Powerpointing away..

Hey folks!

Time has just flown by- I'm already in week 10 of my internship- 2 more to go..

While the excitement of going back to Ann Arbor and seeing my friends is immense, I am also very sad- since I had such a great time here in Seattle, with the MBA interns from the other B-schools and at Microsoft. I am in the process of developing my final presentation(s) and writing out a white paper documenting all my work.

I will be presenting to three types of audiences:
1) Exec: CFO, GM and Directors
2) Revenue Finance Group consisting of analysts, managers and senior managers
3) Directors from other departments who are interested in the topic of my project

As I refine the individual slide decks for each of these presentations, I am extremely cautious about my audience, the key messages I want to leave with each group and the level of depth/ complexity I want to go into. My mentor has been extremely supportive in providing me feedback on my slides do far. One thing that has really helped me is that from the beginning of my internship, I used Powerpoint slides as a tool to run meetings and gather information. While it consumed a lot of time, it also helped me develop a story as my project progressed and now I am completely comfortable with the story-line for my final presentation.

Creation of the slide deck early helped me in another way as well- as I met with business partners and other team mates for their inputs on my project, I also got their views on the way I visualized the slides. Believe me, I have changed every slide in my deck atleast 7-8 times now. This makes me extremely comfortable now that any audience, no matter how different, will be able to understand the slides as they incorporate the feedback of so many people.

As you can tell, I am dreaming powerpoint right now...and am proud to be working for the company that developed this great tool- Powerpoint! I am also super excited about the new Office 2013- I have had a chance to test it (or dogfood it in Microsoft terms) and it was far beyond my expectations! So watch out for this great product! You can see the customer preview on the site:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en

Now back to slide number......:)

It's only words and words are all I have to take your heart away....

Hi there folks!

You must be wondering why the title of my post is from a Boyzone song from decades ago. The rason is because no matter what context the boyzone used these lyrics in, it applies to every situation I can think of. Do you remember when your mum warned you that words are like arrows- they can never be taken back ? (well except ofcourse in sci-fi movies they can..but lets pretend not to be superheroes here :)

Why I'm dwelling so much on this message of words is because the last two weeks, I have been trying to socialise with and influence several business partners about a framework that I have developed, and my best friends are impactful words, thoughtful messaging and attention to my audience.

Thanks to my manager at Microsoft, I am paying a lot more attention to the way I relay my messages to business partners and it has been a great learning experience so far. It is not sufficient to have a great model/ framework/ findings if they are not messaged carefully and with impact. This is a skill that comes with awareness, practise and experience (in the words of my mentor). So I'm practising...:)
So for all the finance guys out there- remember, your numbers are only as good as the "words" accompanying them. And the right words take some preparation..

And btw, tomorrow the MBA interns at Microsoft (just the 60 of us) are having lunch with Steve Balmer- I'm super excited!!!!!

Expecting the Unexpected!!

The Valley is reputed to be one of those places where “creative destruction” takes place @ a faster rate than anywhere else on earth. Words that come to your mind are:

Innovation

Disruption

Computers

Ideas

Progress

New

The tech industry based in Silicon Valley employs some of the smartest people I’ve met.  My internship experience leads me to believe that most engineers and managers in the Valley in general come from top schools world-wide. They represent over 100 different nationalities from across the globe. This reminds me of the ancient Indian (Sanskrit) saying:   

वसुधैव कुटुम्बक  - Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam – The whole world is one family!

There are however no pre-set qualifications, smart people from across the globe with no formal qualifications other than an undergrad are successful here . The incredible magnet that Silicon Valley is you would think that it’s “an all work, no play lifestyle”. Right? Wrong!!!!!

Here’s what you probably never expected: most companies in the Tech industry offer great life styles -  plenty of freebies (perks) such as free meals, free snacks etc, half day work on Fridays  and  a work –life balance that is un-paralleled in most professions world-wide.

So how does my internship experience compare (from someone with first-hand experience)?

No standard work hours – just get your work done, show initiative, drive performance and results!

Thank God it’s Friday – carnivals, shows, concerts, bands etc

Cafes – plenty to choose from and an array of choices! 

Snack Bars!

WFH -Work from Home is not frowned upong (as long as you get the work done, attend meetings!)

A few notes below that will give prospective international students a greater feel for the tech industry:

Job Hopping:

A key driver for rapid innovation in the Silicon Valley as AnnaLee Saxenian, author of Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128, puts it is

"Job-hopping, rather than climbing the career ladder within a corporation, facilitates flows of information and know-how between individuals, firms, and industries. When combined with venture capital, it supports unanticipated recombinations of technologies and skill.

Old vs New , Consulting vs Tech:

While consulting firms and consultants focuses on old age economies and traditional business models and processes, the valley focuses on start-ups, developing new processes and innovative business models.

Many Careers:

You don’t program all your life, neither are you into sales all your life in the Tech Industry.

In this video (click here), Tim Draper, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, talks about the California's Silicon Valleyand about many careers in the tech industry! 

In my next post, I shall talk about enjoying the internship experience - it is such a fleeting moment!

Sleepless in Seattle:  See you all back in school

So folks, this is my last note here. I have only 2 weeks for my last presentation and 3 weeks to my last day here. In order to be as ready as I could, I started working on the presentation a week ago. Next week I hope to circle the deck around the team to have as many corrections as possible. It is actually my 6th presentation this summer - so I must say that at least I learned how the Microsoft people like to have their presentation. Although people's characters is always to be consider while presenting, here in Microsoft most of the presentation are actually the documentation method for the entire project.

Since I networked and connected with so many people, right now there are more than 40 people invited to my final presentation and several more personal meetings with senior managers from other teams that can't participate in the schedule date with my manager (I believe it is also contribute to her network - so I'm happy with that too).

Looking back on my tenure in Microsoft this summer (although I haven't finished yet) it was a great adventure that started 7 months ago - during the recruiting time - continue through my MAP project with the IEB division (gaming studios) and the 9 weeks of internship. I got to know not only a great company that has the ability to change the world, but also amazing people who are smart and open, creative and fun to work with. Microsoft for me feels like a warm blanket of "coming back home" (since I worked in hi-tech before) and I felt in my first weeks here that I know how to hit the floor running.

I would say that there are several takeaways from the entire period (those 7 months):

1.       Go with your heart - do what feels good. If you have fun in your work (especially depends on the people around you) stay there, learn how to love it and put your heart to it.

2.       Be open to feedback. This is why we have two ears and only one mouth - listen 60%-70% of the time, that way you will learn the most.

3.       Smile. It will give you a great feeling and it is contagious so others could start smiling too.

But to be specific about the internship I know I communicate my efforts, needs, questions and results very well. I shared it with smart and key people, networked outside of my immediate environment and put the people around me on my first priority. On the other side I know I did some things not so well - I started to think on business problems with my engineering brain, I almost did some huge political mistakes that could affect my manager and haven't done a great job articulating the story in my presentation the way people in Microsoft use to.

                                                                                    Live long and prosper. Go blue.

Shhhh....I'm listening....

Hey there,

I cannot believe that 5 weeks of my internship are already over and next week I hit the mid-point. The last few weeks have been phenomenal in every sense of the word. I have met the most interesting people, learned so much about technology, received some of the best advice on career advancement and had so much fun!

My project is shaping up very well and there are so many dimensions that have been added to it, that every morning, I cannot wait to get to work and get started. I joined the Corporate finance world, expecting lots of spreadsheet modeling, financial valuation and analytics. Yes, I am getting to do all of that, but only 50% of the time. The other 50% of my project is purely qualitative- understanding the products (software!!), studying customer behavior and projecting that behavior for future development and socializing different ways of thinking about processes across different groups within the company ( marketing, product management, business managers, sales, strategy and operations).

With so much time spent on meeting people from so many different departments and functions, I am learning to further hone my communication and relationship management skills. At Microsoft, like any other big corporation, people and relationships are the real key to success; and this has been reiterated by all the C-level executives that we have met so far. They have all attributed their success to their relationships with the right people and influencing skills.

Another skill that I feel I use everyday is that of mindful listening; which can be argued is a part of communication skills, but I like to separate it out because what we mostly learn about communication is how we express ourselves, in written, verbally or through body language. We are not taught or trained to "listen". There have been several times during my conversations with business partners when I have been best served by just listening, and not rushing to share my own opinion of the matter to impress my counterpart.

So what I've learned to do is : don't just communicate, LISTEN. And when you speak AFTER carefully listening to the other person, your words will INFLUENCE and IMPRESS them.

Hopefully I continue to develop this skill as I continue in my career.....

So now Shhhh...I'm listening....:)

Sleepless in Seattle: The Microsoft culture

Microsoft, the company which changed the software world forever, produced three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires from its employees and now has around 90,000 employees and 60 MBA interns for the summer. I could talk for a whole day about the culture of the company which can be consider as an 18 wheeler, but I would start with one word - intricate !

The dictionary define 'intricate' as difficult and complex, and there is no better word to describe a company that is actually 7 different companies (divisions) with their own agenda, fighting over the attention of the CEO. In the last couple of years, Steve Ballmer (CEO) did some re-org that put the technical people (engineering background) at the top of those divisions and reduced the internal fighting almost to zero. Although the willingness to look unite, the internal structure and culture of every division is different and mainly defined by its president.

In general I could say that the culture in Microsoft is very open - since I has a vast hi-tech background it is like returning home, to the open door of your peers and managers (in all levels), to the flexible hours of work, to the open mind for new (sometimes crazy) ideas and opinions and the casual approach to the working environment (jeans and t-shirts). I was lucky to be able to work and communicate with people from all over the company and to understand that there are three major pyramids in the company - the main one is the engineering (the heart and soul of the company), the business (the head of the company) and the field (the arms and legs of the company).

                                                                              Talk to you soon,
                                                                                             Barak.

Surprise Surprise.......whooom! and here's the Surface!

Hi all,


Nothing much has happened since my last post- only Microsoft has created a HUGE stir in the tablet market by introducing its own new tablet- the Surface, AND they introduced the Windows Phone 8 AND they acquired the work-place friendly social networking business Yammer for $1.2B- all in 2 weeks! Yes- that is the kind of market-swinging movement at Microsoft right now, which makes it an extremely exciting place to spend the summer. 

USA Today's article comparing Surface to the Ipad


As an intern in such a dynamic company, there are so many new things to learn- from enjoying  and adding to the wide-spread speculation before the Surface was launched (yes- no one outside of the immediate Surface team even had a whiff of what was being launched that day) to considering what effect this and other launches (and acquisitions) will have on the company's products, business model, branding and future strategy. 


A midst all this excitement in the Redmond campus, there are moments when Microsoftees come up with more brilliant and innovative ideas and new products are incubated after these key moments. Which then explains the environment that has been created in the Redmond campus- casual, lots of nature and free of many of the redundant corporate fads- an environment that is conducive to creativity and open to radical ideas (about tech obviously).

That also explains why Microsoft gives its MBA interns such great opportunities to meet with the highest level executives. We have an Executive Lunch series where the 60 of us are put in a room with C-level people, so far we have met with the Chief operating officer, Kevin Turner (60K poeple around the world report to him- just a fun fact) and Lisa Brummel ( the Chief People Officer, who has had the most unconventional career- going from an MBA to leading the marketing for some of Microsoft's best products to being on the team that incubated the Surface several years ago!). During these lunches, we eat great food and get this exec's full attention to ask any question that we have for around 1.5 hours. The full time employees here say that this opportunity is not even afforded to those who have been at the company for 6-7 years- That is the kind of learning we as MBA interns have at Microsoft.

Now when I am not talking to C-level execs at Microsoft :), I work on my project with an absolutely great team, meet with people from several different departments and enjoy more events. Last week, the Microsoft Business Division had our summer party- we went golfing at this amazing golf course called New Castle. See the picture of the view of Seattle from this Golf course=> it was breathtaking!  And the weather was on our side that day, lots of sunshine.


Last week we also had a happy hour for the interns at this (again) amazing place called Ray's boathouse in Ballard (added to my "must go list" in Seattle!) All these events are accompanied by open bars and buffet lunches/dinners.

In between all this fun, my project is gaining momentum and I am getting into the swing of things. Last week I had a chance to present to my Director my progress and findings so far and realized that I was making a presentation after a very long time. That made me think- we do not make enough presentations during our MBA really, we should do more of those. Microsoft is very a Power point heavy company- everything is done in Power point and excels and presentation skills therefore play an extremely important role in the communications to higher management levels. Another important skills that I feel I am developing at Microsoft is that of balancing detailed analytical thinking with high-level strategic thinking. Every discussion moves back and forth between these two views and its important to think about the nitty-gritties as well as from the 30,000 feet level at the same time. 


So guys- that's been my last two weeks of a lot of fun and excitement- and its only been 3 weeks since I started...I could get used to this fun....:)


Chao! Till we meet again....

Sleepless in Seattle:         Network, Network, Network

How time flies… I’m in my 5^th week of the internship and I try to network as much as possible. I Network with people in my team, in my division, in my company and with other MBA’s. Most of the network is done through lunch meetings and coffee breaks – you probably know what I’m talking about. Although it is pretty easy to stay in my room, crunching presentations and data to provide some sort of useful output to my group I prefer to fill-up my day with meetings – and my nights with the crunching and reading and processing the data.

My networking can be divided into 3 types. The first is the most important one – the internal division network. I am engaging in meetings and casual conversations with people from my own group and division to learn about them and their day2day work. To understand how they could help me with my project, what is it like to work with and around them and just to enjoy the company of very smart and fun people. The second kind is the future type – I try to meet with people from different divisions and different roles in the company to understand how the big picture comes together, to see the vision of other people in different positions around the company. The third type is the MBA connection – I try to attend all the organized events that the Microsoft recruiters sponsor and the unofficial ones also.

But more than everything I try to manage time to be with my family. I haven’t seen them for 4 weeks and my entire first MBA year was mainly around recruiting and networking, so the time I spent with my wife and kids was pretty limited. I can’t say I have much more time now but it is much better than before. So most of the days I try to be home around 19:00-20:00 be with my kids for couple of hours and back to some work around 23:00.

                                                                                                                Till next time,

                                                                                                                                Barak

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!

Start your engines

Sleepless in Seattle:

It took me 2400 miles and 6 days to get to Seattle from Ann Arbor. Driving between 6000 feet and the sea level I went through areas with 100 degrees Fahrenheit (in Billing Montana) to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (in Butte up on the Rocky Mountains).

The company gave my family and me an amazing apartment in the downtown Seattle, 50 yards from the water line, 5 minutes’ walk from every major attraction and amazing marketplace that opens also on weekdays.

I think I can say for sure that in the last 5 days since I got to town I did at least 15 miles of unplanned routs just because I keep missing the right turns or lanes on the road.

As I wrote before, I’m interning with the Lync team for the business planning group. I work on a new and excited product that our brilliant engineers develop in order to assess its business opportunities.

Since my building is on the edge of the beautiful Microsoft campus, you could even see some deers walking around the building during daylight.

I believe that the hardest thing for me now is being away for so long from my wife and kids, but I keep telling myself that they will be here in less than two weeks.

Going back to the workplace – they put me in a huge room of me own – I believe it is around 6x6 foot big, but with no one else around. As a former engineer (although I believe that the ‘engineer’ in me would never leave) I used to be in the same room with at least one more engineer, and the work itself was much more fun and more productive. Maybe the business planners who need to talk to customers should have more quiet, but I prefer as much interactions with other human-beings as possible.

Tomorrow I will go to try my first hike around Seattle – hopefully I won’t run into much rain (which is pretty common here).

Till next time,

Good luck guys

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!

Sleepless In Seattle,

That at least what my new manager told me. A week ago I met my senior director – who will be my boss's boss in the summer and he already gave me the assignment for the summer: "Hard Work". So let us start from the beginning, I'm a MBA of 2013, going to intern with Microsoft in the Business division. I will work on a product in the name of "Lync" and hopefully will touch all the business aspects for the product (business planning, marketing, product management and engineering). One of the most exciting issues about this summer is the fact that Lync is one of the newest products from Microsoft and has the potential to replace all the internal phone-system servers with a computer based communication system.

That is only half of the summer, since I'm taking my family with me to Seattle and intend to spend as much time as possible with them. I will drive my car the 2,300 miles to Seattle from Ann Arbor while my wife and two kids will fly out to Seattle (6 days instead of 5 hours). On our way back we intend to cross the country on a long roadtrip and visit the Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore.

I really hope that I would be able to combine those two main tasks – family and internship – and to enjoy every minute of the beautiful summer in Washington.



The last few weeks

The last 10 weeks seem to have flown away. It has been a busy 10 weeks, although I had my fair share of fun activities. The last few weeks are going to be a scramble, to tie up a lot of information processing together into a synchronized deliverable.

I am preparing for a presentation to my entire team in the last week, and that involves a lot of work with meeting the team and getting feedback on my work over the last week. The idea is to build a foundation for your work before you go into your final presentation and building consensus is especially important when working on the strategy team.

Last weekend was a mix of fun and work. On Saturday, four Rossers left early in the morning for Friday Harbor for a whale watching tour. I was blown away by the trip and the experience of being in the middle of the ocean surrounded by a pod of whales was surreal. Sunday however was at work, where I was pulling stuff together for my meetings on Monday. Then again, I was able to fit in breaks from work. Wednesday evening, I went to the IMax in downtown Seattle and was blown away by Inception.
My roommate, who is from Ross and an intern at Microsoft as well had a fantastic experience last week. He was attending the World Partner Conference at Washington DC. It was a fantastic experience where he learnt how crucial partners are for Microsoft’s enterprise offerings, the kind of products partners build on top of Microsoft’s offerings and their expectations from a partner conference. To top it all, he attended a keynote by Bill Clinton.
Speaking of famous speakers, we have had the chance to interact with the CVPs of all of Microsoft’s divisions. Last week is the grand finale, with Steve Ballmer speaking to us. These sessions have been great learning experiences, based on the career experiences of each one of these leaders and hearing about their vision of Microsoft.
This is my last post, and hopefully I will see you all back in AA starting September.

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.

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..

Internship: Quarter 1

I completed 3 weeks at Microsoft last Friday. These three weeks have been very exciting. I have been learning the lay of the land of online advertising, which seems to be evolving daily. While its all clubbed together as online advertising, different subverticals have completely different challenges. Paid search ads, diplay ads, mobile ads, Video ads, all have their own unique set of challenges. I have been lucky to get a chance to speak with people within most of these groups, and have been learning a lot.

The tools that come in handy are excel and powerpoint. I highly recommend the Excel courses to the class of 2012. The course covers the basics of excel, and is essential if you have not used Excel extensively in your past life. I also find that my MAP experience was really helpful in preparing me for the internship. I am better prepared for the informational interviews because of MAP.

The rain Gods have not been very kind to us over the past few weeks, and it has rained continuously. However we do get sunny patches once in a while, and this Saturday was one such day. A group of 20 MBAs (interns from all over the country, working for Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing etc) went to Twin Falls, for a early morning hike. It was a lot of fun and we got to meet a ton of great people.

The next few weeks at work are devoted to completing a financial model and developing a framework for search advertisement innovation. As I will describe in the next post, the display advertising space can be very intimidating, and it takes a significant amount of time to wrap your head around some of the concepts. I am looking forward to a ton of learning. Till then, Sayonara..

Week 1 at Microsoft

Since my last post, I finished my MAP presentations, drove to 3 national parks in Arizona, Utah and California, hiked in 2 of them, packed for 12 straight hours at Ann Arbor and finally moved to Seattle. It was a whirlwind 17 days but well worth it. My friend had a Michigan hat on all the time, and the number of “Go Blue’s” the hat drew was surprising. Be it on a hike in Utah or at a fast food joint in Las Vegas, those words usher in a bon homie. It really reaffirms my decision of choosing to join Ross.

We had a very well organized orientation the first day where we got to meet the other interns and were detailed about the social activities organized for the interns during the summer. The highlights include a lunch talk by Steve Ballmer, a private show by Cirque de Soleil and a boat treasure hunt on Lake Washington. I am an intern with Microsoft's online advertising strategy group. My project is related to paid search and display advertising. Being an internal strategy project, the work is very challenging and I am learning a lot. People here are very helpful, always ready to spend time coaching you and have a casual intensity about them. In addition to that, we have a strong alumni presence and I have already met two Ross alums in my group.

The bonus we got is that there are about 25 Ross interns in Seattle and most of us are staying in the same apartment complex in downtown Seattle. We keep bumping into each other in the apartment lobby and have been hanging out over the weekends. It looks like the ideal setting for a great summer ahead. I will update you about all my "adventures" in the upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

First post

Hey, I am Biswaroop and I am a 1st year MBA student at the Ross School of Business. I am an international student from India and am interning at Microsoft, with their online advertisement strategy group. I am very passionate about internet technologies and therefore was thrilled to get this offer.

I am very excited about the opportunity to work with amazingly smart people at a very innovative company and hope to utilize this opportunity to do some great work over the summer. Microsoft and Amazon interns from Ross stay in the same apartment in downtown Seattle. This summer, there will be close to 25 of us in the same apartment complex and I am looking forward to enjoying Seattle and having a good time.