Today I had the amazing opportunity to have lunch with Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, and Eric Hippeau, HuffPo CEO! The two were at Harvard Business School for the day because HBS first-years were doing the HuffPo case in class today (HBS uses the “case method”, where they study cases of different companies rather than learning from textbooks). Sometimes the case “protagonists” visit the class on the day the students are doing their case, so today Arianna and Eric came to visit!
Since I’ve been admitted to HBS (via the 2+2 Program which means with a 2-year deferral- I’ll be working on HC full-time for two years after graduation this May before starting at HBS in fall 2012), a professor there invited me to sit in on today’s class as well as attend a lunch with Arianna and Eric and a few other media-oriented HBS students beforehand! It was really an incredible opportunity- I am constantly astounded by all of the amazing people I have been able to meet just by being at Harvard and taking some initiative to take advantage of everything that goes on here.
It was incredible to speak with Arianna and Eric and hear about HuffPo from the inside, and to talk to them about the current state of the media industry and hear their insights on what the media industry should do moving forward. It was so interesting and I was also able to learn a ton and get a ton of ideas that will be helpful for HC. Basically it was an AMAZING day.
So that was exciting enough, but I was even MORE excited when I got back to my computer tonight (after a DG meeting and then a friend’s 21st birthday celebration) and saw that Arianna had tweeted a pic of me and the other HBS students with her and Eric at the lunch! You can follow Arianna on Twitter (@ariannahuff) and check out the TwitPic from the HBS lunch below and here (I’m on the far right). I thought this was so cool :)
You can also follow me on Twitter if you want! (@stephaniekaplan)
Hope everyone else had equally exciting days!
This pic is from http://twitpic.com/1f82nq