Monday, May 31, 2010

Hyannis Port...The Kennedy compound




On Sunday, we were lucky enough to be driven down through Plymouth to Hyannis Port and Cape Cod.
We found the famous Kennedy compound and swam on the beach close by!
What a beautiful place, absolutely serene!
Later, we managed to talk our way into the Hyannis Yacht Club, very friendly and we all had a superb meal of swordfish and a bottle of Vernaccio!

Today we had our pitches for our groups where we pitch one of our businesses to the entire group, we chose one of our team members, who runs the Instituto of Tennis in Brazil, which helps street kids, find a future and gives them the tools to escape the poverty cycle. Below is the one minute "elevator" pitch.

The purpose of the excercise, is to be able to distill a business into its key elements including "A difference that matters"

Workgroup 12- Instituto Tenis
Pitch Delivered by Andre Buzzoni
For companies who want to improve the lives of children in Brazil, while enhancing corporate brand recognition, Instituto Tenis provides the opportunity to invest in a non-profit organization that focuses on tennis coaching and giving underprivileged children, skills to succeed in life.
Unlike other initiatives, we offer superior outcomes through a proven integrated social development model that takes kids off the street and gives them a future.
The Instituto Tenis was founded in 2002 when 150 children from the poorest areas of Brazil were nominated to participate. Now, we coach 3000 motivated kids. Our goal is to engage 100,000 children across 100 social centers throughout Brazil by 2016 (the year of our Olympics). We currently need $30 million dollars to make this a reality.
We are projecting that the return on this investment will be that by 2016, we will have changed the lives of 100,000 children, created five professional tennis players and sent at least 50 children to study in a university program.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

JFK Birthday



Philip and i were lucky enough to visit the John F. Kennedy, Presidential Library and Museum on what would have been his 93rd birthday!
Consequently, it was free birthday cake! A wonderful imposing building, with some wonderful records of Kennedy's life.
There were many fascinating items, probably the one which moved me the most, was the poem by Jackie to John on their first wedding anniversary, which still resonates.

Friday, May 28, 2010

60 percent of Amazon sales are now electronic books!



And these are only the change Rooms!

Some amazing quotes from our Professors

" If everyone is accountable, no one is accountable"
Lynda M Applegate

WIFM
whats in it for me

Cambridge Street Life


With the Graduations going on , people are celebrating in many ways! Although, this guy with the top hat, definitely does not seem happy about me taking the picture!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Walking Dollar Bills




These graduating mba students, have paid tens of thousands to go to Harvard and will mostly earn millions.
No wonder their robes look as if they were made by Dior.
Its an amazing seeen around Harvard and Cambridge, with all the families and all the students, its quite inspiring to think of all those young people going out to change the world!

Last night our study group worked on cases and then worked on "an elevator pitch" for one of our enterprises, it was a big night, not finishing to one thirty am!
However, we all experienced an amazing sense of achiemevent, distilling the essence of the enterprise down to a 45 second pitch.

By the way, an elevator pitch is meant to be when you jump in the lift of say the empire state building, as you get in you see, say the head of Goldman Sachs, you realise that this is the chance to interest her in equity or investing in your enterprise and you have literally the time it takes for the elevator to distill your ideas down to a very compelling and short message.

I will post our pitch on Monday after our group participates in OPM Idol, to select the best pitch from our class.

In the meantime, all sorts of sights around the streets of Boston!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Baker Library

Boy they really make you work with case study after case study!

Here i am soaking up the Baker library for some more quite study.
i have not done this for 25 odd years , so you can imagine how much i am loving that part!

Below, i have shown the schedule for today, to give you an idea of the daily grind and the topics covered!




TUESDAY MAY 25
7:00 - 8:30 am
Breakfast
Kresge Boardroom
All
7:30 - 8:45 am
Discussion Groups

Assigned Living Groups
All
9:00 - 10:30 am
Leadership: Rob Parson at Morgan Stanley Robert Steven Kaplan

McCollum 102
B, D
10:30 - 11:00 am
Break

Baker Hall Lounge
All
11:00 - 12:30 pm
Control: Activity-Based Management V.G. Narayanan

McCollum 102
B, D
12:30 - 1:30 pm
Lunch

Kresge Boardroom
All
1:30 - 3:00 pm
Strategy: Henry Ford, Alfred Sloan, and the Three Phases of Marketing Cynthia Montgomery

McCollum 102
B, D
3:00 - 3:30 pm
Break
Baker Hall Lounge
All
3:30 - 5:00 pm
Life Planning: Life Cycle of the Family Business System John Davis

McCollum 101
All
6:30 - 7:30 pm
Dinner
Kresge Boardroom
All
6:30 - 7:30 pm

Kresge Boardroom
All

Probably the piece which resonated most was the strategy session comparing the strategies of Ford and General Motors.

Does anyone know who Alfred Sloan was?

The big lesson was a business needs a difference that matters we also learnt how costing systems can drive profitability.

Last night's team dinner gave us a chance to get to know closely a group of seven very different people from Thailand, India, Usa, Brazil and Venezuela, very rewarding and informative.

Tomorrow, we move onto negotiations.

Monday, May 24, 2010

"Its more important to know who you are than where you are going" Jim Collins

Not a bad place to read case studies!

Today we are deeply in strategy, leadership and the mexican crisis. (some might say which one of the many crisis )

one of the great learning quotes:-

"The customer oriented company begins with the market and lets it guide every decision, every investment and every change. stirring stuff."

We also spent time working through the case of mesco, which burnt $2 billion entering the usa furniture market and in the process damaging its reputation for years, as a result of an incorrect strategy. I think i have seen a few of those over the years!

Mexico was fascinating, like ground hog day, but things in Mexico are on the up as a result of an independent reserve bank and better democracy!

Talk of Obama amongst people I met has been interesting with a few Democrats questioning his effectiveness:- is that...... "all talk"
i guess the jury is still out.

Tomorrow, its Henry Ford versus Alfred Sloan.
Tonight is out to Boston North for a team dinner