Sunday night.. heading into week 2!

Just left Spangler. What a great place. It's the main building for Harvard Business School. The Kennedy School folks share the facility for food since the graduate dorms (apartments) are all on the HBS campus on Soldiers Field Road.

Anyway, tonight was preparing for a role playing exercise to take place on Thursday morning. I'd mentioned a class on persuasion last week. This is by far, the best class to date.. and I've only been here a week! This is probably the class I needed most, but there are more coming. This week is three more sessions on persuasive comms this week, plus (as if there needed to be a plus!) we start on negotiation! I"m telling you, these guys give us nuts and bolts 'how to' lessons to actually do better communications, and anyone who knows me will tell you it's an area I could do better. I'm filling my toolkit with everything these guys will give me!

So, favorites? Gary Orren on persuasion. Ron Ferguson taught us how to tear apart ANY statistical analysis with fool proof tips to looking at stats with a critical eye. Pete Zimmerman talks of strategy and planning, and although I see myself as a pretty savvy strategist, this guy makes me look like a rank amateur. Steve Keller is on for tomorrow for our second session on building solid performance management plans. Bottom line, this place is cool as hell!

Re the forum? Last week it was Eric Cantor and William Perry. This week we're told it's a 'special guest'. I'm told they only book three days in advance, but it's well worth sitting in seats obviously engineered for college students before the experience the middle aged spread, but it's totally worth it.

Ok all. More to come. This is a once in a lifetime experience and I've got work to do to make sure I make the most of it... although tonight did include bourbon and cigars with my new friend from the UN. He's a political analyst for the the Secretary, and is a terrific conversationist. Does this mean I've been worked over? Probably. It's a good thing I only know about broubon and cigars!

Jeff