January 29th, 2012 by Andrew

It has been quite a weekend. I’ve spent time preparing for my Wharton interview tomorrow morning. I’ve at least skimmed 11 recent papers from the two interviewers, reading many of them in some depth. They were all really interesting papers, with applications to my research questions, even if they come from unexpected places. One paper, for example, touched on the impacts of patent allowances on cooperative commercialization, but asked about companies or technologies where cooperative commercialization exists in the absence of strong patent protections, which is really applicable to the software industry, where patents are primarily used defensively (for a variety of reasons), and copyright only protects against wholesale copying of code. Despite this, collaboration of many different types exists in software (for example, communicating technical details so that programs can communicate with each other). Another paper described how prior contracting experience can help startups successfully profit from their innovations, which is super interesting for me having seen the wide range of contracting models/templates from all the companies we’ve acquired. Interestingly, it is even easier to integrate companies founded by former employees at Oracle, because they inherit so many management and licensing practices from the way we do business.

In other exciting news, I was contacted by the University of Michigan! The e-mail wasn’t super clear whether there is a formal interview, or only an information discussion before a possible offer of admission, but I am very excited to learn more about their program and share more about my research interests with them. I really don’t know what the competitive environment is like for Michigan at this stage, because the e-mail included much less information than the e-mail from Wharton, but I am very excited about the program overall, and I’m cautiously optimistic about getting in based on details from elsewhere on the internet. If I get into multiple schools, things will get very complicated, but so far I’m getting 100% excited and thrilled about any contact I get. I’ve researched Ann Arbor on wikipedia (prior to this weekend – I was away for most of this weekend, as I’ll describe later), and it sounds like a very pretty city, with a lot of interesting technology entrepreneurship, spawned by proximity to the University of Michigan. I also expect that the university itself will keep things very interesting, from the perspective of cultural experiences and being able to meet a lot of interesting people, hear from interesting speakers, and more.

I’m also excited to be hearing so soon – even if this is an interview only, and if I don’t get offers from either school, I’m more optimistic now about hearing from other programs. I’m also starting to wonder what I’ll do if I get an offer this early. It’s my understanding I don’t have to accept until April, but an offer from either of these programs would almost certainly trump a couple other schools I applied to. On the other hand, even for schools I’m less interested in, I’m not sure if it’s smart to wait to see what offers are elsewhere. One professor I spoke to said he was able to negotiate a higher fellowship offer, based on competing offers and circumstances (his wife needed to move, without a job already lined up, which would be my situation for either of these schools – though help in getting her a job would work as well, if a higher fellowship is not an option). I’m thankful that I have professors who continue to help me now, but I feel like I’m less familiar with the standards, expectations, and best practices of academia, being in a corporate environment right now. There is a current PhD student that is following me on Twitter, and I’m following him – maybe I’ll reach out to him for some advice on what I should do. I may ask faculty in programs I’m admitted to for advice – I Skyped with a faculty member at one program I applied to, and he was very honest about the weaknesses of his program relative to others (while also talking about the exciting opportunities) – in general, I think most professors would be very honest if asked for advice (or at least honest about their biases). I try to be just has honest when questions are asked of me – though it might be tough to do with such limited interview windows. I could describe my strengths and weaknesses for hours, if they ask about that – but the limitations of time will not allow for that. That’s partly because many of my characteristics are strengths in one context, but weaknesses in another. I may write a post about this at some point, but as an example, I am a relatively well rounded, widely read, person. I can discuss a wide range of topics intelligently, and have relatively strong quantitative/logical skills, and also relatively strong communication skills. My communication skills are not going to get me elected to the Senate though, nor will my knowledge of economics, math, or sociology allow me to compete with a trained economist, mathematician, or sociologist (and I will be competing against all of those in this field). In this field in particular, my bias for action could be a weakness – I’ve read papers that are submitted, and then are not published for years. The act of writing the papers themselves will be extremely time consuming, especially early in my career, as I need to become intimately aware of all the prior research that impacts my hypothesis. At the same time, I’ve had to learn how to manage those impulses in my project management roles, dividing tasks into discrete pieces and dependencies, finding joy in progress towards an ultimate goal. I’ve also had to develop new organizational systems to manage all the different pieces, which I also used with great success managing the application process, and that same system will hopefully pay dividends as I manage author collaborations, article submissions, review processes, and more.

I’m so excited about this application process, and the idea of becoming a researcher, starting my own projects, learning everything there is to know about my area, and more, that I almost forgot some of the other excitement of this weekend.

Some of my friends from college had an awesome taco night on Saturday night. It was so great to hang out with everyone, and catch up with everyone (I see the guys almost every week, but the better halves are around less often). The food itself was also amazing – the tacos had great toppings, but featured chicken, fish, beef, and LAMB! If you’ve never had lamb in a taco, you’ve been missing out. It was awesome – but then Jennie and I took the night even further, with a date night.

Jennie and I drove up to Burlington, had great dessert and conversation at the Cheesecake Factory, and called it a night – staying at the Marriott nearby, to avoid the drive home. So we slept in, very comfortably – and then had date morning, with an amazing breakfast in the hotel restaurant. After that, we went to church, which was great – especially since we saw some friends there. I hung out there for a while after, reading and relaxing on a couch by a relaxation fountain, while Jennie went out for lunch with Erin. She picked me up after, we went to Costco, and then came up. We were gone a good chunk of Saturday, and almost all Sunday, but it was an awesome weekend. I would go into the week super relaxed, but all the excitement about Wharton and Michigan (and the nervousness about interviewing) will probably keep me up tonight. We’ll see though – I’m optimistic, because amazing opportunities, and subsequent successes, always seem to come my way. I’d like to think it’s all from my hard work (online advice says to read a recent paper by any interviewers, and I’ve read 11), because that means it will remain in my control – but I also feel blessed by great friends, mentors, teachers, family, and more, which I cannot take credit for at all. In the scheme of things, I was fortunate to be born in this country, and in this time – so I really can’t take credit for factors like that.

Applying, My Life

January 27th, 2012 by Andrew

Professor Bob Sutton of Stanford tweeted an article today on hugging in the workplace, titled Hugs in the workplace: Acceptable or personal-space invasion?. I thought this was interesting, because my workplace is a hugging workplace, and at times I’ve felt uncomfortable with it. My boss’s boss has joked about my side hug style, and commented that my face looked like I was being tortured the first time I attended a meeting where everybody was hugging. I thought I’d share some of the tips from the article, along with my commentary and perspective.

According to the article, “[Because] of hostile work environment and sexual harassment suits, innocent hugging is always vulnerable to being construed as something else — that is, something not so innocent.” This may be true, but in my experience, workplace hugs are almost always initiated by women, and few men want to complain about being uncomfortable with hugs, because that’s even more embarrassing than the hug. Even when I feel uncomfortable with a particular hug, it’s not because I feel harassed, but because I don’t feel close enough to the person to hug them. At one meeting, I had a hug with somebody I had never met before that meeting. They were a nice enough person, but it was probably the first time in my life I’d hugged a virtual stranger. Sometimes the lack of closeness is caused more by structural considerations. The first time a boss hugged me, all I was thinking is, “I’ve never hugged somebody who decides how much I get paid before.” Our company has a culture of giving crappy raises (most people get 0% every year), but they’ve really taken care of me, especially from a percentage perspective. I wish I achieved the same sort of compound annual growth rate in my investments. I would name my company, but I wouldn’t want to come up in a search about my company giving crappy raises (though we do set expectations with new hires as part of the hiring process). I can only imagine hugs from bosses are more awkward for those that don’t get raises – but maybe they don’t get hugs either.

The advice goes on to explain, that you should “consider where you work.” “Is your company more by-the-book or is it laid back in its methods or practices? Does the company culture encourage working in teams and being open to others, or is it more of an independent, cut-throat, every-man-for-himself environment?” We are a combination of red tape bureaucracy (hiring and promotions) and wild west (how you spend your time, and get the job done). Working your network and knowledge base to get the job done is strongly encouraged, but it’s also pretty cutthroat -  only the strong survive, with crazy hours, and at times extreme turnover. On my two-year anniversary with the company, I had the median tenure in the division. For those who hated math, that means 50% of the group of several hundred (at that time) had been hired after me. And that was before turnover skyrocketed from the intense nature of acquiring and integrating a company a month, along with developing shared-service centers in Romania, Costa Rica, and India, which we’ve done for the last six years. While that turnover seems like it would inhibit hugging, I think it may actually support it. I’ve been with the company more than eight and a half years, and I’ve built really close bonds with those who have gone through hard times with me. That includes people senior to me (though I’ve lost a lot of good friends from those ranks), those that moved up alongside me, and those that I’ve hired who have stuck with me (many of my hires are now in management positions, alongside me, which strengthens that bond even further). The hardest part about my plan to get a PhD is the thought of leaving some of those close friends and coworkers behind – though I plan to keep in touch (and still keep in touch with bosses from Babson, where I worked 9+ years ago).

The next piece of advice recommends taking cues from others, which does not mean do what people around you are doing. “Be aware of co-workers’ personal boundaries before entering into a ‘physical relationship’ with them, no matter how passive or limited the touch.” Essentially, look for them to make a face that looks like they’re in pain while being hugged. Then make fun of them for being uncomfortable with hugs, and keep doing it*. * Note: what works at my company, may not work everywhere, but I am fine with it now.

The article goes on, recommending that you take into consideration the culture of others, and to “also consider one’s gender and role within the company.” It says age, race, etc can impact comfort, but doesn’t talk too much about who is or isn’t comfortable with it. It days say younger people (me) are more comfortable being touchy feely, though that hasn’t been my work experience – I don’t remember anyone from my age or younger hugging. It does talk about gender (though I don’t remember guys ever hugging each other), and status (hugging between bosses and minions).

Next we learn how to hug. “There are different ways you can hug someone, and they can mean different things. Hugging from the front or back may be awkward, but a casual side hug could appear less threatening and personal.” Don’t go too casual though – that’s just weird. At the end, we learn that “when in doubt, handshake it out.” Or you could go the other way – some of my friends have adopted the casual sports custom of slapping each other on the butt. It’s all guy on guy action right now, but I expect that to spread to the workplace shortly.

Note: if you’re reviewing my PhD application, this post isn’t all serious. But if you hug me the very first time we meet, I might grimace, but I’ll go along with it. I can be a little awkward with the cheek kissing too, but I’ll probably do whatever you do.

O work, Social Dynamics

January 23rd, 2012 by Andrew

There was an article in the WSJ today about ‘showrooming’. The idea is that potential customers are going into stores, like Target, to check out a product, and then going online to order those products for less money. “Last week, in an urgent letter to vendors, the Minneapolis-based chain suggested that suppliers create special products that would set it apart from competitors and shield it from the price comparisons that have become so easy for shoppers to perform on their computers and smartphones.” This doesn’t really mean special products, that are worth paying more for – they’re really talking about virtually identical products with different models, to make comparison shopping difficult. This tactic may help, but I think the specific threat of showrooming is exaggerated, at least as currently defined.

The first problem is that the current definition essentially describes customers finding products online, going into stores to check them out, and then going back online to buy the product. If that definition is accurate, if any of those customers are actually buying the product in the store, the store is the one “stealing” customers/sales from online retailers. Even if the customer goes back to the online retailer, they’re returning to where they originally found it anyway.

For customers that do find a product in stores, that they never knew existed before (like a “TV”, “computer”, or “Playstation”), and they’re not willing to make the purchase, there’s something wrong with the store’s execution. Customers are not convinced they’re getting a good value, or they’re not getting enough information. Something about the experience makes them uncomfortable buying. I’m not entirely convinced that price is the main component here. Internet retailers, like Amazon, offer much more than price. I sometimes compare the prices on regular daily items (detergent, soap, and favorite food items), and I often find that the Amazon price is much higher, because the costs of shipping/packaging individual items can dwarf the normal cost of an item. My wife likes 100 calorie packs of almonds, for example, but they’re very expensive because you’re paying for the convenience. Unfortunately, the price on Amazon is three times the already high margin price in grocery stores, because it costs a lot to box up and ship a $3 box of almonds.

Where online retailers really shine, though, is providing much more information about products than any store. At most stores, you only get the information on the box. If you’re “lucky”, you might get really dumb but self-confident store worker, who will tell you a bunch about the product (often wrong), based on his limited experience (it could be a her, but in my experience the worst technical sales advice you can get in stores comes from nerdy guys who think they know everything). On Amazon you can get hundreds or thousands of reviews, describing experience with the product under many operating environments. Amazon even gets feedback on packaging, and if the packaging sucks, they’ll package a product in their own “frustration free” packaging. When’s the last time you heard of a big box retailer thinking about their customer experience to that degree? On Amazon you will learn if your new Blu-ray player needs a firmware update to play the latest Batman movie, or whether the latest feature really improves the experience at all. Most of all, you’ll find out if the product will break in three or six months – good luck finding that out from the back of a box in a store.

Stores might argue that nothing matters more than price (though I’ve already mentioned that stores are competitive with Amazon in price for most regular purchases) – but there’s an easy place to cut. A search of net profit margins for a number of retailers revealed that lower price retailers also often have lower margins. That’s an easy place to start cutting! And if that won’t do it, start thinking about how to compete, without trying to use customer confusion over product comparison as your new competitive advantage. Just adding Red Box movie kiosks seems to have improved foot traffic in a number of local stores, but I’m sure there’s more that can be done. How about creating your own device, similar to price checking machines, where customers can scan a bar code and pull up reviews of the product from the internet (perhaps without the price, though some online retailers like Zappos can build loyalty by referring customers elsewhere if it’s in the best interest of the customer). Perhaps train employees to actually provide a friendly and helpful environment. It would even be helpful if stores would “curate” their selection – I don’t want to see 10 GPS devices, that all seem pretty similar, with no way of identifying which is best. Stores like Costco limit selection, and may only have a few camera or GPS models at any time, but they’re price competitive (because they’re buying volume of fewer models), and they’re also chosen to meet common needs. Stores like Costco will often have unique model numbers, so that might work as part of Target’s strategy, but they’re going to need more than that if they want customers to keep coming back.

Strategy

January 23rd, 2012 by Andrew

It has been a very exciting weekend. I will share chronologically, but have included the most exciting news in the header. I started the weekend off great with a movie night with my good friend Joel. We had great pizza delivered from a local place, and had great discussion on top of the movie. He has struggled with a difficult personality at work, so I pulled my copy of The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t off the shelf. When Jennie got home later, she decided she wanted to read it first, so Joel will have to wait – though I lent him the first few CDs of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose to listen to during his commute. I’ve listened to that during my commute, and have absolutely loved it. He can first get inspired with what work could be, and then he can read about some strategies to dealing with a less ideal environment later. We ended up hanging out until 2 am, so Joel spent the night in the guest bedroom (which is great – I’m always surprised people don’t take us up on it more often).

The next morning we started the Star Wars trilogy (and eventually finished it). Jennie had never seen the entire trilogy before, so it was good fun. She would probably claim it wasn’t, but she likes to be difficult about that. After the first movie, we made amazing blueberry Belgian waffles, with pure maple syrup, powdered sugar, and home-made strawberry sauce (just cut up strawberries, and then put them in a pot until they’re liquid and awesome). We also enjoyed OJ, and breakfast turkey sausage. It was fantastic. It ended up snowing most of the day, and the roads were terrible, so we kept watching movies for the rest of the day. Joel’s girlfriend Val also came over, so it was a lot of fun.

While it was already a fantastic day, I was very excited to hear back from one of the schools I applied to (the first response I’ve received, of any type). I received an e-mail from the Doctoral Coordinator for the Management Department at The Wharton School, updating me on the admissions process. I believe I mentioned this elsewhere, but Wharton e-mailed previously that they had received 1,245 applications. They have nine departments with doctoral programs, and received 1,271 applications last year, with 37 matriculants. The department I applied to received 186 applications last year, with 4 matriculants. On Saturday I learned that the Management Department had received 175 applications this year, and narrowed that list down to 20. I am one of those 20. I will be having a Skype videoconference interview with two members of the admissions committee sometime the week of January 30. It is still very daunting, as most of the 20 will not receive offers, but it is thrilling to have made it this far, and encouraging with respect to my prospects in general.

Several things about this interview encourage me. I knew that I would be competitive, meaning within the realm of consideration, based on my GPA and test scores, but beyond a certain threshold it’s my understanding that those numbers do not usually make the difference. Letters of reference are very important, and while I had been told that great letters were written, I had not seen them. This interview tells me that those letters are acceptable. Incidentally, two of my references were worried about their own qualifications reducing the value of the letter, but I was very happy to have people who knew me so well and believed in me writing them. I had an offer for a letter from a SVP working in the office of the CEO, but while she is familiar with my work, we have never worked in the same building (or state), so I preferred to have somebody who was familiar with my entire career, my motivations, and my character. Another reference, a full professor, was worried that his position in the humanities might jeopardize my chances, and encouraged me to consider a business professor – but he was one of my favorite professors, and he really required critical thinking in his classes (which were more challenging than most of my business classes). Overall, I was very satisfied with my choices, but I am glad to have confirmation that I chose well. Another critical area of my application is the statement of purpose. I normally write pretty well, but I worried about whether my essay would fit within the norms of acceptable applications. I did not solicit feedback from my mentors on the statement of purpose, because I wanted to use my own voice, and focus completely on my research interests, without outside influence. My academic mentors wanted me to succeed so much, that I was worried I would end up writing what they wanted me to write, and while I might have gotten in, I might have gotten into a program that wasn’t the best fit for me. I did not even look at any examples of statements of purpose until I finished applying. My essay looked absolutely nothing like what I found online, through Google. Admittedly, the examples I found were terrible, but I was still worried that my form and style would be completely unacceptable, or that my ideas might be too narrow or broad for what they were looking for. While each school will be looking at my application from a different perspective, this interview reassures me that I am within the realm of acceptability. It is entirely possible I will not receive any other invitations to interview, because research fit is so critical to success in these programs (though I chose programs I thought I would fit best at), but I am really encouraged by this. In one day my “chances” went from 2% to 20%. Of course it is not random, but I am optimistic.

I still don’t know where I’ll end up, or where I’ll even be accepted, but I am more encouraged and excited than ever. I really do believe I’m headed down the right path, and I’ve applied to really amazing programs where I think I would do very well. If nothing works out this year, I’ll apply again next year to an expanded list of schools.

While that was the most exciting thing about this weekend, today was also a great day. Jennie and I traveled up to Burlington to watch the Patriots game with friends, and the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl! We watched the next game from home, but it was also extremely exciting. I think the Super Bowl will be a great game as well, so it was a great way to end the weekend.

Applying, Books, My Life

January 19th, 2012 by Andrew

A college friend of mine recently posted an article, titled The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor. I generally like to consider myself an independent minded, self-made person, but I am also interested in how my past shapes me. As I grew up poor (family of eight, food stamps, free school lunches, etc), I decided to take a look at this article, and consider how my background may shape some of my current life. The article itself is a bit crass, so I’ll be tweaking things to keep it clean (for all I know, my mother reads this).

The first habit mentioned is a taste for low quality food. The argument is that you get your food stamps at the beginning of the month, and don’t have money for gas, so you buy a month’s worth of non-perishable food (canned or frozen) at the beginning of the month. I don’t remember if we batched our shopping in that way, but I do remember HUGE carts of food, so it’s certainly possible (even with a family of eight, I don’t think we could have done that much more than once a month, financially if not edaciously. According to the article, “canned vegetables are as cheap as a gang tattoo, and every poor person I knew (including myself) had them as a staple of their diet. Fruit was the same way. Canned peaches could be split between three kids for half the cost of fresh ones, and at the end you had the extra surprise of pure, liquefied sugar to push you into full-blown hyperglycemia.” I do remember eating canned green beans and creamed corn (my parents explained that it was the corn that fell on the floor – as if that somehow made it more acceptable) a lot, but canned peaches were something we had all the time. Two of the three mentioned frozen foods were also regularly part of our diet – chicken pot pies and chicken nuggets. The article mentions frozen dinners, but those are way too expensive if you’re feeding eight. We also had a lot of home-made pizza – every single Saturday, and always pepperoni. We lived in Austin, MN, home of Hormel (famous for making SPAM, but they also make pepperoni), where my dad worked in the plant for a number of years. Our most common meal though, were PB&J with Kool-Aid (we always had name brand peanut butter, which I liked at the time, though that particular brand is not very impressive to me now). Jelly was always strawberry, but that’s an annoying habit of so many people – you can get so many amazing flavors of jelly, that cost the same, but people get the same flavor every single time they go to the store. We always made massive quantities of Kool-Aid, and had it all the time. I’m not talking about two quarter jugs either – I’m talking gallon jugs, and more than one a day. The other food we had way too much of was corn, during corn season in Minnesota – we’d wake up every day and have a huge bag of it on our steps, left by friendly farmers (I never found out who was leaving it). We did need the food, but I got so sick of it – for years I quit eating it entirely, though I’ll have an ear now and again these days.

The second habit is spending any cash windfalls as fast as possible. I think some of the logic around this applies, but some of it is a little weak. The article argues that poor people spend windfalls fast, because they know it will vanish quickly to the needs of life anyway, and they’d rather get something big to show for it. This is possible, and certainly many people love to blow windfalls on flashy purchases. I think it hit the nail on the head, though, where it noted that, “when you live in poverty, you’re used to your bank account revolving very tightly around a balance of zero.” When you’re used to managing your budget that way, you look at needs and wants (and nearly everybody can at least consider the occasional want), and decide whether or not you can afford it based on where you are relative to zero. I still essentially manage my  money that way – I want to have a cushion of $X in my checking account, and I choose whether or not to spend based on that (I pay my credit cards off in full every month – and often pay them off earlier to make the budgeting easier, essentially using it as a debit card that clears weekly, but gives me tons of cash back). While this can lead to terrible decisions, especially for those without access to traditional banking, it also makes it easy to save by moving money into other accounts (general savings, or specific purposes). I have accounts for general savings, emergency savings, and an account of money for friends, family, or causes in need – and those are invisible to my regular spending decisions.

The third “stupid” habit relates to excessive gift giving. I know that it’s easy to give more presents when you have more, and even more tempting when you used to have very little. I myself love giving gifts, and get super exciting about giving things to family that I know they’ll love. This really doesn’t break the bank, because it’s still a family value to get a deal, so if you can give an awesome gift that was 80% off, or free after rebate that is extra awesome. I do love to give lots of gifts, and I spend more than I did when I was a college student, but it really doesn’t seem stupid. Maybe I’m unique, or maybe it’s because I don’t have kids, or maybe it’s our family culture. We did spend way more than planned this year for Christmas, partly because Jennie and I each wanted to give great gifts to our mothers (both our parents are still far from wealthy). We gave Jennie’s parents money for a love seat (aka, short couch), and we gave my mom money towards dishes (apparently she really liked this set of dishes, and has been buying a dish at a time, over time – when I heard that, I thought, “screw that – she deserves the dishes she wants, even if they’re the nicest dishes available in Winona, MN!”). Other siblings also chipped in – I have no idea what was needed, but I understand the goal was reached. Overall though, assuming you have the money, if giving gifts brings more joy than spending the money on yourself, I don’t see what’s so stupid about it.

The next stupid habit relates to becoming an obsessive bean counter. When you’re poor, you always keep track of every single dollar you have. Where this turns into weirdness is when you start to have money. “You get to a point where you stop worrying about exact numbers, and you start to drift into a place where rounding off the bills and bank account isn’t a big deal. But your mind still panics when you realize that you don’t know exactly how much money is in your checking. So you’ll look it up. Satisfied, you’ll put it on the back burner and go on with your day. The next day, you’ll find yourself worrying again. So you’ll look it up again.” This is so true. I’ve had that cushion in my bank account, plus savings, plus emergency savings, plus sometimes “special purpose” savings accounts for a long time, and I still check my accounts all the time – sometimes multiple times a day. This occasionally pays off – I’ve caught fraud immediately before, and some accounts even show “pending changes” now, which allows me to fix issues even faster (I thought I canceled an old web hosting plan a while ago, because they were going to charge me a ridiculous amount to renew, so I switched – but then they still tried to charge me for that renewal – I had that fixed before the charge even went through). It is a terrible habit though, psychologically speaking – it’s not the checking that is so bad (though it added a lot of stress when I checked my retirement stock accounts all the time, as if I could take the money out if I wanted to). It is the pointless worrying that is terrible – worrying just adds stress without adding any value. I am conscious of this stupid habit, and try to change it. I’m sure this (and others) will come back with a vengeance when I’m in grad school though.

The final habit I think is partly true, but I think the specifics are not all true in my case. It argues that people who used to be poor always spend with the short-term in mind. One example is that you always buy the smallest package of everything, and don’t buy deals or bulk if you don’t need it – that certainly isn’t true for me. I stock up on everything I can, and am a loyal Costco shopper (Amazon also has some great bulk subscribe and save deals). I do sometimes see this playing out with things like milk, where I’ll hesitate to buy another carton if we have half a carton left at home, but that’s partly because our grocery store sucks, and it seems like their milk is always about to expire. But if Powerade Zero is 75% off, I’ll buy eight cases of it, knowing I prefer to workout when I have it on hand, and that it’s a great deal. The next part struck a little closer to home though. The writer comments, “But I still only own four pairs of pants myself, and every time I go out to buy a pair, this weird sense of guilt stops me.” I have more than that, partly because I wear different clothes to work than I wear around the house. This manifests more for me in deciding whether or not to buy things that have limited wardrobe flexibility. When I see an amazing pair of Nantucket red corduroys at the Saks outlet, I think to myself, “these are awesome, but it’s not like I can wear them all the time, and they’re really not that versatile – how many things can I wear with those pants?”. I create this arbitrary threshold, thinking I can’t buy pants unless I can get away with wearing them more than once in a week, even though I don’t need to wear my pants that often. It also turns out, Nantucket red corduroys go with almost everything – they were a great buy.

Anyway, my background clearly influences me. Some of my applications asked about this, and I played it down. I’m not sure how I would explain any of these in an application, or what relevance it would have to technology industry strategy/entrepreneurship research. Perhaps it does have an impact, in terms of subtle biases in worldview (though hopefully bias will not be a critical component of my research) – that will need to be something I’ll need to examine in the future.

My Life

January 18th, 2012 by Andrew

The public deserves access to stuff like this, regardless of who owns the intellectual property behind it.

Awesome Music Videos, Awesome Videos, Current Events, Russia

January 18th, 2012 by Andrew

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Today, many major websites, including wikipedia, are blacking out their page to protest SOPA. Even Google has blacked out their logo (though not the functionality). You can learn more about it at http://sopablackout.org/. What’s most interesting about all this, is that the normal course of affairs has been altered. A powerful industry, backed by powerful lobbyists, influenced powerful politicians, towards sweeping legislation giving more power to the powerful. So far, a normal day in the life. This time, the little people stood up, took notice, organized, and influenced the outcome – delaying this particular further concentration of power. Even with the rise of tea party and occupy movements, I did not expect anything like this to happen (I’m still skeptical of a lasting power shift). It’s shocking to me, that legislation supported by such powerful forces, including politicians on both sides of the aisle, would be delayed in this way. The technology industry, as economically significant as they are, do not seem to be savvy influencers of the political process (perhaps that naïveté is why they are successful in the marketplace). Anyway, it will be interesting to look back on this moment in the future – will it be a last gasp of the little people, or will it be a turning point? I note this for myself – not because I believe I can offer any insight.

In other news, it was a rough day at work. My boss, peers, and myself notified many people today that their last day would be January 31. I met with two members of my team. I won’t go into details here, for privacy reasons, but I do really like these two people, and hope things work out for them going forward. This is not the first time I’ve had to communicate layoffs, but it’s never fun. In addition to the personal questions of how to do it effectively, balancing dignity, respect, compassion, and such, it also always leaves me questioning previous decisions, by myself and others, that lead to this point. My desire is to do research that will improve the quality of decisions made by firms, creating more benefits for society, and reducing unnecessary pain. My research interests are much more specific than that, but I do believe that business research is important, because of its potential to indirectly influence so many lives, by improving the nature of business itself.

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Broken World, Current Events, O work, Politics

January 10th, 2012 by Andrew

I’ve been seeing a lot of articles lately about open access research, bemoaning government steps to reduce it, and encouraging more access generally. I don’t have a horse in this race yet, but I think my different perspective, as an aspiring academic researching, is worth voicing. I may come off as ignorant to those who are better informed, but please feel free to correct any misperceptions in the comments. I guess this keeps me out of the “better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt” camp. I guess I prefer, “better to be thought a fool, than to keep your mouth closed and stay that way forever.” I will frame the issue a bit below, but for those already familiar, feel free to jump to My Perspective.

For anybody who isn’t familiar with the academic publishing model, I’ve found this tutorial online, which explains it in less than three minutes (worth it, I think).

Scientist meets Publisher
by: aoholcombe

For those who don’t have the time, I’ve included the publishing business model, from the publisher’s perspective, as it’s been described to me.

1. Academic researchers to the research and writer the papers for free (they’re paid a salary, that does not come from the publishers), which are submitted to privately owned academic journals.
2. Other academic researchers review those articles for free, selecting the best, and suggesting improvements if needed.
3. ?
4. ***PROFIT***

A note on ***PROFIT*** – I’ve emphasized that, because it appears that profits are huge. According to The Guardian, “The returns are astronomical: in the past financial year, for example, Elsevier’s operating profit margin was 36%” and stable, because “in 2010 Elsevier’s operating profit margins were the same (36%) as they were in 1998.” A google search (admittedly unscientific) seems to indicate that other publishers experience similar margins. The ? step is where things get interesting. I’ve heard anecdotes that many schools require faculty to publish in specific journals to achieve tenure. Those journals are privately owned, and require writers to turn over copyright to their articles in order to be published (though some schools are coming up with strategies to fight this). Those journals then control access, and either charge libraries enormous sums of money to access the complete journals, or sell access to individual articles for big money (I’ve seen many that are $25-50), which is a lot for laypeople (you can get an annual subscription to many non-academic business magazines for that price), or those at institutions with less money (presumably the most common customer type, considering their libraries are less likely to pay for access). However, if you are doing research in the field, you need access, because you need to be aware of existing research, to build on those, and ensure your own contributions are original. I’ve even heard of a researcher being denied access to her own paper, because she published in a journal that her school couldn’t afford.  There is a lot more to know about all of this, including the economics of it, but I’m keeping things brief because there are many others more knowledgeable on this, and this portion is not an original contribution of mine.

My Perspective

First of all, as a layperson, this is all a pain in the ass. I do try to read academic articles, for several reasons. First, scholarly articles can be a goldmine for managers, as explained by Professor Sutton of Stanford University (pdf). More recently, I’ve been reading scholarly articles because I aspire to join the academic community, and I want to know what I’m getting in to, and to figure out what types of research most interest me. I’ve found many amazing articles, without paying a dime for individual articles – but it hasn’t been easy. I have free access to many journals through work, where we have a corporate subscription to EBSCOhost. I already subscribe to MIT Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review, Rotman magazine, and more, and I pay extra to have access to the complete archives (unfortunately not an option for Rotman). I often find myself searching Google Scholar, SSRN, and personal web pages of the authors (works especially well if one of the authors works for a school outside the US), and occasionally I only find a working paper version (which works for my purposes now), but the search is always worth it.

Second, it makes it harder to think about doing my own work. It’s interesting to read about the photolithographic alignment equipment industry, and a bit of a pain to search everywhere for the article (I found a scanned copy hosted by MIT - pdf), but it’s impossible for me to try to replicate the results if the data isn’t shared. I’ve been working on refining my quantitative skills, but it would be awesome if I could practice on real data, and replicate real findings from the field I hope to enter. One of the articles above mentions that data should be shared, if just so that other researchers can confirm the findings (it would also help reveal those who fake their findings). My perspective, as a fledgling researcher, is that going through the motions of quality research might make it easier to become a quality researcher. I admit I could be wrong here, and any skills I might develop on my own now will pale compared to what I’ll develop in a PhD program under guidance from experts, but I’d still like the chance to play around with real data.

Third, I wonder what my role in this system will eventually be. I expect to attend a program strong enough to have access to all the major journals, and expect to continue research after graduation in a similar situation. I also feel like I’ll be more comfortable asking others for access to a paper once I’m part of the community. Right now I feel like I’m wasting the authors time if I e-mail them and say, “I might not really understand your ideas, but I was wondering if you would be willing to send them to me for free so I can understand them better, rather than paying $50 for them, of which you would get $0 anyway.” However, I also want my ideas to have impact, and I’d like laypeople to be able to read them if they think the idea could help them, and I’d like researchers at any other school to be able to read them. I know from experience that some papers will be incomprehensible to most laypeople, either because of the jargon or the math, so maybe writing an occasional book covering some of my research is more important if I want those ideas to spread to the general public. I know some journals allow researchers to pay to have their paper be open – I don’t know if schools fund that, or if that would come out of my own pocket. I would like to think that I’d be willing to pay to support the community, even if it came out of my own pocket, but my perspective might be different when I have kids, and it’s braces or making one paper available. If my school cares about where I publish, because they need the recognition, I will want to support my local community. If publishing in an open access journal helps the larger community, and I have to choose between my career and my local community, and the larger community, I might choose career/local. I don’t even know if I’ll have to figure this out on my own, or if my mentors will provide advice in areas like this too. I guess we’ll wait and see.

Update January 11, 2012:
Just found this very interesting blog post on the topic, tweeted by @academicdave, retweeted by @joshgans (how I found it):Academic Publishers: Suicide Bombers Against the Academy

Update January 12, 2012:
Found another interesting blog post,  tweeted by @academicdave (who I now follow), titled Giving It Away: Sharing and the Future of Scholarly Communication which includes this great quote:
“We teach, as we were taught; we publish, as we learned from the publications of others. We cannot pay back those who came before us, but can only give to those who come after. Our participation in an ethical, voluntary scholarly community is grounded in the obligation we owe one another, an obligation that derives from what we have received.”

Second update January 12, 2012:
Professor Joshua Gans, of The University of Toronto, has written a post on the topic, titled Exit and voice in access to scholarly articles. This post really adds to the discussion because he explains why it doesn’t solve the problem if academic quit submitting to expensive journals – mainly that scholars still need access to historical research, and even if no new journals were created, publishers could continue to charge monopoly prices for older work, that scholars still need access to. The importance of referring back to older papers is why I save PDFs of interesting articles in Evernote, but this point is a really importance piece of the puzzle. My own solution to this would be to have the documents hosted by a country that doesn’t recognize the validity of the copyrights, though US policy is to bully every country to respect US intellectual property, even if it harms those in poor countries (which itself is a subject of debate). Anyway, I always love posts from Professor Gans, and he is one of the reasons I applied for the Rotman PhD program (I’m assuming he won’t see this, since I posted this days ago, though I also mentioned it in my application).

Academia, Academic Publishing

January 9th, 2012 by Andrew

It’s been in the news more and more lately, but “traditional TV viewing is collapsing.” The WSJ recently featured an article titled Cutting the Cord on Cable, starting with a “breakup” letter to the cable company, followed by tips on how to get audio-visual entertainment without cable (antennas and Rokus). We’re cutting for several reasons. I’m applying to PhD programs, and we want to start cutting costs now. Even ignoring the costs, we just don’t watch that much live TV, and we can get that free over the air for things like the occasional Patriots game – though I’m tempted to use this as an excuse to socialize while watching the game at friends’ houses anyway. We do watch Netflix streaming, and we have access to even more shows and movies through Amazon Prime (we have a Roku), though Netflix has nearly everything we care about. We may add Hulu Plus, though Jennie has already made plenty of use of the free version on the computer.

We are keeping internet, but switching from Verizon to Comcast. I don’t have any complaints about the Verizon internet service, but the price of just internet was going to be almost as much as we were paying for internet and TV combined. They said that there was no way I could get a better price, and that they couldn’t match competitors’ pricing, even though I said I would be canceling at a future date. When I called to actually cancel, they did imply they actually could do something, but I had already switched over to Comcast by that point. We’re getting a steal from Comcast for the first six months of internet, and a deal for the next six months (by which point we very well may have sold our house and moved). The final price after a year is TBD, but the highest it could be is somewhat reasonable. If money is real tight, my Comcast installer told me how to save money by switching the account between Jennie and myself every 12 months, to keep getting the deal price, without switching back to Verizon (he said it can be done more often, for the steal price, but that seems like an awful lot of hassle, and pretty schemey as well). My employer actually pays for my internet, but I try to be as effective for them as possible, at the lowest possible cost.

It also appears that my internet might actually be getting faster. I had a 25 down 5 up plan from Verizon, but I was going to have to pay more for a slower plan if I canceled TV, because that plan is no longer offered. This is a speed test from immediately before Comcast was installed. I was not getting 25 speed anyway.

With Comcast, I believe I’m paying for a 20/5 plan, and while the up speed is slightly lower, I’m getting an even better down speed.

Overall, I’m very  happy with our decision to eliminate cable (so far), and to switch to Comcast for internet. Hopefully it will save us money, and have us watching even less TV than we used to.

My Life

January 8th, 2012 by Andrew

I have submitted all of my applications! It has been a very interesting experience. I’ve applied to 10 amazing programs in 10 amazing schools. I didn’t apply to any that could be remotely considered “safety schools”, and even cut out a few programs this year that would still be absolutely amazing, but I wanted to devote more energy to these 10 (I cut out INSEAD, London Business School, and the University of Maryland – I also liked Minnesota, but Jennie vetoed that one for this year). I did apply to MIT, Wharton, Harvard, Stanford (MS&E, not the b-school), Chicago, Northwestern, Michigan, NYU, Rotman, and Columbia.

Each school is unique, and offers an amazing program – I would be ecstatic to be admitted to any of them. Most of them, and perhaps all, admit fewer than 5% of applicants. If I don’t get in this year, I will be applying again next year, perhaps with a longer application list. Some schools offer a broad program of study, and include training in economics and sociology, while others are much more targeted (where I had to choose between economics and other options, I chose economics). In the narrow focus schools, choosing economics was a complicated choice. I do enjoy economics a lot, and I am good at math, which is important, but I worried about my ability to signal my mathematical ability based on the relatively basic offerings available from Babson. At NYU I asked what the difference was between the strategy track in the management program, and the strategy track in the economics program, and I was told the economics program was harder. I’m up for that challenge, and applied to that program, but I still wonder if my chances of being admitted might have been higher in the other. One school is in an engineering school (Stanford), while another is in Canada (Rotman). Columbia publishes very little information about their program, what specifically are faculty and student research projects currently, or where graduates end up, so while I know it’s a very good program, it’s hard to become emotionally invested in it (if I’m admitted, I’m sure I’ll be able to visit and speak with the faculty, though they know my research interests, so I’ll probably only be invited if I am a good fit). At the other end of that spectrum is the Rotman School of Management, at the University of Toronto. Multiple faculty from that program actively blog at participate in social media, which makes it very easy for me to get excited about that program. The school that offers the most statistics about applicants, admitted applications, and enrollment is NYU.

Most of the schools have disclaimers that my application is their “property” upon submission. I don’t know what that means, but it’s why I chose this title for this post. I don’t think they mean copyright, in that I’m not allowed to submit similar applications to other schools. They’re certainly not going to publish it (US education privacy law wouldn’t allow that anyway). It’s not like they could “return” it – it’s an electronic submission of some words, which I still have. A few schools requested hard copies of transcripts, but once they’re opened I can’t re-use them anyway (plus they’re free – I could order all the copies I want). Some schools now submit MBA applications to a database to compare future applications to, so maybe they mean that, though even there it’s a third-party retaining the text, which I’m not 100% sure is allowed by any of the language I agreed to. I don’t object to that language, but it does seem odd – I don’t know what problem it solves.

NYU details applicants and admissions for each area, and then further slices admission by gender, citizenship, test score by section, and education level, though I didn’t have much control over any of those factors. My test scores are within the acceptable range, though I was disappointed in them, relative to my performance on official practice tests. Few programs list minimums or averages, so that is perhaps useful. Michigan allows an essay of pages just for research interests, with an additional essay for personal background, and questions about parental education and socioeconomic background. Columbia allows 500-700 words for everything. NYU requests a photo. My research interests were essentially the same for each school, which makes me wonder whether I’ll have better odds in programs that tightly align with my interests but are more selective, or programs that align generally, but are less selective. Though I had to stretch or compress my essay to fit into the requirements of each school, I think my essays become better with each revision (flow, more than ideas). Rotman gets my best application (with the latest deadline for supporting documentation), and Harvard gets my worst (with the earliest deadline). If ideas are most important, that won’t matter. I do feel like my essays might be abnormal in form and structure. I did not solicit guidance from any professor in what to write or how to write it. I have a mentor who helped me with the process in general (how to think about which schools to apply to, for example), but I worried that she would be so focused on helping me get in that I would lose “my voice” if she helped with my essays. If I am not admitted anywhere, I will have her take a look at what I wrote, so I have a better idea of what expectations are for next year. I did google “statement of purpose” after writing my essays, and even found an example from a business school application. Mine looked nothing like the examples from any school, but I also thought the business school example was especially crappy. I’m glad I did my own thing. We’ll see how it works.

By the way, if anyone wants to see a copy of my essay (and you’re a real person – friend, co-worker, professor at a school I didn’t apply to that I should consider next year, etc), let me know.

Applying, Grad School, My Life