Archive
Business schools embrace innovation – University of Phoenix
Business schools embrace innovation
Cheryl Meyer, UOPX Writer Network | February 28, 2011
University of Phoenix School of Business
Email
Share
Print
0
More than 75 years have passed since the deaths of famous inventors Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, two scientists, businessmen and innovators who changed our lives forever with the inventions of the telephone and light bulb, respectively, among their many other creations.
Today’s innovators could learn plenty from Edison and Bell, to be sure, but young innovators also have guidance that these historic inventors did not—business schools.
“The reality is that innovation techniques are becoming more sophisticated and teachable and that’s why business schools are embracing it,” says Drew Boyd, Executive Director of the Master of Science in Marketing Program and Assistant Professor of Marketing and Innovation at the University of Cincinnati.
Boyd should know. After working 17 years with Johnson & Johnson, with a decade of those years focused on inventing new medical products, Boyd is an expert at innovation, and is now using his knowledge to educate others. He is a big advocate of Systematic Inventing Thinking [SIT], a method of innovation based on patterns and templates that looks at the solutions first, and then the problems.
“For most people, the right way to innovate is to go through the problems and brainstorm a solution,” he says. “Our method is to use the pattern to create a hypothetical solution and work back to the problem that it solves.”
Boyd says many creative people have used methods and templates to repeatedly create innovation. The Beatles, for example, used a template whereby John Lennon “would come up with the initial movement, the first segment of the song, and Paul [McCartney] would make adjustments to it, use a template/pattern and change that initial movement up or down,” he says. “It was very successful for them.” Business school educators say many templates and methods are used to creative innovation, besides the SIT approach.
One of the most innovative colleges in the country, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, several years ago started an Entrepreneurship and Innovation Track within its business school, the MIT Sloan School of Management. The track focuses on launching and developing emerging technology companies and attracts MBA students who have a deep interest in becoming entrepreneurs. Last year, 90 MBA students at MIT Sloan entered the track, a focus of study that requires them to take various courses and focus on building and creating startup businesses.
Edward Roberts, the founder and chair of the track, and professor of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management, says this particular program at MIT Sloan allows students to work with domestic and international companies and to collaborate with other MIT departments—such as science and engineering. These team-building efforts can result in collaborations that last long after graduation.
“We’re creating companies,” he says. “The development of ideas and products and the like are coming out heavily collaborated by teaming our students with students and faculty and labs from the rest of MIT.”
John Hauser, Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan who has consulted with numerous corporations, says product development and marketing are central to innovation. “If you think about it, innovation won’t succeed unless consumers want it,” he says. “Once you understand customer needs, then you can begin focusing your efforts on satisfying this customer and then creativity processes and production processes come into play.”
This past year, Roberts says, 40 Sloan MBAs—out of 300 graduates—started their own companies upon graduation, and that number has grown annually.
Other schools have embraced innovation as well. Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business offers a Management of Innovation and Product Development track that focuses on “a process that allows innovation to be ongoing and replicable,” according to the school’s website. Students learn how to solve problems, and how to define them.
North Carolina State University offers an Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization Concentration for masters and Ph.D. students “to engage in all stages of company formation and growth,” the school’s website notes. Like at MIT, NC State’s MBA students collaborate with graduate students from other disciplines, such as scientists, engineers and designers, to build start-up companies.
And James Madison University in Virginia offers an Innovation MBA program, which focuses on business fundamentals and leadership development.
Boyd says innovation is not a gift—but is a skill that can be learned like any other skill, such as learning a new language, how to play golf or how to play a new instrument.
“We teach [students] the skill of how to invent the idea,” he says. “We believe innovation is a full process. Being able to invent is such a critical skill, such a high demand skill—and we think it makes our graduate program much more marketable in the job market, if [our graduates] can walk in and say, ‘Hey, I can invent.’”
Posted from WordPress for Android Dr. Marc Cashin
5 Things that Drive Intrapreneurs and Innovation | 15inno
Entrepreneurs are driven by passion, an urge to execute on their ideas and the chance to strike gold. Intrapreneurs (entrepreneur-minded people within large companies) do not have quite the same personal reasons for what they do. Yet they still have to be in an environment where they can bring on innovation that makes a difference.
So what drives intrapreneurs? Here you get five bullet points from me:
• Freedom to operate
• Recognition
• Time to reflect, time for personal development
• Encouragement and opportunity to learn from failure
• Money
This is meant to be a discussion starter. What would you add?
Posted from WordPress for Android Dr. Marc Cashin
Coming Up: What’s on the Horizon? « Powerful Learning Practice
Take a look below at What’s New for the 2011-2012 communities!
Connected Coaches: After much thought and reflection in creating the Connected Coaching philosophy, we are hard at work equipping 2011-2012 coaches as appreciative capacity builders. The goal is to have coaches work with our team members as a way to think deeply and learn to be self-directed, connected educators. The first Connected Coaches will serve in the upcoming Australian cohort with Dean Shareski and Lani Ritter Hall as co-directors of the new program. The first team of coaches include Marsha Ratzel, Chad Evans, Mark Carbone, Brenda Sherry, Zoe Branigan Pipe, and John Pearce. These folks and many more will be 21st Century Life Coaches to next year’s teams.
Fellows, but so much more: Next year, PLP Fellows, so designated for their experience and leadership, will work together virtually to develop 21st Century leadership skills and an action plan that will collectively enable them to leverage what they learn and return to their schools with a plan in place. Using the larger community of PLPeeps as a safety net to explore and test ideas, they will ultimately lead the initiatives once they return to their schools and districts.
Year Two Teams–Carrying on from our pilot this year, our second year participants with work on authentic experiences with experts in the field.
The Expanded Network: We can’t wait for this down the road. We will be using website more to enable cross cohort collaboration–not only member only areas but other places for social interaction with those friends of Powerful Learning Practice who learn with us, nationally and internationally.
The Hub: This will excite those of you who have been frustrated by the design of the NING. We will be replacing the NINGS with our own hub of activity, easily navigated and full of goodness in a Common Area. Finally, cross community collaboration between PLPers will be a click away.
Come Join Us Alone: If getting a team together has been difficult, next year we are also offering opportunities for individuals to participate in either the leadership community, The Leading Edge, or within our traditional communities. Depending upon the number, individual teachers and administrators will be grouped in teams using a Birds of a Feather interest approach or connected to a situated team that is geographically close.
Back in OZ : We will be working with 70 Australians on project based learning for the next few months in a project called Connect U. These are tech savvy teachers who will look at curriculum more deeply, and develop cross-curricular projects around 21st Century skills (while sharpening their own skills and building community).
Project Based- Can’t Get Enough: With vast experience on problem-based and project-based learning, Kevin Honeycutt will lead a team of PLP experts who will offer live interactive learning for our teachers. They will learn by DOING actual work, some with their students as well.
E-Courses: The need is there. As more and more of us are teaching blended courses online, we want to share our experience. Teachers will be able to take a 15, 10, or 5 week course, which will help them design courses, manage assignments, and work with students in this emerging field. More E-Courses on a variety of topics, both philosophical and practical, will be offered.
PLP Symposium: Next year, we will offer an international conference that will be both face to face and online, which we hope sets the standard for blended conferences. There will be many opportunities for PLPeeps and friends to present and learn collaboratively. This will not be like any other online event you have ever attended. Stay tune for more details.
Voices from Learning Revolution: In looking for other ways to tap into the natural talents of our PLPeeps in ways that honor them and us, we created VFLR to enable in depth discussions about educational shifts. We love that it isn’t about us (PLP), but about the collective us (the educators and schools) who share a powerful vision about the future of learning.
Conversations from the Edge: Conversations from the Edge is a series of raw, honest and candid dialogues about education’s shifting learning landscape. Hosted by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson.
Speakers Bureau: We have amazing people among us, so we want to share. We will also offer an application process, so people can be part of this new opportunity.
Build Your Own PD: The PLP experience is intense, but many people would like a taste of what we offer–not necessarily the whole year experience. We will offer shorter experiences in a variety of 21st Century topics. Let us customize a Virtual Institute for you.
Creative Ways to Learn: Finally, we will continue to offer some of the options we have already begun: TPACK Tuesdays, Pecha Kucha smackdowns, guest speakers, and great authors interviews–all for you!
Amazing opportunities we hope you’ll want to take advantage of. Together we are building a space to connect and reflect, learn and share. Together we can and will change the way we do school.
Posted from WordPress for Android Dr. Marc Cashin
The Productivity Tricks and Daily Habits of Famous People
The Productivity Tricks and Daily Habits of Famous People
Famous visionaries often develop a reputation for having a few eccentricities. However, for many people, these small eccentricities are part of a larger group of daily rituals that help them to be at their most productive and prolific. While not all these tips, tricks, and rituals will work for you, they help to shed light on what some of our most beloved cultural icons and historical figures are willing to do in order to stay on top of their demanding workloads.
Writers
1. Addicted to Notecards: Vladimir Nabokov used 5- by 8-inch index cards to compose and order the scenes in his novels. This allowed him to experiment with the order of the chapters before transcribing the final manuscript.
2. Slow and Steady: Stephen King has explained that he always writes 10 pages a day, every day of the year (even holidays). His slow and steady approach to project management has ensured that he has a steady stream of new works entering the marketplace, and he is one of the most prolific modern authors working in America today.
3. Get Up Early: Writers like Mary Higgins Clark and Sylvia Plath started writing at 5 am and 4 am each day, respectively. Both women had small children, and those early moments in the day were the only time they had to pursue their writing careers. Writer Denison Hatch forced himself to write just 500 words per day before starting his day job, and ultimately sold three novels.
4. Get Centered With a Favorite Book Passage: Some writers need to go through the ritual of touching base with a favorite literary totem. For example, Somerset Maugham would read Voltaire’s “Candide” before starting work, while Willa Cather read the Bible.
Businessmen and Entrepreneurs
5. Be Impulsive: In business, if you have a good idea, you need to move quickly to keep ahead of your competition. In the words of Bill Gates, “When you find a good idea act on it right away.”
6. Get Ahead By Making It Personal: “Big businesses will always try to crush small upstarts. To beat big businesses, use the strengths of being small. Big corporations are impersonal; staff are often not treated well. At a small company, you can make sure your staff are proud of working for you and then they’ll work hard to be successful. And small companies are more nimble.” – Sir Richard Branson
7. Work Long Hours Now, Reap the Benefits Later: Ben Franklin knew the benefits of working long hours, as well as being known among his peers as being a person who worked long hours. This work ethic was essential for growing his printing business. He also had a routine of asking himself questions during the day. Ben Franklin asked himself each morning (at 5 am), “What good shall I do today?”; every night before bed (around 10 pm), “What good have I done to-day?”
Thinkers and Artists
8. Get Extreme: Architect Bernard Tschumi avoids procrastination by working at one of two extremes. “I work best either under pressure or by emptying my brain over the weekend,” he explains. “That blank state is helpful. It is like an athlete before a competition.”
9. Force Yourself to Stay Focused: Greek orator Demosthenes would force himself to stay focused on composing his orations by shaving off half of his hair, making him look so ridiculous that he wouldn’t be tempted to procrastinate by leaving his home. Victor Hugo would do something similar, forcing himself to meet his daily writing goals by having his valet hide his clothes. Yup, the guy who wrote “Les Miserables” liked to work in the nude.
10. Never Take Your Eyes Off Your Competition: Playwright Henrik Ibsen would work at a desk decorated with a portrait of arch-rival playwright August Strindberg. Try keeping a picture of your competitors face or company logo on your desk to spur you to new heights.
11. Use Caffeine (But Don’t Abuse It): Mathematician Paul Erdös used the last 25 years of his life to devote 19 hour days to the pursuit of higher math. To stay alert, he amped himself up with 10 to 20 milligrams of Benzedrine or Ritalin (along with strong espresso and caffeine tablets.) “A mathematician,” he said, “is a machine for turning coffee into theorems.”
12. Blow Off Some Steam: King Otto, ruler of Bavaria from 1886 to 1913, shot a peasant every morning to start his day. Thankfully, his two advisors were kind-hearted: one gave the king a rifle filled with blanks, and the other dressed as a “peasant”, acting out death throes when he was “shot”. While shooting people is absolutely NOT okay, never underestimate the stress relief you can get from a few rounds of Call of Duty.
Conclusion
These examples of the daily routines and productivity tricks of famous people may not be ideally suited for your busy lifestyle, but they are certainly worth keeping in mind the next time you are stuck on a project and need help powering through. And seriously, don’t pull a “King Otto”. That would not be cool.
Resources and References
http://notorc.blogspot.com/2006/05/work-habits-of-highly-successful_23.html
http://writetodone.com/2008/09/04/learn-from-the-greats-7-writing-habits-of-amazing-writers/
http://www.fastupfront.com/blog/business-tips/35-business-tips-from-famous-entrepreneurs/
http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/
http://www.trivia-library.com/c/weird-behavior-of-famous-people-part-1.htm
http://wehrintheworld.blogspot.com/2010/04/day-jobs-and-working-methods-of-famous.html
Posted from WordPress for Android Dr. Marc Cashin
Dr.Cashin's Blog 