Managers’ duties range far and wide. Whether or not managers can execute them all and meet their goals greatly depends on their ability to persuade others in conversation and presentations. Yet even experienced managers can find speaking to switched-on audiences stressful. Managers, however, are precisely the people who should be able to animate their listeners with lively authenticity. The operative word is entertainment, not boredom.
The German Speakers Association (GSA) is now entering its second year of partnership with Steinbeis University Berlin. The Professional Speaking course is aimed at established and aspiring professional speakers as well as people who need to acquire speaking skills for their job. The year-long certification course for people in employment is directed by Markus Hofmann, a noted memory expert, and confers the title of Professional Speaker GSA (SHB) upon completion.
Participants receive instruction over eight weekends, covering the core competences of a professional speaker. This includes presentation and performance techniques, body language, stage presence, voice training and off-the-cuff speaking. Marketing, selfpromotion, PR and sales are also addressed, as are business administration and time and office management. “Once again, we were able to secure the industry’s best speakers for this course,” says Hofmann, Certified Speaking Professional and Director of the Professional Speaker GSA Steinbeis Transfer Institute. “And I’m happy to report that feedback from the first course is excellent all around!”
The Professional Speaker GSA SHB certificate is a university-level certificate that is granted as part of a non-academic study program. After students pass their examinations, they are awarded this certificate at the next fun-filled GSA convention.
Nearly 40% of annual energy consumption goes into occupied buildings. Sustainable buildings create efficient overlaps between building design and energy conservation. More and more, the simulation of difficult conditions brought on by weather and everyday use is allowing industry professionals to improve the energy-efficiency of buildings. New research shows that by running buildings properly, it is possible to cut energy costs by almost 20% without compromising on comfort. The certification course in real estate energy management keeps experts up to speed on all the latest developments.
To work out whether a building is being badly run, managed, or its weakness is of a more fundamental nature, professionals have to look at the entire process, from the energy supply to storage, distribution and actual use. Thanks to high-performance monitoring and diagnostic tools, designers can analyze data in real time and use this to map out needs. This information forms the backbone of smart energy regulation strategies.
Given the array of technical possibilities, practical administrative factors, plus financial issues, optimizing energy use in buildings will always be a complex task. Energy management processes need to be headed by business-minded generalists with a keen understanding of the technical principles underpinning energy. Certification builds on this expertise through systematic, practical instruction on tapping into energy-saving potential and ways to cut costs. Third-party and in-house building and energy managers are provided with the skills they need to manage energy-efficient buildings and operations. The course starts in April 2011, spanning four modules over a total of 12 seminar days.
The School of Governance, Risk & Compliance and the Steinbeis Transfer Institute for Risk & Fraud Management at Steinbeis University Berlin offer seminars for compliance officers, members of supervisory boards and other professionals looking to enter this field who require instruction in basic theory.
Participants can build on their knowledge in four separate areas at the School GRC one module per area: compliance, business administration, crisis management and general skills regarding competencies. The compliance module, for example, uses a case study to teach anti-fraud management. The curriculum also covers how compliance units must be structured within companies and which specific issues relating to labor, criminal and data privacy laws companies need to consider.
These one to three-day courses take place in Berlin and can be booked as a package or as individual days.
To honor the long tradition of summer school, the Steinbeis Business Academy (SBA) at Steinbeis University Berlin is organizing the 2011 Summer School event from July 6-9 at SIMT, SHB’s teaching facilities in Stuttgart. The program will focus on strategic thinking, management and ethics.
Based on the line-up of topics alone, everyone involved can look forward to lively and fast-paced knowledge transfer. Steinbeis University Berlin aims to use this program to serve as an alma mater that does justice to enrolled students and alumni alike. Non-students are also eligible to apply for the SBA summer school program.
The first day is all about strategy and strategic direction. A food-for-thought lecture entitled “Innovative Outlooks for Companies: The Future as It is Today” gets things moving in the right direction. Dynamic times like ours make strategic direction more important than ever. Businesses need creativity and inventiveness to survive in the marketplace. Ultimately, these skills spark new ways of thinking and acting, and they equip people to address key social criteria – an active and challenging approach to staff development, sustainability, using resources sparingly, achieving a work/life balance, and more. The day closes with a panel discussion that tries to answer the question, “Tradition? Or Innovation?”
The second day focuses on management and leadership. To lend momentum, the session begins with a talk on establishing and leveraging networks of expertise. “Bringing Stability Through Change” is the title of the thought-provoking closing discussion, which promises plenty of insight and stimulation for the gray matter.
The third day of summer school, which explores the issue of corporate ethics under the headline “Conflicting interests: ethics, morals and money”, starts by looking at strategic principles of innovation. It then turns to the management qualities required to maintain stability by making specific changes within companies. Clarifying and setting personal or group goals can lead to conflict, even when these goals are based on ethical principles. Afternoons are reserved for workshops. They delve deeper into program themes in four stages. Groups are asked to discuss the day’s topic in depth and explore all aspects from one of four rotating perspectives: the state, a global company, a community and a small business. In the presentation that wraps up each day, groups explain their results. The discussion that follows highlights a variety of conflicting interests between different strategic models – running vertically and horizontally throughout organizations – management hierarchies and ethical expectations that also need resolving in the real world.