Lessons with Wally

Today was the first session in Wally Olins Nation Brand and Identity course. Wally is in his own words 'abraisive and confrontational' he also has a solution to the long running 'should students be allowed to use laptops in class' dilemma. He doesn't think they should, so he makes people turn them off. He doesn't like people being late either. I'd been tipped off in advance and avoided both problems.

In many ways this pretty much sums up Wally's approach. No messing about just sort things out. We've had plenty of lecturers who get annoyed at late comers but none ever had the sense to say 'I don't like latecomers, so don't be late'. Some don't like laptops, so rather than ask students not to use them in their lectures they try and get them removed from all lectures.

Anyway, as you'd expect from one of the biggest names in the branding business Wally was brilliant. Which was good, because in many ways him teaching here, about this kind of stuff and at this kind of level is why I applied to Said in the first place. Wally is currently branding Poland. Which kind of says it all really.

Words from the Dean

Its been pointed out that what the Dean said may well have been said in private. They have a point. I'll talk to the Dean about this.

Directory

Someone out there is running MBA League, linking to all the MBA Blogs in existance. Odd, I usually expect people to email when they set up links but they never do. I usually do. (sorry Modz). Few links at the moment, but I'm sure they'll develop.

SBP Briefing

We're now being briefed on how we should go about undertaking our summer business projects. First of all this means a talk on client management from a senior consultant at PA Consulting. He started off with a quick dose of who they are and the fact that they're hiring. Pitch over he moved onto client management.

I once saw a great session by Kyle Shannon of Agency.com on how to manage big money clients. This is a bit more nuts and bolts than that was, covering stuff like 'dress appropriately', 'negotiate the brief closely', 'manage the changes' and so on. I've done loads of client management and a little bit of crisis client management in my time, but I can imagine that for those who've never been in this situation this is useful stuff. Odd to think about the stuff that some people do and don't know when they get here. There's a sort of tendency to assume that we've all got a core set of basic skills on arrival, but each of us expects those skills to be different. I for instance have little gift for the kind of basic maths that the quantitative side of the course takes for granted.

Useful as this is this is another man who needs to do some presentation skills training. Enthuse!, Inspire!, Illustrate! Or don't. The choice is yours.

Don't get me wrong by the way, this is turning into a genuinely useful session. Some good content here, in particular a focus on not doing all the little things that it is so easy to do when managing clients (mostly the simple dictum, "tell them the truth regularly" covers this.

>> Hmm, back with the faculty now. Apparently there is a list of things not to do that have been done by MBA students out on projects and we can look at it. Don't accrue £4000 of speeding fines on the company car you've borrowed is wise advice indeed. Don't try and negotiate for unlimited access to the mini-bar either. Somewhere in this room I am sure someone is seeing all this as a challenge rather than a warning. If only this was the 1980's, we could be lauded for this kind of behaviour ;-)

Update Apparently a combination of SARS, the Iraq War and the downturn is making it hard for people to commit to agreeing projects with the business school. This is worrying since SBP's are critical to the MBA - you can't pass if you don't get through one. On the other hand we've got eight weeks to sort this out and only half the needed briefs are in place. Odd thing is this is a great deal for the companies involved.

I just talked with a fellow MBA who's been trying to convince Swiss companies to commit to an MBA and their most common response has been "What's the catch?" it seems the fact that companies can handpick teams of four from this exceptional class to work for eight weeks on a project of their choice is just too hard for them to believe.

More fun stories. Apparantly one group once tried to carry out a project for a fictional company. They got busted and I'm not sure I want to know what happened to them.

New Careers Appointment

The school have just appointed a specialist on technology recruitment to go alongside their financial specialist in the careers office. I find this very encouraging since my job search needs some direction at the moment. I'm trying to push myself toward the technology focused summer business projects at the moment as well, but I missed the deadline for Intel, which looked like one of the more interesting ones...

Me and my lips

Modz Speranto, who's in the middle of getting ready to go to Michigan to start his MBA has found his way to this website. Apparently on learning that I was British the first thing that popped into his mind was this.

It should be noted that I am much more Michael Caine than Lord Nelson. At least in my own rather warped mind

"You're a big man but you're in bad shape, and for me it's a full time job."

Modz has been slogging his way through Warren Buffets letters to investors, and making me think I should do the same some time.

Update Modz is probably going to Anderson not Michigan. He is a man with choices it seems

The Course Changes

I've just been made privy to the shape of the future MBA course. While next years students will do more or less what I've done this year, the year after will get the revised version with more flexibility and a different way of approaching the projects. It will still be possible to do exactly what I've done, but it will also be possible to make things a little more flexible and customise the MBA more closely to your personal interests.

I need to know this stuff because I'm writing the recruitment brochure for 2004-5 applicants. On the other hand it's hardly confidential, as the course director said 'I've been trying to tell people about this stuff for weeks'. Other things that are happening include extending the term to eleven weeks instead of the current ten. At the moment we have...

1 week preparation
8 week term
1 week exams

this would give us

1 week preparation
8 week term
1 week revision / assignments
1 week exams

Although lecturers may have some scope to teach for four weeks, give a week for the assignment, teach for four more, or whatever...

Broadly speaking I think these are all positive steps and reflect a lot of the student feedback the schools been recieving. Still, there is always more to be done, and with that in mind I'll be running for course representative (again) so I can aim to make this place even better. I tried to get elected for this post last term and failed, must try harder...

One more blog...

Slowly taking shape on the other sside of cyberspace is the newest SBS related blog. OxfordatMOOTCorp which will chronicle the adventures of five sexy young MBA's as they take on the Superbowl of all business plan competitions. It's gonna be great folks.

Just as soon as we finish setting it up.

Archives back

At some point I did something that meant the first ten weeks archives vanished from the site. I've just republished them, so now you can see where all this started. Click the archives button on the left.

Just because a jobs worth doing doesn't mean it's worth doing well

That is the only quote I can remember from 'The Soul of the New Machine'. However since I read it at least ten years ago that's pretty good going. It's a fantastic book, and it's on the reading list for the managing technology ventures course. Sadly Microserfs isn't, but that would be pushing it a bit.

Getting organised

Having characteristically failed to get things moving earlier I'm spending today evaluating the summer business projects on offer. I want to work with (in order) marketing, strategy and technology issues. I want to work overseas, and I want a chance to network like crazy. And it's got to be important. I don't want to be working on no side projects here...

Should have done something sooner. Really.

I also need to check which of the electives I'm doing require study groups and start assembling them in an A-team, best of the best kind of way. I need two awe inspiring branding groups and something similar for the technology management course, just as soon as its reading list arrives. Hopefully I'll have got somewhere by the end of the day.