I surf a lot in my eternal quest to learn as much as possible about the worlds of accounting and business. I like videos. Short videos, that is. Two of the world’s leading universities have been filming short videos of professors discussing a current business topic.
The two best examples of this are the Harvard Business School (US), and the Cranfield School of Management (UK). I have searched and searched, and can’t really find any others. However, the idea is so good, other business schools should pick it up.
The basic idea is to have an interviewer, such as a professor or grad student or newscaster, query a faculty member on a relatively narrow topic. The interview is filmed with two cameras so as to show different angles. The videos last from four to ten minutes, which is just about right for the contemporary attention span. I imagine the schools have invested in a set with sufficient technical equipment to create the videos. The videos are then uploaded to both the B-school web page and Youtube. Interested parties come to view the clips. So far, none have gone viral.
This is a great idea, and I would love to be a part of something like this. I suggested such a set for the new business building at Concordia College, but got rebuffed.
The advantage of such a series is that it assists in creating a brand image for the business school. Some potential students are attracted to these two schools because the professors are experts, the obvious conclusion from a school that has invested in video. It is also appealing to alumni and big money donors.
Another way to establish and promote a brand is to have a cadre of faculty members who blog. Of course it helps if the bloggers become stars. However, B-school blogging is not yet an idea whose time has come.
I show two videos here. The video from Harvard features Dutch Leonard and Lynn Paine, two professors, who talk about their new book, Capitalism at Risk. In this six minute clip, they talk about today’s interrelated challenges gleaned from interviewing several corporate executives.
The video from Cranfield features senior finance and accounting lecturer, Ruth Bender. Although we’ve not met face to face, we are friends who have had many interactions through social media.
The Harvard Business School has a channel on Youtube, as does Cranfield School of Management.
Debit and credit – - David Albrecht
I watched the Harvard video. Very nice. Superb quality. Great summary of the authors’ work. Seems like that approach would be a superb tool for B-schools to use for many reasons. One of the many reasons is that as a school built up a volume of interviews, students could gain a six-minute introduction to a huge volume of writing, far beyond the large reading load that would still be assigned.