Hello and greetings. I am Dr. Anant Deshpande, assistant professor in business management economics at SUNY Empire State College, and co-faculty of this iMOOC course. I am here today with Dr. Samuel Conn, Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Integrated Technologies at SUNY Empire State College. Dr. Conn comes to SUNY Empire State College from Southern Polytechnic State University, where he served as a vice president of information technology and chief information officer. Prior to his time, at Southern Polytechnic State University, Dr. Conn held positions at Georgia Military College, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Regis University. In addition, Dr. Conn also has extensive private sector experience having worked as Vice President for technology and business development at Vertical Alliance and director of information systems for Baxter Healthcare Corporation. He also held technology and leadership positions at Parascript and InfoBeat Inc., in Boulder Colorado. And with MBNC Inc., in Denver. Welcome again Dr. Conn. And thank you for joining us today, as we talk about eLearning in America. The course is built around the theme of 21st century skills and is designed with non American students in mind. And caters to the needs of those who are interested in taking online courses in American institutions and those who are interested in getting jobs with American companies. The main purpose of our talk today is to find out what you think international students should know about virtual and professional work-based environments in America. So, let us begin. To begin, Dr. Sam, what do you see as critical factors for foreign-born employees in an American organization? >> Well, first, thank you for the invitation. This is really exciting. I think this is an excellent course of study, for sure. Virtual environments are just huge these days. American companies are using virtual environments as platforms for information and communication technologies. Being able to have asynchronous communicates with people worldwide. The ability to work in cross-functional teams in distributed environments. The ability to just work with technology to join people together to accomplish goals. These are things that are just huge in American organizations these days. America has many multinational corporations, and in those corporations many times, you're called upon to work with people from many different countries to accomplish goals. So, I think that the critical success factors for folks, especially, foreign born employees who may not be familiar with American companies, and how they work. Number one is be collaborative. Come into any organization in the United States with a spirit of collaboration, thinking that you're going to be part of a bigger whole. Collaborative experiences solve a lot of really complex problems in American business, so first and foremost, think of collaboration as being a very important thing. Think in terms of working in cross-functional teams. You're gonna have particular expertise. You're gonna have skills. You're gonna have experiences that you bring in. And you want those to be complimentary to the team. You don't want to think of yourself as being in competition with others. Cross-functional teamwork is all about bringing those things that you know how to do, that you're most expert in, to a team environment, and it complements the team. It makes it stronger. It's not a competitive environment in that sense. You have to think of ways in which you can add value to the team. You can add value not only through your particular technical expertise and experience, but you can add value by showing leadership, by helping the team to stay organized, to maybe have some offline communications that would help to clarify points for the team that would supplement the progress of the team. So, find some way that you can add value to the team as well, and then I think the other thing is you've got to have a flexible work life balance. It's not, we've evolved a lot in America from the days of Henry Ford, and the 40 hour work week and coming to work from eight to five and having somebody there making sure that you arrive at eight o'clock and don't leave until five o'clock, only take a half hour for lunch. Those days are all really gone. Employees these days are measured on impact, if they get results. And so, it may not be important that you're available at 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock in the morning, but it might be important that you're available at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock in the evening. So, you have to find your own way to have balance in your work life. And that doesn't mean thinking in terms of just 8 to 5 as work hours. >> Excellent, those are all great points, Dr. Conn you mentioned. Now, as you think of, professional working environments, do you see self management, and self directed learning as important skills? >> I do, I think that's one of the things that you get out of online education is, you achieve a higher level of self efficacy. You have to be a self starter. And in the United States, especially, working in virtual teams or virtual environments, it's exactly the same skill set, it transfers over. In your online courses, if you're working to achieve collaboration, if you're working to achieve self efficacy, if you're a self starter, if you work independently, if you don't need to be constantly supervised or managed. If you can just show results, if you can work independently. If you can participate in the larger conversations, and add value then those skill sets are directly transferable over to the way American companies are conducting business today. [MUSIC]
