The American Marketing Association Foundation recently named Lemon, Roland Rust and Valarie Zeithaml the winners of this year's Berry-AMA Book Prize for their book, Driving Customer Equity: How Customer Lifetime Value is Reshaping Corporate Strategy. This annual award recognizes the top marketing work for innovative ideas and overall impact on marketing and related fields.
In their book, Lemon and her co-authors challenge corporations to abandon traditional product-centered marketing strategies in favor of "customer equity," a customer-focused framework designed to maximize a company's most prized asset, the total lifetime value of its customer base.
"I am very pleased and honored to be selected along with my co-authors for this award," said Lemon. "Driving Customer Equity provides an essential new tool for managers. The Customer Equity Framework we describe enables managers to determine where to invest their marketing dollars for maximum impact. The approach outlined in the book has been implemented by several Fortune 500 companies in 12 countries. Building upon the ideas in the book, I continue to develop new models to enable firms to understand and actively manage their relationships with customers."
Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly and Trustee Richard Syron '66, LD '89 (Hon.) joined Sweeney Professor of Accounting G. Peter Wilson and Adj. Senior Lect. Vincent O'Reilly, the panel moderator, at the event, held Oct. 22 at the Boston College Club.
Wilson warned that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed by Congress establishing a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will increase risk in the areas of "board responsibility, compliance, and deflation" among companies and the economy.
Syron took aim at what he described as a lack of vision in corporate offices and boardrooms. "We are where we are because we focused on short-term performance...offering options as compensation," he said. "If the pendulum sways too far, it could negatively affect productivity. Instead of focusing on the symptoms, we should focus on the long-term problem."
Reilly, who lauded CSOM for "showing leadership, while other schools are ducking from the issue," cited a lack of incentive and validation on the part of the Securities Exchange Commission in enforcing laws against unethical or illegal corporate behavior.
Closing the session, O'Reilly offered a few suggestions on how corporations can restore corporate trust through cultural change, such as encouraging succession planning among CEOs and other top executives. While not all mistakes can be caught, he said, companies should focus on compliance controls to establish reasonable assurances for preventing mistakes.
"It takes a long time to recover from a bad reputation," he said.
As this part of the population continues to grow, so does the need for current research on aging, and for faculty and graduates with knowledge in the field, Mahoney says. The Geriatric Enrichment Program, of which Mahoney is director, will sponsor an informational event, "Opportunities in Aging," on Nov. 21 in McGuinn Hall from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
A highlight of the event will be a talk at noon by Barry Lebowitz, a research programs administrator at the National Institute of Mental Health, who will discuss opportunities for funding gerontological research at NIMH. His appearance is co-sponsored by the BC Initiatives On Aging program. The event also will feature display tables with information on job and research opportunities in the field of elder care services, staffed by professional social workers, who will answer questions on gerontology practice.
The proceedings were held in the Henry E. Foley Moot Court Room and broadcast by closed-circuit television in East Wing 120. Four cases were on the docket, including one concerning a battle over the patent for a self-propelled watercraft and another on whether the US Park Police Force acted properly in demoting a lieutenant to sergeant for conduct unbecoming an officer.
Audience members observed that the three judges often made a special effort to question the opposing counsels on a number of fine points, which seemed to be intended to provide a higher level of information and to educate the students who were watching.
"It was a unique opportunity for our students, who were able to observe first-hand how the court does its work," said Law School Dean John H. Garvey.
"Intellectual Property, E-Commerce and the Internet," sponsored by the Boston College Law Review, Hale and Dorr, LLP, and Goodwin Procter LLP, presented the ideas of nine prominent new thinkers who are leading the Internet debate. Each scholar presented a paper to be published in an upcoming symposium issue of the Boston College Law Review. A distinguished panel drawn from the academy and practicing bar then offered comments on these papers.
Among the panelists were BC Law's Asst. Prof. Joseph Liu, who presented "Copyright Law's Theory of the Consumer," Harvard Law School Berkman Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies Jonathan Zittrain ("Legislating Code") and Cardozo Law School Assistant Professor Justin Hughes ("Cyberspace and the Persistence of Law").
"The presenters and commentators who came to BC Law are among the most thoughtful and prominent thinkers about Internet issues," said Yen. "They brought a considerable amount of academic expertise and practical experience to us, and the symposium that will be published by the Boston College Law Review promises to be among the most widely read of those forthcoming this year."
"Around Campus" is a compendium of items submitted by Boston College's undergraduate, graduate and professional schools. Chronicle reserves the right to edit items for clarity, space and style.