UBSLC Conference Report

I don't have a Scribd account anymore because I uploaded some copyrighted stuff. They said you can just upload all the documents on your computer... Whatever. I'm posting this because I just found it among my Writely Docs/Google Docs and thought there's some good advice here that I forgot.

Conference Report

Program and Agenda

Each year, the Undergraduate Business School Leadership Conference (UBSLC) brings together over a hundred upcoming business leaders from the most renowned domestic and international universities each year. Conceived seven years ago by a group of dedicated student leaders from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, the program was designed to create a collaborative forum for student leaders. The program continues to expose undergraduate students to top business leaders through workshops in leadership development, case competitions, and other interactive exercises. In 2006, the Goizueta Business School was proud to attract students from nine of the ten top-ranked undergraduate business programs in the U.S., as well as from leading institutions in England, France, Columbia, Ireland, Italy, Chile, China, and Singapore.

During the two-and-a-half day conference, participants not only expand their leadership skills and insights, but also build a social network with the world’s most promising future business professionals. The conference also features roundtable sessions, giving participants the opportunity to interact in small groups with prominent business leaders and entrepreneurs. The program’s goal is to empower students with the necessary leadership skills, and encourage them to make a positive impact when they return to their respective campuses.

The prestige of the universities represented at the UBSLC attracts more than top students. In 2006 keynote speaker Robert Nardelli, President and CEO of The Home Depot, kicked off a thematic conference organized around "Value Base Leadership." Other distinguished speakers have included Howard Schultz, Founder and CEO of Starbucks, Carla Harris, Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, and President Jimmy Carter.

UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL
LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
FEBRUARY 1-3, 2007

Tentative Schedule

Thursday, February 1, 2007
Check-in at UBSLC	noon - 3:30pm
Optional Campus Tours	12:30 - 3:00pm
Introductory Keynote	4:30 - 6:00pm
Steven Levitt, Author of Freakonomics Welcome Reception/Book signing sponsored by BBA Council	6:00 - 8:00pm
Off-campus Dinner: One Midtown Kitchen	9:00pm - 11:00pm

Friday, February 2, 2007
Breakfast	8:30 - 9:30am
Leadership Panel: Business Beyond Borders	9:30 - 11:00am
Leadership Roundtable	11:15 – 12:30pm
Networking Lunch sponsored by Goldman Sachs	12:30pm - 2pm
Leadership Roundtables	2:00 - 2:45pm
School Spotlight Presentations	3:00 - 4:00pm
BBA Breakouts	4:00 – 5:00pm
On-campus	5:00 - 6:30pm
Evening Events: Martinis and IMAX	8:30 - 12:00am

Saturday, February 3, 2007
Breakfast	8:30 - 9:30am
Case Competitions	9:30 - 12:00pm
Case Competition Presentations	12:00 - 1:30pm
Macy’s Lunch and Awards Ceremony	1:30 - 3:00pm
Keynote John Rice, Vice-chairman, General Electric	3:00 - 4:00pm
Closing Remarks and Slideshow	4:00 - 4:30pm
Off-campus Dinner at Loca Luna	7:00 - 9:00pm

Speakers and Sponsors

Summary of the Conference by Taige Zhang

We started the conference by attending Dr. Levitt's keynote speech about his book and Economics. The next day we listened to a panel of highly regarded executives from well known companies such as Coca-Cola, UPS, and Lehman Brothers. This was followed by leadership round table sessions where we got in small groups and could have very close and meaningful exchanges with managers or executives of various firms such as FedEx, Deloitte, etc. We then presented our school's CSA to over 120 students from US and other parts of the world such as Europe and Asia. The next day, we got into teams and participated in a case competition. Finally, we listened to Vice-chairman of GE talk about leadership which was a bit anti-climatic in fact because he talked about many of the things covered in textbooks.

I learned the most from the panel discussion. Some wonderful advice were I had to enjoy my job, think about using the phone before email, franchises are good, sales and flexibility are important, and try to find a mentor. They revealed businesses were moving to Latin America, Brazil and Asia. Communication is highly important to success as you start moving up into higher management positions. Outsource is good because it’s competitive. It's not taking away a lot of jobs because technology will always take away jobs. They also warned us about career killers such as email inappropriateness, doing stupid things, and being selfish. I found very interesting and pleased that optimism is more correlated to leadership than any other trait. The panel discussion was my favourite although the speech by Dr. Levitt was incredibly entertaining. In fact, after the panel, Richard and I got into a conversation with the moderator, a professor at Emory, for over 30 minutes which made us late from the roundtable and missed out on lot of free Coke products. He told us about how to volunteer, importance of who knows you, how to differentiate one's self, and tips on how to give a presentation. I loved this conference because it was international and so we could meet people from across the world and get a sense of what business schools and programs are like else where. I enjoyed meeting those people. The conference organizers were extremely hard working, warmly hospitable, and we made many great friends who I feel I'll be sure to meet and may even do business with in the future as we start having careers. I liked all the events because it was so well balanced unlike the conference I attended at Queens which had too many speeches and speakers. The only thing I disliked was we had no time to check out the city or had free time to explore. The organization was flawless and although I got lost once I was able to call my group liaison because we all got their cell phone numbers on the back of our name tags. That was very useful. Networking was easy because we loved to talk, there were often waits and delays, and everyone was friendly. Food was a bit of a let down but satisfactory. Accommodations were great because we stayed in comfortable hotel rooms, but it was a bit pricey. I liked how they always came to pick us the hotel.

I would recommend this conference as the conference to go to any future students. I’d love to go again, but I feel it would be more valuable for someone who has never gone to a conference to experience and open their mind.

add more taige, hehe

Summary of the Conference by Richard Mo

The first session I attended was freakonomics by Levitt. My first feeling was that he had lots of jokes and funny stories to tell by trying to make sense of the world around us. The way he saw things was different from mainstream but he did get bestselling for his idea. For future reference, I think I would just sit closer to the speakers so that I can hear it more clearly. Be prepared with little bit food after you got off the airport because I was very hungry during the first session. For that reason, I wasn't very engaged at that time.

Then we went to mix and mingle session where we had snacks and talked with students from other schools. As it was the first time we met with each other, the biggest problem was that we didn't have enough time to form a in-depth conversation. I think, if I could start to get to know them earlier and be more proactive and ask more about “why you think it that way or why it should be that” rather than just “what”, we would have a smoother transition to intellectual communication.

After that, we were led to the Emory inn, where everyone would stay for the next three days. We woke up around 8:00 and went to Guizueta school of business. The school bus rode us there. We got to know each other on the bus, smiling and joking. I thought having everyone together on the bus was a very good idea for you to get to them in a relaxed way. We had breakfast together in a big dining room called coco cola common, enjoying the sense of community by siting around the table. This was also very cool too because we hadn't been having a chance to be exposed that way in school.

For the leadership round table, I thought it was little bit formal than I had expected. I didn't have a lot of interaction with the speakers or maybe I was a little bit shy. In general, I liked the way it was set up, which was a small amount of people compared to the regular keynote speaker session.

No matter where i went, Taige and gena were always laughing and providing insight towards issue. I learned so much about the individual differences from them. Speakers from Coco cola , UPS, Lehman brothers,etc provided their experiences of working in business world in a global perspective and gave advice on how students could be better prepared for their career. Frankly speaking, I was really tired during that session. For future reference, I would suggest sitting with someone that you know and maybe you could discuss about some of the interesting parts of the leadership panel. Jeffrey Rosensweig, professor of finance, filled the position of moderator during the leadership panel, which made the leadership panel more enjoyable.

The good things about the conference was that all the people, no matter professors and students and the administrative people, from emory were really active in helping, organizing, which gave us a lot of meaningful and enjoyable time. We also sat together discussing things about student learning experience in individual's home university and how we could make improvement on them. The way they organized the events were very good as well because they put equal balance in every day. In that way, i didn't have the feeling of approaching to the end of the conference.

Dinners was very cool esp the last day's. You got to meet people from other schools and chatted with them while eating. For future reference, It is very important, i think, one should make more effort to really get to know other participants at other time, like the time staying in emory inn or on the bus, rather than wait till more formal time to get to know them,like the keynote speaker time. By that way, you would raise the friendship to both personal level and public level.

Case competition was a great opportunity for me to get to know students from other school in team working's perspective because I wouldn't get a chance to know how they work while eating or chatting. It did make a difference to the conference and added a lot of value to it. The non-fun part was that every group had been so similar that I almost fell asleep while watching them presenting. For the General Electric session, I like the way how John Rice explained about the Chinese issue.

Near the end of the conference, I didn't realize it was the end , we had a nice dinner together at local restaurant. Everyone stayed there, laughing and enjoying, where I could still feel the warmth of the conference. I really enjoyed the truth-telling self-designed game. At the Toronto airport, taige's baggage got searched and at Atlanta, taige's baggage got stolen. It seemed fun stuff never had ended even the conference was done.

The points I liked about the conference was that the working people were so organized and had lots of passion and the events were very diverse. I thought they made the conference to the fullest. The points I disliked was that the keynote speaker session were bit of quiet and i didn't notice there were internet access in emory inn. Looking back at the conference, I think increasing the interactions with other students and also the keynote speakers would be more beneficial. I definitely recommend having three people instead of two people for the conference because you will probably feel more sense of collectivity.