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JULY | AUGUST 2015 BizEd 57 Future Proof IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, has adopted a new strategic direction for its MBA program called "Navigating the Future." Launched in 2014, "Navigating the Future" was created to help MBAs explore and address current and future busi- ness trends, so they can "obtain the big-picture view needed to pave the way for real progress," explains Ralf Boscheck, IMD's MBA director. As part of the "Navigating the Future" initiative, the school asked senior business leaders and MBA students what trends they believe will most shape business. IMD faculty also will research the impact of, and business response to, 15 global trends in areas such as digital technology, the global regulatory environment, and energy con- sumption. The school planned to release the results of that survey at a conference at its campus in June. The initiative also inspired the school to oŠer five new scholarships—totaling 250,000 Swiss francs (about US$262,500)—earmarked for students in emerging markets. The Scholarships for Emerging Markets will go to candidates from Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa who otherwise would not have access to finan- cial aid for higher education. Ultimately, the school wants its MBA students to understand "why business does what it does, and at which value and costs to whom," says Boscheck. He adds that the school also wants students to recognize how short-sighted business decisions could lead to detrimental outcomes. "We cannot close our eyes to fundamental challenges that exist across industries." The team also could pinpoint pat- terns in students' social media behavior. For instance, after noticing two spikes in social media activity in mid-February, team members were able to correlate the first to the day students received acceptance letters; the second, to the day others received rejections. This analysis also revealed that a number of students had started using the hashtag #TigertownBound. "It was created by a student," says Warner. "We thought, 'Wow, that's better than anything we could have come up with!'" The work of the Creative Inquiry class has been so successful, stu- dents and faculty have presented the results at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and Polytech- nic University-Hong Kong, as well as at industry conferences such as Dell World. Starting this spring, SAI began working with John Tripp, an assistant professor of information systems at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, to use social media monitoring to deter- mine whether schools receive a higher volume of applications after their sports teams make the championships. Kristy Ward, a junior marketing major and SAI intern, was an incoming freshman when the research project got started. She remembers being able to find answers to her questions on the Clemson Facebook and Twitter accounts. Today, she's excited about the project and how it reflects student behaviors and preferences. "When I was a junior in high school, everyone was using Twitter, but now students are more into Instagram. The findings continually change as students drift to dierent media platforms. This has been a great opportunity for me to get my hands on real data and work with real organizations," says Ward. "So many companies fail to connect with custom- ers because they fail with their social media plans. That's why we have to be involved in social media." GAME WINNERS Looking for a new twist in student competitions? Check out the Alliance of European Business Games, founded in 2013 with the goal of identifying and promoting tomorrow's top busi- ness talent. Members include HEC Paris, Solvay School of Economics in Belgium, St. Gallen In Switzerland, Durham University in the United King- dom, and Nova University in Portugal. The organization hopes to foster the creation of new business games across Europe with the ultimate goal of orga- nizing a final Olympics-style compe- tition among all business games to be held in Brussels. At an event at HEC Paris in April, about 150 business students from around the world tackled six challeng- es presented by corporate partners on topics that included innovation, strate- gy, and corporate evolution. The candi- dates, selected through an online test, represented more than 30 nationalities and 30 business schools from around the world, including Russia, Europe, China, and the U.S. Entries were judged by HEC Business Games corporate partners: Crédit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank, Crédit Agricole S.A., Gameloft, and Lufthansa. For more information on the HEC event, visit www.hecbusinessgame. com. For information about the Alliance, visit www.facebook.com/ pages/The-Alliance-of-European- Business-Games/464251923714669.