One more blog

Just checked out the links on MBALeague and found French MBA. Now my French is basically non existant these days (shocking I know) but it appears to be by Thibault, and he appears to be at Kellog.

You could always ask the Babel Fish for a machine translation. It's actually quite good.

Updates, experiments and changes

I've decided to play around with Zaeem's media list bit of software. See the results here and in the sidebar. So now you can read about what I'm reading.
I've also written an FAQ. Enjoy!

Exam results just in

Some time after finding out whether you passed the exams or not you get the final list of your actual marks. I have to say I've got no idea what causes the delay, but there is one (in this case two weeks). Still, here are my marks from last term

Finance II : 63.2
Financial Management : 65.3
Macro Economics and Finance : 60.06
Marketing Management : 74.5
Operations Management : 59.0

Marks are out of 100. 50 is a pass, and the average is supposed to be 60. In broad terms 70+ is a distinction (A), 60+ is good (B) and 50+ is ok (C). There's an incredibly tight grouping between my group work scores and my exam results so I guess I've got to be happy with my study groups performance. Well, I was pretty happy with it, so now I have proof...

Bit annoyed about the operations management score though, I thought I wrote a great essay on network diagrams and project management. Ah well...

I'll add course write ups and revision notes to the others when I get a moment.

Scoop!

On Monday there's going to be a piece about little old me and my blog in the Times. I guess I should do some spring cleaning on this thing over the weekend. I guess I should also do something I've been meaning to do for ages and write a FAQ.

Here comes the work

This term we're taking electives which tend to be examined more by project and assignment than exams. My current list of projects is as follows....

Brand Equity Audit : This is the 'Brand it like Beckham' project I mentioned below. 4000 words to be based on original research produced by a group of four.
Brand Essay : Interesting one this, 2000 words on pretty much anything about branding I feel like. Haven't made my mind up yet.
Corporate Responsibility case analysis :3000 words of case study
Corporate Responsibility group project :5000 words to develop a corporate responsibility policy for a company, group of seven
Leadership :5000 word essay on leadership. I'm thinking of returning to my undergraduate degree and writing something on leadership and the crusades
Managing Technology Ventures :2500 word individual case study
Managing Technology Ventures :7500 word group research project, I'm in a team of four looking at new product development in the biotech industry
Nation brand corporation and identity :Individual essay (undefined)
Nation brand corporation and identity :Group project in team of six (undefined)

That's the first time I've written all that down in one place. Geeks among you may wish to note the use of the obsolete blockquote tag to indent the text.

I think I need a stiff drink.

CV Needs work

Thanks to Jenny Brown my CV is now rather more gramatically correct and USA friendly than it was before. It is not however a resume ;-). The online version however needs lots of work. I think online CV's are potentially fantastic ways to communicate much more about yourself than you can get over in bland boring corporate one siders, but I don't think mine does this yet.

Things that make me happy

Its funny what cheers me up. There was a woman in Sainsburys with two kids at the checkout. As we waited in line the kids began to wander and lift things they shouldn't etc. (they were about 5 and 3?) Anyway I was resigining myself to one of those moments where the stressed parent loses control screams, shouts and smacks and the kids then cry for hours. Instead I got to watch fifteen minutes (long queue) of patient, hardworking and creative parenting. No crying, nothing too out of control. I felt like breaking into applause as the checkout was finally cleared...

And then I went running down by the river. A few weeks ago I ran faster than the boats, since the crews spend the first few weeks working hard on technique and less on speed. Now I'm being left behind by hardworking 8's as they push themselves in preparation for the 8s week rowing tournaments. The river is probably the most Oxford thing about Oxford, dozens of crews all trying to get their work in and not hit anything.

Summer is really coming.

Brand it like Beckham

I've successfully convinced my colleagues on my brand strategy study group to undertake the challenge of trying to put a value on the David Beckham brand. It's interesting stuff, what with Beckham possibly off to Real Madrid for a transfer fee (and wages) that will probably have more to do with his marketing potential than with his footballing skills.

The (a) goal is to try and come up with a valuation. What should Real offer for the right to include the Beckham brand in their line up? Loads of interesting questions about valuation here in a space which I think is going to be very interesting in the future. With movie stars, super models, pop musicians and so on all trying to manage, value and exploit their identities it's an interesting subject, and one with lots of room for experiementation.

Things to do this afternoon include contacting his agency to see if they're interested in helping.

No Surrender to the BNP

Tom Watson is putting his position as the first MP to run a blog to good use. Here's a link to his thoughts about the British National Party's candidates. I'd tell you about these human filth, but their record speaks for itself.

Love your colleagues

That was one of the messages from Haakon Overli, Norweigan entrepreneur and founder of self-trade, a share dealing .com that went for a billion euros when it was sold a few years ago. Quiet and unpretentious Haakon was an interesting guy who was in to talk to those of us taking the 'Managing Technology Ventures' class about systems, culture and growth.

Most interesting though was his comment on mission statements, "Anything in there must be a choice. It must make sense with the world not in front of it". So if you set out to maximise shareholder value and write it in your mission statement think, would you write "We will not maximise shareholder value"? Since you wouldn't, bin it. My personal feeling is that if you really mean it don't write the bland every day corporate version write

"THIS COMPANY IS A RELENTLESS MONEY MAKING MACHINE"

Kind of focuses the mind more doesn't it? I remember being very impressed by a localish company called AIT who aimed to be "The best company in the world to work for and the best company in the world to work with". From what I saw they'd come close to achieveing that.

Traditional English Food

I went out for a traditional english meal with my study group last night - curry. The English have been eating curries since the 1800's when spices from India turned out to be perfect for disgusing the taste of badly preserved meat. Curry really took off after WWII when immigrants from India started opening restaurants.

The English curry bears very little resemblence to most Indian food. Due to a lack of ingredients, and the fact that the English didn't like spicy food that much the traditional food distorted. The dozens of culinary varieties that India has to offer were merged, rearranged and eventually became what we know today. I'm told there are now restaurants in India offering English style cooking. The interesting thing about this is that we're at it again with Thai, Vietnamese and all other kinds of food.

Anyway, if you're coming to England from overseas make sure you have a curry while you're here. It's a lot more native than it looks.

Oh, and Richard Branson was in the restaurant. He looks a lot less healthy in real life.