The Student Panel @ IABD

Just finished presenting my paper on the 7th July London Bombings and the communication lessons learned from that incident at the student panel this afternoon. I presented a list of six lessons that I felt highlighted some of the major touchstones of the modern day crisis communication in the Web 2.0 enabled age.

That's me going through my paces during the student panel...

That concludes to some extent a journey that began last summer during my crisis communication class taught by Dr Gregory Payne (read about his work in the IABD Press team profile site) when I did a paper researching on how the British Government handled the crisis.

But really left an impression on me today was how all the student papers seemed to zero in on the issue of information management as the central thread across all our different papers, as if this is a pulse of the current economy and environment.

Megan McGuire presenting on China's economy and its government system.

First up was Megan McGuire from Texas Christian University who presented a paper researching how China's economic system operates alongside its authoritarian system, and how the rise of new telecommunications systems and new media are posing a robust challenge to the Chinese government's strategic management style.

Pascal Emanuel of the University of Dayton then took over the baton and talked about the importance of understanding cultural differences and knowing who your audience is when handling conflicts and negotiations. Parts of Pascal's studies mirrored certain elements of Geert Hofstede research on Cultural Dimensions, and what I found most interesting was his point about how management needs to be more aware about issues such as anthropology and assimilation when trying to resolve workplace conflicts.

Moving from the humanistic side of the equation, Douglas Clemmons of Morgan State University came up to speak about the importance of quality information in the strategic financial management matrix. His thesis, essentially, is that many organizations today are not effectively utilizing the tacit knowledge and information that resides within the individual departments because of a 'silo' mentality, and there is an urgent need for managers to consider how IT can be utilized to better channel and integrate these information to serve the organizational bottomline.

The last student to present was Brandi Heavner from Frosrtburg State University, and she talked about how retail organizations are making use of MIS (Management Information System) technologies to better organize and optimize their inventory of stock. The strategic use of such retail information MIS is fast becoming a key cost-management component of businesses today, and the next big system that will take the market by storm is the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology because of its potential to aggregate several loose MIS capabilities into a one-stop solution for businesses.

Dr Martha giving a brief recap of the discussion at the end of the panel.

Well, kudos to everyone who presented today! And special thanks also goes to Dr Martha Mattare from Frostburg State University for being ever so encouraging and supportive of us throughout the journey.

Fellow academics, buddies and colleagues... how d'ya like the ABCs?

Are you a student? If you are, why not consider putting your paper up for presentation at next year's IABD Conference, which will be held at Las Vegas.

For the very first time, the IABD will be presenting awards for the best student papers at the undergraduate and graduate levels, so THAT should be a great incentive. But more than that, think about the great opportunity to network, make friends and have fun! Somehow, I just get the sense that apart from all the intellectual rigors, that's what this family is all about!

See you next year!