This Week's Herman Trend Alert The Consequences of Virtual Meetings

The Herman Trend Alert May 12, 2010 Online Game Promotes MBAs for Women More than 60 percent of today's college students are women. Hoping to reverse the decline in women's business school enrollments, Forte Foundation, a consortium of schools working to increase the number of women pursuing MBAs, has launched a new online tool. Designed for college women and recent graduates who are contemplating a business major or uncertain about their career goals, the tool is a new interactive game called "Career Gal Road Trip". The online game allows students to explore different business majors and career paths. They participate by making virtual work and life decisions. Those decisions include everything from whether they should exit the workforce to pursue an MBA to when they should start a family. The particular path that the player chooses eventually leads the student to a video segment of an interview with a successful woman in business who followed a similar career trajectory, from entrepreneurship to investment banking. Believing that their campus events didn't reach enough college women, Forte Foundation Executive Director, Elissa Ellis Sangster, found a way to leverage their content and make it more accessible to young women and make it fun and interactive. In a joint study conducted in 2007 by Forte Foundation and McKinsey & Company, more than 85 percent of women surveyed believed it was "important to expose women to business early in their careers". Among women who graduated from an MBA program, the survey showed 28 percent decided they wanted to pursue business while in college and 20 percent decided in high school. In a 2010 study, released by the Higher Education Research Institute, 58.6 percent of college freshmen said there was a possibility they would change their major, while 20.3 percent were undecided about their major. Their exposure to business as a career will promote their choosing to earn MBAs. The United States Army has done well using a computer game called "America’s Army: Special Forces" to promote enlistments. Expect more organizations to engage Generations Y and Z by creating online games and using social media. Meeting these younger generations on their favorite platforms will be very successful. © Copyright 1998- by The Herman Group, Inc. -- reproduction for publication is encouraged, with the following attribution: From "The Herman Trend Alert," by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurists. (800) 227-3566 or http://www.hermangroup.com. The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group, Inc." BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: RETENTION SPECIALIST PROGRAM A growing number of people have expressed an interest in attending our Employee Retention Specialist Certificate Program. We'd like to schedule on that's convenient for those who want to attend, but need your feedback to do so. Please place RETENTION SPECIALIST in the subject line and Joyce will personally call you back to schedule the workshop. Or you can call Joyce directly at 336-210-3548 (PDT this and next week). BUSINESS IS PICKING UP Most employers are unprepared. The recovery will bring a new set of challenges for employers that have been in prolonged contracted mode. They will need more skilled workers or will need now to begin to upskill their current staffs. But organizations can not engage in Strategic Workforce Planning, when they don't know how. That's where The Herman Group can help. We can help you with your "People Review"----large or small---so that you will know who you will need and when you will need them. . . and we can also guide you to the best sources for the people you will need. For more information, call Joyce at 336-210-3548 or e-mail joyce@hermangroup.com. FIND OUT WHAT YOUR EMPLOYEES REALLY THINK AND FEEL Discover what’s really going on in the hearts and minds of your employees. Our InnerViews interviewing service uses SPHRs and PHRs, certified human resource professionals to probe for the information you really need to know. Exit and Stay Interviews, as well as Why-Didn't-You-Take-Our-Offer Interviews. Call Rosalie Catalano at 937-416-7066, or read more at: http://www.hermangroup.com/retentionconnection/exit_interviews.html. Herman Trend Alerts are produced by the Herman Group, strategic business futurists, Certified Management Consultants, authors, and professional speakers. New subscribers are welcome. There is no charge for this public service. The Herman Trend Alert is received by over 30,000 subscribers in 78 countries, in addition to other websites and printed magazines. Do you enjoy receiving this weekly e-mail update? Contact us about our co-branded Trend Alert service. Click here to sign up for the Herman Trend Alert. Subscribe or Unsubscribe to weekly Herman Trend Alert View this week's Herman Trend Alert Archived Weekly Herman Trend Alerts

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