New courses at MIT Sloan include ‘Pursuing happiness’
Before it’s in the boardroom, it’s on the syllabus at MIT Sloan — including a new course on pursuing a meaningful life.
Faculty
Ben Shields is a Senior Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His work as a teacher, researcher, and practitioner focuses on digital transformation in the sports, media, and entertainment industries.
He teaches a number of courses in the graduate programs at MIT Sloan. He created and teaches Creative Industries: Media, Entertainment, and the Arts; Social Media Management; and Sports Strategy and Analytics. He also teaches Communication for Leaders and co-teaches the Sloan Fellows Seminar on Leadership. In 2020, he received MIT’s Teaching with Digital Technology award. In 2022, he received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching, MIT Sloan's most prestigious teaching award.
Ben also teaches in the MIT Sloan Executive Education program. He is the Faculty Director of the Global Executive Academy, a two-week program focused on leadership that convenes executives from around the world. In addition, he developed and teaches the open enrollment program Data-Driven Teams: The Art and Science of Winning. He also teaches in two other open enrollment programs: Communication and Persuasion in the Digital Age and Maximizing Your Personal Productivity.
He is the author or coauthor of three books, Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High Performance Industry (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace (McGraw-Hill, 2006). He has also coauthored MIT Sloan case studies on Formula 1 and the National Women's Soccer League.
Prior to MIT Ben served as the Director of Social Media and Marketing at ESPN.
He holds a BS and MA in communication studies and a PhD in media, technology, and society, all from Northwestern University.
Shields, Ben. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Rein, Irving, Ben Shields, and Adam Grossman. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Rein, Irving, Philip Kotler, and Ben Shields. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education, 2014.
Before it’s in the boardroom, it’s on the syllabus at MIT Sloan — including a new course on pursuing a meaningful life.
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The Advanced Management Program (AMP) is a month-long senior executive program designed for a diverse group of experienced leaders seeking transformative learning among global peers. AMP participants will engage in custom learning components led by MIT’s world-renowned faculty, including interactive classroom sessions, management simulations, case studies, 1:1 leadership coaching, and individualized feedback assessments. Participants will also explore the many companies, labs and centers that make MIT and surrounding Kendall Square the epicenter of innovation worldwide.
Grounded in extensive cognitive research on how we learn and observe, Communication and Persuasion in the Digital Age is designed to help executives and managers become successful communicators in person and in virtual contexts: from group discussions to presentations to social media.