Harvard Business School Launches New Podcast

“Cold Call”—a new Harvard Business School podcast series deriving its name from the often fear-inducing pedagogical technique of professors randomly selecting a student to detail specifics of course material—launched last week from host Brian Kenny, the Business School’s chief marketing and communications officer.

The bi-weekly podcast “takes the School’s legendary case method and distills it into podcast form,” according to a press release. Kenny—who oversees the Business School’s global brand and coordinates the planning and implementation of the School's marketing, communications and public relations efforts—will interview authors on the development and key messages of their case studies.

By Karen Zhou

The first podcast posted last week featured a condensed version of a case study on British fashion designer Stella McCartney, who has released an organic skincare products and lingerie line. Business School professor Anat Keinan co-published the case in January 2015, following Business School Dean Nitin Nohria’s pledge in January 2014 to double the number of female protagonists in case studies over five years.

Business School faculty pioneered the famous case study method as a way to learn from studies of businesses in a group setting. Since its inception, the case method has become a widely adopted educational strategy throughout graduate business schools. Cases written by Business School faculty constitute 80 percent of cases sold globally. Thirty-three percent of these cases focus on international examples.

Over the past year, HBS has received significant attention after releasing a number of online educational endeavours, such as HBX Live! and HBX CORe.

The podcast endeavor marks the School’s continued foray into education through alternative media sources. “Cold Call” follows the podcast series “The Business,” which was first released in 2013 and also hosted by Kenny. “Cold Call” is available for free streaming on SoundCloud, iTunes, and iTunesU.

—Staff writer Ignacio Sabate can be reached at ignacio.sabate@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @TheIggySabate.