Blog #3

Our Mentor Kelly Lambert took us too a Hornets game for our last mentor meeting. I had a great time and learned a lot about the business of sports. I am not into basketball but I enjoyed a lot the game because I learned a lot about the Hornets and all the business behind the team. All the preparation and arrangements that had to be done before a game that ends in a couple of hours. There is a lot of people working on that moment at the Superdome that make all work just perfect. The business of entertainment moves millions of dollars through years. What surprised me the most was the amount of people that was working that time at the game. People selling tickets, food, candies, etc. The people that attend to the game spend a lot of money in the ticket and in food or consuming things inside the arena. We did not met any business leader at the game but Kelly explained all to us. I can’t believe that that was our last mentor meeting reunion. I am going to miss our meetings and the interesting group meetings.

Blog #2 Assignment

Something that I learned from my mentor about business communication is the different channel people use in the business environment to communicate between them. The channel is choose depending on the message and to who is directed. This channels can be:
internet , prints, television, radio, worth of mouth.
I learned a lot from the work that Kelly Lambert (my mentor) does. She is the Director of Internal Communications for Ochsner Health System. She is responsible for the communication of system-wide messages to over 10,000 employees within Ochsner's seven hospitals and 35 clinics. The work she does is very important to the normal operation of Oschner clinics.
Something that I definitely want to experience during Mardi Gras are the parades. This coming Mardi Gras is my first one and I had heard that the parades are very beautiful and very fun to watch. Something I what to avoid is traveling alone instead of with a group of friends.
Mardi Gras is very important to New Orleans because is a tradition that is part of the city’s culture. Is a tradition that people enjoy for many years from now and a huge event that attracts people from all around the world.

Networking Event Thursday Night

Last Thursday night we had our first business networking event of the semester. I met five business professionals in the meting. They were really interesting people that I got to met and chat. These people I met are:

Cyril Mundell,
He is the Associate Professor of Decision Science at Loyola University. He has a Ph.D. from University of North Carolina (Economics) .

Darryl Glade,
He was born and raised in New Orleans. He made his MBA at Loyola University New Orleans. He started his own business just after graduation and began his real state career.

Tom Hickman,
He is the Assistant Professor of Marketing at Loyola University. He has an M.B.A. and a Ph. D. he graduated four years ago and he has been working three years in the university.

Michael Morgan,
He works for Walton Construction Company. He is the Commercial Business Development Manager of the company. His work consist mainly in analyzes, writes and updates forecasts for the company’s ongoing 5 year strategic business plan.

Joseph Bonavita,
He is the Senior Vice President of Capital One Southcoast since 2007.

I think something that I did well during the networking event is socialized and being polite with others demonstrating respect and interest for the others.
Something that I could do better in the future is be more out going with the mentors.

One of the many business professionals that I admire and emulate is Darryl Glade, because he created his successful own company just after graduate from college and it was based on a college project.

http://www.bpn.org/

Executive Mentor Program

Executive Mentor Program

The Executive Mentor Program from Loyola University represents a very enriching experience
for freshmen students who are in the College of Business. The main objectives of this Program are: make students getting to know different types of jobs available for business student, by a direct mentor-student interaction cover any doubt regarding business maters, provide networking relations inside the New Orleans business community that can be helpful in the future for internships and after graduating jobs.
The experience that I value the most is the one of have the opportunity of minting all this successful people in side the New Orleans business community. All the mentors are very generous people that dedicate their very valuable time to us. In the many mentor meetings that we had we had the chance of get to know them very well. I am sure that these are people that I will never forget in my live. Specially my mentor Kelly Lambert. She is the Director of Internal Communications for Ochsner Health System. She is responsible for the communication of system-wide messages to over 10,000 employees within Ochsner's seven hospitals and 35 clinics throughout Southeast Louisiana. She got her MBA from Loyola. She is a very interesting person and the fact that she is the youngest mentor made our meetings interesting because she just had passed through what he are going through right now. She really understand us.
When I first heard about I didn’t know what to expect about it. I was a little skeptical about it and I was really confused because I didn’t know how this people were going to help us and in what way. After the first mentor meeting everything started to change. This mentors seamed like good friendly persons and afterwards I found they really were like they seamed to be. This program filled all my expectations during all the semester.
This “Executive Mentor Program” is a great way of improving education because gives a different viewpoint to students of what they could potentially do in the future. I definitely see this program as a plus about Loyola’s College of Business. Next semester I hope to experience a program as good as the Executive Mentor Program and continued learning new things in a joyfully way. As a business student I recommend people to stay connected and inform about business current events. Here are some good websites readers can take a look at.

• http://www.thebigmoney.com/
  
• http://www.businessweek.com/
  
• http://money.cnn.com/
  
• BBC NEWS Business

Wolves on the Prowl Community Service

Saturday the 8th, 2008 the students of the College of Business participate in a community service program called “Wolves on the Prowl Community Service”. This program was organized by the Loyola Alumni Association who host the Seventh Annual National Community Service Day. Students had many community projects to chose from. The names of the different projects were "Cubs in the Den", "Service Starts in Our Own Community", Wilson Charter School, LUCAP's project SMILE. All the projects offered by the Alumni Association where in the area of the of New Orleans. I chose the project on the Wilson Charter School. When we got there were a lot of chores to do like painting a class, helping in the copy room, cutting tennis balls for the chairs and more. The chore that I was assigned to do was cutting tennis balls. The propose of this modified tennis balls is that they reduce the noise made by chairs when they are moved during class time by students. At first I thought that my chore was going to be really easy, but then, when I tried to cut the first tennis ball I noticed that it was very hard even to make a hole in it because they are made of very strong rubber. I worked in this task with two persons that work in the school, a student from Loyola Law School, and two of my friends Eugenio and Javier. We had to cut two huge bags filled with tennis balls. At first it seemed impossible to cut all that balls in just a couple of hours that we had to do the chore, but at the end we did it finally. We had a good time helping in a little way to this school. During our chore we chat about a lot of things with this persons that we just had meet hours ago. New Orleans is a city that needs a lot of help, even more after hurricane Katrina that destroy mayor par of the city and cause a lot of damage to New Orleans residence. Doing community service is a enriching experience that people should do it more often. There is a lot of organizations that promote community service in New Orleans like Build Now NOLA that help people from New Orleans re build their homes after what happened with Katrina. Basically the mission of this organization is to provide an alternative renovation or modular homes by designing and constructing site-built, elevated houses that reflect the style and quality of traditional New Orleans architecture. This organization has helped a lot of people that lose their homes during hurricane Katrina.

Executive Speaker on Personal Finances

Last Thursday night class we had someone from the Regions Bank that gave us a presentation about information on personal credit for college students. This presentation taught us the importance of having a good credit. The main things that were discussed in the presentation were things to do and not to do to build a good credit and not to kill it. How a good credit can help you to have a better life in the economic sense. I learned things that I can start doing in college to start building a good credit that would be very useful in life.

Her are some related web sites that have other valuable information about personal
finance matters for college students.

Money Matters for College Students

Financial Tips for College Students

CareerBeam Values and Vision

The way I see me 10 years from now is working in my own business, after working for a company gaining more business experiences for my future. Because I know I am a risk-taking businessperson, having my own business is what I would like to do in life. A business that will encourage new concepts and great entrepreneur ideas. The benefits of writing a vision statement is that you state what are your goals and targets are in your life, and where are you aiming to go in the future. Writing a vision statement is very challenging because you have to think what are your goals in life and where do you want to go in life. It’s about asking yourself what do you what, or how do you see yourself, in the future. This is a question that is difficult to respond to because it implies searching into ourselves what would we like to do in the future. Two values that are of great importance in my life are honesty and ambitious. I think these two values, having strong desire for success and moral uprightness, can make you a successful person in life. I express this values in any common day of my life. The organization that express a close match between my vision and values and theirs is Junior Achievement. Their vision is “We will be recognized as vital to the success of our youth in reaching their potential, through partnership with business and educators in the nationwide delivery of relevant business learning experiences by inspired volunteers.” I will like to work for a company with this kind of vision and values, focus on leadership and ambitious ideas but at the same time concerned about the environment and the youth.