Club Update
Hey everyone! My name is Alex Slawsby and I’m one of the two Innovation Club co-Presidents.
The past few weeks have been extremely busy as the MIT academic year draws to a close and the Innovation Club turns its attention to both the final events of the year as well as preparing for a high-energy 2006-2007 academic year.
Innovation Club Speaker Series Update
Bala Venkatrao, our Vice President for IdeaExchanges and Speaker events, has been quite busy, along with Harpreet Marwaha and my co-President, Kirk Hourdajian, in lining up several additional speakers to wrap-up the year. One of the most exciting things about the Innovation Club is the fact that our events and projects feature innovative individuals and companies both large and small. Indeed, next week, we have speakers from both a technology industry giant and a new venture, on tap.
As noted in the calendar, we have two confirmed speakers visiting next week: Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent and Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, VP of Innovation and Strategy at IBM, confirmed for May 10th and May 11th respectively.
Upon a deep background in Marketing and Psychology, our first speaker, Dave Balter, founded BzzAgent in 2001 to drive the “World-of-Mouth†marketing revolution. As noted by the BzzAgent site, “Word-of-Mouth†is “shared opinion about a product or service between two or more people.†An overview of the process:
BzzAgent works with companies to develop a “BzzCampaign†that is posted on a central site and volunteers, the “BzzAgentsâ€, scroll through the site to find Campaigns in which they are interested. When the BzzAgents find Campaigns of interest, they sign-up, and receive a kit in the mail which includes product samples and a custom guide. Ultimately, the BzzAgents are then left to form their own opinions about the product and are encouraged to “spread the word.†Finally, the BzzAgents file central “BzzReportsâ€, describing their activities and receive points that they can redeem for awards.
We found BzzAgent’s strategy and business model to be of great interest to both the Innovation Club and the Marketing Club and the two Clubs are honored that Dave will take some time from his busy schedule to join us next week on May 10th.
We could bring few speakers to campus more aligned with the Innovation Club mission than Dr. Wladawsky-Berger – he is one of IBM’s emerging technologies and innovation gurus. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger joined IBM in 1970, the architect of technology transfer programs as well as IBM initiatives in high-performance computing. In later years, he was the head of IBM’s large systems software and UNIX system divisions. Since the mid-1990s, he designed IBM’s Internet strategy and led the Company’s Linux, Next Generation Internet, Grid computing, and ‘On Demand’ efforts. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger is truly a distinguished figure in the history of IBM and we are honored to have him visit on May 11th.
Technology Testbed Update
As Trond’s post mentions, we are very excited to announce the launch of our first Technology Testbed for 2006-2007. Yesterday, we informed the MIT Sloan MBA Community about our Blackberry Testbed – over the next week or so, we will distribute 25 Blackberry 8700g handheld devices to MBA students chosen by Research-In-Motion (RIM). Those students will receive a free device and free, unlimited, voice and data service through the summer and into the academic year.
In addition to getting a cutting-edge, 2.75G EDGE-based mobile device with a beautiful screen, great web browsing capability, Google Maps, Google Talk, instant messaging, and other capabilities, the IClub members participating in the Testbed will be able to give direct feedback to RIM on the product and test out new applications and other RIM devices.
As can be expected, we’ve had a tremendous response from our classmates and while only 25 will get the opportunity to engage in this Testbed, we have several additional Testbeds in mind for 2006-2007 and hope to get everyone in on the technology. In particular, we’ve already heard from a number of incoming first-year MBA students (Class of 2008) and while we can’t get them involved quite yet, we hope they’ll bring that energy into the Innovation Club in the fall.
Sponsorship Update
From our Idea Exchanges to Speaker Series to Technology Testbeds to Innovation Labs, our events and projects could not be possible without corporate sponsors and host companies. ProductGenesis, our first sponsor, has been a wonderful ally of the Innovation Club for several years and we are so grateful for their time, advice, brainstorming, and all-around support. We expect to engage more deeply with Product Genesis clients in 2006-2007.
Of course, I cannot say enough about Research-In-Motion for their willingness to donate devices, service plans, and a Blackberry Enterprise Server to the Innovation Club. We truly believe that the Innovation Club creates significant, unique value for industry leaders – we match the top technologically-savvy and passionate business school students in the world with companies to help them test out products and think through product and corporate strategy. That, combined with the tremendous talent and resources on the MIT campus, enables us to offer a value proposition that cannot be found anywhere else.
Going forward, we hope to add many more companies to our sponsor list. Over the past few weeks, we have begun to build relationships with many MIT MediaLab sponsors and technology industry leaders, including British Telecom, Cingular, Cisco, Dell, LG Electronics, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Good Technology, Texas Instruments, and Logitech. We hope to work with many of these companies over the summer to firm up project, activity, and event plans for next fall and spring.
Signing off for now…
This is already a LONG blog entry and I’ve barely scratched the surface. We are working hard on all aspects of the Innovation Club, including this new website, our marketing strategy, our flagship Innovation Labs, and exciting plans for MBA Orientation in the fall. I am also hoping to launch an independent research project in large enterprise innovation next year. In my next entry, I will shed some more light on these activities. In meantime, we would love to hear from anyone interested in innovation and would be happy to put you on our email list.
Best wishes…
