Bissett School of Business would like to congratulate Mount Royal University Associate Professor, David Finch and Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Director, Ray DePaul,  on the successful publication of their new book:  Designing You: Life Beyond Your Grades.

In Designing You, David and Ray challenge you become your own product manager. To do this, they take you through a multi-step process to define your Whole Product – the Whole YOU. In doing this, Finch and DePaul, Whole YOU goes far beyond just questions about career goals but also explores larger life goals and how they relate to each other. In the first month over 500 students and faculty downloaded the eBook. The print edition will be released on November 15th and will be available online and from the university bookstore.

To support the launch of the book, Finch and DePaul penned an article in the Huffington Post entitled “Don’t Let Yourself (or your kid) Become the Next BlackBerry“. In this article they use a smartphone analogy to help students understand the importance of being adaptable and relevant as markets change. This article received some notoriety and an angry response from BlackBerry COO himself, Marty Beard who argued that students should aspire to be like BlackBerry. Finch and DePaul responded by identifying the (some) elements of the BlackBerry that can offer guidance to students today. As an interesting (and ironic) end to this story, shortly after this response, BlackBerry announced they will be discontinuing design and production of handsets.

Finch and DePaul don’t view Designing YOU as a book, rather it as a mindset supported by a range of tools that enables students to connect their postsecondary experience to larger life goals. For example, this semester Finch and DePaul are piloting a Designing YOU course and are working with MRU Continuing Education and other MRU departments to develop an online course to support our students design their lives.

For more information on Designing YOU you can go to the website www.designingyou.org

For a $10 discount for MRU faculty off the eBook/ Print bundle you can use promo code “whole you”.