News

Vancouver Canucks give MBA social media project warm reception

Nov 24, 2011

Last week, when Cervenko was invited by a friend to a private “Cocktails with the Canucks” function in downtown Vancouver, she hastily grabbed her playoff towel on her way out the door not knowing what to expect of the event. In the back of her mind, she had big plans for the white space on the towel. A Simon Fraser University MBA student, Cervenko needed some star power for a social media project. The assignment: partner with a local non-profit and create a social media strategy with the objective of raising financial support or awareness for this organization. Cervenko and her group chose The Dugout — a drop-in centre on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that hosts one of the longest-running Alcoholics Anonymous programs in Vancouver. “The reason I thought about The Dugout was because in the 1970s and ’80s it would stay open late so that their clients could have a warm and safe place to watch the Canucks games,” says Cervenko. “But because of a lack of funding they don’t have the resources to stay open late anymore.”

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AACSB BizEd Magazine profiles Beedie Mobile: What’s App-enin’ At B-Schools

Nov 21, 2011

That was the case for the Beedie School. A team of five SFU computer science and business students created Beedie's app as a 13-week project for an interdisciplinary course, "Foundations of Innovation" in 2010. Jan Kietzmann, who teaches the course, planned to make iPhone app design a general focus for the course. But he says it was a "natural progression" to shift the focus to creating a Beedie School app. The team was guided in the project by Kietzmann; Moscato; Dan Shapiro, the dean; and Andrew Gemino, associate dean of undergraduate programs and associate professor of management information systems. After the course ended, Moscato continued to work with the students to perfect the app before its release five months later in spring 2011. "Although the project was introduced to the students from 'up top,' the students really loved the idea and took it upon themselves to identify where and how an app could help improve their lives as students," says Kietzmann. The students decided that the Beedie School app should be an information hub. They wanted it to integrate the school's Twitter and Facebook feeds with links to announcements about current research from school faculty and graduate students, says Justin Lee, a member of the student team.

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Burnaby advertising company meets with Dragon’s Den

Nov 17, 2011

BY JANAYA FULLER-EVANS, BURNABY NOW Ads on Naps co-founders Jag Manhas and Phil Chow entered the Dragon’s Den voluntarily, and survived. Manhas, a British Columbia Institute of Technology student and Chow, a Simon Fraser University alumnus, took part in a mini Dragon’s Den at SFU’s Surrey campus on Sept. 9. The advertising company sells high-definition ad space on napkins, which are supplied free of charge to businesses in Canada. The Ads on Naps team went […]

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Digital Dialogue: Ashish Gurung on incorporating social media in the classroom

Nov 15, 2011

The following was originally published on Invoke’s blog and authored by Justine Yu. Ashish Gurung teaches an undergraduate social media course at SFU Beedie School of Business. He is also involved with a bunch of other stuff ‚ some startups, some consulting and lots of non-profits. Find him@ashishgurung and http://www.ashishgurung.ca Tell us a bit about the social media course you created. What motivated you to create an entire course about social media at SFU’s Beedie School of […]

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Social media research wins 2011 Best Article Award

Nov 2, 2011

The management journal Business Horizons and Elsevier have awarded Beedie School of Business researchers Jan Kietzmann, Kristopher Hermkens, Ian McCarthy, and Bruno Silvestre with the Best Article Award for 2011 for their paper, “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media.”

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Beedie prof. Michael Parent ponders low social media usage in municipal politics

Oct 26, 2011

Few candidates for city council have taken to social media despite it being a great way to engage voters, according to one expert. “What surprises me more (than candidates’ lack of use) is that they haven’t realized the power of being able to tap into communities through social media,” said Michael Parent, a business professor at Simon Fraser University. Just seven of 19 candidates for city council have accounts on Twitter—an online social networking service allowing users to send and read short posts. Five have tweeted less than 50 times.

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Beedie team takes home hardware at business ethics competition

Sep 26, 2011

A team of students from the Beedie School of Business is enjoying the afterglow of a successful journey to Bellevue, Washington to participate in one of North America's highest-profile business ethics competitions. The students — Fahad Yasin, Christine Prasad, Sasha Vukovic, Moira van den Akker, and Andrew McKinlay — competed in the LMU/ECOA Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition (IBECC), held in Bellevue, Washington from September 21-22. The team competed against a prestigious international field that included the likes of Oxford, USC, INSEAD, Holy Cross and Boston College.

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Vancouver Stanley Cup Riot the focus of SFU ethics business case at international student competition

Sep 20, 2011

SEATTLE– Five undergraduate students from the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University are using Vancouver’s 2011 Stanley Cup Riot as a case study to examine the growing role that social media plays in society and business. The students — Fahad Yasin, Christine Prasad, Sasha Vukovic, Moira van den Akker, and Andrew McKinlay — are competing in the LMU/ECOA Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition (IBECC), held in Bellevue, Washington from September 21-22. The SFU […]

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SFU study wins “Best Case Study Award” at Academy of Marketing Conference

Aug 17, 2011

A case study from SFU’s Beedie of Business, focused on the long-term business viability of a colourful Twitter success story, has been awarded a top prize at one of Europe’s most noteworthy marketing academic events. The case study entitled "Marketing S#*t My Dad Says" – authored by Beedie School of Business marketing professor Leyland Pitt, Beedie PhD student Adam Mills, and Phuong Nguyen, Jia-Rong Wu and Aschwin van Alphen-Sato of the Rotterdam School of Management, won the Best Case Study award at the 2011 annual Academy of Marketing Conference at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom this past July.

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Social media the focus of new undergrad course at Beedie School of Business

Jul 29, 2011

by Jevta Lukic As Twitter and Facebook increasingly become topics of conversation in many company boardrooms, undergraduate business students at SFU’s Beedie School of Business are also focusing on social networking in a management context. This fall, they will enjoy a unique course offering that explores the intersection of social media and business strategy. Entitled Business 495: Social Media & Business, the course strives to develop students’ understanding of how social media is used by […]

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