Stockholm

It's been a long term, full of excitement, stresses and we've still got weeks to go before we can truely relax for a bit. A group of us, about 17 in total, decided to take a trip to Sweden for the weekend before the real studying starts.


Stockholm is a beautiful city, full of interesting little lanes and buildings and at this time of year, snow. The weather was crisp, the food healthy and the break, exactly what we all needed.


Things worth mentioning (some of you will know what they mean):

• the Opera bar
• the hallway party
• the ugly children
• the chief drummer who slipped
• tornado steak
• the runaway
• and many more...

Good times.

Election Politics

The Background
The Said Business School Sports and Social Reps (of which I am one) was asked to provide two names of people to each give a short speach at our farewell dinner. We sent out an e-mail about a month ago calling for nominations, then a reminder one last week.

Needless to say, there were only 6 nominations so we put the names forward to the class and I offered to coordiante the voting.

The Crisis
Pandemonium ensued! Now everyone wants to have their say. Why weren't there any women on the list? Why no Asians? Why only North American males (with one exception)? Why not this person? or that one?

What we did
In light of the fact that we had not set a closing date for nominations, we decided to reopen the nominations for one day only. Today I recieved 16 additional nominations. We only need two people. A vote with 22 nominees is unweildy and inneffective. What should we do now?

The Commentary
We were looking at internal (office) politics in our Developing Effective Organisations class this week so it is ironic that this should happen now. People have use several strategies to get what they want...

• some tried to negotiate with me via e-mail
• others came and spoke with me
• others spoke with other Sports & Social reps
• or formed a coalition and approached us en masse

I've certainly learnt a lesson, especially since I am now lumbered with far more work than anticipated since I have to coordinate a revote. It's just reinforced that I made the correct decision to take the "Theory & Practice of Negotiations" course in Trinity.

PS. We ran an election using Ballot Bin, a free on-line election tool. It wasn't very obvious how to setup the election at first but the voting process was very simple and the results screen was very well presented.

The class was appeased, and everyone is happy with the results.

If I don't post for a few days

It's because my motherboard is fried.

Grr...

WingInIt in style

Last night was a star moment for my flatmate, Tim as they had the debut performance of the MBA band, WingInIt at Happy Hour at the business school.


This undercover reporter went out on the street to find out what the public thought of them:

"It was Tim-tastic" Dave Evans

“I was impressed with Tim’s range and stamina.” Joe Rice

"Rockin’ with Timmy “T. D.” Denison and gang was awesome" The McFaddens

Market Perceptions

Raymond Nasr, an Associate Fellow of the business school and an expert storyteller gave a fantastic masterclass at the business school this evening on market perceptions. Here's what he said...

First of all, market perception of your company is very real; there is a link between perceptions and profitability and it is very powerful, but super fragile.

The Perception Meter
Companies go through cycles with the press that can correspond with quadrants on a clock. These are:

• 12-3: top of the hill
• 3-6: perched for a fall
• 6-9: in the dumpster
• and 9-12: turnaround story

The key messages to take away here are that (1) the press forgets, a company can move through each of the quadrants and (2) it is important to know where you are and take steps to move to a better quadrant.

Perception and your Business Plan

• a great pitch begins with a great idea
• a pitch must have shape
• a pitch is designed to be heard, not read
• remember, this is business
• land the pitch exactly once

Rules for Radicals
Some hints and tips for budding entrepreneurs.

• great facts build great stories
• play for the varsity (be a sport)
• cultivate a network and be loyal to it

MBA word bingo

So, I got passed a note in Marketing class yesterday which simply had the words "balsamic vinegar" written on it. That was it, the challenge had been set, I was now playing MBA word bingo.

The rules are simple...

• you have to incorporate your word(s) into a comment in class
• the comment has to be in the context of the subject being discussed
• the lecturer mustn't catch on
• you get bonus points if you get the lecturer to repeat your word back to you

Brownie points go to Jon Aikman for getting his word, "pineapple" in there first and getting our lecturer, Doug Holt to say it back to him many times, and even to refer back to "pineapple" later on in the lecture.

of blogs

Just read a good article from the New York magazine called Blogs to Riches. It looks at the phenomenon of the A-list, B-list and C-list blogs and the difficulty of moving between them.

I reckon that this blog isn't even on the blogging scale as it's my hobby and a way of keeping my family, friends and friends/family of friends up to date with whats been going on while I'm here. But should I change that? Currently this blog (purposely) isn't accessible from Google or other search engines. In fact, the only reason you're reading this is because either I or someone in my class has passed the link on to you.

Do I want to open up my blog to the world? I've been looking at a Journey to my MBA page and one of the things that it does is to allow people who are thinking of doing an MBA to have an insight into what it realy is about. There are blogs from students at LBS, INSEAD but none from Saïd.

Hmmm...

PS. Ok, I've allowed one tiny link to this site from Dave's Journey to my MBA which is a site dedicated to giving some perspective/help on doing an MBA. We'll see how this works out.

On techie stuff

Nerd test
So a friend of mine goaded me to take this on-line nerd detector test, then got annoyed when I scored higher than him. Now it seems the test isn't a great indicator of nerd-ality, especially since I'm just a girl. Go figure. Men!

Ruby on the Rails
So, we're doing a project for our Technology and Innovation Strategy class on AJAX technology. Mike (right)has somehow managed to form a group consisting of four girls and him exploring a technology and trying to figure out its strategy for the future. The thing is, we're all ex-techies and we're all girls (except Mike). Just goes to show that gender isn't always an indicator of technical ability.

Our first step is to become aquainted with

• Ajax
• Ruby on Rails

It's pretty cool stuff, Mike built a simple database web application in 15 minutes right in front of me. Why am I only now just discovering this?

RSS Readers
Right now I'm usine Newsgator. I tried Google Reader but it was a little too clumsy for me, newsgator is just right.

LinkedIn
My complementary Personal Plus account on LinkedIn expires in 5 days time. I'm not quite sure what the inpact will be but as I can't remember asking for a Personal Plus account, then I can't be too disappointed in it's demise. LinkedIn is a great social networking tool though, highly recommend joining.

Google Talk
I am (yet) another convert to the growing empire that is Google and my latest drift away from M'soft is from MSN to Google Talk. I got tired of having to shut down MSN whenever Outlook started to run really really slowely. You'd think that two products by the same company would *both* work when loaded on to the same laptop. The advantage of Google talk is that it is very simple to use, doesn't take up much processor space and just works really, really well.

An architecture for the future
I would urge you to take an hour out of your life to listen to a great lecture by Paul Strassmann which outlines what he thinks will be the architecture for technologies in the future. His arguement is that Google is changing the playing field and paving the way to the network architectures of the future. Whatever your views, it's worth a listen.

What do I think?
The future is changing so rapidly that it's increasingly (sic) hard to keep up. Personally, my money is on the communities that we can form using the internet as the way forward. So far many have tried, but I have yet to discover one that is really easy for the regular Joe to participate in. We need a company that is to communities what blogging is to publishing. Easy, accessible, visual, obvious.

PS. It seems I'm not the only one to back communities, see Guy Kawasaki's blog post on The Art of Creating a Community

Venice Carnival

Crazy days

So I'm reading this article from the Winter copy of the MIT Sloan Management Review about Weird ideas that spark innovation*. This recommendation really caught my eye.

"Think of something ridiculous and plan to do it"

Oh the possibilities... here are some that I've thought up while I should be writing this assignment...

• stage a photograph
• index my shoe collection
• enter the MBAT
• visit the other place
• take myself seriously
• stop procrastinating

* as you do when you're at business school

Rant about Dell

Grr...

Last Sunday morning when I woke up and switched on my laptop to check my mail, I was puzzled that I could only see the screen of my laptop very dimly. After having some coffee, I became convinced that it wasn't my eyes, but something was very definately wrong with my screen.

I call Dell and discover that they only operate 8 to 8, Mon to Sat. Fair enough. I call again on Monday morning and here is a running commentary of the progress.

/begin rant

Customer service rep	Date/Time	What happened
N/A	All day 5-Feb	Checked the DELL website and followed all their self-diagnosing advice. There is definitely a technical problem with my screen.
Didn’t get name	11:30/6-Feb	Rep answered the phone and told me that all the technicians are busy.So he took my name and number and promised to call me back.
Chris	14:30/ 6-Feb	Spoke with a technician who agreed that the screen needed to be repaired.Told me that he would schedule an engineer to come the next day between 9am and 5pm.
Engineer	09:00/7-Feb	Engineer called and said that he would be along between 14:30 and 15:30.Fine.
Rhoda	17:37/ 7-Feb	Engineer didn’t turn up. Called Dell to find out what happened. Rhoda promises to escalate and get back to me.
Suresh	08:52/ 8-Feb	Rhoda doesn’t call. I speak with Suresh who promises to escalate the issue and get back to me.
Carol	10:30/ 8-Feb	No word from Suresh. I ask Carol for to speak with a supervisor so that I can raise a formal complaint. Supervisor is busy. Carol tells me that the engineer is scheduled to come today and that she will follow up and call me within an hour.
Engineer	10:31/ 8-Feb	Engineer company calls me while I’m on the phone with Carol and leaves a message saying they will be by before 13:00 today. Great.
Carol	11:50/ 8-Feb	Carol keeps her word and calls me back. I tell her that engineer will come by at 13:00.
Arsan	12:11/ 8-Feb	Engineer company calls to say that the engineer will now be along between 14:30 and 15:30 (again). Not so happy.
Carol	13:30/ 8-Feb	Carol calls me to ensure that things are going well. I tell her that engineer is now coming later.Promises to call back later.

It's now 15:16 and the engineer still hasn't turned up. If he's not here by 15:30 then I think I shall take this complaints as far as it will go. I'll let you know the outcome.

/end rant

Another note
I found out on Monday that I have passed all my exams from Michaelmas. Thank God.

PS. The engineer finally turned up at 17:30 and fixed my computer in less than 1/2 hour. I still think that I will complain formally to Dell, if only to see what happens.

Oxford Business Alumni dinner

There was an Oxford Business Alumni dinner last night at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London. It was so nice to be back in the Big Smoke, even though it was for one night only. I think I must have a love-hate relationship with London, when I'm away I'm happy and when I go I realise how much I've missed it.

What an interesting night though. It's the world where social networking and membership to certain clubs is of paramount importance. What I'm beginning to realise is that there are now opportunities out there made available through social networking that are mine to make if I choose to do so. I was standing in one of the (very grand) reception halls at the club last night with Serge and he looked around, nodded, smiled and said,

"We are now a part of this, we belong here."

I shall have to think about what I think of these things. But in one sense, it doesn't matter what I think. Serge is right. We are a part of this now, and we were from the minute we decided to accept the offer of a place at Oxford.

A word or two on the speaker. Mary Jo Jacobi is one of those incredible women who has had an incredibly varied career. She currently serves on the board of a number of organisations including Shell and previously worked for Lehman Brothers and HSBC in senior positions. She was also a spokesperson for two Republican US presidents (not current).

Last night, she had seven things that she wanted to say to us.
1) Luck counts, but you make your own luck
2) You can recover from financial disasters
3) It's not what you have done, its how you value (repackage) it for your next employers
4) Mentors matter - Be careful who you know
5) Sometimes to move ahead it is necessary to take a side step
6) Consider public service
7) Give something back

I did like this quote:

"If you can't be a good example, be a good warning"

Six degrees of Vaniah

How many people do you know? Ever stopped to think about it? Is your circle of friends a group of 5 or 50? Then add in your family and work colleagues, what does that come up to?

We've had a very interesting lecture today in Technology and Innovation Strategy. The lecture was on social and business networks and how we create and use them in our everyday and business life, often without even thinking about it. Some people, like Lois Weisberg (do read the article, it's very good) seem to know everybody and others, like the man in the Simon and Garfunkel song, don't seem to know anyone at all.

Companies like LinkedIn have tried (and succeeded) in making money from moving the act of tracking our social networks online and people even blog about it, see Guy Kawasaki's recent blog post.

So even though I've never met either of them, I wonder if I am somehow connected to either Guy Kawasaki or Lois Weisberg? And by how many degrees...?

Should I stay or should I go?

After spending nearly 8 years in the UK, I have been thinking alot recently about where in the world I'd like to spend the next 8 years of my life. There is nothing wrong with the UK, I've had some very good times here, the job opportunities are good, I'm familiar with the country and culture and they have Jaffa Cakes. All good things. But is it's time up? Am I ready to move on and explore some other part of the globe?

Tonight I went to listen to Anastasia Tonello of Laura Devine speak on UK/US immigration options for Oxford students. She was a very good presenter and although most of the talk was on how to get into the UK, I did get a chance to speak with her afterwards about the possibility of getting into the US.

Basically, it's very hard to get a Work Permit for the US. Really hard. I haven't decided yet if that information has made me want to work there more or not. My best chance appears to be to recieve a job offer from a firm and have them apply for an H1B visa for me.

So, a poll. Should I stay or should I go?

Answers in the comment field please.