Risky Business

and i might just mean reading this blog entry. i just came back from my first lecture tonight for a really great class. it's called Understanding and Managing Risk.

i know - hohum for most ppl. but don't let that deter you from continuing to read (it gets better i promise. okay, i don't promise because that sets too high an expectation. but continue reading if you feel so inclined. ;P). i do recognize that i have now officially become a bschool dork and classes like Strategic Decision-Making and Negotiations sound really interesting to me.

maybe one day i will look back and see it for the warped world that the rest of you see it as. like going to an all-girls school and starting to think the cafeteria guy in the hairnet looks good. but goddamn it - i'm paying a fortune so i better learn something!

anyway, can i just say that my school totally fits my personality? class tonight reinforced that i have made the right choice in coming here. my class tonight is headed by the Dean of my business school and the ex-Dean of my school who basically turned it around to be one of the top 5 in the world. Needless to say they have amazing backgrounds and experiences to learn from. But the killer is: they are nice.

Why i love it here:

• they were talking on a plane one day and decided they should have a class about this at school and decided to put together a curriculum and teach it themselves. how many places have the CEOs of their companies take the time out to teach seminars to employees? it's so great that they want to stay so involved with the students.
• they are the most down-to-earth, humble people ever. you would expect anyone who is this well-connected, accomplished and smart to have an ego walking in the door. these guys hug you at the door (i'm not kidding).
• Along those lines, they are easily accessible. they say things like "come visit me at office hours or send me an email. i have responded to every student who emails me" and "we can't tell students what they should do. students need to do what makes them happy" these are people who meet with CEOs and prime ministers everyday. and they respond to every student email?? The current Dean of our school actually met with me and my research group of 4 people one Saturday morning because we wanted to interview him for a project. And it was easy and non-bureaucratic to schedule. I continue to be so impressed.

So about the class, some interesting ideas (i will save you from the risk angle of these):

• No Longer the New Generation: the new target demographic for company marketing strategies may be our parents or grandparents! First world countries like the U.S. and Japan are facing majorly aging populations. (For example, GM adds $1800 to the cost of each car they produce to pay for their employee pensions and by 2004, Japan's population contained 23,086 people over the age of 100 - growing at a pace of about 3,000 a year!).
• Developing countries have the opposite problem. 68% of India's 1.1 billion people are under the age of 30.
• It's not always about first-mover advantage. "a person is wise when they learn from their mistakes. a person is wiser when they learn from others' mistakes."
• A good idea would be to reduce the number of entertainment options in business class on airlines and put that in economy/coach. why? guy in the middle seat 17B will appreciate 6 movie channels more (and might be more willing to fly your airline) than the business executive in business class working on his laptop anyway.

Okay, i've bored you enough. thanks for getting this far. i was gonna rant about the recent media circuses surrounding Terri and the Pope, but my bf beat me to it on his blog. oh, well. i'm sure i'll find something else to rant about soon enough. gnite.