OwenBloggers: Isaac - MBA '08

Standard Deviations

So i'm going to start a new series of semi-weekly posts titled "Standard Deviations".  It'll be bits-and-bites of information--- likely incoherent, but it's my ill-concieved  attempt to force myself to get my head out of my books and blog more. 

• This weekend was almost a complete bust.  Spent Saturday writing one paper, Sunday another.  With finals coming up and a 5-course class load, i'm trying to clear my plate for this week so i've got ample time to cry myself to sleep over my upcoming Derivatives final. 
• Weekend wasnt a complete bust--- i take that back. Had a lovely dinner with four old friends and one new one.  Fantastic little Italian restaurant named Cafe Nonna.  Highly recommended.  Great wine good food, better people.  After dinner we somehow were talked into going to one of these commercial haunted houses.  The actual haunted house was nowhere near as scary as the customer base.  Standing in line to get in was 100 times more frightful than the freakshow inside.
• Here's a little advice--- dont ask me what i think about the economy.  It seems that since i'm in my second year of an MBA, everybody thinks i can look into some crystal ball and predict where the economy's heading in the next year.  The fact is that even with an MBA, i'm only better at talking through and understanding the complexities of the free market--- the powers of prediction is not a course offered at Owen.  I have a more informed opinion--- but that's it.  Remember, even people who call themselves "economists" really dont have a clue.  If you look the academic economist's track record, they have successfully predicted 15 of the last three recessions.  Simply put--- nobody has an answer, but there are indicators. 
• But like everything in economics, the answer "it depends" even applies to seemingly clear-cut signals.  Take for example the fact the Canadian dollar (the loonie... i get a kick out of that).  is now somewhere at/above the level of the USD.  I bet in the last two weeks i've heard fifty people tell me what a bad thing this is for the economy.  Really?  Are you sure?  If i'm an exporter of US goods, this is great news.  Canada, our largest trading partner, now views US made goods as slightly "cheaper".  So... is that a bad thing?  The point is there's no right answer.  It's kind of like predicting the weather... storm systems are made up of an infinite collection of temperatures and pressures.  If I look at the barometric pressure and it's falling--- does that mean it's going to rain or shine?  It doesnt, but taken into account along with all the other "inputs" into the system, you can make a pretty good guess.  Same thing in economics, except there are many more variables and you can't measure many of them directly...
• A very good friend of mine sent me this link.  It's a somewhat morose topic--- the last lecture of a CMU professor diagnosed with terminal cancer.  However, it's a fantastic presentation and i urge everyone to take the time to watch it.  It really helps you take a step back and check your bearings--- we all need to do that from time to time.

Dinner: a required part of the MBA learning experience

So I always knew your education extends outside the classroom, but I never stopped to think how far it would go.

So I grew up in middle America, small town, public high-school, the whole nine yards.  Growing up I new maybe a dozen people who weren't your corn-bread, apple pie white people types.  My family was very progressive and always fostered experiences that put me outside my "cultural comfort zone", but being around people from different backgrounds was still an uncommon event.  

As I got older and moved off to college, my world opened up to different cultures; I now knew and interacted with individuals from all over the globe, but these people were mere acquaintances, not really close friends.  You learn about these different cultures, but you don't really get to know the people and how their backgrounds shape who they are and how they approach life. 

Fast forward to business school and now the tables have turned. I'm immersed in other cultures, Asian, European, Indian, Latin.  Everywhere I go, every group I'm in, I get to spend tremendous amounts of time with people whose lives have been so different from mine a times it seems we're from different planets.  You learn so much seeing how others approach problems, how they phrase answers, how they resolve conflicts.  You begin to realize that you've viewed life through this cultural lens, and, lo and behold, there are better ways of looking at things.  There are better ways at approaching problems.  For those of us who can see these differences and learn from them, you start to realize there's a lot more out there that you just don't know. 

What brought this all into perspective for me was a dinner we had at my house last weekend. My wife and I had over 4 of our closest friends; we ate, we told stories, we had a great time.  About halfway through the night I'm sitting there and I realize in our group of 6 we have 4 different nationalities and several different religions.  Yet, we're sitting around a table that must look like something from a UN meeting, and we're talking about the same issues, laughing at the same jokes. I had more in common with these 6 people than I have in common with friends of mine from back home.  You realize for all our differences, we're basically the same people, but, we have so much to learn from each other.  

The first book we all read for Owen was "The world is Flat" by Thomas Friedman.  Yes, Thomas, it is very, very, flat, and through it's flattening you can now see that what you thought you knew before is but a sliver of the world we live in now. 

Great info site

nashville.citysearch.com

I'm sure most everyone knows about it, but probably the best sites for major U.S. cities are the CitySearch sites.  I think they're owned by Ticketmaster, so if you're a big Pearl Jam fan, you probably think they're the anti-christ.  But, even after living in Nashville for some time, if I want to find out about a new restaurant or make hotel reservations for a friend, this is where I go.  It's the best-maintained dining/attractions site on the web. Top-notch content and it's constantly updated with new info.  Plus, every major listing has user comments; very helpful.

Incidentally, most major cities have a citysearch site; simply go to www.citysearch.com to see if your town is covered.