Military Prospective Student Day at HBS

The cover of the latest Harvard Business Review has a picture of soldiers and the front page title:

"Leadership Lessons from the Military - Extreme Conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq have become a testing ground for adaptive management skills that every CEO should understand."

Much like WWII, although to a lesser degree, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are shaping many of America's future leaders. Outstanding military leaders routinely distinguish themselves in business, and the nine years of continuous fighting has produced a massive talent pool of confident leaders who have been through the test. Business schools have known this for a long time, and continue to place emphasis on getting the right kind of veterans in their classrooms. However, just because somebody worked at a bank doesn't make them a good financier, and just because somebody served in the military doesn't make them a good leader. Business schools are looking for much more than just experience - they are looking at the complete person - just as they do for every industry. In this arena, HBS has been making a particularly noteworthy effort...

I'm therefore pleased to promote HBS's newly created Military Prospective Student Day, which is scheduled on the HBS campus for Monday, March 7th, 2011. This is a forward thinking event run by HBS to reach out to prospective military applicants and I strongly suggest you contact the admissions office if you would like to participate. This will also give them a better idea on the number of people to plan for. If you have any recommendations for the event, feel free to write in to me as well and I will consolidate and pass along. Either way, stay tuned for more information.

Lastly, I'm also pleased to announce that this blog recently surpassed 20,000 hits and about 10,000 unique visitors since launching in April of 2009. That's about the same number of applicants that HBS has had over the same time period. Looking at statisitcs of repeat readership is also really interesting, as it shows that 480 visitors have returned to the site over 200 times, and that around 3,000 visitors have returned over 25 times. The original intent of the blog was to serve as a source of information and insight to prospective students and all those contemplating career changes, so I'm glad to that the blog has been useful to so many. Military To Business has also been read in 128 countries representing over 42,000 pageviews.