Day 9. June 14, 2008

Day 9. June 14, 2008

It’s Saturday. While the rest of the world was sleeping in, we began the day with a studio on Innovation with Professor Franklin. Our teams worked on creating innovative ideas for Bridgestone and Caterpillar Financial projects. Following a quick break, Professor Johnsen led a studio on New Media Marketing – the role of the internet, blogs and social networks in business marketing.

Then it was time for a fun surprise. Our charter buses arrived about 10:30 and, while the studio was finishing up, our staff stocked the buses with water and materials for our annual “Urban Adventure.” We loaded the buses and headed out to LP Field, home of the Tennessee Titans.
There were lots of “where are we going” kinds of expressions as we arrived at the stadium.

We unloaded the buses and gave a quick debrief to the teams – each team member received a list of clues (written as mind benders) to interesting landmarks in downtown Nashville, a bottle of water, and $10. The objective: each team is to determine the answer to the clue, find that landmark and make a team photo at the landmark. Each landmark is worth varying points (the more complex riddles are worth more than the simple ones). Teams have till 3:00 PM to return to Vanderbilt with their photos for check in. The team that is able to obtain the most points by solving the riddles and getting the corresponding photos wins the competition. The tradition of Urban Adventure is “rain.” This year was no exception. We arrived at LP Field to light rain – but the day cleared within an hour and the teams successfully completed the competition.

The Adventure Race is an opportunity for participants to accept a challenge a bit out of the ordinary and participate in a team process. It’s always an interesting view of the human dynamic to see how young men and women embrace this challenge.

By 3:00 PM, all the teams had “checked in” to the dorms to shower and freshen up. For dinner, we grilled steaks and chicken on the Owen patio and then had our first annual “Talent Night” – a mixture of amazing music, comedy, dance, “limbo” and song. I can’t possibly do Talent Night justice without a posting all its own…. So I’ll do that later.

To end the day, we reviewed the results of the Urban Adventure. After the scores were tabulated, Team 2 was declared the winners of the Urban Adventure. Members of the winning team are: Lindsey Bodenstab, Andrew Esakov, James Fuqua, Rob Hunziker, Sarah Leggett, Ashley Morgan, Marc Rigsby, Anna Rogers, Michael Shatto and Tina Wu. Coach for the team was Jared Degnan. The winning team will join me for a fantastic dinner at Flemings Steakhouse later in the program.

Tomorrow is Sunday. We give the teams a bit of a rest…. We’ll begin our day at 11:30 AM…

Day 8. June 13, 2008

Day 8. June 13, 2008

We begin week 2 with a 7:00 AM where Accelerator teams get a briefing from their coaches about today’s launch of Project 4: Bridgestone. Teams select their team leader for this round of projects. Kerri Glennon will lead Team 1, Brittany Gowers will lead Team 2, Lindsey Bodenstab will lead Team 3, Samantha Webb will lead Team 4, Aubrey Hammond will lead Team 5, Tori Richard will lead Team 6, Chris Harris will lead Team 7, and Eric Jones will lead Team 8.

Professor Cherrie Clark then ran a 1-hour studio beginning at 8:00 AM on various tools consultants use to assist clients in understand data and making recommendations. The Bridgestone team arrived about 8:30 AM to set up the launch of their Project.

At 9:00 AM, the Accelerator teams moved to the Vanderbilt Law School auditorium to meet the Bridgestone / Firestone executive team and to learn about Bridgestone’s challenge to Accelerator. The firm has invested significantly in environmentally friendly initiatives and processes – yet consumer knowledge of their work in this area is very limited. The team has asked the Accelerator teams to evaluate their target demographic market in the following way:
As "going green" becomes more and more prevalent and mainstream, questions emerge for Bridgestone based on the firm’s unique position and past environmental accomplishments. The company has made significant investments in an effort to establish an identity as an environmentally friendly firm, but these efforts have not resonated with the consumer to the degree that the company had hoped. Bridgestone has asked the Accelerator teams to complete an analysis and determination of Bridgestone Firestone’s position within this strategic landscape. Who is the target “green” audience (general public, first-time buyers, "true blue" green consumers)? What green aspects of the Bridgestone business would resonate with the target audience? Each team will be expected to develop specific recommendations for furthering employee and customer awareness of environmental aspects of the company that will positively impact its reputation and respect. What existing and/or new programs will be most effective going forward and how should the company implement or grow the right efforts that have real impact?

The Bridgestone team stayed for lunch with the Accelerator participants and then visited each of the teams in their “war rooms” for Q&A.
At 3:30 PM, we switched gears and teams focused for the rest of the afternoon on their deliverables for American Airlines – a product for the SME market.

Dinner arrived at 6:00 PM. Following dinner, the Accelerator teams spent the rest of the evening working on their initiatives for Caterpillar Financial. We cleared the building about 10 PM. Our teams clocked 14 hours today in their quest for total Acceleration….

Day 7. June 12, 2008

Day 7. June 12, 2008

At 7:00 AM our Accelerator teams joined executives from 42 businesses for a Business Breakfast Social. Participating companies included Aegis Health Group, Blakeford, ConduIT Corp, Dollar General, Gallery One, HealthStream, HCA, Jefferies, Magazines.com, Marsh USA, S3 Consulting, Target, Tiffany & Co, UBS, Worth Properties, Sprout, Regions Bank, TotalPrint, Schneider Electric and many others.

At 8:00 AM, we proceeded to the Averbuch auditorium for an economics session with Professor Luke Froeb. This session was followed by a studio on reading and understanding financial statements (Balance Sheet, Income Statements, Cash Flow Statements) by Professor Germain Boer.

After lunch, the Accelerator teams spent the afternoon working on their consulting projects for Caterpillar Financial. These presentations will be presented to the Caterpillar team next Friday AM.

At 3:00 PM, Jim Bradford, Dean of the Owen Graduate School of Management spoke to the group on leadership. He shared his experiences on Boards of Directors and the challenges of being a CEO in a public firm.

We ended the day with an intensive working session for American Airlines that included a working dinner. Teams are gathering data on the travel needs of small businesses (known as the SME market). They will use this data to create a package of American Airlines services for this specific market.

Today ends our first full week of Accelerator - the teams clocked 13.5 work hours today, bringing our first week to 73.5 total work hours. Tomorrow we will begin Week 2 and the true Acceleration begins…

Day 6. June 11, 2008

Day 6, June 11, 2008

Day 6 is here – and another 7:00 AM working breakfast. Our students have been in suits for the past three days. Our first studio of the day was Professor David Franklin – who led the teams in understanding the “consultative selling” process.

Following a short break, Professor Andy Van Schaack spoke to our group. He shared his experience in using research to design products and services. At 11:00 AM, I the teams met to continue working on their Caterpillar strategy.

Dr. Rob Britton and Mr. Chris Koller of American Airlines joined us for lunch prior to kicking off their Accelerator project this afternoon.

At 1:00 PM, we made our way to the Vanderbilt Law School auditorium to launch the American Airlines project. Rob and Chris provided a strategic update on the airline industry and challenged our Accelerator teams to help the company create a package of services to assist American Airlines in gaining additional market share of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). Our teams will have approximately 25 hours to evaluate the SME market, select 4-5 industries within the space to pilot and create a plan to attract and retain the SME customer.

At 4:30 PM, Dr. Steve Hoeffler addressed the group and hosted our first session on Marketing. Steve shared a number of tools oriented to help our Accelerator teams with marketing concepts. He also provided a framework for understanding methods to study consumer behavior.

About 6:00 PM, we reviewed the list of firms attending tomorrow’s Business Breakfast. We are expecting about 45 firms to join our Accelerator participants over breakfast for a networking session.

After a quick dinner, teams gathered to select team roles and begin the process of evaluating the data available about American Airlines and begin a situation analysis. The last team cleared the building just before midnight.

Day 5. June 10, 2008

Day 5, June 10, 2008.

The day began at 7:00 AM with a working breakfast. Our first studio of the day was Dr. Luke Froeb, Professor of Economics. Dr. Froeb led the teams in understanding the “rational actor model,” sharing many of his experiences from the field.

Following a short break, our Associate Dean, Bill Christie, spoke to our group. He shared his experience in the ground-breaking research that exposed issues in the stock market. At 11:00 AM, I briefed the teams on the various aspects of the presentation model, storyboarding, and clarity of team roles.

After a working lunch, Professor David Furse led the teams in a Strategy Studio. Dr. Furse introduced a variety of strategic tools (Porter’s 5-Forces Model, SWOT, etc) for the teams to use in solving our clients’ business issues.

At 1:45 PM, we made our way to the corporate offices of Caterpillar Financial. After gathering in the corporate auditorium, Kent Adams – President of Caterpillar Financial – addressed the group and engaged the Accelerator teams in assisting his organization in designing a sustainability program to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle the waste (paper, plastic, aluminum, etc) out of the corporate offices. Additional members of the Caterpillar team (Alex Martin, Josef Robinson,
Jeff martin, Erin Bishop and Steve Zanolini) also addressed the group. We were provided an excellent tour of the corporate facilities and completed an hour long Q&A session. We left Caterpillar’s offices about 6:00 PM.

After a quick dinner, teams gathered to select team roles and begin the process of evaluating the data available about Caterpillar and completing a situation analysis. The last team cleared the building just after 11 PM. As I was packing up my laptop computer, I noticed the following email in my Outlook mailbox:

Dr. Burcham:

I just wanted to thank you again for this fabulous opportunity and allowing me to join the Accelerator program. The past few days have been such an adrenaline rush for me. I have enjoyed every minute of my stay here. The first project (Griffin) has definitely helped me gain some valuable experience I would never have gotten from a normal internship. I’m already thinking differently than when I arrived.

Occasionally, my colleagues look at our Accelerator schedule and asked me why I would subject myself to this schedule. This note pretty well sums it up.

Day 4. June 9, 2008

Day 4. June 9, 2008

At 7:00 AM, we kicked off the day with a working breakfast – many teams doing the final portion of dress rehearsals for Griffin. The Morning (8:00 AM to Noon) was our first Operations simulation led by Professor Nancy Lea Hyer. Accelerator teams worked on understanding process efficiency and improvement.

During lunch, 1 representative of each team had the opportunity to visit the presentation room and determine how they wanted to be positioned for their presentations to Griffin.

After a working lunch, Professor Cherrie Clark led the teams in a discussion of preparation for the Griffin presentations and additional training in strategic consulting.

At 2:30 PM, we made our way to the Vanderbilt Law School auditorium where the Griffin executive team had already gathered – we had 8 representatives from Griffin to judge this first competition. Teams presented in an order they selected based upon the time the team completed their “deliverables” for Griffin. Each team had 10 minutes to make their presentation and then 2 minutes for Q&A with the client. Following the presentations of each team, all Accelerator students left the room to vote on their MVP team member (most valuable player) and to rank the presentations based upon how they believe the client (Griffin Technology) will rank their product ideas.

The Griffin team studied the teams’ Storyboards & Handouts as they reviewed the presentations and then ranked the teams from “best to worst” in their product designs and presentations. After the ranking, all Accelerator participants returned to the auditorium to hear Griffin announce the results of their judging. Beginning with the 8th place and moving to 1st place, Griffin shared information regarding what attributes of the designs appealed to the company and which portions of the presentations were not appealing to the company.

The winning team for this 1st round of competition (hosted by Griffin Technology) was Team 4 with 4 of the 8 Griffin votes. Team members include: Amy Brown, Patrick Dienes, Jordan Headlee, Tyler Weaks, Mandy May, Leo Selya, Samantha Webb, Megan Gilbert, A.J. Axelrod, Peter Mataragas, and Jason Levine. Team Coach: Patrick Long. Team 6 was awarded second place with 3 of the 8 Griffin votes. Griffin provided prizes to each member of the winning team (i-Pod peripherals and a speaker docking system.

Following the presentations, the Owen faculty did a full evaluation of the presentation skills of each team. Teams then completed a full peer and team process evaluation. We ended the day about 8:00 PM – a 13 hour day.

Day 3. June 8, 2008

Day 3. June 8, 2008

We kicked off the day at 7:00 AM with a Coach’s Breakfast – the objective was to identify which team members would be part of our “Advance Team” to Caterpillar – this PM, we’ll be sorting the entire weekend’s trash at the Caterpillar Financial offices – an 11 story building housing 900 employees. We’ll be designing a sustainability (waste reduction and recycling) program for the firm.

The Accelerator teams studied the attributes and conditions that drive wealth creation within companies: the need for products and services to be Valuable, Rare, Difficult to Imitate, and the firm must be organized to exploit these attributes.

Professor Pace launched our Communications and Personal Branding sessions. Using the “StrengthsFinder” assessment, Accelerator participants developed their strengths profiles and shared insight with these traits with one another.

This group of 85 young men and women are fully armed with i-Pods, i-Phones (some Blackberrys) and laptops – they are connected – virtually and constantly. They walk around with volumes of information (and tunes) in their heads and even more information at their fingertips. I saw this phenomenon first-hand today as we began research for our second corporate project. With lightening speed, fingers were gliding across keyboards, data was flashing on the laptop screen, and global data searches were initiated.

This afternoon, the Accelerator teams worked to finish their presentations for Griffin Technologies to design a new iPhone accessory (seems only fitting, huh?). Dress rehearsals finally got underway about 9:00 PM. Our faculty team gave the last bit of feedback to our final team at 1:00
AM (lots of coffee). Tomorrow, some 72 hours after arriving, these 8 teams of young men and women will present their design to the Griffin executive team. We’ve begun the journey of transformation.