Ignore Competion, Maybe They'll Go Away

If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny.   I've written about working with the Launch Pad program at the University of Utah.  This program gave business school graduate students hands on experience evaluating new business concepts.   They worked with the University's researchers first, and when there just weren't enough commercial applications, they worked with the community.

What a concept!  The students learn hands on skills; the community benefits.  Utah gets more tax dollars! 

But they made a fatal mistake.   The University's research on the whole was not of interest to the business community.   The students turned their attention to concepts outside of the University. 

So rather than have the researchers focus on becoming more desirable to the business community, they shut the program down.

This is a pretty severe case of ignoring the market environment.   In the face of adverse conditions, rather than sticking to the original plan, maybe it's time to go back and re-evaluate those plans.

And maybe state run Universities should focus on programs to educate their students, rather than using students to drive revenue for the University.

Comments

[Mary Schmidt]

Bruce, love the ostrich!

UNM has a similar program for MBA students, and both the students and participants seem to find it of value. My only bone to pick (and you know I have one) is that some of the entrepreneurs have solely depended on the bright young people to write their business plans and evaluate their competition. Without real-world experience, such is more of a textbook exercise in theories, no matter how flawlessly executed.

UNM also has another business education program for where "outsiders" teach. Which, in theory, is great(Hmmm...the word "theory" tends to pop up a lot when talking about academia, heh) Sounds great - people with real-world experience teaching. However, here's the "gotcha" If I taught in the program, any potential businss leads I got would have to be turned over to UNM for the MBA student program. This keeps many of us in the community from participating.

It's all about the revenue, baby. Sad to say.

[Phil Windley]

I think we expect too much of programs designed to commercialize university research. University researchers get funding from people, typically, who won't give it to a project that is solving problems that commercial enterprises will pay money to solve. That forces researches (rightly so) to look at problems that are years from being commercially interesting. That said, universities could do a lot more to bring commercial and basic science together.