Todd,
My experience with undergrads in teaching and business plans is that both colleges will pose challenges.
The engineering students don't know how much they don't know. How are you going to have them prepare an income statement or a pro forma cash flow if they don't know anything about accounting? In supervising master's theses in Engineering Management, I'm struck by how impractical their understanding is of marketing (assumption: just put it on a website and it will sell itself) although that might be true of business students as well.
Meanwhile, most of the business students know they don't understand technology and so except for a few computer geeks in the b-school they will probably self-select out.
If at all possible, you want to build balanced cross-functional teams, in which you bring multiple perspectives and strengths to the table. (This is what the Georgia Tech TI:GER program does.) Both the team dynamics and the functional responsibilities are a more realistic preparation for the real world: engineers aren't training to be lousy accountants, and business students aren't training to be hopeless engineers.
Finally, when picking cases, try to pick technologies that are easy to understand for a 20-year-old without real world experience. Think Web 2.0 or e-books, not enterprise software. Think bioengineered crops, not polypeptides for blocking tumor growth.
Full disclosure: I was once a technology entrepreneur who didn't know the difference between cash flow and profit when I started my software company.
I'd be glad to talk to you more offline about specific materials and topics.
Joel
---------------------
Joel West, Ph.D.
http://www.JoelWest.org/Research
Professor, Innovation & Entrepreneurship
College of Business, San Jose State University
BT 555, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0070
On 12:00 AM -0400 10/28/10, ENTREP automatic digest system hath said:
>Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 02:19:31 -0700
>From: Todd Finkle <
finklet2000@YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: Developing a New Undergraduate Syllabus (course) Entitled, "Technology Entrepreneurship"
>
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>I have been assigned the task of developing a new undergraduate syllabus (course) entitled, "Technology Entrepreneurship" that will be taught in the College of Engineering & Applied Science and will probably be open to business students as well. We are not sure at what level yet. I was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to share their experiences in teaching this course (e.g., syllabus, materials used, successes, failures, etc.). Thank you in advance for any assistance.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Todd A. Finkle, Ph.D.
>Pigott Professor of Entrepreneurship
>Gonzaga University
>School of Business Administration
>502 East Boone Avenue
>AD Box 9
>Spokane, Washington 99258
>509-313-7048
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