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Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Discover Online Learning
Thursday, February 25th, 2010From Public To Private
Thursday, January 28th, 2010Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes
In an effort to make their MBA programs more competitive on an international stage, many publicly supported schools are exploring a privatized model. In a privatized model the school would stop receiving government funding and seek alternative methods to raise capital, such as tuition. Prospective students often refer to the cost of the program as one of the determining factors in their ultimate choice to attend the school. The higher the price tag the higher the perceived level of quality. In order to meet this perceived value the school must deliver. Schools compete on the quality of faculty, technologies, learning environment, curriculum and value added services. One school exploring a privatized model McGill’s Desautels School of Business.
Students at McGill currently pay $1,600 a year in school fees, a cost that is drastically below the industry average of approximately $26,000. Administrators feel that the cost is not enough to entice students unfamiliar with the quality of the program. They propose an increase in tuition, a 1,663% increase in tuition, which is significantly higher than the average annual 4-10% increase to offset inflation.
The increase is necessary argues Peter Todd, Dean of Desautels. The annual cost to put a student through the program is $22,000. “We’ve been running deficits and were not able to make ends meet.” “The economics of it just doesn’t work with the government system,” says Todd. The government is not willing to support the drastic increase, which Todd says is high because the cost was so low before, the increase will bring the program to $29,500 leveraging it within the range of a Canadian MBA. The proposed increase is garnering support from some and bitter protest from others. Some feel that the price hike will alienate prospective students looking for a quality program for less and provincial residents who receive a subsidy in the government model looking for alternative choices. The infusion of capital will allow the school to implement an integrated approach to teaching core courses, with multiple professors in the class at one time, invest in career services and experimental learning opportunities outside of the classroom, money for student aid and over time new physical infrastructure.
Queen’s University was the first Canadian institution to shun provincial support in 1996. It wanted to raise tuition fees to that comparable of the U.S. David Saunders, Dean of Queen’s School of Business says, “Deregulation allowed Queen’s to compete – and win – on an international stage.” BusinessWeek Magazine recently named Queen’s. Other schools to successfully privatize are the University of Western Ontario, Michigan State University, York University’s Schulich School of Business and UBC’s Sauder School of Business.
Bricks and mortar campuses in North America are faced with multiple challenges including decreased endowments, reduction in provincial/state funding and of course an economy in recession. However, MBA admissions are countercyclical in nature in regards to the economy. This is forcing schools to compete on the level of quality. Yet some schools still choose to wait for markets to recover in order to expand and grow. This may prove to be detrimental says John Fernandes, President and CEO of AACSB. “When the competitor is making changes now and not waiting for the markets to heal, this will put them at a quality advantage. Waiting for the financial markets to turn around could be disastrous. These schools are most likely concerned about making sure their programs are viewed well and are received well by students. Therefore if they don’t make the investment now, it’s going to be worse long term. At that point, maybe they won’t be able to turn it around.”
Infographic: Virtual Campuses and Sustainability
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010Reading time: < 1 minute
This post displays an Infographic created by www.bestcollegesonline.com to illustrate the emerging trends in the US College system, the future of post secondary education and a sweeping trend by Universities to become more sustainable and offer an online element to their curriculum.
Follow The Leader
Friday, January 8th, 2010Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
Here is a list of five blogs from leaders in various industries and professions such as marketing, publishing and software. The list represents only a fraction of the CEOs that are passing on their knowledge, experience, insights and commentary on new and emerging issues affecting their business or industry. Each one is an interesting read. If you are not in the field of the particular leader, I insist you still read through their recent posts. Cross-disciplinary knowledge is a good way to round out your business reading, providing you with new frames of reference.
Seth Godin writes the most popular marketing blog in the world. He has authored over ten best selling books, holds an MBA from Stanford University, is the Founder and former CEO of Yoyodyne (Sold to Yahoo! in 1998), Founder of Squidoo.com (A fast growing recommendation site) and is a world-renowned speaker (Recently named one of the top 21 speakers of the 21st Century by Successful Meetings Magazine).
While the blog does present a clear focus on marketing, communications and brand development leaders can benefit from his acute insight into fostering ideas, creating sustainable publicity, emerging marketing trends and effective market communication methods.
Recent Posts: Why Ask Why? and What Every Marketer Can Learn From Grucho Marx
As the Chief Executive Officer of Thomson Nelson Publishers, the world’s largest Christian publishing company in the world and the seventh largest trade book publisher in the U.S. Michael Hyatt is a leader.
The blog covers a variety of topics with staple subjects of leadership, productivity and publishing. He has also included an ongoing list of resources that he uses such as software applications, videos and books.
Recent Posts: 7 Ways To Build Your Online Platform From Scratch, Using Email Templates To Say “No” With Grace and So You Can’t Seem To Land An Agent-Now What?
Craig Newmark is the founder and current Customer Service Representative of Craiglist, which need no introduction. Craiglist has over 6 billion pageviews per month, is present in 450 cities over the world, operates with a staff of 23 and generates millions in annual revenue.
Craig is involved in a number of community efforts and is particularly interested in public diplomacy, peace in the Middle East and new forms of journalism.
The blog covers a number of topics including U.S. communications policies, economic commentary and his latest charity efforts.
Recent Posts: FCC Launches Reboot Site and The DonorChoose Challenge.
Sun Microsystems is a Silicon Valley landmark that provides network computing infrastructure solutions including computer systems, software, storage and services. Its core brands include the Java technology platform, the Solaris operating system, MySQL, StorageTek and the UltraSPARC processor and Jonathan Schwartz is its leader.
As one of the first Fortune 500 CEO bloggers Jonathan’s blog embodies many of the qualities of the products produced by Sun such as openness and communication.
Recent Posts: Java Script Running App Stores and Sun’s Cloud
A global financier and philanthropist, George Soros is the founder and chairman of a network of foundations that promote, among other things, the creation of open, democratic societies based upon the rule of law, market economies, transparent and accountable governance, freedom of the press, and respect for human rights.
George Soros blog is a compilation of articles and essays about open society, financial reform and philanthropy.
Recent Posts: Three Steps To Financial Reform and One Way To Stop Bear Raids
Design Thinking and The Management Implications
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes
The design process with its elements of open idea generation, multidisciplinary collaboration, prototyping, execution and constant refinement is a comprehensive approach to solving business problems. But the majority of businesses do not utilize it and even worse, the majority of business schools do not teach it.
Design thinking is essentially a user centric approach, project based work flow, inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning combined with group collaboration. Instead of focusing solely on analytics and rigorous quantitative analysis the goal of the design process is to generate ideas keeping the customer in mind. It involves an almost anthropological insight into how the user will perceive, interact and use the product or service and how best to optimize these action and reactions.
As more and more businesses such as Proctor and Gamble, General Electric, Philips Electronics, Apple, Nike and Levi Strauss become more focused on their leaders adapting a design approach to problem solving business schools will be entrusted to develop a curriculum that incorporates design.
Numerous forward thinking business schools are embracing this shift in thinking and developing curriculum, hybrid models and strategic partnerships with design schools. The Rotman School of Management, Stanford University, McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and INSEAD in Paris are sterling examples of schools leading the way. Business schools currently teach a narrow form of collaboration. It involves finding someone who shares the same approach and views as you and working with them. The design approach is to collaborate with individuals who’s way of thinking could not be more different than your own in order to foster new approaches and unique insights. Business schools do not teach the understanding of users, visualizing something that does not now exist, prototyping and continual improvement. Obstacles to design thinking in business schools are prevalent. Semantic gaps, improper understanding of the brainstorming process, conceptual blocks and social barriers exist in abundance in many post secondary institutions. Educators also need to adopt a more interactive approach, instead of the “I am right, listen to me” mentality, they need to act more as a mediator between student led groups, offering expert advice and teaching the main deliverables.
The onus is not only on business schools to adopt design thinking but also businesses themselves, from small enterprises to huge multi-nationals. Roger Martin of the Rotman School of Business says, “We are on the cusp of a design revolution in business and as a result, today’s business people don’t need to understand designers better, they need to become designers.” Firm-specific executive education programs can teach problem driven design thinking, ad-hoc approaches and leveraging in-house design thinking. General Electric Healthcare sends its top managers to the Crotonville Learning Center in Ossining, N.Y. for the Technical Development Course. Managers are put outside their comfort zones and focus on creativity, imagination and problem-solving tools. The training program coupled with the appointment of designers to the executive level have increased the bottom line and instilled a culture that keeps the company at the edge of innovation.
The success of design thinking is evident in numerous large companies. Arguably, the company who has seen the most success from a foundation built on design and design thinking is Apple Inc.. Apple has continually trumped analyst forecasts and churned out profit quarter after quarter despite a weakened economy and the existence of numerous cheaper substitutes. Jonathan Ives, VP of Product Design at Apple claims that the focus on design is a motivation to make a product that is simple, intuitive and fulfills a function for the customer. Ives has the ear of Apple’s enigmatic CEO Steve Jobs and since the duo hooked up in 1997 they have created products that have revolutionized both the personal computing and music industries.
Design thinking can be utilized in companies big and small. The goal is to step outside an established way of thinking and approach a problem or a project with a designer’s mentality. As business schools and individual firms start to recruit, train, hire and rely on designers and design thinking the customer will see the direct benefit with better designed products and services.
