Digging the Digital Archives

Have you ever seen past photos of yourself and you went "What the heck was I thinking/wearing/doing?" Well, it happened to me a while ago when I was reviewing the archives of my other blog.

Almost two years ago (January 2007), I was interviewed in a radio progam called Executive Musings where I was invited to talk about internet and politics, or virtual politics (of all the topics!). After listening to myself for the first 10 minutes, I was practically cringing. I was obviously getting a bad case of the nerves at the beginning, where I was stuttering and making unnecessary pauses. Argh! But after a few more minutes, I listened to myself and I felt I made more sense-- maybe I got more comfortable and the radio program went on (plus the 80's classic "Together in Electric Dreams" by Phil Oakley was played, who would't feel more loose after that?)

In retrospect, I thought I turned out to be prophetic. In the show, I talked about how blogs and Web 2.0 would be the way candidates would be campaigning and winning elections. Earlier this month, Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential race and he used a lot of Web 2.0 stuff-- Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, Twitter.

If you want to hear that episode of Executive Musings where I was the guest, go to its episode archive, then look for the streaming episode dated "1.21.2007" entitled "Virtual Politics."

Update on AIM's Move

Now that my MRR defense presentations are over , I can focus on other things like... reading the news!

Last month I posted about the Asian Institute of Management's plan of moving to a new campus. I read in the Inquirer that AIM President Francis G. Estrada had sent a letter to the Inquirer to correct some of the errors on the letter to the AIM alumni. President Estrada said to the Inquirer, "I wish to inform you that, regrettably, the ‘letter to the alumni’ contained a few errors."

An excerpt of the article:

He (Estrada) then explained that the AIM campus on Paseo de Roxas in the Makati business district was not valued at P3 billion and that Ayala did not offer AIM P3 billion for the campus. He also said that putting up a campus on Malugay Street in Makati City (the former Zuellig property) was no longer an option for AIM.

It seems that the Zuellig move had been shot down by the AIM Board of Trustees... one can only speculate that AIM's next home may be outside of Metro Manila.

Reaching The Finish Line

If the MBA program at the Asian Institute of Management was a grueling marathon (sometimes I think it really is), I have reached the finish line.

Roughly five hours ago, I finished my second MRR defense presentation for my case about blog marketing at SM Hypermarket. My panel composed of Prof. Ricky Lim and Prof. Jun Borromeo didn't give me much of a hard time because of the experimental nature of my case. On the suggestion of Prof. Borromeo, my case actually ended up as a case about blogging written as a blog, written by a blogger. Sounds confusing? Yeah, at some point at I got confused myself. But I thankfully I was to pull it off.

I learned my lesson from my first defense presentation yesterday. Instead of stressing so much on the presentation itself, I just made sure my case was functional (since it's essentially a web application) and just came up with a basic presentation. I got more sleep and ultimately felt better during the presentation. So that's a tip: get enough rest a day before the MRR defense.

Now that all my academic-related activities in school are done, what's next? I'll just finish the minor revisions and teaching notes for my cases, but essentially, I'm already at the so-called "victory lap" of my stay in the MBA program. I hope the next two weeks will be that short distance to the winner's stage after crossing the finish line-- with the confetti, cheering crowds and all. :)

Getting Defensive

My first MRR defense presentation just finished a couple of hours ago and I'm still in a doozy. I was awake until dawn to make sure my quantitative analyses (QA) were OK. I only got a couple hours of sleep and I drove all the way to the Asian Institute of Management through rush hour traffic and managed to be at the GSB conference room with a few minutes to spare.

The thing with the MRR defense is that it will never be perfect. I had the mistake of thinking I could finish the defense in a razor sharp, clean cut fashion. I was tweaking my presentation up to the last minute before I started. I've never been obsessive about perfecting school stuff, but hey, this is the MRR we're talking about-- the final piece to my MBA puzzle... the big boss at the end of the video game. :P

BTW, my MRR is not the usual strategy paper or feasibility studies most AIM grads accomplish. I did a case series on internet marketing and blogging, with three cases. It was fun doing research about internet marketing and blogging and I learned a lot of interesting stuff (e.g. the Philippines is #2 most active blogging country in the world). I was worried I'd get too technical and jargon-y on the case, but I think I was able to put things in a level it can be appreciated by a bigger set of people.

My first case is about AIM and web analytics. Sounds geeky and not too "b-school", but thanks to my advisers for this case, Prof. Ricky Lim & Prof. Titos Ortigas (I chose them because I think they are the two most technically savviest faculty),  they were able to suggest some changes to make it more appealing to the business school crowd.

My defense was short by our class standards (an hour and a half), and it wasn't as grueling as I thought would be. No slogging and nitpicking, but good feedback to improve the case. I did commit one booboo-- the QA that I spent the night on turned out to be the thing that my advisers disliked the most. Why? Because I got it wrong. Ugh!

All in all, my first MRR defense went pretty well and I feel confident with what I'll do tomorrow for my defense for my two other cases. Wish me luck! :)

It's a Date!

Well, more like a couple of dates.

This is written prominently in my schedule: November 27 & 28, 2008. 10am, GSB Conference Room, Asian Institute of Management.

The reason why those two dates are very important? They are my MRR defense dates. I'm having two defense dates because I have two sets of advisers for the cases I've written.

After stressing about whether or not I'll make the December 5 deadline for the MRR because of conflicts in my advisers' schedules, I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when I learned I got a defense date from my advisers' secretaries. (Never mind of the date was much earlier than expected).

My calendar has been marked, and preparations for the defense are well under way. I hope things go well.

The Last Day of Classes

November 20, 2008 will go down in history as the last day of classes for the Asian Institute of Management's first 16-month Master in Business Administration class. We are now officially done with the cases, CP, WAC's, presentations and projects.

One year, five months and fourteen days after the day I took the very first case assigned to us (the already classic "Impasse in Pandacan"), I had my last classes for the electives Brand Equity Management (BEM) and Entrepreneurial Finance (EF), ironically with no cases.

In BEM, we had a double session wherein each of the groups in the class presented their "brand diagnosis" of various brands in different product segments. Our group chose to do Banco De Oro, one of the "Big Three" in the Philippine banking industry (with Metrobank and the Bank of the Philippine Islands being the other two).

Our presentation was very much like the major presentation we had for Marketing Management (MM) under the same professor for BEM, Prof. Joe Miranda. The main difference was that the presentation was more focused on the brand component of the product/service, and we were to provide our analysis and recommendations for that brand. I recommended BDO to go into the gift certificate market. (If you want to know why, comment on this blog post. If the comments reach 10, then I'll post my reasons.)

For EF, We had a lecture, but it wasn't a lecture of the normal sort. We did not focus solely on specific topic in finance, it was an integration lecture about professionalism in any enterprise (corporate or entrepreneurial), stewardship and leadership. Prof. Richard Cruz shared a lot of insights about what to do and what mindset to have now that we are about step out of school and go back into the real world. As if going into full circle, we finished the term in the SGV case room, the very first room we got to love (or hate) because of the Pre-MBA program.

Some of us are already finished with our respective MRR's and are set to go back home in the next week. A lot more of us will be finished with our MRR defenses in the coming days and, hopefully, we will be marching to the tune of graduation hymns this December.

Conflicting Schedules

While I've been utterly busy with my MRR lately, I realized a few days ago that finishing the MRR is not the final step to graduating with my MBA degree from the Asian Institute of Management and I may not be able to do that final step in time. That final step is the MRR defense.

I was coordinating with my MRR advisers late last week and I discovered that my advisers do not have common time together until December 7. The deadline for the MRR defenses? December 5. Ugh*! (For the MRR, MBA students are required to have two mentors and they have to be together when you defend your thesis.)

The secretaries are trying to arrange a schedule with an earlier date where one of my mentors will be attending my defense via a teleconference. I'm not sure if this ever was done before, but the prospects of not marching during the graduation rites is already adding a great deal of stress from the accomplishing the MRR.

I talked to Prof. Larry Tan in the morning to share my plight about the scheduling conflicts and he said that a lot of MBA students in the past faced similar hurdles. He said the only solution for that is to finish the MRR earlier. Ugh!

--

Good news! The deadline for the Brat Pack promo has been moved to tomorrow. :)

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We had our last sessions for Understanding Consumer Behavior (UCB) and Business Intelligence (BI) earlier. It was an understated conclusion for two of my electives under Prof. Roger Chua, but a nice wrap-up nonetheless. My remaining subjects this term: Brand Equity Management (BEM) and Entrepreneurial Finance (EF). Both of them finish this Thursday.


*Ugh! = the sound of a punch in the gut.

The Last Week of Classes

This is Week 10 of the fourth and final term of the first 16-month MBA class of the Asian Institute of Management. Man, time really flies.

Today, I only had two classes of Brand Equity & Management under Prof. Joe Miranda where we closed the subject out with a couple of integrative branding cases about Swatch and New York City (Prof. Miranda was hoping for a nice song rendition of "New York, New York" from the presenters, but no dice).

I remember our first week when I really got frustrated with the amount of BS coming from the class during discussions. But now, people hardly speak up with the same zest and gumption because of the MRR and practically the lack of incentive of getting good CP (by this time, people's reputations have been cemented, there's really no point in impressing people these days). Quite a contrast from our first week.

I'm not sure how this week will wind down, but I do know I'll be neck-deep in my MRR and will be very busy. Not quite the "walk in the park" to the finish line, but I guess the busy life hardly stops in AIM.

Honor Roll

After the grades release yesterday, the Dean's List is now out. :) I did a post on the first Commendation List last April and I wasn't able to follow it up. Now, it's time for major recognition.

Our Dean's List represents the gold standard for academic performance for the MBA 2008 (Decemer) class of the Asian Institute of Management. It's my honor to present my classmates and friends in the honor roll (all lists are presented in alphabetical order):

Commendation List for Quantitative Subjects (First and Second Terms):

• Ena Liza Ang
  
• Nitin Bhagnari
  
• Reetesh Bhargava
  
• Pankaj Dhawan
  
• Weindell Lim
  
• Russ Lo
  
• Anthony Ng
  
• Kumar Aditya Ray
  
• Sandeep Sharma
  
• Vijay Suryanarayanan
  
• Serafin Tongco II
  
• Amit Kumar Vijay

Commendation List for Qualitative Subjects (First and Second Terms):

• Ena Liza Ang
• Rosie Avila
• Kanishka Bhargava
• Mark Daniel Chan
• Ganajaran Govindajaran
• Ma. Katrina Francesca Herrera
• Shonal Gadia
• Madhusudan Ponnuveetil
• Shweta Srivastava
• Serafin Tongco II

Dean's List for First and Second Terms:

• Ena Liza Ang
• Rosie Avila
• Kanishka Bhargava
• Mark Daniel Chan
• Pankaj Dhawan
• Ganajaran Govindajaran
• Madhusudan Ponnuveetil
  
• Sandeep Sharma
• Liberto Siahaan
• Serafin Tongco II

Dean's List for Third Term:

• Faye Christine Abis
• Ena Liza Ang
• Mark Daniel Chan
  
• Ma. Katrina Francesca Herrera
  
• Justin Robert Ladaban
• Vishwas Muthyala
• Mary Anne Perez
• Madhusudan Ponnuveetil
  
• Serafin Tongco II
  
• Jennifer Valenzuela
• Michelle Yap

Congratulations! :D

The Third Term Grades are In!

I just got my grades for the third term in the MBA program. To give everyone some perspective, the third term is first of two terms where we get to choose elective subjects and here are the subjects that I took:

• New Product and Service Development (NPSD) - Prof. Jay Bernardo
  
• Creative Marketing and Selling (CMS) - Prof. Joe Faustino
  
• Customer Experience Management (CEM) - Prof. Tommy Lopez
  
• Marketing and Finance Creating Synergy (MFCS) - Prof. Richard Cruz
  
• Self-Mastery, Arts and Spirituality (SMARTS) - Prof. Cecilia Manikan
  

Also, the Action Consultancy is considered to be part of the third term.

I'm pleased that I received a higher GPA for the third term in comparison to the grades I got in the core subjects that we took in the first eight months of the program. If my first half grades were peppered with mediocrity on paper, my grades report for the third term is stellar in comparison. From a metric I devised based on the grading system for the MBA program at the Asian Institute of Management, my grades improved by 20% and two full grade levels higher.

I can think of three possible reasons why my grades got better: 

1. I was able to select subjects that I like. Those subjects fit my strengths and interests, like marketing and product development. I avoided finance like the plague. :P
   
2. The electives seemed "easier" because I obviously learned from the core subjects we took the in the first half.
3. The professors are a little more generous in giving grades in the elective courses. ;)
   

But as far as my actual performance is concerned, I'm still not sure if my increase in grades means I fared much better compared to the previous terms, or what specific areas I improved in. Based on my investigation, everyone in the class got higher marks and so I'm thinking the collective average grade also increased. 

Now my thoughts are that my grades are a bit "inflated" because everyone's grades also got better. I still believe that direct feedback from the professors regarding your performance in class is a better reflection of how you fared.

A Dirty Little Secret

These days in our classes, more and more people are bringing their laptops to class. But people are not taking not taking notes, browsing the internet for references nor instant messaging. No they are not.

People are actually doing their MRR while in class!

A good number of people are trying to make time for their final requirements as we are heading our final week of classes.

I'm now wondering how the previous batches of MBA's at the Asian Institute of Management were able to pull their MRR's off?

--

I also just realized that in the future, people who will visit this blog will be wondering what the heck an MRR is. Starting with the cohort after us, the choice is now taking an internship (Action Consultancy or AC) or doing the MRR. If asked to choose between the two, I would choose the AC any time of day.

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I did some research for the AIM Ghost Story I posted a couple of weeks back and so far, no one has been able to verify the truth of the story. I asked people who have been here for 12-15 years and none of them can recall if such an event happened.

As of now, the ghost story is still filed under the "urban legend" folder as this story might have happened way, way before the people I asked were here. This kinda makes sense because the school is 40 years old.

MRR Mode

Yep, I'm now in panic mode as the MRR deadline is fast approaching. I've had a lot of progress in my MRR, but I still have to finish and defend it. To date, there are around 25 people in our MBA class have finished their respective reports and have defended it (some people still had to revise their papers). But they are virtually waiting for their diplomas this December.

Speaking of MRR defenses, last night one group were grilled for more than eight, yes eight, hours to defend their thesis. (Well, any defense with Prof. Richard Cruz and Prof. Titos Ortigas in the panel will be at least four hours.) I believe that group set the new record.

As for me, I'll be spending the next couple of weeks being an MRR hermit. This may mean blogging may be slower than usual. :)

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As for the people who are already finished, most of them are taking their time to enjoy their last weeks at the Asian Institute of Management. One of my classmates, Nikhil Bansal, was able to make a nice slideshow about his travels in his free time:

Crunch Time

It's that time of the year for MBA seniors at the Asian Institute of Management: hot coffee is your drink of choice, you wear your jacket or sweater for the chilly air in the library, and the atmosphere of busyness.

It sounds like Christmas, but it's really the MRR season coming to its peak.

Everyone in our class seems to be in any of these scenarios: There are folks who are finished with their defense (good for you!), there are those who are almost finished and there are just some who are back from scratch after a massive revision order from their advisers (oh the agony!). We may all be in different situations right now, but we all want to be marching to the stage and getting our MBA diplomas when graduation day comes.

So, this is really no time to be lackadaisical, unless you want to have an unwanted extended stay in school. That's why I've been spending a lot of time on my MRR as of late.

One final thought: I've been avoiding to log in to Yahoo Messenger because one of my classmates who is my contact list, Liberto Siahaan from Indonesia, has a countdown of the MRR deadline as his status message. As if I needed the extra pressure. :P

Prof. Ricky Lim's Interview at Pagalguy.com

Prof. Ricky Lim , Associate Dean of AIM's W. SyCip Graduate School of Business, recently had an interview published at Pagalguy.com. The website is known as a great resource for MBA studies all over the world for a lot of Indian prospective students.

Here's an excerpt of the interview:

Pagalguy: The Asian Institute of Management website claims the MBA program to be 'participative' and conforming to Henry Mintzberg's beliefs on MBA programs. Please give 3 examples that illustrate this, contrasting them against how those 3 situations would be handled in a regular MBA program in other b-schools.

RAL: In the MM and MBA we make students do a “walkabout.” This is based on the Australian aborigine custom of sending young men into the bush, to fend for themselves. In the AIM version we send students out on a mission of self-discovery. They stay away for a few weeks on projects of their choice—the professor should not interfere in this choice, nor are there pushed to do a corporate internship . Instead we ask students do something risky, very challenging, something they have not done before. The experience must be transformational. Students can build a well for a poor Filipino village, or start a reading library for a local community; one student decided to take dancing lessons, not having the experience in his entire life: he became quite a competent tango dancer! The lessons learned are not at all textbook, but in Mintzbergian fashion, the student learns from visceral experience, which makes learning sticky and permanent.

Mintzberg also wrote about how managers spend time kibitzing, walking around, communicating, and not necessarily thinking and planning. This is the way we learn, the way we make sense of the world. That describes the day of an AIM student: a continuous building and creative destroying learning cycle of evening discussion with can groups, the “learning” team of buddies that catch each other; the next day’s round of cases, typically 3 per day, 1.5 hour sessions of intense communicating, exchanging. There could be field work, group presentations, mock board room scenes, role plays, improvisational exercises.

Mintzberg believed that a true MBA student was international. Compared to our Asian competitors, we are probably more heterogeneous in class composition. AIM has active bilateral exchange programs with about 35 schools each year, in the US, Europe, and Asia. Our students get a chance to see other cultures for one semester, and AIM students in Manila interact with non-Asians as well: this semester 35 students, about 1/3 AIM’s total student body, came from Europe, South America, and Asia to enroll at AIM.

The full interview transcript can be accessed at the Pagalguy site .