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Real Life Business Education: Too Many Internets

2011-01-31T23:28:00.003-05:00

Last Year, author Ray Bradbury famously said that there are "too many internets". This was part of a crazy rant that he recorded on this blog. I'm not exactly sure what Bradbury meant by too many internets, but it turns out he was right... sort of. We actually have too many registered internet addresses.

This is a strange concept. We often hear about the capacity limiting constraints of legacy hardware or fiber, but addresses? It seems like they should just be able to add a digit or something. Unfortunately the current IP naming conventions were developed over thirty years ago when the internet was still just a closed experiment accessible only to US government agencies and a few Universities. And now... in 2010, we experiencing a famine of IP addresses.

According a Wall Street Journal article, help is on the way. Apparently help, is a new naming system call IPv6, which will allow a "near infinite" number of internet addresses. The catch is that most of the hardware out there that is more than just a few years old isn't compatible. So begins the long upgrade. I guess the one positive thing is that internet hardware and devices are typically upgraded often.

So, will we run out of IP addresses? The techie folks say that it's unlikely, however, that is only because companies began to prepare for the end of addresses a few years ago. Thanks companies- your making us all realize that Ray Bradbury's comments were just as dumb as they originally sounded after all.

Cheers!

Real Life Business Education: The State of the Union

2011-01-15T23:08:00.001-05:00

Unlike most people, I actually enjoy watching politicians give speeches. But, it' not for the speech itself. I think what I enjoy is thinking about all of the work that went into a speech behind the scene. Let me explain...

In President Barack Obama's latest State of the Union address, he talked a lot about things that democrats would normally shy away from- things like tort reform, lowering the corporate tax rate, and spending cuts. You see, Obama and his staff know that they cannot continue to push a democratic agenda when they don't have a majority in the house and senate as well as the presidency. So, instead they are shifting the administration's stance to a much more moderate one. In doing so, they are offering to go after some traditionally conservative ideas to send a message to the republicans. That is- if you don't play nice, the public is going to see you as the bad guys. Why? Because we have already brought up several ideas that are catered to the right. So, if we can compromise, you can too- right?

It's the messaging. Messaging is a core business principle. Companies message customers with their pricing and customer service message. Companies even message each other with their sales. You know the "low cost guarantee"? It's just a message to the competition that lowering their price won't win them any business- it's just a way to avoid a price war.

So, from the president of the US to Wal-Mart, the speeches and actions all contain hidden meanings. Now that you know, maybe you will enjoy listening to politicians talk as well.

Real Life Business Education: Healthcare

2011-01-10T16:30:00.000-05:00

Now that I am finished with my Business Education I have begun to seriously think about what kind of career I would like to pursue. It seems strange to still be talking about "what I want to do when I grow up" at age 30, but here I am. Getting your MBA makes you feel like the possibilities are endless, like you could join any company or industry and add value- that they would be lucky to have you. Not because your something special, but because you have taken the time to learn and understand the core principles of what makes a business tick.

While contemplating my future, the thought of working in healthcare has often crossed my mind. You can actually get an MBA in Healthcare management, but the Business Education I received is enough to consider joining this industry as well.

So why is it attractive?

Two reasons:

1) Healthcare is growing - with the passing of Obama's Healthcare Bill, there are certainly going to be many jobs being created in the coming years. These new employees will need leaders and managers to... well lead and manage them.

2) The greater good. One of the hardest thing about my current job is that it has no real moral value. At the end of the day I am helping a company increase it's profits so people holding it's stock can be a little richer. I don't think there any shame in that, but there isn't an extreme amount of pride either- don't get me wrong... I love my job and the company I am employed with. But to know the work that I did enabled the healing of the sick would be pretty cool.

So, we'll see. I have a lot of thinking to do and with today's norms in employment, I have a few more careers ahead of me :)

MBA Degree - Check!

2011-01-05T22:38:00.000-05:00

First, let me apologize. My entries have been fewer than I normally like-hopefully that will change soon.

You see, I have been given a gift of time. About 15-20 hours a week to be exact. I have this time because just a few weeks ago I attended the last class required to obtain my MBA degree. Yes, that's right! I have graduated! It seems like just yesterday I was writing my description for this blog "applying, attending, and one day graduating from Business School". Well, I'm happy to say that day has come. I am done.

It's funny though, it still hasn't sunk in. I'm still extremely protective over my free time and I have that eerie feeling that I am forgetting to do something. But I'm not. Now I can spend my time doing home improvement projects, catching up on the mail, and hanging out with my dog... and wife.

People keep asking me what I am doing that I have all of this free time. The truth is that I now play 5-10 hours of video games a week and get 1-1.5 hours more sleep per night- I think both of these are very positive things.

...meanwhile on the job front, I was promoted just days after graduating. I don't think it had a whole lot to do with finishing school, but I'm certain that school allowed me to get to a position to be promoted. Yes, I am definitely enjoying the fruits of a very laborious 2.5 years. And soon I will begin paying for that fruit (tuition) at a very reasonable interest rate.

But, it has been worth it. Along with my latest promotion came an increase in salary equal to my monthly student loan payment. What an amazing thing in the current economy- I am truly blessed.

Verizon is using their MBA

2010-12-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

I recently noticed that Verizon Wireless applied some typical MBA know how to their pricing scheme for smart phones. The old data options from Verizon were to either buy an unlimited everything (data, text, pix, and flix), or a multimedia package (text, pix, and flix). The former was $29.99, while the latter was $9.99. What this essentially did is charge light users of data the same as very heavy users and there was no difference in speed that was offered.

Verizon’s latest pricing includes differentiation in price for total data used for a month and connection speed. The premium is for faster service and/or greater data usage.

This is a concept affectionately referred to as price discrimination. They figured out that different folks are using their bandwidth differently and thus value that bandwidth differently. Now, its not pure discrimination because VZW is actually offering slightly differentiated products, but they are essentially charging different customers different prices based on their willingness to pay.

Other examples of price discrimination include a student or senior discount, in-state college tuition, and corporate discounts. In all of these situations businesses are trying to increase their overall profitability by selling to people at the maximum price they are willing to pay.

Obviously Verizon has a few MBA graduates on their payroll. Nice work VZW.

Lessons from Business School - Economic Value Estimate

2010-12-07T23:29:00.000-05:00

The Chevy Volt was recently released for mass production and will soon be available at a Chevrolet dealer near you. This car has been released to much fanfare and is being hailed as the first electric car that he general public will purchase. The biggest reason for this is the vehicle’s range on a single battery charge.

About a year ago, I read about the Volt and was very excited about the prospect of a legitimate electric car. After reviewing the specs and the range, the first thought I had before I could decide if I would purchase pone is “how much is Chevy going to charge?” A year later Chvy announced a price of approximately $40,000 for the vehicle (depending on options). The announcement of the price was timed very well with the pricing class that I began back in September. One of the very first concepts that we learned will allow me to share a very valuable Business School lesson with you…. The EVE (Economic Value Estimate).

The framework is actually pretty simple. You just take the price of the closest alternative, add the difference in benefit (positive or negative), and adjust for qualitative factors such as a fast adoption product strategy. Here’s a quick back of the envelope on how the Volt may have been priced…

Folks who buy the volt are probably the same people who bought a Toyota Prius, Civic EX, or Focus Ltd. So let’s tak the value fo these cars on average… say $24,000. Now add the cost savings that an owner would experience using electricity instead of gasoline over the expected useful life the car (Let’s say 10 years at $1,000/year). So now we have $24,000 + $10,000. Finally, add in the reduced maintenance costs and some amount for the novelty of owning the first mainstream electric vehicle. Let’s say that amounts to ~$8,000 over the life of ownership. The grand total is $24k + $10k + 8K… $42K. $42K is the price ceiling (the highest price that should be chosen for the vehicle based on the value it represents to a potential owner. The floor is the cost of the next best alternative, or $24,000 in this case. Chevy should then choose a place in this spectrum depending on their strategic goals. Since Chevy is just recovering from bankruptcy and the popularity of the Volt is high, the price they chose seems reasonable. If they wanted to push inventory a bit more to gain some sales momentum, the may have priced $2k, $4k, or $6k lower.

It will be interesting to see how the Volt does… about 1 year from today, we will see if the Volt’s pricing analysts got their money’s worth from their respective business schools.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong – Finally, Hong Kong

2010-12-03T23:23:00.000-05:00

A group of four of us left our hotel with a driver and a guide named Sunny. It wasn’t very long that we realized Sunny was probably just as excited to be going to Hong Kong as we were – I don’t think she actually gets over there much.

It was starting to get dark as we approached the border. 30 minutes later it was pitch black as we made our way from the boarer into Hong Kong. We arrived in the city and finally landed in Lan Kwai Fong. We spent the first 30 minutes exploring the general area before we finally found an outdoor courtyard with a few different restaurants. As we walked into the courtyard, several restaurant owners/workers met us with menus and began attempting to persuade us to eat at their respective establishments. We settled on Thai and enjoyed a nice meal for only about $10 per person. The food meal I ordered ended up being some of the best Thai curry I’ve had.

For the rest of the night, the group of us hopped through a few bars, explored a few streets, and tried to stay dry. Did I mention it was raining?

The night actually ended pretty early… at around 10PM everyone in the group headed back to the JW Marriot and I checked into the Metro Park hotel in Kowloon Hong Kong. I spent the next day there as well before catching an evening flight out of HKG. With a full belly from all the bakeries and restaurants I visited in Hong Kong I rode the hotel shuttle back to the airport. I got there with plenty of time to spare and boarded the plane for home.

On the way home, I couldn’t help but to be excited about all I had learned. This trip truly was a real life business education. From my time in Beijing to the rainy streets of Hong Kong, I had the opportunity to entrench myself in a new culture and business on a continent that a week earlier had seemed light years away. This was a very valuable trip.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong – Shenzhen

2010-12-01T23:21:00.000-05:00

I woke up around 7AM on Friday and headed over for a meeting in downtown Shenzhen. The meeting was on the 50^th floor of a high rise glass and steel building – incredible views. This was the first chance I had to actually go inside one of the Shenzhen sky scrapers that had been thrown up at break neck speed. At first glance, the building looked like something you would find in an upscale part of a US city. The lobby was large and open and there was an Illy coffee stand near the elevators. A key card was required to go to the elevator lobby and people were dressed business casual for the most part.

Once up to the 50^th floor, I began to inspect the building more closely. Behind the sealed concrete floors and glass walls, doors, and cubicles, was some pretty shotty construction. Cables were exposed on the walls and simply painted over. The corners and thresh-holds didn’t quite line up right, and the windows and doors weren’t all straight. As I stared out the window at the sweeping views, I began to wonder what would happen if there was an earthquake.

After the last meeting ended, we headed back to the JW Marriot and got ready for evening trip to Hong Kong.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong – Growing Pains

2010-11-14T11:25:00.001-05:00

We woke up early Thursday morning and headed down to the breakfast area of the JW Marriot in Shenzhen. The main breakfast area was set up as an elaborate buffet. There were different stations for pastries, egg based dishes, fruit, yogurt, Asian breakfast, and various other hot food selections. The entire time I ate, there was a young man standing about 5-10 feet from the table just waiting for my water glass to dip below the half-way point, or for me to ask for an additional fork, or something else. This level of service was something that permeated the hotel.

After breakfast, we were met by a driver who would be taking us to a meeting that was about 2 hours outside of the city. We boarded the van (waters in hand) and headed for the most remote part of China I would see on the visit. Between our hotel and the meeting site, we saw every level of poverty and wealth. We saw hundreds if not thousands of high rise buildings going up in every direction as we left the city. Most of these buildings fell into one of two categories… shiny and new or in utter disrepair. This is probably the result of a typical Shenzhen alternative to maintenance- tear it down and build something new. After about 75 minutes of nothing but sprawling city we began to see some of the surrounding area. We saw large suspension bridges that lead to Hong Kong, existing and construction to build new ports, and lots of water. We passed by recently renovated areas that are intended for the 2010 Asian games just a few miles from complete neighborhoods of shanties. We also saw several small pools of water that were being aerated.

That 2 hour ride gave me a view of what unrestricted growth coupled with government incentives and an artificially low currency can accomplish. It was truly amazing, but I din’t see one area along that route that I would actually want to live. Water and air pollution are rampant, structural and personal safety are in question, and there was a general feeling of filth just about everywhere (except in the shiny new buildings).

We arrived at the meeting at about 10AM and wrapped up just in time for lunch. We had a nice lunch at a local restaurant where stuck mainly to vegetarian and pork dishes- save for one pigeon soup. After lunch we headed back he same way we came, and at 4:30PM I walked back in the door of the JW Marriot – safe and sound in a luxurious bubble.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong – An Adolescent Economy

2010-11-10T13:27:00.001-05:00

I spent my third and final day in Beijing wrapping up the process improvement project that started on Monday, and talking with our legal group that looks after all of China. I packed my bags early that morning and had them loaded in the van so we could go straight to the airport at about 3PM.

We arrived at Beijing International Airport about 2 hours early for the flight. We were booked on China Southern out of Terminal 1 (not the beautiful new terminal that was built for the Beijing Olympic Games). From the time I entered the airport in Beijing to the time I arrived in my Shenzhen hotel, I saw a different side of China. Up to this point I has spent my time in a luxury apartment building, in a van with a personal driver, or with technology companies. This part of the trip seemed a bit more authentic.

After checking in for our seats, we headed to the security check in. The check in was a mess of lines moving at different speeds with X-ray machines and tons of airport staff. The carry-on scanner in my particular line broke just after I had reached a place in the line that made it difficult to exit and move to a faster one. About 30 minutes later I made it through to the metal detector. The metal detector might as well have been a door way, because it went off on every person in every line. Shortly after the metal detector, I stepped up to a platform where I was patted down – it seems that pat downs were standard operating procedure. Finally, after about 45 total minutes, I exited the security area and headed to my gate.

The gate area was old and dirty, over a jet-way style walking bridge and down a large set of stairs, it felt more like a rundown bus station than an airport. Ironically, we exited the airport and boarded a bus for our plane. While walking up the tall metal staircase to the door of the China Southern aircraft, I noticed some patchwork that had been performed on the wings. It was blended in to be unnoticeable like it would be in the States or Europe.

The plane itself was slightly dirty, but generally what could be expected of an aircraft that flies 2-3 hour segments. We took off and I put my faith in the pilots and a whole aviation system that I knew absolutely nothing about. The flight itself was rather uneventful- I watched a Chinese movie with subtitles about the heir of a Macau casino fortune losing his inheritance. When it came time to land, the pilot lowered the landing gear and touched the plane down. Immediately upon landing, the plane began to vibrate heavily. It literally sounded like the overhead bins were going to detach from the plane. After about 45 seconds of uncontrollable vibration, the plane reached a taxi speed and we slowly made our way to the gate.

After disembarking, we claimed our bags (rather uneventful) and headed out to meet our driver. After about an hour and 5 phone calls to our local contact, we gave up on the driver and hopped in a cab. Our local contact was kind of to tell the cab driver in Cantonese that we needed to be taken to the JW Marriot in Shenzhen. We arrived 30 minutes later at our hotel glad to have survived a 70MPH dodge and dash in a tiny geo metro sized cab.

After being shown to my posh room, I reflected on the day’s events. The first 3 days of my trip I was extremely impressed with the shiny new China that I saw in Beijing, but for the last 8 hours or so, I had seen the side of China that is struggling to grow up (i.e. the imbalanced quality at the airport, the different standards of a domestic airline, and the cab driver who was obviously used to driving in “war zone” traffic. It seemed while I was getting my business education in China, they were in the midst of getting theirs.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong Kong – Shiny Imported Cars

2010-11-06T01:22:00.000-04:00

The second stop of the day was to a second vendor who we do slightly more business with. After the old-school meeting we had at the previous location I was ready for more unique China Experiences. This is where my Chinese Business Education took a turn. What I noticed immediately with this second vendor was how nice there offices and cars were. Also, the size of their staff seemed to be inflated as well. As I began to notice these things, I thought back to a few months earlier when this particular vendor had quoted some very high prices when we were in a pinch. I think I know where the money went…

And this seems to be the way it goes in China. The man who pays the first price he is offered in China is a fool of fools. Just before leaving for the second vendor visit of the day, I had an opportunity to go the Silk Market. The Silk Market is a 5 story market place where individual sellers can’t rent booths and sell to the general public. You can buy everything from knock off clothes, to chess boards, to music as long as you have the patience to negotiate a price because this place was all about the bartering. I bought a few things, and the final price that I paid was approximately 20% of the asking price- and I probably got ripped off. The takeaway is that while the Silk Market is a bit extreme because of its size and the number of tourists walking through, it really isn’t that far off of the way business is done in China.

Rewind to the business dealings where my company didn’t push back on the pricing and you have a fine explanation of how the vendor can afford beautiful office space, nice cars, and a large staff with lots of “marketing” people.

Business lesson learned.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong Kong – Tea Time

2010-11-05T01:16:00.000-04:00

My second day in Beijing was dedicated to two visits to external vendors that I have been working with for about the last year, but have never met in person.

My driver picked us up at around 7AM and we promptly left for the first vendor’s office. We trudged through the typical Beijing traffic for about 45 minutes before ending up in an area just outside of the Beijing Airport (NE section of the city). As we made our way down side streets, we began to notice a bit more “culture” than we had seen in either the business district or the area around the hotel.

Our driver kept glancing down at the address for the vendor that an admin had translated into Chinese as he was driving in what appeared to be circles. After about 10 minutes of sporadic turns and confusion, the driver pulled off on a side street and asked a taxi driver for directions. About 5 minutes later we pulled into a 10 story building and made our way up to our vendor’s office.

Upon entering, we were immediately whisked into the Vice GM’s office by my contact. My contact (our account Manager) translated for the Vice GM as he talked to us about the core values of the business that he had helped start. As he explained in a soft Mandarin, he served us an amazing green tea in very small cups- constantly refilling as the minutes went by. I think I must have had 12 cups of tea by the time the meeting was over. Towards the end, we talked about some minor process improvement changes that I had thought about implementing, took a brief tour of their facility, and were on our way.

Just before leaving, the account manager offered to take us on a tour of the Great Wall. After trying 3 different times to explain that our schedule was too tight for any touring of any sort, I simply acknowledged the offer, and said thank you. I think that was the right way to handle it.

After the first meeting, we loaded ourselves into the van and headed back to our office. Next stop in the China Business Education was a second vendor and an organized company dinner…

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong Kong – Work begins in Beijing

2010-11-04T14:30:00.001-04:00

I arrived at our Beijing office at approximately 8:45AM this morning, got set up with a desk, and walked into my first meeting at 10:00AM. One of the primary reasons for this trip was to coordinate process improvement with a team that interacts with my team and several of our partners in the US offices. I originally set the meeting up with the person who I have often interacted with and her boss. This meeting shed some light on a cultural difference that existed between my office and the Beijing office. Let the business education begin.

What I found is that the manager is fully accountable in our Beijing office, whereas individual contributors are empowered and accountable in the US offices. As the meeting went on, my primary contact hardly said a word. In fact, she even declined future meetings on the same topic. This seemed odd to me given the corporate culture I’m used to, but when in Beijing… The goal of this initial meeting was to have introductions and map out the current process that I wanted to improve. Mission accomplished.

After a nice lunch at a Cantonese restaurant, I spent the rest of the afternoon meeting with various people in the Beijing office including the Finance director. The finance director explained the intricacies of getting money into and out of China and the difference in business climate. It turns out that our company isn’t nearly as well known in China as they are in the rest of the world. After the last meeting, we called our driver and headed back to the hotel. We later ate dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant with one of the Beijing colleagues where turtle soup and snake were on the menu- we stayed mostly vegetarian. After that we wrapped up the first day of my Chinese business education.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong Kong – Setting up in Beijing

2010-11-03T12:00:00.001-04:00

My plane touched down in Beijing at approximately 4:00PM local time. The plane parked at a gate in Terminal 3, which was the terminal built for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Immediately upon exiting the jet way I was struck by the sheer size of the terminal. It was one giant room with sloping cold and red lines on the ceiling. I knew instantly that Beijing was somewhere special to be.

My first interaction with a Chinese official was the customs agent who screened me upon arrival. He wore a very official navy blue uniform and held an emotionless straight face, that is until he saw my passport picture. My passport picture was actually taken in Dublin at about 8AM after a 3 hour train ride from Cork- so needless to say that it isn’t the best picture. So, this agent of the scary communist government that I’ve heard so much about chuckled a bit and passed me through. This was the beginning of my realization that the view I had of China prior to my visit there would not be the one I would leave with.

I exited the baggage claim area to sea of people and drivers holding signs with names and companies from around the globe. I found my name and my driver and headed out. The number of people I passed in that airport on the way out probably exceeds the population of some US cities- there were so many people.

Soon after leaving the airport, we hit traffic. Traffic, as I discovered is as Beijing as Tienanmen Square. About 45 minutes later I arrived at my hotel. I arrived at the front desk and was promptly greeted by two young Chinese women who spoke very good English. They gave me my room keys and told me to call if I needed anything at all. I headed up the West tower of the hotel to my room, got settled, and headed down to the lobby area to see what business were still open in the hotel complex.

I found a small Pan-Asian restaurant where I ordered soup and curry. Turns out the order could have fed 4 people, but I still got out for $12 including a beer. After dinner I found an on-site masseuse who for $55 gave me a 90 minute full body massage followed by a 60 minute foot massage. Relaxed beyond belief, I headed up to my room and promptly fell asleep.

Real Life Business Education: China & Hong Kong

2010-11-01T23:48:00.002-04:00

Right now, I am sitting in seat 12A of a Boing 767-300 looking at a flight status map with cities like Shenyang, Dandong, Dalian, and Beijing. According to another screen, my plane will be touching down in Beijing (after 768 more miles) in approximately 1 hour and 44 minutes at 3:34PM local time.

I will be spending the next 7 days in China and Hong Kong working with internal company teams, external partners, and vendors. Talk about a real life business education…

Traveling this far for work is a first for me. In fact, this is the first time I have ever traveled for work that wasn’t centered on training or some sort of career enrichment event. Needless to say I am very excited… very excited for the opportunity to work cross functionally with an overseas team, excited to meet the external partners and vendors that I have slowly been building relationships with over the past 9 months, and excited to be visiting Asia for the very first time.

I know that I have not been the most consistent and publishing entries lately, but I promise to write at least every other day I am here. I will write about the differences in business culture, funny mishaps, and anything else I think you may find interest in hearing about. In the event that I am unable to publish to blogger from China, I will push all of my entries through from Hong Kong – I get there on 11/03.

Stay tuned for more…

Lessons from Business School: Power Pricing

2010-10-20T13:44:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in my last entry, I am taking a pricing class this quarter. I just couldn't see leaving business school without a pricing class.

The professor is out of the Kellogg School of and is one of those Profs who is purely academic- meaning he has never worked a day in his life. His lack of experience definitely hurts his credibility among an Evening MBA (mostly employed)class, but I have noticed that there are several valuable nuggets in each class.

The first class in particular really helped drive home the importance of valus in pricing. The framework goes something like this...

Customers are willing to pay a certain price for something that they value. The price that they will pay is determined by two conditions. Their purchasing power and their preference for one product as compared to a basket of alternatives. For example, to determine how much a customer who must procure transportation is willing to pay for a Honda Accord a "power pricer" would do the following.

Determine the utility that a buyer gets from all forms of transportation (public transit, cars, trucks, etc.). Find the alternatives that provide the best value to the customer and then determine how much more or less value the Honda Accord bring them. add or subtract an amount for that added/reduced value and you will arrive at a good price.

What's described above can be expressed more mathematically as... the price of a Honda Accord should be less than or equal to the value of aclose alternative +/- the difference in value between that alternative and the Honda Accord. The price can then be adjusted to fit a particularly pricing strategy (i.e. lower price if a company is new and aggressively trying to take market share).

...well that's today's lesson from Business School.

Independent Study – A Business Education Option

2010-09-29T13:15:00.002-04:00

As an Evening MBA student the curriculum is somewhat pared down to ensure that you are only taking classes that are essential. This is how an individual is able to complete two years of schooling at ½ the pace in only 50% more time (That’s 2 classes at a time instead of 4 in 3 years instead of 2). Since the schedule is pared down, I have made every attempt to take classes that I really feel are worth the ~$3000 each that I pay in tuition. This quarter I am doing something that I considered to be a waste of that $3000 only 2 short years ago… an Independent study course.

So, why am I choosing to steer my business education in this direction? Especially when I am in the last quarter of my program? Well, because I wanted an opportunity to use all of the different things I have learned across disciplines on one project.

The Independent study project that I will be completing this quarter is a farm to table delivery service. I made sure to include a full fledged marketing, operations, and financial plan as part of my project requirements. Obviously a certain amount of business strategy will also be involved in the project. I am doing this because the Evening Business Education often lacks a capstone course. Full time students usually have an internship and also complete large projects at the end of their program- there are no real equivalents for evening students unless you make your own way- hence the inspiration to do an independent study.

I look forward to keeping you updated on the project throughout the quarter in addition to my classes. Hopefully the lessons I’ve learned while spending the last two years in classes and close to $60,000 will prove to be valuable. Looks like we are going to find out together :)

Heading Back to Business School – One Last Time!

2010-09-24T19:33:00.001-04:00

Hello, it has been almost a year since my last blog entry! First, let me apologize for taking so long to write- it has been a crazy year. Since my last entry, I was hired on permanently at the hi-tech company I mentioned interviewing for in my last entry. Then I got a taste of the 60 hour work week. This combined with business school worked out to a temporary hiatus for this blog.

So, here’s what happened this past year... I moved from core classes to electives, which has allowed me to concentrate in Finance. I’ve taken classes like Entrepreneurial Finance and Problems in Corporate Financial Planning as a part of that emphasis. In these classes, I focused on things like establishing a healthy growth rate, financial forecasting, capital structure for corporations, venture capital, and more. Most of this work was case based and a solid challenge. Another highlight was a leadership course centered on the 6-domains leadership model. The class was half academic and half workshop – very practical.

So where does that leave me? Well, it leaves me with 1 quarter of business school remaining! I graduate in about 11 weeks. Amazing. It seems like just yesterday I was blogging about my experience taking the GMAT. Now, I am ready to hit the road – MBA in hand. So, look forward to some more entries this quarter. Topics will be centered around pricing, a business idea that I am pitching as an independent study, and as always current events in the business world.

So stay tuned… there is a lot to say as I head back for my final quarter of business School.

7:45 AM Tomorrow

2009-09-24T23:28:00.000-04:00

I think I wrote in a previous entry that I recently interviewed for a permanent position with my current employer. I have been a contractor for the last 10 weeks or so...

Well, I received an e-mail today from my manager asking that I meet with her tomorrow morning at 07:45 AM. This is 5 days before she said I would get an answer on the interviews. As soon as I got the e-mail I felt nervous. I started immediately going through a mental list of possibilities.

Here is what I came up with....

1. The other candidates that were interviewed for the position weren't up to par and I am going to be offered the position.

2. The other candidates were far better than me and I am going to be told that I am no longer in the running.

3. The number I put in under "expected salary" on the pre-interview questionnaire was too high.

4. Something completely unrelated to the interviews.

I have gone over this list several times in my head and have come to an extremely novel conclusion... Are you ready for this?

I can't change the interviews and there is nothing I can do about what will be discussed tomorrow, so I need to let it go. I have tried very hard to do this and have mostly succeeded as of about 3:00 this afternoon.

Now, back to the business of preparing for school to start up again in 2 days!

My schedule this quarter is a bit weird. All of the classes are 2 or 3 credits so none of them meet on consistent days. One Tuesday I may have Spreadsheet Modeling and Business Strategy while the next I might have Ops management. This is instead of having 2 of the classes split the quarter. It is very confusing...

Well, I have a few chapters to read for my first day back. See you on the flip side.

Business School Favorites. IDEO!

2009-09-21T12:31:00.000-04:00

Over the last several days I have been reading syllabuses, putting old school work in binders, buying outrageously expensive books, and getting my mind ready to start another quarter in business school. However, tonight I want to reminisce a bit about one of the best things I have seen in business school. It is a video about a firm called IDEO.

IDEO is a consumer product design firm that is located in Chicago (they recently moved from the silicon valley). That isn't the interesting part though. The interesting part is how IDEO develops new product designs and how they run their company.

They develop new product designs by putting together small teams of people with extremely diverse professional backgrounds. You might see a team with an ex-school teacher, an aerospace engineer, a paleontologist, a dentist, and a CFA on it. For the most part there are no hierarchical rules on the team and everyone is expected to come up with their own quirky ideas. They have a specific process for designing which involves a research phase, brainstorming phase, building phase, and refinement phase. During the whole process, the "adults" guide the group and insert deadlines. The adults are a few people picked to ensure projects stay on task.

The company culture is also very interesting. If you walk inside IDEO's offices you will see the wing of a DC-3 pertruding from the wall, bicycles strung up on the ceiling, and umbrellas blocking the glare on computer screens. Employees at IDEO are encouraged to build their workspces in a way that suits them. This produces the aforementioned decor and lots of other crazy stuff. It also gives employees a sens of ownership, and a say in how their company works.

The interesting thing is that IDEO is not only a design shop... they have also been tapped to offer advice on transforming company culture. The video that I link to above says that IDEO may be the workplace of the future. Well, it has been a few years since the video was filmed and I still don't see an airplane wing in my workplace, but maybe we have headed bit more in that direction.

Enjoy this business school favorite!

Business School at Work: Project Management

2009-09-19T18:06:00.001-04:00

I recently had the opportunity to interview for a permanent position at the place I have been a contractor for the last 2 months. During one of the interviews, the hiring manager (my current boss) said that she would like the person who fills the open role to design a road-map for the team to use as a development guide. She shared her goal for our team, which manages the supply chain of high value IT assets, to become 1st class and then world class. I thought her definitions of both of these were interesting. By her definition...

1st class means that your customers trust you more than themselves.
World class means other groups model their teams after you.

Anyway, owning something like this sounds a lot like project management to me. And although there are many certified project management professionals, I am finding more and more that it is something many of us have to learn OTJ (on the job). It's real life Business School.

My ideas feeding into this road-map mainly center around data acquisition, vendor management, and supply vs. demand analysis.

1. The data acquisition piece has to do with ensuring systems are in place that deliver accurate and timely data about the supply chain. Currently we have some of this, but the systems aren't always reliable. Hence, some of the data is outdated and some is just plain wrong. In other cases, the data we want measured and recorded might exist somewhere, but systems still need to be developed to deliver it to us.

2. The vendor management piece is something that has already been a big focus, but a supply chain team should be able to make strong recommendations to the group procuring assets on why they should or shouldn't choose a particular vendor. We should also be able to inform the contract creation process by providing specific terms for inclusion.

3. Analysis of supply vs. demand is the last piece. Basically, this one is making sure the internal customers are ordering the product in the right amount and at the right time to meet their demand while allowing some flex for unexpected business.

In all of the above items, whoever holds the new position will be driving the processes and tool development. Seems like a great opportunity to extend business school into the work place.

Business School in Real Life: A little bit of Customer Service Goes a Long Way

2009-09-16T20:09:00.002-04:00

I just got back from a very productive and pleasing trip downtown. I was able to get a new watch that was recently given to me adjusted and come home wearing it.

My experience doing this involved a store that that has a strong emphasis on customer lifetime value and showed me that through good customer service. This is a real life business school lesson. Let me explain...

Nordstrom and the Watch Adjustment

Nordstrom's customer service is the stuff of legends. Everyone has heard the story of the elderly woman who successfully returned a car tire there or of the scores of people who have returned shoes after years of wear. Although those things sound extraordinary, what impresses me is the small stuff. Today was an example.

I walked up to the men's watch counter with a brand new Seiko watch and asked if they could fit the watch. The young lady behind the counter very politely said that she would and measured my wrist. She then took the watch and the box and told me she could have it done in 5 or 10 minutes. I browsed the men's department while I waited and returned to find the watch fitting perfectly. I asked the young lady how much I owed and she said not to worry about it.

Wow! What is free in this world anymore? I walked away very impressed and in Nordstrom's debt. As a result, I will be much more likely to make a purchase there in the future and I will be telling everyone I know how great Nordstrom is because they helped me out with my new watch. Maybe someone I know hear's this and goes to Nordstrom to purchase their next watch. Maybe someone who had a bad experience at a lesser department store decides to give Nordstrom a shot because they just want to go to a place with good customer service. Remember, the watch was not purchased at Nordstrom. To them, it doesn't matter. They had an opportunity to make an impression on a customer and they know a positive impression is worth more than a $10 service fee. Kudos Nordstrom, and thanks for the real life business school lesson.

The Economics of Gardening

2009-09-14T01:01:00.000-04:00

Harvest season of the summer's gardening escapades has begun at my house. Today, as I was chomping away on some rainbow chard, leafy greens, and tomatoes that I grew in my back garden I began to think about whether or not the DIY project was cost effective.

Here is what went into the garden this year.

-4 boards (2"x10") for above ground planter

-8 self drilling screws for above ground planter

-30 square feet of water proof liner for under above ground planter

-60 lbs of organic soil

-seeds for 3 heads of lettuce, 3 rainbow chard plants, 4 beets, 2 snap pea plants, and 1 giant leafy green plant

-a starter tomato and cilantro plant

-organic fertilizer

-approximately 15 hours of planting, watering, and trimming labor

Assuming the labor is free, the total cost of the project was approximately $118.50. From the garden I have harvested and have yet to harvest approximately 12 salads worth of leafy greens and heads of lettuce, 90 cherry tomatoes, 30 snap peas, 4 beets, 0 cilantro (died), and 10 rainbow chard leaves.

Allocating this cost in a completely non-systematic way that is...

$8.25/ salad ($100.00 total)
$0.10/ cherry tomato ($9.00)
$0.10/snap pea ($3.00)
$1.00/beet ($4.00)
$0.25/rainbow chard leaf ($2.50)

This makes the vegetables look pretty good, but the salads quite expensive. The one thing to consider is that the cost of the boards, screws, liner, and soil is a one time cost. I guess we could make the salads about $4.00 each then.

Well, the point is that I have discovered that if you garden it is not to save money. It is definitely because you enjoy fresh vegetables and enjoy trimming tomato plants. I actually discovered the latter to be true of myself. Conclusion? Gardening is not an economically sound practice for the average Joe, but it is worth it!

Bon Appetit

Business School (Part II)

2009-09-10T00:46:00.000-04:00

It has been several weeks since I gave my final presentation in the summer management class and I am again gearing up to enter the hellish schedule, arduous rigor, and delightful experience that is business school.

I'm no longer a new kid on campus, I am now a much older and wiser second year. I will be starting this year off with three courses...

Quantitative methods

Operations Management

Business Strategy

I have to be honest that I really don't know a whole lot about what these courses will entail. I have been putting off reading the syllabuses because once I know what the courses are about I will feel like I am back in school. Not quite ready to leave my vacation.

The one thing I do know is that the quantitative methods class is centered mainly around Excel modeling. This is particularly exciting for me because the job I recently started has involved a lot of work in Excel. This means that I may learn some useful things... but hopefully it also means that the class will be a light load for me. I guess I will confirm that soon.

In the mean time, I plan on enjoying the time I have left to be a normal person. I will continue to pretend that having nights and weekends off is normal and that reading books for fun is actually something I can do. I have only a few more days of bliss where I just have to work so I am going to soak them up. I will wrote again once I begin preparing for class.

Until then...

Is Business School Worth It?

2009-08-31T20:54:00.002-04:00

What do Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Jeff Bezos, and Oprah Winfrey all have in common? Well, besides being some of the richest people in the world, these four also share a statistic. There highest level of education is a four year degree.

All of these people showed promise from a young age and some would even say that they were "born to lead". That begs the question... Is business school worth it? Can leadership be taught? Is B-school just a place for smart people to network themselves to slightly more money and marginally more interesting careers. Would the successful ones be successful anyway?

My hunch is that the answer is "it depends". It really depends on the person. Yes, Oprah and Bill were ready for the world, but these people are both extraordinarily lucky and extraordinarily driven. For the vast majority of us we can benefit from the education that business school provides. In fact, if you were to ask Oprah, Schultz, Bezos, or Gates if they would trade some of their lessons in the school of hard knocks for ones taught in a lecture hall, they would probably say yes.

So is it worth it to me... I think so. I think that I have the raw stuff it takes to be a leader and I am confident that when I graduate I will be a different, less confused, developed professional. I wouldn't trade the experience and I've already grown to value it a great deal. That's a good thing, because I will need to remember that as I begin paying back the loans.

Is Amazon Taking Over the World?

2009-08-26T23:07:00.001-04:00

I was recently reading the Wikipedia entry for Amazon.com. Turns out that Bezos' Seattle army has been very busy...

In addition to becoming the world's largest online retailer, swallowing Zappos earlier this summer, and beginning to sell everything from ATV winches to Platinum Ruby & Diamond sets, they have set up a cloud computing business and a grocery delivery service.

Not bad for a company that frustrated early investors by not earning a profit for several years after its IPO. But is Amazon getting too big for it's own good? Well, let's look at the previously mentioned cloud computing and grocery delivery business to evaluate this question.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) began in early 2006 and offers several remote IT infrastructure services like data storage, a Query service, dbsase management, and even a web driven market for human computer labor called mechanical turk. At first glance it seems that Amazon is stepping a bit outside of its "core business", decidedly retail, to offer a very lucrative product like web services. But upon further investigation it begins to make sense. Amazon has been providing IT infrastructure of every sort for its internal customers for 13 years. Along the way they have figured out how to manage IT assets efficiently and keep them very reliable. So why not take that expertise and sell it to a market full of companies that really don't have any expertise in or desire to run their own IT infrastructure? Maybe not so far off course after all.

But what about groceries? Well, Amazon Fresh is still restricted to select areas of Seattle for the time being, but it also appears to leverage some of the core business strengths Amazon has developed over the last several years. Amazon fresh requires expertise in wherehouse management, delivery logistics, and customer service. These are all strengths that Amazon can pul out of its Fulfillment center human resources. Add in a little outside grocery talent like a wine guy and produce guy and your in business. It also doesn't hurt that Amazon has been offering non-perishable goods in their retail store for some time now.

The truth of the matter is that Amazon has developed an expertise at business operation over the last decade in a half and very few things are truly outside its core business anymore. So maybe we are asking the wrong question. Maybe the question we should be asking is "What is the next logical step for Amazon?". It seems this young behemoth is just getting started and if Bezos has his way we will see a lot more of Amazon in all kinds of industries. I wonder what's next...

On Break from Business School... Mac vs. PC ads

2009-08-24T23:30:00.002-04:00

I was surfing the series of tubes today and decided I would check out apple.com. To fill in those of you who haven't been following the OS wars... Apple is due to release Snow Leopard in the next week and windows is planning the Windows 7 release in October (although the RC version has been available for months). Anyway, it was a web page talking about snow leopard that got me to think about Apple and head to their site.

Once I got there, I started poking around and ended up watching some Mac vs. PC ads. Having just completed a marketing class a few months ago I have a new appreciation for the genius (pardon the pun) of these ads.

First, Apple does an amazing job of constructing the two characters that are featured in their commercials to speak to their audience...

The PC guy (left above) is a slightly out of date guy that is trying really hard to be cool. He is unsure of himself and often over compensates and exaggerates. The Mac character (right above) on the other hand is laid back and cool.

Second, the commercials usually center around a particular flaw that Apple is trying to point out to potential switchers. They do this beautifully. Items like security, dependability, and ease of use have been highlighted. These have all been good points of difference for Apple to discuss, but in their latest ad they hit the motherload when they have a consumer ask the PC guy what kind of PC she should get if she "just wants it to work". This is obviously the voice of the customer and the PC responds that all PCs have issues like viruses. Her response... "I guess I will get a Mac". Great!!!

This series of commercials has largely gone uncontested by Microsoft (the obvious target of the ads) and they seem to be working as Apple's market share has been increasing for the last few years.

If you've got some spare time and want to catch a real life business school marketing lesson, check out the ads in my link above.

Happy watching...

An MBA Degree in Relationships

2009-08-22T22:01:00.000-04:00

A few years back, while working for the sales division of Maersk Line, I had an interesting conversation with a business owner that changed my opinion of what it takes to be successful in business.

The gentlemen's name was Mel and he owned an animal feed trading company that sold most of its products to Japanese customers. Mel was telling me about a group of young men that were preparing to start an import/export business in the US and they were planning on having customers in Asia. Mel's first question to these guys when they came and asked him for advice was "Do you know someone over there?". The question wasn't how much experience do you have in this type of business or do you have any international experience. He was asking if they had an existing relationship with people that would be their business associates or customers.

This "old school" mentality flies right in the face of the "big idea" philosophy that is so popular among young business people these days. The "if you build it and its really cool, they will come" crowd. Companies like Google or Zappos seem to be very successful because of one really good idea. The part that is invisible is all of the relationships (the network) that existed when these companies formed.

So what does this mean for someone getting their MBA degree today? Well, I am taking it to mean that it is really important to build as diverse a network as possible... Not because its good to know people or because I want to use them for something some day. The point is that the more groups and individuals I interact with, the more people I will be able to connect and engage in favor exchanging with. I guess what I am trying to say without using the s word (synergy) is that building relationships with several diverse groups is beneficial for all of the parties involved. It's a win-win.

So, yes one hit wonders do happen, but most successful enterprises are forged through careful steps involving key individuals from the founder's(s') network.

Thanks Mel.

Caught up in the Pace During this MBA Vacation

2009-08-20T21:25:00.000-04:00

For the last year I have been writing about the challenges of balancing family, work, and school while pursuing an MBA. Today, I am struggling with the challenge of balancing a new job with anything else...

For the last 2 weeks work has been insane. My day starts around 7am and I am usually not leaving until close to 6pm. Then when I get home, I am often on the laptop for another couple of hours. I know I have to remember that I am still new at this job, but I honestly don't know how I am going to survive once the school year starts. So, I understand that I probably won't have the work-from-home time after a few more weeks, but I will have 8 hours of class, 4-8 hours of group meetings, and an ever occupied mind. I guess I can always think back to when I was working 13 hours a day over night when I was in operations management and be grateful, though. It could be worse.

Yes, that's it. A positive attitude goes a long way. I'm sure in 5 weeks when I am back in the swing of things with school I will be well settled into work. Then the next 15 months of school and this challenging position will prepare me for the beginning of my climb up the ladder in the corporate world. Are you convinced yet? Neither am I...

Looking Back Over Year One of Business School

2009-08-18T00:34:00.003-04:00

Since I am now officially a second year B-School student, I am ready to impart my wisdom regarding some of the key take-aways from my first year experience. Well, not quite, but I do want to share some very "high level" summaries with you.

Let me explain...

At the end of the quarter it is customary for the professor to do a course wrap up. During this wrap up it is to hear something like, "If you remember one thing from this course, it should be...". Well, those "one things" are what I want to share with you tonight.

Here you go...

Financial Accounting - If an organization or a person says something, try and think about why they would say it and how they benefit from saying it

Microeconomics - Incentives change behavior.

Statistics - Numbers can be manipulated to tell any story... and beware of averages without standard deviations.

Corporate Finance - NPV, NPV, NPV, NPV... oh yeah, and it's really hard to predict cash flows, establish a discount rate, or beat the market.

Open Innovation - The user community can sometimes be a company's best and cheapest form of R & D.

Managerial Accounting - You get what you measure... and ROI is a pretty good measure of performance.

Marketing - If your going to make a reccomendation about marketing strategy, you better have numbers that tell you the size (units/$$$$) of the opportunity. If you don't, you better be very good about making it up... and thank your customers.

OK, so a few of them were two things... but you get the picture. That's the first year of Business School in a nut... walnut shell. Enjoy!

Summer Installment of Business School comes to a Close

2009-08-15T21:18:00.001-04:00

On Wednesday night my group gave our final presentation for the management class we have been taking all summer. We are finally done!

The presentation was on an HBS case about a P & G employee by the name of Lisa Benton. She had turned down a lucrative offer at a small firm in return for some classical marketing training from P & G. However, after 4 months in the program, a rookie boss, an abrasive colleague, and a cultural misunderstanding later she is less than satisfied with the training and the future potential. The presentation centered around the problems that had come up in her short tenure and a recommendation for a path to success. The short version of that recommendation was, "buck up and use your network". After all, Lisa was a graduate of Harvard Business School.

The professor seemed to like it so we all went out for drinks afterwards to celebrate. It was a long summer.

Now, I am looking straight ahead to 6 weeks of freedom from school. It will be a chance to really turn a corner with my new employer and get some rest in general. My wife and I are already planning our weekend get away.

I will return in the fall for a business spreadsheet modeling course and a macro-economics class. Then it's back to the grind. Hopefully I will recharge adequately over the next several days in order to handle it. The vacations never are long enough...

But this is what I signed up for when I decided to do business school at night. I knew about all of it, the 16 hour days, the forgetting what your wife lookes like, the endless projects, papers, and group work. The first 12 months have officially ended and I'm a bonified 2nd year. 16 months and counting...

Business School: Summer Session is Wrapping Up

2009-07-31T23:47:00.000-04:00

Thursday marked the end of one of the most interesting classes that I have ever taken. The course was called "Rationality and Irrationality of Consumer Choices" and was Taught by Eric Uhlmann.

The first question that he asked the class (a group of business school students taking a Psych class) was, "Do you guys general consider consumers to be rational actors?". I didn't quite get what his point was, but after 8 classes with him I now understand that he was calling into question how rational human behavior really is.

This basic question forces you to look at your own decision making process. From behavior it is logical to work backwards into what drives behavior, that is judgements. Social judgements was really the crux of the course and also the name of Eric's website.

We covered things like associations and the automatic thin-slicing that our brains do when we see an individual. This thin-slicing causes us to associate people of color, white people, Puerto Ricans, women, muslims, jews, tall people, fat people, or engineers with certain characteristics based on our past experiences. We are wired to do this because thinking through every judgement we make would cause the simplist of decisions to be very complex.

We also covered moral outrage. An example of moral outrage is evident in primates and humans when a realatively unequal payment is made for services. In primates this is tested by giving the chimp a piece of fruit at regular intervals for doing a task. After doing this for some time another chimp is brought in and given more food for doing the same task. This experiment has resulted in the original chimp throwing the food at the handler and stopping the task.

So the question is asked, is this rational? If the food was payment enough, why is the chimp upset when he is contuing to get the same reward (which he deemed adequate) for the same work?

Not that people are chims, but the parallels that can be drawn here are obvious.

Eric challenged us to think of consumers as irrational and biased creatures that are subject to the whims of their own mind tricks. He also showed us that we as leaders are succepptible to the shortcuts that our mind takes as well. Not all of the parallels are as obvious as the moral outrage example given above, but we could usually apply the conepts in a marketing or management context.

This will probably be the only Psych class that I take in business school and I'm glad I took it. Besided the substantially lower work load, the class offered me an opportunity to pull the logic out of business and view it through the lens of someone who has dissected human behavior. I'm sure I will call up things I learned in this class throughout my professional career.

Business School Makes it Easier to Drink from a Firehose

2009-07-29T23:22:00.000-04:00

Drinking from a fire hose is a common way that people describe the first few weeks with a new organization. The idea is that it's hard to process everything your learning with the crazy amount of information about the company, the building, the business, and new colleagues/networks all coming at you at once. As with drinking from a fire hose... you get just a little bit while a lot spills off the sides of our face.

Today was day 7 with my new employer and I am definitely still spilling a lot of water onto the pavement. However, I have noticed that the time I have spent in business school is helping me process a lot and just cope in general. Whether it's the jargon or a deeper understanding about the metrics that directors are ultimately looking for, the hard work is beginning to pay off.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am on a team that is managing a server supply chain. Prior to a few weeks ago, no one was tracking the day to day movement of the individual server racks. Due to a lack of man power and some systems inefficiencies it was a bit of a shotgun approach. Now, the team is focusing in on the just landed and near term shipments. It is becoming a daily management task combined with a longer term control piece. The problem solving aspect of what is really an ambiguous assignment is easier given my training in business school. This is actually something I didn't realize. I think it comes from the exposure to the wide variety of subjects and case studies within those disciplines. Essentially, you get very good at gearing up on a topic and building a framework to solve problems within that topic. It's a type of brain work out that requires a lot of reps.

Anyway, the job is going well. Still very challenging and I'm still a contractor, but the team is full of great people and b-school has definitely prepared me for this challenge. So keep the pressure up on the firehose... I'm still thirsty!

Business School and Jargon

2009-07-26T23:27:00.000-04:00

Where is the value proposition?

Are you part of his org?

How high is the Gross Margin?

What was the EBITDA in Q1?

Let's start reporting up with a more consistent cadence.

Have you socialized that idea?

Plug that into our free cash flows to recalculate NPV.

Is that a balance sheet item?

If we sell that much inventory will we hit a LIFO layer?

All of the above questions and comments represent statements that influence my decision to attend business school. The issue is this, if you can't speak the language, then you don't have a chance at moving up.

Now don't get me wrong, there is more to business school than just understanding jargon, but it is one of the most useful things that a graduate leaves with. Another real life example of jargon is the world of accounting acronyms. I recently came across a list of accounting acronyms that required scrolling to reach the bottom of the page.

All of this confusion begs the question... why so many acronyms? Why the jargon?

From what I can tell so far there are two reasons for this:

1) There are a unique set of ideas that as you grow in your understanding of business require new terms. An example is the term "value proposition". This refers to the trade off a party will incur if they take an offer (or proposition). If the trade offs result in a gain for the party than the value proposition is said to be a good one.

2) Some business people, particularly some MBAs like to engage in class warfare. The general attitude is that using jargon communicate superiority and ensures a higher "barrier to entry" (pardon the jargon) for someone who hasn't had a formal business education. This is half insecurity and half pride in my opinion.

Do you buy these reasons? Maybe the first one is a bit naive. In any case, learning jargon is one of the most valuable things you get from business school. Once you speak the language it is much less intimidating and the glass ceiling seems to retract. Is $18000 a year too much money to pay in order to add 350 words to your vocabulary?

I guess it depends on our perspective. Think on it.

A Working Stiff

2009-07-24T23:52:00.001-04:00

First of all I have to apologize for not writing yesterday evening. I actually had a class immediately after my first day at work and got home pretty late, so I didn't write. Hopefully I am redeemed with this entry...

The last two days have actually been very good. I joined a team at my new company that has only been recently formed. As a result there aren't really any experts and I can enter the conversation and make some meaningful contributions. Not to say I'm pulling my weight yet, but it's nice that the norms haven't quite been set.

I found out soon after I started that a major firestorm had been brewing during the time of my interviews. Turns out a major supplier decided to drastically increase the lead time on new orders. As a result, the team has had to find other vendors to fill the missing units and adjust the entire supply model to match the lengthened lead times. Apparently this whole problem and resolution has played itself out in a series of meetings taking place from early in the morning to late at night in the offices around where I sit. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Anyway, my first day was actually quite slow. I started off by going through the security badge process and then I was issued a backpack and a laptop. No one really gave me any rules for the laptop, so I'm just assuming its ok to take it home. The new place seems to have a lot of ambiguous "don't ask don't tell" policies.

I also haven't heard anything official on when I am supposed to be at work and whether or not its ok to work overtime. Yes, as a contractor I get overtime :) And to boot I won't meet my manager until the week after next.

Its great though. the ambiguity may wear on me at some point, but right now its nice to just plug in where I can make an impact and run with it. It's giving me a chance to prove that I can handle autonomy well. Hopefully, I will be able to retain it as I spend more time there.

I will keep you posted.

Here We Go! Riding on the coat tails of my future MBA Degree

2009-07-22T21:39:00.000-04:00

In 9 hours and 20 minutes I will walk through the doors of my new employer. When I clear those doors I will put to rest the last 3 years of labor management and become a business analyst for a technology company. I won't wear a safety vest, hard hat, or ear plugs. I won't hear 15 explitives before 6 AM. I won't even be awake for 6 AM. I will have to watch my posture, be sure to take walking breaks every few hours, and get a chance to talk to some folks around a water cooler. I will get to try new lunch places. I am moving from an industrial work-place to a downtown office and getting a raise in the process.This kind of leap is only possible for someone pursuing their MBA degree.

As I prepare to go to work tomorrow (in jeans), I am taking the first step as a different kind of professional. I am slowly becoming the person I envisoined I would be before I entered business school. I have a stronger acumen, wider network of contacts, more confidence, and mounds of student loan debt. I still have a lifetime of learning ahead of me, but I am beginning to get some use out of a few new tools that I have picked up over the last year.

It feels good to be approaching a major change, but it is also nerve racking. A lot of questions are swirling. Can I do this job? Will I learn the new industry fast enough? Can I do solid work wearing jeans? Will my alarm wake me up tomorrow?

This is an opportunity that should have required me to quit my job. Luckily, I was forced into making the transition otherwise I may still be wearing high visibility yellow. Only by God's grace will I be wearing non-reflective clothing tomorrow.

I think I will wear Blue, actually.

I will post again after the day is over, so stay tuned. Hopefully me and my half finished MBA degree will thrive tomorrow.

Here's to leaping and bounding!

Back to Work - Business School Continues

2009-07-18T23:03:00.001-04:00

I mentioned in a previous post that I was laid off back in May. The company I used to work for was kind enough to offer me a severance package, so it hasn't been terribly uncomfortable, but over the past few weeks I have become a bit anxious.

However, last week I was informed that I am going to start a new position at a local tech company.

I love fresh starts!

If you have been following this blog there is something that should jump out to you about a word in the phrase "local tech company".

Give up? It's the word "tech". Remember, "operations manager in an archaic union driven industry"? Now, I will be a business analyst in the tech industry and would you believe that I will be making more money? I think I owe this one to business school - plus a few referrals and the prayers of many.

It's a very exciting time, but some adjustment will need to be made over the next few weeks. I will have a new industry to learn, a new group of colleagues to meet, and a new building to figure out. I have so many questions... will my desk be tall enough, will there be a refrigerator near by, will I be issued a laptop?

A few items are for certain, though... no unions to negotiate with, no heavy industrial work environment to be endangered by, and no more working nights and weekends.

I will be a working stiff, while I'm not in class that is. Yes, business school continues in all it's summer quarter glory. Our first deliverable in the leadership course is due this week and the psych class continues to be amazingly interesting and a very low intensity class.

So back to it. My apologies for the frequency of my entries, they will pick up for the rest of the month.

Stay tuned!

An MBA Degree the new BA?

2009-07-10T21:29:00.000-04:00

Over the past several decades in America, a University degree has gone from something an elite few could achieve to a product for the masses. We've gone from certain cities being centers of education to the ability to obtain a four year degree within 30 miles of any citizen in this country. In fact, with online education crossing the viability threshold, most people are within thirty steps of any level of education they desire.

And this is great news. Education has been linked to decreased crime, increased enjoyment of life, better lifetime earning, and more. The education of our nation has led to the GDP increasing and certainly bolstered our rise as a world power over the last 100 years. However, it has also done something else... flooded the market with qualified people. The days of a high school graduate having a snowball's chance in this labor market are all but gone and in the past ten years something similar is beginning to happen to the BA.

An article I recently read asserted that the MBA Degree is the new BA. I'm not sure this is entirely true, but I think it is fair to say that an MBA is the BA of the 60's or 70's. When someone earns an MBA, they build a strong network of classmates, get a door into companies near them, and join a group of alumni that are willing to help each other - all benefits of the early BA.

The one major difference between today's MBA and a BA of the present or past is rigor. Undergrad Business degrees are 2 years of general ed and 1-1.5 years of business courses, and the ability to augment the final two years with electives. In some cases a "business major" means someone took 8 "business classes". The MBA degree is different. You take 23 courses in business with the option of 2-4 outside electives. In addition, the program assumes that you have a clear understanding of the basics (accounting, stats, economics, etc.), so the depth is much greater.

And the depth is required now. Labor markets are flooded with people who have a cursory knowledge of business, but employers really want people who can innovate and create value at their companies. Is an MBA required to do this? No way, but its sure helps ease a hiring manager's mind when their new hire spent the time and money to get an MBA. It tells them they are serious about their careers, they are well connected, and they survived a rigorous academic program. You can't blame people for being risk averse.

So is it the new BA? Well, what do you think?

BIng and Decide

2009-06-30T20:20:00.001-04:00

Unless you have been living in a cave for the last few months you have seen advertising for Microsoft's new search engine, Bing.

The Washington state boheamoth is marketing Bing as a decision engine as opposed to a "search" engine. Along the journey to the unveiling of the decision engine, Microsoft acquired a little known travel company called Farecast. With fare predictions and price tracking, Farecast is a great property to have in a tool focused on decision making. Farecast, now Bing travel, will actually give an individual the probability of a price increase/decrease and a recommendation to buy or wait for the fare to drop.

However, as cool and useful as tools like Farecast are, Microsoft has a long way to go on search. According to the most recent data, Live Search had a 2.5% global search market share while Google is floating above the 80% mark. This is a large disparity for a company that obsesses about market share. The question is, will Bing be enough to dethrone Google?

The interesting part of the Bing marketing strategy is in its positioning. Notice that MS is calling it a decision engine. In the "search" category the first in mind is Google... in fact for most of us Google is synonymous with search. So, Microsoft obviously recognized that a first mover can be difficult to beat, so it created a new category for which they will be first in the consumer's mind... or so their strategy goes. What remains to be seen is whether or not the average web surfer believes their is a difference between a search engine and a decision engine.

Having used Bing and mobile Bing the last several weeks, I think it actually has a fair shot at gaining Microsoft a foothold in the search category. However, I don't see a dethroning of Google even as it exists today.It will become even more difficult for Microsoft if Goole reacts with innovations of their own.

Let the games begin.

MBA Degree for Life?

2009-06-28T19:45:00.002-04:00

I recently read an article about some changes to Pepperdine's MBA Degree program.

It looks the Graziadio School wants to increase the value of every Business School student that enters their program. Let me explain...

The program is called MBA Plus. The marketing premise is that an individual should continue to learn even after receiving their MBA Degree. To facilitate this practice, Pepperdine will be offering former students a 75% discount on tuition for up to four credits. If you go over four credits, then the discount is only 25%.

So, what does a credit cost at Pepperdine anyway? The answer is $1273 for one credit. That means for an alum taking four credits the total bill for a course would be $1273, but if you want to take 8 credits, that jumps to $7638 and it goes up from there. It looks to me like Pepperdine is looking at ways to make some extra dough during an economic downturn.

Of course, if you are a glass half full kind of guy or gal, then we could say that they are simply facilitating the continued learning of their gradtuates... at a discounted price no less! It is reasonable to believe that Pepperdine simply wants to serve its alumni the best it can while continuing to build some brand equity in their MBA degree... but I'm still a bit skeptical.

I do have to admit that I wouldn't mind continuing to take some courses after graduation. Plus, it would provide great networking opportunities for the current class of students. I'm still not convinced, though. This may be a win-win, but the motives are probably in the wrong place. What do you think?

Business School in the Summertime

2009-06-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday I started my summer session of business school. I’m still trying to figure out if I can call myself a 2nd year student yet…

The classes I’m enrolled in for the next 8 weeks are Psych 598 and Management 500.

The Psych class is focused on the rationality/irrationality of people, or in the business school context, consumers. So far we’ve discussed a lot of the topics that are covered in Malcolm Gladwell’s, Blink (although, we are not studying this book specifically in the class). The main conversation has been around the idea of associations and what John Gottman calls “thin slicing”. Basically, thin slicing is the split second judgments that people make on an everyday basis.
For example, when you see a person standing outside a car it is what makes you think, “that man is going to steal that car” vs. “what a nice car that guy has”. Much of the information that goes into your decision comes about from a lifetime of associations that have been conditioned.
An interesting exercise to conduct to see your own associations and biases is an IAT test.

The Management 500 class is a brick and mortar leadership course. The professor has her PhD in organizational behavior and yes she is an HR type. Despite my negative expectation of “leadership classes”, this one looks like it will actually be worth the time. Our first lecture/discussion centered on decision making as a process. The main thrust was an in-depth look at biases that are present in leaders and what to do to avoid them. One examples that we looked at was the launch of the Challenger space shuttle which took place despite credible evidence that a failure would occur in a low temperature environment.

It should be an interesting term since both of the courses that I am taking focus on the behavioral side of management, which is in contrast to the heavily quantitative first-year core classes that I have just completed.

I will keep you posted!

The Break is Over... Back to the MBA Degree

2009-06-22T21:02:00.001-04:00

It has been three glorious weeks since my last class, but tomorrow I will return to the work of completing my MBA degree. The program that I am in requires summer school between your first and second year (but not your third and fourth).

Since I'm already going to be there, I added an elective class to help me graduate even earlier. One of the classes is on leadership and the other (the elective)is a class from the Psych department. The leadership course sounds like a standard brick/mortar class, but the Psych class is a little bit different...

The professor is a Post-doctoral student at Northwestern University. He has been working in the Kellog School of Management and researching subconscious bias in decision making, especially in the workplace. He centers some of his research on women in the work place and how they are viewed by others. In any case, much of his work is published and links can be found on his website socialjudgements.com.

It sounds like the course is an attempt to taylor this research and principles that can be drawn from it to an MBA cirriculum. My hope is that the course will focus more on the marketing and consumer aspects of the research rather than the management lens.

The course is not specifically part of an MBA degree, but it is allowed under a clause that permits two classes per student from other schools at the University. I plan to gauge the course based on the first class and then drop it if it doesn't fit the marketing concentration that I am after.

Yep... it's back to school with me tomorrow. The break wasn't nearly long enough :)

Recovery Time

2009-06-15T23:00:00.000-04:00

I've been out of school now for almost two weeks, and unemployed for 2 1/2. This has to be one of the best times of my life. Let me explain....

One month ago I was racing back and fourth between work, school, and study groups. 2 days a week my day started at 5:45AM and didn't wrap up until after 10pm. I consistently spent 15-20 hours a weekend with my group working on projects. I didn't check my mail, pay my bills, do the dishes, or take out the trash nearly as of often as I should have. What I am finding now is that I have about 2 solid weeks of work just sitting around my house left over from this period of time. But the great part is that I actually get to take care of this stuff now. I have time, and it's wonderful.

In the last 2 weeks, I have run 24 miles, attempted to make Punjabi chicken curry twice, tried a new guacamole recipe, done about 100 push ups, rowed 2 miles, spent 3 hours sharpening my excel skills, met with multiple people at my business school including career services and the Assistant Dean, gone for a hike, become a regular at my local coffee shop, built a wooden planter, and replaced no fewer than 4 light bulbs. I'm a machine, and I'm just getting started.

On Thursday, I plan to run 7 miles. I also have aspirations to clean out the garage, buy and build some storage in there, sell a record player on ebay, sell some camera equipment on ebay, continue to meet with career services, run a half-marathon, finish building a room in my garage, attempt crown molding in two separate rooms, take a cheap vacation to Canada, do one hundred pushups in 1 set, read a few books, and make at least one good curry dish... oh, and get a new job.

The truth is that getting a new job isn't very top of mind. Don't get me wrong, I've applied for 8 positions and I'm working on my resume and cover letter, but I wouldn't mind if it took another 3 weeks or so to find it. After all, I'm very busy!

When this chapter of my life comes to a close I am confident that I will look back at this time with fondness. I was freed from a job I greatly disliked with pay through enough time to catch up on everything I set aside. And, I now have a chance to form some habits that will probably stick with me in some form for the rest of my life.

So, I hope that one day you too can experience a time of restoration. Obviously a sebatacle would be better than being unemployed, but I will definitely be making the best of my circumstances.

Business School and Tutors - Introducing graduatetutor.com

2009-06-12T14:43:00.003-04:00

I have now had a few days to reflect on my first year of business school and am amazed at how much information I was exposed to. Here is a recap of the classes that took:

Financial Accounting
Micro Economics
Corporate Finance
Statistics
Open Innovation
Marketing Management
Managerial Accounting

These courses taught me things like NPV analysis, financial statement analysis, price theory, deriving a demand curve, regressions, lead user research, marketing strategy, and management control systems. The nice thing for me is that I was business major in undergrad, so I had a base for each class that I took.

So, what about everyone else... my classmates. Well many of them sought out tutors among family members and friends. I'm sure that some paid for one to one tutoring. I strongly considered getting help in statistics myself, but was unable to find a convenient option.

Funny enough, the other day I discovered a pretty sweet Business School tutoring website. Their URL is graduatetutor.com. This is a service that is really designed for serious graduate students who want help in rigorous subjects like Accounting, Finance, Operations, Statistics, and more. They also offer GMAT help. The tutoring is actually administered 1 on 1 using voip and a shared workspace. The tutors are highly qualified and personable.

I may take advantage of this service in the future, but I really wish I would have known about it during my first year. If you're planning on attending B-School, be sure to look these guys up. I'll warn you that it isn't cheap, but they have a very good value propisition :)

I've Officially Completed the First Year of My MBA Degree

2009-06-10T16:44:00.004-04:00

It's actually been a few days now since I turned in my last final exam, but I haven't had a chance to hop on here to tell everyone. I'm done! Year one of my MBA degree is over.

The last exam I completed was a Marketing case on Kingsford Charcoal. I actually lit up the BBQ before starting the exam to give me a sense of the business - this was definitely the best part of the test. I think I put about 15 hours into the final after eating some fantastic hamburgers. It was one of the most comprehensive exams I've had to take so far in B School.

It included most of the cradle to grave analysis and planning that we studied throughout the course. Strategy (problem ID and objectives), background info (customers, competitors, collaborators, company, and context), STP (segmentation, targeting, and positioning), and implementation (product, price, place, and promotion). The major problem for Kingsford (year 2000) was that the charcoal category was increasing in price and gas grills were beginning to catch on. Customers liked the ease of use and quick clean up of gas in addition to the comparitively falling price point.

The case led you to the conclusion that Kingsford wanted to grow the category and that in order to do that they needed to come up with the market opportunity ($$$$$), a budget, and an implementation scheme. Of course, to do any of this we needed to identify the customer segments, there needs/wants, how much they were worth, etc.

At the end of the day I went with a strategy of targeting 2 casual user groups with Kingsford Instant charcoal (this is the charcoal soaked in lighter fluid). I emphasized the taste and set up a $9 Million ad/promotion budget that required about $30 Million more in sales over the next 3 years. There were many ideas present in my plan about collaborations with sports leagues, grill manufacturers, etc.

We received out grades back yesterday and I think I did enough to get an A (difficult to tell with the curve). And that checked the final box...

It actually feels a little bit wierd to have completed the first year of an MBA degree. I imagined myself to be much wiser at the end of this year, but I think I learned a lot about how much I don't know. It can be a humbling experience.

Well... I'm off to enjoy a nice sunny day. Stay tuned...

Business School: T-72 hours until year 1 is over

2009-05-31T17:16:00.003-04:00

I feel like I have been talking about the end of this quarter and my first year of business school for almost a month now. That is mainly because I have been talking about it for almost a month :)

Only one assignment stands between me and 3 weeks of no school (or work given recent happenings). That assignment is my Marketing final.

The final is a case on Kingsford Charcoal. It is a total of 8 short answer questions and 1 essay question all having to do with the analysis, strategy, and implementation that we learned throughout the quarter.

I have to say, though, that I have been having a very hard time getting started on the exam. I have been able to get a lot of background reading done (reading I should have been doing throughout the quarter) with my new found spare time, but not actual work... in fact I should probably be working on it right now.

This is actually the first time since I've been in business school that I have really procrastinated and for some reason it makes me feel better to be typing this blog rather than sitting on facebook or watching TV. I really should stop typing and go down stairs to my office. I mean this is it... the final assignment of the quarter and the year.

I get to bring it all together. The problem identification, 5 c's analysis (context, company, customers, competition, and collaborators), STP (strategy, targeting, and positioning), and implementation (product, price, place, and promotion). I get to show what I know, conduct in depth analysis, and talk about on how I think the Clorox Company should handle the Kinsford brand going forward from 2000...

But this couch is so comfortable and the breeze from outside feels so nice. Maybe I will just go for a walk, or go buy the new nike+ sport pack I have been wanting to get...

...

...

OK... I'm going to get to work now.

Glad to be Getting my MBA Degree

2009-05-29T23:41:00.001-04:00

On Thursday I experienced a bit of a hiccup at work. It was a 9:30AM meeting that thrust me into the ranks of the 623,000 people that made jobless claims last week.

My location experienced a severe drop in business this year (40% to be exact). As a result, half of our management team was sliced, seven of us in all. With one exception, we were the last seven people hired. Now, the average tenure of a manager is 19 years. That number seems quite large given the normal job hopping that takes place these days.

If you've been following this blog you know that I haven't been content at work for the last 12 months or so. Regardless, no one likes to be shown the door and I am no exception.

Here's how it happened:

Wednesday afternoon...

At approximately 4:30 PM I am asked to go into my manager's office. He closed the door and asked that I attend a meeting (5 hours before a previously scheduled "all hands" meeting) with himself and our director. I immediately began clearing out my files on the company shared drive and gathering my personal things from my desk. I figured the earlier meeting could only mean one thing.

The next morning I left home at 7:00AM. The entire ride to work I kept thinking, "this is my last time making this commute". I got to the office and started my work day in the usual way. At around 9AM I got a call from another manager saying that he had received an e-mail I sent the night before, but that he was about to be laid off. He told me that I would need to find someone else to get the work done. Despite the fact that I knew what he was talking about I asked how he knew for sure. Apparently he had been informed by another member of the management team who spoke to our boss the evening before. I knew that I would be on the other end of that phone call in a short amount of time.

After he hung up, I drafted an e-mail to the people in the company I had gotten to know over the last 5 years through my time in sales and operations. The e-mail reached people across the country as far away as Charleston, Charlotte, Newark, and Houston. The message was simple. It said,

"Today is my last day with the company. It's been a pleasure working with you. In the future I can be contacted at [my personal email address]."

I saved the draft and waited for my time to go down to the director's office.

9:30 came and I was asked to go downstairs for my meeting. I walked towards our director's office, but didn't find anyone there. An admin assistant pointed me towards the conference room. I opened the door to find the west coast HR Manager, my boss, and the director of our office.

The HR manager shook my hand like it was any other time we had seen each other and my director alternated between looking at the ground and looking at me. I was asked to take a seat at the head of the table.

My manager began talking. The first words out of his mouth were, "You're here because we are laying you off...". He went into an explanation which was followed up by more info from the director. Then the HR manager went through the severance package with me. When he was finished with that he told me that I could stay the rest of the day if I wanted to, but that it was OK to leave as well. My reply? "It's a beautiful day. I think I will go home.".

So, I did... right after sending off the e-mail I had drafted earlier and pulling my lunch out of the fridge. The 30 mile commute home was strange. I had expected the layoff for several months given my short tenure compared to the rest of the management team, but I felt different than I expected. It was a bizarre combination of humiliation, relief, restlessness, and optimism.

When this chapter of my life closes I am confident that I will look back and say that this is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It is a chance to start over, to work on developing good disciplines, to expand my skills, and to rest.

In the last year I have done a lot of growing up and I suspect the next several weeks will be a continuation of that progress. Getting my MBA degree is a huge part of that. I will shake off the shame and begin the transition to a new life. This is going to change everything.

Looking back at the GMAT One Year After Getting Into Business School

2009-05-26T21:45:00.001-04:00

I was just reading a article about the GMAT and Business School...

I distinctly remember someone at one of the information sessions I went to for my school asking how the program viewed the GMAT. The person leading the talk (her name was Sunny) had a response I didn't expect. What I did expect was for her to say that the test was somewhat important, but things like GPA and work experience were much more important, or that the GMAT isn't that great pf indicator of how well you will do in business school. However, what she actually said is that there is a very high correlation between an individual's GMAT score and their academic success in Business School. She went even further to say that it was the number one criteria out of nine used for admittance.

So, after one year, what do I think of all that? I think its mostly right, but probably deserves a few corrections. First of all, yes if you do well on the GMAT you probably think the right way to solve the types of problems thrown at you in B-School, but it by no means indicates that it will be easy. Second, academic success does not equal actual success in an MBA program. Cliche as it is, it is all about making the right connections and networking not only within the program, but with the community at large. Last, I know several people who had very mediocre GMAT scores that got into my school. However, they are all people that had strengths in other parts of their applications and they are some of the smartest people I've met in the program.

Is the GMAT score everything? Absolutely not, but it is important and it can make your admissions experience a whole lot better when you know you've got a 700+ GMAT score on your application. So, if your interested in Business at a graduate level... study up. Most of getting a good GMAT score is just plain practice. The Official Guide is a great place to start. Once you get it, do lots and lots of practice questions. You will thank yourself when you walk out of the test center with 20 minutes to spare and a shiny piece of paper with a big number on it.

Then, you can go back to being a human being again :)

Turning the Corner in Managerial Accounting

2009-05-23T19:47:00.002-04:00

I'm going to admit to you that I am using this particular entry to get my mind of of the final exam I am taking in Managerial accounting right now. I have logged about 8.5 hours so far and just completed my first run through of the exam. Now I am trying to clear my head for about an hour and then I will do a review before I submit it.

The first question on this exam took me about three hours, but that was mainly my fault. Let me explain...

The question centered around the concept of EVA (Economic Value Added). It's actually a fairly simple concept that centers around the idea of subtracting cost of capital from operating income. What makes it unique is that it adjusts OI and CC by capitalizing/amortizing non-tangibles that typically don't get capitalized/amortized. An example of this is advertising expense. In any case, if the operating income exceeds the cost of capital, then economic value is said to have been added.

The only problem for me with this question is that I missed the lecture and the assignment pertaining to EVA. So I basically learned the concept during the final... after I spent an hour and a half doing it the wrong way. I guess that's why people say that 90% of success is showing up. Actually, I think Woody Harrelson said that. I think he had a point.

The rest of the exam was also pretty slow going, but none of the other questions were completely new to me. Although, I've done my fair share of referring to notes and even the text book. This is actually the first time I have used my $160 textbook.

Well, I better stop delaying and do my final review of the exam. This was a very poor attempt to clear my mind, but I'll be done soon!

Business School Gears Up: Finals Have Begun

2009-05-20T20:44:00.001-04:00

I had my last Managerial Accounting session last night. The Professor did a very good job wrapping up the course through a series of summary slides.

Here are the basics of what we studied:

3000' view: Management Control through accounting systems and financial norms

1. Management Control Systems

2. Performance Evaluation for Decentralized Operations

3. Compensation

4. Governance

Now, having spent about 20 evenings studying the above material I am sitting down to take the course final. Today, I read through the exam once and I will hopefully finish the first question of four this evening. The strange thing is that this is an Accounting class, but almost half of the final exam is "how you feel".

Maybe it's not so strange though, because when it comes down to it numbers can be managed and manipulated, it really is about the feelings you have. This is one of the most important things I have learned in business school. Stock analysts, managers, and shareholders... we are all at the mercy of management's discretion, or lack there of...

So, here I go... head first into the end of another quarter. I finish Accounting this week and my other class next week. I've got June 02 in my sights and with it the end of my first year of business school. As my British cousin says... steady on.

The Last Group Meeting of the Year – Getting Closer to my MBA degree

2009-05-18T11:23:00.000-04:00

It is just starting to hit me that I am almost finished with the first year of completing my MBA degree. Today my group met for the last time of the year. The assignment that we were working on is the final team case in our Managerial Accounting class. We began our meeting at 9AM which has become somewhat of a standard time for us lately . The meeting was a mixture of waffles (breakfast to start), some joke telling, and some goofing around. One thing that has definitely changed in our group is that we don’t really move slowly anymore. Don’t get me wrong, we goof off plenty (today we took a break for 30 minutes to play ping pong), but when we are focused on an assignment we have become extremely goal oriented. We banged out most of this final case in about 3 hours.

I’m now wondering two things. First, is this just me? I mean am I the one that is so goal oriented. And second, whether or not it is just me, is this a good thing? I am thinking that it is not. When the group started at the beginning of the year, we sat down together and set up a team charter. The purpose of the charter was to voice all of our expectations, goals, and desired norms for the group, the program, and us. In this charter more than one person expressed a desire to really enjoy the process of going to school. This should include group collaboration on work since a large majority of our time is spent as a team doing work.

This is definitely something that I need to give more thought and be willing to correct in myself if I am the root cause or even a participating member. Something to think about over a

Business School made me buy a Blackberry

2009-05-16T15:17:00.001-04:00

For the last year I have been attending classes in business school with individuals who have some of the latest technology in mobile phones. I see Iphones, Blackberries, the G1, and more on a weekly basis. I watch as students surf the web, check e-mail, play music, and even watch TV on their mobile phones. And I’ve seen all of this while holding a standard LG phone in my pocket. No mobile web, mobile TV, push e-mail, or touch interface.

This past week I decided that I have had enough and that I must join the 21st century mobile phone revolution. Lucky for me I was up for my “new every two” upgrade with Verizon wireless, yes I’m part of THE NETWORK. This upgrade allows me to take $50 of of the 2-year agreement price. With such a steep discount I was free to choose from a small selection of smart phones.
After a few minutes of deliberation I decided to go with the Blackberry Curve. So why the Curve? Well, if you’re familiar with Verizon than you know that there selection is small… very small. It turns out that the Curve is the only smartphone with a camera for under $200, even with my discount. Plus it has everything that I wanted in a phone.

About thirty minutes after I told the sales guy that I would take it I was walking out the doors with my new hi tech device. I had decided to use public transportation that day so I had a chance to play with the phone quite a bit. I’ve now added about 5 apps, activated my push e-mail, and logged about 2 hours on the browser (Opera mini 4.2). It may also be worth noting that I have also killed the battery twice.

So now I am a genuine product of business school. I have my laptop, a sharp suit, and now a shiny new Blackberry to pull out of the jacket pocket.

Lesons from Business School: The Balanced Scorecard

2009-05-13T22:56:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I have posted an entry... please forgive the gap. I have been trying desperately to get over a horrible cough and have otherwise been swamped by personal and school activities. Yesterday, things began to slow down a bit and I am starting to feel better, so I think it is a good time to write now.

I actually wanted to tell you about the final exam in my managerial accounting class. The exam is two parts. One part, in true business school fashion, is a team case and the other part is individual. This week my team is completing the team case portion. Essentially, it is a company that is growing aggressively and is starting to feel there size in addition to dealing with the growing pains of a recent acquisition. The assignment is to identify the root cause of the problems facing this firm, generate some recommendations, explore the pitfalls of those recommendations, and offer a method for mitigating the pitfalls. Then, after the analysis is complete, the second part is to create a balanced scorecard.

So what is a balanced scorecard? Well, if you follow the link above you will see a picture for the bones of one. Most companies translate this info into a single table, but its the same idea. Essentially you are balancing financial goals (ROI, revenue targets, profit targets, etc.) with operational goals (defect rate, capacity, customer satisfaction, etc.). The process dictates that you come up with objectives, and identify how you will measure your success, what your target is, and what you ultimately want it those objectives to accomplish. This s of course done after you have identified problems and set goals for the company (i.e. strategy).

The bsc is a document than guides the organization at all levels of leadership. Ideally, an individuals performance is directly evaluated based on some part of the scorecard.

My team begins meeting on this tomorrow, and then on to the Accounting individual final and Marketing final. 20 days left until my first year of business school is complete, but who's counting...

A disgruntled Union, A Marketing Case, and a Night off From School

2009-04-28T23:12:00.003-04:00

I went into this week knowing it was going to be tough to get through for a number of reasons...

1) My wife has been sick for about the last 10 days. Part of her illness has included coughing through the night, which has left me wanting for sleep.

2) I began to come down with something on Saturday and haven't felt 100% since.

3) My group just finished another meeting on the Marketing Airbus case last night. I like school, but this is getting a little crazy.

4) 2 cases due this week in Accounting and 1 more in Marketing.

5) The union that works with my company is upset over some lay offs.

I was right. This week has been crazy. It started out with me and another manager in an office firing one of our regulars and ended today with me pouring lightly salted water up my nose with a neti pot. Don't worry, it came out the other side.

But, the best part is that I am skipping class for the first time since I started the program. I didn't think I would do this at all during the first year, but I have reached a point where I just need to get a full 10 hours of sleep.

So goodnight, and thanks for reading. Hopefully the next time I write I will be allergy free and hard at work.

The Online MBA

2009-04-26T08:26:00.000-04:00

Over the past decade or so higher education has really embraced the virtual learning model. This evidenced by the proliferation of schools like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan College, and Capella University. There are varying levels of quality and cost with these online schools and recently they have become a viable option for serious students.

Admittedly, when I first decided to go to B-School I didn't consider an online MBA program. This is mainly because I'm young in my career, I don't have an established professional network, and I don't have kids. But my situation is increasingly a unique one for MBA students. There are several individuals in my program that don't share my demographic advantage and consequently are getting floored by the program. Many second income parents have quit working to cope with the time commitment and others have found the networking of little use or inconvenient to their schedule.

The idea of being able to get the same eduction by an accredited school without having to go to class at a certain time or meet at certain times seems very appealing. I'm sure the workload is just as heavy in an online MBA program, but the decreased commuting time alone must make it easier. In addition, getting an opportunity to work virtually with professors and students seems like very good experience for an increasingly global business environment. The online programs are also more flexible with the number of classes that you take and when you take them.

I recently heard from a VC analyst in one of my classes. He said that the brick and mortar schools are really becoming a thing of the past. In order for everyone to have access to higher education there has to be another way. The online programs are really filling this need. And making quite a bit of money while there at it. Who knows, maybe elementary schools will be going virtual soon.

Marketing is Sucking Us Dry

2009-04-24T23:00:00.001-04:00

I took my midterm in Managerial Accounting yesterday and managed to finish the exam without my ears turning the slightest shade of red. I will say though, that I had to correct my work twice in order to fix all of the mistakes I made on the first time through. I think I spent about 2 hours taking the test and 3 hours checking it. I finally submitted it on blackboard at about 2 AM.

I woke up this morning with a small sense of accomplishment that would soon disappear. My next task was Marketing. Each week we are doing case studies in different business scenarios. Last week, we read about a company called Biopure that made a blood replacement for people and for animals back in the 90's. This week our case centered around Air India's RFP with Airbus and Boeing in 1985.

The basic idea of the case is to determine competitive advantages between the two airplane manufacturers. Generally speaking, Boeing was the old guard with tons of experience, money, and brand recognition. Airbus, despite being relatively new on the scene, had the backing of three major European governments. It turns out that leveraging their political clout is what eventually won Airbus the contract.

Anyway, that's the boring part. The interesting part is the group dynamics of today's meeting. These cases have been taking my group about 8 hours a weekend spread out between Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. This is after 1-2 hours of individual preparation. Spending all of this time on this one class and together has been slowly driving us all a bit nutty. Today, it culminated with one of our group members taking a nap, another one checking out the Football draft, while another one was downloading hip hop ring tones to his G1 phone. I was reduced to web surfing during the meeting out of sheer boredom. I never thought it would come to this.

I'm hoping that the group can gather its strength and hit these next couple weeks hard. Especially since we have a group presentation in the course on May 12. We'll see how we do. At this point, we are all sleep deprived, studied out, and constantly beaten down by our significant others for being too busy.

Who knew Marketing could be so brutal.

Business School Ramps Up: Midterms... Again

2009-04-22T21:35:00.000-04:00

I am officially in my fourth week of the final quarter of my first year... and midterms are starting to ramp up again. It seems like every quarter of Business School I have had the same thought around this time... "How are we already taking midterms?".

It seems like just a few weeks ago I was writing about the classes that I am taking this quarter and explaining the quirks of the new professors. It mainly seems that way because it was a few weeks ago. But, here I am the 22nd Day of April, and I have a midterm the day after tomorrow.

The good news is that I am ready for this one. It is for my managerial accounting class and it is a take home exam. This particular class has been a repeat, for the most part, of a course that I took during undergrad. So far, we have studied cost plus, activity based, and incremental accounting.
The material hasn't been too challenging. I'm hoping that this translates into an easier time on the midterm. In other words, I am not expecting my ears to be very red. I hope that proves to be true.

So , I've got class tomorrow and then the exam. Lucky for me the Marketing course I am in does not have a midterm exam. However, we have weekly cases and a major presentation the second week of May. I guess this in lieu of the midterm...

5 weeks to go... then I will be a second year Business School student. Yee haw!

Business School Doesn't Always Help: Schnuckerman Snickers

2009-04-18T20:17:00.005-04:00

For the last 11 days my wife has been out of town on business. It has been a long 11 days that culminated with me eating alone at a restaurant yesterday. This is slightly less sad than it sounds because its one of my favorite places to eat...

In any case, I made my order and then picked up a copy of a local weekly newspaper to see what was happening in the area. After flipping through a few pages of art gallery exhibits, concerts, and organic food festivals, I saw a very peculiar ad for a famous candy bar company. The ad was a picture of a snickers bar, but instead of the bar saying SNICKERS, it said SNACKSQUATCH. This is part of the the SNACKLISH campaign that they are pushing on there completely off the wall website.

Before I tell you what I think of this campaign, take a look at the picture...

Isn't this the dumbest thing you have ever seen? If its not, you really need to start a blog posting really dumb stuff you've seen.

I mean really, didn't anyone in that company go to Business School. Did they discuss the idea of a target market. Who is this thing aimed at? The best I could come up with is that they are focusing this advertising on annoying junior high kids. I'm not really a candy bar guy, but this makes me want to go out and buy a Hershey bar just to speed the dissolution of a product that has obviously lost its positioning. Do you remember the old slogan? It was, "Snickers Satisfies". This sounds tempting. We all crave sugar and chocolate and Snickers satisfies that craving, but "Snacksquatch" and "Sncklish"?. It just goes to show you that all the Business School or other school in the world won't always stop the mighty power of a really dumb idea.

Wiggio: Where have you been all my life... or at least since I started an MBA program?

2009-04-13T14:47:00.003-04:00

I think I have told you before that the MBA program I am in places you in groups or five or six students before the first day of class. The idea is that each student will belong to the same group for completing team assignments throughout the core part of the program. This is about 18 months and includes 12 courses.

My group is amazing. Really. We all come from different professional backgrounds including software sales, financial analysis, union labor management, and consulting. We also all come from different parts of the country and even the world in one team-mates case. But the variety is not what makes the team so cohesive. Its the fact that we are all just very laid back. No one usurps authority, nobody whines, and we are not fussy. I feel very fortunate.

Anyway, as a way to facilitate the activities of the group we decided to start a group website before the first quarter began. Since I am such a huge fan of google (blogger is owned by google), I decided to set us up on a shiny new Google group site. At first it was OK, but after a while the chinks in Google's armor began to show. The site was very ugly looking and was missing some key features like version control, folders for stored documents, a conference calling service, and more. We used Google groups through last quarter, but after much frustration , I decided to look for something better.

...And I found it. It tuns out that we aren't the only MBA candidates who have been fed up with the group sites out there. One team was so fed up that they started their own group web site. It's called Wiggio, and it is amazing. It has version control, a filing cabinet with in browser viewing and editing documents, a free conference call service, chat rooms, polling, and even a calendar that sends reminder text messages for group meetings. One of the coolest features is a unique e-mail address that sends a message to everyone in the group and then stores a copy as a conversation thread on the home page. What else could you ask for? To top it all off, I have had a few suggestions since I've been using the site and the developer team has responded to them personally - one even got implemented.

So there it is... I didn't need much to be happy. Just a free conference call service and the ability to poll my group with colorful graphics. I love you Wiggio. Please don't change or get bought out by Google.

Back to Business School... Year 1, final quarter

2009-04-11T14:21:00.001-04:00

Last week I returned from my very relaxing and amazing vacation to Santa Barbara and other parts of socal, then began the last quarter of my first year in Business School.

This quarter I am taking Managerial Accounting and Strategic Marketing Management. Let me give you a brief run down of the professors and the classes:

Managerial Accounting

This is the second core course in Accounting, but unlike our first class, it is more focused on internal accounting (as opposed to GAAP). So far, we have been looking at different costing systems like cost-plus, activity based costing, etc. The work load is actually pretty moderate. We mainly just have to read a case for each class and submit answers to a poll on a class site twice a week. Everything else is participation in class and the exams. Our midterm is actually coming up in two weeks. I am still amazed at how quickly quarters go by.

So, nothing too crazy right? Wrong. The Professor in this class is crazy. He's actually a very good teacher, but he is very unorthodox. For starters, he's a morning person, so the only way he can make it through an evening is to get all hopped up on Caffeine before the class. This causes him to do things like speak extremely quickly, write on the whiteboard without looking at it, and throw whiteboard markers accross the room when he is too far from something he wants to point at... interesting fellow.

Marketing

The Marketing class has been great as well. The course is basically designed around learning all aspects of researching, developing, and implementing a marketing plan. The plan was given to us the first day. It goes something like this:

Research

Learn about and research the customer, the context, collaborators, competition, and company.

Strategy

stablish target market/segments and set the product position.

Implementation

Product, price, place, promotion, distribution.

There it is... I'm 2 weeks into it and I've already got it nailed. Well, not quite, but I think I've got a good start.

The Professor for this class has an excellent background. She started off in a marketing firm in Manhatten and stayed there for about 25 years. She has worked with marquee companies like American Express, Meryll Lynch, Coca Cola, etc. She actually lives in Las Vegas and flies up to campus on Tuesdays (leaves on Friday morning). Must be nice. Anyway, the class is great and I am beginning to see the big picture of marketing. The coursework is a bit heavy though. It includes major case assignments each week that takes my group 4-5 hours to complete. Yeehaw.

There you have it. I'm back in business school and loving it!

The Business Education of Rick Wagoner

2009-03-31T12:07:00.000-04:00

I haven’t decided if it is political pandering or authentic toughness, but either way I’m pretty happy about the ouster of the CEO at GM (Rick Wagoner). I don’t have anything against the guy personally, but when you are the one at the helm of a company when it goes belly up, you should be fired. That's what a business education is for...

CEOs get paid to lead a company through financial storms like the one we are in. They are paid to make sure there are reserves, diversification, and multiple back up plans. So when a giant like GM is hemorrhaging so much money that they have to borrow by the billions from the American taxpayer – you have failed. It’s a tough job, the pay is good, but the stakes are high.

Thanks for playing.

I guess the part that I am so happy about here is that finally someone who should be accountable is experiencing some consequences. It’s a bit ironic to me that when companies struggle, sometimes the people in charge are the only ones who have any sort of job security. This one is a point for the good guys.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see who is next, or if anyone will be next. Maybe this was just Obama’s way of “killing a hostage”. Maybe the other CEOs will begin to take their jobs more seriously. Maybe the union will realize that they are pricing themselves out of a market. Maybe we’ll all just grow up a little bit and realize this fake world that the baby boomers have built is coming crashing down around us and that Americans need to actually get back to a strong work ethic and a focus on real innovation if we want to retain our place in the world. I hope so… but for now, I am happy to see one guy get his business education the hard way.

Round 3: Returning to Business School

2009-03-29T21:01:00.002-04:00

I woke up this morning and took a walk around the neighborhood I grew up in. As I was walking, I ran into a man down the street I used to do odd jobs for when I was a teenager. We talked briefly and then I made my way back up to my parent’s house and got my bags together. Off to the airport…

Now, I’m sitting on a plane somewhere over California and I just finished reading the first chapter for my upcoming marketing class. The vacation is over and its time to get back to work, to school, and to the gym. Vacations are never long enough – this one was 9 days.

In round three of business school I will be taking Managerial Accounting and Marketing Management. The Managerial Accounting course is being taught by a new professor who recently completed a PHd program at HBS (Harvard Business School). After last quarter’s stats class, my expectations aren’t too high, but I figure a guy from HBS has got to be good.

Our assignments due the first day of class are fairly light. There’s just a little bit of reading/skimming and a small assignment on profit margins. No big thing, but I know 1 week from now everything is going to be nuts again – hopefully not as nuts as last quarter though.

…my plane is making a short stop and then I will be on a direct flight to my final destination. I’m hoping to get a bit more reading done and then hit the gym and finish my opening assignment when I get home.

So, here we go again. Back to Business School.

No Sign of a Recession in Anaheim

2009-03-26T18:39:00.000-04:00

I have been on vacation in for the last 7 days and have taken full advantage of the time away from work and school. Yesterday was one of my favorite days because I went to Disneyland.
If you have been to Disneyland, you know that it is quite an escape from real life. We are talking about a place where all the plants are perfectly trimmed, the staff is always smiling, and music is always playing without a single speaker in sight.

Well, I couldn’t help but do a little math while I was there. With the average price of a ticket at about $70.00 plus three meals at approximately $15 each, Disneyland is about $200-$250 per couple. This doesn’t include snacks, souvenirs or kids. This would lead me to believe that the place should have been empty, right? Definitely not the case... From the huge line of cars waiting to park at $12.00 a head, to the 25 minute wait to buy tickets, to the 1 hour wait for Space Mountain, to the herd of people trying to buy over-priced cheeseburgers, the place showed every sign of being packed and not a single sign of an economic downturn.

What’s the explanation for this? I know it was just one day and that it may have been a fluke, but I don’t think it was. Let’s assume the attendance yesterday was within the normal range. Why are people still spending money at this alarming rate? Well, I can’t speak for them, but I did it to escape reality for a day and to have some fun with my family. Since I haven’t personally been affected by the recession I went ahead and went for it. I guess I’m doing my part to stimulate the economy. There are a lot of people employed at Disneyland. So, there it is… maybe a lot of this recession is hype, maybe not. Either way, Anaheim sure can’t tell.

The Competition Evolves: The Best Part of Getting an MBA Degree

2009-03-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

There was a book recently published by a student who attended HBS (Harvard Business School). In it, the author discussed what it was like as a student at HBS and what he thought the benefit was from going there and getting an MBA degree in general. One of the major advantages that he highlighted was a change in attitude of the students as they completed the program.
I’ve also noticed this change in myself and in others who are in my program. Here it is… you go from saying “they should do that” to “I should do that”. I would say that this what getting an MBA is all about. You gain the tools necessary (i.e. understanding of corporate finance, economics, marketing, accounting, statistics, etc.) to run a business and make intelligent business decisions. You gain experience leading people and being accountable for accurate data and quality work. You learn how massively important developing a professional network is. All of this adds up to an individual feeling confident enough to say, “Hey, I see an opportunity and I think I know some people who I can team up with to exploit it. Let’s do it.”

So where am I in terms of reaching this point in my B-School career? Well, based on a decision my competition team made… I’m there. Let me explain.

If you have been following my entries, you know that I have been preparing for a business plan competition based on a tidal energy solution that was cooked up by an engineering student at my school. Well, this last week, the team decided to scrap the competition and go through with the product in real life. Yes! A start up!

We have a bit of research and networking to do, but in about 3 months we will decide on a structure and look for funding. Lucky for us our product is clean tech, so there is actually money out there for it.

This experience is shaping up to be the best part of B School. There is no other place I can think of where I could find two engineers, an oceanographer, and an environmental science person who want to start a company with me. And the MBA degree has already changed me into the person that says, “Let’s do it.”

Business School is on Hold: Vacation at Last

2009-03-22T14:21:00.000-04:00

A voice just came over the loud speaker of the plane saying, “A second round of drink service will be starting shortly”. Those are the words I have been waiting an entire quarter of school to hear. Well, not really, but it means that I am finally on vacation!
This last quarter was a major time of growth for me. I decided to stop whining about my job, I tested the limits of my energy, and I successfully completed my first Business School Finance class. Let me explain.

Several months ago I began having a very hard time at work. Instead of pushing through this slump with a positive attitude and a general gratitude for employment during a very difficult economy, I sulked and became poisonous to my colleagues. It was common for me to rant and rave about how stupid my company was and how dumb our jobs were on a daily basis. One day in January while I was sitting in class it occurred to me. I thought, “If I am going to be a leader in Business I have to be able to make an impact at work under any circumstances. If I want to command a large salary when I leave, I need to gain valuable experience now and show some maturity”.

So I did. I began taking an interest in work again and even got to participate in a six-sigma evaluation of one of our departments. I have now set myself up for a possible promotion in the coming year if I survive the layoffs. I have also caught the attention of my colleagues and manager with the change in my attitude. I feel so much better…

While I was going through this change at work, I put in some extra hours. At the same time I was busy putting in multiple hour study sessions in Finance and gearing up for a business plan competition. The demands on my time and my brain taxed me to the core. The Finance class forced me to think harder than I probably ever have before. I felt like I was drowning in correlation, present value, and risk formulas. I was only getting about 5 hours a sleep a night from Tuesday to Friday each week and I was booked from 6AM to 11PM almost every day. If it weren’t for this vacation in the future, I think my wife may have left me.

But its over… and I emerged wiser and very tired. My plane lands in 54 minutes. When I walk off, I will have ten days where my biggest concern will be which restaurant to go out to for dinner. This is a well earned and much needed break. I think I might even read something… for fun.

A Real Life Business Education: Flexible Labor Markets

2009-03-20T14:15:00.002-04:00

Since I started B-School last year I have had a chance to step out of my career and even my company and industry to see economies and governments from the “3000’ view”. When you are looking at things from such a high altitude, you throw around macro-economic terms without thinking too much about what they mean at a, say, 6-foot level. This creates a strange dynamic between your work life, where you operate at street level, and your school life, which is mainly conducted from the inside of a space station. The irony of this dichotomy recently hit me when I was reading an article in the Economist called, “ the jobs crisis”.

The article was mainly about how different economies in the world were reacting to the global recession. It highlighted the fact that the United States has the highest unemployment rate of all the industrialized countries because of its “flexible labor markets”.

So what does that term really mean? Well, it means that it is easier for a company to fire (and I suppose one day hire) in the United States when compared to other developed nations. More plainly, the cost of lay-offs to the employer is lower in the US. From an employer’s perspective this is good. When the demand for their products or services goes through the floor, they can shed the cost of superfluous employees quickly.

Ironically, my employer has recently been taking advantage of their “flexible labor”. On Friday we learned that 30 of our colleagues at facilities on the East Coast were laid off. All of them are white-collar workers. It seems likely that I may be among the next group to prove the flexible nature of my company’s staff. I don’t recall signing up for this real-life business education.
It could be worse though. At least I have school and access to lots of Government loans. Who knows, maybe I’ll survive the “adjustment”. And, if I don’t, I will be glad for the flexibility of this country’s labor markets when I find the next gig.