Frozen desserts, spicy sauces and burrito-sized sushi rolls added flavor to a food entrepreneurship conference organized by undergraduate students on Nov. 16, 2015, at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “This event is like a startup company that will last exactly three hours,” Smith School professor Oliver Schlake told the audience of about 200 guests at the school’s Shady Grove campus in Rockville, Md. “It’s a learning experience.”

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — San Francisco voters had a chance Tuesday to kick Airbnb to the curb with a ballot measure designed to restrict short-term housing rentals.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Gaming as a customer engagement tool has been around since the invention of dice and playing cards. But Oliver Schlake, a clinical professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Imagine living on a remote German island in the North Sea. When you need medicine, an autonomous drone flies more than seven miles from the Continent to deliver it. Is this some futurist scene based on rosy projections in a PowerPoint presentation for potential angel investors? Nah. It’s already being done by DHL — in field tests that would be restricted in the United States.

Improvisation and contingency planning are fundamental to business survival because challenges can appear at any turn ­— like in a zombie apocalypse, Smith School professor Oliver Schlake says.  

Entrepreneurship students go into the woods to test their prototypes in a new course designed by Professor Oliver Schlake at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Please forward to the 11 minute mark on the video to watch this segment or click here to watch on YouTube.

Join us for the ThoughtLeadership@Smith Breakfast Series. Smith faculty present their latest research on topics that matter to you and your organization. Each presentation is followed by an opportunity to network with alumni and regional business leaders at one of Smith’s convenient local campuses in Washington, D.C., or Baltimore, Md.

Lead smarter. That’s the goal with strategic management, which can help managers detect the early indicators that strategy isn’t working. In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Dr. Oliver Schlake talks about management strategy.

How do you plan for the next crisis? Begin by asking this question.

Surviving extreme life situations requires dealing with the most pressing life-or-death needs first, then building on incremental success at critical intervals and battling unforeseen challenges to make it through. Business leaders can apply the same strategies to guide their organizations through the pandemic and survive for the long term, says Maryland Smith’s Oliver Schlake.