You Get What You Pay For: Making The Case For Paid Internships
Stop groaning, entrepreneurs. You need interns just as much as they need you. You’re hiring them because you need temporary help, and an extra body in the office never hurts. In return for their work, you’re giving them some firsthand experience and skills they can use later in their careers. Here’s the thing: paying interns isn’t anything new. It’s almost standard procedure in the tech sector for interns to receive high salaries in addition to some money for rent (Pinterest pays interns US$7500/month plus $1500/month for rent). What’s in it for you? Believe it or not, paying interns to make sure they can at least handle their monthly cost of living is incredibly beneficial for your business.
Recruitment
Providing paid internship programs will reap benefits as early as the HR stage. You obviously don’t want to bring in just anyone- you’re looking for someone with tons of energy, enthusiasm, and a good skillset. Providing good financial incentives will reel in some quality applicants, who can really kick things up a notch at the office and be an asset, instead of being just another body fetching coffee. Of course, that’s only relevant if you’re looking for an intern to do more than just photocopy paperwork and answer phones.
Upwardly Mobile
Let’s talk about money and growth (two words that “treps truly love). Your interns can play a huge role in helping you out on those two fronts. Your skilled, enthusiastic, and well-compensated intern will do more than just scroll through social media feeds during team meetings, they’ll actually contribute. I can easily think of two hypothetical scenarios off of the top of my head:
1. You’re short on time and need to finish a few major projects, and you simply cannot disappoint your client. If you nail it, there are many more opportunities on the horizon. If you don’t, you can wave this potential long-term financial relationship goodbye. Your staff might be exhausted, but your intern is motivated, determined, and willing to get the job done to make an immediate impact in the primary years of their career. This also applies to the non-profit sector, who need to guarantee annual grants to keep their organizations going.
2. Situation number two revolves around innovation. It’s hard to keep up with certain trends when your small business consists of 10 employees all over the age of 40 who haven’t delved into the new marketing strategies. Your intern on the other hand, most likely a fresh grad out of college, is likely very well-versed with digital trends in social media and business technologies. That intern could inspire or play a part in an idea that could be a goldmine for your business. Wouldn’t it be nice if you gave that intern a “thank you” cheque for their hard work?
Interns, being people too, also hope to keep developing their careers. Your intern could be a future employee- the long-term possibilities are endless. Should your internship program not only be a positive growth experience for your interns, but also be one that financially compensates them for their hard work, you could find yourself a dedicated employee for the future. And why not? They’ve already spent time working in that exact space and work environment, and they’re already apart of your team. Sure, that intern isn’t handling the most complex tasks, but they’re still working. They still commute on a daily basis, and usually clock regular office hours (if not putting in overtime to prove themselves).
These days, a certificate acknowledging an internship alone isn’t going to cut it. The job market is terrible, and fresh university grads are struggling to make ends meet with many shackled by debt incurred during their degrees. So why not give them a salary? The amount of energy and creativity interns bring into an office space is second to none. It’s the least you could do.
Mercedes-Benz Launches F 015 Luxury In Motion Concept Car
The F 015 Luxury in Motion concept car by Mercedes-Benz has set the bar for self-driving vehicles. Two years ago, with the S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE, the company proved that it had the technology to make autonomous driving mainstream, and now the F 015 does it with style. It features a variable seating system with four rotating lounge chairs allowing passengers to relax, work or communicate while sitting face-to-face, in addition to various technologies to facilitate the continuous exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world.
The vehicle has six integrated display screens that passengers can interact with through gestures, eye-tracking or touch. Although it’s currently still a concept car, the F 015 Luxury in Motion represents the route luxury automotive manufacturers will take going forward.
Teaching ‘Treps: Hard Market Experience And Real World Know-how Put To Use
There is an old saying that “those who can’t do, teach.” This may have sprung from a frustration with teachers not having real world experience. This may be fine for a musician who isn’t commercially sucessful- he or she can still completely teach music theory- but in the business world, I believe teaching theory without hands-on knowledge is akin to malpractice. My firm belief is that teachers are fooling themselves (and their students) by teaching a subject where they have limited practical experience.
I went and got an MBA, right after my bachelors degree, and I had no clue what my finance or accounting course was about because I had never encountered such things, and I really didn’t understand the context. Doing business is not about theory; there are no theories that I know of other than “buy low, sell high”. The real world is dynamic, and if I wanted to keep up and be of service to my students in teaching entrepreneurship, I had to leap right into the trenches myself. Certainly before I began teaching entrepreneurship, I had great business success while working for an internationally-known company at the cutting edge of information technology, and then transferring those same skills to business development in the emerging markets of post-Soviet Eastern Europe. When I began my career as a professor, I was teaching as I was taught, using textbooks and PowerPoint slides. I slowly realized that this was an ineffective and senseless way to conduct classes. For some reason, I expected that in an academic setting, students would retain a lot, but this can only happen if the instructor listens, inspires, clearly communicates, and respects their student body. Fortunately, I found that I was better at in-class exercises, leading discussions, and having students develop projects (including business plans), which led to better retention of taught material.
For me personally, the real light-bulb moment was when I attended Harvard in 2007 and met Karen Wilson of the European Forum for Entrepreneurship Research (EFER), whose mandate is to foster entrepreneurship education. It was there that I learned to use the case method in teaching as a way to study real world problems and solutions. I had always felt that business was not functional, but that it was interdisciplinary and that studying and discussing cases helps people understand this. When I ask my students on the first day of class what they want to do in five years, 60-80% respond that they want to be their own boss. I believe that students’ lives will greatly be improved if they learn the true ins and outs of launching and running an innovative business, not just theories. In my time at Harvard, my worldview changed in respect to how best to fos- ter entrepreneurship, both as a teacher and as a mentor. While there, I also met Bert Twaalfhoven (now 85 years old and one of my personal heroes), who started EFER in 1987. His credo? “Learn. Earn. Return.” He shared his own story: “How I lost $55 million with 54 startups.” By offering his own lessons learned from 17 failures over the course of four decades, he showed me not only how to become a better teacher, but also demonstrated the importance of giving back. I think that the “‘return” part is very important, and I’m in that phase of my life both personally and professionally.
It is in the giving back that one of the greatest entrepreneurship lessons is learned. I have spent much of my life involved in the Scouting movement, where the key is learning by doing. I’m a big proponent of the master-apprentice principle, which is manifested in the teacher-student relationship and collaboration. This idea has worked for thousands of years with mentors and coaches helping young people grow to their greatest capacity. Many young people have a natural entrepreneurial spirit, with great ideas, great ambitions, and idealism. What they don’t have is the network, the connecting-the-dots, the guidance, and the confidence to execute. I try to provide this in my classes so that their entrepreneurial spirit and idealism does not go to waste. As an instructor, I try to provide material that is relevant: how to network, how to engage with customers, how investments work, how not to give up, how to gauge the other person’s strengths and weaknesses, how to get into someone else’s shoes. The wonderful thing about being a teacher is that you learn as much or more from your students as they learn from you. Trying to be a better teacher led me to co-found the digital case model Experientia tool to teach entrepreneurship.Their questions pushed me back into an entrepreneurial role, so that I can garner more real-world experience to help them on their own entrepreneurial path.
Today’s students follow entrepreneurs like my generation followed movie and rock stars; “treps have become household names just like athletes. I’ve seen students become entrepreneurs- they have a great sense of pride in their independence, making contributions to the economy and society at large, all the while earning money. I want to provide young people with exposure and hands-on experience on what happens in the real world, and I see my job as helping young people to become successful. Maybe one of my students will become the next Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs? Just having students think in an entrepreneurial way is a success: seeking and seeing opportunities where others see failure, being autonomous, always trying to improve on the status quo, becoming more interesting, useful, and curious, talking and being around great people, being persistent and focused, solving problems and crises (sometimes even searching for them). This opportunity to be part of the process of helping to shape minds is why I teach entrepreneurship.
Let Me Librarian That For You: The NYPL Was Google, Before Google
Adam and Eve’s heights, the reason why squirrels appear in 18th century English paintings, the therapeutic value of essence of pine needles, and proper etiquette post attending a New Year’s Eve bash. Sounds peculiar? Between the 1940s and the 1980s, these were some of the questions that the New York Public Library (NYPL) employees fielded. Before Google and the Internet, people relied on volumes of encyclopedias or asking their local librarian. After finding a box of information requests jotted down and filed by former NYPL staff, the current NYPL team decided to share them through their Instagram account. The queries are a mixture on manners, religion, and historical facts- some of which, still get asked since the library’s question-answer service continues (NPR). The team posts every Monday, with the hashtag #letmelibrarianthatforyou, a hat-tip to the expression “Let Me Google That For You.”
Last year, U.S. Senators Tom Coburn and Claire McCaskill introduced the Let Me Google That For You Act to argue that government records available through the National Technical Information Service –which comes at a price- can be found via Google search for free (The Wire). You learn something new (or old), every day.
MENA Consumer Loyalty (Infographic)
Consumer loyalty isn’t an issue at all in the MENA, with many sharing their personal information via loyalty cards. That said, which industries have been enjoying the most consumer loyalty, and are businesses transparent enough to their consumers regarding what they do with that personal information? This infographic by Aimia goes through all that and more.
M-Commerce in the UAE (Infographic)
M-commerce has been a reoccurring term in the world of ecommerce over the past year, and with PayPal revealing UAE as the country with the world’s second largest smartphone market, it is no surprise that the Middle East is being tipped as an emerging hot market. They’ve set up an infographic that highlights some interesting trends in the UAE’s growing smartphone market, including consumer shifts from computers to phones and tablets, and the surge in mobile spending. It’s all in the palm of your hand.
Your Company And Your Community
We all recognize the fast-paced, information driven society we live in. In a society where information travels at high speed, it is now mandatory we all know, at all times, what is going on around us, including the problems that our communities are facing. By sheer dint of being aware of pressing societal issues, we are all responsible for addressing them, and this is as true for entrepreneurs as it is for corporations. It’s also a fact demanded by consumers, and to which, fortunately, companies now refuse to turn a blind eye, ending up doing business while doing good.
Social commitment and responsibility has become part of many corporations’ DNA. From my own experience as a youth developer, as well as my professional experience at Al Ahli Holding Group (AAHG) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) division, I believe that it’s no longer business as usual. The new generation, in particular, is eager to learn and make a positive change by giving back to the community. That is why AAHG CSR chose youth as its social cause- to train and help future leaders and entrepreneurs put into practice their beliefs using CSR and social entrepreneurship skills. I have witnessed that teaching these skills (in a fun, engaging way) to students that aim to make a difference in their communities as businesspeople really does work. By speaking their language, combining education with games, music and other methods, we guarantee that they will enjoy and engage with the process of learning how to do business with social ethics.
That kind of ethical concern in corporations is, in fact, a win-win situation since it ensures engagement with the target audience and empowers the consumer to give credibility to the company. That’s why CSR is so important for businesses. By allocating some of the profits to support a cause or participate as a solution to a community problem, companies that adopt CSR are giving back, and they are sharing the responsibility that governments shoulder with their population. CSR presently plays a big role in today’s corporate world, but so does social entrepreneurship. Although they are different concepts, social entrepreneurship and CSR are bonded. Every social enterprise defends a social cause and the same happens with CSR plans, so the two directives aren’t at odds. There’s room for the two to coexist, and even work on common projects because both support and invest in the same purpose. The only difference between CSR and social entrepreneurship is embedding social goals in the organization’s core objectives. In a CSR approach, these goals are added to the overall corporate objectives at different levels, while for social enterprises, they are the primary objective. Social enterprises are for-profit, meaning the money is the means to the end of serving the society. One example of how both concepts are connected is the CSR in Action program, created in AAHG CSR division to promote new ideas for CSR initiatives. What happened along the way was that, instead, we created social entrepreneurs. We’re living in a knowledge economy fuelled by creativity, innovation, and like companies that have CSR projects, social entrepreneurship holds tremendous potential to help solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
One success story is the Women to Women project in Lebanon. The founder wanted to help unemployed women and widows, so she picked ten ladies from villages that had no education, no money and needed sustainable income. They only knew how to cook, so she invited chefs to teach the ladies how to plate their food, use the necessary tools and brand them. After NGOs, embassies and universities had a taste of the healthy, clean and tasty homemade meals cooked by the ladies, those organizations became their clients. Within two years, the project generated a sustainable income of US$1,500 dollars for each woman, which positively impacted their homes, the education of their children, their outlook and prospects, and their position in the community. The woman that promoted the initiative resigned from her full time job and is now devoted to the project. This means sustainability for everyone involved, and this is exactly what social entrepreneurship is.
Social entrepreneurship is the future of business, and CSR has become a part of many responsible companies that care about their communities and want to be sustainable. In the GCC, acquiring more knowledge and training about these avenues is essential and becoming more mainstream. Nowadays, worldwide, social entrepreneurship is being the solution to minimize many problems such as, unemployment, environmental issues and waste of resources. It’s important to keep investing in this kind of solution and in the ones that can be and want to be agents for a positive change.
Virtual Reality Museum Is A Gallery For Stolen Masterpieces
Somewhere in the world today stolen masterpieces are making the rounds, perhaps never to be found. A student of New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) program has a solution, and no, it isn’t about tracking down the missing artwork. The Museum of Stolen Art is a virtual reality museum for works of art “that cannot be viewed physically anywhere in the world,” according to the explainer video.
Designed to replicate a museum experience, works “reported as missing in the FBI and Interpol art crime databases” are suspended on white walls and come complete with an audio guide, to give users contextual and realistic experience. Three exhibitions are planned: one for renowned stolen works which includes pieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft in 1990, and two focusing on looted art from Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s said that after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, an astounding 14,000 works were robbed from the Iraq Museum. The Museum of Stolen Art’s collections aim to reflect that art, history and culture can be a casualty in conflict zones, too. The project is an Oculus Rift experience, and describes itself as “an exploration of VR technologies both for different purposes like education, archiving and advocacy.” While people are still taking an interest in virtual reality technology, last year’s craze and quick end over Google Glass is a sign that there’s more work to be done before mass adoption.
Banana Island Resort Launches In Qatar
If you’re already drawing up a list of places to visit this year, add this to your list. Developed by Al Rayyan Hospitality, Qatar capped off 2014 with a new man-made island, Banana Island Resort– the first Anantara project based in Qatar. The luxury resort and spa group currently has properties operating in Asia and MENA countries, such as Cambodia, Maldives, Mozambique, Thailand, UAE and Vietnam. Inaugurated by H.E. Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani, Prime Minister of Qatar and the Minister of Interior, with Al Rayyan Hospitality President Mohammed Al Qahtani and Banana Island Resort Doha General Manager Sami Ayari in attendance, the crescent-shaped island boasts an 800-meter long private beach which means… plenty of beach activities, of course! Guests can enjoy a variety of water sports including kayaking and wakeboarding. Besides the luxe Anantara signature rooms, there’s also the Balance Wellness Centre, and a list of can’t-believe-these-exist facilities: an “oxygen fern room” and a “female-only hydro pool”. Whether you want to escape the bustling city or if you’re just up for exploring doha’s cultural sights, it’s only a 20-minute ferry trip from Al Shyoukh Terminal downtown or a 10-minute ride from the Hamad International Airport- that is, if you fancy a helicopter jaunt.
The Executive Selection: Tommy Hilfiger
From better goods to boardroom wardrobe bests, each issue we choose a few items that make the approved executive selection list. This issue, we present Tommy Hilfiger‘s Tailored Collection in slim fitting, structured lines.
MAKING THE CUT
We’re a bit taken with the Tommy Hilfiger SS15 Tailored Collection. The lineup –it moves easily from daytime boardroom to après work- is filled with versatile pieces that help you cut a mean silhouette. The grouping of office-appropriate attire is under the “City Prep” category in the range, and was inspired by the cosmopolitan NYC urban comings and goings of figures of commerce… much like yourselves. This range of better apparel is also textured just right- without the uncomfortable weighty feeling, and allows for a good variety of mixing and matching. Fun detail? The suit linings have a spirited kick with blasts of color to keep things interesting. Change it up, “treps!
ALL TIED UP
Tommy Hilfiger’s Tailored Collection ties are wearing thinner in line with their SS15 suits. See them paired with the full range, and here as standalone pieces.
