I am proud to say that I was one of the firsts to join the HBS Class of 2012 Facebook group, and I immediately began stalking my soon-to-be classmates.  I’ve always known how HBS seeks to diversify their classes tremendously, but from the first 50 members, I’ve already encountered people from Pakistan, China, Ireland, Columbia, and other countries across the globe.  After about 65 members joined, I began noticing ages ranging from 21 (the fresh-out-of-college newbies) to 28.  There was a married guy (I’m sure there will be more), people with medical, engineering, law, and hospitality (me!) degrees, and the prerequisite bankers and consultants galore.

Something worth mentioning: during my business school research, I noticed that HBS seems to admit more “military/army” people than other b-schools.  As of today, the FB group has 122 members, and from my cursory count, I’ve already seen 6, which is just under 5% of those of us in the FB group.  Not trying to draw any sort of deductions or calculate with any misleading/arbitrary statistics, but my theory is already proven.  Since I don’t know any military/army guys, this will be an awesome chance to learn from them and to understand their style of leadership.

Already, I am loving the way the class is shaping up, and I absolutely cannot wait to start meeting people.  As a matter of fact, on the Discussion Boards on the HBS Prematriculation website (I’ll update you all on what that’s about on a later post), a discussion has started about organizing a get-together for all NYC-area admits in January. Really looking forward to it.

Well, it’s late, and I’m signing off.  Be back soon.  Happy Holidays to all.

Steve Jobs just keeps getting awards, and now he can add another award to put on the mantle. Jobs was chosen as the best performing CEO in the world by none other than the Harvard Business Review. They cite AAPL’s “whopping 3,188% industry-adjusted return (34% compounded annually)” and the fact that under Jobs oversight, the company has experienced an increased market value of $150 billion(Thats Billion).

Apple’s stock price since Steve Jobs became “interim CEO” (chart: Yahoo Finance)

Of course we already knew that Jobs is a kick-ass CEO, and that Apple is really the company they are today because of him and his work. While some people might be surprised with the decision of Harvard Business Review to pick Jobs as the best CEO, HBS states that “they didn’t want to just choose most-admired or highest-paid CEOs, but rather individuals who’ve really driven a company forward over their entire tenure in the position.” So with that explanation in mind, it really can’t come as a surprise to anyone that Steve Jobs graces the top of that list, lets not fool ourselves he is amazing!

So from TheMacUrl we congratulate you on your recent success.

Every day, on my way to work, I see people on the sidewalk, I see people hanging off buses, crowding into rickety cabs, on their way to work. Many of them have an education, many don’t. Many have fled the tragic droughts of eastern states, their bank accounts nil, deep in debt with money-lenders forever on the head. They come from places thousands of miles away in search of a living. They toil hard for every scrap of food, every scrap of clothing they can afford, and send what-ever they save back to their villages, back to their sons and daughters, and wife and ailing parents.

And as I look at them I wonder … how many of them have thought of a Harvard education?

There are very few who can think beyond basic necessities. Who have the luxury, if I may call it so, of spending sleepless nights over a GMAT score, fewer who bite their lips over a 700. Even fewer who can think of applying to Harvard for an MBA. The vendor on the side-walk selling his deep fired samosas has not even had an education and perhaps never will.

I must be very ungrateful if I neglect to realise that I am lucky, very lucky indeed, to just be able to prepare my application for an MBA. There is very little that I have done which makes me a candidate. Most, or almost all, of it has been done for me. I salute those who have been accepted to their chosen schools in R1, I salute those who will make it to their choices in R2 and then R3. I must not however forget that there’s a world out there which’d never have a Harvard degree, or even the need for one. And I express my gratitude to HIM for allowing me this opportunity and hope I can make the most of the experience for the benefit of those who haven’t had this opportunity.

The most important component of a business school application,in terms of painting your portrait for the admissions board, is your essays. It is also the most personal component, and the topics vary from year to year, so there is fairly little I will be able to contribute at a generic level. However, I will try to mention a few things that might help you.

1. Since the essays are the only part of your application that you can control from the time that you decide to apply, spend an inordinate amount of time of them. The topics often require a great deal of introspection and thought, and it is likely that this activity will require more time than the actual essay-writing.

Give yourself 2 months before the application deadline to think about what you want to write and write the actual essays. You should then try to get your family and a few close friends to review your drafts and then edit them. This might require a few iterations. Leave some time at the end for proofreading.

2. Ensure that in each of your essays you talk about different subjects and incidents, so that the admissions boards gets to know as much about you as possible.

3. Bring out instances of leadership and teamwork. Leadership doesn’t only mean that you need to be the team captain, it can also mean that you are the team member who has contributed most to the success of the team in some way, or thought leadership, where you have made some breakthrough in research or published a paper.

4. Use the SAR method – Situation, Action, Result. Always try to talk about the impact of your actions, and if you can quantify the impact, that’s even better.

5. Answer each part of the question carefully. For example, in “What are your 3 greatest achievements and why do you view them as such?”, people often forget to answer the “Why”. There is a reason they have asked you this question, and they won’t like it if you don’t give them an answer!

6. Stick to the word limits. The first time you write your essays, don’t worry about limits too much, but after the iterations, make sure you reduce redunduncy and maintain the word limits carefully.

7. Reduce redunduncy. Don’t use flowery language unnecessarily. This is not a vocabulary test.

For example: The durability of the enemy’s forces was hardy and steadfast.
Changes to —> The enemy’s forces were strong.

8. Get your drafts reviewed by close family and friends. They will be able to remember incidents and stories that you may have forgotten, and they will know whether the essays present the most honest picture of you. At the same time, don’t ask too many people to review your essays, since that will only confuse you more.

9. Proofread the essays. You don’t want any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. Try to finish the essays atleast a week before the submission deadline, so you’re left with little to fret about

B-school essays are very personal, and you will find very very few original essays online. There is no set format, or no ideal template for an essay. The best essays will infact be those that have been written with an open mind, staying true to oneself.

First, welcome to the new posters and readers

Next, I’d like to clear something up about the TG paradigm that often goes unsaid. The TG are not a monolith, nor is the group composed of unfathomable hordes that all have their own unique, unknowable issues. There are a very few, very specific groups of people currently claimed by TG politicians.

The first group is the fetishistic transvestites. These are the men I focus on the most in this blog because they are by far the most numerous of the TG, and they are also the ones making the most demands. Overall these are the loudest, most aggressive, most abusive of the types of people you run into in genderland. These are the ones of the “mutilated crotch” and the “you’ll never REALLY be that sex” shouters. They are the whip hand that keeps everyone in line, and they are responsible for the creation and maintenance of the TG chimaera.

The second group, the ones that people are taught to think of as “core” TG, consists of “gender confused” individuals. These are the people the transvestites point out as their first line of defense when they are challenged on their construct. Invoking the TG rubric conjures images of these tortured individuals, and no person with a heart would think to slam this group unless the demands of the transvestites have become too pressing. This is the first bit of sleight-of-hand that typically occurs when you confront the transvestites.

Nobody has really figured out what drives the gender confused. There may indeed be multiple causes such as abuse and psychosis among these people. At the same time, *everyone* knows what’s up with the transvestites. The problem you run into here is that the TV types often pretend to be “gender confused” as a method of dealing with the shame of their fetish, which then later progresses to become a key aspect of the political argument for those so inclined. One of the reasons, probably the main reason, I want to see the TG construct fade away is because of the damage it does to people trapped by it who believe the lie. TV’s who feel ashamed of their variant sexuality simply need to get past it. They don’t need to escape into fantasies of transition.

So really there are just 2 groups we are talking about in the TG; transvestites, and the rest. It isn’t necessary to understand the many causes of “gender confusion” in order to deal with the reality of the situation. The group of truly “gender confused” people is actually rather small and more or less silent. I wanted to make it clear that my anger is not directed towards them, I consider them just as much a victim of these cynical politics as “ts” men and women, or gays and lesbians. The finger of blame points squarely at the transvestites.

It has become such a problem that the needs of these heterosexual men have somehow become part of the gay movement, and indeed are threatening to overtake and supplant the needs of those for whom the movement was formed. How is that for privilege? I see rumblings around the internet and elsewhere that the gay men and lesbian women in the US are waking up to the fact that THEIR movement has been co-opted to serve the needs of straight white guys.

I write these posts because I want people to understand the true nature of the things that are going on when you hear “transgender” being invoked. All that transgender means is that some transvestites have everyone else’s interests by the tail and they won’t let go until they get what they want. When are people going to wake up?

So my partner surprised me with the best gift ever… a Harvard Business School hoodie! I felt so touched when it came in the mail.

Forgot to mention — on December 15, my interviewer AND a first-year each called me to congratulate me.  My interviewer said I was one of her most memorable!  The second phone call from the first-year was an extra nice touch.

Another awesome thing about HBS — they have a Partners Program with awesome benefits:  http://www.hbs.edu/mba/studentlife/familiesandpartners.html.  This seriously just gets better and better.

Looking forward to the Admitted Students Weekend during first week of February.  Hopefully, there will not be two feet of snow on the ground like there is tonight in the northeast.  Yikes… for those of us in mother nature’s way: brace yourself; it’s going to be a rough one.

The night before December 15, 2009, I barely slept a wink. Every few hours, I was awoken by a nightmare of sorts. In one scenario, I was waiting in a line with other “auditionees” to be called into a room of judges to hear my fate – like an American Idol audition for a top 24 spot. When my name was called, I was so nervous that I could barely breathe, which of course, woke me from my sleep to prevent myself from chocking.

I can only imagine what went through thousands of other hopeful HBS candidates that night, but I know that I had not received a full-night’s sleep.  The hours between 6am and 12pm EST were even more brutal, but my friends, family, and work helped keep me from ripping out my hair.  Although I never received the email that was promised at noon due to “technical difficulties” (how convenient!), I found out at ten past noon that the decision letter was posted online already.

After logging on, I found the acceptance letter waiting for me. It was an amazing feeling that I will never forget.  On December 15, 2009, I was admitted to Harvard Business School for the Class of 2012.  Christmas definitely came a little bit early this year, and I’m ecstatic that it did!

December 15, 2009

Mr. R—— L–
—
— , NY 10—

Dear Mr. L–:

On behalf of Harvard Business School, it is a pleasure and a privilege to offer you a place in the MBA Class of 2012.

After careful consideration of all aspects of your application, we believe you have the ability to thrive at Harvard Business School and be a leader who makes a difference in the world. Our rigorous, interactive, and practice-oriented learning model will demand the very best of you and your classmates and will provide a firm foundation for any career path you may choose.

We hope that you will accept our offer to join the Harvard community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni – a membership that extends far beyond the borders of our campus and lasts a lifetime. In the coming weeks we will be connecting with you in a variety of ways to ensure that you have all the resources you need to make this important decision.

Our Prematriculation Web site will be your main source of information over the next few months. It will direct you to key activities that will help you learn more about HBS; in addition, it highlights personalized requirements and/or recommendations and logistics related to joining HBS. You can immediately access the Prematriculation Web site by using your username: —-, email domain: mba2012.hbs.edu, and password: ————-. Should you need any assistance, please contact us at ——-@—— or —.—.—-.

Your offer of admission is exclusively for the MBA Class of 2012, entering in September 2010, and it is contingent upon the verification of your academic transcript(s), verification of your employment history, an official response to our offer, and a tuition deposit.

You may respond to our offer of admission at any time through our Admissions Acceptance Form.

I encourage you to contact me if I can be of any assistance; I hope I may have the pleasure of welcoming you personally to campus.

Sincerely,

Deirdre C. Leopold
Managing Director, MBA Admissions & Financial Aid

Some of the transgender who attack us seem to think the women here and elsewhere who oppose the transgender lie are engaging in some kind of old-school activism. They want to believe that we are forming some competing movement, or other such nonsense. They like to apply labels like HBS or Taliban, create a faux fight between two arbitrary sides, shout and demean, and basically engage in the sort of politicking that they believe to have been responsible for their “success” in the 90’s. Of course they are wrong.

I basically have two aims with regard to the transgender business. One, I want to provide an alternative viewpoint to the TG dogma that confronts new transitioners as they begin their healing process. The sooner they clear that toxic mess, the sooner they can get through the process. The voice of real women who have come before you telling you that your senses are right about the TG and to stay away from them is a huge help.

In addition to speeding the process in the initial stages of transition, and assuaging guilt for believing your own senses about the sexual fetishists, by exposing the truth I hope to rob the transgender of new recruits. Not recruits from women like us, because we generally know the score and leave of our own accord. But recruits from “gender” philosophy such as the genderqueer who want to use it to challenge society’s rules. If they can see who their so-called allies really are, they may think twice about their priorities and allegiances. The truth is very ugly.

The vast majority of the TG are simply heterosexual transvestite men. And transvestism is tied closely with other, possibly more troublesome sexual behavior. What sets the “full time” transvestite apart from the garden variety crossdresser is that the sexual fetish they both share gets completely out of control in the “transgender” transvestite. The reasons behind this are a subject that needs to be studied if these people are going to be helped.

In a past post I wrote about how I hoped for more research into GID, but not because I believe in “gender problems”. Nobody has “gender problems” as such. People like Ron Gold wrote his famous post on this, and indeed everyone in larger society understands this instinctively. So do the transgenders, in fact, and that is why they twist philosophy and turn logic on its head. Gender itself is merely shorthand for a variety of social phenomena; it can hardly be disordered.

The first myth that must be exposed is that surgery creates a transsexual. There are plenty of transvestites who get surgery, and in fact they make up the bulk of the “transsexuals” among the TG. The goal of this sleight-of-hand is to a) excuse their behavior and b) provide a path for the transvestite to live “full time as a woman”. In other words, ready access to their drug of choice. Getting surgery is how the “transgender transvestite” actualizes their fetish and makes it permanent and inescapable. I have to thank an anonymous source for explaining this aspect of the rather puzzling motivations of the “transgender transsexual”. I’m sure more detailed discoveries will be found as researchers delve into the mysteries surrounding fetish and exhibitionism in neurology.

I also believe it will be found that GID, at is called by puzzled researchers, is an amalgam of other already recognized problems, with the veneer of gender laid over the top. It has been suggested to me that the sexual high that transvestites receive from exposing themselves to the public in women’s clothing is like an addiction. And like any addict, they rage and fume when their drug is taken away, hence their attacks on women like us. It is not because we expose them for being men in dresses that they hate us. They do that to themselves all the time- but on their schedule. They want the control of where and when to do the “Gotcha!” moment and bask in the sexual glow, and anyone who would stand in the way of that must be destroyed.

That is why they rage against those who tell the truth about them. That is why they threaten to write an “expose”, their tried-and-true weapon against us- the threat to ruin our lives by trying to “out” us to our communities and destroy our womanhood.

The fact that they are willing to commit this act which, in their own parlance, puts us at risk for violence and death, simply for continued access to their sexual thrill is despicable. It illustrates perfectly just how unbalanced and aggressive they really are. How selfish. How male.

I and the other women here are no stranger to male violence. Cat has written quite a bit about her experiences with these people. And every woman who ever lived has felt the impact of male aggression in their lives, some with horrifying directness. That is why I write these things and put myself at risk in the face of these all too real threats against me. I care about women like me, who have gone through so much just to survive. We few who know the truth must stand up to the men who would abuse us.

We must tell them they cannot, they will not, silence our voices.

Doing economics in undergrad, I always subscribed to the doctrine that optimisation was not only possible, but it was necessary in every situation.  Why not take the extra time to make sure you look through every possibility, analyse them, and only then decide upon the right plan of action.  Being at HBS has turned that whole premise upside down for me.

When we’re here, we’re constantly put in situations where we’re expected to come up with the optimal answer through discussion AND we’re not responsible for the implementation of the answer that we come up with.  This is a formula for disaster for the person who is leading the discussion or is responsible for action.  Over and over again, in every venue from the classroom to the flag football field, people push to come up with the absolute best answer.  In review sessions, this can lead to extremely detailed discussions of things that are most likely not of  importance.  In class-wide discussions of group action, it can lead to paralysis as everyone constantly picks out how the idea might not work or it could be a little bit better.  In flag football games, it can lead to arguments over which way to set up the field based on the angle of the overhead lights and their effect on a receiver down field.  Bringing up issues like this is very tempting for those who are risk-averse and want to deal with every possible contingency before action.  However, it can make discussions go on forever and decisions increasingly difficult.

In each of these situations, it’s amazing to me how different it feels to actually be the decision-maker here.  When one plan of action has to be taken and there is little risk in being wrong, the concept of satisfice-ment rears its beautiful head to steer clear of the costs and frustrations of optimization.  ’Satisfice’, defined as ’s a decision-making strategy that attempts to meet criteria for adequacy, rather than to identify an optimal solution’.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Sometimes enough is enough and sometimes the ‘ahhh’ of optimization can outweigh the benefits.  And that is where satisfice-ment is sooooo nice.

Today we had our second final exam and I’ve come to a few initial thoughts about the exam process here at HBS.  To give some background, all of our exams are in the format of cases, the same as our classes.  What this means is that we take the first hour to read a case (think a story that gives a snapshot of a business at a certain point and time) and then we spend the rest of the four hours analyzing and coming to a decision about what the protagonist should do.  It’s really a fascinating way to do things, but leaves so much up to the discretion of both the grader and the test-taker that exams can literally go any which way.  These cases are explicitly made to be ambiguous in their answers so you can focus on (or forget about!) any of a myriad of issues.

So thoughts on these exams in general and our schooling in particular:

• First of all, it’s incredibly difficult to study for something like this.  One of our professors put it nicely by saying, ‘How do you study the night before a swimming exam?’  At the exam, either you know it or you don’t.  Putting in the work ahead of time is the only way to be ready.
• Second of all, an exam will always take 100% of the time you give it.  Because of their ambiguity (more on this later), these exam write-ups can go on ad nauseum.  You can spend as much time as you’d like going through detail after detail after detail.  It takes a lot of self-confidence to just stop at some point and then to not be worried after the exam when everyone is talking (also ad nauseum? ) about little things that they did that you probably did not.
• Finally, these are an excellent way to proxy what the analysis of these decisions in the real world is like.  When thinking through, there are no explicitly right or wrong answers.  All of the import lies in laying out the way that you’re framing an issue and laying out the assumptions.  Only then can the analysis  fall out.  This is extremely close to life as a consultant and I assume it’s the first step even for those who are running their own businesses.

As I step away from the exact exams (probably a bad thing given that I still have three left!), it confirms for me that ambiguity is incredibly frustrating to deal with.  That ambiguity can be compounded when I look  at a question through a lens where I’m not an expert.  I deal with that in varying degrees through the first year classes* because even though I’ve seen some of these in my background, there are areas that I’m more or less comfortable with.  Working through this over and over is the beauty of my management training.

*- Finance, Financial Reporting and Control, Technology Operations Management, Leadership and Organizational Design, and Marketing

What is your definition of success?  Is it more courageous to say no?  When is the right time to make “sacrifices”?  What role does business school (either the specific institution or the self-selection of students) play into these decisions?

These are all issues I grapple with, especially since coming to HBS and recently embarking on the job search process.  More specifically, we have been forced to discuss these issues with classmates during our last LEAD module.  We read 6 10- and 20-year memoirs from the class of 1976 and today discussed a case of whether a man should take a promotion to global VP when he was already struggling with work-family balance.  On the whole, these memoirs that were all written to impress their classmates were kind of depressing.  None of them were able to effectively have a full-time career and family life without some compromise (part-time work, geographic distance, career inertia with one company).  Our class had some good conversations, but I’m left with a slightly fatalistic view – if no one in these sessions has been able to “have it all” and be happy, how will I need to alter my perspectives on success?  What is the best way to separate myself from external conditions of success and base my view truly on my level of overall happiness?    How do I overcome the feeling (as I often feel) that choosing a more modest career path to fit my expectations on the time I wish to spend with my family is in essence “wasting my spot” at school?  There is someone else who needs this opportunity to open as many doors as possible, and I am choosing not to have CEO/entrepreneur aspirations.  I’m actively making the choice against rotational programs where I will have to move every 9 months in order to put down roots, and I often wonder how many other students here feel the way I do.

However, not only do I not know the answers to these questions, I’m only starting to learn the questions.  I’m grateful for my classmates who are standing their ground and really discussing their family aspirations, because I’m hoping to find role models within my peers.  I hope the next two years provides a fruitful dialogue around these topics over more than just 2 80-minute sessions.

If you are reading this, you have in all probability read the HBS website inside out, read Diana Kimball’s blog and seen the HBS 2+2 discussion threads on www.beatthegmat.com, among other things.

If you haven’t, first go through the official HBS website thoroughly and read all about the program. Soon as you’re done, get back here

I am not going to talk about the program. Instead I’d like to share a few things that I stumbled upon accidentally, and try to clear some myths.

1. No one component of your application will decide your fate. You might have a poor GPA but stellar essays, or a great application but a bad interview, and you may still get in. Everybody has a chance.  Make the most of it.

2. If you get accepted, you will have only 2 years of work experience compared to 800 other students in your class at HBS who will on an average have 4 years. This might put you at a disadvantage during hiring out of HBS. This isn’t to say the program isn’t good, but it’s something you should know.

3. HBS 2+2 has a huge list of recruiting partners, but they don’t help you get a job. You will get a company contact from Harvard, but then you are on your own. You still need to work hard and sit for campus placements,  or somehow get a job.

4. You can do anything at all for the 2 years between graduation and joining HBS, as long as you’re working, which is simply fabulous! Volunteer for Teach for India, be an RA at a university lab, start your own company or work at Google.

5. If you’re planning to go to b-school anyway, this saves you a lot of hassle later on. You won’t need to choose work so that you can “build your MBA story”

6. The program is aimed at increasing the number of students from non-traditional fields, like science, medicine, engineering and humanities, so if you are a business major it will be hard (not impossible) to get in.

Disclaimer: A lot of the information provided here is a result of my attempt at learning more about HBS 2+2. Factor it in while making your decisions, but DO NOT rely solely on it.

If it hadn’t been for the several blogs and websites that provided a wealth of information, I don’t know how I would have ever got around to figuring out how to create the (as close as I could get to it) perfect HBS 2+2 application. As one of the admits to the program in 2009, it seems only fair that I pass on what I have learnt about Harvard Business School, the 2+2 program and MBA applications to all those confused college seniors who will be applying this year

I hope I will be able to reduce a lot of anxiety, exorbitant & unnecessary expenditures on professional admission consultants, time spent on trying to find previously admitted students and about a million google searches (which saves energy and hence is important to the cause of climate change )

I’m going to try to talk about the following topics in the next few posts:

1. The facts about HBS 2+2 that you may or may not already know, and the things you should keep in mind while applying

2. GMAT vs GRE, and some tips for each exam, since I am one of those mad people who’ve given both

3. How to ensure that your essays present the most compelling picture of you

4. How to reduce some of the dread associated with letters of recommendation

5. B-school Interviews (specifically for 2+2)

6. Lastly, how to think about why you need an MBA/ your future goals. (Note the unusual language use – I still haven’t entirely managed to figure these out myself so the best I can do is provide some direction)

If there is anything else that someone feels needs to be covered do not hesitate to let me know

That’s all for now!

What it do!

I’ve been thinking about climate change and insurance all day.  The two impetuses (impeti?):  a Thomas Friedman op-ed and a cold call.

First, the Friedman piece.  In this morning’s NYT, he took a well-known Cheney one-liner on national security and chucked it back at opponents of climate change deals.  Early on in the conflict formerly known as the “War on Terror”, our former VP argued that if there was a one percent chance that al-Qaeda was receiving nuclear weapons technology or know-how from Pakistan/AQ Khan, “we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response” (read:  flatten entire countries).  Friedman then made the connection to potentially catastrophic climate change.  He is appealing to climate change skeptics arguing that, maybe, just maybe they’re right and climate change won’t happen – but they’ll be covering their bases if they support a climate deal that will cost about 2% of GDP and it does actually occur.

Skeptics are skeptics, and they will never be 100% convinced that climate change is occurring and could have unforeseeable consequences for their children and grandchildren.  But by moving the argument away from dogmatism, which is what your typical climate change fanatic pushes, and toward risk management, which a skeptic can appreciate, Friedman is edging the debate in the right direction.  I personally see undeniable scientific evidence of climate change, but I understand and appreciate that others don’t.  My goal then, as a supporter of climate change legislation, is to find common ground with skeptics on basic, verifiable data points such as the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, trends in average temperatures over the past 200 years, and the diminishing ice shelfs in Greenland and Antarctica.

If you can’t find agreement there, then you’ve got a real moonbat on your hands.  But if you can establish those facts, then you can move onto some probability that climate change is real and from there some probability that there will be a significant economic/geopolitical impact sometime in the next century.  Now, they may disagree fervently on these probabilities, but it would be wrong to ignore the possibility.  And if the worst-case scenario has even 1% chance of happening with business as usual, then it should be in their interest to support a climate deal (for the record, I personally believe it’s better than 50% chance that there could be catastrophic consequences in the next century if we take no action in the near future to curb emissions).  Size and scope of a deal are debatable issues better resolved by politicians lining their pockets with special interest money, but to get general buy-in to the 1% doctrine on climate change by skeptics would be a huge step in the right direction, and a great example of finding common ground on a seeming impasse.

Now, the second part of my insurance fascination:  the cold call.  On Monday night, Steve mentioned a new market he was creating to sell cold call insurance to sectionmates.  Unlike Fu, I did not think my probability of being cold-called was very high, especially in Lead.  Admittedly, I talk a lot (probably too much) in section.  And on top of that, I had been cold-called back on the very first day in Lead regarding our old friend Erik Peterson.  Then I read Friedman’s piece this morning on the 1% doctrine as a rationale for insurance.  Shame on me for not putting two and two together and asking Steve what kind of market he would make for me in class today.  Based on my profile, I bet he would have been willing to go close to 94:1 odds that I’d get cold-called in Lead, maybe higher.  And of course, I got the cold call.

So, listen up all you climate change skeptics.  May you take my experience in Lead today (along with the Friedman op-ed) as a lesson in risk management and the importance of insurance.  And may finding common ground on controversial issues find a place in your heart, as it has in mine.

Hello world.  One thing that has really started to surface as bothersome to me about my educational experience at HBS so far is the lack of prudent discussion about the ethics of the businesses we’ve been studying.  We’ll touch on it hear and there, but rarely do we actually discuss the morality of, or even the underlying truth behind, the practices of many of the organizations analyzed.  I guess all of that nonsense will get crammed into that one class we have to take in the spring.  In the absence of any useful academic forum for discussion, I broach the topic here.

When considering the ethics of advertising and branding, it is of critical importance as consumers that we understand two simple things: 1) to what organization(s) do our beloved brands belong, and 2) the motivation of those organizations.  Dove is not a company.  Dove is a business unit of a larger company, Unilever.  Unilever is a large multinational conglomerate of consumer packaged goods brands.  Dove cares about selling you soap (or not soap, whatever), firming cream and deodorant; Unilever cares about selling you all that Dove stuff and all sorts of other stuff: mayonaise, ice cream, tea, olive oil, soap, detergent, petroleum jelly, etc.  Let there be no question about this: they want to sell you as much stuff as possible.  I used to own shares of Unilever and I wanted you to buy as much stuff as possible; but after our marketing class today, I kind of wish I had never owned those shares.

Now let me be clear about myself.  Though I have strong opinions about many things in the business world, I am not a communist or socialist – at least not outside the realm of academic discussion.  I have no inherent problem with free markets and I think they provide the best and most realistic option for pricing, facilitating trade, the natural selection of successful enterprises, and the broader evolution of economies in most cases.  I am also a user of dove soap (it is softer on the skin and, frankly dammit, my skin deserves pampering).  I have no fundamental objection to a company like Unilever or a brand like Dove trying to sell more stuff to people than its competitors.  But, Dove’s branding campaign, which quite successfully employs ostensible ethical concern for the issue of how women and beauty are portrayed in mainstream media, is at best strikingly dishonest when viewed adjacent to the branding image of one of Unilever’s sibling personal care brands, Axe.

This video parody, which we watched in class and then subsequently barely talked about, sums it up pretty well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwDEF-w4rJk

(original Dove video being parodied: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U)

I couldn’t agree more.  The fact notwithstanding that many of the people at Dove may really champion the cause of self-esteem for women – and I’m certain that many of them actually do – and regardless of how much money they give to Girl Scouts of America, Dove is still a brand within a larger organization that supports the continued objectification of women in media through the (equally, if not more, successful) branding campaign(s) of at least one other brand, Axe.  That really chaps my hide.  When I buy my bar of Dove soap, that profit goes to Unilever, not to Dove.  In this way the Dove and Axe brands are inextricably linked.  Clearly, and for obvious reasons, Unilever does not go out of its way to illuminate this fact.

But does Unilever care?  Why should it?  Remember, they just want to sell us as much stuff as they can from all of their brands.  They’ll be glad to sell you Ben & Jerry’s and then Slim Fast too.  It’s a profitable venture to sell the disease and then sell the cure.  But when queried about the ethical concern to Unilever product managers regarding the conflict of ideologies behind the Dove and Axe brands today in our classroom, a representative of Unilever responded with two key arguments of justification: 1) The Dove and Axe brands have different target market segments, and 2) the Axe brand does good by providing self-esteem to 18-24 year old males, its target market segment.  I’d like to respectfully disagree.

Just because an Axe ad is targeted to 18-24 year old men does not mean that other people will not experience it.  In fact, quite the contrary.  I’m not an 18-24 year old and I see Axe ads all the time, and have for years.  More importantly, assuming Axe ads are indeed consumed by less women, boys, and men older than 24 by design, this still does nothing but reinforce the existing standards of beauty and objectification of women to the target market, these young 18-24 year old men, and thus presumably to society as a whole as these men grow up to take on more influential roles in our world.  Sure, we can all agree that we want more women to feel beautiful and comfortable with their self-image, but a big part of the reason why they do not already is the very indoctrinated culture that the Dove campaign for real beauty would hope to address.  Too bad they’ve got their pesky little brother, who lives in the same house, concurrently making the problem worse.  Or is it too bad?  The parents in this house just want to sell 18-24 year old men body spray and sell women who sympathize with the self-esteem challenged soap (or not soap, whatever).  On the second point, regardless of the benefit that the Axe brand provides to self-esteem challenged 18-24 year old men (which is questionable to begin with – I remember being 20 years old; self esteem was not my biggest concern), the brand image still supports the status quo treatment of women in the media, be it tongue-in-cheek or hyperbole or whatever.

Do we want to live in a world where women are continuously objectified in advertisements that are viewed daily by millions on television and billboards?  Yes?  Ok, fine, stick with that brand image, but don’t try to sell me that you’re helping all these women when you’re concomitantly making the problem worse from the other side.  You may help the 2% of women who self-described as “beautiful” increase to 4%, maybe if you’re really really good to 10%, and that’s fantastic (data taken from our HBS case on Dove).  But, as Unilever, you’re also actively seeking to indoctrinate an entire generation of young men about the beauty and value of women.  A median value across the countries surveyed of 60% of respondents of the same study (all female) agreed with the statement “Physically attractive women are more valued by men”.  It’s hard to argue they are wrong.

The fact that brands can be used so effectively to cloud our perception of reality as consumers troubles me and I will try to continue to explore this more in a subsequent post.

1. BU’s SPH new global health initiative gets help

2.  Emerson’s president will step down in 2011

3.  HBS dean to retire

4.  Ahead of the Bell:  Ed panel to meet on new rules facing for-profit colleges

5.  Vt. students respond to praise about behavior

6.  New England schools caution against pricey teacher gifts

7.  Former M.I.T. dean resurfaces, leaving scandal behind

8.  Deployment taking toll on military’s children

9.  College loans as development aid

10.  A new look for graduate entrance test

11.  Can a new (free) degree at Harvard spur public school reform?

12.  For-profit Universities want some respect

Earlier this week Jay Light, Dean of Harvard Business School for the past five years, announced that he will retire next June. The announcement comes nearly 40 years to the day after Light first joined the HBS faculty as a graduate of a new Harvard PhD program.

Light applied to HBS back in 1966, while working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was accepted, but ended up joining a new doctoral program between HBS and Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His long and distinguished career at Harvard has included serving as Chairman of the school’s Finance department, Senior Associate Dean and Director of Faculty Planning, and Senior Associate Dean and Director of Planning and Development.

Harvard University President Drew Faust released an announcement yesterday on the HBS site:

Jay has been an exemplary leader in a school dedicated to the understanding and practice of leadership. In his years as dean, and throughout his decades at Harvard, he has done a great deal to define the distinctive character of Harvard Business School and to guide its strategy and progress in everything from MBA education to innovative executive programs, from global engagement to initiatives focused on health care and science… He has been and will remain a valued colleague and friend, for me and for a great many of us across Harvard.

Looking forward, it’s interesting to think about what opportuniteis and challenges Light’s successor will face. In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, when asked what decisions his successor, will have to make, Light answered:

I see three big areas. The first is the MBA program. How do we adapt the curriculum to ensure we’re preparing students to address the leadership challenges they’ll face in a rapidly changing, global world? How do we supplement what goes on inside the classroom, through small group or field-based experiences? The second is executive education. What kinds of programs should we be offering? Should we be doing less of some? Are there new opportunities in fields like health care and the management of science-based businesses? And the third would be in the School’s publishing division. Obviously, all publishing enterprises are having to rethink what they do and how they are structured as they move more and more of their content online. Harvard Business Publishing is no exception to that challenge, and the next few years will be critical.

President Faust indicated that the search for a new dean begins now. Light retires in June, and it’s safe to assume that Harvard will do everything it can to announce his replacement no later than then, if if that person doesn’t step into the role right away.

To learn more about Harvard Business School, take a look at Veritas Prep’s HBS Annual Report, one of 15 completely free guides to the world’s top business schools, available here. For more updates on HBS and other top business schools, subscribe to this blog and follow us on Twitter!

At first blush, I”m not sure I agree with all of these- they seem to be wishful thinking. The fact that many artists actually cannot do any of these things is what makes them good artists and bad business leaders.

Artists constantly collaborate. The example given was the common occurrence of an exhibition with multiple artists showing together, or the so-called “group show.” Even in the context of a solo show, the artist works with the gallery owner, the curator, the framers, the installers, the lighting person, the publicist to bring their vision to life. Every exhibition is a collaboration to the nth degree.

Ok, I think this is stretching it a bit as a model for management. There are diva artistes as much as diva CEOs. “Collaboration”  is necessary for any successful activity, solo or otherwise.

Artists are talented communicators. The whole point of a work of art is to communicate something — a thought, an idea, a feeling, a vision. More explicitly, the artist frequently gives a talk to explain the thought process behind the artwork. Engaging the audience in a meaningful, expansive dialogue is often critical to the exhibition’s success.

I’ll buy this one.

Artists learn how to learn together. Perhaps the reason why artists collaborate and socialize so well is that they learn in the studio model — ten or more students in the same room for hours on end. Bonded together in a personal space of intimate self-expression, they come into their own through the familial ties of the studio setting. When interviewed recently about the differences in her education at Brown and at RISD, one student who is getting a dual degree from both institutions said, “At RISD there’s a lot of learning from your peers. Brown (in the classes I’ve taken so far anyway) is about listening and note-taking in class.”

But do they socialize well with others outside of their studio model?  And have you ever heard “Familiarity breeds contempt”?

So Daryl Morey, the General Manager of the Houston Rockets, was at HBS today and we had the profound pleasure of having him join us in our classroom then stick around for both lunch and a few games of pickup basketball.  A few thoughts that come out of it for me.

First of all, this school is incredible in the people that it brings in.  Morey’s claim to fame is that he is an innovator in the use of statistics in the world of basketball and he is almost a cult figure among sports dweebs for elevating to the position that he’s in so soon.  The fact that we can get him in AND have the opportunity to talk one-on-one with him for hours after the fact is just awesome.

Secondly, it’s funny how we assume that because someone is successful in one area, he can give us advice in others.  The example here is that the question came up as to what industries Morey thought innovation in statistics might stick, but why would he really know that?  Maybe as HBSers we’re so sure that someone is going to give us the answer to it all, that we go and ask for it from everyone who is held up as an expert.

Finally, Professor Frei made the point today that the statistics that there are a fair chunk of statistics and metrics that are missing from the team situations (in business) that we study are often the corollary of the adjusted +/- that Morey uses in basketball.  By that I mean that they aren’t the individual performance ones (those are possible to come by) or the overall group performance (again possible to come by), but rather the metrics that measure an individual’s impact on the individual metrics of others on his/her team.  Those are the interaction ones, and those are the ones that define a good teammate and a valuable contributor.  My question is whether our intuition captures these well when we qualitatively say “so and so is a team player”?  Is this a real place for innovation?  And if so, how do we get there?

As president of my section here at HBS, I constantly think about group dynamics and the optimal way to set up situations that allow my 94 section-mates to cohesively come together while limiting the autocratic part of my role.  Further, I try my best to understand how Harvard came to the conclusion that they have: that 90-95 people in a section is optimal for the business school experience.

In Thomas Paine’s classic pamphlet ‘Common Sense’, he discusses why societies and governments form.

Societies form to allow others to take advantage of the positive externalities involved with living in a group.  In any discussion of how groups interact socially in a way to offer the best experiences to their members, the question of group size arises.  At some point, a group gets too large for each individual to have genuine social relationships with all the other members and at that point, it becomes natural for it to split.  Neuroscientists look at it through the lens of channel capacity and try to find out how many relationships we can actually handle.  Sociologists look at it as the overall group dynamic and see when it’s no longer productive to have one self-governed group.  In either case, the answer for humans seems to be around 150 (hence, the famed Rule of 150).  All this means that Harvard picking 94 as a section size allows us enough diversity to have the full breadth of the school in our section while still cutting it down to the point where the complexity of the group dynamics is tenable.  We’re small enough that we can assume some level of self-organization.

On the topic of governance, very simply, governments form to control for the negative externalities associated with living in a group.  If a group is large enough, then efficiency promotes the creation of a set-aside body to represent the people and decide on the philosophy and policies under which they will live.  In a small enough society, however, this same governance is done through peer pressure as each person knows everyone else.  It would seem to me that this would be dealt with through the same Rule of 150 as above.  If everyone knows everyone else, then the logical conclusion would be that peer pressure would allow our section to create our own section without too much autocratic leadership?  This would be why our only section norm is ‘Be an adult’.

So the questions arise, is this the right way of thinking about section dynamics?  Are we missing something?  Either way, we’ll see what happens and there’s no better experiment than this year.

Also, what is the actual optimal section size and why?  This is an open question, but it seems that the school is certainly doing a fair job with what they have.

As I re-read Malcolm Gladwell’s famous book, “The Tipping Point”, this weekend, I couldn’t help but bring the new lens that our marketing class at HBS has given us.  In case after case, we’ve seen the importance of the intermediaries in the supply chain and how distributors can create value in ways that is hugely value-adding.  No where is this better illustrated than in Gladwell’s example of a needle exchange program in Baltimore.

The story goes like this: in an effort to stop the spread of disease from infected needles, the city of Baltimore set up a program to get clean syringes to drug addicts.  A couple of times a week, they would send out a van stocked with clean syringes to trade one for one for dirty, used needles.  The theory ran that addicts would come in once a week, trade all their needles and stock up for the upcoming week.  However, this assumes an addict who acts much like the famed ‘homo economicus’.  He would have to think rationally about how many he needs and then have the ability to save them and access at times of need.  Regretfully, this is not quite how the addict brain works in practice.  The ‘homo addictus’ mind is much less calculating than this and thus had trouble using the program to the full extent.

And herein lies the distribution solution.  Rather than each drug user cashing in their own needles, an informal group of middlemen developed who would collect thousands of used needles throughout the week and then trade in a batch.  With their bolstered stash, they would then sell new needles to addicts when they needed them for $1.   How elegant!

The philosophical question of whether the city actually wants to be providing supplies that facilitate drug use AND allows peddlers to make money off of them aside, the fact remains that these needle exchangers are providing a hugely value-adding service that improves the product itself and helps the city reach their goal.  By collecting used needles, interfacing with the factory (the vans), and then providing storage and accessibility anytime, they are improving the uptake of the program and halting the spread of disease.

Score one for distribution networks!

Happy Thanksgiving! Today marks the ten year anniversary of Pets.com buying a float in the 1999 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which preceded its January 2000 Super Bowl commercial, which preceded its February 2000 IPO, which preceded its November 2000 liquidation.

How did Pets.com go from IPO to liquidation in 268 days? How did Webvan reach a market cap of $1.2 billion while bleeding money? Don’t just blame the “Greater Fool Theory.” Blame multiples.

Plenty of new businesses project hockey-stick shaped revenue growth, but in the late days of the dot-com bubble, there was no way to justify many of the valuations based on any feasible DCF projections. Why did smart people still buy the stocks? They could easily look at recent transactions and justify the valuations based on multiples of sales. Whether or not they bothered with a DCF, many investors felt that the recent trends in multiples would persist.

Multiples have their virtues. They form two corners of the HBS Valuation Triangle. They’re convenient and don’t require many assumptions. Can multiples serve as a “reality check” on your DCF valuation of a company? Perhaps so, but they are no replacement. You’re just doing a DCF with using someone else’s assumptions. In any speculative bubble, the last fool in line is probably just thinking about multiples.

Originally commented here:  For almost four years, I kept the same voicemail message. It was distinct, succinct, and promised nothing. It went: “You’ve reached the mobile phone message box of Pablo A. Manriquez. Please leave any and all information relevant to your call. Thank you.” What made it distinct was that I said the message as if to say “…the mobile phone message box of Pablo, a Manriquez,” which I am. I ensure no call back or even that the message will be checked at all. I normally did check them every few days, but sometimes I’d let them overfill my Inbox so callers got the “users Inbox is full” message from the operator.

Then I got an iPhone. And with it, the awesome power of handheld Facebook, Twitter, email, texting, etc.. Suddenly, the telephone function was an annoying necessity for calling my parents during free nights and weekends, when they scold me for never answering during the week and not setting up my voicemail so that they can leave messages. I try to explain to them that I fiendishly check my email (they’re not on FB or Twitter) and that if they really need to get ahold of me, I’m as likely to see an email or text as I am to ignore a phone call. No good, they say. They want that additional capacity to contact me. No good, I say, because then everyone else can too.

Ultimately, I usually ignore phone calls because they’re usually from bill collectors; this is the same reason I started ignoring voicemails. But the problem with both is that they interrupt. I keep no pop up or audio alerts in my browser settings for the same reason. Cult of Done, yo. Cult of done.

Whether you have already applied to HBS in Round 1 and are hoping for an interview invitation, or are getting ready to apply in Round 2, we thought this would be a good time to share some more in-depth advice about what HBS looks for in its applicants. Obviously, Harvard is highly selective and can afford to look for “perfect” candidates. In addition to the common metrics such as GPA and GMAT score, the school specifies a handful of qualities and traits that it seeks in an applicant.

There are three things that HBS looks for its its applicants. These may seem obvious, but they’re all extremely important in successfully applying to HBS:

• A History of Leadership.As mentioned in the HBS Approach, the business school is highly focused on leadership. Professional leadership experience is the most common and transferable, but extracurricular, personal, and community leadership accomplishments and qualities are recognized as well.
• High Potential for Intellectual Growth. This is the portion of the HBS admissions process that puts a candidate’s undergraduate performance (reputation of institution, major, course work, GPA, trends, and so on) and GMAT scores under a microscope, to ensure that the candidate can thrive in the demanding case method-based courses. While HBS does not state a preferred major or career path, it demands a comfort with and aptitude for quantitative, analytical, and communication skills.
• A Record of Community Engagement. This element is as simple as it sounds: HBS is looking for people who have shown the ability to impact their communities and who will continue to do so both as a student and an alumnus. While this can be demonstrated in a host of settings and ways, paramount is a sincere commitment to helping others, viewed as an integral component of the responsibilities of leadership.

Showing all three of these attributes in your application won’t automatically earn you a spot at Harvard Business School, but NOT demonstrating these traits is a sure way not to gain admission. Think carefully about how persuasively you can demonstrate all of these attributes when you build your Harvard Business School candidacy.

If you want to learn more about Harvard, take a look at Veritas Prep’s HBS Annual Report, one of 15 completely free guides to the world’s top business schools. And, as always, be sure to follow us on Twitter!

I know its been a while, but time is increasingly becoming a luxury here. Among the new stuff thats happened since the last time is the official kick off of the placement season for the summer. HBS holds recruiters at bay for the first 2 months of the MBA program which is great considering the amount of time that is invested in going for the recruiting receptions, presentations, dinners, coffee chats etc. I wonder how students from other schools manage it right from day 1. I am suddenly so happy to be at HBS.

Anyways, Among other news, boston is fast disintegrating into a cold, wet and boring city where it gets dark by 4 PM!!! Where I come from, this is a huge shock to me. Since afternoons are mainly sleep time for me and I go out with my section in the nights, I had totally missed this early darkening effect. Last week, I came out of a networking event from 3 to 4 PM and stepped out and was astonished to see it so dark. For a moment, I thought my watch had stopped working. One of my sectionmates who has lived all her life in Boston told me that it was going to be like this until Feb!!

This winter break, I am going to visit 2 of my good friends from undergrad. I am totally excited about it.
More later.