I just wanted to say a huge WELCOME to Class 37. We got to meet some of your during your visits and hope that we meet the rest of you soon.
You're in for a whirlwind adventure of pushing yourself and the concept of time management beyond what you knew before. Prepare to be surrounded by brilliant people (seriously humbling) just as excited about your future as you are.
It's a special time, that first term, enjoy it and welcome to the family.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Heartbreak hill ...
The end was almost in sight .. that's when the Heartbreak Hill showed up last weekend. Having survived that, we are getting ready for the final stretch towards the finish line next weekend!
Last session can be described in a succession of V's - V for victory, V for Veeraraghavan, V for vagaries V for Viagra, and V for VC.
Veeraraghavan - last weekend was OPIM finals. It was definitely a challenging exercise, so it remains to be seen what the outcome is for the class. Last session was also interesting from the point of view of the class discussion in Patti's class on Viagra vs. Cialis. As she said in class, this is not a topic on which you can research market share on Google - for obvious reasons :). After the class got done with the usual set of jokes around this, we had a good discussion around how Cialis was able to position itself in a market that already had a clear leader. We followed that up with a second session around Dove and the campaign around real beauty and its repercussions. The classes seem interesting so far, but in terms of preparing for the finals, the materials seem quite haphazard and all over the place, so it will be interesting to see how we can bring all of it together in our minds in a week in time for the exam.
Victory - after a long wait of 28 years, India finally brought home the cricket world cup, beating Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium last weekend. All the Indians in our class have waited for this moment for decades, from the time we were kids that watched Kapil Dev and his team win this in 1983. Sadly though, after all this wait, we had to be stuck taking our OPIM finals while the game ended. We made up for that by watching the replays after the exam, during lunch break. Many others in class were intrigued by all the excitement that this generated and were trying to follow what was happening as well. All in all, definitely the highlight of the session, if not the year, for me.
Vagaries - this was also a session where the fire alarm on campus went off, right before the OPIM final, as people were trickling in for the test, following their time-tested rituals before taking an exam. It was fascinating to see how the crowd dynamics evolved as folks were asked to vacate the building and wait outside in a plaza behind campus. Imagine race-day when you are at the start line, doing your stretches, obligatory porta-potty visits, checking your gel packs, and getting your mind ready for the start of the race. If they had announced that the race would be postponed even by an hour, that would throw your plans off quite significantly. It was something similar last Saturday as well, as folks didn't have time to eat breakfast, or print their last minute cheat-sheet printouts. Instead we suddenly had this free-time on a morning outside campus to just chill and kid around about the test and the cricket finals - was quite interesting to observe the interactions from a distance and see how different people responded to a change in schedule on a day where they were probably not used to that happening.
VC - We had Anu Nigam from the Sand Hill Angels come talk to us about what venture capitalists and angel investors look for when they look at startup pitches. Had quite a few interesting nuggets to learn from. I must also add a shout-out to my classmate Sanju here for bringing so many interesting speakers to talk to us. We also had the CEO of Equilar come talk to us about executive compensations.
As the class 37 students are making up their minds between Wharton and other options, many of us met with or spoke with them as well, to help them through the process. I met with four of the candidates that I had spoken with for lunch to celebrate their admission into the program and answer any questions they might have. The admissions reception is scheduled for this Saturday on campus, so I hope all the folks who got admitted attend it and make the right choice ;). If you have any questions to help you with your decision making, feel free to reach out to us any time.
Lot more to write about the CFA GIRC competition at Omaha, but I shall reserve that for another post. We're on our way back to the Bay area from the event and our flight out of Phoenix should be boarding any time, so that's it for now folks! Good luck to everyone on next week's finals!
Last session can be described in a succession of V's - V for victory, V for Veeraraghavan, V for vagaries V for Viagra, and V for VC.
Veeraraghavan - last weekend was OPIM finals. It was definitely a challenging exercise, so it remains to be seen what the outcome is for the class. Last session was also interesting from the point of view of the class discussion in Patti's class on Viagra vs. Cialis. As she said in class, this is not a topic on which you can research market share on Google - for obvious reasons :). After the class got done with the usual set of jokes around this, we had a good discussion around how Cialis was able to position itself in a market that already had a clear leader. We followed that up with a second session around Dove and the campaign around real beauty and its repercussions. The classes seem interesting so far, but in terms of preparing for the finals, the materials seem quite haphazard and all over the place, so it will be interesting to see how we can bring all of it together in our minds in a week in time for the exam.
Victory - after a long wait of 28 years, India finally brought home the cricket world cup, beating Sri Lanka at the Wankhede Stadium last weekend. All the Indians in our class have waited for this moment for decades, from the time we were kids that watched Kapil Dev and his team win this in 1983. Sadly though, after all this wait, we had to be stuck taking our OPIM finals while the game ended. We made up for that by watching the replays after the exam, during lunch break. Many others in class were intrigued by all the excitement that this generated and were trying to follow what was happening as well. All in all, definitely the highlight of the session, if not the year, for me.
Vagaries - this was also a session where the fire alarm on campus went off, right before the OPIM final, as people were trickling in for the test, following their time-tested rituals before taking an exam. It was fascinating to see how the crowd dynamics evolved as folks were asked to vacate the building and wait outside in a plaza behind campus. Imagine race-day when you are at the start line, doing your stretches, obligatory porta-potty visits, checking your gel packs, and getting your mind ready for the start of the race. If they had announced that the race would be postponed even by an hour, that would throw your plans off quite significantly. It was something similar last Saturday as well, as folks didn't have time to eat breakfast, or print their last minute cheat-sheet printouts. Instead we suddenly had this free-time on a morning outside campus to just chill and kid around about the test and the cricket finals - was quite interesting to observe the interactions from a distance and see how different people responded to a change in schedule on a day where they were probably not used to that happening.
VC - We had Anu Nigam from the Sand Hill Angels come talk to us about what venture capitalists and angel investors look for when they look at startup pitches. Had quite a few interesting nuggets to learn from. I must also add a shout-out to my classmate Sanju here for bringing so many interesting speakers to talk to us. We also had the CEO of Equilar come talk to us about executive compensations.
As the class 37 students are making up their minds between Wharton and other options, many of us met with or spoke with them as well, to help them through the process. I met with four of the candidates that I had spoken with for lunch to celebrate their admission into the program and answer any questions they might have. The admissions reception is scheduled for this Saturday on campus, so I hope all the folks who got admitted attend it and make the right choice ;). If you have any questions to help you with your decision making, feel free to reach out to us any time.
Lot more to write about the CFA GIRC competition at Omaha, but I shall reserve that for another post. We're on our way back to the Bay area from the event and our flight out of Phoenix should be boarding any time, so that's it for now folks! Good luck to everyone on next week's finals!
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Once a runner ...
[In keeping with the running theme about running, today's title is inspired by one of my favorite books on running - "Once a Runner".]
The highlight of the past session was the talk by the SVP and CIO of the SF Giants, Bill Schlough who's also a Wharton alum. Despite being the busiest session in the year so far, the talk was well attended and appreciated. Friday night gave a chance for classmates to mingle with the families of the rest of the class at a dinner at Thirsty Bear Restaurant. As expected, nothing can dampen the spirits (both the spiritual and bacchanalian kind) of Whartonites. Sleepless nights spent partying or working on assignments (or both) followed by full days of lectures and cases whizzed past and before one knew it, the three-day weekend was over.
This weekend was an occasion to get to know Senthil from OPIM 632 better. I haven’t heard anyone mention Silvia Plath and William Feller in the same breath – he does seem to have an interesting breath of taste in books. A quick summary of sustainability and carbon footprint considerations in the supply chain was fascinating as well – brought out several facts that I had not heard of before. The other interesting class related event of course was the MKTG 621 final – was interesting to take a closed book, no-cheat-sheet test after a long time. The class itself was one of my favorites so far in the program and it will be missed. We got exposed to marketing strategy discussions with Prof. Patti Williams through the Medicines and Aqualisa case - was interesting to learn formally what we were trying to wing our way through in SABRE so far. Many of us stayed up late on one of the nights, debating over cost of capital, corporate capital structures, asset, debt and equity betas and a whole bunch of other things as the night progressed, for the Teletech case in Finance.
This term underscored more than anything else my feeling of being a participant in a race that I probably qualified for by mistake, like the other academic sojourns of mine where I've felt equally out of place in the midst of a sea of talent. I have friends that recounted the experience of running the Western States 100 to me, and at some level the WEMBA program itself can be abstracted to that race. Only those that have the endurance and will to qualify for it would even consider applying. Once you’re in the race, your vitals are checked at every aid-station to ensure that you have what it takes to reach the next one.
It’s been an honor so far to witness the races run by my fellow classmates, even as I huff and puff along from one aid-station to the next, willing one leg in front of the next. The effortless cadence of the elite runners to whom this is just another race to be done perfectly, the flair and gregariousness of the social runners, cheering on the slower ones and chitchatting with the aid-station staff, the methodical approach of the personal-record hunters as they watch their time and vitals at every step, the tired visages of the few having a bad day as they trudge towards their next stop, unsure whether to call it a day and race another day or not. As the year almost draws to a close, it’s been amazing to look back and see the hills and valleys we’ve conquered so far in our quest for that elusive belt buckle that the finishers get to keep.
The nostalgia stems also from hearing back from applicants who I had interacted with during the admissions process – their happiness at getting in brought back pleasant memories from last year, and my exchanges with my own mentors who helped me through the process –Miri (class 34), Ashish (class 31), Laura (class 31) and Venk (class 27). Congratulations to all the newly minted members to the WEMBA family and wish you all the very best!
To continue with the running analogy in this context, the Anbessa song comes to mind – we’ve done our part keeping the WEMBA flag flying high in the first year, and now it’s your turn to get into your stride and power ahead of us.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Term 1-3 speed-round update from Joanne
Okay. It's been awhile, I know. Sorry for the blog-silence (and thanks to Anand for carrying the blogging torch!). We're rounding out our first year (completion of Term 3) and I'll give you the quick update from my side.
Wharton:
Term 1 I studied a lot, maybe close to 25-30 hours per week. The content was interesting, yes, but also there was a part of me that wanted to prove that I'm smart enough to be there. I guess everyone (well, me at least) thought just maybe I was the admissions mistake. I wanted to "keep up" in regards to test scores, etc. What I gave up was time with my husband and friends. I found that there is such a thing as too much studying. Still managed to squeeze in my first triathlon (yay!), which was a super fun activity to do with my husband and cousins.
Term 2 Cut back significantly on the studying, down to about 10 hours a week or so. In hindsight, this was an overcorrection from the first term. Grades went down (which is okay) but maybe flirted with disaster a bit. On the bright side I was able to spend more time with Tim (husband) and Fuzz (dog). Still managed to stay out of the lowest 10% (number of "LT"s are tracked by the school) but probably just barely. I'm sure my poor showing in statistics will come back to haunt me in electives. Alas, my mother's statistics-gift (her Masters) was not transferred to me.
Term 3 (mid-way through) brought more interesting professors (in a good way) and butt-loads of classes. I've ramped up the studying again somewhere between where I was Term 1 and 2. Classes, which started in Term 1 as full-term classes, are now half term (most of them) that overlap at an alarming rate. They still remain interesting and engaging (operations/supply chain optimization, marketing, finance) and I find myself furiously scribbling notes for my startup (you know, business principles I never knew I was supposed to do when starting a venture - oops, better late than never).
Because I thought I was hot-stuff, I also allowed myself to get drafted into the Global Consulting Practicum course this term (yes, all those words have been selected carefully). GCP partners a Wharton team with a team from an international business school, in our case Instituto de Empreza in Madrid, to create a US market entry strategy. I'll have to reflect/write more on it when it's done. So far, it's had it's ups and downs. Adding this to the workload has definitely taught me my limits.
Life/Career Update!
Well, thanks to everyone for listening to my rants last year about entrepreneurship and my corporate job. :) With the blog-radio silence, trust me, I saved you from months of my agonizing over whether or not to leave my job and pursue the startup full time. Ultimately, it was the wise words of our backyard landscaper that led me stop the on-the-fence BS which was causing my suffering, and just make a decision already. So I did.
On January 6th, I said farewell to my gray cubicle and hello to full-time startup life.
I. absolutely. love. my. career. now. (yes, all the periods are necessary)
Things I love about it: creativity, variety in work, and the feeling that I'm building something fantastic. I realize that I belong in this world and am enjoying every minute of it.
Wharton has been a huge supporter of our startup - from the professors, to my fellow classmates, and the awesome staff. Coming from a non-business background, the benefits from learning all the business fundamentals has helped me tremendously and I'm truly grateful for all the amazing things in my life.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Discovering limits ...
A lot of data that get sent across the web gets sent using a protocol called TCP. How does one send data as efficiently as possible across a channel whose capacity one doesn't know? TCP does this by increasing the window size of data sent for every acknowledgement it receives for receipt of data. It does this until it starts to see packets lost, at which point it throttles down to the bandwidth that it just observed and tries to maintain that data rate for transmission, fluctuating around that mean value using the same mechanism.
What's the place for a networking lesson on a Wharton blog, you ask? The Wharton Executive MBA program topped rankings yet again recently. One of the reasons of this other than the usual that you hear, is how the program manages to extend your capacity for work, slowly but surely. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun while you are in the middle of it facing time crunches, but looking back at some of the busier sessions, it has been amazing to see the amount of work that got done between sessions with minimal time and additional commitments.
Which brings me to the TCP analogy. This session promises to be one where most of the class will hit our capacity ceiling. And as if they knew it, the load for the session after the one this weekend seems to be lighter too, as if to give us a breather. In the upcoming session, we have Bell's MKTG 621 final, in MKTG 622 we have a Medicines case assignment due to be submitted, SABRE decisions due, and an Aqualisa case due to be read for discussion. In OPIM 632 we have an assignment due, and three (yes you read that right) cases to be read for in class discussion. In FNCE 601 we have a Teletech case on cost of capital and hurdle rates due, and in WHCP 614 there is a lot of reading that needs to get reflected into a five-minute presentation on communicating change.
Now one thing I know for sure - this too shall pass. But during the time that it hasn't, it has been a scramble trying to identify all the different things that need to get done, and re-prioritizing them based on urgency or learning team conference call coordination. Last session itself was an exercise in juggling tasks and this one promises to do one better on that.
What else happened last session? Two of my classmates, along with two from class 35 represented Wharton at the Hult Case Challenge and just missed getting selected to the next round. We're proud of you anyway, Chris and Brian! Five of us represented Wharton at the CFA Institute Global Investment Research Challenge Western Regional Finals (that's a mouthful!) last weekend, and won. We now move on to Omaha to represent Wharton at the Americas finals. A big shout-out to Arif and Tao, the two classmates that were instrumental in making this happen!
As an earlier post alluded to, a few of us 36ers, a couple of Harvard alums, Prof. Smetters and Dr. Harvey Rubin from the Penn School of Medicine started a nonprofit recently called Energize the Chain to eradicate vaccine preventable diseases in the developing world through an innovative use of cell phone towers for off-grid power for vaccine storage. We have submitted grant proposals to Gates Foundation as well as USAID. The reason it gets a mention on my blog today is that one of our team members, Alice, at Harvey Mudd, got one-on-one time with Mr. Gates himself to present the idea and hear his feedback - way to go Alice! We are hoping that exciting things come out of this project and hope to launch a project in India and/or Kenya soon. Couple of our team members are in Kenya right now attending a GSMA conference to learn more.
Stay tuned for how this three-day marathon session pans out. I expect sleepless nights, caffeine-filled days and a lot of fun!
What's the place for a networking lesson on a Wharton blog, you ask? The Wharton Executive MBA program topped rankings yet again recently. One of the reasons of this other than the usual that you hear, is how the program manages to extend your capacity for work, slowly but surely. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun while you are in the middle of it facing time crunches, but looking back at some of the busier sessions, it has been amazing to see the amount of work that got done between sessions with minimal time and additional commitments.
Which brings me to the TCP analogy. This session promises to be one where most of the class will hit our capacity ceiling. And as if they knew it, the load for the session after the one this weekend seems to be lighter too, as if to give us a breather. In the upcoming session, we have Bell's MKTG 621 final, in MKTG 622 we have a Medicines case assignment due to be submitted, SABRE decisions due, and an Aqualisa case due to be read for discussion. In OPIM 632 we have an assignment due, and three (yes you read that right) cases to be read for in class discussion. In FNCE 601 we have a Teletech case on cost of capital and hurdle rates due, and in WHCP 614 there is a lot of reading that needs to get reflected into a five-minute presentation on communicating change.
Now one thing I know for sure - this too shall pass. But during the time that it hasn't, it has been a scramble trying to identify all the different things that need to get done, and re-prioritizing them based on urgency or learning team conference call coordination. Last session itself was an exercise in juggling tasks and this one promises to do one better on that.
What else happened last session? Two of my classmates, along with two from class 35 represented Wharton at the Hult Case Challenge and just missed getting selected to the next round. We're proud of you anyway, Chris and Brian! Five of us represented Wharton at the CFA Institute Global Investment Research Challenge Western Regional Finals (that's a mouthful!) last weekend, and won. We now move on to Omaha to represent Wharton at the Americas finals. A big shout-out to Arif and Tao, the two classmates that were instrumental in making this happen!
As an earlier post alluded to, a few of us 36ers, a couple of Harvard alums, Prof. Smetters and Dr. Harvey Rubin from the Penn School of Medicine started a nonprofit recently called Energize the Chain to eradicate vaccine preventable diseases in the developing world through an innovative use of cell phone towers for off-grid power for vaccine storage. We have submitted grant proposals to Gates Foundation as well as USAID. The reason it gets a mention on my blog today is that one of our team members, Alice, at Harvey Mudd, got one-on-one time with Mr. Gates himself to present the idea and hear his feedback - way to go Alice! We are hoping that exciting things come out of this project and hope to launch a project in India and/or Kenya soon. Couple of our team members are in Kenya right now attending a GSMA conference to learn more.
Stay tuned for how this three-day marathon session pans out. I expect sleepless nights, caffeine-filled days and a lot of fun!
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Be careful what you wish for ...
A facebook post by Michael, my classmate, inspired the title for this week's post. As the saying goes, you should be careful what you wish for, for you might get it. All of us that got into Wharton were made aware of how busy Term 3 could get, and yet it feels like we weren't prepared enough for it. As a hectic fortnight whizzed past before the previous session and we're midway through another one, it seems nostalgic to remember the time from a year ago when this was a distant possibility. Don't get me wrong. I love what I'm learning this term. Its a confluence of work, school and personal schedules that makes this term hard for me, whereas for some others its taking on GCP over and above Term 3 schedule that makes it harder.
Last session whizzed past tamely given all the excitement leading into it. Many of us were up late doing (or re-doing) the Webvan case for David Bell's class, and then doing (and re-doing) the discounted cash flows for the finance case. Sabre period 1 decisions had been submitted and we had different teams trash talking each other in good spirits. I believe that one of the milestones that went relatively unnoticed is that the Webvan case was probably the last assignment that we get to do together as the original learning teams put together when we joined. I'm sure everyone one in my class has something to say about how awesome their team is as well as about how badly their team sucked on other attributes. I actually went back and read what I wrote in my Wharton admission essays about learning teams and what skills I bring to the table. It helps to have that thought out well and observe yourself as you interact with your learning teams and see how true your assessment of your skills were. This is a classic case of a constrained optimization problem where each team member has to optimize their time distribution over individual assignments where they are graded individually and team assignments where the team gets the same grade and everyone pitches in towards the work. People's perception of how good/bad their learning team members are, is often linked to where along this continuum those members chose their optimal distributions.
As we form newer teams to cooperate on projects like SABRE and GCP, its refreshing to work closely with other classmates and see the differences and similarities in their modes of operation. At the same time, terms like this where everyone is so busy highlights those in the class who make it worth the while to spend time at Wharton. There are several of these, but I shall just pick one to illustrate, while leaving his name out since he might prefer it that way. Not only does he take leadership in most of his learning team assignments, he always goes out of his way to help classmates with difficult concepts. His attention to detail is as good as his ability to make a jazzy presentation of the material he wishes to present. With a busy career and a busy personal life, its just incredible to see how he manages his time and manages to stay on top of so many things - definitely it has been a great learning experience for me. This post (like others by me) is influenced by what limited set of observations I get to make of my class, but I'm certain that there are several stars like this in my class, which makes school fun and inspirational.
Speaking of inspirational, as part of homework for these two weeks, we were required to record a 3 minute video as part of our Management Communication class based on the iPremier case where we needed to role play and convince the executive team at iPremier on what future course of action to take. Given that most of us did not prepare for it in time to use the recording resources back in school, it was interesting to watch the hodge-podge of video qualities, backgrounds, presentation templates and approaches from different classmates for this assignment. We were required to "create" a chart to aid us with our explanation, and this required that we invent some data and plot it the way we wanted to, to make our case. I didn't realize that inventing data to plot it in Excel to fit what I had in mind was so much harder than it sounded. Recording without an audience and pretending that there was one in front was not easy either. I've always had a hard time rehearsing for any presentations that I make, and sure enough that came back to hurt me this time as well. Its been interesting to read the materials for this class and learn formally how to be a better speaker.
As we hit home stretch for next session, the finance midterm looms ahead. Before that, we have our SABRE Period 1 decisions due tomorrow. Teams that did well need to remember to keep their eyes on the ball, and the teams that didn't .. well, need to get their act together and reverse their fortunes. The CFA GIRC team had our report for the Western regional finals due last week and the presentation happens in a few days time, so its been crazy scheduling that in the middle of other deliverables for school. It was a great learning experience about the semiconductor industry, performing public comparable valuation, DCF analysis etc. to the extent one could given the time constraints. Another illustration of the importance of being careful in what one wishes for, and being prepared to handle the consequences of realizing that wish.
Last session whizzed past tamely given all the excitement leading into it. Many of us were up late doing (or re-doing) the Webvan case for David Bell's class, and then doing (and re-doing) the discounted cash flows for the finance case. Sabre period 1 decisions had been submitted and we had different teams trash talking each other in good spirits. I believe that one of the milestones that went relatively unnoticed is that the Webvan case was probably the last assignment that we get to do together as the original learning teams put together when we joined. I'm sure everyone one in my class has something to say about how awesome their team is as well as about how badly their team sucked on other attributes. I actually went back and read what I wrote in my Wharton admission essays about learning teams and what skills I bring to the table. It helps to have that thought out well and observe yourself as you interact with your learning teams and see how true your assessment of your skills were. This is a classic case of a constrained optimization problem where each team member has to optimize their time distribution over individual assignments where they are graded individually and team assignments where the team gets the same grade and everyone pitches in towards the work. People's perception of how good/bad their learning team members are, is often linked to where along this continuum those members chose their optimal distributions.
As we form newer teams to cooperate on projects like SABRE and GCP, its refreshing to work closely with other classmates and see the differences and similarities in their modes of operation. At the same time, terms like this where everyone is so busy highlights those in the class who make it worth the while to spend time at Wharton. There are several of these, but I shall just pick one to illustrate, while leaving his name out since he might prefer it that way. Not only does he take leadership in most of his learning team assignments, he always goes out of his way to help classmates with difficult concepts. His attention to detail is as good as his ability to make a jazzy presentation of the material he wishes to present. With a busy career and a busy personal life, its just incredible to see how he manages his time and manages to stay on top of so many things - definitely it has been a great learning experience for me. This post (like others by me) is influenced by what limited set of observations I get to make of my class, but I'm certain that there are several stars like this in my class, which makes school fun and inspirational.
Speaking of inspirational, as part of homework for these two weeks, we were required to record a 3 minute video as part of our Management Communication class based on the iPremier case where we needed to role play and convince the executive team at iPremier on what future course of action to take. Given that most of us did not prepare for it in time to use the recording resources back in school, it was interesting to watch the hodge-podge of video qualities, backgrounds, presentation templates and approaches from different classmates for this assignment. We were required to "create" a chart to aid us with our explanation, and this required that we invent some data and plot it the way we wanted to, to make our case. I didn't realize that inventing data to plot it in Excel to fit what I had in mind was so much harder than it sounded. Recording without an audience and pretending that there was one in front was not easy either. I've always had a hard time rehearsing for any presentations that I make, and sure enough that came back to hurt me this time as well. Its been interesting to read the materials for this class and learn formally how to be a better speaker.
As we hit home stretch for next session, the finance midterm looms ahead. Before that, we have our SABRE Period 1 decisions due tomorrow. Teams that did well need to remember to keep their eyes on the ball, and the teams that didn't .. well, need to get their act together and reverse their fortunes. The CFA GIRC team had our report for the Western regional finals due last week and the presentation happens in a few days time, so its been crazy scheduling that in the middle of other deliverables for school. It was a great learning experience about the semiconductor industry, performing public comparable valuation, DCF analysis etc. to the extent one could given the time constraints. Another illustration of the importance of being careful in what one wishes for, and being prepared to handle the consequences of realizing that wish.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Missing the forest for the trees...
This has been the longest lag so far between a session and an update about it. And rightfully so. This is probably the busiest two weeks in the program so far, without a single exam at the end of it.
Last session was over even before it began. We had our marketing case reports due for the elBulli case. In addition to coming up with interesting business ideas for Adria to ponder over, creative classmates such as my learning team buddy and superstar Arif used Adobe After Effects to create ads for a new restaurant that Adria could start in Barcelona. The fact that the ad was excellent could be summarized by the response from one classmate who thought that we had just downloaded that ad from the elBulli website! Thanks to our classmate Leo, we had two really engaging and inspiring speakers last session, the CEO of EmberClear and a parter from KPCB. Albert, the CEO of EmberClear, was amazingly articulate about the business case behind gasification of coal as the next incremental technology innovation in energy that will drive billions of dollars of business. He recommended that all of us look at incremental changes rather than totally radical ideas such as "cleantech".
Did I mention that we also had our first final for the Term? OPIM got done with a crisp, two-hour final exam from Christian. We also had our first session of MKTG 622, which is the marketing management strategy class. Patti Williams will be spending the next few sessions with us as we rattle our SABREs and learn the material by building a company. All the Wharton MBAs are divided into several worlds of 6 companies each. Each company is a team of 5 people and sells two brands of a particular product in its own world. Given a lot of market reserarch, production planning, sales, distribution, forecasting and other data, each team has to decide what its best strategy for growth is. The game is played over 6 periods of decision making where one uses a software called SABRE to fight it out. May the best team win!
Coming back to why these two weeks are hard. We had the first set of SABRE decisions due a few days ago. There are two cases due in David Bell's marketing management class and one due in the finance class. For the communications class we are supposed to read a case and record a video presenting a defense to the media about the situation presented. We are supposed to do this as teams of two, critiquing each others work, which is due for recording this weekend as well. Oh and did I mention that those of us that are participating in the GIRC investment research challenge have our reports due this weekend? And GCP folks have their Devil's Advocate round coming up soon as well. Those of us with busy jobs or kids at home can also bid goodbye to sleep for these two weeks. Would this explain the record turnout for our weekly lunch meeting in South Bay today where 10 of us showed up to commiserate over each others' predicaments.
In the middle of all this, it is easy to get bogged down in the details of the case materials presented. Be it SABRE, or the Webvan case in marketing or the New Heritage Doll case in Finance, there is much more data that what someone could potentially use in their analysis. In fact without getting some perspective from the conjoint study data and perceptual maps in SABRE, one can get lost navigating all the other pieces of information there. As part of the Webvan case, Prof. Bell uploaded a few of his interesting research papers for reference. For the engineer in me, it was fascinating to see how Bayesian spatiotemporal models and discrete time hazard models were being used to analyze how an online retailer such as Netgrocer could have increased their customer base. Again, lots of data, lots of math, but a few key intuitions that guide the analysis.
So term 3, at its midpoint, seems to be about sifting through the muddy waters of detail to arrive at key insights. About not missing the forest for the trees. For data obsessed engineers such as myself, it seems to be about seeing data as a means to an end, not an end in itself. At a more philosophical level, it is about seeing where the trees of coursework and homework fit within the larger, more beautiful forest of life filled with the cheer of near and dear ones, Valentine's Days, chasing toddlers and smiling newborns.
Last session was over even before it began. We had our marketing case reports due for the elBulli case. In addition to coming up with interesting business ideas for Adria to ponder over, creative classmates such as my learning team buddy and superstar Arif used Adobe After Effects to create ads for a new restaurant that Adria could start in Barcelona. The fact that the ad was excellent could be summarized by the response from one classmate who thought that we had just downloaded that ad from the elBulli website! Thanks to our classmate Leo, we had two really engaging and inspiring speakers last session, the CEO of EmberClear and a parter from KPCB. Albert, the CEO of EmberClear, was amazingly articulate about the business case behind gasification of coal as the next incremental technology innovation in energy that will drive billions of dollars of business. He recommended that all of us look at incremental changes rather than totally radical ideas such as "cleantech".
Did I mention that we also had our first final for the Term? OPIM got done with a crisp, two-hour final exam from Christian. We also had our first session of MKTG 622, which is the marketing management strategy class. Patti Williams will be spending the next few sessions with us as we rattle our SABREs and learn the material by building a company. All the Wharton MBAs are divided into several worlds of 6 companies each. Each company is a team of 5 people and sells two brands of a particular product in its own world. Given a lot of market reserarch, production planning, sales, distribution, forecasting and other data, each team has to decide what its best strategy for growth is. The game is played over 6 periods of decision making where one uses a software called SABRE to fight it out. May the best team win!
Coming back to why these two weeks are hard. We had the first set of SABRE decisions due a few days ago. There are two cases due in David Bell's marketing management class and one due in the finance class. For the communications class we are supposed to read a case and record a video presenting a defense to the media about the situation presented. We are supposed to do this as teams of two, critiquing each others work, which is due for recording this weekend as well. Oh and did I mention that those of us that are participating in the GIRC investment research challenge have our reports due this weekend? And GCP folks have their Devil's Advocate round coming up soon as well. Those of us with busy jobs or kids at home can also bid goodbye to sleep for these two weeks. Would this explain the record turnout for our weekly lunch meeting in South Bay today where 10 of us showed up to commiserate over each others' predicaments.
In the middle of all this, it is easy to get bogged down in the details of the case materials presented. Be it SABRE, or the Webvan case in marketing or the New Heritage Doll case in Finance, there is much more data that what someone could potentially use in their analysis. In fact without getting some perspective from the conjoint study data and perceptual maps in SABRE, one can get lost navigating all the other pieces of information there. As part of the Webvan case, Prof. Bell uploaded a few of his interesting research papers for reference. For the engineer in me, it was fascinating to see how Bayesian spatiotemporal models and discrete time hazard models were being used to analyze how an online retailer such as Netgrocer could have increased their customer base. Again, lots of data, lots of math, but a few key intuitions that guide the analysis.
So term 3, at its midpoint, seems to be about sifting through the muddy waters of detail to arrive at key insights. About not missing the forest for the trees. For data obsessed engineers such as myself, it seems to be about seeing data as a means to an end, not an end in itself. At a more philosophical level, it is about seeing where the trees of coursework and homework fit within the larger, more beautiful forest of life filled with the cheer of near and dear ones, Valentine's Days, chasing toddlers and smiling newborns.
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