Last Friday - we held our signature event at Babson - Rocket Pitch Day. This was the 10th consecutive year for this event- and, this is absolutely the BEST of what Babson has to offer - and it symbolizes all that we are.  We had 75 student teams make their “pitches” for business ideas. Each pitch was 3 minutes - and hence, we refer to it as the “rocket Pitch”. At Babson, Rocket Pitch is truly a symbol of our culture.  Culture is defined as a pattern of norms, attitudes, and norms across a social unit (Schein, 1983).  Here at Babson, entrepreneurship is a learning objective for every student, it is embedded in our strategy and it is how we think about solving problems.  And, different from every other school in the US - Entrepreneurship  is a REQUIRED class! (I’m proud to say, this is probably one reason why we continue to be # 1 in the rankings both in the MBA and Undergraduate programs for 14 consecutive years!!!)

The Rocket Pitch event is about ACTION!!!  Participants presented their ideas, and put themselves and their ideas up for review by an audience.  I was amazed at the sheer variety of ideas- from custom shirts (blanklabel), to software to help manage eldercare retirement home needs (retirelife), to an internet aggregator that allows you to purchase from multiple retailers on line at once (bongobing).  Vedavoo was pitched backpacks, while Yisland presented Caribbean  entertainment and events.  Some of the businesses were products, some were services and several  had social and environmental benefits.

I looked around the audience- who was tasked with the job of giving feedback- everyone took this task seriously and gave the presenters comments and suggestions.  While Rocket Pitch is about the pitch- it is also about taking action and learning from that action.  It is very pleasing to see the individual level experiences of our students reflect the high level  strategy of the college- Entrepreneurial Thought and Action.  This is who we are and what we stand for!!

But more than this- we have made our STRATEGY about entrepreneurial thought and action—this means we identify, assess and shape opportunities in a variety of contexts, we navigate and excel in uncertain environments and we actually take action.  Research shows that it is not personality traits that define entrepreneurs (risk taking, achievement, persistence) but it is doing something taking action- getting customers, developing a prototype, building technology, hiring people.  This is what differentiates entrepreneurial ventures that survive and grow from those that do not—entrepreneurial thought and action!

Dr. Candida G. Brush, Professor of Entrepreneurship
Paul T. Babson Chair in Entrepreneurship
Chair- Entrepreneurship Division
Babson College

Prof. William Bygrave says that “Entrepreneurship is the ‘liberal arts’ of a business education. It challenges students to behave both as generalists and specialists, to be creators and creative problem solvers, and to reason conceptually but to implement pragmatically.”  Prof. Bygrave comments on this subject in the BusinessWeek story: “Business: The New Liberal Art” http://bit.ly/3hZm6X.

Today’s college students are admired for their generational ability to multi-task in numerous Web 2.0 technologies.  But how proficient are they in improving the soft skills— personality traits, social graces, communication, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism—to make sound business decisions at work and at home?

Babson College Professor Elizabeth Thornton’s new Entrepreneurship elective—Entrepreneurial Leadership and The Principle of Objectivity—is kind of like inviting Freud to the B-school classroom… because self-awareness is the foundation for strengthening these soft skills.

Thornton believes that developing leadership and soft skills is really about cultivating a state of being.  “If we are truly objective in how we think about ourselves and the world, then as leaders, we are better able to see clearly, make sound judgments, lead others, and execute decisions successfully,” says Thornton. The challenge is that most of us cannot be objective about how we relate to ourselves, situations, or the other people in our lives.  It is simply the nature of the mind.

This is what we do:

·         We experience through our senses a fact—about an object, a person, an action, or a situation.

·         In an instant, we project our own fears, mental models, and background onto that fact.

The result:

•        We see something other than what it is, a misperception, or;

•        One object or situation is mistaken for another or;

•        The value of an object or circumstance is exaggerated, seen as more than it is.

•        A person is judged unfairly, based on some aspect of the way they look

With all that going on, how can we see things clearly, make sound judgments, and be effective leaders? Thornton’s course provides a framework to help students react appropriately to changing dynamics, making sound decisions, and improving their relationships.

The course requirement for students?—to be honest about self-deception, and how they really see the world around themselves. They will explore the concepts of objectivity and mindfulness to develop practical approaches for: crises management, dealing with anger, conflict resolution, leadership and self image, and management in the workplace. And students are responding!

From one MBA student:

“For me, the most significant aspect of Professor Thornton’s course on The Principle of Objectivity is the perspective that I gained as a result of the class. Learning about how we see, interpret, think about and interact with the world and our concepts of ourselves is beneficial in many ways. In addition to providing a technique which helps support more logical, objective, and effective decision making, this perspective on Objectivity is a valuable tool in personal and professional development.  The new perspective on how and why we think and act the way we do allows one to examine their thoughts and actions, and provides a methodology through which our ways of thinking and the resulting actions can be improved.”

 See Prof. Thornton in Action:  http://www.babson.edu/video/faculty/eThornton.html 

Besides statistics, Babson colleagues Elaine Allen and George Recck are also intensely serious about baseball.  It was a natural for them to blend the two to look and speculate at the “what ifs” of managing baseball teams. 

They spoke at the Babson College/Wellesley Bank Business Series at the Wellesley Chamber’s Networking Before 9 breakfast at Babson this morning.

Recck maintains that the success rate of a baseball team is directly related to their management by numbers know-how.  If Grady Little had studied the stats on Pedro back in ’03, he would have listened to the data instead of Pedro, and changed the course of baseball history.  Statistics also help managers figure out which pitcher has the greatest chance against specific batters.

Allen said it was the Celtics who first started managing by numbers and right now Boston Sports Nation—in Belichick, Francona and Doc Rivers—have three great examples of managers who do so by the numbers.  Technically, Francona is not a numbers guy, but he understands the importance and is a good listener, says Allen.

Other observations when “Managing by the Numbers”:

·         As a player’s salary increases, so does his performance, especially in a contract year.  Recck likes to draft players during contract year in Fantasy Baseball.

·         Salaries are on the rise again and it is salaries that fuel rising ticket prices. Prestige positions on the team?  First and third bases and designated hitter.  Not so valued?  Surprisingly, second base.

·         Analytics on grand slams and home runs….we will see fewer grand slams because sports fans want home runs, and new parks (like the new Yankee Stadium for example) are built  to deliver more home runs.   Fewer men on base mean fewer grand slam opportunities. Lou Gehrig, by the way, holds the record for most grand slams.

·         A team’s defensive players are undervalued, because many managers do not look at the number of runs they save.

·         To determine if teams are getting the best performance for their dollar, Allen and Recck use the On-base Percentage vs. salary  (POS) analytic, and found ….not really.  The highest OPS is not the highest paid.

·         One final fun fact….which is the most hitter-friendly ballpark?  US Cellular, Chicago, White Sox.

Contact Elaine Allen: allenie@babson.edu; and George Recck: recck@babson.edu

This past spring Babson Entrepreneurship Professor Patricia G. Greene presented at the Entrepreneurship Eco-System Conference, co-sponsored by Babson’s Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship.

I spent last week in Elsinore, Denmark with Candy Brush at the USE (Understanding Small Enterprises) conference and would like to follow up on Candy’s latest blog as well.  Three main things stood out for me:  1) LO Skollen (pronounced L O Skōllen) as a place and what it stands for, 2)  the emphasis conference attendees place upon the personal experience as well as  the worker’s experience inside small businesses.  And third, the experience of being the only two conference attendees from the U.S.   Overall, I have a lot to think about. 

LO Skollen, as Candy mentioned, is an educational center owned by the collaboration of Danish trade unions.  As Candy also mentioned, the art is amazing.  It is a large collection and it continues to grow.  The art is not in a separate museum area, but fills the community spaces.  The building itself is part of the art, with changing shapes, lighting perspectives, and textures throughout the complex, inside and outside.  Much of the infrastructure of the main building is part of that art, the bricks, ceilings, electrical systems, etc.  The overall idea is that the members of the trade unions taking courses at LO Skollen can see their work and be proud of it.  They also see and experience the art of mostly Danish artists and can discuss, debate, and just enjoy the creative atmosphere. 

During my University of Missouri – Kansas City years I partnered with Sanjay Mishra of KU,  Tom Lyons of Rockhurst University and Barnett Helzberg of the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentoring Program to design and deliver a course called Personal Entrepreneurial Strategy.  We were funded by the Kauffman Foundation and taught the course as a team to a combined class of students from each of our schools.  My interest then and now is on how we live our work lives.  This conference helped hammer home the point that it should be about how we also design and support the work lives of those we bring into our organizations.  The paper Candy and I presented was on how to create that kind of culture within your business.    In his opening speech, Palle Oerbaek, Director of the National Research Centre for the Working Environment (Denmark) reminded us that most of what we’ve learned about management (and for our purposes – organizational culture) we’ve learned from the big business arena and perhaps we need still more of a different approach.   It’s a helpful thing to think about for entrepreneurship education. 

And finally, the experience of being the lone folks from the U.S. was entirely positive.  It included everything from the tricky nature of using the term “Americans,” since our Canadian colleagues are just as much from North America, to providing the space to really listen and think about what is unique about the U.S. small business culture.  It was completely clear that few people recognize the U.S. for the small business economy that it actually is.  We used our economic numbers every time we could  to remind folks that of the 25.4 million businesses in the U.S.,  77 percent have no employees, another 17 percent have between 1 and 19 employees, and barely over 1 percent are the big businesses of more than 500 employees.  Add that to the fact that just slightly over half of our work force is in small and medium size businesses, and it is a different picture than people are used to seeing. 

On Thursday night we finished off the Gala Dinner event by joining many of the conference folks at the LO Skollen bar, along with many trade association members who were there for their classes as well.  We also joined in the Thursday night at 11:00 tradition of going outside the bar into the hallway to sing together.  The hall way is underground, so there are no windows.  The walls and ceiling are formed from white bricks and the ceiling actually arches up over our heads.  It reminds me of our castle tour earlier in the week.  We did our best to join in the singing, although my Danish pronunciation made those around me smile and sometimes laugh out loud.  Then one of our Australian colleagues suggested that we should also sing songs to represent the other countries present.  But we had to stick to songs that were in the songbook.  We first sang Waltzing Matilda for her team, then an Irish song that happened to be in the songbook as well.  For the “American” song, those around us picked This Land is Your Land and Candy and I ended up leading that particular song.  It was an unusual experience, one I won’t forget, one that was extremely personal, and one that felt really good.

Patricia G. Greene
Professor of Entrepreneurship 

Name of business: Trade Show Internet; http://www.tradeshowinternet.com/about.html

Founder/s: Seth Burstein, MBA 2011; and Ian Framson

The beginning: January 2009

Initial Investment: $500

Employees: 2 full time, 3 contractors

Founder’s Past Life: Seth Burstein was living the awe inspiring life of an actuary (statistician for the insurance industry)

Initial Preparation to Germinate Idea: There is a lot of price gouging in the trade show industry.  Few things seemed more absurd than trade show exhibitors being charged $1,200 for three days of internet rental.  As such, a friend and I wanted to start a company to rectify this injustice.  We did our research and realized there was a large opportunity to come in with a new technology to break up the monopoly power wielded by the industry’s dominant player.  After employing the help of friends to put up a website, we were ready to fully launch in April 2009.  To our surprise, within a month of launching, we had a $50M company looking to partner with us. 

Favorite Thing about the Business: My favorite days are when I check my email and have messages from customers saying they loved using our solution.

Worst Thing About the Business: When you’re in class and your business partner is in an all-day meeting, someone has to take the tech support call.

Biggest Challenge: Finding time to do laundry

Lesson Learned: Sometimes things work out even better than you could have expected.  Like Benjamin Franklin said, “Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

I am on my way back from Elsinore, Denmark which is the home of the Kronborg Castle, thought to be the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  I attended a conference with the theme of “Understanding Small Enterprises”.  The topics included ways that small firms could ensure a healthy and safe lifestyle for their owner/managers and their employees. For the conference, we stayed at a retreat called LO Skollen, a site owned by the Danish trade unions.  The Center was architecturally designed to showcase the lovely landscape that looks across  the channel to the Swedish Coastline and, it houses an exquisite art collection of more than 1000 pieces.  For three days we “lived” the Danish culture- the landscape, the smorgasbords, the medieval music, the art, and of course, the discussions about company culture and healthy lifestyles in entrepreneurial businesses.

This is reminiscent of how we think about entrepreneurship at Babson.  A goal for our entrepreneurship program is to have students experience entrepreneurship as well as study it.  For instance – our undergraduates may take a class “Living the Entrepreneurial Experience”. Students write business plans an execute on these during the semester- talking with customers, lining up suppliers and developing their products. A similar class at the MBA level, “Entrepreneurship Intensive Track” is designed the same way- students frequently launch their businesses before graduation. This past summer we launched a new Summer Venture Program. Students from 27 venture teams lived in the dorms, and worked in our Entrepreneurship Center incubator space for the summer.  In all cases, the “living” experience enhances and speeds up the development of the ventures. One of the reasons we have  been able to do this is the Entrepreneurship culture here at Babson College.   Company culture  is defined as a pattern of norms, attitudes, and norms across a social unit (Schein, 1983). At Babson, entrepreneurship is a learning objective for every student, it is embedded in our strategy and it is how we think about solving problems.  But, the living experiences can take it to the next level.  While we may not have medieval music and Danish Smorgasbords, entrepreneurship is a “lived experience” at Babson College.

Candida G. Brush, Professor of Entrepreneurship
Paul T. Babson Chair in Entrepreneurship
Chair- Entrepreneurship Division

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, was in Boston last Friday and graciously added an MBA roundtable to his agenda.  His team set up an hour for him to meet with a select group of MBA students and a faculty member from seven local business schools.  I readily admit that while I’m not a fan of the cult of personality that follows many of the CEOs of our largest companies, I do relish opportunities like this to try and figure out how they think about the world – and their place in it.  This was a terrific hour and I very much appreciate Mr. Ballmer’s time, approach, and thoughtfulness in talking with our students (yes, intentional emphasis.   And I must admit I was also very proud of our Babson students and they manner in which they prepared for this opportunity. 

Mr. Ballmer spent some time talking about basic products and strategies, with a special focus on how Microsoft thinks about, encourages, manages, and funds innovation.  I was quite intrigued when he talked about innovation and productivity as rather the same thing, although he did say that he probably considered productivity more incremental.   He was quite clear when he said, “The innovation I love is innovation that people actually want.”  And then he put that to immediate use.  He noticed that a few of us were taking notes.  Yes, pen was physically meeting paper at several places around the table and on several laps as we tried to be inconspicuous while catching words of wisdom.  He immediately identified this as a technology opportunity, noting that we all probably thought it not socially acceptable to pull out our tech tools in this particular setting.  I already want the type of thin tech tool he described to use unobtrusively at meetings, then fold up and put away.

My favorite part of the hour was when a student asked Mr. Ballmer, “How you learn to lead leaders?”  What a great question!  This must be something that Mr. Ballmer has consciously pondered, because he quickly shared a hierarchy of leading and then three types of examples of ways of leading leaders in a large organization.  First you do something, then you manage, then you MANAGE, then you are a manager of managers, then a leader, and only in certain companies do you finally have the opportunity to lead leaders.   He described what he called the Warren Buffet approach in which there is intentionally no collaboration between the leaders; they each focus on their own areas.  He then had the GE approach in which Jeff Immelt connects people through management principles.  And finally, he shared with us the Microsoft approach in which it is the strategies and customers that are the points of connection.  All in all it was a quite intriguing consideration of designing a fit between leadership and organization.

One of the last things I learned is that Mr. Ballmer (although he told us to call him Steve) and I share a philosophy about work lives.  He advised the students to do whatever it is that they have a passion for, or as he says, whatever switches you on.  Do that even when it is in direct contrast to what you think you are supposed to do.  Makes perfect sense to me and it certainly worked out well for him.

Thank you again, Steve.   I guess I am a fan.

Patricia G. Greene
Professor of Entrepreneurship

For those who love facts and figures, here are some stats about the 2009 Babson Entrepreneurship Forum:

30 speakers shared some hard-earned wisdom on entrepreneurship

9 different panel discussios were featured throughout the day

3 keynote speakers delivered addresses

650 attendees took part in the discussion

In the words of Fast Company co-founder Alan Webber, “This is a phenominal achivement, this conference, this day… This is the kind of stuff people should invest in.”

In delivering his keynote address at the close of the forum, Webber shared six of his 52 Rules of Thumb, his take on the ways to build successful companies and lead successful lives.

Webber also described two types of entrepreneurs: “Those who talk about what they’re going to do, and those who do.”

“Failure isn’t failing,” he said. “Failure is failing to try.”

- By Andrew Lightman M’11