Guest Blogger: Swain Center for Executive Education (This post originally appeared on WilmingtonBiz.com on August 1, 2018).

The Swain Center for Executive Education shares their top six trending themes to help you and your organizations grow.

Blogger: Laura Gail Lunsford, PhD, Director of the UNCW Swain Center (this post originally appeared on WilmingtonBiz.com on June 15, 2018)

Investing in professional development can yield big dividends for the individual and the organization.
 
Skip to the front of the line on developing and investing in high-quality professional development by checking off the items on this cheat sheet to make sure you will have an engaged and talented workforce.

Guest Blogger: Drew Rosen, Ph.D., professor of supply chain management at the Cameron School of Business, UNCW.  

(Editor's note: this was originally shared as an Insights Blog post in March 2016.)

Often I am asked about the value of project management education. Whether your organization is small or large, private or public, old or new, the answer is always the same. If you are looking for a way to stay ahead, forward-thinking organizations are turning to project management to consistently deliver superior business results.

Guest Blogger: Dr. Stephen Hill, Assistant Professor of Business Analytics, Cameron School of Business

• Detecting spam and malware.
• Guiding autonomous vehicles.
• Distinguishing between images of cats and dogs.
• Predicting diabetes-related hospital patient readmissions.
• Recommending the next show for you to “binge watch” on Netflix.

What do these seemingly unrelated things have to do with each other? Each of these tasks relies on analytics techniques and tools. These examples focus on the transformation of data into information, and then into insights and better business decisions.
 

Guest Blogger: Laura Lunsford, Ph.D., Director, Swain Center for Executive & Professional Development

We tend to spend a lot of time at the start of relationships but neglect paying attention to how we might end them well.

For example, would-be lovers woo us with promises of dinners, chocolates, flowers. Yet breakups are usually seen as unpleasant. We spend time orienting new employees to organizations and hopefully to their new colleagues.

This employee profile is from UNCW’s ‘We Are UNCW’ series and was posted on November 6, 2017.

Although Matt Mylott ’07, ’18M is a native Californian, he’s very much at home on the East Coast. All it takes is a stroll down Chancellor’s Walk to remind him of what he loves most about life here.

Guest Blogger: Dr. Adam Jones, Associate Professor of Economics, Cameron School of Business and Regional Economist for the Swain Center.

Let’s face it, forecasting long into the future with and degree of certainty is difficult to do. The Jetsons originally aired in the 60s and envisioned personal air travel and all kinds of other automated conveniences that are yet to appear.  We have certainly moved in the direction of more automation, and while we don’t have affordable robot housekeepers (yet), Rumba vacuum cleaners are beginning to clean our living rooms, and cars are driving themselves. This dramatic advance in technology raises questions about the future of employment and creates angst in labor markets.

Guest Blogger: Laura Gail Lunsford, Ph.D., Director of the UNCW Swain Center

According to the US Census by 2060 almost 1 in 5 people in the US will be foreign born and 56 of every 100 people will be from what we now consider a minority race or ethnic group. The coming wave of ethnic diversification in the U.S. workforce makes it even more important that companies promote inclusive mentoring.

Guest Blogger: Dr. Donald Barnes, Associate Professor of Marketing, Cameron School of Business

Customer satisfaction is no longer enough to ensure profitable customer relationships. Satisfied customers are not loyal or willing to tell others about your business and how great it is; they are simply satisfied. Their expectations were met. Why would they tell anyone about that?
 

Guest Blogger: Laura Gail Lunsford, PhD, Director of the UNCW Swain Center (This article was originally shared on WilmingtonBiz.com on May 1, 2017)

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Mentoring never hurt anyone.
 
People don't really need training to mentor someone else.
 
“Programming” mentoring seems fake.
 
"Assigning" people to relationships doesn't work well.