Day 7: it's adieu time

today was the best day of all... we had a chance to look back, evaluate our work, give and get feedback.. have a great dinner at Antoine's.. and spend the night alternately in a jazz bar and reggae bar... and most important of all, announce to our entrepreneurs, give them our deliverables and feel the sense of closure (albeit there were a few questions left at the end of it all)

the day started with our sleepy selves presenting our decisions to the advisory committee.. who then raised some tough questions about the entrepreneur and about 14 gsb students, a staff and a professor working very hard for three days to give a 1000 sq ft space and 25 k grant to a lady who wanted to start a beauty parlor named "reflections of beauty" different people interpreted it differently and had different responses to it.. as for me, i am still not sure of how idea village gains from this or what. but as students, we gained a lot of insight into how the mind of an entrepreneur works and what it is be so poor that to save 10k for a worthy business is a monumental task.. but still the question remains of whether we could have all done something more..

next was my favorite moment.. when we told our entrepreneur that she won the space and some money.. she started crying and all our group members (except leo, who saved it for later ;) ) shed a few tears too.. it was actually a vague feeling.. i felt like we were giving someone else's money to someone else just because she was the best of the four options we had a choice of evaluating... i was not very sure of the value we created by being there.. i do question myself if Idea Village could not have done all this themselves.. but then, as i said, there are some questions that remain unanswered...

we spent the next hour going through the facts and figures with our entrepreneur though i wonder how she was able to think at all given that she would keep melting into tears every few minutes and speak about how when she grew up, she did not that there was a city beyond the bridge that separate new orleans from the lower ninth ward.. and that she wanted to help the people of ninth ward... so much... it was all very touching and we tried our best to convey our confidence in her and reassure her that she will be great...

we then had a couple of great speakers, Dr. Francis, who had won the Presidential medal of honor, the highest civil award given to an American who spoke to us about what was lacking in the post katrina efforts (decision making) and what is required to be done now. and then we had one of the gsb alum, mike, who spoke to us about what you need to make a career out of new orleans (be a new orleanian!)..

and then came our feedback and thank you and award certificates.. all of which was fun... and gave us a "warm fuzzy feeling" (I may seem a bit cynical here, but i did feel that way at that time), though nothing critical was revealed in the feedback we gave or received.. probably we reserved it for the written format...

AND THEN... we had an awesome french dinner at Antoine's, a 168 year old restaurant capable of seating 1100 people.. it is one of those miss not experiences... just to hear the chef recite his menu in his grand old fashioned flourish explaining to us the meaning of dishes in an accent that we did not quite get (or maybe it was just me!).. it was awesome food (I mean the bread and the salads) and some excellent wine chosen by one of our friends (yes, we had a wine expert in our group) and most important of all, some emotional moments, given it was our last dinner together. With that the trip officially got over. Hope you guys enjoyed reading the blog!!

no, was just kidding, how can I miss writing about our experiences later in the french quarter? we strolled in the frenh quarter till 3.30 that night only to go back to the hotel and leave by 4 am to catch our 6.30 am flight.. we had some hurricanes to help us unwind and spent a few hours at Cats meow, gaping at teenagers who were making fools of themselves (or just enjoying themselves) in the middle of the road.. it was a crazy experience... we also got a bit of exposure of the american culture (as our trip leader puts it) inside the bar... post that we split into two groups, some desiding to pursue more pleasurable alternatives while the rest of us headed to a jazz bar and later to a reggae bar, where we had a great time (it is always great when we know that it's going to end soon) dancing, taking our last snaps and bidding a warm spirited new orleans a reluctant good bye....

hope after reading this, you will all want to visit sun-kissed new orleans soon!
it is definitely worth it..

maalika

Day 6: Process, Process, Process

At 9am, we all knew this was going to be a long day. We already had a day’s worth of solid work behind us and felt confident we were moving towards consensus on the retail space allocation. When we met at 3pm, most of our questions from the previous night had been answered. We would never have all the information, but we were beginning to feel comfortable with each business. See photo for precise feeling rating :)

Jack at the whiteboard

Four number-crunching hours later, the vote was decidedly in favor of Phillina, the hair stylist. The group had arrived at its first decision of the night.

The funding decision remained and another round of deliberations ensued after a sumptuous Thai dinner that could not have come at a better time. The financing story had the twists and turns of a mild thriller but quickly turned into a lopsided $25,000 commitment to the hair salon when Tim threw out the possibility of financing the men’s formal wear business outside the N. Galvez. What was left were a bunch of contingency funds - $12,000 to Connie Jacobs of Unlimited Communications, conditional to her opening a store in the Upper 9th Ward & $35,000 to Rosalind Larkins of Next Level LLC provided that the grant would be matched by another philanthropic organization. We were now comfortably over our second major decision of the night.

The climax, though, had not yet played out. The uses for the remaining $28,000 were yet to be determined. Street lights, neighborhood beautification, bus stop benches were quickly shot down. IV was about Entrepreneurship. We decided not to stray from the cause.

Coincidentally, the hair salon team had determined that the cost of acquiring the parking lot adjacent to the building would be $28,000. Perhaps some saw that to be a sign. Others felt “parking” was not a cause they wanted to fund. Would the Stanford GSB students return claiming that they had funded a parking lot and one other business? IV was not prepared to fund the parking lot either. They had already injected $500,000 into the building and did not see fit to match Stanford’s bid to “buy” the parking lot. Miji and Darren assured us that they could work on several options including cobbling together a deal with Eldridge (possibly renting a few spots from him). Yet would this arrangement support the 8 hair stylists, their 8 customers, and technology center staff? Most doubted the sustainability of such measures but felt disinclined to commit a sum of money before all possibilities had been explored. $28,000 was eventually set aside as a contingency fund for parking and other entrepreneurial activities.

At 1am, we closed deliberations on our final decision. The final presentation team ploughed on, putting together a slide deck for the board advisory committee while the others put the finishing touches to the entrepreneur-facing deliverables. A tiring day in all, but one well spent.

- Anupama Sharma

Day 5; the day of meetings..

after the amazing brass band and the cajun food yesterday, i should say that we were all somewhat satisfied and were more than ready to take on "our day of work". but it was still intense. the day started with our team having worked out the number yesterday wanting to meet our entrepreneur to confirm each of our gut feel, that this was a woman who deserved galvez.. unless there was some other team with a more eligible entrepreneur..

to give a bit of background: our team of 16 had split into four groups and each of us worked with one entrepreneur and we had to decide on which entrepreneur we will allocate a space in the upper 9th ward to and which one we will grant up to a sum of 1oo grand to.

that said, we met our entrepreneur and realized that she was a solid business women and the ideal role model that the space required.. she was born and brought up in the lower ninth ward, had three kids and working two jobs and saving up for her business.. after that we continued typing away our thoughts and our models, for we had prepare for a meeting that night where all the teams had to pitch for what they wanted..

later that evening we had a happy hour, where i got to meet some interesting people over a glass of excellent wine and amazing food.. the chef was kind enough to bring me a bowl yummy (being vegetarian in nola is a challenge of a different kind).. and then we had an hour to ourselves to unwind, tie the loose ends with our team and head for what one be one of the longest meetings that i have had after 9 pm.

the meeting happened in my room.. which was good, because as the meeting proceeded through eleven, twelve and one am, i was losing my ability to concentrate on what was going on and was just waiting for everyone to leave so I could sleep! but that selfish thought aside, i think we all did our best to debate out every single point and gained a fair idea of what each of needed to do the next day to reach our crucial decisions which had to be decided by the end of the following day...

until friday...

maalika

Day 4: The Galvez Pharmacy

We rolled into the Upper 9th Ward on a bright sunny morning. A loud pop song echoed through the street as we were ushered into an erstwhile pharmacy, which the Idea Village would renovate and give away as retail space to one the four short listed entrepreneurs based on our recommendation.

The wrecked pharmacy must have once been a thriving store. Today, apart from the Visa and Mastercard stickers and the Exit sign, little else remained. A dozen shattered Gin bottles lay in a corner under the stairway that disappeared into the second floor. Idea Village plans to build a Technology Center and a satellite IV office in the space above.

Eldridge, a former fire fighter, local restaurateur, Laundromat owner and the neighborhood “godfather” is a simple unassuming man who runs Poppa’s Seafood Deli across the street. We were soon to realize how crucial he would be in the success of not just the business that we bring into the retail space but also in the development of the business ecosystem in the Upper 9th Ward. Miji, the director of the Innovative Space Program of the Idea Village, believed that small clusters of businesses could gather a critical mass that would attract residents and other businesses back to N. Galvez. Isolated businesses would not be likely to gain from Eldridge’s halo effect.

Eldridge spoke about his plans to open a hair salon and did not feel another hair salon would compete with his own. He also welcomed a baby clothes retail store and liked the idea of a bill-payment service for his community. The 1000 sq. ft. commercial space came with only one problem. Parking was severely constrained and Eldridge did not like the idea of customers stealing the parking spots in his restaurant lot. Ironically, the parking issue would soon return to haunt us at 1am on Friday morning.

Lunch turned out to be a torturously long wait, and the food never did arrive in time. That afternoon was our only chance to have face time with the entrepreneurs and we were already running late when walked out with our food in boxes. Miji drove our team to Harvey, Westbank while the other three teams returned to the IV offices. As we systematically went to work, peppering our respective entrepreneurs with questions, IV supported us every step of the way. They fed us well, chauffeured us around and facilitated our analysis in ways that always exceeded our expectations.
P&Ls were scrutinized, models were cranked, frameworks were (over) applied – all in a day’s work of us business school types. Caffeine and wireless from PJ’s, the coffee shop next door, might have been the single biggest driver of productivity after IV’s own charming staff. This could have easily been “a day in the life of a consultant” if ever there was one.

- Anupama Sharma

Day 3: some interesting insights..

today was intense.. it started with a trip to the new schools for new orleans.. where we got an introduction into the state of schools in new orleans, and what the "educationers" planned to do about it. following that, we went to one of the schools where we learned about educating kids with special needs, in this case, most of the kids where from poor, predominantly black, single parent backgrounds, with many living in trailors and/or living with relatives rather than parents. it was interesting to try and understand the kind of needs such kids might have and how much more a school needs to do, in order to create a conducive environment for these kids to learn.

Then, we had one of the most amazing experiences of our lifetime. We got a chance to listen the life story of a man who had committed a first degree murder as a juvenile (it was actually a manslaughter because he was a juvenile at that time) and to a lady who had juggled with twins as a homeless sixteen year old. It was sad and inspiring at the same time to listen to their life stories and find out what sustained them, and what they saw themselves as and what they wanted their lives to mean.

All this happened in an orphanage of sorts called Hope House, which was run by a group of nuns and headed by the aunt of our trip leaders, called Sister Lilliane (or aunt cece, depending on who you are). She later told us her story of having been the "winterkeeper" for a man sentenced to death row. And the second, was a man named Ted who had devoted his life to fighting for social justice in New Orleans... and his thoughts on segregation and obama's candidacy...

now that i have stated the facts of the day, let me tell you a bit about how i felt as each of them spoke. the lady named jonika, was clearly a victim in so many ways. her mother was a drug addict, and she was rendered homeless by the time she was thirteen, rendered by pregnant by the time she was fifteen, she lived on welfare ($130 income, $30 rent and the rest to feed and clothe herself and her twin daughters). she described to us, how it was to live hand to mouth, among drug dealers, her only inspiration to live being her children, who she wanted to have a better life (which in her definition was to go to college and to live through their teens and twenties without getting pregnant) than what she had suffered... it was touching and we all felt so helpless at her what she has gone through, and i felt so much for what sister lilliane had devoted her life to...

when patrick spoke, i did not realize at first that he was going to tell us his murder story.. but when he did, my blood curdled momentarily with an emotion akin to fear, but more like disgust.. but later, just to realize the fact that he had agreed to confess of sorts to a group of strangers, made me realize that maybe there is hope.. that people change.. but still, i could not imagine being warm and kind to a murderer and it makes me ever more in awe of sister lilliane and all the people like her who had devoted their lives such a noble cause.. as to give comfort to the homeless hopeless people of our society..

and then sister lilliane spoke of her relation (that is how it seemed to me) with this death row inmate whose name i forget, maybe john or something and the many poetry that he had written in his last days... and how he felt.. again i found it difficult that people who have committed murder could feel such remorse.. forgiveness that cam so easily to sister lilliane seemed unthinkable to me.. even though i knew that i had no right to make judgment calls, when i cannot tell what i would have done if i had faced the situations that these people faced in their lives...

lastly, when ted spoke, i could so understand it just because i had seen something similar in my own country.. it is so difficult to acknowledge that in a country that boasts of opportunities, the opportunities depended so much on the mere color of one's skin.. the cultural divide, even the difference in accents where all too real to ignore, and it gave us all some food for thought... on how we can make a difference, on how we should make a difference...

more to come...

maalika

Day 2: The City Tour

New Orleans is a bowl between a river and a lake . Sitting below sea level, the city is fortified by pumping stations that keep the city dry – most of the time. As we drove around the city, water lines were everywhere, like painful reminders of what the sea level would be, if nature were left to her own ways. New Orleans continues to be a struggle for survival.

One by one, we revisited the levies that had caved. Beaurocrats, ever influential, had overruled the engineers in determining how far into the ground the steel skeleton would go and which fingers of the lake would be closed off. After Katrina, new levies have replaced the fallen ones with steel that goes five times deeper. Yet the portions of the old levy remain. One cannot help but think that the levy is only as strong as its weakest wall.

As we drove into the Lakeview neighbourhood, I wondered “where is the damage?”. The irony of the scattered houses did not strike me until I realized that the vacant lots were in fact tombstones of lives that had been displaced. Few people dared to rebuild. Others stubbornly refused to give up. Cracked roads and bare bone houses told a story I have heard several times, but only in the third world. This was the United Sates, vulnerable to the brutality of a force it had not fully fathomed.

The Upper 9th Ward is a ghost town. Houses stand still, like a deathly still frame from an unfinished movie. All restaurants and gas stations are abandoned. I pick out a dozen cars in the area, reassuring myself that people still live around here but nothing moved apart from the wind.

The Lower 9th Ward may have never existed if I were not told that it was once a fully packed neighbourhood. The stumps were still there. The houses had floated away or had to be removed with the debris. Each house, with the land that it stood on, might have been worth $45,000 before Katrina. The cost of building a house now would easily be $120,000. For the people living on the edge, a government grant covering only 2/3rd the cost of reconstruction was simply not enough. Instead, FEMA trailers – each worth $75,000 – had found their way into New Orleans’ new way of life.

As the beautiful sunset flushed the New Orleans sky, Erik spoke about the painful chapter that his folks had lived through post-Katrina. When they returned to their flood-ravaged home in white suits and masks, he recalled his farther frustration over being looted. As if the flood had not been enough, the city residents had violated them too. Some felt that it might even be easy to put a face to the thieves, and racial tensions still lurked among the offended. Erik’s home had been repeatedly violated. His parents’ suffering, anger and pain were not hard to imagine.

Yet new life springs from hope afresh. Our guide, Steve, showed us the residential solar panels and the green eco-friendly homes that “no storm can tear down”. Overlooking the racetrack, each unit is marked at $290,000 a-piece. A Brad Pitt-funded experimental construction project has resulted in a two-storey house built from the best that green technology can offer. The project was clearly not for the masses. At least not yet. What is not clear is where this is leading New Orleans. Steve is certain that the 9th Ward would flood again, green housing or not.

However, New Orleans and the 9th Ward in particular, felt like the crucible of humble beginnings and optimism. Man has had an important role to play in climate change. But perhaps he has an even bigger role in reacting constructively to this change. New Orleans promises to be an interesting case study.

- Anupama Sharma

Day 1: jumbo gambo!

It is my first day at new orleans, and I can see that there is something very different about "nola", whether it is the welcome sign at the airport that reads "your entry to the americas" or the french signage in all the places, or the warm muggy weather beckoning me outside or the glossy Harrah's casino right across the hotel where we are staying.

I have a strong feeling that this week is going to be incredible and tonight's dinner has only served to affirm that sensation. We, a group of 11 students and one staff went to one of our trip leader's home for dinner. It was a beautiful house in a quaint street and it was hard for me to imagine that this city was flooded to the brim less than three years ago. The dinner was awesome starting with Gambo (an awesome pork stew unique to new orleans), a brie appetiser and salads of all different kinds [I am sorry, being a vegetarian, i am going to be writing a lot about the different kinds of breads and salads that I am hoping to have ;), but you might not find too many intimate details about the more exotic shrimps, oysters and crabs that some of my friends are looking forward to, sorry :( ]

Their hall table was decorated with a huge encyclopedia of Cajun Cuisines, which told me two things, one that New Orleans had its own cuisine varied enough to warrant an encyclopedia, which is great, and two, New Orleanians liked their food, which is even better! We spent the evening getting to know a little bit more from the citizens of new orleans (not nearly, apparently spending about 30 years in a city like new orleans is not enough to make you a citizen of the city, word is that a minimum of two and half generations is required before you qualify to become a new orleanian) about katrina, which is what our trip was mainly about, about the french quarter, and the sound of ships which can be heard throughout the city.

When we left their place that night, deciding to postpone the tour of the French quarter for the next day, we were exhausted and excited at the same time; exhausted after our final exams and the long journey that brought us to new orleans, and excited about the prospect of spending the next week knowing this place which is unique in so many ways and the people who had lost almost everything dear to them, but are still back to build the city that had betrayed them.

more to come, hang in there...

maalika
p.s. : I have two things to say about my writing that you have to forgive. I tend to use ... instead of . and i tend to not capitalize words.. hope you guys don't find it difficult to read!!