This is a great explanation of why sustainability is important. In 15 short minutes, it gives a great overview of the materials stream and the people, political, and health issues around it. It covers consumerism, the environment, toxic materials, politics, and labor, all in the context of economics without being strident or full or jargon.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

At the information night tonight, we'll be announcing some small curriculum changes. Two courses from the second semester are swapping with two courses from the third semester. These should be reflected on the rest of the program website this week or next...

Market Insight Studio > 2nd semester
Sustainability Studio > 2nd semester

Products, Services & Experiences Studio > third semester
Managerial Operations > third semester

This will allow us to introduce marketing and market research tools and skills earlier (which can only help) as well as sustainability frameworks and tools. It also allows students to, potentially, use the PSE Studio to begin development of their thesis project (if it fits the outline for this course) and gives students more experience with organizational details before taking the Operations course.

I'm very happy to announce many of the faculty who will be teaching in this program. At the information night tonight, several will be on-hand to meet in person and their bios should be listed on the program website soon. All of them are incredible people and represent an amazing pool of talent, insight, and experience from a broad range of business and design backgrounds.

We still have a few more to finalize but I've got candidates already for the rest of the courses. As we finalize the curriculum and course syllabi, we may still move some things around (or change course titles) so keep in mind that this is all a bit fluid. However, by the time the program starts next Fall, all will be stable.

Design Innovation Studio: Raffi Minasian, CCA and consultant
Effective Communications: Linda Yaven, CCA and consultant
Managerial Accounting and Managerial Finance: Linda Sheldon, consultant
Market Insight Studio: Steve Diller, Cheskin
Leadership & Entrepreneurship and Culture and Ethics in Business: Sharon Green, Cal State University / East Bay
Sustainability Studio and Products, Services, and Experiences Studio: Nathan Shedroff, CCA and consultant
Strategic Management: John Foster, IDEO
Venture Studio: Bill Wurz, Stone Yamashita Partners
Law & IP: Brad Simon, Boalt Law School and PlayFirst

As we get closer to the start of this program next Fall, we've found the need to adjust the planned academia calendar for the 2008-2009 year. There should be a new calendar posted to the program website soon that covers both the Fall and Spring semesters for this first academic year. Since the DMBA program uses a low-residency model, it has different needs. However, the new residency dates should fit well within CCA's normal academic calendar and, so far, clears all major national and religious holidays. The time between residencies varies between 3 and 4 weeks and the first residency of each semester starts after the normal start of CCA's semester.

It's likely, the new student orientation will happen on the Wednesday afternoon or evening before the first residency and this will be a mandatory meeting time as well. Luckily, students only need to go through it once.

Don't make airline arrangements yet, however. These dates are still 8 months away and may shift some.

Potential students are often surprised--and relieved--that the DMBA program doesn't require taking the GMAT test. From the beginning, we felt that such tests often penalize those from design backgrounds that aren't, necessarily quantitatively-focused. In the same way that requiring a portfolio would put those with non-design backgrounds at a disadvantage, the GMAT test might have the opposite effect.

It's more work to evaluate people on the basis of their backgrounds, experiences, essays, and interactions, but we always felt it was also more accurate. Now, there's even some validation to our expectation that GMAT scores don't necessarily correlate to business success anyway. The GISMA Business School in Hannover, Germany just published the results of a study into just this.

The study found that while GMAT scores correlate well with quantitative performance in school, they don't correlate well with qualitative performance (such as innovation, leadership, cultural intelligence, etc.). These are precisely the skills that we fell most matter in business performance outside the program, in the actual business world. Furthermore, the report only compared scores to academic performance and not to actual success after business school.