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I believe that the MBA is more relevant today than ever before. But today’s MBA, both in product and in person, is not “your father’s MBA.”
Indeed, business schools and the MBAs they graduate still play a crucial role in creating and disseminating knowledge that can affect corporate policy and practice through robust research programs, and in providing the leadership that is required to move organizations and the world forward in positive ways.
MBA programs have sometimes been derided as “trade school for smart people.” Criticisms have ranged from the expense to the relevance of programs. Some people may feel that the time working would help their career more than getting an advanced business degree.
While there are substantial costs associated with having highly educated faculty and desirable facilities, MBA programs have reinvented

Happy Wednesday everyone, here’s my Top 5 for May 25, 2011 from Len Berman at www.ThatsSports.com.
1. Quick Hits
In the NBA playoffs, Miami is one game away from the NBA Finals after beating Chicago 101-93 in overtime in game four.
Former Cleveland coach Mike Brown is considered the likely replacement for Phil Jackson as Lakers coach.
In the NHL playoffs, Vancouver is heading to the Stanley Cup finals after beating San Jose 3-2 in double overtime in game five.
At the French Open, John Isner led #1 Rafael Nadal two sets to one before losing in five sets in their first round match. It’s the first time Nadal has ever played five sets in a French Open match.
The family of the Giants fan, severely beaten on opening day, has sued the Dodgers alleging that cutbacks in security and antiquated light fixtures contributed to the brutal attack.
A New York jury rules that the aircraft manufacturer was not at fault in the death of Yankees pitcher Corey Lidle.
Former Kansas City pitching great Paul Splittorff has died from cancer at the age of 64.
Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward wins Dancing With the Stars.
2. Owners Meeting
It’s nice and all that NFL owners have adopted some new rules for player safety, but aren’t their efforts misguided? Shouldn’t they spend every waking moment negotiating with the players? Instead, they run drafts and meetings as if it’s business as

In the dust-up following the death of bin Laden, a too-soon forgotten issue came alive again when Bush-era pols surfaced to claim that the “enhanced interrogation” (read torture) of detainees gave us crucial intelligence. Despite disclaimers from Leon Panetta and other present and former officials that torture gave us no useful information whatsoever, the claim persists. The perverted pride of these claims reminds us again of one of the darkest periods in our history.
Last night at Lincoln Center in New York, at an event sponsored by the ACLU and PEN American Center, a sold-out crowd witnessed a moving presentation entitled Reckoning with Torture: Memos and Testimonials from the ‘War on Terror.’
Adding to film clips of testimony from former detainees who experienced torture at the hands of the US military at Gitmo and Black Op prisons, were live readings of transcripts and accounts of torture and

Rachel Carson has been on my mind lately. Maybe it’s because we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring. Maybe it’s because I have been given the honor of receiving the Rachel Carson Award from Audubon. Maybe it because spring has finally come to New York, and the sound of birdsong makes me grateful for her work.
But there is another reason I keep thinking about Carson these days: the current efforts to discredit climate scientists look a lot like the powerful resistance that met Carson’s warnings about DDT.
Carson was vilified by the chemical industry and the Agricultural

“By the end of my first term, we’re going to make sure that everybody’s got decent health care in this country. We can do that,” ~ Barack Obama, 2008
Last week, we heard from one of Barack Obama’s most fervent supporters — moral philosopher Dr. Cornel West. In 2008, West did 65 campaign events for the Obama campaign, gushing in one article that “Obama’s brilliance, charisma, and organizational genius have ushered in a new era in American history and a new epoch in American politics.” He was, like many of Obama’s supporters, ‘Hooked on

Flashback to the campaign trail – December 20, 2007:
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
That wasn’t me. It was candidate Barack Obama. But now in Libya, President Barack Obama is continuing a war that lacks Congressional approval and constitutional authority. Our Constitution clearly states that the United States Congress has the power to declare

An Indian diplomat's daughter is suing New York City's government for $1.5m after she was wrongfully arrested on suspicion of sending obscene e-mails.

Krittika Biswas was alleged to have sent the e-mails to her high school teacher in February. She was subsequently cleared of the offence.

Her lawyer said that she was unlawfully held by the US authorities for more than 24 hours after her

THE GREATER JOURNEY: AMERICANS IN PARIS BY DAVID MCCULLOUGH *** out of ****
$37.50 hardcover; SIMON & SCHUSTER
In 1831, Samuel Morse returned to Paris to begin what he believed would be the crowning achievement of his life. Not the telegraph — that would come later. Morse went straight to the Louvre to begin a painting. One decade earlier he had produced House Of Representatives, a grand scale work that depicted the seat of American democracy and featured some 80 people of note within

I picked up the recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine that celebrates Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday. I was in the airport, on a very long and unexpected airport delay, so I had time to spend. I was a bit miffed because the panel of Dylan experts picking his great songs was all men. And none of the songs listed was more recent than 10 years

Terry Nelson, all is forgiven.
The Republican operative who was fired by Wal-Mart five years ago for his role in a race-baiting ad, has now been welcomed back to the fold in Bentonville.
Nelson, a native of Iowa, who began his political life in the Hawkeye state almost twenty years ago, has a ‘dirty tricks’ rap sheet that dates back a decade ago to his early days as Executive Director of Political Operations for the Republican National Committee.
According to the website Sourcewatch.org, Terry Nelson “has the unique distinction of being tied to two of the biggest cases of Republican campaign corruption” during the George W. Bush era — the New Hampshire-phone jamming scandal in 2002, and as an unindicted co-conspirator in the political money-laundering case which ended former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s career.
In the phone-jamming case, a Republican telemarketing firm made repeated hang-up phone calls to get-out-the-vote phone lines being run by Democrats, gumming up the works with 800 computer-generated calls over a 1 1/2 hour period.
Nelson served as political director for the Bush/Cheney 2004 committee, and went to work for the Republican National Committee in 2006. While Deputy Chief of Staff at the RNC, Nelson accepted a $190,000 check from a DeLay political action committee in an alleged money-laundering scheme to pass corporate political donations illegally through the RNC to support candidates in Texas state elections.
That same year, Nelson was behind an ad in a Tennessee U.S. Senate race featuring Democratic candidate Congressman Harold Ford, Jr., in which a bare-shouldered blonde woman winked into the camera and said, “I met Harold at the Playboy Party! Harold, call me sometime.” Nelson resigned his position in response to the firestorm the racially-saturated spot

New orders for US durable goods fell a surprise 3.6% in April from March.

Sales of cars and parts, and of computers, each down 4.4%, were among the hardest hit, with the disruption to supply chains from Japan's earthquake and tsunami the likely cause.

However, other sectors such as metal goods and machinery also did badly, according to the Commerce

US conglomerate General Electric has launched a new gas turbine it says will complement renewable energy.

The firm claims to have made $11bn worth of purchases to strengthen its natural gas division.

The new turbine will be able to respond quickly to changing weather patterns affecting wind and solar power.

But with its sales of wind turbines falling, the product is also part of a push by the US firm to exploit rising interest in cheap gas.

The firm claims the new turbine will be able to turn on and off far faster than other high-efficiency gas turbines – about twice the current

A Democrat has won an upset victory in a traditionally Republican House constituency in the state of New York.

Kathy Hochul defeated Jane Corwin in a special election seen by analysts as a referendum on a Republican proposal to overhaul the Medicare health programme.

The district in western New York had been held by Republicans for decades.

Democrats hope the result illustrates wider voter distaste for Republican plans to cut entitlement programmes as a way to reduce the federal deficit.

Republicans had presented their plan to revamp the Medicare programme as a necessary budget-cutting

It is hardly uncommon for a visit to the doctor to inspire anxiety, whether it be from fear of bad news or fear of a scolding for one’s weight or tobacco use. Yet many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) patients have far greater reasons to dread a visit to the doctor. They face the fear of discrimination, moral condemnation or outright rejection from medical providers, and that fear is enough to keep many LGBT people from ever entering a healthcare professional’s office, except in a dire emergency.
This fear is not unwarranted. Most doctors’ offices remain institutions where one is presumed heterosexual until proven otherwise, and where, if so proven, there is no guarantee of

Halfway through Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Monday I was confronted by a moral dilemma. A woman protester two seats away from me had infiltrated the speech, pulled out a red anti-Israel flag, and started hurling curses about Israel. The elderly gentleman to my right, whom I had been talking to just before the speech started, pulled the flag out of her hands, cupped his hands over her mouth, and assisted in subduing her. Should I help?
The night before at AIPAC, Bibi’s speech had been disrupted seven times with multiple protesters making it almost impossible for him to

Many Americans are already concerned about China’s growing economic challenge to the United States. Indeed, the challenge itself is hardly news anymore. But a new book, Red Alert by Stephen Leeb, argues that Americans have radically misunderstood just what this challenge consists of.
Everyone who has “woken up” to the problem

When it came out in 2009, The Hangover quickly established itself — at least for me — as the gold standard for movie comedy, the film against which subsequent movie comedies would be judged.
It was that rare film that managed to be consistently funny from start to finish, without any lulls or slow spots. It was better than Anchorman or The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up or any other film you can name that’s been released in this century.
So it’s not surprising that they would make The Hangover Part II. Nor is it a shock that this second bite of the apple doesn’t go down as easily as the first.
Part of it, of course, is that The Hangover had the element of surprise on its side. Sure, director Todd Phillips had a track record that included Road Trip and Old School — but neither of those was as critically acclaimed as The

“The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.”
–Oscar Wilde
I know my marriage is an anomaly. Happy marriages are rare. For as much as we all long for a relationship that we can grow old in, we don’t really believe in them. I think this might be because many people confuse the early “in-love” experience of relating with the ongoing effort of creating a love that

Have you ever had a conversation, disagreement or conflict escalate over email? Do you sometimes find yourself engaging in difficult or emotional conversations electronically because it seems “easier,” only to regret it later on? If you’re anything like me and most of the people I know and work with, you can probably answer “yes” to both of these questions.
In the past few months I’ve had a couple of conflicts with important people in my life get blown way out of proportion, mainly because I engaged in them via email instead of talking live to those involved. As I look back on these and other similar situations I’ve experienced in the past, I can see that it was my fear to connect live and my poor judgment in using written communication that contributed to the increased conflict and lack of resolution.
Why do we do this (even though most of us, myself included, know better)? First of all, email (and other forms of electronic communication, including texting, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) tends to be the primary mode of communication these days for many of us — both personally and professionally.
Second of all, it can sometimes seem easier for us to be honest and direct in writing because we can say what is true for us without having to worry about the in-the-moment reaction of the other person.
And third, electronic communication (or even one-way verbal communication, i.e., voice mail) takes way less courage than having a live, real conversation with another human being (on the phone or in person). When we talk to people live, we have to deal with our fear of rejection, our fear of being hurt and our tendency to “sell out” on ourselves and not speak our full truth. Avoiding the live conversation and choosing to do it in writing sometimes feels “safer” and can allow us to say things we might otherwise withhold.
Regardless of why we choose to engage in important conversations via these one-way forms of communication (email, text, voice mail, etc.), it is much less likely for us to work through conflicts, align with one another and build trust and connection when we avoid talking to each other live about important stuff.
Anything we’re willing to engage in electronically can usually be resolved much more quickly, effectively and lovingly by having a live conversation, even if we’re scared to do

Caught in a terrible conundrum of whether I should break my diet over New York Super Fudge Chunk or Chunky Monkey at Ben & Jerry’s the other day, I was reading the different fliers pinned to the community bulletin board inside this 200 square feet of ice-cream heaven.
One flier read, “Got the blues? Learn to play them!”
I don’t know whether to blame the kids or my depression for my stupidity (the death of my brain cells in the prefrontal cortex), but I had to read these seven words four times (that’s 28 words) before I understood the message, which is an important one:
Music can help treat depression.
Back before my Prozac and Zoloft days, music was my sole therapy. I pounded out Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude to C Sharp Minor” as a way of processing my parents’ hostile divorce. My hour or more a day at the upright piano in the family room of my childhood home became a sanctuary of sorts for me. I practiced scales, cadences and arpeggios until they were perfect, because rhythm — that sweet pattern between sound and silence — was something that I could control with the tip of my

Just how many dead teenagers, driven to end their own lives, is it going to take for adults to stand up and say, What the hell is going on? There was a time when the words “Free to Be” embodied a hope that whatever a kid was, was good enough. But “freedom” doesn’t describe the world of this generation. Or of their parents. One of those parents wrote to me on my Facebook page.
“Hi, Marlo,” wrote Kevin Jacobsen of New

On this spring morning I awakened to the sounds and smells of a new day, and then, by paying closer attention, to a season encouraging new life all around me. I am quite alone in my awareness. Now I really listen. For what the world brings to me.
As I reconcile myself to a solitary life, I am reminded of the sly wisdom of John Leonard who noted that “men tend never to be alone, except in hotel rooms in Cleveland.” Instead we are awash in the business of life we have created, full of children, strutting about, fuss, appointments, commuting and

We all know the biological reason we age and die. Our bodies break down and are discarded like an old car or a worn-out pair of jeans. No one escapes the ravages of time. Or do they?
The big question is why is the universe this way to begin with? Of all of the possible ways the universe could be structured, why are the laws of nature the way they are? Why do things become less ordered (second law of thermodynamics), rather than more ordered? Why do systems deteriorate — and life die — rather than stay the same?
Equally relevant, is the question of why out of all of existence — out of everything possible in the universe — all you get to be is, say, a plumber or a

It sounds blasphemous, I know. Why would Lady O, queen of the talk-show venue for quarter of a century, evoke the need for self-forgiveness? While throngs are upset with Oprah’s departure, others are sensing that the vacancy is purposeful. Nature abhors a vacuum, after all. It is time for each of us to consider the legacy we are leaving,