MBA graduates cherry-pick technology employers

A little late, perhaps, but such is the way of the web that so much information makes it hard to keep track of everything.

My excuses for only now seeing a CNN article on the Top MBA Employers, published in May 2009.

What is interesting is that tech. companies like Google and Apple are in the top 5, alongside the predictable consultants such as McKinsey and BCG. Microsoft is at a still-respectable 12, but then there's a huge gap before getting to IBM (31), Cisco (42), Yahoo! (67), Ebay (69) and HP (70) and Nokia (85).

The tech. companies surely have a more secure future than many of the others in the list. BMW, for example - a car manufacturer - is at 22. Even the CIA fairs better than some, at 47.

So why is this? Is it based on salary? I doubt Google pay the best...

Is it based on prestige? Having to read endless reports and models by McKinsey and BCG for an MBA may give them an unfair advantage (if the post office began producing endless research, case-studies and 'nineteen Ns' models for logistics supply-chain management, maybe they'd be top of the list).

I admit to being surprised that MBA graduates aren't targetting tech. companies more, but perhaps the biggest problem is that they tend not to be taught much (in my experience) about new technology. They'll study ERP systems from the 80s, or how to project manage a new implementation, but they're not too hot on keeping up with the latest trends.

Is this the fault of the business schools who teach what is known (the trouble with new technology is no one can be 100% certain what will work and what won't) or with the students - who tend to be younger than the faculty - not engaging with their peers outside the MBA and seeing the potential of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, bio-tech and so on?

Some schools concentrate on entrepeneurship, but that doesn't help the majority who want a good job with good prospects and a good salary. It would be interesting to see a study of the tech. firms who have recruited MBA graduates, and an attempt to measure (against a control firm) whether or not the fledgling company has benefitted from their educated intake.

The Future of Learning Conference... what did we learn?

The Future of Learning Conference has just finished at Ashridge Business School, in conjunction with the University of Cape Town's Graduate Business School and Mount Eliza Exec. Ed., from the Melbourne Business School.

So, lot's of business school and executive education people talking about the future of learning in the business school and executive education environment - including yours truly presenting on Classroom 2.0 - how Web 2.0 stuff can be (and is) used in learning in the exec. ed world.

The main issue we have with integrating more technology in Executive Education is that the participants are often only with us (the educators) for a week. They may come back for other week-long modules over an 18 month period, but that doesn't always happen.

And so many of the participants on courses are unaware of Web 2.0/Social Media and technology in general. Thems that know, know. Them's that don't, have no idea.

So one could set up brief induction sessions at the beginning of modules, but there is an issue of learning curves getting people using this stuff in such a short space of time that makes it far harder to introduce than in, say, an undergraduate programme where the students are with the institution for 3 years + at a time.

SecondLife is the biggest problem, once again. It's too unintuitive... I'm not sure how and when we'll be able to actually put participants in the space for their learning. Certainly, when we do try it it will be slowly and with very small reduced groups.

But there are other issues of technology that are equally unembraced in current executive education. Social networks - for example - through corporate intranet systems are sorely underused to map competency frameworks to individuals according to their annual appraisals, future development needs, the needs of the organisation and so on.

The sessions in the conference were all insightful and very interesting - some people, such as Ashridge, are already facilitating Virtual Action Learning and even run a course for others to learn how... but no one seems to be using virtual worlds in executive education and I'm still looking for someone who might.

There were two sessions that particularly stood out for me. Well, three...

First of all, a session summarising research that shows that 10% of audio teaching (i.e. hearing) is remembered, compared to 65% if there is some visual stimulation as well. So the idea of downloading podcasts to listen to in the car isn't as effective as, in theory, watching them on the computer.... although there's a big issue as to how the podcast is created. Talking heads won't stimulate anyone, but judicious use of good powerpoint slides (and video and other materials) might make it work. It seems the brain likes to receive the same information via different senses and mix it all together to make sense of it. Good to know... and it explains why I like 'visual' powerpoints (images, photos, big bold (not pastel) colours).

Secondly, a talk last night after dinner by Professor Kevin Warwick on the future of Cybernetics. He famously had a chip implanted in his arm in 2002 (was it?) becoming the first Cyborg and working on the way the human nerve system can interact with electricity. So, on the medical level, we can enable amputees to operate robotic prosthetics from their brain; and it shows how Parkinsons sufferers can already chips implanted in their brains that are able to counter the brain-freeze that seems to cause the shake-attacks of Parkinsons.

Of course the 'fun' part is the suggestion that one day we'll be able to operate everything from our brain with no need to physically handle a control. I'm sure the military have long been interested in this, but it opens the gates to 'telepathy' (or transmitting from brain to brain with no external output such as speech, text or eye contact); faster implementation of thoughts into actions (useful, I'm sure, for the military too, but maybe it will help us otherwise); and the idea of having chips in our brains that will hold all the information we need. No need to learn by rote, try and memorise and regurgitate in exams.

What education would then need to concentrate on (which some places already do) is cognition (understanding and interpreting the information); communication and relationships.

And if we all spent less time on learning information and more time on relationships, in the words of Sam Cooke: "What a wonderful world it will be!"

Finally, the first keynote session this morning by Robert Burke was about Futures Thinking. In short - everything is moving so quickly, how on earth will we know what to teach next? One of the quotes (which I'll probably misquote here) was that 40% of what technical students will learn at university now will be obsolete more or less by the time they finish their course. He also recommended the following video on Youtube which has some lovely stats to make you think: "Really? Oh shit!". I recommend it: Shift Happens

What I will love to see is how much technology is used by exec. ed institutions in the coming months and years. Next year's iteration of the conference should be interesting to see if there have been any major changes in that direction.

What's in a word? A rose by any other name would be a thorny issue...

I was reading Kevin Gibbons blog at Econsultancy about 10 online marketing phrases that should be banned.

Phrases such as Brandscaping, Mindshare and Web 3.0. In fact I wouldn't just blame marketers for Web 3.0... you will find all manner of techie-geeks telling you that Web 2.0 is so old and Web 4.62 is the latest version... but of course it's all bollocks.

O'Reilly came up with the Web 2.0 term, but if he'd called it, instead, 'Social Internet', we might have been spared everyone trying to find what the next version will be.

And of course the next version won't be a huge jump. It will be a gentle evolution, as always, in the adoption of new technologies.

And, of course, most people are still in the dark as to what 'Web 2.0' means - thankfully - as it gives me a chance to present and teach on the topic.

Then I saw the link to Simon Rattray's 'Fluidblog' about marketing- and management-speak in general, with terms that rightly ought to be banned on pain of public flogging, such as: Blue Sky Thinking, Thinking outside the box and Pushing the envelope - to name but a few. I remember my first times in 'proper' business meetings in a 'proper' large company where people were using these terms. And I have to admit, I thought 'what a load of tossers'.

Another Econsultancy blog, this time by Chris Lake, also talked recently about PR-Speak in the same derrogatory tones, with terms such as: Leveraging, Synergy and, perhaps the worst of all, Paradigm shift. How many bloody trade fairs and seminars have I been to where someone has mentioned how the industry or the sector or their underpants are going through a 'paradigm shift'?

However, mea culpa mea culpa, I have been brainwashed and converted to the cause and now will even be known to say Keep me in the loop and Adding value... I blame the MBA personally. Not necessarily the MBA course I'm doing, but MBAs in general... and specifically the management 'gurus' who write the books and the theory that the MBAs have to learn and absorb.

To my shame I even used, this very morning, the terms 'leveraging relationships' and 'discuss synergies'! What a wanker!

But then the problem is that all language we use is suffused with vocabulary and influences from modern technology and literature. We listen to mp3s, not records (or gramophones). We zap the channels on TV, because we can... our parents or grandparents had to get out of their chair to change channels - and probably only had 2 to choose from anyway.

Even the term 'management-speak' is, of course, a reference to the 'newspeak' of George Orwell's 1984. But our language, unlike newspeak, is becoming richer, not poorer. We absorb words in English from every language such as Guanxi (Chinese), Sushi (Japanese), Entrepeneur (French) and Feckin' Eejit (George W. Bush)... and the problem with wealth is that sometimes it is badly spent. Not all the money goes on culture. It doesn't all go on self-improvement. Sometimes it goes on benchmarking and brainstorming.

So we will inevitably suffer fools, sometimes gladly, who misuse some phrases and overuse others, and we will even do it ourselves. For such is language. It is fluid. It grows. It moves, like a drunk with a limp, in mysterious ways.