workademia blog

The Economist: Academia vs. Publishers

workademia — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:16:56 +0000

Last week the Economist highlighted a growing concern over the methods and motives of academic publishing:

The traditional purveyors of research and academic -based knowledge must confront an era that is becoming more clearly defined by open and free access to information via the web. While certainly not a replacement for peer-reviewed science journals, workademia.com is trying to embrace a free and open yet effective model for online publishing. Please see previous blog posts for discussion, including:

•Peer-Review Approach
•Open Peer Review in Academia
•Pillars of Social Media

Regards,
B

Pilot at Rutgers

workademia — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:03:36 +0000

Had a fantastic few days meeting with the Rutgers MBAs, both Newark and New Brunswick. Everyone who stopped was a pleasure to talk to -a bunch of bright and energized future business leaders!

I’m looking forward to seeing the Rutgers publications!

Cheers,
B

Article on Online Reputation and A Truly Intellectual Presence Via Workademia.com

workademia — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 19:59:00 +0000

Good article from Mashable, highlighting some important statistics regarding a user’s online presence: article

Imagine having a published paper or presentation as a first Google result? Imagine that publication as a first result for a business topic-related Google search?

Workademia.com wants to give MBA students the opportunity to create and enhance their intellectual presence online. Even publication reviewers will be able to setup a professional profile, favorite publications and provide ratings and reviews.

Regards,
B

Social Media as a Marketing Tool for Universities (Mashable) and How Workademia.com Can Fit In

workademia — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:37:52 +0000

Some good advice in the article linked below. Schools should formulate a strategy for using social media outlets, including the identification of short and long term goals:

Mashable article

Workademia.com is a social media platform that is academically focused. While our primary goal is the capture, identification and dissemination of high value business content, there are direct benefits for students and schools:

Benefits to Students
-Link to profiles/publications as a source of intellectual achievement and credibility
-Be part of a free and open resource with visibility among companies and professionals (e.g. for networking opportunities)
-Gain awards and recognition for best-in-category papers

Benefits to Schools
-A new tool that extends the value of a student’s education directly to the business world
-Increased competition among students (across programs), ultimately increasing the quality of their work
-Exposure for the program among a community of business interested users and professionals

As part of an MBA program’s social media marketing strategy, workademia.com allows schools to leverage their most valued assets: their intelligent and savvy students.

Please contact us with questions or to get involved: access@workademia.com

Regards,
B

Social Media as a Successful Business Collaboration Tool

workademia — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:05:00 +0000

In the Harvard Business Review two gentlemen from Gartner Research, a tech consulting firm, provide a nice summary of different facets of social media. They also discuss important considerations in maximizing the benefits of social media as a business collaboration tool.

Harvard blog link

Workademia.com certainly embraces the six “pillars” of a successful collaboration medium:

Participation. This is one motivation behind our awards and recognition for top papers/presentations. And beyond the possibility of winning awards, as workademia.com grows and one day becomes a recognized resource, we certainly hope our contributors find the site to be a useful medium for building intellectual credibility as well as discovering networking and collaboration opportunities.

Collective. We hope that students and users of workademia.com in general will feel as though they are contributing to a rich, innovative resource. We have a number of ideas to help create a more involved community and give our contributors opportunities to drive the site’s direction, e.g. through voting.

Transparency. The best companies and products embrace their users and let them be the main drivers of development. This is especially true for user-generated content sites. Workademia.com provides the platform. Users publish, rate, comment, report abuse, edit and delete any content or personal information as they see fit. They also own their publications.

Independence. Once an account has been set up, users can publish, rate and review at will. Our model is open.

Persistence. Workademia.com allows our users to share, favorite and recommend publications. Future updates will make this even easier, e.g. through direct links to popular social sites. Our open peer-review model (see blog post here) helps elevate the best content through a focused rating system.

Emergence. Our hope is that the papers and presentations on workademia.com will help drive a new wave of intellectual discussions, debates and collaborations in the world of business. But we also recognize the possibilities for networking and simply providing a resource. We are embracing a continuous feedback model to help determine what our users want and how we should develop. We’ve already been surveying our pilot classes at Rutgers, even before their first uploads.

Building an effective social media platform requires flexible, proactive and reactive approaches to users. We hope that by embracing these six pillars workademia.com can create a valuable resource and tool for all of our users.

Regards,
B

MBAs for IT Professionals: Worth It?

workademia — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:05:00 +0000

Good advice in the Network World article below:

Network World article

An MBA can result in direct promotion and salary gains for certain industries, e.g. finance, but still has benefits for broader technical fields. Perhaps the difference in these gains should be considered when looking at the ROI of an MBA program’s costs.

Regards,
B

Dean of Kellogg: Make Business School Education Broader and More Intellectual

workademia — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:32:09 +0000

Dean Sally Blount from the Kellogg School of Management wrote an interesting piece in the Financial Times. Under mounting pressure to contain b-school costs and craft more practical and applied business educations for students (something discussed at a Harvard centennial review of MBA programs: link), she feels that schools should push back.

Dean Blount argues, especially in the context of current business and economic climates, that business schools need “…to educate these students to be complex thinkers and responsible citizens.”

Article: may require subscription

Salient points. And perhaps a new community of intellectual collaboration between academia and the business world can help students better understand the nuances and complexities of their fields. One of workademia.com’s goals is to create a platform for such collaboration, using the research-based papers of leading MBA students as catalysts for discussion and debate.

Regards,
B

Free Business Education for Small Business Owners: Part of Workademia.com’s Vision

workademia — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:31:00 +0000

NewsFactor ran an article on free or low cost business education options for small business owners and startups:

NewsFactor article

A new type of free business resource…
Workademia.com will offer papers and presentations from top MBA students, who will apply the latest academic theories and concepts to real-world issues and opportunities. Such insights could prove valuable to startups, small and medium-sized business owners and professionals of all types.

Stay tuned as we bring this vision to bear.

Regards,
B

A Counter to a Forbes Opinion Piece: MBA Programs Don’t Produce Leaders?

workademia — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:12:00 +0000

My MBA provided a foundation that, I believe, has allowed me to more effectively tackle challenges in my professional career and beyond. I value, and often refer back to, the lessons and strategies developed within my program at Rutgers. Is it what completely formed me into the professional I am today? …No. But without it, I’d be less informed, less prepared and certainly less savvy.

A Forbes opinion piece, found here, argues that MBA programs “don’t produce leaders” (even though these programs may claim that they do). I feel as though the author is sort of missing the point of an MBA, however, and in fact they can and do help create better leaders:

Soft skills make the leader…
Henry Mintzberg’s criticisms of MBA programs are used as a basis for the piece. One of his main points is that soft skills are what make a leader, so that adjectives like “experience, intuition, judgment and wisdom” are common descriptions of effective leaders. Couldn’t agree more, but then again traits such as being wise and having good judgment must flow from a core set of information and thinking constructs. These are constructs that, I believe, MBA programs can and do provide. The individual then takes this core knowledge and these analytical approaches and must effectively apply them to the “messy stuff –the intractable problems, the complicated connections (See Mintzberg quote in Forbes article)”.

An MBA program is not teaching you personally how to be confident, persevere or how to motivate others effectively. But from a soft skill standpoint it introduces these concepts and shows how they can impact success. And from a hard skill standpoint MBA schools can arm you with the ability to effectively identify and analyze important business forces and factors.

In most of my MBA courses, there was no right answer. We first learned about the core concepts: ‘market fundamentals’, ‘economic factors’ or ‘accounting practices’. We were then presented with hurdles and problems for which we were given the opportunity to formulate our own strategies in order to tackle them. And guess what? …I was suddenly more aware of business forces and factors, became a better strategist and was able to “think like a manager” (as well as work with my project team members as a pseudo-leader). And when I started formulating strategies and tackling challenges in my professional career using the approaches learned in my MBA courses, I suddenly became a real-life leader (of my department and eventually my business unit).

For MBA programs, striking the right balance of academic or scientific approaches vs. teaching the soft skills needed to effectively assess and successfully apply these approaches is a monumental challenge. To the author’s point, a lot of soft skills must be learned through experiences and real-life challenges (see a related blog post here). But to me, it’s not the job of MBA programs to manufacture leaders. MBA programs should educate students on the effective tools and strategies used for management and leadership; MBA graduates who best utilize these tools and strategies can then grow into true leaders.

Regards,
B

Businessweek: Looking at the Mormon Faith’s Development of Business Leaders

workademia — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:13:04 +0000

In June, Businessweek ran a piece on the Mormon faith’s ability to produce successful business leaders. What struck me most was the impact that missionary work had on these men and women. These experiences –getting dropped into a foreign country and being forced to learn the language and customs; going door-to-door and facing near constant rejection; being pared up with rotating missionary partners whom you mentor –all seem like good character-building life challenges to me.

It’s no wonder that this 2% of the U.S. population makes up so many of the business leaders of today…

Businessweek article

People inside and outside of MBA programs that manage to study abroad or take part in immersive opportunities abroad (teaching, habitat for humanity, etc.) often seem to value their experiences. When I meet these people, they have a self-awareness and humility that likely gives them an edge –perhaps especially in the business world.

Cheers,
B