Media Matters – SFU Business in the News – July 16

How SFU Business fared in the news for the week ending July 16, 2010.

BC News

• Lindsay Meredith, marketing prof in SFU Business, was on CBC-TV talking about BC Ferries treatment of a customer whose assured boarding card expired with $731 credit still on it. BC Ferries refused to extend her card, and told her she should have read the fine print on the card and on the BC Ferries website.
  “Not a particularly bright move on their part,” said Meredith. “Not how you treat your best customers.

National and World News

• The Monday Morning Manager column in the Globe and Mail cited a couple of SFU Business profs on decision-making:
  “If you were asked which should come first—the decision or the evidence for the decision—you undoubtedly would pick the evidence . . . But we don’t always act that way. Sometimes we decide first, and then seek the evidence to back our decision.
  “In an article in MIT Sloan Management Review, Peter Tingling and Michael Brydon of Simon Fraser University call this approach ‘decision-based evidence-making,’ and say it’s more common than we acknowledge.  . . . The writers suggest it may have contributed to Enron’s downfall, as risk analysis became a charade when the company was determined to enter a blizzard of new fields.”
  (The MITSloan article is at http://at.sfu.ca/APEybd)

Athletics

• The Richmond News ran a story on how some SFU Business students are keeping the World Cup soccer fever alive.
  “The students are offering low-income children an opportunity to experience the game with a one-day camp. ‘A few friends and I are organizing a community event called Beyond the Game,’ said Tony Jing. ‘We are part of a project management course at SFU that requires us to host a community project.’ . . . .  Jing, along with his Richmond fellow SFU students—Alfred De Vera, Rafael Gi, Ivan Ma and Grace Hui—are hosting a one-day soccer camp this Saturday, July 17 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Steveston Community Centre.”

SFU Releases

• SFU Business let business media know that The Journal of International Business Studies, the world’s top-rated journal in the field of international business, has appointed SFU Business prof David Thomas as its area editor for cross-cultural management. Thomas is director of the Centre for Global Workforce Strategy at SFU Business and a professor of international business.
• SFU Venture Connection told media how Joyent, Inc. of San Francisco has purchased Layerboom, a high-tech company started under the Venture Connection umbrella by executive MBA student Howie Wu. It’s the first protégé firm from SFU Venture Connection to score such a success.
• And the university told media about Project4Pets, a class project undertaken by five SFU Business students. Fourth-year students Whitney Law, Michael Liang and Lynzee Bewcyk and third-year students Reza Andalib and Kelly Pang are mounting Talented Tails. It’s a pet talent show in East Vancouver to raise money for HugABull, a non-profit rescue and advocacy group which has resettled more than 400 abused and abandoned pit bulls. (The show is at Britannia High School’s tennis courts in Vancouver on Sunday [July 18] from noon to 5 pm.)