We have a wonderful guest lecturer in today’s Innovation in the Marketplace class. He guest lecturer was Ken Morse who co-teaches the Entrepreneurship Lab course and a class in high-tech sales. His fame prior to MIT as he claimed at the beginning of the lecture was he played a critical role in launching 6 MIT-related high-tech start-ups, which 5 did well. He thought he delivered his 2-hour highly-condensed lecture very well, in which he covered some of the material from both his entrepreneurship and sales classes.

His one big tenet that he asserted during his lecture was managers have to focus about delivering value to customer and be passionate in doing it. This is especially true for startups and small enterprises because they can't get funded if they don't have customers. From a sales/marketing perspective, you need 2 people to play the role of executive manager and sales/marketing in the early phase of a new enterprise. The president of the company has to be passionate about delivering value to the company. The sales/marketing person has to be demanding and cares about customers, not internal politics. When it comes to sales, engineers are among theworst. Engineers can demo the products very well but they can't sell. Your customer, especially the finance guy, wants to understand payback and risk, not demo or benefits. You have to explain the Return On Investment (ROI) in less than 1 minute. Unfortunately, if you look at many of the successful companies right now, it is good selling strategy that beats superior technology. While the knowledge on entrepreneurship and selling is valuable, I thought the most insightful remark from this lecture was his career. If you are in a "cost center", it's time to move to a "profit center." The closer you are to the customers the higher the advancement you can achieve. Simply put, which brings more value to the company - gaining revenue or saving money?

2/25/2005 3:06:53 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

School

I have been very quiet on cyber blogspace the last 3 days. It’s not that I have nothing to contribute to my blog, but I was simply overwhelmed by a business proposal that I need to compose for the 50k competition that was due earlier today. 2 days ago, I was contacted by a semiconductor research scientist at MIT whom I met at last week's 50k smoozing session about his interest in entering the 50k with me. I wasreally planning to enter the 50k competition next year when I would be better prepared for the competition after completing a few essential management classes. But the scientist's idea was simply too good to pass up. Our idea for the competition is to create a business venture to commercialize semiconductor material that is based on his research. After all these years working in the wafer fab as a software engineer, I actually learned more about semiconductor in the past 2 days while writing the executivesummary for the 50k entry than I ever did in my entire career at Analog Devices. You are generally more motivated to learn new things in graduate school while you tend to work on a need-to-know basis unless it's a task that you are directly responsible for.

I was glad that our team had managed to submit our entry successfully by the deadline. I'll cross my fingers and hope that our business proposal will go make it to the finals, which should make the 50k experience much more interesting. Regardless, this is a great educational venture for me whether we win or not.

2/24/2005 3:05:41 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Entrepreneurship

I remember seeing this creature in a TV commercial during the Super Bowl 2 weeks ago. It is a bison-like robot that you can ride on. The commercial didn't catch my attention then since I didn't know what it was trying to convey. I saw the ad again earlier today and I still don't know what it was trying to convey. However, this time it did manage to spark my curiosity. From the commercial, it looks like people are getting into a rodeo ring to ride this mechanical beast as they would a bucking bronco. The ad ends with the narrator saying"Anybody can ride an Esuvee, but not everybody rides it right." For a moment, I honestly thought the narrator was asking me to test drive a mechanical wooly beast that I can ride on the road. So I went to the website to find out more about this new product. I was struggling to understand what the website is about. There is neither any product information in sight even nor background information about the Esuvee. Everything on the website is about SUV safety. It took me 20 minutes before I realize what the Esuvee is about. To my chagrin, Esuvee is pronounced as "SUV." The website is nothing more than a campaigning tool that is paid for by Ford Motor Company to educate SUV owners how to drive their vehicle safely. But I think behind all the fluff, it is also a good marketing campaign to convince people that they are not invulnerable when they get behind the wheel of a SUV. Alright to be fair, I think educating the public about car safety is a good service but I really think that the marketing strategy of featuring a product-like mascot is not only misleading but ineffective. People don't change their behavior just through education from an ad. What a waste of my 20 minutes? Can you say ASS-U-V?

2/21/2005 3:04:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [18]

Rants

Now that I have started school and didn't have the time to organize social activities for the gang, Milt took over the helm in organizing a dinner with the Hudson's and friends from 217, both parties whom we have not hung out for a while. We had great Irish fare at the Phoenix Landing where we met up with Michelle and Paul. With the exception of Paul and the Hudson's, we continued the night as participants ofan ongoing pub crawl event that a friend of ours had organized. We were joined by some SDMers and their significant others - Dave, Britney, Patty, Chris, Matt, Spiros, Ilana, and Eve. In all, it was good to hang out with old and new friends in one night.

2/20/2005 2:59:09 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Social

Yoav, Matti, and I mentioned about the incident at Muddy Charles last Friday where Matti was denied admission to. Matti asserted that the bouncer should have used his/her judgment on Mattis obviously mature looks as an indicator of being over 21 years of age. Yoav argued that U.S. is overly litigious and relying on appearance is a risk too much for businesses to bear. I think Yoav has a good point but I cant help but to wonder where do common sense and human judgment have in todays society? Are we so enslaved to rules and so sensitive of mitigating ones liability that common sense and human judgment are merely after-thoughts. Case in point, read the following news where an ambulance was clamped down for parking in an parking spot reserved for emergency use at the Dublin Airport. Even if the ambulance was violating the no-parking rule, a simple phone call could have been made to the ambulances company for verification.

2/19/2005 2:58:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [15]

Thoughts

The topic of today's Marketing class is "Do most innovations come out of systematic thinking or a "spark of genius?" I really enjoyed the last 2 marketing classes by Professor Ariely. As usual, Professor Ariely kept the class lively, which made the 3 hours lecture a little more tolerable. Anyway, the crux of today's lecture was about how most people are able to recognize good ideas but aren't able to come out with ideas, hence the common phrase "Why didn't I think of it myself?" So is creativity intrinsically a product of a genius or can we become more creative through systematic analysis of products and their attributes? The lecture went on with the notion that businesses can’t just use market research to come out with very creative ideas. Sometimes, users may not provide enough insights. Perhaps this is the reason why the most innovative ideas are the result of the so-called "spark of genius." So for the rest of us, there are many systematic methodologies to analyze the market and create innovative products. In closing, the later half of the lecture focused on 2 specific mechanisms in systematic marketing creativity - attribute dependency and replacement.

Anyway, here are some of the really funny and creative advertisements that the professor showed in class.

2/18/2005 2:57:36 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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School

Since attending the last 50k competition event last week, I have been receiving emails about upcoming events relating to 50k competition. Last night's event was an informal pizza dinner/get-together to discuss about energy related technology as well as identifying compatible participants to form teams for the competition. Once again, I was over dressed with suit and tie for the occasion as I had mistaken the event as a formal dinner. Yeah, I did appear looking like a sleazy well-dressed student from the management school. Note to self, unless explicitly told, dont ever wear a tie and suit to any MIT event. Gosh, I am a geek and I am hanging out with geeks now. It's ok to be scruffy. Nonetheless, this is the best 50k meeting that I have attended so far. It was very informative and I really found myself surrounding by some of the brightest minds in energy technology and research. I can see why 50k kick-off events are melting pots of technologists looking for business people to commercialize their ideas, while business people looking for opportunities with new technology emerging out from the labs of MIT. We openly discussed some great novel energy technology and business ideas on how we can capitalize them. I dont think I am ready for the competition yet nonetheless it was a good learning experience (and good pizza).

2/17/2005 2:51:37 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [13]

Entrepreneurship

So I met the 2 guys who invited me to form a team with them to enter the MIT 50k competition. Unfortunately, I really thought that their proposed idea was too complicated for entry to the competition. It would require a lot of research and planning to write a good business plan and proposal to convince the judges that the business model is sound. I think the idea is fairly good but project would be time consuming. Consequently, I decided not to join the team and wished them good luck.

I went for my first outside run of the year earlier tonight. I think I am doing well for my triathlon training. I just need to start practicing swimming soon. But what I really need is swimming lessons to improve my strokes. There are some semi-private swimming lessons that I can take at MIT but I need to buddy up with at least a person to qualify for it. So anyone interested?

2/15/2005 2:50:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [23]

Entrepreneurship

Let me start off by making a "Note to Self" -Do not reuse pots if they are not washed even if they look clean and hygienic. My gastrointestinal discomfort due to my cooking (yeah, my cooking) kept up most of the night before. Surprisingly, I was able wake up feeling fully rested for System Optimization class. I was able to focus much better today than I did last week. System Optimization is a 3 hour-long lectureand can be intensive at times but I have discovered that the best way to learn and understand the material is to pay attention at class. The professor, David Simchi-Levi is not only well-known in the field of supply chain and planning, but a very engaging lecturer. The professor enjoys asking students questions during the class. One can tell who the smarter ones are since they are often the ones who would answer the most difficult questions promptly and accurately. I am just an average Joe but John, Matt, Matti, Steve, and Uday are in a different class of their own.

Today's ERBA recitation, which I am somewhat ambivalent to, was a disaster. There were connection problems with the long-distance students and every student had a different question for the TA that he needs to answer within an hour. Needless to say, we didn't cover a lot of material in the class today. But to the TA defense, it was tough for him since the level of math background in the class is IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) multifarious. Some students complained that the class is a cakewalk while a few are simply buried in the rigorous statistics requirements of the class. To be honest, I did struggled a little with ERBA but once I understand the concepts, which thanks to a large part to Spiros for explaining, it isn't bad at all. A lot of people mentioned that there's very little use of ERBA in their profession. I respectfully disagree, I think as an engineer we need to have a good understanding of statistics and probability. While ERBA is not purely a statistics class, I find that the review useful and who knows we may learn a few tools or techniques that may help us in our job in the future.

We had a lecture on Intellectual Property by a guest lecturer who worked at the MIT Technology Licensing Office (TLO) at today's Product Design & Development class. He mentioned that in his 10 years of work at MIT TLO, he has seen about 45,000 inventions, which about half of these inventions were filed for patents. Only 5 inventions didn't get patented. The moral of the story is that if you have a great idea, file for a patent; the chances of getting a patent grant is greater than you think.

2/15/2005 2:48:33 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [18]

School

You are welcome Yoav for thanking me for blogginig regularly. Let me return my thanks to Yoav and Matti who reintroduced blogging back to my life again. I am not an eloquent or prolific writer, but I have found blogging conducive to improving my writing skills. I have also discovered blog as a good way to share my life and thoughts to others, especially my friends. No more repeating the same story any more, I just tell my friends to read my blog. Furthermore, with blogging my thoughts are captured at the moment I write my blog.

The schoolworkload has been very light this weekend, I was able to finish my ERBA homework and put in some hours to my professional work. My friend, Joanna is in town and so a few of us went to Legal Sea Foodsfor dinner and followed by attending a party organized mainly by BU students at Tantric. I felt really happy for Joanna who will be graduating from U of Chicago buisness school this summer and marrying Zack this fall. I will be booking a flight to Detroit (Rock City) to attend the wedding very soon.

2/12/2005 2:44:14 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [13]

Blog