And the top Tweet belongs to…

John Yates, 33, of Houston, TX, has global experience working in China and Thailand.

A “Tweeter” who combined the old with the new has been chosen as the recipient of a full-tuition financial award to attend the Tippie Full-time MBA at The University of Iowa this fall.

John Yates, a 33 year old from Houston, TX, has global experience working in China and Thailand. He provides training and instruction to visiting foreign dignitaries and businessmen from China and around the world. He used the classic form of Haiku to explain why he would be an outstanding Tippie MBA student.

Globally minded (5)
Innovative and driven (7)
Tippie can sharpen (5)

What made John’s Tweet stand out? The judging panel weighed in, noting the discipline required to compose a Tweet that revealed something about the candidate himself while limiting his message not only to 140 but to just 17 syllables. “He has taken one of the newest modes of communication in Twitter and one of the oldest forms of poetry in Haiku and combined them into one winning entry.”

The response to the campaign was enthusiastic. 58 MBA hopefuls submitted tweets for consideration. Of those, eight came from applicants who were accepted into the program after meeting the admission requirements (work experience, standardized test scores, undergrad academics, a traditional essay and an admissions interview). The tweets from those eight were then considered for the financial award.

Jodi Schafer, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Tippie, was happy with the results. “We wanted our applicants to show us that they understood this mode of communication, which is fast becoming a powerful business tool,” she said. “We received many Tweets that were really creative and cutting edge, while others didn’t fully take advantage of the opportunity to link to other media. That is likely a result of the quick turnaround time, but when candidates have more time to craft their applications, we hope to see more depth.”

Other Tweet submissions considered in the finalist group included:

Schafer said that other Tweets submitted were from individuals who didn’t plan to apply but just wanted to take a crack at the challenge of creating their own Tweet.

One great Tweet in particular came from Ryan Jennings, who is starting at Tippie this fall as a first-year MBA student. Ryan worked for many years in China and India before returning to the midwest for his MBA.

“It’s an outstanding example because it succinctly tells us something significant about him, and it links to a great video that tells us even more about what he’s really interested in,” Schafer said.  Nice job, Ryan!

The Tweets were judged by a panel comprised of Tippie College of Business faculty and staff and Tippie MBA alumni. The panel included:

• Rob Johnston, a Tippie MBA alumnus and director of brand management at Transamerica
• Barbara Thomas, external relations director for the Tippie College of Business
• John Murry, associate professor of marketing in the Tippie College of Business
• Scott Seibert, associate professor of management and organizations in the Tippie College of Business who studies the use of social media as an evaluation tool
• Pat Downes, a doctoral student in management and organizations who researches alongside Professor Seibert
• Erin Dougherty of the Tippie MBA career services team

William (Curt) Hunter, dean of the Tippie College of Business, acted as the head of the judging team and selected the winning Tweet among the top 3 entries selected by the panel.

What do you think about the panel’s choice? Did the best Tweet win?

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Media Contacts: Jodi Schafer or Lydia Fine, or call 319-335-2792
Listen to the conversation on Twitter: #tippietweet
View the official press release