Focus on: Design and Strategy

Take Your Career to the Next Level

From the design of work to the design of products, an eye for order is essential to business success. Companies need to balance form, function, and profit to achieve designs that are effective for the people who work in the organization and those who buy its products or services. In this issue, we examine organizational design with an innovative business leader from Denmark. Lars Kolind, originator of the "spaghetti organization," who will be speaking at a Wharton Fellows Master Class on Design, Innovation, and Strategy in September, says the purpose of the organization should drive its design. We also explore a new book on product design from Wharton School Publishing. In other articles, we look at the broad strengths of Wharton's Marketing Department and some of the upcoming programs that can help you change your organization's design or redesign your own career.

"Sharing An Apartment With A Creative Design Visionary Was Not Without Its Occasional Drawbacks."

© 2005 Mort Gerberg from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Wharton Fellows
The Leader as Naval Architect: Beyond the Spaghetti Organization

Lars Kolind, a pioneering business leader and organizational architect, will help kick off the Wharton Fellows Master Class on Design, Innovation, and Strategy in Copenhagen and Milan in September. In a recent interview, he spoke about the origins of his concept of the "spaghetti organization" and the importance of matching design, in every sense of the word, to the purpose of the organization. More

Thought Leaders
Wharton Marketing: From an Art to a Science

Wharton's Marketing Department reaches its 100th anniversary in 2005, celebrating a tradition of advancing research and decision tools in the field. The research strengths, and teaching abilities, of the most published and cited marketing department in the world are brought into the classroom in diverse Wharton executive programs in marketing. More

In the Classroom
Alliances Are Back

Alliances are heating up again. A story in Mergers & Acquisitions (Sign in to download article PDF) notes that a KPMG survey found that 64 percent of U.S. executives plan to increase their use of alliances and 52 percent plan to enter into more joint ventures over the next two years. How can you increase the chances that they will be successful? Wharton executive programs offer with proven strategies for alliances and M&A, based on extensive research. These programs include Strategic Alliances: Creating Growth Opportunities and Mergers & Acquisitions.

Wharton School Publishing
Design Matters

What makes good product design? While technology and creativity are important, at the heart is an understanding of people — consumers who need products and the creative design teams that meet these needs. The authors of a new book from Wharton School Publishing, The Design of Things To Come, lay out a systematic process for linking these two sets of people to find innovative products that can become market successes. More

Education à la Carte
Design Your Career

Wharton offers a wide range of new knowledge to help you redesign your organization or your career, from forging alliances to strengthening leadership. Among the upcoming programs are:

• Strategic Alliances: Creating Growth Opportunities
  October 2–5, 2005
  
  
• The Leadership Journey: Creating and Developing Your Leadership
  October 2–7, 2005
  
  
• Marketing Metrics: Linking Marketing to Financial Consequences
  October 10–14, 2005
  
  
• Pricing Strategies: Measuring, Capturing, and Retaining Value
  October 23–28, 2005
  
  
• Finance and Accounting for the Non-Financial Manager
  August 15–19, 2005

Conferences
Wharton Sponsors Two Conferences

Wharton is proud to sponsor two major upcoming conferences and is offering special pricing for E-Buzz recipients who sign up before July 22:

• The World Business Forum, September 13–14, 2005, in New York, will feature Colin Powell, Richard Branson, Jack Welsh, and C.K. Prahalad, among other speakers. To register, call 866.711.4476 and mention Wharton pricing, or register online and mention code BNY/E4/WM/05.
  
  
• The World Negotiations Forum, November 8–9, 2005, in New York, will feature Richard Shell, who co-directs the Wharton Executive Negotiation Workshop: Bargaining for Advantage®, along with Madeleine Albright and Robert Cialdini. To register, call 866.711.4476 and mention Wharton pricing, or register online and mention code NNY/E1/WM/05.

Any comments or suggestions? Please send us your thoughts at execed@wharton.upenn.edu. We want to make every effort to respect your confidence, so please let us know if you don't want us to share them in future issues of Wharton@Work: E-Buzz.

"We design them here, but the labor is cheaper in Hell."

© 2005 Jack Ziegler from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

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