I Got My MBA Today...

OK - not really. We've got one more semester to do this spring... then we'll officially have our MBAs... but today... we earned our stripes today!

New Venture Creation has been one of my favorite classes in the program. In this course we've taken just about everything we've been learning for the last year and a half... Marketing, Finance, Branding, Accounting, Law... seriously, ALL of it, and in a mere 6 weeks have applied it by creating a business from scratch... then today we pitched that plan to a panel of judges and potential investors for feedback.

Holy $#$%^. We've done A LOT of presentations and public speaking throughout this program, but this assignment was like fighting for your life. These panelists didn't hold back in their critiques so we had to come prepared to NAIL it. Throughout the course of this class we've had other professionals and entrepreneurs provide us with feedback as we've developed our pitches. From this it seems that 1/2 the lesson has been to stay open and flexible to this professional feedback and make adjustments as needed; the business plan my team and I pitched today was very different from that first pitch we did in the beginning - you know... back when we simply had a "good idea". In the interim, my hardworking teammates, Britni McCotter and Gabe Maldonado and I reshaped this mere good idea into a viable business plan with high earning potential.

Congrats to my dMBA cohort - it was a blast celebrating w/ you this evening on a job well done!

Digital Law... Its Like Angry Birds!

Digitial Law. Its like playing Angry Birds. Specifically, its like one of the levels where everything is made of concrete and you just keep throwing yourself at it hoping to break through.

For our Digital Law class we are each assigned a case to analyze with a partner which we then present to our classmates. Tomorrow my partner, Tish and I are presenting the U.S. Court of Appeals case of Comcast v FCC concerning issues of net neutrality and regulation. Important issues to be sure... but if you're not getting an MBA in this stuff, read the Wiki version instead - it'll spare you a headache.

OK, as much as I gripe about reading for Law, the truth is, my classmate, Crystal and I were just chatting today about how reading page after page of these court documents is re-shaping how we think about everything we now see. Not just in terms of the law, that's a given... and the promise of becoming issue spotters is already coming to fruition. But, also, really, its strengthening our mental toughness. To break down this FCC case, Tish and I have had to meticulously comb through this case (beginning over Thanksgiving Break... yay!!!) to tease out the issues buried in legal jargon and evaluate the dense assessment of the Appellate Court. To get through it I just pictured myself as a little Angry Bird just busting through the concrete and annihilating monkeys!...sheesh... I am really becoming a Digital Dork!

But, as Crystal and I were discussing today, this understanding of the law is already paying off as a recent digital/copyright case has hit the local news. Botticelli's, a small but popular Austin restaurant, has suddenly become embroiled in a lawsuit with corporate giant, BMI (shout out to my friend Vicky Garza for some awesome reporting!). What strikes me the most about this story, is that the business owner apparently ignored repeated requests from BMI to cease the copyright infringement. If this is true, it seems the Botticellis didn't understand the gravity of copyright infringment and perhaps thought they were too small for BMI to trifle with. But as we're learning in Digital Law, size doesn't always matter (I'm being nice, this is the Wiki version) ... so as painful as it can be at times, it makes me glad I'm learning this stuff... you know, so I can annihilate the monkeys! Yep... Digital Dork.

Great Article from Digital Media Zone!

Check out this article, Female CEOs Take on the Digital Media World from Digital Media Zone! Its an encouraging article to follow up from my recent post discussing NPR's report on the dearth of women in technology. Yep, the women in our program are poised to take over the digital media world - I'm especially talking to you Suzanne Bonifaz, Sarah Granger, Britni McCotter and Basia Tunkis!

The Grind, Part II

Not a day off for 3 weeks.
8 hour days on the weekends: researching, writing, reading.
The Grind.
Its worth it, right?
I'm not complaining really... just a drooling vegetable.
I miss poetry & art.
24 days till the last final.
Then LA.
24 days till working out at Wild Card.
Wild Card.
Where I just train.
That's me at my happiest.
If I can stay standing in the ring during a workout w/ Ray... I can do business school - no problem.
I'd rather go another 3 minutes w/ Ray than read another Law case.
I miss poetry, art, LA and Wild Card.

The dMBA program receives Innovative Program Award!

How cool is this!!!

The MBA in Digital Media Management was recently awarded the 2011 "Innovative Program" award from the International Digital Media Arts Association at its annual conference in Savannah, Georgia. Each year one university program is selected by digital media professors and industry experts recognizing innovation in disciplines related to digital media. Recent recipients include the Savannah College of Art & Design, the University of Florida and the University of Georgia. The dMBA program was the first business program to receive such recognition.

Congrats to all of the cohorts,
faculty and staff of the dMBA program!

Special thanks to my classmate, Conrad Heinz, for the slideshow pics in the right-hand column, dMBA Innovation Award Celebration, hosted by Dean Kelliher.

The Grind

My head just exploded.

This is why (WARNING, your head may explode by reading the following passage):

Using standard HTML, SoccerMANIA.com’s webpage might, in fact, be in-line linking to the Pelé photo stored on, say, “SoccerPASSION.com.” If that is the case, when the person seeking to visit SoccerMANIA.com’s webpage uses his browser, the browser would (1) download SoccerMANIA.com’s webpage, (2) parse through the various HTML commands of that webpage, (3) per HTML code, display the text “We proudly show this photo,” (4) also per HTML code, Dear God, stop now! Save yourself! ...follow an in-line link to the image stored on SoccerPASSION.com, (5) download the photo to the user’s computer directly from SoccerPASSION.com, and (6) display the image in the browser below the text. Because the visitor cannot see any of these actions take place, he probably—but mistakenly—will assume that the copyrighted photo of Pelé is stored on and served by SoccerMANIA.com. Indeed, even though the image was actually transferred directly from SoccerPASSION.com, the address shown on the user’s browser will still indicate something akin to “http://www.SoccerMANIA.com/webpage.html”. This is because browsers display the address of the file (here, a webpage) that they are currently rendering; they do not in any way indicate the location from which each component element of a webpage (such as an image) originates. (Perfect 10 v Google, Inc. et al.)

This goes on for nearly 50 pages. Yes, 50.

I've always wanted to read "the classics", you know, Austen, Tolstoy, Joyce. In grad school I'm reading the classics alright - the classic cases and high-court decisions in business and digital law: Campbell v Acuff Rose, Sony v Universal, Napster, Grokster, Perfect 10 v. Google, etc.

I'm learning a ton... important stuff about the application and evolution of law in the digital age - in particular about copyright law.. but this is the grind of business school... reading till I'm cross-eyed. I've recently quipped that after graduation I will never read again. My boyfriend thinks that I should then taking up knitting - but I suspect he is purely selfish on that point and just wants free, custom-made knitwear. Whatever, too much to read till then.

What's keeping me going right now? This awesome quote from our New Venture Creation guest lecturer, Ryan Gravelle*:

Entrepreneurs have a chance to make the world a better place and solve big problems. We've already got enough ways to post pictures of lunch.

I look forward to graduation. Not simply because I'll have time to learn to knit (maybe - who am I kidding?), but because I am chomping at the bit to start putting my dMBA education into practice!


* Ryan attributed the quote to Kevin Neuse, but Kevin told me it was from an article he Tweeted about. If you know the name of the article, lemme know!

Another Driveway Moment Brought to You by NPR

The bright, happy faces to the left are those of my dMBA cohort (it was early in the program - we all look a lot more tired now). Quick - do you notice anything unexpected about this picture? Your hint is a reminder of what the program is: an MBA program with an emphasis in Digital Media Management.

If you caught NPR's, Addressing the Shortage of Women in Silicon Valley last week you might be surprised to learn that 46% of the students in our cohort are women! Not only are we beating the odds in technology, however, it turns out our cohort beats out the national average in U.S. business schools where a whopping 70% of the student body are men!

Now, I've worked for tech companies for the last few years and as a former volunteer with the non-profit, Girlstart*, I wasn't surprised to hear about the shortage of women in technology. So perhaps its precisely because of that background that upon hearing NPR's report I felt so appreciative to be a part of a program that is opening doors for women in these areas**.

With the focus in digital media, we are not only learning the language of business (accounting, finance, marketing, etc.), we are also learning the language of technology so that we can be the bridge between the various functions and stakeholders of an organization. And, according to NPR's report, it is precisely women who are needed to help propel such organizations towards success:

One of the things that's a barrier to our ability to grow is our ability to hire the best talent. If we could get more women to go into computer science, we would have more talent to hire from.

Mark Bregman, senior exec at Neustar
& former chief technology officer @ Symantec

To be clear, this is an MBA program, so we're not being trained to be the much needed engineers as discussed in NPR's story. Because of the digital media focus, however, we are improving our fluency in information technology; many of us can write code and we've all taken classes in AdobeCS5 - and then of course, there was the assignment where we built a computer from scratch!

These skills set us up to be that organizational bridge... now, if I could just cross that bridge between me and the end of the 50+ pages I gotta read for Digital Law tonight... (sigh)



*An award-winning, Austin based non-profit whose mission is to empower girls in science, technology, engineering and math... check 'em out!

**Yikes! For full disclosure, I have to say that the newest cohort has only 2 women! I'm not sure how that happened... but based on the previous years this is quite the anomaly. Let's just hope so!

Burgers in the Digital Age

One of the best advantages of grad school is having access to world-class professionals who are at the top of their field. In today's Branding & Promotion class, John Moore, the marketing guru of Brand Autopsy, shared with us his insights. Particularly rich about Mr. Moore's talk are the principles he shared which are timeless and yet, never more applicable than now in the digital age. 



As I've previously discussed, organizations are catching on to how easy and essential it is to connect via social media and utilize digital tools, so the question becomes: if digital makes it so easy that everyone is doing it, how does one cut through the "digital noise" to effectively connect with their inundated audience? One obvious place to start is with data mining and the ability to target your audience with online tools. Yeah, yeah, yeah... like I said, that's an obvious place to start, but it lacks the teeth of solid business principles and the deeper understanding of an experienced marketer. 



To address this question of "cutting through the noise" Mr. Moore spoke about the need of setting yourself apart and being "talk-able" for your audience. Now, note, this strategy leverages digital tools - the tools are the means, they are not the ends, a mistake often made when getting caught up in the hoop-la of social media. Mr. Moore illustrates his point with burger restaurants. Now, a burger joint is a good old-fashioned brick-and-mortar business where, generally speaking, the product is pretty much the same from one place to the next. So how do you set your burger apart? Its those unique "touch points" that make the burger, the restaurant and the experience unique. Its the details of these touch points... from customer service, to the menus, to the furniture... in other words, the personality of your place that creates the resonance, the "talk-ability" of your organization. And talk-ability is what we want, digital or otherwise, as up to 50% of purchasing decisions are based on word-of-mouth marketing. 



My big take-away from today’s talk was creating that talk-ability factor for the long haul – not just one big splashy event or press release that people stop talking about in a few days or weeks. Its about creating something more significant than buzz... its about showcasing your organization’s personality throughout it's lifetime. Oh, and the other take-away… a shared craving for burgers that my classmates and I immediately satisfied with a trip to HopDoddy’s Burger Bar on SoCo!

Putting Out Fires

Do you know how to use a fire extinguisher? I sure didn't. I've seen them in my workplace, I even have one under my kitchen sink, but if a fire actually broke out I could only hope that I'd get it right.

It seems to be human nature to think the worst won't happen to us - perhaps that's why I never bothered to learn how to use a fire extinguisher before. Last week though, while on a stroll through Hollywood (do I know how to take advantage of a mid-term break or what?), we came across a free lesson in using fire extinguishers. When offered, I jumped at the chance to learn a new skill. It was actually pretty simple:

1. Turn the pin to break the seal,
2. Pull the pin,
3. Aim the hose at the base of the fire,
4. Squeeze the trigger, like you're killing zombies, until extinguished.

During our Digital Law, Policy & Ethics class today it dawned on me that what we're studying is kinda like learning to use a fire extinguisher. Our law professor, Russell Rains, assures us that his goal isn't to train us to be lawyers, but rather, as MBA students, to skillfully spot the legal issues that naturally arise during the regular course of business. As digital MBA students, we are also focusing on legal issues unique to the digital environment.

Laws continue to evolve, and this evolution is sped up by ever changing technology. The first copyright laws in the U.S. primarily only applied to books and maps, but those laws have obviously been updated in the ensuing years to reflect the new realities created by new technologies. I may never be a lawyer, but I'm excited that I am being equipped to put out fires, digital and otherwise.