Case Studies were created and judged by Boostability & Adobe Digital Marketing
Utah Collegiate DECA’s annual Fall Leadership Conference (FLC) is one of the most exciting, intensive, fun, and rewarding experiences for UNLV Collegiate DECA students who decide to attend. The conference is always filled with leadership development workshops, amazing speakers, opportunities to network, and competition.
The 2014 Utah Collegiate DECA FLC began with the Chapter Officer Leadership Academy (COLA) hosted by Angela Dayton, a professional consultant, serial entrepreneur, and public speaker. After an interactive session of leadership exercises, COLA concluded and FLC’s Opening Session began. Opening session featured a talk from Michael Glauser, a Utah State University professor who embarked on a 4,000 mile bicycle journey across the United States to interview and reveal some of America’s top successful small businesses and entrepreneurs During the conference students also heard from Michelle McCullough, managing Director of Startup Princess on her strategies to leverage social media engagement and Spencer Quinn, Student Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Fiber Fix, a Shark Tank success story whose product can be found in over 1,600 locations world-wide including Home Depot and Lowes. “I still remember the first time we were handed $20 from someone and I thought, WHOA! Someone wants to actually buy this!” said Quinn during his presentation. All of the presenters during the conference were found to be a true inspiration to all the future business leaders and entrepreneurs in attendance.
Representatives from Adobe Digital Marketing and Boostability Inc. were invited to present on their companies and judge the competition. These two companies would be featured in the case studies which students who attended had to work on for the remainder of the conference. Adobe Digital Marketing, who surpisingly has dominated the market over companies such as IBM, focused their case study on strategies to increase sales of the Adobe Marketing Cloud through the use of the Adobe Digital Index. Boostability Inc., a leader in search engine optimization and named #254 in the Inc. 500/5000 list that catalogues the fasted growing privately held U.S. companies, asked students to focus on the employee hiring process and increasing their retention rate.
Since students were placed in random teams, the case study competition was more challenging than a typical team competition. Aside from the intensive research and preparation to present, students had to work together with others they have never met. UNLV Collegiate DECA students embraced the challenge and worked tirelessly through the night with their teams to deliver the best presentations possible to present to the company executive the next morning. The hard work paid off when four UNLV students joined their respective teams as first and second place winners of both Adobe’s and Boostability to be awarded on stage. Adobe’s first place winners were also invited to a meeting with their executive team and to tour the facility in Utah. Dara Tinoco, first year UNLV DECA member said, “FLC was an incredible experience for me as a college Freshman, it taught me to be an influential leader, and overall an excellent entrepreneur, now I’m even more excited to pursue my career at Lee Business School.” With most UNLV students in attendance as first time attendees, the conference delivered the excitement and joy of not only competing, but networking and having lots of fun. We hope to continue this tradition every year and cannot wait for the opportunity to attend again in 2015!
The following students participated or were awarded during the conference. Every UNLV student in attendance put forth their strongest effort to put their industry knowledge to the test, grow as leaders, and expand their professional skill set. Please feel free to congratulate them for a job well done if you see them on campus. You can also email unlvdeca@gmail.com to congratulate the members on their success.
Dara Tinoco: Entrepreneurship/Political Science – 2nd Place Adobe Digital Marketing
Celine Endy: Hospitality/Global Entrepreneurship – 1st Place Boostability
Bianca Cseke: Journalism – Participant
Daniel Dinev: Accounting/Global Entrepreneurship – 1st Place Adobe Digital Marketing
Blaze Lovell: Journalism – Participant
Christian Perez: Accounting – Participant
Annie Bellorin: Accounting – 2nd Place Boostability
Rebecca Lychock: Philosophy/Law – Participant
Dyan Baguio: Hospitality/Accounting – Participant
