The finale

12 weeks….it is indeed amazing how time flies.  In 12 weeks the sun has risen and set 84 times, new friends have been made and colleagues have left the company.

My final presentation  to the team is on Tuesday. Here I will brief my team on the three projects I completed, giving a synopsis and producing a transition document.  My presentation will also include a list of thank yous to various individuals without whom  I would not have  been able to get up to speed.

As I reflect on my internship, I feel this has been a very eventful journey – working in the tech industry has made me appreciate the culture, the work –life balance and also the kinds of work available if you are not a hardware/software engineer.  Exposure to the job fluidity within the industry is also a nice experience……a lot of Creative Destruction taking place in the valley – exit opportunities and entry opportunities are many. I have improved several skillsets – presentation and analytical among them.

Having more fun while it lasts….is what I would encourage everyone to do so.  You will not realize how time flies. I started attending the bay area Ross Intern meet ups held every weekend and it was fabulous.  We all had similar experiences across firms/companies.  We are all also hoping that we get offers for full time positions but getting full time offers depends on several things at once – head count projections, internship performance, reviews etc.  I also recommend building your network within the company and with fellow interns in other companies as it will help improve your general knowledge about the tech industry.    Also it is important to participate in intra company events, so that you are able to greater appreciate the culture of the company.

My final notes: Work diligently, Network Broadly and Appreciate fully!

All I really need to know.

There are so many things that I need to work on, but the greatest assets that I have - and perhaps most of all, my very extensive experience in hi-tech - I did not acquire in business school, but long before that. Some of the really good ones such as playing nicely with the other kids, perhaps as early as in kindergarten.

Looking at how my strengths and weaknesses reflected through my work this summer, I find that my summer internship is basically amplifying everything. My strong research skills and analytical skills are helping me solve problems I encounter, and my background is really helping me have meaningful talks about the industry with different people in the company (which, for example, is awesome for networking). But working on my final presentation, for example, required putting in a pile of overtime to get the job done. This is something that as a marketer I need to invest more time and patience in than I ever have.

I am able to see the great progress I've done this year in transitioning to marketing. Taking the Management Presentations class certainly paid off and presenting in front of an audience in a relaxed manner comes so much easier now that I can really start to work on specifics I need to improve rather than be concerned with the whole. I am able to quickly treat problems I encounter as business cases and ask many of the necessary questions from the get-go.

But you do know what is really important to do as a marketer in a company like Dell, don't you? Smile to whomever you come across. Be open and true to yourself and to others around you. Do things for your peers and not just for yourself. Things you learn in kindergarten.

Objects in calendar are closer than they appear.

My project is technically on schedule, with a mid-point review planned for the beginning of next week, but that is a bit misleading: With four more weeks to go out of a total of eleven, I may have to present my findings on week nine or ten, "losing" a week critical for solidifying my research and recommendations. Twenty last days (net) which I will spend in part also networking and doing things outside the scope of my internship project, i.e. a networking event with alums arranged Dell HR. How many actual work days that does that leave me with? Objects in calendar really are closer than they appear.

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What comes to your mind when you think of market analysis? Is it as glamorous as this following bit?

One of my college professors once gave an interesting lecture about how analytically challenging are some engineering problems, yet how dull they are perceived to be and how they pale in comparison with, say, the more glamorous work of doctors and detectives as seen in movies and on TV. Seriously, you see so many medical dramas on prime time yet not a single House, MBA or House, PhD?
(That is not completely true anymore, actually: check out HOU$E OF LIE$ and The $treet. But for the sake of making my blog post unnecessarily long, let's assume it is.)

I can assure you that no one really thinks that market analysis is anything like diagnostic medicine. It is not about saving lives and it is agonizingly slow-paced sometimes. Also low on Latin, although certainly not on acronyms (it does not sound enticing, but can share that I am currently working on a SWOT analysis across all LOBs with a focus on SMB, if you insist!). No annoying patients, either. But it is amusingly about collecting data (test results, symptoms), solving a puzzle (a diagnosis or prognosis) and dealing with ambiguity. Analysis will only get you so far, we know what we know (and that is sadly particularly true in medicine), and the best we can do is work with the best hypothesis we have in a given moment.

That leaves us with the occasional chuckle from seeing how not only doctors blog, but some marketers do, too. There is neither glamour nor glory in market research - and there shouldn't be any, really - but it may amuse you to think that perhaps every now and then it is very much a similar kind of rigorous, tedious work.

When the going gets hot.

About a month into my internship, it is time to observe the work I have been doing and decide whether I am managing my time and efforts effectively. I have mostly been collecting data as part of a rigorous market research and I am now looking at the data I have been collecting to figure out whether I am covering enough ground. I really only needed to skim the data and talk to a few people to figure out where the wind is blowing, but in order to build a solid case to support my claims I am trying to exercise caution. In a new work environment, figuring out the best rationale to present and how to present it is actually rather tricky. Truths are not absolute and you may realize that your convictions, i.e. regarding which companies are strategically the bigger threats, are more subjective than you thought.

Even in an environment that truly allows and challenges one to innovate such as Dell, it is not easy to understand how far can you stretch it. If you argue false convictions, how much of it counts towards your learning experience and how much of it reflects on your lack of experience in your role, the industry or both?

When the going gets hot, the hot still enjoy Texas very much, despite the blazing heat of 105. My fellow interns and I have gone hiking and swimming and other things outdoorsy. This weekend we spent a full day at Six Flags Fiesta Rescue near San Antonio. It felt good spending the entire day out of town, and it felt great to be able to do that with such a large group of friends. It is far too early to say whether I can expect to meet any of them again next year. I guess that right now we're all just trying to live in the moment as we figure out whether this could be the best place for us.

Mind the gap.

Doing your internship in a field you are familiar with is both a blessing and a curse. You can dive right in, only to find yourself knee-high in research before you even know the name of the co-worker in the cube next to yours. You are relieved to know you are high on the learning curve, but you question whether it would not have been better for you to experience something completely new. You are confident you know the material, the industry, the products and the market, but you doubt your ability to bring completely fresh insights to the table. You can rush to catch the fastest train to Deliverable Street station, but you constantly have to mind the gap: what might I be missing that the executives already know, or that another fresh, bright MBA intern would not miss?

Because a summer internship is a little like the metro system at rush hour: you scurry your way through a crowd of people that you should really stop to talk to for a bit rather than hurry to the next stop, and you do not want to surface before it is truly time. Some people seem to get tempted to work so hard on achieving strong deliverables, that it almost beats the purpose.

Everyone will tell you to enjoy this experience. Everyone will also tell you to make the best of it. Everyone is right and no one is able to tell you how to do those things. It is up to you to figure it out.

I love unwinding in Austin. This town has a great mix of indoors and outdoors fun. It is already close to 100 F. in mid-day, but I am able to enjoy it nonetheless so far. At least for this summer, I can think of no other place where I'd rather be.

Hello Seattle!

Hey there!

Its good to be back here on the blog. The last two weeks have just flown by. I got to Seattle on the 1st

(remember I told you in my first post that I will be interning at Microsoft this summer), so yeah, got here, and drove directly to the apartments that Microsoft ("MS") arranged for us. And lo and behold!- these apartments are bang in the middle of downtown Seattle, just minutes away from the famous Pike Place Market and the beautiful harbor!!!

The weekend was inconsequential as I bought the basics to settle into my fully furnished service apartment. and then the week began....
Monday was orientation day (called NEO- New Employee Orientation) at MS where about a 100-200 full time employees, about 500-600 undergrad interns and 20 MBA interns started their journey at MS. Yes, we later found out that MS received 3000 MBA applications for internships, they interviewed 892 applicants and finally 60 of us made it through- I feel honored to be part of this extremely smart group of individuals. So the class of interns at MS was a good mix from the top 10 schools- but one thing was common among all of us- I found every one of my peers extremely down-to-earth and amicable. And that made so much sense when I met the MS team that I will be working with during the summer.

People at MS are like that- brilliant and modest. They like to have fun even as they work really hard and every five minutes I hear people cracking up into laughter in the corridor outside my office. So on Tuesday, I was introduced to my team in the Microsoft Office Division and I felt very much a part of this team very quickly. My mentor introduced me to all the members of the 8-member team and briefed me on the details of the project. My summer project is about the transition of MS's customers in the business productivity space to cloud computing- yes- its looking at the existing and future strategy for the  exciting new Office 365!!!! This is an exciting time in Redmond, as Microsoft prepares to compete with Google in the area of cloud computing.

As I began working on my project, I realized two very important things that I learned at Ross, which I am applying directly to my project-
1) The way I look at problems has become so much more structured
2) Complexity and overload of information doesn't seem to bother me anymore (especially after those strategy cases which every Rosser will agree were info overloads!), enabling me to filter the more important pieces of information and focusing on those.

Outside of the project work, my team members (both senior and junior) had taken me out to lunch and on tours of the Microsoft Commons (they have awesome food and shops- even a massage parlor and salon!) on three out of the four working days I have been here. So far, I'm loving this casual environment- yes! I'm wearing jeans and t-shirts to work everyday!!!!!!!!!!!!!...some more !!!!! It's a big change from NYC and I'm loving it! Now off to tour the Pike place market and enjoy the Seattle downtown! Will be back with some more news next time..Chao!

Sleepless in Seattle! after being well fed in India!

Hi all! I am Nupur Bagaria, MBA Class of 2013. A brief introduction is in place: I am born Indian, raised in Africa for 17 years, did my undergrad and first job in Southeast Asia (Singapore) [and became a citizen there because I absolutely loved that country!] and worked for the last 3 years in New York. And to make my life more interesting than just globe trotting, I have now decided to switch industries from financial services to high-tech! Prior to Ross, I worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the banking and capital markets space. Now for the summer, I will be going to Microsoft in their Office Division- Corporate finance.

But before I take you to the world of Windows 8 and Office 365, I would like to share my MAP experience with you because it was in the true sense of the word- UNIQUE. I was part of a team of four consulting for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). This organization, which is an amalgamation of public and private individuals, has created the world's largest biometric database! They have taken on the task of issuing biometric identities to the 1.2 Billion people in India. As you can imagine, this is no mean feat. In fact, they have amazed the world by issuing approximately 200 millions IDs within a year of establishment. My team's MAP project revolved around developing the application ecosystem for this identity system. We realized that this system has the potential to transform the lives of millions in so many ways, especially the under-privileged.

As part of the MAP, we traveled to India for 3 weeks. We had the opportunity to meet with the Chairman of the UIDAI- Mr. Nandan Nilekani- co-founder and ex-CEO of the multi-billion dollar IT company, Infosys. For the uninitiated, here is a wiki on Mr. Nilekani=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nandan_Nilekani and several other very senior government officials in the organization. In fact, we had a chance to speak with Mr. Nilekani right after his meeting with the IMF Chief- Ms. Christine Lagarde! (see picture).

My team found that the UIDAI has shown exemplary innovation in several ways (organizational structure, technology, technology management etc.) and its impact on Indian residents is so massive that I fall short on words. For those interested, here is the website of the UIDAI=> http://uidai.gov.in/ Thank you Ross for this unique experience!

Well folks, I can go on and on about my MAP project, and the excitement that I have for my summer internship is similar. Interning at Microsoft will be a game-charger for me. First- it will be a switch from the world of banking and financial services to high-tech, second from the east coast to the (much warmer!) west coast and thirdly from suits to business casual :) I have heard the techies are fond of denim and t-shirts and am really excited to experience that!

And now I will go back to being busy with what I plan to do throughout May- CHILL.

Stay tuned for my next post- till then- Chao!

Finished MAP - ready for my internship!

Hello! I’m a Japanese MBA student in Ross, class of 2013. I just finished MAP, a 7-weeks project in the end of Winter B in the first year of MBA program. I really enjoyed the consulting project with a great sponsor in LA and 5 other Rossers. After taking a short vacation, I’m going to work for Amazon Japan for 10 weeks. In Amazon Japan, I’ll work for launching new business. I cannot describe the project in detail because it is not public yet, but it looks exciting! Launching business from scratch is always difficult because it’s hard to imagine what will be in future. I’m also excited about working people in the company – they are friendly, smart and passionate! I had been a consultant for 7 years before MBA, so I don’t have any experience in IT/retail industry, so I’m nervous about my lack of experience, but I believe I can use my knowledge and skill I developed in consulting.

Destination: Austin!

In the aftermath of recruiting, exams, and the great social experiment known as MAP, I am preparing to pack my bags and leave Ann Arbor for my next big adventure: Austin, TX.

There is that internship thing, yes. I'll be interning with Dell, which is appealing to me since I'll probably be doing pretty much the opposite of what I've been doing in tech space so far! Marketing hardware in a big corporation vs. software consulting/engineering in start-ups and small firms. I am excited about seeing what kind of value I can bring to a company like Dell, and I do spend quite a lot of time reading and thinking about the change that Dell is undergoing and where the company is headed. Yet the internship experience is about more than who you work for and what you do. It is another opportunity to experience a different culture, a different atmosphere, a different vibe.

Austin is weird. And very cool, with the exception of the hellish weather during the summer. I was in town once in late 2009 for a few days, and really can't wait to go back and figure out whether I see myself living there post-MBA. Good tacos and electric guitars soaring through the night is heaven for me.

Cisco: Two week mark

So, the internship begins. I am one of 7 interns for Cisco's Human Resources Leadership Program (HRLP) program. It's great to meet like-minded people from different schools because we get to exchange ideas about the projects that we are working on. It's an all female group this year so it's definitely a HUGE change from the business school environment. Another great thing about the summer is apart from our individual projects, we also get to work on "suitcase" or team projects with a few of the other interns. Fresh out of my MAP experience, I think that I could apply a lot of what I learned in the past term to this team exercise.

I am still in the process of getting to know Cisco. So far so good though. My project meets all of the objectives that I set out to achieve for the summer. The environment is a lot like Ross - people are smart, helpful and warm. Anybody I've reached out to has been willing to help me out with my project. The cohort of interns and full-time HRLP participants is very closely knit. They planned a lot of activities to make our transition into Cisco as smooth as possible - one on one's with HR leadership, Comedy Sports, Napa Trip, Baseball game. In addition to this, the Michigan alumni network is very strong. We had a Michigan meet-up last week - mostly interns and full-time Cisco employees from the supply chain division. We still have a little pocket of Ann Arbor in this San Jose campus.

The support system that Cisco builds around the HRLP program is great in helping me adjust to my first ever job in the US. The culture is a lot more informal than what I'm used to. I catch myself being inappropriately formal at times in emails and meetings. I will get better at this :)

My first Strat 425 post...

So, I am an MBA who just finished his first year and will be spending the summer in Seattle, interning at Microsoft.

So far, I have limited information on my project, but I know I will be a Product Manager at the Windows Live business unit.

I hope this internship will help understand the High Tech industry and at the same time allow me to work in product development with tech engineers. The internship will give me the chance to work in a different environment with a widely different culture, hopefully giving me a better understanding of people.

I am really excited about spending the summer in Seattle, a city with so many options and things to do during the summer and being a part of one of the biggest Tech companies in the world which was also named one of the best places to work in the US. Working in developing a software product should be a great complement for my CPG experience.

I am a bit concerned about language problems especially keeping up with the speed with which some Americans talk and also getting used to the different way of doing things when working with different cultures.

But, no matter what... I am really looking forward to this opportunity!

Almost done

I am at the final stretch now, with two weeks left to my final presentations. All interns in my VP’s team do a five-minute presentation demonstrating their summer project during a 2-hour meeting at the end of the internships. All the other interns are software developers. Since I am the first and only MBA intern this team has had, my presentation will be unique. The first thing I learned in a communication class I took at Berkeley Haas last year was “Know Thy Audience” (no that is not how the professor phrased it). I have to tailor my presentation for software engineers and tech gurus, which I hope will not be too hard since I was a software engineer not too long ago. The second presentation is the famous Amazon white paper – a six page executive summary of my research, findings, results etc. I will present this white paper to 6 to 10 people during a 45 minute meeting. As with everything else, everyone is incredibly helpful. I hope to have it reviewed by a couple of people over the next two weeks.

This project reinforced a few beliefs I already had and taught me many new things. First, I do love numbers. Time flew by when I was working in excel on projections and models. I love a data driven job where I am analyzing trends to make recommendations. Second, there is a lot of room for me to improve when analyzing data. One of the principles at Amazon is to dig deep. I learned early in my internship through feedback that I needed to do more of that -- get to the core of the data, figure out what the underlying assumptions are, figure out what the methodology for collecting the data is. I initially hesitated to follow up with people because I did not want to disturb them or take too much of their time, but I learned that it is okay and even encourage to ask many questions. The biggest take-away from the summer is that I should foster my curiosity and that applies to all aspects of my life.

Dell: Final Post

It’s the home stretch. I can’t believe how quickly time flew by. 10 weeks just went “whoosh”, and I am finally ready to present my findings.

Well, almost. Every day involves meeting several people, presenting the findings to them, massaging the deck a little bit more. But it’s about ready. I will be presenting it at a director-level meeting either this Friday or the one after that. It’s all fairly fluid here at Dell.

My project involved a long period in which I essentially collected data that was previously unavailable; and then after I collected it I started to analyze it and construct my recommendations. Unfortunately, the data got to me only a week ago, and at first one of the only time slots they found for an executive presentation was a week from them. You can imagine that some sort of a panic set in; 12 hour workdays became the norm and I scurried to get everything ready in time. Fortunately, another timeslot was located a couple of weeks from then – but the scurrying had paid off , and most of the recommendations and presentation are ready for the original date (which was supposed to be tomorrow).

Who says that procrastination is bad, eh?

In news on the social front – it’s sad to see everyone I’ve become friendly with leave. The first wave of Dell interns is leaving at the end of this week and I’m sorry to see them go. Yesterday a whole bunch of us went on a boat again. Same boat as 4th of July. Same fun people. Same fun activities.

In two weeks, I will be back in Ann Arbor. To be honest, I had a blast in Austin – but I will be happy to leave and get back to my own apartment; back into life in Ann Arbor with my MBA friends and a lifestyle I had grown accustomed to and fond of. Farewell Austin, you’re an awesome city. I hope to be back soon!

Amazon: Work Hard, Have Fun, Make History

I can definitely check the first two off the list. Am I making history? Time will tell I guess, but I sure hope so! So my last month at Amazon just began this week. Time really has flown by. I have learned a lot about Amazon through other interns, the frequent speaker series (where Senior VP talk about their teams and careers), and through speaking with Ross alumni at Amazon. It seems that each team has its own sub-culture, but the common theme at Amazon is “casual intensity”.

Intensity: Everyone is very passionate about the customer, their work and their business segment. People work very hard and are very absorbed in their work. People love to get involved in different aspects of the business. For instance, engineers brim with ideas for solving business problems and marketing managers get involved with the technology architecture and bug fixing. I also love the meeting culture here. Meetings longer than 30 minutes are unusual. Attendees focus on the topic at hand and so meetings are very efficient. In fact, efficiency and frugality are also a common theme at Amazon, which contributes to innovation at every step.

Casual: In a nutshell - T-Shirts, Shorts, Sandals, Wii games, and Dogs. The culture at Amazon is very casual. On a sunny day, I often see people play Frisbee or picnic in the parks at work. People come to work in shorts and t-shirts and sandals (and that’s not just on Fridays). Even senior management dresses very casually. We have bi-weekly happy hours at work at the end of Friday that one sub-team puts together. And once in a while we have Happy Hours on other days for no reason except TGIF. There were local brews, dart boards, a Wii game set-up on a big projection screen and a heated discussion about Ninjas vs. Pirates at an impromptu Happy Hour organized by our senior VP just a few days ago. And, I also appreciate how dog friendly the company is. Employees can bring thier dog to work. In fact there is an off-leash dog park on campus, and every reception has a jar of dog cookies. There seems to be one dog for every 6 employees here at Amazon. My floor has gone to the dogs, said a colleague when introduced to two new puppies in the past month.
Here is a hilarious video by Woot, a recent Amazon acquisition that touches upon the company culture:

Internship last 3 weeks

So the very creative title says it all, I'm almost done with my internship. These days, I'm working on tying up loose ends and organizing the mass of information generated during the internship. Also, I’m creating a presentation that can effectively sum up 3 months of work in 1 hour and yet not miss the important details. There is still some time to go (about 2.5 weeks) and I’m yet to enter the reflection mode fully, but since this is my last post, I will mention some of the key takeaways from the internship.
On the positive side I have been able to learn about many key aspects of the business. I started with evaluating some broad market segments for the company. And these days I'm creating pricing models which I hope would shortly be the basis for some price negotiations. More importantly, I have identified some channels the company could use to target those particular market segments. Also as short side projects looked at product certifications and some supply chain issues. Now that I think of it that’s a reasonable amount of work for 12 weeks. May be if I had interned for a larger company I might not have got the opportunity to touch so many aspects of the company business.
On the not so positive side, I got some pointers about dealing with investors when you are running a company in its initial stages. And saw some instances of how frustrating it can be some times to have to think continuously about cash flows or be in continuous dread of losing the only advantage that the young company has – intellectual property. Having seen the amount of uncertainty all these can bring to even a well funded early stage company, I could see that there are some definite advantages of being in a larger company.
It has been a great two and a half months and I have learnt quite a lot and I’m pretty sure come full time recruitment it will help me make a well informed choice.
(341 words)

Fun, work and vistas

In addition to the 30-odd Rossers here, there are over 150 MBA interns in Seattle this summer, from B-Schools all over the U.S. We have a Facebook page and google groups where people have signed up for different activities. It has been great to hang out with them over the weekends for BBQs, Kayaking and Movies. It is not possible to meet over the week, but I make it a point to see other people every weekend, and I got to know a few of them very well.

Amazon organizes a lot of events for its interns. We have weekly happy hours. And one of my favorite parts of the internship is the speaker series. HR invites Senior VPs and VPSs from different divisions to talk to the intern group about their teams, career and the company as a whole. These are very educational, and provide another opportunity to spend time with the rest of the interns. As for networking, I meet a lot of people in relation to my project. And I reach out to people in groups that I find interesting. I found people here very open to talking to interns and happy to make time for us.

I have found the workload to be reasonable for an internship. My days vary quite a bit. I usually meet one or two people per day about my project. I spend several hours writing my findings or recommendations down. I also spend a few hours doing secondary research for my project. Due to the flexibility Amazon employees enjoy, every once in a while I work at the office café or lounge so that the change of scene and beautiful Seattle vistas can inspire me. I am very impressed by how every Amazon building has great views.

Sun burnt

As an Israeli who has some roots in Iraq, I rarely – if ever, get sunburnt. Texas, however, has proven to be the Moriarty to my Sherlock Holmes of a skin. Or, if you will, the Darth Vader to my Obi-Wan Kenobi. I could go on. But I won’t.
For the past 4 weekends I have either been tubing, hiking, boating, or swimming. I’m as red as a lobster. I say this not to discuss my dermatological state – but rather to emphasize the social lifestyle that us interns have been living here. Every weekend is full of activity! This weekend for instance, I will probably go to the Texas Roller Derby; last weekend was a 4th of July excursion to Lake Travis, etc. etc.

I must also note that I am at the exact mid point of my internship.
So far what I’ve done is essentially talk to people, get the lay of the land, and scope out the project. We finally have a firm grip on the timeline, what we want to deliver, and how we want to deliver it. A lot of the past week has been spent on taking toll of what I’ve done so far and discussing the project with various parties and stakeholders.

I don’t think I can emphasize enough how long the process takes: Scoping out a project in a culture you are not familiar with and in a business line you never knew takes time. A lot of time is spent just understanding the acronyms. Dell has an overabundance of those. The rest of the time is about managing expectations, and getting the assistance, resources, and support you need to conclude the project successfully. I think the success of an internship project hinges more on the preparation than it does on the execution. We will see if I’m right soon enough.

A lot more of my time now is going towards analyzing data and work rather than learning the ropes. I feel that I have become significantly more productive in what is essentially an environment and culture I have never encountered until a few weeks ago. While the learning curve has been steep, I feel I have finally reached a plateau of productivity. I hope this keeps up.

The end is near

I am in week 8 of my 12 week internship. While it has been a great experience so far, now is the time to start putting things together so that I am able to deliver a valueable end deliverable. That implies going over your work with relevant folks, stakeholders and otherwise, to get their perspectives on the issues at hand and itearate on the final deliverable based on their feedback. This process does get stressful at times but is a necessary part of delivering a good end-product.

I am currently working on search advertising. Google owns the lions share of the market, and given that this business has strong network effects, competitors find it difficult to gain market share. The network effect in search looks like this: a larger share of search queries leads to advertisers prefering the search engine which gives them a broader audience exposure, which in turn means that users will get more relevant advertisements for their search queries creating a better user experience and thus they will stick to the larger search engine. However with the launch of Bing, and now with the Yahoo deal (scheduled to go live in October), Microsoft will have a fighting chance of gaining query share and advertising spend.

On a related note, Microsoft's communication head put up an interesting blog here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2010/06/25/microsoft-by-the-numbers.aspx. It has been analysed by Techcrunch here: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/26/microsoft-numbers/

Moving onto things which are more fun, the fourth of July weekend was great. Watching Netherlands move into the semis was a perfect start. Saturday was a trip to Mt St Helens, an active volcano about 120 miles south of Seattle. On Sunday, I went Kayaking on Lake Union. All of these trips were with friends from Ross. We closed the weekend with a Microsoft sponsored barbeque and a great fireworks show. Hopefully I will be able to have a few more trips before the close of my internship.

Learning and Unlearning

"Are you having fun ? What did you learn ?" the CEO asked, even before I could start my midway presentation.

I'm more than half way through my internship and often during these 7 weeks I have got the urge to do more analytical 'MBA type' stuff. The need to give business issues the form of a well laid out case and then provide an elegant solution. However, in the real world facts have a way of hiding until right after you have made the decision and then in hindsight they are all there. And more than that, although something like a conjoint analysis might be very valuable and look even better on a report, business needs might be more effectively served by a quick calculation delivered with perfect timing.

Even though picturing yourself making that all convincing strategy argument supported by incontestable facts is very satisfying, but almost never achievable in a real business scenario. As I start the last month of my internship I'm convinced the increased comfort with business ambiguity will help me propose more practical solutions to the problems I'm handling.

I would say the most important learning in this internship has been to know better when to keep the MBA in me reined in and let common sense make the call...and yes it has been fun learning that and more. A bit unsettling, but fun none the less.
Finally, as posting on this blog has also been part of the summer experience, I would use this comment to say something about the blogging assignment. When I opted for this exercise at the onset of summer I felt that this may be useful. But now I’m coming round to the view that it may be better to discontinue this exercise from the next year or make some changes at the very least. Blogging is essentially about free sharing of ideas and the less boundaries we put around it the better. Also in my view in its present form this assignment has been a distraction from what students should primarily be concentrating on - which is their internship. It may be minor but it’s a distraction none the less. More important, the internet is much too powerful a medium to waste on saying something just because you have to meet a word limit. Just my two cents… (390 words)

Seattle - week 5

The last time I blogged, I was still figuring out my project. Well since then, I have finished one of my projects (after spending a few 14 hour days), made presentations and started working on my other projects. Online advertising is an ever evolving field, with new technologies evolving rapidly (compare it to offline advertising, which has been in steady state for decades!) and the strategy group provided a great experience to get an overall view of the business in a few weeks.

Online advertising can be separated into Display advertising and Search advertising. The display advertising space is insanely complex. The current value chain is summarized here http://www.adexchanger.com/pdf/Display-Advertising-Technology-Landscape-2010-05-03.pdf. Being in the strategy group involves thinking through how each segment of the value chain is evolving, and which segments will be able to maintain their margins while other segments might get commoditized. The image above also gives a great idea of the main players in the field.

Search advertising is much more organized. Advertisers primarily bid on keywords in an auction, and the winning advertiser is chosen based on his bid price and the historical probability of the ad being clicked. Its fascinating how such a simple idea is leading to billions of dollars in revenue for Google.

At Seattle, we probably have one of the largest MBA intern communities (between Microsoft, Amazon and Boeing) and the fact that all of us stay in the same apartment complex doesnt hurt. We had a bar crawl before heading to a Mariners game last weekend, which was a lot of fun. What made it special was a few Rossers flew from around the country for the weekend! World cup matches on weekends is becoming a routine, as are boardgames nights and dinners on weekdays.

I am looking forward to the next 7 weeks and hopefully will have interesting stories to tell in my next post. Until then..