Category: 2013

Hello from beautiful California! As we continue our course of study, we have also been fortunate to have opportunities to learn outside of the classroom.  Last Wednesday, a group of fifteen of us elected to attend the launch event for Athena 2020 in San Francisco. For those of you unfamiliar with the organization, Athena 2020 is a non-profit dedicated to the advancement of women in the professional world. The organization hopes to educate women on how to better pursue their career and life goals through networking events and online tutorials.

Prior to the event, we had the privilege of meeting one-on-one with Duke alumna and entrepreneur, Rachel Braun-Scherl.  Rachel is the Principal of Semprae Laboratories and has had years of industry experience as both a marketing and consulting expert.  As she shared the unique challenges she has faced as a female entrepreneur, we were captivated by her candor and wisdom. Rachel’s stress on the importance of authenticity in leadership resonated with both the male and female students present for her talk.

After the conclusion of our meeting with Rachel, we headed downstairs to attend a discussion on gender communication in the workplace.  The panel featured an all-star cast of men and women from diverse backgrounds (including our very own Kimberly Jenkins!), united in their commitment to help women become leaders in business world. The panel was then followed by several case studies on businesswomen in Bay Area. I was particularly interested by insight of two of the featured female entrepreneurs, both only few years older than myself. These women are a testament to the fact that gender and age should pose no limitations to the type of professional success we should strive for or are capable of achieving.

I can enthusiastically say that the Athena 2020 event was the most impactful I have attended thus far. Women’s issues have always been of a particular interest to me. Last fall, I took the Duke Public Policy course, Women as Leaders, taught by Professor Katie Hood. One of the greatest lessons I learned from Professor Hood was the importance of learning from the experiences and advice of other women leaders. It was with Professor Hood in mind that I chose to attend the Athena 2020 event. I loved connecting the lessons on leadership that I had learned in her class with the life stories of the panelists and featured entrepreneurs.

The women featured at the event were truly inspiring.    In fact, my peers dedicated the entire hour long car ride home discussing the changes we would like to implement within the Duke community to help grow an accessible network of female student, alumnae and local entrepreneurs.  As women, we cannot succeed alone. It is only through supporting each other that we will be able to create, as Sheryl Sandberg once put it, “the New Girls Network,” that will be essential to one day achieving equal representation in the workplace and beyond.

Samantha Klein
Junior, Duke University

As I sit at a poolside table with some of my classmates getting this blog organized, I can’t help but reflect on how fortunate I am to be in Silicon Valley — and how incredible this opportunity is for all of us. I’m in awe of the opportunities that I’ve had, the people I’ve met, and the knowledge I’ve gained — and we’re only four days in.

The course we’re taking is titled Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise. It’s a Harvard Business School course that introduces students to Clayton Christensen’s theories on disruptive innovation, which offer insight into the circumstances in which innovative companies can succeed and fail, and which strategies they should adopt to thrive. The course is being taught largely by Clayton’s son, Matt.

It’s Friday, which means it’s the end of our first week of class. This week has been nothing short of incredible — we were lucky enough to have Clayton Christensen teach two lectures on his theories. We’ve discussed a classic example of disruption in the steel industry — we observed how minimills innovated and targeted the lower segments of larger integrated steel companies’ markets, gradually moving their venture up-market to become more profitable.

Today’s lecture was terrific as well. We examined a somewhat unconventional organizational scheme at Nypro, Inc. that promoted an internal market for innovation between autonomous plants by stimulating competition and communication between business units. We also examined how the introduction of new technology could be best introduced alongside Nypro’s current processes and values.

What struck me today was the idea of how innovation happened at Nypro according to Christensen’s model of resources, processes, and values. My interpretation of Christensen’s theory holds that the job of management is to impute their values upon the organization and their subordinates, and redefine the tasks and performance metrics that the company prioritizes. It’s up to employees to develop and refine processes that can more efficiently respond to the values of the company.

This week, we also had a great opportunity to hear Clayton Christensen speak at Apple alongside Duke alumni who have made great strides in entrepreneurship and innovation. Networking with the alumni afterward was a thrill, as well, and afforded all of us valuable insight into the challenges that entrepreneurs have faced and how they’ve been overcome.

We’re incredibly fortunate to be hosted at Apple University. We’re the first university to have a course hosted on Apple’s campus. We’d like to extend a special thanks to Eddy Cue, Joel Podolny, and everyone else involved at Apple who have been so accommodating.

We’d also like to extend a special thank you to Clayton and Matt Christensen, who have been extremely gracious in allowing us their time and knowledge. Our sincerest gratitude is in order to Kimberly Jenkins, Emma Rasiel, Eric Toone, and everyone else involved at Duke, Chapel Hill, Wake Forest, and the Research Triangle Park area for putting together such a fantastic program.

I think I speak for all of us in saying we’re thrilled to be the inaugural members of the Duke in Silicon Valley program. We’re looking forward to laying the groundwork for later iterations of future entrepreneurs.

Let’s build something great together.

Michael Marion
Junior, Duke University