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The Other Side of Life: Educating Young Scientists about Business
Laughter erupts as the class watches the CLIO award-winning Superbowl ad from Outpost.com in which a pack of rampaging wolves chases members of a marching band. But once the chuckles subside, the students quickly point out that the ad isn’t good business. Their consensus? Effective advertising must do more than simply capture attention. Such discussions may be commonplace in business schools around the world, but this conversation is unique because the students are scientists. The course, “Entrepreneurial Management for Science and Engineering,” is managed by the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, and the Jones School of Management at Rice University. CHEM 750 (and its second-semester follow-on, “New Venture Creation for Science and Engineering”) gives students pursuing graduate and undergraduate degrees in disciplines like chemistry and bioengineering insight into how managers, consultants, and other “business people” think. “The real bonus to most of the students taking this course is that they won’t be starting from ground-zero when they get a job in industry or start up their first research labs,” says Andrew R. Barron, a professor of materials science and Rice’s Charles W. Duncan/Welch Chair of Chemistry. Barron, who along with Michael Heeley, assistant professor of strategic management in the Jones School, designed the course curriculum and recruited faculty to teach its different segments. Barron admits he’s never taken a business course—"though I have started a couple companies, and that’s taught me more than I ever wanted to know about how to run, or not run, a business.” He hopes that CHEM 750/751 will help his students avoid similar trials by fire. “It may be that the material we cover will make a difference just twice in their scientific careers,” Barron notes. “But then again, quantum mechanics may never make a difference in their careers, and they still have to learn that.” A Case Study of One’s Own The Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership reported last year that some 170 programs in entrepreneurship exist in the U.S., most of them based in business, management, or engineering schools. Given the location of these courses, it’s not surprising that most of them cater to MBA students and computer scientists--future dot-comers. “Scientists, if they are involved in these courses at all, are typically viewed as the providers of technology upon which a business might be based,” states Michael Heeley. Rice’s courses, on the hand, put scientists front and center. This is particularly true in the second semester course focusing on new venture creation. Rather than relying on the well-developed (and often infamous) case studies that ground traditional business-school courses in entrepreneurship, Heeley and Barron select an actual fledgling technology to serve as the basis of all course activities. Last year, students worked with a noninvasive clinical tool for point-of-care biomedical monitoring and diagnosis. Their tasks included evaluating the technology’s patent portfolio, identifying possible market areas, evaluating potential competitors, and preparing a market opportunity assessment. “Students essentially write their own case study in this course,” says Barron. “Like in real business, there are no right or wrong answers. Every idea that the student teams come up with could work, no matter how silly it might look to the other students or to the instructors.” In fact, students can choose to shepherd particularly compelling ideas to commercialization, thanks to the course’s close ties to the Rice Alliance. The Alliance coordinates technology transfer activities among Rice faculty and students, the Texas Medical Center, and entrepreneurial and business organizations in the Houston area. Last year, one of the student teams from CHEM 751 presented its biomedical device application before the Alliance. Licensing issues for the technology are pending, but Barron notes that the students are getting involved with company that owns the original patents. Barron points out, though, that such opportunities are bonuses and not expected as part of the regular coursework. “Ideas generated within this course are just that—ideas,” he says. “Those who might think that they could base a company solely on the research conducted by these students have never conducted a real marketing study or practiced real due diligence.” Developed by a Scientist for Scientists The second-semester course lets students apply concepts taught in the first semester. Barron initiated CHEM 750 after conversations with other chemistry faculty members about how to make Rice graduates and undergraduates stand out from those in other chemistry departments around the country. “We have a course in the chemistry department about how to give effective presentations, which I developed,” Barron said. “And I teach a crash course in chemistry to oil and gas executives through the business school. It occurred to me that if we teach chemistry to MBAs, we ought to consider teaching MBA-type material to our scientists.” Barron and Heeley’s course covers a variety of business concepts—everything from accounting to organizational theory. But it also goes beyond traditional “MBA” material to cover topics of particular relevance to scientists. For instance, the course has a unit on intellectual property and patent prosecution issues. “The rules about publishing and patenting are important for all scientists to know, particularly with universities becoming interested in technology transfer and adding value to academic research,” explains Christopher Jones, who took CHEM 750 in the fall of 1999. Jones received his Ph.D. in May 2000 and is now a research scientist with BICRON in Solon, OH. He points out that most graduate students receive their Ph.D.s and, in their first job, are expected to manage others—either as an assistant professor at a university or in a industrial post. Yet they are never formally taught how to manage. Barron takes this point one step further. “Running an academic research group is like a business,” he says. “We have to raise our own money; we have to fund our own students; we have employees; we have to work with the administration; we write reports. We don’t make a profit, but it’s a business.” So even for students committed to staying in academia, CHEM 750 teaches important lessons that scientists may not learn anywhere else. Students seem to see the value. Since the course’s inception in 1998, enrollment has risen steadily. Graduate students make up 60 percent of the first semester enrollment; more undergraduates than graduates stay on for the second semester. The course has received a two-year grant from the Coleman Foundation for its development. Eventually, Barron would like to see the course endowed by a company or an individual with strong ties to the business community. For Barron, the most rewarding aspect of the course is seeing it pay off. He recalls the story of one of his graduate students interviewing for a recent industrial job. “The manager was looking at her CV and probably trying to think of something intelligent to say about chemistry, when he noticed the course title “Entrepreneurial Management for Science and Engineering,’” he relates. Barron notes that this led to long conversation about the course. The student got the job. “I’m not saying the course got her the job, but it made her stand out,” Barron concludes. “If you have two qualified scientists with identical skills, someone like this manager is going to say, ‘But hey, this one knew about business.’ It’s one more tool that gives Rice students an advantage—regardless of where their career interests inevitably lie.” |