reach more people of AB&C types

We discussed other initiatives with Robert including communicating on our conferences as training opportunities for executives under small seminar formats but I rather would have Robert elaborate on that side...

We suggested to create a group on Linkedin that would help us reach at the same time B/C people with prospective interest in what we can offer as well academics as many of them use Linkedin.

The positive effect is that contrary to Facebook per instance, Linkedin has a "professional" identity that gives some legitimacy.

 The group is easy to manage.

I do manage one for keeping informaly in touch with alumni of the programe I am in charge in my school and I am a member of the European Business history Association group. Linkedin basic membership is free and can be design to integrate many people. We can use it to circulate information pertaining to our academic activities, circulate queries/offers/initiatives originating from members.

I can create the group easily and have a few reps made "managers" for them to share the editing work (very light)

One potential issue could be SMS not willing some of its IG to use the association name. It certainly needs to be checked.

Sari: thanks, Ludovic. excellent idea. Could you please send SMS office an email and ask what name would be ok to use. Would be great to have this in place before our conference and we could then announce it there. Is it doable in this time frame?

Sotirios: Excellent idea! I am also using LinkedIn and there are many people we can attract. I tried to get some speakers for the DC conference but wasn't successful. We can try for Rome.

Alright everyone, I"m in! Firstly thanks Ludovic for helping me.....been rat race before during and after AOM2009 (and I'm still chasing my tail before SMS2009)(smile...).

Okay, here my input based on our discussion with Ludovic and me at AOM2009 in Chicago. It was a great and inspiring dialogue on the way forward given Sari's guidance on what we need to do on the "Communication / getting us more connected with our members and beyond".

1. We had this idea for some time and though AOM2009 organizers beat us to us, imitation can be the sincerest form of flattery. We could also do Podcast and Vidcast of our SAP sessions at SMS2009. Doesn't have to be fancy editing and stuff, but to start off with to simply plonk a camera and get a cordless mic and we're set. Also we can interview SAP members and other IG members (both research students and professors) on their take on the conference / conference theme / cutting edge research that was published by them etc... we can actually get doctoral students to help us out here. But having said this, I'm / we are mindful of not reinventing the wheel....somehow, we already have the outstanding SAP website by Paula and David.....can we bridge a link between SMS and their website and ultimately upload our vidcasts and podcasts onto the SAP website that is linked to SMS (visaversa?) Needless to say, Ludovic and I were conscious of the "copyright issue" when interviewing and having speakers filmed. Actually not a problem, we just get their concent in a form beforehand.......

Sari: Excellent idea! Could we do this already this year? Are there copyright problems with SMS? We can easily rearrange our wiki a bit and post videos here.  

Sotirios: This is a nice idea, however it sound it might need additional 'tech' support.

Maybe at a more initial level we can launch a Newsletter. 

2. We also thought about "doing YouTube"; again, this could be similar to the Harvard YouTube idea.......here we can also do something like that and put all of our SAP (interviews, pannel discussions on here). I don't think this will be too difficult. Plus, it would be fun.....this would pioneer a new level of communication for our IG group.

3. I agree with Ludovic that we need to attract more B and Cs to our IG (needless to say our SMS conferences). Again, as we have thought of and discussed before in our business meetings, but never quite followed up is to ask the question: why would Bs and Cs want to come to SMS and our IG group? Executives what executive development to network as well as to take a moment of self reflection. Though we will not be competing with the big guns in the Exec. Educ. field (like Harvard, Oxford, Wharton, Insead etc...), this is an obvious platform to leaverage of the world class professors that attend our SMS conferences (especially within our own IG). We can pilot run it with say a half day session.....several expert professors......etc ..... once executives enroll, we team them up with SAP professors / researchers / doctoral students in order to share insights and to design co-production of knowledge (more engaged scholarship in building stronger more closer-to-the-phenomena theories of our times...). Wow, exciting stuff.....and why not?

Well everyone, we're excited already......kindly

robert (on behalf of Ludovic and me) 

Sari: How do we do this? 

Sotirios: The 'Exec' education audience has great potential. However, we need to be careful not to go beyond our Strategy and not be seen to do similar things to the SMS Teaching Initiative (which will probably evolve to become an IG at some point).

The Teaching Initiative already organizes a number of events during the conference on topics around exec. education.

Sotirios: Sari, do you mean during the conference?

What we can do is to have general panels on 'how to publis' or 'Paper surgeries' on Sunday. The challenge is that we don't have too many paper submissions to begin with.