Almost contrary to my goal of slowing down my schedule this quarter, I have accepted an internship offer at a local private equity company. They may not have anything to do with technology companies, but they are in the business of evaluating, acquiring, and improving companies. This acquisition experience is very important for a career in business development. So I figured the opportunity was too good to pass up. It will also help confuse people when they see I had two internships in business school: one marketing, the other finance. So this quarter will be another busy one; especially when you consider I need to ramp up my full time career search.
Speaking of career search, I interview for a business development position at Blizzard Entertainment tomorrow; the makers of World of Warcraft. I hope it goes well. They are definitely a company that I would love to work for, but like many mid-size companies they are made successful by great individuals (not necessarily great degrees), therefore you need to sell them on your value as an individual. I am not sure if the timing is right for this position (they may want someone to start before I graduate), but it is a great opportunity to get my name in front of key management and build 'brand awareness'.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Are Business School Rankings Ruining the Industry?
Are business school rankings hurting business schools? I acknowledge that when people try to make sense of the massive amount of business schools a ranking is an attractive method to quickly identify some schools. Unfortunately, the final rankings are subject to the criteria and weights used by the ranking organization. Given that all prospective business school applicants have unique needs from a business schools, it is incredibly flawed to use one set of criteria and weights to define a "Quality" business school.
Furthermore, business schools have accepted the existence of these rankings and have tailored their strategies to improve their ranking results. Case and point is that most rankings rank quality of faculty by only one factor: the number of publishings by faculty (and student-teacher ratios). Therefore, business schools, concerned about rankings (and most are), hire faculty who are researchers and publish their work. Now, are researchers good teachers? Generally not (but they are great when they are found) as researchers are known for their analytical abilities, but not there ability to simplify and synthesize data to laypeople.
I bring this up because over the past year Merage has been on the move; hiring high profile faculty. These are thought leaders in their field that any business school would covet. The problem is that some of these people have difficulty communicating their knowledge to everyday MBAs. In an experience to which I can relate, when a researcher's audience can't follow the path of their mind, they get frustrated. Some people, like myself, dedicate themselves to improving their ability to communicate with different people. Other people, like certain academics, find refuge in the one community that understands them (other academics), publishing papers, and never improving their communication skills. This leads to a poor teaching experience. But at least we improved this area of our rankings.
Last year we didn't offer tenure to a great professor who was a master at introducing MBA students to a new study topic through lectures and interactive exercises. I don't have inside knowledge, but my guess is that he was more focused on teaching and not publishing enough new research. So we lost a good "teacher", gained a good "researcher", but at least we improved in this area of our rankings.
Now, I don't want to give the impression that Merage does not have great teachers. We have many incredible teachers (some are also good researchers). My point is that this is a fact of life at all business schools in the business school rankings. Their strategy is dictated more by the criteria of the rankings and less by student needs. After all what good is meeting your students needs, if they reduce the school's ranking? You will have no students applying to the school.
Furthermore, business schools have accepted the existence of these rankings and have tailored their strategies to improve their ranking results. Case and point is that most rankings rank quality of faculty by only one factor: the number of publishings by faculty (and student-teacher ratios). Therefore, business schools, concerned about rankings (and most are), hire faculty who are researchers and publish their work. Now, are researchers good teachers? Generally not (but they are great when they are found) as researchers are known for their analytical abilities, but not there ability to simplify and synthesize data to laypeople.
I bring this up because over the past year Merage has been on the move; hiring high profile faculty. These are thought leaders in their field that any business school would covet. The problem is that some of these people have difficulty communicating their knowledge to everyday MBAs. In an experience to which I can relate, when a researcher's audience can't follow the path of their mind, they get frustrated. Some people, like myself, dedicate themselves to improving their ability to communicate with different people. Other people, like certain academics, find refuge in the one community that understands them (other academics), publishing papers, and never improving their communication skills. This leads to a poor teaching experience. But at least we improved this area of our rankings.
Last year we didn't offer tenure to a great professor who was a master at introducing MBA students to a new study topic through lectures and interactive exercises. I don't have inside knowledge, but my guess is that he was more focused on teaching and not publishing enough new research. So we lost a good "teacher", gained a good "researcher", but at least we improved in this area of our rankings.
Now, I don't want to give the impression that Merage does not have great teachers. We have many incredible teachers (some are also good researchers). My point is that this is a fact of life at all business schools in the business school rankings. Their strategy is dictated more by the criteria of the rankings and less by student needs. After all what good is meeting your students needs, if they reduce the school's ranking? You will have no students applying to the school.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Start of New Quarter
My second last quarter of my MBA program has started. My goal is to reduce my time spent on school work (relative to last quarter), in order to spend more on my job search. Well see how the plan turns out.
Last quarter was a 13 week nightmare. I consistently averaged 60+ hour work weeks. Looking back, I think the sacrifice was worth it. I gained some great project management and team leadership experience from my Experiential Learning project recommending a new product development evaluation process. While I spent more time than I would have liked on Financial Statement Analysis, I have a solid understanding of where to start in evaluating a company's financials. I really enjoyed Competitive Intelligence. In addition to being an area where I have a real aptitude, I gained a framework of how to strategically evaluate a company and its competitive environment. Combine that with Financial Statement Analysis and I have plenty of tools to help me evaluate companies. Lastly, Global Teams exposed me to frameworks of successful team development and offered a valuable experience of participating in a truly global team.
This quarter builds corporate strategy and re-introduces me to marketing. My courses:
Strategic Innovation: This is a new course designed to teach students what is needed to produce game changing innovation. So this isn't product or business process innovation, this is how do we change the game we are playing. Examples are Southwest's redefinition of how airlines can succeed and how Apple changed the face of music.
Internet Marketing: I have heard comments that the teacher is very dry, but I would like to gain more knowledge in this area as I feel that marketing is moving to the internet (or at a minimum is will be a major part of future marketing strategy).
Business Dynamics: My second strategy course this quarter, BD focuses on how to create and execute strategic change in an organization.
Macroeconomics: It looks like the professor is trying to put a practical management spin on the study of Macroeconomics. My undergrad is in Macro, so I am hoping this will be easy on my workload.
Last quarter was a 13 week nightmare. I consistently averaged 60+ hour work weeks. Looking back, I think the sacrifice was worth it. I gained some great project management and team leadership experience from my Experiential Learning project recommending a new product development evaluation process. While I spent more time than I would have liked on Financial Statement Analysis, I have a solid understanding of where to start in evaluating a company's financials. I really enjoyed Competitive Intelligence. In addition to being an area where I have a real aptitude, I gained a framework of how to strategically evaluate a company and its competitive environment. Combine that with Financial Statement Analysis and I have plenty of tools to help me evaluate companies. Lastly, Global Teams exposed me to frameworks of successful team development and offered a valuable experience of participating in a truly global team.
This quarter builds corporate strategy and re-introduces me to marketing. My courses:
Strategic Innovation: This is a new course designed to teach students what is needed to produce game changing innovation. So this isn't product or business process innovation, this is how do we change the game we are playing. Examples are Southwest's redefinition of how airlines can succeed and how Apple changed the face of music.
Internet Marketing: I have heard comments that the teacher is very dry, but I would like to gain more knowledge in this area as I feel that marketing is moving to the internet (or at a minimum is will be a major part of future marketing strategy).
Business Dynamics: My second strategy course this quarter, BD focuses on how to create and execute strategic change in an organization.
Macroeconomics: It looks like the professor is trying to put a practical management spin on the study of Macroeconomics. My undergrad is in Macro, so I am hoping this will be easy on my workload.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Getting Back to Normal
It has taken a few days to readjust to the local time zone. On New Years, Lindsey and I went to bed, exhausted, at 11pm. The next day, we fell asleep at 10pm. We are trying to last past 9pm tonight.
The plane ride home was a long trip. We flew from Nice to Paris, Paris to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Orange County. We awoke and traveled to the Nice Airport to ensure we would arrive two hours before our plane left. The local airline people looked at us like we were mad. We were really early for our flight; everyone else arrived about an hour before the flight.
Flying from Nice to Paris and Paris to Atlanta was on Air France flights (for Delta). Leave to the french to not settle for traditional airline food. The meals were really good and plentiful. Lindsey took advantage of the champagne service with dinner.
Customs at Atlanta was a nightmare. The process was very slow, although we did not get detained. Just when we think we cleared the big hurdle when you passed through customs, we run into the security check point that was grossly understaffed. The line-ups were incredibly long and I am sure that between customs and security many people missed their flights in Atlanta. These days, I strongly recommend anyone flying international into the US with a transfer that they leave atleast 3 hours to make their flight.
The plane ride home was a long trip. We flew from Nice to Paris, Paris to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Orange County. We awoke and traveled to the Nice Airport to ensure we would arrive two hours before our plane left. The local airline people looked at us like we were mad. We were really early for our flight; everyone else arrived about an hour before the flight.
Flying from Nice to Paris and Paris to Atlanta was on Air France flights (for Delta). Leave to the french to not settle for traditional airline food. The meals were really good and plentiful. Lindsey took advantage of the champagne service with dinner.
Customs at Atlanta was a nightmare. The process was very slow, although we did not get detained. Just when we think we cleared the big hurdle when you passed through customs, we run into the security check point that was grossly understaffed. The line-ups were incredibly long and I am sure that between customs and security many people missed their flights in Atlanta. These days, I strongly recommend anyone flying international into the US with a transfer that they leave atleast 3 hours to make their flight.
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