Adventure into the real world
Sue Chan, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, spent the winter break in Mendoza, Argentina - in the plains beneath the Andes mountains, immersed in South American wine country.
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But although Ms Chan became well acquainted with Malbec, the region's signature varietal, this was not a holiday. She was in Argentina as part of her Global Entrepreneurship Lab, an international internship for second-year business school students.
For three weeks, she worked long hours - sometimes until 3am - conducting market research for Dominio del Plata, a high-end wine producer looking to break into China and Japan.
"You go there and you know you're going to have fun, but it's also a lot of hard work," says Ms Chan, who is originally from Taipei, Taiwan. "It's a mini-consulting project squeezed into three weeks and there's got to be a deliverable at the end."
The course - known as G-Lab - was launched in 1999 in an effort to give students hands-on experience working with the management of international start-ups. The projects, which this year took place in 17 countries including Germany, Ghana, New Zealand and Russia, cover a wide range of topics. Students in S?o Carlos, Brazil, for instance, worked with S&V, a producer of smart cards seeking to enter international markets, while students in Hanoi, Vietnam worked with Vietsoftware to develop an outsourcing services model.
Richard Locke, the Sloan professor who started G-Labs, says he wanted to give students a more authentic entrepreneurial experience than they would get from standard case studies.
"There is a real glow around entrepreneurship - that you have all sorts of autonomy and that you get rich quickly - but it's important for students to see that these people are working in a very small space, working long hours and within an extremely tight budget. The way they make it work is through creativity," he says. "It's not like in the movies, this is the real thing."
Student participation in G-Labs has quadrupled since its introduction and today 160 students - or 54 per cent of the Sloan graduating class - enrol in the elective.
Richard Schmalensee, the dean of Sloan, says: "For many students this is a great eye-opening and transformative experience - particularly since most of these projects are in the developing world. Teams are working on important projects- so of course they worklike dogs."
Competition to get on the best projects is fierce. In September - the beginning of the term - the school posts potential internships on its internal website. Students scramble to form their own teams, trying to build a strong mix of skills. Ideally, a team needs at least one student with a grasp of the technology being used by the company and another who understands the country's culture and infrastructure. After an intense bidding and matching process, team assignments are announced in early October.
"My team was lucky," says Ms Chan, a former television producer. "We got our first choice, which was considered one of the prize projects."
From October to December teams devote the equivalent of about one working daya week on their G-Lab projects, beginning their research on campus. They also communicate with their companies by telephone and e-mail to determine a feasible project timeline.
Prof Locke says: "We start preparing them with class sessions on global markets, raising venture capital and the problems of organisational development. Plus, all the background research - on the country, on the market, on the firm - is done during this time. It's a lot easier to do that here, at MIT, than it is, say, in Rwanda."
The heart of the internship occurs in January, whenregular classes are not in session and the teams travel to their host countries and work full-time at their host company's offices.
The time spent overseas is the most enjoyable - and challenging - portion of the G-Lab, says Jyoti Singhvi, a student who spent last month in Portugal developing a US market strategy for YDreams, a Lisbon-based computing technology company. "G-Labs allow you to experience entrepreneurship in a new culture and be part of how business gets done in different countries," Ms Singhvi says.
It was also personally gratifying, says Ms Singhvi, a former consultant who hopes to one day start her own luxury goods company. "Since you're with the same four people for about 20 hours a day, it was a real growing experience that helps you develop your interpersonal skills."
Students often come back from their overseas assignments with increased confidence, Prof Locke says. "There can be an element of cynicism among business school students, but when they come back from G-Labs that cynicism is gone because they see they did something that mattered."
At the end of the internship, teams formally present their conclusions to their host company's senior management, and deliver written reports and back-up data detailing their analysis.
"In the end, we came up with a step-by-step strategy for YDreams with potential partners, timelines, money they could spend, money they could make. I feel great about it and I hope that it will be useful," Ms Singhvi says.
Antonio Camara, the chief executive of YDreams, says he was "pleased" with the team's commitment. "There was a clear investment [on the part of the students] before and during the visit," he says.
Danielle Crouse, who also hosted students at OTF group, the Rwandan mining company, was also impressed with her team's performance. "Once the students were here and were able to meet industry players, participate in meetings and share ideas among themselves, I felt they quickly became quite excited by the process," she says. "I gather that they spent many evening hours debating ideas, recommendations and potential approaches to addressing issues that they were seeing."
Ms Crouse says that her company will implement the ideas put forth by the team.
"They contributed many helpful and thought-provoking ideas," she says. "We will definitely incorporate their thoughts and research into our work."
MBA：体验全球创业
休
?常(Sue Chan)是麻省理工史隆管理学院(MIT Sloan School of Management)的一名学生。寒假期间，她来到了阿根廷坐落于安第斯山脉平原的门多萨(Mendoza)，一座掩映在南美葡萄酒王国的小镇。
尽管常女士(Malbec)已经对阿根廷最著名的葡萄酒品种Malbec非常熟悉，但这并不是一次度假。她参与的是“全球创业精神实验”(Global Entrepreneurship Lab)―― 一个针对2年级商学院学生的国际实习项目。
这3周她时常工作到很晚，有时加班到早上3点，主要是为一个高级葡萄酒商Dominio del Plata就如何进入中国和日本做市场调研。
“你到了那里，知道会十分有趣，但工作也很辛苦，”来自台北的常女士说，“这是一次紧缩到3周的微型咨询项目，最终你要拿出东西来。”
更真实的创业体验
这门名为“全球创业精神实验”的课程始于1999年，希望给学生一次与国际初创企业管理层一起实地工作的经历。今年，该项目包括德国、加纳、新西兰、俄罗斯等17个国家，涉及各行各业。例如，学生可以到巴西S?o Carlos与期望进入国际市场的智能卡生产商S&V一起工作，或是到越南河内与“越南软件”(Vietsoftware)一起开发外包服务模式。
史隆学院创立该课程的理查德?洛克(Richard Locke)教授表示，他希望给学生更真实的创业体验，而不仅仅是那些从标准化课程中学到的东西。
“创业精神确实围绕着一层光环――你能有各种自主权，能迅速致富。但是有一点很重要，学生应该看到这些人在一个非常狭小的地方、长时间地工作，预算紧之又紧。他们成功的秘诀是创新，”他说，“这不是在演电影，而是真实的生活。”
自开课以来，参与该项目的学生人数翻了4倍，目前达160人，占该院毕业班的54％，并且他们经过筛选才能被录取。
史隆管理学院院长理查德?斯默兰(Richard Schmalensee)表示：“对许多学生来说，这是一次大开眼界、转折性的经历。特别是大多数项目都位于发展中国家，这些团队得以从事十分重要的项目。他们也就理所当然要埋头苦干了。”
激烈竞争
学生要经过激烈竞争才能拿到最好的项目。9月开学的时候，学校会在内部网贴出可能的实习机会。学生互相组成团队，试图创造一个强劲的技能组合。理想的状态是，每个团队至少需要一名懂技术的学生，公司正好使用该项技术；以及一名理解该国文化和基础设施的学生。经过激烈的竞标和配对过程，10月初会公布团队任务。
“我的团队很幸运。”曾是电视制片人的常女士说，“我们拿到了自己的首选，这个项目被认为是最佳项目之一。”
从10月到11月，各团队花在“全球企业精神实验”上的时间相当于每周一个工作日，在校园里开始调研。他们也会通过电话和电子邮件与实习单位沟通，以便制定一个可行的项目周期。
洛克教授表示：“我们开始在课堂学习上为他们做准备，如全球市场、如何募集风险资本，以及机构发展遭遇的问题等。此外，所有涉及有关国家、市场和企业的背景研究也在这个期间完成。比起其它地方，像卢旺达，在麻省理工做这些要容易得多。”
1月是实习的核心部分，那时常规课程告一段落，整个团队会前往项目所在国家，在实习单位全职上班。
乔蒂? 辛格（Jyoti Singhvi）认为，在海外的日子是该实验课程最惬意、也是最具挑战性的部分。上个月，她在葡萄牙为一家里斯本计算机技术公司Ydreams开发美国市场战略。“全球创业精神实验让你在新的文化中体验创业精神，并参与在不同国家做生意。”
曾任咨询师的辛格女士表示，这份经历也让个人受益匪浅。她希望有一天能够启动自己的奢侈品牌公司。“由于你每天和4个人一起工作20个小时，这能真正帮助你提高人际技巧。”
更有自信
洛克教授认为，学生完成海外项目后往往更有自信。“商学院的学生可能会有一丝玩世不恭的态度。但当他们完成全球创业精神实验回来后，这种态度就不见了，因为他们看到自己所做的事很重要。”
在实习结束前，各团队要向实习单位的资深管理层正式演示其结论，并提交书面报告和支持其观点的数据，从而细化其分析。
“最后，我们为Ydreams设计了一个分步实施的策略，包括潜在的合作者、周期、他们可能花费的钱以及可能挣到的钱。我感觉棒极了，希望这个计划有用，” 辛格女士说。
Ydreams首席执行官安东尼奥?卡麦隆(Antonio Camara)表示，他很高兴看到该团队的投入。他说：“(这些学生)明显在来之前以及在公司花了精力。”
在卢旺达矿业公司OTF集团接待来访学生的丹妮尔?克劳斯(Danielle Crouse)也对团队的表现留下了深刻的印象。“当学生来到这里、与业界人士会面时，我觉得他们很快变得相当兴奋，”她说，“我推断，他们晚上花大量时间争论想法，就他们目睹的问题提出建议和可能的解决方案。”
克劳斯女士认为，她的公司会实施该团队提出的想法。
“他们提供了许多有用、发人深省的想法，”她说，“我们一定会在工作中融和他们的意见和研究。”
