Wartun32 Fantasy Football Playoff Update

The 2006 Wartun32 Fantasy Football League Championship is being played this week after a couple of big Week 15 upsets of the #1 and #2 seeds. In the Toilet Bowl, a few teams have already been flushed down the drain (Victory Feast / Clay, Game Balls / Guru, Wheel Wold / Frank, It is Finished / Bolaji). Clay wins the dubious distinction of being the worst of the toilet bowl teams.

Game #1:
#5 seeded Hail Mary / Richard defeated #1 seeded The Cats / Nihal on a career performance by Marvin Harrison, who scored 34.60 points on three TDs from Peyton Manning. Final score: Hail Mary 131.35, The Cats 109.35.

Game #2:
#6 seeded Rock This Planet / Ron upset #2 seeded 4th Place / Loren (or is it Lauren?), powered by the RB tandem of Frank Gore and Rudi Johnson. Good thing the Bears were destroyed last week. Final score: Rock This Planet 100.60, 4th Place 95.10.

Here's a screenshot of the smack talk feature in use: "Any dude that interviews at Bare Escentuals is dooming himself in the playoffs"


Superbowl Matchup:
Rock This Planet / Ron versus Hail Mary / Richard. The winner takes home $288 (60% of the pot), and the runner-up takes home $48 (10%). Congrats to The Cats, who receive a payout of $48 for being the regular season winner overall (#1 seed).

Toilet Bowl Division Update:
So what happened to the rest of the money? No, the remaining money hasn't disappeared from my Paypal account; the bottom six teams are playing in the "Toilet Bowl", as the winner of the lower bracket gets the last 10% of the pot.

See the diagram on the right for a visual. (This should look familiar to the scene at the men's Wharton West bathrooms shortly after 10:30am for those of you who have heard me rant about why Wharton dudes make such a mess...) I had to calculate ("compoot", in OPIM 631 lingo) the numbers below for the bottom teams since our website doesn't do it automagically.

Toilet Bowl Division Results from Week 15: (bottom six teams)

0 points for bw	81.8
Wheel Wold	74.95
It is Finished	99.95
Wharton Westside	107.55
Worst of the Toilet Bowl
Victory Feast	98.55
Game Balls	104

Toilet Bowl Division Championship: 0 points for bw / Azar versus Wharton Westside / Adam
These guys are playing for 10% of the pot, which will help ease the pain of their season.

Here's a screenshot of the "smack talk" feature in use by Adam: "Get ready for some marginal propensity to lose, Wheel Wold":

End of Term 2!!!!

Wheeeeeeeew! Term 2 is over. It feels really really good! I finally caught up on some serious REM on Sat and Sun nights, and I'm still not feeling rested! John was saying that people are telling him that the program ages you...is there any way to measure wrinkles and gray hair elasticities?

So we have three weeks of vacation before the next term. We now have the M in MBA, or the A, depending on how you think about it. It's going by fast!

Here's some funny pics from the weekend:

Link to End of Term 2 Pictures, Avery's Party, and Mallika's Poker Party

Pay attention to the "I'm with Stupid T-Shirt" with Prof Abel, Amir's unwrapped Macro book, the view from Avery's party, and the Indian Poker (hope no one is offended) pics from Mallika's party.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my post on co-bloggers...we've found a few for next term already. If you are interested in contributing an article or two, lemme know.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's! Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends.

-R

Wharton F Yeah Video

With credit to Anil and his study group, here is a link to a pretty funny video from the Wharton full-time MBA students in Philly. You gotta love the Wharton West reference at the end. John said he wasn't going to link to it from the official site, but that if ours did then ....

Link to Wharton F*** Yeah video

I'll post on a link on the side of this blog for future reference.

(Warning: explicit lyrics, so make sure your kids are not around)

WEMBA Residency Requirement: Le Meridian Accomodations

A lot of potential students for the program ask me about the residency requirement, ie, the Le Meridian Hotel portion of our tuition. Guess I feel like doing a documentary tonight instead of studying....Here's my thoughts on the accomodations:

• You don't have an option to pay for the hotel or not. It's part of your tuition, even if you live 5 minutes away from school. So you might as well use it.
  
• The San Francisco Le Meridian is a four star hotel located in the Embarcadero Center of San Francisco, which is a pretty good area of The City. It used to be the Park Hyatt until a year ago or so. It's only a 10 minute walk to North Beach or Chinatown from the hotel, which is in the heart of the financial district.
  
• The Le Meridian is in the Starwood Resort network, which is pretty good from a hospitality points perspective (Westin, W, Sheraton, Le Meridian). Here's a link: Starwood
• The rooms themselves are pretty good. Music playing when you walk in, granite counters in the bathrooms, nice views (if you face the Bay or Bay Bridge), spa quality amenities (again, it varies), and free wireless internet. You'll find the typical USA Today newspaper on your doorstep in the am as well.

(Left) This is what the view from your room looks like if you **don't** get the Bay view....office buildings in SF view. (Right) This is a typical hotel room

• The five guys I carpool with that are on the Penninsula area (San Mateo, Belmont, Redwood Shores) all carpool up to the hotel on school weekends. We trade off driving up there and get a chance to chat during the ride up. That's a great time to talk, and I'm glad I carpool. We get there in the morning around 8:30am and more often than not (75% of the time) are able to check in and put our stuff into our rooms then, which is great.
  
• Parking fee (negotiated rate) is $25 a night. Sure beats $40 a night, which is the regular rate. $25 a night isn't bad for SF.
  
• It's about a six block walk from the hotel to school, which is located on 101 Howard Street.
  I've mapped it out here on Google maps. It's safe and those of us who walk haven't had a problem on the streets (to my knowledge) in six months.
  
• WEMBA reimburses you for taxi rides back and forth from the hotel and the campus. I actually prefer walking, since it takes about 10-15 minutes and I need the fresh air after a long day in class (or a walk before class). It's a much nicer walk when it's not winter, of course. If you take a taxi, you pay cash and Wharton reimburses you after you file the receipts at the front desk. You get the $ in an envelope from Larry, the security agent on the sixth floor at the next session. The system works out pretty good.
  
• It is nice that all of us are staying at the hotel during class weekends, usually just for a night. It would be much better if we had more time to network and get to know each other outside of class. The program is so jam packed that there just isn't that much time, unless you really make the time. Most of us spend non-exam nights having dinner with each other, playing poker, having a drink, or just chatting in the lounge.
• The frequent travelers (or expert high maintenance complainers) in the class seem to get the platinum treatment, meaning they get a suite when they check in. I haven't ever gotten one, but they really are quite nice when you do get one. I really don't care because we don't spend that much time there anyway. Besides, if you've spent enough nights away from home you deserve the extra treatment. (But it would be nice to get one at least once....)
  
• There are two suites that are reserved as Wharton "study rooms" on school evenings. If you want to do some "social studying", this is great. Or if you want to play some Texas Hold Em, it's also a great place to hang out at. I just feel sorry for the neighboring rooms.
• If you need to store stuff at the Le Meridian, then they'll let you check a bag with them on a two-week basis. This is great for keeping your personal stuff there at the hotel to minimize lugging it back and forth. It's also great for storing your poker chip set as well. :)
  

Next time: focus on the food at Wharton West...we might need a SurveyMonkey for that though. Good luck on finals and Happy Holidays, everyone!

-R

Adverse Blog Productivity Shock

FYI, I'm anticipating an adverse blog productivity shock next term. So if you are in WEMBA Class32, have a passion for reporting and writing, and own a camera phone let me know if you are willing to co-contribute to this blog. No, no, no, I'm not quiting the blog business. I am just anticipating a lot less time to keep this up at the current pace next term.

Shoot, the WEMBA marketing department is getting enough mileage from this that I ought to get at least .5 unit in an advanced Internet Marketing independent study class, don't ya think?

Seriously, if you are interested, come talk to me this weekend...

-R

End Game for Term 2: We’ve Almost Earned the “M” in MBA

We’re now in the last week of Term 2, with only one more week to go before a three week hiatus for the holidays. I am sooooo looking forward to that! It was a un-typical Saturday today, as family and other activities took precedence over WEMBA: woke up at 7:30am to study OPIM, 9am conference call with study group on HW4 for stats, then off to buy a Christmas tree with my daughter, lunch, and her kindergarten Christmas program and dinner with the in-laws. Total studying time: an hour an a half. Shoot, I was hoping to do one of those Macro practice finals today. It'll have to wait until tomorrow I guess. It's pretty hard to study during this time of year.

There’s still a whole lot of Macroeconomics and Operations Management left to cram for though. And the Statistics HW4 to finish off. (My study group dropped it like a hot potato once Waterman said that we got an extension until this upcoming weekend.) We have almost earned the “M” in MBA at the 1/3 point in the program. It is flying by!

While I'm at it, here’s some pics from last week’s wine tasting:

I just got my Leadership essay back in the mail today, which explained the grade I saw posted on the transcript website. The distribution for the final was pretty tight, between 36 and 39, with a 37.3 average. Lesson learned: don’t write essays in pencil! Pen is much faster.

Looks like there’s a bunch of social activities just around the corner:

• Avery, Loren, Mallika, and Jenn are hosting a Wharton West Christmas Party on Sat 12/17 at Avery’s firm in SF after we finish exams. Should be fun!

• Nichole is hosting a Christmas party up in Hercules on 12/23. Sounds great, especially the hot tub, but I’m gonna miss it.

• Sam is planning a Wharton West Vegas Weekend between Term 3 and Term 4, after we’re half finished with the program. If you are interested, fill out the Surveymonkey today. Sounds like WEMBA East32 isn’t going to make it out West to join us, which is a bummer.

It is also Playoff Time for the Wartun32 Fantasy Football League. Yours truly and the other fantasy football addicts in our class just finished the regular fantasy season last week in NFL Week 13, with first-timer and rookie Nihal leading the league. This has been a weird season; lots of injuries and surprises. If someone is able to figure out a regression model for FFB that explains even 25% of the variability, I'm all ears. But it's been great to have something to talk about besides academia, and it’s been pretty funny to see how many Portugese team names we had after Brazil won for our international trip!

Here’s the regular season standings:

1. The Cats 11-2-0 .846 1441.90 W-2 8 8 (Nihal)

*2. 4th Place 10-3-0 .769 1525.80 W-8 11 69 (Loren)

*3. Quem é seu pai? 8-5-0 .615 1536.30 W-4 2 3 (Robert)

*4. Gravitas 7-6-0 .538 1445.30 W-1 3 19 (Mark)

*5. Hail Mary 7-6-0 .538 1410.75 W-1 10 32 (Richard)

*6. Rock This Planet 7-6-0 .538 1398.65 L-2 12 17 (Ron)

7. 0 points for bw??? 6-7-0 .462 1435.35 L-1 6 13 (Azar)

8. It is Finished! 6-7-0 .462 1401.60 W-2 7 24 (Bolaji)

9. Wharton Westside 5-8-0 .385 1376.05 L-1 9 14 (Adam)

10. Game Balls 5-8-0 .385 1286.05 L-5 5 13 (Guru)

11. Wheel Wold 5-8-0 .385 1275.95 L-2 4 24 (Frank)

12. Victory Feast 1-12-0 .077 1091.75 L-12 1 10 (Clay)

Quarterfinals are NFL Week 14, and feature the following matchups:

Week 14:

Gravitas versus Hail Mary

Quem e seu pai versus Rock This Planet

The Cats and 4^th Place are on bye…

We’ve also got a “Toilet Bowl” for the bottom six teams, and here are the matchups for the bottom bracket:

Here's the Toilet Bowl seedings:
Week 14:
Byes: 0 points for BW, It is Finished
Victory Feast at Wharton Westside
Wheel World at Game Balls

(If you are a U$C fan, keep on reading right here!) Oh yeah, and I gotta send a shot out to my UCLA Bruins. It’s a great time to be a Bruin, with the football team knocking ex-#2 arch-rival USC out of BCS national championship contention last week, and with the basketball team racking up a #1 hoops ranking. Did I mention that I was right behind the bench for the UCLA versus Georgia Tech basketball game at the Maui Invitational over Thanksgiving? It was sweet!

Here's what the view was like from my seats. It was pretty cool to hear Howland coach the team’s defense, which finally has caught up with all the offensive talent we’ve had over the years. And this has resulted in a #1 ranking in both the AP and ESPN/USA coaches polls. Should be a great time for March Madness….back to studying…see you all in a week.

-R

Grades Posted for Management and OPIM

FYI, Penn InTouch has just posted grades for Useem and Hershey's class.

-R

Elective Selection and the Balanced Portfolio Approach

Here's the list of elective selections. Looks like there was some collusive behavior to get some classes voted onto the list. :) In general, the list is pretty similar to Class 31's list.

Here's the list:

TOP 30 ELECTIVES

ACCT 742 Problems in Financial Reporting
ACCT 896x Applied Financial Analysis and Equity Valuation
FNCE 717 Financial Derivatives
FNCE 719/731/748 International Corporate Finance
FNCE 720 Investment Management
FNCE/REAL 721 Real Estate Investment: Analysis and Financing
FNCE 726 Advanced Corporate Finance
FNCE 728 Corporate Valuation
FNCE 750 Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation
FNCE 751X Mergers, Acquisitions, and Buyouts
HCMG 863 Management & Economics of Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Industry
LGST/MGMT/OPIM 806/691/691 Negotiation & Dispute Resolution
MGMT 671 Executive Leadership
MGMT 701 Strategy and Competitive Advantage
MGMT 721 Corporate Development: Mergers and Acquisitions
MGMT 773 Managing Organizational Change
MGMT 782 Stratetic Implementation
MGMT 801 (0.5) Entrepreneurship
MGMT 804 (0.5) Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Management
MGMT 806 Formation and Implementation of Entrepreneurial Ventures
MGMT 809 (0.5) Private Equity in Emerging Markets
MGMT 811 (0.5) Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition
MKTG 753 (0.5) New Product Development
MKTG 754 (0.5) Pricing Policy
MKTG 756 Marketing Research
MKTG 771 Models for Marketing Strategy
MKTG 777 Marketing Strategy
MKTG 781 (0.5) Entrepreneurial Marketing
OPIM 653 Mathematical Modeling and Its Application in Finance
OPIM 654 Product Design and Development

This is for the benefit of those who follow after us: after giving it some thought, I decided that I wanted the best overall business background from Wharton. So I went for a "balanced portfolio". I spread my votes across the most important classes in management, finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship, instead of going for a major. If I end up getting one, then great, but if not, it wasn't a big deal to me. The words from the Alumni panel reasonated with me: those "soft" classes are the ones that they have found over the years as they've advanced in their careers are the ones that have retained their value. The comment that quant calculations don't keep you up at night thinking about them but people issues do affected my decision to vote for more management classes than I would have. However, I think that those in our class that are contemplating a more radical career change (such as in finance) had a different approach, and instead concentrated their votes in one area. For example, no one taking a general management approach would have voted for Financial Derivatives.

Here's what I voted for:
1. Executive Leadership
2. Strategy and Competitive Advantage
3. Corporate Development: Mergers and Acquisitions
4. Marketing Strategy
5. Formation and Implementation of Entrepreneurial Ventures
6. Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation
7. Corporate Valuation
8. Investment Management

Looks like a lot of us used the same "balanced portfolio" approach, as everything I wanted got onto the list. There's no guarantee that they will all be offered, of course. The process is that Howie is going to work with the faculty to get classes from this list scheduled. Overall, I'm pretty happy that we are in the ballpark.

Speaking of ballparks, Sports Management was one of those classes that I wanted to take but when I thought about it there's no way I'll ever be an agent for the NFL, so I didn't vote for it. I suppose that my willingness to pay was less than the tuition amount for a .5 unit class. If anyone really wants to understand why, it's a story better told over a beer.

It's been kind of hard to choose electives at the end of Term 2 for the remainder of the program; I wish that there was some way to alter the voting process to make it term by term instead of locking it in this far in advance, before we've even had the marketing core, for example. But I'm sure it's a matter of scheduling.

On the lighter side, there's some activity going on for "proper" End of Year 1 Trip for our class. Sounds like there's a lot of interest! Las Wage$, Cabo, and China were all mentioned, as well as the usual questions about the crime rate...:) Kudos to the Sam-ster who's organizing it!

-R

Section 1 Pics from OPIM 631 Assembly Line

Hi everyone,
I've added some pics (thanks, Robert!) from Section 1 to my Flickr photo set of the OPIM 631 assembly line.

Here's the URL: Flickr photo set of OPIM 631 for both sections

Or you can click on the badge at the right.

-R

Wharton Teaches the Programming Model for Biz

Yo, it's your friendly neighborhood blogger again...

We've been getting a ton of potential recruits for next year's cohort visiting lately, and I'm tired of studying Business Analysis Using Regression, so I decided to take a blog induced break for 10 minutes.

Here's an example of what you learn to do in the statistics core class: multiple regression with multi-level categorical variables.

If terms like r square, RMSE, t ratio, p value, leverage plots, and heteroscedasticity (try telling someone that your doctor said you had contracted it at the next dinner party) float your boat, then statistics is for you. It seems to be extremely useful in all areas that we'll soon be taking electives in: finance, marketing, management, and operations. It also has been useful for fantasy football statistics. Maybe that's why Nihal (GM of "The Cats") is The Man this season. Nihal is going down this week though, 'cuz he plays me.

If terms like those don't float your boat, then at least you know that all those complicated terms and numbers are.
----------------------------
Lest you think this is all quant and no fun, I was talking with a pretty well-known VC the other day who loves Wharton grads. Here's a quote from her that I thought I'd pass along:

"I really like Wharton grads...Wharton is a great b-school because they teach you the programming model for business. Wharton grads can quantify everything, unlike other well known and established schools in the area." Such as the one that starts with an "S"! :) As Kent said, at "S", they teach you how you should feel.

Back to studying. Gotta get HW4 done before I head to Maui for Thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

In Honor of Milton Friedman

Some sad news: Nobel Laureate and Famous Economist Milton Friedman passed away today in San Francisco. You know the famous guy who's on every other slide in Macroeconomics?

Here's a link from the SF Chronicle:Link
I got a chance to ask Kent about his thoughts today, and here's a part of what he said:

"Friedman was an intellectual giant outmatched only by his humility." -Kent Smetters

Thought it was worth passing along and you all would be interested.

-Chairman P

OPIM 631 Quips And Quotes

There were quite a few funny moments in OPIM 631 as well this past weekend. Terwiesch is giving Abel a run for his money for the Humorous Lecturer of the Quarter Award. Here's some quotes from section 2's OPIM class:

"What's wrong with you all? I hear there's quality problems offshore now." -Zach, after making five working circuit boards with zero bad ones

"That's what happens when you take the lowest bid."

"Zach, you have a new career opportunity."

"Do you know how many units the morning line made? One. So this is good line, in a relative sense."

"What happens when there's a mistake on the line? They happily go on producing the same crap."

"Let me say it this way: sometimes it's good to be slow."

"We need more strippers. (after everyone laughs) No, not that kind."

"Can you please return the electronics kits? It won't be any good if you take them on an airplane, and they won't be impressed when the LED blinks."

"It's not a horror movie." -Terwiesch during the 1960s YouTube.com video archive of the Cranberry factory video we saw in class. Some of us thought that the musical soundtrack was ripped off from The Shining.

I've posted some pictures here: Flickr link to OPIM 631 pictures

Robert says he has some hi-res ones from Section 1 and I'll post a link later when I get a link.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! See ya in three weeks. I'm out until then.

-R

Exams, Exams and Results, Oh My!

End Game for Term 2
It's crunch time! We're heading into the home stretch of Term 2. I can't believe we are almost 1/3 done with the program already! It's flying by. Here's some thoughts from last weekend, which was an extra long three day session from Thursday through Saturday. These three day sessions are real killers to get through. By the third day, everyone is pretty much brain dead. And the rain started in SF, making the trek back and forth from the hotel far less pleasant than we have enjoyed so far. I saw a lot more cab receipts this time around. I decided to walk because the fresh air and exercise really is nice after sitting through all the hours of lecture.
Exams, Exams, and Results, Oh My!
Well, we got back the results from our Macroeconomics mid-term, Statistics mid-term, and OPIM final this session, and we took our Leadership final on Thursday afternoon. I breathed a sigh of relief as I managed to do just fine pretty much across the board, with some variation. I was pretty worried about Macro, but Abel seemed like he was pretty generous on the grading, that's all I have to say! Otherwise the mean would have been much lower than 121 out of 164 (sd of 21. The amazing thing was that the average for the 7 bonus points was 6.58 with a standard deviation of 1.51. What did you have to do to get the bonus? Put your name on the line on the top of the pages in all caps. I was pretty sure the mean would be 7 with a sd of 0, but I guess someone missed that. Looks like the final exams also give bonus points for your name on the top of each page, so there's no way anyone should miss it if they read this?
MacroSim and Abel Quips
Well, we started off the weekend with a computer simulation of a closed economy in groups of two or three. My team got DQed when I failed to hit OK on the dialog in round 4. That's ok, we were outta control anyway at 78% inflation by that point anyway. And then we got out of control again when we kept playing the game. My take after playing: if these equations represent anything close to a real economy, the variables are so sensitive and complex that I now have a vastly increased respect for economists. It's anything but straightforward.

The team that won in BOTH sections won by cooperating between the fiscal and monetary teams, and they are rewarded with 12 bonus points on the final. Unfortunately, Abel said this afterward:

"The good news is that you got 12 points extra on the final. The bad news is that the final is worth 1 million points."

I'm pretty sure he was kidding, so those dudes don't have to worry about the final as much as the rest of us. Abel spent the other lectures on asset markets, money, and prices, a current policy topic on indexed bonds, exchange rates and open-economy macro policy, macro policy in Argentina, monetary non-neutrality and the Phillips curve, and political business cycles.

By popular demand, here's the top quips and quotes:
Abel: "What's the value of e?" Eve: "2.7182818284680298432". Abel: "We could get you help."
(About the J Curve): "If they came up with the idea 40 years ago, they might have called it the Nike Swoosh."
(Looking at Murat's empty seat next to Sean): "I think he thinks it's like a wedding, where you can RSVP or not. Wait til he sees the thank you note."
"This is really a rectangular hyperbola. But if you want to call it a downward sloping curve that's fine."
"'Beggar Thy Neighbor' is British speak for screw your neighbor."
"I don't mean Monopoly money, I mean the money that the monopoly issues."
"Restructuring is such a cool word. It means I owe you a ton of money and there's no way in hell I'll repay it."
"Who was Phillips?" A: "The screwdriver?"
"What's the misery index? It's not Kathleen Bates."
"Al Gore had to work really really hard to lose that election."

I got an IM message towards the end of the last session (when we were covering the plot of the Phillips Curve) that read: "This stuff is like astrology. I think I can see the Big Dipper."

Hand Cramps?
Oh yeah, and does anyone else still have hand cramps after the Leadership final? You'd think that if they could figure out how to convert the essay section of the GMAT to computer based, that Wharton could figure out how to let us use a keyboard too. One of our classmates said: "I was going to give Useem a hand signal after the final exam but my hand was too cramped."

Realizing the Value of a Wharton Exec MBA Panel Summary

Wharton Alums speak on the Value of a Wharton Exec MBA after graduation

Last night on Friday November 3^rd, WEMBA Class 31 invited our class to join a Wharton Alumni panel last night for a panel discussion on the topic, “Realizing the Value of a Wharton Exec MBA”. Most of us agreed that it was very useful and valuable to hear what the alums shared with us. We also agreed that it was weird being at 101 Howard without any books on a weekend that we didn’t have class! John and I managed to get there early in time to grab the usual dinner being served after class. Dessert was very good last night. The turnout was pretty good for Class 32; there were about twenty of us that made it. There were about thirty Class 31 students there. This would have been a good event to videotape because it would be of general interest to all of our cohort, not just the Bay Area students. Some of the panel speakers agreed to send some of their advice via email; stay tuned for more info as I get it.

Here’s what the invite for the event said:

“We have organized a panel of Wharton EMBA alums to come speak to us about how they leveraged their Wharton education to propel their careers. Panel will comprise of EMBA students who have been in the industry for a years and can speak to realizing the value of their education.

If you are looking to grow rapidly in your career, make lateral changes in your organization or move to a new industry - this is the panel for you!

The panel participants were:
Gaurav Kapoor (Class 27, CFO, MetricStream)
John Balczewski (Class 27, Project Manager Gas Hydrates at Chevron)
Shauna Barker (Class 28, VP Finance and Treasurer, PMC-Sierra)
Wael Diab (Class 28, Director of Marketing, Broadcom)
Roel Peteers (Class 29, Co-founder/VP Marketing & Business Development, H-Stream Wireless)

Russ Laraway (Class 29, Senior Manager, Google Adsense Online Sales and Operations)
The panel was moderated by Naveed Hussain (Class 27, Director, Boeing)

Afterward the event, we met some of Class 31 and Prof. Len Lodish and his wife at Frisson, a restaurant and bar that’s walking distance from the Le Meridian Hotel. It was a good place to meet and it was nice to chat in a more informal setting. We should go there again sometime. Here’s the URL: www.frissonsf.com

Here my summary of the ideas that were discussed last night, if my recollection serves me right:

• One alum made the case that most underutilized resource at Wharton is your classmates. Get to know them as much as you can while you are here. Don’t hang out with the same people all the time. Broaden the base of people that you get to know well.
• Another underutilized resource is the faculty. They have a wealth of knowledge and contacts that are useful. Some faculty have been very instrumental in helping companies get off the ground.
• Networking is more about what you can give that what you can get. If you take that point of view, it’ll change the way you approach networking. Ask yourself “how can I help?”.
• Maximize your time after class to get to know your classmates. Do you always eat lunch with the same people? And yes, it’s ok if you aren’t the Palmer scholar. One guy started a company and never had to make a “cold call” to someone he didn’t know personally for two years!
• Wharton gives you the confidence to take risks. You know the brand is strong enough to rely upon if you have to switch industries or jobs. There were many examples of this.
• For those that are younger: it might be good to get a major and don’t put WEMBA on your resume so you look more like a FT program grad. A number of students have moved east to the FT or WEMBA East programs who want to make the transition to a finance job in the East Coast.
• Don’t be afraid of calling Wharton alums; they are usually very willing to take your calls to help you out.
• The food is better in the West than the East.
• Don’t chicken out of the GCP or anything else. You don’t want any regrets.
• 20% of Class 31 has switched jobs during the past five terms.
• Keep things in perspective during the program from a work-life balance point of view. Four of the sixty Class 27 cohort went through divorces during the program.
• What is the ROI of a Wharton education? The PVLR is very high but the P&L is still negative.
• Try to leverage your domain knowledge when moving jobs. Keep your technical skills sharp because you never know when they will come in handy.
• A major does not really matter that much for experienced professionals who stay in their fields. Don’t overlook the soft stuff and focus too much on the quant stuff. Some of the alums wished they took more management classes as opposed to more finance/quant classes.
• As you move up in your career, people become much more important. Go for breadth in your classes so you know what you don’t know.
• A spirit of always learning and being able to pick up new things is one key to career advancement.
• Get as many of your classmates phone numbers in your cell phone as possible.
• Stay in touch with your classmates after graduation.
• Take advantage of the facebook, alumni database, and many services while you are at Wharton.

Out for now...good luck on studying for the Management final in Useem's class.

-"Chairman P"

Our Macro TA, Elective Voting, Study Tour Results, and the Value of a Wharton Degree

An exclusive interview with the behind the scenes Wharton Finance 602 TA (aka as "Mister T") revealed the approach he took for last weekend's mid-term exam: Pain!









Note to Class 33 next year: last weekend's mid-term exams were very painful! Ouch, it still hurts.

Here's some of the adjectives used to descibe the feeling after last weekend's Macro (and Statistics) mid-term exams:
"I am humbled. I studied the old WEMBA exams and thought I would be good to go. I was wrong."
"Paaaain, as in Clubber Lang / Mister T in Rocky III" -Zach
"Sadistic"
"My brain is numb"
"Hammer time"
"If the null is low, the exam must go"

After some amount of discussion from what we heard from Class 31, the best premise I heard is that Abel needed to crank the difficulty index up because Class 31 destroyed last year's mid-term. This year? It was like the 49ers versus the Bears on Sunday: Abel 41, Us 10. He cranked it up two or three notches. And those ten points were in garbage time. Good thing he took out the extra question at the end, or it would have been Abel 55, Us 3. Under/over on the mean is about 50% or so. There were a lot of field goal kickers in our class, which translates into "go for partial credit and hope he's merciful".

After the game, Coach Abel was very upbeat and was willing to talk to the press. Here's what he said:
"As Yogi Berra said when the Yankees lost the World Series, at least nobody died."
"There can theoretically be negative scores but it usually doesn't happen."

We also did two other interesting things this past week: vote for electives (first round to narrow it down to 30), and vote for the International Study Tour for next year.

Voting for Electives
Voting for electives was interesting because Robert published the survey monkey results prior to the voting. My strategy as well as others I talked to was to vote for electives that weren't on the "for sure" list. This could backfire if all of us used this approach, which would result in less of the "for sure" list being in the second round. Here's the list from Robert:

Well, with a 39% response rate, I'm ready to say "good enough". Here are the results (in order of highest weighted score)...

Courses VERY likely to be in the Top 30:

LGST 806 Negotiations

FNCE 728 Corporate Valuation

MKTG 777 Marketing Strategy

FNCE 726 Advanced Corporate Finance

FNCE 717 Financial Derivatives

FNCE 751x Mergers, Acquisitions & Buyouts

MGMT 721 Corporate Development: M&A

FNCE 750 Venture Capital & the Finance of Innovation

FNCE 720 Investment Management

FNCE 804 Venture Capital & Private Equity Management

MKTG 756 Marketing Research

MGMT 782 Strategic Implementation

MKTG 753 New Product Development

MKTG 754 Pricing Policy

OPIM 654 Product Design & Development

FNCE 721 Real Estate Investments

MKTG 771 Models for Marketing Strategy

MGMT 701 Strategic Planning & Control

MGMT 804 Venture Capital & Entrepreneurial Mgmt.

Courses SOMEWHAT likely to be in the Top 30:

MGMT 671 Total Leadership

MGMT 811 Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition

MKTG 751 Sales Force Management

MGMT 801 Entrepreneurship & Venture Initiation

ACCT 742 Problems in Financial Reporting

MKTG 781 Entrepreneurial Marketing

FNCE 738 Funding Investments

HCMG 863 Management & Econ of Pharma & Biotech Industry

MGMT 773 Managing Organizational Change

MGMT 809 Private Equity in Emerging Markets (write-in)

HCMG 849 Financial Management of Health Institutions

MGMT 802 Innovation, Change and Entrepreneurship

REAL 721 Real Estate Finance

FNCE 748 International/Multinational Corporate Finance

LGST 809 Sports Business Management

FNCE 731 International Corporate Finance

INSR 811 Risk & Crisis Management

REAL 891 Real Estate Entrepreneurship

Courses UNLIKELY to be in the Top 30:

ACCT 743 Acctg for Complex Financial Structures

OPIM 653 Mathematical Modeling

MGMT 731 Technology Strategy (write-in)

OPIM 666 Industry Structure & Competitive Strategy

LGST 813 Entrepreneurial Law

MGMT 715 Geopolitics

MGMT 806 Formation & Implementation Entrpnl Ventures

REAL 804 Real Estate Law

OPIM 658 Service Operations Management

OPIM 667 Business Transformation (write-in)

MKTG/OPIM 655 Integrating Marketing and Operations

MGMT/BPUB 784 Managerial Economics & Game Theory

FNCE 890 Global Investment Banking

MKTG 759 Channel Management

REAL 728 Security Analysis

MGMT 625 Corporate Governance

International Study Tour Results
Well, WEMBA Class 32 West is headed to Brazil, which Sandra announced this morning. Tudo Bem! (I need to set the record straight: I was not on the Brazil committee nor did I communicate with them prior to my post on the tour.) Props out to Clifton, who did a fabulous job on the presentation! The word on the street is that WEMBA Class 32 East is headed to China. It would be interesting to allow the two classes to mix participation in the trips, which would allow people interested in one country versus choice of study tour. It would also be most excellent to network with our east counterparts again. There's been some email threads about safety, which I think is a valid concern no matter where we go. The question I gotta ask is: why didn't someone address that issue in the pitches? But being the good statisticians that we are being trained to be, it caused me to go research the crime rates out there. Frank made the correct conclusion about it being more dangerous in the US than in the rest of the world per 1000 people.


Here's Clifton delivering the winning pitch for Brazil. We are headed to Sao Paulo and/or Rio...



Zia and the "China Angels" (Alice, Jenn, and Judy) won the "Best costume" award for their presentation.

The Value of a Wharton Degree
This Friday Class 31 is hosting an alumni panel that will be discussing the value of a Wharton degree. All this elective voting has forced us to start thinking (if we hadn't already) about what we are going to do post-MBA. It should be valuable and interesting to hear the alumni perspective on this subject. Of course it'll be biased toward the very very successful alums, but it'll be good to hear nonetheless.

-Chairman P

Buzz on the International Trip

Buzz on the International Trip
So we are getting the Powerpoint pitches for our international trip locations over dinner this session, which should be interesting. I wanted to pass along the latest buzz in discussions with a few folks in our class: although there's a strong (and well-organized) coalition of India and China International Study Tour supporters in our cohort, there is significant last minute interest in Latin America. Specifically, Brazil!

Why Not India?
India is my last choice by a LARGE margin. Our class is tech-heavy already, which implies that many of us have to travel to India for business anyway. I am already forced to travel to the tech centers of Hyderabad and Bangalore, so why in the world would I want to go there for a study tour? If you ask Ariel how sick he got after his last trip there, there's no way I want to go there unless I have to. Which I do anyway. Sorry to disappoint those of you lobbying for India, but it's a place I do not want to go at all.

Then Why Not China?
China is an interesting place, and it certainly is growing by leaps and bounds. But like India, it's a place that most of us will have to travel to for business anyway. Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong are likely destinations in the not so distant future for me, as the offshoring phenomenon is moving toward China as a place for low-cost offshore talent, assuming they fix the IP issues with doing business there. One positive thing is that the influx of money for the Olympic Games in 2007 will be an interesting thing to observe while we were there. I'm not nearly as opposed to going there as I am to India; it would be okay but not ideal.

The Ideal: Brazil - Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo
So here's the case for Brazil. Brazil has 180M people, it's the largest country in Latin America, the 9th largest economy in the world, and it produces 40% of the GDP of Latin America. It's also not a place we'd all have to travel to for business, which to me is great. It's a melting pot of cultures: there are substantial Japanese, Italian, Arab and Lebanese populations in Brazil. Plus, Rio is sooo beautiful. Final reason: the fun factor is off the charts for Brazil!

Travel etiquette in Brazil: link
Types of business in Rio: link

Pics are worth a thousand words, so check it out (I did a search on Flickr):

Shot of Rio at night: link to night view of Rio
Beach, city view, and scenery in Rio: link to Rio pics on Flickr
This beats the Old Ship: link to Rio club

The one thing I don't know is what business contacts Wharton has in Brazil.

Post your comments. I'd love to hear what you think about Brazil...

-Chairman P

Macro Quips and Quotes

Yeah, yeah, there's a macro mid-term coming up next week AND a stats mid-term. Guess I'm getting saturated trying to study statistics and macro at the same time, so I decided to blog. I think that Finance 602, Macroeconomics and the Global Economic Environment, is a great class. Abel adds a sense of humor and fun to his lecture style that I have been enjoying. I also like the last 30 minutes of each class that he spends on a current policy topic, which makes macro relevant. This could be a really boring subject if all he talked about was GDP/GNP, PVLR, Tobin's Q, inflation, and business cycles, but he has managed to make it entertaining and lively. I know not everyone would agree with me given the folks I see napping in the back of the class (and no, I won't expose you despite the many mobile phone pics that have been taken...).

The evidence? Here's some quotes from Abel:

• "I know and you know that when "accounting" is in the title of something it's boring. Poor Lambert, he had to teach a whole term of it."
• "Ken's a good friend of mine. I'll take some opportunities for random shots at micro along the way."
• "I don't think you should do algebra in public."
• "Let's not get into a fishing contest because I can fish better than you."
• "On the final exam, there's this question about Turkey..."
• "Final goods and value added is an abuse of both words for Mc Donald's."
• "The budget curve is the domain of the accountants. The indifference curve is the domain of the psychiatrists."
• "Tau is the greek god of taxes."
• "Obstructed view seating is worth mentioning to the powers that be."
• "There's no quiet way to open a beer."
• "The Social Security Trust Fund is not correct. You definitely don't want to trust them."
• "There are five ways to say that there's a current account surplus. In the Eskimo language, there are 35 ways to say the word "snow"."
• "Poor Mexico...so far from God and so close to the United States."
• "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job."
• "This data is published by the business cycle dating commitee. When Bill Clinton heard about it, he wanted to get on it."

Hope you enjoyed the quotes. Now it's time to get back to studying for stats and macro....

-Chairman P

Midway Through Term 2: Thoughts on Leadership Class

Whoa, I just realized that I am getting behind on blogging our class experience! There is so much going on these days (work, school, family) and it's been hard to keep up the blogging. So I figured that I'd write a bit this morning and upload a few pics before the events from the past few weeks faded from my memory.

Management 652, Foundations of Leadership, is a 0.5 unit class, and we finished up the lectures last weekend. Now we take a final the weekend after the upcoming one. It strikes me that this is definitely an "Extreme MBA", as in Extremely Fast! I can't believe it's over already. I thought that Professor Useem did an excellent job with the course, and I enjoyed it immensely. Here's the stuff we covered last weekend with my editorial comments, to give you a sense of what we do in class:

• Clarifying Objectives - We did a case study on the Parable of the Sadhu, which was about a dying Indian holy man in the most extreme of conditions. There was this 1960s video clip that we watched, which was kind of outdated but really hammered home the context of the case to me. A question to remember that struck me: what would you do if the sadhu had been a well-dressed Western woman?
• Leading in an Era of Change and Uncertainty - We covered a case study on Charles Schwab and Meg Whitman at eBay. The Schwab case was really cool because as soon as Useem put up the slide to start talking about it, our celebrity guest speaker for lunch showed up. The guest speaker? None other than Wharton alum Dave Pottruck, ex-CEO of Schwab and current CEO of Eos Airlines.

Here's a pic of Dave Pottruck addressing the class during lunch.

Click here for the link to Eos, which charges $5000 for a luxury plane ticket from New York to London! They market themselves as a "five star hotel with wings". Useem did the right thing and just chucked the material when Pottruck showed up in class. Who cares about a dusty outdated Harvard Business School case study when you have the real guy standing in class! I thought that Dave was kinda like an NFL football coach, aggressive and hard-nosed. I was thinking about Bill Cowher mixed with Mike Shanahan. I thought he was extra candid when it came to talking about some personal stuff and how your personal life affects your professional life; this caused him to change in order to grow. One of our classmates said, "Pottruck just oozes CEO....but I wouldn't want to work for him, he'd be too tough!"

• Acting Responsibly - There were case studies on Old City Enterprises and on Responsibility Yes, But To Whom? These cases were on ethical issues regarding one's personal reputation and the reputation of the firm.
• Making Rapid and Accurate Decisions - Useem wrote an article about the forest fire disaster on Storm King Mountain in Colorado in summer 1994 that claimed the lives of 14 firefighters. Our exercise in class was to make a decision about whether to race or not given some assumptions on the payoff and risks involved for professional auto-racing. This was pretty fun, as we had to split up into small discussion groups to make a decision, and then to come up with a group consensus across the entire section. Of course, as a faithful moblogger, I captured some pictures of this going on in class with my camera phone. Here's some pictures. There was a pretty funny moment in our section when Amir quipped, "What if the driver was a sadhu?"

WEMBA Section 2 debates whether to race or not. Sean modeled the expected utility of racing on the chalkboard.








Zia convinces Gary, Rob, Amir and Malika to race. "No guts no glory!" Amir was still wondering what if the driver was a sadhu....

• Building Leadership and Teamwork Before Needed - We finished up the class with some scenes from Gettysburg, where we studied the charisma and gravitas (oh no, I used the word, 10 yard penalty for me) behind the events that allowed the Union army to hold its crucial left flank. This was the turning point of the Civil War. Useem said that in the FT program that they actually go visit the site, and it made me wish that we could have done that too.
  

Some other stuff that happened last weekend:

• OPIM 621 Final. We took the OPIM 621 final, which is the other 0.5 unit class that is also done for this term. Hershey cranked up the difficulty level on the final compared to the last few years, but that was sort of expected given the clustered and skewed distribution on the quiz. This is the class that went by the fastest. I thought that learning Linear Programming and simulation techniques were useful tools that I will likely use in the future.
  
• Elective Selection Time. We got some additional info on the elective selection process as well as alumni feedback on their experience at WEMBA West. It is quite interesting right now, as there seems to be a lot of discussion and lobbying going on in the class to garner votes for electives of interest. We need to draw an influence map of the relationships in the class, and then to navigate the major centers of influence. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
  
• Getting Sick. It sucks being sick, as I was last weekend. I think Raghav will agree with me. Sorry for those of you who had to hear me coughing; hope I didn't infect anyone. Wharton will record classes for you if you are really sick, but I think I made the right choice to go to class as there is no substitute for in class attendance. The good thing is that I got a ton of sleep on Friday night, having turned in about 9pm. Seems like something is going around now, at least in our study group....

-Chairman P

BusinessWeek Article With Quote from Wharton Professor

I'm passing along an interesting read about the YouTube/Google valuation. It had a quote from a Wharton professor inside...

Link: BusinessWeek article: Smart Move or Silly Money 2.0?

Microeconomics: MC = MR

Here's an e-commerce website that is a marketplace for creative types in a ton of different categories. If you liked Smetter's micro class, then you'll love this clock.

Here's a link if you want to buy one to put one up in your office: CafePress

Statistics Quote, for Those Studying STAT 601

"...you never know if what you're doing is correct, but you always know that what you're doing is right..."

-Deborah Rumsey, Statistics for Dummies

Make the Most of Your Internship (or first post-MBA job)

Credit goes to a friend at Kellogg who passed this one along to me...there are some interesting thoughts on the technology sector (Hot Trends) from Kellogg's Technology Marketing guru below. There are also some "Must Reads" with links. The internship comments probably won't be as relevant to most of you.

-Chairman P

How to make the most of your internship (or first post-MBA job)

Interview with Professor Sawhney

By Emma Blaylock & Bergen Moe-Fishman

The summer is approaching fast, so we spent 30 minutes speaking to Professor Sawhney, Kellogg’s Technology Marketing guru, to get his tips on making the most of a Marketing or High-Tech internship.

“How can we get the most out of our internship?”

One thing you need to realize is that if you sit under the tree the apple is not going to fall on your head. You have to be proactive. The best type of internship is where the project is ill-defined and ambiguous – where you have the opportunity to scope and structure it to say “this is what I am interested in and what I can deliver”. Think about it – I am a manager and I’ve written a requisition for an intern and I just want a good person to work for me. They turn up and treat it as gospel and I’ve spent 5 minutes writing it. So don’t be shy in going to your manager even if they present you with a project and say “do you mind if I re-scope this or re-frame this in a way that I think would add more value to the firm and be a better learning experience for me?”

But you can’t do that unless you know the company and the context. So take your time and do your homework. Spend a few days getting the lay of the land and sucking up as much information as you can and then make a counter proposal. If possible, don’t join a running stream where you join in the middle and leave before it finishes and have no sense of closure. It is much better to do a piece of work that you can drive to completion. Which might mean you end up taking on something less ambitious but that you can work on and finish and your contribution can be uniquely identified. Get some sense of ownership over a deliverable or product.

And one final thing is to network, network, network, network. Resolve that you will have lunch with a different person each week or you are going to reach out to people. That’s how you learn and build relationships in particular if you want to work there full-time.

“What should our objective be in an internship?”

For internships where you want to explore an industry and use the internship as a stepping stone for something else, really understand how product management or marketing works inside of a well-known, reputable company—especially if you want to work for a smallish company [after your internship]. For internships where you want to stay with that company, the best thing you can do for yourself is to navigate the landscape and find the appropriate position and manager to work with inside that company. One thing people need to realize as they think about any large company setting is that you don’t work for a company, you work for a manager. Within the same company you can have a disastrous situation or a wonderful situation depending on who you work for and how good they are as mentors. In that setting, make as many connections as possible. Try to get out there and get in front of as many people as possible. Look for projects that give you high visibility that get you exposed to senior managers. Get as much of a birds eye view of the organization and places you could see yourself working in.

What are some of the mistakes that people make on the internships and how can we avoid them?

People sometimes find themselves spinning their wheels quite a bit or they get lost inside of a big company. Don’t just put your hands up – see what else you can do with your time.

And not networking enough – understanding that this is about building relationships just as much as building knowledge. One person once told me a great formula - your value is what you know raised to the power of who you know. So it is not just your knowledge but your knowledge leveraged through your relationships.

What hot trends we should read up on?

Mobility – video becoming mobile, devices becoming mobile, content becoming mobile so we have to translate everything we know about media, advertising, brands, user interface design, search (Google says this is their biggest opportunity) and the way search on devices can now be really local to the mobile environment.

The connected and converged home – (IP TV, content streamed over the internet, Voice Over IP). Convergence and mobility come together – moving music around the house through WiFi. The other thing I’m seeing companies really get better at (e.g. Intel, Microsoft) is beating commoditization through better segmentation. Designing products around end-users and specific scenarios rather than just talking about specific products and price. I talk about it as the emergence of experiences – creating experiences rather than products you just want to push.

Software as a Service – this is the biggest trend in the enterprise world the biggest trend and the new model for Web 2.0 (which has a consumer side and an enterprise side). How Google is going to get into the enterprise is going to be very interesting to watch and how Salesforce.com is changing the model for deploying software and Microsoft’s whole “Live initiative”. The internet becomes the platform. I believe that enterprise applications are dead in the long run – it will all be services. Another thing with enterprise technology is communication and the whole collaboration space which is undergoing a revolution. There is big investment in this area. How we work today with IM will evolve to the next generation working in global, virtual, distributed teams.

Platform Consolidation – There will be just five platform players in this world – Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP, and LAMP (a Linux stack) and everything is going to converge into these platforms. And related to that is network centric innovation – using the power of the network (community) to connect people to product development, innovation and so on.

Modularization – The value chain is fragmenting. So the back-end is getting separated from the front-end, the devices from the infrastructure and everything breaks down into different layers. You have to really think about where you want to play in the value chain.

Remote everything – remote monitoring (RFID, remote sensors), deployment, services. How you can really play with time and space – both are becoming more valuable (Tivo, off-shoring, follow the clock).

Professor Sawhney’s Must-reads

• CNN (what’s current)
• Wall Street Journal
• Business Week
• Fortune Magazine (David Kirkpatrick, in particular)
• Business 2.0 (combination of marketing and technology trends)
• Gizmodo.com (gadgets)
• Amazon.com (to see what’s new in electronics and read product reviews)
• Customer World blog (the world of new media and consumer empowerment)
• Brandchannel.com (for brand management)
• Technorati (which scans other blogs)
• Emergic blog (IT in emerging countries)
• Trendwatch.com (trends)
• Springwise.com (database of 8000 people who spot the hottest trends)- their report this month is “Customer-made” talking about customers are getting involved in the whole marketing process

Blogging Proceeds Pledged to End of Year 1 Event

Are blogs serious business? Looks like it. A lot of people out there are making money on their blogs as the number is growing exponentially. Most are like me and aren't making very much. But some are making big time money.

IMPORTANT: YOU can help us generate ad revenue! Just surf over to this blog and click around on a regular basis. I'm pledging all ad revenues to an end of Year 1 social event for our class, so we will all benefit! (So far we've raised $20, but recent traffic has increased after our visit to Philadelphia last week.)

This site called TechCrunch is making $60,000 a month in ad revenue, which is incredible:
http://www.techcrunch.com/

Business 2.0 has an article on how to make money on blogging (thanks to my carpool buddy Charles for passing it along in paper format):
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/09/01/8384325/index.htm?postversion=2006090812

Now get back to studying OPIM integer LPs and simulations, as well as all those Macroeconomic acronyms....

Thanks,
-Chairman P