Terry College of Business - Fall 2009 - (Page 60)
Classnotes who’s doing what, where 1960-64 Former Georgia Pacific CEO Pete Correll (BBA ’63) of Atlanta received the Woodrow Wilson Award for corporate citizenship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution. Jim Purcell (BBA ’64) is one of 13 business people starting a bank in Elberton and Hartwell. Doyle Shaw (BBA ’64) of Decatur retired from DeKalb County government after 33 years of service. 1970-74 Richard Jacobson (BBA ’71) of Tampa, Fla., a shareholder and leader of the International Tax Practice Group, was appointed Vice Chair-Americas for Referral Promotion by the TerraLex Legal Network. Burgett H. Mooney III (BBA ’73) of Rome was elected to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association board of directors. Sammy McDaniel (BBA ’74) of Snellville joined the Shelby Publishing Co. as southeast regional manager. 1975-79 Neal Glenn (MBA ’75) is one of 13 business people starting a bank in Elberton and Hartwell. Michael Haggerty (BBA ’75) of Dallas, Texas, was named to Best Lawyers in America for 2009 for the field of real estate law. He was also selected as one of Texas Monthly’s Texas Super Lawyers in 2008. He is a partner in Jackson Walker’s Dallas office. Al Hodge (BBA ’77) of Rome was chosen as one of Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Who’s Who in Education. Douglas Powell (BBA ’78) of Rowlett, Texas, graduated with a Ph.D. in leadership and church ministry from the Southern Baptist Theological Rank ’em loves fan lists Employing guerilla marketing strategy, Adam Wexler (BBA ’07) and Danny Kirschner (BBA ’06) mingled with Wilco fans back in April and created a point of interest on the Classic Center plaza because they were wearing handmade sandwich boards that listed the top 10 Wilco songs as listed on iTunes. “The idea was to create give-and-take discussions among Wilco fans as to whether a group’s most popular songs are actually their best songs,” says Wexler, whose principal reason for donning the signboard was to tout his emerging online music information service, known as Rank ‘em (www.gorankem.com), which is dedicated to people’s love affair with both music and lists. “I wondered, ‘Is there anything like this out there that allows people to rank their favorite songs and dialogue with other music fans about their choices?’” says Profile Wexler drew inspiration from Terry’s Institute for Leadership Advancement program, and he utilized the online funding platform Kickstarter to raise several thousand dollars to pay for site hosting. Wexler, whose family has been successful in Atlanta real estate. “When I realized there wasn’t, I knew I had to start one.” The Rank ’em site provides a platform for 400,000 artists and 7 million songs, which sounds impressive. But how does the site make money? As an associate music retailer, Rank ’em earns a small percentage of web site sales from companies like iTunes and Amazon, and Wexler envisions a number of new revenue streams. “We’re talking to radio stations, and to the artists themselves. We’re especially interested in top 40 stations. We’re saying, ‘Give us your top 40 songs and we’ll populate that playlist on the Rank ’em site. All of a sudden, you’ve got a dayto-day preference list that’s not based on random requests, but collective choices. Rank ’em could replace a radio station’s entire research department.” kent hannon terry.uga.edu
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