Yes, I'm a new MBA student. Yes, I'm an African-American Woman. No, the two ideas DON'T conflict with each other.
This is one of my professors:
Alok Srivastava, Ph.D. He teaches Business Analysis, Decision Science, and some other classes. However, he's got this quote that he uses - I don't know if this is his, or he's quoting someone else (I'll check & post later), but I love it:
The 20th Century was The Age of Mediocrity. There was much focus on simulating, ,copying or emulating the average, the normal...leading (in business, or in general) to everyone becoming average.
The idea, is that the 21st century is about innovation & best practices - finding new processes of creating value, since the process of reengineering competitive advantage has shortened, and become somewhat standardized.
Even though he's a Business Professor, he's got some alternative thoughts on Competitive Advantage - like it shouldn't be a secret: if only u know that u have a competitive advantage, then how can u prove u have it? once u release it, whatever it is, it's no longer secret - u MUST share it in order to use it. I'm pretty sure 1/2 the class checked out mentally after that one...
He also lectured (briefly) about Academia, and it's aloofness to the common person & the ordinary. His thought was that he would try to publish pieces that the average person could understand. His colleagues didn't agree: if the publication isn't esoteric, complicated and impossible to understand, they feel it doesn't have academic value. if it's impossible to understand, it automatically has merit. I was mentally agreeing, thinking: Isn't the idea to reach those you wouldn't normally reach?
ETA:: yeah, the Age of Mediocrity isn't his, but there are some interesting reads out there:
Mad Dog & The Golden Age of Mediocrity
Howard Hampton's Magical Mediocrity Tour
or u can Google it urself ;-)
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1 comment:
TBNY, despite the canned syllabus the dept forces him to give us, I think he feels his true "job" is to challenge our traditional business school thinking, so that we end up demanding more from the rest of our program. I kinda like that idea.
And THNX - needed some enouragement, because it's a challenge just to follow his thought processes sometimes - I could use dem bricks right about now!
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