This time of year is always exciting at the Deming Center as we invite fresh faces into the Leeds entrepreneurial community. Recently I met the new MBA students - the Class of 2011.
Every time I welcome a new group of MBAs I feel reinvigorated about what the Deming Center does for our students to facilitate opportunities and create access to the entrepreneurial community. We have the good fortune of being in Boulder, which has extraordinary entrepreneurial resources. We do the best we can to leverage our contacts to benefit students, and year after year we find that the benefit goes both ways.
Many of our new MBAs have come to Leeds specifically because of our reputation in entrepreneurship studies. At Deming we offer a broad philosophy and approach to entrepreneurial education - we believe it's a capstone and adds value to every student's business education. We give students skills that enable them to integrate all of what they learn in the traditional business curriculum, and that are applicable in any business setting. I've talked to a lot of colleagues and members of the business community and described the view we take, and I've never had one tell me, "No, we wouldn't want a student with those skills."
For instance, in feasibility and market analysis courses we walk students through a very rigorous creative and analytical process so they know how to identify and validate true product or business opportunities. The Business Plan course shows students how to integrate everything they've learned around marketing, finance and strategy in order to take an idea to fruition. We give students the opportunity to articulate their ideas in front of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors, and to benefit from feedback from people who have actually created companies.
I think of that as a capstone to a business education - an experience that ties together all of elements of business. You can go through business education and never have these experiences unless you take entrepreneurship courses.
While we have some great stories about students who have graduated from Leeds and started their own highly successful ventures, we don't gauge the success of our entrepreneurial program on whether our graduates go out and start companies. We position our students to go out and build industry sector expertise and their professional networks so that when they want to start their own venture, or are invited to join a start-up team, they'll be ready when the great idea comes along -- whether it's the day they walk out of this program or 15 years later.
I feel incredibly enthusiastic about launching into another year of cultivating the future business leaders and entrepreneurs at the Leeds Business School. I also look forward to using this new blog to keep our friends and partners updated on the most current happenings here at the Deming Center! Stay in touch and let me know what you'd like to hear more about.
Every time I welcome a new group of MBAs I feel reinvigorated about what the Deming Center does for our students to facilitate opportunities and create access to the entrepreneurial community. We have the good fortune of being in Boulder, which has extraordinary entrepreneurial resources. We do the best we can to leverage our contacts to benefit students, and year after year we find that the benefit goes both ways.
Many of our new MBAs have come to Leeds specifically because of our reputation in entrepreneurship studies. At Deming we offer a broad philosophy and approach to entrepreneurial education - we believe it's a capstone and adds value to every student's business education. We give students skills that enable them to integrate all of what they learn in the traditional business curriculum, and that are applicable in any business setting. I've talked to a lot of colleagues and members of the business community and described the view we take, and I've never had one tell me, "No, we wouldn't want a student with those skills."
For instance, in feasibility and market analysis courses we walk students through a very rigorous creative and analytical process so they know how to identify and validate true product or business opportunities. The Business Plan course shows students how to integrate everything they've learned around marketing, finance and strategy in order to take an idea to fruition. We give students the opportunity to articulate their ideas in front of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors, and to benefit from feedback from people who have actually created companies.
I think of that as a capstone to a business education - an experience that ties together all of elements of business. You can go through business education and never have these experiences unless you take entrepreneurship courses.
While we have some great stories about students who have graduated from Leeds and started their own highly successful ventures, we don't gauge the success of our entrepreneurial program on whether our graduates go out and start companies. We position our students to go out and build industry sector expertise and their professional networks so that when they want to start their own venture, or are invited to join a start-up team, they'll be ready when the great idea comes along -- whether it's the day they walk out of this program or 15 years later.
I feel incredibly enthusiastic about launching into another year of cultivating the future business leaders and entrepreneurs at the Leeds Business School. I also look forward to using this new blog to keep our friends and partners updated on the most current happenings here at the Deming Center! Stay in touch and let me know what you'd like to hear more about.
