Hello Flygal--

Yes, there are some good print resources out there, and yes, career workshops are nice as far as that sort of thing goes. These things barely scratch the surface of what could be done. They are bolt-on, after-the-fact band-aids that fail to address the real problem: that people are trained to be and given the expectation that they will be independent researchers in an academic setting.

We need to think differently about the problem. The Professional Science Masters programs that the Sloan Foundation is funding are an interesting alternative model: business ideas and skills are integrated into the curriculum. People have internships in industry, do real projects, etc.

Now imagine a PhD program in which all along this kind of business coursework is available and that somewhere along the way you make a choice to do an academic focus or an industry focus. That then shapes your course requirements and how your thesis work is structured. Or imagine a program that gives postdocs loans for tuition for business school + a stipend with the loans forgiven if, say, the person starts a tech company in the US within N years of graduating (for some suitably small N).

Geoff