MIT Sloan Blog

A little bit of knowledge...

My colleague, Anthony Placet, and I have had the pleasure of getting to know Professor Simon Johnson over the past couple of months. Unfortunately, the reason behind getting to know him cannot really be termed a pleasure.  Simon has been interviewing with us regularly to provide his considerable insights on the global financial crisis that has sent the economy into a tailspin.  

But however concerned and apprehensive we might be about what lies ahead, listening to Simon has provided some great perspective—and even a semblance of calm.   In addition to his considerable expertise and energy, he’s given even an economics ignoramus like me an understanding of what governments, corporations, and individuals can do to turn the tide of the crisis.   It’s also pretty cool to talk to someone who’s headed the IMF and testified before congress, especially about issues that everyone I know is debating around the water cooler (that means you, General Motors).  I truly feel like I have a bit of the inside scoop, which isn’t actually so “inside” since anyone out there can listen to Simon’s podcasts, visit the website he’s created as a forum to discuss the crisis, or watch the webcast of his special weekly class on the subject (click on video box at right).

As the ramifications of this crisis continue to surface, our regular podcast sessions with Simon will serve as a nice port in the storm.  Our conversations will also continue to provide me with ammunition to look very smart and worldly to my family and friends—at least on this one subject.

We're Baaack!

En route to a meeting across campus yesterday, I found myself standing face-to-face (or more accurately, foot-to-face) with the first signs of the new academic year's arrival. On the sidewalk--in brightly colored chalk that pleasantly accented my painful-yet-pretty summer sandals--were the words, "MIT Sloan New Student Orientation," accompanied by arrows pointing the way to the festivities.

All summer long we prepare for the students' arrival. Our office, while not directly involved in recruiting or orientation, is busy preparing publications, web features, and multimedia presentations for just those occasions. But it still comes as a bit of a surprise once the new class actually lands in Cambridge, mixing in with the second-years fresh off their summer internships and vacations.  Parking becomes scarce--or scarcer--and area restaurants become more crowded.

But along with that, there is new life in Kendall Square, a new buzz of energy, a new hum of excitement that for once has nothing to do with jackhammers and construction cranes. We get caught up in the optimism and possibility of a fresh start, the ideas and motivation are at their peak.  We've got plans here in the Office of Marketing and Communications folks, big plans.

I can't go into much detail here because it would spoil the surprise (and because my colleagues Scott, Anthony, and Tina won’t let me), but suffice it to say that it will involve some audio, some video, and a heck of a lot of students from all corners of MIT Sloan.

Anyway, as they say in the business, stay tuned. We've got some good things up our sleeves. We're excited to spend another year getting to know MIT Sloan through the eyes of its students, its faculty, and its staff.  And equally excited to show it all to you!
- Posted by Michelle Choate

Land ho

Commencement is but a week away, and a number of graduating MBAs are returning to campus from a sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands as part of a tradition for 2nd years. Here's hoping they had a safe, relaxing trip, with plenty of wind at their sails.

A nautical reference seems appropriate from my shoreside position in the Marketing and Communications Office. See, few students would liken MIT Sloan to calm seas. The water can be choppy; the wind, unpredictable and ever moving. The experience can be frenetic, taxing, and exhilarating.

Land is in sight for our graduating MBA students, and it has been quite a sail. They have survived the intense first semester core. They have forged cohesive teams among students with disparate backgrounds, expertise, and perspective. They have been instructed and inspired by faculty who play a role in shaping the real-world practice of the very topics they research.

They have heard from and met with visiting speakers who were here not only to speak but also to listen. They have traversed the globe on for-credit trips and treks that are as much a part of the learning experience as classroom lectures. They have balanced the demands of school and family and sorted out for now the possibilities of the future. They have had their share of fun, of course. And foremost they have challenged themselves and each other -- and prevailed.

My colleague Michelle Choate and I began interviewing students for our Student Stories podcast series a little over a year ago. Many of the students we interviewed at the beginning were first years, and I remember being struck by how each student had a wonderfully rich educational, personal, and professional background and how each seemed exhilarated by the present — however insanely demanding their schedule. Now, those very students are eying the future with the proud realization, I suspect, that their past here at MIT Sloan was one heck of a prologue.

Land ho, my friends. Great job!

- Posted by Scott Rolph

A river runs through ... um ... MIT

Patches of murky ice have given way to inklings of activity on the Charles. A scull here, a sailboat there, tourist-filled duckboats afloat, seagulls doing their best Greg Louganis into the rippling early spring waters. Hopeful signs of spring. Change in the air ... and as ever on campus.

Spring has sprung, and so has a lot on which we have been working here at MIT Sloan.

- We launched a redesigned MIT Sloan home page last week. Should be a lot faster, more content rich, a better representation of the breadth of activities here. The previous home page was launched in 2004, so this is very much a breath of fresh air, both in its look and feel and its use of technology. The redesigned home page is the first in a number of changes we plan to make to the website over the next year. Our goal: a website that is clear, compelling, informative, fast, optimized for any device, worthy of this great institution. Love to hear feedback (srolph -at- mit.edu). And look for more change on the horizon.

http://mitsloan.mit.edu

- We populated the MBA website with a bunch of new content. Props to my colleagues Michelle Choate and Tina McCarthy and our friends in the MBA Admissions Office (Julie, Rod, et al.). We hope the site is better organized, provides greater depth, and is more fun than its predecessor. Hey, nobody said innovation had to be boring.

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/mba

- We brought on board a new digital media specialist to take our podcast and video efforts to the next level. A big hearty welcome to Anthony Placet, who in a few short months has shown the value of having a professional multimedia editor. He has greatly enhanced our audio podcasts and is ready to begin producing videos. Look for an MIT Sloan Video Short -- Coming soon to a computer near you.

- On the podcast front, we've launched some interviews with fascinating folks of late. Student Samantha Joseph jumps out of planes and has jumped ably into business school despite her non-traditional background. Sheila Chandrasekhara is an author, b-school student, and arguably MIT Sloan's top chef. Professor Arnie Barnett makes numbers palatable and applicable to problems of the day. Check out interviews with these folks and more in iTunes or our new collection on MIT TechTV.

http://mitsloan.techtv.mit.edu

- Posted by Scott Rolph

Student Stories: Samantha Joseph

Play >>

Samantha Joseph is very comfortable leaping into the unknown. And for this skydiving instructor with a liberal arts background, business school is just that. Samantha gives her thoughts on the value of her untraditional background, her love of travel, and transitioning from parachutes to business suits.

"My staff is lazy"

Actually, my staff is brilliant, tireless, and incredibly productive (Michelle, Scott, everyone, I love ya). But the impulse to think "my staff is lazy" is one of the symptoms of overload in organizations.  Understanding overload -- and effectively addressing the problems it creates -- may ultimately be the key to saving the planet.

At MIT Sloan's first conference on strategies for sustainable business practices, Professor Rebecca Henderson gave an inspiring (and very humorous) presentation on why organizations get stuck and stay stuck. See the video and other conference materials at:

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/sustainability/ilp.php

Drawing on 20 years' experience working with large organizations, she cited examples any manager can relate to, from wearing overload as a badge of honor, to the soul-killing and productivity-destroying loops that result from constant fire-fighting. 

Highlighting emerging cross-disciplinary work with several MIT Sloan colleagues, she outlined not only the perils of overload (and why they're so intractable) but also what can be done about them -- and why it will be heartening and even fun.

Today's sustainability challenges affect more than the environment: they show up in problems of economic development and social justice and, yes, our own personal lives.  But global warming is the best known high-stakes challenge of sustainability, and the clock is ticking rapidly.  Organizations need to get unstuck and fast.

Fortunately, the challenges of sustainability also provide huge opportunities: opportunities for new businesses and business models, opportunities for new ways of thinking and for having new kinds of conversations with one another.  At the conference, participants heard stirring examples of initiatives that are working, from empowering business practices that improve lives and profits at Nike to mind-spinning possibilities from advances in materials and infrastructure.  The work being done by Professor Henderson and her colleagues brings it all home: to our work and our daily lives, and how we all benefit when we can bring more of our whole selves to the office.

I came away from the conference inspired and incredibly proud to be a part of MIT Sloan, where some of the finest minds are helping solve some of the world's most pressing problems and create extraordinary new opportunities -- all with great thoughtfulness, wit, and humanity.  I'd say more, but ... I have a few fires I have to fight right now.

- Posted by Tracy Carlson

Something to talk about

After the relative quiet of January in Cambridge, the energy that always comes with the spring semester will be a welcome change of pace. The rather large variety of conferences, trips, club events, and other professional and academic endeavors provides engagement and activity for the entire community. But for those of us working in communications, it means something equally important: content!

For us, the January lull is great for a while. It gives us time to take a breath after the mad rush to get magazines and brochures to the printer in time for Christmas delivery. We can clean out the old files and have some fun composing new intro music for our podcast series. And we get plenty of snack breaks to finish off the Harry and David goodies sent to us by our generous vendor friends.

But by the end of the month, we're itching to put pen to paper -- or fingers to keyboard -- and start producing some new stories. Luckily for us, there's a lot to talk about.

Our faithful readers can look forward to material delivered via new and old-fashioned media. On the Web front, we'll continue our Student Stories and Faculty podcast series, blogs from our students and our dean, and faculty research spotlights, as well as extended features on the many spring conferences and trips, and the infamous $100K.

First up, the Second Annual Sports Management Conference. The list of speakers for the event is extremely impressive, featuring executives from each of the 2007 championship teams in professional baseball, hockey, football, and basketball.  As numbers -- and the meaning behind them -- become more and more important to sports, this conference promises to be a must-attend.

For those who prefer "old school" media, we'll be producing several new brochures, including updated admissions and career information materials for the MBA program. And as has been our custom, we'll bid goodbye to another semester with a new issues of MIT Sloan Alumni Magazine.

Admittedly, it's hard to capture the true energy of this place on paper, the spirit of the student body. But we sure have a lot of fun trying.

- Posted by Michelle Choate

House cleaning

The MIT Sloan campus is quiet this time of year. Many students are dispersed across the globe, meeting with industry and government leaders on Treks. Some are immersed in MIT's Independent Activities Period (IAP). Others are just taking a breather. The holiday lights are down (well, most of them), and the exhilaration of New Year's Eve has spawned the lull between the year's new beginning and the real beginning -- classes begin Feb. 5.

Seems like a perfect time for a little house cleaning -- miscellaneous news, stray observations, a little of this, a little of that. So here goes, in no particular order:

• Kendall Square is quiet, but that doesn't mean students are sipping lemonade on a beach somewhere. Treks and IAP keep them plenty busy. Plus, if any students are sipping lemonade, it's well deserved considering the frenetic pace at which they go about schoolwork, activities, and the job search during the semester.

• We added a bunch of RSS Feeds to the MIT Sloan website, including feeds for press clippings, faculty publications, events, and a feed that encompasses all our feeds -- kinda like a super-size feed (without the trans fat).

• It seems like yesterday that Sloanies were huddled around TVs to watch the finale of The Apprentice Season Four to see if Randal Pinkett, a graduate of MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) Program, would win a coveted position with the Trump Organization. In contrast, this season's Apprentice -- Celebrity Apprentice -- seems awfully silly. Granted it's for charity, but I just don't view Randal Pinkett, who has a number of advanced degrees, through the same prism as Stephen Baldwin. I mean, Stephen was great in The Usual Suspects, but captain of industry he ain't.

• My podcast partner Michelle Choate and I interviewed Senior Associate Dean Alan White for a podcast episode on MIT Sloan's international initiatives. Alan is in the fortunate position to have witnessed the dramatic changes in China over the past 30 years. He traveled to China for MIT Sloan in 1979. Then, he said, there were few cars in Beijing, everyone dressed the same, and business (including business schools) was under the purview of the government. Business schools didn't even have placement offices, because the government determined the career path for all graduates. Now, well, you know. Look for the episode in a few weeks.

• Recent additions to the MIT Sloan website:
  • Internship allows MBA student Devorah Cohen to explore the business side of the entertainment industry
  • New Assistant Professor Michael Grubb offers a different take on corporate disclosure models
  • MBA student Abdur-Rahim Syed ‘peeks behind the curtains’ at eBay
  • Podcast: MBA student Megan Ford on her experience in TV and movies and her career behind the scenes
  • Recent faculty publications
• Save the date:
  
  • MIT Sloan Sports Business Conference, Feb. 9
  • MIT Private Equity Symposium, April 4
  • MIT Sloan Sales Conference, April 25
  • $100K Entrepreneurship Competition winners announced, May 14
  • Reunion 2008, June 5-8

That's it for now. Oh yeah, and classes begin Feb. 5. Did I say that already? OK, I'm ready for the spring semester.

- Posted by Scott Rolph

Web sight

Maybe you’ve noticed a number of changes on the MIT Sloan website. If not, I’ll take that as a good thing — we notice what we don’t like, assimilate what we do (hey, sounded good). We’ve initiated a number of changes to the website in the past year, among them the launching of this very blog.

Our goal, of course, is to keep pace with the ever-changing way in which folks use the Web. We thought we were in a good way back in 2004, when we completed our last major redesign. But along came blogging, feeds, podcasting, MySpace, Facebook, twitter, de.licio.us, all things Google, YouTube, and so much more. All under the rubric of Web 2.0, which I might better express as, “Web 2. ... Oh, man, how are we supposed to integrate all this stuff into our online communications?”

The answer, of course, is to do our level best. And so we have, are, and will. Among our online ventures in the past year:

• Started audio podcasts
• Set up MIT Sloan News Feed
• Transitioned the website to XHTML
• Launched the MIT Sloan Blog, student blogs, and Dean Schmittlein’s blog
• Created flickr communities for MIT Sloan student and alumni photos
• Began using the Google calendar tool
• Adopted the Google search engine

We’re not done, of course. Right now we’re developing a mobile version of the website, creating a bunch of new RSS feeds, eyeing broader use of blogs, and working to make video content more prominent on the website. Indeed, online communications work continues apace at MIT Sloan. As well it should: I attended a webinar the other day in which a speaker mentioned Web 3. ... Oh boy.

- Posted by Scott Rolph

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

A little venturing can go a long way. Just ask all those 30-somethings who emerged from the dot-com era with a king’s ransom. Those heady days are gone, of course, but entrepreneurship is still going strong. Especially at MIT, where innovation and cross-disciplinary collaboration make quite suitable bedfellows.

There’s a reason the annual MIT Venture Capital Conference attracts some 400 venture professionals, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Now in its 10th year, the conference is both a showcase for entrepreneurial thought-leadership and a stimulus for entrepreneurial connections.

This year’s conference, Nov. 30, includes presentations from Diane Greene, co-founder and CEO of VMware; Frank Moss, director of the MIT Media Lab; and Christopher Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google. Plus, an Entrepreneur Showcase (Nov. 29, open to the public) will exhibit the business vision and technological prowess of 30 early stage businesses.

Come on, you can venture a little. Check it out >>

- Posted by Scott Rolph