Digital Media Symposium: Innovative Collaborations

April 9, 2013

Representatives from business, creative, digital humanities/social sciences and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines gathered in the Rome Ballroom on Thursday, April 4th for a day full of exciting updates from the new Department of Digital Media and Design. UConn President Susan Herbst welcomed over 100 attendees, introducing digital media as an “umbrella discipline” with the areas it affects being limitless. Tim Hunter, Director & Department Head for the recently established Digital Media Center, further emphasized the symposium’s goal to raise awareness of current digital media projects and to stimulate new collaboration between disciplines. He also touched upon theory versus practice, citing digital media’s relevance to multiple industries and functions including business and entertainment, marketing, advertising, branding, entrepreneurship and social media.

Specialized presentation sessions were held for each of the four topic areas: business, creative, digital humanities/social sciences, and STEM.

Specialized Session for Business

The business session featured William Congdon ’75, Popular Mechanics magazine; Maureen Croteau, The Day newspaper in New London, Connecticut; and ING Global Professor in marketing Nicholas Lurie. A lively roundtable discussion moderated by Christopher Levesque ’87, Director of the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CCEI) included Richard Guha, President of Synerscope Inc. (North America) and Mark B. Hatch, CEO of mBlast, Inc.

Digital media has paved the way for an enhanced user experience, according to Congdon and Croteau who presented the challenges and many changes their companies faced with the advent of digital media in the print magazine and newspaper industries. They also shared how digital media has changed the reader experience with the launch of news and magazine websites, iPad apps, video, interactive media, social media and contests.

The business roundtable discussion focused on “digital media and entrepreneurial trends,” including Facebook and Twitter, the increasing need for technology and software to analyze and visualize “big data,” and how consumers are influenced to choose some brands over others.

Marketing Professor Nick Lurie closed the business session by presenting findings of research on the perceived value of consumer-generated content, the differences in perception of negative versus positive reviews, and the role of temporal contiguity as it influences value perception.

Future Digital Media Collaborations

Provost Mun Choi joined the enthusiastic crowd for an open networking hour during which attendees discussed ideas and opportunities for future digital media collaborations.

The rapidly growing Department of Digital Media and Design recently welcomed digital media specialists Perry Harovas and Samantha Olschan to the UConn faculty. In addition, two new undergraduate majors jointly sponsored by the schools of business, fine arts, and engineering will be offered starting this fall at the Storrs and Stamford campuses.

Those who missed the symposium can catch up on Twitter using #UConnDMD

CCEI Startup Challenge – Pitch Competition – $10,000

April 8, 2013

The CCEI Startup Challenge Pitch Competition is an event where $10,000 in prize money will be awarded to individuals or teams across multiple categories. Individuals or teams can pitch more than one idea, and you could win in more than one category. This competition is open to all UConn Students (all majors, levels, campuses), and the idea can be for anything – we encourage you to get creative! Five of the prize categories are listed below; the other five will be revealed at the event. Pitches will be limited to 90 seconds and will be followed by up to two minutes of Q&A. Have an idea? Pitch it!

First Five Prize Categories Revealed:

  • Best Pitch Presentation
  • Best Product Invention Idea
  • Best Mobile App Idea
  • Most Socially Responsible Idea
  • Best College Targeted Idea (“Most Likely to Succeed at UConn”)

For more information and rules, please visit the CCEI website.

Sponsored by the University of Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CCEI)
Questions? Email khuntington@business.uconn.edu

New Bachelor of Science Degree in Financial Management offered at UConn-Stamford

April 2, 2013

This fall, students at the UConn-Stamford campus will be able to choose a new major designed to fit the needs of the business base in Fairfield County. Graduating its first class in 2017, the BS in Financial Management has been developed to provide students with the skills they need for successful careers in corporate financial management and analysis, investments, and portfolio management.

The curriculum includes the same general education requirements and business core requirements as other UConn business majors, though differs in that financial management majors will also complete electives in which they will learn about issues ranging from mergers and acquisitions to investment strategies, portfolio management and business ethics. The plan of study aims to ready students for the Level 1 Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam.

> Learn more about the Financial Management Major

Ph.D. Student Teaching Awards 2013

April 1, 2013

On February 27, business PhD students and coordinators for the five Ph.D. concentrations celebrated student accomplishments during the last year at the sixth annual “Ph.D. Student Night of Appreciation.” School of Business Dean John Elliott was also in attendance, providing the doctoral students with an opportunity to chat with him informally.

At this event, we announced the winners of the school’s 2013 PhD Student Teaching Awards. Each of the five Ph.D. program concentrations gave a teaching award to a qualified student in their concentration. The coordinators of the five concentrations (John Phillips – ACCT, Joseph Golec – FNCE, Qing Cao – MGMT, Bill Ross – MKTG, and Jan Stallaert – OPIM) then decided as a group which of the winners of a teaching award in a concentration would receive this year’s School of Business teaching award. Dean Elliott made the announcement.

The winners of the 2013 teaching awards in each concentration are:

Accounting – Elizabeth Kohl

Finance – Tingyu Zhou

Marketing – Jeff Carlson

Management – Lauren D’Innocenzo

OPIM – Gang Wang

The winner of the 2013 School of Business Ph.D. Teaching Award (program-wide) is:

Management – Lauren D’Innocenzo

Please join us in congratulating these doctoral students for their superb performance in the classroom and as outstanding teacher-scholars.

Innovation Quest Competition Accepting Applications Until April 1

March 27, 2013

Idea to Prototype to Company: all University of Connecticut students who have an innovative business or product idea are eligible to enter the second annual UConn Innovation Quest (iQ) competition, which will be accepting applications until April 1, 2013. Winners of the competition and selected runners-up will have the opportunity to build their business as part of an incubator training program called the inQbator, with a grand prize opportunity of $15,000 to put towards the start of a business. Adam Boyajian ’12, whose idea was one of the few chosen for the program through last year’s competition, shares, “The inQbator program finally forced us to sit down and think about how to scale our business.”

The iQ competition was brought to UConn at the encouragement of Keith R. Fox ’80, a longtime entrepreneur, executive and philanthropist who offered to sponsor the contest after seeing its success at Cal Poly. “[Innovation Quest is] really a vision that Carson [Chen] started [at Cal Poly], about fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in our young people, in the students… with a mission of helping them to create companies and ultimately jobs here in the United States,” explains Fox in “What is Innovation Quest,” one of a series of FAQ videos that can be accessed here.

Applications for this year’s Innovation Quest competition will be accepted until Monday, April 1 at 11:59 p.m.

Competition Application –

Innovation Quest Video FAQs –

Questions? Contact Nadav (nadav@sobrioapp.com) or Tom (tom@sobrioapp.com)

UConn School of Business Ranked Among “Top 100 Most Social Media Friendly MBA Schools for 2013”

March 21, 2013

Evaluated on presence and activity levels on social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and others, the University of Connecticut School of Business was ranked among the “Top 100 Most Social Media Friendly MBA Schools for 2013” by OnlineMBAPage.com. The ranking site is ‘a social education community formed in 2012 in response to the growing demand of MBAs in the United States, China and the emerging markets,’ according to their website. The rankings are based on a comparison of data from over 400 business campus-based schools and their use of various social media platforms.Continue Reading

Cigna CIO Mark Boxer ’87 MBA Addresses Undergraduate Business Students

March 20, 2013

UConn School of Business Dean John Elliott welcomed Dr. Mark Boxer ’87 MBA, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Cigna, to campus on March 12th. Dr. Boxer spoke to a full audience of 240 undergraduates about the importance of information technology in the insurance industry and for Cigna. He was joined by Cigna staff Ida Chaplinski ’96, Willis Gee, Kirstin Ferreira ’12, and Fatima Quraishi.

Dr. Boxer shared his career experiences and spoke about Cigna’s career opportunities in information technology for business majors, and shared an overview of the company’s Technology Early Career Development Program (TECDP).

The Cigna Executive Lecture event was part of the Management Information Systems (MIS) Executive Lecture series, where senior business IT executives share their experiences with undergraduates at the UConn School of Business.

Learn more about the UConn MIS major at http://www.business.uconn.edu/MIS

NBC Sports and Olympics at Stamford Learning Accelerator

March 18, 2013

Executives from NBC Sports and Olympics in Stamford met recently with over 80 UConn students at the UConn School of Business Stamford Learning Accelerator (SLA). The event was video streamed live from Stamford to the School of Business Cafe in Storrs, where students at that campus were able to simultaneously participate and pose questions to the NBC Sports team.

NBC Sports kicked off the event showing video highlights from its award winning Sports and Olympics programming. Next, Emanuel Adjekum, Manager Diversity & Pipeline Programs at NBC Sports Group, led a presentation on joining NBC Sports for a number of full-time positions and internships, including internship opportunities for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Students were also able to participate with a panel of NBC Sports executives represented by Eric Hamilton, Senior Broadband Producer, Nathan Suh, Director Business of Development and Michael Benjamin, Production Associate. The panel spoke of their experiences at NBC Sports and Olympics, discussed their own career paths and enthusiastically answered students’ questions from both Stamford and Storrs.

After the presentation, all panelists were available for further discussions and students were encouraged to personally bring up their resumes to Mr. Adjekum for upcoming internships and employment opportunities. A long line of students, resumes in hand, were delighted to do so.

The event was arranged by Brian Brady, Director of the Stamford Learning Accelerator, along with Halina Holloway and Celeste Baran from the UConn Stamford Career Center, in cooperation with Kathy Hendrickson at the School of Business Career Center in Storrs. Live streaming was made possible with support from Jeremy Pollack, Director of IT for the School of Business, James Simon, Director of IT for the School of Business Stamford campus, and Matt Proulx and Ian Hollis from UConn Stamford’s Technology Services.

See photos from the event on Facebook:

UConn Undergraduate Team Wins 1st Round of Hartford Financial Services Case Competition

March 12, 2013

On Friday, March 1, 2013 Rebecca Kantor ’15, Katharine Coulter ’14, Blake Molnar ’14, and Stephanie Simko ’14 won first place in the third annual Hartford Financial Services Group Campus Case Competition held at the University of Connecticut School of Business.

The case competition focused on a team’s ability to research and analyze a business technology issue and to provide creative solutions. Four teams participated in the competition, assisted by mentors provided by The Hartford Financial Group. At the conclusion of a two-week long process, the teams presented their solutions to a panel of judges consisting of senior executives from The Hartford.

The winning team will now go on to represent the University of Connecticut School of Business at The Hartford’s regional competition which includes students from Quinnipiac, Bentley, Bryant, Boston University and the University of Hartford.

2013 Risk Management Conference

March 1, 2013

2013risk

Thursday, November 14, 2013
7:30 AM – 4:45 PM

Marriott Downtown
243 Tresser Boulevard
Stamford, Connecticut

Join us at the second annual Connecticut Risk Management Conference which has been designed to align risk management with strategy. This conference will bring together professionals engaged in risk management, senior management, and regulators, as well as faculty members and students in UConn’s MS in Financial Risk Management (MSFRM) Program. Continue Reading