Archive for the ‘#Babson’ Category

October 25, 2011

The Babson Tee Shirt: “The Defiant Fist” as Social Object

Here’s the latest: a tee shirt I desig­ned for Bab­son College.

A well-known motif, the fist rai­sed in defiance. Yes, all good entre­pre­neurship begins as some sort of defiant act. Exactly.

I’m also thin­king of the idea that get­ting one’s degree from Bab­son as an act of defiance as well (as oppo­sed to say, Har­vard or Wharton).

Entre­pre­neurship is, of course, something inside you. If you are a bud­ding entre­pre­neur, the issue isn’t whether you have that qua­lity to begin with –you do. The ques­tion is how do you unleash it. Where do you begin?

And yes, the “Fist of Defiance” is a social object. “Cool, you feel that way too? So do I!”

Exactly.

[Essen­tial backs­tory: The Social Object lan­ding page]

August 19, 2011

Newsflash: Babson College is gapingvoid’s latest client.

So gaping­void has a new client: Bab­son College. Or to put it another way: gaping­void is now the ofi­cial car­too­nist for Bab­son College.

Bab­son is a small, pri­vate college in the wes­tern suburbs of Bos­ton, dedi­ca­ted to the study of entre­pre­neurship. In fact, it’s been con­si­de­red the top school for entre­pre­neurship in the country for the last 18 years in a row, bea­ting out Har­vard, Whar­ton, Yale, M.I.T. etc etc

Some ini­ti­tial thoughts:

The college pre­si­dent,  Len Sch­le­sin­ger is an inte­res­ting guy. He has divi­ded his career pretty equally in both aca­de­mia and com­merce. Over the years, the two have infor­med the other.  Click on his link and see for your­self, he has got­ten plenty of kudos in  both worlds. He was a pro­fes­sor at Har­vard Busi­ness School and a CEO of a well known com­pany (i.e. the parent com­pany of Victoria’s Sec­ret). Very few peo­ple are so infor­med by the limi­ta­tions of both, and also their lack of limitations.

He is also pretty much the big­gest collec­tor of gaping­void prints that we have. His walls are abso­lu­tely cove­red with them. He was collec­ting them like base­ball cards. So there was an pre-existing align­ment there.

We met for Chi­nese food the last time I was in New York and hatched an “Evil Plan”. Good times.

This is such an obvious gig for gaping­void, I can­not tell you. There are so many threads worth rif­fing on, I canot tell you. Edu­ca­tion and entre­pre­neurship are BOTH rich, deep veins. OF COURSE they are.

Is there ANYTHING in the world that is more ripe for dis­rup­tion than  Edu­ca­tion Industry (Yes, it IS an industry, sorry to break the news to my Mar­xist aca­de­mic friends)? I mean, really…

I have some thoughts on for­mal edu­ca­tion and entre­pre­neurship in gene­ral. See the car­toon above…

It’s ama­zing how this fits with a trend I’ve been noti­cing lately: When Jason (my busi­ness part­ner) and I talk to peo­ple in busi­ness who use the car­toons, it is always about the same thing: It helps them lead their orga­ni­za­tions. Com­mu­ni­cate bet­ter, and tell sto­ries that they feel peo­ple should be remin­ded of. Around the office, we’ve become fond of saying that the work helps lea­ders lead.

I am TRULY hono­red that someone of Len’s sta­ture is able to use my work to lead his busi­ness. Art with pur­pose, it’s why gaping­vid does what it does.

OK, I’m ready to rock out. Next steps: Anyone got any ideas where to start? I have a few thoughts myself, of course, but please feel free to share, either by email or by lea­ving com­ments below, thanks.

Let the aven­ture begin! w00t!!!