I am super excited about today’s news from IBM. They have officially announced a partnership with San Jose State University to help students learn about social business and prepare them for the workforce. The new academic program provides SJSU students with the opportunity to deepen not only their technical skills about enterprise technology but also the importance of culture, collaboration, governance; a market Forrester Research expects to grow to nearly $7 billion through 2016, while learning to adapt their knowledge to real-world business opportunities and challenges. Students will also learn about the value social business generates for organizations when every department, from HR to customer support, marketing and PR to product development by integrating social technologies into their every day work flow and business processes.
The goals of the program are to help students:
- understand the tenets of a smarter Social Business through the use of social networking software;
- build business skills and real-world experience by assessing the social business capabilities and business challenges of an IBM partner organization;
- develop teamwork and collaboration skills;
- better understand how to use IBM social networking technologies;
- deepen relationships between faculty, students, IBM, and IBM business partners.
Here is a video of SJSU students discussing social business and the skills they have developed through this program.
This initiative is a part of IBM’s, The Great Mind Challenge, a global academic initiative focused on providing students with an opportunity to develop their collaboration and problem-solving skills while working on real-world business challenges submitted by global corporations, entrepreneurs, community leaders and nonprofit organizations.
Now here is the cool parallel.
Starting this month, I will be working as a part time Adjunct Professor at San Jose State teaching an evening class on social business to journalism and public relations students. The class is also open to business students as well. I will be using my book, Smart Business, Social Business as the course text book and the curriculum (which I am still developing) will focus on:
- Organizational culture, design
- Technology adoption
- The social customer
- Social CRM
- How to create a social media strategy
- Analytics
The reason I decided to pursue this opportunity (thank you Professor Bob Rucker) is because there is a disconnect today in college curriculum. I interview several candidates every week coming straight out of college and the lack of social media/social business proficiency is obvious. I am hoping to change that, starting first with San Jose State.
More IBM Social Business News.
Image: Big Stock Photo Professor
