One of my new years resolutions for 2012 is to attend as many interesting speaking engagements as possible. Last semester, I missed some great ones (Noam Chomsky, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, etc.) because of conflicts with recruiting events. This spring, I've made it a point to attend anything that remotely interests me and I'm really glad I have!
Last Friday I attended a presentation at the MIT Media Lab from Tom Stocky, director of product at Facebook. Tom graduated from Sloan and also was an MIT undergrad and he talked about how Facebook develops its products. He distilled his presentation into five major themes and gave examples from the evolution of Facebook to illustrate these points. Even for someone who isn't interested in a career in tech, it was really engaging.
Just upstairs on the sixth floor of the Media Lab was the Sloan Women In Management (SWIM) conference. I was unable to attend the full-day event, but I heard from everyone who attended that it was really well-run, interesting, and that the panelists and speakers were inspirational. You can find more information here. Hopefully someone who attended can update us about it on this blog!
Today I attended a lunchtime chat with Stuart Davies from Sankaty Advisors (part of Bain Capital) and tomorrow I'm looking forward to hearing from Garrett Bauer. Bauer was a former prop trader at RBC and was convicted by the DoJ for insider trading. He'll be going to prison in April for a 9-11 year sentence, but before he goes, he'll be here tomorrow to talk about his experience and what he has learned.
The opportunity to hear so many people talk about their experiences in business has been one of the most rewarding parts about attending MIT Sloan. But the event I'm looking forward to most is the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. As one of the organizers, I'm still shocked at the caliber of speakers and guests we have for this unbelievable event, like Mark Cuban, Bill Simmons, Jonathan Kraft, even Drew Carey is attending! The media coverage from major outlets is astonishing. Known as the premier sports business conference in the world, this year our student volunteer organizers are taking the conference to a whole new level. If you're interested in a career in sports, I highly recommend checking out this years conference--but tickets are selling out fast!