Anatole Gershman
Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science
Language Technologies Institute
Course Motivation and Objectives
Inventing the Future of Services is a course that focuses on the development of innovative thinking in a business environment. CMU graduates should not be waiting for their employers to tell them what to do – they should be driving radical innovation in their businesses. Drawing on my 17 years experience directing applied research at Accenture Technology Labs, I will teach students systematic approaches to technology-driven business innovation. In my experience, even students from the leading universities, including CMU, are not well prepared to think creatively in a business environment. The course will try to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and innovative business thinking. With its focus on practical, hands-on innovation, the proposed course complements the offerings under the "I double E" program in addressing the problem.
The course will focus on the role of technology as a key driver of business change. The students will learn:
· How emerging technologies often dramatically alter the economics underlying many business processes
· How to evaluate the potential impact of various emerging technologies
· How to spot likely areas for business innovation
· How to create convincing visionary scenarios for new business processes; analyzing social, economic, environmental and other factors
· How to think creatively in a business context and how to present their ideas to future employers or sponsors
Teaching Method
The course will be a seminar emphasizing student presentations and discussions. First, I will teach the students how to create a technology vision suitable for business audiences. They will examine and discuss several actual technology vision presentations used in industry and create their own presentations in a technological area of their choice.
After that, we will focus on services because they constitute 70-80% of the US economy, and because they are undergoing radical technology-driven transformations. We will dedicate 2-3 weeks to each of the following five important sectors of services:
· Financial Services
· Healthcare
· Retail
· Media and Entertainment
· Education
Students will do pre-reading about each sector and then get a chance to discuss it with an industry expert (either in-person or through a video connection). The readings for each industry sector will include:
· A general introduction
· Critical problems and issues
· Examples of both successful and unsuccessful technology-driven innovation
Each student will be expected to propose, present and discuss innovative ideas in class. They will be taught the analytical method for innovative thinking used at Accenture Technology Labs. The method is based on the following observation:
The evolution of technological capabilities in the last 30 years has been driven by Moore's and other similar "laws". That means that anything dependent on electronics either increased its capability by an order of magnitude every 5 years at a constant price or the price of the capability dropped by an order of magnitude. Order of magnitude changes typically lead to dramatically different uses of technology – what was economically impossible becomes possible.
The method consists of five steps:
1) Spot the likely order of magnitude changes in the next 5-7 years
2) Find the barriers that this change will eliminate
3) Figure out the new business capabilities this will create
4) Create a business scenario
5) Analyze various factors that might either impede or speed up the proposed innovation
At each step, students will be supplied with the key questions and heuristics that will help them think through the issues.
For the mid-term, students will produce a short position paper describing the potential impact of information technology on an industry sector of their choice. For the final project, students will create and present short business audience-oriented presentations outlining either a technology vision in the business area of their choice or a specific idea for business innovation.
Intended Audience and Prerequisites
There will be no formal prerequisites for this course. Any 3rd or 4th year undergraduate engineering, computer science, science or business major will have sufficient grounding in technology to be able to participate. This course should be of particular interest to seniors, Master-level and even doctoral students who intend to pursue non-academic careers. Given the participatory nature of the course, it will be limited to no more than 15-20 students. The course will be offered in the Fall of 2007 and every Fall thereafter.