It's been a week since my internship started at CS. Although I've not been given any actual work, I can feel it is going to be a busy summer. We're constantly warned about the hours, and I can see analysts treating the office as their home.
Part of training has been a series of speakers advising us on a multitude of job-related topics ranging from dignity at work to do's and don'ts for the summer. We're bombarded with all kinds of well-meaning exhortations, solicited or otherwise, including:
- Any time you have to leave your desk for an extended period of time, inform somebody (even if it is for 20 minutes).
- Ask a lot of questions. Ask a lot of questions. Ask a lot of questions.
- The only reason we're in this business is to do deals. Don't forget that.
- The most important thing is your attitude.
- The return offer is yours to lose.
- (My fave) Don't whine. If your boss gives you work at 4 pm on a Friday, don't go 'but I had plans...' Unless you have a wedding or a funeral, you don't have plans.
There's so much to learn and absorb, that even though we've had 5 days of training I don't feel prepared for what will be expected of me. However, in my short 5 working days I have already gotten a taste of the IB lifestyle. On Wednesday I was supposed to meet some friends in NYC for dinner. However, we were given homework that day and all had to stay past 11pm to complete it. I canceled on my friends. I have long known that in investment banking your time is not really yours, but this was the first time I experienced it. I guess I will stop making plans for the next 8 weeks.
What has most impressed me throughout the training process so far is the rousing speeches given by senior bankers. They all have a genuine passion for the business and the company, and have keen insight on their respective industries. I hope to find my passion too, and one day be able to call something I'm passionate about my career.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Dell - defining a project - and Austin - Blues central.
I'm 3 weeks into my internship. I was essentially given a list of names and was told : "go and talk to these people. Tell me what you think about the business."
The list had 25 names of people. These people had - possibly - 50 opinions. I wrote them all down. I brainstormed. I oohed. I ahhed. I wrote more stuff down. The 25 people suggested 25 more people I should talk to. Pretty soon I was living in other people's cubes.
I ran an IV line from Starbucks into my bloodstream.
At the end of the process - I think I have something that vaguely resembles a project proposal. I hope to finalize it in the beginning of next week and start working. I hope that my project's useful. A lot is riding on the recommendations. It seems like the project they assigned to me is actually going to be utilized as soon as possible - it gave me a sense of urgency I did not expect.
I do want to discuss two other things: One is Blues - Austin is known for it's very well developed blues music scene. I have decided to take advantage of that and use some of my spare time to relearn the guitar and harmonica. If you like music - seek employment with Dell.
The other is the experience of working in a large company that has so many MBA interns: It's pretty cool - a lot of likeminded people who are here in Austin as well - in a strange town. We end up socializing a lot and doing a lot of activities. For instance, today I went hiking in a park, and tomorrow I will go tubing. This despite the insane triple digit weather in the summers here.
If you have two opportunities for an internship - all other things being equal - pick the one where they have more interns. You'd have far more fun. So far we've gone out to concerts, boat trips, dinners, and more. An internship is more than the chance of getting a full time job; it's even more than the opportunity to learn new things you have not been exposed to before. And yet even more than a time to expand your professional network. It's a great time to make new friends.
The list had 25 names of people. These people had - possibly - 50 opinions. I wrote them all down. I brainstormed. I oohed. I ahhed. I wrote more stuff down. The 25 people suggested 25 more people I should talk to. Pretty soon I was living in other people's cubes.
I ran an IV line from Starbucks into my bloodstream.
At the end of the process - I think I have something that vaguely resembles a project proposal. I hope to finalize it in the beginning of next week and start working. I hope that my project's useful. A lot is riding on the recommendations. It seems like the project they assigned to me is actually going to be utilized as soon as possible - it gave me a sense of urgency I did not expect.
I do want to discuss two other things: One is Blues - Austin is known for it's very well developed blues music scene. I have decided to take advantage of that and use some of my spare time to relearn the guitar and harmonica. If you like music - seek employment with Dell.
The other is the experience of working in a large company that has so many MBA interns: It's pretty cool - a lot of likeminded people who are here in Austin as well - in a strange town. We end up socializing a lot and doing a lot of activities. For instance, today I went hiking in a park, and tomorrow I will go tubing. This despite the insane triple digit weather in the summers here.
If you have two opportunities for an internship - all other things being equal - pick the one where they have more interns. You'd have far more fun. So far we've gone out to concerts, boat trips, dinners, and more. An internship is more than the chance of getting a full time job; it's even more than the opportunity to learn new things you have not been exposed to before. And yet even more than a time to expand your professional network. It's a great time to make new friends.
Life from a consultant point of view
(MBA,Booz) Five weeks had passed by very fast and I am slowly getting used to the consultant tempo, it starts Monday morning with an early flight to the project location, then a taxi to the hotel, check in and straight to the team room where I literally spend most of my day. Each team has its own rules; in my case we have a daily team meeting 6:30 PM before we call it a day, though there is always something else to do, so most of the time we don’t leave before 7:30 PM. When we do call it a day, we go to the hotel, drop the computer bag and go out to grab dinner so it’s not until around 9-9:30 PM that I arrive to my room to take a shower , once a week we have a team dinner so we arrive to our room even later. The morning usually starts around 9 AM – but it depends on the customer – in our case this is an early one and so is our wakeup call – 7:30 we are already on site working. On Thursday the team returns home – or to be more precise – each team member flies to his home which might be anywhere in the US, so it’s a shorter day that might end as early as 4:30 though I usually fly out around 7:30, it gives more time to accomplish tasks and airport security lines are much shorter at that time.
Friday is a home office day – it is an easier day 9-5 basically and there’s always something fun happening in the office - for the past two weeks we had World Cup games screening accompanied with breakfast!
I must admit I enjoy this routine and feel very good with the consultant way of life, even after I had to spend 1.5 hours in a shaking plane that tried to land 5 times before succeeding because of bad weather, I guess it might change after few years but so far so good!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Consulting - Week 1. Check!
Phew - week 1 of my consulting internship at Booz & Co. is almost over, and I can already feel the heat of the fast paced consulting career! My first week was very similar to what the other Ross-er at Booz has experienced - drinking from a fire hose. Think first week of RLI - on steroids.
The first day involved the "logistics" - laptop, paperwork, welcome presentation and address, etc. The second day onwards, "the game" was on! By "the game", I mean a training simulation where we are all assigned to teams and have to work together on a client engagement. Our engagement working sessions were peppered with training sessions for Excel, Powerpoint, Company culture and policy, etc. "The game" ended with the teams presenting and the team coaches giving each of us feedback. My, how much we all had to learn! The final day involved Booz's version of the follies. Given the high quality of the skits that were put up with less than 45 mins of preparation time, I strongly believe that most people in my class would do wonderfully in the entertainment industry! And oh, did I mention that we all ended every night with copious amounts of alcohol in our systems? Good times.
Today is my first day at my home office - Chicago. I have received my project assignment and couldn't have asked for anything better! I strongly believe that I will get a chance to apply concepts learnt from multiple classes at Ross. My client is based in New Jersey, which is also awesome, because my wife is in New York, and this makes things a whole lot easier! So right now, I have received a couple of project documents and am busy poring over them to make sure that I show up on the client side with an informed view of the current situation. I expect to be challenged significantly - both in terms of analytical skills and organizational skills. Do not underestimate the latter. The number of things that have to be managed, in addition to your regular work, is fairly daunting - timesheets, learning sessions, conference calls, mentor meetings, office luncheons - the list is seemingly endless! But this is exactly what I signed up for, and I am eagerly looking forward to the next 8 weeks of the internship.
And oh yes, before I forget: Viva Argentina!
New City, New Life
Michael Wieder, BBA 2011, Octagon
Last week was a very busy week for me, I took the LSAT Monday, moved to Washington D.C. on Tuesday, and started work at Octagon on Wednesday. My hectic life just made it harder to get adjusted to living in a new city. Unlike a lot of people, I have an advantage adjusting to city life because I grew up and live in New York. However, it always takes time to get acquainted with a new place. The people, culture, food, and layout are all different and take time to adjust too.
I have found that there are ways to alleviate the stress and potential frustration cause by relocation. The first tip is, do RESEARCH. Going on the internet and searching everything from food to maps, and entertainment to transportation can make all the difference on how easy it is to adjust to a new city. At first I found it very difficult to get adjusted to how DC was layed out. I found it hard to navigate the city, and although cleaner than NYC subways, the DC Metro is just inferior to other mass transit systems in cities like NY, London, and Paris. After I looked at a couple maps I was perfectly acclimated to my new city.
My second tip to adjusting to a new city is to EXPLORE. Get out and see what the town, city, or state has to offer. If you hide you will never know how great (or not so great) the new city is. By exploring you open yourself up to new things, and really get a chance to adjust yourself to your new surroundings.
Lastly, make sure that you have FUN. Don't hold back at all. See what the nightlife has to offer, meet new people, go to cultural places. Without having fun, your transition to a new place won't be the same. I have found that if I let myself have fun in a new city I automatically adjust to my surroundings better, because although I may be a foreigner, I feel like a native.
Hope this helps with everyone adjusting to new cities because it has definitely helped me in the past.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
First Two Weeks at UBS
Tomorrow (Friday 18 June) will officially mark the end of my first two weeks as an intern at UBS. As a sales and trading intern, I'm based out of Stamford, Connecticut.
Having decided to spend my summer living in Stamford rather than commuting from NYC ( a close 45 min train ride away), I've started to get a real feel for the city. It's in a lot of ways a classic New England town with old architecture and a certain sense of coziness and homely charm, but at the same time sophisticated in its targeted development towards becoming a thriving hub of corporate activity. The city is home to corporate bigwigs such as General Electric, Thomson Reuters, UBS, RBS and World Wrestling Entertainment. The corporates, with their shiny and modern offices, stand against the backdrop of smaller brick buildings housing local businesses, restaurants and small offices - an eclectic mix of the old and the new, of progress and old world charm.
Now, to work proper. The first week was spent in orientation and training, with standard 9-5 hours. Nothing too unusual here, just the standard networking events, icebreakers and lectures covering basic finance/econ classes. The second week saw interns start working on trading desks; Matched Principal Trading for me. For those unfamiliar with the term or the often confusing nomenclature of finance, matched prinicpal trading is in the business of pairing buyers and sellers of securities (corporate bonds mostly, in this case). As this is a new desk, I get to be involved in a lot of business development work. For instance, in the first three days I performed an analysis of customer order flow throughout the trading day to get a gauge of the available liquidity (or the number of buyers and sellers and the amount they want to transact in) offered on our platform.
My program consists of three rotations across three different desks, and I have two more weeks left with MPT. The nature of the work is similar to that of a startup and thus has a clearly defined purpose, which gives me the opportunity to make myself useful to some degree - more than an intern can ask for.
Having decided to spend my summer living in Stamford rather than commuting from NYC ( a close 45 min train ride away), I've started to get a real feel for the city. It's in a lot of ways a classic New England town with old architecture and a certain sense of coziness and homely charm, but at the same time sophisticated in its targeted development towards becoming a thriving hub of corporate activity. The city is home to corporate bigwigs such as General Electric, Thomson Reuters, UBS, RBS and World Wrestling Entertainment. The corporates, with their shiny and modern offices, stand against the backdrop of smaller brick buildings housing local businesses, restaurants and small offices - an eclectic mix of the old and the new, of progress and old world charm.
Now, to work proper. The first week was spent in orientation and training, with standard 9-5 hours. Nothing too unusual here, just the standard networking events, icebreakers and lectures covering basic finance/econ classes. The second week saw interns start working on trading desks; Matched Principal Trading for me. For those unfamiliar with the term or the often confusing nomenclature of finance, matched prinicpal trading is in the business of pairing buyers and sellers of securities (corporate bonds mostly, in this case). As this is a new desk, I get to be involved in a lot of business development work. For instance, in the first three days I performed an analysis of customer order flow throughout the trading day to get a gauge of the available liquidity (or the number of buyers and sellers and the amount they want to transact in) offered on our platform.
My program consists of three rotations across three different desks, and I have two more weeks left with MPT. The nature of the work is similar to that of a startup and thus has a clearly defined purpose, which gives me the opportunity to make myself useful to some degree - more than an intern can ask for.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Welcome Breakfast Anyone?
Since the last time I wrote, not much has changed except that I’ve been promoted to Senior MBA Intern. Really! Well, it’s not a promotion, just a comment I heard. I am now the “old intern” because the “new intern” arrived this week. He’s really nice and deserved a warm welcome. The truth is that I still feel as a newcomer, but I realize that in fact I am on my fourth week already!
On Monday we had a very nice Welcome Breakfast and everyone in our floor was invited. The gathering had a good attendance ratio and the usual friendly atmosphere. After my manager introduced us and we raised our hands for everyone else to see, conversation revolved around the morning’s food, our projects and the latest sporting events. It was a good opportunity to get to know some people that I had seen around and to meet others that I had never seen.
I enjoy social interactions and celebrations around food. Maybe that is why I am still getting used to seeing how popular is to eat a sandwich, a frozen dinner or a salad in front of the computer for lunch. I believe it is a cultural difference because my working experience was limited to a Latin American environment, where the habit of making a break and socializing during lunch is more predominant.
Another cultural trait I’ve found is an open-door policy. I would say is something particular to FMC. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to have such an easy access to different people, from all functions and without distinction. It is impressive to see how fast the response to an information request is, sometimes with even more data that what I had in mind when asking questions.
My manager’s style is something else that I appreciate a lot. He’s very entrepreneurial and knowledgeable, so I find a lot of room to freely create. For each one of my three projects I have one sponsor as well. It will be interesting to balance diverse and sometimes opposing interests, opinions and guidance tips from the ones that are helping me along the way. Wish me luck!!
On Monday we had a very nice Welcome Breakfast and everyone in our floor was invited. The gathering had a good attendance ratio and the usual friendly atmosphere. After my manager introduced us and we raised our hands for everyone else to see, conversation revolved around the morning’s food, our projects and the latest sporting events. It was a good opportunity to get to know some people that I had seen around and to meet others that I had never seen.
I enjoy social interactions and celebrations around food. Maybe that is why I am still getting used to seeing how popular is to eat a sandwich, a frozen dinner or a salad in front of the computer for lunch. I believe it is a cultural difference because my working experience was limited to a Latin American environment, where the habit of making a break and socializing during lunch is more predominant.
Another cultural trait I’ve found is an open-door policy. I would say is something particular to FMC. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to have such an easy access to different people, from all functions and without distinction. It is impressive to see how fast the response to an information request is, sometimes with even more data that what I had in mind when asking questions.
My manager’s style is something else that I appreciate a lot. He’s very entrepreneurial and knowledgeable, so I find a lot of room to freely create. For each one of my three projects I have one sponsor as well. It will be interesting to balance diverse and sometimes opposing interests, opinions and guidance tips from the ones that are helping me along the way. Wish me luck!!
First Quarter Done!
Hey everybody from the full-of-tornado-warnings Kansas!
I am officially done with my first 3 weeks at Hill's Pet Nutrition and I must admit they went by pretty fast. Several meetings, cross-functional teamwork, research, insight analysis, and number-crunching is the story of my first quarter. My project list keeps getting longer and the day-to-day tasks make things more hectic but no complaints. By the way, keep in mind that all the unpredictable and urgent tasks always end up on the intern's desk!
Basically, the last couple of weeks I spend the majority of my time working in Excel, pulling up shipment and consumption data from different retailers and trying to identify the implications moving forward. This is called the Colgate Business Planning which essentially is a tool to keep track of where the company stands on a monthly basis and figuring out ways to counter possible drawbacks or unexpected downfalls. It may sound like a heavy process but I was glad to be part of it because one of my goals for the summer was to gain exposure to this type of data in order to enhance my analytical and decision-making skills.
Apart from the planning process, I also spent time on the core of my project which is to develop promotional strategies for different lines of products including online, in-store and misc. The fact that it needs to be customized by retail environment and product makes the need for insights greater which is why I've been going over several studies. Currently, I am leading the development of in-store signage and displays based on some ideas I had working with people from supply chain, sales, and packaging engineering which is a great experience.
Overall, my colleagues are more than willing to help me and answer all the "stupid" questions a newbie has. The HR dept has arranged several activities like teleconferencing with parent company Colgate and lunch with all the VPs but the most fun will be this Friday at the picnic all the interns have with the managers and coworkers at Shawnee Lake. It is another advantage of the summer hours at Colgate (Friday is a half workday)...
Take care!
I am officially done with my first 3 weeks at Hill's Pet Nutrition and I must admit they went by pretty fast. Several meetings, cross-functional teamwork, research, insight analysis, and number-crunching is the story of my first quarter. My project list keeps getting longer and the day-to-day tasks make things more hectic but no complaints. By the way, keep in mind that all the unpredictable and urgent tasks always end up on the intern's desk!
Basically, the last couple of weeks I spend the majority of my time working in Excel, pulling up shipment and consumption data from different retailers and trying to identify the implications moving forward. This is called the Colgate Business Planning which essentially is a tool to keep track of where the company stands on a monthly basis and figuring out ways to counter possible drawbacks or unexpected downfalls. It may sound like a heavy process but I was glad to be part of it because one of my goals for the summer was to gain exposure to this type of data in order to enhance my analytical and decision-making skills.
Apart from the planning process, I also spent time on the core of my project which is to develop promotional strategies for different lines of products including online, in-store and misc. The fact that it needs to be customized by retail environment and product makes the need for insights greater which is why I've been going over several studies. Currently, I am leading the development of in-store signage and displays based on some ideas I had working with people from supply chain, sales, and packaging engineering which is a great experience.
Overall, my colleagues are more than willing to help me and answer all the "stupid" questions a newbie has. The HR dept has arranged several activities like teleconferencing with parent company Colgate and lunch with all the VPs but the most fun will be this Friday at the picnic all the interns have with the managers and coworkers at Shawnee Lake. It is another advantage of the summer hours at Colgate (Friday is a half workday)...
Take care!
Top of the First Inning: Day 1 with the Nationals
(BBA, The Washington Nationals Baseball Club)
I had to come into the office at 9:30 AM. I got to experience my first real commute into Washington D.C. via the metro. Due to a little bit of nerves but mostly excitement, my sleep schedule was completely off, and finally at 6:30 AM I thought it was acceptable to get out of bed. I take the metro into D.C. a lot for sports games, concerts, or just to go into the city, so I’m extremely comfortable on the Red Line. However, to get to Nationals Park I have to take the Red Line and then switch to the Green Line in Chinatown. That was quiet an experience. The metro was PACKED and trying to squeeze out at my stop was a challenge in itself. But I did it! After getting on the Green Line and getting off at Navy Yard I walked about 3 steps outside and there was Nationals Stadium. I was surprised how easy it was to get there.
Mission One: getting to the stadium, CHECK.
Once I got to the Media Gate Entrance at the stadium, another intern was there to let me in. After filling out some paperwork and receiving my credentials I was taken to meet my supervisor, Heather. She seems like a fun person to work with for the next two months. She briefly explained to me the role of the division, but then it was straight to work: my first meeting!
Mission Two: meeting my supervisor and already doing work, CHECK.
Working in the Ballpark Enterprise Department, I get to work at all of the game-day and non-game-day events. Just this week (Wednesday-Tuesday, ya I was surprised about their definition of a week too) I’ll be working at 5 baseball games! After receiving my schedule, Heather showed me to my cubical. My cubicle is probably twice the size of those on the fourth floor of Kresge, and is well decorated with Nationals stuff EVERYWHERE. Not bad, not bad at all.
After getting adjusted, Heather thought it would be beneficial for me to take a tour of the stadium. Side Note: the tour of the stadium is one of the best tours in D.C., so if you’re in the area you should definitely check it out! After the tour, I was free to leave for the day.
Mission Three: surviving day one, CHECK.
Overall, I’d say this was a successful first day. I look forward to updating everyone on my experience over the next 8 weeks. Who knows, maybe ill even get to meet Strasburg!
Fox Broadcasting and Networking
(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)
Hey! It's Alyssa Fried again! After working at Fox, my social life has changed. Usually during the summer I would spend my nights with my friends, until I went to camp at the end of June for two months. Now I am home the entire summer for the first time since I was 9 years old, and when I arrive home at 6:30/7 at night, all I want to do is go to sleep! I know this means I am working hard, and I am enjoying it. I would have to say that if I had to choose my old social life during the summer, or my internship at Fox, I would pick working at Fox. This is because I still have the weekends when I can see my friends and at least twice a week I use my lunch break to meet up with friends who are interns in New York City as well.
While working here, I have met so many people. There are so many different departments on my floor, and I have met most of the people in the various departments. After all this time, I can finally say that I feel like a true part of this office. Everyone is eager to show me their work, and the 'tricks of the trade.' They have started coming to me to request that I work on projects instead of me having to search for work all of the time. It feels great to be contributing to my department. Just the other day, I met someone new and shadowed him for the afternoon. When it was time for me to leave for the day, he handed me his card and told me it was for when I graduate, in case I have any questions, and also to have another contact at Fox. It felt great to be networking in the office.
Although I have only been here for about a month, it feels like I have worked here forever. I now have a routine that I follow every day. I get into the office in the morning, put my lunch in the fridge, and get my laptop from my supervisor. I plug it in, start it up, and travel down the hall to greet everyone and see who needs me to do work. At around 12:30/1:00 after I have finished whatever project I have been working on, I take a lunch break. Sometimes I just walk around the streets exploring, and other times I sit outside my office in the sun because it is so cold in my office. The rest of the day goes pretty quickly after that. I'm busy with projects or sitting in meetings observing, and before I know it, it's 5:00 and it's time to catch the 5:27 train home.
The workload varies from day to day. Mondays are generally the busiest day and I spend most of the morning entering demo estimates into the computer. The rest of the day is usually spent doing analysis of reports from previous, present, and future years. I usually make about three spreadsheets in Excel each day. After my last post, I have grown a lot more confident in my work and have cut down my constant checking significantly!
Lately, I have begun to sit in on meetings to learn about how the sales people communicate with the advertisers, and how deals are formed. In this way, I am finally beginning to see the marketing side of this internship. There is an intern program in another department in Fox Broadcasting and next week I will be traveling to an ad agency with them to learn about media planning and buying. That should be interesting because I haven't been able to interact with interns my age at Fox as I am the only one in my department. I am excited and a little nervous. I look forward to telling you about it!
Hey! It's Alyssa Fried again! After working at Fox, my social life has changed. Usually during the summer I would spend my nights with my friends, until I went to camp at the end of June for two months. Now I am home the entire summer for the first time since I was 9 years old, and when I arrive home at 6:30/7 at night, all I want to do is go to sleep! I know this means I am working hard, and I am enjoying it. I would have to say that if I had to choose my old social life during the summer, or my internship at Fox, I would pick working at Fox. This is because I still have the weekends when I can see my friends and at least twice a week I use my lunch break to meet up with friends who are interns in New York City as well.
While working here, I have met so many people. There are so many different departments on my floor, and I have met most of the people in the various departments. After all this time, I can finally say that I feel like a true part of this office. Everyone is eager to show me their work, and the 'tricks of the trade.' They have started coming to me to request that I work on projects instead of me having to search for work all of the time. It feels great to be contributing to my department. Just the other day, I met someone new and shadowed him for the afternoon. When it was time for me to leave for the day, he handed me his card and told me it was for when I graduate, in case I have any questions, and also to have another contact at Fox. It felt great to be networking in the office.
Although I have only been here for about a month, it feels like I have worked here forever. I now have a routine that I follow every day. I get into the office in the morning, put my lunch in the fridge, and get my laptop from my supervisor. I plug it in, start it up, and travel down the hall to greet everyone and see who needs me to do work. At around 12:30/1:00 after I have finished whatever project I have been working on, I take a lunch break. Sometimes I just walk around the streets exploring, and other times I sit outside my office in the sun because it is so cold in my office. The rest of the day goes pretty quickly after that. I'm busy with projects or sitting in meetings observing, and before I know it, it's 5:00 and it's time to catch the 5:27 train home.
The workload varies from day to day. Mondays are generally the busiest day and I spend most of the morning entering demo estimates into the computer. The rest of the day is usually spent doing analysis of reports from previous, present, and future years. I usually make about three spreadsheets in Excel each day. After my last post, I have grown a lot more confident in my work and have cut down my constant checking significantly!
Lately, I have begun to sit in on meetings to learn about how the sales people communicate with the advertisers, and how deals are formed. In this way, I am finally beginning to see the marketing side of this internship. There is an intern program in another department in Fox Broadcasting and next week I will be traveling to an ad agency with them to learn about media planning and buying. That should be interesting because I haven't been able to interact with interns my age at Fox as I am the only one in my department. I am excited and a little nervous. I look forward to telling you about it!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Half way mark and lots of talk
As I write this I realize that for a small 20 person company I have done an inordinate amount of talking and writing in the past 5 weeks. Between presentations, phone calls, spreadsheets and emails I must have surely broken my previous record for 5 week word wizardry (posts to this blog count too). And what makes it even more remarkable is the fact that this has been done under a veritable oath of secrecy where you are not supposed to talk about the real thing-the company's technology.
All this writing, talking, spreadsheet trickery and industry report browsing has resulted in huge amount of data. Almost six weeks gone and with the deadline for mid way presentation looming large, I'm at a point where all the data better make some sense. Guess it is high time for some real MBA magic. I better take out all the P's and C's to throw at the data. And muster all the forces that Porter has vested in me to whip this data into shape, for not much time is left.
One thing that I learned from the experience so far is a fair amount of time spent in scoping out the project in the beginning can be the most important factor in how successfully you can execute the assignment. So, although the pressure to show results and please immediately is high in an internship, but spending some time to define the project well might be a good idea.
There is lots of information to organize and models to develop, but there definitely is more clarity now about things that looked impossibly vague at the onset. And although it’s fun to joke about Ps and Cs, quite a bit of that understanding is due to those little lessons from marketing or operations or accounting- the bits that cling to some corner of your mind even after everything else in the class is long forgotten.
I’m reasonably sure that the strategy that will come out of this project will be logical. Is it going to be business class case worthy? Well... that is a different matter.
(359 words)
All this writing, talking, spreadsheet trickery and industry report browsing has resulted in huge amount of data. Almost six weeks gone and with the deadline for mid way presentation looming large, I'm at a point where all the data better make some sense. Guess it is high time for some real MBA magic. I better take out all the P's and C's to throw at the data. And muster all the forces that Porter has vested in me to whip this data into shape, for not much time is left.
One thing that I learned from the experience so far is a fair amount of time spent in scoping out the project in the beginning can be the most important factor in how successfully you can execute the assignment. So, although the pressure to show results and please immediately is high in an internship, but spending some time to define the project well might be a good idea.
There is lots of information to organize and models to develop, but there definitely is more clarity now about things that looked impossibly vague at the onset. And although it’s fun to joke about Ps and Cs, quite a bit of that understanding is due to those little lessons from marketing or operations or accounting- the bits that cling to some corner of your mind even after everything else in the class is long forgotten.
I’m reasonably sure that the strategy that will come out of this project will be logical. Is it going to be business class case worthy? Well... that is a different matter.
(359 words)
Getting Into The Swing of Things
MBA, News Corp. So I, Roy Elmer Hills IV, am settling into my role here at Fox News Digital and have started to figure out what this summer is going to be like… which is a spectacular development. While most all of the other Fox interns are out and about being investigative journalists, I spend my time sitting at my desk surfing the web and keeping up with the Kardashians and the latest trends in emerging media platforms. I think I am getting paler by the minute, but if you have been in New York in the summer you know that it is no picnic getting a tan either. Basically, I read a lot of white papers, tech blogs and scrutinize every word spoken by Steve Jobs, which given that last week was Apple’s DevCon meant that there was actually a lot to do. I am essentially more or less a consultant, for lack of a better term, to the digital ad sales team on how better to optimize and grow advertising revenue on their emerging media platforms, such as mobile, iPads, Facebook aps, Twitter [well you get the gist].
This rare autonomy as an intern gives me lots of time to ponder important questions, such as the meaning of life and will Lindsay Lohan go to jail. I am also a big high-five giver in the office and am great at distracting others with my thoughts on the latest Taco Bell commercial featuring Charles Barkley. However, in between my moments of distraction glory, I deviate from my ways and make myself useful in helping others in a sales support role, which believe it or not takes up a fair amount of my time.
Well if you are inclined, PLEASE post COMMENTS people so I know that I am not writing this to just pass the time until football season. Additionally, if you are reading this blog from your iPhone, Blackberry or any of the other smartphones, be sure to check out foxnews.mobi.
This rare autonomy as an intern gives me lots of time to ponder important questions, such as the meaning of life and will Lindsay Lohan go to jail. I am also a big high-five giver in the office and am great at distracting others with my thoughts on the latest Taco Bell commercial featuring Charles Barkley. However, in between my moments of distraction glory, I deviate from my ways and make myself useful in helping others in a sales support role, which believe it or not takes up a fair amount of my time.
Well if you are inclined, PLEASE post COMMENTS people so I know that I am not writing this to just pass the time until football season. Additionally, if you are reading this blog from your iPhone, Blackberry or any of the other smartphones, be sure to check out foxnews.mobi.
Monday, June 14, 2010
So it begins!
I found out I couldn’t sleep well at night on Sunday. In my excitement at commencing the first day of the summer internship program, I fell out of bed at about 6:00 AM (after turning in at around 1:30 AM) and proceeded to get ready for the day. Prior to this I’d developed some pet peeves with the on-boarding process, the biggest one being that I’d had to complete seemingly identical forms, in different media (i.e. online and print) and at different points in time. However my frustrations were ameliorated by the fact that the HR reps are super nice.
The first day of orientation began with a general breakfast for all MBA Interns after which we broke out into different rooms for the training. The first day of training turned out to be a bit anti-climactic as our day ended at about 5:30 PM – not quite in line with the long hours of work and intensely cerebral debates we’d all come to expect, though it’s a safe bet that the intensity would rise exponentially over the next day or so. We ended the work day with trips to our permanent desks and my impression of Citi as an atypically friendly investment bank was reinforced when so many different people stopped by our cubes to talk to us and offered to help answer any questions or make us comfortable. I hope this feeling/impression lasts throughout the summer (knocking on wood).
From the summer schedule, we learnt that we’d each be assigned individual research projects to be presented at the end of the summer (we’re yet to know what these are). We also have tons of “Speaker Series” sessions with key officers including Vikram Pandit, a golf outing day with some of the Managing Directors as well as the opportunity to attend a Mets game at the eponymous Citi Field – wouldn’t it be nice to sit in one of the platinum or club seats?
A census of the 31 MBA interns in the class of 2010 (apparently the smallest class in recent times) revealed an interesting and impressive fact: Ross – with 5 students - has the biggest representation amongst the business schools. Another cool thing about the first day is the high level of camaraderie displayed by the summer associate class. Individuals who’d never met before promptly bonded and broke into spontaneous interactions that belied any notions of rivalry that may be expected from people vying for limited full-time offers. We had quality discussions at breakfast, saw a world cup soccer match as a group over an extended lunch and capped the day with drinks at a local watering hole - “Puffy’s Bar”. I’d say that was a pretty auspicious day one.
The first day of orientation began with a general breakfast for all MBA Interns after which we broke out into different rooms for the training. The first day of training turned out to be a bit anti-climactic as our day ended at about 5:30 PM – not quite in line with the long hours of work and intensely cerebral debates we’d all come to expect, though it’s a safe bet that the intensity would rise exponentially over the next day or so. We ended the work day with trips to our permanent desks and my impression of Citi as an atypically friendly investment bank was reinforced when so many different people stopped by our cubes to talk to us and offered to help answer any questions or make us comfortable. I hope this feeling/impression lasts throughout the summer (knocking on wood).
From the summer schedule, we learnt that we’d each be assigned individual research projects to be presented at the end of the summer (we’re yet to know what these are). We also have tons of “Speaker Series” sessions with key officers including Vikram Pandit, a golf outing day with some of the Managing Directors as well as the opportunity to attend a Mets game at the eponymous Citi Field – wouldn’t it be nice to sit in one of the platinum or club seats?
A census of the 31 MBA interns in the class of 2010 (apparently the smallest class in recent times) revealed an interesting and impressive fact: Ross – with 5 students - has the biggest representation amongst the business schools. Another cool thing about the first day is the high level of camaraderie displayed by the summer associate class. Individuals who’d never met before promptly bonded and broke into spontaneous interactions that belied any notions of rivalry that may be expected from people vying for limited full-time offers. We had quality discussions at breakfast, saw a world cup soccer match as a group over an extended lunch and capped the day with drinks at a local watering hole - “Puffy’s Bar”. I’d say that was a pretty auspicious day one.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Hitting the mid-way mark at Sears
This week has been more challenging than most and I am glad for the weekend. I had my first performance review with my manager. It turns out Sears has an extensive performance appraisal system in place, involving the intern’s input, self-appraisal, manager appraisal and subsequent discussion with manager. I have currently completed two steps in the process and am waiting on a second meeting with my manager this coming Tuesday.
I have been given 4 new projects to complete over the next 5 weeks. One involves process improvement follow-up on my first project. The second is a weekly tracking of our vendor contribution targets for the month, involving following up with the buying team on any discrepancies from forecasted contributions. The third is a capital project request for the replacement of jewelry fixtures at a Kmart store in New York. This is a standard project for finance teams in many companies in many industries and I noticed that it is the first thing on my syllabus for ‘Valuation’ in the coming fall quarter. The last project is potentially the most impactful of all my projects. It involves the circulars / inserts in the papers that Sears and Kmart use as standard marketing strategy to incent customers to buy. There has been a company-wide initiative to reduce costs on these circulars by shifting them from Sundays to Thursdays (cadence change) thereby reducing circulation volume. A reduction in sales has been observed over the same timeframe. My task is to identify if the cadence change is the cause of the reduced sales of if there are other contributing factors. It is a strongly analytical exercise based on available data and should help me apply my problem-solving and analytical skills. It allows me the opportunity to display my strengths in this area to my manager.
I also have the opportunity to share my learnings, findings and showcase my skill-set to upper management through the final intern presentation that is due in 3 weeks. I will be doing a power point presentation for the Finance CFO’s as well as other operating business CFO’s within the company. This high level exposure should be very beneficial for me should I choose to return to work full-time at Sears.
Finally on a front closer to home, I am going to hospital twice a week for regular check-ups and fetal monitoring and so far so good!
I have been given 4 new projects to complete over the next 5 weeks. One involves process improvement follow-up on my first project. The second is a weekly tracking of our vendor contribution targets for the month, involving following up with the buying team on any discrepancies from forecasted contributions. The third is a capital project request for the replacement of jewelry fixtures at a Kmart store in New York. This is a standard project for finance teams in many companies in many industries and I noticed that it is the first thing on my syllabus for ‘Valuation’ in the coming fall quarter. The last project is potentially the most impactful of all my projects. It involves the circulars / inserts in the papers that Sears and Kmart use as standard marketing strategy to incent customers to buy. There has been a company-wide initiative to reduce costs on these circulars by shifting them from Sundays to Thursdays (cadence change) thereby reducing circulation volume. A reduction in sales has been observed over the same timeframe. My task is to identify if the cadence change is the cause of the reduced sales of if there are other contributing factors. It is a strongly analytical exercise based on available data and should help me apply my problem-solving and analytical skills. It allows me the opportunity to display my strengths in this area to my manager.
I also have the opportunity to share my learnings, findings and showcase my skill-set to upper management through the final intern presentation that is due in 3 weeks. I will be doing a power point presentation for the Finance CFO’s as well as other operating business CFO’s within the company. This high level exposure should be very beneficial for me should I choose to return to work full-time at Sears.
Finally on a front closer to home, I am going to hospital twice a week for regular check-ups and fetal monitoring and so far so good!
Friday, June 11, 2010
Amazon 101
As for my project, it is a classic marketing and strategy project that I get to work on from soup, and 2/3rd the way to nuts. All the concepts and acronyms (5Cs, 4 Ps, STP, Porters) learned in Strategy and Marketing are rushing back and being deployed in real time. The frameworks have really helped my structure my internship. Over the next few weeks, I will be interfacing with managers in different segments of the company. I look forward to learning even more about the business through those interactions. I will leave you with a video from Ted.com, of Jeff Bezos discussing the analogy between the dot com boom and the gold rush.
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