Weekly Links (Week of Jan.4, 2010)

During our program, I used to annoy my classmates by constantly sending emails pointing to various links, stories and other content that related to the topics being discussed in class. In hopefully a less annoying manner, I plan to bring that content to this blog on a weekly basis.

One of the things Ram Baliga told us was that analytics would become one of the cornerstone technologies that MBA's should master in the 21st century. Here is a good write-up on the proliferation of data that is now available for analysis and how it will shape the future of business.

With Chet Miller we evaluated various employee evaluation models, including GE's A-B-C player model. This link explores NetFlix model of trying to hire, retain and compensate almost all "A" players and whether or not that is a good thing.

Following up from our case discussion about NetFlix and their eventual migration to a streaming model. Many elements at play here: short-term vs. long-term profits; customer input vs. decisions that lead to eventual business model changes; decisions that could lead to loses due to digital piracy or alternative models solving a customer demand.

This article explore the Nexus One phone from Google, in the context of how it will impact Google's overall strategy. VC Brian Gurley does an excellent job of looking at the broader impact of this device, but more importantly the strategic impact of the new business model. The Nexus One was an area of highlight in the final Global Strategy paper that I wrote with Ric Freeman and Wendy Perry.

Here's another Nexus One link that follows-up some of the cases we analyzed, including strategic challenges for HTC, Taiwan Semi-Conductor and Google. At least within the technology world, the spread of coopetition and partner/rival scenarios will continue to expand as the value chain is twisted in all sorts of new ways.

Stan Mandel taught us the underlying structures for funding and operating and entrepreneurial venture, but more so he focus on the mindset needed to be a successful entrepreneur. VC/Entrepreneur Mark Suster explorers his views of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.

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.

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.

CAGE, Biomimicry and a big lull....

For anyone who reads this blog, I have to apologize for the lack of content and ideas recently. Not only has my day job been extremely busy lately (blog hits over there are up 500% Y-over-Year), but this semester has left me in a funk. It has no rhythm to it, and the pending 50-page papers for GSM II, Management Practicum and Entrepreneurship haven't left much time for writing about new ideas (let alone tidbits from class).

One of the important concepts that we discuss quite a bit with Ram Baliga are analogies, and the importance of making connections outside your current view of a problem. He stresses that many problems have already been solved, just at a different time, or in a different industry, or by looking at the problem outside the context of the existing situation.

So in that vain of thinking, I highlight a couple of analogies:

• In GSM II (and in International Business), we used a framework called C.A.G.E (Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic) to analyze expansion and M&A activities. I loosely used that framework to analyze a problem happening in corporate IT organizations as technologies like VMware's virtualization are creating organizational problems (although saving companies money). It's not an exact fit for the framework, since we're not really dealing with global expansion, but it seems to have some alignment for groups that speak different languages and have different priorities. Apologies to Dr.Lord and Dr.Baliga for stretching the framework a little more than is probably acceptable in their eyes.
• In Leading Change & Entrepreneurship, we often talk about ways to come up with new ideas or sources of new ways to solve problems. This recent article in Fast Company by Dan & Chip Heath highlights the concept of biomimicry to help solve some of your company's most head-scratching problems. Dr.Fogel had given us some papers to read on biomimicry, but not having much in the way of free time, I was highly appreciative of Heath's use of brevity to show examples of a powerful concept.

Analogies can be powerful tools in not only trying to explain new ideas, but also for looking outside your current frame of view for new solutions. Often times an analogy can be the best way to connect you with a customer, especially when you come from different backgrounds and you're trying to find a common language.

The Final Semester Approaches

While it's still four months away, there is beginning to flicker a small light at the end of this tunnel. This last semester will take us into December, completely the last leg of this 18 month journey. The final semester is a mix of foundational studies, advanced strategic studies, and a deep look at one of the biggest challenges facing our world as a whole.

Here's the line-up for the fall semester:

Global Strategy II - Dr. Ram Baliga expands upon the strategic framework created last semester to explore the next layers of corporate strategy, mergers & acquisitions, and the global thinking required for the 21st century.

Business Law - I don't know much about this course (no syllabus yet), other than it will be taught by Miki Felsenburg from the Babcock Law School. I know the text book should not be dropped on my toes (about 5" thick).

Leading Change - Dr. Dan Fogel will explore how to take all these brilliant ideas people have and get them implemented in small, medium and large corporations.

Entrepreneurial Essentials - Dr. Stan Mandel will provide us the framework for starting new ventures, fostering great ideas and thinking like an entrepreneur whether we're starting a new business or trapped within a larger corporation. I'm hoping he also proves my previous comments about Entrepreneurship in EMBA programs to be badly misrepresented.

Management Practicum - No academic program would be complete without throwing in a couple of $0.25 words like "practicum", so here we go. Our final practicum will be focused on Green Technologies and ways that they can be applied to improve our companies and our world. I'll talk more about my team's project in a later post. Providing us "20% more Dan", Dr. Dan Fogel will be mentoring these projects and bringing his passion for Sustainability to the classroom as we wrap up the program in December.

The workload for this semester is quite heavy, discouraging senioritis from all angles. It should foster some very interesting learning and discussions, especially with the intersection of Global Strategy, Leading Changes, Entrepreneurship and Green Technologies. I know my classmate Gregg Lewis will have much to teach us from his hands-on experience in the Sustainability field.

End of the 3rd Semester

All the finals and papers are completed and done. There is starting to be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel as we move from our 3rd to 4th (and final) semester of the WFU eMBA program. This past semester was easily my favorite so far, but it was obviously somewhat biased by the China Trip, which was a life-changing event for me. I developed a completely newfound appreciation for the challenges of international business, as well as a new passion to become much more of an international citizen (for myself and my children).

Following on the international theme was our Global Strategy course (part I...part II is in the next semester), which was my favorite to-date. Strategy is a fascinating topic to me because it requires a combination of structured thinking/analysis and truly creative thinking to be able to plot moves, plan new products/services, and come up with ways to shift the market in your favor.

One of the takeaways I'll have from this semester is regarding the type of people to look towards as we become a more globalized economy and world. While there are literally thousands of business and strategy books written each year, the ones that are beginning to stand out are from leaders that are either from non-US background or heavily embrace non-US markets and cultures. Whether this is people like Ram Baliga and Michael Lord (WFU professors), or C.K. Prahalad or Gary Hamel or Ram Charan or Umair Haque. By looking at the world from a non-US-centric viewpoint, they are able to understand the pace of change better, as well as understand the flexibility and competitiveness that will be needed by any successful person/company in the 21st century. It's a much bigger picture approach that you see in most classrooms or often US boardrooms.

Defining Innovation

One of the conversations we had this weekend in our Global Strategy course was around the definition of Innovation. In trying to define it, classmates threw out "new technology", "thinking outside the box" and other definitions that sounded close. But Dr.Baliga corrected them by highlighting the difference between Invention/Discovery and Innovation.

Invention / Discovery - these relate to the creation of something new, or expanded knowledge of something in nature.

Innovation - this is the application of that invention / discovery into a product that is successfully deployed to solve a market need.

He was quick to point out that most executives get those two definitions confused. While Invention might seem like the more difficult part (ie. synthesize a new molecule; create a new hybrid engine, etc.), the truly difficult part is creating the system around it (sales, marketing, distribution, etc.) that allows it to be successful deployed by people to solve their problems.

Innovation requires some many things to be aligned and to "go right", including being prepared to act when luck comes your way. That's precisely the reason that so many companies have difficulties trying to be innovative. They have plenty of ideas on the drawing board and in the lab, but they just can't figure out how to get them to market successfully.

3rd Semester begins - 6 months to go!!

The thirty of us remaining in the WFU MBA 2009 program returned last night from our international trips and a couple weeks off. It was good to see everyone again and catch up on their trips. The mood seemed to be slightly less intense than semesters past, partially because the weather is so nice and partially because it's been six weeks since we were here in Winston-Salem and everyone is trying to get back into a groove.

This semester is about all things International. We have three classroom courses and the International Practicum, which included the two week trips to either China, Japan or South America. The classroom courses this semester are all only six weeks (instead of eight), which means they consolidate quite a bit more reading into each session.

International Financial Management is being taught by Dr. Bruce Resnick. The course will focus on FX Markets, differences between Domestic and International Finance, International Strategy and overall International Portfolio Management.

International Business Management is being taught by Dr. Mike Lord. Mike was the lead for our China trip. The course focuses on a broad range of topics (Cultural, Economic, Political, Geographic) that effect how companies engage in international expansion and operations.

Global Strategic Management is being taught by Dr. Ram Baliga. The course focuses on many aspects of strategy as it relates to products, operations, M&A, market entry and competition.

The international trips seem to have changed the overall perspective of the world for many of my classmates. They seem to have a better understanding of how much bigger the world in terms of opportunities and competition. They seem to have a better grasp on how Finance, Culture, Government Policy and Global Economics fit together. And they seem to have a new sense of what to explore and question as they try and make sense of how they are going to fit into the global economy.

We still don't know what we don't know, and but this semester should help to fill in the blanks on a few questions. The courses are all in English, but there is definitely a different set of languages being spoken in class are still a little bit foreign. Hopefully the learning curve moves faster than my attempts at Mandarin.