The past two weeks have been pretty crazy at school, and the next week will be even more crazy. At times like these, it helps me to reflect on things that I do during the day. This helps me remember that I'm not just spinning my wheels. I took two classes in Fall II, felt as busy as I ever have, and yet didn't feel half the satisfaction (academically, mostly) that I do now that I'm taking 3.5 classes. Anyway, here's some of the things I've been up to, with limited commentary (as I write this, I'm downloading a jazz album by Melody Gardot. Very excited about this.)
In the past week I've been part of some amazing conversations with very well-known leaders in their field. The list:
- Sally Osberg, CEO of the Skoll Foundation.
- Roger Martin, founder of the Monitor Group and Dean of the Rotman School of Business. He's also written a few books on design thinking/integrative thinking. I've never really grasped "design thinking," but Roger clarified things for me. It's essentially a combination of finding a "third way" that traditional business and decision making frameworks cannot see, with some courageous leadership thrown in. Roger is a bigtime leader in designing what business schools think. He said, "I hate to break it to you, but what you learned in your 1st year as an MBA isn't worth anything... it will all be obsolete pretty soon." What Roger's school teaches is more of a way to think and make decisions.
- I asked him about how leadership relates to social entrepreneurship. His response: "Leadership is not just decision making, but the act of creating something better than what existed before. Leadership is when you create."
- Daniel Lurie, CEO of Tipping Point Communities, a foundation in the Bay Area that's modeled after the Robin Hood Foundation in NYC. Daniel came to my policy school class and spoke with us for 2 hours. I don't know much about foundation work, and it was insightful to hear about his group makes funding decisions. Check out this VERY COOL promotion video on what Tipping Point does. It's a tear-jerker.
- Fuqua's Social Impact and Sustainable Business Conference. I sat in on a few panels, including ones on how technology is doing good in developing nations, while identifying market opportunities (think cell phone ring tones to teach english), a panel on how organizations can maintain their social mission as they scale, and a keynote address from some big wig at Coke who talked about their social responsibility efforts.
- Flew out to Berkeley last Thursday morning with a team of 3 other Fuqua students to compete in Haas' Education Leadership Case Competition. Our task was to create a communication, community engagement, and implementation plan for a new site-based budgeting system at LA Unified School District. We did well, but didn't win. These case competitions are very taxing, and you know it's not going to be an "enjoyable" experience. But, you learn a ton from these things, and that's why I did it. Mission accomplished.
- Flying BACK out to San Francisco next week for an interview (in the midst of working on final projects since our term ends next week as well).
- Learning a lot of Financial Statement Analysis. Surprisingly, this has been one of my favorite courses at Fuqua. Now I actually know about margins, earnings quality, pro forma statements, and a bunch of other stuff.
- Faculty/Administration Fuqua Friday. I've had some great relationships with faculty, and I always encourage first year students to do the same. I was talking to a faculty member about this lack of interaction. I took note, went down to see some friends in the Fuqua administration, saw that they were enthusiastic about the idea of a "Faculty/Administration Appreciation" Fuqua Friday, floated the idea to our student government president, and three weeks later... the event happens. THAT is a student-run business school. We had students send personal invitations to faculty, and the faculty actually showed up. The whole night was unbelievably satisfying, and I think it shows the power of an idea. Executing this Fuqua Friday wasn't difficult, but it was the IDEA that made it so successful. The faculty felt so appreciated, and I'm pretty sure they were very pleasantly surprised by the invitations they received. This brings me to another larger point - thanks. It matters. Thank the faculty. Thank the alumni who help you find a job. Just thank someone.
- Another example of the power of an idea - this year, a few education reform-interested classmates and I have been toying with the idea of forming an education reform club. A few of my classmates finally came up with a great idea to kick start this group. These students invited 7 of the most respected and well-loved faculty to a 30-minute presentation on "the state of education reform in America." Afterward, the faculty posed questions based on their particular area of expertise. The accountant said "this is obviously an accounting problem - if expenses are increasing yet student achievement remains flat, somebody is not accounting for/tracking/analyzing inputs and outputs correctly." The economist said "No no no, this is all about incentives..." You get the idea. Anyway, the room was packed with professors and interested students. Again, the power of an idea was demonstrated. Very cool.
Well, those are just a few of the things I've been doing. I leave you with a couple pictures from the Faculty Fuqua Friday, and a few videos of the same song... "heartbeats," originally by a Swedish band called The Knife (Jose Gonzalez's version is a cover, albeit an awesome one).
Original version by The Knife
Jose Gonzalez' awesome cover, set in the SF streets
A live-ish version
Shane - I didn't get a photo with you... we'll have to do it next time.
Joe (in-house leadership guru), Puneesh (big-hearted classmate and fellow leadership/ethics junkie), Ted (in-house ethics entrepreneur and professor), and me.
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