the daily travails

it's official!

I passed all my classes, so that's it... I'm really done, "graduated to the degree of MBA", etc...

In the past month, I've received two identical Hallmark cards that have "As You Receive Your MBA Degree..." on the cover. I had known that there are a lot of students in business schools throughout the world that are working towards MBA's, but the fact that Hallmark puts out cards that say such a thing says to me that despite it being an achievement and all that, there really are a lot of MBA's out there. Somebody somewhere in Kansas City must have run some kind of cost-benefit analysis and determined that it would be a good idea to produce that particular item, right?

that's it, i'm done!

Although it wasn't without drama, I am done with my last final! The printer in the computer lab, of course, ran out of toner just as all thirty or so of us went to print out our final exams. Fortunately, the professor's DBA is in Technology and Operations Management, so she recognizes that such snafus happen, and she accepted an emailed PDF with the required Honor Code statement in the body of the email.

The last two years have been both easier and harder than I had thought they would be when I first started on this journey (easier in some respects, harder in others). In the car this evening, I joked to C. that with few exceptions the classes I've taken in the past year or so have all pointed to the same thing: incentive alignment. Maybe it's a Chicago thing, because of the school's foundation in economics, but yes... the principal-agent problem and alignment of incentives. I wonder if the curricula at other schools boil down to different things in a similar manner, and if so, what those would be.

Some of you may already have seen this, but if not... check this out: it's like a multiplayer online game for MBAs :)

P.S. What does it mean if, after two years at a supposedly quant school, one still feels more at home in front of Word, Photoshop and Dreamweaver than one does in front of Excel?

podcasts! get your podcasts here...

It appears that the GSB has gotten into the act.

From the web site:
"We have created the Chicago GSB Podcast Series to share thought leadership on current topics affecting companies and organizations around the globe. From our world-renowned faculty members to guest speakers who are leaders in their field, youll be sure to hear ideas that are shaping the world of business."

To check out what's available and/or subscribe, go to:
http://www.chicagogsb.edu/multimedia/podcast/

It's great that the school has done this, since one can't attend every single one of the distinguished speaker appearances and other such events. I don't know that they'll be podcasting classes any time soon, though.

half a person

Early in my time as an undergrad at Berkeley, I wound up in one of those late-night bull sessions in the student lounge with about eight people from all different parts of the world, and the subject of the discussion turned to transportation, California's car culture, and how six of us were having trouble getting around because we didn't have cars. I was of the opinion back then that between AC Transit (the bus system in the East Bay) and BART, I could get pretty much wherever I wanted/needed to go on a daily basis -- the occasional concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater notwithstanding. My friend Sayed said that people who cannot drive are like second-class citizens, and that he himself felt like only half a person because he could not go where he wanted when he wanted. This struck me as odd at the time, because I never thought of Sayed as a particularly capricious person. But yesterday, on my $30 cab ride to the San Jose DMV, I thought about Sayed and understood what he had said all those years ago.

The DMV office itself wasn't so bad. There was a line out the door, which I understand is normal for Friday afternoon. But it moved fairly quickly, and the guy at the booth under the big "Start Here" sign didn't even blink when I told him my tale of woe. He simply nodded, reached over to a pile of forms next to him and handed me the one on top. "Be sure you check the box that says 'renewal'," he said as he handed me my number. "Have a nice day. Next?"

It was the shortest I've ever waited at the DMV. I was in and out of there in twenty minutes. It was the part after that took a while.

I picked this particular DMV office because it was the closest one to where the conference I'm attending is being held. It's not exactly close to Oakland Airport, which is where my rental car was being held for me while I sorted out the whole driver's license renewal thing. So while I walked out of the DMV into the nice sunny afternoon happy about not having to wait for six hours, I was also grumbling to myself about the possibility of spending $100 on cab fare to the airport. I then saw the bus stop right out front.

It was a relatively well-maintained bus stop, and provided nice shade in the afternoon sun. It even had a route map and numbers to call for trip planning assistance, so I called. The good news: I could catch the bus on the other side of the street at 2:37 and take it downtown, from where I could transfer to another bus that would take me to Fremont BART. The not-so-good news: "It'll take you about two and a half hours to get there." Whee.

By the time I got to the car rental center near Oakland Airport (three bus rides, a BART ride and a shuttle ride later), it was close to 6:30 and the woman behind the counter couldn't find my reservation. I had to dig out my laptop and boot it up to find the PDF of the confirmation page that I had saved. Her manager apologized for all the trouble and upgraded me. I'm driving a black Chevy Malibu. I feel like some kind of secret agent or something.

wall, meet head

I saw this on Slashdot this morning:

Google Wins Rights to Aussie Algorithm

and the algorithm in question sounded very familiar. Somewhere in my files is some C++ code I wrote in 1998 as a proof of concept for a service that my former boss and I were discussing. It does something very similar. It was written to be used in a specific context (the domain in question being searches for health information), but I believe it could have been applied to a more general context given access to a fast enough search back end (say, Google's).

I need a sign for my study that says "Don't forget to patent that."

what's the frequency kenneth?

Thought I'd try something different this entry.

Listen to more (466 KB MP3)

midterm week

I've been outed by my thumb. The other day in class, one of my first-year classmates asked what happened to it, and when I told her how I injured it she asked if I had a blog. So hi, M. (And get back to studying :-) )

C referred me to this link. The O.C. was never so relevant to global politics. (yaledailynews.com)

Not a whole lot new going on. It's midterm week, and that means... midterms. Or, if you're like me and mostly taking classes that don't have midterms, trying to play catch-up on prep work for final projects.

I did get the paperwork that I need to fill out and turn in to apply for my degree... I can't believe I graduate in four months!

what is the sound of one hand typing?

I had an accident last Tuesday that left my left thumb in a bandage. It still hurts a fair bit if I hold it the wrong way, but at least it appears to be on its way to a (more or less) full recovery. The doctor at the emergency room who checked it out, after checking to make sure there wasn't any neurological trouble, asked if I played the piano. I said no, not really. How about the violin? No. "You should be all right then," he assured me.

The thing is, the bandage gets in the way of me using the CTRL and ALT keys. So my productivity, at least for stuff like word processing and spreadsheets (and emacs) is shot.

C. and I went up to The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square yesterday, where I found a cool book co-authored by John Gribbin that talks about the science behind Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books. I'm trying to get back into those books... if you haven't read them yet, you really should. Like the L'Engle books, it's ostensibly children's literature but it explores themes that aren't necessarily for kids, or just for kids. If nothing else, read them in preparation for the film that's coming out next year. :-) I also ordered a program (programme if you prefer) from the National Theatre in the UK for the stage version (dramatization by Nicholas Wright).

And with that out of the way... Yogi tagged me, so here's the latest memeage going around:

Four Jobs I've had in my life:
* Newspaper reporter
* Customer support rep
* Technology trainer (clarification: I trained people, not technology :-) )
* Software developer and designer

Four Movies I can watch over and over
* The Princess Bride
* The Rachel Papers
* The Incredibles
* When Harry Met Sally

Four Places I have lived
* Emeryville, California
* Hong Kong
* Manila, Philippines
* Chicago

Four TV shows I loved to watch
* thirtysomething
* Babylon 5
* Carnivale
* My Life And Times

Four Places I have been on vacation
* London, England
* Santa Fe, New Mexico
* Monterey, California
* Florence, Italy

Four Websites I visit daily
* Bloglines
* TV.com
* Livejournal
* Slashdot

Four of my Favorite dishes
* C's lasagna
* really good california rolls and spicy tuna rolls (Taiko, anyone?)
* pancit palabok
* Mom's caesar salad

Four Places I would rather be right now
* San Francisco
* London
* Seattle
* Austin

Four Bloggers I am tagging:
* Xie Xie A
* The Dirty Canuck
* Sorebrek
* Dave

yes, yes, i used to play zork...

... and so i thought this was the funniest blog post i've seen in a while. if only it weren't so true. half the fun is in the comments, of course, but as tends to happen with political posts, the thread degenerates (or is it "the degenerates find the thread and post comments"?) anyway, read the original post and stop when it stops being funny.

going out to lincoln park later to meet my group so we can hammer out a proposal for our final project. then i have an appointment to get my hair cut.

there's snow on the ground again. is it true that the wind is colder because it blows the cold off the snow that's on the ground, or does snow accumulate on the ground because it is colder?

wednesday already?

darn.

i had made it my goal to post every day (talk about a "stretch" goal!), or at least every other day. so much for that. interviews can always throw a monkey wrench into the best time management system, even if they are scheduled well in advance.

i spent the day catching up on stuff i let drop yesterday, and something had to give so i missed the social entrepreneurship class this evening. i'm not officially enrolled in it... just sitting in. priorities, unfortunately. i had to prep two cases for tomorrow -- for managerial accounting and advanced marketing strategy. also need to get the project proposals for two classes hammered out by next week.

i did update the reading material list over the weekend, though. check it out. amusing story about the d'aveni hypercompetition book... i got it super-cheap. lots of people selling used copies online. (is it hypercompetition or just the market at work? i'll have to read the book now.)

more notes from last week

I don't want to jinx it, but this has been a pretty mild winter so far. I received an email message from a prospective student talking about how she had been wowed by the design of the Hyde Park Center, and how she could only imagine how it looks now, all covered with snow. I didn't have the heart to write back and tell her that while yes, it certainly makes for a beautiful mental picture, there hasn't been snow here for a few weeks now. I'm hoping this keeps up :)

Anyway, without further ado, more notes from last week:

lifetime value of which customer?

day three of winter quarter. i'm still trying to add this advanced marketing strategy class. i'd been shut out of the class in the bidding process the past three rounds. today was the first class, and if you want to add the class you're required to attend, so there i was.

we discussed a few articles on strategy, including the ubiquitous "what is strategy?" by porter. (i think it's been required reading for at least one of my classes each quarter that i've been here.) somehow we wound up talking about company valuations. somebody brought up amazon.com (which had been mentioned in one of the readings), and somehow we got to a back-of-the-envelope type calculation that said that based on amazon's number of customers and market cap, if the company value is strictly based on its customer list, then the (imputed) lifetime value per customer to the company should be roughly $500.

one of my classmates came to the conclusion that the company is overvalued, but i think that they've gotten way more than $500 worth of profit out of me over the past nine years or so. i guess i'm above average at some things.

(apparently, a couple of years ago, this number was closer to $4,500 per customer. that might have been a stretch back then.)

so one more round of bidding. at least the case for next week is something i'd be interested in reading even if i weren't in the class. i mean, j. peterman! what's not to like?

wish me luck with round 4 (the last one) of bidding.

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"what are you doing here? i thought you were a marketing person?"

winter quarter, day four. first financial instruments class. most of it was going through the syllabus and review of material from investments, but since i took that class last winter quarter (ergo it's been a year), it wasn't too terrible. the prof spent what i thought was an inordinate amount of time apologizing for the textbook... it's not beach reading, it's quite dry, but it's the standard book... "every trader worth his/her salt has a copy of hull". (whether they've actually cracked it open and spent time poring over the equations is another matter entirely, of course.) the suggested course of action: go over the lecture notes first, and only refer to the book to resolve lingering questions. works for me.

some of my classmates were surprised to see me in this class because i've not really been known to be a finance-oriented person, but they seemed to have seen the light after the prof started talking about non-trading applications of options theory (e.g. in the public policy and non-profit arenas).

favorite quote from this class: "some of the homework will be painful, and the rest will be just plain tedious, for which i apologize in advance."

bits and pieces

A bit late, but happy new year to everyone. Winter quarter started out rough because, after writing a big long post about how points and bidding for classes works for the Chicago GSB Full-Time Discussion Forums, I managed to get shut out of classes when we first bid for them late last quarter. I had to go "shopping" for classes, which severely cuts into time for things like blogging. It's all worked itself out now, and I got all the classes I wanted for no points, which is great, but it took four rounds of drop/add/swap.

So the list of classes this quarter looks like:

30001 Managerial Accounting
37400 Advanced Marketing Strategy
39200 Strategic Leadership in Uncertain Environments
42114 Strategic Planning

I'm already behind on Managerial Accounting, but plan on catching up over the weekend. I also plan to update the reading material list over the weekend.

Notes from the past week and a half follow.

winter quarter already. after the disaster that was rbs (registration bidding system), where i got no classes, i managed to add three for no points. financial instruments (35100), social entrepreneurship (34110) and strategic leadership in uncertain environments (39200). the last one, 39200, is a new class, being taught by a new prof. sounds interesting enough, and definitely applicable for what i want to be doing in the future. it also counts as a strategy class (it's in the organizations and markets group), so it works out in that area as well.

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day one. got up early to get to managerial accounting class, which i'm trying to add. i decided if i couldn't get the classes i originally wanted, i might as well cross another of the "4 of 6" off the list. there were a number of empty seats, so i'm hoping this one won't be too difficult to add. i like the prof too. i can see now how this class would have been beneficial in preparing for consulting case interviews, and for pricing class as well. (must add that to my advice for incoming students article.)

39200 class this evening was interesting. it's based on ideas from poli sci and sociology. the prof says as far as he knows there isn't a class like this taught anywhere else -- when he was hired, he was asked to develop a new course, and this was what he came up with.

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so. day two of winter quarter. gertner's social entrepreneurship class promises to be interesting, and is already a lot of reading. i've been trying to get c. to audit the class. i saw one of the partners there, so she wouldn't be the only one auditing. the great thing about it is that it's not just mba students that are there. there was a good mix of students from different backgrounds there. also some groups of students from the social service administration and public policy schools, so it should be an interesting to see how the people in the different programs approach things differently.

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more later.

saying good night to ted

I was nine years old and on vacation in L.A. when the first Nightline aired, back in March 1980. Dad would watch the late news on channel 7, primarily to see where the markets closed, and I sometimes stayed up and watched with him. I only vaguely remember the very first show... I was nine, remember, and it was late.

I do, however, remember many Nightlines -- the year-end shows where Ted Koppel would get his guests to make predictions about the upcoming year, and then bring them back the following year to see how well they had done. Over the years, I would often stay up late just to watch Nightline, and would occasionally fall asleep in front of the TV doing so. And even though I would watch when others like Chris Bury would fill in for Ted, it just wasn't the same. Aaron Brown came close. But Aaron Brown will always be the World News Now guy to me. Ted was Nightline, and Nightline was Ted.

And so tonight, I will be there watching Nightline live, as I did on that night in L.A. nearly 26 years ago, and I will bid Ted good night and thank him for all the good work.

etiquette tip for b-school applicants

The subject of this post almost ended with "for dummies", but someone has that trademarked.

Anyway.

I missed out on the Chicago Partners' Food Fanatics outing tonight because I had class. C. told me this morning that because I wasn't able to go, she was going to be the only "uncoupled" person there.

Apparently one couple brought a guest along. When the partners started making small talk ("Oh, so you're visiting from out of town... what brings you to Chicago?"), this guest divulged that she was applying to business school. So of course the next question was the obvious one: "So are you applying to the GSB, then?"

Her answer, reportedly, was, "No, I'm applying to Kellogg. Chicago sucks."

Now, why would anybody say that at an event where the partners group from the GSB is paying for your dinner? Especially when one of the people you're visiting -- presumably your friend, or his/her spouse -- is a GSB student?

The partners could tell she wasn't kidding, either. But they were gracious enough not to boot her from the restaurant. I guess it's a good thing I wasn't able to go. I don't know that I could have been as gracious as they were.

So my tip to the applicants out there: Don't bad-mouth schools, period. It's a given that you don't want to do this with the one you're visiting at the time. But don't bad-mouth other schools either. It indicates a lack of tact and poor judgment, and it just places you in a bad light as far as everyone involved is concerned.

a day in the life

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.
-- Lennon / McCartney, "A Day In The Life"

Today was the first day of Fall Preview, which is supposed to showcase to prospective students what the GSB has to offer and what student life is like. The tri-fold with the event schedule in it was titled "Chicago GSB: Spend a day in the life..." Well, here's what I did today, for purposes of comparison:

7:40 am Wake up. Later than usual for most weekdays, but just slightly later than par for the course for a Friday this quarter. And I wasn't at TNDC last night, either -- I was up late working on a slide deck for a presentation that my group for Integrated Marketing Communications class is presenting this evening.

8:20 am After showering and grooming, head off to the Corporate Vision conference at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Unfortunately, I can only attend a small part of this event because I have a really full day today.

11:00 am Taxi ride to the Hyde Park Center to get ready for Fall Preview. (I don't normally take cabs to school, but I have to get there soon and the train would be cutting it really close.) Review the case on media planning that this evening's presentation is based on. Mumble to myself as I practice going over key points in my section of the presentation. The cab driver doesn't seem to mind.

11:20 am Arrive at the Hyde Park Center, meet up with iWhoElse. We hang out for a bit while the Fall Preview staff sets up.

12:00 noon Lunch with prospective students.

12:30 pm Meet my case practice partner. We give each other cases as practice for consulting interviews next week.

2:05 pm Catch the shuttle to the Gleacher Center downtown. Continue practicing my stuff. The people on the shuttle don't seem to notice me mumbling to myself. Either that or they've seen worse and are ignoring it.

2:30 pm Arrive at Gleacher. Head to the computer lab to print out cases to go over for tomorrow's practice session, and assigned readings for Managerial Decision Making class. (Paper due Monday.) Read the readings.

3:00 pm Meet one member of my group and show her the slides. Edit copy on the existing deck. Check email and notice that another of our team members has emailed me some additional slides for the presentation. We edit the copy on the new slides, merge them into the deck and make sure the formatting is consistent.

4:00 pm Go down to the student lounge to get something to drink. Looks like the Executive Program students are in town this week. It looks like there are also prospective Executive Program students visiting, judging from the table with the name tags and folders. While waiting in line I see one of my groupmates for Monday evening's Commercializing Innovation class. We talk for a bit to figure out what needs to be done before our meeting with Professor Meadow tomorrow. (More presentations to plan and practice.)

4:15 pm Return to the study room. Begin rehearsing this evening's presentation.

4:30 pm Another team member arrives. We go over her part with her and continue rehearsing.

5:30 pm Our fourth member arrives. One final run-through, after which we need to head off to class.

5:55 pm As I enter the classroom, I see a familiar face. A woman who was in my group for the core Marketing Strategy class last fall is attending this section this evening. (She's in the morning section, but had to rearrange her schedule today.) We talk for a bit before class starts.

6:00 pm We have a guest speaker (and GSB alum) from one of the big media services companies here in town. He's here to talk about how to assess the effectiveness of a marketing communications campaign. Great stuff. Very informative.

7:20 pm Mid-session break. Run downstairs to buy another drink and see a lot of familiar faces while I'm waiting in line. The Marketing people are either taking the class I'm in, or the New Product Development class I took this past spring.

7:30 pm Break's over. (Relatively) short lecture on this week's topic before the presentations begin. There are two groups. Mine is the last one up. (Tonight's class is divided into four parts, so I guess you could say we're batting cleanup.)

8:00 pm The other group begins its presentation on this evening's case. They're good. They cover most of the points that we thought up, so we decide to go with plan B.

8:30 pm We're up. We go through the presentation briefly touching on most of the points that we have in common with the other group, which leaves us time to go into detail on certain things that we felt were important. We finish right on schedule, at 9:00

9:10 pm C., who has been down at the Hyde Park Center for some of the Fall Preview events performing her duties as Technology and Operations co-chair of the Chicago Partners group, comes by in the car to pick me up on her way back from shopping for basic supplies at Target.

9:20 pm Dinner at home with C. We each catch up on what the other did today.

9:50 pm Catch up on email. Check the GSB discussion forums. Post to blog.

Tomorrow: more Fall Preview, more presentation prep (for Monday evening), and I still need to pick a topic for the paper that's due Monday afternoon. There'll probably be case interview prep squeezed in somewhere as well.