E-Books to Finally Take Off?

Much as I would love to get the Sony Reader (I can't, I don't have enough spare cash lying around) because I think it would be incredibly useful to me, it hasn't done all that well in the market. In fact, the whole e-book concept hasn't gone down well with consumers. At least not as well as, say, Sony would have hoped. (Or as I would have hoped, because that might have considerably reduced the retail price of the Reader, thereby making it affordable to me!)

All that might change, though, with the introduction of Amazon's long-awaited, much rumoured-about, Kindle e-book reader. At least I hope things change. Kindle hasn't yet been launched by the way -- it's supposed to be launched later today in the US -- but it's already being talked about. Notably, in Newsweek's interview with Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, though both CNET and Engadget have talked about it as well.

We learn in strategy that, in many ways, the holy grail of strategic competition is to change the industry (presumably in your favour!). Amazon's already done that a number of times and, through to the Kindle, they're hoping to do that yet again. Being a fan of both e-books and tablet PCs, I hope they succeed.

Expect more coverage (on this blog) of this device and of this strategic move as more details emerge.

Predicting Voting Behaviour

With the Australian federal election a few days away, all eyes seem to be on (among other things) daily opinion polls.

To generate data for those polls, people are asked "Who would you be most likely to vote for if an election were held this Saturday?". Chris Lloyd, one of our professors at MBS, argues that there is a lost opportunity in asking this question because "binary data gives much less information than continuous data – roughly 5-10 times less information." As a result, he argues, these opinion polls don't capture the swing vote, even though that's where all the action is. I agree with him completely and wish they would get all that extra data for us. However, I have three theories as to why they don't do a more comprehensive survey.

The first is the obvious one (though a guess on my part): the economics aren't worth it. That is, the comprehensive poll will cost too much because it'll both take longer and will be more complicated to execute.

The second is the less obvious one: it'll add too much uncertainty into our lives (or, put another way, it'll give us too much information). Because these votes are swing votes, they'd change much too often for the general public's liking. If the numbers jumped up or down by, say, 5% every other day, the polls would be perceived as being overly sensitive and voters as being overly fickle. Eventually, because the polls would seem almost erratic, the public would lose interest in them (they would seem less relevant as accurate gauges of solid public opinion), the media would stop buying them from polling agencies, and everyone would lose money. Yes, this reason comes down to money as well.

The third is the least obvious one: people would prefer not to know (or, put another way, too little uncertainty isn't fun, either). Because, if they did know (with a reasonable amount of accuracy) who was going to win beforehand, it would make the actual voting on the election day much less exciting. And, in the same way that no one wants a boring, predictable sports tournament final, no one seems to want a boring election day either.

At the end of the day, though, people have to vote with their feet and not with their survey responses. And that little bit of uncertainty -- that "anything can still happen" feeling -- keeps people interested and much, much more motivated. Both of which, ultimately, lead to a better election process and a better execution of a democracy because everyone will have been interested in it and everyone will have participated in it.

The Home Stretch

I've had a brutal couple of weeks, with classes six days a week (for which there's plenty of reading to be done), at least one assignment due every week, and many syndicate meetings to plan, prepare for, and attend. Now, fortunately, (to borrow a phrase from the baseball lexicon) we're on the home stretch, with only two more weeks of classes and then one week of exams to go.

I'm also down to two assignments that are still due: a Leadership & Change assignment due this Friday (23rd) and an Implementation of Strategy assignment due next Wednesday (28th). Both are excellent assignments but both require quite a bit of work.

The L&C assignment, for example, is to write an essay about our personal leadership challenge: the one that we all identified in the first week of the course and have since been working on. That may sound simple but, if you've been through the course, you'll know that it isn't. It's also supposed to be 3,000 words long (not including the bibliography and appendices) so it's to a really comprehensive essay as well.

The IoS assignment, meanwhile, is to write a case (complete with teaching note) about a real strategy implementation that, preferably, at least one member of our syndicate is closely connected with (e.g. this happened/is happening in a company that this person worked/is working for). That, as you might imaging, is again quite challenging. It's one thing to read a case and learn from it, it's quite another to write a case and then write what should be learnt from it! It is quite a lot of fun, though.

Still, with only two assignments, three weeks, and four final exams [1] to go before the start of the summer break, I can't help but feel a little exhilarated. The home stretch is, after all, exciting. No less brutal, of course, but still exciting. In the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel kind of way.

[1] L&C doesn't have a final exam. The leadership challenge essay is our final exam. And it should be: it's worth 40% of our grade!

More on the WAG Strike

Marc Andreessen recently wrote a post on the strike called by the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) in which he takes media moguls to task over their "[crawling] into a hole of protecting the status quo".

And, if that's not enough, Suicide Girls posted an article that explains, from a writer's perspective, why exactly they've gone on strike. That article tells us a bit about the producer-writer negotiation history and why the current strike is so important to writers today:

This dispute is not just about writers. We are the first union that is fighting for our rights and equal pay when it comes to the Internet. What we do now will affect every union in Hollywood

If you want some solid insight on what's going on -- i.e. the backdrop of the once-in-a-lifetime industry shift that is currently happening and how the WGA strikes fits into that -- read both of those.

Lenovo to Drop IBM Brand Earlier Than Planned

"I love it when a plan comes together" was an oft-repeated line by the A-Team's John Smith. I'm guessing that's what Lenovo's Chief Executive Bill Amelio must have been thinking when they decided to drop the IBM brand name from their product line two years earlier than planned. As explained by Erica Ogg's over at CNET:

Turns out, Lenovo doesn't need the reputable computer brand to sell its notebooks and desktops anymore.

Re-branding is always a pain, especially when your company buys one the oldest, arguably most respected, and indeed most recognized brands in the business. (In case you don't know, Lenovo bought IBM's PC and laptop manufacturing division for $1.75bn in 2005).

Lenovo started dropping the IBM logo from its ThinkPad line of laptops earlier this year (it still has rights to that product brand name). I'm guessing that went well. And I guess they're confident enough to finally, firmly break from their past (i.e. their acquisition) and stand on their own with their own brand. Good for them.

It is good when a plan comes together.

Writer's Guild of America Goes on Strike

It's fun when subject matter from two courses converges. In this case, it's my E-Commerce and Negotiations course materials that are converging because the Writer's Guide of America (WGA) has gone on strike, partly over how much they get paid when the shows they write on get downloaded. Nate Anderson over at Ars Technica explains it really well:

No one is Hollywood is quite sure how this whole "Internet thing" will affect the TV and movie businesses, but the writers and producers both know one thing: they don't want to give an inch of ground when it comes to pricing residuals for Internet distribution of shows. After months of fruitless negotiations on a new contract, the Writers Guild of America announced publicly today that it would be going on strike, in large part over "new media" concerns. If you thought late-night television wasn't funny now, wait until the writers quit.

Writers get paid "residuals" whenever a show they've worked on or a movie they've helped write gets sold on DVD or aired in syndication, and these residuals can make up a healthy part of a working scriptwriter's income. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) insists that the residual rate for new media uses be fixed at the current DVD rate. The writers want the DVD formula—and the new media rate along with it—to be increased.

Our Negotiation's professor, John Onto, has taken great pains to warn us about the dangers of boiling the negotiation down to a single, contentious, value-claiming issue. When that happens, the negotiation becomes a bargain in which one side will always "win" and one side will always "lose" [1]. Unfortunately, that is exactly what seems to have happened here. Oh well. At least it's a good learning opportunity for us Negotiations students!

Footnotes

[1] Unless, of course, a creative, possibly value-creating solution to the deadlock can be found.

Blockbuster Takes Another Hit

I've had an insane week, with three major assignments due, hence my absence from this blog. But, I'm back now...and I have quite a bit to write about. Starting off with some Blockbuster news.

As you might know (if you've read two posts down), my recent E-Commerce assignment was on Netflix. In one section of that assignment we analyzed Blockbuster's entry into the online DVD rentals market; i.e. why it entered, how Netflix reacted, what would happen next, etc. As everyone knows, Blockbuster has a serious problem. Here's how we explained it in our assignment:

Finally – crucially – [Blockbuster] had a retail store mindset. Its online store had a channel conflict with its retail stores and it didn’t want to cannibalize its offline revenue stream (which included lucrative late fees). Because of this, it chose run its online service in conjunction with its stores. This was good because it let them use their stores as mini distribution centers and, from the customer’s perspective, it overcame the problem of spontaneous rentals. But it was also bad because it, not only made their logistics much more complicated, it also reduced their online store’s adoption rate. As explained previously, profits in online rentals are a volume game. Accordingly, Blockbuster’s rental revenues fell by 2.3% from 2003 to 2004. During the same period, Netflix’s rental revenues increased by 85.1% while its number of customers increased by 75.5% to 2.6m. To counter this slower adoption rate, Blockbuster later dropped its late fees for online store users altogether. It also reduced its subscription fees, albeit to seemingly unsustainable levels.

That was our January 2007-based analysis. Since then, of course, Blockbuster has drop its subscription fees.

What has happened since then, though, is much worse. As Don Reisinger from CNET explains it:

According to the company's third-quarter results released Thursday, Blockbuster's revenue slid 5.7 percent and the company harbored a net loss of $35 million. Worse, it has closed 526 stores in the past year, and the number of employees will be reduced to offset high overhead costs to the tune of $45 million. Blockbuster's injured stock price continues to fall and was priced at $5.06 at Thursday's close.

But if that's not enough to signal defeat, Blockbuster Chairman Jim Keyes admitted that his company's focus on Netflix was damaging and has decided to pull the plug on his demand for higher Total Access membership. Instead, he wants Blockbuster to focus on increasing overall membership.

Sorry, Jim, but I think you're out of luck.

Much like the print media and retail stores refusing to change, Blockbuster has been a victim on an online company finding new and inventive ways of bringing a product to a customer. And due to its size and outdated corporate culture, there really is no salvation for Blockbuster at this point. Try as it might, the future of Blockbuster is bleak, at best.

Reisinger gives Blockbuster two years before the company goes under. I think Blockbuster will last longer. Mainly because I think it'll hire some smart MBA grads (probably management consultants) who will figure out a way to radically change its business model, if not the whole company. (And by "radically" I pretty much mean "completely"). At least that's what I would do (or I like to think that's what I would do, should I have found myself in that position). And, judging from his comments, that might just be what Jim Keyes does as well. Let's see.

DVD Format Wars...Get Over it Already

CNET's Don Reisinger makes a very good point. He says "Am I the only person who couldn't care any less about the HD DVD/Blu-ray war?" And the answer is no, Don, you're not. In fact, my attitude at this point is: buy a player that plays both formats and, well, get over it already. Says Reisinger:

I've succumbed to High-Def Format War Fatigue, and to be quite honest, I think most of the world has too. Eventually, one format will win and the other will lose. In the meantime, ignore the predictions and hyperbole, and get down to enjoying some movies.

Amen.

Netflix's Future Plans

Following on from my E-Commerce syndicate assignment on Netflix -- part of which attempted to answered the question: what should the company do next? -- the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, recently talked about his plans for Netflix's future.

While it was obvious that the company was moving towards expanding its online video offerings, what's fun (and not so obvious at first glance) is that Netflix's strategists are thinking of creative ways to do that. For example, they're thinking of expanding Netflix's online video service on to next generation game consoles (XBox 360, PS3, etc.), networked DVD players, and set-top boxes.

As explained in the Last 100 article that I got this news from, this strategy makes a lot of sense. Getting into content delivery for gaming consoles will immediately give Netflix access millions of new potential customers. The challenge, of course, will be to convince game console creators -- i.e. potential "partners" like Microsoft and Sony -- to sign up. Especially since both Microsoft and Sony have announced their intentions to create their own online video networks (dubbed "entertainment hubs"). At least Hastings is clear on the fact that all of this will take time.

Regardless, it should be fun to see how things pan out over the next few years.

E-Commerce Assignment: Netflix

My syndicate mate and I are almost done with our E-Commerce course assignment that is due on Tuesday. The assignment is on a January 2007 Stanford GSB case on Netflix.

Netflix, for those of you who don't know, is the leading brand in online, mail-order DVD rentals [see Wikipedia entry]. The case is set in early 2005: Netflix has been in operation for seven years, last year Blockbuster entered the online DVD rentals market with a bang, and now Amazon is threatening to enter it as well (having already launched its online rental services in the UK).

The assignment is pretty straightforward and is what you would expect for a strategy case such as this one: discuss what Netflix has to offer (business case, strengths, weaknesses, etc.); discuss what happened when Blockbuster entered (what each side did, did well, and did poorly); and discuss what Netflix should do now. The challenge, of course, is to write all this down clearly and concisely (we have a strict 2,500 word limit that includes headers, footers, headings, attachments, references, etc.). I'm confident we've done a good job of it. I guess we'll find out just how good once we get our grade.

I really enjoyed doing this assignment, by the way. This kind of strategic analysis in the tech industry is precisely the kind of thing that interests me. In fact, one of my objectives for doing an MBA was specifically to learn how to do this. And thanks to professors like Doug Dow [faculty profile], who taught us the Business Strategy course, and John Asker [faculty profile], who taught us the Managerial Economics course -- and all the other professors who taught us all the other core courses, of course -- I think I've learnt that pretty well.

Meanwhile, the E-Commerce course itself is fantastic. It covers all things e-commerce from the management, strategic, operational, leadership, human resources, and organizational behavioural points of view and is taught by Pat Auger [faculty profile], an industry expert and one of the best teachers I've had so far.

Aside: A bit about my elective course choices and why I'm so happy this term.

When I first joined MBS and went through the entire list of electives offered here, I divided the courses I wanted to take into three sub-lists: courses I had to take, courses I really wanted to take, and courses that would be good to take. If I remember correctly, E-Commerce, Information Strategy, Negotiations, and Leadership were the only four in the first list. I'm taking all four of those this term so you can probably imagine how much I'm enjoying myself these days.

For completeness' sake, a whole bunch of strategy, entrepreneurship/new venture, and marketing courses made it to the second list. And about half the remaining courses made it to the third.

You'll hear more about the course as this term progresses.

Negotiations - Class #1

Friday morning we had our first Negotiations class. The course, taught by John Onto, is supposed to be one of the best in the school. Everyone who's taken is tells everyone who hasn't taken it to, well, take it. And judging simply from the very first class, I can see why.

For starters, the course is incredibly relevant. Negotiating is something that all of us, no matter what we do after the MBA, will be doing on a daily basis. Starting, of course, with our first post-MBA negotiation of our next job's salary. The course is also incredibly practical. Negotiating, according to John, is a skill. That is, you can learn it. And learn it we do: primarily through lots of experiential learning exercises, but also through theory, discussion, sharing of previous negotiation experiences, and video clips.

This is an exciting course so expect to hear more about it as it progresses.

200+ Company/Industry Research Tools

Jim Stroud recently published a comprehensive list of over 200 company/industry research resources on his blog. Sometimes a list like that is much more useful than simply searching through Google.

Speaking of good resources, your first port of call for company/industry research should always be your university library. The excellent, extensive, expensive, and chosen-by-research-professionals set of resources that is maintained there is truly invaluable. And as a university student, you usually have access to all of those resources for free.

Online Geospatial Technologies and Photo Editing

Let's start with the first of my tech industry-related postings. This one's about the latest, most innovative applications available on the Internet: geospatial technologies and the newest photo editing tools. Both are based on articles from MIT's Technology Review (TR) magazine.

Computer mapping tools have been around for quite a while (even online ones) but it was Google that really revolutionized the way they were used, presented, and accessed on the Internet (through Google Earth) and on the web (through Google Maps). The TR article, Google Earth: How Google Maps the World, talks about how this system works on Google's side:
Technology Review interviewed engineers at Google and at ­DigitalGlobe, the company that supplies Google's satellite photos, and did a little bit of reverse-engineering to figure out how it works.

The other how-it-works type article from TR is called New Tricks for Online Photo Editing. This one is about a really cool photo editing trick, known as seam carving, that went from being an algorithm created by a couple of researchers (from Adobe and Mistubishi) to a Flash-based implmentation of it on sites such as Rsizr and FotoFlexer as well a Photoshop plugin.

Both are interesting reads that tell you a bit about what goes on behind the new, funky stuff that you use on the Internet.

My MBA Journey So Far

I started writing about my "MBA journey" in a section called Ameel's MBA Journal on my website. Relevant from that are the following:

To quickly recap, though, these are the courses that I have taken so far:

  • World of Management (core) with Paul Dainty
  • Accounting for Managers (core) with Jim Frederickson
  • Data and Decisions (core) with Chris Lloyd
  • Financial Management (core) with Sam Wylie
  • Managerial Economics (core) with John Asker
  • Managing People for High Performance (core) with Carol Gill
  • Business Strategy (core) with Doug Dow
  • Economics and Public Policy (core) with Ian Harper & Mark Crosby
  • Managing Processes (core) with Kannan Sethuraman
  • Marketing (core) with Jody Evans
  • Corporate Finance (elective) with Ning Gong

And these are the ones that I am taking now:

  • E-Commerce (elective) with Pat Auger
  • Information Strategy (elective) with Pat Auger
  • Leadership and Change (elective) with Amanda Sinclair
  • Negotiations (elective) with John Onto
  • Implementation of Strategy (elective) with Jack Goodwin

I am 5 weeks into this study term (all study terms are 12 weeks long) and my first three courses have already started. The last two are second-half intensives -- i.e. taught in half the time with double the number of classes per week -- and will start on Friday.

Now that I've set the scene, I can start talking about what we're doing in each of the courses I'm taking right now. I will do this in future posts, of course, and not all in this one!

Recapping Older MBA Posts

This is my new, "professional" blog. Before this, I used to blog exclusively on my "personal" blog. On that blog, I wrote three MBA-related posts that are, naturally, relevant to this one as well. Instead of re-posting them here, I figured I'd simply link to them instead.

The first post ('Talking About My Internship') is about a panel discussion that I was a part of during the latest MBA intake's Orientation Week. In it, I list the points that I tried, and hopefully managed, to get across in that discussion.

The second post ('AFR Ranks Australian B-Schools...Hmmm') is about the latest business school (b-school) rankings published by the Australian Financial Review's (AFR) BOSS Magazine. Their method of ranking determination was a bit contentions and this post talks about that.

The third post ('MBA Blog Spin-Off?') was the proposal that led to this blog. It contains links to other b-school blogs that you might find interesting.

A One-Stop MBA Shop

As in any other industry or business sector, management has its own jargon, assumptions, and set of models and theories. Having already gone through two terms of an MBA programme, I am now quite comfortable with a lot of the this stuff. So much so that I find myself using it more and more frequently outside the business sphere. What I realize, however, is that this terminology, which is ultimately a shorthand way or expressing complex ideas, is not readily understood by people who aren't in this field. For example, what do you make of this statement: "the value-add of this process is easier to understand if you look at things from a triple bottom-line perspective"?

I will, therefore, try to explain the terminology I use as I go along. Mostly, I'll do that by linking to Wikipedia entries that, for the most part, explain those things better than I can. For more complicated models and theories, though, there is always Value Based Management.net (VBN.net).

According to the the site's About Us page:

Value Based Management.net is a management portal specifically aimed at the information needs of senior executives with an interest in value creation, managing for value and valuation. We provide learning materials explaining management methods, models and theories on strategy, performance, finance, valuation, change, corporate governance, communication, marketing, leadership and responsibility with links to additional resources in the field. [Source]

Basically, if you want a one-stop, quick overview of a popular management theory, model, or method, VBN.net is the place to go.

The Business Plan

Like any MBA will tell you, almost everything in business starts with (or boils down to) a business plan. This blog isn't exactly a business, but here's its business plan anyway.

The Offering

A web log (more commonly known as a "blog") about:

  • My MBA journey through the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Business School (MBS) -- which will end in May, 2008

  • My career search, exploration, and progress -- which will continue (hopefully uninterrupted) till I stop working (retire, die, win the lottery, etc.)

  • And anything else related to these two things


This will feature a few posts a week that are well written, concise, insightful, and useful to the target audience.

Target audience:

  • MBA students (potential, hopeful, current)

  • MBA alumni

  • Business school (b-school) faculty, staff, and administration

  • Potential recruiters


Topics:

  • Life as an MBS MBA student

  • MBA courses: ones offered at MBS and, maybe, those offered at other business schools as well; focusing, of course, on the ones that I'm taking

  • The MBA program: MBS' program and, maybe, that of other schools

  • Stuff about business schools and about businesses in general

  • Career opportunities in Australia and elsewhere; with a technology and new media focus

  • Industry analyses of industries that I am interested in (specifically technology, media, and new media) or that I have studied in class

  • Living, studying, applying for jobs, and working in Australia; specifically in Melbourne


The Value Proposition

  • This blog will be from my unique perspective; though YMMV so the importance of this as a value-add to readers' lives is relative

  • It will be as deep and insightful as possible (discussing in depth, analyzing, making connections, etc.)

  • Though at times it will not be deep or insightful at all (life isn't always like that)

  • It will always be written well (barring occasional slip-up)

  • It will help people get an idea of life as a foreign, full-time MBA student at MBS in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

  • It will try to pull together resources, ideas, discussions, analyses, etc. from various other resources that include news articles, opinion pieces (op-eds), other blogs, reports, white papers, and so on


The Resource System

  • My time, writing ability, and analytical ability

  • The blogs the I subscribe to, Google Reader, and my computing resources

  • My social and professional networks (online and offline)

  • Others who read this blog


The Financial Model

Costs:

  • My time, money, and effort

  • Readers' time and effort (both of which, really, boil down to money anyway)


Revenues:

  • Intangibles like a "good, lively, in-depth analysis and/or discussion"

  • One potential tangible: a good job and career path for me (through self-analysis, trend and industry analysis, social networking benefits, etc.)

Introduction: Let the Blogging Begin

Hello and welcome to ACME, my career and MBA blog. Originally conceived as just my "MBA journey" blog, I have since expanded its scope to include my career search and career progression as well. Basically, I didn't want to create a new blog once I graduated or every time I changed jobs!

If you want to know the basics about me, check the About Me page of this blog. For more, keep reading this blog. Otherwise, let the blogging begin.