It’s Friday, it’s snowing in Chapel Hill and the temperature is 23 degrees (or as people in some parts of the world call it – sub zero temperatures), you have no choice but to be where you are for the next few hours.

Well, worry not, BTC has your back.

Starting this week, we’ll bring the best of the web for you every Friday. The focus of these stories will be technology, but we’re not averse to mixing it up a bit if we come across something exciting.

Here’s our weekly roundup of essential reading from around the web for this week. Grab a coffee, sit back, and relax.

One of the big stories this past week was Facebook’s foray into search, what they call grap search. Wired takes an in-depth look at this new weapon of Facebook.

If you consider yourself curious and you’re not on Quora, you’re definitely missing something. It does not have the answer to all of life’s questions, but it does try hard. Recently they came out with a new product called User Blogs – The Verge takes a detailed look at it.

The tragic death of Aaron Swartz brought many questions out in the open. Here’s one look at the events preceding his death, by The New York Times.

If you don’t yet follow the Business Technology Club on Twitter, know that you’re missing out on a lot of good content every day. This column is aimed at getting the 4-5 best stories out to you every week, the twitter feed is much more robust and allows to have a lot of engagement. Here’s one article about effective use of social media in job search was shared on BTC’s twitter feed this week.

And lastly, we can’t help but throw in a plug for BTC’s own articles here, we think that’s fair

First up is an alumni spotlight with Phaedra Boinodiris – 2008 almuni and Serios Games Program Manager at IBM; and second is a run down of the west coast career trek that BTC organized in the second week of January.

This is a weekly series that we are starting and we hope to have great content for you here every week. If you come across some stories that you think would work here then please do share them with us.

22 attendees – led by the energetic team of Anup Hira (second year), Ravitej Vennapusa (second year), Arun Sundar (first year) and Matthew Beckett (first year) and guided by CMC AD Kris Hergert – got the chance to take a closer look at these industry giants, understand how an MBA graduate fits into a technology company, and gain valuable insights interacting with the UNC alumni who were so generous with their time and knowledge.

Our time at each company followed a somewhat similar pattern. A warm welcome, guest check-in, presentations talking about the work that these companies were doing and the value that MBAs could bring to these companies, Q&A and networking. The strong alumni network ensured that we got all our questions answered and also got to draw on the huge wealth of experience and knowledge that had come together just for our benefit. Each one of us had our own questions and doubts, and our own areas of interest – the people present there helped us a great deal in making sense of it all, forging connections in the process that all of us value a great deal. It was a testament to the strong ties that UNC alum have with the school that they’d come out in great numbers to spend time with us. There were always enough people in the room, in each company, to ensure that each of us had a chance to get our questions answered. The breadth and depth of knowledge and experience at our disposal was very impressive, and it ensured that each one of us got something back from the visit.

As someone who fell in love with UNC upon visiting, I cannot stress enough how much of a difference actually visiting a company makes to our understanding of its culture and working environment. Within the overall laid-back style of the Silicon Valley, each of these companies has found its own style of working and each of them tries to make the most of it. And it was reflected in the way they had designed the workplace, be it the futuristic cafe style discussion booths at Intuit, providing a private yet open zone to discuss ideas – or the variety of tasteful options available to employees at Google cafe – or the museum at Intel that keeps reminding employees of Intel’s place in Computer history even as Intel marches on as a leader – or the life size displays that keep reminding EA’s employees of their place in gaming history. It can be argued that none of this is the core requirement for a workplace, but each of these add a bit of personality and uniqueness to the company, and inspire the employees to continue doing their best.

Outlining all that we have gained from this trek isn’t possible in a blog post. Feel free to reach out to the BTC leadership team if you want to talk to any of the students who went on the trek, or are looking for alumni contacts in any of these companies. We loved this trek and we would love the chance to talk more about it.

And last, but not the least, capturing our visit in front of each company’s logo was one of the fun parts of the trek for us. Here’s all of us at the against the Symantec logo.

Can you start off by giving me a quick rundown of your background?
Before business school I was an entrepreneur for 12 years. I was principal of Atlantis Internet Technologies and CEO of WomenGamers.com. I completed my undergraduate also at UNC in ’94 when I graduated in mathematics and computer science. After graduating with my MBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School I joined IBM as New Media Marketing Manager. I began my current role as the Serious Games Program Manager for Business Development Technology services for Public Sector four and a half years ago.

Why did you decide to do b-school?
After 12 years of being an entrepreneur in the gaming industry, I decided I wanted to learn more about accounting and finance, so I enrolled into Kenan Flagler.

Were you interested in a particular function/role/industry before starting b-school?
I was considering opening up my own gaming studio so I wanted to focus on entrepreneurship.

Why did you choose IBM?

I participated in the IBM Case competition during my MBA course at Kenan-Flagler. When I pitched a game design idea in front of the VP of strategy of Websphere at IBM, she loved my pitch and gave green signal to work on it right then. IBM asked for a prototype within 3 month. Since then I have been working there in the serious gaming industry.

What is your current job at IBM?

In IBM, I am establishing a strategy for how to take serious games beyond skills training, so that they can be used to collectively solve complex problems. I am leading a practice that designs games that help organizations to create a series of best practices and optimize their processes. I cover the Public Sector, Government, Military, Healthcare and Education, facilitating integration of real data and real process models into games. We integrate the business processes into a gaming environment and help the company run simulations making real time changes on the strategy and expressing real time outputs.

What is the most challenging part of your job?
Working across divisions in a huge multinational corporation.

Don’t you find working in such a big corporation a hindrance towards your goal?

There are a lot of benefits that comes with a big organization such as IBM. For example, wide range and ample amount of resources. If you come up with the right idea and relay the right idea appropriately, people would want to give their time and effort to see your idea into reality.

What do you like most about your job?
I love my work, so it doesn’t feel like work.

Which class do you think was most useful?
Launching the Venture (LAUNCH). It is a second year series of courses designed to teach, empower and inspire entrepreneurial teams of UNC to launch commercial and social ventures. It is not only a great series of classes but it also a great source of networking with coaches.

Is there anything you regret not doing while you were at UNC or one thing you wish you had done differently?
I had a great time at UNC both during my undergraduate and graduate terms. But sometimes I feel I should have paid more attention in the negotiations class. J

What advice would you give to current students?
Participate in as many case-competitions as you can. These two years is a great platform to do mistakes and learn from those mistakes. For instance, I highly encourage people to participate in the Darden Global Innovation Challenge program. If you really have a good idea and execution plan, they will snatch you up. Meeting with many students and judges, it is not only a great place for innovation but also networking for future job/ business opportunities.

What recommendation do you have for the BTC members?

Try to cross-pollinate with the Entrepreneurship club and focus on visiting startups.

 What do you think it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?

Ability to influence, clarity of what they want to do and what their capabilities are, delegation of work. When VCs look into investments they look at teams. So forming a right group of people is very important. Many successful VCs will support an A+ team with B idea rather than a B team with an A idea.

Lenovo

On October 15th, 17 members of the Business Technology club braved the rain at Chapel Hill to make the 40 minute drive to Morrisville in the RTP area (aka Research Triangle Park). We were given a warm welcome at the lobby by Ms. Erika Edwards & Mr. Bill Pauli. After the initial check-in we were ushered into the customer experience center where we received a detailed overview of Lenovo from Mr. Leigh Smith a WW, competitive analyst; though his title belies his real role of an evangelist for Lenovo’s engineering triumphs. His presentation comprised of Lenovo’s history and milestones, current trends and its future business strategy. The customer experience center served to give us a chance to touch and feel the cutting edge products that Lenovo had and the upcoming products in the pipeline. At our beckon was the portfolio of products from Lenovo like laptops, desktops, servers, and ThinkVision. There was visible appreciation particularly for the X1 Carbon Ultrabook which is among the lightest in its class but with all the qualities that ThinkPads are known for, like reliability and performance. During our handling of the ThinkPads several anecdotes about their durability were shared. My two favorites were of a ThinkPad surviving underwater and how a ThinkPad data was resurrected after a fire accident. We could see the cutting edge innovation and focus on durability that goes into making each and every product at Lenovo.

Following the customer experience center, we moved to a conference hall. Here we had an excellent panel discussion with our alums Greyson Davis (’07), Trent Johnson (’11), Jim Daley (’07) and Jarrett York (UNC). The large alumni panel paved the way for interesting discussions on Lenovo and the opportunities for MBAs. We received information on the MBA rotational program that is structured around rotations ranging from 1-2 years in different functional areas and business units in Lenovo.

During the panel discussions, Jim Daley, Senior Manager for Global Brnad Strategy & Integration who works closely with the Chief Marketing Officer’s group gave us an overview of his involvement in WW advertising, brand strategy, product design and PR design. Jarrett York explained his responsibilities as a Brand Manager and how cross functional knowledge is relevant in managing Lenovo’s products. Jarrett York shared with us the news that he will be transitioning to an operations role which helped to illustrate the rotational program for MBA graduates. Greyson Davis, Product marketing manager for WW Thinkstation unit spoke to us about the vertical and horizontal alignment in Lenovo’s organization structure.

At the end of the day, we felt the infectious enthusiasm of Lenovo and understood how employees at Lenovo truly believe in its consistent vision. In addition to it, we learned about the opportunities available for MBA graduates and interns at Lenovo. After the information session with Lenovo, we drove a short distance over to IBM to continue the second part of the trek.

IBM

Business Technology Club visits IBM in RTP

We visited IBM’s Durham office that houses 14,000 employees. We were greeted by David Lapp, and ushered to the data center conference room that sits right behind their huge customer data center. While some of us had worked on large databases and learned and read about data centers, it was a unique opportunity to see and learn how data centers are developed, maintained, and secured to protect critical, massive data. Going over a short presentation, Mike Hogan, S&F Services Offering Manager briefed us on how the data center was built, with all the strategic planning behind the scenes and how meticulously it is currently operated and maintained with the energy-efficient systems. We were gratified to learn the enormous operational overheads of three critical pieces of data center—the IT, facilities, and the power management.

Following a brief Q&A, we were presented with a panel of IBMers—from recent hires to senior leaders in the company to give us an opportunity to learn from their first-hand experiences what it’s like to work at IBM. IBM is one of the largest global corporations with about 430,000 employees; given the sheer size it provides opportunities to move within the company and find new challenges. IBM maintains a collaborative culture and seeks go-getters that are flexible and adaptable to challenges and possess entrepreneurial spirit. Each individual business unit brings its own opportunities and challenges that further contribute in shaping the culture of the division while retaining the core values of the company. The career panel included KFBS alums such as David Lapp’01, Kramer Reeves’02, Mike Peach’08, Sophia Lopez’09, and Mike Tapasio’10, all of whom candidly talked about their career at IBM and answered our questions ranging from career preparation to growth opportunities at IBM.

We then were toured around the green simulation center that housed a miniature data center specifically built to demonstrate the composition of different components, operation, and unique features of the data center to the customers. We were stunned with the state-of-the-art facilities and the design of the data center that showcased the extensive strategic planning that went into its development. The tour and the career panel discussion allowed us to clarify our understanding of the services and products IBM offers, offering good insights into the company’s strategic positioning and leadership in the industry.

Overall the whole visit was a huge success; we all developed some relationships, learned a lot about data center and IBM, the work environment, and overall culture in the company.

Inside Scoop – when you have to know before everyone else
@SammyWalrusIV
”Sammy the Walrus IV” an anonymous, well-informed Apple insider
@thurrott
Paul Thurrott, founder of Windows Supersite. A great source of info on Microsoft who provides open and honest opinion on Microsoft products
@brooke
Brooke Hammerling, founder Brew PR. She knows the tech news before it’s in the news

The in crowd- who the top tech people follow
@hunterwalk
Hunter Walk, Director of Product Management, Google. You’ll be smarter with each 140 characters
@harrymccracken
Harry McCracken, Editor of Technologizer. He covers a wide range of tech topics in depth in his own distinct and entertaining style.
@charleneli
Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group and author. Charlene covers a wide range of tech topics and focuses on the downstream effect social technologies.

Just for fun – techies with a sense of humor
@chrismessina
Chris Messina, UX designer at Google. One funny Googler who adds his own twist to tech industry happenings.
@levie
Aaron Levie, Box CEO, Overall funny tech guy with a great sense of humor
@counternotions
“Kontra” an unknown author who loves to start interactive discussions by dissecting Apple & Google

Tech websites – find your favorites on Twitter
Most of you are probably already familiar with @engadget, @mashable and @TechCrunch. Here’s a few cool websites to follow as well:
• @arstechnica (arstechnica.com) – described by some as geek heaven, this site and twitter feed dig deep into what’s new in technology
• @BGR (bgr.com) – provides timely, in depth tech stories and product reviews
• @Techmeme (techmeme.com) – a bit more tech-y than most and it has the latest insider updates

Last but not least…
@kftechclub
The twitter handle the Business Technology Club at UNC’s Kenan Flagler business school. Of course you should follow the most fabulous club on campus. No worries about shameless promotion here. Seriously though, @kftechclub provides you with top industry articles, updates on BTU events, and gives both current students and alumni a way of staying in touch with their fellow techie Tarheels.

Who is your favorite tech person on Twitter? Let us know @kftechclub

Sources: www.businessinsider.com and www.techrepublic.com

This awesome team (Team Cairo) consisted of:

• Christophe Renaud (class of 2013)
• Jae Lee (class of 2013)
• Rohan Vaidyanathan (class of 2012)
• Maciej Dudek (class of 2013)

We faced very strong competition from 13 other top business schools including Oxford, Berkeley, IESE, IPADE, USC, Dartmouth and Seoul National University.

This was the seventh time BU held this competition and we’re very happy that we got to represent our school and community and brought the top prize home.

We had a great time and we wanted to extend our thanks to BU for their hospitality and Ericsson for collaborating and sponsoring this event for 5th straight year.

As part of the competition we were given (for the duration of the case) an iPad and were asked to create a multimedia video and use it as part of the presentation. Please go to the BTC’s Facebook page to see it: https://www.facebook.com/UNCBTC

Don’t forget to “like” the main page while you’re there!

For more information about the case competition please visit: http://www.bu.edu/casecomp/international-tech-strategy/

Thank you!

-Maciej Dudek

The evening started with some food and drinks that the clubs had arranged for. After the crowd settled in and got comfortable, the first round “Tech Trivia” fired up the geeks in the house to answer some really challenging yet fun questions created by Soemoe Aung (‘2012). Do you know the next Android operating system after the Ice Cream Sandwich? Or were you really browsing TechCrunch and Mashable seriously to know the top 10 iPhone apps of all time? The winning team really new their stuff as they were able to answer almost all of the questions correctly.

Later we saw the two Blues mix a bit and the teams for the General Trivia round were a healthy mix of both UNC and Duke folks. If you are always tuned in to your Pandora or Spotify and know the top 10 songs of 2011 as ranked by the Billboard Music Awards, you were thoroughly missed at the Trivia night! Some other interesting questions were “what breed is President Obama’s dog “Bo”? (Well, no prizes for guessing, it’s a Portuguese Water Dog!).

All in all , the event was really well organized and was great fun! Special thanks to Jae Lee, Soemoe Aung, Matt Hartley (Duke), Maciej Dudek and the rest of the folks who made this event a great success.

Can you start off by giving me a quick rundown of your background?
Before business school I was a lawyer in France. I started my career in an entrepreneurial setting. I first co-founded a startup incubator, then joined a VC firm. After the MBA I joined Ubisoft, a top videogame publisher, in a business development role. Business development is where a lot of former lawyers tend to be. To clarify, business development to me is strategic partnerships and deals not sales.

Why did you decide to do b-school?
I wanted to expand international horizon and reinforce my business knowledge with an MBA. The US was a natural destination for me.

Were you interested in a particular function/role/industry before starting b-school?
I wanted to be in tech because I was looking for innovation and new break through products.

Why did you choose Microsoft?
The game industry is a small industry where people get to know each other quickly. Microsoft needed someone for their team in charge of strategic partnerships with game publishers, and I was working for one of these publishers, doing strategic partnerships. I came to the interview with limited expectations knowing the outside reputation of Microsoft (slow, bureaucratic, not innovative…) and was wooed by my interview day. I met very smart people I could learn a ton from and people who were deciding to change not only the game industry but also how entertainment is enjoyed in the living room. That was my first job at Microsoft.

What is your current job at Microsoft?
A year before the launch of Kinect, I joined the strategy and business development team of the Interactive Entertainment Business. The charter of this team is to explore new territories and new experiences as well as create new business opportunities. Over the last 15 months, I have been leading the “Xbox gets TV initiative”. We have partnered with key TV players in the world (Comcast, Verizon, Orange, Telefonica…) to enable them to bring their content to Xbox and to open a new distribution channel for Xbox and Xbox LIVE. Combining Kinect and its natural user interface (voice and gesture) with video content is truly a magical experience. I also get to do some very uncommon things, like dealing with the Cirque du Soleil to create a custom show for the launch of Kinect… a once in a lifetime experience for sure.

What is the most challenging part of your job?
The most challenging and interesting part of the job is working with a large virtual team of engineers, finance, and marketing people to create a vision of what entertainment will look like for consumers in the future. This is where KFBS’ emphasis on teamwork is crucial for your success in the professional world.

What do you like most about your job?
It is new every day. There are new initiatives, new ideas, and new products on a very regular basis. I tend to work on new initiatives that have never been done before. For example, XFINITY TV is the first time Comcast brought content to the TV screen through IP technology.

What do you think has made you successful and how do you see your career progressing?
Successful is a very relative concept. I really want to make sure that every day I can answer positively the question “Are you having fun at what you do?” For me, it is critical to work in an environment where I get to think about innovation and contribute to create new experiences and products, while disrupting consumer and industry habits. I have worked in start-ups, VC firms and multinational companies; the future may be in any of those…or in politics if I move back to France.

What has been the most useful thing you learned at UNC that has helped with your career?
Great question! I have learned many things at KFBS in the classroom, and I am putting to use a lot of this knowledge on a daily basis. But at the end of the day, soft skills and emotional intelligence may be what help you the most when you are back in the real world. By this I mean things we learned from our teamwork at UNC. When you work in a group with diverse people having different agendas, it is the same as it was at school. You acquire those skills as you go along.

Which class do you think was most useful?
A lot of the classes are important in the sense that they give you hard skills but I often see a lot of the students thinking that the class called ‘Leading and Managing’ is just not interesting. But you will figure out that in your career you will be confronted with cases like you see in school and it may end up being one of the most useful classes. The higher up you go in an organization the more you will have to work with your peers and people that may be above and under you and you will get to use a lot of those skills, more if you are in a larger company than if you are in a startup.

Is there anything you regret not doing while you were at UNC or one thing you wish you had done differently?
I had a great ride with my classmates, but as any student I sometimes likely missed the big picture of the experience to focus on the next school deliverable. The people you meet in business schools (students, professors, etc) all have interesting paths and stories to share. Take more time to meet them, learn from them and challenge them. You can never be social enough. You will develop skills very useful for later.

What advice would you give to current students?
Make sure you get a job you are passionate about after b-school; not just a job or the first job to come. There is obviously a real peer pressure, especially with some industries offering jobs very early on and the impact it has on school statistics. However, in the end, it is your career and your life.

I accepted a job six months after graduation, not ideal and it was a very challenging period, but looking back at it, I was right to turn down previous opportunities I was not excited about. Especially in the tech world, job opportunities can come late and networking is very important.

Many of us members of the Business Technology Club are getting ready to do just that, focus on the networking to get a job where we want, in the areas that we want and most importantly for companies/jobs that we are passionate about … Therefore, can you speak more about the type of networking we should be doing? Do you have any West coast specific tips?
I would start by taking a trip [like what the BTC did in January] and talking to alums. Try to go as a group because we [alums] all love to try and help students but have limited time available. However, in one week we can get too many emails that can get lost because of the numbers. Also, you can send out resume books.

What is your background?
I received my undergraduate degree at MIT in Chemical Engineering. After I graduated, I went to work for Andersen Consulting for 3 years then wanted to get my MBA. I was very fortunate to receive a fellowship from UNC and that worked out really well for my husband and I because we didn’t have to be apart while I was in school. After graduation I worked for BCG for a couple of years and really liked that because I got exposure to many different clients across a broad range of industries including retail, financial services, industrial goods and travel. I left BCG for better work/life balance and went to a smaller boutique consulting firm but then my husband and I decided to move to California. At the time, I was working for an East Coast company but I wanted to reduce my travel and find a local opportunity out West so I decided to join Netflix and worked there for 5 years.

Why did you decide to do b-school?
I had a very technical undergraduate degree. I wanted to go back to school and learn all the different aspects of business.

You said you recently switched jobs, were you specifically seeking a technology-related job this time?
After being out in the Bay Area, I feel like technology is an area that fits me well. I like e-commerce and consumer facing software and services. I am passionate about empowering consumers through technology so yes I explicitly wanted to stay in tech.

Why did you choose Walmart.com?
Walmart was looking for a strong finance leader. In addition, I really love e-commerce and they have a unique opportunity to build out a strong e-commerce business combined with an incredible store network. With Walmart.com I have the opportunity to drive business growth and I like working at companies that are on the steep upward sloping part of the s-curve. But I also like the Walmart people and the company’s core values and I felt that Walmart.com would be a great cultural fit for me.

What is your job at Walmart.com?
I am responsible for all of finance for Walmart.com US.

What is the most challenging part of your job? Or if it is too soon, what was the most challenging part of your job at Netflix?
The toughest part of my role is that in a support function like finance there are many different internal customers and stakeholders. I have to stay on top of things and make sure I am able to satisfy all the internal customers’ needs while managing expectations. And, of course, I need to make sure the numbers are always accurate and that our analyses reflect our best understanding of the business at all times. As I’ve gotten more senior in my career, I spend a lot more time managing people and ensuring alignment rather than crunching numbers.

How do you see your career progressing?
I see myself staying in finance and maybe being CFO one day.

What do you think has made you successful?
Working hard and working smart, putting the time in, hiring people well, making tough management decisions that need to be made to move people forward and then also having good advisors.

What has been the most useful thing you learned at UNC that has helped with your career?
The academics were important but I think that the most valuable thing I received from UNC has been the network of friends I developed while in b-school. As I look back, while the academics are essential, I do think you can get a great education at almost any top b-school. However, the people – my friends that I have kept in touch with over the years – have really been invaluable to me. Also, UNC was great with the whole job search process – the school has a very structured process and a focus on job search very early in the program, which I found a bit surprising but extremely useful.

Has this changed over time? For instance, would you have given the same response less than 5 years after getting your MBA?
A few years ago my answer would have been that the academics, coaching and mentoring were most useful.

Is there anything you regret not doing while you were at UNC or one thing you wish you had done differently at UNC?
I don’t know if there is anything I would have done differently. When I was at UNC I lived a bit far away so I did not attend as many social events because I had a long drive. I probably would not have done that. I also might have explored a wider variety of classes versus some of the courses I took. I have found that it is nice to have breadth of knowledge vs. depth in a particular specialty.

What advice would you give to current students?
Figure out what kind of companies you want to work for. Especially on the West Coast and in the valley, it is important to have connections. It is also important just to get out here and get plugged in and networking is critical. There are lots of opportunities and you just need to find them. Also, coming out of b-school I’ve learned that it is more important to get solid experience in an area that you are passionate about rather than targeting a specific company. Getting the experience will allow you to develop the skills you need so that you can get a job at the company you want to work for. So, if you don’t get your first choice employer straight out of school don’t be too concerned or discouraged. You should take the time to learn and develop your skills. This is particularly important if you are interested in tech and/or startups out West, because a lot of companies out here are looking for more experience and tend not to hire people straight out of business school.

After many months of careful planning, networking, and arm-twisting, the BTC West Coast Career Trek went off without a hitch. Sixteen BTC club members made their way to the Silicon Valley to meet with Intel, IBM, EA, and Google, and we also took part in an evening happy hour between current students, prospective students, and alumni.

The trip started with a visit to Intel, where we were greeted by Sheldon Bernard (KFBS ’11).   We were ushered into a large conference room where we met other Intel employees as well as Tim Baldwin (’11), who told us about his work in the Global Marketing and Strategy role.  We learned a lot about Intel’s culture of decision-making and how its flat organization allows for opportunities to move around in different roles.  It was also good to hear that the Intel Internships are project-based, and these projects are based on company’s real needs at the time.  The visit culminated with a presentation by the Chief Information Officer, Diane Bryant.  She offered a glimpse of how fast the trends in technology are really changing and how innovative and nimble companies must be to keep up.

Next we drove south to IBM’s San Jose lab, which was a huge contrast to the urban setting of Intel.  Ninety percent of the campus is set aside as open space, and the surrounding spaces are for orchards and cattle.  We met with Mike Perera (’03) who used to work at IBM’s RTP location.  His lab’s main purpose is software engineering and has about 2,000 employees, most of who work in information management, UI development, and Big Data.  We learned about the Extreme Blue intern program geared towards top-notch students pursuing software development and MBA degrees.  IBM, as you know, is a very large company, with about 430,000 employees; however it offers a lot of opportunity to move within the company.  It offers a collaborative culture and seeks go-getters that are flexible and adaptable to challenges and posses entrepreneurial spirit.

After the info session, we drove back to the hotel and relaxed a bit before heading out again to the evening reception at a local bar.  The happy hour gave us a chance to interact with alumni from other companies and industries and offered a low-stress environment for networking.  I finally got to meet Willam Lau (’05 and former BTC president) from Adobe, and it was nice to chat with him about industry trends and Adobe’s recent acquisitions. We also met and talked to a bunch of prospective students, who all seemed to fit the Kenan-Flagler mold.

The next morning, we drove out to Electronic Arts (EA) where we were surprised to get an impromptu presentation by the CEO himself, John Riccitiello.  He talked about his vision of the company, the current trends, challenges, and opportunities.  After the motivating speech and a brief Q&A session we went on a tour of the campus, visiting their awesome cafeteria, gym, and company store. Almost everyone ended up buying a few games, at highly discounted prices, to bring home with them.  We ended up eating the EA’s cafeteria, which offered a lot of locally-sourced ingredients, cooked-to-order meals, and a huge salad bar.

The last stop for the visit was Google, where we met Guru Nagarajan (’09), current technology manager for Android.  Guru talked about his experiences working at Google, the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators Google uses to motivate and engage its employees, and how rewarding the experience has been so far.  We also heard from Treasurer Brent Callinicos (former BSBA and MBA) and Kristina from Finance to about their experiences of working at Google and the projects they’ve worked on.  Afterward, we briefly walked around the campus and took the obligatory photo in front of the Android statue.  Guru was also kind enough to provide each of us with a small Android figurine.  I’ve promptly surrounded mine with a literal “walled garden” of Apple products in an effort to juxtaposition the two companies’ strategies.

Overall the whole visit was a huge success, we all made new contacts, learned a lot about the tech industry, the Silicon Valley environment, and each company we visited. The BTC will definitely come back next year to build upon the foundation of this visit!