Darren was recently invited by Jennie Day, a Baum owner, to lecture at the University of Melbourne. Jennie kindly sent us a summary of how the day went:
Thanks to Darren, for giving an insightful, interactive guest lecture today in my class at Melbourne Uni. The subject is called Planning the Productive City, and is taught to 3rd-year undergraduates and masters-degree students. It introduces urban economic processes and their interaction with the political system. The point of the class is to prepare students to work as urban economic-development planners, and to critically question the economic decisions made by government.
Most of us who have been to the Baum shop know Darren as the talkative bike designer who serves up Chris King coffee from the shop espresso machine while showing you pictures of his kids. But hang around a bit longer and you will realize that he knows more than just bikes – and that he is just a *teensy* bit opinionated on issues of the economy and industry. I once went down to Geelong on a Saturday for some minor bike adjustments, and we ended up in a two-hour debate about higher education, and protectionism in the bike and car industries.
It was after one such discussion that I realized Darren would be a great invited lecturer in my subject. I wasn’t disappointed today. Most of my students know next to nothing about bikes or cycling – no matter. He was able to take theoretical economic concepts I’ve been talking about all semester and ground them in his real-life experience in founding and running Baum Cycles – all with his characteristic smarts and ease: the globalization of manufacturing, the special needs of small business enterprise, global supply chains, the importance of regional clustering, government facilitation of clustering and R&D, and the production of experience.
I could tell from the lively Q&A session that the students were interested, and were realizing that the textbook concepts we’ve been discussing for the past 6 weeks actually happen in real businesses. Already, there is a buzz around our Faculty about the talk – and it’s only been a few hours.
On behalf of all the 3rd year bachelors and masters students in Planning the Productive City, thanks again Darren. We hope to see you back to give the same talk next year!
Jennie Day
(Proud Baum Owner since July 2009)
Lecturer in Urban Planning
Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning
The University of Melbourne
2 comments:
David, I think that you should put Jennie's metalic light fuscia Romano (or was it a Cubano?) with the gold Chris King hubs on your photostream we that us other Baumers (Bombers?) can see it in all it's blinging glory!
Getting Darren to lecture in Business is like getting Dr. Josef Mengele to lecture in post-operative care.
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