HBS DOG& PONY SHOW IN S.F. –ANOTHER RAVE REVIEW FOR D-MEISTER

THIS REPORT ACTUALLY HAS SOME NOTABLE HBS FACTOIDS ABOUT PRESENT CLASS, ETC., SO WORTH THREADING THRU. THE ‘CASE’ BEING DISCUSSED IS ON THEIR WEBSITE, AND LINKED IN POSTS HERE  ABOUT TWO WEEKS AGO.

NEXT PERSON WHO SENDS ME ONE OF THESE, AND WINS $100 HBSGURU PRODUCT VOUCHER, COULD WE HAVE EVEN MORE DETAIL ABOUT CLOTHES, HUH, LIKE BRAND NAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ANYONE CAN GET A BLACK SUIT AT TARGET!!!!!  CELL PHONE PIX???

Elmas Cons: risk-adverse, not going to b-school for the education but for the brand name, which you can get anywhere [YES, YOU CAN GET A BRAND NAME ANYWHERE, AND YOU CAN GET BRAND SHOES AT PAYLESS, BUT DEE BUYS HERS AT FERRAGOMO, SEE PRIOR D-D  REPORT,  SOOOOOOO, DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS]

HBS  Admissions event– August 27 in San Francisco. The event was well-attended, with about 500 applicants gathering in a conference room (with stage/podium) in the GAP building.

Dee Leopold was the MC / professor / comedian for the night. She was quite stylish - black suit, pearl necklaces, red shoes. [great, but you are not getting that internship a W magazine].

We started with the mock case. Dee was the professor to our “class” and she really forced us to think. If you make a comment, be ready for the “whys” and “hows” that follow. There were four board set up, each representing one of our protagonists. We did a preliminary vote if we thought the candidate should apply to HBS or not. The most popular candidate was Carol, then Alex, Elmas was split, and Rafael was very unpopular. She noted that we were very similar to the New York crowd.

Alex Pros: social enterprise initiative, he knows what he wants, community citizenship - one of the admissions criterias
Alex Cons: he could just take some finance courses somewhere close by,
Interesting fact: 65% of candidates change function from what they started (he could be a switcher!)

Carol Pros: ambitious and driven, HBS 46% have founded or co-founded a t least one company so fits her goal
Carol Cons: shes not interested in business, she is probably better off doing what she loves (the science) and partnering a business professional for her next startup

Elmas Pros: adds to diversity, global perspective
Elmas Cons: risk-adverse, not going to b-school for the education but for the brand name, which you can get anywhere [YES, YOU CAN GET A BRAND NAME ANYWHERE, AND YOU CAN GET BRAND SHOES AT PAYLESS, BUT DEE BUYS HERS AT FERRAGOMO, SEE PRIOR D-D SIGHTING REPORT,  SOOOOOOO, DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS]

Rafael Pros: its okay to explore, hes seized every opportunity that has been given to him, leadership is an admissions criteria
Rafael Cons: doesnt know what he wants to do
Interesting fact: being young is OK in fact, 300/900 of the previous class are within 3 years of workd experience
She also noted that the point of the exercise was to share our different perspectives and perhaps change opinions.

There was an emphasizes that the classroom size is big (90 ppl) but its the same 90 ppl for your entire first year required curriculum

Then we watched a video on the case study method (i was told by a fellow applicant that this is online)

The next part was the alumni Q&A portion - the panel comprised of four individuals from the class of 2006, all of them were in the same section –  it was very cute, you could definitely see the close friendship they have with each other. Typical questions were asked like what was your favorite and least favorite part? Did you know what you wanted to do when you started? Was it difficult to find a job on the west coast from an east coast school? Compare Stanford vs. Harvard.

Last part was admissions Q&A - there was only 5-10 minutes left at this point. lots of questions about round 1 vs. round 2 vs. round 3. She indicated that they admitt around the same amount of people in round 1 and round 2 but the people in round 1 are usually much more organized and “fill in your own adjective” while those applying in round 2 are more “fill in your own adjective” Round 3 is when they try to “round out” their class with different types of people so if you’re a high school senior, apply round 3. Also, someone asked about deferrals - you are not allowed to defer admissions unless something very terrible has happened that was beyond your control, the only exception to this is high school seniors - whom adcom expects will use the deferral option anyway. You can apply again.

STANFORD :

Realistically, how am I going to talk about what matters most to me in my life by weaving in a project I led at work?  The same holds for the career vision story. 

Your instincts are right, the S. application is to some degree anti-professional, and as we have noted, S b school is actually the UN-Business school, well, as part of its stage outfit, in reality once you get past the smoke and mirrors of admissions, and get to faculty and kids, there is plenty of business going on.

But the smoke and mirrors of admissions is what we care about: You is right, they do not care about a  bs work  accmplshment like “leading a team of 14 fellow nerds from different parts of the nerd univerise on a really tight deadline for the Xp6Y-T box [described in 60 words of faux simplicity] I was able to reduce bug reports by 18 percent, and etc. etc. . . .” which is the kind of baloney a lot of other schools get, and apparently encourage. It is possible to talk about how the larger impacts of your work matter to you [impact on society, do-gooder impacts, jobs, employment, great products, etc] and also to carry over themes from what matters most to you, e.g. discovering your own values, connecting w. others, personal growth, etc. into work related incidents with peers etc. Also, some folks are capable of writing a pwerful essay about their passion for techology and e.g. lowering the digital divide, into a great essay which has a lot of great wort stuff naturally. In the career vision essay, it is possible to refer to work events as part of background for career vision, but I would go light here, they want to see, in that question, how good an inventory you can create about what you need in terms of technical and professional development + how you link that up to Stanford assets.

(more…)

CAREER VISION ESSAY IDEAS  FOR BANKERS AND PE GUYS : ESP THOSE INTERESTED IN DO-GOODER/”FOURTH SECTOR” ELEMENTS.    NOTE THAT COLLEGE SUMMIT AND TEACH FOR AMERICA [and Bridgespan] ALL  FEATURED BELOW, ARE HEART-THROB FEEDER ORGANIZAITONS FOR H/S/W– see, for example,  our blog entry –HBS: social enterprise model–on Bo Manteki who is doing mixed housing now after attending HBS from College Summit. You can also search this thread for our Valentine to Wendy Kopp the founder of  Teach for America, the Mother Theresa of US Preppie Do-Gooders (and like Mom T, no MBA for Wendy). 

August 1st, 2007

Ex-Wall St. Executives Go to Bat to Help Nonprofits

By STEPHANIE STROM–New York Times

Published: August 3, 2007

An organization founded by two former Goldman Sachs partners is using Wall Street methods to help charities raise money to finance expansion.

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Charles T. Harris III, a former partner at Goldman Sachs, co-founded SeaChange Capital Partners to aid charities raise money for expansion.

“Our goal,” said Charles T. Harris III, “is to create a nationwide donor network of wealthy individuals and family foundations that we can mobilize with other existing sources of funds to provide growth capital for entrepreneurial organizations.”

Mr. Harris and Robert K. Steel formed SeaChange Capital Partners, which sounds like a hedge fund but is a nonprofit financing firm.

Mr. Steel recently left SeaChange, after being named the Treasury Department’s under secretary for domestic finance.

Attracting financing to support growth is one of the biggest challenges nonprofits face. A study by the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consulting firm, found that only 144 of the more than 200,000 nonprofits established since 1970 had grown to $50 million or more in revenue by 2003.

Two organizations, Teach for America and College Summit, have tested the SeaChange concept, and Goldman Sachs has agreed to put up $5 million toward a total goal of $40 million to support SeaChange.

“When we think about corporate engagement, it’s not just writing a check but somehow making use of the resources and know-how of Goldman Sachs,” said Mark R. Tercek, the managing director who oversees the firm’s corporate responsibility efforts. “If we could help fuel the growth of the nonprofit sector with that know-how, that would be putting both our money and capabilities to good use.”

With the help of SeaChange, Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits recent college graduates to teach in public schools, raised $60 million in $5 million and $10 million increments from about a dozen donors, said Wendy Kopp, its founder and chief executive.

“What we are trying to do is get much bigger and much better,” Ms. Kopp said. “In the for-profit world, companies raise capital to do that, but it’s not as easy in the nonprofit world.”

Donors, whether institutional or individual, typically want to support specific programs rather than the expansion of the charities offering those programs, said Doug White, an independent consultant and author of “Charity on Trial: What You Need to Know Before You Contribute.”

“Donors haven’t been taught to put money into the infrastructure of an organization, which should be a legitimate fund-raising goal,” Mr. White said. “You can’t have the programs without the organization and its infrastructure.”

Mr. Harris got a better sense of how donors behave when he stepped in as interim fund-raising director at College Summit, which works to increase the number of public school students who enroll in college.

The organization needed to raise $15 million to expand its program to four new communities but worried that raising the money in a traditional way would take too long and hobble it in various ways.

“Imagine an investor saying, ‘I want to buy 1,000 shares of FedEx but I want my money only to go into vans because I think they are the key to success,’ ” said J. B. Schramm, College Summit’s founder and chief executive. “That’s what foundations and donors do to nonprofits; they give out money but with restrictions, like you have to work in Topeka because that’s where one of their trustees lives, or you can only use their money for a particular type of teacher training.”

Facing that challenge, Mr. Harris recommended experimenting with the approach, which is similar to a private placement in which selected donors are invited to help underwrite an organization. That is the system that SeaChange is using to raise money for nonprofits.

Nine months later, 10 donors had agreed to supply $15 million — and all on the same terms.

“We did not make a single, special restriction for any donor,” Mr. Schramm said. “It was the most efficient money we’ve ever raised.”

SeaChange initially will raise money for youth education and youth development organizations like College Summit because Mr. Harris and other members of the management team have the most experience in those areas. But it intends to extend its financing to other areas of the nonprofit sector and to provide additional services.

Mr. Harris himself is a beneficiary of philanthropy, having gone to Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the nation’s most expensive prep schools, on a full scholarship.

“Everything I am is a result of that experience,” he said, “and I’d like to think there’s some opportunity like that for every kid in the world.”

“Markets always change faster than marketing”: MBAUniverse.com …
MBAUniverse.com - New Delhi,New Delhi,India–Interview w. LBS marketing guru about how marketing has changed and marketing in India.
We also asked him about his experiences at four top global B-schools - Harvard Business School (HBS), LBS, IMD Business School and Kellogg –WELL HE PUNTED ON THAT, BUT REMARKS ABOUT MARKETING IN INDIA ARE VALUAUBE.

Breakthrough Education

Thursday, August 2, 2007

http://www.mb.com.ph/YTCP2007080299289.html# Leading Change: Making transformation work It has been observed by many organizational behaviorists that despite all the talk, books, effort and money thrown into change efforts in organizations, most fail. But why? John Kotter, a professor of leadership at the Harvard Business School said that “the most general lesson to be learned from the more successful cases is that the change process goes through a series of phases that, in total, usually require a considerable length of time.” He pointed out that skipping steps creates only an illusion of speed and never produces meaningful results. And making mistakes in the process can produce devastating effects, slowing down the momentum and disregarding hard-won achievements. Kotter summarizes the eight steps as follows:   * Establish a sense of urgency. Many successful change efforts start when some individuals or groups create urgency by looking hard at an organization’s competitive situation, market position, technological trends and financial performance. Without motivation, people won’t help-and the efforts go nowhere.   * Create a powerful guiding coalition. Change efforts often start with one or two committed people, and should grow continually to include more and more who believe that changes are necessary. This group helps bring in more on board with new ideas. The building of this coalition coupled with their sense of urgency, their sense of awareness on what’s going on and what needs to be done is vital.   * Create a vision. Successful transformation rests on having a clear vision of the future. A vision that is easy to communicate and appeals to the stakeholders. The vision works in different ways: It helps ignite motivation, keeps all projects and changes aligned, provides an avenue to evaluate how the organization is doing, and provide the rationale for the changes the organization will have to engage with.   * Communicate that vision. Leaders should know how much communication of the vision is needed, and then multiply the effort by a factor of ten. Leaders must ‘walk their talk’ if they want people to perceive their efforts as important. The bottom line is that a transformation is bound to fail unless all stakeholders understand, appreciate and commit to themselves to make the change happen. Without credible communication, the hearts and minds of the people are never captured.   * Lead others to act on the vision. Action is essential to empower others and to maintain the credibility of the change effort as a whole. Nothing is more disappointing than believing in the change but then not have the time, money, help, or support needed to realize it. Along the way, many obstacles will be met. You can’t totally eliminate all the obstacles, but the biggest ones need to be addressed head on.   * Plan for and create short-term wins. Since real transformation takes time, wavering of the momentum and the onset of disappointment are real. In successful transformation, leaders creatively plan and achieve short-term gains which people will be able to see and appreciate, and celebrate. Commitments to ensure short-term triumphs help keep the urgency alive. This provides proof that efforts are working, and adds to the motivation to keep the effort going.   * Consolidate improvements and keep the pace moving. Never declare victory too soon. A premature declaration of victory kills the momentum, thus allowing the powerful forces of tradition to regain control. Use the feeling of victory as a motivation to delve deeper into the organization, to explore changes to the culture, to fine tune systems, to inspire people to newer and higher heights of action. Change leaders must go into the process of thinking that their efforts will take years to accomplish.   * Institutionalize the new systems or approaches. In the ultimate analysis, the fruit of the pudding is in the eating. Show people how the new approaches, behaviors and attitudes have helped improve performance. Change sticks when it becomes a part of our everyday life. Until new behaviors are observed and rooted in social norms and shared values, they are subject to degradation as soon as the pressure for changed is removed.   The author: Henry S. Tenedero is the president of the Center for Learning and Teaching Styles, an affiliate of the International Learning Styles Network, based at St. John’s University in New York. He is a graduate of the AIM Masters in Development Management and of the Harvard Graduate School for Professional Educators. He is the author of the following books: Cooking Up A Creative Genius; The HI CLASS Teacher, Breakthrough Ideas in Education; and Using Passion and Laughter in Your Presentations. He can be reached at htenedero@yahoo.com

the real HBS deal: there are a lot of HBS social enterprise success stories out there, but this guy strikes me as the real deal since he is getting real results, in a key ‘old world’ market, for working class  people in USA  and is willing to tinker w. the paradigm + take risk. I admire other paradigms as well, but this is just super solid,and something a lot of wannabe do-gooders could do while not moving to Africa. Useful PE model as well, for those trying to link PE to do-gooder stuff.

The Home Maker

Bo Menkiti was tired of seeing all the boarded-up, abandoned buildings in his Washington neighborhood. So he got a real estate license, founded an agency, and started developing homes for teachers, firefighters, and other first-time buyers in the neglected middle market.

From: Inc.com By: Angus Loten

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Contrary to conventional wisdom, Bo Menkiti decided to bet the farm — literally — when starting his business. An aspiring real-estate mogul, the first house he sold was his own, for start-up capital.It paid off. In just three years, the Menkiti Group has brokered sales of more than $60 million in real estate, mostly to first-time buyers in urban neighborhoods of Washington. His agency has also developed some 33,000 square feet of residential and commercial properties and is currently eyeing 38,000 more — including a 30-unit building for low-income buyers Menkiti plans to develop from the ground up. At the same time, the business has grown by 465 percent, with this year’s revenue expected to break the $1 million mark.

Menkiti, now 30 and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Business School, says the agency and its rapid success sprang more out of a set of core values than any formal business plan.

“Housing is a fundamental social good,” says Menkiti, a former executive at College Summit, a national non-profit organization that seeks to boost the college enrollment rates of low-income students. As such, he sees the agency operating at the intersection between business and non-profit, describing it as a social purpose for-profit business. Still, there are key differences between selling homes and promoting a college education — or any number of other social goals, Menkiti adds. “Real estate is a real, tangible asset that has a clearly defined market value.”

As he sees it, one of the biggest problems in today’s real-estate industry is that agents are paid by commission. That prompts them to pursue high-end property sales with bigger payoffs, leaving middle-market properties languishing on the market and depreciating in value. “The way the market works, there’s a disincentive for agents to work with the market that most needed their help,” he says. By contrast, Menkiti pays his sales team a fixed salary, with a small commission based on volume, rather than dollar value. “The idea was to change that paradigm,” he says.

Another change was to inject some risk back into social entrepreneurship. “The concept in social investing had always been ‘don’t invest in bad stuff,’” Menkiti says. “I think it’s now moving closer to the edge.” This year, Menkiti is working with EVI, a Baltimore-based private equity firm, on a $4 million project to convert a vacant, inner-city apartment building into condos — with more than half of the units reserved for low-income buyers. All this amid one of the worst housing market slumps in decades and a growing subprime mortgage crisis. “You have to convince people that there is a return on the middle market, even if it’s slower in coming,” he says.

Rather than worry about a prolonged downturn in the market, Menkiti said he believes an adjustment was long overdue — given that housing prices were skyrocketing while ordinary wages remained flat. “You still have demand, but there’s an affordability problem,” he says. Besides, he adds, great companies are built during tough times.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated that Menkiti paid all agents a fixed salary.

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