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For more info on 77Academy’s training programs, you can read here, or visit our 77Academy website.

Once on the site, you will be able to choose out of ‘becoming a new media expert’ or ‘recruiting a new media expert’ according to your needs.

Wall Street Journal announced that Joel Podolny, Dean of Yale University’s School of Management, was hired by Apple Inc. to start a project called Apple University as vice president and dean.

Apple declined to provide information either on the university or on the new position. Mr. Podolny abandoned the position as dean of Yale’s business school in November, however, he will still be working at Yale for what rests of the year, according to a Yale’s spokeswoman and will take over the new position at Apple University at the beginning of 2009.

One might suggest that Apple will be needing a formal training centre for sales staff of the Apple Store (since they are selling worldwide) or for Apple experts of the Best Buy shops network: but in this case Apple hardly needs the dean of a business school to do the training.

Apple might also see it as a school for IT administrators or programmers working on iPhone and OS X platforms, but, again, where does Mr. Podolny, an expert in sociology and management, come in handy here? Or is it that they need the dean in capacity of a consultant on psychology & management?

According to one person who claims to be familiar with the matter, Apple University is “intended broadly as an HR type function for developing leadership and other required skills and knowledge within the organization”. So, what is Apple University all about? Apple University may serve as a company’s training division, thus mirroring a similar program as that of Pixar. In fact, corporate universities offering training for staff members are a common practice within large corporations now.

One of the most famous ones is McDonald’s Hamburger University where thousands of employees attend classes every year. Pixar Animation Studios has one as well, where Steve Jobs was the largest shareholder before the studio was sold to Walt Disney Co. in 2006.

And last but not the least, there is 77Academy, a highly selective training course in new media marketing for talented graduates coming from top business schools and Universities, offered by 77Agency, a leading independent new media agency.

As you already know, our 77Academy was present at AdTech London with a stand next to Epic Advertising, so a group of us headed over to the city to represent our premium, fast-track new media training program.

The first day at AdTech was intense. Buzz was massive, there were people everywhere; marketers, managers, CEO’s, directors, entrepreneurs, sales people, promoters, even gladiators wandering the AdTech grounds.

Our 77stand looked impeccable and we had a huge flow of people coming over wanting to know more about our training courses, asking, requesting, signing up!

Below are some images of the AdTech experience so you can get a glimpse of what our stand looked like, the crowd- the atmosphere.

Also, check out this streaming by Silverstream which shows a brief rundown of what the first day at AdTech was like. (I’m also on the video :-) )