Last night's TDS was filled with satirical jabs on the former FEMA director, Michael Brown, for his mismanagement of the Kartina disaster relief efforts. This is the best piece:

"The chart below shows the cycle of disaster as presented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Yes, it is really from their site and you should probably check that link soon. I have a feeling it will be gone within a day or two.

Let’s see…we start with a disaster, of course, then we go the response, recovery, and mitigation. All very good. Then we have risk reduction, prevention, fantastic, and then we go into preparedness. Excellent, I have a very good feeling about this.  This, then, leads right back to…disaster?

I guess we’ve had it wrong all along! Judging by this criteria, Michael Brown shouldn’t be fired, he should be given a raise!"

9/30/2005 12:24:29 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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The Daily Show

As part of the TPP Leadership Development Leadership Lunch series, Prof. Newman had arranged a discussion-led lunch session with Partha Ghosh with the students last Monday. I have heard of Partha Ghosh before and was keen on hearing his view on leadership. But due to a time conflict, I wasn't able to attend that session. Fortunately, he has graciously agreed to another session that was held on Tuesday.

I am usually dubious about people teaching leadership in school, but I was struck by Ghosh's definition of leadership, to which he relates leadership as a personal journey that is fueled by one's conviction and faith in self. He also stressed that today's problems are getting more interconnected, complex, and uncertain. Being a leader today is more important than ever before. But to be an effective leader, one has to be multidisciplinary so that he/she can connect with others better. I also had a nice short chat with Partha at the end of the session. I found him to be wise, humble, and accessible. Being a big fan of MIT ESD, he said that he would like to get more engaged with the students in ESD. He said that he will return to lead a few more sessions on leading organization and creative solving. Finally, he revealed that was slated to participate in the SDM orientation program next January where he will give a lecture/talk on leadership.

9/29/2005 12:38:09 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

I had the worst presentation ever in last night's Innovation Teams (i-Teams) class. I was nervous and couldn't articulate my thoughts clearly at the presentation. This was a far cry from a presentation on digital encryption that I presented earlier that day. Being familiar with encryption technology, I didn't even prepare for that earlier presentation and I breezed through the presentation by effectively explaining digital security to my audience.

I am still utterly disappointed with poor presentation performance last night - this has not happened since college. So what happened? In hindsight, I wasn't familiar with the powerpoint slides that I was presenting. My team prepared the slides while I presented them. I was totally out-of-sync with some of the animations on the slides. But what really made me nervous was the presentation of a subject that I don't know very well. With a high-profile audience making up of faculty members, VCs, PhD students, and other MIT students, all whom have a good understanding of technology, I was afraid that I didn't have the technical fluency to convey our team's ideas and technology effectively. It was an embarrassing moment for me. But this is no major setback as long as I learn from mistakes.

9/27/2005 8:59:54 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Personal

Last night's guest speakers in Innovation Teams were Sam "Bo" Pasternack, an IP partner at Choate, Hall & Stewart and Charles Cooney, Faculty Director of the Deshpande Center. They led a very interesting discussion on patents and other intellectual property (IP) issues.

Notes from the talk:

1. The patent does not give you the right to sell but the right to exclude others from selling or from producing. For example, if you are not awarded with a patent in Japan you can still sell in Japan as long as no one is excluding you from the marketplace
2. If there's a conflict of patent, the first inventor gets the patent not the first to file
3. In order to get a patent, the invention has to have novelty, usefulness, and non-obviousness (prior use or documentation).
4. Patents are issued for four types of inventions: machines, process, man-made products, and compositions of matter
5. In U.S., you get 20 years of patent rights from the day of filing, not the day of patent grant
6. The best approach to filing a patent is file first and then disclose
7. There's other instruments other than patent to protect and extend IP
8. Trade secret is one of them as long as the IP is kept a secret
9. Obviously, the biggest risk to trade secret is that the secret gets out. For example, some disgruntled employee decides to steal the trade secret
10. Worse, this disgruntled employee can file for a patent on the trade secret and prevent a company from using the trade secret
11. Someone in the class asked "But this case seems to violate the statute of granting patent to first person who invited the idea." Sam's response was: "The statute stands only if the inventor doesn't actively abandon and conceal the invention"

9/27/2005 8:20:52 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Business

At least according to Ray Stata, the founder of Analog Devices, in a recent interview with EE Times (registration required):

EETimes: Let's talk about the state of the engineer in North America.


Stata: For whatever reason, engineering as a profession has never garnered the kind of prestige [here] that it has in other parts of the world. There's a certain breed of people who get interested in math and science, but are there enough of them? Clearly, there aren't. In Massachusetts, had it not been for the in-migration of engineers from other parts of the world, the engineering population would have declined.

I don't think anybody has got it figured out. I went to my 25th reunion [at MIT], and they had a questionnaire: "Would you send your kids to MIT?" The answers predominantly came back "No." The [respondents would] say, pardon my English, "I worked my ass off when I was there. Why would I want my kids to go through that, when at the end of the day it was the lawyers and the Wall Street guys who made all the money?"

When you're studying it, you work twice as hard as anyone in any other classes, and when you get out you work day and night and you don't make that much money. So you have to do it for love, not for money.

The one place where we haven't lost it is the whole notion of entrepreneurship, creating companies and things that are new. There's a lot of excitement there.

9/26/2005 1:14:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [6]

Business

Yesterday, I played my first flag football ever. I am now part of the TPP flag football team who plays in the MIT intramural sports program. Since I was new to flag football, I found myself constantly adjusting to the game in the first half. By the second half of the game, I was playing not only smarter from observations and adjustments from the first half but also more aggressive due to the adrenaline surge. Despite our best efforts, we failed to tie the game and lost the game with a score of 14-6. Good game, nonetheless.

9/25/2005 12:34:19 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [3]

Sports

Perhaps one of the best blog entry from Robbie is his documentation of a recent talk by Henry Mintzberg, a professor of management at McGill University, about the limitations and over-hyping of today's MBA programs. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Can't create a manager in a classroom.
2. MBA programs don't create managers.
3. Should earn managerial stripes, not get it because you have an MBA.
4. Shareholder value is not a value.
5. We almost never consult the people who have been managed by the candidates we evaluate

Read here for more information...

9/23/2005 1:07:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Business

I am huge fan of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," the popular Comedy Central program that lampoons news broadcasts and politics. Since I watch it religiously every night, I thought I would start documenting Jon's quotes, which I find enlightening and insightful, on my blog. So without further ado, here are 2 quotes from last night:

Some tidbits from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" aired 9/21/2005:

"Estimates show that it'll take about $200 billion to recover from the devastation. That's about the same amount that we're spending in Iraq. (Pictures of wrecked houses in New Orleans and Iraq shown side by side). They look alarmingly alike... So which one is the one that we've already spent the money on?"

"Since 1993, there has been a change of Press Secretary about every 2 years. Why? The answer is quite simple... Because lying is hard."

9/22/2005 10:49:50 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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The Daily Show

2 weeks ago, my car broke down on I-93 while I was driving back to Cambridge. I have to had my car towed to my mechanic in Medford. I suspected that the timing belt was broken (yeah, I was due for a timing belt replacement). What worried me more was that the snapping of the timing belt may have severely damaged my car engine. A few days later, I was informed by Ken that parts of my engine, particularly the valves, timing belt gears, camshafts, and tensioner, need to be replaced. I finally picked my car up last Monday. Needless to say, the damages were not cheap. Sigh... The moral of the story is: timing belt replacement costs $200; fixing a damaged engine can cost you well over $1,000. On the bright side, new engine runs a lot smoother and is at least 25% more powerful.

9/21/2005 10:41:20 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [3]

Personal

What a relief now that I have finally completed and submitted 3 assignments today. First to be completed was a case analysis for 15.011 - Economic Analysis for Business Decisions. I resent this case study due to the fact that the solution to the case was due the day after the case study was announced. My team, which consists of Heesung, Kostas, and me, scrambled to get the case study done on time last night. We finally turned it in earlier this morning. The case study isn't tedious but it would be nice to be given more time to do the case study.

Other assignments done today include the Technology Policy assignment and the System Assignment opportunity set. Don't ask me why it is called opportunity set? I am just as baffled as you are. Apparently, from one source, System Architecture opportunity sets are opportunities for students to impress the professor.

Being out-of-town last weekend during one of the busiest period of the semester was a serious setback in my school schedule. I am really thrilled that I have finally got a chance to relax after today's submission of assignments.

9/21/2005 6:01:18 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

I finally got the chance to try out the new Apple iPod Nano while window shopping at the Apple Store in Cambridge last Thursday. My first impression of the iPod Nano is that it is similar to the iPod Mini with the following distinctive differences:

1. Size wise, both the iPod Mini and Nano have the same height and width, but the iPod Nano is much thinner than the Mini version.
2. The iPod Nano has a color screen while the iPod Mini only has a B/W screen.
3. The iPod Nano has a bigger screen than that of iPod Mini.
4. Because of the bigger color screen, the iPod Nano can be used for viewing photos.

I thought that the iPod Mini was great, but I have to admit that I now drooling over iPod Nano.

9/19/2005 10:57:56 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Mac

Immediately after the Thompson Island Outward Bound trip, I flew to Detroit to attend Joanna and Zac's wedding. It has been 8 years since I last stepped foot on in Michigan. The last time I was in Michigan was the attendance of my commencement at Kettering University in 1997. I instantly felt the nostalgic memories of my undergrad days as soon as I arrived in Detroit airport. Siobhan, Steve, and Milt, who were still hung over from the previous night's party that they hosted in their hotel room came to the airport to pick me up. Once I got into the car, I was immediately updated with anecdotes from last night's social activity, which was apparently raved by many wedding guests to be a hugely successful occasion. Determined to maintain our good reputation as the wedding's most prolific party organizers, we stocked up on booze on our way back to the hotel to prepare for another great night of partying in our room.

Joanna and Zac's wedding was held in the beautiful Cranbrook House in Bloomfield Hills, MI. The matrimony was charming with a few moments of witty humor and wisdom from the rabbi. It was also fun meeting new people at the wedding, especially the ones that I have heard so much about from Joanna but have never met in person. Perhaps I was exhausted from the Thompson Island trip and the new school schedule, I was a little less than my usual energetic, genial self.

In any case, the post wedding party in our hotel room was a hit with a good showing of new wedding guests and the usual suspects from the night before. All in all, I had a fantastic time. As I reflect on the wedding while writing this blog, I think I have now achieved considerable "zen" from attending the wedding and partying with my partners-in-crime, Siobhan, Steve, and Milt. This is good. So, to my partners-in-crime, thanks for good times. We have to do this again - soon. Of course, to Joanna and Zac, thanks for having me at the wedding. Again, best wishes to the both of you.

9/19/2005 12:21:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Personal

As part of the team building and leadership development in the TPP program, all incoming TPP students are required to register for the Leadership Seminar that is taught by Prof. Dava Newman - the director for the TPP program. The highlight of this Leadership Seminar includes a trip to Outward Bound on Thompson Island. There, I was assigned to a 10 member team, which consist of Jen, Jasmine, Liz, Yoko, Yoshi, Matt, Loic, Bob, Richard, and me. Being in the military, scouts, and Outward Bound in my younger days, both as a participant and instructor (more as a participant than an instructor), I am familiar with the format of the exercises that the instructors at Outward Bound Thompson Island had our team do. However, it is always still refreshing to still be participating in the team-based exercises because to do well and to reap the benefits of these exercises is to go through the problem solving as a team. To this end, our team performed really well. But importantly, we stimulated a lot of learning and developed camaraderie on the team The experience last Friday and Saturday was definitely a great way to soak up the TPP experience. .

9/18/2005 11:14:32 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

School

It seems like fall is a time when on-campus recruiting is in full swing. In other words, many prospective companies are on campus making presentation of their company and interviewing students. Almost all companies also provide food treats when you attend their presentation event. Being a glutton that I am, this makes the first half of the fall semester my favorite time of the year. Thanks to Kevin, I have now obtain a list of on-campus company presentations. This should sustain me for a while.

9/15/2005 9:52:31 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

After writing the last blog entry, I still help but to continue lament my old age. I am think I am suffering another bad case of mid-life crisis. Sigh...

9/15/2005 9:51:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Personal

In the SDM program, where the median age is about 31, my age lies somewhere in the middle percentile. Whereas in the TPP program, I am ranked the second oldest person in my cohort. Yikes... I have never felt this old until my matriculation to the TPP program, although conversely I am feeling mighty proud of my experience and wisdom. I can finally empathize what Milt and Camille meant when they said: "I was in high school when they were born." Indeed, one of my TPP classmate just turned 21 a week ago. 21 years ago, I was just a freshman in high school!!! Here's another scary thing, almost half of the incoming TPP students have less than 2 years of work experience with many coming straight from undergraduate programs. Yep, this means that I have more work experience in years than some of my fellow students have internship experience in months.

Enough of lamenting on my old age, there are advantages of being old. I am more mature, financially secured, and wiser. Moreover, it is always refreshing to get different perspectives from the younger minds during class discussion. Despite the age disparity, I don't feel any older than my fellow TPP classmates. For those who don't know me, I am always the young-at-heart. For a change, it is good to actually to immerse with a group of people who are more energetic and sociable.

9/13/2005 6:52:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [6]

School

Yoav has posted on his blogsite a reference to Ivan Tribble's article on the detrimental effects of blogging have on job hunting.

I agree with Ivan's arguments to the extent that every blogger should be tactful and blog with the notion that his/her thoughts are now in public domain. However, I see that blogging is still a good way of maintaining an online presence. Regardless of audiences, search committee or job recruiter notwithstanding, a blog is still a good medium to gain insights to someone's thoughts, personality, and wit. So potential employer, read this blog to your heart's content.

9/12/2005 6:07:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Blog

I pleasantly surprised how many people actually visit and read my blog on a regular basis. From MIT, I have a growing legion of regular readers from my SDM cohort. Fellow SDMers like Yoav and Ilana literally got cranky with me if I didn't update my blog for more than 3 days. Well, guys... That's the highest compliment a blogger can get. Thanks for reading.

There are other surprises as well. Recently, I was approached by staff from both Sloan and ESD explicitly asking me for the url of this website so that they, too, can start reading my blog. There are also friends like Ramey, Eimear, Siobhan, Steve, Fanny, etc who now know more about me than I do of them. Last but not least, I have heard from a few people who read my blog because they appreciate my insights to MIT and the SDM program. I wonder who else besides those that I have mentioned read my blog on a fairly regular basis? You can always leave a comment on this blog entry.

9/12/2005 5:35:55 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [3]

Blog

Last Saturday, I attended Rachel and Noah's wedding ceremony. I have known the couple for a while and I happy that they are finally married. I wish them all the best in their journey together. Here's a picture of Milt and me offering Noah our congratulatory gestures.

9/12/2005 12:25:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Personal

Interesting... Randal Pinkett, a 98 graduate of our sister program LFM, was selected to the upcoming season of the Apprentice. According to Tina, a former classmate of Randal and a colleague of mine, Randal was a hotshot back when he was student at MIT. Indeed, his profile was remarkable. Well, Randal you gave me a reason to watch the Apprentice this fall. Just bring home the bacon. God speed Randal, God speed...

9/7/2005 10:18:48 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

School

Here's a quick blog before the next networking event at MIT. I am just wasting time before the pub crawl event at Walker Memorial in 15 minutes. So much had happened since I last blogged but I am simply have no time to chronicle them all. School hasn't officially started and I am already feeling like I am running like a chicken with its head cut off. Yikes... This is the time of the year when the school is full of energy.

The turnout for the Labor Day Sports event that I organized yesterday was so-so. Only 14 people showed up to play Ultimate Frisbee. It was disappointing at first, but as it turns out the smaller number of people did made the event more enjoyable and fun. Incoming PhD candidate Andrew from Ocean Engineering (or course 13 in MIT lingo) was extremely helpful in organizing the Ultimate Frisbee game. He was more effective as a leader and organizer than I was. Thanks Andrew.

Sorry for the incoherent writing. Ooooo.... It's almost 8pm already. Time for pub crawl.

9/6/2005 8:12:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

School

I have finally tasted the mythical Kobe beef last night at Grill 23. Yes, it is as good as they claim it to be, very tender and melts in your mouth. Yummy... (More later...)

9/3/2005 7:25:25 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Food

This is surreal. Almost a year ago, National Geographic ran this article, which accurately predicted the consequences of major human-induced catastrophe if a hurricane were to strike head on to the Bayou.

9/2/2005 4:05:41 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Internet

So upset I was with the Sloan picture book that I went to talk to Ted about my dissatisfaction. From my conversation with Ted, I found out that I was wrong about my assumptions in my previous rant. Sorry, I was wrong. It wasn't Sloan's fault that SDM wasn't included in the picture book. It was us, the SDM students, who are to be blamed. A majority of us had failed to update our profile description on Sloanspace (a website) despite 2 earlier emails notifying us to do so. Due to the lack of information, the administration decided at the last minute to pull the SDM section off the picture book.

I even more upset by this new revelation. What a disgrace that we can't even get our act together to follow simple instructions to update our profile on the website.

9/1/2005 12:45:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [7]

Rants

While visiting the LFM-SDM office to check on my mail after TPP orientation, I discovered the freshly minted Sloan picture book of 2005. But when I opened the book, I couldn't find a single picture of anyone from my SDM cohort. I flipped the book multiple times but I only found pictures of students from the MBA, Sloan Fellows, Undergraduate, and Doctoral programs. I know this may sound trivial to some people, but I am really upset by this lack of representation of SDM in the Sloan picture book. Isn't the SDM program a part of Sloan? This is yet another incident that confirms the bigger pattern of the SDM program as being a second class citizen at Sloan. We often have to operate in "guerilla" mode to get around the limited Sloan elective that every SDM students are constrained with. Not to mention that we get ZERO assistance from Sloan career placement office. I can continue ranting but I am going to restrain myself for now.

In closing, I have this personal observation to share. The SDM program is a joint degree program between Sloan and ESD. So all SDM students are technically part of both Sloan and ESD. I have observed that even with the lack of goodwill and respect from Sloan, most SDM students will more likely identify themselves as students from Sloan than from ESD. All this despite that the fact that ESD holds the SDM program on a higher pedestal, hosts the SDM office in its building, and provides administrative and logistical services to SDM students. I guess the Sloan brand name is hard to beat, huh.

9/1/2005 12:49:13 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [5]

Rants