The Open University Business School
Alumni Newsletter

News

* Students of the Year awards were celebrated at a lunch at OU HQ. Their outstanding academic achievements were matched by their accomplished acceptance speeches. For interviews, videos and more from the winners, follow this link.

* Cherie Blair QC gave an insightful and witty inaugural lecture at the Commonwealth Club. Follow this link to view a video of the lecture.

* Vice-Chancellor makes OU's case to UK party conferences. Martin Bean spoke at three key fringe events and held back-to-back meetings with politicians, business leaders and partners. Read his opinion piece in The Times here.

Events

* 'Reflections on the British Economy by Evan Davies' is fully booked but you can still join the live webcast. To register please email the alumni team with "Webcast Registration" in the subject field

* Peter Kennedy will be delivering 'Powerful Presentations' in Manchester on 15 November and Redhill on 17 November.

* 'Creative Thinking, Innovation Management and Intellectual Property, how do they fit together?' With David Trevitt MBA in Belfast on 17 November.

* 'Understanding Global Strategy' with Professor Susan Segal-Horn in Frankfurt on 24 November.

* For details of more events, including social and regular networking, please visit Events

* Read about the Munich group's annual exploits at Oktoberfest (auf Deutsch).

Research

* The first Business Briefing Network meeting took place for Milton Keynes businesses large and small, discussing what makes a successful collaboration. For more information about the next event on successful strategy implementation (12 January 2012) please email Debby Hing.

* Third quarter survey reports SME concern over economy: Britain's smaller firms are on the brink of sliding back into recession. The OU's latest Quarterly Survey of Small Business in Britain reports that recovery in the small firm sector has stalled over the past year and sales expectations for the next quarter are lower than at this time last year.

* Organisations that have the trust of their workforce have a competitive advantage over their competitors, suggests new book co-authored by the OU's Dr Rosalind Searle. If you have a particular interest in trust in an organisational context, please contact us as we are looking at forming a Special Interest Group in this area.

News in brief:

Thank you to those who took the time to complete the alumni survey. It will remain open until 31/10/11, still time to complete! We'll share the results in the next newsletter * 40 million OU iTunes U downloads makes OU 'global leader' * OU appoints Commercial Director, Steven Hill * The Bottom Line returned to BBC Radio 4 with Evan Davis on 22 September, 20h30 GMT, Thursday evenings * Waitrose and the OU launch learning partnership * For a critical look at economics, read Dr. Leslie Budd, Reader in Social Enterprise's blog, The Sceptical Economist *

Alumni offers

Open University Business School Courses.  Discount vouchers are available to MBA graduates who wish to take a further course (one per annum). Contact us for your personalised voucher. Contact: oubs-alumni@open.ac.uk

Continuing Professional Development Make the most of your Open University Alumni status by taking advantage of a special course fee with the Open University which allows you to study our short, online CPD courses at a discount of 10% off the published course fee. For more details, visit http://www.open.ac.uk/cpd/

Get your own website  - ideal for small businesses and consultancies.  Add pages and features as your business expands. Details and enquiries: www.getsetup.net.

Magazine subscription offers Take advantage of the lowest prices available on subscriptions to magazines such as The Economist, Time, National Geographic, Vogue and many others. www.alumni-subscriptions.co.uk

No charge sign up to Pay As You Use Call-handling service. Get your calls answered by your named PA in your company name and your administration sorted. No minimum or monthly fees, simply pay as you go, set up in minutes. Call 08451 30 00 30 or register on line at www.corebusinessnetwork.com and quote OUAO.

Other useful links

Browse past issues

Contact the Alumni team

Read newsletter online

News and information on the School and the Open University

Open University Business School Alumni website

Open University Business School website

Open University Alumni website 

News

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QuickLinks

Your alumni association has launched a dedicated Open University Business School group on Linkedin.

Linkedin is an online professional networking service, used by over 12 million professionals worldwide. It allows members to connect with each other and expand their business contacts. Through this website you are able to search and view Open University Business School group members' profiles as well as their networks. You see much more than a name. All connections are controlled by you, this is an opt in only.
How to join: There is no charge to join Linkedin, or to join the Open University Business School Alumni Network group on Linkedin. You are pre-approved as a member of the Open University Business School alumni association and can join the group immediately by clicking on the Linkedin Logo above.
You will need to use the same e-mail address with Linkedin as the one to which this e-newsletter is sent. You can easily add this address to your existing Linkedin profile.

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Update your details

If you need to change any of your contact details, email, home or work please go to the alumni website at www.open.ac.uk/oubs-alumni click on 'update your details'. If you have not registered your details please do so now and keep connected to this thriving international network.