When I was in graduate school, I had the discipline to study hard, get involved in various club organizations that catered to diversifying my abilities in business and finance but always felt that something was lacking. We would learn about economics within the capitalist and communist systems, pros and cons of globalization, big government, the instability of non-entrepreneurial markets and every other concept that catered to our professor’s desire to legitimize their theories by blasting out intimidating formulas that were true in theory but impossible in real life. If an economic stimulus is fully functional on paper due to formulas and calculation yet has never and will never work in the ‘real world’, what’s the point?
College kids, are you getting ready for university classes? Most colleges are already trending toward more and more online courses with the very format you describe, at least for the core classes. The only thing I (with humor) take issue with in your statement is the part about “thousands of students per course..” yikes! I am a college teacher and have taught numerous online courses. They are more convenient for the student, but a LOT of work for the teacher, maybe more than traditional courses.
Walter Keichel’s book ‘Lords of Strategy’ delves into the ‘secret intellectual history of the new corporate world’. Fifty years ago, strategy was not a matter of mainstream enactment but in the 1960′s the corporate world was turned upside down by cutting edge business consultants: Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting Group, Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company, Fred Gluck, Managing Director of McKinsey & Company and Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor. These men transformed the way we look at business and the way business and finance are taught in universities all over the world. The element of strategy that is now so pervasive globally had to evolve from conceptual to theoretical to template tactic to exercisable and strategic.
Internationally, the top business strategies firms and corporate consulting firms are in the United States yet operate here and abroad. The Top Ten firms when taking into consideration globalization capabilities, governmental client base, regional rebound power, corporate ‘Who’s Who’ client base and overall exposure would easily be McKinsey & Co. based in New York, Bain & Company out of Boston, The Boston Consulting Group, Monitor Co. centralized out of Cambridge, Arthur D. Little, the omnipresent Booz Allen & Hamilton, newcomer Princeton Corporate Solutions a recent transplant to NYC from Philadelphia, Mercer Management Consulting in DC, AT Kearney in lonely Chicago and Mitchell Madison Group, another New York Madison Ave veteran. These companies have their strengths and weaknesses.
There is a world that exists within our world; a place where chaos is king and puppet masters reign supreme and misdirected remaining populace just beg to be controlled. This flip-side to common conscious reality is the corporate and political strategy of ‘chaos’. What? That’s it you say? You may not appreciate the power of comprehending this alter existence so let me explain.
From one blog maniac to another, I feel that blogging gives us all an opportunity to express our opinions, good and bad, off the cuff and to the masses. I remember getting bad service in a Subway sandwich shop with my family, I sent out a twitter to my group and in 24 hours I received a personal apology from the franchise owner and the corporate office with a hefty supply of free food vouchers that literally lasted us a year. It’s nice to know that we are able to keep companies in check using social media.
The undertaking of a corporate start-up is as American as apple pie and denim jeans. Start-ups come and go like the tide but for a very small, in the know group of beneficiaries; they can attribute their successes to a group of five power-brokers that are responsible for some of the most earth shattering mergers, political movements and corporate turnarounds in modern economic history.
The objective of today’s CEO is survival; survival in terms of enterprise position. The CEO has to pick up the shattered remnants left behind by the lies and failures of elected officials and institutions. Today’s senior executive needs to be a congressman, judge, mayor and priest all rolled up into one. The livelihood of one’s employees/constituency depends on the expansion tactics, emotional stamina, intellectual foresight and willingness to enter into an economic cage brawl to protect the company, shareholders and employees that depend on the entity’s survival for monetary sustenance.
When I go to political functions or functions that claim to have the who’s who in attendance I find it fascinating to stand back and watch people interact. Politicians and power CEOs always stick to surface conversations, upstarts converse while looking over the shoulder of their conversation partner waiting for the opportunity to dump them and move onto someone with more influence. I could watch this interaction for ours and speculate with friends where we believe the targets of our conversation to be in their professional and pedigree evolution.
For the economically nave and entrepreneurial utopia seekers, this isn’t an article for you. Press that ‘X’ at the top right side of the computer screen and open up a new browser and go to the official Obama page where you’ll get the lies you need in order to feel like your corporate concepts actually have a place in reality.