OwenBloggers: Jared - MBA 2009

4 New Years Resolutions That MBAs Make...But Probably Won't Keep

I have to admit, waking up this morning was a wee bit painful. I'll let Meara and the 510 tell you more about it later but now that the confetti is being cleaned up, its time for some resolutions.

As an MBA, it feels like you're constantly reinventing yourself but new years brings with it the special benefit of everyone making commitments to change, at the same time. By informal survey, here are the five most common resolutions made by MBA students at the beginning of the new year.

Also, because we know that like most resolutions many of them will go unkept, we've also included the most common reality that MBAs face in keeping them.

Resolution 4: Read The WSJ

They pile up on our doorstep and though we know it's important, many MBAs just don't have the time to pick up our copy of the Wall Street Journal. Sure, we catch up with it online but nothing shows off your worldliness like reading the actual paper in the lobby as your classmates rush in late to class.

In all reality though, as papers decline in readership and more news goes online, reading the paper version of the WSJ is less and less in line with our study habits. Our advice? In theory you can afford to pass them up but just make sure to recycle them properly.

Resolution 3: Get More Exercise

Though you can live off pizza, tacos and beer in business school, late nights and marathon group meetings seldom incentivize a healthy lifestyle. The problem gets even worse over the holidays. Your choices are either cut some calories or sign up for one of our MBA classmates' 8:15 PM body sculpt classes at the Vanderbilt Rec. Center.

The reality is that 51% of these types of resolutions get broken by the end of February. Let's face it, this one is tough no matter if you're a business student or not.

Resolution 2: More Nights In, Studying

A healthy social life tends to be a hallmark of the business school experience. A perennial resolution, particularly after MOD II grades come in is to spend more time studying and less time out doing...whatever.

The reality of this resolution is that you can actually do something about this. MOD III tends to find many MBAs hibernating but then again, come springtime and MOD IV, all bets are off. Work hard, play hard. What more can we say?

And the most common MBA resolution...

Resolution 1: Read All Assigned Readings

As a very wise Owen alumni once said (reference), "you can't afford to do all the readings but you can't afford to do none of the readings." For this one, you'll just have to find your own happy medium. Assigned readings are usually made for a reason but many professors recommend that if you're pressed for time, skimming can help frame the in-class discussion just as well.

Technorati Tags: MBA, Owen, Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, resolutions

Oh, The Things We Thought We Knew – MOD II 2008

Season’s Greetings Everyone! Normally, this post goes up earlier in the last week of classes.  Due to some traveling for interviews though, I am just now able to collect my thoughts on what’s been a interesting MOD, to say the least.

In case you’re not familiar with this particular tradition on OwenBloggers, we like to take some time at the end of each MOD to see what we really learned over the last seven weeks.

Though it’s getting tougher and tougher to get a sense of collective learning, I think the times that we live in give us some shared lessons going forward. Without further adieu; our list of things we thought we knew:

1. No matter what you think, everything you take for granted in your career search could change - so stay flexible.
2. Leadership is about more than just intellect; it’s about tapping the potential and hope of a nation.
3. Sometimes rakings matter, sometimes they don’t. Vanderbilt’s like Armani: not the top of the haute couture but perennially in the top tier, anyway.
4. No matter what, we’re all in this together.

And as always, we wrap-up with my favorite shots of the MOD.

Darcy Lincoln & The Net Impact Team Taking A Break In Philadelphia

OSGA Officers Ryan Dix & Matt Trebble Test Out The New Owen Wii

Colleen & Patrick Tailgating Before The UT/Vanderbilt Game

Game Theory....'Nuf Said

CLICK HERE TO SEE PREVIOUS MOD'S THINGS WE THOUGHT WE KNEW

Announcing the "Owen-YouTube Challenge"

There comes a time in the course of b-school events that each one of us is called to greatness. Sometimes, it comes from the the corridors of Wall Street. Other times it comes from the far reaches of markets yet to be created. Today, it comes from the vast reaches of cyber-space and a challenge 2.5 years in the making. Today, the gloves come off.

The Challenge:

On behalf of Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers is issuing a challenge for Owen students to write a 2 minute parody commercial or music video on Owen that will serve as our viral follow-up to our submission to BusinessWeek's "Why Should Your B-School Be #1?" challenge.

The Rules:

Think of it as a chance for us to one-up Duqua's Vandy Partay. The video should be funny, it should be witty and we should be able to stand behind it as a school should it "go viral." That's not to say we can't have humored jabs at certain professions but it shouldn't be low-brow...we are a top tier b-school, after all.

To Enter:

Submit your script to owenbloggers@gmail.com by December 12th and the best script gets to have their video produced by OwenBloggers as well as a sizable prize that frankly, we're still working on.

Videos To Think About:

B-School Guy v Law School Guy

Brokeback Bankers

The Wharton Song - Warning...Will Get Stuck In Your Head.

Extra points for videos that require us to include Owen Administrators..."

Greetings From Net Impact 2008

Greetings from Wharton and the 2008 Net Impact Conference. Most of the 20-student delegation from Owen arrived last night and we're now in the massive Irvine Auditorium waiting for the first keynote, Owen Board of Visitors Members, John Brock of Coca-Cola Enterprises.

OwenBloggers was excited to be a part of the 2007 Conference, hosted by Owen, and is excited to have several bloggers on site with us this year to offer insights and of course, our unique on-the-ground perspective.

As always, if you like what you see or want us to offer up perspective on a particular part of the conference, leave a comment or email us at owenbloggers@gmail.com.

Thanks to our fabulous hosts here at Wharton who have so far put on a great conference.

Three Things MBAs Can Learn From The 2008 Election

Regardless of where you stand politically, I think we can all agree that the 2008 election turned "conventional thinking" on its head in way that very few events in recent history have been able to. As a business student and a huge fan of socio-political trend watching, I also find that there are really interesting lessons we as MBAs can take away from the election, no matter what discipline we've chosen.

1 - The Next Generation Has Arrived

3.5 Million new voters were registered this election spanning not only age but also ethnicities.  In fact, according to national exit polls, 68% of voters that chose Barack Obama and 31% that chose John McCain were voting for the first time. To boot, turnout was as much as 89% in some states.

What this means for MBAs is that this election has marked the arrival of The Next American Generation culturally and demographically. Because of the strong impact this generation has shown in the election, what were once talking points for experts in finance, marketing, strategy and human capital will now become more like facts.

The lesson here is that the impact of this generation is no longer abstract for many of us, it's reality.

2 - Stay On Message, Stay Authentic

If you had to pick a single word that described each candidate's message, chances are that it would be "Change" for Obama and "Maverick" for McCain.  Wait a minute, wasn't it also "Change" for McCain as well? What about "Country First?"

The fact of the matter is that this election also proved a seminal rule about how consumers view authenticity and marketing. Because of the shifts that kept on being made in his message strategy, McCain lost a brilliant opportunity to capitalize on his own authenticity.

With the rise of new media and the Internet, consumers are becoming hyper-aware of who's trying to get their attention and are becoming less forgiving to those they believe are just pandering to whatever they think they want to hear. The lesson here is to pick a message, whether in your marketing, strategy or in your mission statement that hits at the very core of your authenticity and then stick with it!

3 - The Black Swan Is Real

Even before you begin business school, you start to deal in probabilities.  In fact much of modern learning is built on confidence intervals, majority populations/outcomes and marginal risk.  What happens if an event lands in the long tail however, where the improbable becomes reality like it did in the recent financial meltdown?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls this a black swan and it hit this election like a Mack Truck.  The point of a black swan is though it has a very very small probability of occurring, it's impact all but wipes out the effects of all the "normal" and "predictable" outcomes.

The lesson here is that risk and innovation go together hand-in-hand and just because a scenario has a very small probability of happening, it's effects should at least be considered in forward-thinking.

This election has been an incredible ride; one that has kept us glued to CNN for way more hours than some of us would like to admit.  Now that its over, we have to ask ourselves "what's next?" After all, we are all in this together and regardless of who you voted for, we all have to get jobs come May.

Technorati Tags: Black Swan, Election 2008, Financial Meltdown, MBA, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, socio-political, Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, voter turnout

Leadership In Action Retreat - 2008

The longer I am at Owen, the more I realize that as an MBA, it is sometimes a bit too easy to throw around the concept of leadership. It's almost as if it's one of the wonderful things bestowed upon you at orientation and that you carry with you as a key buzzword at job interviews. The true reality is that leadership is a bit more complicated.

Leadership, in the more practical sense, is a journey and a search for a style of working with other people that can help you get things done. That's where things like Leadership In Action (LIA) come in and where you are forced out of your comfort zone to find out what concept of leadership really does mean to you.

In case you're not familiar with the program, LIA is the 2nd year of Owen's Leadership Development Program. It challenges a select, dedicated group of MBAs to source, staff and execute a real-time consulting project. This past weekend was our big leadership retreat held out at Deer Run, approximately 40 minutes from Nashville.

Most of our time was spent between team exercises and various ropes courses but the most interesting part of the entire weekend was the shift in understanding of what we believed our motivations to lead were. In fact, it's really amazing what hanging from a rope ladder 100 feet in the air can do for your appreciation of teammates.

For my own part, I can say that the experience of facing these challenges with other leaders definitely instills a lot of humility in your desire to lead as well as your willingness to challenge yourself.

I don't take the time to create a "call to action" on any particular post but for this one, I'll make an exception. If you're really interested in exploring the nuances of your own ability to lead, sign up for LIA in your second year at Owen. Beyond the sore shoulders and the muddy boots, it's definitely worth it.

Click Here To See More Photos From This Year's Retreat

Technorati Tags: Deer Run, leadership, Leadership In Action, LIA, OwenBloggers, Owen Graduate School of Management

Greetings From Leadership Camp

Every year, Owen 2nd years have the option to continue their Leadership Development studies with a year-long, self-sourced consulting project.

Along with this program, known as Leadership In Action (LIA) is a weekend retreat to some form of secluded retreat camp. This year is being held at Deer Run, about 35 min from Nashville.

This pristine campground with log and canvas cabins is nestled among rolling hills and a meandering creek. Right now, it's rainy and cold - but Pat has found a way for us to survive.

If we're not back by thanksgiving - send Starbucks.

Oh, The Things We Thought We Knew – MOD I 2008

After a year and a quarter at Owen, its still amazing how much I haven’t learned. Indeed, those of you who have read the blog for a while know that I take time each MOD to reflect on that exact fact in a post I call “Oh, The Things We Thought We Knew.”

Half of this ritual is to keep things in perspective and the other half is to convince myself that it’s not all a dream. In fact, with everything that goes on behind those concave walls of glass, there is still a part of me that thinks that that I might suddenly wake up at my desk at my old job in Washington, DC. Maybe its second year kicking in but to look at where I am now, you would never know any of us would be capable of so much.

At this point, you look around Owen and you don’t see the faces of the people you were with in an orientation group. Instead, you see the faces of people that are braving new industries, defying convention with their summer accomplishments and redefining commerce with their curiosity.

As usual, I invite plenty of comments on what you think should be on this list but here are the things I thought I knew:

• I thought Corporate Valuation would only take up 9-10 group hours a week…it ended up being more like 12-15.
• I thought honor meant something….it turns out it means everything and more than any of us can possibly imagine.
• I thought the challenges of the job market would dampen my desire to find “the perfect job”…it hasn’t. It’s only made me work that much harder for it.

Of course, I end with my favorite photos:

Technorati Tags: Corporate Val, MBA, OwenBloggers, Owen

On The Brink, In More Ways Than One

With all the calamity about the financial markets, its been interesting to watch other aspects of the American economy to see what the long-term effects will be like. Obviously, no one can doubt that we've just seem the tip of the iceberg here and the colossal repercussions of this re-alignment have yet to make their way through to other sectors.

Life does go on however, and this week reminded us that changes like this are all around us and that now is the time to be thinking flexibility regardless of your chosen field.

For instance, this week found Yahoo unveiling its new advertising platform, APT.  To understand APT's potential impact, you only have to look at Yahoo's chosen arena of competition with Google; ad revenues from print newspapers.

Once thought to be a seriously declining medium, this partnership could allow a whole new type of business model to evolve that pairs content, advertising and behavioral targeting like never before. This move could radically redesign the role of say, MBA brand managers, as they must move towards a more Harrah's style of marketing with heavily reliance on databases and customer behavioral profiling,

Though some job prospects may not immediately hinge on what goes on in the halls of the White House or in the board rooms of Wall Street, MBAs need only to scan the headlines to realize that we are on the brink of so many more changes.  Just like risk management will play a much more central role in the lives of financial professionals, this crisis reminds us all that we have to constantly re-evaulate our own qualifications to keep up with changing industries and changing realities.

What the end game will be for professionals outside of finance; we may not know for some time. Right now though, we are all in the same boat and the more we learn from each other's disciplines; the greater chance we all make it to shore.

Technorati Tags: APT, Google, MBA, behavioral targeting, Wall Street, Yahoo

Renovations To Historic Section Of Owen's Building Nearing Completion

On a completely random note, those of us hunkered down at Owen yesterday (most likely for Corporate Val or Managerial Finance) got a sneak preview of the final touches to the last of the renovations that were underway to Engineering Hall. Though you may not know it by looking at the main part of Owen - also known as Management Hall - Owen's facilities can actually be traced back over 100 years; a fact being capitalized on by the style of the renovations.

The most historic portion of the Owen building - once known as Engineering Hall - was completely gutted this summer to allow for upgrades to its two large classrooms as well as the EMBA offices and lounge. In addition to coming back online with modular classroom seating and dual-annotation screens, the newly-rennovated classrooms also sport some historic flair. Of highlight are the exposed brick walls and the soaring two-story ceiling in room 204, which are adorned with photos of Engineering Hall's history throughout the years.

Students and visitors might also want to take note of the "door to nowhere" that resides directly above the white board in room 204. Though the door actually once did lead to the boiler room, the renovation designers decided to keep it in place as a part of maintaing the architectural details of the room. Now that the renovations are complete though, we're pretty sure that it's not long until an enterprising professor finds a way to use it as a metaphor.

Renovation team members wheel furniture into the newly-completed Room 204.

In an effort to facilitate more flexible classroom configurations, the amphitheater-style 204 has been simplified to a spacious single level, ringed with a solitary row of tables.

The exposed brick wall, the "door to nowhere" (left) and the Ryman Auditorium-esque space (right) are just some of the new, distinctive features of the renovation.

Brand new modular tables and chairs will allow more flexible classroom configurations.

Technorati Tags: Engineering Hall, Management Hall, MBA, rennovations, tag, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management