A Day in the Life of a Coach: Kimberly Cochran, Team 5 – June 18, 2010

5:30 am– “Is it already time to wake up?” seems to be the first thought in my head these past few days.  I’ve just gotten a whole five hours of sleep, which is actually an upgrade from the night before.  It’s going to be a really busy day, but I’m really excited because my team is presenting their project today for Oasis Center.  It’s the last time that my original team, Turnkey Consulting, will be working together.  I’m already missing them!  We’ve grown so comfortable together and we have all become friends.  It’s ok, though, we agreed we’re going to have a reunion in the fall!

11:30 am – Presentations are over.  Whew, what a relief!  My team placed fifth, but I’m so proud of what they accomplished.  They came up with a great idea and presented it well.  Sometimes your solution just doesn’t fit with the client.  But that’s just life.  And I’m so glad that the students have the opportunity to experience that in Accelerator before they head out into the real world.  They had a great marketing campaign that I’m confident Oasis Center will use for their new youth movement.  Watch out for user-generated ads sometime in the next year!  Now time to grab a bite to eat and take a break for a few minutes.  I love the secret stash of leftover brownies in the kitchen downstairs.  But, shhhhh, don’t tell.  It’s also time to think about the Bridgestone project coming up next.  The marketing guys will be here for Q&A and I need to make sure that they’re taken care of.  I hope my students have some good questions for them.

1:45 pm– Uh oh, Bridgestone is here early and students are still rolling in from lunch.  I am the “valet girl” for this afternoon, so I have to drive the client’s car to the parking garage.  I’m saying a little prayer that I can make it one block without a scratch!

4:00 pm– Our second Bridgestone session is coming to an end.  My team has a cool idea and the Bridgestone execs seem to like it.  We’re planning the Powerpoint slides, Storyboard, and finalizing research.  It seems to all be coming together.  We had a lot of great questions for Phil Pacsi, VP of Consumer Marketing, and we’re really looking forward to presenting to them next week.

5:20 pm– I’m sitting in Brian Griffith’s session on Team Dynamics.  Professor Griffith has a lot of great advice:  Address an issue at the time it happens and with the person directly.  Don’t complain about your colleagues, it makes you look bad.  Realize what type of personality you have and how that fits with your group.  Know how to give and receive feedback.  Wow, I hope the students are really soaking this in.  I wished I had this knowledge when I was in the working world!  Have you seen the movie Office Space?  Yeah, enough said.

6:05 pm – What is that smell?!  Do I smell pizza?  Dinner is Jet’s pizza.  I walk into the team room and find worn-down students who are a little tired and very hungry.  I didn’t even finish the whole world “Pizz….” before they jumped up and ran downstairs.  I’ve never seen them so excited.  Lesson learned today: To incent students to do work, give them junk food.  Works every time.

8:30 pm – Medical banking, anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?  We just spent the past two hours trying to figure out a way to the value propositions for medical banking to tech companies.  We have a lot of research to do.  Wow, this is a really interesting project.  I have a new team now and I’m so proud of them for plowing through this healthcare issue.  They really do pay attention to politics and what’s going on in the industry.

Well, I’m headed home – early!!!   I can’t believe I’ll be home by 9.  My boyfriend is waiting for me at my apartment.  I haven’t seen him in a month and he’s here for the weekend.  I can’t wait to hand over my honey-do list:  Can you do my laundry, puh-leeeeeease?  Oh, the life of an Accelerator coach.

A Day in the Life of a Student: Jacob Hormes, Team 3 / 2b

This morning we had a business breakfast where we had the opportunity to network. The breakfast was bright and early at 7 am, but I grabbed some coffee and showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  The breakfast went really well, and I met some incredibly interesting people.

We had our presentations, and my team got first in storyboard and second in bibliography. Since I did my team’s storyboard, I have been thrilled all day. I’m a naturally competitive person, so winning that part of the competition felt incredible.

After the presentation, we had the chance to change out of business attire and into jeans and t-shirts. I guess I never really appreciated casual clothes until Accelerator.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Friday brings the second Business Breakfast and presentations to Oasis Center.  Students, executives, staff, coaches, and faculty were all in the building by 7:00 AM!

With the first Business Breakfast under their belts, the students navigated this one like true networking professionals.  There were more companies represented this time, so there were even more executives for the students to meet and hone their networking skills.  It’s interesting to see the different dynamics between clusters of executives and students as they gracefully move from meeting and elevator pitches to the buffet line and then back to the tables to talk at length.  After Dr. Burcham and Prof. English made their remarks, the executives made their way out of Owen as the students made their way into Averbuch to prepare for presentations.  Side note:  The executives were so impressed with some of our students that they have already made note of the students they would like to interview on Career Day!  What a great group!

Presentations began promptly at 9:00 AM.  The teams are 3/3 for knockout presentations.  With their own unique angles, the teams presented their solution to Oasis to connect and engage youth.  All of the teams used some form of media to engage youth, but just the variety and creativity at the foundation of the pitches was fascinating to watch.  Oasis Center was absolutely enthralled with each of the eight teams and their ideas; during the judging round, Hal Cato, CEO, declared that the Center would be taking something from each presentation and using it in the final product.  Like the Lexus presentation, 4 teams received first place votes.  However, the margin between first place and last place continues to narrow as the teams continue to improve their presentation skills.

The winning presentation was Team 1’s “Own Yourself” campaign.  Congratulations to Danielle Carattini, Nick Corser, Melissa Dahl, Kwasi Kyei, Nehal Mehta, Dave Seelbinder, Ginny Shogry, Kathryn Smith, Taylor Thompson, and team coach Jeff Freude!  Their idea centered around a movement to get youth engagement with the community and their peers via mobile and social media.  Their Charlie Brown example, implementation plan, and innovative database WOWed the judging panel.  Team 2’s “I Am the Change” finished in second place followed by Team 4’s “Generation C (C3)” in third place.

Team 3’s “Swagger” storyboard won over the judges with its graffiti-esque, hip-hop design – congratulations to Maggie Bouscaren, Scott Campbell, Cara Chayet, Meredith Crites, Peyton Davis, Jacob Hormes, Jack McCallum, Nick Morrow, and team coach Sean Cunningham.  Team 2 finished in second place and Team 1 finished third.

Team 5 won research again – Andrew Bromberg, Marshall Benson, Bram Chisholm, Maggie Durlacher, Liz Emanuel, Neal Goodwin, Andrew Hawkins, Meredith Price, and team coach Kimberly Cochran are research masters.  Team 3’s research effort came in second place followed by Team 7.  Team 4 hit on the first 4 places on how the client ranked each of the presentations, which was good enough for first place in the client rank category.  Team 1 came in second place followed by Team 7 in third place.  A new competition category was added for this presentation that judged how well the teams followed the defined process and if their deliverables met the standards set by the faculty.  Team 8 came in first place, followed by Team 1 in second place and team 5 in third place.

MVPs were Melissa Dahl and Taylor Thompson, Joe Delaura, Scott Campbell and Meredith Crites, Mary Brinkopf, Liz Emanuel, Carolyn Murdock, Dani Portugal, and Julia Maas and Aric Zantow.

Prof. Pace conducted her usual presentation evaluations with the students afterward.  With her help, the students are improving after each presentation, are becoming more confident in their day-to-day interactions, and are developing their personal brands.  We are really looking forward to those borderline-rockstars blossoming into full-on outstanding presenters.

At 1:00 PM, the students had about an hour to decompress and unwind over lunch.  They talked about the ups and downs of the presentations, what went good and what went wrong.  The students also shifted gears (they are amazing at doing that) and immediately moved their focus to the upcoming Bridgestone session at 2:00 PM.

Michael Fluck and Phil Pacsi from Bridgestone made it around to each of the team rooms to help with questions the teams had come up with and for any additional clarification they may have needed.  Even after a packed and eventful morning, the teams worked tirelessly for 2.5 hours developing a consumer campaign to leverage Bridgestone’s sports partnerships.  Teams completed their research and began designing and their PowerPoints and storyboards.  In under a week, the teams will be presenting their solutions to the executives of Bridgestone.  The pace never lets up here at Accelerator.

Prof. Griffith led his third team feedback session at 4:30.  The students received their graphical breakdowns of how well they performed in personal, social, learning, and leadership skill areas along with the 5 Practices of Effective Leadership.  Just like Prof. Pace’s sessions, Prof. Griffith’s sessions provides constant feedback for the students to grow and develop as leaders AND teammates.  The students have already made great strides in just a few days and will only get better by Prof. Griffith’s last feedback session.

A quick dinner followed and then the teams broke for a brief HIMSS session for the rest of the night.  They refined their focus and direction of their pitch and began compiling research and brainstorming ideas to take their projects to the next level.  HIMSS is a very difficult project and will challenge the students the entire time.  It is very important to come up with “the box.”  As long as there is a “box,” you can put a “bow” on it.  A solid foundation can be turned into a WOW: it’s not as easy going the other way.  The students are learning this, sometimes the hard way, but are becoming experts at developing exceptional presentations for the clients.  We closed Owen around 9:00 PM, longing for the weekend and for some much needed time to rest.

A Day in the Life of a Student: Tim Henry, Team 2 / 6b:  June 17, 2010

What an experience.  I have never been through anything like Accelerator.  It constantly challenges me from the minute I wake up at 6AM to the time my head finally sinks into my cold pillow at Midnight.  It’s non-stop and exhausting but not the worn down type of exhausting.  It’s exhilarating being this busy and productive.  It truly baffles me at the amount of work that I’m able to get done in a day, in a week, in a month.  It makes me question what I do during the school year haha.

But I didn’t come to Accelerator to work my tail off, that’s just a requirement.  I came to Accelerator to find out where my strengths lie and to find out what makes me unique when compared to my peers.  To find out what talents I possess and can develop to set myself apart, and ultimately enable me to reach the level of success that I desire.  So far I’ve learned a lot about myself, things that I wouldn’t have found out had I not been put in this type of situation.  Most importantly, I’ve gained confidence that I had lost somewhere along the way.  My confidence comes from a sense of accomplishment, that I’m pushing myself and giving everything I have to offer.   And of course it helps to have coaches and colleagues to constantly encourage and support you. I’ve also gained some incredible insight into different industries.  I am beginning to hone in on exactly what I want to pursue when I leave college, or at least a list of possibilities that I’d like to try my hand at.  Although I dread the thought of being a rising senior and only having one year left in school, I’m looking forward to being able to exploring what else is out there.

Moreover, Accelerator has given me at lot to be proud of.   I know from now on, I will have the experiences to share in job interviews that will stand out and truly impress anyone that I come across.  Never again will I have to struggle to answer an interview question.  I used to dread interviews, but now I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve accomplished.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The program is only half way done.  I’m know I’ve got a to more to learn and more people to meet.  And surprisingly, I can’t wait for the next challenge.

A Day in the Life of a Coach: Sarah Burfitt, Team 4:  June 17, 2010

Halfway there. It is day 14 of the program. I hate my alarm more and more each day. Yet, time is passing too quickly somehow. I love every moment of this program. These students never cease to amaze me with their talent and ability to take on any challenge.

Today, we launched our fifth project with HIMSS and the Medical Banking Project. The teams were charged with the responsibility of getting all key players in the health care industry to come together, analyzing the value proposition for each segment. My team, DK Consulting led by Margaret Durlacher, focused on understanding the interests and problems of healthcare providers. They have amazing critical thinking skills and got to the heart of the project quickly. As a nurse practitioner, I cannot wait to see what they create for this project!

Today was the last working day for the Oasis Center project. For those keeping track, the students are currently responsible for three (!) projects. I will miss my first team, as they have taught me so much over the past two weeks. Tomorrow morning, they will present to the Oasis Center panel on their ideas for empowering teens.

My friends warned me that I would never know exhaustion until Accelerator. I understand them now. Even though sleep is foreign to me, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. These students are learning and growing everyday, and I am right there with them. I can’t wait for the next 14 days.

Thursday, June 17, 2010:

The students arrived at Owen promptly at 7:00 AM for breakfast and to elect their new team leaders for the upcoming project.  We loaded the buses promptly at 8:00 AM and headed for the newly opened Pinnacle building and the offices of Bass Berry.  The view from the 28^th floor was breathtaking.  Mother Nature put on a show for us.  Crowded around the windows that allowed for a panoramic view of downtown, we watched the beautiful cumulus clouds and sun give way to brooding, gray clouds of thunder, lightning, and torrential rain.  It’s the small things like watching a thunderstorm roll in that makes us truly appreciate the beauty that life has to offer.

The 5^th project of Accelerator 2010, HIMSS/Medical Banking, kicked off at 8:30 AM.  John Casillas and his team issued this challenge: To create a Project Plan for the G7 Healthcare Financial Network.  This plan includes validating the G7 Platform, creating a marketing plan and message for the platform, creating a plan for enrolling sponsors, creating a plan for monetizing deliverables for the platform, and developing ideas to support the new health reform bill.  If you’re trying to understand all that don’t worry, we are too.  This project is huge in scope and aspiration, but it could do wonders for the city of Nashville and the healthcare industry.

The teams chose at random 8 different target stakeholders, each with their own issues within the greater scope of the project.  This project marks the first where each team will not be developing ideas for a singular entity.  Although the ideas developed for each of the stakeholders will benefit the overall mission that the HIMSS team is trying to accomplish, the teams will be presenting their solutions they have developed for the stakeholder group that they drew.  The stakeholders are: healthcare providers, banks/financial institutions, health plans/carriers/HMOs, employers, health technology, government, and consumers.

The teams did not break out for an initial team session but rather briefly discussed issue trees and possible hypotheses and then reconvened for a much-needed question and answer period.  B2B issues are difficult enough; the esoteric healthcare world makes the project that much more complicated.  With additional clarification, the teams were off and running with their ideas to create a platform to address issues in the healthcare financial network.

We arrived back at Owen around noon and worked right through lunch on the final Oasis team session.  The teams are handling the different dynamics of the new rotation quite well.  Finishing touches were put on storyboards, PowerPoints, and presentations. There was a mad dash to secure speaking order; some teams prefer the beginning, some the end.  The teams that get stuck in the middle are usually the ones that get their deliverables in last; spinning wheels doesn’t get one very far.

Prof. Froeb entertained the students with his last Froebonomics session at 3:00 PM.  He fleshed out his rational-actor paradigm one more time, focusing on its application to our current economy.  He discussed government subsidies and taxation and how it affects the economy and ways to better align incentives to maximize a capitalist system.

Oasis dress rehearsals and fine-tuning presentations were on the docket for the rest of the night.  Teams stayed well past midnight running through their presentations, receiving feedback, jazzing up the PowerPoint, going back through the presentations, ad infinitum.  They were told on the first few days of the program that a presentation doesn’t really start to come together until the 9^th or 10^th time that it’s practiced; teams really took that to heart.  Oasis is going to be very impressed come 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.

A Day in the Life of a Student: Carolyn Murdock, Team 6 / 3b

It’s my brother’s birthday!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!!!!

Today. I’m pretty sure today is Wednesday. I think it’s around 8:30. But I’m never sure anymore. I guess I’ll just take y’all through my day.

So I arrived at Averbuch promptly at 7:30 and had a pretty great lecture from Dr. Owens about innovation. We had to make animal sounds at one another and the awkward laughter was roaring.

Then Michael Burcham took me personally (in his really awesome car) to WME to talk to the VP of Human Resources, Sue Ann Cordell. It was extremely helpful. I learned a lot of insight about the entertainment industry and got to take a tour of the beautiful office. I was extremely nervous, but Michael sat in the room with us to make it a very comfortable, less formal talk about the business side of the industry.

Then back to Owen! I can never leave it for too long. We had about a 5-hour session for our Oasis project which went by insanely fast because we were all in a frenzy to get 95% of our powerpoint, storyboard, and bibliography done. We all get along so well that we have to be really disciplined to stop making jokes and actually do something productive.

All I can say is, for lunch we had chicken, wrapped in cheese, wrapped in bacon. Put two of them together, and we have a double-decker.

Back to Dr. Owens! We watched a video about cool, extremely nerdy engineers who invent wonderful things (like innovative grocery carts). I had a good time.

We had our second meeting with our new teams. I think my new team is exponentially more efficient than my last one, but I’m scared to say anything to jinx this. Again- I LOVE my first team, but sometimes our time management is greatly flawed.

It’s 8:30- as I started this. Time to move onto our Oasis project to work. Perhaps I’ll get six hours of sleep tonight! What a luxury J

Peace out cub scouts - Love,

Carolyn Murdock, (Team 6 and 3)

A Day in the Life of a Coach: Sean Cunningham:  June 17, 2010

It’s a common theme for coaches and students alike at this point, but the alarm goes off really early again today. In those first few moments after the static-filled radio station wakes me, I wonder why it is that I choose to live on five or six hours of sleep for 30 days straight. Then I remember the shining moments from each day; the instants when I realize that I’ve just made a change in someone’s life. That’s worth getting up for. With that, my feet hit the floor and I head toward something like consciousness.

Forty-five minutes later and I’m sitting for a breakfast of fruit and eggs in the Owen lobby. Joining me this morning is my fiancé, Lindsay. In Accelerator, juggling a relationship with the demands of the program can prove difficult. Pushing back against those demands requires us to carve time out of the day to find quality time. Today it’s a half hour of breakfast together. Tomorrow it may be a half hour talking about our days before going to bed. It’s not much, but it works to keep us connected.

After finishing breakfast and walking Lindsay to her car, the time arrives to conduct my first morning check in with my new group. Suddenly I’m remembering something that I forgot to set up yesterday… a contact list. At five minutes to eight I’m still waiting for two of my students. Fortunately they’re all present and accounted for when class starts at 8:00.

This morning Dave Owens delivers a lecture on managing the innovation process. I’ve heard this lecture at least once before, but it’s one I never get tired of hearing. Dave’s message is quite simple, innovation doesn’t have to be the result of a random stroke of genius. Organizations cultivate innovation by having a process to manage it. As I sit engaged, I hope that the students see the parallels between Dave’s lecture and the process we’ve been teaching them to use to build their own projects.

At 9:30, after a brief break, the students venture upstairs to for another economics lecture with our very own Luke Froeb. I’m disappointed I won’t get to sit in on his lecture and listen, but it’s time for a coach’s meeting.

In today’s meeting, we’re talking about the changing responsibility of coaches in the team dynamics. Since the students now grasp the fundamentals of the focus model, our goals no longer lie in teaching the process, but in improving the ideas. We must act more like consulting managers, offering feedback and critique of ideas, rather than as educators.

Before closing, Cherrie informs us of the return of an old Accelerator Coach tradition: The Coach’s Whistle. Today, The Coach’s Whistle is awarded to Erin for not only being a great mentor for her students, but also for stepping up to take on numerous leadership roles in the program. Way to go, Erin, you deserve it!

Cherrie must leave the meeting early to deliver the evaluation results of our most recent deliverable, the Ghost Deck. Having already seen Cherrie’s comments, I begin preparing for my team’s reaction to their impending 7^th place finish. I’m also realizing that I may not be reaching them with my current explanation of what a ghost deck should look like. I begin considering alternative ways to teach the concept.

The last big Oasis session before the dress rehearsal begins. Despite their hard work, the team’s ideas still aren’t coming together. After repeated reminders, the team finally asks Michael Burcham to come in and listen to their idea. If you’ve ever heard Michael critique a business plan, you can guess what happened next. He applied the pressure, and it was certainly difficult for the team to respond to, but the story began to crystallize. These folks were responding with answers that didn’t even exist five minutes before. After Michael leaves, the team finally seems to have a clear direction for their plan. The team grabs their lunch and continue to power through their project. Their goal for the day is to have their powerpoint 90% complete by 4:30… three hours away.

I don’t return quite as quickly to the team room following lunch. No, for me it’s time for my coaching feedback. Brian and Cherrie take the time to go over the results of the student feedback forms with me, confirming what I had already been thinking. I am an awesome coach! Well, my team thought I was an awesome coach, and I am gratified to hear that they were learning as much from me as I was learning from them. We talk about how to replicate this success with my second team and how to resolve some of the weaker areas of my coaching style. Feedback complete, I return to my team.

I am impressed with the progress the team has made in my absence. Everyone has a task to complete, and everyone is working. What impresses me more, however, is the way that Meredith has really stepped into this leadership role and started to own it (“owning it” being a phrase my students hear quite a bit).

The night before we had talked about her progress and her performance as a leader on the Oasis project. I was concerned that she wasn’t taking control of the group. We realized that the kind of leadership style I was pushing her toward wasn’t the kind of leadership style that would work with her personality. So we started discussing what kind of leadership style would work with her personality. Like I said, I’m learning as much from the students as their learning from me.

Watching Meredith today is like watching a whole new person. She’s moving around the room, quietly checking on progress, assigning tasks, and generally paying attention to what everyone is doing, while at the same time keeping her workflow up. The group is responsive and respectful of this new, confident, in-control Meredith. When she speaks, she no longer has to raise her voice, rather, the group stops to listen.

Remember when I talked about shining moments? This is one of them. I don’t know if it’s something I said, the fact that she finally got a full night’s sleep, or because she finally stopped listening to me and just started doing things her way, but it is just a joy to sit back and watch her work. I don’t even feel like I need to be in this room, because she has got this covered.

At 4:30, my team has turned in their 90% presentation and it is time once again for a lecture from Dave Owens. This time, the lecture is on the actual process of innovation. To demonstrate how these processes work, Dave shows a video from his former workplace, IDEO. This is another lecture and video I’ve seen a few times, but it’s one that I still enjoy.

Dave’s lecture ends, and we exit to the lobby for our last meal of the day. Barbecue chicken and cous-cous provide only a brief respite before we must return to work, this time on the Bridgestone project. Team 3B, my second team, left Bridgestone with a solid hypothesis, so we don’t spend much time discussing it before moving right on to the hypothesis structure. Meredith and Bram leave at 7:00 to celebrate their talent show win from Saturday night. Down two members and having not worked in Averbuch before, the team still knocked their deliverables out, with minimal help from me, in just an hour and a half. This left them plenty of time to delegate research responsibilities and plan tasks for the next meeting.

At 8:30 I thought it was time to go home, but the AcceleraDores, my first team, inform me that they’re planning to stay to finish some last minute powerpoint work on the Oasis project. They may be tired, and they may be disappointed in how they finished on Lexus, but this team just won’t give up. Inspired by their commitment, I follow them upstairs hoping they can maintain their agenda to complete everything in just two hours.

It’s amazing to me how focused these teams can be when they align on a clear, common goal. Again, I think the team’s ability to meet tonight’s goal has more to do with the fire their new leader is lighting for them than because of anything I’ve been doing.

At 10:30 the day is finally over. Objectives have been achieved, and deliverables have been submitted. It is time to go home. Lindsay, keep the front porch light on for me.

Day 13:  Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Wednesday marks the commencement of a 3.5-day blitzkrieg.  We had continental breakfast at 7:00 AM to kick off the morning and then filed into Averbuch at 8:00 AM for the second Innovation session led by Prof. Owens.

Prof. Owens revisited innovation constraints, discussing each more in-depth.  The proverbial box we are told to think outside of is continually shrunk down by individual, group, organizational, industry, technical, and societal constraints. To effectively innovate, we must realize and accept these constraints and work through them.  Prof. Owens also presented the idea of innovation as a process, which can be seen by continual divergence and convergence until an idea is ready to be implemented.  In his words, the process of innovation can be helped along with pizza and mountain dew.  We are already adding “pizza and dew” to the list of Accelerator fuels: coffee, hot tamales, red bull, etc.  These are sure to help ease those long, late-night team sessions!

At 9:30 AM, the students moved up to 222 for their second go-round with Froebonomics.  He added more depth to his rational-actor paradigm, this time citing an example of misaligned incentives between Sotheby’s and their auctioneers.  Prof. Froeb hammered home the importance of aligning employee incentives with the business’ goals.

Where else can you get this kind of instruction from world-renowned professors?  The in-class lectures perfectly complement the experiential knowledge gained from the projects to provide an atmosphere of constant learning and growth.  While it may not yet be apparent to the students, they will be miles ahead of the competition when they begin applying for full-time positions.

Following Prof. Froeb’s session, the rest of the morning and afternoon were dedicated to Oasis.  Feeling the pressure of just having launched another project the day before, a fifth project looming on the horizon, and the presentation on Friday, the students were hard at work grinding out deliverables so they could secure their dress rehearsal and speaking places.  Videos were filmed, storyboards were completed, and PowerPoints were designed and reworked.  Each team has come up with an excellent pitch for the Oasis team.  This project isn’t about winning or losing; it’s about helping the youth of Nashville find their voice and their place in this world.

At 4:30 PM, the students were back in Averbuch for their final Innovation session with Prof. Owens.  He showed the students a video detailing the 5-day exploits of a team at IDEO, a design and innovation consulting firm, who were charged with redesigning the traditional shopping cart.  After 5 “long days” (they defined long days as 9+ hours – this drew a nice laugh from the crowd), they had come up with a completely revolutionary shopping cart that catered to the needs of consumers and stores alike.  This served as a real-world example of the process of innovation to be drawn upon in the upcoming team sessions. Prof. Owens opened up the remainder of his session to questions from the students about his business strategy, innovation process, product development, and product design experience.

Bridgestone was the focus of the evening, with the teams working hard to develop a plan to leverage the company’s sports partnerships to build on its customer relationships and to grow awareness at the consumer level.  It’s amazing how quickly the students can transition from class A to class B, then just as quickly to project A, back to class C, then to project B.  The speed of Accelerator is increasing at an exponential rate and the students are not only keeping up, but are doing more than what’s expected.  What an impressive group.  We wrapped up around 10:00 PM.

A Day in the Life of a Student: Nehal Mehta, Team 1

Eyes shut. It is 12:45 AM, but sleep does not come. Instead, the mind races around the previous day. In the span of 12 hours, I have artfully guided my team into a position that can only be described as being between a rock and a hard place, and then watched as the group masterfully recovered and executed as only ours can. Sweet action.

Ring. 6:15 AM. Drop to the ground, knock out a few pushups, and it is time for another day of Acceleration (clever, I know). The days end late (midnight) and start early (today a bit later than usual), but the schedule suits me.

On the agenda – presentation to Lexus, discover new teammates, and start work for Bridgestone / Firestone. All in day’s work.

Our morning started off very well (despite the fact that I forgot my laundry bag at the dorm – the clothing situation might get interesting here in a few days). A quick bite of fruit washed down with Accelerator fuel (coffee) was my hearty breakfast for the morning, and I made an attempt to bolster the energies of my bleary-eyed team. Our presentation crew, Kwasi, Ginny, and Kathryn, concealed the obligatory butterflies well. We managed to rehearse our presentation three times during the isolation period leading up to our slot (fourth of eight), which definitely polished up the result.

The presentation was excellent. Kathryn opened up brilliantly and Ginny conveyed the meat of our campaign. Kwasi demonstrated his ability to seize and own a crowd when he “took us to Africa” during the talent show, but today was something else entirely. I was merely responsible for advancing the slides, but I was so thoroughly enthralled that I almost missed the transition points. He is truly a masterful presenter.

After hearing all eight teams present, we broke out and evaluated the presentations – an exercise designed to enhance our ability to think like the client – while the client deliberated. The process my group went by was less than scientific, but I managed to distill a ranking of teams from the low roar that was produced by the proceedings.

Our next order of business was to select the team MVP. I nominated him, and the murmur of approval from the group made the selection process incredibly efficient and unanimous. I could always count on Nick to perform to the highest standard over the course of the Lexus project, and I relied on him heavily.

We return to the presentation room, and the client reveals the ranking list, beginning with the eighth place team. Our team managed fourth, with a few first place votes – not bad for what was effectively 4.5 hours of work time. We took the challenge as devising a plan to get people into the dealership asking about the new hybrid vehicle, but the client had a slightly different idea in mind. Lesson learned – it is absolutely critical to think like the client at every stage in the process, and sometimes interpretations of words may be of greater utility than direct quotes. The winning team had a concept about a vehicle give away, which was certainly an interesting idea.

We next sat through a lengthy process of giving and receiving presenter feedback with Professor Pace. While the session can be a bit taxing for the weary, the presentation skills that can be acquired from such a process ensure that the benefits exceed the costs.

A few specifics from this session:

My buddy Bram (on a different team, but I try not to hold it against him) used the concept of “opportunity cost” in responding to a question from the client, and the bewildered reception taught all of us the value of speaking in the most basic of dictions. I fully intend to taunt Bram about this on a routine basis from now on.

Dave and Melissa gave the initial feedback to our presenters, and the overall feedback was of little surprise. Kwasi earned “rockstar,” status, which is Professor Pace’s way of highlighting exceptional performances. Ginny received Professor Pace’s “Most Courageous Award,” which was truly well deserved – she soldiered through challenges and hurdles to deliver a wonderful presentation. Professor Burcham was slightly impressed with our group’s performance, given where we started, highlighting our two first place votes and making it quite clear that we had the potential to win had we elected and held to a course earlier in the process (which definitely was my responsibility, as team leader).

Our research skills paid off once more, as we earned a second place finish for our bibliography. Our research lead, Dani, deserves a shout out. Not the first place we expected after our work from the first project, but a tolerable result nonetheless. Our storyboard did not place in the top three, which led Taylor to say “our $60 investment did not pay off.” Definitely a true statement. At the very least, one of us will be the new proud owner of a glossy picture of a Lexus interior with the branding “Intelligent Luxury.” Somehow the less than scientific process we used earlier to rank the teams worked, and we secured first place for that effort, much to our surprise.

We lunched with the members of our new teams (for projects 4 to 6), then headed offsite to Bridgestone Arena/Sommet Center to begin the initial phases of developing our proposals for the Bridgestone/Firestone client. While I would love to expound upon these proceedings at greater length, team confidentiality and the NDA I signed on opening day prevent me from doing so (not to mention the fact that 89% of people that opened this posting have been lulled to sleep by this point). Rest assured – the new (and dare I say improved?) Team 4 of Coach Sarah has big things in store for America. If you need us over the next few weeks, you can probably locate us slaving away in the Bat Cave (trademark pending).

After returning to Owen, we had an open and frank debrief session regarding the Lexus project, and the coaches conducted individual counseling. Coach Jeff has taught me more than I thought possible in a week and a half, and I intend to act on his guidance from tonight to build myself.

If you are one of the four people are still with me and decide you may want to check back for tomorrow’s posting, take pity on my as of yet unnamed successor, and do not expect such a lengthy tale. We got out early today (I left Owen at 7:45 PM), and I anticipate midnight-ish times for the next few days, so the aforementioned successor will likely have no time at all to write.

I spent the last four minutes trying to think of a clever way to end this post, but I’m fresh out of ideas, so I’ll include the most random thing I could think of in the last 15 seconds – the two most played songs in my iTunes library are “Bedrock” and “Heartbreak Warfare.” Yes, you are now a better person for having learned that critical bit of information.

keepin’ it real since 1990,

Nehal