Googlers post about IDEAcorps Week

In September 2008, I was privileged to meet the team at The Idea Village during my most recent visit to New Orleans. 32 of my fellow Googlers (as we affectionately refer to ourselves) and I were embarking upon a community outreach trip which came to a screeching halt as a result of a city-wide evacuation for Hurricane Gustav. Fortunately the damage to the city was minor in comparison to past devastation, but our planned projects had to be canceled due to much of the city still being closed to non-essential workers and non-residents. In a serendipitous turn of events, one of my colleagues informed me that she "had a friend" who might be able to help us. Despite being dispersed all over the United States, the team at The Idea Village rallied to make it home and open their doors to a determined group of volunteers willing to brave the elements to make a difference. During our visit, we learned a lot about ongoing redevelopment projects within greater New Orleans and assisted with the development of the launch plan for 504ward's $200,000 Business Plan competition, hosted in partnership with The Idea Village. Since then, I have kept in close contact with Tim, Lauren, Daryn and team, even hosting them at Google last winter for a presentation aimed at garnering west coast support for our southern friends. So when they asked me to take part in The Idea Village's IDEAcorps Challenge '09 , it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

What peaked our interest most and convinced us to participate is how closely the challenge mirrors much of what we do at Google - connecting people with useful, innovative solutions and information. It has been said that information is the seed for an idea, and only grows when its watered. By bringing the country's brightest minds and cutting edge corporations to New Orleans, projects like this will guarantee the growth of tomorrow’s future leaders and spawn a new generation of local business entrepreneurs.

Over the coming week, fellow Googler, LaFawn Bailey, and I will be working with The Idea Village, salesforce.com and the MBA students to provide information on Google tools and processes that will allow them to assist local entrepreneurs in tackling critical growth challenges facing New Orleans today. We will also be visiting bloggers for the week, updating this and other media sources with information on the participating students, entrepreneurs and The Idea Village team. So check back for regular updates, photos and live coverage of our week of entrepreneurship - we promise a crazy and rewarding adventure resulting in a lifetime of impact.

With a little bit of hard work, a lot of determination and most of all, trusting our crazy ideas, I know that New Orleans will once again regain the world class status it so richly deserves.

Tara Canobbio
Google.org

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Idea Village, MBA students to work with local businesses next week

Posted by Jaquetta White, The Times-Picayune March 20, 2009

Naked Pizza needs to figure out how to go from operating a single pizza shop Uptown to opening as many as 1,000 nationwide. Flip-flop purveyor Feelgoodz has to ramp up its distribution system to accommodate a new deal with Whole Foods.

The New Orleans companies are two of six that will participate in a week-long workshop that begins Monday and is designed to help them figure out how to meet the challenge of growing their business quickly. Fifty graduate business students and a group of corporate executives will work with them to write business plans and otherwise help with their expansion.

The Idea Village created the workshop, called the IDEAcorps Challenge, with three goals in mind. The primary goal is to grow the local businesses, said Tim Williamson, president of the Idea Village.

But Williamson said the program's secondary and tertiary goals of providing hands-on experience to graduate business students and introducing them to New Orleans in the hopes that they might consider living and working here are just as important.

"Because of the economy, New Orleans is now a becoming a good place to work," Williamson said. "We want to use this as a recruiting tool."

The students, from the University of Chicago, the University of California at Berkeley, Northwestern University, DePaul University and Stanford University, paid their own way to visit the city during spring break. They will get a taste of New Orleans through tours, meetings with officials and dinners with residents.

The students and a team of executives from the California company salesforce.com will each be matched with one local entrepreneur.

The team assigned, for instance, to Don Kelly Productions will help the New Orleans firm devise a plan to pull off the city's first "green" music festival later this year.

The teams will meet from Monday through Friday to help each company craft a business strategy. Also participating in the weeklong workshop are local firms Alternative Housing Support Corp., Sustainable Environmental Enterprises and InSite.

"At the end of the day, we're looking at how to generate the highest impact for the entrepreneur," Williamson said.