Bay area, this name sounds very familiar to me since I have been there for a year. I started to think about what I expect to see there before boarding time. The first thing in my thought was a well management of area municipal or a great innovation at Stanford. However, I didn’t know any timetable or agenda. So, I just hoped that IMBA will surprise me with great stuffs.
Let’s start with the first venue, Stanford; this was not the first time to Palo Alto for me but it was the first time for me to Stanford campus. I found that I have fallen in love with the place already. I thought it would have been a serious place that gathers all geeks from this planet together, but it’s not. It was turned out that the place is very cool. They are doing things innovatively. The atmosphere there is support and encourages people to think creatively. Not only regular classrooms, there are adjustable to any shape they want. There is a prototype room that students can model there prototype to get on their own.
People there are inspiring as well. We have met a lot of interesting people there. But the one I want to mention is Tina Seelig. She is an executive director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program. This was the first time that I get to know academic people by going bowling together. I like her style which is energetic and systemic. She began our day with a fun activity but it’s very meaningful such as 6 thinking hats. After that, she showed us how Silicon Valley is going in the present and past time. We had chanced to meet many entrepreneurs.
Next venue is a very peaceful town, San Rafael; this town is a small one but people live their life sustainably. We were took care by GreenMBA. Two of them are professors that have been teaching in our class before, John and Roberto. We started here with a three days course to boost up our studying potential with mind mapping and speed reading. The guest speaker, Brian, was very talented. He showed us how to do mind mapping which is very useful for our daily life with IMBA or even our work. It was similar to our meditation but it was not hard to understand.
In San Rafael, it was totally different from Palo Alto. Places that we visited here were more on natural preservation. Moreover, almost of them can be related with our water project. We can use them as our huge inspiration. For example, Marin County Watershed Program, we have learned a lot about upstream water and how it flow and support the entire western county.
In conclusion, when I come back, I can use lots of things I have found there. I can use what I learned from Brian in IMBA class and to organize my messy meeting plan in my department. I can also use six-thinking hat to work with people in group and understand the way they work. Actually, I am also planning to do the party for students who are graduating from IMBA. It is going to be like the party in GreenMBA where local people come together and celebrate for their students. The best of all, I have learned that the sustainability is not only how to sustain natural resource but it is about how to be friend and live with natural though.
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