Cornell on YouTube

Here is recent promotional video about Cornell.  I think the points made in the video are right on.  You can see my take on my pluses and minuses about the school in my first blog entry.

Dwight wants to go to Cornell

The Johnson School at Cornell got a kick out of a recent episode of a popular American television show named The Office. We would love to see Dwight show up in school – he seems to have some great agriculture experience.

Dwight might to want to work on his interview skills. When interviewing with the admissions office make sure to demonstrate a strong interest in the school and know why you want to come here.

Some interesting tidbits about 2009 applications from Director of Admissions Randal Sawyer: "Last year we were up overall 24%, this year we were up 21% in applications. We are just under the 3,000 mark for what will be 270 seats this year, so that is a great number of applications. Our most ever was during the tech boom years, when we saw about 3,100 or 3,200, so we are in striking distance of a record number of applications to the Johnson School." I don't have the stats in front of me but 2010 was up again.

Elvis Sideburns

Pair of false sideburns for sunglasses
Patent No. Des. 376,811
Issued: December 24, 1996
Inventor: Allen Lowe
First, the Groucho Nose, now Elvis Sideburns!

In Law for High Growth business class we discuss some interesting topics. Recently we learned about Patents and Trademarks. Professor Zach Shulman is a Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. We all of his industry experience he has many interesting stories about each subject. At times its difficult to get through class because so many questions come up from the class.

If you want to see more unusual patents like the Elvis Sideburns check out http://www.bpmlegal.com/weird.html. Professor Shulman brought in a partner Brown & Michaels, PC to add to the Patents discussion. The partner shared many interesting patents - you only have to have a product that has Utility (no matter how small) and is Novel.

Needless to say the discussion was a little more lively than our Warrants and Convertible Debt financing.

How-To: Business Plans (+Free $200 Startup Software)

• Have you written a business plan?
• Are you in the process of writing one?
• Do you have a great vision for a business but are unsure how to begin preparing a biz plan?
• Are you interested in participating in the business plan competition?

On October 29th the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club hosted the "How-To: Business Plans" workshop in Sage Parlor. Beyond the free food and drinks, this event included presentations by a great panel of faculty speakers, and each person in attendance received a free license for the Palo Alto's Business Plan Pro software ($200 value). Its nice that companies like to give free stuff to MBAs.

As part of the workshop I shared with students the great resources that we have here at the Johnson School Library: http://guides.library.cornell.edu/businessplans. Our school subscribes to multiple databases that for an individual would cost thousands of dollars. For example, one industry report from S&P costs $695 - and as students we have access to all of them!

...I'm not sure where I'll get access to these great databases when I graduate.