Internpreneurs Arise!
What if interns moved your business forward? If you couldn't get enough of them, because they discovered new markets, prototyped uses for new technologies, and solved hard problems? At the Spring RISE Summit, our group discussed the idea of "internpreneurs", teams of college interns that expanded business capability by applying entrepreneurial "startup" approaches to unsolved problems.
Contrast this with our current approach to interns. Once recruited, interns are assigned inside the current business, and taught skills that are at the core of the today's products, customers, and processes. In essence, we drive our internship development using a rearview mirror. This is both costly in precious staff time, and doesn't leverage the best of what fresh college interns have to offer: external perspectives, knowledge of new technologies and customers, and no investment in "the way things are done today".
Instead of trying to make interns into mini-employees for three months to a semester, what if we used them as "skunkworks", as explorers of new business models and solvers of hard problems? Sound too edgy, too risky? Well, consider what industry stalwart IBM has done with their Extreme Blue program. They recruit top flight interns at their labs around the globe, and put them in teams of software developers and MBA students. In their own words, "Through the program, interns have submitted more than 360 patent disclosures and have made more than sixty open source contributions to the open source community. They helped create solutions for key clients and bring-to-market the next generation of IBM products. Not bad for just 12 weeks of work."
This May, 15 of you, leaders across a spectrum of RI-based organizations, contributed $300 as a "down payment" on a discussion of internpreneurship. As the new semester is convening across New England's colleges, we're ready to host a conversation to explore what internpreneurship might mean as a tool to expand business capabilities and horizons, to harness young talent in ways that are big wins for both interns and organizations, and to better leverage the wealth of energy and education that 80,000 college students bring to Rhode Island each year.
RSVP here: http://anyvite.com/e9x0o3tars
Email info@betaspring.com with any questions.
More information on IBM ExtremeBlue: http://www-01.ibm.com/employment/us/extremeblue/index.html
Contrast this with our current approach to interns. Once recruited, interns are assigned inside the current business, and taught skills that are at the core of the today's products, customers, and processes. In essence, we drive our internship development using a rearview mirror. This is both costly in precious staff time, and doesn't leverage the best of what fresh college interns have to offer: external perspectives, knowledge of new technologies and customers, and no investment in "the way things are done today".
Instead of trying to make interns into mini-employees for three months to a semester, what if we used them as "skunkworks", as explorers of new business models and solvers of hard problems? Sound too edgy, too risky? Well, consider what industry stalwart IBM has done with their Extreme Blue program. They recruit top flight interns at their labs around the globe, and put them in teams of software developers and MBA students. In their own words, "Through the program, interns have submitted more than 360 patent disclosures and have made more than sixty open source contributions to the open source community. They helped create solutions for key clients and bring-to-market the next generation of IBM products. Not bad for just 12 weeks of work."
This May, 15 of you, leaders across a spectrum of RI-based organizations, contributed $300 as a "down payment" on a discussion of internpreneurship. As the new semester is convening across New England's colleges, we're ready to host a conversation to explore what internpreneurship might mean as a tool to expand business capabilities and horizons, to harness young talent in ways that are big wins for both interns and organizations, and to better leverage the wealth of energy and education that 80,000 college students bring to Rhode Island each year.
Please join a group of business leaders, entrepreneurship professors, and students for a discussion on Friday September 24th from 12-2 at the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Worst case, you get your $20 back in sandwiches and chips.
RSVP here: http://anyvite.com/e9x0o3tars
Email info@betaspring.com with any questions.
More information on IBM ExtremeBlue: http://www-01.ibm.com/employment/us/extremeblue/index.html
