Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

My sabbatical month in Finland and Denmark

Posted: October 6, 2019 in Uncategorized
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There is really exciting research taking place elsewhere. It was great connecting with key researchers while at Aalto University (in Espoo, close to Helsinki, Finland) – and initiate a new research using topic modelling (machine learning with Orange3 software) on a corpus off top academic journals on the term ‘ecosystem’. Work in progress at this point, involving my research collaborators at Carleton University and Aalto University. Topic modelling is relatively new in social sciences but is picking up. It can achieve very insightful results quickly, that humans cannot given the sheer and increasing size of ‘corpus’ (set of documents used in topic modelling).

Aalto university is a relatively new campus and the facilities are simply amazing: so ‘design’ and inviting to students. Subway station right on the campus, everything is walking distance. I stayed in an AirBnB in Helsinki and travel by subway. I thank Mika Westerlund for setting up the visit, Risto Rajala for welcoming me, showing me the beautiful campus,, and Maria Tikko for making sure everything was there and ready (and mailing me back my forgotten stuff…)

Enjoying some free time at the botanical garden

    Two weeks in Finland (Vaasa IB conference and Aalto) followed by 2 weeks at the Southern Denmark University (SDU) , Odense, and Copenhagen. A big thank you to Soren Jensen for inviting me to lecture to his master students, spending several hours on a Sunday to do a walking tour of Odense, and organizing several visits and meetings. SDU is a charming campus. Facilities and processes to help entrepreneurship are also impressive.

    Lots of amazingly nice looking copper in that campus building
    I’m sure we all recognize some old tech in there…
    3D printers and other equipment for students
    Exceptionally beautiful Tivoli gardens (Copenhagen)
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    On sabbatical!

    Posted: July 3, 2019 in Uncategorized
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    It has been a while since I last blogged…. time does fly…  in fact, I managed to get tenured and promoted since my last entry (and two beautiful grandsons)….

    BUT I now have a firm resolution to blog about my 1st sabbatical. As much to keep me on track with my (overly ambitious no doubt) sabbatical plan as to share my thoughts, research, pics of field trips etc.  and get comments and feedback.

    So far: presenting a paper at Vaasa International Business Conference, then visiting professorship at Aalto University School of Business, working with Mika Westerlund from my school and Risto Rajala from Aalto University, in Finland.  Quite looking forward to it! Our research will most likely involve topic modelling, more on that later.

    Then off to Opense, Denmark, to the University of Southern Denmark to visit and lecture in Søren Jensen’s class, followed by a side trip to beautiful Copenhagen.

    I am initiating a new research stream at the nexus of international experiential learning and social entrepreneurship in Africa – Tanzania and will be presenting a paper (once formally accepted) at the Biennial Conference of the Africa Academy of Management in January 2020, in Lagos, Nigeria.

    Aside from these planned activities, some research grants, a bunch of papers to write/finalize and… enjoy life too!

    There… it’s in writing and I must now deliver 🙂

    Follow me on this exciting year!

    Reflections from student entrepreneurs

    Posted: March 12, 2015 in Uncategorized
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    I’m glad to report that overall, our pedagogical approach to teaching entrepreneurship at Sprott School of Business (Carleton University) is working well and bearing fruit.  Students are excited and engaged.  They are creative, resilient, collaborative and motivated to work hard and succeed. Lots of enthusiasm and energy too!

    I have to admit that I was a bit weary of introducing a lot of new business approaches to teaching entrepreneurship but it turned out to be a very good move.  We want our students to ‘live’ an entrepreneurship experience, not only ‘learn’ about it.  We obviously do not expect all students to start their own company while still in school (but some do and are quite successful at it!). Essentially, the expected end game of our entrepreneurship offering is for students to either own a high-growth startup within three years after completing their bachelor degree, or to work for a startup or an organization that fosters entrepreneurship.

    I’ve been teaching three entrepreneurship courses this academic year, all essentially revamped from previous years or new.  Within our entrepreneurship programs, we have ensured a logical path and have aligned content across our entrepreneurship offering so that students can progress from ideation to business creation and implementation.  We have capitalized on new business thinking and methods –  ideation, business model generation, value proposition, early validation –  using material from Steve Blank, Bob Dorf, Eric Ries, Osterwalder & Pigneur and many others. We are using a blended learning environment, making learning an individual as well as a collaborative learning experience.  Our assignments are part and parcel of the development and implementation of their business opportunities.  We have also offered high quality workshops from people in the trenches, and have mobilized our entrepreneurship ecosystem, within and outside of Carleton University, to support our student entrepreneurs.  Our brand new Carleton Accelerator is now up and running and we are celebrating successes!

    Peer-to-peer learning is an important aspect of our entrepreneurship pedagogy. That last aspect in fact never ceases to amaze me…. students are really willing to help each other out and share their best practices, insights and lessons learned. So on this last note, I’ve asked my students to share their reflection on successes and setbacks in developing their business opportunity.  This is not a superficial reflection but rather an in-depth coverage of the challenges and successes in applying what they have learned in this course (and previous entrepreneurship courses) to their business opportunity.  Essentially a ‘memoir’ of sort for the next generation of student entrepreneurs.

    I am looking forward to reading their reports!

    stay tuned….

    and it’s a go….

    Posted: August 25, 2012 in Uncategorized
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    Finally… after months of deliberation, coaxing from nice colleagues, blogs from my students,  (and a glass of nice redwine)… I’m ready to get started with my blog for the new school year!

    So what will this blog be about?  it will primarily focus on topics related to my teaching, that is entrepreneurship, international business and marketing.  It builds from a decently long career in the private sector with MNEs, even longer one with the public sector (Canadian federal laboratory) and several years now of teaching experience.   The challenge, of course, is to make this interesting and relevant….  there is so much out there as it is!  I, for one, can’t manage to empty my inbox on a weekly (let alone daily) basis anymore…. way too many newsletters, journal alerts, and a myriad of other interesting updates.  And this is not mentioning twitter, FB, LinkedIn etc etc…..   So the purpose here is to focus on topics of interest to my students, and hopefully to a few others out there.  

     

    Looking forward to comments and feedback on the posts.

     

    diane