The effort to launch our local online community (September) for faculty and business seems to be arriving at the right time as the whole collaboration concept appears to be picking up steam in the national media. Maybe small business is realizing the ivory towers of research and the halls of academia aren’t so bad after all? Or maybe a new generation of faculty are realizing how valuable it is to their teaching, students, and personal growth to engage the corporate sector? Probably a little of both. Either way, the good news is the business sector is coming back around for another look at how to engage campus talent to accelerate their product development and spark innovation. The more outgoing and entrepreneurial (not to mention smart) faculty seem to be getting their due.
On the media front, The New York Times’ Sunday Entrepreneurial Edge, highlighted an example of collaboration taking place in nanotech. Quotes like, “The universities have been essential in this development process” and “Being able to use the core facilities of the university couldn’t help but accelerate our progress” underscore the benefits of a group hug between small business and academia. It’s not without challenges in coordinating business objectives and deadlines with course work and existing faculty projects, however, it can be worth the effort.
Here at ITN, we’ve seen a steady increase from both small and mid-sized businesses looking for assistance with market research, software and IT development, as well as the need for very specific product development expertise. The fact that our unique approach combines 13 colleges and universities together to act as a “front door” to access faculty, makes it easier for regional business owners to identify expertise.
In other media coverage, the Times published a recent article aptly named, The Tour d’ Admission, featuring high school counselors who arrived at Franklin & Marshall College and Elizabethtown College during what has become their annual summer bike tour. Mediabistro, an online media outlet, experienced a flurry of activity on Twitter last week when they attracted comments from students and faculty on the use - or lack of - of social media across campuses.
In this economic crunch a great deal of homework is being done on how to impact the bottom line, attract affordable expertise, and reach out to campuses for a combination of both. The media, both social and traditional, is taking notes.
(Side note - We decided to launch this blog prior to the new ITN site launch because there is so much activity taking place. Once the site does launch, we’ll post the new url on this blog so you can bookmark the blog’s permanent page and stay in the loop with us.)
