Henley MBA e-newsletter for October 2009

Dear all,  

Whether your measure is calendar, fiscal or academic, you probably won’t be surprised to know that this has been the busiest month of the year here at Henley. The cycle of the MBA is now largely annual, so there have been plenty of Stage 1, 2 and 3 starts, arranged with much the same unrelenting elegance as the line of jets manoeuvred in the skies over Henley to feed in for landing at Heathrow. The pace has meant that, sadly, this newsletter is a few days late coming out to you, so apologies.

In the last month or so, we’ve had new starts for groups from Malta, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and the UK, as well as in Trinidad. As mentioned, many other groups have reached either Stage 2 or 3 workshops for the first time, and what with welcomes to a new full-time MBA intake as well as the Executive MBA we’re feeling very full. As I look out of my office window, I see the space normally occupied by rabbits on the lawn is being taken by preparations for work to be done on Paddock accommodation. Before those of you who know and love those bedrooms break out the champagne, I should point out that this phase of work is largely structural – work on the same level of refurbishment of bedrooms we have seen in Thames Court will follow later.

 A new name for the programme

I don’t know how personally you each felt about the tag “distance” to describe mode of study on your MBA. I’m guessing that probably you either ignored it (because it had no connotation, or no  positive connotation, in your part of the world) or disliked it (because it created a somewhat old-fashioned or snail’s-paced impression way to learn), although you recognised it as a term often used to differentiate the three-year MBA from other lengths or modes of study. Well, I’m pleased now to announce that with immediate effect we are rebranding the programme from “Distance Learning” to “The Henley MBA by Flexible Learning”.

You will begin to see us use this where necessary to differentiate from other ways of achieving the same degree.  You are all on the Henley MBA, and you share this in common with the Full-Time and the Executive programme members. However, we see that you may also need more flexibility in how and where you do that studying and, more importantly, you benefit from tailoring your assignments to your own organisations.  We will take time to allow an elaboration of what this term means for Henley over the coming months. Of course, just as the change from Management College to Business School took time to get used to, so will it take a little while to get our tongues round the new title. Since Henley is already regarded as the market leader in this format of management learning, I’ve no doubt that we will make it our own.

Linkedin

I’m really enjoying the correspondence and energy on the Henley Linkedin group at the moment. We’re still growing (nearly 4,700 now) and the two sub-groups are finding their voice. There are several discussions running at the moment, including one on the new EIU and FT MBA rankings, which brings me on to…

Henley in the rankings

We have had news lately of Henley Business School’s position in the rankings issued by the Financial Times (FT) and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).  To quote from our own website :

“Our overall positions remain very similar with our Executive MBA still ranked 44th in the world but we are now 6th in the UK and 15th in Europe (we were 5th and 13th last year).  The Henley Full-time MBA remains at number 4 in the UK, number 9 in Europe and is now ranked 21 in the world (20 last year).”

I was at an MBA fair in Frankfurt this weekend and I think what I find reassuring about the Henley brand is not that it attracts swarms (and swarms at MBA fairs usually mean either you are the big local player or you are an MBA sausage factory) but that we retain a focus on experience in management that is the envy of many of those jostling for position on the listings.

Home Straight Community

Here at Greenlands, Richard and Mike ran yet another successful Home Straight event, timed not-so-subtly the day after the graduation to encourage those attending to focus on the goal of finishing. Mike reports that this month, for the first time, the majority of those in the group now have accepted Dissertation proposals in. Clearly, for any of you out there who are in the same or similar place in programme 4 (Part Three), the key message is “focus on the proposal”, as then you have a lifeline of contact and support from the Henley team. Also, keep an eye on your registration/re-registration clock, and make sure you apply for more time (if you are eligible).

Research Corner

Programme Member John Barnes has the following request to assist him in his research on Six Sigma implementation in UK manufacturing organisations. John has info on this in the Henley Linkedin discussion area and can be contacted at (email withheld from blog)

Christina Unworth, Finance Director at Grohe Ltd and an alumnus, writes: “I currently work for Grohe Ltd, which is a UK subsidiary of Grohe AG, the leading brand for sanitary, water technology products and systems. (Taps, showers and sanitary systems).  We also sell Kitchen taps but this is a part of the market that has not yet been explored in any detail. 

I was wondering if this could be used for a disse rtation student to explore the whole Kitchen faucet market. Including routes to market, distribution channels, market make up and value, competitor analysis etc.”

If anyone is interested (it could also perhaps be an IMP topic), then her email is (witheld from blog)

Finally, Linda Thorne (linda.thorne@henley.com for more details), here at HBS, writes of another potential MBA research project:

“Project Title: Develop airline industry revenue forecast model and its impact on distributors and consumers

 (details witheld from blog) 

Part Three Exam

This message will only affect a very few of you now, but a reminder to anyone still yet to complete their Part Three examination (under the old curriculum) will need to do so in the final sitting, which is in December. In order to be granted access, you will need to provide an appeal, which you can address to Suzanne Goddard at suzanne.goddard@henley.com

Any Other Business

Last year I plugged a HR conference being held in Vienna. Marc Coleman (marc@hrneurope.com) has informed me that another event is happening in February 2010 (apocalyptically titled: “Performance and the Next Wave in the War for Talent”) and details can be found at www.hrneurope.com.

We’re in the middle now of “Green Week” at Henley, whereby awareness is being raised of the School’s efforts to promote sustainable management policies and practices, such as ISO 14001. Of course, this is a very welcome and important topic, especially for someone constructing a PhD around the work of Gregory Bateson!

If you’ve read this far into the newsletter, you’re either looking for distraction activities to avoid writing assignments, or you enjoy online learning and education. If this is you, then as part of our developments to up-grade our VLE, HenleyConnect, we are actively seeking someone who would agree to participate in a development panel alongside developers and faculty. You will need to be within easy travelling distance of Henley and be willing to commit to join us in meetings in November to January. If you would like to know more, then please let me know.

Finally, and off topic from management education, I’d like to say a quick thank you to the two or three individuals who have bought my book on Amazon – the result is a sales ranking of about 1,300,000.

Chris Dalton

The evolution of ideas

I have been allowing the limitations caused by the day job to allow the brain to incubate a number of ideas regarding where the PhD is going.

Now I have a moment in limbo, as it were, here in Trinidad to try and draw out some of those ideas and see if there any insights.  And there may be some; but the overall sense I have is of being dangerously unproductive. I will need to have something to show from all this thinking by late November in order to have a basis for data collection, though there’s a recursive caveat even there.

The first thing is that I have noticed how the reading and the thinking has begun to inform how I think and how I approach, for example, the workshops with Henley MBAs.  I feel better informed to frame the whole subject of learning, which is not the same as saying I have come across a pat or neat formula to define it. Bateson’s epistemology, and his investigation of learning theory is not directed toward simple solutions or algorithms.

Anyway, the thought that emerged on the plane was a moment of clarity about the key role that evolution plays in this.  In other words, without an understanding of evolution (which is an explanatory principle for learning in all living systems) there is no way to understand what learning is for human beings. Bateson, of course, had a particular view on what evolution is, and what it is not.

The a-ha moment was the realisation that I need to begin with the wider view in my research. Up to now, I kind of had it the other way round, that somehow the examination of human narratives on learning would reveal something about the nature of the evolutionary process (which is of a higher level of abstraction). This is an early formulation, and needs further thought.

If music be the food of business…

Ran a workshop today for the new Full-Time MBA group at Henley. It was a challenge to be up front and on my feet for what amounted to a full day, especially considering that this is a pretty mature and motivated bunch. I tried something new, at least new for use here at Henley, which was an activity called “Orchestra”. It was a whole-group activity in which they were required to organise themselves into sections of an orchestra and then create not just their instruments, but also an original piece of music, which they rehearsed and performed in front of staff and faculty.

It worked pretty well, and out of some chaotic preparation came some really original ideas and a good team spirit. The use of a vacuum cleaner, bag of lentils and a wheelie bin was inspired.

Henley MBA e-newsletter September 2009

Dear all,

 

After a month off, the newsletter is back and this one is packed to bursting with interesting stuff, but first I hope you’ll indulge me in some attempt to connect you to Henley.

 

Let me paint you the picture. We’ve been enjoying a couple of weeks of classic English indian summer, with blue skies populated by the occasional Red Kite, warm day-time breezes, cool evenings and still, misty mornings. The leaves are beginning to turn, creating a palette of colours to reflect in the steely, smooth of the Thames, where teams of rowers practice and train, followed closely by their coaches on bicycles. Lunches are eaten with the doors of the Hayworth Room open to the sun and air, and the benches and parkland have been more enticing for meetings that the break out rooms. The monastic concentration of those working on assignments in the library contrasts to the labour being put into the renovation of Thames court bedrooms, and other building and repair activities. Indeed, for much of the month, Henley has been a quiet buzz of activity, all managed with quiet efficiency by the catering, hotel and administration staff. That buzz of background activity is actually what creates the tranquillity for members on programmes here, of course, and that’s exactly what helps make Henley special as soon as you rumble across the cattle grid.

 

October is going to be even busier, and although no doubt the weather will shift and the days darken earlier, the same magic will be here. The marquee for the graduation will be the next sign of where we are in the ‘learning’ season.

 

The Annual Survey 2009

 

In excess of 300 of you responded to the annual survey, which is a fantastic response rate. Thank you. I have been collating the results and looking through the hundreds of comments made in order to create a summary. Once this is done, I will be posting a file on each intake’s HenleyConnect under Programme Support with the aggregated scores, (including comparisons to scores from 2008 and 2007).

 

This year you reported increased levels of satisfaction in 11 areas surveyed (including how you feel about the content, scheduling and structure of the MBA) and falls in 6 others (including tutor support). So while the general trend is up, there are areas that we need to improve on. We will examine individual comments to see where there are specific ideas or issues we can deal with.

 

LinkedIn

 

I’m pleased to say that the group is making more friends and is likely to top 5,000 members before the end of the year. We now have two sub-groups forming. One is an alumni group focused on Leadership of Organisational Change, and is being managed by Mike Green and Situl Shah, while the other is interested in gathering entrepreneurs or those with an interest in entrepreneurship, and this is managed by Ines Kaps-Mladenhoff.

 

As ever, if you would like to join the Henley Linkedin community, please make sure that your profile is up-dated and accurate. For anyone starting their MBA after August 2008, this should include referring to us as Henley Business School.

 

Home Straight Community

 

Mike and Richard are gearing up to run their second gathering this year, which will be on Sunday October 18th. Of course, this is just a day after the graduation ceremony, so they have the wonderful draw of the marquee and empty champagne bottles to spur those working through the dissertation. This event is open to Henley-based candidates who are very much behind on their work at the end of the programme.

 

Elective News

 

One quick point I’d like to make now (and will repeat over coming months) is to announce that last year’s successful International Business Environment elective, which was a study week in Hungary, will be repeated in March 2010. Details are in the elective area on HenleyConnect, but it would be great to get a full complement of participants. The week commences from Sunday March 7th and concludes on Friday 12th. I will be leading the trip, under the tutelage of Prof Emilio Herbolzheimer.

 

Good ideas Corner

 

No-one has emailed me during September to ask me to promote their research for the MBA, so I’m launching a new item to showcase some of the neater suggestions and hints that have come across my desk during the month. Feel free to send in more….

 

With thanks to Woz Ahmed, a tip for anyone who has chosen to activate their University of Reading username and password is that doing so also entitles you to discounted software purchases. Activating your UoR username allows you also to login to the wi-fi on campus, view your (automatically created) student email account on RISISweb (where you can set a rule to forward any mail the university sends you) and access the online learning resources. All this is in addition, of course, to the resources you already use on HenleyConnect.

 

Another great tip, actually one that was mentioned before, is the TED web site. Subtitled “Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”, this site contains a whole bank of high-quality video presentations by some very accomplished speakers, so visit www.ted.com to see more. For example, this talk, by Dr Oliver Sacks, got my interest.

 

New Intakes

 

At the end of September I was privileged to be in South Africa for the second time this year to launch the Henley MBA. This was not because it didn’t work first time round, rather this was our second intake, which I think shows the tremendously exciting potential of southern Africa in business education as well as being proof of the dedication of the Henley team there. Late last week we welcomed our newest Henley-Based intake, HB42, which numbered 56 members. Of these, 16 were beginning the Project Management MBA. Tomorrow we see the latest groups from Denmark and Sweden coming here for Dynamics of Management.

 

Events

 

From the alumni team, here are three up-coming events in the UK. If you know of any November/December events likely to interest members where you are, please let me know during October, and let’s make this less UK-centric.

 

8 October 2009 – London & SE Alumni Group Annual Dinner at the Athenaeum, London. We will be having a guest speaker, who will be introduced on the night and are also delighted to announce that Chris Bones and the alumni team will be joining us as guests. A great opportunity to network and dine in fine surroundings. Partners and business guests welcome. Numbers will be limited to 65.

02 November 2009 – Pharma Forum Winter Meeting – “Customer Marketing Challenges in Pharmaceuticals” with Professor Merlin Stone, leading expert on direct and relationship marketing, customer care, customer loyalty and customer information systems and speaker at the forthcoming Chartered Institute of Marketing Annual Conference – at One Alfred Place, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7EB. 

12 November 2009 – Keynote Lecture Lecture Series 2009 with Ian Powell Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers on 12th November 2009.

 

Who’s News

 

I promised, but never delivered, a proper introduction to Kathy Jarvis, who took up position as Programme Manager for the Flexible MBA (I’m getting used to this) in July. Kathy was previously the manager of the admissions office at Henley, which has helped tremendously as she is already familiar with many aspects of the MBA.  Kathy was replaced in that post by Catherine Boyle.

 

You will probably all have heard by now that in September Chris Bones announced that he would be standing down as Dean of Henley Business School at the end of the academic year, next July. The University has already begun the dean search, and I’ll keep you informed as and when I hear anything officially.

 

Congratulations to all those reading this who are about to graduate this month, and fingers crossed to all of you waiting to hear about your exam results after the Programme Examiners meeting at the end of October.

 

Chris

On yer bike!

Every now and again, there is an article in one of the UK broadsheets about cycle couriers. The Guardian has just run this article, and reading it makes me wonder why, if people are interested, they don’t read how tough it really was “back in the day”…

In the swim

"The Liffey Swim (1923) - Yeats

Back from Dublin at the weekend, where I ran a workshop for one of the MBA intakes to focus them on writing their big Stage Two assignment, the Integrated Management Project. It was a pleasure to be there and see our Irish partner, the Irish Management Institute (IMI), which is housed in a concrete and glass building that one suspects was recognisably of its time when built and which may well be considered a great example of that school of architecture in the future, but which hasn’t quite weathered its environment yet. Like Henley in the UK, the IMI is a free-standing and independent venture in talks with a university (Cork) for merger.

On the way back to the UK I had some time on a lovely September afternoon to walk around the city centre. With the second vote on the Lisbon Treaty coming up in a couple of weeks, there was hardly a lamppost in the town that did not have at least one or two posters campaigning “No” or “Yes”. It appeared to me that the yes vote was slightly more dominant, and this appears to be the opinion of those I spoke to as well. The initial no was delivered on the back of some slick and impassioned campaigning by Libertas (now more or less absent from the debate) and a coalition of “fundamentalist Catholic” (a term to send shivers down the spine) groups.  The latter are still vocal but the argument seems to have swung another way following the economic collapse of the Celtic Tiger. The other thing that everyone there is talking about is NAMA (National Asset Management Agency), which is the Irish Government’s plan to deal with the credit crunch in property by buying up the portfolios of the major Irish Banks. The controversy revolves, of course, around the price of this since no-one wants to compensate the banks and developers for the speculative property boom that Ireland went through.

On the way through the city centre I picked up a copy of Meda Ryans’ book “the day Michael Collins was shot”, which details the week or so around the ambush and which has quite a lot of testimony from Emmet Dalton. Then, as I was crossing the Liffey on O’Connell bridge I was in time to see the  200 or so swimmers in the 90th annual Liffey swim make their way against the tide to the finish line. Quite a crowd of onlookers formed to see them go by and a couple of German tourists asked me “how long is the swim?” Since one of  our MBA programme members that I had done the workshop with that morning works in the Dublin Fire Brigade, and was one of the organisers of the day (providing the decontamination showers at the end) I was able to tell them that is was over 2km. “Ah, not so long” was the reply, at which I felt the ancestral need to defend the grandness of the task. “It is against the tide,” I added, staring him down until and forcing a grudging semblance of being impressed onto his face.

Whisky galore? Sadly, no.

Just got back from Johannesburg, where we launched what is Henley’s second MBA intake this year in South Africa.  They were a really friendly group and it was great fun to do, and I can’t help noticing that somehow wherever they are in the world, the people who choose this programme seem to have several things in common. Perhaps it’s a maturity of outlook that comes with age, or maybe a determination to extract every ounce or gramme of value from being there. Whatever the cause, the result has got to be every adult educator’s dream to work with.

On the journey back I managed to drop two bottles of duty-free alcohol onto the stone floor in the gents’ toilet at Heathrow. Luckily, next to a sink, but it was distressing to see all that whisky go to waste!

Should business schools be in the business of putting managers into creative double binds?

After a six week drought of time and energy to pursue it, I have just started to get back to the business of writing things down for my PhD.  With a new and deliciously abstract focus on epistemology.

All PhD candidates are required to show that they have justified their research question and methodology consistent with an explicit epistemology. For some, I suspect this is probably akin more to the drunk man’s use of a lamp-post for support rather than illumination or, worse, the adoption of a convenient theory of knowledge simply to fit the results of the research. 

For me, though, the epistemology is now the question, and one seeks to find data to shed some light on the epistemology, not the other way round.  Bateson once defined epistemology as a) “branch of philosophy concerned with how it is possible to know anything, what is truth, and so on…” and ”the study of Natural History”, which meant for him the study of “how people think they know things” as well as “how people know things”. There was no need to define ontology (study of being) except within this definition of epistemology; they were essentially the same thing because in the world of living systems all knowledge is a matter of differentiation and classification of classes of differentiation. The differentiated world of form is one that “exists” in abstraction, inevitably removed from the undifferentiated, unknowable world of substance, of  ”things as they are”. 

It follows that, in this branch of philosophy, “management” is not the name of an action but the name of a class or aggregate set of actions which become so labelled only from a view of the context in which those actions are taken.

So beginning from an epistemology that views all living organisms as systems and subsystems defined by patterns and by patterns of patterns, with patterns being the properties of difference, in my research I now propose use an exploration of human narrative to help me better understand how to appreciate what we mean by “patterns of patterns” and what we mean (in Management Education) when we talk about “learning”.

Jamaican food – in Wheatley? Fe true.

We were driving along toward the Asda in our village, Wheatley, and as we passed the Maidenhead Aquatics centre (the best place for garden ponds and plant-life in, er, Wheatley) we saw a sign for “Tuddy’s real Jamaican food – served daily”, and it was pointing to a mobile van parked in the Aquatic centre’s car park.

Now for a village we’re pretty spoiled for choice with food really. Two Chinese takeaways, an Indian restaurant, a chippy, a deli and four pubs – not to mention Raymond Blanc’s world famous le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons a couple of miles down the road in Great Milton, but we had to stop. My wife’s father lives in Jamaica so we were dying to compare this with the fantastic food we’d eaten on our visit last year.

We werent disappointed – even if the way in which the food was being prepared reflected all Jamaicans’ attitude toward time. If you’re passing, stop at Tuddy’s for some jerk chicken, rice and peas, festivals or ackee…

Henley MBA e-newsletter for July and August

Dear all,  

With the summer holidays (at least in the northern hemisphere) in full swing, this newsletter will cover both July and August. This is somehow appropriate, however, since we have just crossed – without ceremony or fanfare - our first anniversary as Henley Business School. Just over a year ago at this time we were on the brink of merging with the University of Reading, and when I look back to my newsletter for that month I see that it was all about mixed feelings, so it’s perhaps appropriate now to take a quick look back at the last 12 months and see what sense can be made of it.  

On my drive to work from Oxford in recent days my usual short-cut through the Chiltern lanes and villages and valleys (a drive I really enjoy) has been re-routed because of repair work being done to the road surfaces. My first reaction at seeing the “road ahead closed” sign was annoyance; a longer way round, a less familiar route with the chance of getting lost, and the removal of my vista on the hill with the windmill featured in the children’s film “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang”. But then I realised what the other side of that coin is – a new view, (a road less travelled?) and the subsequent discovery of a wonderful, single-track lane sunk into chalky woodland banks on the approach to Turville, a picturesque village made famous as Dibley in the BBC comedy “The Vicar of Dibley”.  

The merger has been something of the same feeling, really. Over the last 12 months we’ve all come to realise that the new story is what we make it to be – and what we choose to make it be as a Business School can be just as interesting, just as revealing and just as exciting (though undoubtedly different) as anything we might have constructed as a College. What’s more, in the current market, there may have been quite a different plot being played out had we remained HMC. After a year of finding our feet (sometimes treading on each other’s toes), we’re now beginning to see some of the effects and benefits of being part of the University. Over the remainder of the year, I will try to bring you news of these and other programme developments.  

The Annual Questionnaire 2009!  

Old hands on the Henley MBA will, I’m sure, eagerly be anticipating this year’s annual survey, which I will launch some time before the end of August. Each year, we ask you to rate us (and yourselves) on several key performance indicators, as well as giving us feedback that may be more reflective and considered than at the end of a workshop session.   You will receive an email with a link to the survey. Last year the response rate nearly doubled from 2007, so I hope we can keep that trend up.  

Henley on Linkedin  

We’re at about 4,500 members now, so still growing, and there are quite a few discussion threads running. The current featured one is titled “A Hippocratic Oath of Managers?” and debates the idea, popular in the US at the moment, that management begin to view itself as an ethical profession. We’re also in the process of launching the first Alumni Special Interest (sub-)Group on Henley LinkedIn – “Leadership of Organisational Change”, managed by Kate Greaves. This will be a venue for discussion and networking on this issue and will tie in to other Henley Alumni activities.   Don’t forget, make sure your profile is accurate and up-to-date before applying for membership of this online community.    

Henley on Twitter  

My position on Twitter is that it is a great answer to a question we haven’t worked out yet. However, I am very happy to tell you that Henley is now on Twitter and you can follow our tweets on http://twitter.com/henleymba. You can follow mine on https://twitter.com/dalty, though I’m afraid I’m an infrequent user. Much more informatively, our library team are also using the service and can be followed on http://twitter.com/UoRHenleyLib.  

Upcoming Events in the UK  

Looking ahead, the alumni team have circulated the following info and links:

10 September 2009 – eBusiness Alumni Group. is pleased to announce Nick Kirkland Chief Executive of CIO Connect will be presenting up to date findings on their current research in changing business demands of Chief Information Officers. The presentation will be followed by group discussions. Held at the Athenaeum club, London. amanda.proddow@henley.com

17 September 2009 – Leadership in Organisational Change Alumni Group  introduces its next event to be held at Fujitsu Services, 22 Baker Street, London W1U 3BW. Their speaker is David Smith, CIO Fujitsu UK & Eire and Director of Core Shared Services.

17 September 2009 – Third Sector Network Alumni Group – “The Impact of Technology on the Third Sector”. Location: Saatchi & Saatchi, 80 Charlotte Street, London W1A 1AQ. Presentations from Fiona Dawe, OBE, Chief Executive of YouthNet UK; Gemma Went a specialist in Social Media and PR, and Prof. David James, Henley Business School.

25 September 2009 – Henley Golf Challenge. Now in its 4th year this popular golf event will be held at The Springs Golf Club, Wallingford. £55.00 per person. Only 12 places remaining.

30 September 2009 – MBA Career Development Service. Effective Self Marketing Workshop at Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames, UK. Contact Linda Thorne.  Another set of dates for (some of) your long-range diaries are the graduation dates for 2010, which are Saturday 15 May 2010, Saturday 16 October 2010 and Saturday 14 May 2011.  

Refurbishment of the Thames Court bedrooms at Greenlands  

Much anticipated by those who have stayed in one of the “model” rooms in Thames Court in the past year or so, just started at the end of July was Phase 1 of the Thames Court Bedroom Refurbishment. This covers 24 bedrooms in Windrush House and completion date is Friday 4th September.   

A great way to present  

I’m grateful to Alexander Voss in GM01 for forwarding a link to a visual presentation by Swedish academic Hans Rosling that complemented the input on Global Business Environment. I found the style of the presenter very engaging and the use of their visual aid technology seamless with their message. Take a look: http://www.gapminder.org/videos/ted-talks/hans-rosling-ted-2006-debunking-myths-about-the-third-world/. It also has a link to the software he was using.  

On a similar theme, technical issues that made the use of SameTime for synchronous meetings have now been solved and the system should be functioning. I ran a webinar for prospective new members last week and the system functioned well, with video-audio input from the US, Ireland and the UK, so I hope that those of you who are using this system to work together will keep trying. My learning has been that it takes quite careful preparation to run an online meeting, and often it is better to have everyone’s microphone muted at the start until things settle down and the agenda (and work space) has been presented.    

Home Straight Community  

Richard and Mike report that, for the first time since it was set up, the proportion of members who have submitted Dissertation proposals now exceeds those who have yet to do so. There are some great personal stories emerging from the community and the support from the tutors is fantastic, but it still remains a mountain to climb. You can help yourselves, if this is where you are in your MBA, by keeping an eye on your registration clock and communicating sooner rather than later with your course manager/administrator or personal tutor (in the UK) if you need help.

While I’m here in Part Three of the MBA, let me remind anyone still facing their Part Three exam (Strategic Direction, Business Transformation and Strategic Financial Analysis) that the final first sitting for this exam will be in September 2009, with a re-sit opportunity in December 09.

(Research Corner)

Thanks to all those amongst you who volunteered to fill out my online questionnaire, which is helping inform my thinking for my PhD. Occasional blog entries on the topic will educate anyone who is curious as to what I am looking at in my research, but suffice it to say that the answer that I have found most helpful in the survey so far is the one that asks the person filling it out how they found the experience of doing so…

Help with Dissertation Research: Robert Preston writes: “I’m investigating the level of maturity of Supplier Relationship Management practices within the UK Financial Services industry, the extent to which formal models have been adopted and the degree to which the current economic downturn is influencing management approaches.  If you currently work or have recently worked in Financial Services in the UK and have experience of managing suppliers or knowledge of how suppliers are being managed, I would really appreciate your help in completing an on-line survey. The survey only takes 5 minutes to complete, the results of which I would be more than happy to share with you (just let me know). All individual responses to the survey are anonymous so please rest assured that your answers will be treated in the strictest confidence.

The survey has been extended to Friday 14th August and can be accessed by clicking the following link: (removed from the Blog).

Chris Dalton