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.

Entering New Markets - Gathering Ground Level Information

One of the areas that we've been focused on in our International Business course has been the challenges that many companies have when they attempt to move into foreign markets, often assuming that knowledge from their home country will translate into the new market.

As companies send people forward into a country to start doing market research, this is a simple way to get very raw reactions to your concept. The beauty of this is that it's incredibly simple, incredibly inexpensive, and doesn't hide the human element behind a bunch of summarized numbers (or biases). This could be collected and frequently sent back to the product or strategy teams to give them data points to make adjustments to their original plans.

Exploring International Business

Ever since we retuned from China, I have been exploring ways to expand my international business experience. I have several ideas for new ventures that have an international focus, but I need to find a way to gain some experience in the field to legitimize those potential opportunities.

A few weeks ago, I came across a sister city project between Raleigh, NC and one of Beijing's "star" cities. One of the US principles was Lily Yang of Yang Consulting. I reached out to Ms.Yang to create an introduction, and to explore if there might be ways that I could get engaged in any of her international projects. While I don't have the language skills yet, I believed that there might be some opportunity to offer my experience in strategy, marketing, research/analysis, or social media.
I may not have done this in previous years, but I have been learning a ton about actively networking outside your normal circles from Jack Perez over at Summit Strategy Partners.

I was pleasantly surprised when Ms.Yang offered to meet with me and discuss ways that I could leverage some of the skills and experience I've gained from this International semester towards some of her existing projects. While I don't have very many free hours to offer, I look at this as a valuable internship to get me the international experience that I would not easily be able to achieve in my current position. Just from talking to a few people at school about this, I may have two opportunities to engage new projects with Lily, so maybe I will bring some value to this interaction.

I don't know exactly what to expect from this opportunity, but I feel like it's the first step towards opening some doors that I will need for the rest of my career.

How Media will Impact your International Interactions

Clay Sharky discusses how Cell Phones, Twitter and Facebook can make History

A lot of this we discussed in StratMktg last semester, but some interesting examples of how some of the usages and shifts are happening from "the simple or disadvantaged" as opposed to from the powerful nations. This doesn't discuss the election in Iran, but it's use of social media and the internet might end up making the Obama campaign's usage look like child's play.

International Learnings - Page 2 ("China Growth")

One of the great things about MBA programs is the opportunity to learn, fail, make mistakes and be humbled without too much loss of political capital. It's even better when you get almost immediate feedback on an area where you missed the mark, or visualize the concepts in the context of the bigger picture.

A couple days ago, I wrote about my initial thoughts about China's Growth and their ability to sustain it over the next couple of decades. Much of it was based on our experiences from our company visits on the China trip, and multiple discussions with classmates on the subsequent bus rides around the country.

Much of class yesterday, in International Business, was focused on analysis of New Ventures and Corporate Expansion into foreign markets. So I went back and looked at some of the analysis models and compared them to what I had written. Needless to say, much of my initial thoughts were predictable and did not look at the connectedness of the bigger picture. Let's highlight a few of them:

1. Demand for Goods, Worldwide - I said, "...they pay their workers in Mexican plants $13/hr, but pay their workers in Singapore/Taiwan/Malaysia $0.21/hr, so it's hard to make the math of the stimulus work unless people in the US wanted to start paying $200 for a pair of blue jeans." This is a classic mistake of looking at just one element of the end-to-end supply chain for bringing this textile good to market. Stepping back to look at the bigger picture, I may have found that shipping costs from Asia to the US have risen dramatically, or that new plants in the US are taking advantage of tax incentives to educate out-of-work furniture laborers, or some other element that could have made the overall business model work. But instead, I allowed myself to be fixated on a single, seemingly tanglible (and easily understandable) cost element.
2. Failure to Consider Shifts in Capital & Investment - Nowhere in my analysis did I look at the possibilities that Chinese investment would flow directly into the US to take advantage of low-cost workers, or better environmental conditions, or attempts to gain a foothold within the country like Honda, Toyota, Mercedes and BMW did with plants in the US.
   
3. Failure to Consider Shifts in US Opinions - I mentioned that in "Made in China" sometimes carries a stigma, especially when child safety issues arise. But I failed to look at attempts by Chinese companies to reduce any backlash towards a foreign company or brand.

Those are just a few misses. Needless to say, there is a lot that I still don't understand. But the good news is that the learning is in an environment that encourages mistakes. Now it's up to me to figure out when to ask question, what questions to ask, and when to realize when I don't know what I don't know.

This is going to be a fun semester.