Babson: Semester Two

25.01.12 | dataapplegoogleAmazoncloudcloud computingAlaska airlinesebscohbshbrharvard business schoolbabsonmba

I just started my second semester of graduate school at Babson. I waited until I was really ready to apply to an MBA program, until I wanted it only for me and not for my parents, for my employer, or for society. And now I have to say I love it. It feels like hope and education and fuel to me.

My econ professor apparently jokes that people go to HBS for the name and they come to Babson to learn. Still I derive joy from trolling the EBSCO database for pearls from HBR and I have to toot my own horn because HBR included a company I’d been thinking about while on holiday — Alaska Airlines (AA). I was fascinated by the fact that AA offers healthy food onboard and has its flight attendants collect all recyclables, which is more than I can say for Sir Richard Branson’s airline Virgin, despite the billionaire’s talk about fostering the search for renewable energy sources.

Alaska Airlines, though was mentioned in a different light in the Jan/Feb 2012 HBR piece entitled Creating Sustainable Performance, which notes that around 2000 AA was lagging so they decided to do something about. To oversimplify, they made the shocking decision to launch a plan that partially involved- wait for it - seeking input and suggestions from their employees and actually letting them act on those suggestions.

Today in class, though, one main message was that marketing is all about pleasing the customer and that marketing  = company strategy, apart from its various other definitions. But one point that came up that echoed one of last semester’s main messages was that one of the driving forces in big technology business these days is data. Amazon, Apple, and Google are all after consumer interests and we give up our consumer interests when we give them our virginity data.

Google Adds VMWare Co-Founder To Board

13.01.12 | VWmareGoogleEric SchmidtDiane greenemcSilicon GraphicsTandem ComputersSybaseVXtremeThe MIT Corporation

On Thursday January 12, 2012, Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant Google announced it added a new board member. Diane B. Greene, co-founder of EMC subsidiary VWware, joins both the board of directors and Google’s Audit Committee.

In a press release, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said this of the Greene: “Diane is a special person who combines a sharp business acumen with a brilliant technical mind. We know she will be a great contributor and we are grateful to have her insight.”

Greene has been on the board of Intuit since August 2006. She co-founded VMware in 1998 and led it through its IPO in 2007. She served as CEO and president of VMware from 1998 to 2008, as a board member from 2007 to 2008, and as an executive v.p. of EMC Corp. from 2005 to 2008. Before VMware, Greene held technical leadership roles at Silicon Graphics, Tandem Computers, and Sybase. Greene has also been CEO of VXtreme and is a member of The MIT Corporation.

Is Generation X Fighting Professional Adulthood?

11.01.12 | generation XJeff GordinierHIVentrepreneurshipnirvanakurt cobainthe beatles

Maybe the luxury of choice in one’s career led to the creation if a few generations that are forever searching, for with no promise of a gold watch, we just kept searching because we were allowed to be lost. Being lost does not = immaturity. I think only those that are the sole provider or craved stability over fulfillment have had a laser focus on what they wanted professionally. For those without kids, there was no reason to deal with the bureaucracy and minutia of a consistent, respectable career path. In a way  transitions are the best and worst times in life because they give one license to indulge in a chaotic, temporarily aimless existence. The real question I keep coming back to is, are we expecting too much to want both a paycheck and occasionally, professional fulfillment? Or, maybe, it’s none of the above. Maybe we are just a generation perpetually in transition.

According to Time Magazine, Generation X is “roughly defined as anyone born between 1965 and 1980.”  A few years ago, Jeff Gordinier’s book X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft But Can Still Keep Everything From Sucking was covered by Time. He ventures that the baby boomers were so vast a generation that they were the “macro” generation that waxed on endlessly about their accomplishments and admirations, from The Beatles to Woodstock. Then things changes and instead of free love, the article goes, Gen X, the “micro” generation, got HIV. Instead of The Beatles, we got both Nirvana and Britney Spears. Gen X, he alleges, is making great strides, but just doesn’t have the need to broadcast it. What the video of Gordinier doesn’t cover (perhaps his book does though) is the change in gender norms, work-life balance, and household income VS. inflation. Many women I know wouldn’t have debates and mentally beat themselves up for occasionally yelling at their kids or not being around enough if one income per household were still enough to pay the mortgage and if they truly had choices. 

Still, one could argue women and most people today have far more liberties than prior generations. If so, could that be the problem? Do we have too many options?

Click here to watch Gordinier’s video promo on the book and his take on Gen X.

Does Boston Have A Tech Startup Vibe?

31.12.11 | googlestartupfacebooksilicon valleybostonnycfoursquareBostonSan FranciscoBay Areanetwork effectbabsonincubator

I’ve spent the last two weeks of 2011 on the West Coast, first in Juneau, Alaska, and second in the Bay Area. In Palo Alto and the neighboring towns, I saw the Google campus and the Google street view cars, passed many buildings that house major tech companies, such as Salesforce.com, and spoke to locals involved in major tech deals. What they seemed to say is that the Silicon Valley is the tech hub 1) because it’s where the money is (VC mecca?) and 2) people here are optimists that truly think they can change the world.

The way I see it from a macro perspective with very little background is that the major tech startups that have the benefit of a platform/network effect, such as Facebook and Google, are based here, whereas the burgeoning NYC startup scene is home to mostly software or application companies (Foursquare) that sit on top of Facebook or other networks, hence the network effect.

This made me wonder: where are the software and Web startups in Boston? We have amazing startups based in the Boston area like Zipcar, Constant Contact, Clover, Rue La La, and Living Proof, to name a few, but are we lacking when it comes to startups, specifically tech-based startups that aren’t hardware-based?

Boston has brains abound and access to money in Boston and New York but a need for a bit more risk appetite and confidence. I find people have a chip on their shoulders when Boston is compared to NYC and San Fran but there’s no need to compare. Boston is about four seasons, academia, and incubator labs. It’s about succeeding because of your passion and brain not your connections alone. I think the key is keeping innovators in Boston instead of losing them to NYC and the Silicon Valley.