Be a media innovator. A new Innovation Academy course at the University of New Mexico promises to help you channel your inner entrepreneur. #MakeMedia_UNM

Innovations in Media Entrepreneurship marries up the best of what news media can do with ways to make money doing it.

Sign up for spring 2016

If you need a fun, easy three-credit course for spring 2016, or if you want to be on the leading edge of entrepreneurship, Innovations in Media Entrepreneurship is the elective for you.

Students in any discipline at the University of New Mexico can sign up now for CJ 393 Innovations in Media Entrepreneurship. (It’s a new course through the Innovation Academy, so students may have to work with their advisers to get set up to register.)

But the good news is that taking an Innovation Academy course looks fantastic on your resume.

What the course is

I’m teaching the course with UNM journalism professor of practice Mike Marcotte, and here’s what it’s all about:

➢ Students will lead and participate in invigorating discussions with media movers and shakers in New Mexico and nationally.
➢ Students will have an opportunity to tap into leading-edge Design Thinking, a method developed at Stanford University for innovative problem-solving.
➢ Students will develop designs, revenue models and business plans, then prototype and pitch.

The Innovation Academy and InnovateABQ

But I may have buried the lead: One of the coolest aspects of this course is how hyper-connected it is with Albuquerque’s thriving innovation economy, which has been the focus of New Mexico News Port this fall – and has been making big headlines in the Albuquerque Journal and ABQ Business First.

Students will have the opportunity to collide – not just network, but actually collaborate with – people in the innovation community. Like other Innovation Academy courses, this course is networked into the InnovateABQ economic development effort from the City of Albuquerque. Read about that here, in my interview with Gary Oppedahl in Life in New Mexico magazine.

Here’s the official course description:

CJ 393 Innovations in Media Entrepreneurship

In this debut Innovation Academy course, students from multiple disciplines investigate new media models, and collaborate to create prototype media products. Curriculum draws on emerging experts in Albuquerque’s innovation network. Three-phase course includes visits with local entrepreneurs, followed by introduction to design-thinking. In the final phase, students develop and pitch their prototype products.

The video download

So, Mike and I discussed the class in this video, produced by UNM’s CJ 360 class under the direction of Dr. Richard Schaefer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TidIUotNStQ&feature=youtu.be