Day 25: June 22, 2009

We started our day at 7:00 AM with breakfast. Following breakfast, our first studio of the day was at 8 am with Professor Brian Griffith. Professor Griffith wrapped up his last session with the students focusing on the experience and growth he has witness in our students and recapped some of his previous studios. He drew our attention to the 5 elements of leadership and active listening. Following Brian’s session, Professor Cherrie Clark provided some brief insight into investment with a number of examples from Warren Buffett.

Following a short break, we broke out into team sessions and started to work on Coca-Cola. We will present Coca-Cola on Thursday and the team’s presentations are really starting to take shape. We have 6 executives coming from Coca-Cola to do the judging who will remain for our farewell dinner on Thursday night.

As many of our students majoring or minoring in finance or accounting, we invited representatives and current students from the Masters of Accounting to host an information session about Vanderbilt’s program. The MAcc representatives joined our students for lunch after the info session and networked with our students in a more relaxed atmosphere. We also had representatives from the “Big Four” firms: Jessica Hagler, KPMG; Elliott Benator, KPMG; Bob Guido, PwC; Kevin Walker, Ernst & Young; Jena Riggs, Ernst & Young; Michelle Adams, Deloitte; Mary Hus, PwC; Chichi Onuzu, Deloitte. Joining them was David Mayer, a current MAcc student at Owen that will be finishing next year.

At 1 pm, our teams started their final team session for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBST) / Gordian Health Solutions with their deliverables due at 4:30 pm.

After their final BCBST team session, Professor Bart Victor met with our students on Business Ethics.

Following Victor’s studio, our teams finalized their presentations during dinner as BCBST dress rehearsals started at 6:30 pm. Our teams spent the rest of the evening working on BCBST and we closed up the building quite late. The last team left about 2:30 AM. The projects are looking great and we can’t wait to see BCBST’s response tomorrow!

If you want to see our photo library, you may do so at http://picasaweb.google.com/VanderbiltAccelerator

Michael Burcham
Faculty Director, Accelerator 2009

Day 24: June 21, 2009

We started the day at noon with a traditional southern meal: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, yeast rolls, green beans, and peach cobbler. Following lunch, we broke the group up into two sections – Vanderbilt and Non-Vanderbilt students to assess how we can improve in marketing our program around the nation. As we ask our students to constantly be open to feedback and improve, we are looking to improve the program as well.

Our teams next broke into their Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBST) teams and continued to work on that project; they will present BCBST and Gordian on Tuesday and today will be one of the last times that our teams have to finish crafting their idea.

Around 3:00 pm we broke up into two groups again. Teams 5 – 8 met with Paul Frankenberg while teams 1 – 4 Professor John English. Teams that meet with John English learned about commonly asked interview questions and interview etiquette, as well as how to affectively express their strengths and weaknesses. Teams with worked with Paul Frankenberg reviewed previous interview situations that our students had experienced and how interviews would interpret their answers.

The rest of the evening was dedicated to working on our Coca-Cola sustainability project. We ended the day around 9:00 pm. Only four more days until the program ends and we are all making the final push.

If you want to see our photo library, you may do so at http://picasaweb.google.com/VanderbiltAccelerator

Michael Burcham
Faculty Director, Accelerator 2009

Day 23: June 20, 2009

Our day started with our standard 7:00 AM breakfast followed with a studio lead by Cap Gemini’s Matt White. Matt was an Accelerator coach in 2007 and continues to help us organize during the program and teach sessions on consulting. Today, his studio focused on Perceptual Maps, a strategic tool to map the transformation of a company or business unit over a period of time.

Following the studio, our teams spent the next 3 hours working on our Coca-Cola project surrounding corporate responsibility and sustainability. Teams were busy completing surveys of other college students and tabulating the results. As of this AM, we have completed over 1,500 surveys.

After lunch we worked on the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBST) / Gordian project. For BCBST / Gordian we are creating a business model that will help the insurance heavy weight use a social media strategy to engage consumers in conversations about health, wellness, and managing diseases.

We finished out the afternoon with a session led by Paul Frankenberg, CEO of Kraft Search Associates. Drawing on his experience as an Executive Recruiter and placement professional, Paul led a discussion on creating effective resumes. He suggested ways our Accelerator participants could improve their resumes as well as the types of profiles and candidates that human resources departments are looking for.

Dinner was ultra casual: hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken and pasta salad by Charlie Bob’s. Good outdoor cooking on a hot June evening.

After dinner, we returned to the work on the BCBST / Gordian project. We ended the day around 8:30 pm and will take the morning off tomorrow before we start our last week of the program.

If you want to see our photo library, you may do so at http://picasaweb.google.com/VanderbiltAccelerator

Michael Burcham
Faculty Director, Accelerator 2009