Pages not big enough

My theory that Finance II is the toughest course going has just received a boost. With the exception of a single lecture in Finance I I've been able to compress the content of any lecture to a single side of A4 for revision purposes. Obviously you lose most of the meaning, inflection and nuances of the stuff, but you've got the mechanics down. (you can get last terms revision notes through the 'doing the mba section'.

Finance II however is blowing this theory out of the water. Well, not the first four classes which dealt with corporate governance, dividend policy and such, but the second half, which dealt with debt, options and currency hedging. Unless I develop a maths degree overnight I'm not going to get anything useful onto a single side of A4 no matter how hard I try. I feel a long and finance shaped weekend coming on here.

In other news the 'everyone chip in with exam notes' section of our shared drive is starting to develop a sense of humour. Latest additions to Macroeconomics include 'why my peso is worthless' (inflation) and 'money is everywhere but not in the bank' (money supply). Cheered me up no end.

Back after these commercials

Elvis Costello sang this when standing in for David Letterman. Who could disagree

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,
There's one thing I wanna know:
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?


So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?

Viral Marketing?

It's got nothing to do with Reebok, but this will be doing the rounds of offices all over the world pretty damn soon. I bet someone had to fight very hard indeed to stop Terry Tate, Office Linebacker (big download) turning into a product focused love in.

I'm not sure quite what I make of this. By itself it probably won't sell that many shoes. But if they can turn Terry into some kind of cult figure and build the shoe connection slowly over time. Maybe. Here's a link to the support website. Looks like they're trying to turn this content into permission, but to be honest seems all the budget went on films.

Where are...

The Terry Tate office posters to print out?
The Tate intimidation generator? (press here for twenty intimidating words to scream at your co-workers)
The "what kind of fool are you?" Terry Tate quiz?
The nominate a co-worker for a TT smackdown competition?
Or, the have TT in your office for a day competition?
The Terry Tate Blog?

On this last point... Raging Cow copped a lot of flak for using blogs badly, but here's what I'd do. I'd hire a copywriter, a good one. And I'd pay him to hunt out the best bits of business news and office gossip on the web, and then discuss it Terry Tate style. The content should be good enough that genuine business folk might read it, and the thing should link to real news stories. Just like a real blog.

Terry Tate is a big guy. He could have been a whole lot bigger. Now... must do some revision.....

Seth Godin thinks I'm wasting my time

You can read about his ideas for a New Order Business School here. As for me, I've had my classes on presentation already thanks. Prioritising was this morning, do I embrace change? I had a blog before Seth did, some new economy guru he is.

On a less strident note. I've never been to NYU, but browsing around, reading the inanities that appear on the business week forum and looking at the whole rubber stamp mentality that surfaces from time to time I'm glad I'm here. While things may not always go according to plan the idea is at least to rip the lid off the ideas and get at the guts of things. I don't actually know what the Black Scholes formula is, (I mean, the formula, its a thing for pricing options) although I know what you do with it, and if I plough through my notes I can tell you the good and the bad about it. I hope that the Saids' focus on not just teaching us the jargon, the buzzwords and the latest techniques manages to outlast its startup period.

Operations management concluded today with a brief summary of what we've actually been taught.

How to describe systems so you can tell what you're really looking at
How to treat people well, in particular how to create systems that treat people well
The overwhelming importance of quality
Approaches to managing complexity

Somewhere in there was JIT, MRP, TQM and all the rest. Mixed in though was a clear exhortation to skip the slogans and get to the meat. Seth is of course just flame bating, the guy owes pretty much the whole 'guru' phase of his career to magazines like fast company, the reading material of choice for MBA's and capitalist wannabes the world over.

Examination Apathy

This time last term everyone was panicking about exams. In fact for the two or three weeks prior to the exams lecturers were pressured - what's on the paper, is this examinable, what should an answer be? It was largely fear of the unknown.

Fear of the unknown was fear of failure, of exams in a different style, different language, all that coalesced into one big panic. This time people are laid back, we've been there, done that and while some subjects are tough we know its survivable. So people are knuckling down, getting on with business and while some will pass and some will fail the attitude is less 'oh my god this is the be all and end all' and much more 'lets get this over with and go on holiday'

Journey beginning

Tad has just got admitted to UMBS after a truly marathon exercise in applications. Fifteen drafts for a single set of essays? With that kind of dedication he's going to sail through business school.

Just don't forget to take time out to smell the flowers Tad. No sense spending the whole year working. Whens the next time you'll be your own boss?

Media Watch

Ever since Vietnam when an uncensored press corps wrecked domestic morale governments have been very careful about who says what about their troops. According to this piece from the BBC the present UK philospohy is to pretend they're not really there. By contrast the US army is happy to show off their bombs and bullets - presumably a response to very different domestic public opinion in the two countries.

Eminem versus The Streets

With revision suddenly underway in earnest I took time out yesterday to buy a few new CD's, so I'm now the proud owner of The Eminem Show by Eminem and Original Pirate Material by The Streets. Its all 'white rap music', but while Eminem is straight outta Detroit with raging paranoia and a whole bunch of issues too scary to mention The Streets barely make it out of the door of their London council housing before deciding it looks too much like trouble and they'd best smoke something before going back to bed.

Thats possibly a little harsh on The Streets, who seem to like going to the pub and a bit of cockney duckin' and divin' as well but the contrast is huge. Eminem rants and rages at the world, which is great when you agree with him, and in places its hard not to. Taken with his last album he's turning out one of the most coherent critiques of the problems of fame around. He wants to shout, scream and mouth off, he didn't ask to be a role model, and anyone who believes he's driving kids to violence is missing a whole chunk of other explanations for the problems of ghetto youth. On the other hand when he goes off on one about gays, bitches and ho's again you just wish he'd shut up, see a good psychiatrist, patch things up with his wife and go play with his daughter. (If Eminem has a redeeming feature its his solid commitment to looking after his daughter - I still reckon she'll loath him for his music when she's 16 though.)

In contrast The Streets have no bigger fish to fry than moaning about the governments stance on drugs, and avoiding some of the scary geezers who populate their world. Along the way we have a blokish mixture of women as objects 'don't mug yourself' and romantic heartbreak 'its too late'. Some of the social commentary is a bit grating 'Geezers need excitement' (sometime in the next year some Oxford mockney is going to say something very stupid to me and justify it with "common sense, simple common sense" and I'll go off this record completely)

All in all two very different takes on being a bloke. It makes you think, Detroit isn't that much scarier than the wrong ends of London. Is it just the constant presence of guns that fuels the paranoia of Eminem, Dre and all the rest? Or is it that there's something else in UK culture which has done a better job of standing up to macho posturing in music?

Hey ho, and to think I went out to buy the Miss Dynamite album. Who should in no sense be thought as having anything to do with the cartoon at Miss Dynamite.com which I found by accident and is guaranteed to offend pretty much everyone in equal measure. (the cartoon that proves terrorists have humour too, you have been warned)