Connecting the dots

趣味でiPhoneアプリを作ったのですが、それを知った同級生からTech系のスタートアップを起業しようと思っているのだが、ちょっと話を聞いてくれないかとか、色々と相談を持ちかけられるようになった。ITコンサルタントだとは知っていても、さすがにコーディングまでやっていたとは思ってなかったらしい。ビジネススクールには、起業を狙っている人間は沢山いるが、実際にコーディングまで出来るITエンジニアバックグラウンドの学生比率は少ないようで、注目を集めた模様。自分のバックグラウンドを生かすとしたら、VCとかいいのかも（笑）お蔭で馴染みの薄かった同級生とも話す機会を得た。差別化できると自分から話しかけなくても、話しかけてきてくれる。人には無い何かニーズのあるものを持つってネットワーキング的にも大事だわ。

正直、社会人1年目、2年目は早く開発者ロールから抜け出したくて、抜け出したくて、仕方なかった。もう開発が嫌いで嫌いで、プランニングジョブとかやっている同期が羨ましくて仕方なかった。いいなー、コンサルタントっぽいなー、って。その時の僕は口が裂けても自分の仕事がコンサルタントだなんて言えなくて、仕事聞かれても「プログラマーですよ」って言っていた。でも、何故かその時のスキルが今になってこうやって役立っている。何が役に立つかって分からないわ。だから何事も腐らないでやることが大事だな。勿論、クリアなビジョンがある人はそのチャンスが到来するのを虎視眈々と狙うべきだが、だからって今やっていることが100%無駄になるわけじゃないって思うことも大事だと思う。

いかん。年寄臭くなってしまった。いかんいかん。

Japan Business Association

CBSの学生団体であるJapan Business Association（JBA）のCo-Presidentに同級生のTさんと就任することになった。Asian Business AssociationやPE･VCクラブでは立候補者が複数いるため、必死の選挙戦が展開されている（文字通り、必死の選挙戦。選挙権のあるメンバーへのメールによる呼びかけや、図書館で片っ端から声をかけまくったりしている）のだが、JBAはTさんと僕の共同候補以外は対立候補がいなかったので、信任投票という結果で1票が入れば当選ということだったのだが。まぁプロセスはどうあれ自分で自分に1票入れたとは言え、「一応」選ばれたので、責任感持って頑張ろうと思う。
CBSでは日本人そのものが少ないのに、その数も減少傾向にあるため（Class of 2011が6人、Class of 2012が5人）絶滅危惧種化している。そしてそれによる弊害というのは結構あると思っている。例えば、思っていた以上にまだまだクラスで日本に関するケースが出てくることが多いが、Vividな情報が提供できないし、たまに教授の解釈も間違っている時があるので、これはCBSにとっても日本にとっても宜しく無いと思っている。だから、JBAが開催するイベントなどを通じて、日本について日本人が発信していくことが情報の非対称性と不正確さを解消するのに重要だと思う。日本が今後グローバル化していくのと同じで、JBAのメンバーも色んな国籍の人たちが集まって、日本について理解を深め、沢山意見交換ができるそんな場になれば、いいなと思ってる。頑張ります。

感謝

今日、Urisの1階でとある同級生と久しぶりに遭遇。「よぉ」みたいな感じですれ違い様に軽く挨拶して、そのまま図書館に向かおうとしたら「Charuman！（とは呼ばれてないが）」と後ろから声をかけられた。何かと思ったら、「お前の家族は大丈夫か？日本はどうだ？」と。彼は1994年のノースリッジ地震（別名ロサンゼルス地震）を経験しているらしく、大地震の恐ろしさを肌で感じているらしい。だからか、今回の地震の規模と被害の大きさを説明すると若干目を潤ませていた。もう2週間が経過し、こちらの新聞もリビアやレバノンなどアフリカ、中東における混乱に関心がシフトしてきているが、彼に限らず、多くの友人から今でも「家族は大丈夫か？」と声をかけられる。

この温かい仲間達に感謝しても、仕切れない。素晴らしい友達が出来て本当によかった。

Fund Raising

春休み明けの21日（月）からビジネススクールではJBAにより募金活動が行われた。僕もJBAのメンバーの1人として授業の合間にブースに立って、募金の呼びかけを行った。昨日で5日間の募金活動を終え342人の学生から総額$7,485という寄付金を集めることが出来た。募金活動に協力してくれた学生には感謝の気持ちでいっぱいである。集めた寄付金はJapan Red Crossに送られることになっている。実は、寄付金の送付先については少し議論があった。より多くの寄付金を集めるために寄付により課税控除の効くアメリカのNPO団体にすべきではないかという話もあった。ただ、募金活動の主旨と寄付金の使途を100%アラインさせる意味でも、日本の罹災者支援以外に使われる可能性を残すことは適当ではないと考えて、Japan Red Crossを寄付先とした。

実際は課税控除について気にする学生は僕が対応した限りだとゼロだった。むしろ、課税控除とは全く関係なく、どの団体に寄付金を送るのかということを質問されることが多かった。Japan Red Crossに送ること、その理由について説明すると皆納得して募金をしてくれた。募金額が1人当たり20ドル程度と少額だということもあるだろうが、こちらの方が寄付金の使われ方について意識が高いようだ。日本人は寄付をすることに意義があると考える人が結構いるのではないかと思う。僕もそうだったが、今回の募金活動を通じて少し学んだ。

柳井さんの10億円、AKBの6億円に比べれば、微々たる金額ではあるが、少しでも罹災した方々の支援に役立てられればと思う。

Grade Non Disclosure

成績非公開の提案がなされてから2か月近くを経て、昨日と今日の2日間に渡り選挙が行われた結果、Fall 2011から成績非公開（Grade Non Disclosure）が適用されることとなった。最低でもビジネススクール全体の75%が投票しない限り、無効となる選挙で、個人的には個性の強いビジネススクールの学生の投票率をそこまであげるのは難しいのかと思った。しかし実際には学生全体の91.7%が投票、賛成に必要な75%をかろうじて上回る賛成票を得て、成績非公開が承認される形となった。90%超の学生が投票に参加したというのは驚くべき数字で、学生の関心は思った以上に高かったみたいだ。

今後はChicago BoothやStanfordのように、学生はリクルーティングの際に企業から求められても、成績を言うことはできなくなる。これで、皆が遊び呆けてしまったら本末転倒だが、学業面においても学生間で協調的雰囲気が生まれれば相乗効果も見込めるし、何より全く新しい領域の授業を取ることを後押ししてくれるのであればきっといい効果が生まれると思う。ただこの制度を生かすも殺すも学生次第であり、この制度が適用されてから学生の質が下がったと言われてコロンビアのブランドが低下しないように皆が意識するしかない。ただ、あんまり心配はしてない。こっちに来てから気づいたのは、成績公開主義だろうが、非公開主義だろうが、学生の物事に対して取り組む姿勢というのはそんなに変わらないような気がする。J-Termは基本的に企業からスポンサーやファミリービジネス出身者が多いので、殆ど成績は気にしないはずだが、やはりそれなりにエリート路線を歩んで来た人間が多いので、基本的には負けず嫌いであり、遊びも勉強も全力投球な人間が多い。成績非公開主義が、非協力的な雰囲気だけそぎ落として、皆の本質さえ変えなければうまく作用するような気がする。。

ま、自分は公開主義だろうが、非公開主義だろうが、授業ついていくだけでもいっぱいいっぱいなので、ちゃんと勉強しますけどね・・・。

What we can do.

"Did you see the news that a massive earthquake struck and tsunami inundated Japan? Do you guys still think that we can still fly to Japan this Saturday?"

An e-mail I received in the midnight on Thursday March 10th was something I had difficulty distinguishing whether he was joking or not. And I received the wall street journal alert saying about the earthquake with 8.7 magnitude. Since I don't have TV in my house, I didn't have any way to see what happened in Japan actually other than through internet. I was very frustrated because of less information in New York about the earthquake. But I found that a junior high student in Hirosihma(supposedly) was streaming NHK through Ustream though it was illegal to do so. That was a night before the final of Strategy Formulation, but I got glued to U-Stream... Everything aired in NHK was hard to believe... I couldn't sleep at all in the night. Needless to say, I couldn't concentrate on the test with my concerns just increased.

Then we got into very long, painful, strenuous and persevering three days. Right after the earthquake, Chazen institute, our sponsor of Japan Study Tour, said that we must cancel the tour. But with tremendous efforts and kind of optimism that earthquake was not so severe that we couldn't go to Japan at all but media sensationally reported it, we couldn't accept it and tried to convince them to continue the tour. The vice dean of the school and a director of the institute gave us OK to continue the tour under the condition that the tour was no longer "official". So, we contacted all tour participants whether they would like to go to Japan even though the tour was no longer official. The majority of students said they would like to cancel because of concerns caused by the earthquake but some students still showed interests to go to Japan. In addition, there were some students who strongly wanted to continue the tour: students who were already in Japan and students who were stacked in Alaska because of the earthquake on the way to Japan.  In the midnight of that Friday, we finalized the number of students in the group and called it a day for going home to prepare, just hoping things got better.

On the contrary, it didn't get better, rather got worse. The 1st nuclear generator of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant blow off. The death toll and the number of missing people were increasing with unprecedented speed and size. The accident in the power plant seemed so shocking to some students who had shown their interests to go to Japan even after the earthquake. Some of them dropped off from the tour in the morning. It was 8 hours before the flight. Then we got together in the school and discussed whether we should continue the tour or not. Though we were on the same page that we should not go back to Japan, the only concern that dragged us was students in Japan. Thinking them as like "Private Ryan", we were coming to the conclusion that even if we canceled the tour, the organizers should fly to Japan to help them. At that point, we might have lost objective views to the situation. But, one of the members raised the point that her parents objected her to going back to Japan. Actually, I received the mail from my wife in Japan for the same request. Then, we took a step back and tried to see the situation as calm as possible. Finally, we decided to help remotely students in Japan four hours before the flight. It was a tough decision but it worked fine in the end.  Fortunately, a tour in Korea kindly offered to accommodate refugees. Since the school also committed to paying any extra costs to get them go out of Japan, we persuaded them into going to Korea. Thanks to business school students' wilderness and mental toughness, everybody coped with the situation well, booking flights to Korea and leaving Japan just in two days. Our long, long three days ended.

Like many universities in United States, several fund raising activities are going on in Columbia University. I received many e-mails from my friends who worried about my family, relatives and friends and every friends in the school talked to me and asking safety of my family in Japan. As a token of their deep worries about Japan, the amount of donation exceeded our expectation. I really feel grateful to Columbia Business School students. At some point after the earthquake, I felt some sense of guilty by being outside of Japan while many people in my country were suffering. But now I think differently. Then my wife's words echoed: "You need to think what you can do in New York. Even if you come back to Japan, you cannot do anything. " She always makes me aware of something.

明日から試験。それが終われば春休み。

明日から金曜日まで毎日1科目ずつ試験があり、それが終わればChazen Japan Study Tourで日本に一時帰国する。13日～14日は京都、15日は名古屋・浜松、16日～20日まで東京滞在の予定。1人でも日本のファンが増えてくれればこの上ない喜びだが、反面、獰猛なビジネススクールの学生総勢40名で団体行動をとるというだけでも戦々恐々である。いや、、悪い人じゃないんだけどね、みんな。
ちなみに、コロンビア出身の学生は安易に「春休みにコロンビアに遊びに行きませんか？」的なメールをJ-Term仲間に投げて、まさかの80名超がツアーに参加するというとんでもないことになって泣き言行っていた。僕だったら絶対に80名を超えるツアーのオーガナイザーなんてしたくない。ビジネススクールの学生なら尚更。

さて、久しぶりの日本はどんな感じだろうか。何か変な気分だ。

あ、試験勉強しないと・・。

정말 귀여워요 - So cute !!

One of my best friends in CBS is a South Korean. He is very nice, like my older brother(though I don't have any brother actually). He is living with his family - his wife who is pregnant currently and one year old daughter - in New Jersey.  I found that it's tougher to go school while having family than expected. School life can be classified into three parts - study, social and career. Imagine that you have one more piece - family - to which, in principle, you need to be most committed. Under the situation where studying occupies the large portion of student life, say like 50-60%, you need to scale down your time to be allocated to social and career. I know that life is all about prioritizing. And "Win-Win" is superstitious when physical exposure is required. But, social and career are also two important components of student life in business school. You might want to have expanding network. You might want to seek for "the job". I've been seeing him grappling with this ever lasting conundrum and I've been symphasizing with him ever since I met him. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am very awful husband and farther.  Leaving whole my family in Japan allows me to allocate time to the three. I feel sad but it makes me feel a little bit complex by putting myself in his shoes.

Today, we studied in a study room in his apartment. We studied hard but it was impossible to stay focused on studying all the day. 

Luckily,  I had a good refreshment there - playing with his daughter. 

Last time I visited his apartment, I met her for the first time. At that time, she was very shy, shunning me and sticking to my friend. But our relationship finally thawed today! She is very adorable and cute. I wished I could have played with her without studying. My daughter in Japan is now 4 years old. I feel it's very far past when my daughter was her age though actually it reminded me of my daughter. Playing with his daughter is very fun. But this drove me to more complex feeling. However, my situation is no more than what I decided. Feeling complex is egoistic in a sense. On the way back home from his apartment, I just confirmed with myself about making the most of experiences here. This is what I can do and this is what I must do. 

A nice day

It was a really nice day, so nice to distract me from studying for the mid-term exam coming next week. The weather is really mean to me.. It should have gotten better kindly way before the exam. All right, a life isn't such easy.
One of my colleagues in Japan who is helping a student organization, through my company's pro-bono program, which is aiming at international leadership development introduced to me a student who was coming to New York. She seemed to be interested in visiting Columbia campus, so we met close to the campus in the morning today and walking around the campus.
In some while, after we saw around the business school building, libraries, she said that she would like to interview me. Now I got to know a reason for something. Though, she mentioned "interview" when she e-mailed me for the first time, I didn't pay much attention to the word. But, it turned out that she wanted to interview me. She's been writing interview articles for the organization. Though I said to her that I am not a person worth interviewing, I couldn't treat her badly, moving to the coffee shop in the journalism school building (actually, the coffee shop serves the best sandwiches inside/around the campus in terms of quality and price.).
We spent more than 2 hours, talking over coffee and I faced a bombardment of questions about my past, future plans, the future of Japan, the Japanese youth of now etc!! Since I didn't prepare answers to difficult questions such as the future of Japan, I felt sorry to ponder over answers long before I answered to her...In turn, she also showed her view and talked a little bit about herself. I was surprised at her story. Opposite to her soft and "cute girl" appearance, she has such an adventure spirit to go to India, staying there for a couple of month! Even though she is still a sophomore in undergrad, she's been thinking about her career after the graduation. I was not such a good student to think about the future at her age, rather chasing badminton shuttle cocks everyday....
I gave her three advises. First, meet as many people as possible. Sometimes people tend to get strapped with a bias about industries and companies. And students seem easy to develop this tendency. For instance, a student sometimes can compromise his/her ambition when facing other people's denial backed up with unreliable rumor. It makes no sense to accept literally what others say especially when those who deny his/her view are totally outsider of an organization where he/she wants to go. Second, expand the path ahead. It's hard to see what career suits one best. For me, even I don't know what suits me let alone an undergrad.  Though, there are some very popular careers such as consulting, investment banks etc, it's worth expanding the world beyond those careers. In some sense, this leads to the first point. But nobody can know a career to which he/she doesn't pay attention to. A student has the privilege. The last thing is think globally. This has been very obsolete word but I've been very concerned about how seriously the Japanese young generation of her age are taking the momentum to push Japan into global competition. According to a survey to juniors in Japanese universities, a majority of them showed negative feeling to going abroad. I just thought "Stop kidding". Coming to Columbia, I found people from emerging countries are way way way more ambitious and aggressive than I expected. We cannot avoid competing with those aggressive countries when a domestic market is shrinking. How to prop up Japan in order not to make the country falter from the economic prosperity? We need to go abroad. That's the only way for Japanese to survive or we die at the end of the day. I've been very concerned. Fortunately, she has enough global mind that my advise sounded meaningless. I just wanted to touch this point if my interview would be shared with a group of students.

I hope she meet the best career for her and I believe that she makes it.

Small Business Consulting Project

I've joined Small Business Consulting Club where CBS students provide "free" consulting services for small companies and start-ups which are in problem in terms of resources and expertise.
I was assigned to a project for a start-up founded by a HBS alumnus and a MIT graduate. Their business is fairly like that of investment banks. Focusing on private equity firms as their main customers, they are advising private equity firms about investment opportunities by finding good targets for investments through unconventional data. Not to mention, I've never worked in the financial industry, let alone with private equity firms. But among 10-12 projects, this project looked very interesting, making me sing up for the project with the client. Fortunately, I could get a spot in the project. I teamed up with three other CBS students, an Egyptian McKinsey consultant, a Dutch BCG consultant and an Israeli high tech specialist.  
Today, we had the first meeting with the client. That was very good experience. The client explained their business model and some internal and external environment analysis. Though, honestly speaking, their business is too new to me to understand how well their business sounds because of my poor understanding of the finance industry, especially about the investment management field, it gave me fairly good view to private equity businesses. One thing opened my eyes was that private equity firms are relying on very ad-hoc processes to find investment targets. Because they invest into private companies, there tends to be less information available. So, networking, leaking, conferences etc are very important places to find investment opportunities. In extreme cases, happening to sit, in a plane, next to an owner of a company who was in trouble looking for his successor could lead to a private equity investment. The company is trying to industrialize these adhoc processes. This is what client wants us to help.
Since, we soon have exams and spring break so decided to start in two weeks. I believe it's gonna be interesting and good experience for me but I should be careful about managing time....

Time flies

来週はMid Term Exam Weekで、それが終わればSpring Break。Mid Termと言う名前がついているが、Strategy Formulation、Managerial Economics、Managerial Statisticsの3科目は半期の科目なので来週がFinalになる。オリエンテーションが始まってから約2か月、授業が始まってから6週間が経ったと思うと時間が経つのは本当に早いと思う。最初はは予習・授業・復習というサイクルを回すだけでもいっぱいいっぱいだった。準備に想像以上の時間を取られるのだが、ネットワーキングは最初が肝心と思い、なるべくイベントにも顔を出すようにしていたため、時間が無くて睡眠時間を削って何とかキャッチアップするという状況だった。3週間くらい経過して、徐々に要領を得てきたが、逆行するようにますます忙しくなった。中国語の授業やクラブ活動が始まり、それにJapan Tripの準備も重なった。ただ、自分で選んだことなので楽しいし、充実している。楽しんでいる時ほど時間が経つのは本当に早い。今まさにそういう状態。

昨日はBostonでの研修の帰りにNew Yorkに立ち寄られたパートナーお二方と、仕事でNew Yorkに来ていたパートナーと4人で食事をした。彼らからは「若返ったなー。学生だからか？」と言われた。最後に会ってからそんなに時間が経っていないのに（笑）2か月しか経ってないけど、見た目に分かるようなポジティブな変化が出てるのかな。