Last week was a big week for me! I had my very first speaking engagement, and it was an amazing experience. I was lucky enough to be a panelist at the Baltimore Public Relations Council’s panel discussion, “Developing a Social Media Strategy that Works for Your Organization.” The other panelists included Dan Collins, Senior Director for Media Relations, Mercy Medical Center; and Colleen McKenna, Principal, Marketing + Sales Advisor, LinkedIn Trainer, Intero Advisory. It was great to meet my fellow panelists, and the attendees of the event.
I posted a video of my presentation at the end of this blog post, so I won’t spend time talking about my portion. Both of the other panelists prepared awesome presentations and left myself and all of the attendees with a lot of things to think about.
Biggest take-away from Dan’s presentation
Dan talked about Mercy Medical Center’s social media strategy, and explained that there are 7 basic steps for social media strategy. Be sure to determine your goals, do your research, create a digital rolodex of contacts, join the conversation, strengthen relationships, and measure results. Also, don’t forget to analyze, adapt, and improve your strategy as you go along. Dan used this post on social media strategy to support his presentation.
Biggest take-away from Colleen’s presentation
Colleen mentioned a lot of valuable things about LinkedIn, and she delivered a great presentation! I found myself scribbling down notes most of the time she was speaking. My biggest take-away was to make sure that your profile sounds like you. You should use LinkedIn for your own personal brand, not as a sales pitch. Therefore, your LinkedIn profile should reflect your personality.
Okay, I just have to say something else that I learned from Colleen. She also pointed out that you have to optimize your LinkedIn profile with keywords, and include a photo. These things are essential!
And of course there was my presentation, which I put a lot of hard work and time into preparing. Feel free to check out my presentation on SlideShare! Here’s the video of my presentation that I promised:
Thanks again to the Baltimore Public Relations Council for providing me with this wonderful opportunity.
TowsonGlobal’s Second Business Plan Competition has finally declared a winner! On May 2, after months of preparations, two teams emerged as the winners of the competition. The first place winner was ToolSpinner, a team of Towson University alumnus brothers who created an online platform for tool rentals. Second place went to the Johns Hopkins team Innovostics, a medical device company that specializes in detecting various causes of fevers in patients within minutes, using an extremely low cost method.
Luccie Wo, Divya Maxwell, Marjon Akhavan & Luis Soenksen (Innovostics) left; Daniel Cole & Steven Cole (ToolSpinner) right
Over the course of that afternoon, these two teams, along with the other finalists—Hemova Port, NeoPersona, and Momo Scientific—presented both in front of a panel of distinguished judges and at a public forum. After careful consideration, ToolSpinner was selected the winner. All of the presentations were impressive, well-prepared, and the concepts were not only innovative but socially conscious.
During the discussions, the judges provided insightful financial, marketing and management advice. The competition was stiff, but; after intense deliberation, it was decided that ToolSpinner offered the most viable business concept.
The first place prize package is valued at $17,400 and includes a monetary prize of $4,000, a 90-day Resident membership to TowsonGlobal and executive coaching from CEOIQ. The second place winner also receives a prize package valued at $5,200, which includes a monetary prize of $1,000, 90-day Associate Membership to TowsonGlobal and one year membership to the online community and resources of CEO IQ.
The support of sponsors has helped make TowsonGlobal’s competition a great success. Thanks to:
This year’s judges included leaders from around the region, and their enthusiasm and dedication added to the excitement and caliber that the event achieved this year. They included:
Ed Callahan, Creative Strategist & Co-Founder, Planit
TowsonGlobal’s latest effort in encouraging and strengthening entrepreneurial spirit and innovation in the Baltimore area has surpassed expectations. The response to the competition has been gratifying and shows the great potential of entrepreneurs in our region. Stay tuned for the next competition in 2013!
WOW, I can’t believe this year marks the fifth Showcase. This is our signature event which brings our partners and (hopefully) future partners in business, government, and non-profit sectors to campus to meet and mingle with the faculty and professional outreach staff working on exciting projects aimed at helping organizations work better and faster. This year, our exhibitors range from the Family Studies Community Services and Internship Network to the Center for Applied IT!
The event is this Wednesday from 12:00 – 2:00 in the Minnegan Room. In addition to great speakers & fabulous networking, we also provide a delicious lunch and will be doing a drawing for a Kindle Fire–oh and the event is FREE!
One of the highlights each year for me is the President’s remarks, and this year I know a lot of people are looking forward to meeting our new President for the first time. She is really committed to furthering the university’s public mission in economic development and community engagement.
If you would like to learn more about the event click here.
Imagine teaching over one million students in over 160 countries how to design, build, troubleshoot and secure computer networks. The Cisco Networking Academy program operates over ten thousand academies worldwide in secondary, post-secondary, and alternate environments ranging from workforce development programs to prisons. Towson’s IT Affiliate and Cisco Support and Training Centers, located at the Center for Professional Studies, manage and support over sixty academies throughout Maryland and the District of Columbia, providing technical support and professional development resources.
How is Towson helping Cisco Academies to support educational reform?
Academy curricula are aligned to the STEM National Career Cluster Standards and Common Core Anchor Standards in Language Arts and Mathematical Practices. This summer, Towson’s Cisco Instructor Training Center will offer a three-day workshop for high school IT instructors in embedding Common Core experiences in IT instruction. The activities and lessons produced from this workshop will be shared through video and other technologies. Three summer “boot camps” for Cisco instructors to earn A+, CCENT, and CCNA certification will continue to raise the bar on quality instruction. National and state Common Career Technical Core Standards are due for release over the coming year, and professional development to support them will be a key future project for Towson’s Support and Training Centers.
What’s happening in Maryland’s Cisco Academies?
It’s an exciting time to be a Cisco Academy in Maryland: in response to Governor O’Malley’s goal to make Maryland the “cyber hub of the nation,” the Maryland State Department of Education has designed a high school career and technology Cyber Security pathway partnering Cisco Academy and CyberWatch curricula. Students following this pathway can earn up to three industry certifications (A+, CCENT, and Security+) along the way. This new pathway, along with the two existing Network Engineer and Computer and Network Support pathways, provide Maryland students with a wide range of career and college opportunities.
Six two-year colleges were the first community colleges to be named National Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Information Assurance recently by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Three of the six institutions–Anne Arundel Community College, Hagerstown Community College and Prince Georges Community College—are Maryland Cisco Academies.
What “core beliefs” are driving all of this?
Career and technology programs everywhere need to meet the 21st century learners’ needs and expectations, and meet national goals of graduating secondary school students who are truly prepared for success in both college and career. Towson’s Cisco Support and Training Centers’ goal is to understand and support what Cisco instructors are doing well, identify areas of need, and give instructors the resources to practice those skills in the classroom.
US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated in April, 2011, that, “Once CTE programs deliver on the promise of truly preparing students for success in college and careers, their successes will make a compelling case for further investment.” Towson is helping to ensure that the world’s largest 21st century classroom can meet that challenge.
Nancy Null is a guest blogger for www.tuoutreach.com . Nancy closed a 38-year career as a Baltimore County Public Schools educator, and opened a new career as co-director of the Towson University Maryland State Department of Education IT Affiliate, and lead contact for the Towson University Cisco Academy Support Center and Instructor Training Center.
Almost weekly I get asked by colleagues and clients, “Nicole, how and where can I find a student intern?” Since 2009, DECO has hired over 125 student interns, and has helped multiple state agencies and regional businesses employ Towson students.
Even more amazing is that 13 of our current 76 employees are former student interns, here’s a bit more about a few of them. In this week’s post (my first post as an “official blogger”) I’m going to share with you my tips & tricks on finding and hiring the very best student interns.
DO:
Craft an exciting job description. Students aren’t going to apply for your internship if they think they’ll be standing at the copy machine for hours on end. Describe the ways in which you are going to provide real-world experience. What is your intern going to get out of their internship? What kind of connections will they make for future jobs?
Make the experience a valuable one. The more you put into your internship program, the more you’ll get back. When you create a valuable and memorable experience, you’ll attract great candidates.
Pay your interns. The fact-of-the-matter is that student debt doubled between 1996 and 2006. If you want great interns, I think you need to invest in them.
DON’T:
Get overwhelmed by the hiring process. Towson University offers many valuable resources to help departments and organizations hire students. Hire@TU is TU’s internship database and helps place hundreds of interns a year. Additionally, if you have a contact at the University, pass your job description to them – word-of-mouth recruiting works wonders.
Set unattainable expectations. An internship provides an opportunity for the student to put what they are learning in the classroom to work. Thus it’s important to remember they are still learning! Expect that in addition to training them on the project or projects they’ll focus on you may also need to mentor them on working in a business environment.
I began working for Bobbie in 2008 as a DECO intern. Four years later, I’m here as a full-time employee just beginning the process of hiring my own intern and how exciting it is to finally be on the other side of the table!
Center for GIS student interns verifying a broadband hotspot: Alex Stapleton, Justin Mannion, and James Parmeter
TowsonGlobal is proud to announce the five finalists of the 2nd Annual Business Plan Competition. After a series of preparatory workshops this past fall, counseling and hard work, 24 executive summaries were received from all over the region and have been evaluated by a panel of experienced business professionals, economic development personnel, and university faculty.
This year’s submissions again represented diverse sectors, including a number of biomedical technology innovations. Entrants ranged from Towson University and other regional university students, faculty, medical personnel, Towson University alumni, as well as a wide mix of entrepreneurs from across the area. The five finalists are:
Hemova Port – A medical device aimed at providing safe, reliable and long lasting dialysis treatment for the millions of people whose very lives depend on the treatment
Innovostics – Inexpensive rapid result testing that aims to give accurate diagnosis of bacterial, viral and parasitic infections
Momo Scientific – A medical device that is aimed at the prevention of cervical cancer through safer removal of pre-cancerous lesions
NeoStent – Medical stent that is more responsive to the blood flows of the human body compared with more static and unresponsive generally used devices
Tool Spinner – Online tool/appliance rental marketplace that allows consumers the opportunity to rent, rather than purchase, expensive tools. Here’s a fun fact about Tool Spinner, the entrepreneurs are two TU alumni brothers!
All entrants will receive constructive feedback from the judges, and finalists will be able to integrate that input into their full business plans as they now prepare their final plans and presentations with the help of mentors from the Greater Baltimore Chapter of SCORE. Finalists also will participate in the ‘Presentation Boot Camp’ which will be held at TowsonGlobal. This boot camp will prepare them for their final business plan.
Image credit: cooldesign
On May 2, the finalists also will present both to a panel of distinguished judges and at a public forum that will allow the community to show their support and learn firsthand about the innovations being generated in our area. At this event, the official winner of the Business Plan Competition will be announced. The winner will receive free 90-day Resident membership with the incubator (valued at $5000), along with a CASH and other prizes!
TowsonGlobal’s goal with this competition, and our other activities, is to inspire and support entrepreneurship, innovation, and small business development for Greater Baltimore and the region. The business plan competition is a good reflection of the diversity and innovative spirit in the Baltimore area. TowsonGlobal is proud to be a part of these ventures’ road to success and looks forward to assisting their further development.
Love was in the air in the Division of Economic and Community Outreach (DECO) on Valentine’s Day. Staff members gathered together on this romantic day to participate in our most beloved event, DECO’s Annual Chili Cook-Off and Dessert Contest. This is always a highly anticipated event in the Division and this year we had seven entrants in the chili competition and eight in the dessert. Those in attendance sampled each dish and voted on their three favorites in each category.
The chili entries ranged from spicy to sweet and meaty to vegetarian. They were all delicious, but only three could take home prizes. All winners received a ribbon. In addition to the ribbon, the first place winner received a medal and a gift card to Chili’s. Those winners were:
First place: Dyan Brasington, Vice President for DECO
Second place: Sharon Seybold, Administrative Business Analyst, DECO Administration and Finance
Third place: Christine Tennies, Business Analyst, Center for Applied IT (CAIT)
You might be thinking, sure sure of course the boss wins. First, this actually isn’t her first time winning; her winning dish is known as the “chili to beat.” Second, this year the social committee upped the competition by putting all of the chilis in aluminum chafing dishes as opposed to the crock pots they arrived in so no one could tell whose was whose. Needless to say Dyan is very pleased to be crowned the winner and has already laid down the gauntlet for the 2013 showdown!
From left to right: Christine Tennies, Sharon Seybold, and Dyan Brasington
The dessert competition also featured some diverse entries. There were pies, cakes, brownies, and more. Again, three winners were chosen. The winners received the same prizes as the chili contest, but the first place dessert winner took home a Cheesecake Factory gift card. The dessert champions were:
First place: Lusine Baghdasarian, Intern, DECO Administration and Finance
Second place: Bob Telewicz, Senior Project Manager, Center for Applied IT (CAIT)
Third place: Tom Earp, Project Manager, Center for Geographic Information Sciences (CGIS)
From left to right: Bob Telewicz, Lusine Baghdasarian, and Tom Earp
This event was a fun way to get together and enjoy some friendly competition between colleagues. People are already excited about next year’s contest and are discussing their chili and dessert plans. It is sure to be a fierce competition.
Congratulations again to all of this year’s winners and all of the participants!
Each year, a number of Towson University departments, both academic and administrative, offer opportunities for qualified students to become graduate assistants. . The process is competitive and responsibilities vary depending on the sponsoring department. Depending on the number of hours graduate assistants (or GA’s) work they receive tuition remission and a stipend making these limited positions highly sought after. The objective of a graduate assistantship is to provide the student with rich professional experiences that also support the department’s goals and activities.
Within our department, Center for Professional Studies, we regularly utilize graduate assistants to support a number of areas ranging from customized training programs to continuing education. For the past two years we have had been lucky enough to have, Jenna Frazzini as a member of our team. Jenna is a speech and language pathology major. When Jenna first joined our group we were in the process of submitting a grant to the Maryland Higher Education Commission and identified an active role for Jenna to play in the proposed project. Over the past two years, Jenna has regularly traveled to Dundalk High School to help high school seniors with the college application process, essay writing, and basic interview skills. Jenna worked one on one with the students and feels confident that her interaction with the students had a large impact on the student’s confidence as it came time for them to begin applying to college.
When I asked Jenna what she’s found most rewarding during her tenure as a GA, she responded, “that the skills that she learned from dealing and communicating with several different groups of people in a business-like setting have been invaluable.”
Our Director, Jeff Beeson, while new to the job, is already looking for opportunities for us to employ more graduate assistants in the future.
As the new year gets into full swing, many companies are planning top priorities for their employees and organization. With multiple projects, short deadlines, and budgets in mind, training is often left as a last priority or is sometimes forgotten.
But how do we make the time? By offering several methods of training, including:
In-Service Sessions: Specific dates set out in advance to ensure that training takes place. Similar to a staff meeting or priority project, advanced notification helps ensure that employees will be available to attend.
Departmental Retreats: An opportunity for most or all of a specific Department to come together in one room to receive customized training, address questions and concerns, and discuss strategic plans for the upcoming year.
Customized Sessions: Requested by and designed for a specific Department on their topic of choice, and scheduled to meet the availability of their staff.
Open Enrollment: Offered during various dates and times throughout the calendar year to ensure maximum participation.
These are just a few of the ways we are making training a priority in 2012, and we encourage you to try what works best for your employees and organization. The key to success is making sure you set the date(s) and time(s) for training in advance and follow up to ensure effective employee participation.
Towson University has long been known as the “teachers college”. Though it is now a comprehensive metropolitan public university, TU still maintains its strong roots in teacher education. The pedagogies and curriculum have evolved over the years as the field and needs of our community and students have changed, today a large focus for TU and educators across Maryland is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education.
The Baltimore Excellence in STEM Teaching (BEST) project, which is funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), realizes this and aims to improve STEM education at high schools and middle schools throughout the Baltimore region. The BEST project is a part of Towson University’s Center for STEM Excellence and offers training and mentoring to in-service STEM teachers and educational outreach to their students. Mentors come from many area higher education institutions, including TU. Participating teachers go through a 6-week summer research experience, which is followed by professional development workshops. Teachers then take what they have learned from the BEST Program and apply it in their classroom.
I was recently able to speak with Julie Damico, the Director of the BEST program. She began her position in July of 2010 and though the program is young, it is growing in popularity. Ms. Damico informed me that for the 2012-2013 school year, there were 52 applicants for about 20 spots. She also provided me with some thoughts from previous years’ participants and they had some great things to say.
While many of the participants spoke of gaining more skills in their field, I was surprised to see how many talked about the confidence boost they received from the program.
A lot of the teachers had not done research in a long time and this program was a chance to do just that.
Many of the participants noted that this research experience helped to confirm that they had chosen the right career path.
This new knowledge and confidence invigorated the teachers and got them excited to take it all back to their students to improve STEM education in their classrooms.
BEST is a great program and it is making strides in the improvement of STEM education in and around Baltimore. I encourage everyone, and especially any middle and high school teachers, to check out the BEST program and see what it has to offer.
Posted by Jenn Lake 
Guest Blogger
Bobbie Laur
Sharyn Grove
Jeremy Monn
Raquel Frye
Clay Hickson
Dawn Bott
Lindsey Meyer
Allie Pyzik
Daraius Irani
Past Bloggers
Jenn Lake
Kelsey Beckett
Timothy Brooks
Ashley Buzzeo
Matt Michels
Nicole Schiraldi
