Latest News

Smith School Students Testify Before Maryland Senate Finance Committee

Smith students, Sparkle Douglas, Christina Nichols, Mary Byrd, and Eduardo Mihura, had an exciting, and possibly unprecedented, opportunity to participate in state legislature when they and their faculty advisor, Charles Olson, teaching professor of logistics, business and public policy, presented research findings from a PEPCO group field project (GFP) to the Maryland Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, Feb. 15.

The students presented findings that addressed legislation (SB-39) allowing municipalities within Maryland to enact a practice called “opt-out” – aggregating and acting as the retail electricity provider for all residential and small business customers within their jurisdictions. Under the proposed legislation customers would automatically be switched to municipal service unless they actively rejected it.

The students’ analysis included visits to two states that had already instituted similar programs as well as interviews with public officials, state consumer advocates, state utility commissioners and staff.

“It is enormously exciting and a huge honor for the students’ research to be held in such serious regard and value before the members of the finance committee,” said Olson. “What a wonderful testimony to the quality of our students.”

The group field projects are part of Smith’s MBA Consulting Program, which offers second-year students a chance to step into the business world as active participants. Working under the direct supervision of a faculty member, MBA students spend a semester helping clients solve complex business problems and explore new initiatives. The arrangement is “a win-win situation,” with students getting valuable industry experience before graduation and companies benefiting from the up-to-date business knowledge and fresh ideas of Smith School MBAs.

National Survey by Center for Excellence in Service Finds 22.9 Million Hours a Week Wasted on Spam

Spam’s price tag now reaches $21.58 billion annually in lost productivity according to the results of the 2004 National Technology Readiness Survey (NTRS). Findings from the 2004 NTRS, an annual survey that tracks U.S. consumers’ technology opinions and behaviors, indicate that online users in the United States spend an average of three minutes deleting spam each day they check e-mail. Aggregating their usage across the 169.4 million online adults in the United States, this equals 22.9 million hours a week, or $21.58 billion annually when based on the average working wage.

The study was produced by the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and Rockbridge Associates, Inc.

“We all know that spam is a nuisance, but this allows us to assign a real value to what it is costing U.S. society,” said Roland Rust, director of the Center for Excellence in Service. “A $1 billion solution doesn’t sound so outrageous in the shadow of a $22 billion-a-year problem.” [ Read more about the NTRS Survey]

Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship Provides Hook & Ladder Brewing Company 10K in Start-up Funding

The Smith School's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship announced that it has invested $10,000 in start-up funding to Hook & Ladder Brewery, a student-run business founded by second-year Smith MBA student Matthew Fleischer. The investment is part of the seed stage funding the center makes available to student-run, start-up companies.

“This seed funding provides a great opportunity for students to take the required steps towards becoming successful entrepreneurs,” said Asher Epstein, managing director of the Dingman Center. “Too often people associate entrepreneurs with the Bill Gates of the world and that can be intimidating. The Dingman Center is singular in its commitment to providing entrepreneurs with the tools they need and in recognizing entrepreneurship as a key driver of the global economy.”

Fleischer founded the brewery with his brother in 1999 after a year of successful experimentation. Hook & Ladder won a Gold Medal at the 2001 Great American Beer Festival, the beer industry’s equivalent to an Academy Award. As a result the beer has successfully been distributed in select parts of California, Florida and the Washington, D.C.-area. The funding from the Dingman Center will enable Fleischer to focus greater expansion in the D.C.-metro area.

“Growth is good and so is success, but each brings its own set of challenges to a small business,” said Fleischer. “Access to the Dingman Center’s mentors, funding and resources has put me in a stronger position to navigate building on a winning formula.”

Smith School in the News

Results from this year’s National Technology Readiness Survey, produced by the Smith School’s Center for Excellence in Service and Rockbridge Associates, Inc., made hundreds of headlines worldwide. Articles on the survey’s findings about spam and quoting Roland Rust, director of the Center for Excellence in Service, included a widely-distributed story from Associated Press (2/2) that appeared as a front-page technology story on CNN.com (2/3), a mention on the front page of USA Today’s Money section (2/4), a story in The Washington Post (2/4), and radio interviews that played in several major markets nationally. Rust was also widely quoted as a marketing expert in an Associated Press (2/5) article on a local radio station’s switch to a new format, and an Associated Press (2/7) article that focused on new, longer advertising. Robert H. Smith’s $30 million donation to the university and the Smith School made front-page news in The (Baltimore) Sun (2/4), and was extensively covered in regional news outlets including the local NBC affiliate (2/3) and The Washington Post (2/4). David Kirsch, assistant professor of entrepreneurship, was quoted as an expert on Internet-based business models in a BusinessWeek online (2/3) story about online ticket resellers. Peter Morici, professor of international business, was quoted as an economic and trade expert in articles that appeared in Bloomberg (2/3), Investor’s Business Daily (2/4), WSJ.com (2/4, 2/10), Los Angeles Times (2/10), The New York Times and other leading business news outlets.

For more Smith School media highlights and links to articles, visit Smith School in the News.

Upcoming Events

Smith School Ethics Lecture Series

The Robert H. Smith School of Business continues its exciting and informative Ethics Lecture series with more engaging speakers for the faculty, staff, and students to enjoy.

When Ethics and Employment Clash
2/17/05 5:30 -7 p.m., Frank Auditorium, 1524 VMH
Former Fannie Mae accounting manager, Roger L. Barnes, made claims that  bolstered an SEC investigation of the mortgage giant. Their investigation found the company violated accounting rules, forcing it to restate earnings for the last three and a half years. This coming Thursday, Mr. Barnes will engage us in a discussion about the moral responsibility of doing the right thing. [Read more about the investigation]

$$$For What Profit$$$/Prisoners Insight to the Bottom Line of Living on the Ethical Edge, 2/24/05 5:30 to 7 p.m., Frank Auditorium, 1524 VMH
Wrapping up the Ethics Lectures Series will be Alfred and Joan Porro, both lawyers, who were convicted on fraud and tax charges that put the couple behind bars for a number of years. Prosecutors accused them of using their law firm to charm and then cheat clients. The Porros will discuss the ramifications of white collar crime and what makes a business person do the wrong thing. [Read more about the Porro's case]

Highlights from the First Ethics Lecture Series:
On Wednesday, February 9, 2005 a diverse cross-section of the Smith community gathered to hear Paul Cadario from The World Bank discuss his views on Leadership, Ethics, and Compliance in an Era of Conflict. Cadario began by asking the audience, made up of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty to share their own ethical dilemmas with their neighbors. The twist was to discuss a situation in which one had handled an ethical dilemma well. Cadario then discussed common ethical and leadership issues in today’s world, focusing on the idea that one needs to be a moral person as well as a moral manager in order to truly have a lasting impact. Creating and balancing trust in corporate and personal relationships, he stated, were the foundation of successful organizations. Conflicts of interest, managerial reluctance to use discipline to enforce appropriate behavior, and role modeling proper behaviors were outlined as key issues in organizations everywhere, including in corporate America. Cadario gave examples of such instances around the world in his engagements with The World Bank, and talked about how doing the right thing, in the right way has sustained the Bank’s ability to build and maintain relationships in all regions of the globe.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) was another topic discussed by Cadario – in particular, its role in reshaping organizational compliance. As part of an ongoing speaker series with The World Bank, Cadario put into perspective the changing role of CSR, citing organizations that have excelled at compliance in this area, and giving other examples of corporate social responsibility without added value. In parting, Cadario offered several lessons learned to the future leaders, focusing on morality in business and building organizations that can be run by average human beings for lasting value. He also fielded questions from the audience, ranging from multinational corporate behavior in underprivileged countries to specific situations where The World Bank has withdrawn or reduced support due to instability in the region.

Cadario is currently the senior manager for trust fund quality assurance and compliance within The World Bank. He has been there since 1975, beginning in the Western Africa Regional Office, then moving to the Asia/East Asia and Pacific Regional Office. Cadario has also served as operations advisor for the Network/Operations Policy and Country Services area and as chief administrative officer for the Europe and Central Asia region. Cadario has a masters in organizational development from American University, a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University, and a B.A.Sc in civil engineering from the University of Toronto.

THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS EDUCATION

A Discussion with Wharton Professor Russell Ackoff
2/16/05 1:30 p.m., Executive Dining Room, VMH

Dr. Russell Ackoff, professor emeritus at the Wharton School and executive fellow at the Smith School, will engage us in discussion about what the future of business education might become. Ackoff has written more than a dozen books including his recent publication, Redesigning Society. The session will be hosted by Scott Koerwer.

Russell Ackoff is chairman of INTERACT: The Institute for Interactive Management. Some of INTERACT’s recent consulting projects include corporate and national development planning, organizational design and redesign, development of marketing strategies and management support systems, and urban development and transportation planning. He is currently professor emeritus of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and has also had teaching appointments at Wayne State University, the Case Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania. Ackoff has written or co-authored 20 books and more than 200 articles for academic journals. He has a BS in architecture and PhD in the philosophy of science, both from the University of Pennsylvania.

Top Executives To Visit Smith for Maryland Tech Council’s CIO Series

The Smith School will welcome top executives to the Technology Council of Maryland's "CIO Series" on February 23. The CIO Series, produced in partnership with the TechExec Forum, is designed to bring together CIOs from local organizations to share best practices and address issues of the day that face the technology community. It is targeted at business-people, IT professionals, students, and IT suppliers.

Speaking on the importance of the event, Filomena Thompson, director of IT and advanced technology networks at the Technology Council of Maryland, says, “This series will give business people in attendance a chance to have their questions addressed by the CIOs, will provide a great networking opportunity for students and IT suppliers and all attendants will gain insight into the marketplace, future trends, employment, and development opportunities.”

The event will be in a panel discussion format and will feature four area CIOs including: Ira Hobbs, CIO of the Department of Treasury; Gloria Parker, CTO of HUD; Leslie Bower, CIO of Radio One; and Barry Smith, CIO of Merkel.

The event will be held in Van Munching Hall’s Executive Dining Room on Wednesday, Feb. 23, from 7:30 – 9:30 a.m. The event is free for students. [Register online now]

Other upcoming events:

2/18/05 Faculty & Staff School Assembly 1:30 p.m., Rouse Room, 1412 Van Munching Hall. (Other dates: April 15, May 6.)

3/4/05 Women’s Leadership Conference, Sponsored by the Smith Association of Women MBAs (formerly GWIB) and Bank of America

Technology@Smith

Smith IT is excited to contribute special announcements, news and reminders about technology at Smith in this new section of Smith Newslink Inside.

eSmith Portal: Better Compatibility with Firewalls!
We’ve upgraded eSmith's Windows Applications to work better with very restrictive corporate firewalls. People who previously had trouble connecting, particularly from office environments, should now have no problems. You may notice that the first application launched might take about one second longer to start up than it did previously, due to the extra network setup. After launch, though, programs will run as quickly as they did before.

►New Applications for Spring! The much requested SAS is now available under Statistics. Also new are MarkStrat Online and the Queuing Toolkit.

Access eSmith Portal: https://portal.rhsmith.umd.edu/login

Blackboard
Based on feedback from the instructor survey at the end of last semester, Smith IT has responded to a few questions that have come up. [Read questions and answers]

Fed Up with Spam?
The problem of spam has been growing significantly. Smith IT has initiated a 60-day pilot for a new spam utility. The first 30 days included a trial within Smith IT (1/5 – 1/26) and the second 30 days will extend to 50+ Smith community members (2/2-2/23).

Three areas are being evaluated:

1. Message Center Usability (how easy is it to use without training?)
2. False/Positives in Quarantine (how many e-mails were caught as spam but were not spam?)
3. Decrease in Spam (have users seen a significant decrease in spam?)

The expected rollout of this utility is March 6, pending adequate evaluation results.

Blackberry Not Synching Correctly?
You may have noticed that your read and unread marks don't sync properly on your device. Smith IT will be upgrading the existing BES server to a new release over the spring semester, which will resolve the known issues.

E-mail Tip of the Month
Have you ever deleted an e-mail by mistake and needed to retrieve it back, immediately? By setting your e-mail deletion preferences, your mailbox can hold deleted emails for up to two weeks AND allow you to retrieve them back, immediately.

How to set your preferences:

• Open your Mail and Click Tools > Preferences
• Under “Soft Delete” change 48 to 336 (This will set the soft delete for two weeks instead of two days)
• Click “OK”

How to Restore a deleted e-mail:

• Open the TRASH folder
• Click on a message and click the “Restore” button
  Note: To restore multiple messages, highlight the messages you want to restore and click “Restore;” To restore all the messages, click “Restore All”

You can also find a detailed review of this e-mail tip in our online tutorial.