In the Trend Seminar students analyze emerging trends and come up with future business opportunities. They identify potentials of new technologies and forecast changes of industry structures.

The participants work together closely with industry experts. Company executives share their knowledge with the students and benefit from the results of the latest research which are published as a book.

The Trend Seminar is accompanied by trainings in the area of presentation skills, time management, and team and communication.

» Course Website

The Managing Product Development seminar focuses on tools, methods, and concepts crucial for the management of developing new products. It combines Harvard Business School case studies, lectures by industry experts, and field exercises.

Core content of the course is a project developed in cooperation with industry executives: by developing innovative products and services, students experience firsthand the development funnel. They learn to bring together market needs and technological opportunities, and focus on where and how to manage a project team successfully.

Accompanying trainings during the second phase focus on business planning, human computer interfaces and project management.

» Course Website

The Entrepreneurship-Laboratory offers the possibility to combine lectures on various entrepreneurship issues with a team project within a “real life” start-up.

Students work together with CEOs of high-tech start-ups and gain hands-on experience in starting and managing a new venture. The project carried out by the student teams are of strategic importance and deal, e.g. with pricing strategies, competitor analyses, financing, etc.

Accompanying training during the third phase focuses on topics such as leadership skills and professional communication and conduct.

» Course Website

The Advanced Topics in Information Seminar targets specific questions within the field of Information Economics. Renowned researchers from foreign academic institutions are invited to introduce students into their fields of research. Students approach the research topic by attending specially designed lectures and by working on and preparing related case studies. The current research topic in Summer Term 2008 will be “the Business of Software”, presented by Prof. Michael A. Cusumano from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In organizations, from self-employed sole traders through to major multinational companies, nearly all new ideas or initiatives require a financial or commercial evaluation, typically included within a business plan. The analysis is often performed through the creation of a business model in a spreadsheet package. Unfortunately, great business ideas do not always receive the support they deserve. The business models that provide the commercial justification for the idea are often poorly structured and, in some cases, simply inaccurate. The result is a misleading view of the financial strength of the idea. This course guides you through the development of business models that is relevant to all sizes of organizations and business modelling situations. It examines all the common aspects of a business model, such as forecasting the size of a market and managing stock and working capital through to developing a profit and loss account and a balance sheet and even valuing a company.

The elective introduces students to the production of a successful business plan as communication tool between entrepreneurs and investors. Objectives, contents and practices of a business plan are covered as well as organization, creation and presentation of contents. On the basis of case examples, avoidable typical weaknesses are discussed. The participants learn to assess a market with limited resources and to perform a first evaluation of market potentials, which serves as basis for the business model and for judging a business idea. On the basis of a case study, student teams generate own business plans and present them to a professional expert panel.

This course deals with theory and practice of entrepreneurial negotiation. It includes a theory part about interdisciplinary negotiation research, prescriptive theory and practical tools. The practice part of the course will deal with negotiation training through simulations, experimenting and Feedback discussions.

The course offers a compact and hands-on introduction into entrepreneurial negotiation and is very valuable for everyone interested in not only improving his soft-skills but also in learning to deal with real-life negotiation situations.

The study of Media Economics analyses the economic activities of producers and consumers in the media market. The media market covers the traditional mass media print and broadcasting (newspapers, books, radio, TV) as well as the new field of online media. The focus of this course will be set on general issues of traditional media as well as particular issues in the online-sector. These involve the allocation of scarce resources to the production and consumption of media goods as well as the setting of prices or the implementation of standards.

The subject is divided into three areas of interest - supply side, demand side and market side of the media sector - giving a rough framework for individual lectures of the course.

The course is intended to develop an understanding of selected issues in Media Economics. Particular issues will be analysed using formal mathematical spreadsheet models.

In an ubiquitous computing environment, the user is surrounded by a wealth of computing devices and networks. These devices and networks are, in effect, invisible to the user. Sensor networks notice our presence by face recognition; walls have embedded displays; we carry communication devices, or we have sensors in our clothes that monitor our mood. Computing devices are always there and the user can always rely on these resources. This scenario of "pervasive communication" will be the next (re-)evolution in the telecommunications industry and it will have social as well as technological impact on our society.

Furthermore, machine-to-machine communications is predicted to overtake human voice and data traffic in the near future. However, the technological base as well as the market is still in a preliminary stage of development.

Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) is the study of interaction between human users and computers. Multimodal HCI offers the users different modalities of exchanging input/output with the computer. This course will focus on the combination of visual interfaces with speech-based interfaces – both on a technical as well as a usability level. Finally, students will have the opportunity to prototype their own multimodal HCI interfaces as a practical exercise.

In cooperation with the Institute for History of Technology (Zentralinstitut für Geschichte der Technik) of the Technische Universität München, CDTM offers a series of lectures about the cultural dimension of technology with Prof. Dr. phil Ulrich Wengenroth. The seminars offered are awareness courses to direct attention to the importance of social and semiotic aspects of consumer goods as well as the cultural influence on technology and ints development.