My Practice Week Experience

My name is Laura Cooper I am a second year HRM student at the University of Bedfordshire and as part of my course we have what are referred to as “practice weeks” these weeks are a great opportunity to learn and experience more about our chosen area of study.

Finding your Mojo - The act of motivation

According to Walt Disney- “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them”. Courage really appears when we have a reason or there is something motivating us towards our goals.

Motivation is especially important as students prepare for their exams. The ability to see beyond the current raft of assignments or examinations to foresee a rosier path to achieving goals is a spring board that can help to overcome short term setbacks.

Does Your Honour have a copy of the defendant's antecedents?

Two of our LLB students, Krystle Lewis and Yusupha Janko, entered the Essex Court Chambers Mooting Nationals this year. Thus far University of Bedfordshire has successfully completed two rounds when they defeated University of East Anglia and University of Cambridge.

It has taken months of work to have arrived at this stage but the journey is still far from complete. The team is currently awaiting word as to which team they must next face. If successful they will have to move through to another round with a new legal problem to argue.

Does your CV show what you’ve got or what others haven’t?

I met up with a friend of mine last week who asked me to look at her son’s CV.  He has a first in Natural Sciences and a distinction in his MSc in Aerospace Engineering.  He’s got some practical engineering experience in the UK and in India.  He’s personable, engaging and unable to show these qualities because he’s not getting interviews.  I’ll call him David.

Travel & Tourism Students and Prospective Start-Ups, Be Eventful!

As an MSc International Tourism Management graduate, I have always been trying to explain to students how important industry networking events are, particularly for final year travel and tourism students and prospective hospitality and tour operator start-ups. If you have missed this year’s World Travel Market (WTM) hosted in ExCeL, London then have a read and see for yourself why you should attend the next one.

 WTM is the biggest travel and tourism event, pulling together hospitality, travel and tourism allies and foes under one roof. Held annually, usually early November, over four days the event attracts more than 50,000 delegates form 180 countries representing hospitality, travel and tourism businesses, tourism ministries and non-for-profits from around the globe offering countless opportunities for networking and generating ideas and business. Although WTM is generally being attended by industry organisations in an attempt to generate further business opportunities, I will point out why the event is particularly important to both final year tourism students and those planning to establish their own businesses after graduation.

Investing in MBA’s Slice by Slice

Since I discovered crowd investing, there has been a stellar pitch on Crowdcube which particularly impressed me and seemed to get fully funded far faster than anything else, raising £430,000 in just 20 days.  It was a proposal for a chain of pizza-by-the-slice restaurants in London.  My own bite-sized investment left my back account a few weeks ago and the first branch opens soon.

Food companies are, so to speak, two a penny in crowd investing world so it wasn’t (only) my affection for food which attracted me.  Pizza Rossa is run by a group of MBA graduates from London Business School.  The team won the School’s annual business plan competition and was also a winner of the 2013 Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Founders Award.

Talk About Hypocrisy

One of the great things about working at a university is that you can have such interesting, illuminating conversations.  A recent one with Eliot Lloyd is an example.

We started on solid ground exploring how we can develop our teaching of strategy then ranged across Innocent Drinks, Eliot’s blog on Evernote, Antarctica, Ponseti technique, quantum cryptography and bungalows before landing lightly on the positive value of hypocrisy.  Not surprisingly after all that, we both had to get on with some work so we decided to continue the conversation through this blog. In fact we had reached the precise point where we were returning to business matters so this post will get us to that point again and then await a post from Eliot when he has some spare minutes.

The idea of hypocrisy as a positive thing is that there are some values which cannot be denied: they cannot be denied in speech but they cannot be totally denied in action either.  We are used to that idea with the divergence of public speech and private action.  The politician’s hypocrisy when they proclaim family values while having an affair is resented and condemned.

The Practice of Practice Weeks through the Eyes of an Outsider

Practice Weeks!? I have been hearing Business School students and staff discussions in the background on this rather new to me concept for quite a while. I have never had the chance to attend any of the Practice Weeks due to other arrangements up until now, when I was invited to support the PW team and 2nd year BA Business Management students on one of their practice sessions in Bedford. I have to admit that I am not directly engaged with this project and my discussion is thus following an outsider perspective.

What Practice Means for Students – and for me

When I first became a manager in the Business School, I could go whole weeks without missing teaching.  Now, largely because of our Practice Weeks I find myself pining for teaching.

Being head of a department doesn't allow for teaching, partly because of the size of the management task and partly because the flexibility needed doesn't mesh with the fixed nature of a timetable.  So teaching stopped when I took on my current role last year.  What I get to do instead, however, is go to the high points for students.  I am invited to see what is going on, to give profile and to present prizes.  High points can be events such as Vietnam’s Women’s Day for the Vietnamese Society but most often they are the Business School’s Practice Weeks.

Contemporary Organisations as Social Networks

You may have already associated the title above with Facebook or Twitter. This piece of text, however, is not about these or any other social networks on the cyber space. This is our Business School’s BedsBiz Blog and we talk Business here. My intention is then to shed a light into a different perspective of the term social networks and let you see how it fits within contemporary organisations.

Playing at Angels and Dragons

I invested in a start-up company making foldable electric bikes last week.  I have discovered crowd investing.

In particular, I have discovered Crowdcube.  Like other crowd investing sites, entrepreneurs and small businesses pitch their proposals for investment in start-up or early stage companies.  Investors can commit what we can afford to risk, even from as little as £10 in some cases, into the investment pool.  If the funding target is reached, we pay the money committed and become a shareholder in the business.

Modern Leadership Development

It is particularly pertinent at this time of year when the new wave of freshers start their leadership journey. These wide-eyed leaders of the future put their trust in University to start them off well. It is our responsibility to ensure we prepare them for the business world they face ahead rather than preach about the business world we knew at their age. All too often new generations of leaders are guided  only with the retrospective - and don't get me wrong - this is very useful. However, this is limited and must be accompanied by future led guidance. We must prepare this valuable young talent for the  next fast changing few years - not the ones just gone - or in some cases ones from a very long time ago - yawn.

Socks, notes and fluff. Is Evernote falling into a strategy trap?

Being both technologically literate and highly organised many of you will be well aware of Evernote. You will have downloaded the app and enjoyed the ease with which you can manage data; organise appointments; share across many platforms etc. etc. Soon you will be able to sit in your office chair organising your life and enjoying the comfort of a pair of socks made by ....Evernote. You could stuff them in your bag made by.... Evernote. You could write about the experience in a notebook made by... yes you've got it by now.

If only we could turn back time

Time is one of the most important elements in our lives. It is a precious commodity that is entirely free to manage as we see fit. Scientists will tell us that it is constant and the only way to get more out of the same time is to do other things within our control faster. We cannot manipulate time; we cannot allocate more of it to ourselves, we cannot reduce or even steal it from others and we all have it in equal measure.  Despite the massive leaps in technology, we are unable to add even an extra second to a single day, whatever happens, it continues to tick away silently irrespective of whether we take advantage of its presence or not. 

The Visitor Economy

Tourism has become a popular concept and a word we use quite frequently in our everyday lives. We have all been tourists in one form or another, even if we do not realise it straight away. An interesting fact is that even students can be considered tourists as long as they spend no more than one consecutive year in their education destination of choice. With the advances in the global transport, the world is becoming smaller and more accessible than ever. Tourism is a reflection of escapism – that dream experience most people at work or university are constantly thinking of.

You think you do networking well? When was the last time you attended a conference?

Networking! I just typed in this word on Google and the first suggestion for it was 'networking tips'..?! In a social context, a network reflects the people you connect to, those who represent your network - either at work or family and friends, or even special interest groups. Networks and networking have recently gained prominence in our lives. Some people even argue that the bigger your network of peers is, the more successful you are, in both work and life. It is then essential you communicate well and know how to grow your network! But how we get to succeed as networkers?

Be Successful in Managing Your Project: Business School Students and English Heritage in a Joint Project

Wrest Park, Bedfordshire is a French-style mansion with stunning gardens owned by English Heritage. The venue was successful in securing National Lottery funding that aimed at developing new audiences. University of Bedfordshire has been working with Wrest Park for the past couple of years through both - assignments being part of the curriculum, as well as projects, ran by the Junior Research Institute for Tourism (jRIT).

Our group of tourism students, who joined jRIT were introduced to an exciting project aligned to the Wrest Park’s aim to develop its audiences. As a team, our role was to explore the success of a range of interpretation methods used by the venue’s visitors. Such methods normally incorporate high-tech, interactive gadgets that visitors use so they get to know what an attraction is about, its significance and history, exciting facts and personalities. Interpretation methods then have an educational function and we had to find out how they influence visitor understanding of a place.

Carpe Diem

Most lecturers over their careers meet literally thousands of students. It would be satisfying to think these lecturers could positively transform the lives of all these students. Equally, it would be good if each meeting could positively add to each student’s knowledge and personal development. However, in reality transformative educational experiences are not commonplace, but this makes them even more special when they occur.

Big Data is Ubiquitous

We are living in the era of Big Data, where a wealth of data is being generated every minute, every second, even every nano second. Thanks to the astounding technological revolution, everything around us is being captured in some way or the other, stored in some form, and this has the potential to make business sense. Big Data refers to any data set that is too big to be efficiently worked in real-time with traditional database tools. Modern businesses generate huge volumes of structured and unstructured data in both traditional and digital forms. Many firms have realised that these data could hold promise to give deeper insights into their customers, partners, and other stakeholders.

Want to boost your employability opportunities while studying? Put your ‘hands on’ experience through University!

University is a great experience for all students but what shouldn’t be ignored is that this is the best time to plan and prepare for their future career. We should start thinking and take advantage of every opportunity that comes across, particularly when still at Uni. Yes, you may be surprised but our Business School is undergoing a transformation of the way teaching is delivered, focusing on a contemporary practice-based higher education. If you do not know yet, this is all about teaching and learning based on ‘real life’ projects. Experience gained through university aims to develop your skills set and broaden your employability prospects. And I think for most of you, this is the primary reason for getting into higher education, or not?