Our blog follows the elective Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability as class members explore ways to manufacture products to meet the needs of customers in the developing world. Details
Bermont on Design and Leadership
"I see now that designers are people who can make information emotional and visceral, who can make a bigger impact by thoughtfully marrying form and content. … To make their points they use a toolkit far more expansive than the typical tools of business, like spreadsheets revealing the bottom line or well-reasoned emails. They solve problems with their hands and their hearts, not just a keyboard and reasoning."
Becky Bermont, MBA '05, is vice president for Media + Partners at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she explores models for collaboration between industry and academia. Bermont writes the blog "Redesigning Leadership" with RISD's president, John Maeda.
"My grandfather was a people person. He was outgoing and gregarious... He wasn’t a better farmer than anyone else in town, but he had this entrepreneurial and interpersonal dimension that few others had."
—Dean Robert L. Joss discusses what made his grandfather unique
Call For a Constitutional Convention
"Our [California] Constitution has been amended more than 500 times, leaving it more like the Winchester Mystery House—with rooms and stairways leading nowhere—than a well-reasoned structure of governance. In this system nothing can get done."
—Lenny Mendonca, MBA ’87, director at McKinsey and Co. in San Francisco and chairman of the Bay Area Council, advocates a constitutional convention for California, in an opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle.
What Do We Value?
Who defines what you value? Of course, we would love to think that we alone define our own sense of value. But, it shouldn't surprise you to know that — on a global basis — our definition of what's important is incredibly influenced by statisticians and economists using the equivalent of an abacus to define human progress in the 21st century.
—Chip Conley, MBA '84, founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, writing in the Huffington Post.
A World of Photos
"In addition to photography serving as an artistic pleasure, it also serves as a mechanism for brainstorming with a huge population of people.”
—Steve Jurvetson, MBA ’95, managing director of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, in a March interview. He authors a photo blog, Jurvetson's
Photostream. He holds both MBA and electrical engineering degrees from Stanford.
Things I Believe
"In organizational life, you can have influence over others or you can have freedom from others, but you can't have both at the same time."
—Robert Sutton, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Business School and professor of management science at the Stanford Engineering school, from "15 Things I Believe," on his blog site.
Voices
What they're saying at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
A digest of speeches, blogs, videos, and essays from the GSB community.
Back From the Brink
"What happened in the world economy is something that happens every 100 or 120 years; it was completely unexpected. … If what you did was an error, there has to be a change in management. But if it was an act of God, and it wasn't your fault, why? I believe that in many companies [fired execs are] sacrificial lambs, to make it look as if you're doing something when you're not. When you're in a crisis, changing management is a false move."
—Lorenzo Zambrano, MBA '68, longtime chairman and CEO of Cemex, in a Q&A with Business Week, his first since he brought the world's third largest cement producer back from last year's financial crisis.
- More: Zambrano was profiled in Stanford Business magazine in 2008. A major humanitarian, he received two of the Business School's highest honors: the Excellence in Leadership Award and the Arbuckle Award.
In Investing, Two Heads Are Better Than One
"In a complicated task involving critical decisions, working with good partners and listening to them is almost always better that working alone. Somehow, the group process ensures that most bad ideas are weeded out, even if their owners shout and cajole, while ideas that make sense influence the group's opinion, even if their owners speak softly."
—Avner Mandelman, MBA '76, director of Venator Capital Management, writing in the Globe and Mail about applying a lesson he learned at the GSB to his investment strategy.
After the Wall
"I was helping Fox News produce a documentary marking the 15th anniversary of [Reagan's] Berlin Wall address. After the day's shooting, [anchorman Tony] Snow and I walked through the Brandenburg Gate to the former East Berlin, a place that once appeared drab and lifeless but now pulsed with color and energy. In a building that had once housed a branch of the old Communist government, Snow and I discovered a particularly vivid demonstration of the victory of free markets: a Rolls-Royce dealership."
—Peter Robinson, MBA '90, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former presidential speechwriter, reflecting in Forbes about the speech he drafted for President Reagan, urging "Mr. Gorbachev" to "tear down this wall."
Business Recovery Tips
"Is it possible that we have weathered the worst of the storm? While there is no doubt that times will remain tough for a while, smart business leaders are beginning to think about what will come next, and how to be ready to make the most of it."
– Paul Staelin, MBA '01, vice president of Birst, a provider of business analytics software, writing in destinationCRM about business recovery in 2010.
Anything Goes?
"When does something splashed on Facebook or broadcast via Twitter become bad for my company? The problem is not with my staff but with me. Specifically, photos that I posted on my Facebook page [pictured at right] in September after returning from Burning Man, the weeklong anything-goes festival. Yes, I know it isn't the typical CEO getaway. That's part of the problem."
– Chip Conley, MBA '84, CEO and founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels, asks readers of BNET a burning question about corporate behavior in an era when anything goes – or does it?
Americans and Their Leaders
"Americans still believe in the power of leadership. If they have lost faith, ¼ it's about the current crop of individuals in leadership roles that seem to be driving their disenchantment and dismay – not the idea that leaders can make a difference."
– Roderick Kramer, the William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior, in the Washington Post blog "On Leadership."Kramer is currently a visiting professor at Harvard.
- More: In 2001, Kramer talked to Stanford Business about developing a new course on leadership.
India's Slums Are Key to Economic Success
"It may be precisely the fact that India's rich and poor live side by side that makes many Indian urban areas such productive drivers of economic development, in contrast to many areas in the West where the poor live in economically segregated neighbourhoods or even 'projects' set up in the name of urban renewal."
– Saumitra Jha, GSB assistant professor of political economy, in an opinion piece for the Indian Express.
Engineering, Regulatory Framework Key to UK's Future
"In recent decades, the UK has moved away from high-volume manufacturing and towards specialised high-tech manufacturing and knowledge-based services. ... Engineers can help ensure that the economy exploits this evolution. ... But the government must play its part. … We need a robust but enabling regulatory framework to encourage the development of new industries. We need encouragement for investors to keep the ideas, businesses and skilled people here in the UK."
– Lord Browne of Madingley, Sloan '81, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, writing in the Engineer.
Nobel Laureate Alumnus on Corporate Governance
"I have no doubt that the economics of governance is influential in significant measure because it does speak to real world phenomena and invites empirical testing. ... All feasible forms of organization are flawed, and ... we need to understand the trade-offs that are going on, the factors that are responsible for using one form of governance rather than another, the strengths and weaknesses that are associated with each of them."
– Oliver Williamson, MBA '60, professor emeritus at UC-Berkeley's Haas School of Business, in his first interview after learning he would receive the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm."
Hackers Pose Threat to New Technologies
"Now, with the advent of what some technologists call the 'internet of things,' we are encountering a new wave of hacking, one that encompasses not only wired computers and networks, but also intelligent devices including smart phones, routers and switches, printers, smart grid components, supervisory control and data acquisition systems, and even medical devices. . . . It is becoming clear that hacking's latest surge will almost certainly include terrorist cyber strikes against the smart grid, which is a danger that can no longer be dismissed as a spy movie scenario."
– Kurt Stammberger, Sloan '05, in the September 2009 issue of Embedded Computing Design. He is VP of marketing at Mocana and chairs the security working group for the IP for Small Objects (IPSO) Alliance.
Markets Emerge and Grow
"The term 'emerging markets' is obsolete. They represent half of the world's economy; their financial markets are large and liquid, with volatility, corporate governance, and government policies very similar to those of developed markets. . . . There is, however, one measure that highlights a clear and continuing distinction between emerging and developed markets: growth."
– Marco Dimitrijevic MBA '85, in the Financial Times. He is founder and chief investment officer of Everest Capital.
Country Built on Entrepreneurs
"Our prosperity depends on innovative thinking. Instead of bailing out behemoths that are 'too big to fail,' we must remember that mom-and-pop businesses, garage start-ups, and small ventures are the reason we succeed."
– Amy Wilkinson, MBA '02, blogging in USA Today. She was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center until August 2009 and is now a senior fellow at Harvard.
A Different Kind of Government Bailout
California "requires retailers to purchase beer and wine from single sources, i.e., monopolies that set prices and delivery schedules. . . . We do not need bailouts. What we need is bail to set us free from the overabundance of laws that bind and imprison us in inefficient, arcane, inequitable and costly regulatory constraints and mandates."
– Lennie Copeland, MBA '79, in the Redding Record Searchlight. Copeland owns theOno Store and International Cafe in rural northwestern California
The Harsh Truth About Startups
"I can't tell you how frequently teams of three business school students tell me they're going to start the next great consumer internet company. When I point out that they're all business people and wonder who's going to build the product, they almost always fall back on 'we'll get a couple of undergrads to do it,' or, 'we'll outsource it.' If I hear either one of those, I know the startup's already dead. Sorry, folks. Harsh, but probably true."
—Seth Sternberg, MBA Class of 2006, blogging about how to do a startup, on TechCrunch. CEO Sternberg is one of three cofounders of Meebo. He's the business guy; the other two are techies.
- More at Stanford Business magazine
A Conservative Argument for Amtrak
"Passenger rail, Amtrak in particular, has been a conservative whipping boy for decades. This point of view needs serious reexamination, because national transportation strategy is an issue of U.S. national competitiveness, and passenger rail has a significant role to play. ... In the passenger transportation world, conservatives have lost their way with the libertarian mantra of 'let the free market work,' as though this absolves them of wrestling with the real details of real problems."
— Former Amtrak CEO, Alex Kummant, MBA '90, writing in the internet publication "American Thinker"
Management by Blogging
"It seems we learn over and over with new communication channels that human behavior is strikingly constant. People who misbehave are the exception rather than the rule, no matter the medium."
—Becky Bermont, MBA '05, vice president of media and partners at the Rhode Island School of Design, in a Aug. 26, 2009, public blog about a private management blog at the school
Privatization Urged in Gulf Cooperation Council
"Many of the major companies in the Gulf continue to be government-owned despite a few successful privatisation initiatives. Governments would do well to open more of their prized assets to private capital in order to benefit from enhanced accountability and efficiency that comes with private sector involvement."
—Fawzi Jumean, MBA '05, executive vice president for the lower Gulf region at Amwal AlKhaleej, a Middle East and North Africa private-equity firm, writing Sept. 6, 2009, in the UAE National
Software to Rate Employees
"Human resources people don't want to be weenies. We help them quantify who the true performers are and who are not. ... Separate the losers from the winners — that's what we do."
– Lars Dalgaard, Sloan '99, is the CEO of SuccessFactors, which makes employee performance management software. He was interviewed by Forbes.com's"Intelligent Technology" blog.