Roadside MBA will be back on the road June 12 through 16! We'll hit two countries, two states, two provinces (and our windshield will probably hit many thousands of bugs!) Yes, we're flying to our neighbor to the north, starting our trip in Thunder Bay, Ontario. From there, we'll hit Duluth, Minnesota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Follow along on twitter or our blog! … [Read more...]
Controversy on the #StrategyGrowthMOOC
The Roadside MBA team has been enjoying presenting our MOOC Strategic Thinking for Growing Your Enterprise this month! In our live sessions, we've been hosting interviews with growing businesses from around the world, and we've also started a new feature: Controversy of the Week! In this segment, we try to kick up some controversy by taking management truisms --- you know, those things that people say about business that sound so good they must be right --- and turning them on their head. Last week, we took on "Grow or Die!" and argued that, for some businesses, it might be important … [Read more...]
The Roadside MBA MOOC: Strategic Thinking for Growing Your Enterprise
The Roadside MBA team is partnering with Stanford GSB to offer our first MOOC! After years globe-trotting, book-writing, and trying out new course material on unsuspecting MBA students, we've picked the best ideas from the Roadside MBA canon and packaged them together in a free, online course. During the course, we'll ask you to think about questions like: What scales and what doesn't? What does your cost structure tell you about your future? Where can you add value for your customers so that they will be willing to pay a price that can ensure you stay profitable as you … [Read more...]
Emmy Nomination for Roadside MBA!
The Roadside MBA Multimedia Project has been nominated for an Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, San Francisco/Northern California Chapter. See the press release here! We are nominated in the "Informational/Instructional-Program/Special" Category. The other nominee is a fun piece on the one-year anniversary of San Francisco's new Exploratorium from the Bay Area's local ABC affiliate, KGO Channel 7. This is a "local" Emmy, the kind that your local TV news station might brag about, so we won't be meeting Bryan Cranston at the after-party. But there is a … [Read more...]
The Roadside MBA Multimedia Project Wins Gold!
We just found out that the Roadside MBA Multimedia Project --- Big Lessons from America's Small Businesses --- won "gold" in the News & Research Video category of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Western district awards. We beat out Cal and the UC system. A hearty congratulations to everyone at Stanford GSB who worked on the project! Check out the announcement here. … [Read more...]
Roadside MBA on Monster.com
Roadside MBA has two new pieces on Monster.com's Resource Center. In "Visiting America's Small Business Innovators," Scott Schaefer gives an overview of the Roadside MBA project, and hits a couple of highlights from the road. In "Screen Candidates to Find the Elusive Needle in a Haystack," there's a short book excerpt about our visit to Southside Family Fun Center in St. Joseph, Missouri. … [Read more...]
Schaefer on the Admissions Straight Talk Podcast
Scott Schaefer recently joined Linda Abraham, founder of Accepted.com, to talk Roadside MBA on the Admissions Straight Talk Podcast. Have a listen as Scott discusses the Roadside MBA Manifesto, how the Roadside MBA project has changed his teaching, and what he wishes MBA students would come to campus knowing. … [Read more...]
Oyer in today’s New York Times
Paul Oyer was featured in today's New York Times Frequent Flier column, discussing the journeys that led to the Roadside MBA! Check it out here. … [Read more...]
Review: Success Magazine
Another review is out for Roadside MBA! Success Magazine writes: Roadside MBA combines humor with business theory and practice in a fresh, amusing way. You’ll be entertained and educated, ending up with a newfound admiration for the ingenuity of small-town businesses. Thanks to reviewer Margaret Jaworski. … [Read more...]
Schaefer on HBR.org: “It Depends”
Scott Schaefer's blog post on Roadside MBA ran on the Harvard Business Review web site last week. A small excerpt: What happens when you put three business professors in a rental car and send them out to talk to owners and managers of small- and medium-sized businesses? Would they discover their MBA frameworks to be a bunch of academic mumbo-jumbo with no real applicability? What we found is that there’s no best path to business success. Managers successfully address seemingly similar problems in very different ways and, as our corollary suggests, the trick is to find which solution fits … [Read more...]