Saunders online EMBA teams in action.

I watched three team presentations today as part of their final consultancy project deliverable for the Saunders online Executive MBA course – taught by yours truly – Marketing Strategy. The creative use of technology was certainly on show! One team incorporated video successfully to demonstrate social media concepts, another used the whiteboard facilities in demonstrating process issues and another yet made use of a number of the latest additions to powerpoint. What I liked about all of the productions was the fact that all of our current cohort are geographically dispersed. Co-location rules the professional world as it does with our online program. I'm always impressed with the speed in which delegates pick up the use of new platforms but the way in which they are used effectively is not taught by most business schools. Whilst I'm sure most will be familiar with gotomeeting or webex its good to see competencies being developed in Adobe Connect as well. With co-location in mind, imagine how pleased I was to note that the new range of Android phones are flash compatible. We aren't far off from being able to interact in live connect sessions using these phones (once we have front facing cameras imagine the possibilities!) – what we will then have is a truly unique virtual learning experience. You can be anywhere at any time interacting with fellow students and still be jaw droppingly effective. It seems to me that we have come a long way from the days of real presenter plus presentations and text based discussion boards of the late 90's. Not that there isn't always a place for good old text – and being able to reply to threads with my blackberry via email is another time saver and effective use of technology.

Dr Hair is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the E Philip Saunders College of Business at RIT.

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