Thank your mentor today!

Did you know that today is National Mentoring Month's Thank Your Mentor Day? It is! I've been so lucky as to have a few incredible mentors in my life to this point, who have literally changed my life. Friends, colleagues, role models ... these people have been integral to my success in college, work, grad school, and life. I learn something from these people who I call friends and mentors every day. I'm calling on them now for a friendly ear as I think long and hard about the next step I want to take post-grad school because they know me and listen to me and share what they've learned with me.

So, get out there and thank your mentor today! Or tomorrow ... I'm sure they'll still appreciate it if you miss that crucial midnight deadline.

On the hunt

I've been an absent blogger. Again. But, the good news is that I graduated with my MBA from Brandeis! It was a great program, and I'll certainly spend more time sharing some of my favorite parts (and not so favorite!) things in the days to come. I haven't blogged on here in a little while, though, because I've been wholeheartedly engaged in the job search. And it's all I've been thinking about ... but, given the fact that this blog is easily googled and found, I haven't wanted to share those thoughts with the world just yet.

I'll be sure to write a bit about my job search process because I know I have benefitted greatly from talking to people and reading about others' approaches to this daunting task. But, I'll write about it later. When I have a job. And a plan. The short share of thoughts is that I have a few great potential options in the works right now, and I just need to do some soul searching to figure out where I see myself contributing the most, learning, finding meaning and having fun!

"An Exercise In Changing Yourself"

I happened upon this blog posting, "An Exercise in Changing Yourself" by Marshall Goldsmith, an executive educator and writer for a Harvard Business Review management blog in my travels on Twitter one day last week. I've been thinking about it ever since because it seems like such a simple, but powerful way to pick out one solid goal to work on this year and to determine why you want to pick this goal out of so many that I'm sure we can all think of.

One of my favorite passages from the article is, "I have conducted this exercise with several thousand people. Many start with benefits that are "corporately correct," such as: "This change will help my company make more money," and finally end with benefits that are more human, such as: "This change will make me a better person." I will never forget one hard-driving executive who chose: 'When I get better at letting go' as the behavior he should work on. His first benefit was that his direct reports would take more responsibility. His final benefit was that he would probably live to celebrate his 60th birthday."

The exercise goes like this:

1. Pick something that you'd like to improve in your life that fits into the end of this sentence: "When I get better at [this] ..., then [resulting consequence of change] ..."

2. Do it again.

3. Do it again.

4. Do it again.

5. You get the picture ... do it until you really get to the root of why this change that you would like to make will have an impact.

Mine? Here it is: When I get better at not letting the word "should" influence my decisions, I'll follow the path that leads to meaningful work, life, and everything in between.

Next steps: The article doesn't get into the implementation of how to change the chosen behavior or into creating an action plan for change (it is only one little blog post after all), but that's what I went to graduate school for, now isn't it?

Winding down.

Very close to the end of my MBA program! Where did the time go? I've definitely learned a TON, met amazing people and am energized to go out and do good work.

Standing between me and an MBA right now:

One Human Resources class

One Human Resources Final

One reflection paper on my internship

One business plan for sustainable farming organization

And then ... I'm done!

The job search has been interesting to this point. More to come on life plans post-MBA.

Giving thanks

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, which will be upon us in a few short minutes now, I thought I'd offer up a few thoughts on things that I've been feeling particularly thankful for lately. This whole graduating in three weeks thing can cause one to become rather introspective. Pondering the potential for my future naturally causes me to reflect on my past and present.

So, here goes. The list is long, but simple ... if you don't want to read all the way to the bottom, it can be summed up like this: I'm thankful for bold & inspiring people who open my mind, generate ideas, opportunity, hope and love.

But, here's the long version, just in case:

1. people, people, people. all of you. all of them. relationships are what makes my world go round, open my mind, ignite my passion. thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas & ambitions!
2. my educational opportunities
3. small farmers who grow beautiful, healthy food for me to eat in spite of the barriers they often face to doing this noble work
4. activists and organizers who teach me the power of citizen movements to create social change
5. social entrepreneurs who dare to dream big in the name of changing the world
6. friends and family who love & support me no matter what ridiculous ideas i've come up with lately
7. Twitter
8. a winter CSA share
9. books
10. 8 hours nights of sleep
11. strong fair trade, organic, black coffee
12. Obama's presidency
13. Alan Khazei's senate candidacy
14. Graduation!
15. People who still read my blog, even though I haven't written in over a month. Thanks!

It's been a good year, I think, judging by this surely incomplete list of mine. What are you thankful for? Happy Thanksgiving!

Campaigning for CHANGE

I'm now volunteering with the Alan Khazei campaign for the Massachusetts senate seat. I see it as an opportunity to get someone into office who will be revolutionary, bringing new ideas and ways of thinking to the table. It's refreshing to support such an awesome candidate! Khazei is one of the most exciting political candidates I have come across in a long time - my excitement about Khazei is perhaps right on par with my excitement about Barack Obama's campaign. I have been a pretty disenfranchised voter for most of my eligible voting years, but first Obama, and now Khazei?! WOW. Keep them coming, and I'll be the most politically active citizen you can find.

So, for those who don't know, Alan Khazei was the co-founder of City Year, which is arguably one of the most successful national service and youth programs ever created. He's a game changer - he put national service on the map here in the US. I know that my time with AmeriCorps drastically influenced my desire to work for social change - and I'm just one of potentially millions of national service alumni that have been mobilized by the efforts that Khazei has been a part of. He's actually created a movement for social change already, without being in public office. Imagine what he can do if elected!

He's got loads of experience collaborating with government, community agencies and the private sector; he believes in citizen empowerment. Judging from his success with social movements like City Year and now, Be the Change, I think he's got the right idea about how to create the change that our country needs to succeed and prosper. US citizens have such potential power, and Khazei knows how to bring out the best in us.

Juxtaposed Mondays

My brain usually feels like it's going to explode on Mondays by the time I am finished with class at 9:30 pm. I feel SO drained - like I can't possibly utter another intelligent phrase. Totally tapped out. I do have two 3-hour classes on Mondays, but the sheer time spent in class isn't the factor causing my brain drain, as I see it.

You see, it's the completely opposite ways of thinking that my brain has to shift gears into during the one-hour break between said classes. I start out my afternoon with a class about social policy and social change. Taught by a professor who completely challenges the world view that I hold. Who challenges everything I think I have learned during the past 3 semesters. Who thinks that we, as a country and society, are headed for self-destruction if we keep up living the way we are living. I tend to agree with him. But, his extremeness is refreshing. He challenges me to think outside the confines of capitalism that pervades everything we do on a daily basis. That dictates the work available to people in our country, that dictates how resources are allocated and who has power and privilege. Can I even articulate how overwhelmed by the thought of all of the progress our society needs to make in order to survive after I leave this class? GOSH. Do we have some work to do!

From this class, I head to class about corporate governance. That's a good thing. But the feel of the class is completely different. Instead of challenging currently held beliefs, we talk about ways to live within the system that exists and how to make sure that people aren't getting duped by Corporate America. Man oh man.

From a socialism to capitalism, all within the span of an afternoon. This is why my brain feels like it has been sucked dry on Mondays. It's awesome and really challenging, all at the same time. I see it as being the beauty of being in grad school. I spend my days thinking about ways to make the world a better place. I get a taste of so many of the viewpoints that are out there. My beliefs are constantly challenged. What better preparation for a life of creating social change is there?

TIME CHANGE for EXCITING Net Impact Event!

So, we at Brandeis Net Impact have been working since April to organize one of the most exciting events that our chapter has ever been responsible for: Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation fame is coming to speak at our campus in just one week!

An Evening with Jeffrey Hollender:
Creating a Game Plan for Business to Transition to a Sustainable Economy
Shapiro Campus Center
Thursday, September 24, 2009, 4:00 pm

Can a for-profit company really be profitable, strategic and benefit the environment at the same time?

Jeffrey Hollender, Co-Founder and Chief Inspired Protagonist of Seventh Generation is a well-respected leader in the socially and environmentally responsible communities. Jeffrey led Seventh Generation from its humble beginnings to its current position as the leading and fastest-growing brand of household and personal care products for your living home. He is also a leading authority on issues related to making a positive difference in the health of the planet and its inhabitants through our everyday choices. Seventh Generation is committed to becoming the world’s most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home.

Check it out Facebook: http://tr.im/ybcR

We're pretty excited about it, as you can tell. So, I thought I'd post it on here - the event is open to the public. If you're in the Boston area and this is up your alley, please come!

EXCITING Net Impact event!

So, we at Brandeis Net Impact have been working since April to organize one of the most exciting events that our chapter has ever been responsible for: Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation fame is coming to speak at our campus in just one week!

An Evening with Jeffrey Hollender:
Creating a Game Plan for Business to Transition to a Sustainable Economy
Shapiro Theater in the Shapiro Campus Center
Thursday, September 24, 2009, 7:00 pm

Can a for-profit company really be profitable, strategic and benefit the environment at the same time?

Jeffrey Hollender, Co-Founder and Chief Inspired Protagonist of Seventh Generation is a well-respected leader in the socially and environmentally responsible communities. Jeffrey led Seventh Generation from its humble beginnings to its current position as the leading and fastest-growing brand of household and personal care products for your living home. He is also a leading authority on issues related to making a positive difference in the health of the planet and its inhabitants through our everyday choices. Seventh Generation is committed to becoming the world’s most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home.

Check it out Facebook: http://tr.im/ybcR

We're pretty excited about it, as you can tell. So, I thought I'd post it on here - the event is open to the public. If you're in the Boston area and this is up your alley, please come!

"in-between" time

Our summer semester officially ended last Friday with our team consulting presentations - win! But really, I just handed in my corporate finance take home this morning and classes resume for me again tomorrow morning at 9am. So, on paper I had about 7 days off; in reality, I took about 3 days off this past weekend to go biking and beaching. We presented our consulting project to our classmates and one member of our client organization's staff last week, but this Friday we get to present our results to the entire organization. It's very exciting, and something that we hoped we'd get the opportunity to do.

Doing the consulting project was probably one of the highlights of my time in the Heller MBA program so far. I learned so much not only about the consulting process and working with a client, but I also gained incredibly important lessons from my teammates and mentors throughout the project. I learned how to prioritize; when to let go of an idea; how to create constructive conflict; how to apply course frameworks to real situations; and how to stay within the scope of a project when there are so many intriguing possibilities to branch off into.

Perhaps my reflections aren't quite complete on this subject yet, given that it's so fresh an experience; I remain intrigued in consulting as a potential career given my experience with my team this semester. I'm going to dig deep in the coming weeks to try to figure out what it is that I most want to pursue when I graduate as I get in position to begin the big job search. I know that I enjoy big-picture thinking, mission-related work, and using numbers to back up my big picture ideas. I like thinking about how to make organizations perform better and have higher impact.

What's the point of this post? Just to update, since I've been gone for so long, and to make the transition to the last semester of my MBA program. You'll get to read a lot about this "in-between" feeling as I search for a job. I'll be hovering in the space between student and professional; in fact, I can already feel the job search pressure starting to mount. I'll be planted between carefree learner enjoying the last months to soak up as much knowledge as possible and realistic individual who knows that very soon there will be bills to pay and no more loans coming in. So, stay tuned. It should be an interesting few months ahead!

Could I be a consultant?

I had never considered consulting to be high on my list of career options, but I must say that it's moving higher and higher as I work on my consulting project this summer. I am LOVING this project and the consulting experience overall. My team and I have spent the past few weeks really digging in, getting to know the organization.

Now, we're in the heart of our work. We're strategizing, doing lots of big thinking, figuring out how the data fits and where it should lead our recommendations ... it's exhilarating to be able to take a "big picture" look at the organization, figure out where our project fits into the whole and hopefully deliver a high-impact recommendation. It's fun to be challenged and engaged in this way.

I have finally found some time during the last few days to immerse myself in reading, thinking & analysis for this project for large chunks of time, and it has helped my process immensely. My progress during the past week feels like it has increased exponentially, perhaps due to this extra time spent as well as finally having a very clear picture of the workings of the organization. I'm excited to continue working on this project for the next 6 weeks, and I'm most excited to think about delivering a set of recommendations backed by strong data that will solve a problem and create some change!

Summer classes are iNtenSe

We are just wrapping up our last week of the first module of summer classes. Let me tell you, they took a little getting used to. Only, we didn't really have time to get used to them ...

Our summer semester is broken into two modules, with two classes during the first half and one more during the second half. Our TCP spans the entire summer. The summer courses are only 6 weeks long, meeting for three hours twice a week. INTENSE! I must say that this is not my preferred course schedule. I didn't feel like I had the time to spend delving into subject matter that I found interesting. It was always a sprint to get work done for the next class sessions. I'll be happy to get back to our regular once a week, semester-long class schedule this fall. I'm also happy to be nearly finished with our first summer module, which will allow more time to spend on my TCP project.

Our marketing project was a good way to end the first summer module! I had a great group, and our project focused on marketing the use of locally grown produce to restaurants in a local Boston neighborhood. It will be interesting to see if our organization implements any of our suggestions. That is part of the fun of MBA projects ... sometimes they have a real purpose!

Innovation in tough economic times

Much has been written about this topic - innovation stemming from this time of economic hardship - but I continue to find it all very interesting. Here is an article about how recent grads are turning into social entrepreneurs and coming up with great ideas, partially due to the fact that they have the freedom to think about other options now that their prescribed potential high-power, high-money career options have dried up. My take-aways from this article:

1. the importance of finding work that "feeds your soul";
2. and the potential of my generation to learn lifelong lessons from experiences such as these when we are forced to think of new ways to do things and new paths to carve out

These new adventures don't necessarily involve all of the things we "should" be doing with our education , but I'm pretty sure they're going to have good results for our world overall. My question is how to continue to support and encourage opportunities like this for recent grads when the economy begins to recover and the potential for great wealth from traditional career paths returns?

Building capacity

I need to build some capacity into my schedule so that I have more blogging time, right?!  I think this summer semester might need to subscribe to the philosophy of quality over quantity ... 

Anyway, for those current and former VISTA members out there, the phrase "capacity building" should be ringing a bell!  I'm here to tell you that this phrase exists in real life, in case you ever doubted the validity of your capacity building work to help you in your next steps.  It is potentially one of the most important things an organization can do. 

I am being reminded of the importance of capacity building as I get started on my Team Consulting Project (TCP) with ACCION USA this summer (who, by the way, just announced a cool partnership with Kiva!  Check it out here.).  We're working on reaching more potential borrowers through ACCION's internet loan program, an innovative idea that has room to grow.  We'll be looking at how to build capacity and systems to make this program sustainably grow in a few different ways.  It's potentially going to be one of the coolest projects I work on during my grad school stint, and I'm looking forward to digging in a little bit more. 

As a final note, if you think my grad school program sounds cool, and you're looking for one of your own to get into, check out the upcoming Idealist Grad School Fairs in DC and NYC.  Here are a few quick details, but visit www.idealist.org to find out more!

Wednesday, June 17 5 - 8 pm American University, Katzen Arts Center, Rotunda, 1st Floor 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington 

Thursday, June 18 5 - 8 pmFordham University, Lincoln Center, Pope Auditorium 113 W 60th Street, New York, NY 

Back at it

Finals have been finished, vacation has been taken, and now I'm back in this game of grad school.  Though Brandeis classes don't officially start until next week, I decided to pick up a tax accounting class this summer at Bentley.  That started last week, and it's going to be a six-week learning whirlwind.  I find it to be a very interesting and useful subject, though the fact that the professor thinks that we'll be competent enough to prepare individual and business tax returns (and that we'll know 95% of the CPA exam material) by the end of it all baffles me.  It seems impossible now, but I bet he's right.  He's probably done this a few times before. 

The semester ended well.  I finished two big projects: a strategic position for Citizen Schools (which I still need to pass along to my contact there ... eek!) and a financial plan/budget for a youth organic farming program that I hypothetically started up.  Though those projects were a TON of work, they both turned out to be pretty interesting.  I wish I'd had more time to spend on them and really dig a lot deeper than I did.  It was a taste of what doing something like that for a job might be like, and in retrospect, it was pretty fun.  

I'm looking forward to our summer semester.  We're doing our Team Consulting Project, and my team is working with ACCION USA to expand an internet loan program.  It's a super interesting organization, and I'm looking forward to producing something that will hopefully be valuable to them as well as learning a few things along the way!  

Finals are upon me!

My apologies for being MIA in the blogosphere ... the insanity of finals has firmly taken its hold on my life from now until May 10th at midnight when my final take-home final shall be submitted. Or else.

I have TONS of ideas of fun things I'd like to write about and share with you. I even made a list! That's what I do when the workload is overwhelming ... make lists of all of the things I have to do and all of the things I want to do. A little forward-thinking motivation never hurts, in my opinion.

So, upon completion of said finals, you will be graced with the presence of multiple blog entries from me. Perhaps even multiple blog entries in one day! Until then, here's a little sampling of what's left until I am the proud owner of 1/2 of an MBA:

• Finish creating budget package for hypothetical organic youth farming program
• Study (ALOT!) for Cost Accounting Final
• Finish group presentation for Operations Management and present to classmates
• Study for & complete take-home final for Operations Management
• Complete final case analysis/assignment for Corporate Fraud

Whoa! Better get to work ...

Three Cups of Tea

I just finished reading "Three Cups of Tea" written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, and it was truly one of the best books I've read in a while. The book basically details Mortenson's quest to build schools to educate girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is a mountaineer who nearly dies on an attempt to summit K2 and subsequently has a change of heart about what he wants to make important in his life from then on. He becomes what I consider to be one of our greatest social entrepreneurs as he works to fulfill his mission to bring peace through education.

Some of the pieces of his story that I found most remarkable were:

• the determination he showed to complete his goals and keep his promises despite MANY obstacles
• the relationships he formed with his "second family" of Pakistanis thousands of miles from his home
• the way that he integrated himself into a completely foreign culture and came to love it
• his efforts to share his personal story and knowledge of Muslim people post-9/11 in an attempt to diffuse the hatred that was seeping into Americans' culture for this "enemy"

We discussed the book in a book club gathering last night (accompanied by a delicious Pakistani meal!), and one of the questions/comments that arose was a general admiration for Mortenson's complete faith in his mission and his choice to give up most material possessions in order to achieve this mission. I think it's a very real tension that is becoming more apparent as we face the deterioration of our economy and a serious reduction in opportunities for people to "get rich" in the ways that have worked for the past 15 years or so. What is the price of doing humanitarian work? Does the benefit outweigh the cost? Is there a happy medium? Where does idealism meet reality in our financially-based society?

I have some thoughts on this trade-off, which I'll share in a subsequent post because it's a topic that I'm pretty interested in and passionate about ... and I could ramble on, making this the longest post ever! But, for now, read the book! I hope you will love it and be inspired.

School/Work/Fun BaLanCE

I had the opportunity to attend a lunch for accepted students last week at the Heller School, and one of the most commonly asked questions in my group was whether it was possible to keep a part-time job while going to school full-time and vice versa. There are people of all work/school balance levels in my program, and they all manage to do it somehow.

My opinion on the matter is that it is possible, but it's certainly a situation that forces you to prioritize and often times make trade-offs. I had two small part-time jobs during the fall semester - tutoring and coordinating community service spring break trips - and found it to be manageable most of the time. I've now pretty much completed my community service trip work and am on the verge of having no part-time jobs! This is probably a good thing, given the amount of work I expect the summer semester to hold.

That said, I believe that it would be possible to hold a more substantial part-time job and still get a good educational experience. Though, if I had a significant part-time commitment, I can see where some trade-offs would need to be made. I'd definitely be spending less time with Net Impact and networking activities and perhaps not doing these things at all. And though my blogging on here is slightly infrequent now, I imagine I might not find the time to do it at all with more outside work commitments. I know that I'd have to cut down on social time as well. I usually spend one day each weekend doing something fun and not school-related. These activities would most likely be supplanted with some of the homework that I didn't have time to do during the week because I was working.

I find that I need this balance of fun and meeting inspirational people alongside my coursework to give me energy and to find meaning in my school work. Nothing's impossible when it comes to balancing school with work and fun, but each person's formula for achieving this balance is probably different. Seek your balance!

Freya's right on the money:

I got this quote in my weekly dose of inspiration via the Ripples email yesterday:

"There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."
-Freya Madeleine Stark

And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Stark gets right to the heart of the matter, right to the heart of why we do the things we do, of why people choose to pursue careers that impact the greater good, perhaps of why some people spend entire lifetimes unhappily whittling away at jobs that are unfulfilling and meaningless. If your daily life is not in line with your values, can you ever truly be happy? Goodness - it seems so simple, right? To live out our values in our everyday lives. To believe wholeheartedly in what we are doing each day.

In view of my career as a business student right now, I find this philosophy to be very relevant. As business leaders of the future, we'll need to make sure that our values are injected into everything that we do. When values are not present, it makes it so easy to be part of the business ideas of the past where profits reign supreme and people & the environment finish last. We'll need to operate our personal lives and our companies on the same plane. I see responsible business practices being all about values, all about producing products and services that can have positive and meaningful impacts on stakeholders' lives.

Sometimes I get these quotes in my email and research the quoted person, only to find out that they weren't really all that inspirational in their actual lives and this supposedly wonderful quotation on the meaning of life was really just a snippet taken out of context. Freya came through for me on this one, though. She genuinely and profoundly pursued meaning in her life. She picked up in her early thirties to travel the world, to write, to live out her dreams - she did this in the 1930's, a time when it was unheard of for a woman to be traveling alone around the world. Her biography is entitled "Passionate Nomad". Google her.

Reusable bags are in style ...

But it seems that those who dictate the style world, namely the fashion industry, aren't nearly concerned as the grocery store business is about the environmental effects of hundreds of thousands of plastic shopping bags leaving the malls in the hands of patrons each day. As I was walking around Boston last weekend in a pretty serious shopping district, I noticed the distinct lack of reusable shopping bags and the distinct abundance of multiple bags from multiple stores in the hands of nearly each passerby.

Though it's nearly the norm to bring your own bags to the grocery store these days, the shopping mall seems to be a completely different story. People just aren't doing it yet. I suspect that one of the reasons that it hasn't caught on is that people like to carry around lots of bags from lots of stores - it's a sign of the treasure amassed that day. It was a good shopping day, the plentiful handles wrapped around their hands are reminding. Even the legendary San Francisco plastic bag ban seems to focus only on grocery store bags.

This seems to be the next logical step in the world of reusable bags. The fashion industry is masterful at getting people to want to buy the things that they make. I'm amazed that no one has yet created the perfect reusable, yet fashionable, shopping bag. The possibilities are endless - receipt pouches so you don't lose one, bags made just for carrying shoe boxes, etc...