I applied and have been accepted to work on a Sloan Leaders in Service Trek (SLST) to New Orleans this February. A group of 20 Sloanies will be partnered with New Orleans' entrepreneurs in order to help in their re-development of the City of New Orleans. We will be collaborating with Idea Village in New Orleans to help out. It should be a great trek and one that will be a great experience for everyone involved. You can read more about Idea Village and some of the other projects that have been completed by other MBA's from around the country at http://www.ideavillage.org/ideacorps/about.php. You should all take a quick second to go to this site and read up (they also have a good video about the economic landscape and potential for development). I'll post again soon once we have been partnered with the local entrepreneur.
More later....
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Your Thanksgiving Adventures?
I forgot to ask you all to send in any issues that you had this weekend while traveling home for the holidays. Not only is it a good way to vent, but it also gives us a chance to laugh with you on your misfortunes.
So post your adventures and hope to hear from you soon!
So post your adventures and hope to hear from you soon!
Northwest Needs Some Help
So, Thanksgiving weekend. Flying to Detroit to visit some friends and Alicia's family. 39 million travelers doing the same. What were we thinking?
So our flight from BOS - DTW was scheduled to leave at 7 pm on Thanksgiving Eve. We arrived around 3 pm to be there well in advance of all the crowds. Good plan but where were the people? We checked in and were through security in roughly 30 minutes. Now just 3+ hours to sit and wait for our flight. Around 6 o'clock there was an announcement that our flight would be delayed for an hour and that the new flight time is 8 pm. Okay, no problem. Just getting tired of sitting around the airport. Good thing I brought some homework and a good book. So at 7:45 the plane finally touches down and we are told that we are all going to have to board the plane by 8:25 with the doors closed so that we can "legally" take-off due to the fatigue rules for the pilots. So at 8:15 they start boarding the plane. At 8:30 Alicia and I still have not boarded the plane due to issues with the ticket checkers. At 8:45 the plane is boarded and ready to go. At 8:46 pm the captain gets on the intercom announcing that the flight is canceled due to the legality issues.
What a mess!?! They tell us on the plane that we all need to disembark and retrieve our luggage from the carousels and that we would be put up in the Airport Hilton for the night and that we would need to be back around 6 am the next morning as the flight would leave around 6:30 am but that they would leave "when the last passenger arrives." So, we all disembark and move to the carousels to get our luggage. A couple of irate customers go to "talk" to the customer service reps who say that we won't be able to retrieve our bags as they will stay on the plane overnight. Another round of irate customers go and "talk" to the reps and then another announcement is made that we will in fact be able to get our luggage. So after waiting another 10 minutes we get our bags and walk over to the Hotel where there is a line of roughly 100 people waiting to get their hotel room for the night. Talk about the late-night crunch: 160 frustrated passengers hitting the counter at 10 pm with two or three staff...that will stretch your capabilities. Alicia and I took one look at the line and went to the hotel bar to have a bite to eat and a much needed beer. After we headed in, roughly 50 more Northwest customers decided that that was the right place to be and joined us. So let me just say that watching the bar staff deal with the onslaught of people was much more impressive than both Northwest and Hilton staffs. There was no miscommunication just pure performance. Waiters/managers/kitchen staff all kicked in to help support the 50 new customers. It was pretty impressive to me that a hotel bar could deal with such a huge rush of customers where as the Hotel and the Airline didn't. I know that some of you out there are thinking that only 50 people to deal with shouldn't be that hard and that the airline and hotel had to deal with many more, but I'm willing to argue that the 50 people addition to the bar was a much bigger group to deal with compared to the average number of people that the hotel and airline have to deal with both on a daily basis as well as in the shock occurrence.
To make matters worse, on our flight back, we were delayed for the length of our flight (i.e. - we were still sitting on the tarmac when our flight should have arrived at Boston) while we waited for deicing (note that our plane was the only one that waited that long as they had to reload both deicers while they were deicing our plane...in doing so they actually had to deice the plane twice!). To make matters worse, every 20 minutes the co-pilot would get on the intercom and tell us that we would be "on our way in 5 minutes." Talk about frustrating the customers! I think that Northwest lost a lot of future customers on these two flights (more the first than the second).
Just relating this experience to school, I find that you can observe and learn observe many things from completely unrelated fields and apply them. A good example of this is demonstrated in Freakonomics, a great book that I just finished on the plane ride - thanks Northwest!
Hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving!
More later...
So our flight from BOS - DTW was scheduled to leave at 7 pm on Thanksgiving Eve. We arrived around 3 pm to be there well in advance of all the crowds. Good plan but where were the people? We checked in and were through security in roughly 30 minutes. Now just 3+ hours to sit and wait for our flight. Around 6 o'clock there was an announcement that our flight would be delayed for an hour and that the new flight time is 8 pm. Okay, no problem. Just getting tired of sitting around the airport. Good thing I brought some homework and a good book. So at 7:45 the plane finally touches down and we are told that we are all going to have to board the plane by 8:25 with the doors closed so that we can "legally" take-off due to the fatigue rules for the pilots. So at 8:15 they start boarding the plane. At 8:30 Alicia and I still have not boarded the plane due to issues with the ticket checkers. At 8:45 the plane is boarded and ready to go. At 8:46 pm the captain gets on the intercom announcing that the flight is canceled due to the legality issues.
What a mess!?! They tell us on the plane that we all need to disembark and retrieve our luggage from the carousels and that we would be put up in the Airport Hilton for the night and that we would need to be back around 6 am the next morning as the flight would leave around 6:30 am but that they would leave "when the last passenger arrives." So, we all disembark and move to the carousels to get our luggage. A couple of irate customers go to "talk" to the customer service reps who say that we won't be able to retrieve our bags as they will stay on the plane overnight. Another round of irate customers go and "talk" to the reps and then another announcement is made that we will in fact be able to get our luggage. So after waiting another 10 minutes we get our bags and walk over to the Hotel where there is a line of roughly 100 people waiting to get their hotel room for the night. Talk about the late-night crunch: 160 frustrated passengers hitting the counter at 10 pm with two or three staff...that will stretch your capabilities. Alicia and I took one look at the line and went to the hotel bar to have a bite to eat and a much needed beer. After we headed in, roughly 50 more Northwest customers decided that that was the right place to be and joined us. So let me just say that watching the bar staff deal with the onslaught of people was much more impressive than both Northwest and Hilton staffs. There was no miscommunication just pure performance. Waiters/managers/kitchen staff all kicked in to help support the 50 new customers. It was pretty impressive to me that a hotel bar could deal with such a huge rush of customers where as the Hotel and the Airline didn't. I know that some of you out there are thinking that only 50 people to deal with shouldn't be that hard and that the airline and hotel had to deal with many more, but I'm willing to argue that the 50 people addition to the bar was a much bigger group to deal with compared to the average number of people that the hotel and airline have to deal with both on a daily basis as well as in the shock occurrence.
To make matters worse, on our flight back, we were delayed for the length of our flight (i.e. - we were still sitting on the tarmac when our flight should have arrived at Boston) while we waited for deicing (note that our plane was the only one that waited that long as they had to reload both deicers while they were deicing our plane...in doing so they actually had to deice the plane twice!). To make matters worse, every 20 minutes the co-pilot would get on the intercom and tell us that we would be "on our way in 5 minutes." Talk about frustrating the customers! I think that Northwest lost a lot of future customers on these two flights (more the first than the second).
Just relating this experience to school, I find that you can observe and learn observe many things from completely unrelated fields and apply them. A good example of this is demonstrated in Freakonomics, a great book that I just finished on the plane ride - thanks Northwest!
Hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving!
More later...
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving!
Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We are off Thursday until Monday for the holiday - a much needed vacation. These past couple weeks have been pretty rough with presentations, another exam, papers and other homework piling up for the end of semester crunch. Only a couple of weeks left after Thanksgiving and still so much to do! We haven't been working the whole time as we have had a good time at the Fall Ball last weekend. It is a formal event that took place at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston. Dinner and dancing for over 300 1st and 2nd year Sloanies. A good time was had by all and a great bonding event for the 1st year LFM's. Definitely something to look forward to for you potential students out there.
Well, I need to pack and get on a plane to Detroit now, so Happy Thanksgiving and see you on Monday.
Well, I need to pack and get on a plane to Detroit now, so Happy Thanksgiving and see you on Monday.
Monday, November 12, 2007
DREAM and a trip to Vermont
So this past weekend I went up to Burlington, VT with two members of my core team to go and work on our Organizational Processes project. We are working with a great non-profit based out of Burlington, called DREAM. They are a youth mentoring program who "build communities of families and college students that empower children from affordable housing neighborhoods to recognize their options, make informed decisions, and achieve their dreams." What a great program they have - from the moment that we arrived, we were welcomed not only by our gracious hosts and fellow staff members, but by a whole group of DREAM mentors and mentees! What an energy they all had for this program. We were invited to see a DREAM slideshow about a recent trip some of the mentors/mentees took to New York and Maine - every new picture was met with a loud cheer as all the kids yelled to support their fellow DREAMers. What a contagious energy! I walked in the door and immediately had a smile on my face. I would definitely recommend going to their website (http://dreamprogram.org/index.htm) and reading up on them and hopefully make a donation as they are doing some really good work up there in Vermont!
In addition to seeing DREAM in action, my teammates and I had a wonderful drive to and from VT. With the leaves changing colors and two beautiful days, we were met with some great scenery - another trip that anyone coming to New England should plan for. What better way to spend a weekend then driving, or even better - hiking, through the mountains with the fall colors. Something that I've missed since leaving New England 9 years ago! Also, on our drive, I had the great opportunity to gain a unique perspective on history, which even though I have an undergrad minor in history, I have never seen or heard before. It just so happens that my two teammates grew up in Russia and China. Two superpowers that I have heard many things about but mostly with an ethnocentric viewpoint. For the three hour car ride, I was exposed to the Russian and Chinese versions of modern history. What a great time to hear how America was viewed during the Cold War, etc. Definitely a ride that I won't forget!
Here's a challenge to all my readers: try to seek out someone/thing that you have had little exposure to and try to gain some insights on how they/it functions and how and why their/its position or perspective varies from your own. You are guaranteed to learn not only a ton about this person or thing, but you will learn a ton about yourself! Have fun with it too!
If you have any experiences you'd like to share, please leave a comment as I'd love to hear about it and so would my other readers!
More later....
In addition to seeing DREAM in action, my teammates and I had a wonderful drive to and from VT. With the leaves changing colors and two beautiful days, we were met with some great scenery - another trip that anyone coming to New England should plan for. What better way to spend a weekend then driving, or even better - hiking, through the mountains with the fall colors. Something that I've missed since leaving New England 9 years ago! Also, on our drive, I had the great opportunity to gain a unique perspective on history, which even though I have an undergrad minor in history, I have never seen or heard before. It just so happens that my two teammates grew up in Russia and China. Two superpowers that I have heard many things about but mostly with an ethnocentric viewpoint. For the three hour car ride, I was exposed to the Russian and Chinese versions of modern history. What a great time to hear how America was viewed during the Cold War, etc. Definitely a ride that I won't forget!
Here's a challenge to all my readers: try to seek out someone/thing that you have had little exposure to and try to gain some insights on how they/it functions and how and why their/its position or perspective varies from your own. You are guaranteed to learn not only a ton about this person or thing, but you will learn a ton about yourself! Have fun with it too!
If you have any experiences you'd like to share, please leave a comment as I'd love to hear about it and so would my other readers!
More later....
Thursday, November 8, 2007
LFM Video...you should check it out!
If you have a minute you should head over to http://mitsloan.mit.edu/mba/index.php and then click on the "Introducing the people of LFM" video link on the right hand side of the page. The Marketing and Admissions Committee put this together and we think that it does a good job portraying the program. Please take a look and let us know what you think!
More later....
More later....
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