Ryan's Hope

2007-08-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

You can find my new blog at mediatrending.com. I'm mostly covering tech, media, digital consumerism, etc.

2005-06-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

Going digital without discs

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had it with CD's and DVD's. I love the quality and cost-effectiveness of digital technology, but the media is just not durable. Half my CD's skip and a lot of my DVD's do as well. Having your machine freeze up on you during a great song or movie is enough to ruin the whole experience.

When MP3 players came along I happily made the transition from plastic to magnetic. Most of the music I now listen to resides on a hard drive, be it on the computer or on the iPod. The CD's went into the closet and I hope they stay there.

Finally, my CD's will have some company in the closet, with the DVD collection soon joining them. A friend of mine helped me put together a "media center" by modifying an Xbox with a chip (which enables you to play games, movies, etc. off your hard drive without the need for a disc) and a hard drive for storing all of my movies and downloaded TV shows. The used Xbox was $99, a remote control kit was $20, a 160GB hard drive was $40 after rebate, and the chip was $30. The Xbox already comes with a DVD player and ethernet port, so -- voila -- now I can use games, movies, music, photos, and various Internet-enabled applications all in one place. I'm now converting all of my DVD's into Xvid format (similar quality as DVD but files are a fifth of the size).

The Xbox Media Center OS software that makes it all run is very slick and, because it's open source, is filled with features and is updated constantly. And it's free, legitimately. I've drooled over the XP Media Center PC's that are available, but you have to take out a 2nd mortgage just to buy one. This modded Xbox, on the other hand, cost me less than $200. Aside from the fact that it won't record live TV (like a Tivo) it seems every bit as good as a Media Center PC (which are 10x the price).... but even the TV limitation is overcome if you have a fast connection and know where to find your favorite shows on the net.

In my mind, this is the future of the living room... once it's cheap enough and consumer-friendly enough (which it is not... yet). People will get entertainment on their terms, and there will invevitably need to be an iTunes equivalent for movies and TV shows. If PS3's and Xbox 360's are marketed and developed as entertainment hubs -- not just game machines on steroids -- by allowing consumers more flexibility with how they use these devices, these devices will be the new killer app. I wonder if it wouldn't be a bad idea for Comcast, DirecTV or Dish to sign a distribution deal and market these things as set-top boxes (an optional upgrade for people that don't like their crappy PVR's). Then they could sell their video-on-demand wares and everyone would be happy. Ok, probably not gonna happen, but it sounds good.

In any case, the open source model for software and hardware, for all of its hippie ideals, is starting to look better and better to me... especially given the enormous value a cheap chip and a free operating system has just unlocked from a one-trick-pony game machine.

2005-05-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

Transition time

Well graduation is done and we've gone from Philly to Dallas. Our home is supposed to be finished in July and work starts in August. Despite having 3 months "off", I think most of that time will be filled with lots of research and decision making: where to get a mortgage, what car to get (buy or lease? used or new? fun or practical?), which furniture to buy, which walls to paint, where to put rugs, and which mattress to look under to find the money to do so. The only thing I know conclusively is that I want a decent TV after using a 15-year old hand-me-down for years. Even if I'm watching it on a bare floor, I've got my heart set on a Samsung 46" DLP.

Although my "dream of doing nothing" (Office Space reference) is not close in sight, I can already feel the effects of not having any school/work stress. It's very freeing. I am already looking forward to having this feeling again at age 65... I can see it now... a nice little planned community in Florida with shuffleboard and golf carts.... not to play golf, just to get around without having to walk too much. I wonder if I'll still have the Samsung? By then HDTV channels may eventually be available in Boca Raton.

2005-05-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

Options and trading

When I was 15, I went to Charles Schwab's Menlo Park office to open my first brokerage account (back when "discount" brokers only charged $70 or so per trade). Over the next couple of years, going against the admonishment of my parents, I made a regular practice of putting my eggs in one basket (mostly trading on a company called RasterOps). It took only a few lucky trades to get hooked. Since then I have not been able to yield completely to the wisdom of a "passively" managed portfolio. Index funds are great for the long haul, but life can become so dull without a little change on the side for day-trading.

During my first few weeks at Wharton, I toyed with the idea of doing Investment Management. Why not get paid to do it? But it didn't feel right... kind of like deciding to room with your best friend in college -- sounds great at the outset, but what happens when you just end up arguing over bills and dirty dishes? Sometimes you just don't want to screw a good thing up. So, in short, part-time trading remains a hobby and nothing more.

Lately I've had a bit more time to follow stocks and try a hand at options (calls only so far... no puts yet, although Qwest might be a good candidate for that). For the uninitiated, options can be a very highly leveraged way to invest. If you only have $1000 to play with, you can double it quite easily in a couple of weeks, which is tough to do with regular stocks. The problem is you can also lose it all in a couple of weeks, which is also quite tough to do with regular stocks.

So far options have not been that kind to me. I bought some Google calls back in March, but analyst Jordan Rohan single-handedly wiped me out with a completely unjustified downgrade. The market believed him just long enough for my options to expire. Then Rohan upgraded the stock again less than a month later. Whoops. But, as you can see from the articles, BusinessWeek and the rest of the business press gave Rohan a free ride. If I wrote for BusinessWeek, I would have at least thrown a barb in that last story calling into question the guy's credibility.

But, lame analysts aside, that's what you get when you buy options. The fact is, random stuff happens (right or wrong), and your options expire. It doesn't matter how right you are about a company, you have to be right about what the stock will do in the short term. You don't have the luxury of riding out a bad quarter, like you do with regular investing.

As a postscript, I had better luck with UnitedHealth calls last week and was able to make back some of that lost Google money, but I've learned my lesson -- options are not for the faint of heart. I think I'll leave the calls and puts to the hedge fund guys (and their cardiologists) to worry about.

2005-04-27T15:39:00.000-07:00

Stick a fork in me

I'm done! Just turned in my last project. At some point I'm sure I will look back and miss all of this, but after all of these projects it feels like such a relief to be done (incidentally, if anyone has any questions about the evolution of Nextel's strategy or how to value a Texas-based furniture import business, just holler).

Tonight is our final Wharton Journal dinner, then we do a little travelling before graduation hits on May 15th. Our graduation speaker is Alan Greenspan which, on one hand, is a big name, but on the other hand, may not prove to be the most heart-stirring of speeches. I suspect a few people in the audience will be on the horn with their bond brokers during the proceedings... just in case Mr. Greenspan's facial expressions or manner of dress reveal something about the outcome of the next Fed meeting.

While most of my classmates are travelling to exotic places this summer, we will be confining ourselves to the states of Texas, Utah, and California. We've thrown in the towel on exotic adventures for the next little while. Now that we're in "house" mode, a dining room table and some rugs trump a week in Europe. Childless folks and urban dwellers may not relate, but that's okay, they will some day. The time inevitably comes when everyone must face the music and embrace suburbia. You can run but you cannot hide.

2005-04-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

TiVo meeting with Google and Yahoo

Rumor has it that TiVo met with both Google and Yahoo about a partnership or acquisition. This is exactly what TiVo wants. The question is whether it will substantially help Yahoo or Google "get into the living room". From a cable provider's perspective, the problem with search engines is that they give a lot of power to consumers, which is not what Comcast wants. Comcast wants to be the exclusive distribution channel. TiVo is safer for Comcast because it doesn't open up the door to competing content, it merely makes the existing Comcast service more attractive. To the extent that Google and Yahoo see the power going to cable companies in the end, a TiVo partnership or acquisition might make sense.

On the other hand, if there is a great deal of competition between Bells (who are now readying TV offerings) and cable companies, Google or Yahoo will have more opportunities to get into the living room. The Bells will at some point be very aggressive in challenging cable, and offering an Internet-like portal of outside entertainment content may be a differentiator against cable's controlled environment. In that particular case, Google and Yahoo will not need TiVo.

2005-04-16T10:50:00.001-07:00

Good teaching

Given I have a week left of school -- most likely the last formal education I'll get in my life -- I've been thinking a lot about my favorite teachers over the years. I have a few observations about what they have shared in common:

Sense of humor - this may just be personal preference, but teachers have to have a sense of humor, especially for their own subject matter. A teacher with a keen sense knows when the entire class is bored or disengaged and is able to crack a joke about it to re-connect with the students. Moreover, learning can be draining, and humor keeps the batteries charged.
Openness to feedback - I currently have a professor that takes surveys throughout the semester where students rate each lecture and reading on a scale of 1 to 5. More importantly, the teacher shows us the results... and he has the humility to say "People didn't care much for class X. And so-and-so's article was clearly dull, dull, dull."
Willingness to push back - One common denominator across my favorite teachers is that I have initially feared them, and ultimately respected them. I didn't want to disappoint them. Some teachers, on the other hand, are too easily pleased, and thus fail to challenge students' frames of reference. But it's really amazing how good student participation and preparation gets when we're consistently forced to defend our assertions.
A vision of the interconnectedness of truth - Okay, that sounds way over the top and new agey. Maybe a simpler way to put this attribute is "is good with analogies." This is particularly true with dry subjects like statistics or finance. A good teacher is able to demonstrate how the principles underlying his/her discipline are connected with other, more familiar principles. For example, we can understand the drivers of success or failure in post-merger implementations by comparing them to marriages or personal relationships. (there are probably more parallels than anyone cares to admit)
Demonstration of passion - Enthusiasm is contagious, especially in a learning environment. So much of learning is about motivation, and we can all use a little extra dose.

I once read that the word "education" comes from the Latin "educo" which means "to draw out." In the end, educating is just as much about connecting with students as it is about imparting knowledge. I think these principles are true for teaching any subject. Except maybe Accounting. Not really a whole lot to work with there.

2005-04-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

Best song out right now

LCD Soundsystem's "Movement" may not move you, but it will definitely get you moving. The genre might be described as "electro punkfunk." I wish you could invest money in musical trends because I would bet on this one. Somehow, mixing booty-shaking music with vocals that reek of swagger and indifference delivers surprising appeal.

2005-04-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

Housing bubble indicators

There has been a lot of talk about the "housing bubble" lately, given the sharp and unsustainable appreciation in homes in some major cities. BusinessWeek offers an interactive table so that you can look at how your city stacks up on different metrics. I sorted the table by cost to rent divided by cost to own (the lower that number, the argument goes, the more expensive it is to own a house in that market). That measure can be loosely interpreted as a reciprocal P/E ratio of sorts for the market ("rent" being the earnings potential for an owned property). If you believe this is a good valuation measure, then the following cities are the best for value-oriented home buyers: Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Houston, Tampa, and Orlando. The worst are: San Diego, The SF Bay Area, Seattle, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, D.C., and Denver.

2005-04-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

Google Maps and Craigslist

This is very cool. Someone has fed Craigslist rental and home listings into Google Maps. You can even view thumbnail photos of the property (if available) without navigating away from the map. Pick your favorite city and be sure to zoom in.

(incidentally, the guy who did this is Technical Lead of Animation Tools at Dreamworks, so I'm guessing this took him all of about 15 min. to cook up)

2005-04-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

Unnecessary polarization of science and religion

Ok this is a random commentary having nothing to do with what I normally write about. But hey, my blog, so what the heck. It's related to the "evolution vs. creationism" debate (this article is what got me going).

Despite my own personal religious beliefs, I've never understood the "science vs. religion" polarization. The two are not mutually exclusive! Personally, I believe in a God who has created a world of order and I see science as the route that man takes to try and understand that order (from a physical perspective). Religious faith serves a different purpose. It exists to help one uncover spiritual truths. As such, I cannot imagine a single scientific finding about the physical world or universe that would jeopardize my faith in things spiritual. The Bible, like most other religious texts and efforts, is not designed to satisfy our curiosity about the construct of the physical world. Likewise, scientific pursuit will likely not, independent of any belief system, unlock the door to spiritual fulfillment (another perspective: Einstein went so far as to say that science and religion were inseparable).

However, there are a few vocal people (on both sides of the debate) who insist on widening that divide based on their own interpretation of scientific theories or the book of Genesis. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs, but trying to ostrasize the other side does a disservice to either cause. Scientists then get stereotyped as aetheists and, perhaps more commonly, those who have religious convictions are cast as closed-minded. Generally speaking, I don't think either is very accurate. But the vocal minorities generally get more attention from the media.

2005-04-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

Giving lawyers a taste of their own medicine

Here is a hillarious and true account of a college student who single-handedly fended off an army of Microsoft intellectual property lawyers, beating them at their own game. Microsoft sued him over a couple of programs that he bought and then re-sold (unopened) on eBay after deciding not to use them. The story is somewhat lengthy, but here is the best stuff:

Zamos spent his Christmas vacation assembling a 21-page counterclaim, which he filed January 3. Microsoft responded by ridiculing Zamos's counterclaim as "premature," noting that he had requested a summary judgment without enough time for discovery. Zamos went back to the drawing board and made two more motions, accusing Microsoft of perjury, causing him emotional distress, defamation, unconscionable consumer practices, abuse of process, fraud, and more. The suit spiraled into a dizzying 37 filings. Every time Microsoft filed a motion to dismiss his claims, Zamos would file more the very next day. Not only did he force Microsoft to defend its accusations against him, but the company was now forced to defend its own practices as well. After two months of back-and-forth filings, the judge ordered both sides to stop submitting any more paperwork. Finally, Zamos gave Microsoft the migraine it hadn't expected. He requested a trial by jury, knowing that the company wouldn't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills just to snuff one kid in Ohio. He was right. The lawyers said they'd drop their suit -- if Zamos dropped his countersuit.

Sounds like a Grisham novel.

2005-03-30T11:34:00.000-08:00

The home front

Well, we've been busy the last couple of weeks searching for a home in Dallas. The real estate market is very reasonable, undervalued in the eyes of some (by 11% according to one source), but since our time frame is unknown and we're nowhere near a coast, we're not tied to expectations of hyperfast appreciation. Dallas has been fairly steady.

A couple of days ago we found (and have since negotiated on) a house that was in the process of being built and it happened to fit our needs/wants very nicely. Location-wise, it's perfect: 10 minutes from the DFW airport, 15 minutes from work, and 20 minutes from my wife's family. We love the house, but all in all, we're just excited at the prospect of having a place to call our own. Not sure how much time I'll actually spend there once work starts, but it's nice to know it'll be there.

2005-03-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

TiVo, Comcast, Apple

As a long-time fan of TiVo, I was happy to read the good news that the company will be making a customized DVR for Comcast. it's good to see TiVo get a little respect (i.e., distribution). I think this was a great move on the part of Comcast too: user experience will be a huge driver of video-on-demand consumption, probably second only to content availability. Based on my statistically invalid study of several family members who have knockoff DVR's (i.e., the Dish system), I think TiVo users have a much better experience. And if video on demand is going to be a home run, I think the relationship experience is crucial... sticking a hard drive into a cable box and providing an inventory of content isn't enough.

In weeks past, there was some speculation that TiVo might get acquired by Apple. I think there is still an argument for that deal, although Apple doesn't like to share the spotlight when it comes to product design. Still, Apple needs a few long-shot, shoot-for-the-stars strategic scenarios and the living room could be one. From a purely financial perspective it's very doable. Even after TiVo shares shot up 75% today, TiVo's market cap is $560M and Apple has over $6.5B in cash... to say nothing of the high currency that Apple's stock is running at right now.

2005-03-03T06:33:00.000-08:00

Google the one-trick pony?

BusinessWeek has a provocative article on Google today. The basic point of the article is that nearly all of Google's revenue comes from paid search, and therefore it's much more risky (especially at a $50B valuation) than, say, Yahoo which only derives 45% of its revenue from search. All true statements. But it's very typical for the media to write a story like this after two analysts have downgraded the stock in the last couple of weeks. Ironically, despite all the hooplah created by Jordan Rohan's downgrade, the action wasn't a very bold or severe one. He relegated the stock to a $200 target which would give it a $55B valuation, roughly speaking. Hardly an expression of doubt as to Google's future.

The other exception I took to the article was its comment about Gmail, which totally misses the point:

Take Google's ballyhooed foray into e-mail, dubbed G-mail. Instead of charging users $10 or $20 per month for jumbo-size accounts, Google is delivering text ads alongside e-mail messages, targeted toward the content in the e-mail. A message about an upcoming Boston Celtics game, for instance, might trigger ads from online ticket brokers. So even if targeted e-mail ads take off -- a questionable proposition, since most industry observers believe e-mailers are far less likely to click on links than searchers -- the money will come from the same budgets that buy the rest of Google's ads.

So I sent an email to the article's author with the following response (abridged):

I enjoyed your businessweek article about Google being a one-trick pony. I agreed with many of your points, but I think one point was neglected with respect to Gmail. I think the value of Gmail for Google is a strategic one. Personally, I was surprised at how long it took Google to come up with an email service. The revenue from email means very little in comparison with the loyalty it drives to the network. In short, email increases switching costs for customers. That has always been Google's achilles heel, in my opinion. Even if search revenue continues to grow, how hard is it for people to switch if Google somehow fails to keep pace with innovation? Brand name and reputation mean a lot, but in the long run they don't create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Just my 2c.

2005-02-21T18:25:00.000-08:00

Cereal addiction

Last year it was cheesesteaks. This year it's cereal. Cereality to be specific. It's a small restaurant a block away from school that serves cereal. Cereal for breafast, cereal for lunch, cereal for dinner. And with any topping(s) you want. It's also a nice place to loiter, what with the free WiFi. My kind of place, and definitely worth a try if you're in Philly. Try this custom concoction: Frosted Flakes, bananas, coconut shavings, and honey. Pure bliss.

As an aside, I'm not sure how good a business model Cereality is. I'd bet the margins are decent as food goes, but I'm not sure if they'll get enough order volume to cover their overhead. Most fast food places make their money on fountain drinks, and no one gets drinks at this place. A Taco Bell in this location would probably make a lot more money per square foot.

Well, we all need to give back to the community in some way, so I've decided to make Cereality my charity case for the next semester. I'll help keep them afloat for another few months, out of the goodness of my heart. Feel free to stop in and say hi. I'm easy to find, just follow the slurping sounds.

2005-02-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

My last semester, and best yet

So far this semester has been the best yet. This is not because "I'm outta here" in a few months. On the contrary, I wish I had another year of school. In fact, I hope the next 3 months feel like 3 years -- I'm not fit to go back to work. I've just finally figured out how to be a student. The reason this last semester has been so good is because, unlike my classmate Aileen, I don't attend my classes.... I just play guitar all day in a bathrobe while eating bowl after bowl of Honeycomb cereal. Just kidding, although that does sound like an ideal lifestyle. No, the real reason I'm enjoying this semester is that I have the best schedule of classes yet, and a light enough courseload that I can spend more time preparing per class. And not having recruiting or extracurriculars on my schedule frees up more time for family and friends.

In terms of classes, Siggelkow's strategy course has been the highlight. I'm a big fan of his teaching style. Why? Well, first of all, he's not easy to please. You can't rattle off an obvious answer in a discussion and expect to be let off the hook. You're not rewarded for taking guesses, and he is not afraid to tell you you're wrong before moving on to someone else. On the surface, this might sound like an absolute nighmare. But it raises the bar for class discussion significantly and the results are really satisfying. The second part of his teaching style that I really like is his devil's advocate posture. He often plays the dumb guy in the room... the naysayer...the pessimist... the cynic. It's all an act, of course, and everyone knows it, but the extra resistance really helps everyone focus on the most important points. The third aspect of his teaching that I like is somewhat reflective of the Michael Porter article, "What is Strategy?" which we recently read in class. In that article, Porter asserts that a key element of Strategy is "deciding what NOT to do." Siggelkow really calls out and focuses on the tradeoffs that companies make as they set their strategy. Unlike some case discussions, it's not a big feel-good free-for-all where every explanatory factor of a company's success goes on the blackboard. Deciding what not to do takes the fuzziness out of strategy just as deciding what not to talk about takes the fuzziness out of strategy class. It has been a good reminder: managers who are willing to make tradeoffs make better strategists.

2005-02-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

Yahoo Contextual search

Yahoo just debuted Y!Q, which is basically like the "search similar pages" feature on Google and Yahoo's search results, but available within a specific context. If you have a web site, you can add these contextual searches anywhere using some simple HTML code. Otherwise, users can download a beta toolbar to your browser (even Firefox, my browser of choice, is supported). Kind of nifty, and it will be interesting to see how people use it.

Personally, I don't think it resolves a very big pain point, especially for those that know how to use search. For example, if you're reading an article about the band "Kiss" and you want to search for their music without being inundated with irrelevant search results, couldn't you just add a couple of search terms like "band" or "buy CD's" or "discography"? In other words, can't you just make your search on Google.com contextual by adding a word or two? Seems to work for me...

2005-02-01T11:09:00.000-08:00

Is anyone still using MSN?

Today, Microsoft finally released their non-beta MSN Search and Toolbar, and a beta version of Desktop Search. After doing a few searches on MSN Search, I'm much less happy with MSN's results than Google's or Yahoo's. And, unsurprisingly, there's nothing new or innovative in the Toolbar or Desktop Search that Google and Yahoo haven't already come out with. A release like this, accompanied by an underwhelming endorsement from Bill Gates makes you wonder what MSN is trying to accomplish here. Obviously this is not enough to get people to switch from Yahoo/Google to MSN. It seems more likely that they're just trying to stop the bleeding (hemoraging?) from their existing user base.

2005-01-29T13:51:00.000-08:00

Comments about video piracy

Every now and then I like to check out the Wharton Tech Blog. Recently, there was an interesting post about BitTorrent and video piracy and I had a few opinions of my own. I think it's an interesting issue for the studios (and record labels). A big component of the value that studios and labels add is distribution and marketing. For those that don't watch ads and can "distribute" the movies themselves, who should that value be allocated to? Should the labels and studios still receive the same cut? They'd like to think so. But value has started shifting to the consumers, and this is the way technology works. Our family bought the first Macintosh (128K memory, 400K disk drive) for $2500 + $500 for a dot matrix printer. Think about the kind of setup you can get for $3000 these days. This is the effect of technology. The consumer wins. And most companies don't make money along the way. The ones who are really, really good do make money. And now that the record labels and movie studios are in the technology industry, they have to figure out how to innovate to make money. Suing customers isn't enough.

2005-01-28T09:05:00.000-08:00

Japan rocks

Sometimes I wish I lived in Japan. They get all the cool gadgets that us American sluggards are too technologically unsophisticated to adopt. Case in point: the MP3 playing toilet.

2005-01-27T06:33:00.000-08:00

"No Fear" Part 2

Well, apparently the folks at Anheuser-Busch read my post yesterday and quickly prepared a "King Cobra meets No Fear" drink. They just announced it this morning. Eerie!

2005-01-26T13:51:00.000-08:00

"No Fear"

Every now and then I get a surge of spontaneity. Generally, this spontaneity is confined to dietary decisions and does not extend to other areas of my life. But occasionally I step outside the familiar selection of sodas and juices to try a "novelty" drink.

In fact, it was about 2 hours ago that I stumbled upon a drink called "No Fear" and decided to see what it was all about. This was the Coca-Cola company's latest invention. I had pity on Coke which has been looking for the next big thing for so long and probably needed my support during this tough time. It's packaging promised energy -- which I sorely needed 2 hours ago -- and promised said energy through "ginseng, guarana, creatine, and other power components." Now, I wasn't born in a barn, so I know that the guarana, ginseng, and creatine are placebos and that the chief energy ingredient is going to be caffeine. But they don't list caffeine levels on the labels of beverages, so I just assumed it would be on the order of a Mountain Dew type of pick-me-up. More on this caffeine thing later.

Now, apart from the caffeine, there were some warning signs which should have deterred me from the get-go. First of all, a 16oz can would cost $2.49 which is more than any beverage should cost unless it has ice cream in it. Second, I was embarrassed to carry around a can that said "No Fear" which reminded me of the t-shirts I used to wear when I was 14 to prove to the world that I was not in fact a geek (remember, this was at a time when MTV's Dan Cortese was at the top of the coolness food chain). Now that I've accepted that I'm a geek and have moved onto other insecurities, like whether or not my comments in class make people wonder how I got into Wharton, the "No Fear" thing feels a bit outdated at best.

The second issue with carrying this can around is that it looks a lot like a can of beer. The cheap malt kind, no less. I don't drink, but I know a King Cobra can when I see it, and that's just what it looks like. Look here if you don't believe me:

Separated at birth?

So there is a point to all of this (although nothing heretofore has led up to this point), and that is about the caffeine content. I had no idea how much caffeine the thing had, so I drank this thing and got more energy than I bargained for. Unfortunately most of that energy gathered in the back of my skull where a pressure headache promptly ensued. That's when I immediately went to Google and looked up the caffeine content. 158mg. 158mg! That's equivalent to 3 cans of Mountain Dew, which for you coffee and espresso drinkers doesn't sound like a whole lot, but I'm not used to being that hopped up.

So my question is, if beverages are required to list things like calories, sugar, vitamins, and selenium (!), why don't they also list caffeine content? Seems like information a consumer ought to have access to. Of course, it's the USDA that is dropping the ball on this one. In fact, some people much smarter than I wrote a letter to the USDA to that effect some years ago.

To all of you who have actually made it this far into the monologue (Mom, you changed my diapers, I hope at least you are still with me), let this experience be a lesson to you: think twice next time you want to be spontaneous.

2005-01-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

A few pictures of New Caledonia

Here's a taste of New Caledonia (Christmas break). This is Isle de Pines, a 2 hour boat ride from Noumea. I got sick and felt like dying on the boat ride over, but it was worth it.

Another shot on Iles de Pines.

This is what you eat when you go to the beach in New Caledonia. It's called "pate" which is the French word for "cat food".

2005-01-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

Corporate aspirations withering

Slate ran an article analyzing the findings of a research paper that shows declining Ivy League presence among Fortune 100 execs. The paper, written by a Wharton faculty professor and a PhD candidate, finds that only 10% of Fortune 100 execs got their undergrad degrees at Ivy League Schools, down from 14% in 1980. They also found that representation from public school graduates rose from 32% to 48%.

As the article rightly points out, the conclusion should not be that "Ivy League degrees aren't worth it." First of all, public universities have grown significantly in their size compared with Ivy League and other private institutions.

The second factor -- and the one I find most interesting -- is that being CEO or VP of a Fortune 100 organization just isn't the aspiration it once was. I can't think of any of my classmates whose primary career goal it is to be CXO in a large company. Most envision their ideal as working for themselves, running a small company, entering a real estate partnership, or getting into private equity.

Why is this? As I see it, working for a big corporation is a tradeoff: you give up a certain degree of job satisfaction for a more stable or secure path. But people no longer trust large companies to deliver job security or a well-defined career path. In terms of job satisfaction, large organizations have always had "friction" -- the nature of large organizations is that more coordination and communication are required. Most bright folks would rather be producing and creating than sitting in meetings.

Perhaps the biggest factor against a corporate path (at least amongst Wharton students) is the upside factor. Most fortunes are not made by climbing the corporate ladder, they're made by taking risks (or working with people who are taking risks). That means operating or financing early-stage or distressed ventures.

Despite all of this, many of us in will take positions working with or servicing large corporations (i.e., consulting and banking). But I think most of us are ultimately looking for something "small". If we find that perfect opportunity, great. If not, we bide our time and keep our eyes and ears open.

2005-01-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

What a nice break

Here's a quick update since I haven't written in ages. We took off for Sydney on December 10, stayed there for a few days with a friend, then flew to New Caledonia for a little over a week. Most people haven't heard of New Caledonia, a French speaking island in the South Pacific, a little over 1000 miles east of Sydney (map). I hadn't heard of it either until I met my wife, who spent 18 months there as a missionary. It's beautiful and has few tourists -- its economy relies on its (world's largest) nickel mine rather than the tourism industry -- so few outside of France, Australia, or New Zealand have even heard of it. I may post pictures and more details later.

We spent the rest of the break with my folks in Salt Lake City, and did nothing but eat, shop, and visit with family. Christian had a ball getting to know his cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and various cats (which amuse him to no end). He is still saying only a few words, but his gibberish has evolved into a unique and entertaining dialect... it may be a product of the French his mother is teaching him (less gutteral than the gibberish you usually hear from American toddlers).

In any case, it has been great to spend so much time with family with absolutely no deadlines, no pressures, and no significant responsibilities other than consuming pie. From my current vantage point, I view this last semester at Wharton as an opportunity to wind down and enjoy some freedom before the shackles of indentured servitude (i.e., working for a living) are fastened upon me for the next 35 years.

2004-11-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

Flip-flopping on majors

A couple of months ago, I was sure I wanted to go for a dual Finance/Marketing major. At the time, I approached the Finance decision from a "this will be good for me" perspective, which -- let's face it -- isn't always a recipe for fulfillment and excitement. Conversely, I thought a Marketing major would balance that out with all of its cushy right-brained goodness. It didn't hurt that Wharton is considered to be #1 in Finance and perceived to be very strong in Marketing.

As naive as the above rationale may sound, I did actually give it a lot of thought. But in the end, my heart was not in it. I think Wharton has an amazing Finance program, and it's likely invaluable to anyone with a real interest in a Finance-related career. But looking back, the core Finance course last year was totally sufficient for my needs and interests. After taking Advanced Corporate Finance this semester, I've realized I'm overshooting my needs with a Finance major. I guess there is something about deconstructing valuation techniques for multi-billion dollar leveraged buyouts that causes one to ask oneself really philosophical questions about the purpose of life and whether or not one is alone in the universe.

Then I questioned the idea of doing a Marketing major. Looking through a lot of the course descriptions, I realized that this major too would overshoot my needs. I've taken a couple of great marketing classes this semester (Marketing Strategy and Pricing Policy) but the remaining requirements struck me as too specialized for my generalist leanings.

So I went back to Strategic Management, which fits my true interests and, incidentally, was what I wanted to begin with. Thankfully, I was able to pick up Siggelkow for the required strategy class, and he's reputed to be one of the best case teachers at Wharton and protégé (or is that consiglieri?) of Strategy godfather Michael Porter.

The best advice I ever got about picking a major was this: find the teachers you want and the classes you're most interested in, and piece together a major out of them. That being said, here's the roster for next semester:

MGMT 701 - Strategic Control and Planning (Siggelkow)
MGMT 782 - Strategic Implementation (Hrebiniak)
MGMT 691 - Negotiations (Zelleke)
MGMT 811 - Entrepreneurship through Acquisitions (Chalfin)
MKTG 753 - New Product Management (Meyer)
OPIM 666 - Industry Structure and Competitive Strategy (Clemons)

2004-11-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

Being "Type B" in a "Type A" world

One professor last year made a statement in class saying that we were all Type A's or else we wouldn't be at Wharton. One thing I've noticed about business school is how many "Type A" personalities there appear to be. Out of the classroom, everyone seems to be oversubscribed and on their way to some other place. Inside the classroom, many are confident (if not anxious) enough to make sweeping, opinionated statements about matters for which there may be considerable uncertainty or little data. Not to mention the mentality on the recruiting front. Got an offer from Bain? Not good enough. Gotta try for McKinsey. And that will just be a back-of-the-pocket offer, just in case those real estate investments and startup ideas don't pan out.

From one Type B to another (assuming there are any of you out there), here is some advice. There are situations where, as an easygoing Type B, you may find yourself in the midst of a hot debate where you, quite frankly, are indifferent between two options. Why are you indifferent? Because you think there is either too much uncertainty to make a decision, or you simply feel that things will turn out fine either way. One trap to fall into is to be passive (i.e., say nothing). This is a tempting option: just let the Type A's duke it out. The problem is that passivity often leads to loss of credibility. The other trap would be to do the opposite: become aggressive and attempt a Type A transformation by arbitrarily picking a side and becoming opinionated and/or insistent on a course of action. That bombs quickly too. And it's disingenuous to defend something that you don't believe in to start with.

I think the better course of action for us Type B's is to learn to be more assertive (the happy medium between passivity and aggressiveness). We can still speak up, but maybe in a role of mediation or facilitation. That may involve getting both sides to agree on common goals, prompt further discussion by calling out the uncertainty of the situation, or challenge others about their strong feelings.

Admittedly, the Type A vs. Type B categorization, as any broad personality categorization scheme, is a huge oversimplification. We all have some of both types in us. And I don't believe Wharton is all Type A's, although they certainly may attract more visibility. What I think needs to be recognized, however, is that both sets of attributes are needed in the business world. Us Type B's can be ourselves and add value if we remember to be assertive.

2004-11-08T01:20:00.000-08:00

A movie worth seeing

Wrote a review of the movie "Ray" for the WJ. I'll give you the short version of the review right here: it's a great movie, go see it.

2004-11-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

BitTorrent

It's funny sometimes how long the press takes to catch on to technology trends. BitTorrent has been around for a while and can't be beat compared with P2P programs like Kazaa that depend on people sharing lots of files. BitTorrent communities rely on stuff that's generally current and new, and they are best used for things like catching TV shows you've missed.

2004-11-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

Word

I didn't think I shared anything in common with P. Diddy (apart from a love of fine watches) but, as it turns out, we share the same desire:

"It's been a great year but it's been hard work. I'm gonna lay down for a week, watch TV, eat a turkey sandwich ... (and) watch old reruns of `Good Times.'"

He took the words right out of my mouth.

2004-11-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Dream guitar

I am in Advanced Corporate Finance class now, half-listening to a lecture on Black-Scholes and Option Pricing Theory... but I cannot stop thinking about my forthcoming birthday present from the Mrs. It's the guitar I've always dreamed about, the Gibson Les Paul in Heritage Cherry Sunburst. It's tough to think about much else... I've even lost interest in the election. When you are playing a Les Paul, it doesn't matter who is president, does it?

2004-10-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

Bain it is.

Firms that give their interns offers at the end of the summer (as opposed to later in the fall) are really smart, because it steals the thunder away from the offeree's search for competitive opportunities. As a First Year, my recruiting efforts were motivated by outright desperation -- I was so worried about not getting an internship that I lived, breathed, and slept recruiting for 2 months straight. Recruiting really requires a lot of energy, a lot of motivation, and for many, a temporary neglect of academic and personal pursuits. Seeing my fellow Second Years this week buzzing around in suits loaded up on caffeine made me grateful I wasn't back in the same boat again.

Over the last few weeks, I entertained the idea of "doing some recruiting", with the same sort of energy that one would leaf through a magazine in the dentist's office. Who was I kidding? In the end, I didn't even drop any resumes. So today I officially accepted my Bain offer. Although it's somewhat anti-climactic, it feels like such a relief to have everything squared away. The fact is there are a lot of good opportunities out there, but I didn't feel that any one of them would offer a more attractive combination of great learning environment, future career options, location, and compensation. Speaking of which, the top consulting firms seem to be ramping up their salaries again after a few stagnant years. This may be as good an indicator as any that the economy is picking up. Booyah.

2004-10-14T08:47:00.000-07:00

Google Desktop

One of Google's obvious advantages against Microsoft is speed. For example, they just released Google Desktop, a feature which Microsoft won't release until next year. The product is nice, letting you search your Word, Excel, Powerpoint, web history, and Outlook files from a browser window. And because it's indexed, the search results come instantly.

One interesting observation is that Google Mail is not a part of the "Desktop" search while Web History is. This is where the engineering mindset is different from the consumer mindset: An engineer thinks "offline vs. online" or "web vs. desktop" whereas a consumer thinks in terms of "my world vs. the outside world." I think Google Mail is just as much a part of my world as my Outlook mail, and I want to search all of my email at once. Similarly, I don't think of my "web history" as part of my world, it's part of the outside world. I've compartmentalized offline and online only because technology has forced me to. Offline is generally faster and online is slower. But this is changing, and I think search will change with it. From the user's perspective, it makes sense for web and desktop search products to be combined, but with visual differentiation in search results between "my world" (my documents, my email, my financial information, etc. be they on the web or on my machine) and "the outside world" (everything that is public).

2004-10-03T18:49:00.001-07:00

CD review and new Top 10

My latest valuable contributions to the WJ: a review of the new Cake album and the Top 10 reasons why Wharton is better than the real world.

Incidentally, I should share an episode from last week's issue, underscoring yet another proud achievement of the Wharton Journal's history of editorial excellence. We ran a restaurant review entitled "Rittenhouse brassiere won't leave you 'bleu'". We promptly received the following email, alerting us of our blunder.

Subject: Nice brassiere

In response to the article in this week's Wharton Journal about Bleu...

bras·siere, a woman's undergarment worn to support and give contour to the breasts.
bras·se·rie, a restaurant serving alcoholic beverages, especially beer, as well as food.

smooth.

Well, that was news to us. Heck, none of us know french (nevermind that I'm married to a former french teacher). Needless to say the online version was quickly fixed, although there are 2000 print copies in circulation that retain the blunder. Yes, I know, it's not the first time we've had a misprint, but it's certainly the 2nd most amusing one.

#1 was last spring when we mispelled the name of the former Editor-in-Chief. Talk about giving no respect to your elders.

2004-09-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

New music

After a seemingly endless dry spell in my new music file, I've finally found a crop of new stuff that's worthy of mention. In the indie-but-basically-mainstream category, I've liked this year's releases by Franz Ferdinand and The Killers. Neither band is the next Radiohead or Coldplay, but that's not the point... the point of these albums is that they'll get me through 2004 without realizing that I'm almost 30 and have no business listening to music with attitude.

The other two albums that I'm excited about are the new ones from Cake and Elliott Smith. Neither is released yet, but advance copies can be found if you know where to look. The Cake album is classic Cake. Someone made the comment the other day that Cake hasn't released a bad album, and this new one is certainly no exception. Several songs in there, such as "Wheels", "The Guitar Man" and "Waiting", are instant feel-good classics. The pity is that they're releasing "No Phone" as a single, which in my opinion is the dullest track on the album. But I felt the same way about "Never there" and even "Long skirt, short jacket." In any case, it's a good thing this band has still not gone through an identity crisis. Let's pray they never do.

The new Elliott Smith album is a collection of tracks he was working on before his death. Unlike most post-humous releases, this one is not a collection of odds and ends that were never intended for prime time. So it's a fairly high quality collection of brand new tracks. There's a good mix of Either/Or-style acoustic songs and Figure 8 band songs. Highlights are "Pretty (ugly before)", "Memory Lane", and "Don't go down." Worth checking out.

2004-09-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ways to increase MBA applications

Well, I had heard that MBA admissions applications this year are much lower across the board for all schools. In the interest of increasing the admissions pool at Wharton, I submitted the following Top 10 list to the Wharton Journal for Monday's publication.

Top 10 Ways Wharton can boost new MBA applications

10. Send (Wharton admissions guru) Alex Brown on a worldwide admissions committee tour.... without trousers.
9. Move Huntsman Hall from West Philly to... well... just about anywhere else in the world.
8. Change annual price of tuition from $39,835.00 to $39,799.99, bundled with complimentary $5 reprographics gift card.
7. Hand out iPods to incoming students, pre-loaded with 20GB of commercial-free Anjani Jain meditations.
6. Do away with dull alumni panels at admissions receptions. Replace with juggling, unicycle-mounted circus clowns.
5. Use catchier subject lines in admissions emails, such as "REFINANCE NOW" or "ENLARGE YOUR MEMBER - 70% OFF"
4. Hire Dr. Phil to stage "tough love" interventions with people who have abandoned the application process.
3. Reach out to the Europeans by having Rose Martinelli join David Hasselhoff on tour.
2. Speed up admission decisions by allowing them to be made at the Dart Tournament.
1. Change the school's official name from "Wharton" to "That school Trump used to go to."

2004-09-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Majors, classes, and auction points

I think I'm going to major in Finance and Marketing. Finance for 3 reasons: 1) It's a good background for any career in business, 2) I've had very little experience in finance, and 3) It's what Wharton is known for. Marketing for two reasons: 1) Marketing is, for lack of a better word, fun, and 2) Wharton's marketing department has a great reputation.

I was considering Strategic Management instead of Marketing, but the buzz about Marketing classes was a lot better than what I'd heard about Management. Sure, there is an all-star Strategy class taught by Siggelkow but I've spent a lot of my auction points and won't be able to afford it next semester.

For those new to the auction, each student starts out with 5000 points and gets 1000 points replenishment upon completion of a semester course. So, roughly speaking, spending less than 1000 points on a class feels "cheap" and more than 1000 points feels "expensive". (for more info on how the class auction works see this PDF file). All that said, here's my class list for the semester along with how many auction points each cost me.

I was lucky to get all of my classes in the first round of the auction. As you can tell, the auction pricing is somewhat polarized, and demand for the best professors is very inelastic. Much of this demand is fed by word of mouth, in the form of student surveys from last year's students. Needless to say, my expectations for Metrick's and Day's classes are pretty high!

2004-08-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

Crossing the finish line

The end of the summer has arrived, and it came much more quickly than I expected. Last Friday (the last day of the internship) I gave my final presentation, summarizing what I had learned over the summer at Bain. The final presentation is a chance for the partners (there were 4 in attendance) to see what you learned and how that fits into the big picture for your client. Although opportunities for public speaking never come without anxiety, I felt fairly comfortable presenting. It ended up being less formal and more conversational than I had expected.

Later that same day, I had a 15-minute appointment with a partner to discuss whether or not I would be getting a full-time offer to return in 2005. Needless to say, I was a bit anxious. At times during the project, I really wondered if I was meeting their high expectations. The most important determinant of getting an offer is your manager's evaluation of you did in terms of 1) value addition to the project, 2) client skills, and 3) team skills. My mid-summer review had in it some constructive feedback about the need to be aggressive in getting the data I was gathering. This feedback gave me a bit of "fire in the belly," both figuratively (greater tenacity in my competitor calls) and literally (indigestion resulting from anxiety... was I meeting expectations?). But in the end, all was well: they gave me an offer!

One thing I've learned in my experience this summer can be summarized by an analogy I heard this summer from a partner. He likened his experience at Bain to running a hurdle race. Before coming to Bain, you're used to clearing hurdles by a foot or so, winning a lot, and getting lots of praise. Upon joining Bain, the hurdles get a bit higher, tough to clear without nicking them on the way over. Then there would be times where you completely trip and fall on your face. Those who succeed are those who are able to pick themselves up, brush themselves off, keep going, and work to get better.

It may sound like a trite analogy, but it's a useful reminder as I think about career choices. It's not all about leveraging existing strengths, it's also about building new ones.

2004-07-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

Consulting so far

Well I'm 3 weeks into my internship and I've been a little lazy on the blogging. My first couple of weeks at Bain made a pretty soft transition back into the working world. The first week was training: 2 days of local training in the Dallas office for the 9 of us in the Dallas summer program, and the rest of the week in Cape Cod with the entire Summer Associate class. Training was a good mix of fun and work, with a bit more emphasis on the former (no complaints here).

The next two weeks have gotten progressively busier. I was assigned to an out-of-town case in the meat packing industry with my particular assignement relating to best practices. I could tell you the name of the client but keep in mind that I would then have to kill you -- they take the whole confidentiality thing quite seriously in consulting. Yes, even beef packers have secrets.

So meat packing. Yes, that's right, I went from internet product management to meatpacking in one year flat. There must be a record for that (needless to say I am now spending more time on MeatNews.com's search engine than on Yahoo's). Nevertheless, the perfect thing about a case like this is that it's such a good way to test out consulting. If working on a meat packing client can be interesting and stimulating (and so far it is, by the way), then just about anything can be interesting.

So far consulting has felt like an extension of business school, only you get 3-4 months to work on a case instead of one night. Of course, the expectations (and stakes) for getting the right answer are much higher.

2004-06-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

1500 miles of driving

There's not much to tell about the 1500 mile drive from Philly to Dallas, but here are a few highlights:

Seeing the natural bridge near Roanoke, VA. Apparently it's one of the 7th wonders of the world. The other 6 of course are the Grand Canyon, the Pyramids, Mount Everest, Mount Rushmore, Wharton's tuition cost, and John Travolta's career.
Blasting Jay-Z in Marion, VA with the windows down. I'm not big into rap and I'm the furthest thing from a pimp on this good green earth, but the unassuming folk of Marion didn't have to know that.
Spotting a guy at a gas station with a) a Trans-Am, b) a tank top, and c) a license plate that read "U2NITE". Not joking.
Relishing in the irony of my spending an evening in Nashville. My abstinence from both alcohol and country music meant that Nashville was pretty near useless to me.
Riding the monorail to Mud River Island in Memphis, (partially re-enacting Tom Cruise's chase scene from The Firm), viewing a gargantuan scale model of the Mississippi River, and catching a panoramic view of the Memphis-Arkansas bridge too.
Spotting a town in Arkansas that is actually named Arkadelphia, combining the powerful brand equity that both Arkansas and Philadelphia share.
Maxing out my dining allowance. Every day. In reality, $40 a day doesn't go as far as I thought it would when you're eating out (especially if you're a glutton). Highlight: eating ribs and chicken at Memphis' best BBQ place, Corky's.

2004-06-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

It warms a father's heart

A few weeks ago, Christian started walking, and just now he has passed the next milestone: playing electric guitar. I was playing "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" by the White Stripes while on my knees (both to be at his level as well to be in the true spirit of dramatic performance), and he walked up, took the pick out of my hand, and tried to strum the guitar with it!

Perhaps we can move him on to some Hendrix now.

And, no, you should not call social services.

2004-05-31T15:39:00.000-07:00

Planning the drive to Dallas

I went into AAA the other day to plan out my 4-day drive from Philadelphia to Dallas. The Mrs. and Junior will be flying and I'll be driving solo. Luckily, Bain's reimbursing me for meals, mileage, and accomodations along the way, provided I average at least 350 miles a day. That's a fairly modest pace and provides a little time to check out the exciting stops along the way. Roanoke, VA! Knoxville, TN! Little Rock, AR! Okay, so Nashville and Memphis are also on the route and might be worth checking out.

In Memphis I'm thinking about passing by Graceland because that's what you do in Memphis. Elvis' music has never intrigued me, much less his excesses, but on the upside maybe they'll have an Elvis Cafe on site that serves deep fried peanut butter & banana sandwiches (or whatever it was that Elvis used to eat alongside his barbituate / amphetamine cocktails).

Although this drive may not sound terribly exciting, I'm looking forward to it because a) I'll really get a lot of use out of the iPod, b) meals that are reimbursed are much tastier than meals you have to pay for yourself, and c) I'm a little curious about all of that land between the west and east coasts. People actually live there I'm told.

Earlier in the month, we had a week in Outer Banks with some other 1st year and 2nd year Wharton friends... most of us had kids, and we rented a couple of big houses with pools. Good times. Our recent trip to D.C. and Annapolis was a nice getaway as well. The WWII memmorial had just been built and was very impressive, and the Blue Angels just happened to be performing when we stopped by Annapolis. Very cool!

2004-05-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

1/2 way done!

Year one is done! I took my last final yesterday, the semi-brutal (and statistics-ridden) OPIM 632 (Supply Chain Mgmt.). It was one of those multiple choice tests with extra choices like "A and B", "B and D but not I before E except after C," and so forth. Extra choices like that truly separate the men from the boys, and I clearly emerged as one of the latter. The problem with those extra choices on multiple choice tests is that there is no partial credit, and that fact is particularly damaging to my own patented partial-credit test-taking strategy. Multiple choice is good for people who know the material REALLY well (for whom the answers are obvious) or REALLY badly (for whom a random guess at least grants a statistical probability of getting the answer right), but is a big disappointment for myself, a wielder of the 80% solution (okay, well more like 60% solution lately). Well, it's over anyways.

As my internship doesn't start until mid-June, the next month should be an interesting change of pace: a week with friends at a house in Outer Banks, NC; road trips to Washington D.C., New York, Maine, etc.; time to read (for fun!); opportunities to catch up on a few movies; and more time with my wife and son. Unfortunately there will also be fewer opportunities to hide from domestic chores like dishes, picking up Christian's toys, and changing diapers. But free time always has its trade-offs.

2004-04-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

Low-rider pants: Ban 'em!

Now this is what I call legislation: a proposed ban on low-slung pants. It's about time someone did something about this epidemic. I am sick and tired of feeling old and unfashionable just because I wear jeans that fit and have a belt (just to be extra sure). Aside from that, the benefits of this ban could be many-fold. If the ban were implemented at a national level, children would respect their parents once again, SAT scores would skyrocket, the unemployment rate would decline sharply, and there would be a positive shock to real income, ushering in a generation of unparalleled growth and prosperity in the global economy. Why is this issue being avoided so wantonly by our presidential candidates?

As one can plainly see, finals are next week and just about anything beats studying for them right now.

2004-04-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

spyware

Here's a PC World article about the spyware epidemic. These parasitic programs are found in seemingly useful utilities and not just filesharing programs. I've long felt that spyware is the new virus. It's not just a privacy issue either (despite the misnomer "spy"-ware), because often these hidden programs drain bandwidth, send out spam from your computer, and slow your computer to a grinding halt. The article neglects to recommend any anti-spyware programs but either AdAware or Spybot do the trick.

2004-04-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Gmail screenshots, Spymac

A Google employee put up some screen shots of Gmail. Also, while people wait for Gmail to be released, there's a free email service called Spymac touting 1GB email storage, 100MB web storage, etc (not sure I'd trust the service though, I get script errors when trying to access the inbox). Still, I'm sure there will be a number of imitators offering 1GB (or more) of email storage, knowing full well that people won't use 10% of that. Very similar marketing gimmick to cell phone companies offering "3000 weekend minutes per month" or AOL offering "1000 free hours."

2004-04-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

Google as an operating system

Here's an interesting perspective that position's Google as an operating system. Interesting, and a good story to play up Google's valuation, but I don't really buy it.

Yes Google has the potential to resemble an operating system very loosely: the user has an account, lots of storage, and useful applications that are semi-customized. But how is this so different from what Yahoo and countless others have offered over the years? (besides offering a gigabyte of storage via Gmail). How many of you use Yahoo! Briefcase? On a daily basis? Not many. How many of you need 100MB of Email storage (much less 1GB)? Not many. The storage Google's offering is a great marketing gimmick, but it's not revolutionary. The idea that Google would threaten the Microsoft OS stems from the age-old argument that Larry Ellison and other Microsoft haters have been trying to make for years: that we all will be using thin clients (or browsers, or dumb terminals, or whatever you want to call them) with all of our software on some centralized server (i.e. Google in this case). I just don't see it. But I'll tell you what, when we all have fiber optic cable in our homes with 10 gigabit connections I will revisit this pipe dream and consider it more seriously. In the meantime, I will go back to twiddling my thumbs while my web pages load (and that's with DSL).

2004-04-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

Wharton and rankings

Last week our Dean announced that Wharton wouldn't give Business Week access to student and alumni email addresses. I covered this issue in my first news story for the Journal. I'm more accustomed to writing Top 10 lists than actual news articles, so this was definitely a learning experience. One interesting part of it was talking to the editor of Business Week's B-schools section. She really called in to question the motive of Wharton's and Harvard's decision, considering the fact that HBS and Wharton both suffered in the 2002 student rankings (more so than their peers). Business Week's official response is here.

Although I have mixed feelings about the decision, I'm not sure how big an impact this will have in the long term (regardless of your feelings about MBA rankings). Business Week will still find a way to survey HBS and Wharton students, rankings will still come out, and people will debate their validity endlessly.

I think a better ranking system would be to assign tiers to schools rather than individual rankings. For example, in my search for schools, I basically looked at "Top 10" schools (of which there are about 15, in reality) and narrowed by location, area of strength, and how it would help my personal career path. I think rankings (namely US News and Business Week) were very important in helping validate Wharton as a good choice, but whether Wharton was #1 or #5 didn't materially affect my decision. That being said, I think the qualitative aspects student satisfaction surveys are an immensely important data point for prospective students.

2004-04-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Pat’s vs. Geno’s: The Debate Settled

Pat's and Gino's, two of Philly's most famous cheesesteak haunts, are conveniently located across the street from each other on 9th Avenue in South Philly. And they both claim to have the best cheesesteaks in all of Philadelphia. A large group of carniverous First and Second Year Wharton students made our trek there last Saturday night to see what all the fuss was about.

Pat's line was nearly twice as long as Geno's, so naturally we chose Pat's. They must be in line for a reason, no? After a mere thirty minutes of class-auction-related banter, we were finally up for order. Ordering correctly at these types of places is crucial. There are rules. You must specify exactly what you want. Do not specify what you don't want. One Second Year in our group said "no onions and no peppers," and at that moment, the jukebox stopped, nearby cars screeched to a halt, and onlookers gazed as one of the chefs went after our friend with a dull meat cleaver. Luckily the cashier restrained him, but not without proclaiming the dreaded phrase: "No steak for you."

The reality is, the cashiers at Pat's can smell fear, even through the thick, wafting fumes emanating from the steaming mounds of beef and onions. So whatever you do, know what you want, have your money in hand (ideally with exact change), and by all means do not multiply words.

The cheesteak purists will tell you that you need to get cheez whiz. I debated about this for days, conflicted by my love for provolone and my detest for substances that resemble nuclear waste. But I overcame these obstacles and ordered the whiz, and I'm glad I did. As gross as it might sound, that melted faux cheese complements those cheap cuts of beef perfectly. Don't knock it till you try it. Overall, I was very happy with my Pat's steak and felt it was well worth the trip and wait in line.

Immediately following the Pat's experience, I cast my gaze towards Geno's. Casting your gaze towards Geno's is not difficult given its excessive neon signage, which was presumably edified with the specific intention to draw customers away from Pat's (they're a stone's throws away from each other). And the thought occurred to me, I had journeyed all of this way, why not do an "A vs. B" comparison? Have Philadelphians not senselessly debated the merits of these two establishments for ages without resolution? And was I so unmanly that I would throw in the towel after one measily cheesteak? I threw my fears of coronary bypass to the side and proceeded across the street. This wasn't about me anymore, it wasn't about hunger. It was about finding the truth.

Just ten minutes later, this time in front of Genos, I uttered the triumphant words "Cheese whiz steak wit onions." What I found at Geno's were longer strips of beef, a slightly smaller bun, and onions that were more raw than grilled. The steak had a decisive, savory roast beef flavor but the texture of the meat was not as soft and sumptuous as that of Pat's. And raw onions don't hold a candle to grilled ones.

Sorry Genos, Pat's really is the King of Steaks.

2004-04-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

XML feed

FYI, for those of you who use newsreaders, I activated the XML feed. It's here.

2004-04-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

Despair.com and self-help

I've always felt that Despair Inc.'s collection of "demotivational products" are brilliant, bordering on genius. You need not have a dark sense of humor to appreciate their satire. The March 2004 edition of the Harvard Business Review contains an interview with Despair's founder, Lawrence Kersten, a former professor or organizational communication. A couple of highlights with respect to his views on traditional self-help psychology and positive thinking:

In general, I like the idea of studying the positive aspects of life. I have long been interested in the concept of optimal experience, what psychologist Mihali Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow"... Still, I have reservations.... some applications of positive psychology have degenerated into a simplistic agenda to learn-to think positive thoughts. Then there's the conceptual gap between the hedonistic concepts that drive much of the thinking behind positive psychology and the pursuit of wisdom and maturity, which require self-denial... Finally, the agenda of positive psychology involves a healthy dose of hubris. Proponents believe they can replace religion and philosophy with an articulation of "the good life" rooted in experimental psychology. But their thinking is too ambiguous, the nature of human striving and aspiration is too various, and social scientific methods are inadequate to meaningfully handle concepts like wisdom and meaning. I think the movement should set its sights on less ambitious goals.

I've read a lot of self-help books (for obvious reasons), and I tend to agree with Kersten that self-denial is a much more direct route to happiness than mere positive thinking. I also highly recommend Csikszentmihalyi's book "Flow" which really changed some of my Western (for lack of a better term) perspectives on finding satisfaction in everyday life.

2004-04-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

Predicting the payroll number

Just a few days ago, a positive surprise occurred in the March payroll number, with 308,000 new jobs added. Prior to the news release, as an assignment for Dr. Gomes' Macroeconomics class, several teams developed a regression models to attempt to predict the number. We were the "bold" ones with a guess of 162,000 jobs. The mean prediction in the class was around 100,000, which is in-line with the estimates published in the Wall Street Journal. Although our guess was closer than that of the "experts," our model was not the best (or most predictive, statistically speaking). But without getting into the details of our model, this exercise was a good learning experience on several fronts:

We came to many false conclusions before developing our final answer. Along the way, I realized just how easy it is to manipulate statistics to support a desired point. There were temptations to manipulate the model in order to reach a conclusion that seemed closer to the experts' prediction. We resisted those temptations, but I wonder how much influence the "groupthink" has on analysts who avoid attracting unwanted attention by going out on a limb.
JMP, the program we used for our STAT 621 class, handles regressions with greater ease than Excel does. If I ever need to do another regression project, I'll likely avoid Excel.
All of the teams payroll predictions had fairly wide confidence intervals, illustrating why the actual monthly news release is so important. The experts consistently botch this prediction, so the actual news release has the power to move the markets.
I thought that a high payroll number would be great news for the stock market. But it's greatest impact is actually on the bond market (lower bond prices), because it means higher employment means increasing wages, which leads to inflation, which causes the Fed to raise interest rates. And for those who are contemplating buying a house in the near future (i.e. a number of Second Years who graduate next month) higher interest rates is never good news.

2004-03-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

Q4 fairly smooth so far

I've heard a lot of people complain about their workload this quarter. I haven't found it to be so bad. It has been fairly steady. Here's why I think things feel lighter:

I've stuck with core classes. Some others I've spoken with are taking electives (like Advanced Corporate Finance, Real Estate, etc.) or doing FAPs which can take up additional time.
My learning team has operated fairly efficiently lately. Meeting very little, doing stuff over email vs. long drawn out meetings, and deferring authority to whoever happens to feel strongly about something. This has been especially crucial with our Marketing 622 strategy simulation game (called SABRE) which is an interactive, competitive game worth 40% of our grade in the course. The thing about this game is that you have a LOT of data upon which to make decisions, which is good and bad. It's bad for teams that over-analyze things. I've heard of other teams meeting for hours on end and going in circles. I think our team has struck a good balance between knowing when to rely on data, and knowing when to use the "gut feel" approach.
For my Global Strategy class, I have access to a collection of case summaries for each class, passed down by students from years. Having a summary is no substitute for reading a case, but it's certainly an efficient way to get the "big picture" before delving into all the case details.
I've been more "strategic" about class attendance. If I haven't prepared for class, am not interested in the topic, AND don't think it will dramatically hurt my grade, I no longer feel guilty missing out. I've just make it a discipline to use missed class time for productive purposes, such as studying for other classes, going to Costco, or sleeping in.
My FNCE 602 class (Macroeconomics) got its first Midterm out of the way before spring break and covered less material than those taking Siegel
Recruiting is no longer a concern, which was a heavy weight during Q3.

Despite lower academic workload, things have been just as busy as ever at the Wharton Journal. I put in a 12-hour day on Friday at the office.... part of that was because the editorial staff did a lot of the writing on this issue, with less reliance on the usual crop of volunteer writers (the reason why will make more sense once the next issue comes out in a couple of days). But it has been a really fun experience. Plus, it has been great to have another fellow blogger, Aileen, on the team.

2004-03-21T06:34:00.000-08:00

Proof that he is his father's son

Modern technology is a lifesaver when it comes to babies on airplanes. He's such a wiggler. Fortunately, I have his favorite video, Baby Mozart, ripped onto my laptop. We've tried all sorts of headphones, but he prefers the deep bass of Sennheiser.

2004-03-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

Death of TiVo

Here's an interesting article on the inevitable death of the TiVo. Just another example of how a great product does not a successful business make.

2004-03-15T21:39:00.000-08:00

Spring Break in Aruba

My wife and I chose Aruba for two reasons: 1) It has perfect weather, 75-85F with a continuous breeze, and 2) we couldn’t find anyone that had a bad thing to say about it. Our goals for the trip were simple: get out of Philly, get warm, get some rest, and do something fun once a day.

Monday was our windsurfing lesson. It seemed easy at first. Progress was quick in the first hour, and then stopped altogether during the last hour. But the wind conditions are ideal in Aruba, so say the experts. Tuesday we embarked on a four-wheel ATV adventure on the eastern coast, which was a lot of fun and a great way to see the rest of the island. Wednesday was horseback riding on the north coast. There is no better way to enjoy a sunset than on the back of a horse, but the three-hour ride was groin-pummellingly too long. Men, for the sake of your progeny, limit it to two hours. Thursday we boarded a catamaran and did a little SNUBA. Snuba is basically SCUBA on a leash and is designed for those of us who are too lazy to get certified. But at 30 feet below the surface, we got a great view of the gargantuan Antilla shipwreck, not to mention the hordes of fluorescent fish.

Aruba has many of the benefits that other islands lack: safe tap water, ample fast food chains, movie theaters, and acceptance of US dollars. And although we never found authentic “Aruban” food, the island has some great restaurants. The Driftwood, located downtown in Oranjestad offers some of the best seafood we’ve had. Also, check out a place called El Gaucho, the best Argentine steak house on the island. I recommend the combo platter with a healthy helping of tenderloin, sausage, ribs, and rib-eye steak. If eating that much meat makes you feel guilty, simply tell yourself: “Baby, you worked hard in Q3 finding high quality cheat sheets, and you deserve every last pound of that savory beef.”

So Aruba is a great place for relaxation, adventure, and eating. So what’s the catch? There are three (minor) disadvantages to Aruba, as I see it. First of all, it’s a bit pricey. Okay, big deal, so I won’t be buying textbooks this quarter. The second disadvantage of Aruba is that it doesn’t offer much in terms of culture. Technically Aruba is (or was) a Dutch colony, but there are more Americans, Venezuelans, and Columbians than Dutch. Although English is ubiquitous, there is a local language, and it sounds like a combination of Dutch, Portuguese, Pidgin, Pig Latin, Yiddish, and Cling-On (hint: don’t try to pick it up unless you’re in Lauder). Other than that, everything revolves around tourism. The third disadvantage (especially for those of you still looking for an extreme MTV Spring Break experience) is that Aruba seems to attract an older crowd. So maybe you’re more likely to smell Bengay than Budweiser and more likely to see false teeth than false breasts. Personally, I think old people are the bomb, so this last one wasn’t much of a disadvantage.

Whether you’re looking for rest, relaxation, a romantic getaway, or a bit of adventure, Aruba delivers on all fronts. The bottom line is, the trip was well worth its contribution to our ever-growing pile of debt.

2004-03-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

RIP recruiting, hello spring break

With great joy, I have come to the end of the internship recruiting season. For many folks, it is only beginning, and I thank my lucky stars that I am not in their shoes.

I recently accepted an offer with Bain & Co. in Dallas for the summer. One thing about consulting that I'm going to have to get used to, is that all consultants give their thoughts and answers in groups of three. In that spirit, here are three reasons why I took this offer: 1) I've always wanted to try consulting. 2) Bain felt like a good cultural fit. The people, while very smart, are also very friendly and down to earth. 3) As for Dallas, my wife's family is there, and consulting would be the only reasonable career option that would work for me in Dallas. So why not give it a try for 10 weeks?

The best part about the recruiting process by far was Bain's "sell weekend," which finished just this last weekend. My wife and I were flown out to Dallas, treated to a nice hotel, taken to restaurants, treated to a Mavericks game, and given massages. They even arranged for the Mavericks to win. I had a "day in the office" which included several presentations and three 45-minute one-on-one chats with various partners of the office.... they grilled me during interview week, and now it was my time to grill them back. In any case, these guys know how to sell: I accepted the offer half-way through the weekend.

As for now, Q3 finals have just ended and we're off to catch some sun in Aruba for spring break. Rough life indeed.

2004-03-05T07:51:00.000-08:00

iPod impressions

Two weeks ago I bit the bullet and bought a 20GB iPod. I used to own the much larger Archos Jukebox 20GB, but it broke down and the wimpy 90 day warranty left me in the cold.

Needless to say, the iPod is well designed on the outside: compact, sleek, stylish, etc. etc. But it also wasn't cheap. After shelling out close to 500 bones, I expected a little more. Here is what disappointed me:

1) "Your music file / folder hierarchy is no good here." If you have a music collection that you have painstakingly organized by renaming files and placing them in artist and/or genre folders, it's useless with the iPod. The Windows file hierarchy is completely ignored. With the iPod, you are forced to scroll through an organization system derived from MP3 ID tags. Any of you who have accumulated 20GB worth of music on your computer know how big a drawback this will be. This is a HUGE drawback in my book. MP3 ID tags are notoriously inconsistent and often missing. When I dumped all of my music onto the iPod, and then I wanted to view my music by genre, I had 50 genres to scroll through (many of them with just one song). On the Archos unit, it was just like using Windows explorer, and I vastly prefer that method. It took me 8-10 hours to reorganize my music to make it usable for the iPod's organization scheme.

2) "Don't have firewire? Go back to the store." I excitedly ripped the packaging open and attempted to hook the iPod up to my computer, only to discover that the included cable ONLY worked with firewire (which is standard on Mac's, rare on PC's). The packaging said it was PC/MAc and USB/Firewire compatible. You'd think you can spend $450 on a device that says it works with a PC and be able to plug and play. Most PC users don't have Firewire, but all have USB or USB 2.0. I had to go find a store that carried a USB 2.0 cable for the iPod. It was $35 more, and Apple should have included it.

3) "Queue-fusing" I've been using the iPod for 2 weeks now and still can't figure out how to queue up songs of my choosing and then play them. The iPod touts an "on the go playlist" feature where you are supposed to be able to do just that. But it never works. The queue either includes the first song I've selected or the entire album of the first song I've selected. Thus, I've been forced to create a bunch of playlists on my PC for use on the iPod.

4) "More buttons, please." The menu system design is very constrictive. For example, it would be nice to have a "shuffle" button instead of having to navigate through several menu levels to enable the shuffle option. Or to have an on/off button instead of having to hold down the play button for 3 seconds.

5) "Equalize this." There is no equalizer. Sure, they have lots of presets like "Dance," "Rock," or "Treble enhancer" but you can't alter the treble and bass on your own. Apparently Apple doesn't trust us to equalize our own music. The iTunes application has an equalizer, why not put it on the iPod?

6) "No crossfade." Crossfading is a cool feature in iTunes that fades out the end of one song and fades in the next song so they overlap seamlessly. Like a radio station. It's a pity they don't allow you to do this on the iPod.

All in all, the iPod is great for its size and design. But for someone who is used to having a lot of control over my (large collection of) music, it feels very constrictive. Before you spend $450+ on a portable music device, make sure you understand the tradeoffs.

2004-03-04T14:01:00.000-08:00

Use vibrate mode

I'm so tired of hearing cell phones go off in study halls, classrooms, lectures, restaurants, etc. If I hear another one of those lame, upbeat, top-40-song-at-double-tempo high-fi rings, I'm headed straight for a mental institution. YOUR PHONE CAME WITH A VIBRATE MODE. USE IT, $&*%%!!!!! I give females a small degree of license here because they don't have/use pockets (that's a separate rant), but the guys have NO EXCUSE!

2004-03-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

Finals week

We're in the midst of Q1 finals right now: Business & Public Policy, Cost Accounting, and Operations Management (Linear Programming). When I get some time, I'll post some updates on the job situation and my thoughts on a recently purchased iPod.

2004-02-25T04:12:00.000-08:00

HBS, Stanford, and Kellogg bloggers where are you?

The list of Wharton bloggers just keeps growing. There are 23 contributing diarists on the Wharton Diaries site, and 6 students (current and future) who maintain their own blogs.

According to the MBA League of Bloggers, we have one blogger from HBS, two from Kellogg (one is in French), and none from Stanford. I point this out not to toot Wharton's horn (that's just a satisfying side benefit), but to encourage any future/prospective students who might be going to those schools to represent! Let's get with the program!

2004-02-21T03:37:00.000-08:00

Interviewing Wharton's Dean

On Thursday my Wharton Journal co-editor Jeff and I sat down for an hour with Wharton's Dean, Patrick Harker. Harker is engaging and charismatic, but his stock instantly shot up in my mind when, as we engaged in small talk, he recounted two scenes from The Simpsons. The first reference was a bit where Homer needed a financial wizard, and a lady with a Wharton t-shirt and glasses showed up on the scene. From a school branding standpoint, Harker quipped "You know you've made it when you're on the Simpsons." The second Simpsons reference was Lisa's discovery that she'd have no hope getting into Harvard but that her file would be passed on to Brown University, at which point Otto the bus driver admits that he almost got tenure at Brown. Harker's impression of slacker Otto was uncanny.

Simpsons aside, I thought our later discussion about Wharton's brand was quite interesting. It is well known that, despite Wharton's many successes, the school has a branding problem (especially abroad). Part of the problem is illustrated by this fact: Princeton's business and law schools are frequently top ranked in polls. Yet Princeton does not have a business school or a law school! Stanford and Harvard benefit from the same phenomenon (although I've heard rumors that they actually do have business and law schools). Wharton, on the other hand, is part of the University of Pennsylvania which is generally the least well known of the ivy schools. The gap between awareness of the Penn name and the Wharton name is narrowing, Harker says, as awareness of Penn grows.

The Dean spends more than half his time on the road with alumni. A big priority here is to raise funds. But the other component is community building (translated: brand building). "The alumni," he stated, "define the school's brand." And what keeps Harker up at night is that the alumni don't talk enough about the school. Perhaps this modesty is explained by Penn's Quaker roots, but Wharton grads tend to err on the side of being too modest.

The other idea he wants to promote is Wharton's philosophy about leadership, which transcends the narrow "CEO" definition of leadership. He hastened to add that leadership in "business, public life, and private character" are equally important facets of leadership, and he wants Wharton grads to be known for all three.

An area I was curious about (which we didn't touch on) is Wharton's consistently high alumni ranking (compared with other schools) in polls. We tend to get the highest marks in answer to the question "Would you recommend Wharton to a friend?" Why is this? From what I have observed, I think this comes from the incredibly high student involvement and participation (clubs, committees, extracurriculars, etc.). I'm still amazed at how much the students do to make Wharton what it is. It sounds cliche, but there really is an entrepreneurial atmosphere here (which was surprising to me given the size of the program). I think the student population really feels it has an impact on defining the Wharton experience. You can't help but feel loyal towards something you helped build.

The Wharton Journal article with the full interview can be found here.

2004-02-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

The Interview Game

Last week was the most stressful week of the year. I think it ranks even higher on the stress scale than moving all your stuff across the country into a highrise with a newborn infant. "DIP" week as it's known (Dedicated Interviewing Period) is the time where First Years put themselves through the wringer for a solid week with the hopes of getting a summer internship. Generally it's the consulting, banking, and large industry firms who use this week to fish for fresh recruits. For the First Years, getting a good internship is the best way to lock in a good full time job next year.

Several years ago, in the heyday, summer internships were a chance to experiment with something totally different (like a marketer trying his/her hand at investment banking or vice versa). The economic climate of the last couple years have changed the focus of the summer internship on finding a job that you can lock in when you graduate (job security in uncertain times). For some firms, things look slightly better than last year, but the feeling that jobs are scarce is still very much a part of the recruiting atmosphere among students.

The psychology of the interview process is an interesting thing. It's a bit of a game. The pre-game requires a lot of practice (especially for case interviews), and you have to think positive thoughts. The game itself can go a lot of different directions, and some elements are out of your control. The fate of the interview seems to rest partially on how you see your interviewer: as an opponent or as a team member. Some interviewers deliberately position themselves as opponents because they want to see how you react under pressure. It seems like the best approach is to not to take that bait... just continue treating the person like a team member. After the game is over, the post-game analysis can last for days. And nights. At 4:30am you wake up replaying the interviews in your mind... both the wicked smart answers you gave, as well as the dumb rambling ones. The replays keep playing themselves out in your mind until the outcome of the game is known. If you get a call from a recruiter (or no call at all), you know it's a ding, and you take a renewed vow to be rich and successful in order to show up the dinging firm... to teach it the error of its ways! Then you cry or mope for a while, and then you just suck it up and go right back to watching The O.C. If your call comes from a senior officer, you know it's an offer, you jump up and down, you dance the jig of joy, and you ultimately lose complete control of your bladder. These reactions to success and failure are inevitable, and there is no sense fighting them.

I've always been intrigued by the attribute (or skill?) of optimism, which, admittedly, has not always come naturally to me. An article (free registration required) in the student publication of the Chicago Business School makes an interesting point that relates to optimism, or more specifically, the psychology of "winning" in the job search process:

I have seen many people (with great backgrounds) falter during interviews because they were scared that one ill-perceived move was going to result in an interview ding. Students who interview "not to lose" are tense from the initial handshake and carry a sense of reserve throughout the interview, which inhibits their ability to demonstrate enthusiasm for the position. This same tenseness also impacts performance in technical questions and case scenarios. Remember, you must not allow yourself to fall into that "not to lose" mentality. So as you approach each interview, ask yourself one question.......am I doing this to "win" or am I doing this "not to lose?" There is a difference, and the choice is yours.

That seems to be true of anything worth winning in life. If you focus too much on avoiding bad outcomes, you pass up on risks that are necessary for personal growth.

2004-02-05T16:32:00.000-08:00

Top 10 Cool Things about Interviewing at the Four Seasons

(Scheduled to appear in the WJ on Monday, this Top 10 is inspired by all the aspiring consultants and bankers who spent their week getting worked over by interviewers in the posh hotel around the corner. Yes, people are actually interviewed in hotel rooms).

10. With in-room Spectravision, choose between Kill Bill and Scary Movie 3 while waiting for your interviewer
9. Inadequate buffet selection in the employer's waiting room? Just dial 7 for room service.
8. Well-trained room service waiters know to tip-toe when they bring in your lobster and Dom Perignon and you're in the middle of a case
7. For lengthy bathroom breaks, marble toilet seats are a joy to use
6. Swedish massage, aromatherapy, and papaya enzyme facials downstairs are all complimentary – simply furnish your interview room number!
5. In-room wireless lets you download a bootleg copy of Anger Management to your laptop while you focus on a discounted cash flow for a dump truck manufacturer
4. Luxurious Swiss-made hand towels are on hand during the interview to help with profuse sweating
3. Grand piano in managing director’s presidential suite provides opportunity to show off your ability to play / sing the Cheers theme (final rounds only)
2. Bombed your interview? Valets out front hand out free Mercedes Benzes as parting gifts!
1. Getting put through the wringer doesn’t feel all that bad when you’re in a 5-star establishment…actually, on second thought, yes. Yes, it does.

2004-02-01T03:46:00.000-08:00

Filesharing as a way to sell music

It seems that Fanning of Napster fame is working on a peer-to-peer "fingerprinting" technology which could combine legitimate commerce with peer-to-peer file sharing.

Something to get excited about? On the surface, no. Once you start charging for music, the immediate appeal of filesharing goes out the window. When the price of a song is zero (not factoring time wasted on incomplete downloads, mislabeled tracks, and lawsuit risk, all of which people generally ignore), quantity demanded is extremely high. If you charge for music, the whole benefit of the peer-to-peer network (whose value expands as the number of peers rises) seems to be in jeopardy.

But I believe there is value to file sharing that goes beyond the low prices... value that we don't see in commercial music services like iTunes. Specifically, the ability to browse a person's music collection is of tremendous value. Lets say that I find a user who is a big fan of both Miles Davis and Radiohead, whom I both like. But I also notice that he likes a band called Sigur Ros, whose music I may not have heard. There exists no better marketing for Sigur Ros than was just delivered to me in that moment. Record companies should be dying to capture that sort of word-of-mouth value.

I've always held that there is a business model that incorporates the best aspects filesharing. But in order for a service to get a critical mass of users, users should be incented to share their collections by receiving referral credits for songs purchased. In other words, if you browse my collection, listen to a free preview a song, and decide to purchase that album within the next 30 days, I should get a cut of that music sale.

The economics work out. The technology is there. Now if only the record companies would acknowledge the true "tell-a-friend" economics behind their business...

2004-01-27T20:15:00.000-08:00

Baby pic

It's been a while since I've posted a picture of the lad. On our cruise a few weeks ago, they made lil' Christian wear a life preserver as part of a safety drill. I'm not sure how he would fare floating at sea, but it sure made for a nice photo opportunity...

2004-01-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

Wharton Journal weekend

Our first edition of The Wharton Journal hit the presses this weekend. We hustled a lot of people for content and ended up with a longer paper than we probably needed. I must admit that I took for granted the amount of effort required to put a newspaper together. Aside from editing the grammar and run-on sentences of hurried writers, there are a lot of project management and recruiting tasks to tackle.

Our biggest challenge right now is that we only have 3 editors (including myself). In an ideal world, we’d have 3-5 additional editors. The consequence is that we have to spend a lot of time copyediting individual articles rather than concentrating on the layout and other bigger picture issues.

Here are the advantages (as I see it so far) of being an editor-in-chief:

Fun people to work with
Feeling that you have a finger on the pulse of the school
Opportunities to be creative (headlines, content choice, etc.)
Motivating and recruiting writers develops leadership skills
The finished product is high profile, tangible, and recurring
Free soda and snacks
An office on campus – home away from home
Difficult to get fired (because you work for free)

Here are some of the disadvantages:

A bit of a time sink (~15 hrs per week)
Simplifying run-on sentences gets tiring after 9 hours
Coming up with headlines isn’t always as easy as it sounds
Free soda consists only of Diet Coke so far… where’s the Mountain Dew?

2004-01-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

Busy with everything but classes

Things have really picked up. As expected this 2nd semester, classes have been less demanding. But recruiting and the Wharton Journal are starting to take bigger and bigger chunks out of my schedule.

Interviews are less than 2 weeks away, and case interview practices are now a daily feature of my schedule. Practice is so important because you have such a short time to "crack the case" in the actual interviews. In the real world, of course, consulting companies get 3+ months to solve a business problem. In the recruiting world, by contrast, they expect us to solve the same problem in 20 minutes. And, not only must we exhude confidence and poise, but we're told we must also wear a smile (as though we enjoyed being put through the wringer!). Maybe I can differentiate myself by whistling or skipping as I enter and exit the interview room, so I appear to be even more enthusiastic than the other candidates. In reality, of course, raw enthusiasm is probably less important than demonstrating raw intellectual horsepower (which I also hope to be able to fabricate). In all seriousness, case practices aren't all bad -- I haven't learned so much about so many industries in such a short period of time. If B-school is a crash course in business, case interview practices are the Cliff's Notes.

Meanwhile, Jeff and I are preparing for the first issue of the Wharton Journal (next Monday), and we're still trying to get section editors and writers to commit to being on staff. Our strategy thus far has been to usher potential candidates into the WJ office so that they able to realize that we have a fridge containing free drinks. So far it has worked.

2004-01-11T17:34:00.000-08:00

The answer to video piracy

The McKinsey Quarterly features an article about video piracy, attempting to address the following problem:

Companies in three industries—the content creators, the broadband providers, and the PC makers—find themselves stalled as they try to deliver digital video over broadband connections. This time, there is an added element of urgency: if they fail to act, illegal distribution will likely ramp up to meet market demand, and bootlegged movies could hurt box-office and downstream revenues, much as file sharing took a bite out of compact-disc sales. Video in 2004 stands where music did in 1998.

The similarities between music piracy and video piracy seem plausible on the surface, but I disagree with McKinsey's assertion here about video piracy "ramping up" in the same way music piracy did. There are several reasons why I think video piracy will be less troublesome than pirated music:

You generally watch a video once, maybe twice. You listen to music over and over.
Video is a huge bandwidth hog. A DVD that is compressed in the popular divx format is about 700MB whereas a CD in MP3 format is about 50MB. So you've got 15x more data to download for a DVD versus a CD. Broadband (DSL/Cable/T1) at 256K to 1.5MBPS is just starting to become widespread in people's homes and those speeds made music piracy easy and convenient. We need another HUGE jump in bandwidth to enable similar performance for downloading video. And I think it will definitely be more than a couple of years before 10MBPS is standard in people's homes.
Most pirated music sits on people's computers, and people often use their computers as stereos. Assume you've just downloaded a movie. You have three options: a) Watch the movie on your computer, b) Burn a DVD to watch on your home system, which is time consuming, and wasteful given low repeat value compared to a burnt CD, c) Use networking to send video from your computer to your TV.

The only way I believe video piracy will really explode (like music did) is if a) there is widespread adoption of a device that links the computer and the TV, such as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 2, and b) broadband is offered at much higher speeds than the current 256K - 1.5MBPS standards. I think "b" is a WAYS off. In short, it takes hours (sometimes days) to download a sub-DVD-quality movie, only to end up watching it alone on your computer or burning it to a DVD and watching it once on your home system. In the meantime, video piracy will still remain a novelty for college kids and hacks (like myself) who do it just because we can. But you can bet that, in the coming years, Hollywood will drool at the opportunity to categorically blame its failures on piracy. If the music industry is any guide, corporations always love a good scapegoat to distract investors from its own management failures.

2004-01-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

Rested up, ready for more hypertension

Last night, we returned from the Caribbean and were given a warm 4-degree-farenheit Philadelphia welcome. After 3 weeks spending time in Dallas, Philly, Key West, Cozumel, and Belize, I think I have just about recovered from my first semester at Wharton.

Nevertheless, I'm a bit stressed about jumping back into the swing of things tomorrow. Here's my class list (pretty standard for 1st years):

ACCT 622 - Fundamentals of Managerial Accounting
LGST 621 - Government / Legal Environment
FNCE 602 - Macroeconomic Analysis and Public Policy
OPIM 621 - Decision Models & Uncertainty
WHCP 653 - Management Communication (i.e., Public Speaking)

The thing is, classes are the least of my worries right now. It's DIP week (Dedicated Interview Period) at the end of the month that's got my wheels spinning. I've signed up for some consulting interviews, which incorporate the infamous case interview process. To get the ball rolling, I've been reading "Crack the Case", a practical guide written by an ex-Bain guy. It's been useful, but the general advice I've gotten about succeeding at case interviews is "practice, practice, practice".... which requires time, time, and more time (a precious, precious, precious resource).

On another somewhat stressful note, I've signed up to be co-editor-in-chief of the Wharton Journal (well, at least there's a "co" in the title). That will occupy my Thursday afternoons and most of Friday (traditionally a "free" study day since we have no classes on Friday). Our next issue is scheduled for the end of January, just about the time when case interview practice sessions will be at their height of fervor. So, in short, time will be scarce of the next month.

2003-12-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

Walmart now selling songs for 88 cents

Walmart has now gone online with their music downloads business. 88 cents a track. What's especially nice is if you can find a CD which has only one long track. For example, this Led Zeppelin documentary which runs 46 minutes on a single track. Only 88 cents!

2003-12-17T22:38:00.000-08:00

Looking forward to 3 weeks of leisure

Now that both Finance and Accounting are done with, one might ask “What is really the difference between Finance and Accounting?” Answer: Not much, I got similar amounts of sleep in both classes. Beyond that, I would say that Accounting is backward-looking and compliance-oriented while Finance is forward-looking and decision-oriented.

My big takeaway from Accounting is this: accountants look benign on the outside, but they can be dastardly and deft at their shady craft.... so hire one that you trust.

My big takeaway from Finance is this: the models that investment bankers use to evaluate a company's worth are complex, elaborate tools that put exceptional rigor into.... a wild guess. This is why financiers have a better sense of humor than accountants: you simply can't keep a straight face when you're estimating cash flows for AOL in the year 2009.

Anyways, Operations Management is done with, tomorrow I have my Strategy final, and Friday is the People Management final. But the worst is over. Come Saturday, I’ll have three weeks of eating, movie watching, shopping, gifts, airports, and family to look forward to. Maybe I’ll even find some time to start preparing for these consulting case interviews.... Or, for old time's sake, curl up by the fire with the ole' Accounting textbook.

2003-12-17T21:35:00.000-08:00

Friction in private equity markets

Interesting thoughts here from VentureBlog about friction (and bubbles) in private equity markets. Excerpt:

...the venture industry features... little secondary market liquidity, no real-time price info, wildly volatile (and historically phenomenal) returns calculated over very long time frames and a substantial oversupply of dollars trying to get in against a large number of incumbent LPs who have no interest in giving up their seats at the table. That's a lot of friction. And it will be a long time before the venture industry reaches anything close to a new equilibrium point.

And yet, private equity and venture capital are still considered to be the Holy Grail of career moves amongst many of my classmates at Wharton. A partner from Bain & Company's Private Equity group came and spoke a few weeks ago, and he made the comment that many of today's private equity shops won't be around in a couple of years. He advised students to pick a top quartile performer or not go into private equity at all.

Easy money should always be recognized for what it is: good luck. But it's never an equilibrium payoff. That's just the nature of markets.

2003-12-17T21:23:00.000-08:00

Executives who blog

Here's a nice little list of executives who blog, inspired by a New York Times article entitled "The Corporate Blog Is Catching On." Despite the article's title, I don't think the corporate blog will ever catch on, because there are simply too many lawyers who would have otherwise. Statistic of the day: the US has 70% of the world's lawyers and only 5% of the world's population.

2003-12-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

If accounting is the language of business, then I'm proud to be illiterate

Reading the average financial statement leads one to believe that accountants are true masters of illusion and deception. However, I believe accountants get too much credit in this respect. The reality is that accountants simply have no no grounding in the English language. Consider the following question from a Wharton Accounting exam.

Determine the unrealized gain (after taxes) that had been included in accumulated unrealized holding gains/losses in respect of marketable securities classified as available-for-sale disposed of during Fiscal 1998.

afdslkaj;lkj;lkj;lkjsasfd;lakfssssssssssssssssssssss

Sorry, I just fell asleep and my head hit the keyboard. If you're an insomniac and want an alternative to counting sheep, just consider counting prepositions in financial statements. Welcome to accounting, "the language of business."

2003-12-09T13:27:00.000-08:00

Dell takes U-turn on the outsourcing bandwagon

As related in this article from The Economist (subscription required), Dell has allegedly threatened to move their outsourced India call center back to Texas. A Dell spokesman commented that "customers weren't satisfied with the level of support they were receiving." Later in the article, The Economist speculates:

Dell may be the victim of well-organised e-mail and bulletin-board campaigns by pressure groups and customers who have allowed their politics to cloud their judgment. Which customers, after all, can claim happy experiences with Texan call-centres? By using Indian ones, Dell does at least keep its computers cheap—which is the main point about its products.

I would disagree with The Economist on two points here. 1) The article implies that the main point for Dell is to keep its prices/margins low. There is some truth to this, but a great deal of Dell's success is due to delivering good service to its corporate customers. After all, corporations spend a great deal more supporting PC's than buying them. Price is not everything. 2) Furthermore, I question the speculation that Dell is caving in to political pressures here. Dell's boss is Wall Street and I don't believe it would compromise its relationship with investors purely to satisfy a few vocal locals in Texas.

On a different note, I've noticed that many corporations have jumped on the outsourcing bandwagon, drooling over the short-term benefits to their bottom-line. Often times, their view of the world is that customer service is a cost center. The result of this phenomenon, in laymans terms, is that customer service just plain sucks these days. American Express is about the only exception that comes to mind. I wonder if Dell, in a commoditized industry, realized that they had made a strategic mistake by compromising the quality of their customer service. If that is the rationale behind Dell's move out of India, I applaud them.

2003-12-09T03:20:00.000-08:00

Coke now interested in our health

Talk about posturing. All of a sudden Coke executives are interested in our health. This is the same company that calls their market share "stomach share." Their stated goal is to get as much of their product in your stomach as possible. Coke used to come in 8oz bottles, then 12oz, and now the standard size is 20oz, with 24oz and 32oz bottles in some markets. Eventually we'll see 30-liter size as proposed by The Onion. And they're trying to hook kids and teenagers, just like the tobacco companies did. It's not a secret nor a conspiracy: it's their growth strategy.

2003-12-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

Music prices coming down

Well music prices are finally coming down. Even though I despise the music industry, I've gotten past complaining about sky-high CD prices. I rarely buy CD's any more. It's amazing what public transportation and an MP3 hard drive player do to your music listening habits. Actually, my last two music purchases were DVD's (Pink Floyd's "Live at Pompeii" and Coldplay's "Live 2003". For just a little more money than a CD, a DVD concert gives you get video, Dolby Digital surround, and a longer playing time.

2003-12-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

Goodbye Citibank

After 6 years of banking with Citibank, they have chosen to kiss my business goodbye. Last year, a Citibank teller persuaded my wife to switch account types, and misinformed us about the required minimum balance. The teller essentially misled us (accidentally I'm sure) into an account type that did not meet our needs. A year later, we unknowingly fell below the account's true balance requirement and were charged a $25 fee. After I explained the mixup to a customer service representative and his supervisor, they were unwilling to forgive the fee. According to Citibank, it doesn't matter what the Citibank teller told me -- I am held responsible for what's in the "manual." They emphasized that they couldn't verify my "claim" about the teller's misinformation. I emphasized that I had been a loyal customer to Citibank for 6 years with checking, savings, brokerage, and credit card accounts, and a consistently high average balance. I informed them that if they wanted to keep their $25 fee, they would lose my business permanently. They made no effort to dissuade me. It likely costs Citibank about $500 on average to acquire a customer like myself (adding customer acquisition costs for bank, credit card, and brokerage customers). But they wouldn't budge. Ultimately, the $25 fee was more important to them. Time to find a new bank.

The CEO of Commerce Bank addressed a group of Wharton students a few months ago, and I was impressed by the degree to which he emphasized customer service in his organization. One of his points was that banks have been so focused on M&A that they have completely forgotten about their customers. Look at the 3-yr stock returns on Commerce Bank vs. Citigroup and you can draw your own conclusions (Commerce Bank in red):

2003-12-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

Man is it cold out there

22 degrees and windy. I just got back from a recruiting dinner. I naively walked 7 blocks with only a pea coat and gloves (well, I had pants on too). But my point is, you need a hat and scarf out here. And even then, your face will probably freeze. When I lived in Utah I could get away with being macho, but I can already tell that's not going to work here on the east coast. Do your worst, wintertime.

2003-11-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

Recruiting season eh?

Resume deadlines for 1st year internships are readily approaching. Currently I'm in the cover letter phase. The cover letter advice I have received so far has been this: no one reads them but don't screw them up just in case someone does. And thus I've emailed all the 2nd year students I know, asking them for their cover letters from last year. The way I figure it, they have already put their blood, sweat, and tears into this process of cover letter writing. So why re-invent the wheel. Of course, as we all know, students are fundamentally lazy, and there's no reason to believe the 2nd years are any exception to this rule. Thus, the cover letter templates that I will receive from 2nd year students have likely been passed down for generations. In fact, no one knows where these cover letters came from originally. However, I do have one particular cover letter in my possession which, through cover letter forensics, appears to have originated from Neanderthal Man's job application for the Cro-Magnon Man position. It's 40,000 years old and has a spelling error, which is why, we presume, he didn't get the job. No one said that life was fair.

The good news is that spellcheckers have improved and times have changed. Most of us now walk in upright fashion, and with modern technology we have no excuse for spelling errors. On the down side, those of us undertaking consulting interviews must learn the art of the case study, which is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of mankind. Anyone who knows anything about case study interviews can attest to the fact that this method of evaluation is, in fact, a giant leap back for mankind, one that makes me yearn for the days of foraging for nuts and berries in the wilderness. Thankfully, to numb the pain, we have free access to case study guides through Wharton's career center. Studying these guides, coupled with careful scrutiny of the official consulting company web sites, will effectively provide me with the false sense of security I need (in the face of astronomical odds) to walk in to my interview with confidence. And, as long as I've got a few carefully prepared questions for my interviewer, everything should be okay.

2003-11-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

Microsoft and Search

Interesting article on Microsoft's plans for search. What I think is particularly intriguing is the concept of personalization: the idea that the search results can actually vary based on your own preferences and behavior. As one of the Microsoft people say, "The two of us type in a query, we get the same thing back, and that is just brain dead. There is no way an intelligent human being would tell us the same thing about the same topic."

The issue of getting good search resembles the problem of keeping out spam. Users ultimately have different standards for what is spam and different ideas of what are good search results. In the spam world, user-defined Baysian filters (which cater algorithms to the user's preference) have gained in popularity. Perhaps this is another innovation for the search market?

Another idea worth exploring for search technology is the community-based recommendation engine. SoulSeek, one of my favorite P2P applications, has a feature that lets you rate bands (thumbs up / thumbs down) and spits out a ranked list of bands that you ought to like. I'd like to see an optional Google feature that tracks search history and/or my interests and generates lists of search keywords that I ought to like. It wouldn't make me more productive, but it just might make me search more.

2003-11-16T20:05:00.000-08:00

Career Trek - Dallas, TX

I spent Thursday and Friday in Dallas on a Career Trek. A career trek is basically a regionally focused recruiting effort designed to give students exposure to company offices outside the Northeast area (i.e., last year 59% took jobs outside the northeast). Most people on our Dallas trip had either grown up in Texas or had family there. Personally, it's where a good part of my wife's family lives. And once you have a kid, proximity to grandparents becomes an important factor in choosing a location.

We visited 8 companies on the trip, spending an average of 1.5 hrs at each office. Lots of driving, lots of powerpoint presentations, and lots of schmoozing. Half of the companies were consulting-related (McKinsey, Bain, Mercer, and A. T. Kearney) which was my main area of interest. The others were across the board: Prudential Capital, Carlson Capital, American Airlines, Pizza Hut, Exxon, and Trammel Crow. I was a little disappointed that we weren't able to visit Booz Allen and BCG but there were scheduling conflicts.

Going on a career trek has several advantages over staying put and recruiting on campus. First of all, you get a feel for the work environment which you don't get in the campus info sessions. Second, you get to meet company representatives in an atmosphere where there aren't 300 other Wharton students trying to compete for their attention. Much better ratios. Several of the companies had high level execs presenting, which was impressive given the small size of our group (about 15 or so). For example, we met the CFO of Pizza Hut, the CEO and CFO of Trammel Crow, and general partners elsewhere. Third, each company gets a resume book of people on the trek, so perhaps they'll remember us when we apply for interviews in a month or two! Fifth, it's a great way to network with your fellow students who are likely to be an important part of your network if you decide to live in the area.

There were also some disadvantages of doing a career trek. First of all, we were required to attend all company meetings, regardless of our interest. The rationale, I believe, is to have a higher attendance so that recruiting companies have a bigger audience to present to. It wouldn't look good if the CEO of a company came to an hour meeting with just a small handful students. But a couple of the presentations were a bit boring because they assumed an interest level in, say, real estate or subordinated debt. Yawn! The second disadvantage is that it isn't cheap to do one of these treks. You need to buy your plane ticket, rental car, hotel (unless you stay with family), and you have an opportunity cost of missed classes and events back at school.

All in all, the trek was definitely worth it. I don't feel like I had any dramatic revelations about the future of my career. But I can now visualize what it would be like to live and work in Dallas. And, in the recruiting dance (as with the MBA admissions dance), companies evaluate you both on your competency and your likelihood to take their offer for a specific office. With any luck, my participation in this trip will signal to these companies that I'm serious when I pick Dallas as my office choice.

2003-11-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

Jobs on iTunes: "We'd be happy to break even"

Steve Jobs admitted today what I speculated on: that iTunes is a loss leader. It's just an additional "feature" of the iPod, where Apple is really making the money. What little money they make after the RIAA takes it's chunk is probably just enough to cover costs. Makes you wonder how Napster, Rhapsody, and BuyMusic.com will do in the end...

2003-11-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

Good overview of the TiVo phenomenon

Here's a good overview of the TiVo phenomenon and the effect it has on the owner. The article presents TiVo as addicting, which it certainly is. In fact, one of the reasons people don't purchase TiVo's is they're afraid they're going to watch more TV. And that definitely happens -- at first. You're like a kid in a candy store and you want to grab all you can. But then you grow up and realize that candy stores will always be around, and you enjoy them more if you don't binge every day. As a TiVo owner, it took me a little time to realize that those Seinfeld and Simpsons re-runs would always be around (and perhaps "on demand" at some point). That's when the TiVo equilibrium hits and I started to control the TiVo rather than the other way around. And the shows that pile up on your TiVo become like bookmarks on your Internet browser that you use only when you really feel like it.

2003-11-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

Rant

I must confess... I'm not off to a great start this quarter. I'm particularly sick of two subjects that will go nameless (but they rhyme with flaccounting and floperations flanagement). I just can't seem to find any interest whatsoever in these subjects. The common denominator in both of these classes is that the class time is spent on working through detailed problems versus giving conceptual explanations. Lots of "here's how" and no "here's why." Busy work. Personally, I need a few "why's" at 9AM, no matter what I'm doing.

The remainder of my core classes (Finance, Leadership, Strategy, and Ethics) are not too bad, but they can also be hit or miss. Either there is too much detail or not enough. Just the other day in Finance, we spent an hour and a half going over the mechanics of a type of stock grant used exclusively in Europe. Too much detail. Where's the fast forward button when you need it? If only life were a Tivo.

In other more interesting classes (Strategy and Leadership) it seems like the professors often want to "switch gears" and move on to some other topic just as the class discussion gets interesting. You prepare for a class for 2 hours and then you get to contribute a 15 second soundbyte and it's no wonder you feel a bit empty handed when you leave class.

I recall undergrad classes I had with 10-15 people in them, and I got way more out of the class. I think professors need to split us into smaller groups to allow people to discuss or lead a case in greater depth.

At times like these, I step back and give my (whining) self two reminders: 1) In the words of Cake, "learn to buck up." Classes aren't always interesting. That's life, deal with it. 2) Classes are not really the reason I came to business school. I came to b-school to make friends, give my career a kickstart, write Top 10 lists for the Wharton Journal, and eat cheesteaks. And I'm going to do those things. With or without Flaccounting.

2003-11-09T08:42:00.000-08:00

A belated happy halloween from baby Christian

A Halloween greeting from our little red hot chili pepper. He's happier of course when the top is down.

2003-11-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.... what fuels iPod demand?

Here's an interesting article from CNET on the iPod's shortcomings. I think their last argument -- that the iPod can only be used with one online music service -- is a bit weak. Let's set the RIAA political correctness aside and not kid ourselves here. The reason these hard-drive based players are selling so well is because people have amassed huge MP3 collections. And where have those files come from? Kazaa, Morpheus, and Napster.... not BuyMusic, iTunes, and so forth. Think about it this way: in order to justify the purchase of a 20gb portable music player, how much money would you have had to spend on online music in the last year in order to have 20gb worth of music? Given about 60mb/album, at the going rate of $9.99/album, that works out to about $3300 for 20gb of music. I would be surprised if more than 5 people in the world have spent that much on online music. And yet over a million iPods have been sold, promising huge capacities.

The cycnical side of me says that Apple has a vested interest in music piracy, as it clearly fuels demand for their iPods. You might say "But what about iTunes?" They make peanuts on iTunes compared to what they make on iPods. iTunes is surely a good way to spin their iPod business as a legitimate, politically correct thing. But think about how much money we're talking about here. Apple makes PC-sized margins off the iPod, which means they get about $100 of income per unit. That's about $100 million so far. Compare that to the pennies they make from each of the 17M songs they've sold to date and it becomes clear where their interests lie. Another way to look at it is this: with over 1M iPods sold and 17M songs sold on iTunes, people have an average of 17 Apple-bought songs on their iPod. That's half a percent of the player's capacity.

Counterpoint: iTunes is clearly an investment in the future. Demand for iPods will saturate over the next couple of years (what's next after you buy a 20gb player, a 100gb player?), but demand for online music will continue to grow at a healthy rate. And Apple's got 80% market share of all legally purchased music online.

Another important counterpoint to my "let's not kid ourselves" argument is that not all large MP3 collections are pirated. Personally, I have about 25 gigs of MP3's and a generous portion of those files are ripped from legitimately purchased CD's or authorized live recordings from "taper friendly" bands. Despite all the RIAA hype, people will continue to buy CD's. And they will continue to rip them for use on their computers / MP3 players.

2003-11-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Consulting humor

Nice comic strip here, especially if you've ever witnessed the implementation of a technology consulting project. (source unknown, it was an email forward)

2003-11-05T18:01:00.000-08:00

Exhorbitant pay: Entertainers vs. CEOs

A few days ago I pointed out a graph from The Economist highlighting the increasingly excessive proportions of CEO pay. In a recent article, Knowledge@Wharton asks: why we aren't we as critical of sports figures and entertainers who make huge salaries? While some interesting theories are presented, I think this statement hits the nail on the head:

With entertainers we can actually see what’s being produced. There’s a market where Julia Roberts or George Clooney are paid $10 million to $20 million per film. But it’s a bare knuckle industry. Kevin Costner was very, very hot at one point, in the $5 million to $10 million range for a movie. But now he’s dropped off the scene and is having a hard time getting work. That market works. If you’re not bringing in the box office, you’re toast.

I think the public has seen too many examples of CEOs who are not particularly good but get paid astronomical sums (i.e., Michael Eisner of Disney). But Professor Larker makes a good point that even the high-performing CEOs are cutting shady compensation deals:

My view is that if you have done well, you deserve to make the big bucks. But when you’re gone, you’re gone. The thing that angers people is the kind of stealth compensation we’re seeing. I don’t think people begrudge [Jack] Welch all the money he made as CEO. But here’s a guy who amassed unbelievable sums of money and shareholders find they are still … paying for his apartment, his travel and even his tickets to Knicks games."

In the end, the public will continue to come down hard on CEOs because they appear to be writing out company checks to themselves. In large part they are. Ideally, the Boards of Directors are supposed to policing these compensation schemes, but too many boards just look the other way. And the same might be said of the shareholders.

2003-11-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

Permanent links work now

Quick note: I've finally gotten the permalinks to work here, so going forward individual posts can be specifically saved/bookmarked. And I'm sure you all are just elated. ;)

2003-11-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

Gateway's foray into consumer electronics

BusinessPundit references a BusinessWeek article about Gateway and its foray into the consumer electronics market, and asks the bigger question about what Gateway should do strategically.

I don't know if I have the answer, but I can see one issue: marketing consumer electronics isn't the same as marketing PC's. Take, for example, their Connected DVD player (a DVD player that also wirelessly streams audio/video content from your computer through your home entertainment system). I am their target customer for this product. I have gigabytes of media on my computer, a decent home entertainment system, a semi-old DVD player, and a 802.11 wireless network. I also wish I could connect my computer to my home entertainment system. Yet, I go to their site and have no desire to buy the product.

They're marketing this thing like they'd market a PC: "Here are the specs, here's what it looks like, and oh by the way it's $50 off the usual price." They should be selling the user experience here, not just the hardware. Will this streaming of media wirelessly cause the usual blips and delays that I see when I stream media over the net? Will I be able to stream any type of audio/video format or will I be crippled by some proprietary restrictions? Are they going to try to sell me some monthly for-fee service? Who knows?

Gateway will have a really hard time competing in the competitive market for innovative consumer electronics if they don't first learn how to market them. Gateway ought to take a tip from the Apple iPod and the Handspring Treos. Those are some decent examples of how to market an innovative, "nice to have" consumer electronics device.

2003-11-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

Top 10 Cool things about Philly

(this week's Wharton Journal submission)

Minutes away from Jersey!
Home of the ghetto-fabulous Cinnemagic 3 theater
Proximity of Schuylkill makes getting rid of old furniture easy as pie
Tap water’s flammability comes in handy when fondue fuel burns out
Fresh Prince of Bel Aire? Born and raised in Philly, baby.
SEPTA buses going to campus conveniently pass by every couple of hours
Locals eschew usage of “You all” and “Y’all” in favor of vastly superior “Youse”
For insomniacs, the nightime medley of gunshots and sirens provides a soothing lullaby
Respectfully, auto insurers cap annual rates at just below the re-sale value of your car
Delicious cheese steaks: Five dollars. Surly service: no charge!

2003-11-03T11:40:00.000-08:00

On being a generalist

When it comes to the business world, I've always seen myself as a generalist, one who enjoys knowing a little about a lot of things. But I've always wondered if I've missed the boat by not specializing in anything. I ask myself: what would it have been like if I had spent the last 5 years of my career becoming an expert in corporate finance, operations, accounting, or investment management?

At business school, I've quickly realized why I've been avoiding these specialties: they bore me silly!

Accounting? MEGA-BORING! Call me crazy, but I don't get any sort of buzz from re-engineering a balance sheet to infer the salvage value of an industrial drill.
Finance? DRY! DRY! DRY! If I had to spend all of my working days interacting with spreadsheets, I'd tear out my hair. I suspect that is why so many financiers are balding.
Operations Management? YYYAAAWWWWWNNNN!The only assembly line I'm interested in is the one inside the local Krispy Kreme.
Investment management? GOOD LUCK BEATING THE INDEXES! I like trading stocks, but building your career on something that 90% of fund managers fail to do (i.e., beat the market) strikes me as a bit futile. Also, the right half of my brain might wither and die if it were subjected to a heavy diet of 10K's, earnings reports, and Bloomberg.

But there is value in realizing these things. The core program takes the mystique out of all of these subjects. You get to open a lot of doors, look inside, then close (or slam) those doors with confidence. You may go back to being a generalist when all is said and done, but you have a few extra tools in your toolbelt. And if one day you're running a company (say, AOL for instance), and your CFO wants to capitalize advertising costs as an asset on the balance sheet, you can take one of those tools out of your toolbelt and whack him on the head!!

2003-11-03T11:12:00.000-08:00

Coolest feature of Office 2003

Sometimes it's the little enhancements that make the most difference. My favorite new feature in all of Office 2003 is the Outlook notification window that pops up when you get a new email. First of all, it's semi-transparent, so it doesn't feel like an intrusion. Second of all, it shows you the sender name, subject title, and the first few words of the message body. Third of all, it includes a delete button in the pop-up window so you can delete messages (and spam) without even having to be in Outlook. This little pop-up window seems like a tiny feature change, but it makes email management (which has turned into a full-time job for some) so much easier.

2003-11-01T07:15:00.000-08:00

Why Philly Rules

Here is one example of why Philly rules. Even Catholic school girls are not to be messed with.

Speaking of Philly, in a couple of days I'll put up a new Top 10 list about why this city is so cool.

2003-10-30T05:40:00.000-08:00

Takeaways from 1st Quarter at Wharton

Here's another Top 10 I ran in the Wharton Journal. I've added brief explanations in italics for non-Wharton readers out there:

Gargantuan tuition fees are merely part 1 of a 2-part tarriff (you'd think $35K in tuition would cover everything, but it's just the entrance fee)
Core classes are merely pesky distractions from an otherwise uninterrupted career fair
Study room Whiteboard-computer interface provides top-notch platform for collaborative tic-tac-toe (no one ever uses the ultra-high tech feature that lets you capture whiteboard scribblings on computers)
Webcafe server is actually a HP12C with a weak battery (Webcafe is essentially the online virtual classroom where you find assignments and discussion. It's great but really really slow.)
Textbooks are most effectively utilized as support for couches that have missing legs (you never have time to crack your textbooks here, everything you pick up is through handouts, cases and lecture)
Finding heteroscedasticity in time series data is much easier than finding the statistics office (the statistics office is on the 4th floor of huntsman hall. the normal elevators and escalators only go to the 3rd floor. See if you can find the hidden elevator)
Massive personal debt actually increases propensity to consume (what's another $20 when you're dropping $120K?)
32 pages of lecture material can -- and should -- be squeezed onto 1 piece of printed paper (two things: on-campus printing costs 0.10 a page which quickly adds up and cheat sheets are permitted in exams, so squeeze everything you can onto each sheet)
Faucets that spontaneously activate in restrooms actually caused by friendly "Old Man Huntsman" ghost (the motion sensored faucets in the restrooms really seem to go off without rhyme or reason)
Crime is fairly low inside Huntsman Hall (excluding, of course, what Au Bon Pain does to its customers) (Au Bon Pain cafe has 2 stores built into Huntsman Hall and you can be guaranteed you'll get long lines, high prices, and poor service)

2003-10-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

There.com

I beta tested There.com a few months back, purely out of curiosity. There.com can perhaps be characterized as a more ambitious version of "The Sims Online," another community-based game. I was initially intrigued about an article in the WSJ about There.com's creation of a virtual economy with "Therebucks," a currency tied to the US dollar. Players can actually create virtual products (i.e. a t-shirt or a hoverboard for your avatar), and then sell those products to make real-world money. I ultimately got bored with the game and uninstalled it, but more on that later.

It seems like There.com is avoiding positioning this game as a game. They're positioning it as a novel form of instant messaging, which is an interesting angle. To understand this, we might look at a precursor to There.com, Electronic Arts' big disappointment called "The Sims Online." The original "Sims" game from which The Sims Online was adapted was a hugely successful, traditional, non-interactive PC-based game. Non-interactive games let you "play god," whereas community-oriented games don't let you have that kind of control. Community-based games are more like the real world where you can't do anything particularly special (my, that sounds bleak). There is no structured experience. It's up to the community to provide the entertainment.

Products like There.com tend to make interesting case studies and niche markets, but they're not likely to generate enough appeal to attract and retain a mass-market audience. Perhaps it goes back to Metcalfe's law, where the value of the network is dependent on the number of users in the community (although with this argument you might argue that There.com already has a sufficient critical mass to be of value to the average user). Ultimately, though, I think it comes down to the entertainment factor. Whether people are going to the box office or buying a PC game, most people want an escape from the real world.