With classes already ended and graduation looming, I wanted to reflect on the lessons that have impacted me the most in the past two years. I can write about all the things I've learned in the classroom, but that would be pedantic. Besides, I think this wonderful journey has taught me more through experience than through pedagogy.

Here are a few, and certainly not the only, takeaways from my cumulative experiences:

• I've learned to recognize my limitations so I know where, when, and how to push myself. Without this awareness, it becomes too easy to either let hubris take over or complacency settle in like an unwanted house guest. 

• I've learned to be honest with myself about why I'm doing what I'm doing. This doesn't mean what I'm doing is right. It doesn't mean it's ethical. It just means I recognize the motivations behind my actions - be it fear, pride, greed, or something else. I think this is important because it ensures the path I take is deliberate even if my destination is unclear. It means I won't wake up one day to find myself accidentally living life aimlessly.

• I've learned that being the hare or being the tortoise isn't enough. I have to be both. Life is a series of sprints, jogs, walks, and the occasional naps. Since high school I've been sprinting and by the end of my first year at HBS I was running out of breath. I took my second year to catch up - inhale, exhale. It gave me the opportunity to reflect - and I mean really reflect - the deep kind of reflection that you can't get just from taking a selfie. I took a stroll through memory lane all the way from elementary school through high school to college and now as I wrap up my remaining days at grad school. This self-discovery has opened up more questions - Am I becoming too productive at the wrong things? Do I project the right meaning to obstacles? What motivates me and is that sustainable? 

• I've learned to be selfish in the service of others. This isn't as oxymoronic as it sounds. Various research have shown that expressing gratitude and leaving kindness in your footsteps make us happier people. By being present and through gestures as simple as saying thank you, I've found myself more content, relaxed, and satisfied with every breath.

• I've learned to trust my intuition and to act even when I'm unsure of my ability. Prior to launching and shutting down a little venture called Zest and before jumping headfirst into a start-up in Zambia there wasn't anything in particular that pushed me in those directions other than the feeling that "this is what I want to do even though I have no idea what to do." As Jobs once said, let the vision pull you. Hey, things worked out.  Even if they didn't I'm sure Earth would have kept spinning and the sun would have risen once again.

• I've learned that the glass is half full, half empty, and completely overfilling. What's been instilled in me is that framing is everything - in business and in life. Importantly, I've learned to take over the driver's seat in terms of deciding which frame to take - turning obstacles into "I'm gonna kick your ***" challenges and failures into "oops, that's what that button does, let's push the other one" situations.  I have no permanent regrets - just short term regrets where I've taken time to reflect, figured out what went wrong or right, and moved on to creating a better version of myself. Taking the "silver lining" perspective doesn't make me an optimist, it just allows me to move forward rather than linger on in the past.

Cross-posted: Huffington Post

(This post is a summary of an independent project completed at Harvard Business School. Click here for the complete paper. The Burberry example is purely hypothetical.)

Apple’s iBeacon, a location positioning system based on Bluetooth low energy technology, made the use of consumers’ location in companies’ marketing activities more prevalent. However, most documented uses of iBeacon and other similar systems have been focused on pushing marketing and sales promotions to consumers. Besides this, retailers have otherwise played a passive role, waiting for consumers to act on the promotional offers.

But imagine the scenario where consumers' location data is used to notify sales staff instead of pushing potentially annoying and irrelevant promotions to consumers:  

You are on your way to your favorite luxury clothing retailer, Burberry, to buy a gift for your significant other’s birthday. As you enter the Burberry store, your smartphone informs the Burberry sales staff (via their iPads) that you are in the store.  

Upon notification, the sales staff can see your past Burberry purchases online and in-store and your interests based on your activity on Burberry.com (e.g. Burberry items you viewed, items in your online Burberry shopping cart, etc.).  From this information, the sales staff noticed that you were viewing products under “Gifts for Him/Her.”  

The sales staff member greets you by name, introduces him/herself, and says that based on the information in your Burberry profile, you’re searching for a gift for someone and asks if s/he can help you with recommendations. 

After selecting the gift for your significant other, the sales staff tells you that the newest version of the scarf you purchased last year just arrived and asks if you want to view it. In addition, the sales staff invites you to an invitational-only Burberry event next Friday.

In a generalized version of the above scenario, luxury retailers’ sales staff can use the knowledge that a high value customer is in the store, in combination with data on the customer’s historical shopping behavior, to provide an enhanced in-store experience. In turn, this could lead to opportunities to cross-sell, up-sell, or simply increase the size of the customer’s purchase basket. However, can concerns over privacy be a showstopper? Past research have shown that consumers are willing to give up information in return for personalized online services, but few have looked at this topic from an in-store perspective.  

Preliminary data from a survey of ~200 consumers showed that while there are similarities in the results between consumers’ sensitivity towards on- and off-line privacy, there are also differences as well. Like their online counterparts, respondents’ answers showed that past negative experiences led to lower willingness to share and higher concerns about sharing their information. Furthermore, respondents’ frequency of mobile shopping, retailers’ use of trust-building mechanisms (i.e. transparent data collection policies and third party privacy safeguards), and the perceived value of the personalized services all led to increased comfort with sharing information.   

However, unlike in the online realm, traditional trust-building mechanisms were not sufficient to mitigate respondents’ concerns in sharing their personally identifiable information. It appears that only personal experience with the retailer (e.g. having made a previous purchase) decreased respondents’ concerns, and increased their willingness, in sharing their personal information. Male respondents also tended towards having lower concerns and higher willingness to share in return for personalized experiences. Regardless of gender, these results suggest that retailers that require personally identifiable information need to begin by focusing on generating consumers’ trust through first time purchases or other types of trust-building interactions prior to offering any personalization based on other data sources.

As retailers move towards refreshing their POS systems and unifying their commerce platforms they need to consider the data architecture required to support in-store personalized services and the IT infrastructure needed to ameliorate consumers’ privacy concerns. Not all their customers will share the same level of sensitivity towards their information, and even within an individual that sensitivity will vary across different types of information. Responsive retailers that develop the flexibility to adapt to each customer’s privacy sensitivity will be better situated to capture and deliver value to customers who want the personalized service and avoid the negative PR backlash from those who don’t.  

Cross-posted: LinkedIn | Huffington Post

Coming to Harvard Business School was a forcing function to re-think my career path. One thing was for sure, I was committed to not return to consulting post-HBS. Therefore, it was a surprise to my friends, and most of all me, when I decided to join McKinsey’s London office this fall.

Somewhat ironically, my decision to go back into consulting resulted from the incredible experiences I had at a tech startup this past summer in Zambia. Those three months in Africa gave me the opportunity to fulfill my goals of working in a tech and e-commerce startup, getting hands-on operational experience, and navigating in an international market. Zambia also exposed me to the role of a general manager, with touch points that spanned marketing, sales, business development, HR, IT, and other more nebulous functions. While I enjoyed every aspect of my time in Zambia, the answer to “What do I want to be when I grow up” was still evading me because “everything” didn’t seem like a realistic conclusion. That’s where McKinsey’s generalist model and its breadth across industries/functions came in.

Though I have been fortunate that my personal travels have taken me to various parts of the world, my professional focus had primarily been in the US. Thus, prior to coming to HBS I knew I wanted to work somewhere abroad. That was where London came in – a crossroad city connecting dozens upon dozens of markets across Europe and Africa.  What is life if not for exploring?

So, I came to HBS as a consultant and leave as a consultant. However, it’s not the beginning or the end that’s important. The path that lies in between has changed who I am on both a personal and professional level. My classmates, professors, and friends have driven me to question myself and my goals. They’ve spun me around in circles and have left me dizzy and dazzled. Though that sounds like a pretty bad carnival ride, it’s certainly better than blindly following the herd.

That’s it for the next couple years. What comes next I don’t know. Whatever the journey, I’ll be ready with open arms (pun unavoidable and italicized for those unfamiliar with 1980s music). 

Cross-posted: HBS Recruiting