Angus Blair

"When someone asks me to do something about 5 times I'll go 'oh, they mean that,' and get on to it. But surprisingly, the 'sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich theory' does work the majority of the time."
-Deb Shepherd

That was a really quiet class on Thursday, and I don't want to point any fingers but there seems to only be a few people who are contributing to the majority of the conversation. I think in undergrad I would have appreciated this as the majority of student interventions in the lecture are fairly off topic, monotonous or un-informed. However, when there is a lecturer like Deb, who thrives on class discussion, it really hampers everyone's learning if the majority of people aren't heavily involved in the discussion, haven't done the readings, or are just to plain scared to contradict their peers or the lecturer.

After that rant you're probably thinking I didn't enjoy the class but I can assure you that's not true. I love the style of this lecture, I like the fact that I don't have to spend all day looking at terrible powerpoint slides. I mean sure, the ones that she uses are pretty terrible, but she doesn't like using them either, what a relief. After years of lecturers reading out facts we're finally learning through stories! This means if you're a Daniel Pink or a Presentation Zen fan, you know that these lectures are a million times more enjoyable. For example, I was in a blur about Institutional Theory and company archetypes before Deb told us the fantastic story of the Veterinary firm expansion. It's these illustrations that really help me learn. What's more, it makes the most boring academic dribble theories come to life as we realise how they can be applied to real firms. To anyone whose not in commerce you might be amazed to hear that I'm only just experiencing this in my fourth year, but I can assure you, undergrad is anything but applicable and anyone who wants to really understand this stuff needs to do more.
On a lighter note, after the class and on Duane's recommendation, myself and my partner did go check out Ray Avery's talk on social entrepreneurship. If you didn't (which is pretty much all of you) you missed out on a fantastic and inspirational talk. I did see them filming it so maybe it will creep out online. Anyway, you should check out his great venture Medicine Mondiale.

image credit: essjay