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 | The Piccadilly Circus tube stop. London, UK April 5, 2006 |
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November 19, 2007You're A ... Program Manager?On Saturday, I participated in a panel at the UW Business School with two other alums, talking to prospective MBAs about b-school in general, the UW in particular, career options and experiences for MBAs, and so on. (Fun fact: this group will be the MBA class of 2010, which makes me feel fantastically old. Yikes.) When we got to the part where I talked about what I do for a living, I saw a few furrowed brows - people 'get' that I work for Microsoft (and work on the Mac), but they didn't really understand a) what the heck a "Program Manager" is, b) what that job is all about, and c) what the heck an MBA is doing in the role. In fairness, Program Management isn't a typical career track for MBA types. And, as it happens, I've been having this conversation - or flavors of it - with friends of late, many of whom want to know just what the heck it is that I do in my job, and how it differs from Product Planning. Hence, this post. When I started in Planning as an MBA intern, I typed up a quickie essay ("You're A Product ... Planner?") to explain what I was doing with my summer: Put succinctly, planners help guide product evolution. ... We generate new ideas, identify trends, keep an eye on competitive products, and try to help provide thought leadership on products. We are, in effect, the "voice" of the customer. As a Planner, it was my job to help the product team figure out what they should be building. In day-to-day terms, this meant tons of travel and customer research - in-person visits, focus groups, customer councils, surveys, you name it. Planners spend a lot of time in the field, trying to getting a sense of what's going on in the market. Planners work with people in the product team (e.g., Program Managers, Developers, Testers, Designers), as well as the marketing department (e.g. Product Managers) and executive groups to help get the people who build the product aligned around what the customer wants to buy. Planning is a job with lots of strategy, market-segmentation, analysis and number-crunching. In other words, it's a classic MBA gig. For me, moving into Program Management meant taking a step forward; rather than working with the product team to define requirements, I work on the product team, designing features, writing specifications, and trying to build a product that customers will love. At a high level, Program Managers do two big things: they write specifications that govern how the product will look, work and behave, and they manage the schedule to ensure that all the various parts of the team are working in a coherent, consistent, rational way. Probably the best definition I've ever seen of what a Program Manager is/does comes from Jim McCarthy, author of (the excellent) "Dynamics of Software Development": Program Managers are the team members who perform the following functions: So, yes, Virginia, Program Management isn't a typical MBA job. In fact, a lot of my PM peers around the company tend to be fairly technical folks with CS degrees. Truthfully, as a lifelong geek, the technology side is really interesting; one of the best things about working at Microsoft is that you get to work with a lot of advanced stuff (and, being a Mac developer, I get to work with a lot of advanced Apple stuff). But at the same time, tech doesn't exist in a vacuum; customers don't buy technologies, they buy products, and if you want someone to buy your product, you better be doing something with that product that they find interesting or valuable. And you know something? An MBA can be an awfully useful thing for figuring out what those "interesting" or "valuable" things might be. Which, I daresay, is a Good Thing. I like to think that my geekiness made me a better Planner, and I'd like to think that my MBA will make me a better Program Manager. Does that help? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 19, 2007 12:01 PM. March 13, 2006"Is The MBA Overrated?"The latest issue of BusinessWeek has a great article titled, "Is the MBA Overrated?" that asks ... well, it's pretty obvious what it asks. And the answer, with so many of these things, is 'it depends'. The basic finding of the article is that (stop the presses!) an MBA is not necessary to run a company on the S&P 100. Turns out that an MBA - even an Ivy-league one - is not a prerequisite to being CEO. Instead, the value of the degree seems to collapse into one thing: Headhunters say that while an MBA may help land a first job after graduation, the career benefits from that moment on are almost nonexistent. "In the pure Darwinian world we live in, pedigrees mean nothing," says Peter D. Crist, chairman of Crist Associates, a Hinsdale (Ill.) executive search firm. "It's instinct, it's hard work, and it's raw intelligence." Exactly. I get pinged semi-regularly from folks who are considering an MBA, and a few of them have notions that an MBA is the key to the executive washroom. Nope, nada, ain't gonna happen. Your MBA is the skills you learn, the people you meet, and the access to recruiters you get while in school. After that, the degree just looks good on your wall. (But hey - if you still want fame, fortune, and access to hot members of the opposite sex ... I'd try the music business.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 13, 2006 10:52 PM. February 25, 20062006 UW C4C AuctionFriday night was the annual UW Business School "Challenge For Charity" auction. If you're an alum of the UWBS, it's one of those can't-miss events: it's fun, it's prestigious, it benefits two great charities (Special Olympics and the Boys & Girls Club), and it's a great chance to see long-lost classmates. (The social aspect is actually a little overwhelming - I didn't get a chance to bid on any of the silent auction items because I was too busy catching up with people I'd not seen for the last nine months!) Fortunately, I did score a great item in the live auction - poker with Messrs. Turner & Forehand. Ben Lower, Keith Vaitkus, Andy Boyer (and, hopefully, Chris Howard - if we can twist his arm) will be taking these guys for everything they've got ... while chomping on cigars and swilling martinis. Awesome. The fundraising goal was $150,000, and it looks like we beat it - the unofficial total of $147,000 was announced before the evening was over. I'm willing to bet we'll be around $155K when all is said and done. What's astounding about this number is that it's nearly 50% higher than what we did last year. Way to go, Class of 2006! UPDATE, September 4, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 25, 2006 10:13 PM. February 10, 2006Making The CaseI just wanted to give a shout out (and some seriously good karma) to the UW MBA Class of 2006'ers who are participating in the Wake Forest Case Competition down in Winston-Salem, NC. Wake Forest kicked off yesterday, and is an intense, three-day-long, sleep-is-for-the-weak session where MBAs from all over the country come to battle one another with their Marketing Fu. (There can be only one.) It's a big, big deal - lots of hard work, national attention. Our team this year has a blog, and is updating regularly. Go UW! You're making us all proud. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 10, 2006 8:53 AM. January 26, 2006The High Price Of Higher EdIt's "application season" for business schools, which means a lot of folks are evaluating and applying to different MBA programs across the country. As such, I've received a number of e-mails recently from folks that are considering the UW, and are looking for more information about it. So as I was browsing the Seattle PI this morning, an article headline caught my eye ("Huge college loans eating up salaries") that's all about how taking on too much student debt can screw up your life: This combination of forces has the potential to create a new class of working poor -- those who have fallen behind before they've had a chance to get ahead. These are secret strugglers. They aren't counted anywhere, and no one is sure how large their ranks are, although anecdotal evidence would suggest they are increasing. They don't necessarily look, act or identify themselves as financially challenged. They are rich in education, but they've leveraged their futures for the privilege. I've written before about how expensive MBA educations can be, and, for those of you who are applying right now, I would advise you to be conservative with your financial projections. Yes, having an MBA can help you get a higher-paying job. But the MBA is not a guarantee of a swank job and corner office, and, indeed, many people get MBAs to do something that's more enriching to their soul or intellect than their bank account. The more you owe in loans, the less flexibility you have when it comes to choosing your job, company, or part of the country you want to live in. Incidentally, and this PI article is part of a larger series they're running on the working poor here in King County. I'd missed a lot of it the first time 'round - it's fascinating (and depressing). Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated January 26, 2006 12:47 PM. November 13, 2005"MBAs Open Doors"The Seattle Times has an article today, "MBAs Open Doors" that talks about the value of an MBA to people who want to change or improve their careers: It's the MBA (master's in business administration), an advanced degree that for decades has been considered de rigueur for many business-management positions but has been criticized as being too focused on theory rather than the real world. I've written before about why I got my MBA, and I've (clearly) found it to be a wonderful, worthwhile investment. I'm bullish on business degrees in general, because I've seen a lot of folks come in to the UW with one set of skills, and leave with a career that enables them to go a completely different direction. Anyhow - it's worth a read (or at least a scan). Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated November 13, 2005 2:28 PM. October 22, 2005"MBAlmer: Fake News For Real MBAs"The Fall 2005 issue of "Business" (the official magazine of the UW Business School) has an article about the MBAlmer - a spoof newspaper that we started in the Spring quarter of my first year in b-school: It began, appropriately enough, with the surreptitious passing of notes in the back of class. Feeling uninspired one day, Gavin Shearer (MBA 2005) and Chris Meyer (MBA 2005) traded invented headlines—some satiric, some sophomoric—affectionately lampooning friends and favorite profs. The in-jokes got out, and soon someone suggested culling them into a fake online newspaper, a local version of The Onion. You can read the entire article here. (PDF) Look, it's incredibly gratifying when you can be part of something that catches fire with people. But in the case of the MBAlmer, I had a lot of help. Aside from owing a spiritual debt of gratitude to The Onion, the original genesis of the newspaper was a spoof that was dreamt up by classmate Flavio Kaplan. It had just been announced that Dean Gupta was leaving us for USC, and I was hanging out in the MBA lounge. Flavio, tapping away on his laptop, looked up at me and said, "Gavin! You know how to build Web pages, right?" (Uh, sure!) Flavio was trying to wrap a Seattle Times look-and-feel around a fake news article. The gag was simple: we'd hired USC's former dean in retribution for USC hiring Gupta. I was totally in to it, of course, and the two of us quickly whipped up this little gem ("UW Business School To Hire Former USC Dean") and sent it out to the MBA mailing list. Response was positive. And the seed was planted. From there, the "Business" article is pretty accurate. Chris Meyer and I were cracking each other up during a very slow Operations class one day, and it was all downhill from there. It's really, really important to point out that the MBAlmer was (and is, now more than ever) a team sport. Cintra wrote articles; Marnie and Joanne were forced to sit through thousands of iterations of the same crappy joke as we tested and tested; poor Mike Liu and Arkan Kayihan ('05 and '06 class presidents, respectively) were terrificly good sports, as were the members of the Program Office and faculty. Everyone liked the joke. And now, of course, the paper is under the safe control of 2006 funnyman Andy Boyer. It's a pretty "inside baseball" spoof, but seems to translate well to other MBA programs. If you're interested in reading the MBAlmer, you can get the current issue here. Archives are available, too - first issue, second issue, third issue. And remember: MBAlmer is a satire. Please read responsibly. (And big thanks to "Business" writer Ed Kromer, who sent me a few free copies of the issue for my scrapbook. You rock, Ed!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated October 22, 2005 12:36 PM. September 20, 2005My Diploma's Here!Hot on the heels of my post about Casey's new job, I got this from him in e-mail: Hey, Gav, just got my MBA diploma in the mail today. It's sure shaping up to be an excellent week. Sure enough, mine's here, too. Right on! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated September 20, 2005 8:24 PM. June 30, 2005Cintra Pollack: Wrapping Things UpCintra's second-to-last column for BusinessWeek ("Wrapping Things Up") is now online: "It finally happened. I didn't think it was possible. No, I didn't land a job (but more on that topic later). I made Dean's List last quarter! Somehow, despite working 20 hours per week at the tech transfer office, taking 18 credits and fretting over completing my business plan in time for competitions, I did better last quarter than I have before in B-school." Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 30, 2005 8:56 AM. June 24, 2005I'm Officially DoneCasey e-mailed me this morning to let me know that our degrees have been officially posted. So I logged in to MyUW, and sho' 'nuff:  So that's it, then. (Wow.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 24, 2005 12:45 PM. It's A Small World, After AllLast fall, I took a Direct Marketing class taught by Elizabeth Stearns (if you're going to UW and you're taking marketing, it's don't-miss). The course is largely case-driven, but we did have a book on CRM called "The Customer Differential Now, Prof. Stearns doesn't like Amazon.com very much. In fact, she loves to tell a story about how Amazon caused her no end of trouble by making decisions about where (and how fast) to ship product without consulting her. (I should also point out that Elizabeth is a terrific sport; we lampooned her a bit in the second issue of the MBAlmer, and she loved it.) So imagine my delight when I got a notice yesterday that my "Customer Differential" book had sold on Amazon Marketplace... ...to Elizabeth Stearns, University of Washington Business School. No, really. I'm not kidding. (I'm half-tempted to send it Priority Mail just to mess with her.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 24, 2005 9:10 AM. June 12, 2005Graduation SpeechThis is the text of the speech I delivered at last night's UW Business School graduation ceremony in Meany Hall: "I know we have parents and families in the audience tonight, and many of them have suspected that we’ve been goofing off here at school. However, I am here to tell you, that, while we do play hard, we’ve accomplished a lot. Since we started in September 2003, the Class of 2005 has spent more than 300 days in classes, taken at least 25 different subjects, and invested more than 1,000 hours simply attending lectures. (Although admittedly, that number is a little lower for Mike Dietzman.) Of course, that 1000 hours is just lecture time, which is the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t count the other time we spent studying for classes, meeting with our teams, writing reports and preparing presentations, getting involved with clubs, working with our career coaches, attending networking and speaker events, and, of course, looking for internships, and later, jobs. Despite these intense commitments, we have succeeded, and we succeeded with style. The Class of 2005:
On the personal side, we ran marathons, traveled to Argentina, China, and Japan, studied abroad in Paris and Manchester, had a few engagements and weddings, and we even welcomed five babies into the world. In short - we are an extraordinary group, and we’ve done extraordinary things. Be proud. However. Talking about the five new kids in our class should remind us that we have not, by any stretch, done this on our own. I mean – Ed, Mike, Sean, Yongki and Dan – you guys are talented, but I’m confident your wives had a pretty big role to play bringing your kids into the world. Sitting here tonight are the spouses, partners and significant others of the people in our program. These people have showered us with love and support as we’ve been on this journey. I’m talking about tiptoeing around the apartment so we could get some quiet study time ... always being willing to meet our new "MBA Friends" ... dealing with the endless business school chatter about projects and professors and blah blah blah... and coming to our TGs, formal parties, and get-togethers, always with a smile. There’s the million little things, too – the small kindnesses, like doing our dishes, folding our clothes, massaging a sore neck after a long day, or picking up the kids from day care. I know I speak for the entire class of 2005 when I say we simply could not have done this without you. Please join me in thanking them. Lately, I’ve been asking people about their favorite business school memories. Universally, people have said their best memories were ones where they got to work with, learn from, or be around other people in our class. This makes total sense to me, because my favorite memory comes from PRIME week. Now, I know most of you here tonight weren’t there, so – you have to imagine. Classes haven’t started yet. We’re just two days in to our weeklong MBA orientation, and everything is new. We’re jittery, a little scared of one another. And all 113 of us are in the Boeing Auditorium, when Dan Poston, the Program Director, stands up in the front of the room and asks us for a volunteer. Finally, one of our classmates, Brian, raises his hand. Dan calls him down to the front of the auditorium and says, "Tell everyone your name, and what you’d like to do after you graduate." Well, as it turns out, Brian wants to work for a Port. So then Dan turns to all of us and says, "Now, who here can help Brian?" And this is the amazing thing. Slowly, a number of hands go up. And then a few more. And then a few more. Someone knows someone at the Port of Tacoma. Someone else’s dad is good friends with a VP of a shipping company. And on it goes, and on and on, and suddenly we are all smiling and nodding and realizing that the very thing that we all hoped to get from the program ... ... is really each other. This is the University of Washington MBA program. Good, smart people, working together and helping each other. I love it because it demonstrates how invested we are in one another’s success. In that room, on that day, we worked together. Mechanical engineers and music majors and marketing geeks and former Anderson consultants all stepped forward to help one of our own.For the last two years, our class has continued what we started that day, be it:
And here we are, June 11, and we’re coming across the finish line together. We won as a team. That is who we are, and that is what we stand for. Our class can expect very interesting and exciting lives. We’re all re-launching our careers, taking steps in new directions. This is only going to accelerate as we each get more experience, more resources, and more wisdom about who we are and who we want to be. I fully expect that we’ll surprise one another over the next 5, 10, 20, 40 years. As people take their second or third job, get married, move to foreign countries, look for new challenges, the news will be interesting and surprising, and I’m eager to hear it. For example:
So come what may, we must stick together. Dennis is off to Japan, Lily to Taiwan, and Brian O’ Brien to Spain. John Sousa’s going to San Francisco, and Flavio to San Diego. But our class has more communications technologies at our disposal than any MBA class in history. So, everyone - John Bernie has put together a Yahoo group for us. Get on it. Patrick Chinnavaso has built a spreadsheet with everyone’s contact data. Make sure you’re on that, too. And, from time to time, check in. Send out a note to the mailing list, or reach out to someone you’re wondering about. Don’t be shy. Because wherever you go in your life, and whatever you choose to do, please know that we will always have this experience in common. It will always be true that we went to business school together ... graduated business school together ...and the University of Washington business school is about succeeding together. Thank you all for two of the best years of my life. And, Marnie? Happy Birthday. Good night." Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 12, 2005 7:13 AM. June 11, 2005JittersFive hours to graduation, and I'm all nervous and jumpy. The speech is baked, I've rehearsed it to death, I feel fine about it ... but I'm still just feeling scattered, unfocused. I'm off for a run. I gotta burn some of this energy before tonight. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 11, 2005 1:48 PM. June 1, 2005No More Pencils, No More BooksI'm done with graduate school! Jo and I delivered our final project in Database Marketing this morning, which officially exhausted all my scholastic requirements under the MBA program. My afternoon was spent selling a few books back to the bookstore, picking up graduation paraphernalia (cap n' gown), having lunch, and making a phone call or two. The afternoon brought my final class (New Product Development) in which I had no obligations (other than not being an asshat while my classmates ran through their final projects). A few seconds ago, the last preso wrapped. ... and it all ended. So, yeah. Graduation is 10 days from now, but that's a formality (admittedly, a "formality" where I have to talk in front of 500 people, but...). All that matters is that I pass all my classes with a 2.7 or better. (And I could be skeptical about my grades, but I strongly suspect that they're not a problem.) A bookend: in August of 2002, I took a week-long motorcycle trip with my father. We rode the width of Washington, stopping at the Grand Coulee Dam and at a small plot of land where he was building a house in Spokane. We headed down into Idaho (yes, we rode coasters at Silverwood), and Eastern Oregon. I had a lot of time to think on that trip, and good company to talk to. It was then that I figured out business school was something I, really, really wanted to do. Fast-forward 33 months. Summer of 2005 is here. (Thanks, Dad.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated June 1, 2005 4:59 PM. May 29, 2005Data Analyzin'After an exceptionally pleasant run (and coffee at Zoka) with Jeff this morning, I returned home, grabbed a shower, and parked my butt in front of the Vaio for some analysis work on my Database Marketing project. I'm going to be here most of the day. I know that only stats geeks are supposed to like SPSS, but, as a marketing person, I find formulating the "right" query akin to learning the secret words that open Ali Baba's cave - magical, and not just a little bit tingly-excited feeling. Jo and I have invested a lot of time scrubbing, re-coding and summarizing our data sources, which is paying off by allowing us to quickly, easily and (hopefully) accurately answer some substantive questions about our clients' business. Let me give you an example. One maxim of marketing is 'know thy customer' so I started my analysis by asking, "OK, who's buying?" A quick flick of the wrist to an SPSS menu (Analyzye -> Descriptive Statistics -> Frequencies), a drag-and-drop of the relevant variables (rc_gender, rc_state, rc_country, has_title) and I can quickly see:
These statistics are tantalizing. Now I want to know how the customer base breaks down based on their number of orders (how many people just ordered once? twice? more than twice?), as well as the average revenue per customer across the customer base. Then I can take those two pieces of data and rank the customer base into deciles, with the highest-spending customers in the first decile, the second-highest group in the second, and so on. Now what do we see? It gets better. How well, for example, does our ability to predict a repeat order from a given customer correlate with their presence on our mailing list? Or their state? This stuff is truly, truly fascinating. I wish our data source were better (richer), but we've got enough here to make some good marketing recommendations. Our presentation is Wednesday. (What a great way to end graduate school!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 29, 2005 2:55 PM. May 28, 2005ENTRE Is Done!Another one down. I just submitted the final exam for my Entrepreneurship class, leaving me with a single, final deliverable (the Database Marketing Project) for my entire MBA. Focus, focus, focus... Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 28, 2005 3:14 PM. PI: 50 percent of MBA grads found jobs in 2005Encouraging information about the job market: "For newly minted business school graduates, this was the most successful job-hunting year since 2001, a new survey says." (Thanks to Mary for the link!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 28, 2005 2:06 PM. May 27, 2005PI: UW business competition a good startup in itselfMy friend (and fellow UW MBA) Cintra took third in the the UW Business Plan competition this week. The PI has a story about it this morning: "With $100,000 in total prize money at stake, the UW business plan competition is one of the most lucrative in the country. At least three former winners are still in business -- including Giant Campus, LiveMeter and NanoString Technologies. In fact, NanoString -- the 2003 winner -- closed an $8 million round of venture capital financing earlier this year." Way to go, C! And big props as well to 1st place winner Atheroson, and 2nd place winner Therapeutic Monitoring Systems! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 27, 2005 9:21 AM. May 25, 2005One Day LeftNPD is done. The paper's turned in, and Jo did a great job on the in-class presentation. The next time I step foot on campus is Wednesday, June 1 - a week from today. I've got a paper/presentation for Database Marketing; NPD will be more presentations from classmates. And that's ... it. Graduate school's over. (The plan is to go to Finn's at 5:20 sharp.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 25, 2005 5:15 PM. May 24, 2005Two To GoI have just two days of class remaining - tomorrow and next Wednesday. Last night saw the end of my ENTRE class. Our team delivered our paper, with Sam and Flavio doing the in-class presentation. Prof. Stenehjem had arranged for two of his friends from the VC community to attend class, listen, and critique our pitches. They seemed to like our idea. (In fact, Sam is following up with one of them and seeing if there's something there. Go, Sam!) Tomorrow is New Product Development, and again the delivery of the paper/presentation one-two punch. The paper - in all its sprawling, no-detail-too-small, no-financial-sensitivity-too-trivial, 30-page glory - is actually a good piece of scholarship. We're happy with it. I feel like the end should be more frazzled or frenetic, but, oddly, it's not. Hm. Good teammates make the difference, neh? Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 24, 2005 11:11 AM. May 22, 2005Sunday: All Campus, All The TimeI have three days of classes remaining: tomorrow, Wednesday, and Wednesday, June 1. And I've got deliverables on each one of them. Tomorrow is our paper/presentation for ENTRE, and Wednesday is the paper/presentation for New Product Development. Thus, I'm spending pretty much all of today (like, until 10 PM) on campus in team meetings, where we hammer out the final aspects of our projects, polish the prose, and basically get things ready for prime time. The projects have become much more interesting as the quarter progressed. NPD, in particular, has been planned to a level of detail that's forced us to deal with all sorts of niggling (but fascinating) questions about manufacturing, marketing, competition, and so on. I don't know that our product would really be successful (it's hard to make a dollar and a cent in the music business, which is where we play), but our assumptions are good. And in a class like this one, the planning effort is the point. OK. Off to Greenlake for a run with Jeff. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 22, 2005 7:42 AM. May 18, 2005Why The MBA?"Why get an MBA?" I have been asked this question a countless number of times over the last couple years. The first person that asked it was, naturally, me ("self, why do you want to go to graduate school?"). After I felt like I had figured out what it was all about, I started sharing my answer with others. Eventually, I shared it with the UW admissions office (in essay form, and during in-person interview). They (apparently) liked what I had to say, and now that I've been here (and am soon to leave), I am getting it from whole new constituencies - admits, prospective students, people I meet at weddings. In fact, I've been asked this question so often that it struck me I should put it down somewhere and see if it can't help other people decide for themselves if the b-school experience might be right for them. Hence: this essay. My intent here is to share a little something about my background, the thinking that brought me here, and how I feel like it's all worked out. If you find this useful, I'd love to hear about it. NOTE: I've written elsewhere about how business school is a hard sell; it focuses more on the economics of going to school, and what you have to give up to participate in a program like this one. If you haven't seen that yet, you might want to check it out. About Me Following the Verio deal, my partners and I started a Web development company ("Media Access Internet Solutions"). We moved down to Belllevue, Washington (just East of Seattle) and started growing the business. We enjoyed good success for a few years, but got caught in the economic collapse of late 2000 and early 2001. We transitioned a number of our clients to another Web firm downtown, and I went to work for them for a year or so. I left in summer 2002. What I Wanted
Culture Matters So I shopped around to find programs that were more aligned with my values and had the right "feel". Everyone knows the "feel" when they find it, and two people can have wildly divergent reactions to the same program. The UW, for instance, is very much about collaboration and teamwork, and has a strong cultural belief that success is not zero-sum. That fits me to a "T", but I know some people who find this approach to be touchy-feely, Seattle-squishy, passive-aggressive, and repellent. That's OK; find the program that suits your style. Remember, you're going to be devoting two years of your life to your program, so throwing down with people you respect is very important. "The Credential" Some people believe that the MBA will be some automatic ticket to riches and power. Those people are wrong. The MBA program can't make you somebody different than you are. It just makes you, YOU, but with a graduate degree. It's doesn't make you smarter or funnier or harder-working; rather, MBA programs tend to select people based on those criteria, and then give them an environment to try new things out. My very good friend John (also an MBA) gave me a wonderful piece of advice before I decided to go to school. He said, "The value of your MBA is not in that first job you get out of college. That job is meaningful, but it's not important. Instead, the MBA has the biggest impact when you're three years in to that first job, and are looking around for the next job. Suddenly, you'll find doors open for you that weren't there before. That's not the MBA, though - that's your hard work, smarts, and good performance on the job, plus the MBA. Having the MBA makes it easier for people who like you to justify to their higher-ups why they should spend money on you. It does not, however, get you anything automatically." I think this is incredibly meaningful advice (in the movie version of my life, John will undoubtedly be played by Morgan Freeman), and it's been confirmed by stories that I've heard from others. In all cases, "the MBA" as the piece of paper, does nothing except cover some chipped paint on the wall of your living room. Rather, "the MBA", as the sum of the skills you've got and the people you've met, synthesizes when exposed to your hard work and creativity, and becomes something more. That is the "value of the MBA" - the experience you have while going through the program, the people you meet, and the opportunities it may afford you later in your life. Should You Go? Admissions essays ask these kinds of questions for a reason: they matter. If you come to a program expecting that it will just convey knowledge to your head and cash to your pocket, well, you're in for a rude surprise. If, on the other hand, you have a good sense of yourself, what you want, and why the MBA will help you get there, then these programs can open doors in a way that's truly magical. Final Thoughts I've become a big proponent of MBA programs. They're excellent at helping people reinvent themselves, whether you're a finance admin whose inner marketer needs to be let out, a recovering engineer that wants to work for Starbucks in Thailand, or an ex-Amazon.com employee who's eager to hone her skills at a hedge fund. These programs give smart people a real opportunity to find new sides of themselves and change course in their lives. We're not given too many chances like that in life. And, if that sounds like you - well, maybe you ought to apply. (And if you want to know more about the UW, let me know. Seriously.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 18, 2005 9:12 PM. May 17, 2005June 1 Is Back OnThis school scheduling thing is getting weirder. As of last night, my ENTRE class is now no longer going to have its final session during the extended-overtime June 6 slot. Instead, our last class will be May 23, at which point the final will be distributed ... and is due on Friday, May 27. So we still have the final, but it looks like I'll be done on June 1 after all! (Yes!) All this back-and-forth is enough to give a guy whiplash, but I'm coming to expect it. With so many projects and papers due in the next two weeks, these kinds of curveballs have to come from somewhere. (Oh, and Cintra (who reads these pages from time to time) informed me yesterday that "does not have senioritis" which means, presumably, that she's the last one to fall to the disease. My apologies for implying that I was Last Man Standing in that department.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 17, 2005 8:37 PM. May 14, 2005Three Weeks Left. (Sort Of)I'm in Olympia. Richard and I are both working in the lobby of the Best Western, because the hotel has free WiFi in "public areas" - but curiously, not in the rooms themselves. I have plenty of work to do, so it looks like I'll be getting a front-row seat as all my fellow half marathoners check in over the next few hours. (The run is at 8 AM tomorrow. I'm feeling really, really positive about it.) Anyhow. There are three weeks left in the quarter. Classes end on Friday, June 3, and finals happen the following week. As I've written in previous posts, my classes were slated to wrap up on Wednesday, June 1, at which point I'd be a free man (I have no finals, just final projects). That was true ... until this last Monday, when Dr. Stenehjem announced that our once-forfeited class (the one that was originally slated for Monday, May 30 - Memorial Day) has now been resurrected and will happen on Monday, June 6. Oh, and we now have a final. Which will be passed out that day. So much for the original countdown, huh? Despite this late-in-the-game switcheroo, I have to confess that I don't much care. I officially came down with a raging case of senioirits last week, which, I think makes me the last remaining member of the Class of 2005 to contract the disease ("One of us! One of us!"). It's like a switch flipped in my head or something - come what may, I'm done with graduate school on June 11 (my "Countdown" Widget is reporting '28 days, 01 hours, 28 minutes'), and it just seems like a lot of things simply don't matter anymore. I'm trying to fight the overwhelming urge to slack off, but I gotta say that it's tough. (It's also not helping that many of my classmates have an, "Eh? So what?" mood these days. Pretty soon we'll all be scheduling a Senior Skip Day or something, I just know it.) My final project for ENTRE is due on Monday, the 23rd (the team met Friday; we're on target). My final project for NPD is due Wednesday, the 25th (our team's draft is evolving, and coming along fine). My final project for Database Marketing is due June 1 (we cracked a big-time data analysis piece last week, thanks to the magic of Pivot Tables. The rest of the analysis happens this week). And, of course, my newly-found final gets handed out June 6. Between now and then, I have a few chapters to read ... but that's it. No, really. That's it. UPDATE, June 2, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 14, 2005 5:32 PM. May 11, 2005The Envelope, Please...I have been selected to be the Student Speaker at the MBA Graduation ceremony this year. I'm surprised, flattered, and a little bit floored. I've written before about the other, fantastic candidates who were up for the job; they're top-notch people, and this easily could have gone to any of them. I'm sure the terror will sink in soon enough, when I remember that my folks will be there, along with the folks (and grandfolks) of all my classmates. Along with uncles, aunts, friends of the respective families, and so on. (Plus, I'm the warm-up act for John Stanton at Western Wireless.) I've got a month to put it all together. But in the meantime - WOW! Thanks for the vote of confidence, everybody. I won't let you down. UPDATE, September 4, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 11, 2005 1:38 PM. May 9, 2005FedEx: Pirates = MBAs!
Those with good memories will remember the recent, MBA-themed entry in this campaign. (Think FedEx is trying to say something about MBA's here?) *grin* UPDATE, September 4, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 9, 2005 3:21 PM. May 8, 2005Renewable Energy Tour
As it happens, my friend Ian Wooofenden is really in to renewable energy (Ian's passion is also his work - he is the Senior Editor of Home Power magazine). He lives off the grid (solar and wind power only, thank you very much) on Guemes Island, and conducts workshops during the year to help people understand and build these kinds of systems for themselves. As a result, Guemes Island (and Skagit county at large) has become a real hotbed for renewable-minded folks. This includes the off-the-gridders, of course, but also folks who like to throw a couple of solar panels on their roof, tie in to the public utility, and then sell power back to Puget Sound Energy most of the year. Many of these folks have also invested in other kinds of sustainable building, such as rainwater collection systems, radiant flooring, and low-volume, variable-power hot water heater systems. Yesterday, Ian was kind enough to lead about 30 of us in Net Impact through several of these installations all over Guemes. It's fascinating stuff. We did it last year (the first time, ever), and I am pleased to report that it's every bit as interesting the second time through. Given the group enthusiasm for the tour, I suspect this may be a Net Impact staple long after I graduate. Let's hope so. UPDATE: I forgot to mention that one of the houses (and, I think, the coolest part of the tour) has its own Web site. You can get design notes, photos, and all kinds of great information. Big, big thanks to Matthew for opening his home (and his data!) to all of us yesterday. UPDATE, February 12, 2007: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 8, 2005 3:49 PM. May 6, 2005Now, THAT's Talent!Tonight was one of our TGs at the business school, but with a twist - it also featured the annual talent show. First-year student Keith Pranghofer took the lead in putting the event together, assembling a stage, microphones, video projector and studio amplification. It was a total gas. We had about ten acts. They ranged from dance (Elise did a jazz routine) to Shakespeare (Mike did the opening from Richard III) to the physical (Micall did a jump-rope bit). We also had a few musical acts, including Program Director(!) Dan Poston doing two (!) musical numbers, one set to "If I Were A Rich Man" from Fiddler On The Roof. Excellent. For my part, Keith and Aaron Katzman and I did a comedy skit called "2001 Bowling" (basically, three guys bowling to Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra"). I also did accompaniment with Mark Showalter and Rebecca Lovell on a song set to Steve Miller Band's "Rock n' Me" (refrain: "You got your MBA, baby!"). It was a total blast. Thanks to everyone who did an act, and big thanks to Keith for putting it all together. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 6, 2005 9:36 PM. May 4, 200528 Days LaterThe last class of my entire MBA program will be the 3:30 - 5:20 session of New Product Development, on Wednesday, June 1. That's exactly four weeks from right now. I ordered my cap and gown yesterday, and also put in an order for a pair of parking passes so my folks can put their vehicles on campus during Graduation without fear of being towed. As luck would have it, I pick up my cap and gown (and, I presume, the parking passes) on June 1 as well. It's all converging. So I went to a party this last Saturday night (post-wedding) at my friend Rebecca's house. It was wall-to-wall with MBAs, representing a good mix of first and second years. I had been at the house less than five minutes before I'd been asked by at least seven first-years whether "I was excited to be getting out." Honestly? I'm trying not to think about it. I get a little sad when I think about the program ending. I've been going to school with some of the finest people I've ever met, working on some incredibly interesting stuff and having a terrific time. We're a very tight group, but I know that the MBA experience as we've known it is coming to an end. Exciting? Yes. But there's also a sense of loss. On the other hand, if I think about the job waiting for me at Microsoft, I get pumped. Product planning is a blast, and my team is full of astoundingly cool people (Jeff, Ravi, Bernardo - this means you) doing astoundingly cool things. Getting excited about Microsoft, however, tends to deprecate my appreciation of the last bit of this experience, and makes school seem surreal and fake. The happy medium, I'm finding, is to think about my summer vacation. I'm going to Cedar Point to ride roller coasters, taking a motorcycle trip with my father, and doing a lot of hanging out. Those things, for the moment, are keeping me sane. Four weeks. Wow. UPDATE, May 13, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. UPDATE, December 31, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated May 4, 2005 4:28 PM. April 28, 2005Graduation Speakin'The Class of 2005 is currently trying to select a student speaker for graduation. The process is long and involved (hey, we're MBAs! We loooove complexity!), but the selection process has finally winnowed things down to four primary candidates: Danika Dreslin, Mark Sullivan, Cintra Pollack, and me. Today, each of us gave a quick, five-minute speech to a room of fellow students on why we want to be the graduation speaker. It was a little surreal, giving a talk about why you want to give a talk, but, for each of us, the words seemed to flow just fine. I must say that I am very happy to have a) been nominated, b) made it this far in the process, and c) be among this group of extraordinary people. As I said in my talk, each of the other candidates has really brought something special to the program and made great contributions - Cintra, with her work on honor council and her BusinessWeek column; Danika, by pouring her heart and energy into Women In Business, transforming it into one of the best clubs we've got; and Mark, who organizes the weekly "Pub Club", but also works his guts out in the Program Office, acting as a Student Ambassador, helping new and prospective students understand our culture and unique fit. Now that the speeches are over, the class will vote for the speaker sometime next week. While I'd (clearly) love to do it, I would also most certainly look forward to watching any of these three other folks bring their approach and perspective to the event. Today's speeches made me glad. No matter who gets the nod, the class made some great choices. Good luck, folks. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 28, 2005 4:13 PM. April 26, 2005One Afternoon. No IM. Lots Of Recoding.Owing to an amusing mix-up between my new building manager, the Comcast guy, and call forwarding, I am still cable-Internet free. (Thank you, again, Mr. "linksys"). In some ways, this is OK, because I'm up to my neck in work for Database Marketing right now. The source, tab-delimited files I received are requiring a fair bit of massaging in Excel before I can import them in to SPSS. Without the recoding, there's no good way for SPSS to be able to make meaningful interpretations about what's what - SPSS would have a hard time understanding that "03/20/2001 13:07" is, in fact, a date (20th of March, 2001 at 1:07 PM) instead of some random sequence of letters. It's time-consuming, painstaking, and not a little bit boring. However, it's important stuff. And I know that if I had blazing fast Internet access, I'd find myself with an irresistible temptation to IM and e-mail with people as a distraction. Ah, well. Back to it. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 26, 2005 3:08 PM. April 23, 2005Preview DayLet's say that, despite the trend, you want to go to business school. After you've been accepted to the UW, our admissions team hosts a series of "Preview Days" - basically, day-long events that give prospective students an opportunity to come to campus, meet current students, ask questions, and mingle. For many folks, this is their second campus visit (following on an open house when they were originally figuring out where to apply); for others, this is their first time. To help people meet one another, we usually synch Preview Days with TGs. Yesterday was a Preview Day, and I spent about an hour or so on a "Student Q&A" panel with one other second year and four first-years. The questions were pretty normal; some hits include:
On the internship question, a number of people were interested in "informational interviews", which is the process of getting out in the community and talking to people so you can find out about a job, company, or industry. Informationals are critical to the internship process, because they provide a way of getting the data you need to make smart decisions about where to focus your energies. As part of my internship search, I did informational interviews with Real, Amazon, Adobe, Microsoft, Apple, and Intuit, among others. Anyhow. I did a presentation on informational interviewing for the incoming class of 2006 during PRIME, and put together a PDF with some of the slide highlights. Some preview day folks wanted the link, and I'm happy to provide it. You can get it here (72k PDF). Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 23, 2005 7:35 AM. April 14, 2005Plastic: Where Have All The MBA Candidates Gone?Plastic has a thread on "Where Have All The MBA Candidates Gone?" in response to an article in BusinessWeek Online. Applications to the top business schools are down (30% since '98, according to BW), and the business school industry - faculty, staff, program offices, etc. - are starting to freak out. What to do? Business school is a hard sell. It's a two-year commitment, coming for most people at a time when their careers are just starting to get traction. Average age of the UW Class of 2005 is 28 years old, which means our folks have, generally, about 6 years of work experience. That's a few promotions, a few merit raises, and, generally, a salaried (not hourly) job. As memory serves, the average incoming salary for our class was about $55,000 a year. So you're going to put your budding career on hold for two years. That means you're losing both forward job momentum and the wages you'd have earned while working. On top of that, you're going to need to pay tuition/fees/books, cover your living expenses, and have some kind of cushion in case your job search doesn't go swiftly. Add it all up (or just take a look at the page on the UW server): Foregone wages: $55,000 x 2 = $110,000 So, your rough cost to do business school is $169,482. If you go to a school like Stanford, you're going to spend close to $40k a year on tuition alone. If you're living in an expensive metropolitan area like New York, your living expenses will go up. And if you don't like Top Ramen, you might want to figure more like $20,000 in living expenses so you can go out once in a while. Ten thousand here and there, and pretty soon we're talking real money. A friend of mine at Kellogg was talking about amortizing his loans over 20 years, in order to make his cash flow more manageable. As a point of reference, my folks bought their first house on a 20-year note. Back in the go-go '80s, when people believed the degree was an immediate ticket to a six-figure salary and opulent retirement at the age of 40, a lot of those concerns were less relevant, seen as the price of entry to an exclusive club where, once admitted, cash would not be a problem, anyway. Party on. But looking at how the UW Class of 2004 did, it's pretty clear that the variance in salaries is high, and the chances of placement are less than 100%. (And we've got the best placement scores in the world for two months after graduation!) Is all this giving prospective applicants pause? You bet. Let's say that you're making $55,000 a year right now, and you're thinking "MBA." If you're in Seattle, the mean MBA starting salary is $75K. So the MBA is going to give you a $20,000 "pop" in your wages. Taxes will take between 25% and 28% of that, so you're left with about $15,000 a year in new income. If it cost you $169,482 to go to school, then you'll pay it all off in 11.3 years (barring interest on your loan, promotions you get, raises, inflation, yadda yadda. This is for illustration only. Maybe I'll link in a spreasheet when I have more free time.) Like I say - prospective applicants aren't stupid. If the degree looks like it's more trouble than it's worth, they're going to find other ways to spend their time and money to improve their lot in life. Don't get me wrong: I think the MBA is a fantastic thing. I don't feel - ever - that my time would have been better spent doing "something else" for the last two years. Of course, my circumstances are pretty particular and specific: I came in knowing what I wanted out of the program, what I wanted to do after graduation, why I wanted to do it, and what I needed to do to make sure I got it. (And I've also been very, very lucky.) So I'm in the minority. And, as near as I can tell, most of my classmates at UW are also in a minority. None of us are after "big money" - we all want the degree because we think it will be helpful in our lives, whether we want to work for T-Mobile, Amazon, or a small, renewable-energy nonprofit. But are there enough of us minorities to sustain the current infrastructure? Honestly, I doubt it. I suspect small, boutique programs like UW will be fine, but the larger, 900-person programs are going to have to start finding ways of making the MBA relevant - and accessible - to larger groups of people, or face dramatic change. UPDATE, January 1, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 14, 2005 7:21 PM. April 12, 2005Winter '05 Dean's ListThe Dean's list for Winter 2005 (UW NetID required) came out this morning, and I'm on it. Whoo-hoo! Dean's list students "met all three of the following criteria:Â completed at least 12 credits, were in the top 10% of their class, and had a quarterly GPA of at least 3.7." I may be happy, but Mary, for one, is unimpressed: "Unless the Dean is going to buy you dinner or something, what's the point? At least Santa brings presents when you're on his list." I may have to talk to Jiambalvo about that one. Anyhow, it feels great. Congrats to everyone who made it (Jen, Cintra, Marnie, Casey, Deets - that means you!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 12, 2005 12:04 PM. April 7, 2005We Have A Dean!It's official: we have a new dean. Dr. James ("Jim") Jiambalvo, professor of Accounting (and all-around nice guy) has been named Dean of the University of Washington Business School. I took my Managerial Accounting class from Jim last Spring as part of the core. This is a good choice. Jim's been heavily involved in the program for as long as I can remember, and has deep contacts in the local business community. He's personable, friendly, smart as hell and passionate about the UW. He also faces some stiff challenges. Our school is now Top 20, but we're aiming higher. So Dr. Jiambalvo will need to both support what's working while figuring out how to keep things evolving and improving. I suspect that his major project will be to turbocharge our $100M capital campaign and get our new building under way. A telling phrase from the press release: "A primary goal, he said, will be to raise funds for a new business school complex..." I bet. If you haven't seen the sketches, check 'em out: they're gorgeous. Nice work, Jim! UPDATE, July 4, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 7, 2005 4:24 PM. April 3, 2005ZokaJeff turned me on to Zoka Coffee after a run at Greenlake a few weeks ago; he thinks it's "the best cup of coffee in the city" and I have to say I agree with him. Their Americanos are about the most flavorful, wonderful things you can imagine. (And Zoka has "cool factor" - the Delicious Monster guys frequent the one north of the U Village.) So this morning, Jo and Dietzman and I needed to meet to go over our Database Marketing homework. Surprisingly, nobody wanted to meet on campus, so I suggested Zoka. Rave reviews all around about the brew, and appreciation of the free WiFi. We may have found our new hangout. The not-on-your-life-am-I-stepping-foot-on-campus-on-a-Sunday thing makes me wonder, though - are we hitting burnout already? We're only one week in to the quarter, and ... Hmmm.... Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 3, 2005 10:45 PM. April 1, 2005Rise Of The Creative QuarterWho knew the last quarter of business school was going to be so much fun? I can't believe my good luck. Each of my three classes is doing something super-interesting and engaging, and each has a quarter-long project that's going to allow for some real creativity. My New Product Development class, for example, is all about conceiving of, prototyping, and delivering a new product that "addresses opportunities presented by baby-boom demographics." (That's a pretty wide field, as you can imagine.) Similarly, my Developing Business Models For Emerging Technologies class has us evaluating a bunch of real, uncommercialized tech (the instructor works for Battelle) and then finding ways to build businesses around them. We present our pitches to some VCs at the end of the quarter. And finally, my Database Marketing class has us finding a set of data that we can use to explore and look for insights about customers, buying patterns, and the like. In each case, I get to work with cool people, on cool problems, while bringing ideas and energy to bear on some funky issues. It's a fascinating, fun (and fitting) synthesis of what I've been doing for the last two years. (It sure beats the hell out of reading Harvard cases!) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated April 1, 2005 4:33 PM. March 30, 2005Graduation App: FiledIt's official: I just filed notice with the UW that I intend to graduate at the end of Spring quarter. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 30, 2005 8:17 PM. Climbing The ChartsOn Monday, US News And World Report will post their national rankings of business schools for 2004/05. And, on Monday, it will come out that the University of Washington is ranked 18th. We're officially a Top 20 school. Holy crap! All the students found out this morning, during one of our "coffee break" sessions in the lounge. Turns out that the folks at Barnes & Noble goofed and put the new issue on the shelves, which a) hacked off US News & World Report and b) gave us permission to go ahead and talk about it (the cow had left the barn, so to speak.) We were 27th last year, and 35th the year before that. To climb 17 slots in just two years is astounding, and it's a testament to our stellar faculty, all the folks in the program office, our career center, and the Dean's office. From what I understand, the big improvements came through placement (we're #1 in the world in student placement) and a dramatic improvement in our reputation among recruiters. Truly, this is a big deal. My usual pride in this program is swelled-to-bursting right now. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 30, 2005 11:52 AM. March 29, 2005Ship Date: June 1, 2005So I'm getting out of the program a little earlier than expected. According to the UW, the last day of instruction is June 3, which is then followed by a week for finals. Graduation for the MBA program happens on Saturday, June 11. In my case, however, none of my classes have final exams. Instead, I've got three different quarter-long projects, each of which requires both a written report and an in-class presentation on the last day of class. That means I'll be done, finished, out the door on Wednesday, June 1. Which is two months from Friday. Yikes! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 29, 2005 2:06 PM. March 28, 2005Cintra's Latest Is OnlineSpeaking of Cintra (and her impending rule-worldiness): her latest for BusinessWeek, "Academics, the Placement Process, and More" has hit the stands. Choice quote: "Now when people ask me what I am up to, I enthusiastically (perhaps not proudly yet, but at least without embarrassment) offer that I am enrolled in the UW Business School, and I graduate in June. Even (and I say this affectionately) the hippie/commie faction of my family has supported my transition to the "dark side."" Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 28, 2005 2:03 PM. March 27, 2005Once More Into The Breach, Dear Friends...Back to class tomorrow. Database Marketing begins at 8:30 AM, and is the kickoff for a fun-filled Monday, clocking in with 13 hours on campus. My last class, "Business Models For Emerging Technologies" ends at 9:30. In the evening. (Yes, it's my own damn fault. I designed my schedule.) I wish I had something truly interesting or insightful to say about the impending arrival of my last quarter in business school. And truthfully, it does feel a little surreal and overwhelming, like something is being lost or changed or ... I don't know. Words fail. I've been kicking around an essay, "Why An MBA?" that makes the case for (or, in some cases, against) getting the degree. It's not ready to see the light of day (yet), but one of the big points that I stress is that the strength of any MBA program is its people, pure and simple. The credential might attract you, the curriculum might keep you, but the real value of this experience is getting to know a hundred or so truly extraordinary individuals. So, with that in mind, I'm cognizant of the fact that this last quarter is the last time I'm going to see my classmates in one place. Everyone is careening off into their own career arcs (Exhibit A: Casey signed with WaMu over the break - go Casey!), and, as spring arrives, the job search winds down (or, for some, intensifies), we are all in the process of transforming from a class back into our own, ambitious, driven, hard-charging individual selves. And, while I'm excited to see what all the individuals are going to be up to, I still feel a pang. (I'll also bet $100 that Cintra is going to be running the world in very short order.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 27, 2005 7:44 PM. March 11, 2005That's All She WroteThe "integration" assignment is done, and I'm off to deliver it to Dr. Reynolds' mailbox. Of the 2,000 words we were allotted, my bit clocked in at 1,994. The quarter is over! Of the six quarters in my MBA, there's just one left. (Showtime starts on March 28, but that's a good two weeks from now.) In the meantime, there's some beer to be consumed with good friends. Tonight. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 11, 2005 4:37 PM. Gone In 60 SecondsThe Ethics final is done! Karpoff gave us two hours; I was in and out in 45 minutes. Classes are over. Finals are over. It's a sunny, beautiful day in Seattle - and yet one paper remains (dammit!) Off to work on it... Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 11, 2005 1:43 PM. March 9, 2005Two Down, One To GoFinance is done! And I just finished my QMETH final. Which means I'm "all Ethics, all the time" between now and Friday. If I can finish this crazy "Integration" assignment by the time of the final on Friday, I can turn both in at once and be done with it. Word processor, ho! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 9, 2005 10:18 PM. Status ReportIt's Wednesday morning ... how's it all coming together? Pretty well, actually: That due-Monday QMETH? Turned in. The due-Tuesday Brand Audit paper/presentation? Turned in, and the presentation went off well. Check. The crazy, due-today Ethics paper? Turned in yesterday (thanks, Cintra!). Check check. My due-tomorrow Finance homework? Finishing it now (actually, finishing once I finish blogging, but that's a fine technical point). The Friday Ethics final is what it is. I've got time set aside on Thursday and Friday to bake that puppy. In the meantime, I've been working on the QMETH take-home final (some down, more to go). I'll crack the Ethics "Integration" assignment later tonight. Back to it. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 9, 2005 9:10 AM. March 6, 2005Sprinting Over The Finish LineSorry for the dry spell in posting. It's been nutty around here. The Quarter That Would Not End is finally coming to a close. And, in keeping with the character I've come to associate with Winter '05, I have something due each and every day. Consider: Monday: My last QMETH problem set is due. The take-home final will be distributed in class. Tuesday: Our Brand Management team delivers both a 20-page paper and 20-minute presentation about our Brand Audit of Patagonia - what we did, what we found, what we recommend and why. (This is consuming most of my today and tomorrow). Wednesday: Team paper due for Ethics. Thursday: Final deliverable for Entrepreneurial Finance - like most of the work for this class, it's an analysis of one of the cases, expressed in a memo format. Friday: Final exam in Ethics. The last two "dangling" commitments are an Integration assignment for Ethics and the QMETH take-home final. Both are formally due on Monday, the 14, but I'm going to do my best to get them front-loaded into this week and off my radar. Nothing would make me happier than to be free, clear, and finished on Saturday. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 6, 2005 9:06 AM. March 1, 2005Transfer Of PowertechConnect met to elect its new officers for the 2005/6 school year last week. Elections for MBAA were held in mid-February. Last night was my last-ever MBAA meeting. Today, Marketing Club met to elect its new officers. This leaves Student Support Network as my last 'official' MBA club gig, and we'll be transferring those roles early next quarter. I say, again - it's all ending. Spring quarter is shaping up to be completely, totally, and utterly surreal. In the span of a few short weeks, we second-years are being transformed from the program's movers and shakers - the folks that get things done - to being spectators. Onlookers. Tourists. So we'll be around for a final 12 weeks, but our roles are vastly reduced, our attention increasingly focused on the job search (admittedly, not in my case) or on reconnecting with our families and friends outside the program. Compounding this sense of impending disconnection is my spring quarter academic schedule. This quarter, I had five classes and 18 credits, and was on campus a minimum of four days a week. Next quarter, I have just three classes (12 credits), and will be on campus just two days a week (Monday and Wednesday). My normal, every-other-Friday gig putting on TGs has been handed off to the lovely, talented and capable Rebecca Lovell. Why do I feel less like I'm graduating, and more like I'm retiring? Ah, well. This quarter still has a lot of life and spark in it. I've got something due every single day next week, from presentations to problem sets. Can't drop out of hyperdrive just yet. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated March 1, 2005 9:35 PM. February 26, 2005Break A Leg, Jen!My friend (and fellow 2005 UW MBA) Jen Carter is trying out for The Apprentice this morning in Tacoma. She's got a guaranteed interview (she won a radio call-in show earlier in the week) so she knows they'll talk to her. Actually, I think she's a shoo-in. Jen's got this quirky thing about her where stuff like this works out. All the evidence is anecdotal, but here's a good one: back in 2003, she and her husband Ben won a contest from "Evening Magazine" (Registration required) and were married. On television. Martha better watch out. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 26, 2005 9:41 AM. We Did It!As of last (but not yet final - numbers are still coming in) count, last night's C4C auction raised more than $110,000 for Special Olympics of Washington and Boys & Girls Club of King County, beating our projection of $100,000. Wow! Take a bow, everybody! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 26, 2005 7:28 AM. February 25, 2005Puttin' On The RitzMary and I are getting dressed up for tonight's Challenge For Charity Auction at the Grand Hyatt. C4C is a club in the business school that contributes money and hours to two local charities - Special Olympics of Washington and Boys & Girls Clubs of King County. C4C is also a competition, held between business schools on the West coast. We compete with Berkeley, Stanford, UC Davis, UCLA, USC, and UC Irvine. The winner in per-capital dollars and hours (with a small nudge for athletic performance at a "sports weekend" at Stanford in April) wins the Golden Briefcase. UW has held on to the Golden Briefcase for the last 5 years. We're aiming for a 6th. This auction is the centerpiece of our fundraising efforts. We've got everything from a Bay Area Getaway to an Orlando "Roller Coaster and Rockets" trip to firearms training with the Seattle Police Department to a backstage tour of Tom Douglas' restaurants. Some of my best friends in the program are officers in C4C, and they've really busted their humps to make this event spectacular. So - Jo, Marnie, Andy, Sam, Nathan, Meredith and Kurt - thank you. Very, very, very much. With luck, we'll hit our goal of raising $100,000. Wish us luck! UPDATE, July 4, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 25, 2005 4:06 PM. 80%As of right now, two weeks remain in the quarter. I'm at the 80% mark. Yesterday was nutty. I turned in a paper for Ethics (and a case for Finance) and then wrapped up my day with a meeting with my Brand Management team. Our survey closed at 4 PM Pacific, and we needed to get together to look at preliminary results, determine a timeline for the next 12 days (the stuff's all due on March 8), and then hash out responsibilities for analysis, report writing, and presenting. So now begins the winding down - the taking of finals, the writing of reports, the final turn-in of homework assignments. It's going to be crazy, but not unmanageable. And then - final quarter! Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 25, 2005 2:47 PM. February 24, 2005Ever Wondered About Airline Prices?
Our Spreadsheet Modeling class is doing a lot of simulation right now, using Crystal Ball (and Excel) to forecast values for various problems. It's interesting stuff. One of the simulations we're working with has to do with airline "overbooking" - computing the optimal overbooking quantity for a specific airline route, given demand forecasts, reimbursement costs, customer-satisfaction costs, fixed operation costs, and whatnot. Anyhow, all the spreadsheet kung fu reminded me of this hysterical ad from the (fictional) "Sky High Airlines" (Alaska Air) about the "super computer" they use to set their prices... 1.66 MB, QuickTime required. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 24, 2005 2:45 PM. February 18, 2005"Yeah, Uh ... I Don't Do Shipping."
From time to time, people will ask me what my single biggest concern was about going to business school. And my usual response is, "Have you seen the FedEx ad?" (QuickTime required.) Basically, I was afraid that I'd be going to school with that guy ("Tom"). I've worked with him, know people that work with him, have seen him in virtually every company I've ever consulted for or worked with. Nobody likes him. For good reason. (I'm pleased to report that UW is Tom-free.) Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 18, 2005 4:12 PM. The Final CountdownIt's all ending. I registered for my Spring quarter classes today, which means that I'm a short hop from being done with grad school. Spring classes end June 3, finals week ends the 10th, and I walk with my classmates through graduation on the 11th. I'm taking pretty much all marketing, all the time - Advertising & Promotion, Database Marketing, and New Product Development. Bing, bang, boom. The real world awaits. UPDATE, May 13, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 18, 2005 1:03 PM. February 7, 2005Flash! Ah-haaaa! Savior Of The Universe!We've got a team debate in Ethics tomorrow morning, and I'm reviewing/tweaking the text of the arguments for the folks on our squad. It's what I term "headphone work" - I need to put on the headphones, turn on my music (usually Chicane), and tune out the world. However, today I put the iPod on shuffle and tuned in to a random playlist. As luck would have it, Queen's "Flash" (the title track from the 1980 Sam Jones football-player-goes-to-space-and-saves-the-world flick) came on and now I cannot get it out of my head. ("Flash! Flash, I love you! But we only have 14 hours to save the Earth!") How can Kant compete with that? I mean, come on. Posted by Gavin Shearer. Last updated February 7, 2005 8:52 PM. February 4, 2005Coffee With Orin |
". Sadly, the book isn't very good - it's really about three chapters of material, blown out to 200 pages. So I put my copy on Amazon Marketplace a few weeks ago, and priced it to move.
FedEx is running a hysterically funny new ad (3.5 MB, 
One of the clubs I belong to at UW is Net Impact. NI is concerned with issues of socially responsible business, sustainability, renewable energy, and other matters. Given the left-leaning, progressive liberal types that Seattle is known to attract, Net Impact has found itself with a large student membership.
