Bringing my education to life at the Kellogg Business Design Challenge

One of my favorite experiences at Kellogg to date was participating in the recently completed Kellogg Business Design Challenge hosted by the IDEA club. As a MMM student and someone interested in pursuing a career in design and innovation, signing up was a no brainer. But the experience far exceeded my expectations thanks to the real-world problem my team got to solve, the friendships I made and the lessons I learned.

The problem we were presented by our client, Scotch, was to use a human-centered approach to identify an opportunity in the elementary/middle school education market that delivered a social value proposition.

Faculty Spotlight: Professor Jan Eberly

Returning to Kellogg in 2013 after two years as assistant secretary for economic policy and chief economist of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Eberly brings her experience to the Kellogg community as both the James R. and Helen D. Russell Professor of Finance and the faculty director of the Kellogg Public-Private Initiative.

Here, she talks about her research, her teaching and how these issues can help organizations grow.

Negotiating your job offer (or offers!)

A recent study of graduating MBA students found that half of the men had negotiated their job offers as compared to only one eighth of the women. As part of its mission to develop the women of Kellogg and help them achieve their professional and personal goals, the Women’s Business Association (WBA) recently hosted a panel to help tackle this disparity.

Open to both male and female Kellogg students, the panel consisted of four negotiations experts who are Kellogg professors in the management and organizations department: Professors Jeanne Brett, Victoria Medvec, Leigh Thompson and Nicole Stephens.

The conversation was an enlightening one that touched on several strategies and tactics to ensure both you and your future employer are satisfied. Below are a few key takeaways.

Lessons on branding from Blackbeard the Pirate | MBA Learnings

A brand is simply a network of associations that exist in the minds of customers. Seeing the famous Nike swoosh or the Coca Cola logo triggers associations in our mind.

Brand associations are incredibly powerful because they stick. Malaysian Airlines, for example, is likely to face the consequences of its two tragedies for a very long time. These discussions naturally lead us to other conversations around what companies do with these associations – rebranding, repositioning, etc. We’ll leave those topics for a later time and, instead, learn from one of the early exponents of the power of a brand: Blackbeard the Pirate.