Business & Tech FRIDAY, february 19, 2016
business Students Venture to California on Tech Trek bits Ben Uchimura Hoya Staff Writer
MSB Professor advises on How to Avoid Hiring a Toxic Employee Christine Porath, an associate professor in Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, recently wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review offering advice for employers to avoid hiring “toxic” employees. According to the article, a “superstar” employee, who is in the first percentile for productivity, can add $5,000 per year to a company’s profit. Alternatively, rude or otherwise unpleasant employees can cost up to $12,000 per year, lower company morale and lead to upset customers. To avoid hiring “toxic” employees, Porath recommends asking standardized interview questions that reference civility, observing how a job candidate treats office or restaurant staff and checking references for the red flags of a difficult personality.
student research featured in msb undergraduate journal The McDonough School of Business announced its creation of a journal of undergraduate scholarship this semester called the McDonough Undergraduate Research Journal. The publication will feature student research from the 2015 McDonough Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows program. Students accepted to the SURF program are awarded grants of $2,500 for a five-week span or $5,000 for a 10 week span to conduct research projects during the summer with faculty guidance. Past SURF grants have funded research in diverse topics, such as the factors contributing to career choice. Students contributing to the journal will collaborate with MSB faculty to hone their writing skills and contribute to Georgetown’s intellectual life.
MSB Marks 20th Anniversary of Telecommunications act The McDonough School of Business commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 1996 Telecommunications Act with a moderated discussion last week. The Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy officially hosted the event. John Mayo, executive director of the center, said the 1996 act was extremely important. “The 1996 act was very important and we should not lose sight of the fact that it was the first full-throated embrace of a pro-competitive deregulated environment,” Mayo said in a press release. According to the website of the Federal Communications Commission, the 1996 Act, signed into law by President Bill Clinton (SFS ’68), had the goal “to let anyone enter any communications business --- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other.”
bloomberg features MSB professor on adult diaper market Marlene Morris Towns, a teaching professor of marketing in the McDonough School of Business, was featured in a Bloomberg Businessweek article last week for her research on the rise in sales for adult incontinence products, or diapers. According to the article, the adult diaper industry is projected to grow to $2.7 billion in 2020, up from $1.8 billion in 2015, a 48 percent increase. Advertisement campaigns in recent years have helped normalize the adult product. “They’re driving home the point that attractive people in their 40s and 50s or even younger, not just nursing home residents, can be wearing this under their clothing,” Towns said in an interview for Bloomberg Businessweek.
Master of Business Administration students from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business travelled to California this January through an annual student-funded program, CalTrek, to visit companies and alumni centered in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. The two-day trip, organized by Georgetown’s MBA California Business Alliance, an organization of Georgetown MBA students interested in internships and employment in California, started over 15 years ago with the aim of educating stu-
“It will broaden their network, horizons and ultimately help them find jobs that match who they are.” eric young Director, MBA Career Center
courtesy california business alliance
dents and giving them networking and recruitment opportunities in California. Admission to the trek is on a first-come, first-serve basis, and admitted students must pay for their accommodations and the CBA’s membership fee to attend. This year, 37 CBA members participated in the organization’s immersive trek to California. This year’s CalTrek trip was planned by CBA’s President Valaree Tang (MBA ’16) and Eric Young, director of entertainment, media,
Master of Business Administration students from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business discussed technology with Sanjay Jain (MSB ’92), managing director of technology and investment banking at J.P. Morgan in California. sports, manufacturing, transportation and technology for the MBA Career Center. Together, Tang and Young planned a comprehensive schedule that offered attendees a choice between two companies per time slot, allowing them to tailor the schedule to their own interests. During visits to the companies, the MBA students had the opportunity to meet with current employees of
each company, as well as Georgetown alumni. Each visit lasted roughly an hour and consisted of a presentation on the company, its work culture and recruitment process, and a questionand-answer session or panel discussion. According to the MSB website, attendees visited major companies such as Adobe, Chegg, FreeWheel, Andreessen Horowitz, Google, HP, J.P. Morgan and Kaiser Permanente.
Restauranteurs Share Expertise
Young said the local Georgetown alumni in California were vital resources for planning the trip, as they helped coordinate each visit and gave attendees a firsthand perspective on how California’s tech-related industries and unique business culture work. “It is awesome to get people out of See CALTREK, A9
Innovation Smack Talk
Gracie Hochberg Hoya Staff Writer
Industry leaders from four casual D.C. restaurants sat on a panel in Fisher Colloquium, a lecture hall in the Rafik B. Hariri Building, last Wednesday to share their experiences working for the hospitality, customer service and restaurant industries. The event, titled “The ‘Four Fathers’ of Casual Dining,” was hosted by the Georgetown Hospitality Club. Panelists included Michael Lastoria, co-founder of &pizza; Brett Schulman, CEO of Cava Mezze Grill; Casey Patten, co-owner of Taylor Gourmet; and Burton Heiss, CEO of Nando’s U.S. The panelists began by describing their professional backgrounds, which, for many of them, included their experiences working in the restaurant and hospitality industry before working for their current companies. While Schulman spent a decade on Ali Rehman For The hoya Wall Street before deciding to pursue a career about which he was more Leaders from four D.C. restaurants sat on a panel in Fisher Colloquium passionate, Patten has worked almost on Wednesday to share their experiences of the restaurant industry. exclusively in the food service industry since the age of 13. profit should not overshadow the liefs while staying relevant. “I quickly figured out there was “I think if you find yourself with a need for individualism in building a something about customer service and brand that has to make a left turn in company. hospitality I really enjoyed — watching order to stay relevant, it didn’t have “I think my advice would be to be the excitement on people’s faces when a good foundation to begin with. It fearlessly weird about it. There are they had a good meal, watching fami- didn’t really resonate, it was a fad, a so many companies out there in the lies dine together,” Patten said. business because they’re motivated one-time deal,” Heiss said. The restaurateurs took turns deOffering their advice for succeed- by profit and success and they have scribing their unique brands, stress- ing in hospitality and the greater no idea what is about to happen to ing the importance of staying true to business arena, the panelists stressed them. It’s a long journey,” Lastoria a company’s core values. The panelists the importance of building a team said. offered their perspectives on reconcil- composed of passionate, positive ining loyalty to a fundamental set of be- dividuals. Lastoria said the desire for See DINING, A9
UVA Business School to Open DC Campus Sarah Smith
sion to implement the program in Rosslyn stemmed from the intersection of government, the military and business in UVA’s The University of Virginia Darden School MBA program in recent years. The expanof Business will expand to the Washington, sion of the MBA program was also largely D.C. area from its campus supported by UVA’s growin Charlottesville, Va., this ing alumni network in August, offering its Exthe District. ecutive MBA and Global “For 60 years, Darden Executive MBA programs has been developing busiat its new campus in ness and government and Rosslyn, Va. The UVA MBA military leaders --- many program expects about 50 from the D.C. area --- in our students at its new camMBA and executive educapus in August and plans tion programs. Darden to collaborate with the and UVA have dynamic other business schools in alumni networks in the sankaran venkataraman Washington such as Howarea and so we are buildDarden Senior Associate Dean ard University School of ing on our natural ties to Business, The George Washington Univer- the capital region,” Venkataraman said. sity School of Business and Georgetown’s Venkataraman said Darden’s MBA faculty McDonough School of Business. has been preparing for the program’s move According to Sankaran Venkataraman, se- for the past couple of months. nior associate dean for faculty and research at the Darden School of Business, the deciSee DARDEN, A9
Hoya Staff Writer
“We are building on our natural ties to the capital region.”
COURTESy Darden twitter
UVA Darden School of Business will open its new campus in Rosslyn in August, expecting 50 students.
Patrick Soltis
Ripples in Spacetime Discovered F
or most of us, the mention of “technological innovation” brings to mind images of the technologies that have become useful for our everyday lives. We imagine aspiring app developers lounging about the coffee shops of San Francisco, Bill Gates camping out in his office overnight or, as a throwback, Thomas Edison and his crew developing the electric lightbulb. Although innovative in their own time and originally rather expensive as prototypes, the innovations we remember most fondly are those that were eventually released to the masses. These technologies are featured in storefronts around the world at competitive prices and are probably updated every one or two years with some vague, marginally useful improvement to secure sales, even when the company has run out of any actual ideas. I am thinking about a fruit that starts with the letter “A.” Some of the greatest innovations known to mankind, though, are the niche tools that are only utilized by people working in very specific professions. Long before personal computers were available to the average person to use for average tasks, the early precursors of computers enabled scientists to make complex calculations at an appreciably faster rate. However, this fascinating innovation was not very useful for highly technical fields like spaceflight until the 1970s. All of the calculations to build the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which launched Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in 1969, were done by hand. The machine calculations for the Apollo 11 mission were verified by hand because people did not yet trust the accuracy of the numbercrunching done by the newfangled computers. Recently, researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave See GRAVITY, A9