M.I.T.

Today was my last day of work at IDG Enterprise. It was tough saying goodbye -- I've worked with extremely talented people in all areas of the news business and made some great friends. I've learned a lot about technology and new media. There have been ups and downs, but on the whole it was an incredibly positive experience, and enabled me to grow my career in ways that I never anticipated when I began working at IDG in the late 1990s.

Next month, I move onto the next chapter of my life: Full-time studies at MIT. I'm a member of the incoming class of the Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation and Global Leadership, which you can read about here. It's hard to get used to the idea that I'll soon be starting business school at one of the world's top centers for research and innovation, and will be interacting with some truly incredible faculty and classmates from all over the world.

What I will study at MIT

I'm very interested in focusing on the business challenges faced by the evolving news industry, but I'm leaving the door open to other areas of study. Aside from the core MBA requirements of the Sloan Fellows program, there is a lot of latitude to take business, science, and technology classes in areas that are totally new to me, or represent cutting-edge areas of research, and I truly intend to keep an open mind to the new experiences and ideas that I will encounter. I don't know exactly where it all will lead me, but that makes the journey all the more exciting ...

Image: MIT from the Prudential Tower, Willem van Bergen, creative commons generic 2.0 license


(Owing to time restrictions, my blogging will probably slow down or stop over the next few months. I may post shorter items from time to time, as well as videos on my MIT blog, but probably the best way to keep up with what I'm doing is by following my personal Twitter feed at @ilamont or my school-related Twitter feed at @sloanfellow)

Update: For more insights into the full-time Sloan Fellows program, please read the following posts.

• MIT Sloan Fellows: One semester down, two to go
• MIT Sloan Fellows program: Soft vs Hard
• An encounter with Tim Berners-Lee and the Semantic Web
• The missing constituency in climate change negotiations
• In case you're wondering what at MIT Sloan accounting exam looks like ...