Apr 04 2012
The Portrait Project Turns Ten
For ten years, Tony Deifell (MBA 2002) has returned to HBS each spring to photograph graduating students.
Feb 21 2012
Sustainability Is Good Business
The recent uproar over the Sierra Club’s acceptance of $26 million in undisclosed donations from an energy company prompted some environmentalists to warn against “sleeping with the enemy.”
Dec 15 2011
An HBS gift guide
Wondering what to get the HBSer in your life this year? In the holiday spirit, we're highlighting a few alumni-led companies and ideas that you may not know about.
Nov 16 2011
Are Humans Cost-Effective?
IBM's computer "Watson" recently played Jeopardy! at HBS, answering questions and raising others.
Nov 08 2011
Saluting Our HBS Veterans
Leadership in action: Alumni draw on courage, dedication, and sacrifice in the classroom and beyond.
Sep 20 2011
A Taxing Question
The Obama administration reportedly is considering big changes in the broken system for taxing the foreign income of US corporations.
Aug 19 2011
i-lab Buzz
There’s a small army of workers putting the finishing touches on the Harvard Innovation Lab, which will soon welcome MBA students enrolled in the new first-year FIELD (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development) course.
Aug 11 2011
Heard on the Street and the She-E-Os
HBS's two a cappella singing groups, Heard on the Street and the She-E-Os, enhance student life on the campus.
Aug 03 2011
No Ducking the Debt Ceiling
Is what just happened in Washington real, or a nightmare? What do HBS professors think?
Jul 21 2011
Social Investing’s Time Has Come
How would you like to invest in a project that simultaneously provides a needed social service and generates a financial return? Nice idea, but not possible? Not exactly.
Jul 13 2011
China Boot Camp
Baker Foundation Professor Warren McFarlan recently led 12 HBS faculty on a ten-day, six-city journey through the new China.
Jul 05 2011
The Business of Champions
Does the Boston Bruins’ outstanding season hold lessons for your organization? Former Bruin Ken Baumgartner (MBA ’02) ponders peak puck performance.
Jun 28 2011
Beyond Case Writing
Sometimes big ideas start with small experiments. That’s been the experience of HBS associate professor Nava Ashraf, whose experimental approach to research in developing countries has produced insights that have influenced government policies.
Jun 09 2011
The Tycoons, HBS's First A Cappella Group
Two years after the founding of Harvard University's oldest a cappella singing group, the Krokodiloes, at the Hasty Pudding Club, the Tycoons, HBS's oldest a cappella singing group, was formed in 1948 with the enthusiastic support of HBS Assistant Dean James Leslie Rollins.
Jun 02 2011
Serious Fun
Video games are addictive. At the nonprofit organization Doorway to Dreams, Nick Maynard (MBA/MPP ’02) harnesses that power to improve the financial literacy of vulnerable consumers.
May 25 2011
Race to the Finish?
Amid growing warnings from scientists about heat-trapping gases, Renault and Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn touted his company's emission-free electric car during a recent visit to HBS.
May 18 2011
U.S. Manufacturing Comeback?
Don’t give up on American manufacturing yet. There are signs of new life that give rise to optimism about a U.S. manufacturing renaissance.
May 11 2011
The PMD 70 Tree and Other Memorials at HBS
The groves of academe are fields rich with possibilities for memorial naming, from entire campuses and buildings to individual benches.
May 04 2011
Recipes from the COC (Chief Operating Cook)
When Dean Nitin Nohria sat down for an interview with us last September, we asked: "What do you like to do for fun?" His answer: "I love to cook. I'm vegetarian, and I cook Indian and Italian food. At home, I'm the chef. If I don't cook, we eat cereal."
Apr 26 2011
Do You See What I See?
In the second-year elective The Moral Leader, students read and discuss a wide selection of literary sources, confronting complex moral challenges and developing the analytical skills and judgment that will be required of them as business leaders.
Apr 15 2011
Students Hear Wall St. Critics
Phil Angelides, a California state treasurer for eight years, is no stranger to big money and politics. But as chairman of Congress’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission looking into the 2008 Wall Street collapse, he was shocked.
Apr 08 2011
Management Matters In Health Care, Too
The road to higher-quality, lower-cost health care leads straight to better management. That was the central message a panel of experts convened by the HBS Health Care Initiative delivered last week.
Apr 01 2011
My First HBS Class
How a financial tyro floundered in a sea of numbers, formulae, and new concepts.
Mar 22 2011
Maximum Cities
The Earth's population is expected to exceed 9 billion people by 2050. How do we cope with the rapid urbanization?
Mar 17 2011
Make or Break for the USA?
As the global economy grows ever more competitive, can U.S. manufacturing ever regain its once robust and thriving condition?
Mar 10 2011
Philanthropy’s Dilemma
An estimated ten times more money will pour into philanthropy during the first half of this century than during the entire century before.
Feb 24 2011
Show Time
The Academy Awards are coming up, that annual homage to movies and their place in popular culture. HBS will be represented at the gala.
Feb 17 2011
Field Report: Rwanda
Last month, some 500 students fanned out around the globe to participate in 13 IXPs offered during January break.
Jan 28 2011
HBS Faculty Approves Curriculum Innovation
With overwhelming support, the HBS faculty in mid-January approved the most significant changes to the MBA program in decades, affecting both the Required and the Elective curricula.
Jan 20 2011
A Precursor from the 1930s
In his State of the School address at last fall’s reunion, Dean Nohria laid out his vision for HBS organized in what we can call the Five I’s: curriculum innovation, intellectual ambition, internationalization, inclusion, and integration with the University.
Dec 20 2010
A Year at Harvard Business School
Take an interactive trip down memory lane and relive 2010 at HBS.
Dec 16 2010
The Emergent Arab World
Last month, the fourth annual “Harvard Arab Weekend” conference was held at venues around the University, including HBS. The accent was on youth, as conference chair Maurice Obeid (HKS/HBS ’12) made clear.
Dec 10 2010
Notes from the Trenches
Last week’s post by Roger Thompson featured “Ten Rules for Entrepreneurs”. To build on that, I thought I’d include some of the more quotable moments and insights from a recent panel featuring past participants of the HBS Business Plan Contest (BP
Dec 02 2010
Ten Rules for Entrepreneurs
Less than 20 percent of new businesses last five years. Despite those daunting odds, three MBAs from the Class of 1998 are among the elite who succeeded, and their stories make compelling reading in a new book.
Nov 16 2010
The HBS Tunnels
Did you know that the HBS tunnels are connected to the Harvard University tunnels across the river? Read on, and all shall be made clear!
Nov 02 2010
Commanding Officers
In an electoral season marked by voter invective toward “government” and practically anyone associated with it, Ray Jefferson (MBA ’00) reminds us that there are public servants out there who are better than we deserve.
Oct 21 2010
Hell? Maybe Not.
Some students call it “hell week,” but the serene second floor of the Doubletree Guest Suites in Cambridge reveals none of the angst associated with the job interviews taking place.
Oct 14 2010
Jobs Bill Misses Mark
Sometimes good politics and good policy just don’t mix. Take the Small Business Jobs Act that President Obama recently signed, for example. HBS professor Josh Lerner contends it’s bad policy.
Sep 30 2010
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Quick….who was the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize? Until a few days ago, I had no clue and I’m not proud of that. That’s one reason I went to see the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, speak at HBS.
Sep 23 2010
How Did You Spend Your Summer Vacation?
A recent issue of the Harbus offers a quick glimpse of what a few MBAs have been up to over the past three months.
Sep 16 2010
Idea Takes Root
A new international effort is under way to create a standardized global reporting model for operating sustainable businesses, and HBS professor Robert G. Eccles is a key player.
Sep 01 2010
Head Games
Football and other contact sports are huge money-makers. But recently they have been rocked by revelations about brain damage caused by repeated concussive blows to the head.
Aug 25 2010
Classroom Hijinks: Games, Parties, Pranks, and Celebrations
In the first part of “Classroom Hijinks” last week, I discussed catchphrases, cheers, and mascots. Here I cover the classroom games, parties, pranks, and serenades of professors in the last class.
Aug 19 2010
Classroom Hijinks: Catchphrases, Mottos, Cheers, and Mascots
Let me sing the praises of the unknown genius who devised the system in which an MBA section is taught all its first-year courses in one classroom.
Aug 12 2010
You Can’t Take It with You
Everyone's doing it, from multi-billionaires to people with much, much less. Is "giving it up for good" part of a growing movement toward a different measure of success?
Aug 04 2010
A Lonely Crusader
We’ve all read stories about those rare individuals who saw the financial crisis coming and profited handsomely from their contrarian insights. Add to that list of contrarians hedge fund manager Bill Ackman (MBA ’92).
Jul 30 2010
Notes from a Hammock
I’m just back from vacation. My summer reading included The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s page-turning, best-selling trilogy of mysteries. It's murder and mayhem with a business angle.
Jul 21 2010
Mad Men, the Early Era
Step into the lobby of the Baker Library | Bloomberg Center and you’ll find an exhibit that coordinates well with the cool elegance of the building’s black-and-white checkerboard floor.
Jul 14 2010
The Concerts in the Chapel
One of the cultural amenities of life on the HBS campus is the availability of free music concerts in the Class of 1959 Chapel. Designed by Moshe Safdie in 1992, the chapel and its adjoining clock tower were funded by members of the MBA Class of 1959.
Jun 30 2010
Congressional Pork Is Bad for Business
The passing on June 28 of Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia at 92, after a 51-year career in the Senate, triggered an outpouring of remembrances, positive and negative, of his long service on Capitol Hill.
May 25 2010
Commencement and the Winds of Change
To give peace a chance, unleash the power of business. That’s Sir Ronald Cohen’s (MBA ’69) idea for one of the world’s toughest neighborhoods: the Middle East.
Apr 14 2010
The First African-American MBAs at HBS
The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States had me wondering who the first African-Americans were to earn Harvard MBAs.
Feb 19 2010
The MBA Oath Debate
After months of glowing press accounts, the MBA Oath, a voluntary HBS student-crafted pledge that asks graduating MBAs to commit to the creation of value “responsibly and ethically,” has hit a media rough patch. Critics now see little value and much potential harm in the well-meaning oath.
Jan 29 2010
Back to Glass-Steagall?
President Obama shocked Wall Street recently with his proposal to cut down to size too-big-to-fail banks by imposing new rules to separate commercial and investment activities.
Jan 12 2010
Tweet, Tweet
Catch up with HBS students at IXP sites around the world with this up-to-the-minute feed of observations, commentary, and photos.
Dec 23 2009
In the Zone
We catch up with Lauren Scopaz (MBA ’07) of the Harlem Children’s Zone — a game-changing nonprofit that is serving as a model for the Obama Administration’s Promise Neighborhood Initiative.
Dec 08 2009
Don’t Scare the Bankers
An offhand remark from an unlikely source offers a reminder of how much the times — and the financial-services industry — have changed.
Nov 06 2009
Health Reform Paths Not Taken
No issues in the ongoing Congressional health-care debate have generated more heat than the so-called public option and proposed taxes on “gold-plated” health insurance plans. Conservatives view a new government-run health insurance option as creeping socialism. Unions fear that taxes on generous health plans would penalize their members for hard-won concessions from employers.
Jun 17 2009
The Case for Regulatory Reform
This is week when the Wall Street chickens come home to roost. In the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Obama administration has sent Congress a package of regulatory reforms aimed, in large part, at putting an end to what HBS professor David Moss calls “implicit guarantees” that compel the government to bail out large financial institutions.
Feb 17 2009
I Network, You Network, He, She, It Networks…
Do future MBAs emerge from the womb with business card in hand? Greet their preschool pals with a firm, not fishy, handshake? HBS alumni so frequently mention the lifelong benefits of connections made at Soldiers Field that I’ve always assumed their networking skills were honed sometime before the second grade.
Jan 30 2009
What’s It Worth to You?
How much is a CEO worth? What is appropriate compensation for the leader of a large and complex organization? One frequent reply has been “Let the market decide.”
Dec 19 2008
WHBS, 820 on Your Dial
Almost fifty years before HBS developed a broadcast presence with its own Web site in 1996, the School had a rather limited one: the radio station WHBS, which was in operation from 1948 to 1964 or 1965. It was limited because the broadcasting was done via HBS’s power lines, only to campus buildings. Since it was not, technically, “on the air,” the station was unlicensed and not subject to FCC regulation.
Nov 21 2008
No More Squawking about the Campus Turkey
This just in. Turk Turkee is history. No more appearances on YouTube. No more plugs on CNBC. No more ink from BusinessWeek or the Boston Globe. No more Facebook site called "HBS Students for the Removal of the Turkey."
Sep 25 2008
Been There, Seen That
It’s been a grim couple of weeks out there. Personally, I’ve had more déjà vu than I’ve seen in a long time, as Yogi Berra might have said, especially after losing a string of tough doubleheaders.
My own sobering twin bill has consisted of revisiting, in recent days, graphic foreshadowing of (1) the energy crisis, and (2) the economic meltdown.
Sep 18 2008
HBS Olympians
While watching the spectacular and only slightly enhanced (digitally and chemically) Olympics, I found myself wondering how many HBS Olympians there have been over the years. I could think of only one—Paul Wylie (MBA 2000C), who won a silver medal in figure skating in the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France—but I was sure there were more.
Sep 10 2008
Thanks for the Memories
If you haven’t already taken a look at the HBS Institutional Memory Web site, don’t miss it. Since it was launched in February in conjunction with the School’s centennial celebration, the site has steadily added to its treasure trove of information and reminiscences, and it continues to do so.
Aug 21 2008
Stylin’ at Gallatin
A note to the 73 incoming MBAs moving into newly renovated Gallatin Hall: You are some lucky ducks. I tagged along on a tour of Gallatin led by principal architect Steve Erwin and project architect Patricia DeLauri, both of Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott, a Boston-based firm with a long history with Harvard University and the B-School.
Aug 06 2008
Caution to the Winds
Maybe there’s nothing to those predictions that the end of oil is near, or the allegations, such as those by oil-industry veteran Matthew Simmons (MBA ’67), that Saudi petroleum reserves are way less than what is believed. But something’s going on when a fossil-fuels magnate like T. Boone Pickens, the octogenarian billionaire oilman, says it’s time to throw caution to the winds — literally.
Jul 17 2008
Are You Being Served?
Recently, I successfully appealed a ruling handed down against me by the State of Massachusetts. The state — and its oft-reviled bureaucracy — went out of its way to be fair, courteous, and forgiving. It got me to thinking: Has government been forced to become more customer friendly because of the high standards set by private-sector customer service?
Jun 26 2008
The First HBS Class Notes
The first class notes about HBS alumni were run in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin. But when the first issue of the Bulletin of the Harvard Business School Alumni Association — to give its full title — appeared in January 1925, fifteen years after the first class graduated in 1910, it included a page of staff-written "Personal Items" about alumni, reporting job changes, addresses, and marriages.
May 13 2008
HBS’s Oldest Class Secretary
Let’s hear it for HBS’s oldest class secretary, Charlie Cole, who will turn 100 on July 23. Charlie writes about the AMP 14 class, which graduated in December 1948, 96 members strong, and now has 6 hardy souls.
Apr 01 2008
“Let Us Now Praise Famous Women”
Thousands of alumni over recent decades have spoken and corresponded with three HBS women even though they’ve never met them. I’m talking about the backbone of the Alumni Records Office — Val Curtis, Doris Bogues, and Marianna Lozzi — who cumulatively have more than 80 years of experience getting accurate alumni names and contact details, explaining LEFAs, doling out passwords, and recording and verifying deaths.
Mar 04 2008
HBS Blogs
Blogs have long since come into their own. After all, they’ve been around since 1994, and just recently a blogger received the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism. So it seems a good time to recognize blogs by HBS alums and faculty by compiling a list of them and presenting it on the Bulletin blog.
