School Notes: School of Management
January/February 2018

Turning a paper clip into a car

Students in Professor Zoë Chance’s Mastering Influence and Persuasion course this fall found themselves the new owners of a car after they successfully negotiated the course’s One Paperclip Challenge. In the game, which was an Internet sensation in 2006, participants are given a red paper clip, which they must “trade up” for bigger and better items. The challenge is designed to improve their powers of persuasiveness, while getting them used to rejection, says Chance, an assistant professor of marketing. Students were given one week to pull off as many trades as they wanted. At the end of the week, students presented the items they wound up with, from a glass of wine to boxes of books, to vacations. Manus McCaffery, a student in the Jackson Institute Class of 2018, and Thomas Powell ’18MBA arrived in class with the keys for a 2000 Volkswagen Passat (which they plan to donate to charity). Students streamed out of Evans Hall to find the car parked in front of the building.

Faculty speak out on current events

Yale SOM faculty members are offering their views on hot topics in the news on Insights Three Questions, a new feature on the school’s website. Among the topics recently addressed are Professor Rodrigo Canales on DACA; Professor James Choi on the future of the 401(k); and Professor David Bach ’99 on European separatist movements. Find them at http://insights.som.yale.edu.

Fintech conference offers a glimpse of banking’s future

Experts from finance, technology, and academia convened at Yale SOM on October 13 for the Fintech Transformation Conference, an all-day event that examined the state of the financial technology revolution in banking.

Hosted by Yale SOM’s International Center for Finance, the conference explored disruptive financial technologies and what they mean to society, as well as the importance of regulation, through panels and discussion groups.