One for One

Last Thursday morning I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Blake Mycoskie at John Brown University. If you aren't familiar with Blake, you're probably at least familiar with his company - Toms Shoes.

I love Toms - they make me super happy. And I love the business model - every time someone buys a pair of shoes, a pair is given to a child in need. It's brilliant. Who'd have thought that giving something away every time you sell something would make for a profitable business? Good job, Blake!

His talk focused on why he'd incorporated giving into his business model in the first place. As it turns out, the giving was the original concept. He'd been down in Argentina and seen how much the village kids there needed shoes. He decided he wanted to help, but rather than rely on charity work, he wanted to find a way to make it a business - and Toms was born.

He wrapped up by saying that giving back doesn't just feel good, but that it can be a great thing for your business and your own personal brand. He mentioned three ways in which incorporating giving into your life and business is a good thing.

First, when you give back, your customers become your marketers. They do all of the advertising for you - there's a passion there that customers want to share with everyone. They believe in the cause and they become involved.

Next, a company that gives back attracts dedicated, passionate employees. Everyone wants to be a part of something. People want to work at companies that are doing good things, giving back. People want purpose, something to be proud of. A company that gives back provides that.

Finally, when you incorporate giving into your model, other people want to help you, because helping you succeed means helping you give more. As such a tiny start-up, Toms would not have become who they are today without the help of some really big names - Vogue, Ralph Lauren, etc. Those names believed in what Blake was doing and they wanted to help him succeed.

He was a fantastic speaker, I'm really glad I got the chance to hear him talk about the company. He brought even more passion to an already enchanting company.

The rest of the week/weekend was spent in Chattanooga, Tennessee. My little brother turned twenty-one, so we all drove out to help celebrate. Our Christmas was a bit punctuated this year, what with work schedules and my India trip, so getting to spend several days as a family was nice.

Now it's March and time is speeding by much faster than I can process. We've picked up graduation regalia and midterms are already upon us! Eeek! Someone slow this down!

I did get a bit of a break tonight - the Vienna Boys Choir was at the Walton Arts Center, and so I treated myself to a night out. It was lovely. Now I must go organize my thoughts and to-do list so that I don't get even further behind. Happy March, everyone!

I'm back! Aren't you excited?

So, India was...intense. It's amazing how emotional the country was - a constant roller-coaster. I'd love the country one minute and be ready to jump on a flight home the next. It was a great trip - and an incredible learning experience - but I'm very glad to be home.

I don't have an extended amount of time right now for a real update, but I did want to let everyone know I'm back home and back to THIS blog (though I probably will continue to update the other one since I didn't get to while we were in India...internet was scarce).

The new semester has started back up and I'll be posting my class schedule and brief reviews of each in the next few days. On top of that, this is our LAST SEMESTER (eeek), so the job hunt is intensifying a bit. I'm still at Dannon for the moment, but there's no guarantee that anything is permanent. BUT, I have two conversations tomorrow with my dream company (no, I won't tell you who it is...I wanna see how this goes first). Wish me luck!

Now, off to homework and other things. More later - 'til then :)

We interrupt your regular programming to bring you...India!

I’m leaving for India in the morning…naturally that means I’m going to bed and getting a good night’s sleep…oooor typing a blog entry. I’m kinda sad (cause I had to leave St. Louis on Christmas and drive back to Fayetteville…WITHOUT Gigi (who is staying with my parents while I’m gone)), but I’m also super excited. Honestly, I feel kinda like tonight is Christmas Eve, rather than last night. I always get this way the night before I leave on a trip - no matter how packed I am or how many lists I’ve made or how sure I am that everything is done, I sit up for a few extra hours going over everything that I could have forgotten…crap! Rent! Hang on…

Okay, rent is paid…and internet…that would have been bad. Anyway, so I’m leaving for India tomorrow! I’ll be there for three weeks doing all sorts of fun things. Wanna know specifically what I’m up to? You do? Thought so. You should follow my India blog while I’m gone! Go here:

chaiforchristmas.blogspot.com

I’m also blogging for the Study Abroad office, but it’ll be the same entries, so if you wanna read the updates twice, you can go there, too.

We’ll return to normal programming (i.e. updates HERE on school and internshipy stuff) after the trip. I’ll be back in January! ‘Til then!

Remember how I'm going to India over Christmas?

Well, I am. And I've started a blog specifically dedicated to that journey. Click HERE to read about our itinerary and be jealous.

Ragweed is mean. End of story.

Yeah, I know I told y'all to "check back tomorrow" like a week ago for another update. As you probably noticed, there wasn't one. The ragweed in the area decided to attack my sinuses and rendered me a bit... loopy to be honest. Well, I guess it was actually the meds that caused the loopieness...either way, I was not in a blogging state of mind.

I'm a bit better today - or at least I've tricked myself into thinking that. So, here's an update:

Let's start with our first India class. As I've mentioned before, I'll be spending Christmas break in India with about nineteen other students. As part of the prep work for that trip, we attend five Saturday classes to learn more about Indian culture, business practices, geography, history, and other fun stuff. During our first class, we did the perfunctory "go around the room and introduce yourselves" bit, followed by some informational presentations by Dr. Anand and Dr. Ellstrand (what will happen in the classes, what to expect, etc). Then, we walked over to Ella's (a restaurant on campus) for lunch. On Saturdays, they do an Indian themed menu, so it fit perfectly into the class. After lunch, we spent the remainder of the afternoon watching a Bollywood movie (which we will do every class in order to better familiarize ourselves with the culture). I LOVE Bollywood, so this was probably my favorite part. This week's movie was 3 Idiots - it tells the story, largely through flashbacks, of three engineering students trying to get through college. It was a nice blend of funny and moving (and had a few of those dance scenes Bollywood is famous for) - I'd recommend it if you can find a copy.

Okay, next...oh yeah, our first Professional Development class. Every semester, Walton hosts several PD Seminars (speakers come in every couple of weeks and speak on a topic for a few hours). This semester, our first opportunity was with Adam Arroyos. He's doing a series on networking. We spent the first session (there are four in all) focusing on our elevator speech - a short schpeel about yourself that you can deliver in the time it takes to ride an elevator with someone. We had our second session Wednesday and focused more on the "how to" of networking and its importance in our future careers. The next two sessions will be on organizational culture - I'll let you know how they go.

Last for today: the Supplier Joint Business Plan Summit at Walmart. Every year, each supplier has to submit this gigantic excel file detailing their plans for the upcoming business year (sales, store promotions, new businesses, etc). International suppliers (so...people like Dannon), have to submit a report for EACH country they sell product in (for us, that's 15) and EACH business unit within that country (taking our total business units up to around, oh, 45 or so). Guess who gets to compile all this info? Yup, me. Anyway, before we have access to these files, we have to attend the summit where we get all the instructions, details, and changes for this JBP file. This year, the meeting was at the new Sam's Home Office (which is NIIICE, by the way). It took about two and a half hours, and we got some good information (some of which means we have some changes to make to the files we've already started working on...oh well). It was an interesting experience - I'm glad I got to tag along.

Okay, now I have about three tons of homework to get through before tomorrow morning, so I need to stop procrastinating. I'll post another update...tomorrow? (fingers crossed). Til then, readers.

Birthday Adventures

My birthday was on the thirteenth, so I decided to take a few days off and drive to St. Louis to celebrate with my parents. I left late Monday afternoon, and Gigi and I made the five hour trek through Missouri.

Upon my arrival home late that evening (following a horrid drive that involved cars going 35 mph, three torrential downpours, a nervous-crying-wiggly puppy, and far too much construction), I was greeted with some rather unhappy birthday news – Daddy was in the hospital.

Apparently he’d had chest pains earlier that day, so he’d gone into the emergency room and they made him stay for a whole gauntlet of tests. We found out the next day (my actual birthday), that all of the test were returning negative (i.e. good) results – no heart attack, no blocked arteries, no irregularities…

While that was all well and good, it just meant that we still had no clue what had happened to him. So, they decided to keep him in the hospital for another evening of observation.

We had a mini-birthday at the hospital – I opened presents and Mom and I picked up the cake Daddy had ordered (from McArthur’s). My favorite present? A new case for my Mac – it looks like an old, hardback book, which, if you know me, fits my personality perfectly.

The cake was yummy, too. Won’t show you the traditional “first bite” picture that Mom always makes me take…no one wants to see that…

That night, since he was still stuck in the hospital, Mom and I decided to drive up to Columbia, MO where one of my best friends from high school (Kate) is working this summer. I hadn’t seen her in about a year, so it was a nice birthday treat. We had dinner at the Pasta Factory – grilled Ahi tuna and pesto linguini – and dessert at Sparky’s – White Russian & Chocolate Orange flavored homemade ice cream. Wanna see pictures? Silly me, of course you do! Here you go:

We spent the next day at the hospital with Daddy (while they ran even MORE tests), but we did take a break that evening and grab dinner with my roommate. And I got more birthday presents! She painted me two adorable canvases - they're perfect for our new place!

After dinner we stopped by Ted Drewe’s. If you’re ever in St. Louis, this place is a must. Just don’t go after a Card’s home game or an evening when the Muny has just let out…unless you wanna stand in a line that looks like...actually, nevermind. Go anyway. It's an experience.

After the second round of tests and a third night of observation (yes, they kept him another night), the doctor finally found the problem. Apparently, his heart’s electrical system isn’t operating properly. During the night, he had several incidents where his heart didn’t beat for a few seconds (one was 7 seconds long!) If that had happened while he was awake, he would have passed out cold. So, the doctor decided he needed a pacemaker…which meant another day in the hospital. The surgery went fine and we finally got to bring Dad home on Friday morning.

Since we had kinda missed my birthday, we decided to celebrate Friday evening with dinner at Citizen Kane’s – it was wonderful. They even put a candle in my dessert…which was odd…since it was flan…

Unfortunately, I had to leave super early the next morning to make it to Fayetteville for Business Plan Boot Camp, day 2, but more on that in a later post. The week, though it didn’t go as I’d planned, was nice. I got to see Mom and Dad, spend time with an old friend, and got presents! Now back to the real world – packing, moving, work, and school. Boot Camp update to follow – thanks for reading!

I have the Best. Internship. EVER.

Okay, so, intern orientation. I got to White Plains on Tuesday evening (after lugging my bags through the city’s biggest station, getting off at the wrong train stop and finding a taxi)…and the hotel did not have a room for me. Not the best beginning to the trip. As fate would have it, the other intern from my office, Justin, arrived just as I was checking in, so at least I wasn’t room-less and stranded alone. Everyone was really nice about the mix up though and we found me a room pretty quickly. I unpacked and relaxed for a little bit before heading down to dinner with the rest of the group – about 25 of us I’d say.

It was nice to have a informal ice-breaker type of activity before the official sessions start tomorrow. I got to know about half of the room (the other half was too far away to make conversation easy). There were people there from all over – New York, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, Boston, Texas – involved in a wide cross section of functions – HR, sales, accounting, analysis, marketing, research and development – and from all different education levels and backgrounds – undergrad, masters, PhD, business, engineering, food science. Overall it seemed like a pretty good group.

The next morning we were all bussed to HQ (and had yogurt for breakfast…anyone surprised?). We met the rest of the interns (about 35 in all) and began our sessions. Wednesday consisted mostly of “culture” information. We discussed CODE (“at Dannon, we’re Committed, Open, Doers, Empowered”) and the concept of HOPE (Humanism, Openness, Proximity, Enthusiasum) as well as the six pillar focus (Health Credibility, Nature, People, Blue Ocean, For All, Blockbuster). It was nice to learn the terminology everyone at the office has been using – conversations make MUCH more sense now! We broke for lunch, but I had to work because I had two huge reports due for Walmart the next day and only had internet access at the office. I got them mostly finished before it was time to leave for our Corporate Social Responsibility project.

We carpooled to the Food Bank of Westchester, and, after a brief overview and tour, we helped pack bags for the Backpack Program (a program started by a nurse in Arkansas that provides kids with food over long weekends and breaks) and helped dole out a gigantic box of macaroni into two pound bags for distribution. With so many of us there, the work went very quickly, and we were finished about an hour ahead of schedule. Once back at HQ, we had a quick wrap-up session, then were dismissed for the evening.

The group decided that the best way to spend our free evening would be to travel into the city for dinner. I made us dinner reservations and we caught the train to Grand Central. Once in the city, we stopped by Rockefeller Plaza for a few pics then had a fabulous dinner at Ruby Foo’s followed by cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery and a tour of Times Square. We then decided to trek downtown a bit to see the Empire State Building. After that we were pretty much beat, so we took the subway back to Grand Central (that was a mini-adventure in itself), and headed back “home.”

The next day was at little more “information” filled than the first. A representative or two from each department came to visit the group and talked to us about what their department did. We heard from marketing, sales, R&D, procurement (“sourcing and supplier development”), supply chain, finance, and even had a session with some previous interns who are now working for Dannon full time. I would have preferred a more interactive layout (especially after lunch – which I worked through again – when we were fading a little), but the information was good.

What was really exciting was hearing about all of the international opportunities available with Dannon. They will do their best to help you work abroad (for any amount of time you’d like), and you don’t have to wait ten years like you do with most companies. They have what they call “exchange missions” where you basically swap places with someone who does your job function in another country (like France or Spain), they even help you with language classes! I would LOVE to do that, and I never considered I’d be able to so soon!

After our sessions, we all took a bus back into the city to Chelsea Piers. We then boarded a private boat for a dinner cruise around the city. Have you seen the episode of the Office where Michael takes everyone out on the “booze cruise?” It felt like I had walked into that episode – just minus the awkward tension and love triangle. We ate, drank, and mingled with the exces all to the backdrop of the sparkling New York skyline – so much fun!  Have I mentioned I have the BEST INTERNSHIP EVER?

That was pretty much it for orientation. We all had pretty early flights the next day, so we all said goodbye before heading off to bed. Dannon sent a car to drive me to the airport the next morning (see? awesome internship!) and I caught my flight to Memphis. I spent the rest of the weekend there watching one of my best friends from high school get married (congrats Holly & Will!) before finally heading back to Fayetteville. Boy, was Gigi happy to see me!

That’s all for today – I’m going to go finish watching the Spain v. Portugal game (¡Viva España!) Thanks for reading!

Free Week in NYC? Yes, please! Thanks, Dannon!

About a month ago Dannon sent me to White Plains, NY for Intern Orientation – awesome job perk, yes? If you’re wondering (as I was) where exactly White Plains is, it’s about thirty miles from Manhattan.

Now, this was awfully convenient seeing as my best friend lives in the city. I hadn’t seen her in about a year and had been trying to invent an excuse to make it up there and ta-da! Intern Training! It’s apparently pretty common for the interns to schedule their flights so that they get to NYC the weekend BEFORE training starts so that they can spend time in the city (and since Dannon was going to pay for me to go up there anyway, there was no additional cost to fly up early). I got to stay with Whitney for free, so it was probably the cheapest weekend I’ve ever spent in New York.

I actually got to stay for about four days, which felt a lot longer considering Whitney had all the fabulous things planned for us to do. She’s lived there for about a year now, so she’s been able to find all of the neat “local” hang outs (which translates to tourist free and cheaper – who wouldn’t like that?)

I got there late Friday night, and the first thing we did on Saturday morning was have tea (as an early birthday celebration – thanks Whit!) at Alice’s Tea Cup. Oh, it was precious. If you’ve been to Serendipity III, it’s very similar but cuter and less crowded. We had tea, roasted asparagus and pears, granola, yogurt and fresh fruit, and two perfect Nutella and raspberry crepes. A lovely way to start a Saturday.

The rest of the day was spent checking out a couple of neat, less traveled, New York City sites. First stop: the Cloisters – an old cathedral filled with a collection of medival Spanish and Italian treasures. Who would have thought an area like that was hidden in the middle of New York City?

After that: the High Line – once an above ground subway line, now a really long city park. Then, drinks at the Frying Pan – a ship that used to reside on the bottom of the Hudson that has since been converted into a restaurant and bar – and dinner at the Trailer Park – classy, huh? We did have a show to get to that night, but we made one last stop here: the Strand – miles and miles of new and used books. We could have wandered for days.

Whitney and I are both Broadway fans, so no trip to NYC would have been complete without a show or two. The first one we picked was Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. It’s an Off Broadway musical (at the Public) that tells the story of Andrew Jackson’s life…set to emo-rock (imagine Green Day meets the Patriot). It was hilarious! We had the best time. Not to mention, the tickets were only $25 each.

That wrapped up our Saturday. Given that we had exhausted ourselves the day before, Sunday was pretty relaxed. I went with Whitney to the class she teaches every week and we caught another show afterwards – Everyday Rapture with Sherrie Rene Scott. The musical is basically a one woman show that features Scott describing her journey from a Mennonite childhood to Broadway. Oh, and we scored those tickets for $10 each! It’s nice to have a BFF with connections. After the show, we had dinner in Central Park, made the evening service at Redeemer Pres, and headed home.

Monday was fairly laid back, too. We got up, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, had pizza at Grimaldi’s, and headed out to Coney Island…this was a bad plan. It was Memorial Day…oops. I have NEVER seen that many people on a boardwalk. After fighting our way through the crowd at the train station, then on the street, then down the boardwalk, we finally found a less crowded spot of beach. THEN, just as we put our towels down and got comfortable…the sun went behind a cloud. Not a little cloud, the kind that stretches on forever. It didn’t take long for us to start shivering and give up on beach time. We headed back to the station, fought through the crowd again, road the most packed subway car I’ve been on since my trip to Japan, ordered Indian take out and Pink Berry and watched BBC shows on Netflix – a much better plan.

Tuesday was my last day with Whit before heading to White Plains, so we kept it simple. Breakfast at the apartment, some packing, and lunch at one of our favorites – Ruby Foo’s (in Times Square). Then, she had to go to work, so I headed off to Grand Central to catch my train to White Plains (not the easiest of feats by myself seeing as my luggage was to heavy to carry comfortably up and down the subway stairs). I made it, though, and in one piece. More info on Orientation to come in the next post.