March 5th, 2012 by Stephen Huie under Consulting, Reflections, Strategy, Triple Pundit. No Comments.
Congratulations to my teammates representing the Smith School! Pictured (left to right): Amos Cruz, Pradeep Suthram, Nick Donlan, Stephen Huie.
I’m proud to say that my Smith teammates and I came in 2nd place in the Education Track of the 2012 Hult Global Case Challenge!
The 2012 Hult Challenge
I spent last weekend in Boston, MA with over 400 MBAs and Masters in Public Policy students who were competing in the Boston regional round of the Hult Global Case Challenge. This year, there were three competition tracks: Education; Energy; and Housing, each of which highlighted a particular non-profit in each field. Over 4,000 teams worldwide applied to participate in the competition and the selected 200 teams were distributed to competitions on the same day at Hult’s campuses in Boston, Dubai, London, San Francisco, and Shanghai. The winning teams of the regional rounds will go to New York City in April to meet U.S. President Bill Clinton and present in their solutions.
One Laptop Per Child
Amos Cruz, Nicholas Donlan, Pradeep Suthram, and I spent the past two months preparing for our case, which focused on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. OLPC distributes its XO laptops worldwide to provide creative learning tools and connectivity to the world’s poorest children. OLPC is looking for innovative ways to improve its strategy as the growth of netbooks and introduction of similar education products by firms like Intel have given OLPC a lot more competition.
Our team’s solution was to develop OLPC’s ability to implement its laptop deployments by developing a consulting and capacity building/training arm we called OLPCi – “i” for implementation. This would reduce the risk of poor execution and create an ecosystem for the evolution of OLPC’s open source Sugar platform and more consistent feedback channels, training and content, development for teachers and communities. We developed a rollout plan focused in Latin America, where OLPC has had its two largest deployments that gradually phases into countries with more resources and infrastructure. The goal of the phased rollout is to allow OLPCi to develop its organizational capital over time so that it can develop the skills required to be successful in deploying XO laptops effectively to the poorest communities.
Good Times…Thankfully It Won’t Be the Last
We heard some really interesting ideas from other MBA teams, including those from the Energy and Housing tracks who developed recommendations for SolarAid and Habitat for Humanity, respectively. This was a great time to network with like-minded MBAs who are interested in social change and I even made a couple of contacts for my technology commercialization project. I also got to hang out again with MBAs from other schools who I had met at previous competitions – here’s my shout out to the students of the Jesse H. Jones School of Rice University!
I’ve participated in six case competitions and this one is probably my last one. It was a great team – I didn’t want to do it at first, but when I saw the team that Amos was bringing together, I knew I had to say yes. Amos was an educator and IT systems implementer while in the Peace Corps; Pradeep is a creative entrepreneur, budding VC, and systems influence guru; and Nick had deep experience in sales and finance. I brought experience in education, community organizing, and marketing. Together, we questioned assumptions, developed frameworks for analyzing the situation, and came up with some concrete solutions and a rollout plan you could begin next Monday.
I realized during the final four hours of preparation before our presentation, that I will miss the adrenaline and excitement of preparing for these competitions. I also realized that two years ago, before beginning my Smith MBA, I would not have been able to accomplish what we did as well as I can now- structure an approach of inquiry; quickly identify and assign critical tasks; brainstorm business model design; and articulate a concrete solution for change.
Yet, these MBA skills will go with me wherever I go, as will what I have learned from all of the people I have met and worked with over the past two years.
February 27th, 2012 by Stephen Huie under Leadership and Managing Human Capital, Professional Development. 1 Comment.
The Value Proposition is ecstatic to have Julie Mullins, MBA ’12 guest blogging this week about a professional development event featuring one the Smith School’s most accomplished alumni, Lisa Anders, MBA ’95:
Lisa Anders, MBA '95, has over 18 years of construction managment experience for public and private clients.
It’s no secret that women have a history of being minorities in leading business roles. According to Catalyst, women in the US collect nearly 60% of the four-year degrees, but hold around 14% of senior executive positions at Fortune 500 companies. However, on Friday February 10, the Women Leading Women event was held at Smith to celebrate just the opposite.
With energetic and confident words from the evening’s moderator, Dr. Joyce Russell, to the encouraging life stories of Lisa Anders (Smith MBA ’95), the evening had an undeniably positive vibe. As women flooded Frank Auditorium from all over Maryland, DC, and Virginia, whatever feelings of the week’s pressures were lifted after embracing the enthusiasm of the room.
Lisa Anders was inspirational, to say the least. Her words touched a chord with me as she spoke of following her passion in life. As a little girl, Lisa had a dream of working in construction. Despite this being a male-dominated industry, she followed that passion to the job she currently holds as the VP of Business Development for McKissack and McKissack. It is here that she works on large, meaningful projects such as her most prolific role as the Senior Project Manager for the recently completed Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.
A few key takeaways that Lisa provided to break through the glass ceiling:
- There are many differing personalities in the workplace. Take the time to listen to and understand each individual to properly tailor your message. This earns respect regardless of the audience.
- Seek out projects and opportunities that interest you. You can do this by fostering relationships and making key personnel aware of your interests/focuses/goals.
- Don’t ever shy away from your dreams. Don’t settle for less just because you think society says one thing or another about the path you have chosen. Lisa liked building. She could have shied away from the construction industry because it is a male-dominated industry. Instead, she has added diversity to the field, which brings about new strengths, skills, and ideas.
Smith School MBA alumna Lisa Anders discussed leadership and professional development at the 2012 Women Leading Women event.
The night was completed with a wine and cheese networking reception, providing the opportunity to meet and chat with new faces, bringing together the area’s current and future leading women. This was an inaugural event, but the 200 women and men (but let’s be honest, it was mostly women) who attended can attest to the fact that it should be a lasting tradition at the Smith School.
To see it for yourself, watch the video of the event.
Prior to her most recent accomplishment, project managing the MLK Memorial, Lisa Anders MBA '95 worked on projects at the National Archives, the Pentagon, and Oriole Park at Camden Yard
February 20th, 2012 by Stephen Huie under Articles for the Smith School. No Comments.
International Night is Always a Blast!
Smith is having its annual International Week event this week – we’ll have dumpling making contests, a talent show, and lots and lots of food!
Last week, I also saw some really hilarious and extremely talented performances by the University of Maryland Chinese Student and Scholar Association for Spring Festival. Performers included some of Smith’s MS Supply Chain students who sung and danced. Good Job!
February 15th, 2012 by Stephen Huie under Consulting, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain and Ops. No Comments.
This semester isn’t just about experiential learning, but it’s also about thinking about design problems and the design approach
Tech Comm - In my Technology Commercialization team, I suggested that we use a Storyline approach to help us research market segments. We decided that our internal assignment this week would be to come up with 10 situations/problems faced by potential customers and how our technology solves their problem. Once we identify the situation, their pain (financial, physical, time, etc.), and the cost of their current solution, we can try to quantify the differential value of our offer to them. This not only helps us set price, but also gives us a sense of the overall size of the market, and the kind of competition and barriers to entry we may face. Thanks to Prof. Kannan’s Pricing for Sustainable Competitive Advantage course for teaching me this customer centric approach to quantifying market value.
We cut up our storylines on sheets of paper and moved them around a 3×3 grid we stuck on the whiteboard, where Time to Market and Market size were the two dimensions. This helped us identify common themes (e.g. chronic disease treatment) and challenges (e.g. FDA approval) within the time frames and gave us a sense of how we should prioritize our research and the commercialization plan.
Hult Case Competition – I’m also participating in a case competition to develop new approaches for the One Laptop per Child program to help it reach its goal of reaching 10,000,000 children in the next five years. With a dream team of classmates with experience in education, venture capital, and bottom of the pyramid product development, we’ve been brainstorming around the product offer, distribution, and funding model by beginning to question our assumptions about the user experience. We’re trying to focus on the user experience and think about ”how might we” rather than the prescriptive “how should we.”
USAID – For my supply chain engagement, my research team is developing an operational model that must serve more than just our client, USAID. We must also think about how to write a case analysis for an audience of case competition MBA students. Identifying and modeling goals, constraints, and levers in a manner discrete enough to be quantifiable, yet flexible enough to permit creativity is our challenge. I’m proud of the work we’ve done so far and I’m looking forward to synthesizing the results.
Imperial Fish Company - My consulting project with Tunisian MBAs also involves designing a marketing strategy for a start up company. This is exciting because we can build it from the ground up and can pursue possibilities that might be otherwise constrained by opportunity costs in an established firm. Designing a market entry while keeping in mind the long term growth and business development of the firm will certainly be a challenging task.
Negotiations - Even my Negotiations class invovles design thinking. Last week, Prof. Langa assigned us to watch an old Frontline episode about IDEO, in addition to our regular reading and out of class negotiation assignments. Learning from IDEO’s disciplined approach to design by brainstorming, withholding judgement, and letting ideas flow, and only later narrowing down on priorities through a collaborative process might help us think of creative alternative options that can satisfy both sides of a negotiation. This is also a user-centric approach that requires one to think about design and value from someone else’s perspective; we can certainly use such a technique to better understand the other parties in a negotiation. Interest based negotiation can provide the information that informs how we can grow the pie for all participants rather than splitting it in a zero-sum fashion.
This is definitely an exciting semester where all my business learnings are coming together to help me synthesize problems and construct novel solutions to real problems.
February 6th, 2012 by Stephen Huie under Marketing. 1 Comment.
I’ll admit it: I’m not a huge football fan and my ignorance and disinterest will probably damage my long term job prospects and ability to schmooze and interact.
But I will watch at least one game out of the year, and that game is the SuperBowl, mostly for the advertising. Here are some of my thoughts on what I considered the top 5 ads:
5) Audi Vampire Campout: I’m not a fan of the recent vampire craze, but the ad highlighting (haha) Audi’s headlights was clever enough to make me take notice. It’s always interesting to see companies take on a non-related trend (e.g. True Blood, New Moon (or whatever it’s called)), but it’s also a little depressing to see how late this ad was. It would have been more timely a year ago, but now it seems passe. Although it was behind trend, it succeeded in getting my attention.
4) PepsiMax Checkout: This was a great continuation of previous Pepsi SuperBowl Ads in which a CocaCola driver tries to sneak a drink of the competitor’s product. Historical references abounded in this year’s ads (e.g. Volkswagon and Star Wars) and I think viewers feel extra rewarded by referential ads that highlight that they are in the know and part of the joke.
3) GE Commercials: The GE commercials were especially good because it highlighted US manufacturing and connected the worker to the consumer. This was especially apparent in the evening’s first GE spot in which cancer survivors visit a medical equipment factory.
2) Clint Eastwood’s Half Time Message: Besides encouraging us with his immediately recognizable gritty voice, Clint Eastwood communicated the hardship and pride of getting back up after falling down. The 2 minute spot by Chrysler was one the most thoughtful piece of the evening because it had the broadest message. Focusing on Detroit, but containing a message of struggle that’s rooted in an imaginary of stubborn American hard work, the ad probably captured the biggest audience of any of the commercials. As we learned in Consumer Behavior, emotional appeals have long term impacts on decisions and are more likely to make a call to action successful.
1) Bridgestone Basketball: This was such a clever ad that really demonstrated product quality. Designing tire rubber for a basketball, you can clearly hear the difference between the bounce of a regulation ball and the Bridgestone special. A shocking contrast that captured my attention with clever delivery. Despite the enduring effect of emotional appeal, sometimes you just have to see it to believe it.
February 2nd, 2012 by Stephen Huie under Consulting, Entrepreneurship. No Comments.
These first two weeks of the semester have been as exciting as they have been arduous.
Friday….
As part of a group of MBA, MPP, and Bioscience Ph.Ds, I am developing a business and commercialization plan for some exciting technology that has been developed by professors and students at the University of Maryland. I can’t go into the details, but it’s an exciting biosciences project that allows me to leverage some experience from a past internship at Children’s Hospital of Oakland Research Institute (CHORI).
We’ve got a great team, though, also consisting of a Bioscience Ph.D., an MBA, and an MBA/MPP.
Saturday….I met my Tunisian counterparts for the first time on Saturday! We had a half hour training in cross-cultural communication and consulting. It was a great opportunity to not only get to know the Tunisian students, but also, to meet Uruguayan students who are participating in two other projects with the Smith School. The Tunisian students are very talented and experienced. I’m really looking forward to working with them.
Over the winter break, I started studying Arabic so that I’d be able to get around when I am in Tunisia. This will be a great project to combine all of the experiences I’ve had so far in Marketing, Supply Chain, and Strategy.
Sunday…
We had a full day Consulting Boot Camp led by a McKinsey partner. This Boot Camp brought together over 100 Smith, Tunisian, and Uruguayan MBAs participating in the Smith Consulting Practicums. I had heard much of this framework last year when preparing for my consulting engagement with Syngenta, but reviewing key tactics for eliciting client communication and sharing success (and horror) stories with each other about past experiences was a fun and valuable.
January 26th, 2012 by Stephen Huie under Consulting, Data Modeling and Decision Making, Supply Chain and Ops. No Comments.
Almost there....
At this point, I would normally say that I’m happy to be 3/4 done with the MBA program…..but I technically already finished last spring. I completed all 54 credits and required courses a semester early!
However, rather than take a trip to Hawaii and eat loco moco and poi all the time, I’ve decided to stay in crab country in Maryland. Why? Because there’s still more to learn of course! I’ve gained a great deal from the past year and a half and have met many wonderful people, yet I still don’t feel like I’m ready to identify myself as an MBA.
A Final Semester Focused on Skills and Experiential Learning
There are a few key classes I’ve been looking forward to in this program, which I will be taking this final semester:
- Technology Commercialization – I didn’t got on last year’s Israel commercialization fellowship at the Technion University, so this is my chance to take all of the knowledge and skills I’ve learned to create a whole business plan from the ground up.
- Marketing Analytics – You can never get enough statistics….well, that’s definitely hyperbole, but for me it’s important because statistics is a discipline I need to see over and over again to make sure I understand it. Building upon my experience at Kraft Foods in Consumer Insights, Data Modeling and Decision Making, and Data Mining, I’m furthering my understanding of how to applied models to marketing decisions.
- Negotiations – A key skill for anyone. I’m looking forward to the roleplay exercises and getting feedback from people about my negotiating style and tactics. You usually don’t get feedback in a real negotiation, so this is an important opportunity.
- Spreadsheet Decision Modeling – Another course on skills building, focusing on deterministic and probabilistic models
- Market (Demand) Forecasting – Modeling uncertainty and projecting sales
- CIBER Consulting – I’ll be consulting for the Imperial Fish Company in Tunisia and I’ll get to go for a week over Spring Break for site visits and interviews! We’ll be working with a team of Tunisian MBAs!
Over the Winter, I’ve been working on a project I’ve developed with USAID through the Supply Chain and Operations Club. We’re analyzing a current business problem and writing a case analysis to be the base of a business competition we will host at the Smith School! This has been an exciting project and I’ve been learning alot working alongside my teammates. It’s been a great experience in business development and project management. More updates as it happens!
December 7th, 2011 by Stephen Huie under Consulting, Supply Chain and Ops. No Comments.
Although I should be preparing for finals right now, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately developing a scope of work contract to create a case competition to provide solutions for a global distributor of health care commodities.
Since October, I’ve been working with my classmates in the Supply Chain and Operations Club, the Health Care Business Association, and the Business Enterprise Technology Association to develop the business relationship with this firm. After writing negotiating and writing the Scope of Work, I’ll be staying in DC to begin the technical research with a great team of MBAs. This has already been a great experience in business development, negotiation, and project management.
We’ll host the competition in April so look forward to hearing more about it.
I will get some rest this break – I’ll take a trip to see my family in California for Christmas. But I know I have something great to look forward to when I get back to DC and Maryland.
November 23rd, 2011 by Stephen Huie under Career Search. No Comments.
- Pei-Wen “Patty” Chen MBA ’12 biking in Virginia, where she interned with CV International. ”In essence, working at a smaller company makes it easier to have the opportunity to make a big impact than when working at a bigger one.”
Those MBAs that return most satisfied from internships are those whose efforts have been recognised and implemented, rather than those disillusioned by having work lost in the ether of corporate dialogue. – Daniel Callaghan
Last summer, 2nd Year MBA Patty Chen worked at two internships and gained a great deal of experience in global sales.
As an assistant sales manager at the Shanghai appearl agency Great Union, Patty coordinated the development process between Chinese manufacturers and US designers.
At the freight forwarder CV International, Patty also worked in sales as an executive sales assistant developing business leads for trans-Pacific shipments.
Directly Proportional Results
What Patty appreciated most about her experience at these medium size businesses was the trust and control she was given to deal with customers. When there was a problem with one of her customer’s shipments, Patty dealt with the problem directly rather than transfer the problem to others and waiting for their responses. As a result, she had more control over service and her customers’ experiences were directly reflected by her performance.
Culture at SMEs
Workplace culture is important to Patty, who found that communication styles vary among SMEs just as much as they do within large firms. Whereas some firms and contexts encourage communication around management process, operational issues may be as prescriptive as at large firms.
Contextual management is highly effective in businesses of all sizes, but at an SME the distance between points of communication is shorter and we have a better chance to influence the organization and develop our leadership.
This is Part II in a series on working at Small and Medium Size Businesses.
November 16th, 2011 by Stephen Huie under Career Search. 1 Comment.
Karan Arora, MBA '12. "The best part about working with a small company is that it does there are no water tight compartments in which you have to work. You have the freedom of doing different things, and of doing things differently."
As the first year MBA students continue to dig into their internship search, I thought it would be helpful to provide a look at the experience of 2nd Year Smith MBAs who decided to work at Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) rather than at larger firms.
Say Yes to SMEs
Karan Arora is a 2nd Year MBA who worked at Yesware, an early stage internet company at a startup incubator in Boston, MA. As a product management and Marketing Analytics intern, “there was no one thing that [Karan] did on a daily basis.” ”I wore many hats and did a little bit of everything – Marketing Analytics, Marketing Strategy, Product Management, User Experience Research, Promotional Campaigns etc. The fact that I was able to do a lot of different things in a short time was awesome!”
A recent Financial Times op-ed reflected Karan’s experience about how working at start ups and small or medium sized companies can open opportunities to make larger impacts on their organizations and be better exposed to senior management. Yet, according to the op-ed’s author, Daniel Callaghan,
MBAs often cite their reason for going to business school as wanting to have a bigger impact in the firms they work for. They want to contribute more, to make a difference and be recognized. Yet this is often forgotten with students quickly seduced by the corporate hospitality of the on-campus recruiters, the dinners, the pay cheques and the bonuses.
Working at an SME often provides students with wide latitude and opportunities to gain responsibilities and leadership. Karan immensely enjoyed being able to create a new product line that he thought of himself.
When I first looked at the product that the development team was working on, I instantly thought that we could adapt it to make it useful for composing cover letters for MBA/Grad Students. When I floated the idea to the team during an informal lunch conversation, the CEO and the CTO of the company encouraged me to take the project further. They gave me the tools, resources, advice, and enough free time to work on this project. We eventually pitched the idea to several prospective customers from universities around the world. It was such a rewarding experience.
The Differnce Matters
Prior to coming to the Smith MBA program, Karan worked experienced firms with over 50,000 employees, including Nokia, Samsung, and LG, but now he wants to work at an SME after graduation. “Small companies really value people who take initiative, are creative and most importantly, consider the success of the company as their personal success,” Karan says. ”I think I did pretty well this summer and demonstrated all of these qualities while working with Yesware and as a result the company offered me a part-time role for Fall and Winter semesters. To anyone who has never worked in a startup/small company before, it is a *must* try, and what better time to do it than now when the startup scene is buzzing.”
