When I was a student at Claremont McKenna College, I had the opportunity to take “Leading Entrepreneurial Ventures” with Professor Jay Conger. The three-hour class happened once a week. Each three hour class was split in two: the first half was a guest speaker, and we discussed a Harvard Business Review case study the second half. The HBR case studies covered all sorts of businesses including Estée Lauder, Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates, and Zipcar to name a few. It was the most relevant class to what I’m doing today.
This semester, CMC started offering “Leading Social Entrepreneurial Ventures” with Professor Sarah Smith Orr. It’s a similar class, but geared toward students interested in becoming social entrepreneurs.
I had the opportunity to visit the class last night as a guest speaker to speak about social media to the students, and I was impressed with their enthusiasm to learn. During my 45 minute talk, multiple students raised their hands and asked questions and continued to ask great questions after I was finished. Within 24 hours, 6 students had reached out to me to ask questions and for a copy of my presentation.
This Monday’s class was exciting for another reason. Students in the class split up into groups with local social enterprises to help them with specific projects. Last night was the first time the groups met with the LA companies to start discussing how they could help. I had the opportunity to help recruit these businesses, so 4 of the 6 companies were actually friends of mine. I’m excited to hear about the students accomplishments this semester.
The companies that will be working with CMC students are PictureHealing, Responsibly, GiveToGetJobs, Social Enterprise Rising (site coming soon), OneDollarADay, and Emprofit. Check them out if you get a chance!
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