Personal interests and ventures support professional work

History    Travel    Photography    Arts+ music    Ventures

History

Moritz Benyovszky

To escape Siberia in 1771, my ancestor killed his prison warden and stole a Russian government ship.

An executive who understands corporate, industry, and general history is much better prepared to steer an organization into the future.  History isn’t just interesting–it is necessary for good decisions.  To understand any organization–a family, a firm, a continent, we must learn its past.  To explore any subject–business, science, art, politics, religion–don’t we need history?  It appears in my business teaching, management research, and online resources.

Travel

Class tool – Nikolai Tesla airport, Serbia

Maybe students can change the world.  It certainly changes them.

Modern industry, science, and art.  The past in plain view.  New opportunities, new understanding.  I build excitement about travel — group trips, research, international material in class, “how-tos” — and use my experiences to encourage students to make travel part of their careers and lives. 

Some places I’ve been: Fun links

Photography

Click for gallery

Film is full of interesting business topics.

Film photography is fascinating for strategy, international business, innovation, entrepreneurship, and cultural impact. Film has been affected by digital image-taking, sharing, and preservation, but it continues to evolve.  Many firms died, but their industries continue on a smaller scale, with survivors and new entrants.  Adaptation/failure processes have compelling lessons, and lead to new research.

Strategy, culture, crime, creativity

Who invented the digital camera?   Kodak.  It threatened their core competence–chemistry and light–so they shelved their invention, but soon new digital competitors cut dramatically into Kodak’s sales.

What film inspired a state park and a pop song?  Kodachrome, with a Utah park and a Paul Simon hit in 1973.

Digital cameras killed Polaroid instant pictures, right?   No.   Digital hurt, but a CEO killed Polaroid.  Tom Petters bought the firm , hid a multi-billion dollar fraud, and destroyed the company.  Convicted in 2009, he is serving a 50-year prison sentence as Prisoner #14170-041 in Leavenworth Prison.

Fuji ended peel-apart instant film because there was no more demand, right?  No. They stopped because they acted foolishly.  The R&D invesment was amortized long ago.  After Petters killed Polaroid, Fuji was the world’s ONLY manufacturer of peel-apart film, a stable niche market which was insensitive to price.  Fuji simply walked away from a profitable price-insensitive market in which it was the sole supplier.

Behind the photo gallery

Old cameras. My wonderful sister once gave me a Pentax K1000.  Now it’s mostly a Nikon F4 and an Olympus Trip 35, plus disposable cameras, a Kodak Brownie, and a Sea&Sea underwater camera from a Bulgarian flea market.   Instant Polaroid cameras: 360, Spectra, OneShot, Big Shot, SX-70.

Bittersweet film.   Instant film–the world’s last Polaroid and Fuji packfilm, plus “new” Polaroid from the Impossible start-up.  “Regular” slide/print film–some new, some old.  And, the last infrared film on the planet–using up this tiny stock of infrared Aerochrome, HIE, Efke IR820 and Aura is bittersweet.  There is no substitute at all–when it’s gone…it’s gone forever.

I hope this background gives the gallery more meaning.  Go to photo gallery

Arts + Music

Not-so-subtle ballet. Nutcracker, Tbilisi – Georgia’s colors on Christmas tree, US flag above

Arts & music have much to do with management, and vice versa.

Students understand the obvious links — musicians and other artists work in organizations, are employees or entrepreneurs, and are customers and partners for supplier and complementary industries.  I go farther, to show how arts and music can inform,  influence, and improve management and business, and I show the deep influence of arts and music in business and in our lives.

Some examples:

• Watching a rehearsal session for an orchestra with no conductor, to study self-organizing systems and informal leadership.
• Going to the opera to study just-in-time production systems and cognitive biases.
• Using Steinway pianos to study international business, industrial economics, technological change, and human aspiration.
• Watching Cirque du Soleil, to discuss multicultural workforces, international logistics, creativity, and technological integration.
• Asking a jazz musician to explain improvisation, so we can study organizational learning and innovation.
• Studying how to look at art in order to find new ways to study environments and decisions.
• Visiting public monuments to discuss leadership and decision-making, and museums to study business-art relationships.
• Building student self-confidence with an unusual final course assignment.

Banco Sabadell thinks music is good for its community, and business:

Ventures

BWI / IESC

International consulting – Research, JVs, trade & investment   Burkholder Wallender Int’l, Darien, CT.  Worked with Fortune 500 CEOs/execs at International Executive Service Corps.  American Business Linkage – wrote 36 studies on markets, JVs, technology.  Joint Venture Fund – Funding + tracking, 100-plus international projects.  Trade and investment – Honduras + Dominican Republic.  Industry studies, workshops, trade shows.

Click for website

Eagleblade – hydrodynamic science Sweden/US   Lab research, field tests, patents, licensing.  Studied 11,000+ patents, 350 brands, global R&D infrastructure.    R&D venture example for strategy, entrep’ship, IB, cross-campus.

Click for movie

G&P Pictures  Helped student launch dream career by starting film production/editing studio. Music + distribution licensing, Dolby certification.  Student then built career importing/ distributing/ retailing pro equipment to movie industry.    Example for strategy, entrep’ship, cross-campus. 

Click for gallery

Hydro-Motive   Earlier in career, water fountain art sculptures:  solo + group shows, juried exhibits, university publicity, placement in various private art collections.    Example for strategy, entrep’ship, innovation, cross-campus.