Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Business faculty get sneak peak at presentation on innovation
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Betty Vawter Senior Editor, News & Information Services 812/480-1873 Johansson, author of "The Medici Effect" (published in 18 languages), will share his insights on innovation at USI in a program celebrating the opening of the Business and Engineering Center. Called Diversity Drives Innovation, the program is designed to enhance the College of Business' endeavors to be a catalyst for regional innovation. Johansson's keynote presentation will be open to the public. Details of his visit are being finalized and will be announced closer to his November appearance. In his book, Johansson discusses how breakthrough ideas occur when individuals bring concepts from one field into unfamiliar territory and offers examples of how to discover path-breaking innovations. He maintains these "intersections" are the keys to innovation. Johansson also explains a number of steps that individuals can take to assure that innovation occurs. An online video offers more information about him and his principles of innovation. The College of Business team attending the conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, included Dr. Mohammed Khayum, dean Bryan K. Bourdeau, instructor in business Dr. Kevin G. Celuch, professor of marketing and Dr. Nancy Kovanic, instructor in management. While in Pittsburgh, they toured the cutting-edge Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. The Entertainment Technology Center is home to a master's degree program that brings together technologists and fine artists to create new processes and tools for storytelling and entertainment. These are intended to entertain, inform, inspire, or otherwise affect an audience, guest, player, or participant. Khayum said the conference was a valuable experience. "We were able to see how true collaboration across diverse fields can produce projects driven by business and the local community. Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center is a good illustration of how interdisciplinary departments multiply knowledge to produce innovative results." The College of Business will offer the first course in the new entrepreneurship minor in fall semester. The first course will be called Ideation and Innovation and will foster the development of an entrepreneurial mindset. Boudreaux and Clutch will team teach the course. Kovanic said, "We plan to develop ideation spaces where students will be inspired to be innovative outside the traditional classroom." The new Business and Engineering Center offers an entrepreneurship lab equipped with a laptop computer for each student, prototyping software, virtual marketplace software, and other technology and space facilitating entrepreneurial thinking and collaborative learning. |
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