Porter Appointed to University Professorship High Stakes: Springboard 2000 Comes to HBS New Fitzhugh Professorship Celebrated TIME OUT — The Road Taken: One Family's Worldly Adventure Teele Hall Dedication HBSi Combines HBS Content with State-of-the-Art Web Technology HBS and Stanford in Online Collaboration Happy Campers: HBS Student Auction Helps Local Kids Design Moguls In Dot-Calm Era, Conference Examines Options for Entrepreneurs   Happy Campers: HBS Student Auction Helps Local Kids At a “Christmas in July” auction held last summer, the January Cohort of the Class of 2001 raised just over $15,000 to benefit the Cambridge Camping Association (CCA), a 106-year-old organization dedicated to helping low-income, minority, and at-risk children to attend summer camp programs. At the CCA’s annual board meeting in October, HBS students presented the group with the event’s proceeds, the largest single donation the CCA received last year. The money will be used to fund scholarships to support ten campers. Auction items included a weekend getaway at a ranch, a pair of Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, and a private serenade. The auction was designed to bring members of the cohort together to make a contribution to the local community. “We’re hoping to stay in touch with the kids even after we graduate,” said Andrew Lazzaro (HBS ’01), a co-organizer of the auction. His counterpart, Amelia Alberghini (HBS ’01), added, “It was great fun to be a part of something we can all share in.”   At left, Amelia Alberghini and Andrew Lazzaro (both HBS '01) present Syrl Silberman of the CCA with a much-appreciated donation to help children attend summer camp programs (above)   RETURN TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE   Design Moguls The HBS Design Fair 2000, held December 4 in Kresge Hall, showcased final projects for the MBA elective course, Managing Product Development, taught by Associate Professor Stefan Thomke. Second-year students on the Capstone Snowboard Products team (see photo) proposed two products to enable snowboarders to negotiate flat terrain: a collapsible ski pole and a rotational binding that allows the user to “skate” across the snow. Pictured: Lee Rawlings, Gerardus Smith, Professor Thomke, and Miles Denniston. Team members not pictured: Craig Halder and Patrick Hooper.   RETURN TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE   In Dot-Calm Era, Conference Examines Options for Entrepreneurs Is the bloom off the entrepreneurial rose? Do B2B and B2C mean “Back to Banking” and “Back to Consulting,” as the current joke would have it? Where are the opportunities for those who still believe starting their own business is the way to go? The 2000 HBS Entrepreneurship Conference, titled “Build to Lead” and sponsored by the student-run Entrepreneurship Club, offered a fresh look at today’s changing entrepreneurial environment. Guy Kawasaki, founder and CEO of the venture-capital investment bank Garage.com, kicked off the October conference with the first of his three keynote presentations. Kawasaki’s wry observations of the current business scene were relayed with self-deprecating humor and great panache. His list of the “Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs” included: In year three, we’re going to do $75 million (“No one ever believes that”); Amazon.com is about to sign our contract; We have first-mover advantage (“If you have a great idea, assume that ten companies are doing it”); and Oracle/Microsoft/IBM is too slow to be a threat (“They’re not so stupid; they’re not so slow”). On a more serious note, in his opening remarks, HBS professor Joseph B. Lassiter told the audience that entrepreneurs must not surrender to feelings of hopelessness. Stressing that starting any business is nothing less than a ten-year career commitment, he explained that those ten years may well be marked by two extremes: brilliant successes (that could come deceptively early) and perilous moments of near-failure. Other keynotes included David P. Perry’s “The Ups and Downs of the Modern Entrepreneur.” Perry (MBA ’97) is the founder of the B2B marketplace Chemdex (which recently closed its doors) and CEO of its parent company, Ventro Corporation. Peter W. Bell (MBA ’93), cofounder and CEO of StorageNetworks, urged the audience not to let success go to their heads. “Egos kill companies because the companies get fat, dumb, and happy,” Bell stated, reeling off the names of several now-defunct organizations whose outsized reputations may have held the seeds of their own destruction. Attendees could choose from a series of panel discussions, including how to start up internationally and “Corporate Venturing: Entrepreneurship on the Inside.” A panel on how to get a company off the ground included entrepreneurs Joel T. Bines (MBA ’99), cofounder and CEO of Peranet, Inc., and Adam J. Kanner (MBA ’98), founder and CEO of edu.com. Another group, with panelist Malik Khan (MBA ’82), founder and CEO of Sitara Networks, discussed “The Internet Infrastructure Conundrum.” In his concluding remarks, Garage.com’s Kawasaki outlined a few lessons he’d learned, such as “consulting isn’t doing,” and “doing isn’t leading.” Asserting that the math skills needed to build a company are simple, he said, “If you buy something for a dollar and sell it for five dollars, you will be rich. The key is OB, social psychology, and leading. This is where the money is made.” This article was compiled from reports on HBS Working Knowledge. For more coverage of the Entrepreneurship Conference, visit hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu.   RETURN TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE