Be Phenomenal

"Be Phenomenal."  That was the simple the message was from the afternoon keynote at  the Dynamic Women in Business Conference held at Harvard Business School this past weekend.  I was invited to the conference by the leaders of HBS's women's network and spent a day attending the conference, and a second day in an planning session for a cross-MBA women's coalition with the leaders from our our peer schools.  Having the opportunity to spend the weekend listening, brainstorming, and sharing with such an amazingly powerful, thoughtful, and proactive group of women will definitely be a highlight in my MBA career. 

Back to "being phenomenal" - Ann Mukherjee, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Frito-Lay, continued her keynote by outlining the lessons she learned along her journey and what it meant for her to "be phenomenal."  I found the lessons and vignettes relevant, and thought I would share the advice with all of you:

1. Know thyself, LOVE thyself - understand who you are; do a personal SWOT analysis; know how to strategically compensate for your gaps; and most importantly: do not fear, but rather embrace, your weaknesses without judgment.  Ask yourself: do you know and strive for your best self, or are you always focused on what you are not?
2. Earn credibility - know your stuff; consistently deliver; and most importantly: keep your head down and be in the moment.  If you focus too much on getting ahead and moving forward, you will never be able perform to the best of your ability
3. Celebrate people - be inspiring and motivating to the people around you; find out what other people's gifts are - and help them "be phenomenal"
4. Be passionate - have a point of view and love what you are doing - life is too short to go through the mechanics and not have passion and fury
5. Challenge the status quo - don't become complacent and don't settle for mediocrity because it is the easy thing to do; be a change agent and make an impact
6. Keep perspective - be secure in yourself; success should be defined by the standards YOU set because life is too short to try and live up to other people's expectations
7. Live by the K.I.S.S. principle - be precise; talk in headlines; and know the desired outcome of your efforts
8. Embrace failures - journal, reflect, and learn from every failure so you can course-correct the next time around
9. Define your legacy - set a vision; have conviction; be motivated; you have to know what you are working towards
10. Enjoy the journey - don't confuse expectations with what is really important to you; life is too short to settle, so enjoy the journey and don't be so focused on the destination that you lose all sight of the ultimate journey

A few months ago, I logged an entry about how my second year of business school was going to be the best (and hardest) year of my life. The premise was straightforward: as someone who is always moving, shaking, and hopping from one thing to the next, I was going to consciously take my second year at Darden to do some thinking and digging around who I am, what I value, how I want to live my life, and the type of impact I want to make to the world. While I didn't realize it when I set out on my path, in a way, I was trying to figure out how to "be phenomenal" in my personal and professional life. 

I still have a long path and a lot of work to do in my personal quest to be phenomenal, but I hope the lessons above help some of my classmates and other members of the Darden community frame and move forward in their personal journeys as well!

It's Auction Time!

I have written many posts over the last year about how my favorite part of being a student at Darden is the close knit community.  My interactions and connections with Darden students, faculty, staff, and the broader Charlottesville community are the experiences I will always remember - and as a second year, going off into the real world once again in a couple of months - these are relationships and moments I hope to continue and cherish over the next five months!

To that end, this week marks one of the most exciting community events that happens at Darden each year!  NAWMBA (the National Association of Women MBAs) at Darden will be hosting the 22nd Annual SHE Gala this Friday, February 3, 2012 at UVA’s Alumni Hall.  This year's Gala promises to be another exciting evening, as it marks the debut of “Darden’s Got Talent"! The event will highlight the talents of both First Year and Second Year Darden Students!  

Also this year, Professor Ed Freeman, one of Darden's notable Ethics professors, has agreed to shave his beard (which he has had since 1985!) if we raise $10,000 before the auction. All money raised will go directly to SHE.  For those of you not familiar with Ed's beard - I found a few pictures/articles and pictures that might help:
http://www.darden.virginia.edu/web/Faculty-Research/Directory/Full-time/R-Edward-Freeman/
http://poetsandquants.com/2012/01/20/darden-wharton-top-ethics-ranking/

So - members of the Darden community: buy your tickets now!  The event is sold out every year and we will not be selling tickets at the door!  In addition, we are only $2,000 away from our fundraising goal for Professor Freeman's beard fund, so please make a donation!

If you’d like to purchase tickets online, please use the following link to pay with Paypal: LINK
  
(And to prospective students and other members of the broader community - if you have sat in on a Darden class with Professor Freeman or if you feel inclined just because - we are accepting donations for the beard fund online as well!  http://forms.darden.virginia.edu/student/dsa/shave_eds_beard.html)

Check out more details on the history of S.H.E. and the Gala at http://www.darden.virginia.edu/web/MBA/Student-Life/Organizations/National-Association-Women-MBAs/NAWMBA/

 

Innovate. Effectuate. Overcoming the Challenges of Launching a Business

Hi All!  Please see below for a GUEST BLOGGER from the Entrepreneurial Ventures Club (EVC).  Written by Darden FY Scott Caras on the recent Darden Entrepreneurship Conference that took place last week.

Darden’s annual Entrepreneurship Conference wrapped up Friday evening after two days dedicated to exploring the topics of innovation and effectuation in entrepreneurship.

The conference kicked off Thursday afternoon with the Darden Concept Competition.  Students presented a variety of business ideas ranging from original technology platforms to innovative consumer products.  The competition provided an opportunity for MBA students to share ideas and seek feedback from experienced entrepreneurs.  The discussions continued into the evening at the event’s kick-off reception and dinner.  Among other highlights from the evening, participants had the opportunity to hear Greg Fairchild, the Executive Director of the Tayloe Murphy Center, share the inspiring story of Solid Stone Fabrics, recipient of the Tayloe Murphy Resilience Award which recognizes businesses that succeed in communities facing tough economic conditions.

Friday’s schedule was packed full of opportunities to listen to successful entrepreneurs share their stories and attend workshops led by world-renown academics on the concepts of innovation and effectuation.  The event’s speakers included experienced entrepreneurs, investors and academics, each of whom provided a unique perspective on entrepreneurship.  Although a wide variety of topics were presented, three primary themes emerged.

First, it doesn’t require a blockbuster idea to start a business—think about everyday challenges and consider solutions to address them.  Seek opportunities to improve products and services that already exist.  Professor Saras Sarasvathy compared developing a concept to playing scrabble—if you add a letter to the end of a word that has already been played, you still get credit for the whole word.

Sean Eidson, CEO and founder of TRUE linkswear, shared the story of launching his golf footwear business.  During a round of golf, Eidson saw a golfer wearing the “five finger” shoes that have recently become popular among runners.  He realized that most golf shoes aren’t particularly comfortable and began sharing his hypothesis with other golfers.  Before he knew it, he had developed a concept for a new golf shoe that was built on a “barefoot” premise.  Less than a year after launching the product, the company has already sold tens of thousands of pairs worldwide.

The second theme that emerged from the conference addressed a common barrier faced by many would-be entrepreneurs—one of the primary reasons individuals don’t pursue an idea is that they lack the capital required to launch a business.  Many of the conference’s speakers reiterated that limited capital is rarely a challenge that cannot be overcome.   Adam Healey and Charles Seilheimer spoke about raising the money to start their business, hotelicopter.  The two partners pooled their savings and scrapped together enough cash to develop a prototype of their innovative hotel search platform.  The functioning prototype enabled them to share the idea with individuals in the travel industry and raise the capital required to fully develop and launch the product.  Healey and Seilheimer didn’t allow limited financial resources to be a barrier to developing their idea, and today hotelicopter has become one of the premier hotel search platforms on the internet.

Professor Frank Genovese discussed the opportunity to buy an existing business and how to overcome the challenges of financing the transaction.  While acquiring a business certainly requires a personal investment, he advised that when the right type of business is identified (in particular, one with a lot of assets) and a good deal is negotiated, financing is often readily available.  Although very different from starting a business from scratch, buying an existing business offers another opportunity to pursue an entrepreneurial career.

The final theme emerging from the conference’s many stories was the importance of sharing early stage business concepts with others.  In her workshop on effectuation, Saras Sarasvathy illustrated this concept using examples from her research.  She explained that most successful entrepreneurs use feedback from others to strengthen their ideas.  She encouraged aspiring entrepreneurs to build a network of stakeholders who are willing to provide feedback that will make their idea stronger, and ask them to make a true commitment to the business by investing in it financially—very quickly you will be able to tell if others actually believe the concept will be successful.

The founders of hotelicopter reiterated the idea that even after a concept has been transformed into a successful business, one shouldn’t be afraid to mend or even recreate it.  Healey discussed hiring the first CTO of hotelicopter, Colin Steele, who was hired to manage the development of the company’s product.   However, instead of improving company’s established hotel search platform, Steele’s first initiative was to rebuild the product from scratch.  Although the founders were doubtful at the time, they acknowledge that hotelicopter would not have the successful product it does today if they hadn’t allowed Steele to recreate the initial platform.

Darden’s Entrepreneurship Conference provided opportunities to develop one’s knowledge of entrepreneurship and learn the tactical steps required to launch a business.  More importantly, however, the event was both educational and inspirational, bringing together experienced and aspiring entrepreneurs, academics and investors to collaborate and share ideas about innovation and effectuation.

A Slice of Heaven

My friend Caroline calls me a "slice of heaven-er."  At first, I didn't understand the title, but quickly realized that she classifies me as part of the group of our classmates that consider Charlottesville to be a "Slice of Heaven."

Last Saturday I had the fortunate misfortune of flying into Charlottesville airport on a on a small propeller plane from Philadelphia.  After being stuck in Philadelphia on an unexpected layover for 7.5 hours, I was tired and the only thing I wanted was to get home, go to bed, and put an end to my crummy day.  I spent most of the plane ride angrily flipping pages of my magazine (I had long since given up trying to read cases) and sighing deeply in frustration.  As we get closer to Charlottesville, though, I happened to look out of airplane window - and saw one of the most breathtaking views I have seen in my life.  Our plane was flying just low enough that for the last 20 minutes of the flight, all I could see were lush treestops and Fall colors in every direction.  The Blue Ridge Mountains were in the background, and the landscape below me was red, orange, pink, yellow, and every shade in between.  The sun was just beginning to set, casting shadows over the trees and mountains, and the sun rays made the whole scene even more picturesque. 

A week later, I still can't verbalize how beautiful the view was - but the mental image still pops into my mind daily and has forced me stop each day to take a deep breath and look around.  Knowing from my other friends in business school, no matter where you are in school or what year you are in, Fall in b-school is busy, stressful, frantic, and chaotic from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed.  Fall at Darden has been no exception, but the one thing unique to our experience here is Charlottesville.  With everything you could possibly need at your fingertips (...this is where my non-"Slice of Heaven-er" friends may disagree) - and the middle of such amazing natural beauty - Charlottesville makes the whole business school experience a little more manageable.  No matter what is happening with academics, recruiting, and life - five minutes outside, taking in the beautiful views, is enough to inspire and energize just about anyone :)

For the last week, I decided to take a few pictures of my daily view to share.  Nothing compared to the view from the plane, but some snapshots of Fall! 

Afternoon in Flagler Couryard - check out how blue the sky is!

View of the fountain on the backside of Flagler Courtyard

View from my Ivy apartment

The walk to school...

At least the learning team rooms have good views as well...

Welcome to the Best Year of My Life

After a weekend of rain in Charlottesville, the sun is shining, the wind is gently blowing, and I am sitting on my balcony watching the little spurts of activity in Ivy Gardens as people start their Sunday errands.  It feels good to enjoy a peaceful morning, and as I sit here, I can’t help but realize that this is going to be the best year of my life.

I imagine before I write much more I should apologize for being a black hole these last few months.  Spring and summer somehow flew by, and between wrapping up first year, traveling, and completing my summer internship, everything feels like a blur.  I had an great summer (I was working for a consulting firm in New York City), and despite finishing my internship only a few weeks ago, the summer already seems like a distant memory.  Perhaps it was some time away from Darden, or another glimpse into the “real world” but I cannot describe how good it feels to be back in the groove of business school life. 

     

As a Second Year, I am a pro at navigating Darden - I know the systems, I know people, and I know how to manage my day.  I am not stressed about my capacity to handle the work and extracurricular load.  I am engrossed in my classes and energized by my leadership roles.  My day-to-day life is significantly different from last year:  I went to the gym every day this week.  I cooked at lunches and dinners at home multiple times (and no, that doesn’t include defrosting frozen meals!).  I read my cases outside in the fresh air and took time to soak in the beauty of Charlottesville.  I have caught up with friends and classmates, but instead of discussions about recruiting or gossiping about a dramatic situation in our most recent class, I have had deeper conversations about life, values, and goals.  I have even had time to play some golf.

Oddly enough – the reasons above are not the reasons why I think this is going to be the best year of my life.  While it is nice to have control over my schedule (really nice, actually), the more incredible thing about this year is that for the first time in a very long time, I have to ask myself some very hard questions and start laying a foundation for the rest of my life.  I don’t get the luxury of walking down a prescribed path or knowing my next step.  Instead, I have to explore unchartered territory and figure out my own path.  I have to get to the core of who I am and what I fundamentally want out of my life, and make decisions that will require me to be true to that authentic self.  I have to realize that what got me this far in my life and career, may not be what gets me to the next level of my personal and professional leadership; and so I have to look deep inside of myself and start breaking down the habits and patterns of behavior that have been instilled in me for years.  I imagine a lot of this seems nebulous, but the point is – for me, my second year in business school is going to be about being purposeful and getting to the bottom of some rather difficult questions, designing and developing my own criteria for success, and really, truly learning.  So while this is going to be the best year of my life, I seems it will also be one of the hardest years at times.  Either way - I am excited :)

Spring at Darden!

I have to apologize for being delinquent in my blog updating for the last few weeks. It has been a busy, but exceedingly fun month! I have to do another list of my favorite things since I last updated (in chronological order) to catch you all up on life at Darden:

8) Dinner at Dean Bruner’s House! - As part of my special topics seminar, Dean Bruner invited our class of 15 people over to his home for class…and wow does the Dean makes a mean vegetarian chili!

7) Dinner at Luann Lynch’s House – Luann is absolutely one of my favorite Darden professors and had a few of my sectionmates and I over for dinner in early April. We had a fabulous meal, played board games with Luann’s 14-year old twin sons, and laughed so hard at dinner that we were falling off of our chairs! Only at Darden can you have such a close personal relationship with your professors!

6) BGiA – Building Goodness in April finally arrived this last weekend! After months of preparation from my classmates, hundreds of my classmates participated in Build Day. My neck still hurts from painting the ceilings of our house, but I could not have asked for a more meaningful way to make a tangible difference, or spend quality time with incredible classmates.

5) Holi! – Holi is the Indian festival of colors that celebrates the Harvest season. Last weekend, the Darden South Asian Society hosted Holi in the courtyard of the Ivy Gardens apartment complex – and it was out of control. If you have never been to/heard of Holi – it is a sight to be seen – people running around with powdered paint smearing it all over your hair, face, and clothes…enjoying the good weather and good company!

4) NAWMBA Strategy Session – I am so excited about the NAWMBA (Darden Chapter of the National Association Women MBAs) board for next year – these ladies rock my socks off and the energy and programming we are going to have next year will be awesome J Get ready, prospectives!
3) Darden Days – this weekend was Darden Days, the annual admitted student weekend at Darden. I was asked to speak on a panel and as I gave advice and recounted my last year, I realized how far my classmates and I have come in one year – it feels surreal to be a few weeks from ending my first year at Darden…

2) King Family Vineyards – every year as part of Darden Days, the entire Darden community is invited out to a close by vineyard for barbeque, wine, and socializing. I remember going last year as a part of Darden Days and having a good time– but once you are here as a student the experience is completely different – you know everyone, have inside jokes, and are completely engrossed in the community! The night just reinforced how grateful I am for my friends here J

1) Rainy Saturdays – yesterday it rained non-stop in Charlottesville and it was one of those days where you have to force yourself to stop and take a day off. I spent most of my day relaxing, listening to the rain, and reflecting…

And now, on this Sunny Sunday, I am energized and ready to start the new week. With three more weeks until we split ways for the summer, and with the weather getting warmer and warmer, I imagine the next couple of weeks will be a treat!

A few of my favorite things...

As we wrap up our last required set of classes today, I was thinking back over the last few months and the journey my classmates and I have taken.  But instead of reflecting on the last few months, I thought I would share my favorite things of the past week!

4) Nintendo!

Yes, ladies and gentleman, I am talking about playing "regular" Nintendo.  One of Darden's biggest community outreach activities of the year is called Building Goodness in April (BGiA).  As part of BGiA, there is a big auction in the Fall - and one of the things I bid on was an hour of Nintendo with a classmate.  We got to level 8-3 in the first Super Mario Brothers, but couldnt quite beat the game.  Man do I miss the time I was actually good at video games! 

3) Finance Merger Simulation

Darden loves simulations.  We have done simulations in almost every one of our classes, from Ethics to Decision Analysis to Leadership & Organizations.  Last week we did my favorite simulation of the year in our Finance class.  The simulation was a merger negotiation between Mars & Wrigley - modeling the actual 2008 Mars aquisition of Wrigley.  We were split up into teams of three and had to negotiate against teams in other sections playing the opposing stakeholders.  Coming in, each side had built financial models (DCF, multiple analysis, etc.), analyzed our optimal price/ranges for the aquisition, and decided on what qualitative factors we would hold our ground.  With more than 50 three-hour negotions happening all around Darden, you can only imagine the incredible scene and buzz around here:  "Who got the best deal?"  "Did you hear with happened with x,y,z team?"  Perhaps you had to be here - but from both a qualitative and quantitive perspective, there was definitely a lot learned!    

2) NAWMBA Board Meeting

Next year, I will be leading Darden's chapter of the National Association of Women MBAs.  Last Thursday, we had our first meeting with next year's Executive Board.  I am blown away by the passion and excitement of the team and am so excited for upcoming year.  After a year of "taking" all that Darden has to give - I am excited to start giving back to the school and the incoming class!  

1) My Last Learning Team Meeting

Last night, my learning team met for the last time in our official capacity.  As I have mentioned a few times in the past, my learning team has been one of my most favorite parts of the Darden experience - and yesterday was no let down.  We met last night and had our usual back and forth banter and prepared our homework, with moments of nostalgia here and there. 

I have been struggling with a summer internship decision.  I have been lucky to have had a lot of options from the beginning of this process, and have narrowed my decision down to two firms.  Both are fantastic and both are in a number of ways, "exactly what I want to do."  I have gone back and forth, and almost decided every day for the last two weeks.  Last night, after our homework, my learning team decided it was time for them to step in and help me make my decision.  We mapped out a decision tree (yes, that really did happen) and made some pro/con lists on the white board.  They asked me questions, grilled me on my assumptions, and helped me clarify my thinking.  I finally made a decision last night, and couldnt have done without the gentleman of Studio 54.  It was a perfect, bittersweet end to something so special.