Coming to a Close

Last I wrote, Creative Design for Affordability had hit a few snags. Well, I'm happy to report that, though our issues didn't magically disappear, we were able to creatively concoct a workable solution that satisfied the powers that be. I'd be the first to admit that the class had its ups and downs, but I'd also have to say that we ended on a high note, with our second non-working prototypes displayed in the Atrium for all to see. Charles Lo, my partner on the project, remarked how happy he was to have brought a whole new energy into the place. Never had the Johnson School hosted a class like this. And never before had its students built large physical items out of bicycles and rowing machines and displayed them in the center of the Atrium. (Photos to follow soon)

In other news, I just finished my last take-home final ever.

We also had the Johnson School Follies last week. Though the hype can get overwhelming, the Follies really is one of those not-to-be-missed events. For those that don't know, it's a collection of student- and faculty-produced videos and live acts that celebrates and satirizes just about every aspect of Ithaca, Cornell, and the business school. It was a raucously good time, and the quality of this year's production left last year's in the dust. Sorry Class of '08!

Now, with just a few more weeks left in Ithaca, I've got about two and a half months until I start my job at D&B. With that great opportunity in hand, grad week (the week of fun activities for graduating second-years) on the horizon, a shoulder that's rapidly strengthening, and a month to swim, hike, and sculpt in Maine, I've got a lot to look forward to, and even more to be thankful for.

Creative Design -- and the semester -- in full swing

Last I wrote, Creative Design for Affordability was off to a roaring start. We'd introduced our projects and been treated to a workshop on design thinking by Design Continuum.

After that week, I was treated to four beautiful days of rest and relaxation in Puerto Rico with my wife, Shannon. What a nice way to spend spring break!

After break, the class continued to exceed expectations on just about every level. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from some of our first guest lecturers -- Jack Goncalo from Cornell's School from Industrial and Labor Relations, who discussed team dynamics and brainstorming; Bob LaPerle, a former Kodak executive who talked us through the rebirth of the one-time use camera; and Jack Yu, the head of human factors engineering at Kodak.

All three of these gentlemen succeeded in knocking the class' socks off.

And all the while, we've been working on team dynamics with the help of Clint Sidle, director of the Park Leadership Fellows program. Also, at the beginning of each class session, we take 20-30 minutes for brainstorming and prototyping, and the class has been exciting and especially engaging because of it.

Last week, we reached our first major milestone, when each team presented their first prototypes to the class. The Comet Skateboards teams each presented some mock-ups of stylish hoodies and pants with removable protective gear, and the human-powered corn grinder teams each presented a small-scale prototype made out of cardboard, sticks, pipe cleaners, and the like.

Here are some photos from that session:
Picasa Web Albums - Purenza Wing Yee - 20090406 CDfA

Of course, we've since come down from the clouds. Apparently, the Cornell risk management department has some concerns about the safety of the building that we plan to undertake, particularly as it relates to developing human-powered corn grinding apparatus. At times, I worry that we'll be derailed, and the goal of the course -- actually getting our hands dirty to build real, working prototypes -- might not be realized. But overall, I know that if we've made it this far, we can push through to the end and achieve success. It might take some creativity, but as luck would have it, we've spent the last five weeks learning to harness our creative juices and apply them to challenging situations just like this.

Creative Design for Affordability Finally Launches!

Last time I wrote about the Creative Design for Affordability class, I left off at the point where we'd obtained approval from the curriculum committee. My colleague and co-conspirator, Charles Lo, and I had a lot of work to do in order to bring the course from vision to actuality.

Well, I'm happy to report that we've just completed Week 1 of the course, and it's so far exceeded my expectations on just about every level. Take turnout, for example. We took a big risk not advertising the course broadly to the entire Johnson School student body, instead relying on word of mouth and a few student clubs to deliver our message to only the most excited, dedicated students.

Some members of our administration thought it best to keep the number of students in the class small -- around 32 -- due to its experimental nature. So imagine our delight when over 50 students from across campus showed up this Monday. We had students from engineering, urban planning, public affairs, architecture, sociology, business, and more. When we asked everyone to introduce themselves to the class, I reckoned that we might have brought together one of the most diverse sets of students ever assembled on this campus.

Okay, so we have students. What are we going to do with them? Since I last reported, the class has gained a more coherent direction, and we have succeeded in partnering with local organizations, with whom we developed design challenges that cross-disciplinary teams of students will work to address with working models and prototypes.

Half of the student teams will work on a project that includes developing a bicycle-powered corn grinder for Compos Mentis, an area non-profit farm that teaches life skills to adults with mental illnesses. The other half of the student teams will work with Comet Skateboards, a local start-up that builds skateboards and apparel with eco-friendly materials. In both instances, the challenges entail developing products that are gentle on the environment, and affordable to the consumer or end user.

Representatives from both organizations attended the first class session, where they presented some background on their organizations and delivered their respective challenges to the teams.

In Session 2 on Wednesday, we held a three-hour design workshop with Boston-based design firm Design Continuum. They're most famous for developing the Swiffer floor cleaning system, the Reebok pump shoe, and other social innovations like the One Laptop Per Child project, in conjunction with Nicholas Negroponte at MIT.

Arranging the Design Continuum workshop, then meeting and talking with our two guests from that group, was amazing for me. I continue to learn how important and practical design thinking can be, not just for design firms but for all organizations seeking the best and most creative solutions to problems.

After Spring Break, we get into the meat of the class, where the teams actually start brainstorming and building. I will continue to update everyone on the progress of the class, as well as our continuing success in making connections with different departments across campus. My colleague, Charles, has a vision of using our course as a launchpad to founding a Cornell Design Institute, and every day, with every contact and connection made, it comes one step closer to becoming a reality.

Some more background on our partners:

About Comet Skateboards: Comet Skateboards is the leading manufacturer of high performance green composite skateboards. Comet uses a unique blend of regionally sourced materials that result in strong, light skateboards. By purchasing raw materials regionally, Comet contributes to a vibrant local living economy and does not create excess pollution by shipping materials all over the world. Comet Skateboards has exclusive use of e2e biocomposites for skateboards and are made with paints and adhesives that do not off-gas harmful chemicals. Comet skateboards last longer than any skateboard on the market and when they have been shredded to the end they will safely turn back into fertile dirt if composted. With its ecologically safe materials, Comet scraps can be used to fertilize gardens, heat homes, make bonfires, serve as media for works of art, etc. More info at www.cometskateboards.com.

About Compos Mentis: Compos Mentis: Working Toward Wellness, Inc. is a day program for adults learning to live with a mental illness. Through the quiet, orderly discipline of communal farm work, we help adults burdened by illness develop the patience, self-confidence, and hope they need to reclaim the power to lead productive lives. We also aim to alleviate the stress experienced by family members and close friends, and to create an environment where people with significant mental health challenges can demonstrate their capabilities to others. Participants in our program spend their days at the farm where their recovery and wellness and supported through meaningful work and supportive group activity. More information about the program can be obtained by visiting the Compos Mentis website at composmentisithaca.org.

Spring Classes

I just realized I've been so concerned with launching the Creative Design for Affordability class (which starts next week and is going really well) that I never gave a rundown of the classes I'm already taking this semester.

By far, the star of my spring semester classes so far has been Becoming a Leader with Professor Jim Detert. This is the first time Prof. Detert has taught this class to the full-time MBA students, previously delivering it to the Cornell-Queens Executive programs. Though it was a double session on Monday nights, Prof. Detert organized the class such that it didn't miss a beat. Further, when the Cornell-Queens students were on campus, he twice arranged for panels of the students to come to our class to discuss cases in a live format. After class on both occasions, Prof. Detert arranged social hours afterwards so that we could network with the EMBA students. This is the kind of effort and the kind of connections that we need more of, and I applaud the professor for a great class. The readings were current, and the assignments urged us all to think more deeply about our own leadership experiences and goals in a surprisingly concrete and applicable way.

Other than Becoming a Leader, I'm also taking a class in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations called Organizational Consulting. It's geared toward helping HR professionals both within organizations and working as outside consultants to help companies solve their human-related issues. I'm enjoying it and will be doing a live consulting project with American Express to help the company become more innovative.

Managing Technology and Innovation is also an interesting class, taught by Wes Sine, who's an expert on technology commercialization, renewable energy, and entrepreneurship. The final class I'm taking is called The Political, Legal, and Social Environment of Business, taught by Professor Ben Ho. Prior to becoming a Johnson School professor, Ben Ho worked in the Bush White House as an energy economist. Hearing about his experiences there, and about the underappreciated elements of business strategy that deal with the public sector, the media, and other interests is fascinating.

Overall, I'm incredibly happy again with my classes. I'll write again soon with an update on Creative Design for Affordability.

A Lot of Hard Work Comes to Fruition

I wrote two posts ago about the course I've been trying to start here at the Johnson School -- Creative Design for Affordability. Well, I'm happy to report that the dream of making this course a reality has finally come to fruition.

I wanted to tell the entire story here, since it's not often documented how something challenging comes to pass. Often, when I see someone take a leadership role and come out successfully, I assume it must just be easy for that person. Perhaps they're a born leader. Or, at the very least, they know what they want and somehow just make it happen. Not so for me.

The Genesis of the Idea

About three years ago, I was a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York. I was covering business school education and had been reporting on a number of different topics and trends at b-schools around the country and around the world. One thing I found interesting was that more and more schools were teaching creativity in their curricula. Their argument: any school can produce an army of quant jocks; it's the people that show leadership and creativity that ultimately achieve a lasting level of success.

Through the course of writing a story on the topic called "Creativity Comes to B-School", I came upon the Stanford course I'd previously blogged about. The enthusiasm and excitement I heard from the course professor was contagious, and he spent an hour on the phone with me (a normal interview generally lasts between 15-25 minutes or so) discussing its genesis and eventual success.

I was sold on this course. And not only did I learn about it, but I also took the low-cost lighting product a team of Stanford engineers and MBAs had developed in the course with me to Argentina, where I launched a pilot project to market them to microfinance borrowers in the rural north of the country.

Last Winter

Knowing that such a course didn't (but should) exist at Cornell, I set out to figure out how to get it started. Luckily, I had some extra motivation. One of the requirements of accepting the Park Fellowship is completing a project that benefits either the Cornell or Ithaca community. Imitating the Stanford Extreme Affordability course seemed the obvious project for me. And how hard could it be to imitate a course that already existed, that had already created a successful blueprint?

About a year ago, I set out to find out. I developed an initial proposal for a new course based on the Stanford idea, with an international trip component and a close relationship with the Johnson School's Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. I arranged meetings with the Center's director, Mark Milstein, and also with the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Doug Stayman. I received enthusiasm and an offer to help from Milstein, and a degree of skepticism from Stayman. Emulating the Stanford course would be a monumental challenge, he said, since they had founded a Design Institute with funding from several successful Silicon Valley-based alums. The only way to make it happen during my time at Johnson would be to find a faculty member willing to teach -- or at least oversee -- the course by June.

So the next task was laid out before me -- find a faculty sponsor before the end of the semester and I'd be good to go. The course would be as good as done. One more warning from Stayman -- it would be difficult, he said, to entice a Johnson School faculty member to take on a new course. They would have to drop one of their existing courses, since just about everyone was already oversubscribed. After conversations with a couple more Johnson School professors, I began to think that Stayman had been right.

To take the pressure off whichever Johnson School faculty member I eventually might persuade, I set my sights on finding two professors to jointly deliver the course. Asking around, I began to understand that many faculty members across campus are interested in issues of sustainability, international development, and new product development, which were the three overarching topics of the course.

Last Spring

As luck would have it, Cornell President David Skorton had recently announced a campus-wide task force called the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future (CCSF). That organization was headed by a professor of Physical Science named Frank DiSalvo, so I made an appointment with him. I pitched my course idea to him. He agreed to present my idea to the CCSF executive committee at their next meeting, but I got the feeling he was so busy that he probably just filed my proposal in the circular file.

Around that time, I decided to substantiate my claim that the Johnson School needed a product design course. So I surveyed the student body through a simple SurveyMonkey survey online. I got 158 responses to the survey, 75% of which said that "yes, they are interested in designing and building products that meet people's everyday needs in affordable ways." My resolve was strengthened; at least now I knew for sure that I was trying to do something for the Johnson School that people wanted.

By now, it was getting to be late in the Spring, and I hadn't yet identified a faculty sponsor. I let down my guard for a while and stopped pursuing any more professors. Frustration had begun to set in.

Summer

The end of the Spring semester came and went, and I presented Park Leadership Fellows program director Clint Sidle with my project proposal. I had some vague idea that I'd pursue faculty members over the summer, but as it transpired, I got busy with my internship and came back to campus in the Fall having done nothing to further my project. In fact, I began to consider pursuing some another project entirely, which I told Clint when I met with him in September.

This Fall

Shortly thereafter, I saw an email addressed to the SGE club from an AMBA student named Charles Lo. He was interested in forming a sub-group to the club around Creative Design for Affordability. He had been inspired by the core course, Managing and Leading in Organizations (known as MLO), where he had seen a ABC "Nightline" clip on the design firm IDEO. Charles had been so inspired by the clip that he traveled to the Bay Area of California and visited the company.

When I saw his email, I felt a tiny twinge of hope. I had so far been frustrated in trying to make my course become a reality. Could I somehow use the enthusiasm of a newcomer to get myself back on track?

Charles and I met and discussed the course idea. He agreed to help make it a reality. I told him about my discussions from the previous Fall. We eventually met with Stayman again, who recommended we talk with Bob LaPerle, a professor of marketing who had previously been an executive at Kodak. Like Milstein, LaPerle had been excited about the course when we related our idea, and he'd even given us some direction based on his experience designing and marketing the Kodak one-time use camera. However, he too was oversubscribed to oversee the course.

Around the same time, I got back in touch with DiSalvo from Cornell's Center for a Sustainable Future, who connected me with the leader of the Center's Education Committee, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Paulette Clancy. Meeting with Paulette got Charles and me excited that we might acquire some fresh connections across campus. After following up with Paulette, she connected us with Max Zhang, an engineering professor interested in designing a "smart grid" for renewable energy and electric cars.

A couple weeks later, after propositioning five or ten more professors, Charles and I met with Max, who offered to let us market our course to his engineering students. He also recommended we contact Professor Alan McAdams, a professor at the Johnson School who teaches a Seminar in Sustainable Development. Why hadn't we thought of him before, we wondered?

This Winter -- Full Circle

After about three hour-long meetings with McAdams, trying our darndest to make Creative Design fit into his course on developing an infrastructure for electric cars, we decided that the partnership just might not work out. The two courses were just too different.

I was scheduled for shoulder surgery on January 2 so had other things on my mind over the break. But about a week later, I got a surprise email from Charles stating that McAdams had agreed to be the keeper of our course and offer it entirely separately from his Seminar in Sustainable Development.

This was the brightest ray of light I'd yet experienced in the entire process of the project. McAdams ordered us to immediately draft the course syllabus, which we promptly adapted from some of the documents we'd drafted earlier in the process. We sent the syllabus draft (which, over the course of the last year had decreased from a full semester to a seven-week course, and into a course populated with guest lecturers, instead of one professor) to Stayman, who gave us our first positive feedback.

Still, he had major reservations. I arranged a meeting to help address his concerns, in which I met with him and the other Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Accounting, Mark Nelson.

Some Serious Selling

This was it. I had to do some serious selling to do.

I sat down at the table with a lot of optimism. That was soon dashed, as Nelson led off the conversations detailing the four or five red flags he'd read from the syllabus. Somehow, in the course of the meeting, I convinced the two deans of the feasibility of the course, the demand for it, and I clarified the structure of the course for them. Students, I explained, would be split into cross-disciplinary teams of four (2 MBAs, an engineer, and another masters student), then be presented with a design challenge (for instance, designing a safe way for a woman to carry money and a cell phone through a dangerous area). They'd use simple, low-cost items to create a product aimed at addressing the needs of the target customer. Then, through the course of the quarter, teams would iterate three times on the same product, integrating the feedback they get from their classmates as they built a more and more advance prototype.

Eventually, with a number of subsequent drafts, we finally got the syllabus and course proposal approved. We sent it to the curriculum committee over this past weekend.

Today, the course was passed.

The Road Ahead

In many ways, the project has only just begun. We still have to nail down speakers and make sure to fill the class with the appropriate mix of students. But despite that, I've learned more about myself and about leadership through this project than through almost anything else I've ever done. I'm extremely proud of the fact that the course has been approved, and now I can't wait to make it an overwhelming success. After so many frustrations and so many challenges, I'm so glad that all of that hard work has finally come to something -- that my three-year-old dream is finally going to come to fruition.

Historic Day (for service)

I can't believe the end of the Bush presidency has finally come. Just eight short years ago, when he was first elected, I was a senior in college voting in my first presidential election. Today he's ex-president Bush, and with his departure our country ushers in a period of great hope and renewal.

Reports from inside the Obama camp promise a new task force dedicated to promoting national service for young people. It was just seven years ago that I began my first AmeriCorps assignment, and just six years ago that I began my second. Needless to say, national service (military service included) is something I believe to be beneficial to everyone involved, but particularly the young person who serves.

During my second year of service, I worked for the International Rescue Committee, a refugee relief and resettlement organization. It was during that time -- while working to help resettle displaced people from war-torn regions the world over -- that the Iraq war began. It was also around that time that Bush created the Corporation for National and Community Service, the umbrella organization for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps*VISTA, AmeriCorps NCCC, and Senior Corps.

After 9/11, when Bush formed this new organization, which bonded service-based programs founded by Presidents Kennedy and Clinton, among others, it was a time of great hope that a service movement might be born in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, Congress cut that organization's funding. Where volunteers used to enjoy the option to forbear their student loans during their year of service and receive an almost $5000 "education award" toward paying off those loans, the Corporation's coffers were now dry.

AmeriCorps alums would now receive only a $1200 stipend at the end of their service, to help them get back on their feet and perhaps reassign themselves to a job in the private sector. I was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of the former program, and since I was also fortunate not to carry any debt from undergrad, I was able to apply some of my two education awards toward both taking prerequisite courses before school, and to paying for some of my books and expenses at The Johnson School.

With the election of Barack Obama, the Corporation for National and Community Service enjoys new life. According to barackobama.com, the president will increase the number of AmeriCorps positions from 75,000 to 250,000, allowing more young people to serve their country, especially during tough times when employment is scarce and social services and the non-profit sector need a boost.

According to barackobama.com, the new administration "will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. They will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies."

I feel lucky and privileged to have been given the chance to serve during such a time of economic distress (from 2001-2003, which was the heart of the dot-com bubble). I believe that it helped me build my compassion toward others, that it encouraged me to participate more fully in the life of my community, and it gave me the work experience I needed to jumpstart my career. On this historic day, I am filled with gladness that more people will be granted the same chance I had.

Sucking the marrow out of business school

There were a lot of things I'd hoped to get out of business school -- I wanted to learn how to use business to make a positive social difference, expand my quantitative abilities, and get a great network; these were all a given and common reasons to take on such an educational venture.

But there were several other goals -- smaller things -- that I'd hoped to get out of my experience here at Cornell. It seems that a couple of them may soon come to pass.

One of them was learning to write a business plan. I signed up for the course, Entrepreneurship and Private Equity, knowing that the major course assignment was to form a team, brainstorm an idea, and write and present a complete business plan at the end of the semester. My new company is called Green Card Inc., and it's a way to help retailers and consumers use their existing purchasing behaviors to make a social difference.

The other thing I wanted to get out of school was something that had attracted me to Stanford University -- a course called Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability. The course put together teams of business students, engineers, education specialists, architects, etc. to design, prototype, and build affordable products that serve real needs of people in the developing world.

Though Cornell has a lot in common with Stanford -- strong engineering programs, large research potential, bright students -- it doesn't have a design institute or focus. So the burden fell to me to create the course that I'd desired to take at Stanford. I've found another student interested in moving this initiative forward, and we're working to make the course a reality under a different moniker -- Creative Design for Affordability.

This is still far from a reality, but the wheels are turning. I didn't realize how much of a challenge it would be to start a course from scratch, attract a faculty member, and design a syllabus...

Though a challenge, I'm convinced that, with enough enthusiasm and energy, we'll be able to make the course a reality. Now, turning our business plan into a profitable enterprise is another matter entirely.

And then, everything changed...

As usual, it's been a while since I last wrote. This time, it's for good reason. I've been going through the biggest life changes in a long time. My wife and I decided to expand our family last week, and I'm now proud to consider myself a dad. No, I didn't neglect to write that my wife was pregnant, or that we were looking to adopt a child; we adopted a puppy from the SPCA. That's right. And her name is Darla.

Right now, you may be thinking how inappropriate it is for me to be writing about my new puppy on my Johnson School blog, but she's actually the reason for some of the biggest career decisions I've made, well, ever... Last week, sleep-deprived and overwhelmed with the fact that my family had just increased in size by 50%, I started to think long and hard about the decision at hand.



I think I've written in the past about my summer experience at Dun & Bradstreet in New Jersey, or at least alluded to it. Well, I was lucky enough to 1) have a great summer there, getting experience in everything from HR to marketing to Internet strategy and new product development, and 2) be extended an offer for full-time employment.

I was very happy about the offer, but the lure of the West Coast was calling me. I even traveled to San Francisco the other week to interview with D&B's recent acquisition, AllBusiness.com. It seemed a natural to be placed at a small media company on the West Coast; I already knew I liked D&B and I could satisfy my wanderlust for a little while longer. Unfortunately, the financial crisis prompted a quasi-hiring freeze for all of D&B, so there's just no position for me in SF at this stage.

When I heard the news, I thought I'd definitely look elsewhere and say thanks but no thanks to D&B's incredibly generous offer. Then came the puppy. I started thinking like a family man. Did I really want to start an entirely new job search, eschewing the company that I already knew and loved? More and more, the answer shifted to no.

A week later, I feel the distinct feeling in my gut that I've done the right thing, for me and my family. It just goes to show how quickly things change, and how different life can be on the other end of business school than it was at the beginning.

Unexpected Business Experience

I never really expected extracurricular activities to supply me with the real management experience that I was seeking by attending business school. And even if I had an inkling that it could, I never would have guessed that it would come from running a newspaper.

When I got to the Johnson School, the last thing I thought I'd do was anything related to journalism. I knew the school had a student-run paper, but it didn't really occur to me to get involved. Of course, after a few months of the core, withdrawal symptoms from several years writing stories on deadline for BusinessWeek started to set in. Almost in spite of myself, I inquired about getting involved.

A month later, I started running the Cornell Business Journal. Of course, I wasn't alone. A fellow first-year named Vivek Pai assumed the role of Co-Editor; we figured two heads would be better than one, particularly because we were inheriting an independently run and funded organization (we survive by selling ads and don't take a dime from the school, so that we may maintain our independent spirit and right to cast a critical eye on any and all elements of life at the Johnson School).

When we took over, we were in a tough spot. There was almost no cash on hand to cover printing costs, and the staff was largely uninspired and oversubscribed with other activities.

Of course, I was overconfident. I figured it would be a snap to turn this thing around, reinvigorate the staff, and establish journalistic excellence -- all at the same time. But it hasn't quite worked out that way. The process has felt more like pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps. And, like just about everything I've been involved with at school, the process of finishing an issue sometimes finds itself temporarily demoted on my priority list. That's not to say I don't care about it; I think my role as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Business Journal is what I care most about here at Johnson -- and the thing about which I'm most proud. It's just that the paper is always competing with at least ten other things on my to-do list.

It's now been close to a year since we took over the reigns from last year's second-year class, and I thought it time to take an honest look at the gap between the turnaround I thought I could pull off and what has actually transpired. After all, it's almost time to turn it over to the class of 2010.

So, how have we done? On the undeniably positive side, we'll turn the CBJ over to this year's class of first-years with probably four times the cash on hand as we had last year. We've put together some pretty solid marketing collateral that we use to approach potential advertisers (some of it was adapted from the hard work of previous classes). And I think we've established a pretty solid record of quality stories and writing.

Okay, enough patting myself on the back. Where we could have done better is getting more of a real team environment going. I pulled a number of people in to help run the paper last year, and some of them have fallen off at one point or another; we've had underperforming staff members and also some solid contributors. But I think the number one management challenge I've faced is figuring out how to compete for peoples' time and attention in the face of so many activities and responsibilities that go along with being a business school student.

Would I have an easier time of it in the real working world? Perhaps. I'm convinced that pinning people down would be easier in the real world, but the other issues we've had -- with maintaining quality, designing our organization to motivate workers, and some sporadic trouble with suppliers -- are all things that are omnipresent in the working world. Even if I hadn't taken anything at all from my classes (but, of course, I have), the experience of running the Cornell Business Journal, encountering and overcoming the challenges that I've noted above, would have made my time here worth it. I'm going back into the business world with much more theoretical knowledge, but also more hands-on experience, than I had when I got here. And despite the occasional challenge, I'm proud and thankful for the experience.

On Classes

I realized I haven't even done a rundown of classes for this semester yet, which should be a requirement for any student blogger, I think. I'm taking all good classes -- there's not that achilles heel one that really bothers me, which is nice.

Here are the highlights:

Entrepreneurship and Private Equity is taught by Professor David BenDaniel, a veteran of many a start-up board of directors. We get to do a bunch of live cases surrounding VC and PE investments, with the investors coming in to tell us how the funding and financing scenario all played out in real life. Also, the big assignment is presenting a complete business plan with detailed financials at the end of the semester, which is really exciting and one of the big reasons I came back to business school.

Managing Technology is jointly taught by Professors Ganem and Huttenlocher, an organic chemist and a computer scientist. We've had a number of interesting speakers to talk about the three fields of technology we cover in the class -- bio, info, and nanotechnology.

Negotiations is a great class, taught by Christin Munsch, a sociologist by training. It's a full semester of learning the ins and outs of how to approach a number of different negotiation scenarios, from increases in salary to full labor dispute resolution.

Integrated Marketing Communication, taught by Professor Raj (his first name is real long and hard to spell), is also a good course. We're doing a live consulting project for Kodak and get to learn about trends in advertising and marketing, and how to develop an integrated marketing communications plan across multiple platforms.

The last and probably my favorite class is Macroeconomics and International Trade, with Ori Heffetz. Ori is a really great teacher -- funny and knowledgeable. This is probably a little known fact outside of the Johnson School (I certainly didn't expect it coming in, and it definitely wasn't one of the main reasons I came to Johnson), but studying economics here is awesome. I had New York Times columnist and well-known author Bob Frank last year, and Ori Heffetz is just as good in the classroom.

So, that's the rundown. I've selected the courses for the specific skills I wanted to acquire, and so far, they're working out well.

Down to Earth

This has been a tough week, for myself and for our increasingly poor friend, the world economy. But, looking on the bright side, out of the rubble always rises something new. It's the principle of creative destruction, and it makes a whole lot of sense as long as it remains a quiet, well-behaved theory or a housebroken intellectual idea. It starts barking or doing its business on your carpet and that's another matter entirely. Try telling someone who's lost their mortgage, or the lion's share of their pension, that it might be for the best, or that their fortune might still be right around the corner.

By the same token, if you'd tried telling me last Thursday that my shoulder hanging out of its socket during my first-ever sparring match in boxing class was just a door closed and that God would be opening another, it would've taken me a little while to process those admitted words of wisdom.

What's funny about my dislocated shoulder is that it was more a final symptom than the cause of my strange mood. All I know is that I was down in the dumps, and I started thinking it was about all the crazy life decisions I have to make in, like, the next few weeks -- where I want to live, what kind of job I want to have, etc.

What I want to be sure of is that this business school experience leads me somewhere better. Isn't that why we come? To get some kind of a transformative experience? In reality, a means to an end is what many more of us seek, and all too often we're shuffled right into the path of least resistance. I don't want to go right back to New York. I don't want to go right back to the morning subway commute, succumbing to later and later dinners cause work got hectic.

I yearn for the beauty of California, the lifestyle where casual dress is the norm, and the ability to take weekend trips to Lake Tahoe or Santa Cruz or Yosemite or the Napa Valley. But, above all, it's the professional opportunities in San Francisco Bay Area that appeal to me above all others.

Just a little aside: Writing this blog is a funny experience, because it's not like I'm holding a two-way conversation with you, the reader. In fact, chances are good that you're reading this blog all in one shot, so taking a half-hour bus tour of my indecision and confusion. That seems a bit crazy in a place like business school, where the prevailing wisdom is that you should have it all figured out by now. Luckily, I'm not trying to pose as someone with everything figured out. I've got a lot of interests and a couple of relative aptitudes, and I'm still not entirely sure how they'll be put to the best use, but I think I know where -- California!

Two Inspiring Events

Oh, boy! This has been a really insane week of trauma and trouble on Wall Street, the presidential debates, and all sorts of concerns over a certain vice presidential candidate.

Despite all of that national drama, things at the Johnson School are still clicking along. I just want to highlight my day yesterday, and a couple of things that made me feel great about where I am right now. Let me first say that I'd been fighting a general malaise since returning to school -- some form of inertia had taken hold, no doubt due to a successful summer of work and the realization that second year is a lot more relaxed than first. I admit I'd been throttling back on my effort, especially as far as my extracurricular involvement has gone.

Then, yesterday, the Park Fellows held the first of our semi-annual volunteer days at local farm Compos Mentis which doubles as a non-profit benefiting adults with mental health issues. The Compos Mentis program aims to get people back on their feet, and back into school or the workforce.

Last year, I remember what a pleasure it was to get out of the classrooms and breakout rooms of Sage Hall and do some manual labor for the benefit of others. This year was no different, and having the chance to hang out with some of the first-year Park Fellows, like Tyler Baier, a former champion wrestler and dairy farmer from Wisconsin, made this year's volunteer experience even better.

The other event that reinforced my desire to stay involved and work hard for the benefit of others was the (newly-formed, formerly known as Net Impact) SGE Club meeting. It took place at The Big Red Barn, a nice space reserved for Cornell graduate students, not far from Sage Hall. I just have to hand it to the leadership of the club, including Bailey Stoler, Kevin Johnson, Ryan Kelley, Andrea Findley, Kate Capossela, Britta Von Oessen, Casey Ryan and others for taking what was a largely untapped mass of potential energy and figuring out how to put it to work; it's really a testament to what good organizational design can do.

Instead of maintaining the club as it previously existed -- an umbrella organization for students interested in all things associated with sustainability -- the club's leadership put its collective heads together and took a look at how it could become more relevant. What they came up with is a system where members form affinity groups, based on their more specific interests, within the larger club. For instance, I'd been involved last year in attempting to start a class based on Creative Design for Affordability, a concept popularized by IDEO and the Stanford Design School. By the end of last semester, when I spent a lot of alone time beating down doors of administration and trying to build interest, I was left frustrated and prepared to let the idea die.



But thanks to this new system, an Accelerated MBA student, Charles Lo, began an affinity group based on this very concept. With another student so inspired by these ideas, I'm finding myself reenergized to achieve our goals of organizing the creative energy around Cornell to help business school students get their hands dirty designing new products, and also excited and proud to be a part of the larger SGE Club.

Cornell has been selected to host next year's national Net Impact conference, and it's amazing to see the school leadership focused on innovating and leading the way on how to organize and make a real impact at school, and in the world.

Stepping Way Outside of Sage Hall

I had originally planned to devote my second blog entry of the year to trumpeting how wonderful it is to take classes at different schools all over Cornell's campus. And it certainly is a uniquely advantageous attribute of this largest of Ivy League universities to be founded on the premise that any student should be able to study any subject of his or her choosing. But it's also tough to make that entry when I ended up dropping the very course I had planned to tout so vocally.

A little background: this summer, I took up stone sculpting (think hammer and chisel -- about as old-school as you can get) and thought it would be fun -- not to mention a nice release from the business school world -- to continue my artistic education at Cornell. In retrospect, the decision to sign up for an extra 3-credit, six hour per week class does seem a bit ambitious. I guess I supposed I'd fit it in somewhere between team meetings, job hunting, and running the business school's newspaper.

Let's just say that a story like mine, brief though it was, could probably only happen at Cornell. During the add-drop period, I enrolled in Introductory Sculpture in the art school (most don't even know Cornell has an art school). But there I was -- just me and a class of about 25 first-years. Now, I'm not talking first-year grad students; I'm talking about college freshmen -- 18 years old and about 3 weeks removed from living in their parents' house, eating home-cooked meals and daydreaming about mind expansion and no curfew. I admit I revelled for a class or two in my honorary status as class "old guy." But alas! In the end, spending 8-11 A.M. on Tuesday and Thursday constructing a full-sized human head out of clay proved too much for me.

Despite the fact that I am now an honorary art school dropout, I'm still eager to promote the ability of students at the Johnson School to immerse themselves in any subject of their choosing; I'm proud of the simple fact that I was able to have the experience I did. Though most of my classmates prefer to take classes in subjects like Hotel Management, Human Resources, and Energy Economics, I hope that my own brief sojourn into the undergrad art school will somehow make me a better -- or at least more well-rounded -- manager.

Second-Year Swagger

This is my first posting since the spring, when the unknown of my internship at Dun & Bradstreet beckoned me to beautiful New Jersey for a summer of HR strategy-related fun. Honestly, "beckoned" seems a bit of a romantic overstatement, as I now admit that my expectations going in were cloudy and less than superlative. But wow! I enjoyed my internship more than I ever could have expected -- great people, great program, great supervisor...

Now, back for my ultimate year at The Johnson School, I'm beginning to understand that second-year swagger that kinda annoyed me about last year's graduating class. How could one year make such a difference, I wondered? In the midst of first-year marketing math, accounting, and econ madness, I wondered how the class of 2008 could saunter into Sage Hall after I'd already been on campus for upwards of three and a half weeks -- slogging through Math Camp, Strategic Thinking Programs, two weeks of orientation, and a thousand other forms of cruel and unusual punishment (or so it seemed at the time) -- and seem so relaxed. I think it's because the feeling of being back in the working world for a summer and not falling flat has a certain mellowing effect. Also, many of us return with an offer in hand, and the promise of gainful employment at graduation already fulfilled. It's probably a combination of the above, along with a host of other elements. But there's definitely a difference -- a little more spring in my step -- and I'm thankful for it.

My theme for the year is "don't reinvent the wheel." Last year at this time, I barely knew how to get to the grocery store, which dry cleaner could turn around a suit with little notice, and what blend of Gimme Coffee would get me going in a pinch. Now, all of those little things are settled -- Wegmans on Rt. 13, Wyllie Dry Cleaning on W. Seneca St., and Mocha Java (and an occasional French Roast). The bigger things -- like knowing who to mountain bike with, how to make time for my lady when school stresses are piling up, and which classes will make me smarter and which will make me crazy -- are all the result of an incredibly transformative year of experience at Johnson, and at D&B.

All in all, it's good to be back, and I look forward to continuing to share my experiences with my blog readers this year. Feel free to submit comments, or to shoot me an email at jng28@cornell.edu with any questions or tirades about anything contained herein, or anything else that may strike your fancy. My goal is to give an honest look at life at The Johnson School and in Ithaca, and I'd love to know how I'm doing.

First Year in the books

It's time to take a good, deep breath after an incredibly intense year. It's hard to believe I've been through the entire core curriculum and too many new experiences to name.

Just one note on the first year: I'm not a finance guy. It's taken a little bit of time to realize that, though I was pretty sure of this fact before I even came here. But everyone seems to get at least a little bit caught up in the drama and energy that surrounds the core finance course. That was all well and good, but I foolishly signed up for Financial Modeling, an elective filled with all sorts of former and aspiring bankers and analysts. I had a rough go of it, and it reminded me to keep a little bit to my strengths.

Most of us come to school to try new things and to leave our comfort zones. This is right and a great thing to do; however, I do think there is a limit to this admirable goal. If you realize you aren't enjoying some element of your studies, it's probably not a fluke. In other words, why punish yourself? Take classes that are challenging, but those that you enjoy. Enjoyment breeds motivation, which breeds increased learning, which breeds increased enjoyment and fulfillment. This is a big lesson I've learned in the first year.

I'll be back and blogging again next year, and I'll probably make a few posts this summer, when I'm at my internship.

Spring Break blogging

As I sit here in my comfortable apartment, enjoying some Spring Break, there's just one thing missing -- Spring. I just got back from a weekend in Atlantic City and New York (my brother's bachelor party), and it's amazing how quickly the climate can change. In AC, the evening had a comfortable temperature to it, like a jacket was optional. And yesterday on the ride up, the countryside was bathed in warm (looking) sunshine. But arriving at home, I flipped on the Weather Channel, and sure enough, it said Ithaca's temperature is holding steady at 30 degrees!

But this all plays into my own personal philosophy about the merits of living in a cold climate. Officially, Spring is still a week or so away. And though I have this yearning for the weather to make its change, I know in my mind that Ithaca won't give up her cold weather until sometime in April. But somewhere during that time of hoping for Spring and when it comes, the desire for warm weather, barbecues, and sunset walks in short sleeves will get so unbearable that the final reward becomes that much sweeter.

I write this from experience, mind you. I did my undergrad in Vermont, which has a similarly long winter but also a period of about a month on the cusp of Spring when you can't walk on the grass, affectionately(?) known as "mud season."

Enough about weather. That's not what my millions of readers want to hear about. They want to hear about how business school is going to help them land a great job and make lots of money. Well, there's just one small thing about that... Seems every time I go to school, I'm kind of on the wrong end of an economic cycle. When I graduated from college in 2001, the dot-com bubble had sprung a tiny leak. My job search that year was a short one, and I was happy to land in a year of national service with AmeriCorps in San Diego (could be worse, right?).

Funny how this blog post began with the dragging winter, then discussed the current economic downturn, but has progressed to sunnier pastures! It's also funny how my wife and me are talking about another sojourn to California after school. Of course, that's not set in stone. And as my native Ithacan friend, who also did undergrad and grad school here at Cornell has said, "I wonder how many decisions to move to California have been made in the depth of an Ithaca winter..." At least a few, I'd say. But probably more than a few of those have been overturned when the fresh vegetables start to appear in the Ithaca Farmers Market, and icy walks to school are replaced with dips in showering waterfalls.

Did I mention I'm on Spring Break? And my wife is out of town? Translation: a lot of time on my hands to think and write about things like the above.

About the beginning of the second quarter. I'm delighted that my HR class will continue for the remainder of Spring semester. As I've related in earlier posts, the pace of the semester-long class is so much more placid and enjoyable after the core; it's one of the pleasures of taking classes outside the Johnson School once in a while.

I'm also taking the final core class, Managing and Leading Organizations, which covers topics of great interest to me like leadership development, HR, and aligning those with strategy. Oral Communication seems like a great (and surprisingly rigorous) course as well. The final one (and the one I'll be glad I took like a nice long gulp of cough medicine) is financial modeling. Luckily, the professor in modeling, Julia D'Souza, seems the right blend of patient and tough.

Other activities on the docket for Spring are finishing my Big Red Incubator project -- that includes a final presentation to our client company and doing a thorough market entry plan for them.

And there's the Cornell Business Journal, which has become the best business experience of my time here... I believe I've touched on this in previous posts, but to reiterate -- the CBJ is an independent organization (i.e. not a formal Johnson School club), so we don't have access to school funds. We do this to maintain our journalistic integrity as perhaps the only potentially dissenting voice at the school (which we haven't used very much so far). As an independent entity, we operate like any other newspaper, relying on advertising to stay afloat. Inheriting the paper from last year's team, my team and I want to build on what they did -- editorially and on the business side -- so, we've begun an initiative to go after advertisers and pay sellers a 10% commission to do so. For me, it's exciting to be leading a "turnaround," and the thought of having the paper be a really fun group to be a part of -- funding parties and events -- makes it worthwhile.

One final thing I'll be up to this spring -- the Park fellowship requires that all fellows complete a service project to benefit the school or the community. Our proposal is due May 1, and for mine, I've set out to create a new class which would pair engineers and business school students to design radically affordable products for populations in the developing world. I've had my first couple of conversations with faculty and staff, and I can see that it will be a major challenge to bring the course to fruition in a form resembling my own vision. But I'll use this forum as a way to document my progress.

After a long hiatus

Sheesh. It's been a while since I last blogged, and a lot has happened.

One, I found an internship. Those of you who have read this blog from the beginning have borne witness to the many twists and turns that my mental projections of my career path have taken. I started out wanting to start a world-changing company, then I was sure I'd work for a start-up in clean tech, or maybe for GE, or the New York Times, or in education. But after much thought and a rather intuitive approach to the job search, I eventually settled on a dark horse candidate: Dun and Bradstreet. I'll be a part of their Winning Culture team for the summer, which is their department that handles HR strategy, leadership development, and organizational change issues. I'll be working under some amazing folks, who showed me a great time when I went down to their recruiting event a couple weeks ago.

Another thing that's happened is I've actually enjoyed my first quarter of second semester. The decision to do a customized immersion was the best I've made all year. I love the Sustainable Global Enterprise elective course, and HR is awesome. Those are probably my highlights, along with Strategic Alliances and Operations. Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling is the thorn in my side, not because it isn't a great class (I actually recommend it), but because it's a challenge for me personally. I had never used Excel before business school, and even though the level of proficiency required for the MBA program is even lower than I had expected, it is clear that those that have an edge in Excel are better off in the business world -- or at least freer from the curse that is busy work and data entry. After all, we're here to become managers, right?

We've also hosted two of the Park Finalist weekends, and I've enjoyed bowling with many prospective students who have read this very blog. That's probably the biggest motivation for me to pick up the proverbial pen again and blog -- I keep running into people who read my posts. But, I do want to remark on the quality of the applicants I've met, whether they are Park Finalists or not. A lot of really intelligent and interesting folks have been through Ithaca this year, and I look forward to greeting next year's class.

What else? Oh, my Cornell Business Journal team and I have put out two issues of the paper, and I'm proud of the work we've done so far. We've gotten positive feedback, which makes me feel great about the hard work I put in.

That's it for now. I better get outside and enjoy the warmest day in months -- it's about 60 and sunny out there.

Super Bowl Sunday

... and we're two weeks deep into the semester already.

But first, about the game -- I think I share the sentiments of many. The Giants look good, and an upset would be world-shaking, but it would be fun to witness a historic 19-0 season for the Patriots. But above all, a good game would satisfy me more than either outcome alone.

So, back to matters of business school. This week, I got to reexamine how things are going with the new semester. What becomes evident over and over again is the contrast between my life now and my life during the first semester. I had a talk with a friend at this week's Sage Social on this exact topic -- he said he misses sharing every aspect of the business school experience with all of his classmates. I disagree. I think it's great to see people focusing on their interests, getting to build the skills they came here to build. We've all got a challenging experience in common, but now we're all free to express our individuality.

Another feeling that has started to emerge is a feeling of thankfulness for the core. It was really challenging, and I wouldn't want to go back and do it again, but at the same time, I never would've voluntarily signed up for the quant-heavy course-load unless I was forced to do so. The system succeeds in giving all Johnson students the same background in the building blocks of business, and it makes all subsequent courses more meaningful, viewed through the post-core lens.

The concepts I've learned -- at first a jumble of seemingly unrelated practices and behaviors -- continue to come together for me, in all sorts of unexpected ways. For instance, I spent a month straight practicing case interviews for my second-round interview with the New York Times Strategic Planning department. At first, it seemed like it might be fruitless (especially if I don't end up getting the job), but I think that the skills it builds -- diagnostics and deductive reasoning -- have already started to serve me in class and in business projects I'm working on.

Another new development this week. This Friday, my fifth course of the semester, a three-day course on Strategic Alliances, started. The class is taught by a non-traditional faculty member named Jan Suwinski, a 32-year Corning executive, who himself managed strategic partnerships with Korean electronics company Samsung, among others. His vast experience and humor colors class discussion in a great way. And who better to learn about strategic alliances from than someone who's built them time and again?

Now, I officially like all of my classes this semester.

First Park Finalist Weekend

Well, the first week of the second semester is now over, and I've already succeeded in breaking my promise to blog 3-5 times every day last week. I guess maybe the week wasn't as interesting as I expected it to be -- and I guess that's probably a good thing. Definitely a good thing, the more I think about it.

Friday morning, I woke up and had the chance to write. And for the first time in a long time, I was doing it only for myself. The act in itself was healing, and I was glad I found the time. Then, I went snowboarding at Greek Peak until around 1, when I jetted back to Ithaca for a 2 p.m. team meeting for the strategy case on Donner Company. The day was sunny and the snow was good, so spending some time with new friends on the slopes was a welcome activity and something I never would've had time to do last semester. Of course, things haven't heated up yet, so I'm not taking anything for granted.

One thing I can say about the first week of classes is that I feel liberated by the amount of choice I have -- in the classes I'm taking, mostly. It feels wonderful to choose how I want my schedule to fall, to take classes to explore topics I might have an enduring interest in, and to choose the skills I think will help me in my future career. So, I probably wrote all of the above in some form or other last week, but liberation has been the key word this week.

After the Friday meeting, I picked up my lady, and we went to hang out with some friends for a couple hours before turning in.

Saturday turned into a day of mid-Winter cleaning, getting our apartment in the kind of livable shape we might've in August. In the evening, I had the opportunity to meet the first group of Park Fellows finalists. Now, this was an event I'd been anticipating for an entire year, since I was in their shoes. That night exactly a year ago, I made the resolution that, if I got the fellowship, I'd really enjoy the experience of pizza, beer, and bowling; last year, I was too nervous for beer or bowling, though I did scarf down a piece of pizza. And I did enjoy it -- a lot. I bowled with a vengeance, and of course made time to talk with probably 10 of the prospectives about their lives, aspirations, and thoughts about business school. I was impressed by their calm manner, and of course by their backgrounds and experiences. I look forward to three more weekends of meeting the finalists, and hopefully seeing all of them here next year, whether they get the fellowship or not.

All in all, it was a good weekend. I'm looking forward to this week, getting really into my classes, and hopefully hearing back about a possible internship with the New York Times. I'm hoping for the best...

Relatively uneventful

Today was relatively uneventful, but for the fact that I succeeded in maintaining my exercise regimen for the first week of the semester. Also, Operations is proving to be a lot more interesting and engaging than expected, largely due to the solid teaching of Vishal Gaur, the new professor. That was the only class of the day, as Thursdays are looking to be pretty slooooowww...

End of Wednesday

Wednesday was an eventful one, full of activities, as usual. I heard from good friends in Argentina that they are getting married this May. Bummer! At first, I was hoping it was next May, which would give me some hope of attending, but no such luck.

After last writing, spreadsheet modeling rocked my world. We had an assessment quiz to see how experienced we are with Excel; I don't think I knew a single answer...

Then, I just held the monthly story meeting for the Cornell Business Journal, our student newspaper. The turnout was small but eager, so we're looking good for issue #2 under new leadership.

I spent all day working in hopes that I could get home at a reasonable time to take in a movie with my wife, so that's where I'm headed.

Until tomorrow...

BRI Meeting

I just finished SGE class, where we discussed our definitions of globalization, and how the needs of people in the established, emerging, and survival economies make for different business opportunities. We're reading Capitalism at the Crossroads by Stuart Hart, which is a great book that I'm actually rereading.

After class, my team and I met to discuss our Big Red Incubator project. We have our first deliverable due next Thursday, so we met and plotted our strategy for putting together something that will be really useful to the client.

So far, I can really recommend BRI as an extracurricular activity. My team of three has a local client (can't provide specifics due to a non-disclosure agreement) in the energy space, and we have already succeeded in shaking up the way our company looks at their eventual market entrance. We aim to help them succeed and help them manage expectations, since like many small start-up entrepreneurs, they believe they're going to take over the world by next year. As business school students, we can help take them through a proper market segmentation process and make specific incremental recommendations that will get them set up for the long-term.

Next, I have spreadsheet modeling class, which has a quiz to test my Excel skills (or lack thereof, which is why I'm taking the class in the first place). Fingers are crossed on that one.

January 23

The semester gets me going like no other. My alarm was set for 7 this morning, and wouldn't you know it? I woke up a half hour ahead of it - "man, if I can just get back to sleep within 10 minutes, I'll be set." After lying there for 12, I decided to cut my losses.

I got up to Ives Hall around 8:30 for day 2 of my HR survey course with Professor Brad Bell. We read a good article for today called "Why I Hate HR," which was a cover story in Fast Company in 2005. It looked at all the complaints that managers and employees have about the HR field, especially how business strategy and HR, though supposedly aligned, seldom are. To me, this is one of the most often ignored issues in business -- how to help people feel connected to the company's strategy, and to develop real, replicable systems to keep them engaged and dedicated to the company's mission.

The class had a good bit of discussion, and I'm glad I chose to venture outside of the Johnson School for the first time.

I've just been in the library working on the third case (in three days) for Operations. The class is still interesting, and I am enjoying the outside reading of the operations-centric novel, The Goal.

I'm about to wrap up and head to SGE.

Internship talk

I just had a really interesting conversation with a gentleman from MFIC, the organization that I mentioned in the previous post. Their company is expanding into Mexico, Guatemala, and Bolivia with the financial products that they currently offer elsewhere, and an internship with them would be incredible, in that I'd be able to use my Spanish and maybe even travel abroad.

The only downside is that they do their hiring later in the semester -- probably around late April. In the MBA world, where the vast majority of first-years are interviewing during January for their summer jobs, the talent pool shrinks significantly by then. But as someone who's doing a largely off-campus job search, folks like me have to be prepared to wait a while for the right opportunity. Less than the specific industry (within the few that I'm targeting), I'm most interested in finding an opportunity that doesn't require mind-numbing busy work. I'm looking for something that makes an impact, something that expands my horizons and excites me. And I've got to believe in the organization's mission, which, in the case of MFIC, I overwhelmingly do.

Overall, the discussion was exciting, but it reminded me that the job search is really less a sprint than a marathon.

January 22 -- second post

I've just spent the last 2 and a half hours in the library, reading articles for SGE and HR classes, formally dropping Financial Statement Analysis, and I also bought some coursepacks for upcoming classes that haven't met yet.

Now, I'm going to head home and get ready for a phone interview I have with a company I'm talking with about a summer internship. The company is called MFIC (Microfinance International Corporation), and is one that I had a personal connection to from my time as a writer. I wrote a story about them and how they are expanding the world of remittances (the money that immigrants send back to their home countries), and providing financial services to populations that are often ignored by mainstream institutions. In the process of writing the story, I became enthralled by their business model and their forward-looking methodology.

So, I'll be going home to eat lunch and get ready for that at 3:30. Then I'll get started on the next Operations case that's due on Thursday. And I'll probably do a bit of research for my BRI project, which is on bringing a renewable energy technology to market. More on these things later.

Tuesday, January 22 -- First post of today

I woke up this morning at around 7:30 primed to start the semester off right -- I have succeeded in fixing my schedule so that it doesn't start until 10:10 on Tuesday and Thursday. My personal exercise regimen had fallen apart last semester, so I'm building it in for the spring. Got up and went to Noyes, which is a 6 minute walk from home for some bike and situps. Then came home and read the NY Times for a while about Obama and Hilary from last night's debate. It sounds like it's getting crazy, and I have the feeling that Obama has more to lose than Hilary -- he has to be careful not to get dragged into a negative campaign now, which will be easier said than done.

Finished up the first Operations assignment and showered and was up at sage by about 10:00 to get a good seat in class. The course introduced us to production concepts like Throughput time, cycle time, capacity, bottleneck resource, economies of scale, and direct labor content. These are concepts that many of us have probably heard, but they were illustrated adeptly by Professor Gaur today.

Blogging as a sport

I'm about to start a new blogging experiment: to blog between 3 and 5 times a day for the first week of classes. My previous posts seemed to be more along the lines of a column, as opposed to a true blog. So, I'm going to give all the nitty gritty of my first week of second semester, and all the incorrect grammar and not sexy (but necessary) decisions that week entails.

Of course, I'm already a day late. Yesterday, I had my first day of class -- 8:40 a.m. at the ILR School (School of Industrial and Labor Relations) for a semester-long survey course in HR Management. Professor Brad Bell was down-to-earth and engaging, and the pace of course (read: manageable) will be a nice change from the core over here at Johnson. I was joined by 5 or 6 other Johnson students, as well as study abroad students from Ireland, students from the CIPA program, and some HR folks from various depts. on campus.

Then, I had Operations Management, the next-to-last core course. New professor Vishal Gaur (previously at Harvard and NYU) was engaging and good, I think. Got a good case team, with our first opportunity to choose our own.

Then, SGE (Sustainable Global Enterprise) with Mark Milstein. I decided not to take the SGE immersion after a lot of hemming and hawing, but the class seems great - -another one with folks from all over campus.

Then, lunch and some decisions about what else to take -- Financial Statement Analysis, from what I hear won't be the most useful thing to me, as a non-finance person. So, I decided to go and see what Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling was all about. Seems challenging but like something that is so useful as to be worth it.

So that was day 1. After a meeting about the Cornell Business Journal and how to raise revenues, I was home to my lady for a bit of relaxation --= something I know won't last long, but I'm trying to ease into the semester.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with the ability to choose my own courses finally.

Next post: this morning.

Letting the chips fall...

Last Thursday, Professor Roni Michaely, first-year core finance professor, warned everyone in his classes about the impending final exam. "Under no circumstances should you go to New York City this weekend. Missing 15 hours of studying for the finance final is not an option," he said.

If I wasn't already freaked out over what is considered the hardest test in the core and probably the entire Johnson School, now I was. Why, you may ask? No fool would travel to New York with just a few more precious days to study before the test, right? Well, I guess if you're me you would. And not only did I go to New York City, I left right after class on Thursday (missing Friday's classes) and didn't come back until Sunday afternoon.

Perhaps the move was a bit crazy, but it came down to two once-in-a-lifetime opportunities converging on one weekend, both in the Big Apple. The first was a surprise invitation to interview for a Strategic Planning internship at the New York Times. That opportunity alone would've sent me to the city in a heartbeat. For anyone who cares at all about journalism, media, or the American Way, the Times is the ultimate. I mean, I can't think of a position in any company that I'd prefer over Strategic Planning with the New York Times. After spending Friday morning at their new building across from Port Authority, touring the news room and interviewing with multiple incredible people, I was even more sold on the position.

If that wasn't enough, this was also the weekend of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Park Leadership Fellows Program. Over 50% of all current and former Park Fellows convened at the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center for quite possibly the single nicest event I've ever attended (after my wedding, of course). With clear skies, the length of Manhattan and beyond was visible from the 65th floor. Talks by Dean Joe Thomas and Cornell University President David Skorton, as well as the fellowship's namesake Roy Park Jr. and the head of the fellowship's alumni association, Laura Chulak, made everyone keenly aware of being a part of something truly special.

At the end of the festivities, the bus ride home on Sunday was a bit nerve-racking. Time was running short. The moment we got home, I was off for Sage Hall to attend three review sessions and get started on the two practice final exams. Ditto for Monday morning. Eleven straight hours later, I was starting to put some things together. Of course, Monday night was filled with dreams of discounted cash flows, options, futures, and arbitrage. But where my typical dreamworld is often filled imaginary -- but somehow unsolvable -- problems, I actually dreamt of correct answers and connections made. Not to say it was a good omen. The test was a bear, to say the least. But even if I could go back and change my decision to go to New York, I wouldn't do it. It was an incredible weekend. Now, I'm letting the chips fall where they may.

Catching up...

So much has happened since last post -- the Net Impact Conference in Nashville, Jeff Immelt's visit to campus, the results of the Base of the Pyramid learning lab writing contest, choosing an immersion, and the beginning of my role as co-editor-in-chief of the Cornell Business Journal -- I don't know where to start.

Perhaps the most recent first: Last night, I put in my bid for my top choice immersion: Sustainable Global Enterprise. For those who don't know, the Johnson School is one of the up-and-comers in the B-School trend toward sustainability and teaching how to apply principles of social and environmental stewardship in the business world. The school has a Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Learning Lab (which refers to the base of the economic pyramid, aka the several billion of the world's poor that live on about a dollar a day) and is also home to the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise, chaired by Professor Stuart Hart, author of Capitalism at the Crossroads.

I came to the Johnson School for this immersion and the chance to study under professor Hart. Unfortunately, he is on sabbatical this year, so he'll only be teaching portions of the immersion curriculum. The rest will fall on the capable hands of Professor Mark Milstein. In Hart's absence, and through a bit of refocusing on my part, I will probably yet opt out of SGE in favor of a customized immersion. I'll still plan to take Milstein's class, but I'll couple that with finance, accounting, HR, Organizational Development, and the last two classes of the core, with an eye toward balancing out my skillset and further drilling down into the best functional areas for me.

I love working with people and helping effect change in organizations, so that's why the focus toward HR and OD.

...which leads me to GE (I hope). Last night, the Johnson School was fortunate to host a great number of folks from all different parts of the that company. Of particular interest to me were the HR managers and the growing cadre of individuals working in the Renewable Energy Leadership Program, which is a rotational program geared towards training the next crop of leaders in the field of wind, solar, and other renewable energy technologies. The people that I've met in both of these areas, which include mostly Johnson School alums, have been really impressive, but also down-to-earth and cool.

Let me preface this obvious affinity for GE by stating that I am not a big company kind of guy. Of course, I did write for BusinessWeek, which is owned by McGraw-Hill, but even that felt more like a small company to me. No one in my family has ever worked for a large company, my father sometimes says. But in coming to business school and getting a look at what some of the corporate goliaths do, and how they handle themselves in the world, I have gained a lot of respect for companies like GE. Not only do they hire the best people, but they aren't afraid to get into areas like renewables, which is admittedly still controversial in the eyes of both political extremes. And they've got the resources to back it up, which means you can be on the forefront of change there.

Which leads me to Immelt. "Now this is a professional." That's what I was thinking the entire time the man was on stage last night. He had Carl Quintanilla from CNBC moderating a panel discussion, which was simulcast to another five business schools around the country. And boy did he have us transfixed. He mixed humor with advice with optimism with hard business empiricism; someone aptly compared him to Bill Clinton, in his manner, his intellectual sharpness, and his control of the crowd. It was a great experience to hear him speak.

What's next on my list? Oh yeah -- some great news from yesterday on a personal note. Months ago, I entered a writing contest sponsored by the afforementioned BoP Learning Lab. Yesterday I found out I took third place and a $500 prize for my efforts. I had told my wife when I entered that, should I win, she'd be the beneficiary of a stay at an area bed and breakfast. I'm ecstatic to be able to make that a reality.

Speaking of writing... and editing, yesterday I had my first meeting with my co-editor of the Cornell Business Journal, Vivek Pai, and the outgoing editor-in-chief, Anne Sorock. I'm excited to make a splash with the paper, and also feel extremely fortunate to have an awesome teammate in Vivek. I hope he can find the time to make the CBJ as good as it can be, since he's currently managing the Herculean task of so many first-years: Investment banking recruiting. As of now, I've got nothing but high hopes.

Last topic: the Net Impact National Conference in Nashville (mentioned in an earlier post) was the best time I've had in a while, for it's mix of professional development/networking opportunities and social/fun opportunities. Nashville is a great city, with Honky Tonk pouring out of just about every bar you pass. And the opportunity to spend time with the 25 or so classmates from Johnson that attended was awesome. Other highlights of the conference include the opening keynote with Yvon Chouinard, the founder and head of Patagonia, and also a personal hero of mine. His book, Let My People Go Surfing, is a model for how to create a flexible, dynamic, and inclusive corporate culture, and his company is the living reflection of his philosophy. Another highlight was a panel called "strategic diversity and inclusion," with four of the brightest individuals I've heard in a long time, talking about the benefits of an inclusive and diverse workplace, and how to achieve it. The career fair was also great -- I connected with folks from all sorts of companies, from education to consulting to non-profit to consumer packaged goods. Next year the conference is in Philadelphia, and I'm already looking forward to it.

I think that about does it for this post. I'll try to keep them more consistent and shorter in the future, but rare is the day when I find the time. Which reminds me: that Christmas break seems so close but yet so far.

Perspective

I just heard from the administration that the admissions office sent the link to this and other student blogs to all prospective students. I'd been meaning to insert my email address somewhere in my blog, just in case anyone is interested in discussing any of the topics I've written about, asking questions, or just making conversation via email.

Feel free to contact me at jng28@cornell.edu for any of the above reasons. I'll be making another formal post soon.

First year frenzy

First, I must offer my most sincere apology to the gods of the blogosphere for not making a post in about two weeks.

Second, whew! This quarter (the second of the core) is tough! Finance is the hardest, most time-consuming, most frenzy-producing class I've ever taken. Strange thing is, I kinda like it. Strategy and statistics are demanding, too. Put together, along with the quickly escalating responsiblities of clubs and other activities, time is really of the essence.

So, here's my quick attempt at discussing balance. I've got a beautiful wife in Ithaca, who has been more supportive than I could ever have imagined. But even my queen of patience gets tired of seeing me get out of bed before the sun comes up every morning and zombie my way back home every night, drained and hungry. So, here I get to my point about balance: forget about it! The kind of balance achievable with weekends off in a regular job is just not possible in the first half of the first year of business school at Cornell. That's why it's the little things that start to matter most. This morning, for instance, I'm restraining my urge to get to Sage before the sun peaks over the trees, in favor of breakfast with my lady. It won't be long or ceremonious, but it's my understandably feeble attempt to keep my priorities in line.

I'll do my best to keep the finance case write-up and statistics deliverable, and the Net Impact conference in Nashville -- all of which will merge tomorrow -- out of my head. And I'll try to stop thinking about my complete change in career focus, from clean tech to media and organizational development. And the fact that I've decided to run the Cornell Business Journal... And I'll probably fail.

But it's a temporary failure. And that's, I guess, the point of this post. Though the frenzy of the first-year is tangibly real, it's not the way I'm choosing to live my life forever. And when it gets tough, or starts to seem that way, I remind myself of my personal values, which I spent this past weekend defining at an all-day Park Fellows Personal Mastery workshop. My #1 is my wife, who's also a talented singer/songwriter, a social worker, and the wisest person I've ever met. Shout out to Shannon!

New Quarter

I think I'd be remiss if I didn't make a brief post about the beginning of the second quarter of the semester. With Marketing, Accounting, and Economics out of the way, the heart of the first-year core is halfway done. Kind of hard to believe, I must say.

One observation about the way The Johnson School programs the first part of the year: they crowd so much into seven-week quarters that students constantly feel like they might not get it all done. But, at the same time, the administration has it wired into a controlled chaos. There is ample communication between the core professors, so when a marketing case was due, for instance, there was a seemingly magical let-up in Accounting. Of course, the scenario would change only slightly on the students' end the following week, just for a different course.

Now, we shift to Statistics, Strategy, and Finance. What a change in character among the professors from last quarter. Statistics is taught by Amr Farahat, a patient, brilliant professor and researcher. Strategy offers our first female professor -- the energetic, engaging, and obviously brilliant Vrinda Kadiyali. And Finance, the single most hyped, feared, and time-consuming course that most of us will probably ever take. I can say that it is already the most challenging and mind-bending bit of mental gymnastics I've ever attempted, and I'm barely a week into it. That course is taught by Professor Roni Michaely, tough love extraordinaire.

Overall, I must remark on the quality of the professors here so far. Almost without exception, I'd give them all above average grades, with three to four out of six downright dynamite.

Right now, my overarching strategy is to plow forward; seven weeks and Christmas break is still far away, but there is a growng light at the end of the tunnel.

Last day of First Quarter

I am writing now, a day after the end of finals and a day before hiking and camping in the mountains of Vermont. It's a great feeling to be finished, I must admit, though there is that nagging desire to know every last final grade before I take off later today. For now, I'll just be patient...

Yesterday, the Cornell community had the rare and precious opportunity to have an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Not bad timing, either, I must admit. We had finished our last final -- Economics -- in the morning, then walked over to Barton Hall to stand in the longest line in history.

In that huge steamy auditorium, just about everyone in the place was restless, talking and jostling for a good seat. But when the monks from Namgyal Monastery started in with their chanting, everyone was quiet.

When His Holiness finally came out, he said he thought he was entering an empty auditorium, since everyone was so quiet. But I guess we were just anxious for some words of wisdom. And that's what we got -- simple words of compassion, friendship, peace, and tolerance from the old Tibetan monk, sitting cross-legged on his chair, shoeless.

I had seen the Dalai Lama once before. When I studied abroad in India, Nepal, and Tibet, I lived just down the hill from his palace in Dharamsala, India for about a month. He was in meditation retreat for most of our time there, but he came out for one special audience to greet the newest Tibetan arrivals, who had just crossed the highest mountains in the world to escape to India and religious freedom.

This talk in Ithaca was even better. I think it was because of the stark contrast between what I've been learning and exposed to in business school -- the pervasive feeling that competitiveness is and must be a part of daily life -- and the simple message to treat each other well, that we're all brothers and sisters. Regardless, it was a special event that I won't soon forget.

Service Project

On Saturday, the entire Park Fellows first and second year class got together for our first of two annual days of service. The activity took place at Compos Mentis, a nonprofit farm that offers programming for people with mental health issues, about 15 minutes northwest of downtown Ithaca.

I was excited going in, just for the rare opportunity to be outdoors (too many of my recent days involve spending just about every daylight hour inside Sage Hall). And we were extremely lucky to have a beautiful early fall day. The temperature was about 70 degrees, with scattered clouds.

The farm, we were told, was in desperate need of some hands to weed around the abundant crops it produced, as well as help clearing out and cleaning an old garage that will soon be converted into either a kitchen or workspace. The chicken coop also needed a solid going-over.

I opted first for the weeding. It was a nice change to get down on my knees and really dig in the dirt and not worry about anything related to school. In the course of the day, I also sweeped out the old garage and managed to avoid the chicken coop.

We also got the opportunity to taste broccoli, carrots, beans, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, and other vegetables right off the plants.

After the day was done, I took a few tomatoes, which were generously offered to us by the folks at the farm, and ate them with the fresh basil (also grown on the farm) and some olive oil. It was a good way to celebrate the day, which was the first time in a good long while that I had gotten outside myself to do something just for others.


On another note, for those who read my last post about the Net Impact Conference, I have decided to go. I'm glad I made the decision finally and am excited about the opportunity to meet and network with lots of new people in Nashville next month.

To Net Impact or Not Net Impact?

Of all the aspects of the first year of business school, perhaps the most challenging is the beginning of the job search. The Johnson School really gets its students going early on with thinking about the summer internship, assessing industries, doing research, etc. This is all fine and good, on the one hand. After all, I don't think I would have reached out to the several individuals, nor started making inroads into new industries that I have, without the outside prodding. On the other hand, it's overwhelming. The core is challenging and stressful in a totally different way than other things in my life have been challenging and stressful. One friend said that he had never had to make so many compromises -- mostly of his time, but also of his energy, resources, and money. You really do have to constantly be assessing your next move and its impact on your future. In many ways, it's just like the business world.

Which leads me to my current dilemma. Should I attend the Net Impact National Conference in Nashville, Tennessee or not? Well, looked at in purely economic terms, I don't have $1000 to spend on a weekend of anything. There just isn't enough of the green stuff coming in. But that hasn't stopped me from looking closer at the matter. I've established some of my own direction in the job search, but I'm far from decided or settled on my future career. The list of attending companies at the conference is formidable, diverse, and really interesting to me.

Connections made at Net Impact have led a number of second-years that I know to their summer internships with organizations as diverse as GE and the National Park Service. Not to mention that the event is attended by scores of like-minded, socially conscious MBAs from around the country. It could very well be inspiring and instructive to see what those folks plan to do with their degree, and compare notes.

This is definitely going to be a tough decision, and one that will be a challenge either way. It's just one of the many compromises that are growing to define my year so far.

Mentors

I’ve complained a lot over the years (to my wife especially) about the lack of positive male role models in my life. Of course, my Dad’s a great and talented guy, and I respect his renaissance man skills and abilities. To give a sense of what the guy is like, he's spent time in the last two years doing all of the following: substitute teaching in Maryland, working in a golf pro shop, building and restoring frames for Picassos at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.c., and testing electronic voting machines for the 2008 election. All that while he's supposedly "retired."

But I’m talking about people closer to my age, that have had similar life experiences, or at least who see themselves and where they’re going in a similar way that I do. And although I didn't come to business school just to find that kind of influence, it seems to have found me.

The Park Leadership Fellows program requires that all first-year students have a second-year Park as their mentor. A graduate of the Air Force Academy and officer in that branch, my mentor, Kyle, has the kind of leadership experience that is rare at any age. And the fact that he commanded about 800 people and a fleet of high-performance military aircraft at the age of 24 puts him in a league without too much company. Like me, he’s married (in fact he just had his first child about two weeks ago). Also like me, he took the Sustainable Global Enterprise immersion.

Since his wife was pregnant and he couldn't travel to New York or some other urban locale for his internship this past summer, he took the lead on the business side of a joint project with the engineering school to develop a radically fuel efficient car. He's dedicated to continuing that project through this year. Kyle's career interests are varied; he's a many with many passions, all strong.

But at the bottom of it all, Kyle says he's most committed to saving the world. Coming from a strong, self-assured, military man, that's a powerful thing to hear, and something that has already helped me take my commitment to my future (and my family's and the world's, etc.) much more seriously.

I connected with my other mentor, Rishad, as part of the Johnson Career Management Center's Career Work Group program. Of course, they didn't pair us up for nothing; our interests align quite closely. Like me, Rishad worked in the media industry. He spent nine years, most recently as a freelance production manager in video and film production, in Los Angeles.

Rishad focused on environmental studies as an undergrad at Cornell and always kept his eye on the rapidly evolving clean technology space, even as he was managing the production of commercials for clients like Nike, GM, and Heineken, among many others. After a while, he grew to believe that his dream career change was fast becoming a "now or never" proposition.

So Rishad jumped in with both feet. And he's so far succeeded in the process of making his career leap. He completed the Sustainable Global Enterprise immersion, helping a venture capital firm assess opportunities for renewable energy in emerging markets second semester last year. He landed a great internship in the solar sector for the summer and is currently planning his next move.

Along his path so far, Rishad has learned a lot of lessons about the job search, and he's set on passing those lessons along to me, and the other guy in our group. He's already challenging me not just to take a job, but to pursue the best of what's out there.

It's obvious that there are great people at Cornell. But to have access to them, and to have them challenging me every day, is, well... overwhelming, to be honest! But I believe that learning and growth comes from constant challenge, and with such great role models, I know I'll be much more at the end of my time here than I was coming in.

Club Fair -- some not-so-tough decisions

Last Thursday, the Johnson School held its annual club fair. It's a madhouse environment in the Atrium where first-years get to grill second-year club officers about what they do and why we should be a part, and second-years try to gauge interest in their respective labors of love.

For me, Net Impact was a given. With my interest in sustainable business and entrepreneurship, it's the club to be in for career opportunities and events surrounding all things clean, green, and socially aware.

As an aspiring entrepreneur (I've started publicly declaring my intention to start a world-changing company), I was looking for what I could do build those skills, along with my leadership. So I decided to apply to be a consultant for the Big Red Incubator, a business incubator that Cornell runs as part of their "entrepreneurship triad," which also consists of venture fund Big Red Ventures and legal consulting service Big Red Legal. BRI consultants get the opportunity to solve real-world problems, and develop real-world marketing plans, for small companies from around the country. I'm considering (along with a number of other options) working for a start-up of some sort over the summer, and any consulting or other project I can do will definitely help me add value to their operations, no matter what they entail.

I've also joined the entrepreneurship and venture capital club, since I'm excited about their programming. They hold all sorts of events and workshops dedicated to helping business school students gain access the worlds of technology being developed in Cornell labs all over campus. And they organize a symposium of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, to spread the entrepreneurial spirit around the school.

My token fun club is the Rockin Outdoor club, because I think the key to enjoying a cold climate is having something outdoors that you love to do. I went to undergrad in Vermont, so I snowboarded my brains out (sometimes to the detriment of my schoolwork) all four years. But that's what made my time in Vermont so memorable and special. Fingers crossed that Greek Peak gets some solid snow this year.

There were so many more clubs on offer, but I had to go with what gave me energy, where I felt drawn and excited. So that's what I did. I've been to a few first meetings, and I've got a few more tomorrow. I'm ready to get out there and see what I can learn, and what I can add.