Have  you heard of The Hub? Chances are if  you live outside of Europe you haven’t – until now. Thanks to a group of forward thinking business visionaries, including a group of UC Berkeley MBA candidates, on September 1st the first Hub space in the United States opened in San Francisco. This unique model provides work and event space ‘for social innovators to work, meet, connect and inspire’.

What is The Hub? 

Hubs are member-based work and event spaces where social entrepreneurs, freelance professionals, artists, funders, students, mentors, and community leaders can work and interact. Working together, it’s hoped these groups will access market opportunities and capital, build community, and scale ideas.

Hubs are a type of co-working space in which members receive a set of tools and services from a community of professional hosts, mentors and local enterprises who are passionate about supporting innovative ideas. Depending on the location, Hub centers may offer donated legal services, mentor office hours, and unlimited coffee. Aside from the shared services, the real benefit to Hub members is the business incubator environment.

History of The Hub

The Hub began four years ago in London and quickly spread to 18 cities and across four continents. Today, there are nearly 4,000 Members of The Hub, interconnected by a place-based and online network. The Hub Bay Area is the first Hub location in the United States and was started in partnership with Hub Global by a San Francisco-based team who founded Good Capital and The Social Capital Markets Conference (SoCap).

“We are thrilled to be working with the people from Good Capital and SoCap, and the stellar team they’ve put together,” said Jonathan Robinson, co-founder of The Hub Global. “We have known them for years and are impressed at what they have accomplished at the forefront of a new kind of investing, and at the way they have been able to convene and build strong community.”

MBA Students Integral to United State’s First Hub

Hub Bay Area was designed by a team of architects, Hub Members, IDEO and MBA students at UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School. The space at the David Brower Center features collaborative workspaces, meeting rooms, private phones booths, kitchen and cafe, and lounge areas that reflect the dynamic working needs of its members.

Money, Mobs and Media

Being part of The Hub community includes access to their Innovation Series that will regularly produce interactive events focused on inspiration, aspiration and operation of social change. This summer, before the doors even opened, The Hub presented Money, Mobs, and Media, a panel featuring the founders of Kiva, Virgance, and Change.org. They discussed ways to create and scale community-driven non-profit and for-profit social enterprises.

“We are providing a home, inspiring community and support structure for those who are building solutions for people and planet. By connecting change-makers, sharing resources, and cultivating new ideas, we can massively increase the scale the impact of our collective work,” says Alex Michel, Managing Director of Hub Bay Area. 

The Future of Hub Bay Area

Plans are in place to extend Hub Bay Area to the Mission District in San Francisco in early 2010, and into the South Bay in 2011.

“Bringing the Hub concept to the Bay Area and beyond is a natural extension of what we are already doing,” says Kevin Jones, a founder of both Good Capital and SoCap. “We convene many of the people who are making the social capital market happen in an annual conference, but The Hub is where the rubber meets the road every day of the year.”

Prospective members should e-mail bayareahosts@the-hub.net for more information.

It’s the time of year when prospective students, especially high school juniors and seniors, are taking a serious look at colleges. While a wealth of educational resources is a good thing for students, the choices can be overwhelming. Fortunately there are several tools available to help students and their parents find the right college or university.

US News and World Report 2010 Best Colleges

US News and World Report recently updated its annual Best Colleges ranking and research tool The 2010 Best Colleges interactive search tool allows students to search a database to find the best colleges based on the following criteria:

• public/private
• campus setting
• enrollment
• tuition and fees
• basis for financial aid awards
• test scores
• acceptance rates
• student to faculty ratios by major
• student population stats by gender and ethnicity
• student activities

Click here to access the US News and World Report 2010 Best Colleges ranking.

Forbes America’s Best Colleges

Like the US News and World Reports list, Forbes America’s Best Colleges resource provides an overall best colleges ranking based on many of the same factors. The August 2009 list of best colleges provides an at-a-glance listing of some of the best higher learning in the country.

Click here to access the Forbes America’s Best Colleges ranking.

Top Community Colleges

University’s have their place, but community colleges are also a valuable resource for many students. Washington Monthly’s Top Community Colleges ranking looks beyond the typical mainstream college guide to help students shop for a community college just as they would a larger school. Community colleges represent a significant portion of overall higher, with 43 percent of college freshmen beginning their education at two-year institutions.

Click here to access the Washington Monthly’s Top Community Colleges ranking.

Princton Review’s Best Value Colleges 2009

Few things most of us purchase will be as costly as our college educations. The Princeton Review Best Value Collegesranking helps students find the best school at the best price. The Princeton Review selects schools based on 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs and financial aid. Tuition, room and board, and required fees, as well as book costs and other factors, are included in the financial measurement.

Click here to access the Princeton Review Best Value Colleges ranking.

Best Engineering Colleges

Because so many business students come from the engineering department, it seemed appropriate to include PayScale.com’s Best Engineering Colleges ranking here. Their focus on how much you’ll make after graduation sealed the decision. Their list of best engineering schools is ranked by post-graduate salary potential.

Click here to access the PayScale.com Best Engineering Colleges ranking.

Top Online Colleges

Online colleges are prevalent now and for good reason. Best Online Colleges ranks the Top Online Collegesto help you decipher all the choices. Completing a degree online is possibly the most convenient and expeditious way to further your education while maintaining full time employment. Online degree programs offer flexibility and are quickly being adopted by more and more students who want a learning environment that fits their needs.  

Click here to access the Best Online Colleges ranking.

Hottest Student Bodies

College is very serious business, but it’s supposed to be fun as well. That’s what you’ll find with PopCrunch’s 2009 Hottest Student Bodies ranking. Check out this list if your choice of institution is in part or in whole informed by the quality of girls on campus. (I looked for a similar list of hot guys and couldn’t find it. If you know of one, please speak up!)

Click here to access PopCrunch’s 2009 Hottest Student Bodies ranking.

When you think of an art student, what comes to mind? Funky outfits and piercings? Alternative music and idealistic dreams of making  it big? These may be stereotypical tags for artistic young people, but the truth of our consumer society is that every product you buy requires a team of artists to design the logo, labels, packaging, and even the product itself.

Artists are in demand and whether they plan to work in Corporate America, or open up their own gallery or design shop, the more business education they can get the better.

The First ‘Business of Art’ Degree

The Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida has launched a new BA program that combines art studies with business schooling. Believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, the Business of Art and Design degree was created for students who want to pursue art and intend to run their own businesses or work for others.  

According to Ringling, there are more than 1.25 million people working in art and design in the United States alone. They point out that in addition to the actual creative aspect of the work, there is more and more business skill required in this sector of the global economy.

Creatives Are a Valuable Commodity

Ringling President, Dr. Larry R. Thompson, says that individuals who have great creative ideas, and also the ability to organize, plan, and successfully lead and manage others are going to be a ‘valuable commodity’.

Lead faculty Dr. Wanda V. Chavez agrees:

“The new program is the first to integrate the study of business and the study of studio art and design — marrying the right and left brain into one practice. With a solid grounding of business skills, an understanding of the creative process, the reputation of a world-class art and design institution, and the ability to work effectively with other creative individuals, successful students will be able to take advantage of design concepts and design practice as integrated parts of strategic planning, as well as leverage learned leadership skills with the confidence to think creatively themselves to realize their own visions of success.”

What Students Learn

The program is a four-year curriculum leading to a Bachelor of Arts Degree in The Business of Art and Design. Students majoring in the new program will be equipped with a solid foundation of business skills, an understanding of the creative process, and the ability to work effectively with other creative individuals.

Business courses focus on case studies in industries such as arts management, advertising, video production, and art-and-design entrepreneurship. Students also participate in traditional studio classes to learn to think creatively and to understand how artists work and apply art and design in today’s market. 

Now all we need to do is get the MBA students into the art studio and we’ll have a fully integrated workforce!

When you are ready to commit a significant portion of your time and money to getting an MBA, you want to make sure you’re getting an education that’s going to transform your talent and ambition into a solid set of skills that deem you irresistible to the best employers. Business schools are competing to make their MBAs the most relevant to your success.

This month the MBA Roundtable released the results of its 2009 MBA Curricular Innovation Study indicating that 69% of MBA programs have significantly revised the curriculum in the past four years to improve the relevancy of the degree in response to criticism that they are not preparing graduates for today’s business challenges.

What Is Relevance?

Among the 69% of MBA programs making significant revisions to their curriculum, the most common change was the addition of ‘applied content’, or project-based courses. In addition to giving students more opportunities to take their learning out of the comfortable lecture hall and into the demanding real-world business simulations, respondents also reported that integration across topics and disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary content were popular changes.

MBA Programs That Get Into Details

MBA programs have traditionally focused on equipping students with big picture concepts, eschewing fine details of specific industries for personal leadership and decision making skills. Apparently that’s changing. The MBA Roundtable data reveals that 25% of MBA degree programs have added an industry specialization in the past three years. Common emphasis areas are healthcare, biotech, medicine, and entrepreneurship. Another change: about half the programs reported that they had added a focus on leadership development (as in, developing others) and global perspectives to their offerings.

Change is Good

And the changes just keep coming. 89% of all MBA programs surveyed are planning additional curricular changes.

“I think this is very promising news,” said Rodney Alsup, president of the MBA Roundtable. “It shows that there has been a concentrated effort among MBA programs to innovate and make changes that increase their relevance to both students and employers. Furthermore, this has been done in an educational environment that can be resistant to change, or, at the very least, has approval processes that make it difficult to make changes in a timely manner. Some schools need approval from their state boards of education prior to revising their curricula, for example.”

The motivation for these changes comes from both internal and external sources, according to the study. The most common motivator by far was internal quality improvement initiatives, with 64% of participants selecting it as one of their motivators. Among external motivators, “competitor schools” was the most commonly chosen answer, with 34% of respondents choosing it as one of their motivators.

If  you want to know more, check out all the results at www.mbaroundtable.org/events_preview.html.

Students have a new way to demonstrate their potential to succeed in business school. Along with GMAT scores, essays, and exhaustive applications, potential MBA candidates can now submit the results of personality testing directly to graduate programs. And while the use of this new technology is still a student choice, if the idea takes off you can expect graduate schools to begin requiring the personality test results as part of the standard package.

The Personal Potential Index

Educational Testing Service (ETS) has created the ETS Personal Potential Index (ETS PPI), a web-based evaluation system that provides graduate applicants ratings on specific personal attributes deemed by graduate and professional school deans and faculty to be critical for academic success.

The tool is the first of its kind to evaluate students’ noncognitive or personal attributes. Specifically, the testing process measures:

• Knowledge and Creativity
• Communication Skills
• Teamwork
• Resilience
• Planning and Organization
• Ethics and Integrity.

These “soft skills” are considered essential for academic success. The launch of ETS PPI marks the first large-scale use of noncognitive measures for admissions in higher education.

Michael L. Jeffries, Associate Dean of Students at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Director of McNair Scholars & Minority Student Affairs, says ETS PPI will help identify candidates that might otherwise have been missed, while expanding opportunities for a diverse range of students. The McNair Scholars Program is a national initiative aimed at increasing the number of first-generation, low-income and/or underrepresented students in Ph.D. programs.

“The graduate community needs to continue to reduce barriers to graduate education and allow more underrepresented scholars to join the ranks of the professoriate,” explains Jeffries. “To the extent that the ETS PPI will broaden opportunities for students, it is something that I strongly support.”

Early Evidence of Success

Based on more than a decade of research, ETS PPI was developed in response to requests from graduate deans and admissions professionals to address a need for noncognitive measures to evaluate applicants. The development and introduction of ETS PPI comes with the full support of the independent Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) Board.

ETS PPI has been piloted for the past three years through the National Hispanic Research Center’s Project 1000, a program based at the University of Arizona that seeks to increase the number of underrepresented students in graduate school. ETS PPI also was successfully used during this time by ETS for selecting candidates for its summer intern program.

According to David G. Payne, Ph.D., Vice President and COO in the ETS Higher Education & School Assessments Division, research indicates that achievement gaps that exist in standardized tests do not exist in noncognitive measures, which is why ETS PPI is seen as a tool that may help to level the playing field for students seeking graduate and professional degrees, such as an MBA.

“Solid GRE scores and undergraduate grades are very important, but they don’t provide the complete picture of a candidate’s potential,” says Payne. “We’ve known for some time, thanks to research and anecdotal evidence, that qualities like resilience and teamwork were indicators of success in graduate school. The problem was how to measure them effectively. But now, with the introduction of ETS PPI, we have a tool that allows for accurate and valid measures of these critical personal attributes.”

Ready to Be Tested?

Students who have registered for the GRE General Test after May 1, 2009 will have the option of using ETS PPI and sending up to four ETS PPI evaluation reports at no additional cost. ETS PPI is not exclusive to GRE registrants. It is also available to past GRE test takers and others for a fee of $20 per report.

Student can create an ETS PPI profile online as well as contact information for the evaluators he or she would like to complete an ETS PPI evaluation. ETS then sends an e-mail to each evaluator inviting them to access the ETS PPI system to complete the student’s evaluation. Evaluators log in to the system and respond to a series of statements to rate the student on the six personal attributes and to provide an overall rating of the student. The student is notified when each evaluation has been completed and can choose the schools to which the evaluations will be sent. ETS creates an evaluation report, and sends it to the institutions designated by the student.

Find out more here: www.ets.org/ppi

The way ETS describes the process, it sounds like an extended reference letter, but apparently the science supports the results.

What do you think about personality trait testing as a criteria for grad school admission?