Systematic Inventive Thinking

With six of its faculty members earning the Nobel Prize, it is hard to associate the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with anything else but economics.  In reality, it is an innovator in many other areas.  It was the first to initiate a PhD program in business (1920). It pioneered the executive MBA degree for experienced managers (1943).  Booth was also the first to establish a minority relations program (1964).  It is the still the only US. business school with permanent campuses on three continents: Asia, Europe, and North America.

Booth preaches what it practices.  It teaches systematic methods of innovation to its students.  Art Middlebrooks is an clinical professor of marketing at Chicago Booth, and one of a growing number of professors teaching the SIT method.  He is well qualified as both a practitioner of innovation as well as a teacher and scholar.  He teaches both innovation and services marketing. “I find that students learn best by ‘doing,’ so I’ve structured both the in-class and out-of-class work to enable students to ‘try out’ the various tools that I teach.”

From his faculty website:

“A management consultant and trainer focused on innovation, services marketing, and branding, Middlebrooks specializes in helping service companies grow profitably through new product and service development, branding, and effective marketing strategies. He has worked with companies from a broad range of industries, including energy, telecommunications, information technology services, and e-commerce. His clients include Bank of America, BP/Amoco, Hewitt Associates, and IBM Consulting Group.”

Art is a former senior director of marketing and product development for DigitalWork Inc., partner with Kuczmarski & Associates management consulting, manager in the Strategic Services division of Andersen Consulting, and systems analyst at American Management Systems.

He is coauthor of two books, Innovating the Corporation and Market Leadership Strategies for Service Companies. He has published in the PDMA Handbook of New Product Development, Management Review, Sales and Marketing Management, and Marketing News.
He earned an MBA in marketing and finance from Chicago Booth in 1988 and a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics from Duke University in 1984. He is a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa honor societies.