SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Do not wait for permission to be a leader. J. Gerald Suarez, Smith School Professor of the Practice in Systems Thinking and Design, says individuals can take charge of their future and act as leaders, regardless of their positions within an organization.

U.S. Army veteran and educator Joseph Guy Mattingly Jr., a professor emeritus and longtime undergraduate director at the Smith School, died May 17, 2014, at his home in Annandale, Va. He was 84.

’70s Robin Depaoli ’77, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Virginia Hospital Center, received the Fiscal Heroes/CFO of the Year Award on July 17, 2013. The award is given by the Washington Business Journal. Jayne Edge, MBA ’76, has joined Jenzabar as Vice President of Marketing. John J. Keenan ’75 has been elected a director of Howard Bancorp and Howard Bank.

Smith to Educate 600 U.S. Customs and Border Protection Leaders  High-potential civil servants started coming to the Smith School in summer 2014 for a custom executive education program that will support the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in its mission to prevent terrorists and potential weapons of mass destruction from entering the country.

Digital piracy has persisted in the past decade. In the music world, the Recording Industry Association of America claims illegal downloads annually drain $12.5 billion and 70,000 jobs from the U.S. economy.

A recent CBC Music report holds up music bands as models of good Tweeting skills, citing Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame as one example with 1.3 million followers. “@wakaFlockabsm has something for everyone,” the report says. “Fun interactions with fans, inspirational quotes and weird hashtags.” Social media has become increasingly important for musicians to engage fans, promote output and subsequently lift record and concert sales — a dynamic analyzed in a recent study from the Smith School.

Companies that adjust their products or services based on social media feedback might as well be driving blind. Award-winning research from marketing professor Wendy W. Moe shows the correlation between unadjusted social media data and well-developed offline market research is almost zero (0.008 to be exact). 

Career setbacks hit U.S. women harder than men, but a new study from the Smith School provides clues for closing the gender pay gaps that persist in corporate America.

The University of Maryland has selected Smith School Professor Gilad Chen as a 2014-15 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. He is one of six professors to receive the honor this year.

MBA students from the Smith School joined peers from China and Israel in a business plan competition May 25 to June 1, 2014, in Beijing. Overall, participants vied for $2,750 in cash prizes during the China Business Model Competition, organized by Smith’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship and host partner, Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. Other participants came from Zhejiang University in China and the Technion Israeli Institute of Technology.