As faculty and students engage businesses in generative AI and automation, the University will also launch a parallel track of on-campus training to expand AI mastery for students and faculty at BW.
Baldwin Wallace University is rolling out workshops this fall to teach Northeast Ohio small businesses how to harness artificial intelligence (AI) applications in marketing, with both faculty and students involved in the teaching and implementation.
The series of workshops, a collaboration with Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) and Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE), aims to show how mom-and-pop retailers, small professional services, ecommerce firms and other small businesses can benefit from marketing AI tools.
The new, weekly workshops for a cohort of GCP member businesses are being led by Tim Marshall, BW's Burton D. Morgan Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship, associate professor of digital marketing and director of the Digital Marketing Center (DMC).
"The DMC has long connected talented BW students to local businesses for affordable strategy development and content creation services. The addition of AI adoption has been an essential addition in the past year," Marshall explains.
The new series for small businesses builds on prior DMC forays into AI adoption, including one-off workshops and a digital toolkit.
"The marketplace is flooded with rapidly changing AI tools," Marshall says, "So a key aspect of our training is to demonstrate some of the tools we've road-tested, while we talk about the pros, cons, learning curve and small business use cases."
Participants won't just receive information, but hands-on support for implementation as well. At the conclusion of the final session in October, businesses will be matched with paid BW DMC student AI business consultants.
"I've been hiring, onboarding and training BW students in preparation for their work with these client businesses since the semester started," Marshall says. "The small businesses receive much-needed support to get the ball rolling on the right tools for their needs, and students learn and add a valuable work experience to their resumes."
Marshall hopes it's yet another hands-on experience that gives BW digital marketing students an edge.
Past DMC students have developed and regularly update free, AI marketing resources online at ai4smallbiz.org. As AI project lead, May grad Anna Buhrow '25 not only got the ball rolling for development of the site but also planned an "ai4smallbiz" kick-off event in fall 2024 with BW LaunchNET.
Marshall credits two student "pioneers" with driving the launch of the DMC's AI adoption services in spring 2024. Student account executive Zach Ottenweller '24, now an AI strategist with Soarion Digital, managed a team of peers who tested tools and processes to produce an AI marketing workflow for the marketing manager at an investment bank.
That same semester, Marshall and then-senior Brianna Hamrick '24 co-presented a webinar on AI basics in partnership with the City of Berea. Hamrick, who now works as a full-time media strategist at Fathom, demonstrated how to use AI tools to easily convert TikTok videos into blog articles, email newsletter content and LinkedIn posts.
While the DMC will work with business clients again this fall, Marshall and Donna VanRooy from the BW Career Center will team up to offer on-campus AI fluency training in the form of workshops and hands-on career prep labs.
Nine events are planned through November and are open to all students of any major, as well as faculty interested in using AI to help and support students across disciplines.
Two AI Toolbox for College & Career Readiness workshops will equip students with practical, easy-to-use tools to boost both their professional development and academic success. Seven AI Career Learning Labs will feature brief demonstrations of apps that can help students prepare for job interviews and explore their career options, followed by hands-on time to use those tools alongside Career Center staff.
