Title: Senior manager, service systems research

Company:IBM

IBM has been at the vanguard of efforts to develop a new academic field. Service science, management and engineering (SSME) is a new research area for IBM. The company is encouraging students and potential hires to take interest in the field. Contributing editor Jamie Eckle spoke with Paul Maglio about IBM's initiative, which the company says is designed to give college graduates "new skills to address business and technical issues in a service business environment."

What is SSME? SSME is an idea for a new approach to research in service, an idea for a new academic discipline that integrates a variety of existing fields for education and research in service, and a specific call to action to generate awareness around the need for taking a systematic approach to developing innovation in service.

What is IBM doing to support this academic discipline? Are there signs that it is being accepted by the academic community? IBM has been promoting SSME through presentations at universities and conferences around the world -- most recently at an SSME summit in early October in Palisades, N.Y. -- through hosting and participating in SSME workshops around the world, and through interacting with specific schools and faculty who are interested. We have also worked with universities, including North Carolina State University and the University of California, Berkeley, on curricula and course materials. So is it being accepted? Courses are being offered at about 30 universities, including NCSU, Berkeley and Ecole Polytechnique F'd'rale de Lausanne in Switzerland. And I think the excitement shown at the Palisades meeting is clear.