doing lots of exploring in South Africa

The title of this post is literal and figurative. Literally, myself and the other 15 Emzingo fellows have had a great time travelling the two weekends. 

Two weekends ago we went to the Drakensburg mountain range and stayed at an AMAZING hostel called Amphitheatre Backpackers Lodge outsid of the town of Bergville. We spent Friday night dancing and falling around their wall climbing cave. Saturday we went hiking in the beautiful Royal Natal National Park.

[picture coming soon]

Sunday a group of us took a day trip to Lesotho. More amazing hospitality and mountain scenary there, but unfortunately also poor infrastructure and kids selling rats as meals.

[picture coming soon]

This past weekend we flew also as a group to Cape Town. Our first stop was Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 26 years. I have to say the experience was not as emotional or impactful as I expected. Reading books by or about him has touched me more. The beautiful things we saw included Table Mountain, the Cape of Good Hope, and the seaside at Camps Bay. The trip reminded me how much I love the ocean... and good nightlife! I took a winter dip in the strong waves lapping at the Cape of Good Hope, and went out dancing every night with the fun Emzingoers.

[pictures coming soon]

This weekend, I'm staying in Joburg and hopefully checking out some spots, like art galleries, nightlife, and local nature reserves, I've been too busy to pop by during the work week.

Figuratively, the Emzingo program has continued to bring us on a self-exploring journey of personal development. Tonight we had another session at Wits Business School, this time on personal branding. While we already touched on some of the same subject matter during the Emzingo orientation in Madrid, and even before that, during some of the IE MBA career seminars, being in a focused program with relatively more free time than the normal MBA class week plus Emzingo's focus on getting to know yourself, really lets us fellows have the time to consider and work on the personal development exercises we're given. Before, I'd always appreciate the content taught, but never have time, or maybe even the right mind frame to go back and really work on it. I am slowly developing, pinning down if you will, the adjectives I want to describe myself, my brand, and the core values that I have that need to be present in my future career.

Lastly, my Emzingo consulting partner and I have also been exploring a new assignment! We have scaled back our Cheesekids work to one day a week and are now working the rest of our days with the HUB Johannesburg. Taken from their website:

"We aim to be a modern habitat for social and innovative entrepreneurs, providing opportunities to inspire, support, incubate, learn and collaborate. We serve as an interface between communities and economies, government, business and the non-profit sectors. Our community-based approach and sustainable practices are reflected in our membership, team and the space that we create." 

In addition to working with a really cool, urban, and international organization we are experiencing what it's like to be true consultants, re-scoping projects and managing multiple clients and deliverables. I'm enjoying putting my new MBA skills to practice in the marketing exercise we've been asked to perfirm.

Happy New Years!

I don't have much to say this morning as I rush to get ready for a big country feast tonight at a friend's house, just Happy New Years! 

2010 has been a busy year - I already knew before Christmas 2009 I was coming to IE, so the GMAT and applications were over with, but all the preparations started this past January. I finished my three years with the Tampep Association in Torino in May, and went back over to the other side of the pond to visit my family in the States for three months. And then I moved to Madrid! 

2011 will be my IE year, and from the last two months of 2010, I know it will be a good one. Term 1 will finish in February, term 2 in May, then hopefully I'll be off on an internship, I'll come back to term 3 in September, and finish with term 4 and graduate Dec. 16. It's going to go by fast, so before 2011 begins, this is a little reminder to myself to enjoy it! 

See you next year!

the next big thing

This weekend IE Business School hosted it's annual Social Responsibility Forum. This year's theme was "Leading to the Next Big Thing," which alludes to the fact that social responsibility is the next big thing, but what it means to each of us individually, or to each company, organization, etc. is currently being designed and experimented with.  It's a two-day event put on by IE's Net Impact chapter. For those who don't know, Net Impact is an organization that promotes social responsibility in business. Nearly every business school, and many other types of university programs, have a local chapter. 

The event started with a great party/fundraiser Thursday night. I had a lot of fun, which made getting up for Friday's LAUNCH program starting at 8:45 a bit of a challenge. Friday the conference started, after brief introductions from the IE community, with guest speaker Reverend Karen Tse. For me, the most important thing she said was in the first two minutes of her 40 minute talk: "May we be reminded of our highest aspirations." I think it's really easy to forget our "highest aspirations" here in business school as we are introduced to new and fascinating topics, career choices, and lifestyles. It was a powerful event for me because it was another reminder to me of my passions, my desire to really make a difference in this world, however cliché that sounds. I did question one thing she said, that a lack of resources is no excuse to not fight for justice and so her organization was able to organize a lot of pro bono volunteers. In my experience, very few NGOs or non-profits manage to do that without dealing with high rates of "NGO burn out" and unreliability in their service provision. I think it's a topic that could be addressed at a future Net Impact event - working for an NGO is a great experience, but I think it would be useful to talk about the realities of day-to-day NGO work and how stressful, tiring, and non-glamorous it can be...

I'm just going to mention a few other bits of wisdom I liked from other speakers Friday and Saturday: Sir Robert Charles Swan, arctic explorer and environmental activist, presented via video from China. I liked his message to be positive and to look for solutions, not problems. Mr. Hanz Reitz, owner of a sustainable farm (my dream!) in India and advisor to Muhammad Yunus, said "don't be afraid to start small" and quoting Yunus, a "charity dollar has one life, a social business dollar is recycled over and over again." 

In one of the panels I attended, there was a social entrepreneur who works against human trafficking in Cambodia. We exchanged information. Hopefully we can get a useful partnership going between her organization and the anti-human trafficking NGO (the Tampep Association) I used to work for in Italy. 

In another panel, Bain and Accenture, two of the consulting firms I have researched for internships, talked about their social responsibility and sustainability initiatives. This was a great opportunity to see beyond their websites and meet the people actually working on these programs. It seems like about half the people I talk to here from notable consulting firms whose website's have "sustainability services" don't think that their offices actually do anything in this field. 

The last panel session I attended of the conference was on this year's BP oil spill. The discussion had an unexpected effect on me, it gave me a reason to go back to the U.S. While I think I'd like to experience Dubai, or China, or go back to Africa or the Middle East, or stay around in Europe for a bit longer, the oil spill talk made me think "I should go back and help get my country on the right track...." I think I should do that eventually, voting is not enough I'm afraid...

yes

Yes. Yes, I'm very happy I'm at IE. Yes, I have already met a lot of cool people. Yes, I think it's going to be a great year. And yes, I think I'm going to find a great job at the end. Yes, the first day of school was good! Yes! 

First of all, the "new" Segovia campus is gorgeous. It might be new to IE, but the buildings date back to 1218! 

After a much needed coffee hour, the welcome speeches started with Santiago Iñiguez, President of IE University and Dean of IE Business School telling us to be persistent like Christopher Columbus was when he sought financing to sail west because it's a good entrepreneurial skill. He had to leave before the day was over to go back to Madrid because IE was organizing an event to try and find business solutions to the on-going troubles in Haiti. 

Then David Bach, Dean of Programs, gave not only a great speech on many topics, but also a great looking powerpoint. I'm sure I will see many great powerpoints during my year at IE to develop some great photo, color-matching skills :) One thing he noted was the challenge of living between and working with the contradictions of the modern world, for example, increasing globalization but increasing local focus on marketing, consumption, etc. Just what my "glocal eating" website tried to address...  

I don't have time to write about what everyone said, but one thing I wanted to say generally is that I really like how down to earth IE feels. There is no pompous attitude I felt visiting other highly ranked b-schools. I feel like it's going to be a really practical program that's really focused on creating savvy and creative leaders. 

The last presentation of the day was by a 2005 alumni Giovanni Lo Faro. He talked about his experience working for the Modo eyewear company. It was really great to see half of his presentation dedicated to the new eco-friendly line of eyeglasses they have. I feel like corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability issues, what I would like to focus on in my future career, are really also going to be a focus at IE. 

I'm very happy with the first day. I met dozens of new people. I just hope I actually see most of them again! It's going to be a challenging, but fun first year! I'm off to eat and then sleep early - tomorrow we have orientation stuff scheduled from 9am to after midnight! 

last days of freedom!

I'm down to the last days of my pre-Madrid, pre-IE Business School MBA life! This is my last week of playing around in Italy before starting the apartment search Saturday in Madrid! 

In reality, my "IE Business School MBA life" started two years ago around this time when I started studying for the GMAT,  and I never stop bothering my boyfriend with business ideas that I can't wait to try out with IE's supposedly great entrepreneurial resources. We made a mini-trip to the beach this past weekend... chilling out with this view in sight made me think up of a million ways to find work in a nice beach town.

view of Portovenere from Isola Palmaria beach

But then again, how could I choose just one? Beach town, that is. Better to travel the world working first, see many great beaches, and then figure out a time-share plan... Hehe... The key is to dream big, and that's what I plan on doing throughout the MBA! Good luck to me and my future classmates, especially with the upcoming apartment searches!