is just a few days before the Wake Forest Marketing Summit kicks off and I’m eager for the competition to begin. This is one of the premier MBA case competitions in the world and I am really proud of our WFU Schools of Business student leaders that are hosting this competition. More than 50 Wake Forest business students are involved with the myriad preparations, and they are doing a world-class job.

Meanwhile, over at the “Hall of Justice” (pardon the cheesy Superfriends reference), the Wake Forest case team has been busy breaking down case sponsor IBM’s various business units, reviewing challenging marketing and strategy cases, and creating a wonderful team chemistry that will serve us well in the waning hours of the 36-hour case competition. We will be competing against some of the best MBA talent from across the globe, and Wake Forest will definitely be bringing it’s A-game. I’m honored to be competing and look forward to a great Marketing Summit weekend.

If our team is fortunate enough to take home the grand prize, my wife and I will use our portion of the prize for a lengthy Mediterranean cruise after business school graduation with the rest going towards a down payment on a new house.

Marketing Summit 2010: Meet the Teams, Part II

We have unearthed another team profile video, this time from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Enjoy!