Here are some news articles about our trip...guess they weren't limited in what they wrote about the project as much as I was...oh well. Enjoy!
From YahooFinance: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080215/20080215005410.html?.v=1
From Mass High Tech: http://masshightech.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2008/02/11/daily58.html?jst=pn_pn_lk
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
SLST, NOLA: Feb 18 - The last day
Monday morning we quickly packed our stuff, hopped in our cars and headed out to visit one of the client’s non-profit for green building. After a brief tour, we headed back to Idea Village and found that we had our work cut out for us. With two hours until we needed to present our plan, we got to work crafting our presentation for the upcoming meeting. Breaking into small groups again, we hit the ground running and pulled our plans together with time to spare!
Once our presentation was complete, we left Idea Village to go and present it to a bunch of prominent NO business leaders. It was quite a line-up of individuals from a Bank President, a Director of Economic Development for a local energy company, an Executive Director from the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, the President of a Communications Agency, and a couple others. We were happy to have the opportunity to present our work and the group of us who presented did an amazing job selling our idea and our client’s visions. With the questions that followed the presentation, we feel that there really is the potential for this project to take off and hopefully we have helped make this a reality.
I’ll post follow-ups to this project as I hear them so stay in touch and keep reading. Thanks to all the new readers from the MIT Sloan links. Hope that you have enjoyed what you have read and if you’d like to keep reading please do so – the more the merrier.
Now back to the regularly scheduled programming…
Once our presentation was complete, we left Idea Village to go and present it to a bunch of prominent NO business leaders. It was quite a line-up of individuals from a Bank President, a Director of Economic Development for a local energy company, an Executive Director from the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, the President of a Communications Agency, and a couple others. We were happy to have the opportunity to present our work and the group of us who presented did an amazing job selling our idea and our client’s visions. With the questions that followed the presentation, we feel that there really is the potential for this project to take off and hopefully we have helped make this a reality.
I’ll post follow-ups to this project as I hear them so stay in touch and keep reading. Thanks to all the new readers from the MIT Sloan links. Hope that you have enjoyed what you have read and if you’d like to keep reading please do so – the more the merrier.
Now back to the regularly scheduled programming…
SLST, NOLA: Feb 17
Sunday morning we again headed off to go back to Idea Village. This time we were met by more of their clients and had an extended meeting while we filled out our knowledge of the possibilities of the project. Through a meeting with an MIT PhD student in Urban Design, we had a breakthrough “Aha!” moment for our recommendations in the early afternoon. We had already been building our slide decks for our pre-Final presentation with Idea Village that afternoon so we had a lot of work to do in just a few hours. With our numbers dwindling, due to some health reasons and some unknown reasons, we still managed to pull it together and put on a splendid presentation with some really solid recommendations for our clients. Our recommendations did not cover exactly what they wanted from the first meeting, but due to the time restrictions, we were able to help our clients refine and focus their vision, while also giving them a set of 3 steps that they needed to perform in the next month in order to keep their idea alive. Through these recommendations and lots of background research, we felt that we gave Idea Village a great deal of positive work that would help their clients find success in their proposed business.
That evening we headed out to the Palace Café for dinner with some of the clients. Again, the food was delicious (I swear, the food in NO is amazing. Definitely go out and try these restaurants when you are in town. You won’t be disappointed!). This time, I order the turtle soup which was also very tasty. So good in fact that I managed to get a bunch of people to try it too. After dinner, a group of us headed back to Frenchman St to catch some more live music at D.B.A. and to drink some Abita Amber beer (very tasty…better than Shiner Boch – see my Plant Trek notes from Austin for a reference on this beer). Completely different venue from the previous night, and a completely different band sound, but we had an equally great time. What was neat was that one of the performers from the previous night was in the bar. He is an amazing, blind piano player (unfortunately I don’t know his name other than Henry) and we were all blown away by his performance. After spotting him in the crowd, one of the clients and I chatted him up for a while which was cool. We then moseyed on to The Spotted Cat and caught the last set of a little three-piece band. Closing out the night there, we had another great time in NO.
That evening we headed out to the Palace Café for dinner with some of the clients. Again, the food was delicious (I swear, the food in NO is amazing. Definitely go out and try these restaurants when you are in town. You won’t be disappointed!). This time, I order the turtle soup which was also very tasty. So good in fact that I managed to get a bunch of people to try it too. After dinner, a group of us headed back to Frenchman St to catch some more live music at D.B.A. and to drink some Abita Amber beer (very tasty…better than Shiner Boch – see my Plant Trek notes from Austin for a reference on this beer). Completely different venue from the previous night, and a completely different band sound, but we had an equally great time. What was neat was that one of the performers from the previous night was in the bar. He is an amazing, blind piano player (unfortunately I don’t know his name other than Henry) and we were all blown away by his performance. After spotting him in the crowd, one of the clients and I chatted him up for a while which was cool. We then moseyed on to The Spotted Cat and caught the last set of a little three-piece band. Closing out the night there, we had another great time in NO.
SLST, NOLA: Feb 16
Early Saturday morning, a bunch of us decided that prior to heading to Idea Village we would drive over and see the 9th Ward, the New Orleans neighborhood most affected by Katrina. This was a very sobering trip in that we saw the after effects of all the destruction. It appeared that most of the houses were slated to be demolished due to the homeowner’s not returning to fix their houses and they were all placarded as to that effect. Also, on most homes, spray-painted on the front was a large X with some text sprayed in each quarter of the X. We didn’t know what this stood for until one of our group found something on-line that told us that the text written in each quarter stood for one of the following: the date a search of the property was performed, the organization who searched through the house, the problems associated with the house (we saw TFW written on a lot of houses and this referred to Toxic Flood Water that was characteristic of the aftermath of Katrina), and then, most sobering, the number of bodies found. This realization definitely made us all reflect on this horrible time of NOLA and the US’s recent history. After driving around through the neighborhoods for a while, we came upon a public housing location. I had heard about the public housing issue prior to arriving in NO as I went to a lecture by Prof. John Fernandez from the MIT Dept. of Architecture titled “Rebuilding the City of New Orleans: Working Across Sectors to Achieve a Common Goal.” It was a very interesting lecture discussing Fernandez’s work in helping to rebuild and redevelop New Orleans in a green and sustainable way. The public housing complexes were all condemned immediately after Katrina without any inspections made as to identify if the homes were truly un-livable. Currently, these communities are completely fenced off to their previous residents with no sign of being opened in the near future. These locations made me think of what Chernobyl might have looked like three years after the meltdown. We could see people’s belongings in their homes, but no one had touched any of them in the past three years. With the mass exodus of the NO population, who knows when these buildings will be restored or inhabited.
Following our tour, we headed to Idea Village for a check-in to access our progress and direction of our project. After a meeting with some more Idea Village staff and some of their clients, we felt that our project was well under way but that the finished result was still a ways out. We were able to divide up into small groups of around 3-5 people to flesh out more of each part of our plan such as the competitive marketplace, funding options, profiles of similar projects and fine-tune our recommendations and the phases of growth for the project. Unfortunately I have been asked not to blog about too many specifics to the project so I can’t get too much more detailed other than letting you know that the idea is to create a green development hub in NO. Sorry that I can’t divulge more, but that is how it goes sometimes.
After finishing up on the day, we headed out to a restaurant called Elizabeth’s. Again, really great food even though the floor ended up with two entrées, a couple of glasses of water and our waiter – it wasn’t his fault either…these were all separate incidents that none of us can explain. It was definitely ridiculous though. We hope that our tip made up for all the trouble we inadvertently caused though. I would definitely suggest going there and would suggest trying their Dream Burger – darn good. Also, in my efforts to try random food, a couple of us tried the frog legs. Not too bad. I’d definitely order them again. Following dinner, a large group of us headed out to Frenchman St and went to see a show by Kermit Ruffins at the Blue Nile. Wow is NO music great. Some of our group headed out every night and saw live music every night that had a completely different sound. I can do no justice to the music by trying to explain, you just need to go. So get your tickets and head on down…next month is the Jazz Fest so get on it quick.
More later…
Following our tour, we headed to Idea Village for a check-in to access our progress and direction of our project. After a meeting with some more Idea Village staff and some of their clients, we felt that our project was well under way but that the finished result was still a ways out. We were able to divide up into small groups of around 3-5 people to flesh out more of each part of our plan such as the competitive marketplace, funding options, profiles of similar projects and fine-tune our recommendations and the phases of growth for the project. Unfortunately I have been asked not to blog about too many specifics to the project so I can’t get too much more detailed other than letting you know that the idea is to create a green development hub in NO. Sorry that I can’t divulge more, but that is how it goes sometimes.
After finishing up on the day, we headed out to a restaurant called Elizabeth’s. Again, really great food even though the floor ended up with two entrées, a couple of glasses of water and our waiter – it wasn’t his fault either…these were all separate incidents that none of us can explain. It was definitely ridiculous though. We hope that our tip made up for all the trouble we inadvertently caused though. I would definitely suggest going there and would suggest trying their Dream Burger – darn good. Also, in my efforts to try random food, a couple of us tried the frog legs. Not too bad. I’d definitely order them again. Following dinner, a large group of us headed out to Frenchman St and went to see a show by Kermit Ruffins at the Blue Nile. Wow is NO music great. Some of our group headed out every night and saw live music every night that had a completely different sound. I can do no justice to the music by trying to explain, you just need to go. So get your tickets and head on down…next month is the Jazz Fest so get on it quick.
More later…
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sloan Leaders in Service Trek (SLST), New Orleans, LA: Feb 14/15
The SLST began with a group of twenty Sloanies catching a flight (or many flights - if at all) and heading down to NOLA to begin our work with Idea Village. Most students left for NOLA on Thursday afternoon while the remaining few flew in Friday morning. On Thursday night, the rough weather in the mid-West caused delays and overbooked planes that prevented my luggage from making the journey, but more importantly, one of our SLST members who was never able to leave Boston - a very annoying and rough situation for all as she was a great addition to our team but who now won’t be able to join us nor see New Orleans.
It just so happens that this weekend also coincides with the NBA All-Star Game that is taking place in New Orleans. This being the case, there are a large amount of fans and unbelievable traffic that is not always normal in NO except for maybe Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. During our flights in, one of our members was on a flight with Yao Ming who was flying in for the game. Pretty amazing to see a seven foot, three inch basketball player waiting for his luggage with a rather large security detail. Then as we were leaving, we saw him try to cram himself into an SUV…it did not look like the most comfortable means of travel for him, but I guess you don’t have too many options when you are that tall. Oh well, on with the rest of the trip.
We stayed the night in a little chain motel that lay between NO and the airport and then in the morning we transferred hotels to our “permanent residence” while in town: The French Quarter Townhouses. The now-nineteen of us are sharing two townhouses on the border of the French Quarter…a great location we’ve been told as long as we only walk in two directions outside of our door. After transferring to the new hotel, we had the morning and early afternoon to discover NO on our own. Splitting into smaller groups, we fanned out across the city to explore. My roommate and I took off to go and see as much of NO as we could. We hopped on the first trolley car that we could see (we found that these just reopened a few weeks ago) that took us through St. Charles St. by a collection of beautiful mansions. After heading out of town for a while, we hopped off the trolley and decided to try and head down to the water front. We ran into Magazine St and found a great collection of bars, restaurants and small boutiques. A great little part of NO that we wished that we had more time to explore. We headed through Magazine and again turned to head down to the waterfront. This time we were stopped by the breakwater and a ferry launch. So we turned to head back towards the French Quarter and stumbled upon a Walmart. Since I didn’t have my luggage, I headed inside and purchased a couple of items to get me through the day, hoping that my luggage would be found and delivered that afternoon. After our brief stop, we started our search for some lunch. Passing by all the chain stores, we found the place to eat: Deanie’s. How did we know that it would be delicious? By all the police cars and cabs parked out front. It seemed that we had chosen a great time to eat as once we stepped inside the rain started falling. Since we were roughly 4 miles away from our hotel and we were equipped with weather-proof clothes, we decided to catch a cab and meet up with the others at the hotel.
Once we were all collected at the hotel, we piled into the largest room and had our first conversation about the ideas and expectations we felt that we could deliver in the short amount of time we had. A group of us had already crafted an idea on the flight down that we felt was a great amount of work to deliver but that also opened a whole host of questions we had for Idea Village. We had a meeting scheduled with both Idea Village that was very productive and that laid the framework for our project: to create (as much as possible) a business model and plan, a collection of profiles of best practices and a list of possible funding sources. After this meeting to determine the scope of our project, the SLST group headed out to dinner to Jaques-Imo’s. Wow! This place was unbelievable. From the best cornbread muffins to interesting dishes like Rabbit Paneed, we ate very well and created fond memories of this eatery. If you are heading to New Orleans, we would definitely suggest that you make time to go and eat there. You won’t be upset. I promise.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and debriefed on our meeting that afternoon and crafted a game plan for the next morning. Once we were satisfied that we had a good plan, we split up into groups and some of us headed out on the town, some hung out and met the students we didn’t know and others headed to bed to get some rest before our first big day of work.
It just so happens that this weekend also coincides with the NBA All-Star Game that is taking place in New Orleans. This being the case, there are a large amount of fans and unbelievable traffic that is not always normal in NO except for maybe Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. During our flights in, one of our members was on a flight with Yao Ming who was flying in for the game. Pretty amazing to see a seven foot, three inch basketball player waiting for his luggage with a rather large security detail. Then as we were leaving, we saw him try to cram himself into an SUV…it did not look like the most comfortable means of travel for him, but I guess you don’t have too many options when you are that tall. Oh well, on with the rest of the trip.
We stayed the night in a little chain motel that lay between NO and the airport and then in the morning we transferred hotels to our “permanent residence” while in town: The French Quarter Townhouses. The now-nineteen of us are sharing two townhouses on the border of the French Quarter…a great location we’ve been told as long as we only walk in two directions outside of our door. After transferring to the new hotel, we had the morning and early afternoon to discover NO on our own. Splitting into smaller groups, we fanned out across the city to explore. My roommate and I took off to go and see as much of NO as we could. We hopped on the first trolley car that we could see (we found that these just reopened a few weeks ago) that took us through St. Charles St. by a collection of beautiful mansions. After heading out of town for a while, we hopped off the trolley and decided to try and head down to the water front. We ran into Magazine St and found a great collection of bars, restaurants and small boutiques. A great little part of NO that we wished that we had more time to explore. We headed through Magazine and again turned to head down to the waterfront. This time we were stopped by the breakwater and a ferry launch. So we turned to head back towards the French Quarter and stumbled upon a Walmart. Since I didn’t have my luggage, I headed inside and purchased a couple of items to get me through the day, hoping that my luggage would be found and delivered that afternoon. After our brief stop, we started our search for some lunch. Passing by all the chain stores, we found the place to eat: Deanie’s. How did we know that it would be delicious? By all the police cars and cabs parked out front. It seemed that we had chosen a great time to eat as once we stepped inside the rain started falling. Since we were roughly 4 miles away from our hotel and we were equipped with weather-proof clothes, we decided to catch a cab and meet up with the others at the hotel.
Once we were all collected at the hotel, we piled into the largest room and had our first conversation about the ideas and expectations we felt that we could deliver in the short amount of time we had. A group of us had already crafted an idea on the flight down that we felt was a great amount of work to deliver but that also opened a whole host of questions we had for Idea Village. We had a meeting scheduled with both Idea Village that was very productive and that laid the framework for our project: to create (as much as possible) a business model and plan, a collection of profiles of best practices and a list of possible funding sources. After this meeting to determine the scope of our project, the SLST group headed out to dinner to Jaques-Imo’s. Wow! This place was unbelievable. From the best cornbread muffins to interesting dishes like Rabbit Paneed, we ate very well and created fond memories of this eatery. If you are heading to New Orleans, we would definitely suggest that you make time to go and eat there. You won’t be upset. I promise.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and debriefed on our meeting that afternoon and crafted a game plan for the next morning. Once we were satisfied that we had a good plan, we split up into groups and some of us headed out on the town, some hung out and met the students we didn’t know and others headed to bed to get some rest before our first big day of work.
First Two Weeks of Spring Classes
Well, the first two weeks of school have been VERY busy - partly due to the start of classes but also due to two trips and two sets of visitors, but more on this later. So, this semester looks like it is going to be a very educational but busy semester. I am taking some great classes such as Product Design and Development in which we will create our own product – in previous years some of the products have been patented and have been very successful on the market. I just found out today that I will be working with a group trying to develop an inexpensive emergency shelter that could be easily deployed to disaster zones such as post-Katrina, New Orleans. In another class called Projects for Change, I will be helping a Harvard medical student come up with a drug distribution plan for 2 provinces in Indonesia. I will continue to fill you in on these projects as I learn more about them (it is still too early to know fully what we will be doing but once I do, you too will know). I am still waiting to hear about a project that I will be working on for another class called Laboratory for Sustainable Business (more commonly known as S-Lab). Taught by the same professors as G-Lab and System Dynamics, I feel that this will be another hard, but very educational class. The projects that are available all sound amazing and I know that it will be an awesome experience. So all together these projects, plus the continuation of my G-lab project and marketing, finance, and supply chain classes, the semester will be…busy.
On to the trips… so, last weekend Alicia and I headed down to Cold Spring Harbor, NY to visit my parents, grandparents, two brothers (and their two girlfriends), and my aunt and cousin. Quite a family reunion we had for the weekend (at least Thursday to Saturday). On Saturday, Alicia and I headed to a friend’s engagement party back in Boston. So back to Boston we went. We had a great time at the party getting to meet friends and family of the soon to be bride and groom. It will be nice at the wedding to know some of these people (at least as familiar faces). The next day, Alicia’s parents arrived for a visit. It was great to have them come and see our place and our new home city. They were supposed to stay for a couple of days, but due to a huge snowstorm coming into the area, they decided to take off a day early to head home to Michigan. We had fun with them while they were in town (a sea food dinner, a trip to the aquarium, and the celebration of Alicia’s mom and step-dad’s 13th wedding anniversary) even though Alicia was sick. On Wednesday, my parents came to town to look for a new teach abroad program (they have spent two years in Cairo, Egypt, and currently are finishing a two-year assignment in Lima, Peru). We had dinner with them and then had to say good bye as I had a ton of homework to finish before heading on the Sloan Leaders in Service Trek to New Orleans. Speaking of, for the weekend I will be writing as one of the official bloggers for the Trek. So the next couple of posts will be all about our trek down to New Orleans.
So hope you enjoy and more later…
On to the trips… so, last weekend Alicia and I headed down to Cold Spring Harbor, NY to visit my parents, grandparents, two brothers (and their two girlfriends), and my aunt and cousin. Quite a family reunion we had for the weekend (at least Thursday to Saturday). On Saturday, Alicia and I headed to a friend’s engagement party back in Boston. So back to Boston we went. We had a great time at the party getting to meet friends and family of the soon to be bride and groom. It will be nice at the wedding to know some of these people (at least as familiar faces). The next day, Alicia’s parents arrived for a visit. It was great to have them come and see our place and our new home city. They were supposed to stay for a couple of days, but due to a huge snowstorm coming into the area, they decided to take off a day early to head home to Michigan. We had fun with them while they were in town (a sea food dinner, a trip to the aquarium, and the celebration of Alicia’s mom and step-dad’s 13th wedding anniversary) even though Alicia was sick. On Wednesday, my parents came to town to look for a new teach abroad program (they have spent two years in Cairo, Egypt, and currently are finishing a two-year assignment in Lima, Peru). We had dinner with them and then had to say good bye as I had a ton of homework to finish before heading on the Sloan Leaders in Service Trek to New Orleans. Speaking of, for the weekend I will be writing as one of the official bloggers for the Trek. So the next couple of posts will be all about our trek down to New Orleans.
So hope you enjoy and more later…
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