MBA musings and technology trends

Sitting in the last day of my Global Technology Trends class at Ryerson, I began reflecting on the changes in our industry. The number of printing students with in-depth technological knowledge seems to be increasing, which is great news for our industry, as it begins to react to the trends of digitization, convergence, and automation.

It is becoming increasingly important to understand all the technology available for print today. Complex equipment and workflow solutions are required in order to make the best use of what vendors have to offer. Gone are the days of buying equipment on managerial intuition, only to have it partially utilized—the pressure to lower our fixed costs is too high.

Managers today need to be able to identify the opportunities that are possible through leveraging technology. Moreover, they need to be able to filter these skills down to employees as we begin a full force change to “knowledge workers” in print. It is in light of these observations that I decided to enroll in a technology-specific MBA program.

After coming to the half-way mark, I strongly advise individuals who are interested in a career in print to consider a graduate degree. While I’m sure some of you are thinking that a graduate degree is overkill, just consider what the industry will look like 5 or 10 years from now. There will be fewer production jobs. Print will become a service, and it will be more complex. You will have stayed way ahead of the curve.

I am a part-time student in Ryerson’s MBA in the Management of Technology and Innovation program, at the newly built Ted Rogers School of Management. I am very proud to be part of the school and recommend it wholeheartedly. In thinking about what made Ryerson the right MBA choice for me, I came up with some key points.

The Classmates

Any experience is only as good as the people you share it with, and the caliber of people enrolled in Ryerson’s MBA is incredible. Business owners, directors, lawyers, engineers, and members of many other professions discuss technology from an unimaginable number of different perspectives. One says “gather data to drive customer value,” while another points out legal issues!

The Professors

The experience you gain in the classroom at Ryerson is remarkable. The professors in the program truly understand what it means to be a management graduate student. They aren’t teachers in the sense most of us are used to—they are facilitators. They manage open dialogue to help you learn in a way you never thought possible. We had a Prof leave the class one day, telling us to cover a chapter on our own (complete disaster!), only to come back a few minutes later and teach us about self-organization. I’ll never forget it!

The Involvement

Ryerson has been keen on taking part in many different types of competitions and events. These provide a great learning experience that takes you outside of the school. Even better is when you keep winning (see the long list on the left)!

The Streams

Ryerson offers several types of MBA programs. Under the “technology” umbrella are three streams:

• Supply Chain Management

• Information Systems Management

• Media Management

All three of these touch the printing industry in some way, so you can’t lose by choosing the one that interests you. You’re in marketing—learn more about media. You’re in upper management—get a handle on those ERP solutions. And so on‚Ķ

There are many other reasons why this is a great program: it’s affordable, the class times are flexible (running from 6:30-9:30 in the evening or on weekends), and the location is great (I love direct subway access)!

Now this is the point at which you pull out the list of excuses‚Ķtoo much work, I don’t have time, I’ve been out of school for too long. Forget them! We are moving forward as an industry, and you deserve to come along. Ryerson will work with you to get you ready for school and for the future in technology. You can get the degree in one year of full time study, or two years of part time. You’ll be done before you know it. At the very least, you should check out the school by attending an information session on either June 18th or July 23rd at 6:00 pm. They will be held in the Ryerson Business Building, located at 575 Bay Street (enter at 55 Dundas Street West), Toronto, Ontario.

You can contact the school with questions at mba@ryerson.ca.

Our Long List of Champions

• Second place in the Tata-Schulich Cup competition.

‚Ä¢ Competing at the 2008 National MBA Games from January 3rd to 5th at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, a team of Ryerson MBA and MMSc students ranked first overall to win the Queen’s Cup.

‚Ä¢ Canada’s Next Great Innovators can be found in the Ryerson MBA/MMSc program. A team of MBA candidates—Kent Chin, Maggie Yang, Gavin Yeung—and MMSc candidate Stephen Kershaw took first place at the 2008 RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge on February 21, 2008, and won $20,000 as a result.

• Ryerson University MBA and MMSc students are champions again after finishing second in the prestigious Leeds-Net Impact Case Competition held on February 22 and 23, 2008 at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

• Kent Chin, Han Liu and Maggie Yang have taken first place in the Oxford Properties Real Estate Research Competition, winning $10,000, and fellow MBA student Mia Colceriu came in third, winning $2500.