That America is truly a melting pot of culture I witnessed yesterday, when a fellow GLOBEr invited a number us to her home. Hailing from India, her family celebrated Navratri (literally "Nine Nights"), a Hindi festival dedicated to the deity Durga. So after Monday classes, a 10 minute drive took us to her parent's house for Hindu culture, Indian tradition, and delicious Indian food.
Hinduism is, at least for a European, a potpourri of terms, traditions, deities, and beliefs. Rather than being a clearly defined religion from a distinct origin, vis-a-vis Christianity, it can be viewed as an umbrella organization of beliefs and traditions, and is more a way of life than a distinct religion (although most religions would argue that they themselves are ways of life). Hinduism grants freedom of beliefs and worship. The central figure is the individual, whose role it is to discover their own answers. Many Hindu's believe in some form of eternity for the soul, ultimately derived from Brahman, a universal spirit that creates and upholds all matter, energy, time and space. Some Hindu's believe that Brahman and the soul are indistinguishable, while others personify Brahman and worship these deities. A woman at Navratri told me that these personifications were once used to educate the general public in order to conceptualise ideas and morals, and they have subsequently become prominent figures in poetry, art, sculptures, and culture.
The personifications of Brahman are subdivided into the general functions of the Universe: creation, maintenance, and destruction, personified by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva respectively. They are known as the Trimurti. From here it gets complicated. A pantheon of deities (deva in Sanskrit, often called Suras) exist, each with different roles, accomplishments, and ideals, but unlike the Greek gods, they are essentially all expansions of Brahman, the universal spirit, into various forms. They fight against the Asuras, who are demons or opponents, thus ensuring order and balance in the Universe.
As we are greeted at the door, the ceremony has already begun. In the living room a small shrine with a painting of a woman (Durga) is decorated with flowers and candles, and on the floor in front are 3 Indian women wearing saris, one of whom is my friend, sitting on the floor and chanting in Sanskrit. Around them are 15 GLOBErs, sitting on couches or on the floor, listening and observing. I drop down beside them, cross my legs, and try to get an idea of what is happening.
It reminded me of the Danish tradition of dancing around the Christmas tree. Each person had a little leaflet of songs and chants, and in the space of 75 minutes they completed 4 of them. The songs were stories of Durga, somewhat similar to a bardic poetry, while others were prayers and blessings to various deities. Between each chant, the family was helpful in trying to explain what was happening, and with the continuous influx of Indian friends of the family, it became quite a powerful vocal ensemble.
The best song (by rhythm and pace) was about Durga and her slaying of an Asura named Mahishasura. Of the Trimurti, Shiva is the destroyer and thus tasked with defeating the Asura, but Mahishasura had the power to not be defeated by any man. Shiva realised this and asked his wife, Parvati, to take the form of a goddess warrior to slay the Asura. She emerged as Durga, fought and defeated Mahishasura, and hence became known as Mahishasura mardini, the slayer of Mahishasura. Although I understood absolutely nothing of what was happening, the final line of each stanza was "Jaya jaya hey mahishasura mardini..." and then some more. I took that to mean something along the lines of "Halleluja, hail the Mahishasura slayer", and thus happily chanted along every time a stanza finished.
After singing and chanting, the night finished off with more small traditions (such as circling a light in front of the shrine 3 times and eating a sweet rice pudding, an offering) before a banquet of food was served. Everything was vegetarian, not too spicy, in over-abundance (naturally), and truly delicious. A spicy, pepper soup with yoghurt was my favourite. It was also the first time I had home-made chapathis, a flour pancake somewhat like a tortilla, since I was 9 and lived in Tanzania, and was therefore somewhat of a walk down memory lane.
The family have spent much of their life in America, and thus this was a chance to see how Indian culture was being passed on to the next generation, both adapting and preserving it. With the final presidential debate running on TV and 15 GLOBErs eagerly engaged, it seemed less Indian than I imagined. But scratching under the surface, I found that traditions are hard to break - a newly engaged couple told me of their life change and how much is still governed by family relations and expectations. But everything they needed to make it work was already in America.
The day after, as I walked home from dinner, I saw 20 Indian men playing a cricket match on the school's astroturf pitch, with another 60 rowdily cheering. I stood around and watched a couple of overs, pondering on how American diversity truly lets subcultures thrive. With the eruption of the crowd after a huge boundary, I turned and trudged home smiling, feeling that I had found something special, a glimpse of what America really is.
lørdag den 27. oktober 2012
søndag den 21. oktober 2012
Remembrance
The final study trip of GLOBE VI took us to Washington D.C. for 5 days over our fall break. We spent our days at corporate and governmental visits and our nights at social events. I thought this was one of the better study trips, both from quality of visits and social impact on our group. An example was wandering around D.C on Saturday in a group of 6. On the first study trip, this group would be comprised of students from a single school. This time all schools were represented. Our leisurely walking tour took us from Lincoln Memorial, via a host of other memorials, to the Smithsonian where I spent a happy 2 hours being 8 years old again and roaming around the National Air and Space museum.
The highlight of the tour was, surprisingly, the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Located a stone's throw from the Lincoln Memorial, it is comprised of 15-or-so life-size steel statues of soldiers in a triangular shrub area. On one side is a wall with pictures of soldiers and civilians, and at the top of the triangle there is a flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes and a reflection pool. The memorial was busy, but still small in comparison to the majestic Lincoln monument we had come from, and the lack of information about a war I know little about left me without any strong impression or a feeling of attachment towards the memorial.
Out of nowhere, an old man in full uniform stepped up to the flagpole. He created a little space from the crowd in front of him, raised a gleaming bugle into the afternoon sun, and started to play. I felt a wave of emotion wash over me as I watched old veterans climb out of their wheelchairs, stand tall and proud, and with gruff, time-worn hands salute their flag. A handful of younger officers, family, and friends did the same. For 45 seconds, the bustling crowd of people stopped in their tracks, turned their head, and paid their respects. After the final tune had faded, the camaraderie evaporated, veterans once again became old men and sank tired into their wheelchairs, and the crowd continued as if nothing had happened.
I attribute my emotional reaction to a mixture of shameful ignorance, as well as humbleness towards extraordinary human hardship. The men in front of me were no older than I am when they were shipped of to the other side to the world to fight in a proxy war between the capitalist Allies and the communists of North Korea, the Soviet Union, and China. Although I have no contemplation of their individual stories, my initial indifference towards their contribution was duly put to shame. Seeing their emotions was enough to trigger mine.
Wars should be remembered, the people fighting them even more so. With the passing of Harry Patch, the last known surviving soldier from the WWI trenches, the "war to end all wars" has passed from memory to history. Educating the next generation on past horrors becomes increasingly difficult as the concept of war becomes increasingly abstract. The focus shifts to numbers rather than people, to macro-level goals and objectives rather than micro-level suffering and hardship. Books such as "Flanders fields" and monuments such as the Menin Gate make an attempt, but the apathy towards words such as "the Somme", "Ypres", and "salient", as compared to words such as "Auschwitz" and "Srebrenica", reflect the general ignorance of my generation towards wars no longer remembered.
As we continued our cultural tour of Washington D.C, we passed Thomas Jefferson's Memorial. A commanding statue gazes towards the Washington Memorial under a grandiose dome, with the sides decorated with his views and ideas on government, religion, and human liberties. We can easily sympathise with the notion that "men... are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these are ... liberty", and we would do well to remember what has been done before us. A simple stone plaque at the Korean War Veterans Memorial read: "Freedom Is Not Free". Remembrance is.
The highlight of the tour was, surprisingly, the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Located a stone's throw from the Lincoln Memorial, it is comprised of 15-or-so life-size steel statues of soldiers in a triangular shrub area. On one side is a wall with pictures of soldiers and civilians, and at the top of the triangle there is a flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes and a reflection pool. The memorial was busy, but still small in comparison to the majestic Lincoln monument we had come from, and the lack of information about a war I know little about left me without any strong impression or a feeling of attachment towards the memorial.
Out of nowhere, an old man in full uniform stepped up to the flagpole. He created a little space from the crowd in front of him, raised a gleaming bugle into the afternoon sun, and started to play. I felt a wave of emotion wash over me as I watched old veterans climb out of their wheelchairs, stand tall and proud, and with gruff, time-worn hands salute their flag. A handful of younger officers, family, and friends did the same. For 45 seconds, the bustling crowd of people stopped in their tracks, turned their head, and paid their respects. After the final tune had faded, the camaraderie evaporated, veterans once again became old men and sank tired into their wheelchairs, and the crowd continued as if nothing had happened.
I attribute my emotional reaction to a mixture of shameful ignorance, as well as humbleness towards extraordinary human hardship. The men in front of me were no older than I am when they were shipped of to the other side to the world to fight in a proxy war between the capitalist Allies and the communists of North Korea, the Soviet Union, and China. Although I have no contemplation of their individual stories, my initial indifference towards their contribution was duly put to shame. Seeing their emotions was enough to trigger mine.
Wars should be remembered, the people fighting them even more so. With the passing of Harry Patch, the last known surviving soldier from the WWI trenches, the "war to end all wars" has passed from memory to history. Educating the next generation on past horrors becomes increasingly difficult as the concept of war becomes increasingly abstract. The focus shifts to numbers rather than people, to macro-level goals and objectives rather than micro-level suffering and hardship. Books such as "Flanders fields" and monuments such as the Menin Gate make an attempt, but the apathy towards words such as "the Somme", "Ypres", and "salient", as compared to words such as "Auschwitz" and "Srebrenica", reflect the general ignorance of my generation towards wars no longer remembered.
As we continued our cultural tour of Washington D.C, we passed Thomas Jefferson's Memorial. A commanding statue gazes towards the Washington Memorial under a grandiose dome, with the sides decorated with his views and ideas on government, religion, and human liberties. We can easily sympathise with the notion that "men... are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these are ... liberty", and we would do well to remember what has been done before us. A simple stone plaque at the Korean War Veterans Memorial read: "Freedom Is Not Free". Remembrance is.
lørdag den 13. oktober 2012
Wharton Undergraduate Case Competition
Together with a fellow GLOBEr and three other UNC students, I was selected to represent UNC at a case competition at Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. 18 teams from 12 different school were invited to participate. Although I have exams coming up, with the opportunity to try myself out against schools such as Harvard, Yale, Wharton and NYU, the chance to see Philadelphia and another US campus, and the solemn pride of being selected to represent the school, I accepted.
A case competition is an attempt to compete at business and hone skills such as critical thinking, team work, and presentation skills. A company (in this case Ernst and Young, an big accounting / consulting firm) writes a 10 page "case", a real-life example of a problem that a company has. You and your team then have to solve this problem by a deadline (here Friday at 9 AM, so some 60 hours from the time the case was released), and then present your findings and answer questions in front of a panel of judges. Even to the untrained "caser", a couple of points stand out. 1) The limited amount of time often means that there is very little diminishing returns to work - ie more work = better chance of winning. So sleep is often a luxury in this time frame. 2) There is never a single "correct" solution to a case. Because it is taken from the real world, a good solution is often an analysis of choices faced by the firm, and then arguing which option is the better.
This case was about the problem of a post-merger integration of two large wealth management companies (fascinating, right?). Essentially the company had problems with certain technologies after the integration, and found it difficult to pass information around the company. There were NO given numbers apart from the overall size of the company (normally you get an overview of their costs, revenues, profits, and how they spend their money). The problem posed was to create a "strategic blueprint" for 3-5 years of how the company could be better integrated - essentially how could the company better use the skills of its people, and how would we structure the flow of its information. This was qualitative, strategic, and without any numbers. My group worked hard and put in the hours needed. Our analysis was strong, our slide deck was professional, and our structure was coherent. So by Friday morning as we were driving to the airport, we all had a good feeling.
We didn't even make the final round. The anticlimax was unbearable, but that's competition. After the initial disappointment, I felt good about my effort and thought I had put up a good fight. We did well, but we were beaten by someone better. So although not having slept more than 3 out of the past 35 hours, I was content with helping myself to free tuna sandwiches and browsing around the consulting conference that was also on, looking forward to seeing the finalists and learn from someone better.
But the finalists were dire. They did well on most areas, coming up with interesting solutions and making it clear that they too had worked. But on so many other levels they disappointed me.´One was their PowerPoint, which looked like it had been made in an hour (I am no wizard at PPT, but I will definitely admit that it hurts my credibility. Luckily our group had other people with such talents). But it was mainly the lack of critique of their own assumptions. Groups said stuff like: "You should reinvent your organization", when talking about a hypothetical firm owning 35% of the market share and managing assets over $1 trillion, or "implementing this idea will cost you $3.5 billion dollars, but will definitely payoff in the long-run", when we were never told the composition of the company (so no idea where he got the 3.5 billion from), which ultimately showed when he didn't give a figure of the actual impact. Just assuming your idea is going to pay off is grasping at straws. Other moronic statements were: "this idea will improve efficiency by 99,5%" and "hiring midlevel managers will eliminate any problems of communication between the company's 800 offices". Some people did attempt to construct numbers (such as costs of acquiring a product; we did that) if these prices are available online, but then their calculations were poor. The cost of putting all your data into the cloud is not simply the cost of running the servers. You have to factor in license-fees, security, training of your employees if the program is different, and transferring hard data to the cloud, just to name a few. And then you cannot assume that it be implemented by tomorrow. I mean come on.
All case competition solutions have flaws, ours included. But the aim is to provide the most feasible solution, effectively showing how much information you can encompass without losing your chain of thought. From what I saw, I was not impressed. I did not feel I had lost to better opponents. So at the networking session afterwards, I spent my time soul-searching, as well as asking questions to try and understand their line of thought in order to improve for future cases.
My main take-away was "know your audience" and that case competitions also include luck. Ernst and Young is an accounting firm, but this case was written by IT-consulting (never knew). I also found out that the 2 judges in my room (there were several rooms of judges) were both Ph.D. statisticians. Speaking about knowledge transfer and corporate culture just didn't resonate with them. They would rather forgive a bad assumption and reward a line of thought that had data than reward a more feasible line of thought without data. The judge kept saying he wanted to know "how much" we would gain by creating a better platform for knowledge transfer, and I kept saying that with the data provided, his guess was as good as mine. It was like asking how much revenue will I get if I invest in R&D? I can tell you based on industry average (none exist for wealth management knowledge teams btw), or what the past 5 years have shown, but I can never tell you how much you will make by starting to invest in R&D now. Especially without numbers.
Apart from that it was an up-and-down experience. The networking event was a joke; companies sent people who hadn't even read the case and then proceeded to ask questions about how it was. If you are going to represent your company then at least seem like you are prepared. The worst moment was when a young woman who had been hired in September proceeded to tell me that "she had not expected more from an undergraduate competition, that she was sure I did well and tried my best, and the competition is a great learning experience for us all about the real world". Another point was that none of the finalists were Ivy League. I guess that makes them beatable - good to know.:) I also strolled around their beautiful campus, had dinner and drinks with 5 GLOBErs from previous batches (most of whom work for BCG), and made good friends with those who had been through this ordeal with me. Perhaps next time we'll make it a bit further.
A case competition is an attempt to compete at business and hone skills such as critical thinking, team work, and presentation skills. A company (in this case Ernst and Young, an big accounting / consulting firm) writes a 10 page "case", a real-life example of a problem that a company has. You and your team then have to solve this problem by a deadline (here Friday at 9 AM, so some 60 hours from the time the case was released), and then present your findings and answer questions in front of a panel of judges. Even to the untrained "caser", a couple of points stand out. 1) The limited amount of time often means that there is very little diminishing returns to work - ie more work = better chance of winning. So sleep is often a luxury in this time frame. 2) There is never a single "correct" solution to a case. Because it is taken from the real world, a good solution is often an analysis of choices faced by the firm, and then arguing which option is the better.
This case was about the problem of a post-merger integration of two large wealth management companies (fascinating, right?). Essentially the company had problems with certain technologies after the integration, and found it difficult to pass information around the company. There were NO given numbers apart from the overall size of the company (normally you get an overview of their costs, revenues, profits, and how they spend their money). The problem posed was to create a "strategic blueprint" for 3-5 years of how the company could be better integrated - essentially how could the company better use the skills of its people, and how would we structure the flow of its information. This was qualitative, strategic, and without any numbers. My group worked hard and put in the hours needed. Our analysis was strong, our slide deck was professional, and our structure was coherent. So by Friday morning as we were driving to the airport, we all had a good feeling.
We didn't even make the final round. The anticlimax was unbearable, but that's competition. After the initial disappointment, I felt good about my effort and thought I had put up a good fight. We did well, but we were beaten by someone better. So although not having slept more than 3 out of the past 35 hours, I was content with helping myself to free tuna sandwiches and browsing around the consulting conference that was also on, looking forward to seeing the finalists and learn from someone better.
But the finalists were dire. They did well on most areas, coming up with interesting solutions and making it clear that they too had worked. But on so many other levels they disappointed me.´One was their PowerPoint, which looked like it had been made in an hour (I am no wizard at PPT, but I will definitely admit that it hurts my credibility. Luckily our group had other people with such talents). But it was mainly the lack of critique of their own assumptions. Groups said stuff like: "You should reinvent your organization", when talking about a hypothetical firm owning 35% of the market share and managing assets over $1 trillion, or "implementing this idea will cost you $3.5 billion dollars, but will definitely payoff in the long-run", when we were never told the composition of the company (so no idea where he got the 3.5 billion from), which ultimately showed when he didn't give a figure of the actual impact. Just assuming your idea is going to pay off is grasping at straws. Other moronic statements were: "this idea will improve efficiency by 99,5%" and "hiring midlevel managers will eliminate any problems of communication between the company's 800 offices". Some people did attempt to construct numbers (such as costs of acquiring a product; we did that) if these prices are available online, but then their calculations were poor. The cost of putting all your data into the cloud is not simply the cost of running the servers. You have to factor in license-fees, security, training of your employees if the program is different, and transferring hard data to the cloud, just to name a few. And then you cannot assume that it be implemented by tomorrow. I mean come on.
All case competition solutions have flaws, ours included. But the aim is to provide the most feasible solution, effectively showing how much information you can encompass without losing your chain of thought. From what I saw, I was not impressed. I did not feel I had lost to better opponents. So at the networking session afterwards, I spent my time soul-searching, as well as asking questions to try and understand their line of thought in order to improve for future cases.
My main take-away was "know your audience" and that case competitions also include luck. Ernst and Young is an accounting firm, but this case was written by IT-consulting (never knew). I also found out that the 2 judges in my room (there were several rooms of judges) were both Ph.D. statisticians. Speaking about knowledge transfer and corporate culture just didn't resonate with them. They would rather forgive a bad assumption and reward a line of thought that had data than reward a more feasible line of thought without data. The judge kept saying he wanted to know "how much" we would gain by creating a better platform for knowledge transfer, and I kept saying that with the data provided, his guess was as good as mine. It was like asking how much revenue will I get if I invest in R&D? I can tell you based on industry average (none exist for wealth management knowledge teams btw), or what the past 5 years have shown, but I can never tell you how much you will make by starting to invest in R&D now. Especially without numbers.
Apart from that it was an up-and-down experience. The networking event was a joke; companies sent people who hadn't even read the case and then proceeded to ask questions about how it was. If you are going to represent your company then at least seem like you are prepared. The worst moment was when a young woman who had been hired in September proceeded to tell me that "she had not expected more from an undergraduate competition, that she was sure I did well and tried my best, and the competition is a great learning experience for us all about the real world". Another point was that none of the finalists were Ivy League. I guess that makes them beatable - good to know.:) I also strolled around their beautiful campus, had dinner and drinks with 5 GLOBErs from previous batches (most of whom work for BCG), and made good friends with those who had been through this ordeal with me. Perhaps next time we'll make it a bit further.
søndag den 7. oktober 2012
Academic entrepreneurship
2 of my 4 courses this first half of the semester are based on entrepreneurship. The hands-on approach, the obvious and direct link to the real world, and the positive reputation of the teachers made me really interested, but there were some things they forget to mention.
The two courses have very different foci: The challenging GLOBE class, Global Venturing, essentially wants us to build a business model from the ground up. The other, Entrepreneurial Consulting, pairs teams of students with an existing company, who use many of their tools, research, and time, to help the company out. On paper, this looks like a great opportunity to develop skills in an area which often flies under the radar in business schools more focussed on corporatism. There is a reason why that happens though:
Two main points stand out. First, there is a severe conflict of interest between working for a real-life client, but being graded by a professor (entrepreneurial consulting). Of course the professor is involved throughout the course, but while we are trying to discover some issues for our client, if our professor thinks those ideas are bad, we are most likely going to discard them. Conversely, if he likes something which we feel is odd or not really optimal, we'll include anyway. This conflict has been apparent since day 1. We were supposed to interview 1 person about our product to provide some data for class. Our group quickly figured that the response of 1 person would tell us exactly nothing about the market of our product, so we did some market research online instead, and started drawing up some exploratory questionnaires. When we got to class, we sat for 75 minutes and listened to a class of 30 people all described their single interview. A company whose product cleaned industrial pipes got great ratings and a solid forecast from the interviewers 19 year old room mate (who had no clue what was going on). That was great work - we had communication issues, since we hadn't done the research we were told to do. Because our professor has a structured framework for our course, we were a liability to his grading system, even though our client would benefit more from our work. Last week we had the first of 3 deliverables, and with hard work and some appeasement, we come out with good reviews.
Second, global venturing (the other course) shows the issue of "creating an idea". We have had several discussions on what "entrepreneurship" means, and it can encompass several stages of a start-up. Few people in our class were idea-generators, where a lot of people were idea-executors. Both are needed in a start-up. Unfortunately, my group failed to produce a great idea (let alone one that might actually be a marketable product) in the few days we had for that assignment. Therefore we got stuck with a lousy idea, but have to develop a whole business model around it. Thus our team (including myself) struggle to find motivation and dedication to a school project, rather than a potential venture. It seems to me that while your can teach modelling and structure in a classroom, idea generation tends to come from outside the business school.
The next 9 days are going to have exactly 0% blogging - two exams + a group paper of 30 pages needs to be written. Furthermore I am heading to Wharton on Friday with 4 other UNC students to represent the school in a case competition. Too much? Perhaps. A memorable experience? Definitely!
The two courses have very different foci: The challenging GLOBE class, Global Venturing, essentially wants us to build a business model from the ground up. The other, Entrepreneurial Consulting, pairs teams of students with an existing company, who use many of their tools, research, and time, to help the company out. On paper, this looks like a great opportunity to develop skills in an area which often flies under the radar in business schools more focussed on corporatism. There is a reason why that happens though:
Two main points stand out. First, there is a severe conflict of interest between working for a real-life client, but being graded by a professor (entrepreneurial consulting). Of course the professor is involved throughout the course, but while we are trying to discover some issues for our client, if our professor thinks those ideas are bad, we are most likely going to discard them. Conversely, if he likes something which we feel is odd or not really optimal, we'll include anyway. This conflict has been apparent since day 1. We were supposed to interview 1 person about our product to provide some data for class. Our group quickly figured that the response of 1 person would tell us exactly nothing about the market of our product, so we did some market research online instead, and started drawing up some exploratory questionnaires. When we got to class, we sat for 75 minutes and listened to a class of 30 people all described their single interview. A company whose product cleaned industrial pipes got great ratings and a solid forecast from the interviewers 19 year old room mate (who had no clue what was going on). That was great work - we had communication issues, since we hadn't done the research we were told to do. Because our professor has a structured framework for our course, we were a liability to his grading system, even though our client would benefit more from our work. Last week we had the first of 3 deliverables, and with hard work and some appeasement, we come out with good reviews.
Second, global venturing (the other course) shows the issue of "creating an idea". We have had several discussions on what "entrepreneurship" means, and it can encompass several stages of a start-up. Few people in our class were idea-generators, where a lot of people were idea-executors. Both are needed in a start-up. Unfortunately, my group failed to produce a great idea (let alone one that might actually be a marketable product) in the few days we had for that assignment. Therefore we got stuck with a lousy idea, but have to develop a whole business model around it. Thus our team (including myself) struggle to find motivation and dedication to a school project, rather than a potential venture. It seems to me that while your can teach modelling and structure in a classroom, idea generation tends to come from outside the business school.
The next 9 days are going to have exactly 0% blogging - two exams + a group paper of 30 pages needs to be written. Furthermore I am heading to Wharton on Friday with 4 other UNC students to represent the school in a case competition. Too much? Perhaps. A memorable experience? Definitely!
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