MBET Blog
NDA
If only NDAs where as exciting as
NWA.
The MBET program is requiring all the students to sign a very interesting umbrella NDA which requires us to keep confidential information confidential but allows us to discuss it amongst ourselves. And it throws in a reference to
Policy 71 for good measure. Interesting. It serves a purpose for the business project sponsors but I think more than that it serves as a good introduction to everyone to the extremely real world of IP protection and NDAs. In my previous job I signed NDAs for the most idiotic things like getting a copy of beta software that was being distributed to me... and about a thousand other people. Stupid. But for really important information and NDA is a critical part of a business relationship.
Russel Smith on moblogs
I don't know how long the Globe and Mail keeps articles up, so you may not be able to read
this forever. First of all let me say that I think Smith is the best writer the Globe has on staff. He's young(ish) but doesn't equate youth with being stupid like certain other (*cough*McLaren*cough*) Globe writers.
The article though is very insightful into blogs and the new world of mobile phone photo blogs (moblogs). His description of text blogs is awesome...
...text blogs, in which people think it important or therapeutic to inform the world of what they had for breakfast and how much sleep they had last night.
Heh. Russell rocks.
Con-sulting
So I need to work on making this more of a daily event. But be that as it may.
Consulting. Is it a job? Dominic Covvey, who's in UW's new "
health informatics" department, ran a seminar on careers in consulting. He worked as a health informatics consultant for a number of years before giving it up for the security of a cushy university job.
So, consulting means dfferent things. You could be an independent consultant. You could work for a large consulting firm, like Anderson (I mean
Accenture) or IBM or something. You can be an IT consultant - which ranges from being a code money on contract to doing organization IT development analysis - a management consultant or just about anything.
The most interesting thing he said was that consultants aren't hired because of what they know or how smart they are - though that helps - but their methodology. When you go into a consulting engagement you need a plan ready before you even learn your clients' names. And then he said that even if you're not a consultant you should do this - build a methodology for your 9-to-5 job and focus on executing that. It helps build focus. Imagine it from the point of view of the owner of the company as well - you've build a process that adds value to the organization overall. Some people might view this as making themselves replaceable but people it's not true - can anyone crate and document a strategy? And can just anyone execute it? Your personal methodology doesn't have to be simple - unless you work at McDonalds. It can be as complex as you want as long as it helps you work towards your goals more effectively.
All in all, it was an interesting seminar.
Dead Trackpoint
The trackpoint on my Thinkpad died... if you've never tried using Windows without a mouse I suggest you give it a try. The real shocker is how usable it is. I mean, imagine being the guy at Microsoft who has to justify putting a dozen testers on running through Windows without a mouse. Who would care? But it works. IE even works. Shocking. Heck, Blogger in IE works. Either there's a lot of QA out there or software companies are just getting lucky.
Today's E-Business Class
So today's reading are fun - I use the present tense as Prof. Carnaghan is still taking and we're only 25 minutes into class. Two of the readings are from Michael Porter on
Why The Internet Is Boring and Don Tapscott on
Why The Internet Rocks Your World. Good articles but Tapscott isn't really arguing with Porter, contrary to his claims - he provides a bunch of counter-examples to arguments that weren't really made by Porter.
Also, I got a bunch of books from the library over lunch. I went to get
Nagle & Holden but there were all these other good books nearby on the shelves so I walked out with
Product Innovation Strategy,
World-Class New Product Development and
Managing New Product and Process Development. I haven't read any of them (except Nagle & Holden) but they all look pretty good.
My Hero
OK, so it's a bit strong to say that
Steve Johnson is my hero, but the courses that
Pragmatic Marketing are pretty awesome. Steve's blog has lots of interesting stuff for anyone who wants to run a technology-oriented business. I've taken a couple of Pragmatic courses from Steve and I think they're definitely worth the money. His
Product Management grid is something everyone should have a look at - even people who aren't PMs.
Things You Need...
...
if you want VC money. Awesome insight, short as it is, from Jay who worked at
Hummer Winblad Venture Partners this past summer.
As an aside, Hummer was an investor in MS2 which seems to have been acquired by
Agile. MS2 has a pretty cool product for managing the information on your products - something a collegue of mine calls "information supply chain management". Agile seems to have dropped their more generic product in favour of a vertical marketing strategy. Odd. I liked the MS2 product but the price was high for what was, essentially, a pre-structured internal web site. Perhaps I wasn't the only person who saw it that way.
Blog Surfing
So, from
Kaleem's blog I'm led to
this discussion on whether MBAs are still relevant. Applies pretty well to what's up here. This is hands-on. MBET is specific, somewhat less general. And the issues people ask about whether their MBET degrees will be relevant actually apply to just about every other graduate business degree out there, even the ones with thousands of alumni.
Now, Kaleem is a big too big on the web services if you ask me... the technology is evolutionary, not revolutionary. It's a shift in internal application architecture, not a radical shift. Nothing built with we services couldn't be built without them. Dress it up, pimp it out, it's still just XML based RPC. Yay. Year 2000 (XML), meet 1979 (RPC).
Accounting
I hate tests. I really hate tests involving memorizing the dynamics of large financial model spreadhseets. But yes, you too can have all this and more for the price of admission to MBET.
Today we had a practicing lawyer/patent agent come to law class. As a matter of fact I even know his name but only because he gave me his card - I'm not very good when it comes to remembering names.
Robert Wilkes. Interesting guy. Good talk about the process of getting a patent. I dunno how useful most patents are in truth but if intellectual property is essential to your business they're good to have. They're like a spare tire - you hope to never have to look at it but it gives a lot of peace of mind.
Also, we had to do 60 second "concept" pitches today. A sixty second speech promoting a "concept" business - one that's not viable but possibly a good idea. I stole a bunch of good lines from
a speaker a lot better than me. It was fun. Apparently they don't do a lot of public speaking in regular MBA programs. I guess compared to them some of us may lead a march on Washington yet.
I am the Walrus
No, wait, I'm the taxman. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the taxman.
Today in tax we finished covering the basic structure of the Canadian tax system and looked at a pretty basic what-if tax scenario. It turnsout that if you qualify for the small business federal tax credit (you're less than $200K in revenue or thereabouts) and your business is just you it's actually better to issue profits as dividends versus paying youself salary. About $2 less for a $100 income - $43 versus $41 or so which works out to about a 5% difference.
Now, this varies by province and the situation is actually reversed as the company earns more money, but it's good to know. Nice to touch on some hard details on
incorporating versus not incorporating.
This week we have an accounting mid-term test... didn't I just start class yesterday? What the hell happened? The announcement of the mid-term is 8 pages long! This may take some studying.
Election
So, the Liberals bagged yesterday's
Ontario election. I think there was probably more manpower put into analyzing the election than compaigning so what extra could I possibly say.
Eves was pretty sad. No vision. No plan. Bad ads. Too much attacking the Liberals. Attacking your opponents is a sign of weakness, pure and simple. Your campaign should stand on its own. Don't even mention your opponents.
The Liberals ran a good campaign. McGuinty may not be the next Trudeau but he had a vision and always kept on track.
Hampton could have done a lot better, I think, if just shut up about everyone else and kept hammering his own vision. Again, stop reminding people that there are other candidates to vote for. When you talk, talk about yourself. Don't politicans know this stuff?
Anyway, I'm happy, but let's wait and see.
America's Sweetheart
So everything I've meaning to write has come flooding back to me... pimping.
I need to make sure I hit all the necessary keywords when people come to Google me - and they will come - in the future.
University of Waterloo CBET MBET program information
donkey loving Gil Rice zoot suit case tool box car port
That should do it.
Damn.
I finally sit down to post and Blogger eats three very, very good posts. Fawk. What the hell is this?
Oh - I stand corrected. They're all there. Odd that Blogger kept telling me that there were innumerous transfer errors like some sort of
Nigerian bank clerk.
Last but not Least
So, I'll catch up by dropping a bunch of entries at once as I seem to be
on a roll.
I am really digging accounting. It's painful, but for some reason, I have come to really get into the whole quantatative business thing. It almost makes me want to go out and hit the discount brokers again, my lack of cash only posing a slight problem. But acounting, law, taxation - these disciplines are like fine wine. They're enjoyed by seasoned, experienced older people and really, really boring young people. If you're twenty, don't study accounting for heaven's sake - go enjoy yourself. But with age comes the appreciation of all things. Even accounting.
MBA League
So, thanks to "Russell" for putting me up on his list of
MBA-themed weblogs. The one thing I would like to point out is that Russell's MBA League has nothing to do with the actual
MBA League. My spider-sense detects a potential lawsuit. Or at least someone cracking an unfunny joke about terrorists.
Perhaps Russell's vote of confidence - well, ok, his mere link in a sea of trillions of other links - but I'll take it as a vote of confidence, gives me the courage to blog on.
In honour of said linkage, I'll repeat a joke one of my classmates told. "Al" was asked to introduce himself at the official
CBET opening. So Al tells said joke:
Al's Friend: So, Al, you're applying to MBA school?
Al: Yeah.
Al's Friend: You should definitely go check out the gas station at the corner first!
Al: Why?
Al's Friend: Because last time I went there I got a free MBA with a tank of gas!
[cue laughter]
[cue MBA students grinding teeth and forcing smiles]
The point (I suppose) is that while there's nothing wrong with an MBA, it's becoming more of a commodity. It's not like MBA schools are closing down or cutting back on enrollment. And can people really tell MBAs apart? Does a
Queen's MBA grad have the same experience, knowledge and general profile as, say, a
Schulich grad?
I mean, MBAs are like apples - people who know can tell you the difference between a Spy and a Macintosh, but really, to 99.99% of the population an apple is an apple and a MBA is a MBA. (And, just to note, never, ever bake a pie with Macs. Use Spys. Which should be coming off the trees
any day now).
Which I suppose is why they decided to strike out and try this whole MBET thing.
Why Johnny Can't Write
So, how hard is it to post an entry every day or so? I mean, that is the whole damn model content sites are built on - my writing is supposed to be the sweet cream, the smokey smell of crack over the threshold of the crackhouse that is the Internet, the damn fine hit of smack that makes your daily life of whoring bearable.
Unfortunately, unlike heroin, my blog posts don't come from Afganistan's poppy fields. I gotta write them myself. The only bright point is that I've cut out the middle man. No more getting your hit in some alley stinking of urine. Well, that and my writing is more akin to drinking orange juice past the due date rather than horse. But back to my point.
Why can't I blog? A lack of discipline? Probably. There's a bigger problem though - the disconnect of inspiration and execution. And I'm not talking about
Texas here. I get ideas. But I get them while I walk home from school. When I get home I'm starving - my school day usually ends somewhere between 6 and 7, it's half an hour to get home and I usually start getting hungry around 3-ish. So do I head straight to the computer? Hell no. It's all about the food. Then I have more work.
The times when I'm actually sitting at a computer I'm usually doing work. So this just isn't happening. But today may be a breakthrough - blog at midnight when I'm punchy. I could churn out this
pap all night. And it only gets better as I go along.
