One last thing: Here is the UTD program director's blog about the event: https://utdmarketing.wordpress.com/ It appears that only 22 of the 30 invited teams made it to the competition. But, the note about the purpose of the contest (discovering insights) is a great extension on my note about the reporting. That's all (for now). SCOTT HANSON, PhD Program Director, MS in Marketing Research The University of Texas at Arlington Box 19469, 701 S. West Street, Arlington, TX 76019-0469 O: 817.272.2340 M: 817.994.6985 [log in to unmask]<https://legacy.uta.edu/owa/jshanson@exchange.uta.edu/redir.aspx?SURL=GEuqqnIbcn9RB2cklrIuJGsYdmip_KHmRh7P0yzkFbkpcR3o5fDSCG0AYQBpAGwAdABvADoAcwBjAG8AdAB0AC4AaABhAG4AcwBvAG4AQAB1AHQAYQAuAGUAZAB1AA..&URL=mailto%3ascott.hanson%40uta.edu> http://wweb.uta.edu/marketing/msmr.html<https://legacy.uta.edu/owa/jshanson@exchange.uta.edu/redir.aspx?SURL=e0H3hXzJO1a0WkeO4MNAb5LzXZ528aM8z-ksVf5yHjApcR3o5fDSCGgAdAB0AHAAOgAvAC8AdwB3AGUAYgAuAHUAdABhAC4AZQBkAHUALwBtAGEAcgBrAGUAdABpAG4AZwAvAG0AcwBtAHIALgBoAHQAbQBsAA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwweb.uta.edu%2fmarketing%2fmsmr.html> ________________________________ From: Hanson, Scott Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2016 5:13 PM To: [log in to unmask]; MSMR Alumni; [log in to unmask] Cc: MSMR Current Students List; Jaramillo, Jorge F; Tower, Amanda; Croson, Dr Rachel Subject: IBM Watson Competition News Good afternoon, I hope this email finds you well. And, I hope you will indulge me for a few minutes, because I have some great news to share with all of you. While most of the students in the western hemisphere were either studying for finals or celebrating the end of the spring semester (or both) this past weekend, our MSMR students were representing UT Arlington in an analytics competition. Six teams (14 students total) from UTA MSMR competed against 24 other student teams from the UT Dallas and Texas A&M Masters in Marketing programs, the University of North Texas MBA in Marketing program, and the SMU Business Analytics program in a case competition sponsored by IBM. Competing teams arrived early on Saturday morning and, following check-in and a brief orientation session, were provided with a two-hour (crash course) training in Watson, IBM's data analytics package. Although some other teams had familiarized themselves with Watson prior to the competition, none had formal training and none of our UTA students had ever worked with Watson before Saturday. Following training, teams were provided with box lunches, a large dataset, and a business question to address. Teams were required to use Watson to analyze the dataset, but they had to rely on their research skills and individual talents to create the final report and recommendations, which they submitted to judges from IBM and their corporate partners for review. (This is what I've pieced together from the organizers and the teams themselves because academic sponsors were prohibited from attending until after final submissions were made at 4 PM.) I would like to interject here that I now know these are my teams. During the break between submission and awards, many teams toured the campus or went to the food court to grab dinner. My teams? Upon my arrival, they announced that they had already located a nearby pub and asked if I had brought the van to drive... Squad Goals. Judges selected the three top teams early that evening. A team from UT Dallas took third place, which carried a $500 prize, and a team from SMU took second place ($1,000 prize). And, despite the dour predictions from our students at Fox & Hound, I am pleased to share that the UT Arlington team of Yousriyah Mukry and Diana Viteri took home first place (and a $2,000 prize). Before announcing the winning team, the judges said, while all teams' solutions were thoughtful and well-structured, the winning team delivered the best report, which they described as succinct, but comprehensive, well-labeled, and clearly presenting the relevant insights. Supportive details were included in an appendix, so that they did not detract from the conclusions and recommendations. In short, "this is exactly the type of report we would present to executives tasked with the decision". Obviously I'm proud of this team in particular, but I think there is plenty of credit to go around. Today I received the following note from one of the IBM judges: I wanted to send a quick not congratulating you and your entire team/s, on a job well done this past weekend. We know training was short and requirements were high but your group seemed well prepared and confident. Kudos for that. Kudos, indeed. So, as we wrap up the year, I'll do a bit of program promotion here. I have been beating the "quality reports" drum with this group of students from the first class session last fall. They have been subjected to vague client RFPs, limited and sometimes confusing direction from their director, and even "pop presentations" (given the first hour of a class session to organize their thoughts and notes before giving a 5 minute presentation three weeks before the final report was due). Through it all I have encouraged them to think about the problem, work the data, conceive of a solution, and, most importantly, present that solution in a way that clearly directs action. Insight development is not formulaic. Yes, there are best practices, but ultimately each solution is relatively unique and certainly unique to that problem. Most importantly, the quality of your findings will be lost if you can't communicate them in a way that drives action. In the end, I believe they found that Watson is a tool, which is only as effective as the team using it. And, on this day, our teams -- yes, teams -- stood out for their ability to present insights. So, please take a moment to commend Yousriyah ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Diana ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) on their victory. And, while you're at it, you can also commend the other students attending the competition on their work as well: Sreya Bhowmik Puja - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Sarah Clarke - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Ching-Wen (Jean) Hwang - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Suyang (Grace) Jiang - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Tianyi Li - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Travis Malone - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> J.D. McSwain - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Pamela Naranjo - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Linh Ngo - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Thanh Tran - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Charlotte Wang - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Andrei Zhuchenko - [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Like many of the professional development activities available to those in "the real world", this competition was optional (really, I'm not even talking about Dr. Hanson's version of "optional" here). But, we actually had to turn away a couple of teams because we had reached our limit. So, I am proud not only of the performance, but also the willingness to travel (to faraway Richardson) to represent the MSMR program and UT Arlington. So, thanks to the students for giving up their Saturday for this event. If you're looking for someone to "go the extra (37.2) mile(s)", here is your starter list...hint, hint... Following the competition, I spoke with two of the IBM representatives and one of the judges (a UT Arlington alumnus based in Irving -- he was proud of our winners too!) about Watson. Obviously competitions like this are part of IBM's overall strategy to build awareness and utilization. I will be working with them over the summer to plan and schedule an introductory training session for UTA faculty and students in the fall. I will also be working with the UTD professor who organized the event. He actually conceived of the competition, pitched it to IBM, and even got them to fund the prize money, and he intends for this to be an annual invitational event, expanding the number of schools involved next year. The cost of expansion will be a reduction in the number of teams each school can send, which makes the fall training that much more important for our program. I will also be picking his brain on his approach to see if we might be able to find another company willing to do something similar to promote their products on the UTA campus (your thoughts/suggestions/support on this would be greatly appreciated). This is way too long and too much information, but I'm pretty excited about this and thought you should be excited too. There are great things going on in Arlington! Have a nice evening! SCOTT HANSON, PhD Program Director, MS in Marketing Research The University of Texas at Arlington Box 19469, 701 S. West Street, Arlington, TX 76019-0469 O: 817.272.2340 M: 817.994.6985 [log in to unmask]<https://legacy.uta.edu/owa/jshanson@exchange.uta.edu/redir.aspx?SURL=GEuqqnIbcn9RB2cklrIuJGsYdmip_KHmRh7P0yzkFbkpcR3o5fDSCG0AYQBpAGwAdABvADoAcwBjAG8AdAB0AC4AaABhAG4AcwBvAG4AQAB1AHQAYQAuAGUAZAB1AA..&URL=mailto%3ascott.hanson%40uta.edu> http://wweb.uta.edu/marketing/msmr.html<https://legacy.uta.edu/owa/jshanson@exchange.uta.edu/redir.aspx?SURL=e0H3hXzJO1a0WkeO4MNAb5LzXZ528aM8z-ksVf5yHjApcR3o5fDSCGgAdAB0AHAAOgAvAC8AdwB3AGUAYgAuAHUAdABhAC4AZQBkAHUALwBtAGEAcgBrAGUAdABpAG4AZwAvAG0AcwBtAHIALgBoAHQAbQBsAA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwweb.uta.edu%2fmarketing%2fmsmr.html>