Facilitated by Josh Greenhut, Founder of Josh Greenhut & Associates and Strategic Storyteller-in-Residence at Bridgeable

Successfully presenting a new idea at work requires more than strong thinking, research, design, and strategy. You’ll need to distill information into a crystallized form that makes your idea more likely to be supported, invested in, and adopted. This highly practical workshop examines the unique challenges of sharing new ideas with decision-makers, whether it’s your manager, a potential investor, a prospective partner, or the CEO. Armed with a practical toolkit and hands-on opportunities to practice, you’ll gain a foundation in crafting presentations that hold attention, sidestep pitfalls, and advance decision-making.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the unique challenges of business presentations
• Learn the universal structure of compelling presentations, and how it can be adapted to business design
• Develop strategies to build credibility and make a compelling case for your idea
• Practice storytelling skills and tools that help move decision-making forward

This will take place on March 27th from 5:00-8:00pm. Email businessdesign@rotman.utoronto.ca to signup by March 25^th at 5:00pm.

Facilitated by Everton Lewis, Partner-  Impact Signal

Given the uncertainty and the possibility of many future scenarios, the challenge was to plan for a post-pandemic world. The team used various tools to communicate customer behaviour and needs, validate the discovered needs, and project possible ridership behaviour into future scenarios. In this presentation, we will share learnings on combining qualitative research with quantitative models to understand customers better. We will revisit that time in history to see what we can learn about scenario planning and quantitative modelling with our current understanding of the situation. We will also learn how tools like behavioural personas, segmentation analysis from purchase data, and natural language processing can be combined to inform business decisions.   

This Lunch and Learn will take place on March 20th, 2024 at noon. Email businessdesign@rotman.utoronto.ca to signup by March 18th, 2024 at 5:00pm.

Below is a list of additional upcoming sessions:

• Strategic Storytelling: Presenting Innovation to Decision Makers on March 27th at 12:00pm

Business Design Deep Dive Workshops

The Business Design Initiative is excited to kick-off of its 2023-2034 Business Design Mini Deep-Dive Series. This program offers a range of immersive workshops which demonstrate how Business Design is being actively applied in industry. The sessions are designed to provide students with learning-by-doing opportunities within specialized topic areas so they can gain familiarity with Business Design and explore the range of problem sets where it can be leveraged to offer value. Each session has a unique theme, and students can join any or all that are of interest. The first three are outlined below, with more to be announced soon!

Session 1 – October 25th – 5 – 8pm Future Thinking: Developing Business Foresight
Facilitated by Emma Aiken-Klar, PhD, Academic Director of BDI
This 3 hour session is designed to enable participants to anticipate how the future might disrupt business-as-usual, and to embed resilience into strategy and decision-making. Participants will be introduced to the fundamentals, methods and application of strategic foresight (when, why, and how it is practiced), and build an understanding about the practice of foresight in the context of business design and innovation, including real-world cases. After being introduced to the basic principles and process of strategic foresight, participants will engage in a series of learning-by-doing activities to gain fluency in the methods and begin thinking about how to integrate the approach into their own organizational and business contexts.

Learning Objectives

• Develop a foundational understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the foresight discipline;
• Develop a working fluency with a set of futures tools and methods;
• Learn and practice how to apply Horizon Scanning, Drivers Mapping, Critical Uncertainties and Future Scenarios to a foresight challenge;
• Translate relevance and next steps for specific organizational and business contexts.

Session 2 – November 15th 6 – 8pm – Artificial Experience Design (AX)
Facilitated by Shane Saunderson, PhD, Principal, Artificial Futures
AX is the next generation of UX for the age of automation. However, no longer do we simply ask “where should I place this button?” or “how should I structure information?”. We now must ask questions like “what personality do my words convey?”, “how does my bot’s facial expression make people feel?”, or even “what kind of relationship will someone develop with this agent?”. Technology is transitioning from being a tool in our hands to a relationship in our lives. As such, designing modern automation demands complex considerations well beyond simply the structure, text, and visuals of an interaction. This module guides participants in approaching AI design from a more holistic standpoint that considers the broader meaning and relationships people form with automation to ensure a consistent, intentional experience. This knowledge will be critical to future digital transformation projects within your workplace that begin to embed these increasingly social technologies into the fabric of our work.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn a foundational understanding of user experience design and it’s limitations;
• Identify the complex psychological and relational considerations of designing social automation;
• Practice identifying social and semiotic AI implications and how to design for them;
• Gain experience with incorporating social automation (AI & robotics) into a business workflow.
  
  

Session 3 – Jan 17 – Systems Thinking for Sustainable Business Design and Innovation
Facilitated by Emma Aiken-Klar, PhD, Academic Director of BDI
Sustainable and responsible business transformation requires us to imagine and implement change outside traditional linear structures and see the systemic and interconnected ecosystems in which business operates. This three hour session will provide a systems thinking lens into the ways that organizations can leverage business design towards their broader ESG goals. Through a combination of case studies and some hands-on activities, this session will introduce key concepts and practical skills to navigate complex sustainability challenges and drive business design and innovation with a holistic and systems-led approach.

Learning Objectives:

• Introduction to systems thinking and how it applies to sustainable innovation;
• Exploration of key concepts, models and case studies of sustainable innovation, such as circular economy, donut economics, biomimicry, cradle-to-cradle design and Seventh Generation Principle;
• Practice using tools and methods such system maps, leverage points, etc to identify opportunities for sustainable innovation and business design.
  
  

RCareer is your go-to platform for career related items such as:

• To book coaching appointments
• View & apply to job postings
• View & register for events (internal and external)
• View & register for workshops
• Search the company database to view past events and postings from companies of interest
• Updating your Job Reporting Status – all students must inform Career Services when internship and/or full time employment is secured and complete an employment survey so we can track where our students land (details of which are kept confidential within Career Services). 

If you haven’t yet completed your RCareer profile, we recommend you do so ASAP so that you are kept up to date on relevant workshops, events, and job/internship postings. In addition, Career Services regularly leverages the information in your profile including your industry & function preferences and target list of companies you want to work for to plan industry and function events and to engage with employers for job opportunities. Your preferences may change over the next two years, especially if you are exploring a couple of career paths, and therefore it is important that you update your preferences as they change.

Did you know that once you complete the CliftonStrengths assessment, you can download your customized report – the Strengths Insight Guide – that not only provides a brief Shared Theme description for each of your top five talents, but also your Personalized Strengths Insights uniquely generated based on how you answered the questions? Developed over decades spent studying millions of CliftonStrengths assessment results, these statements explain exactly how each of your talents makes you stand out from others with the same theme in their Top Five.

If you haven’t yet taken the assessment, make sure to do so before orientation or your first coaching appointment – whichever comes first – and spend time reading through your Strengths Insight Guide. We recommend that you highlight or circle words and underline phrases that resonate with you and best describe you, as well as think of ways in which you may have used these natural talents throughout your life.

Don’t have an access code or instructions on how to complete the assessment? Please email Career Services at career.services@rotman.utoronto.ca.

Becoming more self-aware of your interests, motivations, and strengths may enable you to have a clearer understanding of the steps you need to take as you plan and prepare for a meaningful career. To help build upon your self-awareness, Career Services recommends that you complete the CliftonStrengths and CareerLeader self-assessments before you meet with your Career Coach.

The CliftonStrengths assessment uncovers which talents you rely on to build relationships, think strategically, execute plans and influence others to accomplish goals. Knowing your unique set of talents, you’re empowered to succeed by doing what you naturally do best.

The CareerLeader assessment was created at Harvard Business School and designed specifically for business students and professionals. This tool is useful because it will provide you with insight into your skills, motivators and interests, and measures how similarly you answer a set of questions to groups of professionals who are happily employed in their fields.

Please refer to the email sent to you from Career Services on June 7^th with assessment instructions. If you did not receive one, email Career Services directly at career.services@rotman.utoronto.ca. 

Your career journey is an integral part of your MBA, and one of the many perks of choosing to join Rotman’s MBA program is being provided a dedicated a Career Coach who will partner with you as you develop your career management skills to prepare you for a meaningful career. Introductory career coaching appointments are available over the summer before the MBA program officially begins – please refer to the email sent from your Career Coach in early June that provided instructions on how to book your first appointment, or email your Career Coach directly. Note that you must have completed the following items before your first appointment: 

• CliftonStrengths Assessment
• CareerLeader Assessment
• Personal Career Map
• Job Search Strategy Wheel

On behalf of Career Services, we are excited to welcome you to the Rotman Community and look forward to working with you on your career journey.

We recognize that your career outcomes will be an integral part of your Rotman degree. In Career Services, we promise to deliver a high-touch model in which we support students with their career needs through personalized and holistic career planning, employer engagement initiatives to promote hiring of Rotman talent, and year-round career management curricula tailored around your career stage and goals.

We also highly encourage you to attend our Career Discovery Series (CDS) throughout the summer months, with the first session of three taking place virtually on June 7th. This will allow you to get a head start on meeting your Career Coach and engage in sessions where you will learn about key career deliverables to prepare you for your career exploration and search before entering the program.

Sincerely,

Lyla Korhani
Director, Career Services

For years, one of the highlights each fall in Toronto has been the Toronto International Film Festival, popularly known as TIFF. After a two year online hiatus, this fall TIFF is back live and in person. As part of that, on two weekends in early September there is an opportunity for members of the incoming Rotman class to volunteer to help raise funds for a group that sponsors refugees to come to Canada. Among the volunteers who volunteered for this in 2019 were some incoming students in the Rotman class of 2021 and today three Rotman alum are members of the organizing committee for this initiative. 

In 2015, members of the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in downtown Toronto formed the St. Andrew’s Refugee Sponsorship Committee (STARs) that has helped support refugees from Syria, Rwanda and Afghanistan. A major hub for TIFF is Roy Thomson Hall, directly across the street from St. Andrew’s. On the opening weekend of TIFF from Friday September 9 to Sunday September 11, the street in front of Roy Thomson Hall will be closed and STARs volunteers will be selling cookies to support its work in sponsoring refugees. When it did this in 2019, volunteers commented on the overwhelmingly positive response from passersby and it raised over $7500. 

This year STARs needs help on two weekends: 

Saturday Sept 3 and Sunday Sept 4 on the Labour Day weekend when they’ll be packaging cookies 

The weekend of September 9, 10, or 11 when they’ll be selling cookies 

Below are the times that help is needed. If you’re able to volunteer at one of the times below or have any questions, please send an email indicating when you can help to Sameer Pinto (a 2019 Rotman grad who works at RBC) at sameer.pinto88@gmail.com.

Note that St. Andrew’s is located at the corner of King Street West and Simcoe (one block from the St. Andrew’s subway station.) 

We are pleased to introduce the University’s centralized, online course evaluations system Blue. Student feedback is essential to the teaching and learning experience at the Rotman School of Management. We appreciate you taking the time to provide insight on what you liked about the course, what you’ve learned and what parts could use improvement.  Your thoughtful feedback helps professors identify what is working and how they can restructure and refine future iterations of the course.

WHY?

Student feedback is essential to the teaching and learning experience at the Rotman School of Management. We appreciate you taking the time to provide insight on what you liked about the course, what you’ve learned and what parts could use improvement.  Your thoughtful feedback helps professors identify what is working and how they can restructure and refine future iterations of the course.

Course evaluations represent both students’ right to have their voice heard and their responsibility to the university and their peers. Taking the time to fill out evaluations is important because it

• Helps you: provides an opportunity to reflect on learnings
• Helps instructors: provides feedback on what is working and what could use improvement
• Helps fellow students: provides feedback that improves courses and can assist peers in making decisions when selecting courses
• Helps the university: provides data used to support and inform summative review purposes such as annual merit, tenure, and promotion review

HOW?

The Blue system will open on the last day of class starting at midnight and will be open for 72 hours, but your instructor should be providing time during the class as well to complete the evaluation.

During the course evaluation period, you can access them in two ways:

1. Via the personalized email link that you’ll receive from course.evaluations@utoronto.ca.
2. Via Quercus. Log-in to Quercus and access the Course Evals page. All of your active course evaluation tasks will be displayed in the Complete Your Evaluations section.

You will get these notifications for each course you are enrolled, so do remember to participate in all invitations!

QUESTIONS?

If you are unable to access your evaluations, please contact course.evaluations@utoronto.ca.

Thank you for your help in the continuous improvement of Rotman courses. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our office (ro@rotman.utoronto.ca).  

The Blue system will open on the last day of class starting at midnight and will be open for 72 hours, but your instructor should be providing time during the class as well to complete the evaluation.