Menu on Day 1 - not sure what anything is

and about 28 other 1st and 2nd year students visited the Pacific islands of Japan  from the end of Feb. through mid-March this year.  This was my first trip to Japan, and I was very excited to have it somewhat organized – I had heard from friends and family that it can be difficult figuring things out when in Japan – and this was fairly clear when it came to understanding what we were looking at on a menu from time to time! The thought of an organized trip with great friends was made more appealing as a result of these previous insights, and so on Feb. 26 I departed for Tokyo (with 2 other friends, we thought we could brave a few days on our own).

When we arrived in Tokyo, we found things like using the subway and train systems were pretty easy after some basic training and help from locals.  There are some really wonderful things we had heard about Japan:  that its clean, the people are super friendly, and that it is super efficient – all of which we discovered to be true.  The Japanese

Hiroshima - Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims

were some of the most helpful and respectful people I have met in a while, and we felt that starting on day 2 (with our wonderful Japanese tour guides – students from Yokahama University) and every day following (as seen in the wonderful work of our organizers).

The Japan trip was extremely well organized, which was essential as we shuffled from Tokyo,

The Great Buddha in Kamakura

to Hiroshima, to Kyoto, and then Nagoya in 10 days or less.  Our three Goizueta student organizers arranged not only sightseeing in these cities, but also company visits (in fine B-school fashio

n) to Seven Eleven, Advantage Partners, Mazda, Sony, Carlyle Group, and even Toyota.  Some other trip highlights (my opinion) included:  meeting the Mayor and having a guided tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, dining in style each and every night with 10-course meals and all the sake one could ask for, staying at a traditional Japanese-style hotel complete with donned Yukatas and Karyoke, eating tons of tempura and somehow feeling like it was healthy, and becoming a chop-stick master (we used them for nearly every meal).

If we ever thought we spent a lot of time with Goizuetians while in school, this trip proved we can spend even more time together and still feel the

Last Night in Tokyo

love.  Honestly, this trip was, above all, a wonderful bonding and cultural experience in one of the most intriguing and enticing countries in the world.  When I look b

ack on my

time at GBS, there is no doubt this experience will remain one of those lasting impressions – after I forget all the complaining about homework, and all the times I had to walk from Peavine in the freezing cold.  As graduation nears, and I realize its inevitability, I am more and more glad to have had a wonderful international lead week experience while I was at GBS.

GALA has about 30 students involved (selected through an application and interview process.) As a fellow, you participate in a number of activities outside of your normal class schedule. We have conversations and lectures with more leaders like Robert Spano, Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (and one of my favorite speakers – as soon as he started drawing an org chart out of his orchestra we knew he could relate to us ), have another round at Winshape, volunteer to practice Servant Leadership, and study our team Birkman profiles to develop a better understanding of our teammates.

And then there’s the capstone experience. In past years groups have gone to the British Virgin Islands (like we did this year) and to the Marine Corps base at Quantico. I have never been involved in something like this and it was truly transformational. As business school goes on, we get fairly used to team activities that sometimes seem silly (like tying a group into big knots while we all hold on to one piece of rope) but which illustrate business situations and things like interpersonal communications well. GALA is like the grown up version of all this – after a semester of self-evaluation and teamwork we fly to BVI, and are given $300K boats to control, live on, and race. We have an instructor there to keep us from crashing the boat in dire circumstances and a facilitator to observe and lead the debriefs at night. Let me put this another way: you are “locked” onto a 48′ boat to live and compete with your four other teammates against other teams for six days. You are responsible for sailing the boat, cooking and cleaning for teammates, navigating by nautical charts, leading the team and even more critical on some days – being a really good follower.

Each day ends with a debrief where everyone gives each other open and candid feedback. Here we not only learn that our peers can see everything (stress reactions, the things we do well, the things we don’t, etc) but we all have to practice giving very good and constructive feedback, because when the debrief ends the furthest you can get from one another is about 20 feet. I found it to be an incredible experience and one I would not hesitate to do again. It certainly doesn’t hurt at all that BVI is breathtaking either And of course there’s a little down time at the end of the day to swim and get clean (water is very precious on such a short boat – so we bathe by diving off the back.)

Goizueta is the only business school to have a program like this and which goes to BVI for a capstone experience. I am so glad I was able to participate in this experience, and it is incredible to me that last year at this time I was in China seeing that incredible country, and this year I have been racing around the gorgeous Virgin Islands in a 48′ catamaran. Goizueta has truly given me some amazing opportunities.

I have to admit, I wasn’t initially enthused about the London/Paris Mid-Semester Module. Though the topic is definitely of interest (a Focus on Energy), prior to Business school… I’d always daydream & envision these Global trips to be of the sort that takes you to a far away exotic new place that you might not normally have been able to visit if not for B-School. Places like Istanbul, Izmir and Ephesus in Turkey, Nicaragua and all over Japan . I mention those specifically because those were the destinations of the other three modules at GBS this year. London, though quite a lovely city, was hardly far away, neither was it exotic and new, having lived there and visit often due to having tons of family and friends there. I was also a bit bummed out at first, because as it turned out, a lot of my friends were going on different trips, so bonding outside of school on a foreign adventure was also going to be partly negated.

But as the trip neared, I decided to make the most out of my trip. I was going to have a great time, and that was the end of it =). And I did =)! First, I should explain what the Mid-Semester Module is to those who aren’t familiar. In the middle of every spring semester, we take a short hiatus to engage in real-time skills and experience building opportunities. These modules explore a current topic within the context of an international setting and focus on business leadership in other countries. About 50% of the school opts for an International Module, while the remainder opt for Modules in Atlanta. This year, our choices for International Modules were to Turkey, Japan, London/Paris and Nicaragua. Some modules are more popular than others, and as would be expected, there is a “bid” system in which 2nd years have seniority to select trips first.

Long story short, I was on the London/Paris trip. But through careful and deliberate planning, I decided to fully maximize my learning experience by making this trip a complete Euro-trip like I had always wanted to do! As it turned out, our Spring Break was planned for the week right after the Mid-Semester Modules, so instead of flying back to Atlanta, I decided to be adventurous and visit 4 other countries as well! I visited Brussels – Belgium, Amsterdam – The Netherlands, Copenhagen – Denmark and Milan – Italy… all places I had never been before! Luckily, I was not alone. In particular, Amsterdam was a very popular post-Module choice for a number of us. In fact, the only times I was alone on my trips was when I spent a day in Copenhagen, Denmark and the last 2.5 day stop to Milan, Italy.

The module itself was really good! Well planned, organized and very efficient and informative. Our beloved Principled Leader =), Professor Hill, was great. Professor Hill is very knowledgeable and well traveled and of course, very passionate about Energy. He teaches the core Economics course and electives such a Project Finance. I enjoyed learning from someone with such in depth knowledge about a variety of topics. Our dinner table conversations ranged from Energy itself, to Global Warming, to World Travel, to Macro Economics and even to discussions about food around the world! Professor Hill is sort of a food aficionado, having tasted many different cuisines from all over the world.

The company visits themselves were also great! Our hosts were warm, personable, welcoming and eager to bestow their knowledge upon us. (As a side bar: I have to mention the hard-work that schoolmates Igor Fisl and Nicolas Jacquet did to make these company visits happen and also help plan various aspects of the trip. Great job guys! . Our visits in the UK were to National Grid, Ofgem and ExxonMobil, while in Paris, they were to IEA, EDF and Total (IEA’s was a hotel visit though). The topics ranged from alternative energy sources to oil & gas demand & supply outlook and electricity regulation. Before leaving for London/Paris, we also had some visits here in the US as well, first to Plant Vogtle, a Nuclear Energy Power Plant co-owned by Georgia Power, OPC, MEAG and the City of Dalton, then to Mirant’s Energy Trading Floor.

Overall, I learned a great deal about Energy, as well Global Economics & doing Business in England and France from this Module and I’m very glad I did it! By far my favorite part about Business School is Experiential Learning. It’s one thing to read about something in a book, it’s another to see it in action. These are the learning experiences that tend to stick with me forever.

A fun and fulfilling trip it was! I am sure my fellow London/Paris “Modulers” would echo that sentiment as well. Here are some pictures we snapped! Hope you enjoy! =)

Please view lots more pictures in the sets on my flickr page: located here.

As one of the youngest among all cousins, I used to dread Holi, when I was about 6-7 years old. It was a scary day, when suddenly, everybody literally changed colors. (See the pic on right and you’ll know what I mean!) But as I grew older, I developed love for this amazing festival and eagerly waited for the day every year. In addition to playing Holi with my family, I was a regular at Holi-celebrations at my engineering college in undergrad days and later, at my workplaces: CA and Adobe.

This year, it was only the second time that I was not with my family on a Holi and the first time that I was outside India and thus, I was saddened by the idea of missing the colors. But the MBA’10s (second-years) had different plans.  They had a clear plan lined up for a special Holi-day covering the entire first half of the day.

The day started with a Cricket match at 9. Cricket and Holi! What’s the connection, you may ask? Frankly, even I can’t think of one, except perhaps that both of these bind Indians together. So, it was some MBA’10s pitched against MBA’11s, with some alumni from class of 2009 joining in and we had a wonderful game. After two gripping games lasting about three hours, we were finally ready for Holi-time. We had booked the picnic-area of our apartment for the celebration.

As soon as we reached the venue, the Holi-fever took over. With colors in the air, shouts of “Holi hai!” (“It’s Holi!!”) and people running after each other with colors in their hand, the scene wasn’t very different from what it used to be there back in India. Partners and kids (Brave ones, who, unlike me, were not scared of colors!) of some of the students too joined in action and suddenly, I wasn’t missing my family that much. Friends from China, Pakistan, Armenia, Latin America and the US too joined us and within moments, every face was smeared beyond recognition in shades of red, orange, purple, green and many more. And that’s the beauty of Holi! Once you are a part of it, the distinctions of nationality, caste and religion disappear and give way to the oneness of Holi. (Take a try at the snap on left, it will certainly take you more time than usual to correctly assign people to their nationalities!)

Once we were done with colors, it was time for yummy Indian food. And as we were gobbling it up, we had a surprise guest: Harriet, our Director of MBA program office. All international students share a special relationship with her, as she is usually the first Goizueta person that we get to meet after landing in the US and she goes an extra mile to ensure that we all get settled here comfortably. As such, it wasn’t actually surprising that some of us had sent down a special invitation to her and she did join us for lunch.  It was great to have her among us, but sadly, we had run out of colors, by then.

This was certainly not the wildest Holi that I have played. Two (Yes, two!) Holis played in the final year of engineering college win hands down on that front. But still, I’ll count this as one of the most memorable Holis ever. Enjoying a festival in a new land, with other people joining in to share your joy: this certainly is a lovely feeling. Thank to MBA’10s for a wonderful day and we promise a bigger Holi, complete with Holi-special songs, next year.

It’s a bit of a catch-22 in some ways. As March and April go by, our focus as second years has shifted a bit away from Goizueta and into the next chapter of our lives – that of newly-minted MBAs. We’re looking for jobs, housing, scheduling moves around Atlanta and around the world, several our classmates are getting married, others are looking forward to being reunited full time with their families and children and loved ones, and there are celebrations upon celebrations around graduation and all these other life events. So it is a good time to turn over leadership to the first years (and one years who are about to arrive).

On the other side of things though, these groups that we have been leading (it’s the Honor Council for me and participation with this blog among other things) have taken on special importance and significance in our lives. They have been the groups through which we have been able to affect our community and our classmates, through which we have been able to achieve goals of ours, and from which we’ve gained incredible experience leading and learning from our peers.

Other positions (at other schools and organizations) I have held in the past never made quite a point regarding transition. I think there really are two strong forces at work at the end of a term – not wanting to give up something you have nurtured for so long, and the natural tendency to be excited and focus on the next thing and consequently lose touch with the daily impact of a group and position. Goizueta is set with a history that makes transition a necessary and somewhat formalized process: Leadership March.

We all know we’re going to be giving up these opportunities to serve our community so directly, but through the Leadership March process we’re also going to be handing over our accomplishments, goals, and learnings to a group of students who are just as passionate and who will benefit just as much from leading as we did. Spring semester in general tends to turn into a time of clarifying logistics, processes, and documenting the last year and our lessons so that the next round of leaders can spend time nurturing and creating rather than trying to figure out the last year and reinvent the wheel. Leading at Goizueta is an incredible experience, and because of traditions like Leadership March, we get a taste of the entire cycle of leadership from start to finish.

• More info, more posts, more gossip: Okay! We perhaps cannot promise the last bit. But with the launch of this new look, we hope to be more regular in our posts. We have a number of interesting posts lined up. If there is anything specific that you’d like to know about, let us know!
• A pictorial view into Goizueta Life:  You asked for it, we heard it! We know that the snaps displayed in the previous version of this blog were tantalizingly small and you wanted to have a clearer view of Goizueta life. The photo-gallery “Life @ GBS” will show you glimpses of Goizueta-life from a different aspect every time you navigate to a different page.
• Better Categorization:  We have cut down the number of categories to the six most prominent categories and re-categorized all the posts in a more logical manner. We hope this would help you in navigating to the topics of your choice more easily.
• Know your authors better: Now, each author has a page of his/her own that allows you to know the people behind this blog in a better manner. If you like the posts by a particular author more than others, you can choose to bookmark the author’s page to see all the posts by him/her at one place.
• Like it? Share it! Keeping in step with the social-media wave, we provide you the option of sharing content of this blog on all major networks. So no more copying-pasting links for your favorite posts to send them to your friends. If you like a post, you can share it (or digg it or tweet it or whatever!) right from the blog page.

We may have changed a lot in terms of look and features. What hasn’t changed is the mission and purpose of the blog.  The GLOBE team will continue to bring to you undiluted, authentic and unbiased insights into the life at Goizueta from the perspective of its students.

Welcome to the new Voice of GBS!  We hope you enjoy your time with us!

Goizueta Marketing Strategy Consultancy (GMSC): This is a course and a competition combined into one. Six teams of 6-7 students work on a consulting project with a company to solve a real business issue that the company is facing. Throughout the spring semester, the teams receive guidance from second-year Team Guides and leadership team, faculty members, a number of external trainers and of course, the client.  At the end of the semester, the teams present their recommendations to the client as well as to a judging panel comprising of experienced marketing and consulting professionals from Atlanta business community.  The course is intense; the total time commitment varies between 12-15 hours a week and that’s not counting the classroom time!! But the learning experience is certainly worth the time investment. Actually, GMSC deserves at least one post of its own and I promise a post on this in near future. Meanwhile, you can have a look at these.

Managerial Accounting:
Sample these comments from recent alumni:
“Managerial Accounting changed my life. Before taking the class I was a real “girlie-man.” But thanks to activity based costing, I’ve got a great new job, tons of money, women, and a new attitude.”
“Prepare to be amazed. Once you’ve experienced The Death Spiral, nothing will be the same again. I’m a changed man.”
From these comments, you can have some idea about how much students love Managerial Accounting taught by Dr. Kristy Towry. I know it’s a bit difficult to imagine the words “love” and “Accounting” in one sentence, but this is perfectly acceptable, if Dr. Towry’s name is used in the same sentence! With her witty anecdotes, distinct sense of humor and excellent style of teaching, she literally makes accounting a fun-class. (For a sample, see attached scene from one of her classes. ) No wonder, she has won a number of Teaching Excellence awards over last 6-7 years.

Analytics for e-markets: The course deals with the nuances of how Internet and e-Commerce has fundamentally changed the way business is done. As a former techie, I was naturally attracted to this class, but after going through a third of the course, I realize that these are the issues that everybody needs to address to survive in today’s business world. Like most classes at Goizueta, this class follows a balance between lectures and cases. In addition, we have experts coming from companies like Google and Yahoo to keep us updated on the latest in the industry.

/* BTW, why did I just call myself a “former” techie? Just 2-3 days ago, I successfully wrote and executed a “shell-script” on my mac to rename a specific set of images for this blog’s new design!! */

Ideation: This is a course about “Thinking”! May sound a bit unusual, but it’s no more unusual than Professor Joey Reiman: the man behind the concept. He had a great career in advertising (He even won a Golden Lion Award at Cannes Film Festival!) before he decided to start his own Ideation company: Brighthouse .  Under the Ideation course, Joey lays out a sequential series of steps for coming up with great ideas to transform an ailing organization. This is purely an experiential class: each project team is asked to select a company, and uncover its purpose and impact on society. The purpose is to excavate and develop a Master Idea that aligns the company’s ideals, values, goals and objectives and allows it to stand for more than just its product offerings. In the past, the master-ideas from the class have made it to the CXOs’ tables and some of them have been implemented successfully by companies.

As you can imagine, life is much more hectic this semester (In addition to above, we have two core courses too!), even more than it was during the dreaded Block 2 of first semester. But with the choices I made in picking the electives, I am really enjoying the experience. Stay tuned for more updates on GMSC, internship hunt and more.

While I am taking small steps toward the end of spring semester with all the classes, numerous team meetings, club responsibilities, and internship interviews in between, my train of thought goes back to block 2, arguably the most academically challenging part of doing an MBA from Goizueta. One of the things – that we (first years) got warned about most often from second years when we started school back in August’09 – was block 2 (it was block B before it was renamed as block 2). Before I start elaborating on why block 2 is what it is, let me explain, to those not familiar with block system at Goizueta, how it works. Essentially, first semester is roughly equally divided into three blocks. Few courses are just one block long, and most extend over two blocks. There are exams at the end of each block.

Block 2 starts around mid-September and continues till about end of October. The senior class (second years) had a challenging time during block 2 (hence the warning from them) a year before because of the tremendous amount of multi-tasking required to get through ‘successfully’. Success can mean different things to different people. For most, it was about finishing all the readings and assignments in time for the four core courses, all very challenging and important. For few, it was about getting highest grades. For some, it was about doing well in the three career conferences, which also happen during same time (yes, same time), so that you have your dream internship before even on campus recruiting starts (internship recruitment does start as early as September). For some, it was about building networks and being socially active. Then, there were a few for whom success was to achieve all of the above. So, the ‘coefficient of difficulty’ varied based on which category one fell into. However, although the relative perceived difficulty varied, there was no denying that it was difficult even at the bare minimum level, just because there were so many things to do.

So, that was block 2. Difficult? Perhaps. More difficult than spring semester? Depends. That reminds me that the answer of many questions in b-school is just one word: depends. But, I will save more detail about that for some other time. Before I finish, let me share another interesting fact about block 2. It was actually even more challenging a year before than it was for us. Based on the feedback that the program office received from our senior class, we got a stripped down version of block 2, with lesser number of courses, for which we thank second years (and MBA program office) whole-heartedly. And, yes, at Goizueta, feedbacks are considered seriously and are acted upon. They trigger change.

After first six months of MBA full of great learning, tremendous work, new friends, surprises, and lots of fun, I can’t wait to discover the rest of the experience of doing an MBA here at Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

What is microenterprise? Of the world’s 3 billion poor who live on less than $2.50 per day, many run their own micro-business to earn money. And the business’s prosperity becomes the family’s. This is true for women in particular; for every $1 a woman earns, she invests 90 cents in her family’s health, education, and well-being. Unfortunately, a lack of business literacy can often hold a microentrepreneur back.

Meet Maria
Maria is a microentrepreneur. She runs a small store out of her home in the highlands of Guatemala. For her, some additional help in marketing and selling her textiles could mean the difference between sending her daughter to school or not. Speak with Maria and you will hear a strong desire for the tools of business. She knows business literacy is an obstacle.

When we think of microentrepreneurs like this, something changes. We begin to view the poor not as passive charity recipients, but as consumers and producers. If we can get rid of the obstacles and constraints in their way, we can give them the opportunity to effect change in their own lives.

The universality of business and entrepreneurship
What are some of these obstacles? Let’s talk about entrepreneurship itself. Entrepreneurs need two things: money and know-how. For microentrepreneurs, the money piece is called microfinance, and it’s a proven, scalable model that has spread around the world. Microfinance is still at around 10-20% of its full potential, but the model is there.

But business literacy has been a tougher nut to crack. No surprise there: money is a lot easier to spread around than knowledge. There are lots of smart people working on this issue – USAID spends $250 million a year on microenterprise development – but a microfinance-style scalable model has been elusive.

(Of course, microenterprise development comprises many more interventions than just microfinance and business literacy. Other elements include improving access to new markets, disseminating technology, and simplifying both business formation and bankruptcy. But for my money, business literacy is the most interesting.)

My experience is in business consulting. The central thesis of strategy consulting is that, at their core, all business problems have some pretty common causes. Poor understanding of one’s customers. Unnecessary costs. Lack of a clear, differentiated strategy. It’s a stem-cell theory of business – no matter what industry you’re looking at, the business challenges can be grouped into some common categories. These commonalities make a generalist MBA education not only possible, but incredibly valuable. Which is what makes business literacy such a compelling issue for MBAs like myself. We know that business is actually pretty straightforward. So how can we spread business literacy?

EXCO104: Microenterprise Development Lab
To share what I’ve learned, I have turned my business literacy questions into a class. As part of Emory’s Experimental College, I am teaching “Microenterprise Development Lab” each Thursday evening at Goizueta. If you’re in Atlanta, you’re welcome to attend.

We’ve had two classes so far. This past Thursday, each student role-played one of nine organizations – such as Aflatoun, Samasource, and Agora Partnerships – pitching USAID for funding. (Aflatoun won.) During the rest of the semester, we’ll talk about the broad challenges of micro-businesses, what microenterprise curricula look like, and how a bunch of university students might make a difference. More info is at andrewkstein.com/microenterprise.

So far, it’s a lot of fun. I came into Goizueta thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if there were an elective about microenterprise development?” Now there is. My hope is that, one day, a microenterprise class will be as standard at business schools as beer-powered networking.

–
Andrew K. Stein
Goizueta Business School
MBA Class of 2011

***

So where did Goizueta Business School’s 7 Core Values come from?

The students.

In 2002, full-time Goizueta MBA students brainstormed a list of values to show what we stand for with the support of their program office.  Post-its covered the walls of Emory’s Cox Hall ballroom, but what they boiled down to were 7 Core Values – Courage, Integrity, Accountability, Rigor, Diversity, Team, and Community.

The last three values form the foundation of our beliefs and Rigor connects us to the ever-inspiring values of Courage, Integrity, and Accountability.  The Goizueta Business School truly embodies these values throughout the MBA experience.  It begins with recruitment and admissions, and then welcomes you in the entrance way of the MBA building.  You see these values in current students at orientation, the development of student teams, and even through recognition at graduation.  Goizueta defines itself by these values and demonstrates it each day.