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.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
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.
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.
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