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.

1st Semester Summary - BGE (Part I)

It's getting close to 2009, so I need to start moving this blog from flashback mode into real-time mode fairly soon, so I suppose I'll just need to summarize aspects of the courses from the 1st Semester. These will by no means be complete, but rather hit on some interesting highlights and augment my notes from class.

To start with, I may as well start with the first course we had in August, which was Business in the Global Economy (BGE). Seems like a simple enough topic, just Economics for the Entire World, including all the nuances of Interest Rates, Foreign Exchange Rates, Balance of Payments, Trade Deficits, International Joint Ventures, Global Trade Agreements, etc.. Come on kids, the deep end is over here and the water is warm, jump on in!!

The first thing that excited me about this course was the experience of Dr.Chuck Kennedy, who had previously taught at UVA Darden School and has mentors back at Harvard Business School, so he's well versed in effectively using the Case-Study method of teaching. The next thing I looked forward to was a lack of a textbook. This class was going to evolve out of case study and current events. It wasn't without structure, but it was going to be focused on the realities of the world, rather than primarily based on research.

In the first couple of classes, we covered several historical events that now seem extremely relevant given our current financial crisis. We started with Bretton Woods and how the Global Economy evolved after WWII up through the 1960s. We looked at how fixed-rate currencies affected interests rates, balance of payments and fiscal and monetary policies worldwide. We then watched at the oil and inflationary crisis of the 1970s forced the move to floating rate currencies, affected inflation and interest rates and subsequently led to the recessionary challenges of the 1970s.

After a couple weeks of BGE, and comparing the course to others such as Quant or Accounting, I explained to Dr.Kennedy that I was struggling to a certain extent to get my head around the myriad of levers that could affect change in the Global Economy, and wondered if there were some primers that I could reference to get a bigger picture of the interactions. With a very stern look, he simply told me, "I don't think you're trying hard enough. Connect the dots. Follow the flows of money. It's all there right in front of you. The case study method does not spoon feed answers to you, it expects you to explore and find them. Force yourself to ask questions of yourself and the class." This was a lightbulb moment for me not only about the depths of the course, but about the expectations of the overall program. I appreciated the gentle slap in the face (figuratively), as the method of teaching/learning had not yet completely sunken in for me, and this put things in a much better perspective. This was truly going to be a challenge, and one that I needed to step up for.

As the class progressed, we investigated the Debt Crisis in Zaire, the Debt/Currency Crisis in Mexico, an International Joint Venture in formerly communist Poland, and the breadth of economic impact that China is having on the world and many other topics that may be many years old but are finding ways to repeat their mistakes or lessons in other parts of the world.

I learned a great deal from this class, with this list being a small summary:

• The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times and several other global business publications are a completely different read now that I know which lens to focus with.
  
• We talk a great deal about living in a global society, and how the world is much smaller now due to technology. But we've lived in a globally connected economy for a long time. It's just that now, the US is become less and less the center of that connectedness.
• History continues to repeat itself, led by greed and short-sighted decision-making by countries and leaders looking to take advantage of a short-term situation (abundant natural resource, low interest rates, etc.).
  
• Allowing your country to get significantly out of balance with your neighbors, trading partners and the rest of the global economy typically involves longer difficult times when the rebalancing occurs....and it always has to occur.
• Economics does have a set of fundamentals, like other disciplines, but the results of influencing those fundamentals often have less than expected results. The science of economics is often clouded by human emotions of fear, greed, uncertainty and protectionism.
• "Following the money" and "asking following questions" are the best ways to gain perspective on the global environment we live in today.

2009 is going to be an extremely interesting year to see how the US and the world address the global financial challenges we share. I'm looking forward to my trip to China in May to better understand their culture and economy. And I'm looking forward to viewing the world's interconnectedness through a completely different set of eyes.