Schulich students have heads in cloud
IBM’S online technology proves popular, with some caveats
Brian Long, a 36-year-old student in the executive MBA program at Schulich, is preparing for a virtual world where most business will be conducted over the Internet.
For the past18 months, students at the Schulich School of Business have been test-driving IBM’S Smartcloud for Social Business, an online service that simplifies access to file sharing, social networking, virtual communities, meetings, instant messaging, email and calendars.
Long, who also works at IBM in business development and sales, believes cloud-based services will become essential tools in the business world. He and his fellow students found the service invaluable while working on a group project. “The team members in my MBA project are dispersed across Ontario, so the cloud has had a significant impact on our ability to collaborate online,” he says. “We’re also using the cloud for education. For example, we’ve started accessing teachers from other countries.”
As a teaching tool, cloud technology gives students easier access to a greater amount of information and resources.
Jean Adams, a professor of policy and specializations at Schulich, realized the potential of cloud services after reading a 2010 Conference Board of Canada study on how technology will change the nature of what work looks like in the future, how it is done and from where.
Michael Bloom, co-author of that report, wrote, “As people use technology more, they’re not just satisfied by the unilateral transfer of information; they want interactivity and a more responsive environment.
“To be prepared, young people need to understand what the world is likely to look like in the future and they need a combination of transferable skills and knowledge of the technology.”
Adams felt compelled to act. “It made me feel strongly that we needed to find a way to get students working together virtually.”
In September 2010, Schulich introduced a pilot undergraduate course called Management 1000.
As part of their term project, students used Smartcloud as a virtual office: holding meetings there, using it to store and transfer information, enabling greater ease of communication and access to human and other resources.
They liked it so much that Schul- ich will soon add it to its MBA curriculum as well. Many MBA students are already using it for collaborative projects. “The social business tools, like the cloud, are revolutionizing the business landscape,” Adams says. “What we’re hearing from the students is that they feel being able to say on a resumé that they’re proficient in Smartcloud, rather than something like Facebook, gives them a competitive advantage, because it shows they understand what teamwork looks like in a knowledge economy.” Not everyone was a fan. A survey of students revealed some preferred and felt more productive in their face-to-face meetings. The fact that social media has the potential to take the human touch out of business relationships also remains a concern. However, even those students who preferred in-person meetings admitted being able to use cloud computing will give them a perceived competitive advantage in the workplace. Bloom does not believe technology threatens social interaction. “Because these technologies are so interactive, they actually enable more dialogue than in the past, because it’s not a unilateral transfer of information anymore,” he says. “What we’re seeing is that the road to knowledge and skill is a function of attitude, and the trend of people continuing to use technology in a more integrated way will only continue,” he adds.
“So, for the young people now, being able to maximize your use of the technology around you is a matter of your having added value.”
Bloom says it makes sense that technology companies such as IBM would be the first to adopt cloud computing. Technology is their product and their employees are more tech-savvy.
However, non-tech businesses are increasingly adopting the high-tech solutions, a trend Bloom says will only continue.
“You don’t have to know how to make the technology, but you’re going to have to know how to use it.”