June 3-5, 2022
June 17-19, 2022
2022 'Impact' Consult-a-thon
Investing in Students' Employability through Impact-driven Consulting Cases
Organizations are looking for talents that “fit” their cultures and competitive strategies. They do not mind newcomers if they “fit” the organization at personal, social, professional, and excitement levels beyond the CV-based level. Graduating students as newcomers must find a way to establish and demonstrate such a “fit.”
2022 Summer Direct Study with Dr. Ivy provides Northeastern University’s graduate students to serve as Case Consultants to perform consulting cases for local organizations with socially driven challenges and visions. These local organizations serve as Case Clients. Using the BE-EDGE Consult-a-thon framework allows them to connect at four levels: the personal level of meaning behind the challenge, the social level of connection and trust, the professional level of generated value, and the level of shared excitement. The experience incorporates mindfulness and design thinking frameworks, market and industry analysis, and stakeholder management and resource-based views on strategy.
WHY BE-EDGE CONSULT-A-THON?
What is here for students as BE-EDGE Case Consultants?
What’s in it for business partners as BE-EDGE Case Clients?
What’s in it for the Community and City?
OUR TALENTED CASE CONSULTANTS
MEET THE BE-EDGE CASE CLIENTS
FOUR-STEP PROCESS
Using the BE-EDGE Method, the case consultants will traverse through four sections. Each section refers to a different level of synchronization between the strategic goals of global talents and the industry or market of their market-entry interest. They each will have its learning objectives, activities, and deliverables. This is the schedule.
Week 1: Personal and Social Levels of Connection between Case Consultants and Case Clients
Week 1 - Personal and Social Connection
Personal Level of Connection: Introduction to the course / Meet and greet with your team and other case consultants.
Personal Trust: Meeting with Case clients / Collecting and working on the data for the company case.
Social Level of Connection: Rigor and Methodology / Constructing the plan in getting the market and industry data
Week 2: Learning the Background Information. Making a Company Case
Week 2 - Learning the Case
Professional Trust: Company case hands-on / Market and Industry Research / Case analysis
Week 3: Professional and Excitement Levels of Connection between Case Consultants and Case Clients
Week 3 - Professional and Excitement Connection
Professional Level of Connection: Ideation for solution / Meeting with a mentor / Team’s idea for a solution
Professional Level of Connection: Generating value / Working on prototype and testing / Create a PPT for case client
Excitement Level of Connection: Exciting Stakeholders / Presentation of Generated Value
Week 4: Capitalizing on the Experience. Making Your Voice Sound
Week 4 - Experience
Getting ready for connecting with stakeholders beyond this experience
Reflection: Consulting Case as my stepping stone
Case Brief for a professional portfolio
Communication piece for emails to potential employer
``IMPACT FOR EMPOWERMENT`` Grant from DMSB
The grant ‘IMPACT FOR EMPOWERMENT” from Dean Emery Trahan was dedicated to support the final level of connection between our Case Consultants (students) and Case Clients (companies) – the level of “we did it”, a shared joy and passion of the impact, that the implementation of the proposed solutions could make. As Dr. Ivy indicates, this grant would also make a meaningful contribution to students’ employability in the market and industry that they target. This is especially important for international students who strive for hands-on experience and personal relationships with US organizations and their executives.
