New MBA Students GET a Taste of Smith’s Curriculum

One of main goals of the Smith MBA Orientation week was to acquaint new Smith students with the curriculum, which explores the key drivers transforming business today — globalization, entrepreneurship and technology (GET). First-year MBA students choose from several courses in each these three areas as part of the core Smith curriculum. Tuesday, Aug. 19’s orientation events gave them a taste of Smith’s approach to GET.

Associate Professor Joe Bailey talked about technology and asked the new MBAs to think ahead to the technological future. He pondered how emerging technologies would fare down the road: “What will Kindle’s [Amazon’s digital media reader] market penetration be 10 years from now?” and “What are the determinants of success for tech companies?” His lines of questioning led to discussion of the “Winner-Take-All” model of business, which is based on a combination of data from network effects and scale economies. Tech companies are interested in this model, as they are usually overvalued based on potential, and give infinite economies of scale, since the cost to send information electronically is so low.

After Bailey’s brief and engaging introduction, the students were formed into 19 mock financial services companies that were all competing with each other to bring customers and revenue to their hypothetical subscription-based Web advice boards. As each company made their price bid in the first round of the game, their wager was calculated into a formula that determined how many customers their prices would attract, relative to all other bids from the other companies. As the students received their results from each subsequent round, they would adjust their bid price to both earn a profit and snare more customers. By the fourth round, 13 of the companies had already been eliminated due to lack of profits, and as the number continued to increase each round, the “Winner-Take-All” model became more apparent. Disappointment echoed off the walls of the Frank Auditorium as more companies were eliminated, but the new MBAs learned valuable lessons in their failures.

Shreevardhan Lele, Ralph J. Tyser Teaching Fellow of Decision Sciences, led a session on “Globalization and You.” He challenged the MBA students to think about globalization as it relates to companies and organizations, and also cultures and individuals.

Lele began the session with a short case study of the HIV/AIDs crisis in South Africa and a conflict between the government and pharmaceutical companies. Students participated in a discussion about the case. Lele used the discussion to launch into a broader discussion of globalization and ethics, and debate over whether the world has become “flat” or “spiky” as a result of globalization.

Asher Epstein, MBA ’04, director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, threw out Superballs to an appreciative crowd as an impromptu and boisterous icebreaker during the final session of Tuesday’s MBA Orientation activities. Epstein asked students who caught balls to introduce themselves, which illustrated the diverse and global nature of the incoming MBA class.

As an attention-getting device, the Superballs couldn’t be beat. And it was the matter of attention that Epstein wanted incoming MBA students to consider. “Attention is your number one asset in today’s economy. If you can capture someone’s time and attention, then you have value,” said Epstein. “Attention is an asset you can use and invest in your career.”

Epstein said successful time management was key to success in the MBA program, and discussed the return on investment of a Smith MBA in terms of the time and attention a student invested in the school’s curriculum, the Smith community, and his or her career.

Epstein gave students four pieces of advice to help them achieve success in the Smith School MBA Program:

• Question the assumptions. Take risks, because business school is a safe environment in which to try things out.
• Assess yourself. Be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses and plan your career accordingly.
• Prove yourself. Professors, co-workers and employers are looking for consistent performance. Improve yourself.
• Be receptive of feedback. Always ask “What can I do better?”

The MBA students ended their second day of orientation events with an entrepreneurship competition, organized by the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. After their presentations, Epstein and Melissa Carrier, Dingman's director of venture investments and social entrepreneurship, challenged the class to work in teams to come up with a business idea that would address a social problem in the marketplace. The 19 teams had 30 minutes to map out their ideas and formulate a business pitch. Then each team had two minutes to pitch their idea to the group, which then voted by show of hands whether the business seemed worthy of funding. Epstein and Carrier provided on-the-spot feedback on each team’s pitch and the viability of their business idea.

The students tackled social problems that ranged from affordable childcare and maternal health in Africa, to environmental pollution and local hunger. The MBAs enthusiastically enjoyed the exercise – nearly every hand shot up when Epstein asked the group if they found the session valuable. Epstein told the students they did a fantastic job identifying problems in the marketplace, but warned that competition is brutal and focusing on the double bottom line — figuring out how you’ll make money while doing good — is a critical component of social entrepreneurship.

“We’ve seen a lot of great ideas, and with a little bit of refinement on the business model and the pitch, a lot of these could be really successful ventures,” Epstein said. He said the Dingman Center set aside $2,500 in funding to kick start an MBA business idea and he encouraged the class to visit the center to take advantage of the weekly “Pitch Dingman” program and mentoring services.