Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Title of entry: Dynamic Links

About this entry: Our fall issue introduced new branding for UC Berkeley Haas, and we sought articles that clearly articulated various aspects of that brand. This story illustrates the exponential impact members of our community have when they work together. Showcasing the vitality of our Haas network is a way to spark pride in alumni. It also offers a visual for prospective students. We don’t have as many alumni as some of our competitor business schools, and MBA students sometimes choose institutions based on the strength of the network. We know our alumni show up for one another, and we wanted to demonstrate that graphically.

The origin point was MBA alumnus David Guendelman. He employs many Haas and UC Berkeley alumni at his company, Do Good CFO, which offers fractional CFO services.

Our aim was to show a link back to Haas, which we did with a faculty member and student interns, and indicate myriad ways members of the Haas community support one another: as co-founders, advisers, investors, board members, employees. In one instance, someone provided an introduction that led to a client relationship. We indicated classmates and a married couple.

Our average LinkedIn engagement rate (across all posts) is 8%. This post had a 12% engagement rate with a 10% click-through rate and 21 comments. For comparison, three other individual profiles from the same issue (with roughly the same word count) averaged a 3% engagement rate and 1% click-through rate and no comments. The article is now being used for spring yield efforts.