Wrapping up the Program - Part IV - "Working harder than ever".....

On the last day of the program, we had the chance to have an open and candid discussion about the future with Ram Baliga, professor of Global Strategy. Ram is incredibly well respected as both a teacher and strategic thinker. He consults globally with some of the world's largest companies, and amazed us every week by leading lecture and discussion without any notes or slides.

Dr.Baliga's comment which left the most lasting impression on me was, "I am now working harder than ever to keep up with the pace of change, forcing myself to learn the critical skills of the 21st century (technology & analytics)".

Coming from a man who is world-renowned, tenured and vaguely discussing retirement, it was inspiring. It just shows that you can never stop learning, and that the application of knowledge is critical to retention. Dr.Baliga constantly reminded us that concepts need to be internalized and applied.

So it is with that mindset that I have decided not to sunset this blog, even though the program is complete. I will use it to highlight the application of knowledge we gained from our program. To challenge myself to apply theory to real-life, and to challenge the theories and models as the business climate changes in the 21st century.

To Dr.Baliga, I say "thank you" for the inspiration. We learned a tremendous amount from you both in knowledge and character over the last 18 months. I hope to be able to apply it with great efficiency over the next 10-20 years.

Open Technology

Recently, Google posted a blog where they provided Google's definition of "open". In that post, there was an interesting section about how open systems can be viewed by people with traditional MBA training.

"To understand our position in more detail, it helps to start with the assertion that open systems win. This is counter-intuitive to the traditionally trained MBA who is taught to generate a sustainable competitive advantage by creating a closed system, making it popular, then milking it through the product life cycle. The conventional wisdom goes that companies should lock in customers to lock out competitors...."

Most of my working career has been centered around an "Internet DNA", so maybe I'm overly biased, but this is a comment that I made to my classmates time and time again as we studied different scenarios and cases during our program. The numbers are fine, and thorough analysis is necessary, but too many times it leads to decisions that don't result in driving new customer value. It results in decisions that create short-term advantages, or temporary "wins", but it often misrepresents whether or not a company is truly prepared to be competitive in the market, and how they can position themselves for the next opportunity.

The 21st century is not going to be about long-term sustainable advantages. Advantages will be short-lived, and the companies that survive and succeed will be those with a open mindset that encourages competition. Competition drives innovation.

Competition also makes some people &/or companies uncomfortable because they were built around an inflexible model, or one that doesn't allow for radical changes in the market structure. Google is an excellent example of a company that is constantly trying to change the dynamics of markets. They are not always right, and actually fail quite often, but their culture and business are built on the foundation of competition. Many companies would do themselves a favor by studying Google and adopting their mindset to open systems.

Wrapping up the Program - Part III

In previous wrap-up posts (here & here) I talked about broad lessons learned and projects that impacted my new ways of thinking about the world. In this post, I'd like to talk about some of the people in our program. Through the program, I've spoken about our collective journey, often highlighting elements of classmates that caught my attention. As the program progressed, I had the opportunity to better understand the strengths and goals of my classmates.

One of the most challenging things for an Executive MBA is to move outside of their comfort zone. They don't lack for great ideas or leadership, but families and mortgages and job seniority can be a difficult elements of life to sacrifice for the next "what if..."

I'd like to highlight some of the projects and "next steps" that graduates of the Executive Class of 2009 will be leading in 2010.

Terra Verde International - After Hurricane Felix ripped through the coastal areas of Nicaragua, much of their forests were downed by the storm. Through a church-mission relationship, Robbie Lee and his partners become involved in a unique situation to create opportunity out of tragedy. Terre Verde was established to clear the downed trees, mill the wood and byproduct, and take it to market. The mill and operations are staffed by the local Mistiko Indian tribes, and funds from the sale of wood are brought back to the village to establish infrastructure and create new opportunities (farms, education, housing, etc.). In addition to the mill, Terre Verde has plans to create an electrical utility that uses the wood byproduct as a biofuel source to power the electrical grid. In the US we take the electrical grid for granted, but for people that have no light in the evenings, the possibilities are endless. The hope is to allow people to go to school in the evenings, or church, or participate in other activities that are driven by electricity.

TPM Partners - After successful careers at Danaher and Que Pasa, respectively, David Ivan and Domingo Isasi saw an opportunity to take their knowledge of process-design and operations to start a consulting company focused on Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma improvement. By moving quickly to show clients how change can effect their bottomline, TPM Partners has already created hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost-reductions in just a few months.

Precision Farming in India (business name TBD) - Combining his passion for his homeland and expertise in Information Technology, Vish Manickam is creating a new venture to help rural areas in India that are struggling with poverty and limited food supplies. Working with professors in India and Michigan State University, and utilizing the latest Precision Farming techniques to produce vastly better crop yields and a sustainable economy. Vish is not only building a model farm in his home state, but also creating a franchise model to allow others to sell and distribute this technology to other regions of India. By combining technology, government subsidies and market demand, Vish will be able to help a portion of India that rarely see the headlines from the news media.

Commercial Solar Distribution & Installation (business name TBD) - Building on the momentum from the Obama administration and the COP15 talks, Chris Basinger is bringing his passion for building the future to commercial properties in North Carolina. Chris is currently working with several large North Carolina-based companies to design and implement a solar power infrastructure for several hundred facilities. By leveraging national and state credits for solar installations and leading-edge photovoltaic (PV) technologies, Chris has been able to demonstrated positive NPV returns on these upcoming investments. Chris is working directly with VCs to fund this start-up opportunity, with hopes to operationalize it in 2010.

Gracely Girl Design - Highlighted previously as a model for building a completely online business that operates around a part-time or mother's schedule, Gracely Girl has successfully completed 3 months of operations and is now cash-flow positive.

KinderCulture (tentative name) - This is a project that I pitched to the class as part of our Entrepreneurship program. I was humbled when several of my classmates and professor offered to invest or raise money for the idea on the spot. In 2010 I'm hoping to pull together the team to execute on this concept. It would allow me to combine my interests in Social Media and Internet technology, International culture and children's education.

Those are just a few of the projects that I expect to see launched or expanded in 2010. And based on late-night conversations and brainstorming sessions with several other classmates, I wouldn't be surprised to see several more get hatched in some form or another very soon. We were lucky to have such a diverse group of people and backgrounds in our program, and I fully expect them to go on to greater things in the future. My hope is that we are able to continue to leverage the ideas and talents of the group as these new ventures and opportunities arise in 2010 and beyond.

Wrapping up the Program - Part II

Following up on Part I, I thought I would highlight some of my favorite projects from the program. Some were things that I was a part of, while others came from classmates. I've mentioned some of these before, in previous blog posts.

The first was the summary presentation we gave for Leadership & Organizational Behavior (LOB) class. The 1st semester was an interesting transition for everyone in the class, not only readjusting ourselves to academia but also transitioning into a structure where teamwork and trust were critical factors in success. The focus of the presentation was supposed to be analysis of our personalities against LOB criteria, but what it turned into was a very revealing look into the personalities of our classmates. Their history, their fears, their hopes and dreams, and their ability to trust the people in the room with personal information. For most people in the class, it was the first opportunity we'd had in 3-4 months to really understand who we'd be going through the rest of the journey with. For me personally, I used it as an opportunity to try out a presentation style that I had seen a few times, but had never used before. It's a variation on something called Pecha Kucha, which we eventually used in the 4th semester for our final Leading Change presentation. When I gave the presentation, I think I made some people uncomfortable (less structured, less formal, limited analysis). I was trying to use the style to convey the pace at which my working environment (Internet Technology) moves, and I believe that came across to some extent. Regardless, it was my first attempt at using the MBA program as a vehicle to try new ideas which could be reused in my working world.

BGracely LOB Personality Semester Project 5Dec2008

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Our final Business & Global Economics (BGE) project involved a country/region and investment analysis in Emerging Markets. BGE was the 1st semester course that really taught me that I had much to learn about the complexities and inter-dependencies of the global economy We choose to analyze UAE, which at the time of our selection (Aug.2008) seemed like an exciting, vibrant new beacon of the global economy. Our analysis and recommendation highlighted many of the possibilities being created by the massive influx of petrodollars, but it also cautioned against a potential bubble. Having new eyes for UAE, it has been extremely interesting to watch the reports of the demise of Dubai in the early to mid part of 2009, and then the more recent reports of its resurgence towards the end of the year. I believe the stories of Dubai, and its ultimate success or failure are still to be written, with results being somewhat unknown for another 5-10 years.

WFU-MBA-BGE-Team5-UAE-5Dec2008

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Towards the end of our 2nd semester, our Managerial Accounting professor (Dr.Bern Beatty) asked Brian Healy (EVP, Kindermusik) to come speak with our class about how they implement Open Book Management. Not only was this an excellent look at how an entrepreneurial company was putting unique leadership styles to work, but it also began a business relationship with Mr.Healy that I hope to leverage for another start-up that I may launch in 2010.

Open Book Management - Critical Number

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Another 2nd semester project allowed Portia Mount and I to explore an element of Marketing that gets heavy coverage from the press, but is still not well understood my most of the business world or academia. We explored Social Media and Social Marketing in the context of the Obama Election campaign, but tried to constantly bring the context back to everyday business environments. It was an interesting culmination to our Strategic Marketing course, as each sub-team also created a final presentation that focused on an angle of Internet or Social Marketing. Since that presentation, I've actually had 5-6 companies approach me about training/educating their executive teams about Social Media/Marketing best practices and way they can engage with this new media.

ObamaNation - Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Media

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The 3rd semester was all about International Business. We had the option to focus on China, Japan or South America (the India trip was canceled due to the Mumbai bombings). Eight of us choose to spend two weeks in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Hong Kong. We chronically our journey on the China Blog. It's still difficult to put the magnitude of that trip into words, but needless to say it completely changed my views on my career and the 21st century.

To conclude our Entrepreneurship course, we were asked to focus on a new business model or idea. I decided to focus on Gracely Girl Designs, which is an online appearal business that I created with my wife in October 2009. The primary motivation for the business was to allow her a creative outlet to coincide with the raising of our children. But what we found in designing the business was an ability to operate almost entirely virtual and with a structure that was incredibly flexible. I presented this business as a model that could be adopted by classmates that wishes to stretch their entrepreneurial legs, but also maintain their existing jobs (at least for a while).

Gracely Girl Design

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Our Management Practicum was focused around the theme of Environmental Sustainability, and how we could attack that problem in a way that found balance between environmental challenges and business challenges. Many of my classmates came up with incredible ideas (to be discussed in Part III), presenting ideas to start businesses that will have lasting impacts for thousands of people in the US, Latin America and India. Their work will go beyond business success and will thrive in the future successes of mankind. Our team took a technology focus, looking at ways to more efficiently deploy IT Data Centers, the 21st-century "bit" factories that will drive the output of electronic addictions. Considering that today's Data Centers consume 2-3% of all US electricity, with exponential growth expected as Smart Grids and Electric Vehicles become part of the US economy.

Looking back on the breadth of our projects, I'm still amazed at what can be learned in just 18 months. Not only did we develop domain-level expertise in many areas, but we created a framework of knowledge that will allow us to take on strategic challenges throughout the 21st century.

Wrapping up the Program - Part I

As of 1pm, barring any last minute disasters (not sure what they would be), my journey through the WFU Executive MBA program is complete. Our final grades were posted today. All that's left now is to receive my diploma at a ceremony in January.

As the last group to ever go through the Executive Program, the ending is somewhat bittersweet (the format was canceled in Fall 2009 due to strategic changes by the WFU Schools of Business). Being EOL brought us closer together as a group, but unfortunately we won't have subsequent classes to build the alumni base. The Executive program was started over 25 years, and was the original MBA program offered by Wake Forest.

Instead of just waving good-bye to this blog, I thought I'd finish it with a series of posts recapping some of the most important things I learned over the last 18 months.

Breadth of Knowledge Matters

Whether you're faced with a Strategy problem, a Marketing problem, a Finance problem or an Organization problem, no decision can be made in a vacuum. Having a fundamental understanding of a breadth of subjects, learned across a wide range of industries (through case studies, classmate experiences, etc.) is invaluable in making executive level decisions. Today's markets move much too fast to build companies that operate in silos, so bringing a breadth of knowledge to daily decisions will make the difference between survival and failure in the 21st century.

The World is Global...and Semi-Global...and Regional...and Local

While the Thomas Friedman's of the world grab many headlines, not every problem today is global. It is invaluable to have the experience of visiting and working in international markets (which we experienced), but knowing when strategy needs to be global is even more valuable. You must be ABLE to step out of your CAGE and see where it makes sense to bring ADDING solutions to market expansion. You must think globally, but act locally.

Create True and Lasting Value

As we saw from the financial crisis of 2008, and in numerous other examples, it is incredibly easy to financially engineer the books or manipulate markets in the short-run in return for near-term profits. But the 21st century, with it's hypermedia cycles, will quickly destroy companies that are not competitive and do not create true value for customers or partners. NOTE: "Lasting" is a relative term. It may only be 3-5yrs, but it's a mindset that should be infected into every company that strives to be competitive and differentiate themselves by creating tremendous value with their products and services.

Think like a CEO

All too often we tend to get caught up in the value of our functional area or market, and fail to see the bigger picture in front of us. Without the correct strategies, financial models and product portfolios aligned to solve customer problems, many ideas are just a set of random details.

Think like a Baby

At times, we plug all the data into our fancy MBA models and answers emerge. But do they always make sense? Have they taken into consideration local factors, or basic inter-dependencies? Have we thought through the simplest of details, asked the simplest of questions? For parents, we're often amazed at the way children are able to ask the most direct questions for complex topics. That type of questioning is valuable for executives as well.

Build Your Personal Brand

The personalization of media and the ubiquity of the Internet allows each of us to be our own Marketing/PR/Ad agency. Companies will come and go, but your personal brand is the one element over which you can have direct control. This blog was created for alternative learning purposes, but it eventually became a foundational aspect of me beginning a journey to better understand how a personal brand is built, cultivated and expanded.