Nashville Technology Council

UPDATE:  This event has been postponed until Spring 2011.  For more information on this and other T3 student events, contact Beth Foreman.

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We’re excited to announce another opportunity for technology college students this month.  Our T3 partner Qualifacts is hosting a college student networking event on November 17th from 2:30-4:00 pm at their headquarters at 200 2nd Avenue South, Nashville, TN  37201.

The event will include a tour, roundtable discussion with Qualifacts employees from entry level to senior management, and a question and answer session.  Students will see first-hand how Qualifacts is a leading vendor for internet-based clinical, administrative, and financial applications. Refreshments and parking will be provided.

If you are a college student  interested in a technology career, you don’t want to miss this unique learning and networking opportunity. If you know a student involved with tech, be sure to pass along this information!  This event will be limited to the first 30 students to sign up, so RSVP now!

About the innovation strategy capstone course:

In Spring 2011 the Engineering Management faculty will be offering a three credit-hour capstone project course for senior engineering students with a concentration in Engineering Management. Over the semester, teams of three students will work with the founders of six local seed-stage technology companies through the thinking, analysis, and planning processes needed to turn their concept into an innovation strategy that then could be executed on. This memo is to invite you to consider offering us your innovation concept as a project to tackle. If interested, please reply at your earliest convenience. The due date for submitting a project proposal is Dec. 15.

What kinds of innovations and companies would be good candidates for an innovation strategy project?

Innovation involves taking an invention or innovation concept to commercial reality. We are looking for technology entrepreneurs who are considering launching a company or have recently organized one for the purpose of commercializing an innovation concept that takes advantage of new or emerging technology. Since the student team projects do not involve the development of technology itself, we are looking for technical concepts that are for the most part developed – to the proof of concept stage or beyond. At the same time, we are looking for concepts where the business thinking (business models, business plans, marketing strategies) is at an early stage. The teams’ job is to help the entrepreneur through the thinking, experimentation, and rigorous research processes that will move the concept to the point of commercial launch, sale to an acquirer, or presentation to a new venture investor.

Who from Vanderbilt will be participating in the Innovation Strategy Project?

The students participating in the projects are carefully screened spring semester seniors who have concentrated their studies in engineering management and who have completed all the coursework requirements in the subject area. They will use the project as an opportunity to integrate and apply everything they’ve learned.

They will be guided by Vanderbilt’s Engineering Management faculty, senior people with industry experience who bring wide-ranging skill sets, including expertise in intellectual property, enterprise development, finance, manufacturing, project management, marketing, technology strategy, and organizational development.

The project teams will apply a comprehensive, systematic approach to innovation commercialization known as Accelerated Radical Innovation (ARI). The ARI methodology is based on research and development involving innovation scholars and practitioners from several institutions and countries over the past seven years. It has been applied to a variety of early-stage technologies (for more information, see http://ari-institute.com/). The projects will aid in the further refinement and validation of the methodology in diverse settings.

What is expected of participating companies and teams?

Over the course of the semester, you should expect to meet with your team weekly for about one hour at a mutually agreeable time and place (usually either the client site or a conference room at Vanderbilt). The project will proceed along the following timeline over the course of the Spring semester (Jan. 12-May 5):

· Week 0: Three-person team forms, reviews project descriptions, and selects a project.

· Week 1. ARI methodology overview for teams and clients. Initial meeting with client. Client orients team to the innovation concept, the business objectives, and the associated technology, and provides any needed background information.

· Weeks 2-3. Team confirms and quantifies the business opportunity.

· Weeks 4-8. Team applies the ARI innovation scorecard to pinpoint, analyze, and priortize challenges and hurdles to commercialization.

· Weeks 9-11. Team applies co-develops with the innovator a business plan (system-level vision, business model, and commercialization roadmap).

· Weeks 12-14. Team develops implementation plan (innovation value network, prototyping plan, and commercialization and exit strategy).

· Week 14. Final client presentation, clarification of next steps, and handoff.

Other than your time and guidance to the team, you should not incur any expenses unless you authorize them.

Next Step…

If you’re interested in proceeding, the next step is to put together a project description to enable the students to select projects in their area of interest or training. The description should include:

· A description (or vision), in general terms, of the innovation concept (what it is, how it works, its current state of development)

· Commercialization objectives for the innovation concept (target market, application)

· Key commercialization challenges (technical, market, organizational, etc.)

· Contact information: name of project leader, title, organization, phone, e-mail, website (if one exists)

· Optional: If you feel it’s important for members of the team to have any particular interest, background, or prior course work, this would be helpful to include in your description.

Deadline for submission of project descriptions: Dec. 15

Contact Information

John A. Bers, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of the Practice

Engineering Management Program

http://engm.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/

Vanderbilt University School of Engineering

Featheringill Hall Room 336

P. O. Box 351518 Station B

Nashville, TN 37235 USA

Phone: (615) 343-4965; fax (615) 322-7062

E-mail: john.a.bers(at)vanderbilt.edu

The T3 initiative of the Nashville Technology Council presents a behind the scenes networking event exclusively for local college students on September 22nd.  Join us as we partner with Deloitte – HQ for a one-on-one panel discussion with key executives.  The event will also include a tour of the facility, snacks, giveaways, not to mention the opportunity to ask real world questions about career paths in technology at Deloitte.

Deloitte was recently recognized by Bloomberg Business Week as the #1 place to launch a career.  Learn how you can be a part of it!

RSVP for this event here. Know a student who might be interested in attending?  Spread the word!

Nashville Tech Story (1/5/10)

In the 90’s it was Y2K and how would we respond to this potentially crippling exercise.  Where would we find thousands of Cobalt programmers to fix antiquated programs?  Companies spent the necessary resources to get the problem corrected; others ditched old programs and upgraded their systems and software.  Now we are faced with a new, larger challenge – Technology Workforce Development for the next decade.

This problem of having a sufficient talent pool in technology is nationwide, but is exacerbated in Tennessee due to a lower tech graduation rate.  In fact, it is 8% lower than the national average.

Are we prepared for 2010?  No, we aren’t.  Nashville’s economy is growing at an annual clip of 2 to 2.5% per year.  According to Census.gov, the Nashville CBSA is estimated to be 1,585,000.  We have added over 250,000 new residents in the past 10 years.  In 1980, we only had a population of 912,000.  My, how the city has changed.  By the time the next decade rolls in, we will be over two million.

So as we prepare for 2010, we should introduce a new concept Y2KXY.  Look strange?  Y2K + X + Y.  Year 2010 is Y2KX and Y for the Y Generation or Millennials.  It is time that we take the same effort of fixing the Y2KXY problem as we did for Y2K.  We have a shortage of professional technology talent and it will hurt us in our recruiting efforts, innovation, and overall productivity if we don’t solve it quickly.

Other industries like engineering, nursing, and accounting have already experienced this issue, so we need to look to other industries and see what has worked for them.

Solutions

There are several solutions.  First, let’s start with recognition by the C-Suite.  Mr. CEO, we are going to have to pay more for Tech Talent in the future, including this year.  There is less talent to go around and we need to pay for more training.  The alternative is to get involved with organizations like the Nashville Technology Council to help grow the talent pool.  Technology should be a strategic advantage for the business.  If it is not a strategic advantage in your company, then ignore the rest of this post.  You should be fine crushing stones.

Second, we have to understand the needs of the next generation.  In their 2007 book, Junco and Mastrodicasa expanded on the work of Howe and Strauss to include research-based information about the personality profiles of Millennials, especially as it relates to higher education.  This generation is using more technology, but they aren’t pursuing technology degrees in Tennessee (source:  Wikipedia).  They have very different expectations than Gen X or the Baby Boomers.

Third, we need to continue to attract outside companies to the region.  Tennessee, Nashville in particular, has a very strategic advantage as it relates to quality of life, cost of living, and a diversified economy.  We need to leverage this advantage to attract younger technology workers in our key industry areas: healthcare IT, digital content, publishing, transactions, software development, and logistics.

Fourth, we need to transform our existing workforce.  This has two elements:  professional development and re-engineering.  The area of professional development is easier to tackle.  Unfortunately, a lot of the best training for advanced software occurs on the Coasts.  We are working to bring more of these trainers and highly specialized organizations to the Nashville region and allow our member companies to share the costs, thus lowering travel costs and improving the existing workforce.

The area of re-engineering is much tougher to address, but is every bit as critical.  With the Saturn plant closing, we have a flood of potential new technology workers.  They will require training, but they are eager and have a basic process engineering understanding.  There are other pools of employees that can be retrained, retooled to be the next generation of technologist in Middle Tennessee.

Fifth, we need to encourage students in high school and college to pursue technology degrees.  Our state is falling behind in this area, with Tennessee being 8% behind the national average in producing technology graduates.    The root of the problem is the lack of introductory technology programs and parental encouragement at the middle and high school levels.  Technology and healthcare are two of the fastest growing occupations and both pay very well.  We need help at all levels if we are going to reverse this trend and get back to average.

Conclusion

Y2KXY is here.  You may already be feeling the effects of this new paradigm shift.  As a community, we can mitigate these trends through three ways: 1. Attract more technology companies to the region from other states, 2. Transform our existing workforce into technology workers through professional development and re-engineering, and 3. Encourage students to pursue technology degrees.