Day 3. May 28, 2007We kicked off the day with a quick de-brief with the Accelerator teams on their field research for MAPCO last evening. Dr. Froeb, Professor of Economics, lead the teams in understanding the “rational actor model.” The Accelerator teams studied the attributes and conditions that drive wealth creation within companies: the need for products to be Valuable, Rare, Difficult to Imitate, and the firm must be organized to exploit these attributes.
This morning, 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.
On another note, I was especially intrigued by an article in today’s issue of Fortune magazine titled " 'Manage' US? Puh-Leeze… Today’s twentysomethings have their own rules. You just don’t understand them :-)" by Nadira Hira. The story is a mirror of the young professionals that make up this year’s Accelerator experience. These children of baby boomers, who according to the Fortune article are “the most high-maintenance workforce in the history of the world”, are going to be “the most high-performing workforce in the history of the world.” Armed with iPods, 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 with Griffin Technologies to design a new iPod accessory (seems only fitting, huh?).
We concluded the day with a cookout – and a celebration of Memorial Day. Kristin, Katrice, Amy and Chapleigh sang patriotic songs and a few young people spoke about friends and family serving in Iraq and their views of the war. We’ll save that story for another time.
