Mixing Students and Scientists in the Classroom

Despite earning two engineering degrees at Stanford, Harvard Business School associate professor Lee Fleming says he always knew he "wanted to study more than electrons." Even so, the former professional musician and bike racer, who worked at Hewlett-Packard for seven years and holds two patents in integrated-circuit testing, admits it was anything but inevitable that he would end up at HBS.

"I was interested in science and technology policy at the Kennedy School, and I also thought about law school," notes Fleming, who joined the HBS faculty in 1998. "It took me a while to find my niche."

His on-going research at HBS synthesizes elements of history, sociology, business, and statistics.

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In his course on commercializing science and technology, Lee Fleming combines students from business, engineering, law, science, and medicine. The result: Ideas for products from scale-eating bacteria to quantum dot cancer treatments. Key concepts include:

* Unique approaches and perspectives are crucial when exploring opportunities occurring at the intersection of business, science, and technology.

* The first step in mixing teams from diverse disciplines is often to break through preconceptions each group has about the other.

By: Deborah Blagg

Full Story: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5491.html