Week 34: Holiday Break (con't)

Week 34 ends and Christmas has passed. No new grades have been posted. A few Christmas greetings have been passed around.

Received a sample case from the organizers for the John Molson International Case Competition coming up in Montreal. I should get around to reading this before returning to Kingston, but there is plenty of time yet.

Not much else going on with respect to the program. I am starting to get bored, which is a good sign that I may finally be rested after going so hard for several consecutive months. Also, I am beginning to formulate different job hunting alternatives and wondering how to proceed with my search for employment.

Week 33: Holiday Break

Week 33 ends and so does our first week of break. Nothing much to write about, just a few more grades posted.

Week 32: Capstone Simulation (Module 8)

Week 32 has ended and with it so has the week long Capstone Simulation. Wow! Hard work, but very awesome. To sum it up in two words: LIFE CHANGING.

Everyday this week we have entered our decisions into the LINKS Enterprise Management Simulation and awaited our results. 2 decisions were due everyday: one at 12:30 PM and one at 5:30 PM. Results were made available from the previous quarter at 7:30AM and 1:30 PM everyday. This was to allow people the luxury to sleep. Also, 2 memos were due everyday detailing your teams strategy and decisions with references to all of your MBA courses and learnings. A final 5 page report is also do tonight at midnight.

Basically the 13 teams were separated into 2 "industries" with 7 teams in industry A and 6 teams in industry B. Both industries were identical, but separate (ie they did not interact with each other). The basis was that you were manufacturing "set-top boxes" for TVs. You could conduct research, request market studies and many other information gathering actives. These in turn would help you set your price, marketing budgets, choose distribution channels, choose regions/countries to sell in, take out loans, increase capacity, change product configurations, etc. Overall it is impressive the level of complexity that can be simulated. It is also impressive how competitive MBA students can make an activity such as a week long simulation.

Industry A was won by team 417 who came from the mid-field with an impressively well thought out strategy to sell high volume low quality products. They blew the competition out of the water, pretty much literally. This industry had people all over the place: low end, high end, mid end...everywhere.

Industry B was won by team 407 who excelled at making and managing margins to maximize profits. This industry was tightly clustered for the entire game with everyone locked in a price war.

Congratulations to the winners who will have their teams immortalized on the Capstone Simulation plaque.

With the end of this module we are also seeing the end of our teams. We have been in these same teams since May and now we find ourselves saying good bye. In addition there are several people that will not be returning after the holiday break. Some of these people will be away for a few months and some are gone to finish their degrees abroad on exchanges. To celebrate we are embarking on the "twelve pubs of Christmas". Should be fun, but it is still bittersweet.

We have from today, Dec 12th, off until Jan 13th when classes start-up again. Finally some time to spend with my wife. Also, the first week of January is MBA Games in Halifax! I'm not going, but a good portion of the class will be there and I hope they do Queen's proud.

Well, I'm now off to practice a case for the upcoming John Molson International Case Competition starting on Jan 5th 2009 in Montreal. Afterwards we will meet up with the class. This is a long week...

Week 31: Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Module 7)

Week 31 saw us start and finish module 7 which was comprised of a single course: MBA 843 Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This course was taught by Dr. Kelley A. Packalen. Kelley's background and her unique teaching style made this a great course. Although we covered a lot, the course was as nice to us as it could be.

Topics covered:

• Why Entrepreneurship matters even if you aren't an entrepreneur
• Are you an entrepreneur?
• Creativity & Innovation In-action
• The entrepreneurial process
• Capitalizing on sources of innovation
• Corporate innovation
• The business plan
• Getting the deal done
• Growing the venture
• Making the pitch
• Meeting the entrepreneur
• Putting the pieces together

We had several guest speakers. One notable one was Dany Battat of Battat Toys. In addition we had a local entrepreneur pitch his idea to us, which we had to evaluate using the framework we created. Also, each team had to pitch their "top" idea to the class as though the class were a group of angel investors. There was a few computer simulations too, which were neat to learn from and we did a lot of discussion centered learning in class.

We also had a the president of Barclay Capital, Jerry del Missier, come in and give the class a talk on the financial crisis. He is a Queen's MBA alum from '87.

This weekend we are having a "festivus"! Should be a blast!

Next week is the capstone simulation. It promises to be a very difficult week. There is 107 page manual to read prior to Monday's class. One more week...