Net Impact Conference
Philadelphia, PA
Day 1
Joe, Darcy, and I fly out from BNA on a pretty much what is an empty plane. We could have easily all had rows to ourselves but we stick together on a couple rows. Arriving in a very cold and wet Philly, we taxied over to Joe’s friend, Matt’s house to dump our stuff and head over to the conference. Joe and I are very allergic to cat dander and to our luck Matt and his wife, have a big fluffy cat that takes an uncanny resemblance to Jinxy Cat.
By the time we get to Wharton, it is already lunch time. We walk to the tent that has a moat of mud and sloshy grass to pick up the remnants of the lunch they provided. Of course, our luck was that they ran out of grilled chicken and roast beef sandwiches so we end up eating the vegan meal: no meat, no cheese, not a single thing in that sandwich was tasty. How do they do it? Joe and I were previously bitter with Wharton as we entered the African Business Competition that was hosted by them a few weeks prior; their competition was not very well organized: they pushed the deadline for submittal twice, dropped the cash prize from $15,000 to $5,000, and the biggest was they didn’t like our plan. So Joe and I collaborated to commit hate crimes on Wharton students. Not really, but we did joke about it.
The Career Fair was quite a mess. Over 50 companies were there in a room about the size of Owen’s Lobby. I did not bring 50 business cards that day. Most of the companies were our everyday corporations that decided a few years back that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not just a great marketing ploy to make our company sound green or socially committed but that the numbers from doing so just make sense. Joe has a rant that being CSR isn’t just being green and shouldn’t be limited to being green. NetImpact has been stereotyped as just a club full of hippies and tree-huggers focusing solely on achieving a green rating. What should also be considered and stereotyped in NetImpact is the effects of local economies and communities. I must agree with him. We will talk about this more later. At the career fair, to my surprise I found a lot of great opportunities here that I was not aware of. I spent about 4 hours talking to almost all the companies. To be noted:
- MBAs Without Borders – www.MBASwithoutborders.com
- Me to We – www.metowestyle.com
- National Park Service – www.nps.gov
- Acciona – www.acciona-energy.com
Read the full article: Net Impact – UPENN Wharton