Jones Journal - Spring 2013

jones journal

R I C E U N I V E R S I T Y, J O N E S G R A D U AT E S C H O O L o f B U S I N E S S

SPRING 2013

Six Questions with Mark Cuban PAGE 16

the inevitable gatewayThe past, present and future of the Houston Ship Channel

Family, Football and Free Enterprise A Conversation with the McNairs PAGE 30

Catching up with fashion designer Chloe Dao PAGE 13

PAGE 32

2 // JONES JOURNAL SPRING 2013

Bill GlickDean + H. Joe Nelson III Professor of Management

Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of BusinessRice University I 713-348-5928 I [email protected]

The Starter

After all the celebrating in 2012, we thought 2013 might quiet down, but life in McNair Hall hums along at a lively clip. With a successful accreditation maintenance review behind us and a strategic planning process in front of us, the Jones School brazenly tackles future opportunities and the ever-changing competitive landscape of higher education.

To keep the school aligned with new ideas and momentum, the Jones Journal has taken on a vibrant renewal of its own. It was important for the magazine to look to the future as an integrated business magazine reporting relevant news of the school and its alumni, as well as cultivating information about its community in Houston and beyond.

The refresh of the design and content of the magazine comes at a perfect time. We hope to open a dialogue about the new look, new articles and what you’d like to see more of in future issues. As for this debut, it’s full of names you’ll recognize, like Mark Cuban, Chloe Dao, Nicholas Carr, and Bob and Janice McNair. And maybe a few you’ll be hearing for the first time, like current full-time student Megan Gostola ’13 and her work in Africa;

alumnus Ryan Baird ’12, operating the first bourbon distillery in Texas; and Janeice Longoria, chair of the Port Commission in the Port of Houston Authority.

Along with a point-counterpoint approach to faculty research, readers will get more than a “rundown” of what’s going on at the Jones School. You’ll get a glimpse of impressive offices in other parts of the country (you’re welcome to submit your own), a restaurant review from Associate Professor of Finance Alex Butler, and five things you might want to know more about. Look for a book recommendation from Professor of Marketing Utpal Dholakia, as well as an excerpt from that New York Times best-selling book, and a common question from current students posed through new media that taps into the Jones School’s mentoring spirit.

At the Jones School, we embrace change and looking at things in new ways. We hope you do too.

From the Dean

SPRING 2013 JONES JOURNAL // 3

The Starter

6 32

22 Pay Attention to the Message Research by Erik Dane and Annie Zavyalova

26 Africa Continent of Opportunity

30 Family, Football and Free Enterprise A Conversation with the McNairs

32 The Inevitable Gateway The past, present and future of the Houston Ship Channel

Features

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The Starter

Dean + H. Joe Nelson III Professor of Management Bill Glick

Assistant Dean of External Relations Ben Renberg

Executive Director of Marketing Communications Mark Rudkin ’08

Editor Weezie Mackey

Creative Manager Kevin Palmer

Production Design Artist Shatha Hussein

Web Manager Jon Paul Estrada

Web Content Specialist Tricia Delone

Marketing Coordinator Dolores Thacker

Contributing Writers Alex Butler Susan Chadwick Steven Fenberg Shatha Hussein Weezie Mackey Adam Newton Mark Rudkin ’08 M. Yvonne Taylor

Contributing Photographers Otto Helewg Paul Hester Shatha Hussein Kevin Palmer Ed Schipul Jason Snow Photography Louis Vest Gale Wiley Nathan Witt

Printing Chas. P. Young Co.

Departments

6 The Rundown

11 5 Things

13 Entrepreneurship

14 JGSB Online

15 Business Reads

16 Corner Office

17 Places of Business

18 Ask the Experts

20 Hire Ed

21 Jones on the Road

40 Community

41 Events Calendar

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Jones Journal is published semiannually for alumni and friends by the Jesse H.Jones Graduate School of Business. Current and back issues of the magazineare available online at business.rice.edu/JJ.

Change of Address? New job? Update the online directory with your new contact information or send us your class notes at: jonesalumni.com.

Comments or Questions? We’d love to hear your thoughts about the Jones Journal. Send an e-mail to Mark Rudkin, executive director of marketing communications, [email protected].

business.rice.edu


In the fall of 1977, the Jones Journal made its debut — originally named the Rice Accounting Review, the masthead was changed to reflect the launch of the Jones School. The issue itself was printed as a small 8 ½ x 8 ½ pamphlet of sorts courtesy of then Ernst & Ernst, and in it 31 faculty were announced including Stephen Zeff and an adjunct professor of administrative sciences by the name of George H.W. Bush who later found some success in politics.

As time passed, the magazine evolved — its size and level of content grew in tandem with the Jones School. The fall 1978 issue offered the first pictures seen in the publication. By the spring/summer 1983 issue, the Jones Journal had become a semi-annual magazine with more articles and a full-color architectural rendering of the soon-to-be-built Herring Hall.

Other notable additions over time include the introduction of a glossy cover and bylines in 1989, the addition of full color on every page in 1999 and in the fall of 2003, the final iteration of the magazine which remained much the same for the next 10 years.

With the spring 2013 issue of the Jones Journal, the editorial and design team has been hard at work to create the next vision. In the pages ahead, you will see a more useful publication filled with news, history, global perspective and relevant resources. I welcome your feedback and hope you have as much fun reading the Jones Journal as we did in creating it.

A new chapter for the Journal

The Starter

Mark Rudkin ’08 Executive Director of

Marketing Communications


The Rundown

A round-up of the most exciting news from the Jones School and beyond.

The 46 Places to Go in 2013, according to the New York Times travel section, lists Houston as No. 7.“Houston is probably best known as the Texan center for energy and industry, but it’s making a bid to be the state’s cultural and culinary capital as well. The Houston Museum District is a formidable coterie of institutions that includes the Rothko Chapel, the Museum of African American Culture, which made its debut last February; and the Asia Society Texas Center, which opened in a stunning Yoshio Taniguchi-designed building in April. And last summer, the Houston Museum of Natural Science opened a 30,000-square-foot hall of paleontology in a new $85 million wing. Meanwhile, the city’s dining scene is also heating up, with three of the city’s newest restaurants — Oxheart, Underbelly and Uchi — placing on national best-new-restaurant lists.”

— Ingrid K. Williams

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MBA Candidate Emma Fauss receives prestigious scholarshipThis past fall, the Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation honored Jones School MBA candidate Emma Fauss ’13 as a recipient of one of 19 $10,000 scholarships.

The foundation’s goal is to acknowledge and help underwrite “the promise that is being demonstrated by Texas business students.” Emma’s drive led her from a B.S. in chemical engineering from The Cooper Union to a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University

of Virginia. While pursuing her Ph.D., she discovered that her desire to see ideas implemented in the world meant that she might be more suited to business than academia. “I saw a lot of great ideas that just never got out of the lab.” She became involved in a project that eventually led to co-founding her own company, Medical Informatics Corp, a software company developing next-generation clinical decision support technologies. “The problem was capturing real-time data that wasn’t being captured in a hospital and making use of it. The project was interesting to me,” she says, “because it was fulfilling a need, providing a solution that could have a big impact on people.” Emma and the Medical Informatics team won first place at the University of Louisville Brown-Forman Cardinal Challenge and second place at the mai Bangkok Business Challenge.

“I saw a lot of great ideas that just never got out of the lab...The problem

was capturing real-time data that wasn’t being captured in a hospital and

make use of it.”

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Jones School 2013 Rankings from the Financial Times

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#17Full-time MBA program

in the U.S.

#1Percentage increase in alumni

salary three years post graduation in the U.S.

#13Placement success

#4Accounting program globally

#5Finance program globally

The Rundown

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The Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program had a presence at South by Southwest education conference and festival in Austin in March where Bill Gates was a keynote.

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The Rundown

REEP at SXSWedu Launch of the Military Scholars ProgramThe Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University announces the launch of the Military Scholars Program. This program is the result of a group of generous community members who wanted to acknowledge, honor, and support those who proudly serve our country. The Military Scholars Program will provide scholarships to cover tuition, fees, and expected living expenses for selected applicants who wish to pursue their educational dream of obtaining the Rice MBA degree. The first Military Scholar, Ivor Kristiansen, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served six years, including a tour in Afghanistan. To see coverage of the announcement on Fox 26 Houston, visit business.rice.edu/military.

Texas Investment Portfolio Symposium 2013

TIPS is now in its tenth year and its fifth time being hosted by Rice this past February. The forum for students and faculty from Texas and Southwestern universities includes panels, competition and networking.

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Vince Kaminski, professor in the practice of executive education, published “Energy Markets,” the first of a two-volume series that examines the many facets of the energy industry. The book provides a look at energy trading of the past and the future with a comprehensive overview of the physical, institutional and financial layers of the industry. It gives a detailed examination of production, distribution, transportation and storage, and it delves into the intricacies of market design, intermarket linkages, and the most important types of transactions and instruments used in energy markets. For more information about the book, published by Risk Books, visit riskbooks.com/energy-markets.

Jones School professor writes new energy markets book8

Rice University, Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P. and Ernst & Young LLP hosted the Energy Industry Directors Conference in March at the Jones School. The director education program is in its fifth year and is designed for board members of energy companies. Jeffrey Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE, was a keynote.

Energy IndustryDirectors Conference

The Rundown

1. Scott Sonenshein, associate professor of management, will join the new editorial team for the Academy of Management Journal as an associate editor.

2. Alex Butler, associate professor of finance and Jones School Distinguished Associate Professor, was appointed to the Society for Financial Studies (SFS) Council, a board of directors for the society.

3. Shiva Sivaramakrishnan, the Henry Gardiner Symonds Professor of Accounting, received the 2012 Impact on Management Accounting Practice Award along with his co-authors Ramji Balakrishnan (University of Iowa) and Eva Labro (University of North Carolina).

4. K. Ramesh, professor of accounting at the Jones Graduate School of Business, has been named senior associate dean of academic affairs and will assume official responsibilities as of July 1. For the remainder of the current fiscal year, he will overlap with current senior associate dean Jeff Fleming, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Finance, who will return to his research and teaching responsibilities full time.

5. Gerry Sanders, professor of strategic management, has been named as the next dean for the business school at the University of Texas, San Antonio as of July 1. The Jones School and its community congratulates and thanks him for his commitment to research and his contributions to Rice since 2008.

Faculty News

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The Rundown

Fabiola Currarino joined the Jones Graduate School of Business as the new executive director of the Career Management Center on December 3. Currarino brings a wealth of experience to her new position. Most recently, she served as associate director in the Career Development Office at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where she contributed to its success with professional development and placement.

“We considered many great candidates from the graduate management education industry and corporate hiring domain,” said Sean Ferguson ’01, assistant dean for degree programs at the Jones School. “Fabiola’s prior achievements at a Top 5 business school and her vision for our Career Management Center gives us great confidence that we will be able to continue to better position our students and alumni for professional success. We are excited and fortunate to have Fabiola as part of the team.”

A native of Peru, Currarino has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.B.A. from Pontificia Universidad Catolica in Lima, Peru.

Amber Ivins joined the Jones Graduate School of Business as the new director of marketing and business development in Rice University Executive Education on March 11. A learning and organizational development professional, Ivins comes to the Jones School from the executive education department at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business where she was assistant director.

“We are delighted to have Amber join us,” said Brent Smith, associate dean and associate professor of management and psychology. “She comes to us with seven years of experience at Fuqua’s executive education department and Duke Continuing Education. Her experience at a premier provider of global executive education will be a terrific asset to our department.”

Completing a smooth transition from North Carolina, Ivins looks forward to ‘getting the word out’ about open enrollment. “I also want to learn from everyone about the rodeo, Texas style BBQ, and navigating traffic, so please stop by my office any time.”

Ivins earned an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business and a B.S. in economics and French and European studies from Duke University.

10 New staff talent from top universities


Get in The Know with these 5 Things

1 Thermo-sensitive Business CardsAustrian design studio Bureau Rabensteiner made sure Viennese photo producer Natalie Daniels’ business card will leave an impression. The cards use heat sensitive ink so that every touch leaves a white image on the black background. bureaurabensteiner.at

2 Sleep Cycle AppUsing the technology of your iPhone, the highly reviewed App monitors your sleep cycle and wakes you up during your lightest sleep phase, leaving you rested and refreshed for the day ahead. It’s available in the Apple App Store for $.99. sleepcycle.com

3 GreenlingGet locally grown and organic groceries delivered straight to your door. Now delivering in the Houston area, Greenling lets busy customers shop online for produce and beyond from local farms. greenling.com

4 Your desk can be funFrom chic to whimsical, office supplies are getting fancy. There’s no excuse for having a boring cubicle.

Acryilic Stapler, $24. russellandhazel.com

Washi Tape, pH Design Shop.phdesignshop.com

Wood Whale Organizer, $75.theutilitycollective.com

5 Houston B-cycleOn April 3, B-cycle added over two dozen bike sharing stations around Houston. B-cycle members can pick up a bike at any B-station and return it to that same station or any other B-station when they’re done.houston.bcycle.com


Jones School alumnus more than a case study

When Gustavo Kolmel ’08 presented his case in Adjunct Professor Al Danto’s (’00) New Enterprise class, he reminded students that only five years before he sat where they were sitting and listened to Jim Crane, chairman and CEO of Crane Capital Group and owner of the Houston Astros. “I came to the class to hear him speak. When he was through, I introduced myself, and he expressed an interest in buying my company.”

Born and raised in Brazil and always willing to take on a new challenge, Gustavo came to the U.S. at 21 with $500 in his pocket. When given the opportunity, he opened an office in New York for his first employer, BMCU Internationale Spedition, and learned to speak English. For the next eight years, he continued work in the shipping industry, living and working overseas, as well as in the U.S.

A problem solver and people person, Kolmel spent a year and a half working in Houston before he started InterStar Global Logistics with only a laptop and a small amount of savings. InterStar became a recognized leader in the global freight industry with a presence in 18 countries before Crane Worldwide acquired it in September of 2008. Kolmel became vice president at Crane, where he guided the company through several acquisitions.

Kolmel left Crane Worldwide after 18 months and moved with his wife and two young children to Asheville, North Carolina. He started LuAnn Capital, a global mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, and despite the distance is still active with the Jones School, especially the JGSEO (business.rice.edu/jgseo), where he participates in monthly roundtable discussions with alumni entrepreneurs, mentors students and alumni starting companies and is always willing to review a business plan or start-up idea.

Entrepreneurship

Open for less than a year and operating out of a small warehouse in Pinehurst, TX, Yellow Rose Distilling is the first bourbon distillery in Texas. “We love being first,” says Ryan Baird ’12, one of three partners in the business. Not only are they first, but they’re garnering high praise from customers and the press for their first barrels of Outlaw Bourbon Whiskey.

“We call it ‘Outlaw’ for a reason, since it breaks all the traditional rules of making bourbon,” Baird adds. “We’re in Texas, not Kentucky or Tennessee. We’re using small three-gallon barrels. We’re using pot stills, not column stills. And the taste has been described as wild and unwieldy, so we’re proud of being from Texas and putting our own spin on bourbon.”

The brainchild of Baird, Troy Smith, and Randy Whitaker ’12, Yellow Rose has a classic back story. “We started this from scratch and chased it down. I would come home from taking classes at the Jones School, and Troy would call me over to his garage to drink a few beers and talk about new ideas. We taste-tested his creations, and he kept pushing me. Finally I told him, ‘I’ll write a business plan. We’ll check the numbers, and if we think it can work, we’ll do it.’” After being neighbors and buddies for nearly a decade, they dreamed big and took the next step.

“The biggest surprise of this whole process was how hard it was to get the necessary licensing and permitting,” Baird says. “It didn’t help that this was outside our scope of experience - I’m in technology, Troy works in the automotive industry, and Randy is in alternative energy.”

Yet, it seems that the investments of time, energy, and funds have been worth it. Both Yellow Rose Outlaw Bourbon and Yellow Rose Straight Rye Whiskey have won Double Gold Medals at the 2013 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Yellow Rose plans to expand distribution into seven more states over the course of 2013, with more growth projected throughout the year, including a new location large enough to accommodate tours of the distillery, a rye whiskey, a blended whiskey, and — if changes to laws permit — the ability to sell directly from the distillery.

“We bootstrapped this business from scratch and worked every possible connection Randy and I had at the Jones School and Houston. A big help in this entire process was the Valhalla Investment Group, which is a group 15-20 students from the executive program during my time in the Jones School. Because of the group, 13 classmates have invested in Yellow Rose, and their participation has been invaluable.”

A ‘wild and unwieldy’ endeavor

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Entrepreneurship

Don’t Call it a ComebackWe caught up with Chloe Dao, winner of Project Runway Season 2 and owner of Rice Village boutique Dao Chloe Dao

Chloe Dao is on the move. It’s been eight years since the designer brought the winning title from season two of Project Runway home to Houston, and with a fresh spring/summer line and new projects on the horizon, she’s showing no signs of stopping.

Dao says her current collection is “a mix of preppy with touches of tribal.

The collection is light with lots of movement in each piece.”

The owner of Rice Village boutique Dao Chloe Dao recently signed on to become a judge and co-executive producer on Project Runway Vietnam, a spinoff of Lifetime Network’s competition reality show for aspiring fashion designers.

Her Kirby Drive storefront is a top destination for Houston fashion lovers and she’s also a face of The Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau’s “Houston Is” campaign featuring the hippest Houstonites.

It’s hard to believe that in 2010, Dao’s business hit a slump. The momentum from the Project Runway win and successful sales of her designs on QVC had begun to dwindle, so she turned to the Jones School’s Action Learning Program (ALP) to get an outsider’s perspective.

During an ALP project, four to six first-year MBA students collaborate to help revive a struggling business with guidance from faculty advisors. The students tackle issues ranging from brand management to financial modeling and then present their findings and recommendations to senior management, all free of charge.

The ALP team, including Lacey Fluor Gossen, Mallory Engler, Lamecia Butler, John Levine and Jimmy Moffett (all class of 2012), suggested fresh ways to bring in revenue and cut costs, which Dao continues to implement in her business model. “We are always working to reach the goals they set for us,” she says.

The store’s name was changed from Lot 8 to Dao Chloe Dao to capitalize on Dao’s national name recognition. Last year, the store’s interior was remodeled to reflect the new brand, as was the website. “We updated our online shop and are working to make more product available there,” Dao says.

As for the future, Dao hopes to see her line in stores throughout Texas and internationally in the next ten years.

— Shatha Hussein

DAO CHLOE DAO | chloedao.com6127 Kirby Drive | Houston • TX • 77005 Hours: Mon – Sat • 11 – 7 | Sunday • Noon – 5

Remodeled interior of Dao Chloe Dao.

Photos courtesy of Chloe Dao.


Resources

Check out the detailed bios of all JGSAA 2012-13 officers and board members, including President Kathy Young ’04 and President Elect Bo Bothe ’05. business.rice.edu/JGSAA_Board

Did you know you can see every elective available, register for exec ed classes, search for alumni? Check for upcoming Jones School events at: business.rice.edu.

The Jones Corporate Investors provide corporations with many ways to become involved with the Jones School, tailoring each contribution to be the most productive and mutually rewarding for both the school and the investor. business.rice.edu/Corporate_Investors

Jones Partners open doors to partnership among Houston business leaders and the Jones School community. They also present a compelling speaker series, including Jim Turley ’78, chairman & CEO, Ernst & Young; Robert Foye ’90, chief marketing, customer and commercial officer, Coca-Cola China; Anne McEntee, president and CEO, Flow & Process Technologies, GE Oil & Gas; Derek Mathieson, president, Western Hemisphere Operations, Baker Hughes; and Larry Guffey, senior managing director – Private Equity, The Blackstone Group International Partners LLP. business.rice.edu/Jones_Partners

The Rice MBA admissions blog has program information, admissions tips, Jones School news, as well as student and alumni bloggers sharing their experiences at the Jones School. RiceMBAadmissions.com

From the gumball challenge to faculty research, student and alumni stories, the homepage hosts a fresh rotation of articles each month. Click on News and Noteworthy to see what you’ve missed in the archives. business.rice.edu

Looking for Class Notes? We’ve moved them to our Facebook page! Join the alumni group, and check out the Class Notes Album to see up-to-the-minute alumni news including all the baby photos you can handle. business.rice.edu/AlumniFB

JGSB Onlinebusiness.rice.edu facebook.com/ricemba

twitter.com/ricemba


Over the last few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I feel it most strongly when I’m reading. I used to find it easy to immerse myself in a book or a lengthy article. My mind would

get caught up in the twists of the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration starts to drift after a page or two. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel like I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what’s going on. For well over a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web’s been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or the pithy quote I was after. I couldn’t begin to tally the hours or the gallons of gasoline the Net has saved me. I do most of my banking and a lot of my shopping online. I use my browser to pay my bills, schedule my appointments, book flights and hotel rooms, renew my driver’s license, send invitations and greeting cards. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s data thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, following Facebook updates, watching video streams, downloading music, or just tripping lightly from link to link to link.

The Net has become my all-purpose medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich and easily searched store of data are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “Google,” says Heather Pringle, a writer with Archaeology magazine, “is an astonishing boon to humanity,

gathering up and concentrating information and ideas that were once scattered so broadly around the world that hardly anyone could profit from them.” Observes Wired’s Clive Thompson, “The perfect recall of silicon memory can be an enormous boon to thinking.”

The boons are real. But they come at a price. As McLuhan suggested, media aren’t just channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Maybe I’m an aberration, an outlier. But it doesn’t seem that way. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends, many say they’re suffering from similar afflictions. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some worry they’re becoming chronic scatterbrains. Several of the bloggers I follow have also mentioned the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who used to work for a magazine and now writes a blog about online media, confesses that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he writes. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”

Nicholas Carr is an acclaimed writer on technology and culture. His latest book, "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains," is a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. A New York Times bestseller, "The Shallows" discusses the personal and cultural consequences of Internet and computer use and, more broadly, examines the role that media and other technologies have played in shaping intellectual history. He was formerly the executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. Carr blogs at www.roughtype.com. More information about his work can be found at his website, nicholascarr.com.

Reprinted from The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Copyright © 2011 by Nicholas Carr. With the permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company.

Business Reads An Excerpt from The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

Recommended by Utpal Dholakia, professor of management at the Jones School. “I found it to be very well-researched and very thought provoking indeed. I am still thinking about the implications of what he argues for my own self.”


Q&A with Mark Cuban Mark Cuban is a businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association’s world champion Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable

network AXS TV. Today, in addition to his ownership of over 50 companies, Mr. Cuban is an active investor in leading and cutting-edge technologies and can be seen on the ABC TV show, Shark Tank.

The CornerOffice

JJ: Which types of companies or sectors have you most recently found an interest in?

MC: Go to markcuban.com for the list. It’s a long one.

JJ: When considering investment in a start-up, which is more important – the business plan or the person?

MC: The person and their knowledge.

JJ: What are the most important qualities you look for in your employees?

MC: It depends on the job. You can’t just have one type of employee in your business, nothing would get done and there would be too much conflict.

JJ: Is there a consistent tone and culture in the companies you own? If so, how would you define it?

MC: I wish: it’s not that easy. I try to make it fun to go to work with people who are committed to the success of the company. I want it to have the energy of a start-up.

JJ: In the next five years, what do you anticipate will be the most important development in business or technology?

MC: I have no idea, but I will be on top of it in the years before it happens. Predicting five years is hard. Next year, not so much.

JJ: What role does intuition play in both your investment and management style?

MC: A lot. Intuition for me is just the culmination of knowledge from effort. I can’t write down all the data that goes into a decision, but I know it’s based on my experience and efforts to learn.

WHO WILL WIN?BUSINESS.RICE.EDU/REFS

Navigating the Changing Energy Map

Save the Date

November 7, 2013

Janice and Robert McNair HallJones Graduate School

of Business, Rice University


Drift StudioMount Horeb, Wisconsin Drift Studio, a hybrid design stu-dio and incubator, is housed in a former cheese-making facility in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, just out-side of Madison. Their flagship product, the Riff System, is a mod-ular cabinet system that starts with the most basic form of storage – a cube – and transforms it into an elegant piece that can be used in everything from a simple piece of furniture to a full wall system. driftstudio.com

Places of Business We’re dispelling the notion that business must be done from a cube farm by bringing you some of the coolest offices in the country.

Square Footage 7,200

Year Built 1933

Fun Fact: The studio is connected to a brewery through an underground tunnel!


Ask the ExpertsA conversation on brandingIn the world of marketing, the concept of brand can be interpreted in many different ways. In an effort to explore best practice, consistencies and complexities in branding, the Jones Journal brought together experts to discuss top brands and some of the challenges they face in building brands.

LG: A brand is much more than a logo. A company really needs to live its brand. The brand positioning and personality should be ingrained into its company culture and should guide every business decision. A brand isn’t just owned by marketing; it’s owned by the entire organization.

VM: I have many favorite brands, including Coca-Cola, Honda, Hercule Poirot, Sailor fountain pens and American Express. I like them because it’s absolutely clear what they stand for, they perform consistently, and they never disappoint.

1. What are the qualities you look for in a top brand?

RT: In B2B branding, the people are the brand, so their actions and behaviors are what brings the brand to life. Most brands list a set of core values, but these words are intangible to customers — it’s the behaviors based on those values that they see. When you connect behaviors to core values, that’s when your brand experience becomes true.

LG: Building an authentic brand goes beyond the traditional touchpoints of logos and marketing collateral. You must consider all the ways a consumer or customer may interact with your brand — everything from advertising and websites to frontline employees and invoices.

2. How do you build an authentic brand experience?

Robin Tooms ’04, V.P. and principal at Savage Brands

Vikas Mittal, J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at the Jones Graduate School of Business

Lisa Gordon, director of brand at Waste Management

4. What is a big brand challenge this year and how will you address it?

RT: For our clients, there is still an environment of change and consolidation. This change may be driven by internal organizational needs or external M&A activities. Regardless, the need for separate teams to work together is critically important. Branding can make huge strides here, as once a group of employees starts to identify with common values, then it’s easier to meet goals. That’s the power of branding — to connect people to a shared purpose.


VM: What do IBM, Coca-Cola, American Express, Wells Fargo, Walmart and Procter & Gamble have in common? They comprise over 70 percent of Warren Buffett’s portfolio. In 2009 some marketing scholars published a large-scale study to understand how brands contribute to a firm. They found that strong brands decreased cash-flow variability and increased customer loyalty, quality perceptions and market share. All of these in turn increased the firm’s long-term value as measured by its stock price. It’s my opinion that nobody understands this better than Warren Buffett.

3. How, if at all, do brands contribute to shareholder value?

Left to Right: Robin Tooms ’04, Vikas Mittal, and Lisa Gordon


Conversation: Supply Chain Expert: Joe Reniers, Vice President Supply Chain, Kirby Corporation

JJ: More companies are becoming interested in MBAs in the supply chain function. What value do you feel the MBA education adds to the function?

JR: A graduate education, and an MBA perhaps in particular, teaches you how to think critically. The ability to link the approach to suppliers and internal distribution to the overall strategy of the company requires critical problem solving skills. MBA graduates can help seed the organization with those skills, as well as fresh perspectives. In our company, we also believe the supply chain function is a great role to develop future general managers.

JJ: What future trends do you see in your organization or industry in supply chain?

JR: The supply chain function has been growing in professionalism for decades, but more recently we are seeing an elevation of the level of strategic prominence of the role. In most companies I have worked with over my career, suppliers have better insight into what their customers are buying than the customers do themselves, how they are performing relative to peers/industry, and the areas of potential opportunity. For the supply chain function, the continued challenge I see is to both better partner with the more strategic suppliers to create mutual value, while with commodity suppliers getting much smarter about leveraging the value of scale.

JJ: What types of candidate qualifications or experience do you seek when hiring in the function and where do you see hiring trends going to fulfill the demand?

JR: For capabilities, the main things we are looking for in candidates are strong leadership skills and a demonstrated ability to solve complex, ambiguous problems. Being effective in a centralized supply chain group requires influencing and challenging the internal organization to approach relationships with suppliers and our approach to internal logistics in different ways. This commonly challenges decades of conventional wisdom. It also means negotiating with suppliers in non-traditional ways – beyond price and basic terms, addressing overall value. This requires very strong leadership and interpersonal skills and be backed up with facts and analysis.

From an experience perspective, we are looking for candidates who demonstrate a strong track record of development and adaptability in their prior professional work experience. Ultimately, in our company we look at the supply chain function as a developmental role. We like candidates who have demonstrated ability to drop into a new role, quickly learn a business and a function, and add value.

Joe Reniers is vice president — supply chain at Kirby Corporation, the premier tank barge operator in the U.S. He also served as vice president – human resources there. Prior to joining the company, Joe was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and a nuclear power officer in the Navy. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the United States Naval Academy and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Hire Ed To keep up with global hiring trends, Jones Journal’s Hire Ed asks experts in different industries and functions about the landscape for MBAs.

inventory packaging distribution


In my experience, downtown Chicago rolls up the sidewalks early as everyone presumably heads to bed early due to that Midwestern work ethic. But when our party of five rolled into The Gage, a gastro-pub in the heart of the loop at Monroe St. and Michigan Ave. that claims “refined rusticity,” the restaurant was still in full swing at 9:30 p.m., and they were happy to seat us without a reservation. Based on a quick survey of what people were planning to eat, we decided on a bottle of Acorn Vineyards Zinfandel to pair with our orders. Of course, there were opportunity costs to this choice: The Gage has lots of good beers, especially local ones, including several beers from my old favorite Goose Island.

The Gage is well-known for their mussels, so the table started with a generously sized appetizer of them. The preparation is with a vindaloo that, after the mussels were all consumed, we soaked up with the toast that came with the order.

Another appetizer we tried was the antelope tartare. The Gage is known for its game, and besides the antelope they also serve dishes with rabbit, bison, elk, and venison. Just like your Grandma used to make (because, doesn’t everyone’s Grandma make antelope tartare?), the antelope is smoked and served with requisite quail egg and other accoutrements of pear and squash conserve. What made the dish, in my opinion, was the

pile of shaved gouda, which paired perfectly with the squishy antelope and the squashy conserve.

The waiter pitched the fish and chips as a house specialty. True to pub-style fish and chips form, it came wrapped in newspaper. Cooked perfectly but a little under-seasoned, the fish had a solid crust of batter and was evenly browned. The dessert menus came around, but we opted for a second bottle of Acorn Vineyards Zinfandel instead. Here the main opportunity cost was that we passed on the variety of whiskey flights, which always seem like a good idea ex ante and like a bad idea ex post. Overall: strongly recommend.

— Alex Butler Rice ’92

Butler’s research is in empirical corporate finance, financial institutions, and financial markets, and focuses on external financing decisions of firms, governments, and individuals. His research has been published in all the top finance journals. He received the Jones School’s Award for Scholarship Excellence in 2011 and 2012. Prior to joining the Jones School in 2009, he was on the faculties at University of Texas at Dallas, University of South Florida, and Louisiana State University. At the Jones School he teaches financial markets and corporate finance in the undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, and Ph.D. programs. He has a Ph.D. in finance from Indiana University and a bachelor’s degree in mathematical economic analysis from Rice University.

Jones on the Road On February 21, the Association of Rice Alumni welcomed Chicago alumni to the University Club for a reception and conversation with Alex Butler Rice ’92, associate professor of finance and Jones School Distinguished Associate Professor. Afterwards, Butler and Assistant Dean of External Relations Ben Renberg joined friends for dinner at the Gage.

The Gage, Chicago

Left: Fish and chips. Right: Interior of the restaurant.

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PAY ATTENTION

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PAY ATTENTION

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by susan chadwick

wo faculty members at the Jones Graduate School of Business are doing cutting-edge research — from different points of view — into paying attention and how interpreting messages results in professional success or failure, for individuals or their organizations.

Erik Dane concentrates on how individuals focus or widen their attention in the workplace to perform better. He calls it “mindfulness” or “focusing on the present moment.” It’s an old yet increasingly popular concept familiar to anyone interested in Eastern philosophy and one of the fastest growing research areas in psychology — and now business management.

Annie Zavyalova investigates how the public, through the media, pays attention to messages from organizations in response to an episode of wrongdoing. She calls it “social approval asset management.”

Dane is an assistant professor of management in the organizational behavior group. Mindfulness (and, more broadly, attention) is one of three areas, including expertise/experience and intuition/human judgment, that interest Dane personally and as a scholar.

“I’ve always been interested in philosophical topics, in Eastern thought and philosophy,” he says in his office at McNair Hall on a sunny winter day. Relaxed, personable, and clearly focused on the present moment, Dane adds,


“There’s an emerging body of academic literature that examines what mindfulness is and why it matters.

“For centuries, people have been talking about the fact that one of the keys to life is living in the here and now,” says Dane. “And actually there is some hard evidence that focusing on the present moment enhances well-being and improves task performance.”

Some of that new evidence comes from Dane’s own research. He asks the question: does mindfulness in the workplace affect the bottom line?

Staying Focused When Everything Is Constantly ChangingIn a paper published in January 2013 in the journal Organization Studies, Dane presents his findings on the role of attention in a dynamic work setting. In this case, the dynamic work setting was the courtroom and the subjects were trial lawyers.

The paper, titled “Things Seen and Unseen: Investigating Experience-Based Qualities of Attention in a Dynamic Work Setting,” looks into these intriguing topics: How do people focus their attention in a dynamic work setting where they must constantly adapt to changing conditions in real time? And how is the ability to focus attention linked to work experience?

Dane, who’s been teaching at the Jones School since 2007, observed three felony trials and interviewed 46 trial lawyers with a range of trial experience in three American cities. Comments about the stress level lawyers feel during trial included statements such as:

“I think my biggest hurdle in being a prosecutor was to remember to breathe and stop shaking.”

“Fear, I think, can kind of shut down any kind of ability to — whatever it is — to kind of just be in the moment and pay attention to what’s going on.”

Dane found that more experienced trial lawyers both focus and widen their attention more effectively. He writes: “... my findings indicate that in accruing certain types of experience individuals attain two key qualities of attention. Specifically, they develop the capacity to attend to a wide range of events (attentional breadth) and learn how to opportunistically incorporate these events into the overall message they seek to convey (attentional integration).”

A key aspect of attention is interpretation: making sense of what we notice, says Dane. “We tend to view what has occurred as either good or bad. In reality there is considerable ambiguity surrounding the events we encounter. One person’s threat is another person’s opportunity.

“That’s an insight I gained from the lawyer study. As it turns out, experienced litigators are able to incorporate virtually any event into the overarching case they’re presenting.”

Avoiding mind wandering or disrupted attention while operating in a complex, dynamic environment appears to be the key to avoiding catastrophe for individuals — or an organization made up of responsible individuals. However, there are exceptions.

“Mindfulness is not a panacea,” says Dane. “Some tasks may not call for mindfulness. And, in some cases, mindfulness may even prove distracting or a hindrance. For that matter, mind wandering may prove beneficial, as well — insofar as it is goal-directed.

“The mind is inherently a wandering creature and that’s not always bad,” he says. “The fact that the mind wanders can be useful” — as in planning for the future.

Managing Perceptions in the Aftermath of CatastropheBut let’s say that catastrophe does hit an organization. Somebody, or a series of somebodies, lets their eyes wander off the ball in a not useful way, and as a result, there’s been a massive product recall.

That’s where Zavyalova steps in with her research into how the actions of a business (toy manufacturers, in this case) or other organizations like universities or the Catholic church direct the attention of reporters and shape the perceptions of the public following a scandal.

“I’m interested in negative events in organizations,” says Zavyalova with a smile. Her field, she says, is reputation or social approval asset management. And, like Dane, who is leading the pack in the emerging field of attention and task performance, Zavyalova is also mining new ground in organization theory research.

A bright-eyed, energetic assistant professor of strategic management fresh out of graduate school, Zavyalova has been teaching at the Jones School since the fall of 2012, having just received her doctorate in May of 2012 from the University of Maryland.

Her first paper, published in October 2012 in conjunction with Maryland and University of Georgia colleagues in the Academy of Management Journal, studied technical and ceremonial actions by firms following major recalls of toys and the impact of these actions on the tenor of media coverage.

The paper, which informed the research she’d done for her dissertation, is the first large-scale empirical investigation testing the influence of announcements of actions by a firm on media coverage. Titled “Managing The Message: The Effects of Firm Actions and Industry Spillovers On Media Coverage Following Wrongdoing,” the paper is also looks at press releases and blogs as sources of information.

Zavyalova examined millions of recalled toys dating back to 1998. She found that it “helped guilty companies to issue a technical press release.” But a merely ceremonial press release, a window-dressing announcement that failed to


address technical issues or planned changes in response to a problem, actually hurt a guilty company. The public was not persuaded; they knew the problem had not been solved. “Information is so easily available today,” explains Zavyalova.

Can A Good Reputation Be Too Good?Surprisingly, Zavyalova has found evidence that “it can be a bad thing” for a company “to be too well known.” In her current research focusing on athletic scandals in NCAA schools, she will propose that “it may be actually a good strategic decision to stay away from the media spotlight in general.” The reason: “People attribute wrongdoing to reputable organizations” because they confuse a better known business with a lesser known business that is actually the guilty party.

“Having a good reputation can be a double-edged sword,” she says. “The media pays more attention” and “tend to cover the top fifty schools a lot more.”

But Zavyalova found that alumni are loyal to their schools. Ironically, athletic scandals tend to increase alumni donations — up to a certain point.

A school, she points out, “is part of who you are, part of your identity.” And if an event “reflects negatively on you — you try to help your school.”

However, “if there are too many scandals, then alumni withdraw their support.” And what was the limit? “We found that it was six violations [of NCAA rules] or more.”

A third timely paper, also in progress, focuses on the child sex abuse scandal that has been rocking the Catholic church for decades. Also an empirical study, this paper looks at the handling of cases of alleged pedophile priests in some 340 parishes in the archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1970 to 2010.

Like the research paper on athletic scandals, which measures what it takes for devoted alumni to give up on their

alma mater, this new research calculates the point at which “even dedicated people stop supporting” their church.

“Faith is an even bigger part of your existence than your school,” Zavyalova observes. “Detaching your faith from who you are is much more difficult” than detaching your identity from a school and sports team.

Zavyalova’s research in Philadelphia also uncovered some potentially explosive patterns in the way pedophile priests were moved around by church authorities.

“It was not random.”

Staying Focused When Your Ship is DriftingZavyalova was asked her thoughts on Carnival Cruise Lines’s public handling of the stranding at sea of the Carnival Triumph. The Galveston-based ship lost power in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine room fire on February 10 and was towed to Mobile, Alabama, on February 14. Reports from some of

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the 3,000-plus passengers described extremely unpleasant conditions on board, largely from lack of toilets and failed sewage systems, as well as lack of food and air-conditioning.

“It helped that [Carnival President] Gerry Cahill personally appeared to greet the passengers [when they arrived in Mobile] and apologized to them,” Zavyalova writes in a follow-up email. “But what Carnival should have done as soon as they could is find out why the fire started and whether it could have been prevented.”

The Triumph, she points out, was not the first Carnival cruise ship to have this same problem. “This will be the most difficult issue to address when reassuring customers that the ship quality on Carnival is not jeopardized.” CNN reports that “four of the company’s 23 ships have had problems in recent months.”

And there’s no point now to an expensive publicity campaign. “At this time, as my study suggests, it may hurt

the company to spend money on TV advertising or other high-cost PR efforts, as customers and the public in general will be more likely to condemn Carnival for misallocating their resources.”

No doubt the 1,000-plus Carnival Triumph crew members were faced with an extremely dynamic and changing workplace situation as systems and routines broke down on the ship. And, according to Dane, they would have been helped by being mindful or by having mindfulness training. An increasing number of corporations, including General Mills, Google and Target, are offering their employees training in mindfulness to improve decision-making, efficiency, and cooperation.

“Unexpected events—things going haywire—that’s part of what constitutes a dynamic environment,” says Dane.

Dane has been studying the relationship between mindfulness and task performance in a similar service industry—the restaurant industry. He

asked employees at seven different restaurants to report on how mindful they are at work and found that the way they answered correlated significantly with their job performance, as evaluated by their supervisors. Employees who reported focusing attention on the present moment performed their work better than those who reported lower levels of mindfulness.

“We’re not a very mindful society,” says Dane. But he notes that mindfulness, meditation, and yoga programs are increasingly popular, especially in the business world.

Carnival CEO Micky Arison was roundly criticized in the press for attending and visibly enjoying a Miami Heat basketball game while more than 4,000 miserable people drifted at sea aboard one of his cruise ships. Maybe he shouldn’t have let his attention wander. Says Dane, “The overarching question is: where is the mind and what are the implications for behavior in the workplace?”

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Africacontinent of opportunity

by m. yvonne taylor


What’s the first idea that comes to your mind when you consider Africa? War, famine, disease,

distress? Even if oil and mineral riches come to mind, chances are that expansive entrepreneurial economic opportunity does not.

But it should.

That’s the theme coming from a chorus of Rice professors, MBA graduates and current students—those who hail from various countries across the continent and those who come from small hamlets in states like Michigan and have traveled to the continent for social causes, study and business.

All of them are excited about both the enormous potential for business success and the chance to improve conditions through social entrepreneurship.

common misconceptionsBut in order for businessmen to see the vast opportunities Africa offers, some entrenched misconceptions must be removed.

First among those, explains self-named “Afropreneur” and one of CNN’s Top Ten African Technology Voices in 2012, Idris Ayodeji Bello ’11, “Africa is not a country. Africa is a continent with more than 50 countries, each with its own government, its own economic profile,” he explains.

And though he’s heard the economic growth potential of Africa compared with China’s from 10-15 years ago and understands the basis for that comparison, which includes a growing middle class and burgeoning technological advancements, he explains, “those who view Africa holistically and lump all of these diverse countries together miss a great deal. Some of Africa’s countries are struggling, and some are successful democracies. What fits for Angola does not fit for Ghana, for example.”

Ngu Morcho ’06, a native of Cameroon, a country with a population of about 20 million (2011 World Bank), and former managing director of SaiTeK Solutions, Inc., a company that assists Africa through business ventures, would agree. He says the misconceptions about Africa are not limited to those outside of the country: “Even those of us born and raised in Africa did not believe that our continent was a booming continent, was recovering or could recover. Then, fast forward 10-15 years, and there are more stable democracies in Africa now than any other continent that has a cluster of countries.”

Now, the continent is collecting itself around geographic regions, Morcho says. These economic clusters not only allow for transparency but also “put processes in place that accelerate the creation and execution of business.”

“Of the fastest-growing economies in the world,” says Morcho, “the top 10 are in Africa.”

what it’s like on the ground“Growth rates in places like North America and Western Europe are flat, but not so in the developing world,” says professor Marc Epstein, who teaches the course, “Commercializing Technology in Developing Countries,” at the Jones Graduate School of Business.

“That’s what makes doing business in developing countries a wonderful opportunity,” he says. Each year, Epstein accompanies anywhere from 20-25 MBA students on the ground in countries like Liberia and Rwanda. “We could just as easily have gone to Asia,” he explains, “but the projected growth is highest in Africa.”

In Epstein’s course, students develop a business plan for a health or education technology, developed through Rice Engineering’s 360 program, and market the technology to potential consumers. “We look for countries that are democratic, safe, and manageable in terms of population. Students navigate these urban or rural areas on their own, in their groups or teams, and interact with government, consumers, CEOs, heads of hospitals, etc. They find that almost everyone is very supportive of business and entrepreneurship.”


doing well by doing goodEpstein, who has a personal passion for social entrepreneurship and has recently co-written a book titled Pharmacy on a Bicycle: Innovative Solutions for Global Health and Poverty, says that research shows that business is the best institution to help the poor. And his work in Africa bears that out.

“Some of the countries we work in, like Liberia, have a per capita income of only $200 per year. Our students are surprised at the people’s ability to adapt to their circumstances and their overwhelming desire to succeed, which leads to an amazing level of cooperation from the country’s citizens.”

MBA candidate Megan Gostola ’13, who took Epstein’s course, has experienced working overseas from two very different perspectives. The cultural anthropology and international studies double major first spent time in Azerbaijan as a member of the Peace Corps. “I had every intention of doing international development for the rest of my life,” she says. “But I had a lot of contact with BP while I was there, and I saw that what was really helping people were jobs and economic development. The various NGOs operating in the community were vastly ineffective.”

What she witnessed in Azerbaijan changed her perspective so dramatically that she chose to pursue her MBA at

Rice, in part because of its location in the oil community. As part of her coursework, she traveled to Liberia with Professor Epstein’s class. “I had

the opportunity to conduct market sizing exercises and understand the customer

landscape, both government ministries and internationals NGOs,” she states.

Gostola becomes very excited when describing business opportunity in Africa. “You see some countries like South Africa, which is well-developed. Then Ghana is rough to the north, but overall is fairly stable. But when you go to Liberia and you see that they have to import eggs, well, that’s indicative of a market that is so ready for investment, because anyone can start an egg farm, and it’s got to be cheaper than bringing eggs in from India.”

She said that what she learned from Epstein and his class is that although the least-developed countries have very little money, business opportunities exist. “And,” she explains, “it’s better to pursue those business opportunities—even if that means making package sizes so small that consumers can buy what they need for that day—than it is to try give away something, because giving away products is not sustainable.” She continues, “Epstein’s class meant a lot to me because I’d seen the alternative.”

Librii: a new kind of library serving Africa

The entrepreneurial and philanthropic drive at the Jones School and across the Rice campus runs deep. EMBA alumni Kevin Simmons ’12, Idris Bello ’11 and Jeff Frey ’10 joined forces with David Dewane MArch ’10 in 2010 to build a new kind of library across Africa. They formed a company, Librii, and are now crowdsourcing through kickstarter.com to fund the project's first location in Accra, Ghana.

Born at the Rice School of Architecture and raised and educated at the Jones School, Librii is a digitally enhanced, community-based, revenue-generating library on the frontiers of broadband connectivity. Staffed by professional librarians, Librii provides individuals and communities in emerging markets the tools to solve their own educational, informational, and economic challenges.

“The project really came together when David converted his thesis into a successful World Bank grant submission, which received seed money and mentorship,” Frey said. “I came on board during a JGSEO pitch event one night. David asked if there was anyone who could connect him to a few resources, technology being one of them. As then assistant director of technology solutions in the Rice Information Technology Department, as well as an EMBA graduate, I got involved to help with the digital library design, as well as the business model. The team expanded to include several other architecture students, business students, IT personnel and staff.”

Librii was named a top 25 proposal (out of 15,000) in the World Bank EVOKE Social Innovation Challenge in 2010 and won the Dell Social Innovation Challenge Technology Prize in 2011 for Best Innovation Leveraging of Technology. To keep up with this exciting project, go to librii.org for more information.


the importance of sustainable business modelsThat emphasis on pursuing sustainable business opportunities in the developing world led to Gostola’s opportunity to work with Associate Professor Doug Schuler. The two will be traveling to Sierra Leone this spring to help create a sustainable business model for a solar-powered autoclave that Schuler’s father-in-law, Jean Boubour, co-developed with him and Rice undergraduate engineering students at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. The autoclave works like a pressure cooker, powered by the sun.

Originally, Schuler attempted to market the solar-powered autoclave as a cooking device to Haitian women, but there were too many limitations both culturally and logistically to make that effort feasible. When his team discovered that the autoclave could be used to steam-sterilize surgical equipment, they realized that doctors and others who were more technically savvy would be more prone to adopt the device for use.

Schuler, Gostola and Boubour are working with two-U.S.-based NGOS, Wellbody Alliance and World Missions Possible, to travel to Koidu Government Hospital in Koidu-Town, Kono District to install and test the autoclave. “The hospital does not have a reliable source of electricity,” Schuler explains. “They currently do their medical instrument sterilization using gas burners, but these often are not functional due to equipment failures and the lack of gas.”

Gostola will attempt to make the project sustainable, creating incentives for testing to continue after the team leaves.

The project relates to Schuler’s Social Enterprise course, which looks at how private sector means can address social needs.

the bottom lineAccording to Ngu, who now works with GE Healthcare building hospitals throughout Africa, “most Africans are by default social capitalists. We are all children and grandchildren of farmers. You can’t take anything out of the soil without putting something back in. So we invest in the community as a byproduct of our success. Human development and talent development come naturally to us.”

And it’s human resources, Bello says, that are the most compelling resources in Africa today. “Africa has a huge and growing population under the age of 25. Tapping into that demographic, into that abundant manpower, by increasing access to technology and education will increase business, commercial transactions, and so much more.”

The story continues. Log on to our website: business.rice.edu/africa to read responses to The Economist's recent article debating the expectations presented by Africa's growing economy. *Ngu Morchu's quotes originally appeared in The Business Maker's Radio Show.

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Rice MBAs discuss medical devices with staff at a rural clinic north of Monrovia, Liberia.


FAMI LY, FOOTBALL and

FREE ENTERPRI SE

It’s been a good year for Bob McNair. Of course the founder, chairman and CEO of the Houston Texans is enthusiastic about the team’s 12-4 season, but as with any savvy businessman, there’s so much more to Bob McNair than a win-loss record. In October, just prior to the Rice University Centennial Celebration and the 10-Year McNair Hall party, the Jones Journal sat down with Bob and Janice McNair at their home to discuss family, football, and their philosophy of philanthropy.

A Conversation with The McNairs

FAMI LY, FOOTBALL and

FREE ENTERPRI SE

A Conversation with The McNairs


esidents of Houston since 1960, the McNairs have raised a family of four children and continue to

enjoy 14 grandchildren at their house as often as possible. With son Cal, vice chairman and COO of the Texans and a Jones School graduate (’95), and son-in-law Ryan Reichert, a vice president with the McNair Group and a Jones School graduate (’07), family is never far from the day-to-day — both in the for-profit and non-profit worlds.

“We’ve always felt family responsibility comes first,” Janice explained. “We have a family foundation that the whole family is involved in. All the grandchildren have responsibilities to find worthwhile charities that they think we should support, and then be involved in what we do.”

That view of involvement has shaped many of their interests and activities. “Janice and I are firm believers in being good stewards,” Bob said. “Part of that is looking at how you can benefit your community. The foundation started out in education and has since evolved into medical research as well. It’s really something we’re committed to and believe we have a responsibility for.”

RICE UNIVERSITY AND THE JONES GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESSA member of the Rice board back in the ’90s and early 2000s, Bob McNair began to intimately understand what Rice stood for. “That’s how I met Gil Whitaker [former dean]. We were lucky to bring Gil in and he knew what it took to have a first class business school. Our board was debating what to do with the school. We couldn’t maintain the status quo. Either we had to improve it and grow it or we shouldn’t be doing it because it doesn’t match up with our other programs at Rice. Gil presented to the board and we had confidence in him and what the school could do, so we approved the expansion of the school. And, of course, it’s done well ever since then.

“The board recognized the importance of a business school to the Houston business community. One of the things the board talked about during that time

was getting Rice outside the hedges and more involved in the community and in the city. And certainly the business school was a great opportunity to do that. Creating opportunity and upward mobility for people to move up the economic ladder is what makes this country great. And most of us, when we graduated from college, were at the bottom of the ladder and all of us are great examples of movement that takes place. It’s not static. You can go up and you can also come down.

“A university can be the intellectual driver,” Bob continued. “That’s where you try out new ideas, train your new people, and prepare them to enter into the corporate world. They bring that vitality that rejuvenates businesses. The Jones School makes a great contribution to Houston’s vibrant business community.”

BE A WINNERBoth Bob and Janice’s eyes light up when they talk about the Texans. “All you have to do is look at the faces of the people of Houston on a Monday morning and you know whether we won or lost. Everybody wants to be a winner.”

And while that’s true, Bob McNair also knows the meaning of perseverance. “Quite often people see an organization that has success and they think, number one that it came easy, and number two, that it was very quick.

I tell a lot of people that I’m one of those 25-year overnight successes. For 25 years I struggled trying to build a business. One of the most important things is perseverance. You just can’t be discouraged when things don’t go your way. Well, you’re gonna be discouraged, but you just can’t give up. You have to keep plowing ahead. You have to make decisions and quite often people don’t agree with the decisions that you make. It’s not a popularity contest. That’s not what it’s all about. You have to go forward and the motto that we go by is, ‘you can’t go wrong by doing what’s right.’ You have to determine in your own heart what you think is right. Whether it’s popular or not, that should not stand in the way of your executing that decision.

“That’s the one thing we’ve done.” He looks at his wife. “Janice has been very supportive — never losing her optimism and never questioning a lot of the decisions we made together that took a long time to develop.”

Janice nods with a flicker of determination. “Bob and I are really into promoting education, hard work and perseverance. All these things make for a better team, a better school, a better city, a better world.”

To view a portion of this interview along with other highlights from the McNair Hall 10 Year Anniversary go to: business.rice.edu/mcnair10years

Bob and Janice McNair have been champions of philanthropy for over 50 years, giving generously to many deserving causes. They are founders of the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, the Houston Texans Foundation, and the Robert and Janice McNair Education Foundation in Forest City, North Carolina.

The McNairs recently launched a campaign to raise $31 million for the Hope Lodge near the Texas Medical Center, a facility to be built by The American Cancer Society that would provide free lodging to those seeking cancer treatment in Houston. It will be the largest of the 32 Hope Lodges in America.


THE INEVITABLE GATEWAYJesse Jones combined capitalism and public service to succeed in business and to build a city. His role in the Houston Ship Channel’s development exemplifies his method of simultaneously building his wealth and his community. His efforts reverberate today.

BY STEVEN FENBERG


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the Houston Ship Channel opened almost 100 years ago in 1914, barges loaded with goods traveled up and down Buffalo Bayou between Galveston’s international port and the foot of Main Street in downtown Houston. As demand for the region’s cotton, timber, rice and oil increased, and production expanded in areas surrounding Houston, limits to bulk transportation and barriers to world markets became apparent. Houston’s growth would diminish without direct access to the sea.

Local businessmen lobbied their government representatives, but not much happened until the catastrophic 1900 hurricane wiped out most of Galveston and killed more than 8,000 people. Then Spindletop gushed the following year and ushered in the booming oil industry. Finally, in 1909 federal funding came through to dredge Buffalo Bayou and to build a turning basin and docks east of downtown. The funding, however, was not nearly enough: new larger vessels required deeper water of at least 25 feet, and sharp bends in the channel had to be straightened so the longer ships could turn. In response, Congressman Tom Ball (Tomball, a town north of Houston, is named for him) proposed a unique plan.

Ball proposed splitting the cost of developing the Houston Ship Channel between the people of Houston and the federal government. Congress duly adopted the “Houston Plan,” and the Houston Ship Channel became the first major public project to be funded by both local citizens and the U. S. government. Congressman Ball reported, “Prior to Houston’s offer, no substantial contribution had ever been made by local interests to secure the adoption of their projects, and no project has since been adopted by the national government

without promise of local contribution” (Sibley, Port of Houston, 136).

In response, the Texas legislature created a local navigation district to sell bonds to pay for Houston’s share of the improvements. The bonds required voter approval, and to generate enthusiasm Captain James A. Baker, Rice Institute’s first chairman of the board and the former secretary of state’s grandfather, inaugurated the local 1909 Notsuoh (“Houston” spelled backwards) extravaganza by sailing down Buffalo Bayou as King Nottoc (“Cotton” spelled backwards) in elaborate royal regalia and disembarking with his heavily costumed entourage at Main Street. (Notsuoh, a weeklong festival held each November between 1899 and 1915, promoted the region’s agricultural, industrial and commercial might and became the social event of the year. Spelling backwards appears to have been the rage.) The voters ate it up and approved the navigation bonds. The problem was that most were not sure what the bonds were and no one wanted to buy them.

That’s when Jesse Jones stepped in. Jones had arrived in Houston in 1898 at the age of 24 and quickly made a name for himself as a successful builder, banker, newspaper publisher and civic leader. He understood his success was directly tied to the condition of

BEFORE


his community and that if Houston prospered, he would thrive. Jones persuaded his fellow bankers to buy the bonds in proportion to their respective capital surpluses, knowing that the oil boom had lifted Houston’s bank deposits to well over the national average. Jones thought the bankers could afford this investment in the city’s future. Within 24 hours, he had secured Houston’s half of the funds needed to construct the 50-mile Houston Ship Channel, a waterway longer than the Panama Canal. He also became the Houston Harbor Board’s first chairman and was responsible for building the modern facilities that would welcome ships from around the world to Houston’s new port.

The 1914 Notsuoh Festival merged with the November opening of the Houston Ship Channel and was rechristened as the Notsuoh Deep Water Jubilee. A giant parade was held as part of the inaugural festivities, and thousands jammed downtown as 20 floats moved down Main Street, each representing a different nation and its culture.

Norway had a Viking ship, Mexico had an Aztec theme, and Greece had gladiators. Houston was “represented by an ocean liner belching forth real smoke” (Houston Chronicle, November 10, 1914). The celebrations ended with airplane stunts and the city’s first “all-motor flower parade” (Houston Chronicle, November 12, 1914), including decorated automobiles that anticipated today’s popular Art Car Parade. Many Houstonians still saw the world in simple terms, like the stereotypical floats, but the provincial city was rapidly becoming a part of the global community. Headline news covering World War I soon hastened the evolution.

Jesse Jones served in Woodrow Wilson’s administration during World War I and lived in Washington, D.C., and Europe from 1917 to 1919. Upon his return to Houston, he began the most ambitious phase of his building career and resumed his role as a civic leader. He found that the location and funding of new wharves and warehouses along the Ship Channel

Page 32-33: Looking up at the Exxon Baytown refinery just before dawn

Page 34, top: Houston Ship Channel (1914)

Page 34, bottom: The SS Nacogdoches, one of the first ships to be built and launched at the Houston Ship Channel (1918)

Above: Docks at Barbours Cut Terminal

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was one of the burning issues of the day. Jones was not officially associated with the port, but because of his stature in the community, his voice had weight. The controversy brought Jones’s concepts about the roles of government and business and the potential of the port into sharp focus. He presciently argued in his Houston Chronicle that private industry should line the channel with plants that would “do more to the commodities passing through than to merely transfer such commodities from ship to train. Crude oil needs to be reduced to refined products, wheat to flour, cotton to cloth, iron to hardware.”

He continued, “The only license this city has for the ownership and control of terminals on the Ship Channel is to guide and regulate trade in favor of public interests… It had a natural right to employ a reasonable part of its credit and resources to get the Ship Channel going, and to do enough by way of terminal construction to prove the port’s practicality… The rest

should be left to personal initiative” (Fenberg, Unprecedented Power, 98). Jones wanted government to provide the catalyst for development and then step back and let the private sector sink or swim. In his mind, government had done its job and it was time for private enterprise to fulfill the promise of the Houston Ship Channel.

“Today the Port of Houston Authority [PHA] is the federal sponsor of the Houston Ship Channel,” explains Colonel Leonard “Len” Waterworth, executive director of the PHA. “We are charged with making sure the Ship Channel remains in good shape. For example, the PHA works to ensure dredging dollars keep flowing from Congress.” Reflecting Jones’s admonition to a degree, the PHA maintains the general infrastructure. Along with the PHA’s eight cargo terminals and its cruise terminal, the other 150 or so terminals are privately owned. The port’s growth since Jones’s time has been spectacular.

Star Geiranger arriving at the entrance to the Houston Ship Channel in the Gulf of Mexico.


The Port of Houston is first in the United States in oil, gas and steel shipments; first in the U. S. in imports; second in the U.S. in export tonnage; and second in total U.S. tonnage. The port accounts for more than one million jobs throughout Texas; provides $4.5 billion in state and local tax revenues generated by businesses related to the port; and is home to the largest petrochemical complex in the United States and the second largest in the world. Unfortunately, the port is also a sitting duck.

In 2007, Rice University established the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center to coordinate a cross-institutional, multidisciplinary team of experts to study Hurricane Ike and develop measures to minimize the economic, environmental and social impact from storm surge flooding.

SSPEED project leader Dr. Phil Bedient says, “The port is very vulnerable to a direct hit. If Hurricane Ike had come in 25 or 30 miles further south, we could have had storm surges of more than 19 feet causing economic damage of more than $60 billion and massive environmental devastation from the destruction of the refineries, factories, tanks and ships lining the channel. As we face the new reality of more intense weather events, now is the time to be proactive instead of sitting back and taking it on the chin.”

SSPEED proposes the construction of a “Netherlands-style surge gate” across the opening of the channel and is meeting with

port officials, the county commissioner and industry groups to promote its cause. Bedient explains, “There are naturally occurring levees on either side of the proposed gate that are each about 25 feet high. Adding the gate can be done relatively fast for around one billion dollars. All we need is a champion, someone like Jesse Jones.”

Colonel Waterworth says, “Our city and our port have always been blessed with visionary leaders like Jesse Jones. It took foresight, genius and audacity to convince Houstonians that it was the right thing to do to dig a 25-foot-deep channel 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. They overcame challenges then, just as we face challenges that we are making into opportunities now.”

He continues, “In the coming two decades, Houston’s population is projected to grow by 50 percent. Global trade will continue its ascent, with waterborne tonnage at the port increasing by nearly 42 million tons, according to an estimate

by the Houston-Galveston Area Council. We will continue to expand.”

Janiece Longoria, chair of the Port Commission—the body that sets policies and provides guidance to the PHA—adds, “For the second time in 100 years, the Port of Houston and the Panama Canal are coming into confluence for the next great expansion. We’re doing everything possible to ensure that the port is ready for the opening of the expanded Panama Canal next year and the likely increased economic opportunity that will ensue from that event. As countries in the Pacific Rim are further developed, the demand for energy will increase and, that will almost certainly result in greater exports, particularly through Texas ports, most notably the Port of Houston.”

Envisioning the future back in 1923, when fewer than 200,000 people lived in Houston, Jesse Jones observed, “Twenty years ago, the South and Southwest was not commercially important. It was looked upon by the people of the North chiefly as a land of old romance. Now it is a land of immense commercial potentialities. Capital has begun to flow in, and population has begun to flow in, both seeking new opportunities. Our Ship Channel and the great transcontinental railway systems meeting deep water here make Houston the inevitable gateway through which the products of this growing southern and western empire can best reach markets of the world” (Houston Chronicle, May 23, 1923).

Steven Fenberg is the author of Unprecedented Power: Jesse

Jones, Capitalism and the Common Good, a biography published

by Texas A&M University Press. (For information about

Unprecedented Power, see jessejonesthebook.com.) He was the

executive producer and writer of the Emmy Award-winning film

Brother, Can You Spare a Billion? The Story of Jesse H. Jones,

which was narrated by Walter Cronkite and broadcast nationally

on PBS. Fenberg makes frequent presentations about Jesse

Jones and Houston Endowment, the philanthropic foundation

established by Jesse and Mary Gibbs Jones in 1937.

“It took foresight, genius and audacity to convince Houstonians that it was the right thing to do to dig a 25-foot-deep channel 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.”

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After professional students John Burns ’12 and Jay Vinekar ’12 made their team presentation to their community organization as part of the capstone course—and one of their final assignments as MBA candidates—they had a hard time walking away.

“We had been entrenched in the project for months,” Vinekar said. “We wanted to be there to help them with the initial implementation phases.”

The assigned organization was SEARCH Homeless Services, a nonprofit founded in 1989 to respond to the growing number of people experiencing homelessness in Houston. Every year SEARCH helps 9,000 men, women and children, assisting in the move from the streets into jobs and housing.

Because the Rice MBA capstone course takes place during the last semester of the program, students take all the education and skills they have acquired throughout their two years at the Jones School and apply it to the challenges posed by the nonprofit. With SEARCH, the team’s proposal was to help rebrand them and create more awareness, while targeting donor bases that are likely to support the organization. When Burns and Vinekar decided to stay on as unpaid consultants after graduation, they began implementing key pieces of the plan their team had created.

In less than a year they were able to interview every experienced case manager, the professionals at the heart of SEARCH’s services who work directly with the homeless and who are professionally trained and drive results; identify targets for new marketing and development efforts; and partner with local Midtown businesses.

By February of 2013, they presented a full report on findings from their interviews with case managers, as well as a comprehensive marketing proposal for how SEARCH should proceed with their marketing, development, and rebranding efforts in order to create stability, sustainability, and growth for the organization.

Also in February, to kick off their newly directed efforts, SEARCH hosted their first community mixer and awareness event in Midtown, Houston, where they were able to introduce the organization to a large turnout of community-minded residents and local business owners. The event was not only a terrific opportunity to promote the organization to a large audience of neighbors who, before that evening, may have never heard of SEARCH, but it also provided the professional case

managers the opportunity to tell their amazing stories on a personal level. It also marked the launch of a 13-month marketing and rebranding campaign that is expected to drive huge increases in support and funding, while meeting the overall goals of the team’s proposal.

Burns and Vinekar continue to work with SEARCH as they transfer complete ownership of the project over to the organization. As John Burns says, “SEARCH actually accomplishes what a lot of people think is impossible. Wouldn’t you want to help spread the word?”

The original MBAP class of 2012 Capstone Team 9 consisted of John Burns, Jay Vinekar, Milos Milosevic, Salman Patoli, and Ignacio Chivilo. To learn more about SEARCH and the work the organization does, visit searchhomeless.org.

Community

Commitment beyond the classroom

Jay Vinekar ’12 speaks at the SEARCH Midtown mixer about building camaraderie in the neighborhood and creating awareness for the organization.

“We had been entrenched in the project for months. We wanted to be there to help them

with the initial implementation phases.”

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EventsCalendar

APRIL 11-AUGUST 30Unwoven LightRice Gallery6100 Main St., Houston, TexasUnwoven Light, a new installation by American artist Soo Sunny Park for Rice University Art Gallery will be a suspended, undulating structure made from shaped sections of chain link fencing. ricegallery.org

APRIL 27-28Houston International Festival (iFest)11:00 am – 8:00 pm901 Bagby St., Houston, TexasThis year’s iFest highlights the colors and flavors of Brazil. Enjoy family fun, music, food from all over the world, cooking demonstrations, art markets, and more! ifest.org

APRIL 28Architects of Air 5:30 pm106 Sabine St., Houston, TexasCelebrate Discovery Green’s 5th birthday by experiencing Exxopolis, the 20th luminarium by Britain’s Architects of Air, a sculpture of light and color. discoverygreen.com MAY 1JGSEO Owl Tank4:00 pm – 7:00 pmMcNair Hall, Rice University6100 Main St., Houston, TexasJones School Entrepreneurs will compete in teams for prizes that will help take their idea from the drawing board to reality. MAY 4Alumni Family Partio5:00 pm – 8:00 pmWoodson Courtyard at McNair Hall6100 Main St., Houston, TexasAlumni are invited to bring their family to a fun-filled night of food and entertainment.

MAY 6-9Offshore Technology ConferenceReliant Center8400 Kirby Dr., Houston, TexasThe Offshore Technology Conference is the world’s foremost event for the development of offshore resources in the fields of drilling, exploration, production, and environmental protection. otcnet.org

MAY 10Investiture1:00 pmTudor FieldhouseReception: McNair Hall, Rice University, 6100 Main St. Houston, Texas The Jones School’s two-hour ceremony that honors the graduating classes of all our programs and formally invests graduates with their master’s hood. MAY 11One Hundredth Commencement1:00 pm Rice University6100 Main St., Houston, TexasWorld-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will give the commencement address. rice.edu/commencement MAY 11Art Car Parade1:00 pm – 3:00 pm6100 Main St., Houston, TexasCatch a glimpse of the most creative rides in Houston at the 26th annual Art Car Parade. thehoustonartcarparade.com

JUNE 1-2Free Press Summer FestEleanor Tinsley Park500 Allen Pkwy., Houston, TexasFree Press Summer Fest is back for its fifth year with more than one hundred bands, food and drinks, regional art, and interactive experiences. fpsf.com

JULY 3Houston Symphony’s Star Spangled SaluteCynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion2005 Lake Robbins Dr., The Woodlands, TexasOn the eve of Independence Day, the Houston Symphony will help ignite your patriotic spirit by performing for the annual Star-Spangled Salute. woodlandscenter.org JULY 4Freedom Over TexasEleanor Tinsley Park500 Allen Pkwy., Houston, TexasMayor Annise Parker’s official Fourth of July event featuring live musical acts, kids’ activities, and of course, a fireworks spectacular set to patriotic music. houstontx.gov

OCTOBER 12TEDx Houston Stude Hall, Rice University6100 Main St., Houston, TexasA diverse range of live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and exchange ideas at Houston’s fourth TEDx event. This event is sponsored in part by the Jones School. tedxhouston.com/2013

Check out what’s happening at the Jones School, on Rice campus, and around Houston

Flamenco dancers perform at the Houston International Festival.

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Ask the AlumniThe Jones School is a place where students from all backgrounds can gain knowledge from a stellar faculty, but they aren’t the only people students look to for answers. Alumni have a vast array of knowledge when it comes to navigating the path through business school, so before each issue we will pose a question from a current student on our facebook page. Share your thoughts at: facebook.com/ricemba.

The official Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business page (Rice MBA)March 4

“How did you choose electives? What class was most useful?” Jamil Joyner ’14

Like . Comment . Share

5 people like this.

Asher Moshe Belles ’07 Ask 2nd years around registration time. Ask

alums as part of your networking. Communications and other "soft skill"

classes are at the top of my list (and were at the top for the alums I asked).

And make sure to take a couple classes far afield from your concentration,

helps give a richer perspective once in the workforce.

March 4 at 10:16am . Like

Kristy Conrad Key ’09 For me it was looking at all classes that

were relevant to my career and picking the courses that I had the least

knowledge in. This approach made me a stronger executive.

March 4 at 10:24am via mobile . Like . 1

Amit Aggarwal ’12

I utilized classmates, faculty, the syllabi, and alumni

March 4 at 7:26pm via mobile . Like

Ian L. Hernandez ’11 It’s a labor of discernment, generally:

1. What you want

2. Ask upperclassmen or graduates their opinions about the course.

3. Ask opinions about the professor

4. Some courses look great on paper..... But they are not; and vice versa.

5. Remember, at Rice you always have the option to come back and audit.

March 5 at 5:54am via mobile . Like

Kristine Hu ’12 Business Law is very practical. It’s often included in the

core set of classes at other b-schools but isn’t at the Jones School. Keep

yourself out of trouble and educate yourself on the law!

March 6 at 1:08pm . Like

Marina Yesakova ’05 Entrepreneurship was a very helpful class even

for those who would not start a business. I also liked the electives with

professors that I liked: I think I took all the classes Utpal Dholakia was

teaching.

March 7 at 7:34am via mobile . Like

Resources

Last Look

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is

art and good business is the best art.”– a n d y w a r h o l

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Documents

Jones Journal - Spring 2013