Monthly Archive for October, 2010

From The Economist

It was like going back to graduate-student days. We all had nicknames and were hanging out together,” says Guruduth Banavar, a senior executive at IBM. He recently spent time volunteering in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as part of a six-person team put together by the IBM Corporate Service Corps, working pro bono with the city government to help develop new strategies in areas ranging from public transport and water supply to food safety and innovation.

Launched in 2007 as a “corporate version of the Peace corps”, the programme is now being scaled up to 500 IBMers a year. Although many companies encourage their employees to do voluntary work, and some (such as Pfizer, a drugs firm) send them overseas to work with local community organisations, the IBM Corps reinvents the idea in several important ways, not least in its scale and its overt goal of doing well by doing good.

The idea was a result of trying to implement the vision of Sam Palmisano, IBM’s chief executive, to turn the company into a “globally integrated enterprise”. Needing to develop leaders capable of operating anywhere in the world, the firm decided to use volunteering as a form of training for high-flyers. There are benefits, says Stanley Litow, who has overseen the corps from its conception: communities benefit from an influx of talented problem-solvers, the company’s brand is polished and it gets a squadron of leaders with new skills. “And it’s a lot cheaper than a traditional international assignment,” says Mr Litow.

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From The Economist,

In the world of business they call it “the consumerisation of IT”: employees who are used to powerful smart phones and tablet computers in their personal lives are now demanding similar tools in their professional ones. Now business schools are also coming to terms with students who are increasingly tech savvy. Some even see the way they integrate technology with pedagogy as an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the B-school pack.

The beauty of MBA courses is that students can try out new technologies without fear of a serious backlash if the trials don’t pay off. “The threat level is just a grade, not a career,” explains Michael Koenig, the director of MBA operations at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business, which is among the vanguard of schools incorporating new technologies in their programmes.

Yet there are still concerns about whether new technology in the classroom will enhance the MBA experience or diminish it. Some professors fret that embracing gadgets for the sake of appearing “wired” will detract from the quality of classroom discussions. That has not deterred schools from experimenting. Innovations designed to help students manage information more efficiently, interact with their peers wherever they are and imbibe important business lessons via virtual simulations are all being tested.

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