Interdisciplinary & Cross-functional: My first Speaking Engagement
On Tuesday I spent the day at a symposium and reunion of graduates of the Interactive Media Studies program at Miami University, I was slated to speak at the dinner event following the featured speaker C. Michael Armstrong the former CEO of AT&T.
Much to my suprise, Mr. Armstrong’s speech included his announcement that he was giving a gift of 14.7 million dollars to the Miami University IMS department to found the Armstrong Interactive Media Studies Institute.
So there I sat, waiting to speak after such a generous gift. But President Hodge gave a wonderful thank you to Mr. Armstrong and then introduced me. Me?
Who am I to speak following such a great occasion? I was certainly out of my league, but I felt like I was able to hit the subject on the head since the Miami Student quoted me saying:
“Nothing I came away with was more important than how to learn and respect the perspectives of others,” said 2006 graduate Joe Budde, who is now doing a project with Oracle, a database management mogul. “We were forced to work together through the obstacles by teaching each other (our respective) disciplinary backgrounds.”
The IMS program at Miami taught me about life in a way no other college coursework could.
So after a day discussing how interdisciplinary the IMS deparment works and achieve’s great success, I wondered if the same institute structure could drive change in older more entrenched business organizations.
Does your company have a organization that is purely cross-functional with goals that crossover other organization’s goals? Does that organization achieve superior results? How is that organization structured to ensure maximum impact?
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