MBA

From the WSJ’s Morning Ledger:

The online MBA comes of age.
You’d think that of all the academic pursuits, business school would remain most immune to online learning. Beyond studies, MBA programs offer up-and-coming C-suiters access to the graduate-level schmoozing that could come in handy later on. Nevertheless, the online MBA program is growing, Delta Sky Magazine’s Kevin Featherly reports. What they lack in post-exam cordials with the professor, they make up for in a more diverse, more experienced student body, say advocates. “In ground-based programs, you’re connected to a more local audience,” the dean of the University of Bridgeport’s Ernest C. Trefz School of Business tells Delta. “In the online program, you’re interacting with business professionals from around the world.” But not everything is so encouraging. A professor at Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina tells Mr. Featherly how surprised he was “when a course designer suggested he use a cartoon character to illustrate a hard-core economics principle.”

Also see:

From DSC:
Consider this. Steve Jobs lived by the philosophy of cannibalizing Apple’s own business, as he held that Apple needed to cannibalize itself or someone else would do it for them. And here’s the key thing to consider: Apple is the largest company in the world, based on market cap (505.92B as of this morning) and market value.

The point is, we in higher ed can’t be afraid of change. We must change. It’s time for more Trimtab Groups within higher education.

Reflections/questions re: “Fed to the Sharks: Housing & the Death of the Middle Class” [Smith]

On 04/09/2014, in 21st century, business side of he, Daniel S. Christian, economics, ethics, higher education, MBA, new business models, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
This posting is especially meant for two audiences (but also has wider ramifications for the vast majority of us living in the United States)

Those students who are majoring in economics
Those of us working within higher education

To the students studying economics out there:

What parts from the articles listed below are true? False? Is anything being minimized or exaggerated — or is the information factual and accurate?
How are the topics of these articles/discussions relevant to your lives today? In the future?.
Do ethics come into play here? If so, how?
.

Fed to the Sharks, Part 2: Housing & the Death of the Middle Class — from oftwominds.com by Charles Hugh Smith

Excerpts:

The Fed sacrificed the foundation of middle class wealth — stable housing values — to boost bank profits.

Lest you think the phrase “death of the middle class” is hyperbole, please examine these two charts, keeping in mind the middle class by definition must be in the middle of income/wealth distribution — conventionally, between 40% and 80%, i.e. the 40% between the bottom 40% and the top 20%.

See that little red wedge?
That’s the bottom 80% — the entire middle class
and everyone below the middle class.

Fed to the Sharks, Part 1: The Fed takes our money, gives it to banks who loan it back to us at 16% — from oftwominds.com by Charles Hugh Smith

Excerpt:

We’re being Fed to the sharks, every day, one morsel at a time. What a way to go….

What can we say about the Federal Reserve’s policies that hasn’t been said a million times? How about simplifying the two primary purposes of Fed policies? I will cover one today and the second one tomorrow. Both involve feeding the 99.5% to the financier/ Wall Street/bank sharks.

To institutions of higher education:

If what Charles Hugh Smith is saying is true and the middle class continues to be hollowed out, how does — or should — this affect us?
How might this impact our strategies? Our offerings? Our pricing structures?

Management and the Liberal Arts [Peter Drucker]

On 04/03/2014, in leadership, liberal arts, MBA, by Daniel Christian

Management and the Liberal Arts
Management is a liberal art.

Management is what tradition used to call a liberal art — “liberal” because it deals with the fundamentals of knowledge, self-knowledge, wisdom, and leadership; “art” because it deals with practice and application. Managers draw upon all of the knowledges and insights of the humanities and social sciences on psychology and philosophy, on economics and history, on the physical sciences and ethics. But they have to focus this knowledge on effectiveness and results-on healing a sick patient, teaching a student, building a bridge, designing and selling a “user-friendly” software program.

ACTION POINT:
What is your plan to develop yourself in the humanities and social sciences? Develop such a plan today.

The New Realities

Drucker, P. (2004). The Daily Drucker (p. 15). New York, NY: HarperBusiness.

Harvard Business School Launches HBX [harvardmagazine.com]

On 03/24/2014, in higher education, MBA, online learning, by Daniel Christian

Harvard Business School Launches HBX — from harvardmagazine.com

Excerpt:

Harvard Business School (HBS) [on 3/21/14] announced HBX, its venture into online learning. It differs in two significant ways from edX, the Harvard-MIT online learning partnership through which HarvardX has offered massive open online courses (MOOCs) from diverse schools for free to a worldwide audience:

HBX uses proprietary technology, not the edX platform.
HBX is pioneering fee-based courses, which hold the promise of significant new revenue streams.

Also see:

Harvard Business enters online education fray — from bostonglobe.com by Callum Borchers

Excerpt:

The foundational classes are financial accounting, business analytics, and economics for managers. All courses will be taught in the case-based learning principles of classroom courses at Harvard Business School and be led by members of the current faculty, though teaching assistants will help with instruction and feedback.

A final exam covering all three courses will conclude the term, but assessments will be based heavily on the level of mastery students display in online discussions. The grading system may resemble that of the business school, which divides students into four tiers of performance instead of assigning letter grades, but has not been finalized, said Bharat Anand, a professor of business administration who will serve as faculty director of HBX.

Reflections on “A new digital ecology is evolving, and humans are being left behind” [Dvorsky]

On 10/23/2013, in 21st century, business, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, machine-to-machine communications, MBA, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

A new digital ecology is evolving, and humans are being left behind — from io9.com by George Dvorsky

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Incomprehensible computer behaviors (<– Can we use the word behavior here? It seems an odd word to describe computer-related actions…) have evolved out of high-frequency stock trading, and humans aren’t sure why. Eventually, it could start affecting high-tech warfare, too. We spoke with a researcher at University of Miami who thinks humans will be outpaced by a new “machine ecology.”

For all intents and purposes, this genesis of this new world began in 2006 with the introduction of legislation which made high frequency stock trading a viable option. This form of rapid-fire trading involves algorithms, or bots, that can make decisions on the order of milliseconds (ms). By contrast, it takes a human at least one full second to both recognize and react to potential danger. Consequently, humans are progressively being left out of the trading loop.

…

“What we see with the new ultrafast computer algorithms is predatory trading,” he says. “In this case, the predator acts before the prey even knows it’s there.”

Johnson describes this new ecology as one consisting of mobs of ultrafast bots that frequently overwhelm the system. When events last less than a second, the financial world transitions to a new one inhabited by packs of aggressively trading algorithms.

.

From DSC:
I’m getting concerned about the power of emerging technologies and who is using these technologies — and how they are using them. It took humans to program these algorithms. It still takes humans to oversee these issues/trends (at least at this point in time!). Therefore, values — and hearts — come into play here — with very real effects. Quoting from the article:

“There is real money being gained and lost here — even a few thousand dollars every millisecond, which is a tiny amount on the market, is a million dollars per second,” he told us. “This money could be pension fund money, and so on. So somebody needs to understand what is going on, and if it is ‘fair’.”

Who’s involved here? Who’s making sure things are “fair?” Also…what are MBA programs teaching along these lines? Computer Science teachers/professors? What values are we instilling in the people who will be programming the algorithms that overlook such processes? That are/will be creating this new “machine ecology?”

Harvard Business School launching online learning initiative [Lavelle & Zlomek]

On 10/10/2013, in 21st century, digital learning, distance education, education technology, elearning, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, MBA, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, organizational change, United States, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Harvard Business School launching online learning initiative — from businessweek.com by Louis Lavelle and Erin Zlomek

Excerpt:

Harvard Business School is quietly developing its first online learning initiative, which it hopes will make HBS the world’s top provider of high quality online business education.

The move has the potential to shake up the nascent online education market and give the elite business school a toehold in the world of MOOCs, or massive open online courses. It’s a high-stakes gamble for HBS, which has one of the world’s best-known—and carefully burnished—educational brands.

Wharton puts first-year MBA courses online for free [Lavelle]

On 09/17/2013, in career development, MBA, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, professional development, by Daniel Christian

Wharton puts first-year MBA courses online for free — from businessweek.com by Louis Lavelle

Excerpt:

Getting a Wharton MBA involves taking off from work for two years, moving to Philadelphia, and spending about $200,000 on tuition and expenses. Now, with the addition of three new courses on the online learning platform Coursera, you can get much of the course content for free.

While you won’t get the full Wharton on-campus experience—or an internship, career services, or alumni network, for that matter—the new courses in financial accounting, marketing, and corporate finance duplicate much of what you would learn during your first year at the elite business school, says Don Huesman, managing director of the innovation group at Wharton.

We’ve lost our footing — there needs to be a higher calling/purpose for our businesses.

On 08/01/2013, in business, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, leadership, marketing/social marketing, MBA, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The two items mentioned below — which I recently ran across — took me back to a nagging thought:

In the United States, we need for our businesses to pursue a higher calling and purpose. We need businesses to ask how they might best be serving society/others; and I, as an individual, need to be asking the same thing.

It’s tough to do. It’s easy to loose our footing here. But if culture eats strategy for breakfast — and if strategies are so key in navigating/surviving in a quickly-changing world — then why don’t we work more on our cultures? Our hearts? Our reasons for existing and working?

My guess is that employees would also find their work more meaningful if they saw how their companies were making significant contributions and differences in the world. For example, when I worked at Kraft (Foods) in the 90’s, we did some things like sending food to areas in crisis; but it wasn’t highlighted that much and it certainly wasn’t our reason for being. Can you imagine how we would have felt if it was one of our top goals to provide food to every single person in the world? I wonder how much more energy, commitment, creativity, innovation, etc. would have been generated with that sort of aim in mind? How would such a perspective/drive have affected the company’s culture? (Instead, Philip Morris purchased Kraft and had a negative affect on the company’s culture.)

The new marketing strategy: Company culture — from kristakotrla.com on March 17, 2013

Excerpt:

Dear Corporate Leadership
Please get back to being a business of people… serving people. Sounds a tad cheesy but seriously. Stop trying to be a big “corporatey,” over-processed, over-mechanized, over-bureaucratic, over-org-charted machine. Smoke and mirrors and perfection is out. Authentic, human, collaboration and innovation from real-time engagement is in.

If you treat your business like a machine then don’t be surprised when your employees act like passionless robots. Ever find yourself scratching your head wondering why on earth your machine-like, killer strategy isn’t thriving? Check your culture (and check your heart).

This one tweet reveals what’s wrong with American business — from LinkedIn.com by Henry Blodget

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The real problem is that American corporations, which are richer and more profitable than they have ever been in history (see chart below), have become so obsessed with “maximizing short-term profits” that they are no longer investing in their future, their people, and the country.

This short-term greed can be seen in many aspects of corporate behavior, from scrimping on investment to obsessing about quarterly earnings to fretting about daily fluctuations in stock prices. But it is most visible in the general cultural attitude toward average employees.

Employees are human beings. They devote their lives to creating value for customers, shareholders, and colleagues. And, in return, at least in theory, they share in the rewards of the value created by their team.

In theory.

In practice, American business culture has become so obsessed with maximizing short-term profits that employees aren’t regarded as people who are members of a team.

Rather, they are regarded as “costs.”

Corporate profits and profit margins are at the highest level in history…

The management revolution that’s already happening [Denning]

On 05/31/2013, in change, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, internet, MBA, new business models, online learning, reinvent, staying relevant, surviving, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The management revolution that’s already happening — from forbes.com by Steve Denning

From DSC:
Note how the following excerpts might also apply to higher education in the future (emphasis DSC):

Then globalization and the Internet changed everything. Customers suddenly had real choices, access to instant reliable information and the ability to communicate with each other. Power in the marketplace shifted from seller to buyer. Customers started insisting on “better, cheaper, quicker and smaller,” along with “more convenient, reliable and personalized.” Continuous, even transformational, innovation have become requirements for survival.

…

Initially mature products and firms were wiped out by upstarts that offered cheap substitutes to their products, first capturing low-end customers, and gradually moving upmarket to pick off higher-end customers.

…

Even as hierarchical bureaucracy was failing in the private sector, its practices were infecting government, non-profits, education and health. “Reforms” here usually involved stricter implementation of hierarchical bureaucracy rather than a shift towards more productive management practices. As a result, performance was pushed even further from the frontier of what is possible. Since the public is coming to expect responsiveness from these sectors similar to that of the private sector, satisfaction steadily declined.

…

Their virtue lies in the creative energy with which they are pioneering new ways of adding value.

.

asdfsadf

Video Conferencing Guidelines for Faculty and Students in Graduate Online Courses [Gautreau, Glaeser, Renold, Ahmed, Lee, Carter-Wells, Worden, Boynton, Schools]

On 03/28/2013, in MBA, productivity / tips and tricks, teaching online, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Video Conferencing Guidelines for Faculty and Students in Graduate Online Courses — from jolt.merlot.org and California State University, Fullerton; by Gautreau, Glaeser, Renold, Ahmed, Lee, Carter-Wells, Worden, Boynton, & Schools

Excerpts:

Abstract

A review of the literature revealed that established guidelines were not available to assist faculty who use video conferencing in their online graduate courses. In an effort to address this need, a self-evaluation study was completed with faculty who teach such courses. Drawing on the results of this study together with published Netiquette guidelines and a survey of other extant literature, a set of Video Conferencing Guidelines was created.

Video Conferencing Guidelines for Online Graduate Students

Guideline #1: Remember you are on camera and live. The advantage of video conferencing is that you can take advantage of facial expressions, inflection, and tone of voice. Remember to think before you respond to make your thoughts and ideas clear and coherent to the video conferencing participants.
Guideline #2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior during the video conferencing session that you would follow in real life.
Guideline #3: Be mindful of all video conferencing participants. Allow other participants time and opportunities to contribute to the discussion and share their ideas with the group.
Guideline #4: Video conferencing provides synchronous opportunities to share knowledge. It is important to consider opinions from other participants who are engaged in the video conferencing session. Strive for a fairly equal balance among the participants.
Guideline #5: Be mindful of your tone and expressions during the video conferencing session. This is not an anonymous session. Your voice and video are viewed by all who are participating in the chat session.
Guideline #6: Share your expertise and knowledge. Be an active contributor during the video conferencing session.
Guideline #7: Remain professional in your communication with participants.
Guideline #8: Respect the context of the video conferencing session. Keep video conferencing sessions within the context of the conversation. If the session is recorded do not post isolated comments that may be taken out of context. Synchronous discussions take on a life of their own; therefore, it is important to keep conversations in context.
Guideline #9: Be forgiving of mistakes during the video conferencing session. Video conferencing is a new communication platform. There are bound to be technical glitches; be patient with the participants during the session.

Reflections on “MOOCs and online learning: An interview with Jack Welch” [Glader]

On 02/28/2013, in corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MBA, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, real-world assignments, by Daniel Christian

MOOCs and online learning: An interview with Jack Welch — from edudemic.com by Paul Glader

Excerpt:

WA – What do you think of this trend in Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs? Where is it going?

JW – Tom Friedman talked about it a few weeks ago (in the New York Times). It seems a little like the stigma associated with online learning, similar to online dating sites, is washing away. Every trend is going in that direction. We can give an MBA for $30,000 and you keep your job and are moving up in a company. Contrast that with leaving a job for two years and you lose $100,000 or whatever your salary is. You pay these exorbitant MBA costs for two years – $125,000. The economics are all going in the right direction for online education. It’s just as rigorous or more rigorous because you can’t just BS the classes. Everything is going in our direction. We can offer a rigorous MBA program while we make you a better leader. The theme of our school is we teach you on Tuesday and you put it into practice on Wednesday. In other MBA programs, you learn on Tuesday and, two years later, you put it to work.

From DSC:
I continue to wonder if and when corporate training and development programs/departments will shift their attention to two main things:

Helping employees build their own learning ecosystems — based upon each employee’s career goals, current/near-future positions, projects that they are working on, etc.
Creating MOOCs — and/or what MOOCs eventually morph into — for their own companies; then selecting the cream of the crop for an interview or an immediate job offer

Reflections on “Apple University hires another high-profile academic” [Elmer-DeWitt]

On 02/14/2013, in Apple, Daniel S. Christian, learning ecosystem, MBA, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Apple University hires another high-profile academic — from by Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Berkeley’s Morten Hansen, co-author of Jim Collins’ latest bestseller, joined in January

Excerpt:

FORTUNE — Apple University has always been something of a stealth operation. It was created as a kind of in-house MBA program by Steve Jobs, a self-taught business leader who made no secret of his distaste for conventional MBAs.

“We do want to create our own MBAs,” Jobs once said. “But in our own image.”

The idea was to somehow transfer to future generations of Apple (AAPL) executives the hard lessons he learned when he founded the company, lost the company, and brought it back to life.

He started big.

.

From DSC:
Again, this brings me back to the questions/thoughts:

If higher ed doesn’t address its shortcomings — at least in the eyes/perspectives of employers — will corporations take matters into their own hands? Will they create their own internal universities? Perhaps in the form of MOOCs…?
Alternatively, they might say, “Here’s $___; we’d like to have you go through this [digital] playlist of items, then come back and show me what you can do. Then, if appropriate, let’s talk.”

Perhaps Apple is developing their own expertise on how all this runs…? Perhaps they are a piece of what I call “The Walmart of Education” — a piece of more peoples’ learning ecosystems.

An enhanced version of the “Article of the Future” should be the textbook of today (if it isn’t already)

On 11/21/2012, in business, chemistry, computer science, digital learning, digital textbooks, faculty, innovation, mathematics, MBA, multimedia, productivity / tips and tricks, psychology, research, writing, by Daniel Christian

.

Also see:

What an academic article of the future should look like — from digitopoly.org by Joshua Gans

From DSC:
I’m also reminded of what I’d like to see in a digital textbook — a series of “layers” that people — with various roles and perspectives on the content — could use to comment on and annotate an article:

.

Learning Ecosystems

The Online MBA comes of age [WSJ]

Reflections/questions re: “Fed to the Sharks: Housing & the Death of the Middle Class” [Smith]

Management and the Liberal Arts [Peter Drucker]

Harvard Business School Launches HBX [harvardmagazine.com]

Reflections on “A new digital ecology is evolving, and humans are being left behind” [Dvorsky]

Harvard Business School launching online learning initiative [Lavelle & Zlomek]

Wharton puts first-year MBA courses online for free [Lavelle]

We’ve lost our footing — there needs to be a higher calling/purpose for our businesses.

The management revolution that’s already happening [Denning]

Video Conferencing Guidelines for Faculty and Students in Graduate Online Courses [Gautreau, Glaeser, Renold, Ahmed, Lee, Carter-Wells, Worden, Boynton, Schools]

Reflections on “MOOCs and online learning: An interview with Jack Welch” [Glader]

Reflections on “Apple University hires another high-profile academic” [Elmer-DeWitt]

An enhanced version of the “Article of the Future” should be the textbook of today (if it isn’t already)

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