OwenBloggers: Sharran Srivatsaa

Sharran the Elf

Click here to see your very own sharran-elf bringing you the holiday cheer!

Happy Holidays!

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Project Pyramid: Yunus' impact on Vanderbilt and Owen

Last week Dr. Mohammad Yunus, Vanderbilt PhD, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Microfinance and Grameen Bank. I have seen a lot of award ceremonies... but this was the first time my eyes welled up with tears. This man truly changed the world... in the most human way possible.

Here is a quick interview on Jon Stewart...

 

Bottom of the Pyramid: In economics, the bottom of the pyramid is the largest, but poorest socio-economic group. In global terms, this is the four billion people who live on less than $2 per day. The phrase “bottom of the pyramid” is used in particular by people developing new models of doing business that deliberately target that market.

In Spring 2007, Owen will launch its second course in the (student-driven) Project Pyramid series, a new Vanderbilt University-wide initiative housed in the Owen Graduate School of Management. The course titled, "Project Pyramid: Business applications and innovations for alleviating poverty in India" will be a joint 7-week course between Owen and The Vanderbilt Divinity School (in collaboration with the Cal Turner Center for Moral Leadership) culminating in a trip to Hyderabad (India). On the trip to India, students will work in teams to understand the impact of micro-finance, micro-equity and other ways that different agencies and institutions are empowering those at the Bottom of the Pyramid in India. As this would be the first trip from Owen to study the alleviation of poverty, the teams will build case studies to document their learning and experiences. These cases will then be used as a (great) starting point for students who take the course in the coming years as it will give them a peer-perspective of the situation and hopefully bridge the scholastic/practical divide. The course is already oversubscribed!

Professor Bart Victor will be leading the course this Spring and we are extremely excited about it. He has spent countless hours with the Project Pyramid Leadership Team developing the course and curriculum, planning the trip, and helping us build the strategic vision for Project Pyramid as a student-driven, university-wide program.

In addition to cases, articles, and speakers, we will be using Yunus' Banker to the Poor and CK Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid as learning resources for the class.

Technorati Tags: bop - project pyramid - yunus - vandy - owen - vanderbilt - cal turner - sharran - mba - vanderbilt mba

Ninja Day 2006

How do they come up with this stuff? You have to watch it all the way to the end... and I guarantee that you will be laughing so hard... I almost sprayed White Chocolate Mocha all over my SmackBookPro!

Technorati Tags: askaninja - sharran - ninjaday2006 - owen - vanderbilt - owenbloggers - owen bloggers

Holidays + Coffee + Around the world = Vanderbilt MBA

The Vanderbilt MBA students are going to be traveling for the holidays and are coming to a Starbucks (or another location where you can get a tasty beverage) near you. This will be a great opportunity to connect with students 1-on-1 and talk about the Vanderbilt MBA experience.... oh, and the Venti White Chocolate Mocha is on us! I will be organizing a coffee break in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dates for each event will be announced very soon...

Leave a comment below or send us an email owenbloggers@gmail.com if you are interested in attending any of Coffee Breaks... and let us know if you have any specific questions. If you are in the US and don't see your city below, please let us know and we will shake the building up to get someone to you! :-)

Atlanta
Austin
Blacksburg, VA
Boston
Buffalo, NY
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Columbus, OH
Dallas
Denver
Florida - East Coast
Hartford, CT
Honolulu
Houston
Indianapolis
Los Angeles
Louisville
Memphis
Michigan
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Nashville
New Jersey
New York City
New Orleans
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Portland, OR
Sacramento, CA
Salt Lake City
San Francisco
St. Louis
Tampa, FL
Washington DC

India

New Delhi
Surat
Mumbai
Chandigarh

Technorati Tags: owen - vanderbilt - vandy - mba - vanderbilt owen - sharran - mba - owen bloggers - owenbloggers

Pray B3yond

Core Marketing Final....two words: Data Dump.

The final was pretty anti-climatic... here is a rough timeline:

1. Day 1: Prof. Hoeffler talks about the course and the final exam... calls the exam the "perfect final." Hmmmm. Basically the final is a "Live Case" which deals with the hottest product launch in the fall
2. Sometime in Week 5, Professor Hoeffler tells us that the Live Case is going to the on the PlayStation 3
3. A week before the final Prof. Hoeffler gives us a bound 60 page classpak with all the relevant information regarding the launch of the PS3... press releases, blogger reviews, analyst reports, etc.
4. Everyone except the hard core students ( and the four wise men) put the classpak in their backpacks and forgot about it because Prof. Hoeffler said it was going to be an open-book final
5. The four wise men got together, cracked the case apart, and basically rewrote the classpak in bullet form
6. The class period before the final Prof. Hoeffler gave us some sample questions
7. The four wise men got together again, pulled a marathon, answered the sample questions, created potential questions and answered them, and related the PS3, Wii, and XBOX to every marketing framework that was covered in class (that would be all 18 of them) This included analysis of current strategies, potential alternate strategies, analysis of risks and pitfalls... whoa!
8. The rockin' crib sheet was made
9. Then came the final... data dump. We had been noodling over these ideas for so many hours and Prof. Hoeffler was right... all the learning happened in the 48 hours before the exam.

1 down, so many more to go.

Technorati Tags: vanderbilt - vandy - owen - vanderbilt mba - owen bloggers - owenbloggers - sharran - hoeffler - four wise men

Keep 'em coming

This is to all blog readers especially alumni, recruiters, and prospective students... we want to thank you for your readership and your feedback (comments and emails to us)

Prospective Students: Please post comments on the blogs or email us... we probably know exactly how you are feeling right about now!

Alumni: We would love to hear from you and get your advice on how can take these blogs to the next level

Recruiters: We know a lot of sharp, bright, extremely well-qualified MBAs looking for internships and full-time positions ;-) We would love to hear about your experience on our blogs and any comments that you might have.

Fellow Bloggers: We (heart) you!

Finals start tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: Vanderbilt - owenbloggers - owen bloggers - owen - vandy - vanderbilt mba - sharran

3am Crunchy Apple

Yes, its 3am and I am eating an apple. Why?

 

I have to go bskool bullet style:

• Finals start this week, wow... that was quick
• The Owen Marketing Department is awesome
• You have to know that we have a nice library at Owen when students from the Vanderbilt Law School start coming over to use our library and hang out in our lounges (yes, you can go over there if you want... its one big happy vandy family!)
• Sam tuned my guitar before my comedy presentation with some Star Trek harmonic... it sounded great, and it would have been great if I had refrained from opening my mouth and attempting to sing
• The Owen Holiday Party was on Saturday... wow, one of the coolest parties I have been to... nice to know that we (Owen Student Government) organized it
• Everyone is going nuts, especially the Healthcare MBA folks because they have 42 finals and a ginormous presentation...
• Good news: post-finals festivities are already being planned...

No hyperlinks tonite... find your own way around the www with a search engine. Word.

Technorati Tags: owen bloggers - owen - vandy - vanderbilt - sharran

The Owen Experience: Beyond the Students and Faculty

You will hear the bskool buzzwords like networking, relationship management, working the rolodex etc. but my favorite part is about Owen is the people that are at the school everyday... students, faculty, and administration.

Keip-dawg is one of my favorite people at Owen... she is awesome. Everyone knows Keip-dawgger and its super fun to hang out with her and her lovely puppy, Maddie. Keip hangs out with the students at school, supports student events, interfaces with faculty, and always has a dazzling smile on her face. She is the best second and third-hand compliment-giver-person in the world... it really shows her warmth and care.

Kristin was recently published as well, you can read her article here. Her next piece is going to be on the OwenBloggers!

Technorati Tags: owen - kristin - keiper - sharran - vandy - vanderbilt - mba - healthcare mba - healthcare

Bodaciously Overwhelmed

The last thing I should be doing right now is blogging... finals start a week from today and surprisingly Owen is empty... there were seven people in the library today, and I was one of the lucky ones to be in a room all day. I cannot even begin to explain how much there is to study... sometimes I am glad that there is only one mod worth of stuff to review, then I remember that we have packed an entire semester's worth of learning into seven weeks... wow, this is nuts.

But even if I had all the time in the world, I could not make a video like this one... nice job Chris!

Technorati Tags: vandy - owen - mba - vanderbilt - sharran - cljazzy - karate-kid

Owen Dean Jim Bradford joins the blogosphere

Jim Bradford, Dean of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management has joined the blogosphere. I have had many opportunities to meet and speak with Dean Bradford and what impresses me every time is his warmth and professionalism.

Bob Bruner, Dean of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, is also an active blogger. It is wonderful to see deans of business schools and members of the administration share their experiences with the community.

We had our official OwenBloggers photo-shoot a few hours ago and Dean Bradford joined us for the pictures as our fellow blogger. Top tier business schools such as Darden and Owen work hard to preserve their aura of exclusivity but in my opinion the times are changing... the students, recruiters, and citizens of the world are curious to know what is happening inside these redbrick buildings. I applaud the likes of Dean Bradford, Dean Bruner and Juwono Sudarsono (Minister of Defense for Indonesia) who take the time to share their ideas and experiences. Their reflections deliver some much needed transparency as they give us a chance to connect with the "person" instead of the "position."

Dean Bradford's Blog: www.deanbradford.com

Technorati Tags: vanderbilt - owen - vandy - mba - sharran - bradford - bruner - bradford - sudarsono - blog

Weekly Roundup: One thing I would change

I wish Owen students would blog more... even Dean Bradford is blogging! Investment Banks advise aspiring i-Bankers to refrain from blogging for various reasons but there is no reason for other business school students not to blog. The Internet is such a wonderful medium to share stories and successes... I wish more students would blog, set up personal websites, play with videos on YouTube and Google Video and find new ways to create and develop content that showcases their talents and experiences.

Technorati Tags: owen - vandy - vanderbilt - blog - sharran - mba