Day 12 & 13: A Sunny Afternoon with the Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox playing at Fenway Park, their home turf. Go Red Sox!

Fenway Park

Finally I was able to cross the river and spent most of the afternoon with the Red Sox. It was totally unplanned. I had just come from the gym and was ready to settle down and do my cases, when my phone rang. On the other line is my good friend Carol Dominguez, my Advanced Management Program (AMP) classmate and a fellow Filipino. She was insistent that I end my nerdy ways and join her at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox were playing. I'm not really much of a baseball fan, I've never seen one up close and live, so the invitation never really excited me. I would much rather read Prof. Marc Bertoneche's lecture notes on Financial Management or Prof. Dick Vietor's lecture notes on Business, Government and the International Economy. But Carol was insistent and after much cajoling, parenthetically I think there was also a threat of bodily harm somewhere in our conversation, I reluctantly relented.

What happened next, was the most exciting thing I have ever witnessed. The Park was overflowing, and the excitement was palpable. Carol and I bought baseball caps (I wonder how my wife will react when she knows I have added another one to my already overflowing collection of baseball caps) in order to blend and be part of the action. By the way, Carol, ever the take-charge super lady, got us tickets that was very close to the home base so we could see all the action.

It was a very exciting game, for awhile I thought the Red Sox would not win but they managed to pull through in the 7th inning. The crowd was just euphoric - "human waves after human waves" were moving around the stadium, like some well-choreographed terpsichorean act.

Well some good things do not last. I needed to return to school to surprise-surprise, STUDY!

Pan Xenia and Filipinos in Boston

Pan Xenia Fraternity Brothers

When I was much younger, my work brought to me to several countries around the world. I've even lived in many of them. And true to form, wherever I go there is always a Filipino. Boston or must I say, Harvard is not an exception.

The night before, I had dinner with Eymard Altoveros, a fraternity brother in Pan Xenia, who was visiting en route to Los Angeles. It was very nice of him to just drop in. Come to think of it, I see Eymard more often than some of my other fraternity brothers.

Anyways, we had Chinese for dinner and explored Harvard Square. Ever the wanderer, Eymard, made big plans for going around downtown Boston the following day.

Lastly, I also had dinner with two Filipino law students who are about to finish their Masters of Law in Harvard Law School. Good luck PJ and Gem in your coming exams. And Gem congratulations on your forthcoming wedding!

Saturday Classes

As if classes and case studies from 8am until 11pm was not enough, we also have classes on Saturday. Harvard's AMP Program, according to several university ranking groups, is truly the gold standard. Not only is it the longest but it's also the most intense. Those who attended a similar course in other ivy league universities, attests to this. (Why they would do such a thing to themselves is beyond my comprehension). That being said, I feel affirmed that I opted to go to Harvard.

Our marketing class in the morning continues to throw out nuggets of learning. At the rate Prof. Das Narayandas is going, I'll have gold bullions by the time I come home. Our topic was innovation. I will try to use short-hand in expressing this so I apologize if it seems ambiguous.

Figure out the value of the innovation and examine how to innovate the entire value chain (think Apple)
Don't make the mistake of giving away the innovation for free in order to preserve the main business - you could miss out on an even bigger opportunity
Resist the tempation to push the innovation through the same pipeline, otherwise you will not maximize it or worse, you might kill it
The performance-price and communication matrices are an excellent guide in identifying the positioning strategy for your innovation

Prof. Cynthia Montgomery, the sweetest and yet one of the most intellectually hard-punching professors I've met, chimed in with the reminder that all strategies must:

be internally consistent, where the various parts support the whole
have dynamic consistency, in order to be adaptable while being true to the core idea (the core idea is the hub that supports the various spokes of the strategy)

I will need to go, and...you guessed it...study! Needless to say, here are some more photos.