Category: MBA

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Program Blogs

Updated: January 13th, 2007

While going through my list of links tonight, I realized we have quite a group of writers within the program that muse on various topics such as hiking, stressing out, and kyūdō. A quick list of those folks with blogs that currently attend this program appears below.

  • Scott – Portuguese Track Class of 2008
  • Anand – Spanish Track Class of 2008
  • David – Global Tracel Class of 2008
  • Alex – Japanese Track Class of 2009
  • Adrian – Chinese Track Class of 2009 (photos)
  • Nanda – French Track Class of 2008
  • Senate Street – Samantha, Kavita, Angus, Dan, Tonisha and Alex
  • Kate – Spanish Track Class of 2008
  • Sara – French Track Class of 2008
  • Josh and Kristen – Frenck Track Class of 2008
  • Tara – Spanish Track Class of 2008
  • Christopher – Japanese Track Class of 2008

If you know of others, please write them below and I’ll add them.

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Nintendo’s Really Cookin’

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Besides having a really great quarter, Ninendo is cooking, quite literally, with voice activation! One of the reasons why I have entered business school is to explore working in marketing in an industry that will make me crave going to work every day. Certainly, having been produced in the late 70s and the majority of my adolescence ocurring during the hey day of Nintendo in America, I’m very interested in this industry.

I have to admire the way that Nintendo has been able to break through the age barriers in the video game market and really bring the experience to many more people. If the success with the versatility of the DS is any indicator, Nintendo’s Wii console should push those ideals even further. Just take a look at the age groups of the people in the header of the Nintendo’s Wii product page.

Either way, I’ll be there to take it all in. And with that, I’m hungry! おなかがすいたよ！

Update: 2006-07-28 BusinessWeek article

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The Importance of Language

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It doesn’t always have to be so serious….

Today, in our global strategic management class, our instructor lightened the mood in an otherwise very intense and thoughtful class regarding strategic management and strategy development for multi-national corporations in a global environment. To ensure that we did not lose sight of one of the primary reasons most of us are in this program, the video above was shown.

Funny, but also very important in the realization that cross-cultural communication is so very important and without it, we may lose some very valuable insight. Enjoy!

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Drinking from the Fire Hose

Information, information, information, and yet more information.

Being in business school is being in a wash of information. Processing and reading this information is somewhat like being a contestant on Stanley Spadowski’s variety show on UHF. Case readings, regular readings, book readings … where does one find that time for the ever important personal readings or research needed to develop our specific interests and business knowledge?

What follows are a few tips that I’ve used over the past two years that have really helped manage the way I process news and information, and presently keeps me from being overwhelmed by the torrents of water directed at my head.

Continue reading “Drinking from the Fire Hose”

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2 days, 7 languages, 41 countries

Its Friday morning, and while I sit here catching up on the latest in enterprise architecture methodologies while waiting for deliveries, I wanted to reflect for a moment on my first two days at business school.

The sheer diversity, both in heritage, ethnicity, and experience is staggering. A Japanese track classmate has already lived in Japan for three years as part of the JET program. One student has traveled to over 41 countries and the closest runner-up, 40. There is a Belgian gentleman in our cohort that has learned 7 languages, while yet another has spent a year and a half teaching english in South America. Still many more come from such diverse backgrounds as Peace Corps volunteers looking to excel in micro-finance and, presumably, take those still back to such countries for good use. Another, a Blackhawk pilot, putting his focus on the middle east.

Most MBA programs may give you a global curriculum geared to bringing you up to speed on varying accounting methods or global dynamics and responsibility, and this program has all of that. But I have yet to see any other MBA program with the type of diversity in the student body that I can see here …and that is what I am truly excited about.

So as I lay flat on my back in the pool unwinding from my first day of orientation and career management planning (yes, we start this before we even begin classes), the majority language being spoken in this aquatic environment was not English, but German. I was the American/English minority, here in South Carolina.