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Critical Analytical Thinking (CAT) addresses issues that transcend any single discipline or function of management. Students analyze, write about, and debate fundamental issues, questions, and phenomena that arise in many forms in management.

The economies of the world are ever more closely linked. Record levels of international trade and investment are achieved every year. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are booming. The foreign exchange markets handle trillions of dollars of volume daily. Offshore provision of services has grown immensely. Host governments and non-governmental organizations operating internationally affect how companies do business far from their home bases and close to home. Few businesses today can avoid being connected to the world economy, and it is quite likely that the process of globalization will continue apace. To succeed as a leader in your career, you will need to be able to think systematically about the challenges brought about by globalization.

This course is a Bass Seminar, and thus project-based — i.e., owned and driven by the students (rather than a more tradition class based on lectures and cases). The focus of this project-based seminar is to explore how social technology (e.g., the use of blogs, websites, podcasts, widgets, community groups, social network feeds) can change attitudes and behaviors in ways that cultivate social change and improve the lives of others. Students study the strategies and tactics used by companies and causes that have successfully catalyzed the social persuasion to occur (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Current Media, Kiva.org, Google, Mozilla, Joost, Flickr, HopeLab).

GSBGEN 542. How to Tell a Story
"Tell me the facts and I'll learn. Tell me the truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever." How do you tell a story? This question becomes important for leaders of companies, who often only need to act as an editor - shaping the stories told by employees and customers - to align with shared vision. And it becomes important as you craft a marketing campaign. A good story is not enough. It must be well told. In this seminar, we will break down the basic elements of story-telling, elucidate the power of the verbal as well as the visual, and discuss how story-telling helps build brands and organizations.

MKTG 353. Designing Brands, Experiences, and Social Technology
How do leading organizations create compelling brands and connect through experiences? As today's savvy consumers are increasingly participating in brands (rather than merely receiving their messages), how do companies foster better experiences, conversations and relationships - with both their employees and customers? Moreover, how do you harness social media to build and amplify a brand? This is a project-based course that will draw brain power from the GSB and other Stanford graduate programs to collaboratively explore these questions. This course will leverage popular content from Jennifer Aaker's Building Innovative Brands and Power of Social Technology courses as well as integrate approaches from the "d.school", marketing,and psychology -- including human-centered iterative methods, real-time feedback, and a bias towardaction.

MKTG 552. Building Innovative Brands
Which brands do you love? Apple? IDEO? Method? Daily Show? Google? What draws you into these brands? How do companies create compelling brand experiences? How could you create a powerful brand? These the questions are explored in the course. The focus of thise project-based class is to explore how to build innovative brands, where brand is defined as "a sensibility" or "reputation" — departing from traditional perspectives of brand.

OB 368. How to Make Ideas Stick
Having a good idea is not enough; we must also be able to convey our ideas in a way that people can understand and act on them. But often our messages don't persuade or persist. This course assumes that you can craft more effective messages by understanding the principles that make certain ideas stick in the natural social environment. Students use research in sociology, folklore, and psychology to analyze what kinds of ideas survive the selection process in the marketplace of ideas and to develop a set of strategic tools to craft ideas that are more likely to survive.

STRAMGT 354. Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital
Many of America’s most successful entrepreneurial companies have been substantially influenced by professionally managed venture capital. This relationship is examined from both the entrepreneur’s and the venture capitalist’s perspective. From the point of view of the entrepreneur, the course considers how significant business opportunities are identified, planned, and built into real companies; how resources are matched with opportunity; and how, within this framework, entrepreneurs seek capital and other assistance from venture capitalists or other sources. 

The primary objectives of the course are to sharpen students' skills in opportunity evaluation; help them understand the tasks, decisions, and knowledge that are required to turn an idea into a sound business opportunity; and provide a setting for integration and extension of knowledge of the functional areas through the development of a comprehensive plan for a new business.

OIT 343. Design for Service Innovation
Design for service innovation is an experiential course in which students work in multidisciplinary teams to design new services (including but not limited to web services) that will address the needs of an underserved population of users. Through a small number of lectures and guided exercises, but mostly in the context of specific team projects, students will learn to identify the key needs of the target population and to design services that address these needs.

OIT 384/581. Biodesign Innovation: Needs Finding and Concept Creation
This is a “real world” medical device development course. The focus is on identifying clinical needs, validating needs, brainstorming, and concept creation. It is divided into a core lecture, core practical and project. The core lecture component is taught through a combination of interactive lectures from visiting medical device field experts. The project component is a hands on section in which teams will work on selected clinical needs. The project component is comprised of direct mentor sections with real medical device experts and coaching sessions run by the Biodesign Faculty.