July 29th, 2010
Conquering the ‘Plastic Vortex’
In our Summer issue, contributing writer Mike Unger profiled Doug Woodring, WG’95, an environmental consultant and start-up expert who over past few years has been working toward a seemingly impossible goal: Removing hundreds of square miles worth of garbage from a super-polluted swath of the North Pacific.
The garbage can be found in the North Pacific Gyre, one of the most remote ecosystems on Earth, and while many seem intent on ignoring the problem, Woodring has refused to do so. Two years ago, he founded Project Kaisei, a Sausalito, CA-based nonprofit, to raise awareness of the mess and find ways to clean it up.
Woodring is optimistic that Project Kaisei will be able to do precisely that … though he also knows it won’t be easy.
As he explained to Unger, once one arrives at the “plastic vortex,” the trash is so ubiquitous that it ”looks like stars in the sky, but instead of looking up, you’re looking down in bright blue water, and it’s everywhere.”
And, yes, by “everywhere,” he truly means “everywhere.” On a recent expedition, Project Kaisei took 250 water samples from an area covering 3,500 square miles of ocean. Plastic was found in every single sample.
So, how, exactly does Woodring intend to conquer this massive problem?
That was one of the questions we asked when we caught up with him at the 2010 Wharton Global Alumni Forum in Seoul. To hear how Woodring answered, and find out more about Project Kaisei, check out our video interview here.
July 22nd, 2010
So What’s the Deal with MBA Pub, Anyway?
There’s really not all that much to MBA Pub, is there?
I mean, this grand old Wharton tradition is nothing more than a glorified happy hour. Right?
Well, not exactly. Not according to Wharton MBAs, at least.
When we here at Wharton Magazine visited MBA Pub earlier this year (Pub is held each Thursday during the school year at Vance Hall), our goal was rather simple: We wanted to find out what what Pub is really about. We wanted to know why, year-in and year-out, it remains among the most popular events on the Wharton MBA calendar. We wanted to know why students so faithfully attend–and what, exactly, they get out the experience.
We got our answers.
Here, in our latest Wharton Magazine video, take a peak behind the scenes at MBA Pub–and find out why it is, in fact, much more than just another happy hour.
July 12th, 2010
Got a Story Idea?
Well, the Summer 2010 issue of Wharton Magazine is off to the printer.
Which means, of course, that the time has come to start working on our next issue—and, once again, we’re here to ask for your help.
As we begin planning the content for our Fall issue (scheduled to hit your mailboxes in mid-October) we are asking you to send along your story ideas. Know of a graduate who is doing something truly incredible—either in business or in life? Want us to interview one of the School’s more famous alumni? Hoping that we’ll tackle a timely business issue? Have a Wharton experience that you’d like to share as a guest commentator?
Well, then let us know.
Feel free to send along story ideas, profile suggestions, commentary submissions and more to both magazine@wharton.upenn.edu and hylandtj@wharton.upenn.edu. You can also reach us via Twitter @WhartonMagazine. And of course, you are always welcome to send us letters—either complimentary or constructive—at letters@whartonmagazine.com.
Thanks again for reading, everyone.
And please send along those ideas!
June 28th, 2010
Previewing Our Summer Issue …
It’s a brutally hot and humid afternoon here in University City. Or, at least that’s what I’ve been told.
See, I’ve been locked up inside all day, editing like mad and rushing to put the finishing touches on the summer issue of Wharton Magazine, which, barring some kind of calamity, should be arriving in your mailbox by mid-July.
I know I say this pretty much every time, but I’ll say it again (because I believe it): I think you’ll really enjoy this issue.
Doug Woodring, WG'95, is working to clean up the North Pacific's "plastic vortex."
Here are some highlights:
• Wharton’s newest graduates—about 950 MBAs and 606 undergraduates—received their degrees in May. In our story about the School’s 126th Commencement, you’ll read up on what kind of advice Dean Thomas S. Robertson, Wharton faculty and top alumni offered to these new grads as they prepared to head out into a real world still recovering from a global economic malaise.
• Ever wondered what it takes to compete—and perhaps more important, win—at the Wharton Business Plan Competition? Well, we did, too. Which is why we asked contributing writer Saki Knafo to follow one of this year’s competing teams and find out just how much work, and just how much stress, goes into this much-celebrated annual event. In his feature story, Knafo reveals how a near tragedy provided the impetus for one team to enter this year’s competition. Would they eventually take home the top prize? You’ll have to read the story to find out.
• Can the iPad save the publishing industry? Will the public ever truly embrace e-books? Is print dead? As contributor Steven Kurutz reports, those were just some of the questions debated during the Wharton Future of Publishing Conference, hosted in April by the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, Wharton School Publishing and Knowledge@Wharton. If nothing else, Kurutz’s story illustrates that while everyone agrees the publishing world is facing unprecedented challenges, almost nobody can agree on what comes next.
• Believe it or not, there’s a trash heap the size of Texas floating out in the North Pacific. Doug Woodring, WG’95, is spearheading the effort to clean it up. Through his recently launched Project Kaisei, Woodring is not only raising awareness about the “plastic vortex” of trash, but also working to change the way the world thinks about waste. “We are trying to tackle a huge issue,” Woodring told contributing writer Mike Unger. “The ocean covers two-thirds of the earth, but it is the momentum, and the awareness, that is really going to make some changes. We don’t need billions of dollars, but getting our expeditions out to sea to learn how to deploy new technologies goes a long way in motivating the world to think about changes.”
Other highlights of the issue include a great round of letters from our readers (let’s just say that we made a small error in last issue’s “From The Vault”), another superb Wharton Folly cartoon, some important news from the School and, of course, another Final Exam challenge, this one from Associate Professor of Real Estate and Business and Public Policy Todd Sinai.
All that and more, in just a few weeks. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write, as always, at letters@whartonmagazine.com.
June 15th, 2010
In Africa, Wharton Alumnus Making Progress in Fight Against AIDS
About a year ago, we here at Wharton Magazine had the opportunity to interview Gene Falk, WG’80, a former entertainment industry executive who left the business world to help found mothers2mothers, a Cape Town, South Africa-based nonprofit that aims to prevent the transmission of HIV-positive pregnant women to their children.
Falk told us that while his organization’s mission may appear “daunting,” the reality is that preventing HIV transmission from mother to child is actually quite simple. The drugs and treatments are widely available; that’s why, in the developed world, we so rarely hear about “AIDS babies” anymore, Falk notes. Of course, in the developing world, where mothers2mothers focuses its work, that simply hasn’t been the case, and the unnecessary infection of babies has continued.
But mothers2mothers is truly beginning to change things.
Just yesterday, we received a note from mothers2mothers, updating us on their work over the past year, and the results were so impressive that I figured they were worth sharing here. Among the highlights from the report:
• The organization is now operating 606 sites throughout southern Africa, including locations in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa. That’s up from just over 500 total sites when we spoke to Falk last spring.
• In South Africa alone, mothers2mothers has 342 sites.
• In 2009, the organization enrolled 298,200 new “clients”—pregnant women or new mothers—and employed more than 1,600 HIV-positive women.
• Also in 2009, mothers2mothers engaged in more than 2.1 million patient interactions.
Summing up the organization’s progress, Falk and his co-founders—Dr. Mitch Besser and Robin Allinson Smalley—write that over the past eight years mothers2mothers has “achieved the kind of growth that often takes decades.” They also wrote they remain committed to their core goals: Helping women live healthier, more prosperous lives, and making sure that babies are born HIV-free … with healthy mothers to care for them.
“This may seem innovative to some,” the founders said, “but to us it’s business as usual.”
June 3rd, 2010
The Final Frontier for Private Space Travel?
Elon Musk's SpaceX expects to launch its new Falcon 9 rocket on Friday. (Photo by SpaceX)
Tomorrow morning, the future of U.S. space travel could change forever.
Really.
At 11 a.m., the 4-hour launch window will open at Cape Canaveral for Falcon 9, a rocket designed by Hawthorne, CA.-based SpaceX, which has been contracted by NASA to carry cargo to the International Space Station beginning next year. The company, helmed by Wharton grad Elon Musk, C’97, W’97, is at the center of the Obama administration’s controversial efforts to transfer some of NASA’s traditional duties—including transportation to the space station—to private companies.
SpaceX, whose privately developed Falcon 1 made history by reaching orbit in 2008, is an acknowledged leader in this emerging field. And the company’s goal is nothing less than a space travel revolution. If all goes as planned, Falcon 9’s currently unmanned test capsule, “Dragon,” will someday carry passengers into space—at a significantly lower cost than traditional methods.
While it will take much more than a single launch by a single company to determine success or failure, Falcon 9’s reaching orbit tomorrow would go a long way towards allaying fears that space travel is simply too big, too complicated and too important for NASA to entrust to commercial interests.
Of course, Musk, who reportedly provided inspiration for the characterization of Tony Stark in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man movies, is no stranger to big, complicated and important. In addition to his work as chief executive officer and chief technology officer of SpaceX, he serves as CEO and Product Architect of Tesla Motors, a leader in the development of electric cars, and non-executive chairman of SolarCity, California’s leading provider of solar power systems. Oh, and he’s also co-founder and former Chairman and CEO of PayPal.
SpaceX will be showing the Falcon 9 launch on a live webcast: http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php —so tune in tomorrow to see if the “Iron Man’s” Falcon will really fly.
May 25th, 2010
She Did It!
Lei Wang, WG’03, who was featured in our spring issue for her efforts to tackle the 7 + 2 Challenge—that is, climbing the highest mountain on each continent and skiing to both the North and South poles—has finally completed her journey.
On Monday morning, staff from International Mountain Guides reported that Wang, five other climbers and four sherpas had successfully summited 29,035-feet-tall Mt. Everest. By reaching the top, Wang became just the second woman in history, and the first Chinese woman, to pull off the 7 + 2.
Later Monday afternoon, IMG also reported that the climbers had safely descended back to camp. All were in good health.
Before coming to Wharton, Wang said her only climbing experience had been hiking up Xiang Shan, a small hill in her native Beijing. In 2003, though, Wang took part in a Wharton Leadership Venture trip to the Cotopaxi volcano in the Andes Mountains. That climbing adventure, Wang said, was transformative—and ultimately led her down the path that ended, after seven long years, atop mighty Everest.
May 15th, 2010
Siegel: Yes, Stocks Are Still the Answer
He is the author of the much-celebrated Stocks for the Long Run.
He has long advocated on behalf of stock market investing.
And yes, even in the midst of The Great Recession, Jeremy Siegel still believes that stocks are the best investment for the long run.
When Siegel, Wharton’s Russell E. Palmer Professor of Finance, spoke to Wharton alumni on Saturday morning as part of the School’s 2010 Reunion Weekend, his message was simple and clear: Stocks are still the answer.
“Stocks are indeed the most volatile short-run asset class,” Siegel said. “But that [volatility] seems to fade into insignificance when you look at the upward thrust in value over time. In the long run, there is no asset class that yields a more stable return. Stocks are the most unstable asset class in the short run and the most stable in the long run.”
History bears that out, Siegel said.
As he told his audience, from 1802 until 2009, the average real return on stocks was 6.6 percent per year, after inflation. Bonds returned 3.6 percent. Bills returned 2.8 percent. And gold? A measly 0.5 percent.
“Over all long-term periods, stocks have returned between 6 and 7 percent per year after inflation,” Siegel said. “It’s quite remarkable. No other asset class even approaches that stability.”
He added: “People talk about the safety there is in government bonds. In the long run, there is no safety in government bonds. I don’t mean default. I mean inflation.”
The value of stocks is not limited to the United States, either. After Siegel published Stocks for the Long Run, a team of British researchers used similar methodology to study returns in more than 16 other countries. The results? Stocks vastly outperformed other asset classes there as well.
“Over the last 100 or 110 years, the U.S. isn’t even No. 1 [in stock market returns],” Siegel said. “South Africa and Australia have higher real returns over the last 110 years than the United States. In every country in the world, stocks have dominated [other] assets. And stocks have dominated them by a large margin.”
May 14th, 2010
Robertson Offers ‘State of the School Address’
Reunion Weekend is under way here at Wharton, and as per tradition, Wharton Dean Thomas S. Robertson helped kick off the weekend with his annual “State of the School Address” at Huntsman Hall.
In a nearly hour-long presentation, Robertson updated Wharton alumni on the School’s financial health, spoke about the ever-improving quality of its faculty and students, offered insights into the School’s long-term goals and more.
Here are some highlights.
On the School’s Mission
“Our mission is fairly straightforward. We have to create leading-edge knowledge that’s going to be of value. We have to design and deliver a rich learning experience for our students. We have to have lifelong learning opportunities for our alumni and for executives. And we want to be able to disseminate our knowledge to the business community.” Toward that last point, Robertson noted that Knowledge@Wharton now has 1.4 million subscribers worldwide.
On the Faculty and Students
Wharton hired 23 new faculty members last year, Robertson said, bringing the School’s total faculty to 219—the largest in its history. As for the students? Well, they are as impressive as ever. The median GMAT score among incoming MBAs is 720. “We have really great faculty and absolutely brilliant students,” Robertson said. “They’re fantastic.”
On the School’s Financial Health
“We are financially sound. We are a business school and I think it would be just so embarrassing if Wharton was losing money,” Robertson said, drawing laughter from his audience. “We are meeting all of our budgetary commitments.”
On How the Financial Crisis Has Impacted the Curriculum
Robertson said the faculty have looked “very, very seriously” at the curriculum as the financial crisis has unfolded. Changes continue to be made. “You could not have walked into class [after the crisis hit] and pulled out your lecture notes from the year before, especially if you were in finance or accounting or business ethics.” He added: “We have tried to step back and look at what caused the financial crisis and learn from other countries … We want to know what caused it and what lessons there are to be learned.”
On the School’s Use of Social Media
Wharton has established itself as a leader in the realm of social networking, and the School remains committed to putting technology to smart use, Robertson said. “We are very much committed to technology and we have to take it very seriously. In social media, we now have a director of social media and we’re on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. It’s now a question of how you use these things.”
May 5th, 2010
WIMI Seeks ‘Proof of Concept’ Through ESPN/World Cup Initiative
Approximately 715 million people watched Italy defeat France in the 2006 World Cup Final.
The 2006 World Cup Final was among the most-watched sporting events in history, as an estimated 715 million viewers tuned in to see Italy knock off France, 5-3, in a penalty kick shootout.
The 2010 Cup Final, set for early July, has a great chance to draw even more viewers—and ESPN, which owns the broadcast rights to this year’s tournament, seems intent on learning as much as possible about the viewing habits of each and every one of them.
ESPN last month announced the creation of ESPN XP, a new multi-partner research initiative through which the network will study consumer behavior tied to some of the biggest events in sports—the 2010 World Cup being the first. To study television viewership of the tournament, ESPN has contracted with Nielsen Co., and to look at branding issues, it has brought in marketing research firm the Keller Fay Group. But when it comes to Internet and mobile technologies, The Worldwide Leader in Sports turned to a Wharton research center that may well be termed The Worldwide Leader in Interactive Media.
As one of the major components of ESPN XP, ESPN will turn all data gathered about its mobile and Internet viewers during the first round of the World Cup over to the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, which will move quickly to analyze that data and then report back to the network with a prediction of how (and how many of) those same viewers figure to consume the later rounds of the tournament.
“This is obviously crucial information for them,” says WIMI co-director Eric Bradlow, Wharton’s K.P. Chao Professor. “This is how they make money—by selling to advertisers.”
Peter Fader, Wharton’s Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor and Bradlow’s fellow co-director, notes that while other large media companies have launched similar initiatives in the past, the ESPN-WIMI partnership is unique in that its goals are proactive. Rather than gathering data about a past sporting event, Fader says, WIMI will prepare forecasts for a future event. The unique structure of the World Cup—which takes about a month to complete—helps make that aim possible.
“NBC has looked back at the Olympics, trying to figure out how many people watched on television or via mobile or on cable,” Fader says. “But NBC was looking backward there, saying ‘Here’s who watched the Olympics on our various platforms.’ We wondered, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to say that before [the event] happens, so you could plan accordingly and inform your advertisers about it?’ We told ESPN, ‘Let’s do this proactively.’”
Coverage of the World Cup on ESPN begins on June 11, and the Cup final is set for July 11. But the conclusion of the tournament isn’t likely to be the end of ESPN XP. Already, ESPN has hinted that it will expand the initiative to include its coverage of both professional and college football.
Bradlow and Fader, for their part, hope the ESPN partnership—and the results of their World Cup work—will show other media companies how they stand to benefit from WIMI’s methods as well.
“At the end of the day, we believe this would be a success if we can predict the last three weeks of the tournament based on the first two weeks,” Bradlow explains. “If we can do that, we’ll [be able] to go around to other businesses and media companies and tell them, ‘We did this for the World Cup, and this is what we can do for your site.’ It would be proof of concept that academic forecasting algorithms have practical value and can help answer real business questions.”
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