Strategic Marketing Class Visits Silicon Valley

This past summer, 18 students in Dr. Tracy Tuten’s Strategic Marketing Innovation Class learned about innovation first-hand by visiting some of Silicon Valley’s top companies.

Students first studied innovation in the classroom, teaming up to report on 10 companies which they then visited during the fourth week of the course. While on-site, the class was able to tour the corporate campuses of Google, Apple, Ideo, Salesforce.com, Walmart Labs, Clorox, Joyent, Twitter, Netflix, and Goodby, Silvertein & Partners.

All of the companies provided panel presentations that related to innovation, with each taking their own approach. Students also got to meet several ECU alumni among the presenters. At Goodby, Co-Chairman and Creative Director Rich Silverstein spoke to students. The Clorox CEO, Don Knauss, tailored a PowerPoint presentation on Leadership just for ECU. The class was able to view many of the iconic artifacts at Google, such as one of the cars that maps the countries’ streets for Google Maps and the spaceship, and the colorful bicycles that employees use to zip around campus.

Tuten said enjoying lunch in the employee cafeterias brought a real sense of belonging at Apple, Salesforce.com, and Walmart Labs, and the critical importance of data curation was brought home at Netflix, Joyent, and Twitter. Students especially enjoyed driving over the Bay Bridge from Oakland to tour the design company Ideo, with a demonstration of 3-D printing in its converted wharf on the San Francisco Bay before heading to a Giants game at AT&T Park.

Tuten said, “We had such a wonderful experience learning directly from some of the world’s top innovators. I was especially proud of the advance work put in by the students and their interactions with some of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley. It was a truly unique experience.”

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