Spreadsheet One
Classrooms
Get High-Tech Upgrade
TECHNOLOGY-GLITCH DAYS are the bad-hair days of educational institutions.
Murphy’s Law seems to apply with a vengeance to overhead projectors,
VCRs, networks, and laptops that are hooked up to classroom viewing
screens.
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Courtesy of Baker
Design Group |
The School began tackling this irritating problem more than five years
ago by testing prototype technology configurations in two classrooms
and experimentally collecting faculty feedback, says Jeff Moore, assistant
dean for computing and lecturer in computer and information systems.
Now all major classrooms are being upgraded for fall classes.
“The computer technology itself was the easiest part,” Moore says.
“Getting the human factors correct was much harder.”
Two extensively upgraded classrooms also permit electronically mediated
learning in more than one locale. Classroom 180 and the executive education
program’s classroom 160 will provide greater interface with the business
community and tools for developing distance-learning techniques. Room
180 has a full TV studio control room that supports video conferencing,
narrowcasting to other classrooms, and Web video streaming.
The new executive education room “allows faculty to bring business
speakers into their classes without requiring them to come to campus,”
says Gale Bitter, the program’s director. The technology also can connect
the classroom to another elsewhere. The intent, she adds, is to “integrate
technology so that it supports teaching without getting in the way.”
E-Tail
Optimist
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Illustration
by Harry Campbell |
CEO JEANNE JACKSON OF Walmart.com is one upbeat dot-commer. With one
foot in a strong, dominant, old-economy company and one foot in Silicon
Valley, Jackson believes she can turn a growing number of Internet users
into Internet shoppers. And, contrary to dreary reports about the fate
of e-tailing, the future looks bright for traditional brick-and-mortar
companies that are targeting the Internet as a new vehicle to reach
customers, she told Business School students spring quarter.
Fundamental to Jackson’s optimism is the belief that unprofitable sales
will no longer be tolerated and “real transactions” will result. “Being
able to buy things below cost is going to go away. Having companies
pay you to make a purchase is going to go,” she said.
Back
So Soon? You Bet They Are!
THE MOST SURPRISING THING about the first-ever first-year-out reunion
was that nobody ever thought of holding one before, says Katie Rollins,
MBA ’00, a leader in the merry band that made it all happen.
Nearly 200 of the 344 members of the Class of 2000 hied themselves
all the way from New York, Mexico, Europe, and Asia to reunite over
dinner at the Faculty Club, dancing at the Lime Light Nightclub in nearby
Mountain View, and drinks at—what else!—an LPF, held in their honor
by the MBA Class of 2001.
But it was the spontaneous events during the late April weekend that
meant the most to Rollins and her classmates—just talking with friends
or rallying the troops for a pickup soccer game with the current GSB
team (students–3, alums–1, not so surprising).
Alumni officer Lisa Brown, who stage-managed the event, is every bit
as enthusiastic. “We’re definitely going to do it again,” she says,
citing the “tremendous” turnout.
Take
That, You Sloans
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Illustration
by Harry Campbell |
EMBRACING BATTLE PLANS from Napoleon and the Union Army at Gettysburg,
the former military men and women in the MBA Program managed to annihilate
the bankers and consultants in the Sloan Program when the Sloans took
up the MBAs’ challenge to a paintball war spring quarter. It was the
second time the military minds put their training to use by auctioning
off a war to raise money for charity. Although they knew a previous
Sloan class had lost badly, the Sloans accepted the challenge despite
their inexperience with certain forms of strategic decision making.
The teams began preparations before dawn and staged seven skirmishes,
two of which were victories for the Sloans. The MBA vets eventually
put most of their forces on defense and lured the Sloans into a frontal
attack that led to their “total annihilation,” according to Rafael
Lizardi, a second-year MBA who is also a captain in the U.S. Army.
Europeans
Honor Øvlisen in London
MADS ØVLISEN, MBA ’72, who is president and CEO of the Danish
healthcare giant Novo Nordisk A/S, is the 2001 recipient of the European
Business Leadership Award, presented by the School’s Alumni Association
at the London conference last March. More than 300 people from 22
European countries participated in the three-day conference that culminated
with a banquet honoring Øvlisen. Dean Robert Joss, faculty, and alumni
presented case studies and panel discussions on topics such as Stanford’s
impact on international accounting standards, how great companies
achieve extraordinary results with ordinary people, and trends in
electronic commerce. Audio files of the sessions are available online
at www.gsb.stanford.edu/services/
news/audiovideo.html#london.
New
Ventures
Intermodal trucking is a $4 billion market focused on the logistics
of storing and trucking containers that come off ships and trains.
Most of the companies were small until Mark Fornasiero, MBA
’94, founded ROADLINK USA, a coast-to-coast operation built
by purchasing seven regional companies. Roadlink has 1,500 drivers
and owner-operators in 50 service locations. See www.
roadlinkusa.com.
When Victoria’s Secret ran a Super Bowl ad in 1999 promoting its
online streaming lingerie fashion show, millions of men went to their
computers during halftime and crashed Victoria’s Secret’s servers—taking
much of the Net down with it, according to Red Herring. Jay
Goldin, MBA ’98, hopes to solve such problems with scalable multicast
network Internet technology. Through contacts made at the School’s
Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, he cofounded DIGITAL FOUNTAIN
with Michael Luby. The firm’s technology allows a single server to
distribute rich content on demand to a corporate enterprise or a television-scale
Internet audience.
Barry Star, MBA ’84, was a small business owner whose bookkeeping
and payroll were taking too much time and whose bank was too slow
providing information. Thinking others might be frustrated too, he
founded ONECORE (www.onecore.com),
an Internet brokerage firm that provides an integrated suite of financial
services to small businesses as well as the technology to other banks
and brokerages.
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