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Student-inspired conference lands students in the business world
Three years ago, Simon Walls’ Marketing Research students conducted a study with the Durango Chamber of Commerce. The results revealed that local professionals desired more education about how to utilize digital marketing to advance their businesses.
The research students recommended the idea of hosting a digital marketing conference in the community. Walls, an associate professor of Marketing, made the idea a reality.
The resulting Tech-Knowledge Conference just completed its second year. The conference is a successful collaboration between the School of Business Administration and the Chamber of Commerce, which hosts the event. It also opens the opportunity for FLC students to incorporate themselves into the local business community.
“This experience is meaningful for students seeking internships and future employment opportunities,” Walls says.
The conference aims to develop local businesses’ digital marketing skills. The day-long series of classes and workshops focuses on such topics as cloud technology and hashtag campaigns.
Unofficially, the conference also serves as a networking tool for local business owners, entrepreneurs, practitioners – and upper-division FLC students, who attend through 10 scholarships funded by the Chamber’s sponsors.
“We made a point to help the students network by introducing them to local business leaders,” says Walls. “While we were there this year, I know at least one of my students got hired for an internship. And I know some of the marketing students are now staying in touch with the marketing folk in town as they plan their next steps and consider their options after graduation.”
Walls ensures that his students are engaged in multiple facets of the conference. They introduce speakers and help the event run smoothly. And throughout the day, they attend the session presentations.
“They aren’t just attendees,” he says. “In a very real sense, they are both attendees and participants. And that’s the way we’re going to proceed in the future.”
It’s fitting that FLC students are such an integral part of the Tech-Knowledge Conference, because the conference owes its very existence to them.
The conference stems from one of the marketing research projects Walls’s students conduct regularly for local businesses, many of them Chamber members.
One year, the Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Director Jack Llewellyn (English, ’87) asked Walls if his students could conduct a project for the Chamber directly. The Chamber wanted to find out how to better satisfy the needs of its membership.
Overwhelmingly, Walls recalls, the membership wanted more digital marketing knowledge. He put together a few workshops that were so well attended that he and Llewellyn assembled a day-long series of classes. The reviews were so favorable that the conference became an annual event.
“It’s meaningful to the students to see their work applied,” Walls says. “This is one such example. The students who attend know the origins. It’s a heuristic experience, because they can see work from previous students that’s being applied. As these students go out into the practitioner world, there is a readiness and preparedness that you just cannot garner from a textbook.”
Sophomore Navonne Benally, who participated in the conference in March, was struck by the reality that even successful businesses face challenges. “All these companies weren’t afraid to say, ‘I’m struggling with this, I need help with this,’” she says. “They were so direct.”
“The conference was very eye-opening,” she adds. “Digital marketing can come in any shape and form. It’s so unpredictable. My idea of marketing changes every day.”
And the conference’s effects extend beyond the event itself, according to sophomore Ryan Torres.
“I felt I got a lot more connected to other students in the department,” Torres says. “And I got to know Dr. Walls as a colleague. He got to know me on a different level, as well. That was really meaningful.”
Such impacts on his students motivate Walls to continue advancing the digital marketing opportunities at FLC.
“My students are a huge part of my life,” he says. “It’s such a pleasure to introduce them to practitioners and help them find meaningful employers after they graduate. Much of the happiness in my life now comes from service to my students. I think I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”