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Staying Synchronized
I’ve got a small confession to make. Graduate school is not that incredibly difficult – it is certainly not medical school. When it comes down to the subject material, given enough time and enough brain cycles, its all pretty elementary stuff. Even our country assessment models for international marketing are nothing but multiplication, addition, division …. the basics. However, finding time to stay organized when everything is flying past your head at 100mph and multiple assignments are competing for your precious thoughts, now THAT’s where it gets difficult.
Classes have slowed a bit down to a dull roar – just three simultaneously for the next two weeks instead of the six we have had for the last four weeks. I spent the better part of today synchronizing my work calendar with my personal calendar. I’ve never had such a large part of my life planned out like I have now. I think I pretty much know what I’m doing until January 8th. I suppose its comforting in one way, knowing where you will be and when, knowing exactly how much free time you think you have, and how much you really have – sometimes wishing I had never seen the latter.
Today, I was able to flex a little IT muscle as well. It felt good to bring out the skills I have used so heavily in the past six years of my professional life. Our admissions office is doing some data analysis so I’ve started the task of doing some data manipulation and data aggregation. It was a great time to take a look at open-source ETL tools.
All in all a good day.
Finding a Job … With Technology
I’ve always been a proponent of adage “work smarter, not harder”. But sometimes, those work smarter opportunities find their ways to me without even needing to try. Earlier this week, I happened to be spending a few minutes searching in advance for some internship opportunities overseas when I ran across a very pleasant surprise that has made my ability to network and find MBA internships that much easier.
A Google search had promptly redirected me to monster.com for job and internship listings for one of my favorite companies, Nintendo. To my surprise, I was unaware that if you have a LinkedIn account and the LinkedIn FireFox plugin, a great little sidebar pops up when you are viewing a job entry such as those on Monster.com. Check out the screen shot here:
This sidebar then tells you how many people in your LinkedIn network actually work for that company presently and are open for contacting. Dance monkey dance! Do the work for me. This will make one part of my job / internship search that much easier.
To get a LinkedIn account, simply visit http://www.linkedin.com – consider it “MySpace for people seeking professional networking”. To get the FireFox plugin for LinkedIn, visit that link and follow the instructions.
Foreign Direct Investment in アイスランド
Japanese FDI in Iceland? Someone please clue me in.
For a global economics class, my program requires me to research the economic state of a particular country. For this class, I had chosen Iceland since it presents such a unique macro and microeconomic picture. this research I ran across a great website maintained by the Invest in Iceland Agency outlining the particulars of FDI and how to invest in Iceland.
What surprised me however is the availability of a very colorful, very rich PDF in Japanese of investing in Iceland. There were no other languages available that I could see and Japan is truly nearly on the other side of the world from Iceland. I did some brief research and I could not find the connection for myself.
Strange…please help.
… And Then There Were Two
Actually, there have always been two. I’m talking about my program’s Japanese track candidates for this year. I was a bit surprised to learn that there were only two Japanese track students when I arrived on campus this July, but after getting to know Alex a little better and going through the Waseda application process together, I’ve come to like the close knit group we have with the Japanese track.
The remainder of the Japanese trackers (class of 2007) had returned in August. Last week was the first time we have actually caught up with them for an encounter more than just passing in the hallway or casually saying hello. Our advisor met us out for dinner at Inakaya where we had two large sushi boats of fish and plenty of beer.
Everyone in the track seems really friendly and have been willing to share their experiences an insight. As Alex and I return from Japan in the summer of 2008, I only hope that we can be as insightful and helpful as those who are helping us now. ã¿ãªã•ã‚“ã€ã‚ã‚ŠãŒã¨ã†ã”ã–ã„ã¾ã™ã€‚
Rock, Scissors, Paper – MBA Style
Today was the famed Section 1 vs. Section 2 showdown of the IMBA Rock Scissors Paper competition. The prize? To see which section would be able to choose their time slot for the joint Marketing / International Management session. Section 1 was victorious and chose to take Friday at 10:30am instead of 8:00am.
The competition was intense with two false starts. Brad pulled through as Section 1’s designated rock thrower and pulled a sweeping victory out from John. You can see the intensity in frame two. For all of the photos, click here.
Section 2 leadership states that their preferred choice was Friday at 8:00am anyway, so I support this wasn’t a zero-sum game afterall. Time to sleep in on Friday!
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(beer purchased for me by my friend Diana)
TRANSLATION: It’s been a while
Hello everybody. Its been a while since I have posted. It seems that this program has really been keeping everyone busy. It has taken me a while to get all caught up from my wonderfully relaxing time back home during Labor day. Since my last posting we have finished our Global Entrepreneurship class and have begun an International Management class.
This week’s highlights in brief:
- Our team took first place in our entrepreneurship class, which was surprising to me. I’m glad our team pulled together and was able to come up with the market research, business plan, presentation, and presentation speaking points – even after switching the idea midway though our alotted time of three weeks. I thought for sure that some of the other business ideas presented would have taken home the prize – everything from new market areas to bio-fuels and a mall-based recording studio to global immersion consultants and family therapy in foreign markets. Excellent job everyone.
- A friend of mine who I had met on a short trip to Texas stopped by for a few drinks. It is amazing to think that one can create such meaningful connections with people so far away and keep them intact. I had a great time hanging out a Speakeasy’s with Josh.
- Finished my Personal Leadership Development plan.
- Slept more than 8 hours in one night. ^_^
Now, the rest of this weekend is dedicated to figuring how the economy of Iceland. Enjoy yours!
Google / Apple
Just as I was about to settle in and focus on some reading tonight, two companies I have been following recently in the past few months pull an interesting move, coming together in such an odd way as Google CEO Eric Schmidt joins Apple’s board of directors. What lies in store for these two giants? I just hope they don’t start putting my audio apps to the web-desktop …. or should they?
Too much to think about now. For now, its stick to the goal of finishing Operations and Leadership reading before the holiday weekend!
Random Weekend Accomplishments
Reflecting on my weekend, I realized that my accomplishments were quite odd and unpaired. I’m all over the map. What do you think?
- Succeeded on losing and subsequently finding my credit card
- Assisted a Disney Imagineer with a live synthesizer setup
- Lost $20 in poker in less than an hour
- Paid the dentist
- Learned how to ask “How many degrees is it outside?” in Japanese
- Posted an online video tutorial about Logic Pro
- Talked to my girlfriend for more than a 1/2 hour in one clip
- Read 31 pages of macroeconomics, 40 pages of operations management, 20 pages of marketing
- Completed 3 homework assignments
- Got over a cold
- Finished redesigning an assessment process for my prior employer
Time to begin a new week. What’d y’all do this weekend?
An Online Education
A classmate of mine pointed out a great resource for MBA students. The Sloan School of Business at MIT has posted most of their classnotes for free online. It makes me wonder if it would be entirely possible to get an MBA-level education (without the degree of course) online. With such sites as Google Scholar, OSEF, and now this MIT site, one really could learn completely online.
I plan on using MIT’s site whenever I have some downtime to expand what I’ve learned so far within my program even futher, now to just work on that pesky lack of time aspect.