Wednesday, September 04, 2013  Why Businesspeople Should Learn
To Code (But Not Write Software)  The "everyone should learn how
to code" meme has probably reached the point of absurdity.  My
favorite (humorous) example is the "Dear Miss Disruption" advice
column, in which every question, no matter what the topic,
concludes with the answer, "learn to code."  But my old
professor Tom Eisenmann of HBS did something that few others
have--he actually polled a bunch of MBA students who took a
computer science class, and asked them about their experience. 
Imagine that, actual data! The numbers are way too small to be
statistically significant, but it certainly seems like students
who chose to take a CS class (an admittedly self-selecting
group) found it beneficial.  The interesting thing is why.  For
the most part, the students didn't get value out of coding. 
Instead, they improved their ability to work with developers,
and demonstrated their commitment to high tech.  The fact is,
having businesspeople spend their