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!