Can be found here. Sorry about my lack of posting, I don’t have a whole lot to say now as school cycles down… I’ll try to post something about that this weekend.
A Fourth Embarrassing Video
March 13th, 2008JK’s Comment on Subprime
March 13th, 2008JK asked the following on my previous post:
So I’m wondering, how has the subprime and credit crunch affected Canada, the employment in the banking sector.Especially for a foreigner like me who wants to go to Rotman for an MBA and break it into the finance and banking industry in Toronto.
Since I’m not into the banking side of things at Rotman I asked someone I knew what they thought and they gave me this (well thought out) response:
While the impact of the credit crunch on the Canadian economy has not been as extremem in the US, the US is still Canada’s largest trade partner and, as such, the country’s financial institutions are hurt by the cooling of the US market (as well as all that subprime debt they’ve got sitting on their balance sheets!) While Canadian financial institutions (read: banks, money managers, private equity, etc) are still hiring, the numbers they are hiring reflect demand for services in the market so this year has seen a definite cooling down in numbers. The bad news it that there is a lull; however, the good news is that markets are usually cyclical and by 2010 or so (when you may be looking into getting a full-time job), the economy will likely be on an upswing and there will be a need to make up for years of slower higher to meet increased demand for services. Hope this helps.
So there it is. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Subprime explained
February 19th, 2008HA! Check it out if you want to understand the whole subprime crash.
A Third Embarrassing Video
February 14th, 2008More (constructive) feedback is always welcome. This time it was a case given at 8:30 am and presented at noon. I had a 2 minute chunk of 10 minutes. I went in right after the introduction and an overview of the company’s competencies and just before our recommended solution.
Thoughts? Notice how geeky I am with TWO pen’s in my right pocket? ha!
My second presentation
February 7th, 2008In a continued effort to embarass myself, I’ve posted the 2nd presentation video here. Enjoy!
Failure To Launch
February 1st, 2008I just wanted to point everyone over to a solid article at Thinking Faster. We really do need to focus on the “whole product” and this is a critical component of the whole “business design” methodology that has a fair amount of traction at Rotman. Quote from the article:
Given the complexities that we live with and the expectations we have of our products and services, it is not enough to simply create a great new product. Along with that product, you need to create what Geoffrey Moore calls the “whole product” – that is, the manuals, support, training, registration, help and surrounding infrastructure that can make or break a product or service. The old thinking is that people don’t want drills, they want holes. The new thinking is that people want to understand how to drill the hole effectively, and want someone to call in case they need help with their hole.
It’s not only the ability to drill the hole that creates value for the customer but the whole experience surrounding it.
Video of My Presentation
January 24th, 2008I did my first presentation for case analysis and preparation class. I posted it on my tumble blog (mainly because it’s easy to get video on there) and more details about the presentation are available there. I hope you find it useful and feel free to comment on this site.
Full-Time vs. Part-Time
January 22nd, 2008As requested I’m going to share my thoughts on doing a full-time vs part-time MBA at Rotman. I want to preface this entire thing by saying that my opinion is severly biased since I decided to do a full-time program:
- The age in the average full-time program is a lot lower as well as the students have a lot less work experience. I believe this is the main criteria that you should use in deciding which program is best for you (not to mention the executive program). Age and work experience factor into the likely stage of your life and career you’re in which in turn will imply which learning environment will be best for you and your life. Some of these environmental factors are discussed below.
- I can infer that being in the part-time program wouldn’t provide as immersive of an experience as I’ve had in the full-time program. In the last two years I’ve essentially lived and breathed MBA life where-as in the part-time program, since you’re working, you live in two worlds. I’m not sure what this means as far as the final experience or if it’s even important. Draw your own conclusion.
- The part-time program is organized to allow students to continue working while getting their MBA, this means a few things:
- You can still continue earning at your current job which presents an opportunity cost trade off between the full-time vs part-time: i.e. you earn your current salary for three years vs earning no salary for two years but earn a potentially higher salary for the third year.
- No internship opportunity in the part-time program since it’s year around.
- “Lower risk” in the part-time program since you will (likely) still be employed at the end of the program.
- You can’t take certain elective courses in the part-time program since they will conflict with your work schedule.
- Organizing group meetings with students in the part-time program can be difficult sometimes since they can’t meet in the day, generally have evening classes, and have to consider family obligations.
- The part-time program students sometimes miss out on Rotman events simply because they are working.
There are probably a lot of other things I can talk about but what I’ve said are probably the main points. Most of the rest I’d have to say revolve around your lifestyle choices and how they should impact your decision but those are far more personal.
Venture Capital Wrap Up
January 17th, 2008I know there are some who would disagree with me but Venture Capital was one of the best courses I’ve taken. The course is really interesting and I learned a lot! Many great speakers (but it was suspect that almost all of them were named Mark or Marc 
). I strongly recommend the course for people who are looking to learn how this industry works and get some practical experience evaluating companies from a VC/start-up perspective.
I apologize for my absence from this blog recently (VC was taught as a 2-week intensive course), I’m going to attempt to respond to all the comments/post the information requested over the course of the next week. No promises though as I’m taking a short vacation.
Have a good weekend!
Bye Bye Nadia
January 17th, 2008Nadia, one of the great people from the program services office*, is leaving Rotman for other opportunities. She was one of the first people from PSO that I met and she was the one who organized the Taste of the MBA.
A huge loss for Rotman and she’ll be missed. Good Luck Nadia.
*PSO does everything at Roman except the recruiting (at least from my point of view). Very important and great people.