As I described in a previous post, the second year of our MBA program is broken up into four quarters. I’m into my second, and it’s going to be challenging. Here are the classes I’m taking:

Managing Medical Services – Looking at operations issues and solutions in health care settings. Case study based. Two of my favorite professors from the first year. Queuing theory, data envelope analysis, optimization modeling, and some more linear programming tossed in for fun.

Advanced Marketing Strategy – Further application of major marketing frameworks through case study. We’ll be doing a semester long simulation on managing the marketing budget of a medical device company.

Discovery to Market – Capstone for our year long course on commercialization. We have been doing research for a new electronic medical records solution. This semester we bring our work together for a final presentation and report to our entrepreneurs.

Healthcare Delivery and Strategy – This class is taught by a former Johns Hopkins administrator. As such, we will be presented with first hand knowledge of how health care is delivered in our country. Studying the industry to see why our current system functions like it does. We’re also focusing on international comparable systems. Frustrating, but good to understand.

Entrepreneurial Finance – Here we’re analyzing the various funding sources for small businesses. From angel investors, to commercial lenders, to venture capitalists. How companies should be organized, managing term sheets, and other issues relating to the financing of entrepreneurial ventures.

TEDx MidAtlantic

Wow.  Talk about going back to the well.  If one is ever in need of inspiration, or a reminder of the capabilities of the human mind, attending a TED talk is like drinking from the fire hose.

My program is a sponsor for TEDx MidAtlantic.  Part of this sponsorship included opportunities to volunteer for students.  I jumped on it, and had an amazing day today.

Some of the many highlights:  A discussion with a doctor on the cutting edge of e-health, performances by Reggie Watts, a NASA Astrophysicist, and even Omar from The Wire.

Most TED-ish talk goes to Vint Cerf, one of the “Fathers of the Internet” who co-designed TCP/IP protocols and laid the foundations of the internet.  He discussed the current state of interplanetary communications and proposed solutions to interstellar communications.  Pretty amazing stuff.  One of his problems: the speed of light is too slow.

Most profound for me was a discussion by Eldar Shafir on the economics of scarcity and implications of poverty on decision making.  Did you know there are more pay-day lending locations than McDonald’s, Burger King, and Target combined?  Incredible.

Mind-blowing goes to Luis von Ahn, who helped create captchas.  You know, the little annoying boxes of text you have to decipher on some web forms?  Well, von Ahn utilized this system to further assist with the digitization of books, and he has similar plans for translating the entire web into multiple languages.

Pretty heavy stuff to be sure.  TEDx will be posting videos of the presenters and I’ll post some later.  Meanwhile, check out some of the best TED talks here.

Back to school again.  While I was busy this summer, it didn’t compare with the rigors of a full time MBA program.  Almost felt like time off, almost.  It was good to see that all that studying has been beneficial.  I understood things differently, more coherently.  I could recognize patterns and strategies.  I was fortunate to have worked in a fairly dynamic industry where I was able to apply my learning.

Now, it’s back to school and I’m ready for a challenging finish.  The first year we had our classes chosen for us.  They were fairly standard classes, training us to think like MBAs: understanding balance sheets, income statements, economic models and the various matrices that entail modern business thought.

The second year, we get to concentrate.  Each semester is split into a quarter, classes at 8 weeks a piece.  We have three majors: finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship, and two ‘verticals’: health care and energy.  Some pursue a major and a vertical.  Some only a major.  In an effort to punish myself (and to get the most of my tuition) I’ve decided to major in marketing and entrepreneurship, while pursuing the health care vertical.  It will be a lot of work, but I figure this will be the last time I’ll be a full time student, and might as well make the most of it.

So.  Without further ado, my first quarter:

Discovery to Market – This is a continued class from last year.  We’re learning about the process of commercialization of scientific discoveries.  Each group has been assigned to a scientist in the mid-Atlantic region, many from Hopkins.  Our group is working on a clinical decision support system for electronic medical records.  The final deliverable will be a report consisting of results from our market research, a competitive landscape, IP research, and strategic suggestions going forward.

Thought and Discourse – Another class that continues from last year.  A seminar style class where we pursue ethical issues within businesses.  This quarter is all about corporate governance.  We’ll be investigating the causes and effects of Sarbanes-Oxley, the current economic crisis, and international governance.  Going to be a lot of work, but interesting.

Research for Customer Management – Self explanatory.  Learning about creating market research proposals, understanding current methods, and performing analysis with SPSS.  Learning how to conduct focus groups, write questionnaires and test hypotheses.

Economics of Health Care – Analysis of the major economic trends that affect the cost and care of patients in the United States and abroad.  Focus on principal/agent problems, information asymmetry and the key drivers in cost and demand.

Entrepreneurial Marketing – A deeper dive into marketing strategies, particularly those of best use to entrepreneurs.  Another experimental learning class.  Each group was paired with an established company or a start-up.  Our group work with a start-up.  We performed a market analysis on their business model and determined various strategies that could be employed to drive business.  Not surprisingly, social media was the buzz of demand from our various companies.  The class itself was case study driven, taught by a practicing business leader with practical experience.  Great course.

I previously referenced a lecture I attended with the CEO of QVC, Micheal George.  During his discussion, I was amazed by the level of success achieved by this company (8 billion in sales in 2010).  One of the central tenets of the business is a high reliance on analytics.

During their broadcasts, they have live feeds of customer sales volume which is leveraged in real time to create changes in the broadcasting message and delivery.  They are on the forefront of leveraging new technologies such as smartphones and tablet computers.  The really work hard to develop the QVC mission of Quality, Value and Convenience.

This discussion piqued my interest and I applied for a summer internship.  Fortunately, I was offered a position and accepted.

So this summer I got a sublet and moved to West Chester, PA to work for QVC.  During my time there, I learned a lot about the retail industry, leveraging consumer insights and distribution systems.  The last was of of special interest to me as I was assigned to the IT division in charge of the computer systems which work to fulfill customer orders (typically 400,000+/day).  It was very interesting work, and I feel I made an impact.  The end result of my summer of research was a PowerPoint presentation on how to leverage the massive amounts of data which pour into the data warehouse daily.  I investigated various business intelligence software and strategies.  I presented a preliminary outline of what a new reporting organization would look like.  If utilized correctly, this new initiative could realize many millions of dollars in savings to the organization.  Pretty exciting to work on a project of such importance.

I got an email from a reader with the following question:

I was recently admitted into the JHU Carey Business School and am trying to make my decision on where to go. I’m heavily leaning on JHU because of its unique focus, but I have some other options here in [my hometown] that I am also considering. Would you be able to give me any advice on how and why you chose JHU over your other choices? And also, has JHU met your expectations so far? I read in some of your earlier posts that you had high expectations for the program, so I am wondering if it has failed to meet any of your expectations so far.

It’s a great question, and it has been occupying my mind recently. I’ll try my best to give a complete answer.

First, why did I choose Hopkins for my MBA? Well, I must first preface this with the understanding that I had not previously considered business school. I did my undergrad at the University of Michigan, and to say the least, I didn’t really get along with the pre-business students. Michigan was pretty competitive and it bred cut throat students for the limited number of undergrad business school spots. It appeared the majority of these students were solely motivated to make money. As the first person from my family to graduate college, I had different priorities. I was more concerned with understanding the world around me. I took classes in many different fields, from Art History to Political Science, from Biological Psychology to Economics. When the smoke cleared, my advisor pointed me towards a major in American Culture, a concentration what would encapsulate these many fields.

As I began working, I pursued equally diverse interests, from working with the non-profit Professional Disc Golf Association, to a large publishing company, to venturing out on my own as a freelance developer/media person. After about 7 years working, I felt it was time to head back to school. As I was exploring grad programs, I considered teaching, a Masters in American Culture, and a Masters of Public Policy. On discussions with a mentor of mine, he kept bringing up the idea that MBA’s have some unique ways of looking at problems, and have brought some interesting insights to his field (he’s a PhD working in medical education).

Thus began my new path.

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