gerberer

To Montenegro

Re-posted from the GWSB Writers in Residency blog:

You can take the recent lack of posts as a sign that I’ve been having fun. Or, at least, that I’ve been busy. Since our last chat, I’ve finished my IRP, left Serbia, and experienced Bill Clinton. Let’s move backwards…

Rachel and I are in Budva, Montenegro, playing Texas Hold’em with Vesper Lyndtaking a much deserved break from meat platters and power point presentations. We arrived this afternoon after an overnight train ride that included an early morning breakdown. We’d been alternately warned to avoid the bus and avoid the train to Montenegro. Maybe neither are ideal, but if Montenegro’s the destination, getting there any way is worth it.

The days leading up to our departure were filled with final rounds of presentations. This time, though, our clients came and we presented our actual proposals. Exciting stuff! It was amazing to see how each team upped their game over the last round of run-throughs. One after another, each group nailed their final presentation. So, by the time my group, Team Biotrend, took to the projector, the ante had been seriously upped.

I don’t know how the other trips stack up, but for us these projects have been great capstones to all of our school work over the past year. We came for a marketing project, but every lesson, from Lucea’s International Management to Kulp’s Managerial Accounting, to Timm’s Business Communications came rushing back. Most of all, if you talk to my fellow Dobra Cobra’s, you’ll find a lot learned about working in teams, under pressure, with little direction.

Most IRPs had big projects working on big important stuff. We, in Serbia, had more modest projects; helping a mother and son sell some family recipes in a neighboring country, for one. But when the scope is small and the client company’s management is intimate, the depth of the experience just grows amazingly. Each of us had to call on the best that we could give to these amazing companies. In turn, they gave us their best too (in my team’s case, they gave us hand-made aprons!)

Now, we’re all done and the Dobra Cobras are scattered across Europe. Drew’s off to Turkey. Lissi and Aleena are in Croatia. Karen is in Greece. Varun’s heading back to India. Elliot’s in Rome… and Rachel and I are off to our trek through Montenegro and Bosnia. Even with all these new adventures and distractions, I bet that most of us are still thinking about Serbia, our clients, our new friends, and the unbelievable experience we had there.

 

Top 5 Things to Love About Belgrade

Re-posted from the GWSB Writers in Residency blog:

5. Zemun:

This little suburb just down the Danube from Belgrade is the New Jersey to Belgrade’s New York. Derided and overlooked, but charming and essential. We’ve made our way through Zemun twice this past week, once for a visit to an open air farmers market and then again on our Sunday evening boat tour and visit to one of the areas best seafood restaurants, Sharon.

4. Silicon Valley:

The eponymous silicon is of the cosmetic variety, not microprocessers, on this strip of swanky bars and restaurants. Saturday morning, after a dizzying 4:00am bedtime, Drew, Karen, and I headed down to the street where the rich play and just totally demolished three pizzas. For sustaining us during a brighter than comfortable morning, Silicon earns a memory.

3. The Rivers:

I admit, our actual visit to the rivers Sava and Danube was less than ideal. Our boat cruise was beset by pollen and thunderstorms, and our captain just had to drop us off a good half mile from our dinner destination (still raining, of course). However, from certain spots in the city, the confluence of the Sava and Danube provides a stunning backdrop for great group photos and history lessons alike.

The weather kept me from grabbing a great river pic, but I did get a pretty effective video of some astounding pollen levels. Watch, and be horrified:

 

2. Kalemegdan:

I came to the old fort Kalemegdan twice within 24 hours. First, on Saturday night, a small group of us ventured out to a few museums for the city’s annual Noj Muzea, a Night at the Museums where the museums are open late and the citizens get a taste of what they have to offer. We visited a few museums that night (the Science and Technology Museum was particularly bizarre), but it was our after-midnight visit to Kalemegdan and the Military museum that provided the best  and most beautiful memories

1. Knez Mihailova

This is THE street in Belgrade. A meeting, eating, shopping, drinking place all wrapped into one. It's got the best parts of Santa Monica's 3rd Street Prominade and Jerusalem's Ben Yehuda Street. I've eaten nearly every great meal I've had in this city within a block of Knez Mihailova and snuck in some great people watching while at it. Multiple Burberry stores, late night crepes, boxes of puppies... what's not to love?

An honorary mention goes to the roof of our very own Hotel Prag. We've spent about as many hours inside this hotel as we have outside, and the conference room and patio on the top floors have become our second home. You can probably guess why:

 

Super Ljutko

Re-posted from the GWSB Writers in Residency blog:

One of the perks of working with food companies is that you get to eat a lot of great stuff. I think you’re on the wrong residency, Winnie.

Ellen Likes It!

Today, my teammates Drew, Ellen, and I took turns trying different ruska salatas (russian salads) made by some of our client Biotrend’s competitors. Ruska salata is Biotrend’smain product, yet unfortunately, we could only find their Super Ljutko which happens to be an ultra hot dipping sauce. It turned out to be both really, really hot and really, really good!

We’ve also taken the chance to explore our beautiful new home, Belgrade. It’s a charming town and as our tour guide reminded us today, in 2005 the Financial Times Magazine ranked Belgrade as one of the top 5 destinations for foreign investment in southeastern Europe. That’s right, folks. Serbia’s gone big time.

We were supposed to follow up our bus tour with a walking tour, but the day turned cold and wet (sorry, Ghanaians) and instead we took the time to research and work on our projects (and mend our jet lagged bodies). For dinner, we went out to a traditional, authentic Serbian meal that consisted of about 4 courses served over as many hours. I could describe the the way this meal made us feel, but I’ll just let the bird in the next photo do the explaining for us.

Fat Serbian Bird

A last little note: One nice side perk of this whole residency program is that its given us a chance to meld together all the things we’ve learned from our various courses this past year. There’s the marketing plan we’re writing, the international business strategy of taking a domestic company global (only if it adds value, of course), and even moments of operations insight.

Here’s Rachel holding forth on some of the finer points of operations in action at the Geneva International Airport. Be sure to watch for Ellen’s childlike wonder at the surrounding Swiss mountains at 0:38.

  

For some additional Serbia photo fun, check my flickr stream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamlgerber/sets/72157626552522881/show/

 

The Ailerons

Re-posted from the GWSB Writers in Residency blog:

24-hours after leaving DC for the great former Yugoslav capital of Belgrade and I’m very pleased to announce that we have arrived…. at Dulles International Airport!

We should never have let Rachel join us for the flight:

 

What a world, eh? My five Serbia-bound compatriots and I waited for a few hours at Dulles yesterday for our flight. After a few delays, we were informed that the flight was cancelled. The culprit? Some sneaky, brake-able airplane part called the “Aileron.” Let’s take this as a learning opportunity:

Ailerons are hinged flight control surfaces attached to the trailing edge of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. 
The ailerons are used to control the aircraft in roll. The two ailerons are typically interconnected so that one goes down when the other goes up: the down going aileron increases the lift on its wing while the up going aileron reduces the lift on its wing, producing a rolling moment about the aircraft’s longitudinal axis.[1] The word aileron is French for “little wing”.

Our relationship with this apparently indispensible and occasionally persnickety airplane component has turned love/hate. While I think we all wish we had never had to learn about the aileron, I’m sure we’re all grateful to have the problem identified and fixed on the ground, rather than in the air. Also, this awesome band name for our upcoming karaoke nights in Belgrade is TAKEN. (see below)

Another perk: The lot of us opted to spend the night in some wonderful N. Virginia resort called Lansdowne, which provided a lot more leg room than my expected flight to Serbia would have.

Now it’s Friday and while we should be in Serbia by now, we’re still in Dulles International Airport, 25.9 miles from Duques Hall (http://goo.gl/maps/GcZI).

What have we learned from this adventure? Double check your ailerons.

See you in Serbia, someday.

Bonus: A sampling of The Ailerons:

   

Serbia: Too Much History

I've started blogging as a over at the GW School of Business's "Writers in Residency" blog for MBA students preparing to travel and work abroad next month. Here's a teaser for my first post on my destination, Serbia:

I was talking with my dad the other night and he asked me again where I’m heading next month. “Bosnia? Slovakia? Uzbekistan?!” Wrong all all three accounts, but part of me can’t blame him. The country is Serbia, home to an old nation with a new identity. Like my dad, my own image of Serbia was fairly anonymous. Headlines from CNN from a dozen years ago, and a vague sense that this was a place that was not safe, not modern.

Find more at: http://gwsbresidency.wordpress.com/

Three Questions for Doug Guthrie

I'm not the only new kid in town this fall at GWSB. 

Doug Guthrie has ascended to the top cop job at our little school of business. Naturally, his credentials are impressive. He's got a PhD in Sociology from Berkeley, studied Chinese literature and economics and written extensively on the subject, and he comes from one of the most innovative business school in the nation, NYU. 

In an interview with GW's Hatchet, the he outlines some of his vision for the school, in particular his hopes to see the school reputation and ranking rise over the next few years:

Guthrie comes from the No. 5 New York University's Stern School of Business where he is a professor of management. He is also a professor of sociology at the school's College of Arts and Sciences.

In order to improve the school's ranking, he said he will build alliances with high-profile organizations and to expand the school's media presence, adding to the reputation of its programs. GW was ranked No. 55 in the nation in U.S. News and World Report's April 2009 ranking of best graduate schools. GW is also ranked as a top 25 program from the U.S. News for International Business. According to the Financial Times ratings, the school is No. 30 in the nation.

"In Washington, when anything happens, the financial crisis or G20 talks - the business school has to have something to say about it," Guthrie said. "We should be clogging the media airwaves on it and that will give us airtime and that will start to move the bar in the rankings because peer rankings matter."

And then...

"He knows what it means to be at a top business school and he will really help us... move us up into the top 25," Lehman said.

That Lehman character at the end is Donald Lehman, the school's Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and member of the GWSB Dean Search Committee. This talk about entering the "Top 25", according to the US News methodology we presume, reflects the schools pretty consistently laid out values regarding reputation and rank. See the last pages of the dean position description pdf linked on the search committee page above.

Anyhow, all of this got me thinking. I'm not a Master of Business yet, but I do have a substantial stake in how GW rises or falls in ranking. My future salary depends on it. Since I didn't get to grill Doug, or Donald, on my schools new vision before the hiring, lets see what kind of answers I can get now.

1. Moving up to the Top 25 is a tall order. It would mean lapping some innovative big shots. University of Washington, Boston University, and my delightful alma mater UC Davis all rank between our #55 and the desired #25. These are good, serious, and ambitious schools themselves. Do we rise in the rankings by being more like the most elite? Or more distinct? Is "Top 25" perhaps cutting ourselves short?
   
2. Has any other school shot up the rankings as we expect to do in the next few years? What's our time-frame here? Is our game plan just to promote ourselves better and hope that peers at other schools keep us in mind next time they're asked? NYU seems to be a great role model for innovative work and a corresponding rankings lift. What have you learned, Dr. Guthrie, from your time at US News' current #5 campus?
   
3. What is the difference between being a better ranked school and being, well, a better school? How can we actually become a better business school with better careers, alum giving rates, and incoming student stats? What can we learn from alternative and design oriented programs at other top schools? How can new students like me help? What ought we add to our curriculum? What to eliminate? 

I would love to hear Dr. Guthrie or Dr. Lehman's thoughts on these. If you're a current student and you have any ideas or responses to my questions, send them my way. 

Summer Questions

There are a few questions on my mind today.

I'll turn these in to blog posts (someday) so if your an expert or if you've got an expert sounding opinion on these, let me know.

The summer before b-school maybe a last hurrah for a good old summer job for many of us. What's a great, alternative job to fill up your summer before starting grad school? Home renovations? Restaurant service? Summer camps? Serving the needy?

A student's budget - Time and money! Cutting cable reduces destractions, sure. But what if I want to have some limited fun on my TV from time to time? Netflix, HTPCs, Hulu, playstations...

GWSB's new dean wants to take us from the Top 50 to the Top 25, US News wise. What does that growth look/feel like. Which other schools have done that? Is that even possible?

Share your knowledge.

Mojo rising...

And, we're back.

This blog has been semi-retired for the last year but now its time to get my digital life back on track. Here's some highlight's from my time out in the real world...

• Traveled the planet
• Met a lady
• Got into grad school

It's that last bullet that's inspired this blog refresh. My goal is to use this as a space to explore and talk a bit about the mba experience, the gw experience, and some of the other little pleasures of grad life.

So, dedicated readership, I've got some good topics in mind for the next few weeks so keep an eye out for some updates. 

PS: Are you starting at GWSB this fall? I want to interview you. All of you. Email me.

The Enviornmental Frat Party

The bottom line is that disposable cups are never going to be any good for the environment, and until there's a better infrastructure for properly collecting and composting them, it's not clear whether using the biodegradable versions will help very much at all. For your party, then, the Lantern suggests reusable beer steins, or, better yet, the trusty keg stand—no cups required.

via Slate Magazine

Post-it Notes

David Friedman photographed Art Fry, the inventor of the Post-it Note, for an ongoing photo project he is doing about inventors. After the shoot, he asked if he’d ever seen the Sticky Note Experiments video by Eepybird (the Mentos and Diet Coke guys). It turned out he hadn’t. David filmed his reaction as he watched it:

Post-it Note inventor watches Sticky Note Experiments from Ironic Sans on Vimeo.

If you haven’t already seen it, this is the video he was watching:

EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

via swissmiss

Puke in my Mouth

better late than never, i guess.

Sometime I think my medicine is killing me

Some of the items here are actually pretty delicious looking but what the hell are those peas made out of?!

hospital food from around the world.

We Didn't Start the Flame War

Once upon a time, my dad waded into the blogosphere to respond to an unhelpful comment with a far more helpful one. He signed the post, and I'm serious about this, with his full name and email address. I only wish I had this catchy video back then to warn my dad of the terrors that awaited him;

Watch We Didn't Start the Flame War and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

via SlateV. Also, my dad's blogging experience has ended up far better than it started.

adamgerber.com

I just spent some time poking around online and discovered (much to my delight) that adamgerber.com is not only already registered, but is filled with adorable, sitcom quality pictures of a sitcom quality dad (Adam, I presume) and his adorable kids.

I was pointed to check out to see if my name was taken as a website by a great lifehacker article about building your online identity and figured it was time for some brand management of my own (I'm this close to my big break, I promise!)

So, AdamGerber.com is taken, but AdamLGerber.com is available. Should I go ahead and commit myself to a life of promoting my middle initial? ALGerber.com is around too.

Thoughts? How should I write my name to be inscribed for all digital history?

BONUS QUESTION: Does anyone out there know what my middle L stands for?

Gabi, Rivki, Mumbai, and God

Just before Hanukkah 2003, Gabi and Rivki arrive in Mumbai with little in tow but his knives and her wigs and Menachem Mendel, not yet 1. They set up shop in a rented room at the three-star Shelley’s Hotel on the water in the main tourist area: not an ideal situation, with no kitchen, little space, and a highly disagreeable owner. Still, they get to work, offering Torah study, officiating at bar mitzvahs and weddings, serving meals, and, because there is no kosher meat to be had—and no beef, of course; it’s India—slaughtering hundreds of chickens a week. 

This is an incredible piece. Not just because we already know the ending, but because it does an outstanding job of describing why Chabad has become so iconic and important to Jews everywhere, even ones who fundamentially disagree with the mission - like me. Read it, and weep.

Spring Break Destination 2010, please

Sponsors said the bill would free Americans to travel to the one place in the world they can't go and encourage Cubans to push for democratic reforms by exposing them to new people and information.

"Punishing the American people in our effort to somehow deal a blow to the Castro government has not made any sense at all," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "At long last, this policy, which has been in place for 50 years and has not worked, will finally be removed."

Finally. Now, someone get to work on allowing me to go see Kim Jong Ill's Mass Games, stat!

global rat

via graflex directions

Finding My Inner Unclutterer

I am not a designer but I’ve come under the sway of some of the most amazing design and design-thinking blogs. They’ve really helped me in my own work by training me to make the little things I make (emails, spreadsheets, credit card forms) simple and sensical. My choice of blog colors and font (Helvetica, natch) are chosen on purpose. How many folders? 43. My inbox? Happily approaching zero.

Most importantly, I feel that they’ve made it easier for me to enjoy the working part of my day, and not just the surfing part.

The problem is that I am now a little more sensitive to poor design – confounding forms, unclear directions, and unnecessary desk clutter. Therefore as a gift to you, co-worker / reader of my blog, I share with you this link with the hope that you too will be inspired

.

Now, go do epic shit.

Jewish Grandma / Nurse Assistant for Dentist Husband / Socialist South American President Dies

Guyana Leader Was Always Her Own (Jewish) Woman, by J. J. Goldberg;

Like many Depression-era teens, Janet outraged her parents by taking up communism. Unlike most, she spent her life in the struggle. In 1942, she met and fell in love with Cheddi Jagan, a son of Indian-Guyanese sugar cane workers. Nearly every biographical account dwells on the instant spark between the “beautiful Jewish” student nurse and the “dashingly handsome” foreign dental student.

They were married in August 1943. Her father cut off contact with his daughter, vowed to disown her and threatened to shoot the dark-skinned, non-Jewish Cheddi, Janet would recall. In the fall of that year, the couple moved to what was then British Guiana. Cheddi opened a dental practice, and Janet worked as his assistant. Together they began meeting with other radicals to discuss independence.

via The Forward

So Moved

I love Maira Kalman and this piece on democracy, de Tocqueville, and the Salisburys.
Be sure to also check out he 'In Love With A. Lincoln' too:

via NYTimes