Visit to Chamber of Commerce inspiring

The MSBA class was fortunate to visit The US Chamber of Commerce in downtown DC and spend a couple hours with Ricard Cooper, Vice President of Emerging Issues and Research and Melissa Vruggink, Associate Recruiter in Human Resources.   Rich told the students their generation will be "the one to change the rules."  They will have to deal with issues such as Big Data; how much is too much, the ethics of bio engineering, and small business issues which is where job creation is.  Cooper believes this generation will be more corraborative and that will be essential to working through these critical issues.

His advice to the class is to become a life long learner, be constantly curious and venture out of your comfort zone.  It is important to examine an issue from all sides, not just the lens you are comfortable with, in order to understand, debate and effect change.

Skill sets our next generation of workers need include efficient means of engagement.  The 20 page white paper is extinct, learn to write in a concise and clear manner, one page is hard but essential.  Learn storytelling and how to grab attention in the 6 seconds that research says is our attention span. 

Opportunities will be in the cyberscape which Rich described as the "nerve center of everything".  This will cross over into cyber security, healthcare, protection, infrastructure and privacy issues.  Challenges will be adapting to the speed in which commerce and technology evolve and finding work life balance in a 24/7 world.

In closing Rich advised that success for the life long learner looks like, "I haven't thought of it that way".  It was a tremendous experience and we are grateful to Rich, Melissa and the Chamber for this opportunity.

Stewart McHie
Director, Master of Science in Business Analysis
mchie@cua.edu