AU was a blast and a whirlwind 2 days. Skipping class to go was dicey since I have a round of midterms starting Friday. But, it was really great seeing everybody that I had not seen in a year. The Revit classes were packed this year, even the API class with about 300 people. Some of the old-timers crammed into a picture booth late one night. The identities of those involved are revealed on the Revit forums at AUGI.com. Ahhh - good times.
Tonight I fly to Orlando to spend a day at Autodesk University. I was originally scheduled to speak, but was replaced when I left Autodesk. Given the amount of BU work, it was a blesing in disguise.
Although I’ve kept in touch with folks in Waltham, I haven’t seen or talked to many in the Revit community since July. I’m looking forward to running into a lot of old Reviteers.
Today we turned in our papers and watched the winner’s presentations on the simulation. It was a great learning experience. How to apply the 4 Ps of marketing and see whether you ‘get it.’ We got most of it, but COMPLETELY screwed up promotion. Why raise your ad budget at all over 10 years? It’s a waste of money, right? WRONG!
The BU GSMs ‘Night Above Town’ held on the top floor of the State Street bank building was a blast! We all danced and everybody was dressed to kill!
Here’s a shot of Susan and me with our friends Chris and Jee. Chris is a Boston native and has been my ‘partner in crime’ as of late. He’s one of the people on my team for group MBA projects.
So B-school is still fun, but BUSY. The difference between this and working is that at work I didn’t have a deliverable EVERY DAY of the week. In fact, I had a class this week that had 3 deliverables all in one class. So the pace is pretty frantic.
I’m starting to learn some stuff that would have been very useful to me the last few years. At work, I always wondered how anybody could confidently make use of ’squishy’ survey data. I’m now understanding that you can seperate out confounding factors using statistics. I learned stat many years ago, but in the context of engineering, not business. Application makes all the difference in the world.
The other interesting insight is that I’m starting to understand the mindset of a marketer. I’ve done the tasks and the math before, but working through the reasoning of cases with a master like Menezes is a real eye-opener. It really allows you to understand how to structure a compelling argument for moving a business/product in a given direction.
I can confidently say that an MBA is going to be a huge asset - I should have done it years ago.
In the middle of last week, I got a callback for a Product Management position at Google, so I have another phone interview on Friday. They basically ask you questions about products and design, leading to a question about how to improve a Google product. This seems like an interesting way to get feedback as long as it makes it into the official loop.
Anyway, since I had the opportunity, I went right after the core product and told the interviewer how I thought they could improve AdWords. Maybe next interview I can focus on Adsense. It’s a pet peeve…
Why? Well, for one thing, Adsense is COMPLETELY insecure. Since the publisher codes are available within the source of the page, anybody with a site extractor that supports PHP can fake being you and get ALL your sites banned in one go. Actually it’s easier - if someone wants to get you banned, all they have to do is join a free surfing site and put your URL in the rotation. You will then get invalid clicks and VIOLA, all your sites will be banned by Adsense. As a bonus, you will have no recourse with Google.
There are discussion and articles on various forums about this and it is some of Google’s dirt they try and keep under the rug. There is an easy way to fix this and I’m surprised they haven’t done it yet…method to be revealed in an another interview someday 
For instance, this site is EXACTLY the type of site Google wants in it’s publisher network. Yet, somehow everytime I submit, they come up with some vague reason to say it’s not what they’re looking for. It indicates their system is broken. I think they know that. Or maybe it’s because I’m starting to bash AdSense. I think I’ll submit MusingMill again today. Let’s see what happens. (revised - 10/17) Yes, Google turned this site down again. Hmmmm.
Here’s what we did in class at BU this week;
Marketing 723 - Targeting and positioning. Techsonic case analysis, VW New Beetle case analysis.
Statistics 716 - More on normal distributions. Time series data analysis. Simpson Pharma case.
Accounting 710 - More key ratios, inventory accounting, FIFO and LIFO effects on reporting.
Finance 723 - More NPV calculations, calculating annuities, evaluating long-term cash flows.
Org Behavior 713 - Organizational change. Telemachus case roleplay.
Presentation Skills 700 - Message structure, strategies for openings.
OK - so now I’m limping around with a torn hamstring. But we won the game 25-13. The exciting game write-up using this link.
Last week was definitely more in-the-groove. I’ve gotten the drive time down to 30 minutes each way. That helps. We’re in a rhythm with the MBA-family balance. The kids have gotten used to it. I see them in the mornings, a couple nights for dinner and then weekends.
I’ve been enjoying the hard skills classes more. They are filling in gaps in my accounting, finance and marketing knowlege areas that I was uncomfortable with. These professors are top notch. The softer Org Behavior stuff is leaving me flat. In truth, the Autodesk Leadership Program (ALP) is much better, meaning more effective.
I’m going to bring this up with the faculty and see if OB can be improved for future classes. The second year students made big improvements for us, and it shows. Each class needs to improve the BU experience IMHO.
Here’s what we did in class at BU this week;
Marketing 723 - Sealed Air Corp case analysis; segmentation, competition. Intuit analysis
Statistics 716 - Measures of variation and the normal distribution
Accounting 710 - Ananlysis of key ratios, ROA and ROE; Midterm exam
Finance 723 - NPV calculations and compounding
Org Behavior 713 - Carter Racing Excercise; Hidden traps in decision making
Presentation Skills 700 - Audience Analysis and message structure
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