вторник, 23 октября 2012 г.

Alexander Voloshin: the biggest mistake people make is that they live in captivity of illusions about themselves

On October 19 Alexander Voloshin, member of the Coordination Council of the SKOLKOVO business school and Chairman of the Uralkali Board, held an informal meeting with SKOLKOVO students.



Mr. Voloshin has discussed with the participants of the meeting Russia’s investment climate and problems that the modern society faces:
I believe that in the course of this year our society has made a huge step forward, it has started to keener respond to what is going on.
The investment climate is still rather nasty, and not because the government does not want to improve it, but because it is the Soviet Union heritage.

пятница, 19 октября 2012 г.

Dr. Pehong Chen, CEO of BroadVision: "You just need to think bigger"

On October 6 during the SKOLKOVO Open Day we had a great chance to talk to one of the most famous online-business entrepreneurs Dr. Pehong Chen, CEO of BroadVision. So we asked him and Gary Fowler, SKOLKOVO Startup Academy mentor, a few questions about Russian entrepreneurship and the Silicon Valley impact on it.

- Good afternoon, Dr. Pehong Chen. Thank you for spending a few minutes on our quick interview.

P.C.: Hi, it’s also my pleasure to be a part of the SKOLKOVO Open Day.


- First of all, could you share with us your strategic plan for Russia and its market?

P.C.: Well, it’s not just about Russia, but also about other countries. We want to primarily work with partners rather than do direct sales as BroadVision is not a very big company. The thing is that it’s more important to establish an eco-system where many partners would work together. Especially in Russia that is a new market for us. Gary (Gary Fowler- editor’s note) is our new representative, country manager here, and his goal is to set up several partnerships for us, for example, with the government or other clients from different sectors and industries in order to have their own cloud. Basically, it calls for a more partner oriented approach than direct sales approach.

четверг, 4 октября 2012 г.

SKOLKOKO Inspiration Day

On September 15 the SKOLKOVO business school celebrated its sixth anniversary. In honour of the event lots of activities, both formal and informal, were organized on the Campus. The day began with the presentation of student ID cards to the fourth MBA class. After that, guests took part in the open discussion “Creative Economy: Inspiring Entrepreneurship”. More detailed information about the official part of the day you can find on our website, and here we’d like to share with you the brightest impressions. So, let’s start with master classes!


We’ve already told our readers about the “Dialogues in the dark” project. And today we’d like to speak about the “Touching the Darkness” workshop. At the entrance participants had to hand in all the things that may glare or be a source of any light – mobile phones, watches, etc. And then a group of six people had to make a column, put their left hand on the shoulder of the person staying in front and to hold on the wall with their right hand, walking behind the curtain where they were awaited by total darkness and a blind guide – Evgeny. The pitch darkness weirdly has not dispersed neither in ten minutes, nor in half an hour. The ultimate aim was a round table where the participants had to sit next to each other in the alphabetic order in accordance with their names. Actually it was the first task of the training. As a result everybody got to know each other really quickly.

An interesting fact: communicate with each without actually seeing your opponent is much easier than under usual circumstances. At the table an easy and free atmosphere set in, and all the following tasks were implemented with laugh and jokes. Besides, the tasks were captivating and had something in common with the “Do you know what I mean” game. We had to divide into groups vegetables by their kind or find a match for the socks we got without touching your partner’s socks, just describing their “appearance”, which was possible only by touch.

среда, 3 октября 2012 г.

Tinkers50: W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

New week and new experts from Top management thinkers ranking. Do not forget to visit our exhibition at SKOLKOVO Open day.

2. W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne Professors of strategy and management and authors of Blue Ocean strategy.

“A blue ocean strategy is about pursuing differentiation and low cost simultaneously. In contrast, in competitive strategy, differentiation is achieved by providing higher value at a higher cost.”

  “A blue ocean strategist does not gain insights about reconstructing market boundaries by looking at existing customers, but by exploring noncustomers.”


Blue ocean strategy: how to creat uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant
W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
Harvard Business School Press,
2005 xv, 240 pages
ISBN: 9781591396192