Archive for May, 2009

The Ethical M.B.A. Oath

May 30, 2009

In the spirit of my last PaidContent column, this piece in the NYT:

At Harvard and other top business schools, there has been an explosion of interest in ethics courses and in student activities — clubs, lectures, conferences — about personal and corporate responsibility and on how to view business as more than a money-making enterprise, but part of a large social community.

However, it seems only 20% of the graduating class has taken an oath to act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their “own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others.

And the other 80%? Seems a worthwhile interview question next time I interview a Harvard MBA.

From the New York Times Magazine, The Ca…

May 26, 2009

From the New York Times Magazine, The Case for Working With Your Hands:

A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Nor can big business or big government — those idols of the right and the left — reliably secure such work for us. Everyone is rightly concerned about economic growth on the one hand or unemployment and wages on the other, but the character of work doesn’t figure much in political debate. Labor unions address important concerns like workplace safety and family leave, and management looks for greater efficiency, but on the nature of the job itself, the dominant political and economic paradigms are mute. Yet work forms us, and deforms us, with broad public consequences.

Questions I Wish VCs Would Ask Entrepreneurs

May 22, 2009

Column number two up on PaidContent.

Storytelling Is Stuck In A Rut

May 8, 2009

A short column (by me) on PaidContent (thanks to PC for the opportunity).