BlogSat

Sigh... its been a while since I've felt discriminated against; certainly in my last two years in Chicago I've never felt that way. That changed yesterday and my reaction disappointed me. Here's what happened: My parents are in town and we were walking down Michigan Avenue after buying tickets to Wicked . As we were walking towards Wacker Drive, we saw a street performer who had finished his days work and was walking back, coming up the street. My mom, dressed in a sari , asked me discreetly why we were seeing a completely silver man coming up the street. As I quietly explained, and just as this man was crossing us, he looked at us and said pretty loudly: "Your @#$@ing Hindu Gods are not the way." The people behind us just laughed, and we just kept walking on. I'm not completely sure if my Dad or mom heard ( or understood because of his accent) what he said. As for me, it took me a couple of seconds to regain my composure. There are a number of ways to look ...

Argh! WSJ last week had an article on the rise of a more, active brand of atheism . One of the reasons I kinda sympathized with atheists was they didn't have a missionary zeal. Take that out of them, and they're just another religion....just one that doesn't believe in God, instead of its particular understanding of God. I understand their reasoning for this newfound activism. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." As long as its non-violent, I understand the need for organizations/people to try and convert the world to their view. Its obviously in their interest. The problem is with their reaction when this conversion that they strive for does not happen. The greater their level of organization, the more likely it is their reaction will be stronger and eventually violent.

At lunch today, I attended a talk by David Salyers, a VP of Marketing at Chick-Fil-A. I'd heard of the company for the very first time just last week, when someone brought it up in my Channel Marketing class as an example of a company that managed to stay true to it's corporate values. The talk was organized by the Christian Business Students Association at school and was, in terms of both content and presentation amongst the better talks I've attended at the GSB. David was extremely charismatic (they train em well at that HBS place) and had really good stuff to say. The talk, titled "What is the ultimate business question?" centered around both business strategy and personal strategy, two topics I love just sitting back and thinking about. I ended up leaving pretty happy with the way I'd spent my time. However, what intrigued me most was something that came up towards the end of the Q&A session: their corporate mission. Here's what it is: " ...