Meet the manager-as-performer

CNN) -- The most inspirational business leaders can sometimes seem to be inhabiting their role much like an actor, using their rhetorical and persuasive powers to motivate a crowd of peers and subordinates.
For one management professor, the parallel is so striking that he teaches executives a whole series of lessons they can learn from the theatrical world -- whether mimicking actors, directors or writers.
Harry L. Davis, Professor of Creative Management at the University of Chicago's highly-rated Graduate School of Business, teaches his innovative course, "Leadership as Performance Art," to senior managers at the school's US campus.
Now, in the best theatrical tradition, he is taking the show on the road, leading courses over successive days later this month in Dubai, London and Paris, part of the school's Global Leadership Series.
The free, one-evening events -- a bargain given that the usual week-long course costs around $8,000 per person -- aim to demonstrate three separate leadership roles, with their own distinct set of skills.
Firstly, leaders who are actors are able to connect fully with all manner of different "audiences," guiding them through sometimes complex concepts, and delivering an effective performance again and again.
Leader-directors are adept at keeping a large "cast" focused on the company's common goal, learning how people influence each other and how hidden preconceptions can block change.
Finally, leaders-as-playwrights can devise and revise corporate "scripts" according to the changing business environment.
"Leaders rise to high levels of effectiveness when they develop strong connections to the performance aspect of their role," Davis says in an introduction to the course.
"Life requires improvisation. No matter how much one plans, the unpredictable appears.
"Rapid changes in customer and employee needs, the increasing geographic reach of many organizations, and shifting competitive landscapes reward leaders who can improvise skillfully rather than follow out-dated routines."
Global events
The event is part of a range of Chicago's Global Leadership Series events taking place in 13 cities from late 2005 to early 2007.
Some of the other lectures are more traditional business school fodder, taking in areas such as risk management and how to attract suitably qualified employees.
Others are more unusual. For example, last month in Tokyo, an audience learned about how businesses and markets can be affected by one extremely hard-to-control source -- gossip.
Ron Burt, Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the Graduate School of Business, explained how gossip can help spark productivity improvements in the workplace, and sometime, more destructively, can shape the reputations of leaders.
Burt noted how good reputations in business "not necessarily come from your hard work, but more from the interests of the people who talk about your work."

The science of business dominance

LONDON, England (CNN) -- As well as turning out ever-more qualified graduates with a burning desire to ascend the rungs of leadership, and researching specific issues related to commerce and economics, business schools have another key role.
Often ignored, yet none the less vital, it can be summed up as, in the modern management by-word, blue sky thinking.
It involves coming up with often very theoretical research and concepts which might seem tangential or even irrelevant to everyday business decisions, but have the potential to bring very real benefits to companies.
One such notion was explained in a recent lecture at the Stanford Graduate School of Business which looked at the vexed issue of how social hierarchies and displays of dominance can influence negotiations.
Much like a chest-beating gorilla or chimpanzee, it has long been documented that humans -- particularly, it has to be noted, men -- exhibit more subtle yet nonetheless unmistakable physical signs to try and assert their self-perceived alpha status, explained Lara Tiedens, associate professor of organizational behavior.
"We have all had experience seeing someone in a group who stands out, who seems more compelling, more able to get what they want -- in ways that may not have anything to do with their position," she said.
People can do this through signs such as adopting an open physical posture, gazing directly at others and leaning in towards others' personal space, and this can bring very real benefits in negotiations, Tiedens said.
"The person who displays dominance is seen as being more of the decision-maker and go-to person in their organization -- deserving of a higher position and socioeconomic status. We think of these people as deserving even more status ... not only do they have it, but they should have more."
The dominant person is also viewed as being more influential, Tiedens said: "Arguments made in the context of dominance displays are believed more, agreed with more, and impact others' behavior more."
Benefits and risks
However, for all those standing up tall and puffing their chests out as they enter a meeting, comes a warning -- dominating people can be seen as "less nice, less likeable, and less warm", and trying to assert dominance can be a risky strategy.
Elsewhere, Chicago University's Graduate School of Business has been tackling an even more fundamental issue, and one with even more lessons for the commercial world -- why don't people do what makes them happy?
The assumption that consumers and citizens are essentially rational creatures acting in their own best interests is at the very foundation of the market economy.
Unfortunately, as Christopher Hsee and Reid Hastie, respectively professors of behavioral science and marketing at the school, argue in a new paper, this is not necessarily the case.
The study (read the full paper here) shows that when presented with a range of options, most people consistently make bad decisions, thanks to everything from a poor prediction of their future needs to the problem of competing choices.
This has great implications for both business and government, the paper explains.
"Many social policies, such as free choice of health providers, retirement plans, and public offices, are built upon the assumptions that people know their own preferences and that what people choose must be in their best interests," it says.
"The behavioral-decision research findings we have reviewed here cast doubt on these assumptions and, therefore, on the derived policies They also give the old aphorism, 'Be careful what you wish for; you might receive it', a new significance.

Companies look for long-term links

(CNN) -- Just as companies employ legal firms, technology consultants and accountants, an increasing number of them are adding education providers to their list of specialist suppliers.
Keen to ensure their competitive edge remains as sharp as possible, many firms are forging long-term relationships with business schools. The benefits, they say, are worth the not inconsiderable expense involved.
The move has been spurred by growing recognition that one-off executive education courses may not be sufficient to arm senior managers with the skills they require to perform their jobs. With business conditions and techniques in a constant state of evolution, an approach that uses career-long learning is becoming more appealing.
Traditionally, many large organizations have had structures in place that determine when and where senior managers will undertake company-sponsored education. This might occur when a manager is promoted to a new position or moved into a new department. At that time, a suitable course -- say, personnel management techniques -- would be offered. When completed, that manager would be considered ready to undertake the new role.
But now leading firms are factoring multiple courses into the career development plans for senior staff. As well as ensuring their skills match their growing and changing responsibilities, proponents believe the approach promotes a higher sense of personal and professional satisfaction.
Director of executive programs at the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), John Urbano, says large firms are keen to ensure they have sufficient senior executives in their ranks to ensure their future growth can be maintained.
He says executives typically go through six or seven significant turning points during their career, each of which will require training and education. Making sure that training closely matches the real requirements of the executive is where working with a business school can pay big dividends.
'Truly transforming'
"People learn differently and providing a truly transforming experience can only be done by delivering the learning in the right way and in a passionate manner," says Urbano.
"If an executive is moving into a vice-president's role then he or she will need material which outlines the issues that keep vice-presidents up at night so they can see how to make that shift in mindset."
Like other business schools around the world, AGSM works with large organizations to put in place long-term educational strategies for their staff. Options include standard short courses or the creation of customised courses to address particular issues or skill areas. AGSM short courses cover areas including management and leadership, information systems, marketing and corporate governance.
At the Canada-based Richard Ivey School of Business, executive director of executive development, Erich Almasy, reports continuing strong demand for courses. He says the school is happy to work with large companies to develop long-term educational programs for staff.
"For example, we had an organization where we started out by developing a custom program for them," he says. "Within a short period, they added some more programs and essentially it became a leadership program. This then led to the company sending 30 staff to do an EMBA program -- I think this is a very intelligent approach."
By stitching together a combination of open courses and customised content, companies can be sure they get education programs that match their requirements exactly. Generic learning in areas such as management skills can be supplemented with company or industry specific skills.
Around the world most big business schools are busy forging links with big business, positioning themselves as expert education consultants. For example, the U.S.-based Kellogg School of Management boasts a client list for its custom courses that includes companies such as BP, Microsoft, Merck and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bridging commerce and research

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The environment, everyone now agrees, is a big issue for companies, something increasingly recognized by business schools, and chronicled previously on Executive Education (see here).
However, as with all aspects of commerce, any such big subject cannot be tackled just as a generality -- there are an ever-increasing number of specializations to be considered.
Luckily, business schools are rising to this challenge, too. The latest innovation in this vein is the Center for Energy Studies at Cambridge University's Judge Business School, which concentrates on the vital subject of energy security.
The UK-based center has just announced the name of its first director, Nick Butler, formerly a group vice president at oil giant BP.
The center is tasked with examining subjects of crucial importance to businesses worldwide, for example how European nations can use Russian energy supplies more heavily as insurance against instability in the Middle East.
Other areas include the fast-growing market in alternative and renewable energy sources, and possible international frameworks for the management of carbon emissions.
"As global demand for energy continues to rise, and energy security concerns become ever more important, I believe Cambridge has an influential role to play," Butler said.
His ambition, he added, is for the center to "play its part in the process of responding to one of the greatest challenges facing the world in the 21st century."
Inaugural lecture
Kicking off his new role, Butler is addressing dozens of senior figures from industry, government and academia in a lecture at the university, explaining the main issues of energy security facing the globe.
The center illustrates a key role that business schools can play, the director of the Judge school, Professor Arnoud De Meyer, explained.
"By basing the center here at the school, we can act as a bridge between the academic world and the world of business and finance, bringing together people from different backgrounds, academic disciplines and from the international business community, to jointly focus on the most important policy debates of our time," he said.
"We can help focus attention on the management issues and institutional arrangements which will need to be created if this enormous challenge is to be solved."
Similar moves are taking place elsewhere in the world. For example, California's Stanford Graduate School of Business has just held a major conference on another key part of environmental policy for businesses -- supply chain management.
The event saw more than 200 corporate and academic supply chain management experts discuss how to bring environmental sustainability and social responsibility to the key business issue.
"We are providing a platform for business leaders and others concerned with the environment and corporate social responsibility to work together toward the common goal of ensuring the availability of natural resources, supporting social reforms, and at the same time securing the efficient delivery of supplies," said Hau Lee, co-director of the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum.

Boom time for MBAs in 2007

(CNN) -- The job market is booming for those graduating with an MBA in 2007, a survey has shown in a further dose of welcome news for business school students.
According to a report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), based on a survey of US-based employers, companies reported plans to hire 22% more MBA. graduates from the Class of 2007 than they hired from their counterparts a year before.
More than 40% of the new MBA recruits will begin with an annual base salary of $75,000 or more, the Job Outlook 2007 report showed.
However, a slightly larger proportion -- 47% -- will have to make do on a base salary of between $50,000 to $75,000.
"Projections for MBA hiring are in line with what we're seeing in the job market for new college graduates as a whole," said Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.
"Employers reported plans to increase their college hires by more than 17% this year."
More good news
The survey is the latest in a crop of studies this year that have shown how the MBA market has rebounded following some lean years in the wake of the dot-com crash and the subsequent travails of the US economy.
Two months ago, a Business Week magazine study came up with the eye-catching finding that those graduating from a top business school can now often demand an starting salary of $100,000 or more as soon as their studies are over.
The once-every-two-years survey, which processed questionnaires from more than 9,000 students and 200-plus recruiters, found that graduates from almost a third of the top 30-ranked US MBA programs earned an average of $100,000 or more on graduating, a figure generally boosted further by other benefits.
Earlier in the year, a study by the MBA Career Services Council found that MBA students graduating in 2006 were expected to get more job offers and higher average salaries than their peers of 12 months ago.
Rewards had increased the most for those entering the consulting, financial services and consumer product industries, according the mainly US-based poll. It found that 98% of employers had seen increased recruiting activity during the fall and winter recruiting period compared to the same time a year before.
The NACE survey showed that manufacturers have the most aggressive hiring plans of any sector, expecting to hire 32.4% more MBAs in 2006-7 than they hired in 2005-6. Service employers plan a 15.4 percent increase.
The South of the United States appears to be especially booming -- 59% of respondents expect an increase in MBA hiring, followed by 51% in the Midwest.
In contrast, those looking for jobs in the Northeast (14.6% of employers expecting an increase) and West (13.5%).are sill in luck, but less so.

Educating future education leaders

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Throughout their MBA courses, business school students get the chance to apply their new skills to hypothetical problems from the world of commerce.
Some, however, are also asked to go one better and tackle genuine cases. And what better challenge than reorganizing a major education authority with a debt of $100 million?
That was the task facing students from a series of leading U.S. schools earlier this month at the Education Leadership Case Competition, the first contest of its kind in the country.
It involved teams of MBA students from seven top business schools, among them Northwestern University's Kellogg School, and the Hass school at the University of California, Berkeley, which hosted the event.
The scale of the task facing them was enough to make even the most experience executive have to think long and hard.
The teams were asked to come up with a new financial plan for the Oakland Unified School District, which runs schools for 40,000 pupils in and around the Californian city of that name.
The financially-troubled educational authority has been in state receivership since June 2003, and owes $100 million to the state, the largest such debt in Californian history.
One plan mooted recently to help clear some of the loan was the $60 million sale of the school district's administration building to a developer, which would have been demolished to make way for condominiums and commercial space. However, this was abandoned following local opposition.
And while such financial woes might seem unglamorous compared to a career in investment banking or private equity, there is a clear need for talented, well-trained business professionals in the U.S. education system -- since 1991, seven California school districts have had to be taken over by the state.
New financial plan
The contest was a chance for MBAs to understand the challenges, and opportunities, in the sector, said Anna Utgoff, a Haas School MBA who developed it with classmates in the Haas Leadership in Education Club.
"We created the event to get the word out to MBAs that their business skills are really valuable and can make a significant impact in education," she said.
"Similar competitions exist for many other business professions but there wasn't an event that focused on education."
In the end, the host team won, with the three Hass MBA students and another from Berkeley's Goldman Public Policy School taking the $2,000 prize for their plans and presentation.
Teams had to focus on the school district's new financial plan, finding ways to improve its implementation and communicate how it is working to local people.
The Hass team's presentation was "the most well rounded," said Barak Ben-Gal, budget director of the Oakland Unified School District and one of the judges, who also included Professor Bill Ouchi of UCLA's Anderson School of Management, the author of "Making Schools Work."
"The presentation was very comprehensive in terms of getting the gist of the case and talking about all the different aspects that you must invest in to transition from a start-up phase to something that is more sustainable," Ben-Gal said.
A team from Northwestern's Kellogg School finished second, winning $1,000.

Where business and government meets

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Once, business was business and government was government. Leaders passed laws and companies made money within those laws.
These days, however, the lines are blurring and people with business qualifications are found increasingly within the top levels of government -- most notably, President George W. Bush, the first incumbent of the office to hold an MBA.
A study last year found that Bush's then-cabinet contained two other MBAs, less than the six law graduates but an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.
Elsewhere, in particular with the advent of economic globalization, there are ever more areas of public policy in which governments and companies must collaborate for mutual benefit, for example the issue of climate change.
The time thus seems ripe for a new tie-up between two of the leaders in their respective fields of business education and public policy education -- Harvard Business School (where Bush took his MBA) and the same university's Kennedy School of Government.
Earlier this month, they announced the creation of two new joint postgraduate degrees which share the resources and expertise of both schools.
Students will be able to choose from a Master in Business Administration/Master in Public Policy (MBA/MPP) or a Master in Business Administration/Master in Public Administration-International Development (MBA/MPA-ID). To take either degree, students must pass the rigorous admissions procedures of both schools.
The aim is to produce people able to work where government and business meet, for example the environment, health care or economic development.
"Graduates of this new program will be able to address some of the world's most pressing issues -- issues that call for collaboration between the public and private sectors and that require leaders who can effectively operate in both areas," said the Kennedy School's Dean David T. Ellwood.
"It will provide graduates with the skills and knowledge necessary for them to fulfil key leadership roles throughout the world."
Tough program
Students -- who begin arriving late next year -- will study for three years, the first two a compulsory mix of core curricula from the two schools, followed by a final year in which they take electives along with a series of specially-designed joint courses.
"From tax policies and trade agreements to a wide range of laws and regulations, the interaction between business and government for the greater good of society has never been more important," said the business school's Dean Jay O. Light.
"As they embark on careers that will have a significant impact on corporate policy and public affairs, students in this new program will benefit from the strong practical focus that is the hallmark of both schools."
If the formal academic program were not enough, students must also complete two separate summer internships. Between the first and second years, they will work in a public service or policy-based position and between the second and third years, they will obtain positions in a private sector or non-profit organization.
According to Robert Stavins, professor of business and government at the Kennedy School, who co-chaired the group which devised the course, there is "no academic program in the world that can match the theoretical, analytical, and practical elements offered".
"In a truly integrated joint degree program such as this, students will be able to synthesize the lessons they learn in each school to become professionals skilled at devising innovative approaches to a broad range of complex challenges in society," he added.
"There is also a wealth of expanded opportunities for faculty collaboration in research in this arena."

Turning technology into money

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Technological advances are all around us, everything from increasingly powerful personal computers to the latest in disease-beating drugs.
However, coming up with a great new concept and making money from it -- as many bankrupt inventors and innovators over the decades could tell you -- are two entirely different matters.
This is something business schools are increasingly aware of, and many of them now have special departments intended to not only help technological innovators profit from their developments but also assist established corporations to keep pace with the dizzying pace of change.
A pioneer in this was the Management of Technology Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, initially established in 1981 as a joint program between the university's engineering department and its highly-rated Sloan management school.
Intended for experienced staff in technology-based companies and organizations, the qualification has since then, according to the school, "taught hundreds of engineers to assess, mine, and market technological enterprises."
These days, technology management MBAs are available around the globe, including one at the University of Washington Business School in the high-tech hub of Seattle, which boasts of preparing managers for "leadership in the rapidly evolving technology sector" to a similar qualification at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.
However, such is the complexity of many new innovations that even this specialization is being broken down further.
Tanaka Business School in the UK already offers courses on the bio-pharma and health technology sectors in its one-year MBA program.
Now, it has just announced a pioneering professorship in technology transfer in the physical sciences, the likes of physics and engineering.
Addressing a need
Professor Erkko Autio, from Finland, is the first incumbent in the post, which is financed jointly by a UK government funding agency for the physical sciences and QinetiQ -- pronounced "kinetic" -- a defense technology company created in July 2001 when the UK government's official defense research agency was privatized.
The chair has been set up at Tanaka -- part of London University's Imperial College, which specializes in science and medicine -- to address the lack of research into the most effective methods of commercializing ideas in engineering and the physical sciences.
Autio has been tasked with looking at how companies and academic institutions exploit existing ideas in the physical sciences and examine how this can be expanded to cover new markets.
"Innovation in engineering and the physical sciences plays a key role in driving economic growth but the process appears to take longer and be more challenging than in the life sciences," he notes.
"The importance of technology transfer for growth in the British and global economy cannot be stressed enough," adds Professor David Gann, head of Tanaka's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group.
"This chair will develop new business models and policies for improving the effectiveness with which knowledge from engineering and physical sciences can be commercialized and deployed in industry."

Studying business in a war zone

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Like many MBA students, particularly those combining a distance-learning course with a full-time job, Joel Parker occasionally finds it difficult to complete his assignments on time.
He does, however, usually have a good excuse, as illustrated by the recent email he sent his graduate advisor at Regis University's business school, Bob Deemer.
"If it's okay with you sir, I may be a little late handing in my assignments as my unit may be under fire," wrote Parker -- or to give him his full title, Captain Joel Parker of the U.S. Army's 3rd Brigade, currently stationed in Iraq.
Deemer has heard all mannser of excuses for late work in the past, but was happy to grant Parker a bit more time, given that he does not have many students in war zones.
The 36-year old infantry officer began his MBA at Regis University, in Denver, Colorado, while still stationed in the United States before being posted to Iraq.
Despite the difficulties of his mission, Parker has continued his studies and has completed more than half the degree while in Iraq, something he says has actually helped make the deployment more bearable.
"I'm working on my degree because it brings normalcy to my life," he says.
"It gives me something to look forward to. Everyone has a means of mental escape. Some people work out, exercise or play cards to pass the time. I'm just choosing to use my time to complete my degree."
Parker's MBA class holds their commencement, the ceremony for graduating students, in less than three weeks, when he will still be in Iraq.
However, he still hopes to "attend" by watching a live Internet broadcast of the event, which his father, Leedell, will attend on his behalf.
Determination
The elder Parker has long been impressed by his son's dedication. "While he was in the reserves in the Marines, he got his undergraduate degree while working two jobs," he says.
"I'm blown away by his progress with his master's degree. It's beyond words how proud I am of him and what he's done to enhance his life. All of this while he's in war zone -- it's extraordinary. I don't know how to tell him how proud I am of him."
Captain Parker himself says he wants to be an example for other people serving in a war zone.
"I want others in the military to know that it's possible to fight in a war and complete your degree, says Parker. "I just did it, I hope others will follow."
It is a worthwhile aspiration, says Regis's Deemer.
"Getting an online degree isn't easy by any means, but it does afford you the flexibility of working a degree into your life, regardless of career demands," he says.
Parker has a number of options once he completes the MBA.
Should he decide to leave military service, he will most likely find himself in demand in the civilian world -- as Executive Education detailed recently, some recruiters now directly target former officers with postgraduate business qualifications (see here).
And if he stays, armies around the world are waking up to the benefits of MBAs and similar qualifications within their own ranks. In another Executive Education story, we profiled a special MBA (Defense) which UK service personnel can now study for (see here).

Competing to do good

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Along with teaching executives how to make a lot of money, business schools increasingly lead the way in ethical and socially-focused projects, as detailed before in Executive Education (see here).
Another key element of modern MBAs is the way students from various schools compete against each other in pitching ideas to panels of experts (see here).
This week comes an annual event that fuses both of these -- the eighth Global Social Venture Competition (GSVB).
Taking place at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, it sees 11 schools from three continents battle it out for a total of $45,000 in prizes and funds. These finalists came from an initial entry of 157 teams from 80 universities in 20 countries.
The competition, started by UC Berkeley MBA students in 1999, gives entrants the chance to come up with business ideas that benefit more than just consumers, executives and shareholders.
"GSVC has the potential to put the 'heart' back into graduate business education," said John Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice at the UK's London Business School, whose team is one of the finalists.
"By encouraging entrepreneurs to consider both social and economic returns, it broadens their perspectives and encourages them to think more clearly about why they are in business."
The London team will be pitching an idea known as Cool to Care before the panel of judges.
This is a venture intended to improve the lives of families caring for disabled children, which can be extremely difficult and stressful. It will match up carers with families, who will be able to hand-pick the carer and their hours of work from Cool to Care's pool of qualified staff.
Initially UK-based, it is intended to be a replicable and sustainable business model that can be used in developing countries.
Varied ideas
Another innovative idea, called d.light, will be presented by students from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
This aims to set up a for-profit company selling cheap, safe and easy to power LED lights to the hundreds of millions worldwide who live without mains electricity, many of whom spend a high proportion of their incomes on kerosene.
Other entries are inspired by the countries in which the schools are based -- for instance, Peking University's Beijing International MBA team hope to market a new technological device called a plasma seed processor to help hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers achieve higher yields from drought-afflicted, infertile land.
Meanwhile, the host team at Haas have devised an idea for a company to provide healthy meals and nutritional education for schools in California, especially those in low-income communities with traditionally poor access to such foods.
The other finalists are the University of Geneva; Columbia Business School; Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, Canada; Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; Harvard Business School; Babson College in Babson Park, Massachusetts and Thammasat University in Bangkok, Thailand.

The vexed issue of MBA league tables

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Another new survey of business schools, this time exclusively in the U.S., has confirmed one increasingly evident fact for those considering an MBA -- there is a clear elite in the field.
The top of the list of graduate business schools produced by U.S. News and World Report sees a series of names familiar from other, similar league tables.
In top place comes Harvard Business School, followed by Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton school, MIT's Sloan and, in joint fifth, the Kellogg school at Northwestern University and Chicago.
Other well-known names -- Tuck, Haas, Columbia, Stern -- follow to make up the rest of the top 10.
These are the names that tend to crop up in most of the series of business school rankings published each year, for example the well-known lists drawn up by the London-based Financial Times and by Business Week.
The process tends to be exhaustive. For example, U.S. News and World Report canvassed 406 schools, of which 113 provided enough information for a ranking to be assessed.
A school's score was then compiled via a complex procedure combining the assessments of deans from other schools and from recruiters, salaries attracted by graduates, the academic scores of new students, and other data.
However, one fact cannot be avoided -- however rigorous the process, it will necessarily be subjective, meaning the ratings inevitably vary.
For example, Yale School of Management makes it into the Financial Times top 10, but is ranked 14th by U.S. News and World Report, 19th by Business Week's 2006 poll and 24th in the annual list compiled by the Economist magazine.
Differing views
Much of this is due to clear differences in methodology -- some lists are U.S. only while others consider schools from around the world, but there is no escaping the stress such tables cause deans and admissions offices.
Some schools even refuse to take part, doubting the validity of league tables in properly informing students.
"They are inherently unreliable due to the differences in methodology and I'm not sure they present an accurate picture of the worth of a good MBA program," Ken Jones, dean of the Faculty of Business at Ryerson University in Toronto, told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper last month.
Taking part in such exercises "adds additional expectations to the faculty and students that are not always realistic," he said.
Other schools, however, accept that for many would-be MBA students, one of the very first things they look at when deciding which school to apply for is a league table of this type.
"While no survey can completely capture the richness and impact of a two-year educational experience, we take the results of each survey seriously," Joel M. Podolny, dean of the Yale School of Management, said shortly after the U.S. News and World Review ratings were published in the school's official assessment of such lists.
"Our foremost objective is to understand what information that survey reveals about the perceptions and experiences of our key stakeholders to whom we are accountable," he said.
"We then integrate this information with that from many other sources as part of our ongoing effort to make institutional changes that support our very noble mission of educating leaders for business and society."

The students who give back

LONDON, England (CNN) -- One thing business schools are clearly very good at is producing graduates who are likely to make a lot of money in the future.
Apart from sheer educational vocation, the schools also have a slightly vested interest in this -- they hope grateful alumni will give something back.
Such potential generosity was highlighted earlier this month when the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business announced that a product of its MBA class of 1948 was to give $30 million to its graduate program.
Bill Hough, the founder of a municipal bond company he sold in 2004, intends his gift to support teaching and other work in the school, and also partly to finance a new school building.
"I was moved by the professors I had in graduate school," Hough said. "They taught us fundamentals of the practical securities business and prepared me to be a successful broker and investor."
The school -- now to be called the Hough Graduate School of Business -- was equally effusive.
"Public higher education is about providing everyone the opportunity for excellence in their lives," the university's president, Bernie Machen, said.
"Bill Hough is ensuring that perpetual resources are available so that future generations can receive the kind of excellent academic foundation to which he credits his success."
Haves and have-less
Such gifts, whether to a university in general or a business school, are a common part of alumni life in the United States, but far less so in Europe, where universities have traditionally been state funded.
The wealth disparities this can cause were shown in the recently-released list of global MBAs compiled by the Financial Times newspaper.
Eight of the top 10-ranked schools in 2007 were U.S.-based, and they each had an endowment fund of $200 million or more.
In contrast, the only non-American school in the top 10, the French-Singaporean Insead and the UK's London Business School (LBS) had a pot of around $100 million and $12.5 million respectively.
European schools have been trying to boost their funds through increased endowments, as shown by the fact that both Insead and LBS have recently appointed deans from the business world rather than academia.
Robin Buchanan, UK senior partner with consultants Bain and Company, has taken the helm at LBS, while Insead appointed Frank Brown, a veteran with accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Brown told the FT that increasing the size of the endowment is critical.
"The issue that I see is that we are trying to be the business school for the world. That means diversity of nationality, profession and socio-economic diversity," he said.
"If Insead tries to attract a student from, say, Nigeria, in competition with a top U.S. school, the U.S. school is able to offer a full scholarship. Insead is not."

Fast pace of business drives EMBA

(CNN) -- As companies throughout the world strive to improve performance and boost growth, attention is focusing on the potential economic benefits of professional executive education.
With the pace of global business increasing, senior managers find themselves needing to make complex decisions quickly. As commercial conditions change, they must quickly assess new opportunities and put in place the strategies necessary to take advantage of them.
Key forces, such as globalization and the rise of information technology as a business tool, require senior executives to maintain a state of constant learning. It is no longer sufficient to supplement an early university education with on-the-job experience. Increasingly, companies are recognizing their most valued employees need more.
The classic form of executive education, the Master of Business Administration (MBA), was devised in the early 1900s as a vehicle to foster strong senior management within large US-based companies.
This original format involves graduates undertaking two years of full-time study in which they are schooled in fundamentals of business -- economics, accounting, business strategy and management skills.
By the 1960s, the MBA was a global phenomenon with universities across the world offering their versions of what had become a "must-have" business degree.
But during the next two decades, the rigid format of the MBA course came under pressure. Companies wanted to have graduates entering the workforce rather than spending another two years in a classroom. Universities responded by changing course structures to allow for part-time, external and even Internet-based study.
Adding such flexibility allows far greater numbers of students to undertake MBA studies. There are now more than 2600 MBA courses being offered by around 1400 universities across some 125 countries.
Classic MBA offerings have also been augmented by a range of so-called Executive MBAs, designed for managers who already have a considerable amount of work experience. These courses encourage participants to share their knowledge and discuss real-world challenges within the academic framework.
An example is the EMBA offered by the Richard Ivey School of Business at its campus in Hong Kong. The course is structured so that virtually all class work is completed outside normal working hours. The 22-month course costs $67,500, and the 2005 class has 49 participants.
Managing director of the U.S.-based Executive MBA Council, Maury Kalnitz, says growing demand is leading to a rapid increase in the number of business schools offering EMBA courses.
'Tremendous growth'
"There is tremendous growth both in the U.S. and international markets," he says. "People want to build on their strengths and realize that, if they are going to progress in their careers, they will need more skills."
For executives with less time or looking for training in more specific areas, an increasing number of academic institutions are offering intensive short courses. This format allows participants and their companies to choose material that is directly relevant to their industry sector and future business plans.
One example is a course offered by European-based business school INSEAD at its campus in Singapore. Called the Asian International Executive Program, the two-week course covers a blend of international business, marketing, corporate strategy and human resource issues. Designed for executives with at least eight years' working experience, the course costs $11,000 and is offered four times each year.
INSEAD offers a range of other short-course programs including the Young Managers Program. This three-week course, held in both Europe and Singapore, is designed to improve executive communications and managerial skills. It costs $19,600.
Another trend in executive education being led by a number of academic institutions is the provision of tailored content for individual organizations. Working closely with a company, an institution will devise a course or series of courses specifically for the company's executives.
An example is U.S.-based Duke Corporate Education, owned by Duke University. It works with organizations throughout the world to train their executives. DCE staff analyze a particular company's requirements and then develop a customized course designed to increase employee skills in particular areas.
Vice president of business development at Duke Corporate Education, David Miller, says it is this area which is showing the fastest growth for business schools.
"Ours are growing at around 25 per cent a year at the moment," he says. "And there is no sign of things slowing."

Big hitters dominate MBA rankings

LONDON, England (CNN) -- There are a number of rankings produced each year for business schools and MBAs, but the one seen as perhaps the most authoritative in global terms is that produced each year by the Financial Times.
The London-based newspaper has just produced its 2007 MBA rankings, and there is one simple message to be seen from glancing at the top 10 -- the big hitters of the MBA world are here to stay.
All but one of this year's top 10 were also there in 2006, with only a few minor moves.
The second message is this -- the United States still dominates. Only two non-US schools broke up the American dominance of the top 10, London Business School at fifth and the French-Singaporean Insead two spots lower
First place, as in the previous two years, went to the University of Pennsylvania's understandably-revered Wharton school.
In fact, Wharton topped all the other main rankings -- graduate salaries, alumni satisfaction, future careers, gender diversity, international diversity and idea generation.
In the main chart, the next three were fellow giants of the US business school scene, Columbia, Harvard and Stanford. Next came London Business School, followed by Chicago University's graduate business school, Insead, and then a trio of other U.S. big names, Stern, Tuck and Yale.
A series of other leading schools are in the top 20, for example Northwestern University's Kellogg school.
Apart from Insead's Singapore joint base, the two-continent hegemony is first broken up by Shanghai's Ceibs school in joint 11th.
Apart from these, only six other schools in the top 100 listing are based outside of North America or Europe; two more in Singapore, a pair in Australia and one each from Brazil and South Africa.
Booming market
Overall, the FT found, the MBA market is booming, with a combination of both an increase in applications for MBAs and a healthy job market for those graduating, the first time this has happened since the early 1990s.
"There's a good sense of assurance in the degree... that's become more recognized by the applicant pool," Rose Martinelli, associate dean of student recruitment and admissions at the University of Chicago's school told the paper.
Other data from the survey shows that an MBA is, indeed, a good investment.
Figures from graduates of the current top 10 schools showed that three years after graduating, alumni earned an average salary of $148,609 a year, an increase of 127% over the period.
However, the study warns that the boom might not be all it seems. While many schools are receiving more applications, this might not necessarily translate into more would-be MBAs.
"There is not a lot of statistical data to show that there are more applicants," Ms Martinelli told the paper. "The competition for the top schools is increasing, so applicants are applying to four or 4.5 schools. Last year it was three."
The survey also pointed out another trend -- the sheer amount of business schools.
The number of US schools grew 10% between 1999 and 2006, giving the country 927. But India increased even faster, and now has 953 business schools.
Even this growth is beaten by Europe, where from 1999 to 2006 the number leapt from 181 in 1999 to 658, with 150 MBA programs now offered in Germany alone.

Business students follow the case

(CNN) -- Rather than using traditional lectures as the basis of executive education courses, growing numbers of business schools are running interactive sessions built on real-world case examples to instruct and inspire their students.
First used at Harvard Business School more than 90 years ago, the case technique involves close examination of actual problems faced by companies and the steps they took to overcome them.
Rather than simply being passive recipients of a lecturer's wisdom, students are encouraged to dissect the examples and discuss them in group sessions. Advocates say such an approach provides insight and practical knowledge that can be applied in the future.
Harvard Business School executive director of case development Michael Roberts says students are exposed to a large number of cases drawn from a wide variety of industry sectors.
Students first study a case alone before discussing it as part of a small group. Once opinions have been formulated, the small groups must defend their conclusions in larger sessions during which alternative approaches are aired and debated.
Most group sessions are conducted in a purpose-built room in which students face each other in a horseshoe configuration with the lecturer acting as a discussion moderator. It is common for MBA students to analyse and discuss around 14 different cases each week during their course.
"It's an approach that teaches them how to think, present their ideas, listen to others, defend their point of view, and use their judgment to make a decision, even if the information in the case is incomplete," says Roberts. "That, after all, is a reflection of real life in the business world."
Because the cases form a vital part of executive education courses, a considerable amount of time and effort is invested in creating them. School professors and research staff visit each selected company to conduct intensive interviews with senior staff and look at written records and background material.
Gathered information is then written in a narrative format and can include examples of company data and video footage of pertinent facilities or activities.
"One of the most recent electronic cases focuses on the shuttle Columbia disaster and puts the student into a particular role in a simulated environment that reflects a decision making process at NASA that went deadly wrong," Roberts told CNN.
Reverse engineering
He says case structure is essentially "reverse engineering based on the logic". Lecturers figure out the points they want students to debate and then set about constructing their cases to illicit that response.
Although structured, cases are designed to stimulate discussion and foster creative thinking. Students are encouraged to defend their conclusions and back them up with examples drawn from the materials provided.
"We believe that business is a mix of science and craft," says Roberts. "There are theories and principles but the application of those theories depends upon the specifics of the context in which they are applied.
"The case is the way to provide that context and give students practice in the application."
As well as using them in its own executive education courses, Harvard Business School has also developed a global business from selling cases to other schools. According to the school, more than 80 per cent of all cases in use around the world have been generated by Harvard.
"Some cases simply never work as well as the faculty had hoped, but others are simply classic because they capture timeless issues, such as how to give a subordinate negative performance feedback," says Roberts. As an example, the school has been using the 1957 film 'Twelve Angry men' -- which looks at the workings of a jury -- as a case study in influence techniques for more than 30 years.
Roberts says the success of the case method will ensure its remains a critical part of business education courses in schools around the globe well into the future.

Schools' task: Attracting women

(CNN) -- They might make up slightly more than 50 percent of the world's population, but women are significantly under-represented when it comes to executive education, according to top-tier business schools.
Some schools admit that females make up only as little as one-fifth to a quarter of class numbers.
The figures will come as little surprise to female executives, who have been battling lower average salaries and stereotypical perceptions in many large organizations for years.
However, faced with this challenge, business schools are actively trying to bolster the number of women joining their MBA and executive MBA programs. By nurturing the considerable pool of talent that exists in the market, they believe they can play a part in addressing the gender imbalance that exists in top levels of management.
In 2000, a group of major corporations, business schools and not-for-profit groups formed the Forté Foundation. This organization is charged with encouraging and assisting women to assume senior managerial roles.
A vital part of this is process is communicating to women the career benefits of undertaking an MBA degree course. Regular forums and seminars are conducted by the group to facilitate this process.
Some in the education sector believe MBAs have suffered from an image of being a male-dominated club, where female executives could feel uncomfortable. However, others say successful female executives deal with male-dominated situations every day, and such courses are nothing more than an extension of the environment that exists in the wider business world.
Howard Kaufold, vice dean for the MBA for Executives program at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school, admits his institution is not seeing rising numbers of women joining its programs -- and it's something that needs to be urgently addressed.
"In full-time MBA courses, particularly in the United States, it is a great achievement if women represent a third of class participants, and that proportion would be at the high end of the scale," he said. "This is a real challenge for us."
Kaufold believes the problem stems from the fact that Wharton MBA participants tend to be older -- with an average age of 27 years -- which means most are already established in their careers and have families.
Women in that situation can find it difficult to attend a full-time course, which requires taking long periods away from both work and family life.
"We also find this in our executive MBA programs, where women are really having to juggle a lot of factors and this can make it very tough for them," he says.
Some business schools are addressing the problem by making some courses more flexible and, where possible, removing the need for full-time, live-in participation. Others have found that being able to take some classes on campus or using online learning techniques can also help.
Ethan Hanabury, Columbia Business School's associate dean for executive education, says it is the residential component that often becomes the toughest factor for women keen to take his school's courses.
"For a mother to be in residence for a month is a big deal," he says. "So we are looking at ways of making our courses more flexible to overcome this."
Hanabury says Columbia also offers a series of scholarships, including one designed to assist women of color. He believes positive initiatives such as this will help to gradually increase the proportion of women in courses, although admits it will take a long-term effort.

Learner Encouragement In E-Learning

Author: Vishwanath Shankar
While much stress is laid on the design, user interface and other technology centric aspects of e-learning, no light has been shed upon how to encourage learners to buy the concept of learning, leave alone sticking through to its completion.
This is more so when the learners are employees. Little wonder then that some of the best managed e learning initiatives have bitten dust due to low levels of learner retention. Clearing the final hurdle of assessment tests successfully is what most corporate learning programs aim at instead of seeing to it that learners have actually learnt to apply these skills to their working environment. In the absence of such an initiative, the program imparts knowledge to the employees without exploiting these acquired skills to the benefit of the organization. Checking the current levels of motivation among learners can be achieved by evaluating them on the basis of the following criteria. Expectations form the learning initiative Interest in the topics involvedValue addition to learners provided by the initiative Obstacles, if any, to learning Encouraging learners to take up and stick to the program can be achieved by the following factors. Capture attentionHolding the learners’ attention is the first step towards motivating them. Start the program with an attractive sequence and preferably have a senior addressing them through the system elaborating upon the benefits of the program to the learners. Tickling the learner’s sensory stimuli and extracting answers to thought provoking questions are other methods to hold learner interest. Explain significance Capturing or holding attention for the first few slides will do no good if the learner is not convinced of the significance of the course to him. This needs to be explained in detail, while stressing upon how the completion of the course will develop skills in learners that they would be able to apply to their daily jobs at hand. Learners must be able to identify the program to be beneficial both at a personal and professional level. Provide learners with a list of applications that would be made easy by the learning initiative. Make the content interestingWell organized content presented in small and easy chunks called learning objectives will develop interest among learners. Small chunks facilitate a sense of achievement on the completion of each one. A jamboree of media that combines audio, video, text, and graphics will make the learning process seem a cakewalk, and make it more enjoyable. Always take care to explain the content before starting to demonstrate its use. Instill confidence Do not present the content in a complex manner that might shoo away potential learners. If learners lose confidence in themselves and find it extremely difficult to achieve the objectives of the program, or if learners feel that completing the program will require extensive effort or time on their part, they will probably be apprehensive about the whole exercise. To instill confidence in them, make them aware of the approximate time it might take to be over with a module, while providing them regular feedback about their advancement. Imbibe concepts Absorbing important but difficult concepts is often a cumbersome exercise for the learners. Guidance is required in order to preserve complex theories. This can be done by providing relevant examples, explaining case studies and stimulating memory through congruence of facts or correlation. Graphical representations can also aid memory. Make the experience rewarding Small achievements call for a reward. Award certificates for successfully completing online tests. Alternatively, offer a promotion or a minor pay raise for crossing milestones in the program. Encouraging words from the supervisor too can do wonders to motivate learners. But the fact that they are able to apply skills to their daily jobs surpasses all other prizes. Offer feedback Feedback of learners’ performance allows them to know their standing in the context of the program. Modules followed with short exercises provide guidance and improve comprehension on the part of learners. Boost knowledge applicationWith almost all learning initiatives attaching importance to performance enhancement, it is important that the learners retain most of the learnt skills in order to augment productivity. Repetition is the age old method of doing this, which can also be alternatively achieved by electronic or online job-aids, references, templates, and wizards. Epilogue Motivating the learners not only increases retention in e learning initiatives, but is also a sure shot way of extracting better productivity out of employee-learners. And motivated learners can definitely take your program towards success.

Teens Boarding Schools

Author: Monica Craft
Troubled Teens Boarding schools are independent, college preparatory schools that provide housing facilities for students and faculty.
Boarding schools have been around for a long time, and they still create an environment that is appealing to people even today. Boarding schools can help prepare its students on both an academic and a social level. Boarding schools for teens can also help your teenager with their personal growth and advancements. Sending your teen to a boarding school, can help them learn how to face the world that lay ahead of them. If you are a parent evaluating boarding schools for a teen struggling in school you may feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you. Parents with troubled teens who have struggled with finding solutions sometimes feel as if they have no place to turn. Maybe you have tried a number of treatments or interventions to get a troubled teen back on track, yet still find the solutions fall far short of the mark. Types of Boarding Schools for Teens Even though boarding schools have been around for a while, some people do not realize there are different types of boarding schools. Here are a few: Boarding schools that are either all male or female Boarding schools to help prepare for college Boarding school for troubled teens Religious boarding school Troubled Teens Boarding schools are independent, college preparatory schools that provide housing facilities for students and faculty. Boarding schools are sometimes referred to as intentional communities because the faculty and staff at boarding schools work very hard to create an environment for students that are safe, academically challenging, active, and fun. Our hectic, fast-paced society makes it more difficult for young people to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. Rites of passage that once helped teens understand the growing responsibilities that come with age no longer play a major part in our chaotic world. Children and teens get many of their messages about how to act from inappropriate sources - from an individual peer group or the larger peer culture. There are many different types of Troubled Teens boarding schools. If you decide boarding school is the best way to help your troubled teen, the first step to choosing a school is to consider what type of school will best serve the student. Boarding schools will accept a troubled teen, or a student that does not want to be there. Parent Help is familiar with several boarding schools. We know which schools will accept a troubled teen and we are willing to provide you with information about each of these schools. You are in the process of looking for a boarding school for your out-of-control teenage daughter. You need something that addresses both emotional growth and academic growth. I don-t want a lock-down situation, but hopefully something that-s isolated enough that it accomplishes the same purpose. Residential school for teen with emotional problems If you are looking for a residential school for your teenaged son who, while very bright, has severe emotional problems. They have exhausted all local options and feel that a therapeutic/residential program may be the best option now. Go to:- http://www.troubledteensadvice.com/Teens_Options/boarding-schools.html

Following the funny money

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Many business school programs are launched in response to student demand, while others follow academic and technical innovations.
But one course run by London's well-regarded Cass school was put together for another reason -- government departments and private groups asked for it.
The Graduate Diploma in Anti-Money Laundering, established by the U.K. school in late 2005, has recently accepted its second intake of 25 students.
The highly specialized course was launched in association with the Center for Financial Regulation and Crime (CFRC), set up at Cass in 2004.
The CFRC, a leading base for the identification and enforcement of so-called "white collar" financial crimes, was itself formed with the assistance of police officers and financial institutions, both commercial and regulatory.
The anti-money laundering diploma aims to train people to better tackle what is recognized as one of the most difficult crimes of all to enforce, especially in the modern era of globalized business and instant electronic transactions.
Money laundering involves using commercial transactions to 'clean' finances obtained through illegal means, such as organized crime.
Increasingly, however, law enforcement agencies say it is being used to provide funds for other groups, for example terrorist organizations or even nations subject to financial sanctions, such as North Korea.
Police assistance
London, one of the principal global financial centers, is at the forefront of efforts to trace and seize money acquired from dubious sources.
The Cass course is run in association with the International Compliance Association, a professional group aimed at improving anti-money laundering efforts, and with the support of police and the British Bankers' Association.
It covers everything from how money is laundered and recognizing illicit transactions to designing a specific anti-money laundering strategy for a financial services business.
The course, according to Cass's Dr Chizu Nakijima, director of the CFRC, was set up "at the request of many government agencies and private sector bodies."
The students attracted have been a mix of bankers, lawyers and businesspeople, as well as financial regulators police and prosecutors.
"Half the course is from the public sector, representing law enforcement and regulatory agencies, while the other half is private sector, representing various sectors within the financial services industry," explained Dr Nakijima, adding that prospective students had a range of reasons for signing up.
"For those in the public sector, it is either for promotion or for moving into the private sector, and for those in the private sector, it is for moving into managerial positions or those already in such positions to have formal qualifications," she said.
"There appears to be a need and demand for formal qualifications, rather than just training programs of which there are many."

Rapid rise beckons mobile workers

(CNN) -- Rapid career advancement is a key driver for students enrolling in an MBA or EMBA degree, yet the same thing can cause trepidation for existing employers.
Armed with new skills, insights and contacts, degree graduates believe their journey up the corporate ladder will be faster and the final destination higher than it would otherwise have been.
From a personal perspective, such a boost can only be attractive. In an increasingly competitive global business marketplace, constantly upgrading professional abilities is no longer an option -- it's become a necessity.
But for employers, having their staff continually improving their skills is a double-edged sword. While it brings obvious benefits to the company, it also makes them more attractive to the opposition.
The rapid salary increases enjoyed by many graduates brings the challenge into stark relief. While some achieve the rises while remaining with their current firm, a significant proportion get them by packing their desk and moving on.
In the Financial Times 2006 MBA rankings, graduates of the top-placed Wharton school reported salary increases of 139 per cent in the period from starting their course until three years after graduation. Students of the Yale School of Management reported increases of 154 per cent. Many of these advances were achieved by changing to a different employer.
The FT rankings also measured the degree of international mobility enjoyed by students, based on their employment movements since graduation. Top ranked schools included Swiss-based IMD, Trinity College Dublin, and France-based HEC Paris. Students from these schools not only changed employers but were also prepared to change countries in search of their next position.
HEC associate dean Bertrand Moingeon says the hefty price tags attached to many top degrees can be one way for companies to ensure staff graduates do not leave quickly after completing their degree. Moingeon says between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of EMBA students at HEC are sponsored by their companies.
"Sponsorship can in fact be a way for companies to either reward their high performers or to retain their high value executives in a company," he told CNN. "Participants may enter agreements with their company committing them to staying for X amount of years in return for sponsorship on a program."
Microsoft's director of human resources for Australia and New Zealand Mark Newton says his company puts a strong emphasis on encouraging senior staff to undertake further education.
Newton says staff can either seek out a course they wish to undertake or the company's HR team may identify suitable courses and suggest them to particular employees. "Microsoft certainly does support employees who wish to study for an MBA by giving them time off for study, exams and some financial support," he told CNN. "Microsoft is a large employer of MBA-qualified executives as well. We actively target this group to help ensure we have the best and brightest talent."
While recognizing that qualified senior staff are valued by all companies, he is not concerned that encouraging staff to undertake further study will lead to them walking out the door to competitors.
"The secret of retaining them is not worrying about rivals but instead, it is about making Microsoft the best place to work," he says. "And Microsoft is a great place to work, which is reflected by our high staff retention rate, high staff engagement rate and low attrition rate."
Like many large international companies, Microsoft has established an internal structure for all employees to ensure they have a defined professional development program.
"The development program becomes a critical part of their career objectives," says Newton. "When you take this seriously it increases your organization's retention because we are helping people to fulfill their career goals."

Turning technology into money

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Technological advances are all around us, everything from increasingly powerful personal computers to the latest in disease-beating drugs.
However, coming up with a great new concept and making money from it -- as many bankrupt inventors and innovators over the decades could tell you -- are two entirely different matters.
This is something business schools are increasingly aware of, and many of them now have special departments intended to not only help technological innovators profit from their developments but also assist established corporations to keep pace with the dizzying pace of change.
A pioneer in this was the Management of Technology Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, initially established in 1981 as a joint program between the university's engineering department and its highly-rated Sloan management school.
Intended for experienced staff in technology-based companies and organizations, the qualification has since then, according to the school, "taught hundreds of engineers to assess, mine, and market technological enterprises."
These days, technology management MBAs are available around the globe, including one at the University of Washington Business School in the high-tech hub of Seattle, which boasts of preparing managers for "leadership in the rapidly evolving technology sector" to a similar qualification at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, Thailand.
However, such is the complexity of many new innovations that even this specialization is being broken down further.
Tanaka Business School in the UK already offers courses on the bio-pharma and health technology sectors in its one-year MBA program.
Now, it has just announced a pioneering professorship in technology transfer in the physical sciences, the likes of physics and engineering.
Addressing a need
Professor Erkko Autio, from Finland, is the first incumbent in the post, which is financed jointly by a UK government funding agency for the physical sciences and QinetiQ -- pronounced "kinetic" -- a defense technology company created in July 2001 when the UK government's official defense research agency was privatized.
The chair has been set up at Tanaka -- part of London University's Imperial College, which specializes in science and medicine -- to address the lack of research into the most effective methods of commercializing ideas in engineering and the physical sciences.
Autio has been tasked with looking at how companies and academic institutions exploit existing ideas in the physical sciences and examine how this can be expanded to cover new markets.
"Innovation in engineering and the physical sciences plays a key role in driving economic growth but the process appears to take longer and be more challenging than in the life sciences," he notes.
"The importance of technology transfer for growth in the British and global economy cannot be stressed enough," adds Professor David Gann, head of Tanaka's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group.
"This chair will develop new business models and policies for improving the effectiveness with which knowledge from engineering and physical sciences can be commercialized and deployed in industry."

Pitching 'outrageous' business ideas

LONDON, England (CNN) -- As business pitches go, it's certainly unorthodox. Two young women, dressed in what are clearly hastily home-made bridal outfits, stand in a corner of an elevator and talk to a video camera.
One speaks at length about how much she learned planning her wedding, while the other laments the amount she still has to do before her own big day.
Then, with a flourish, they pretend to tap on computer keyboards and simultaneously 'discover' a new Web site, Brideboard, "where brides advise brides."
Welcome to Columbia Business School's annual Outrageous Business Plan Competition.
This event allows the school's MBA students to pitch slightly more unorthodox or untested ideas before a panel of top businesspeople and venture capitalists. As one student says of his own idea: "It may be outrageous but it's not crazy."
This year's contest began with a series of two-minute mini pitches. These are all delivered to a single video camera by the individuals or teams themselves, all standing in the same place -- the somewhat unglamorous location of the corner of a stationary elevator.
Mixed approach
A near-hour long compilation of all the pitches can be viewed on the school's website (click here -- video file) and offers an illuminating insight into both the sheer variety and imagination of the ideas, and the extremely different ways in which they are presented.
Some are clearly well-rehearsed -- in a similar vein to Brideboard, one team offers up a quick but heartfelt dramatic vignette in which a couple who forget about an imminent social event are saved from their disaster by their son, who tells them about "bpampered," a Web site that sends hairdressers, beauticians and the like to your own home.
One of three eventual third-place winners, KidsLunch.com, not only have a warning slogan -- "are your kids packing on the pounds?" -- but end up throwing items of junk food around the elevator as they try to market their healthy school lunch delivery service.
Others are more prosaic in approach: Some pitches involve a single participant clutching a sheaf of notes and mumbling their spiel to the camera -- in one case, speeding up noticeably towards the end to beat the two-minute time limit.
Likewise, the ideas themselves vary greatly, everything from technical sounding business-to-business ideas to the more clearly unorthodox, such as another third-place winner, a designer clothes range purely for online communities such as Second Life.
The top prize and formal title of Most Outrageous Business Venture -- along with a $6,000 prize -- went to MBA student Michael Dwork for GreenWare, a line of disposable plates, cups and bowls that are organic and biodegradable.
Second place, and $5,000, went another single-person team, Brandon Kessler and his submission, ChallengePost, a Web site which aims to solve problems using co-operation and group action shaped by market imperatives.
"We are very pleased to recognize this year's winners," said Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia Business School.
"Bold, original, and thoughtful, this year's entries demonstrated the kind of entrepreneurial thinking that we seek to cultivate in all of our students."
The contest, hosted by the school's Entrepreneurship Program and the Columbia Entrepreneurs Organization, is now in its eight year.
Unusual ideas from previous years include Gifts From the Grave, which allows consumes to continue to give gifts to loved ones after they have died, and Misfortunes, a company selling broken fortune cookies containing messages of ill-luck.

Learning to be creative

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Creativity is the buzzword in many a modern boardroom, yet some in business still complain that too many newly-minted MBAs are competent but uninspired, well-versed in the technical theory but lacking in imagination.
A series of business schools have tried to improve this perceived failing with some innovative classes.
For example, Professor David Sims, who teaches organizational behavior at London's Cass Business School, aims to teach students the seemingly intangible virtues of imagination, inspiration, intuition and improvisation.
He does this by taking students choosing his elective on themed exercises, for example going to London's National Portrait Gallery to look at pictures of leaders with the help of an art historian.
Other schools use art to illustrate business principles. Saïd Business School, part of Britain's Oxford University, ran a three-day leadership course based on the history of Julius Caesar as told in William Shakespeare's famous 1599 tragedy.
Meanwhile, Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Badaracco's course on learning business lessons from literary characters has proved so popular he turned it into a book.
In a new initiative, Judge Business School, part of the University of Cambridge in the UK, is taking a more direct approach.
It has just teamed up with a leading advertising agency to hold what it calls a "unique creativity workshop" for its MBAs.
Market gap?
The two-day event was developed after research showed that only two top U.S. MBA schools offer courses in creativity, and only one European school has incorporated design into its curriculum.
It was jointly taught by staff from the Judge school and executives from Saatchi and Saatchi, with the idea of breaking down the notion that creativity should be the sole preserve of the so-called "creative industries" such as advertising.
The aim was "to provide a perspective on business and career development that lies totally outside the established MBA curriculum, confronting prejudices about creativity and providing innovative methodologies developed to channel creativity to 'stretch the walls of the elastic-sided box', that can be successfully applied to any industry, to generate momentous ideas," according to Kevin Roberts, Saatchi and Saatchi's worldwide CEO.
This was an important concept for would-be future business leaders to grasp, said Allegre Hadida, lecturer in strategy at Judge.
"Leonardo Da Vinci did not specialize as an artist or a scientist but produced masterpieces in both domains," she explained.
"Likewise, business leaders in the age of ideas should not consider themselves either left or right brain thinkers. The challenge for our workshop is remove from the students the common 'I am a left-brain person, I can't be creative!' mindset, and to train them to unleash their creativity."
Other schools can take a less direct route, but still challenge their students to come up with new ideas.
The International University of Monaco has just handed a particularly tough challenge to 24 MBA students enrolled on a marketing management course -- develop the concept for a new board game.
In just six weeks, the groups of four and five students generated 70 new game concepts which were evaluated by executives from game companies.
Several of the most promising ideas are being chosen for the students to now take into a new product development course this month

The first virtual business school campus

LONDON, England (CNN) -- One of the key elements of modern business education is the lengths to which schools will go to connect and communicate with students, whether actual or potential.
While years ago, acquiring an MBA inevitably involved scribbling notes in a campus classroom for hour after hour, these days ever more schools offer part-time studies, or distance learning via email and the Internet.
Now, one business school has gone a step further and established a "campus" in a virtual reality world.
INSEAD, the highly-rated business school based in France and Singapore, has just announced it is to build up a presence in Second Life, an increasingly popular digital world which now has five million registered "residents."
Second Life, while often referred to as a game, is not in fact based around any specific goals. Residents, who create their own online character, or avatar, instead have an almost endless choice of pursuits and options inside the ever-changing digital world, much as in real life.
Now, your avatar can even go to business school, thanks to INSEAD's Second Life "campus."
Mixing, making money
One element of this will be to give existing and applicant students the chance to mix and discuss their thoughts in the online world. In the future, INSEAD hopes, as well as hosting open days at its physical campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore, it will also hold them on the virtual campus.
Students will even be able to join courses, such as a proposed MBA class on entrepreneurship in which participants will have the chance to develop a business plan and test it inside Second Life.
Apart from the increased opportunities for mixing between people who are geographically distant in the real world (or "meatspace," as Second Lifers call it) and marketing opportunities for INSEAD, the virtual campus highlights a curious but potentially lucrative opportunity -- real entrepreneurship in the virtual world.
Increasing numbers of Second Life residents earn real world incomes through their activities in the online realm, putting together goods and services for avatars to use.
They pay for these in "Linden dollars," named after Linden Lab, which created the world, but these are fully exchangeable into real US dollars, part of Second Life's increasingly sophisticated economy.
A number of people make a living through activities inside Second Life, while international brands including Reebok and American Apparel have set up "stores" inside the world.
Such is the potential importance of such commerce in the future, that INSEAD says it will incorporate learning about Second Life into a range of programs, including its MBAs, and Executive MBAs.
It will also build a research center and social science research lab on its virtual campus.
"As an international business school with participants from around the world, INSEAD embraces innovative approaches to learning that will enable us to develop leaders who are prepared to operate in a constantly evolving global business environment," said Antonio Fatas, dean of the school's MBA program.
"We recognize the growing importance of the digital marketplace and want all of our participants to have the opportunity to experience it first-hand."

Firms Are Offering Perks to Lure B-School Talent

The M।B.A. job market has continued to heat up this year, resulting in multiple offers and heftier salaries for many lucky full-time graduates. Jeffrey Rice, executive director of career services at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University, may have the best perspective on the recruiting scene because of his additional role as president of the M.B.A. Career Services Council. By keeping in touch with the council's members--about 350 career-service officials and 40 corporate recruiters--Mr. Rice closely monitors hiring trends. M.B.A. Track columnist Ron Alsop recently talked with Rice about the bullish job market, possible talent shortages, and the ways technology is changing the recruiting process.

Q: How intense has the competition for M.B.A. graduates become this year?
A: There's fiercer competition mainly because more industries have ramped up their recruiting, specifically retail, insurance and other financial services, private equity, health care and technology. At the same time, activity is up in the M.B.A. bellwethers--consulting, investment banking and consumer products--with 15% to 20% more companies in those industries doing recruiting. For students, that means there are more diverse opportunities in what is clearly a seller's market.
Q: Are some companies facing an M.B.A. talent shortage this year?
A: Many companies are asking, "Will there be enough M.B.A. students for us to recruit for our future leadership moving forward?" Already, some companies in the bellwether industries are not going to meet their projected yield this year. An investment bank that wanted to hire 80 associates this year may end up getting only 70. To their credit, the company plans to increase its pipeline of summer interns this year to try to avoid a shortfall again next year for full-time recruits. If it only wanted 50 summer associates before, now it's hoping to get 70 and focus on converting many of them to full-time hires by the end of the internship.
Q: How are schools helping companies deal with a potential scarcity of full-time M.B.A. students?
A: Many schools, including Fisher, are expanding the supply base by adding career-service resources to bring older part-time and executive M.B.A. students into the recruiting mix, along with some of our alumni.
Q: Is it more challenging to recruit part-time and executive M.B.A. students?
A: The most significant challenge is finding a convenient time to meet with them। We're encouraging companies to do presentations and interviews when it's more amenable for our working students, in the evening instead of the afternoon. Virtual recruiting can also work. We recently made 50 Webcams available to full-time, part-time and executive M.B.A. students at Fisher so they can borrow one, plug it into their computer and ask a company to do an interview remotely.

Q: Is technology changing M.B.A. recruiting in any other ways?
A: Technology is definitely becoming more and more important in reaching the current millennial generation of students. But companies should realize that today's M.B.A. students can smell spam a mile away and want communication that is individualized and sincere. As a result, some companies are doing more instant messaging and sending more personalized emails, telling students they have been identified as top candidates and inviting them to call with any questions. Podcasts are another increasingly popular way to reach students and give them information about a company and its culture before they interview with a recruiter. Our M.B.A.s really like the progressive nature of podcasts. Companies are also starting to do recruiting blogs, sometimes managed by an employee who is an alumnus from the target school.
Q: Is the recruiting process as heated as it was during the dot-com heyday in the late 1990s?
A: That was a really unusual time, an anomaly. I don't think the recruiting opportunities are as prolific as they were then, but today the choices are less entrepreneurial, less risky in nature. The job offers are coming from more sustainable, stable industries today. And if there's one thing that's definitely true about the millennial generation of M.B.A.s, it's that they're looking for stable companies where the financial rewards are clear and they can see the trajectory for how they can advance.
Q: It appears that recruiters are making a full-court press to woo students. What are some of their tactics?
A: It's pretty amazing stuff. We've had students taken by limousine from the Ohio State campus in Columbus to Cleveland for interviews; others were flown by corporate jet to Providence, Rhode Island. A consumer packaged-goods company put on a two-day event for prospective interns from several different schools and gave each student an iPod with his or her favorite music preloaded on it.
Q: Of course, the bottom line in recruiting is compensation. How much are companies willing to pay M.B.A. graduates in this competitive market?
A: Starting salaries continue to rise. This year at Fisher with about 70% of our second-year students having accepted a job, we are up 10% from last year to a median base salary of $88,000. While starting salaries are always a factor, students are getting much more focused on compensation over the first five to eight years on the job. They aren't necessarily taking the highest monetary offer if they believe the compensation trajectory is higher at a company with a slightly lower initial offer. For example, in consumer packaged goods, if a student starts as assistant brand manager or brand manager, he can expect $80,000 to $90,000. But in five years, he could become a senior marketing director with compensation of $150,000-plus. So he may recoup the costs of the M.B.A. degree quicker on that career path than on another where the compensation rises only $20,000 in five years.