The first Web Creators Competition, which was developed by The Center of Online Marketing, is now available for Mercy’s students to win a day at IBM, but it’s only here for a short period of time.
Mercy College’s Business Professor Christopher Salute got the idea for a contest and passed it along to his students. Prof. Salute is apart of the Center of online Marketing (.COM), he said, “.COM Center is a new center of excellent here at Mercy, it’s about a year old. We wanted a way to promote creative thinking in a marketing and web development world.”
The .COM Center is an active learning center that provides students with the opportunity to learn about the world of social media, search engine optimization, and online advertising.
The competition is how to program a website. There are three parts to the website, it needs to feature at least three social media accounts, groups need to market their websites, and the website will need graphic designs. There will be a five-page PowerPoint summary on May 8 in the Rotunda.
Andrew Borky, a freshmen at Mercy and who is studying Business and Administration and who is advertising the contest on campus said, “All students in any major are welcomed to join. I am looking for students who are studying Graphic Design, Business, Computer Technology, even Education,” However, he adds that, “I created this contest for students on campus to open-up, and get involved with one another in order to do great things.”
Pro. Salute said, “In the School of Business, instead of teaching out of a textbook, we try to bring every real-world example. That’s why the .COM Center is so important because Marketing is not what it use to be, we are not pitching advertisements onto a board it’s all on the web.”
There are a few websites that have already been created and are programmed.
Elizabeth Berlin, a freshmen studying Specialization in Marketing said, “You can have as many people in a group as you want. So far there are three teams signed up we have, “TheBubbleisBack”—which is the .COM Center team, we are working on another website called “BuyerSwapyou”—which is for student who have a textbook who want to swap or sell books, they can do it on this website.” Berlin and Prof. Salute are creating a third website called “Bookattorney.”
Prof. Salute stated that, IBM knows about the contest because facility members at Mercy who were former IBM executives and now teach at the School of Business have helped us [.COM] reach out to IBM.
In high school Borky enrolled himself in acting, stand-up comedy, he learned how to program websites, learned the Apple mobile operating system (IOS), and from there he created iPhone applications. Borky says, because the contest is less than a month away, he wants to get the word-out through making creative flyers and posting them all over campus, and through social media sites.
Prizes for the winners include—a shadow day at IBM, Business and Legal Consulting, and .COM Marketing Consulting Prize Pack. Mentoring and internships at IMB are available as prizes.
Borky said, “Students don’t need to know how to program a website, they can create a website using wordpress.com. They can also create an iPhone app instead of a website.” Borky states that whatever the website or app they end-up making, “The sky is the limit.”
To submit your website, go to www.thebubbleisback.com and fill-out the online form by clicking on “sign up here”. The deadline is May 1—students will present their finished website in the Rotunda at 6 p.m.