On Thursday May 28, 2020, Simone Abel, Director of Digital Strategy, gave a guest lecture to a Leadership & Innovation class of students in the SIST British education MBA Program. For 18 Years, SIST has delivered British education in Morocco awarding Bachelor, Masters and MBA degrees from Cardiff Metropolitan University in the UK.
Simone was invited to give an author’s lecture by the course professor, Dr. Joseph Eric Massey. Professor Massey featured the Digital Strategy Roadmaps (“DSR”) eBook in a series of assignments and projects for his class, incorporating it into the course curriculum. As an added bonus to bring the material to life, Simone worked with Eric on an author’s presentation to supplement the course material and bring value to the students ongoing projects.
The lecture time was designed to include Q&A time from students about the DSR or their particular assignment challenges. An interactive discussion period was included in the event time for addressing questions collected in advance and/or taken live through the Google Meet chat.
“Simone did a great job explaining the history of the DSR as well as how it should be used. She fielded questions from students who had specific questions about their own DSR team projects and provided invaluable information based on her expertise.
She explained that in her long career in digital, she kept seeing the same issues arising again and again. To improve the process, she decided she would create a template, which evolved in to the DSR, which could be applied and tailored to fit any organization’s plans to implement or expand their online digital presence.
The project the courses completed at SIST-Tangiers in Morocco was a fantastic experience for the students in the MBA program in the course Leadership & Innovation. Many said in their final team project evaluation that it was the best part of the entire course. I would agree to that myself. It allowed students to apply the DSR to real-world existing businesses and think of new and innovative ways the businesses each team chose to enhance their Internet and social media strategies and tactics.” – Dr. Joseph Eric Massey, Professor
It was a great afternoon for a professional discussion on how digital strategy roadmaps, and digital planning methods in general, support innovation and bring value to organizations and customers. The students loved the challenge, and many noted in course feedback that the DSR project was the best part of the class. Many thanks to Dr. Joseph Eric Massey for hosting, and to the engaged students at SIST for making this a very exciting afternoon!