Facebook Founder 'Wastes His Money' on Education

Even if you don't read this post please do yourself a favor, like I did today, and check out this link to an upcoming movie about education in our country.

 

I'm sure that most of you have heard about the fact that Mark Zuckerberg, the 24 year old that founded Facebook and just passed Steve Jobs by seven places on the Forbes richest people in America list, donated $100 million to the Newark Public School System on Friday during the Oprah Winfrey Show. 

 

In most of the articles I've read it seems that people have written this off as Mr. Zuckerberg trying to distract the swarms of movie-goers that are going out to see The Social Network from believing that he in some way stole the idea for Facebook as the movie, and the book on which it is loosely based, suggests.  I had a few discussions with some of my co-workers the other day, however, that has changed my perspective on the issue and I think it relates pretty well to our objectives in this class.

 

One of the few articles that I've read likens the idea of donating money to the public school systems to flushing money down the toilet.  They also talked about it being this decades new 'Live Aid,' when everyone donated money in the 80's to help starving children in Africa, type of quest that influential celebrities and philanthropists are now taking on in this country.  After reading all of this I was, quite frankly, appalled by the idea of people believing that donating money to fix public schools in this country would be considered a lost cause, but after our conversation the other day it seems like there's a possibility that they're not too far off in that analogy.

 

The public school system's in this country have been broken, as a whole mind you, for years and nothing has been done about it.  Our country ranks near the top in the amount of money we spend on education, but much lower in achievement.  One study I just looked at placed us 18th of the 36 industrialized nations in secondary education.  This is obviously a problem that needs to be addressed.  The issue is that it may take a complete overhaul of the system to make it all happen.   

 

I suggested a similar solution when it came to the Treadway Tire Company for this weeks case study, but these suggestions are, after all, easier to bring up than to actually put into action.  The money that we spend on education in this country and the results that young people get out of that education are obviously not where they need to be.  I thought, and still think today, about going into the field of education eventually, but it seems like an area that I may want to stay out of for quite a while.  The structure of this enormous organization in this country needs to be changed, and managed more effectively, or we may continue to be out-paced by the rest of the world...and more importantly, opportunity that should be there for everyone will continue to not be.

Portable Careers and Football

I've been spending a lot of time recently, just like a lot of other MBA students I know, doing research for two papers that I'm currently working on.  I've come across a lot of articles during all of this research that have nothing to do with what my papers will be about, but are intriguing and I end up reading anyhow.  I guess that's yet another form of procrastination that I have to some how tackle in the future.

The one that I just got done reading is about the value of a 'portable' career, and recruiting 'star' players for your organization based on research done by some Harvard folks on the NFL.  If nothing else I figured it would make for a good segway from watching football to making some school work happen on a Sunday.

I would have liked to be able to read the actual study, but you have to pay for it and I'm not all that excited about paying for any more articles, books, etc. at least until next month.  It is, however, a pretty good overview of what the study was all about with a quick question and answer question.

It actually got me thinking about the Treadway Tire Company case study, because it talks about when you should actually go out and recruit star talent or cultivate that talent from your current crop of employees.  I think many companies believe that they should be looking elsewhere for their next star manager, sales person, etc. when they could be training the people they've already got to eventually be that person.  After all, anyone who is a star somewhere else, unless they are ridiculously lucky and extremely gifted, has had to grow up through the ranks of another organization and fail over and over again until they eventually became that star.  

Not to bring too many sports into the mix, but I think that the Phillies are an excellent example of a good balance of this.  They have cultivated most of their now big-name talent through their farm system, but have also gone out and gotten that star talent for certain positions that has propelled them to the top of their league yet again this season.  I wasn't going into this post trying to reference as many sports as possible, but I think it'll make for a nice Sunday blogging theme for the rest of the semester. 

New York Times Article on Entrepreneurialism

As I've been researching, for the paper for which I still have no idea what it is I'll really be writing about the night before the topic is due, I've come across some very interesting topic ideas and random articles that I thought everyone might find interesting.  The one that I read today, though, was one that piqued my interest quite a bit because it deals with the topic of entrepreneurialism. 

What's funny about this post is that as I started to write the intro paragraph I figured that I'd go back to the article so that I could include a link and reference some of the particular things that they were talking about.  The only problem is that apparently not enough people on Yahoo! today thought that the article was interesting enough for them to keep it up on their site....hahahaha.  I think that it was replaced by the first cut on dancing with the stars.....appropriate.

What it basically had to deal with was the fact that most entrepreneurial characteristics, which I still think I have pretty many of and it gets scarier every time I read these articles, resemble characteristics of crazy people.  It relates back pretty well to the article that Luke posted the other day about entrepreneurialism being like a disease that can't be helped.  It went into detail about a young man who is only 19 years old who dropped out of Princeton after convincing a venture capital firm to give him $750,000 to start his own business.  Even though he may be close to crazy, he still convinced that firm that he was the kind of person that they were excited about investing in.

These kind of stories inspire me to keep letting everyone around me think I'm crazy.  For now I'll go back to making myself crazy trying to find this article and put it up as soon as I can find it in case you all are interested in hearing more.

Central City Case

This is the first time that I'll actually be doing a case study at any level so I thought it appropriate to ask all of your opinions, all help is genuinely appreciated, on the best way to tackle such an assignment.  There are obviously different things to talk about with this case but I'm unsure if I should focus on my own ideas, the questions that are presented in the beginning of the case, or some combination of both.

Since this is only being done for practice I'm not necessarily all that worried about how it turns out, however I would like to make the most of this practice time and learn what it is that's expected of me early on in the process rather than later.

Thanks for all your input, and I hope that you're out enjoying this gorgeous day instead of sitting in the library doing homework.

Today's Discussion

I have to say that today's discussion was awesome, and one of the main reasons that I got into this MBA program in the first place.  Not to talk down on the curriculum (especially before I've received my first grade...hahahaha), but I really came here for the internship and the people.  Discussions like the one's that we had in class today are invaluable to me because of the perspective that everyone brings.  The different jobs, backgrounds, cultures, and personalities in our class are going to make for an incredible learning environment for me and I want everyone to know how much I appreciate that at the onset.

I'm in a very interesting spot with the age range, or generation, in which I fall in terms of today's topic.  I've always been intrigued about how people grow up and how what they're exposed to affects the way that they view their world, and consequently their relationships, jobs, employers, etc.  I'm lucky to have an increased perspective with the age, cultural, and experience differences that our class brings to the table.

All that being said, there were two things that I'm really still thinking about after being in class today.  The first one is how much respect I have for the International students that we're so lucky to have in our midst.  It's hard enough for me to offer up my opinion being able to understand (for the most part that is) our crazy culture and language, let alone if both of those things were to be completely foreign to me.  I've had language classes in the past, all Spanish, and I've always been apprehensive to share at points just because of my own perceived inability to even just speak the language effectively.  Let me be the first to say that I hope you all share more of your opinions and perspectives in class because I'm very interested in learning more from you.

Secondly, Tom's statement about 'giving us those trophies' was incredibly insightful.  I've been really impressed with Tom since meeting him again, I met him only once prior when he was 14 (I think), and that statement struck a chord with me today.  As we've moved to being a society where people spend so much less time actually raising their kids, hanging out as a family, etc. we've overcompensated in categories like that one to try to hide some of our inadequacies.  Not everyone falls into this category, don't get me wrong I've seen some amazing young parents, but a lot of parents of the current younger generation seem to blame others for their children's problems instead of themselves.  I can't imagine how hard it must be to raise kids, so my opinion might not be all that valid, but I wish everyone got the opportunity to have a family like mine growing up so that they could earn those trophies instead of being given them to cover up for something that everyone deserves.

Hello, again, fellow MBAers

Where to begin?  I guess the best place to start is that I'm actually from Kutztown originally.  Technically I grew up in a tiny, middle of nowhere town called Lenhartsville.  I'm sure some of you are familiar with it, but as I traveled around the country I was lucky if people knew where Allentown was when I talked about where I was from (most usually said they knew the Billy Joel song, but had no idea where it was).

I was very lucky growing up, mostly because I had amazing parents, and was able to do whatever I wanted as long as I stuck to it and did it to the best of my ability.  My Mom, Karen, is a school nurse for the Hamburg Area School District, and just might be the most amazing woman I've ever met.  My step-dad, Jon, is the owner of the Kuhnsville Carwash in Kuhnsville, and has been inspirational in my going back to finish my undergrad chemistry degree last year and my MBA this year. 

I'm the oldest of three brothers.  My brother Matt is 29, is a graduate of Bloomsburg, has been married for almost 5 years, and has an awesome little boy, Jack, who is 15 months old.  Hanging out with him and playing Uncle is probably my favorite hobby right now.  My brother Dan is 27, graduated with two degrees from Kutztown, and is currently going for his masters degree in music from Rutgers University.

I played three sports in high school, was involved in a bunch of clubs and societies, and am an Eagle Scout.  I still enjoy playing basketball, frisbee golf, and baseball or football when I get the chance.  One of my bigger goals for the next few years is to get back into sports and/or scouts as a coach and a volunteer.  Right now, though, most of my time as spent as a student, grad. assistant, and bartender.

I actually went to four different colleges during my undergrad career, which sounds crazy but was a pretty awesome journey.  I spent at least one semester at the University of Delaware, Kutztown, West Chester, and Salisbury State (which is in MD).

The last 7 years or so I've lived in a bunch of different places, as well.  I've lived in Phoenix, Omaha, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orlando, and moved back to Kutztown about 3 years ago.

I'm here because I've always wanted  to own my own business, and I'm really excited about the MBA program and the Graduate Assistantship that I was lucky enough to obtain working at the KU Small Business Development Center.

I should have stopped writing a long time ago, so I guess I'll wrap this up by saying that I'm very interested in getting to know everyone in the class a little bit better and in seeing where this whole MBA experience can take me.

Take care, and see you all on Wednesday.