There is a lot to be learned from the business world today and I contend you can learn most of it by listening to what those who are in it are saying.

Of course trying your hand at something is also mandated.

The 1st thing that provokes change  is the environment, the larger lay of the land at any time.

The second thing that provokes change is people and their curiosity to try things, invention!

What I believe today is that the old silo structure of education is not only slowing down our advancement but it is applying breaks to personal invention and environmental catalysts for development.

Communication, business and IT are so fundamentally linked today that to consider one without the other is foolhardy.

But how many comm professors are reading business and IT texts or research? Few, maybe none and the same is true for the other disciplines.

The result is missed opportunities.

Here is a great example of the IT, business communication mix that is all but missed in the ivory tower!

Phillips & Co has developed a branding and advertising platform that turns rooftops into billboards. The app, Blue Marble, allows brands to place a QR code on the building, shoot an aerial or satellite image from space, and make it accessible in navigation apps such as Google Earth and Google Maps.

This is amazing!

But is there money to be made?

“I believe the space economy, which is about $260 billion worldwide, will become a trillion-dollar industry and that we’re talking about applications and services leveraging satellite and GPS for private and public use,” Phillips said. “Given the cost of environmental marketing and billboards, we think this is a cost-effective way to provide a nearly permanent billboard that companies can use to serve dynamic information.”

The space economy? Are we teaching this? Are we talking about this?

There is a whole new dimension of communication, marketing and technological interface emerging right now and like in the 1800′s, with communication technology, there is amazing opportunity if we dream a little and apply and link the tools in place.

How many times have you been given a piece of paper, especially by a teacher, and turned it over to find it blank?

A classic example of wasted space.

And from our humble days in the classroom, I contend, we are not encouraged to think about how we use space to communicate and go on to waste it in an epic manner.

No of course we do not want to clutter our lives and have ideas and messages everywhere, that is not what I am saying.

But we do want, and need, to make use of the communication space we have at hand that is going unused and thus wasted.

So we have our one sided school handouts that are a typical waste of space.

And then we have the big one, business cards!

Here in the middle east the back of my cards are in Arabic so the space is used, but in most of the world the back is blank!

Why? Why? Why?

Hugh MacLeod created a business out of filling the empty wasted space and has gone onto a very lucrative promotion and art career with Gapingvoid!

Hugh started his career doing things like this on the back of business cards.

This got me thinking about my own business cards and how I could use the space better.

Thanks to to Hugh’s inspiration and a little bit of thought about information this is what I now have on the back of my business cards.

Thanks to the design work of Sudeep Kumar I think my business cards are a lot more useful and void of wasted space.

What is on the back of your business cards?

The reality is simple.

We all have an opportunity to do something, anything, no matter how big or small to make our environment a better place.

The question is are we willing and ready t stand up to out responsibility?

It is much easier to say I am too busy or I can’t do anything or my ideas are silly or make some other excuse.

But as Tamara shared with us the smallest action can make a profound change for many people not only on a personal level but a community and maybe even national level.

Change starts with us!

What is that saying, be the change you want to see!

Sure there are the vacations and the very nice working hours, but is that enough?

Then about this time of the year I get my answer to why I stick around.

This is the time of the year when the students who I met in the introduction to communication class are now graduating and doing their final projects. Those things that will show the world that their education has some application to things outside the classroom.

This is when I see the fruit of what I have been teaching, some students suggest it is more like torture, all the same it has been in the classroom.

Here are 2 examples being spoken about by 2 groups of students.

One example is a guide book to Dubai.

And the other is a cultural magazine for Emiraties to learn more about their own culture, today.

Sure I would like more money, who wouldn’t? But I get to watch emirate students go from being a bit nervous and tentative about media and communication to something amazing, becoming part of the media of the nation.

I think a MasterCard commercial could be made of my teaching year.

If you get a chance to work with students don’t even think twice! You get more than you give every time.

Well last summer I did something totally off the wall, I decided to create my own shirt brand, A James Original and sell some of the very shirts people have been telling me are very cool to a small elite group of people like you.

You see for years I have been finding interesting fabric and getting business/play shirts made, just for me.

Over 180 shirts later I decided why not get a few extra made and see what happens!

Well, I can tell you that people, a group of people, love the shirts.

Who? Cool people, the person who is into a Hawaiian shirt with class, the person who thinks Tommy Bahama can do better.

Of 200 shirts I have 80 left, not bad for a professor who is not into marketing.

I have lived my dream and I feel good, really good, because the shirts are great and made by a group of tailors in Bali (I met them so I know that these are not mass produced Chinese products). Also these are not mass produced shirts, only 20 of any colour exist in the world!

What have I learned?

1. timing is everything

2. a great story wins every time

3. trust your gut instinct

4. quality wins in the end

5. everyone has a story to tell so listen as much as you talk

Now that the water has been tested the question is do we go and get more made?

Who can turn down a trip to Bali?

Check the shirts out online and let me know what you think!

I have been following Hugh MacLeod on his blog www.gapingvoid.com for some time.

Hugh is one of those rare people who has sat back, looked at what he is doing, what he is good at, what he is not good at, and made the choice to follow his heart.

10 publishing offers later Hugh is going to see his book on the shelves June 11th.

The take home form a conversation with Hugh MacLeod?

Rise above the crowd and consistently sustain your ideas because for the most part people are light on them and more willing to follow the other lemmings!

Listen and learn from Hugh MacLeod!

I think this is a golden opportunity for organizations to think and re-design how they communicate, why they communicate and what they communicate.

The problem is organizations BIG and SMALL seem to have no idea where to start, and why should they?

The reality is that business of all size and shape more than ever need the help of an academic like me with a foot in both the business and education pond.

What does business need? re-conceptualization and re-application of the talent pool.

How, COM 101!

Watch this space I will start a podcast of this very project in 2 days!

But there are others out there with the same message if we listen!

The problem is we are too absorbed and have not taken the time to really think or listen to others who have!

I wonder why it is we send students on internships YET we do not see professors going on yearly internships themselves?

It is great that professors write papers BUT what about every professor spending 10 weeks a year in industry?

This professor internship could be amazing for the academy and amazing for business.

So why is this not the norm?

Just tossing it out there.