Courtesy: Kelly Swanson

By Kelly Swanson

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Kelly Swanson. Yes that’s right. My controversy is back for a really great show. I have my bruises, but I can hang with any crowd. So many things have gone right and wrong since I was away for the summer.  I don’t have to tell you the ruckus that Thunderbird has been working with, but #1. It’s all good, #2. It will eventually become the back page as a new dawn takes over and #3. Mobile services will become the major player in online education. (Finally!)

It’s 2034. I imagine my daughter being in class while being driven by her Google Car. Her Google Glasses on, watching Tegrity videos on her projected classroom wall, and a remote control class to her left on the other projected screen. The world economy is stable, the Oceans are blue, the grass is green, and a Green Party politician is in the White House. Ok now I have gone too far!!  That’s going too far ahead!

Currently, many of our On-Demand Students are getting ready to head out to Italy and other countries on their RBE. The Istanbul RBE was canceled due to a local disagreement that soon got out of hand. The summer of turmoil is over and the Fall has begun, then the Winter time will be here before you know it. We averted a war so far in Syria, and it looks like China is a normal country economically after all because what goes up must eventually come down (Thank you Global Econ for teaching me that….yess!!).

So, I have been extremely busy putting my pre-MBA to work already. I have begun two start-ups, and my Global Marketing class team helped an American business with their international marketing venture into Spain for our final exam project. My team consisted of Monica “Jetset” Zylstra, Will.i.am “Derek” Robinson, Kaycee “Scream Queen” Palumbo, Ryan “The Cowboy” Allen, and myself. Like any good T-Bird team we embraced the project, and took it to the extreme by using a real company with a real problem. In future articles, I am going to showcase various On-Demand MBA students because you the readers have asked to hear more about them and they are extremely exciting people. Many of them are at the forefront, bleeding edge of global business. We have people from Goldman Sachs, United Airlines, All Branches of the Armed Services, including the Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Embassies around the world, and some top-secret stuff they can’t talk about. We also have students from Hershey’s (oh yes it’s a cool job), Software companies, Software startups, Raytheon, Wal-Mart, and yes, even Apple Inc. We even have one student that works on the Internet Space Station remotely from Georgia and I hope to get some info and answer questions. I am also going to interview some Human Resource directors from various global companies, so that our readers can get an inside view of the C-Suite.

My focus in this last quarter is going to be on the students and the world of Start-ups and funding for start-ups. Many of our On-Demand students are eager to change their world by opening their own business. This of course is the biggest move for most people in their lifetimes. Experience counts, and statistically entrepreneurs with prior experience typically succeed more often than those who are freshly minted with their MBA’s. It’s all in the numbers and I will bring you some of those insights in the following weeks. Its great to be back, and I look forward to a great new year here at Das Tor. Make sure you subscribe to us so you can get notified in your inbox that a new issue is out. Till next time! The bird is the word!!!