The MBA Student Voice

The Most Bittersweet of Endings

On the morning of April 14, I wrote a blog post about the numerous conferences going on on and off campus, and inviting the broader community to join in on those conferences.

Until now, this was my last blog post, because something that afternoon occurred that has changed my life.  Forever. 

In one of my previous posts, I talked about Sari Closet, an online nationwide rental service for saris (formal South Asian women's apparel).  To recap: Sari Closet started as a class project in our Business Plan Development class.  At the end of the class, our "final" was to present our business to the class and to a group of guest venture capitalists, whose commentary / Q&A compromised the bulk of your grade for the quarter. 

The feedback we received was tremendous, to the point where one of the guests contacted us to help us get started.  We launched the business in January and went live in May. 

So on that fateful afternoon of April 14, I was in a pod at Rosenfeld Library with my classmates-turned-business partners, preparing for the Knapp Venture Plan competition that evening.  This is a business plan competition across Anderson, with the winner getting $30,000 in prize money, presumably to launch the business (although that's not a requirement). 

Nisha and I were going to present, so we dressed as best we could like fashion executives.  Patrick was dressed like an MBA student in his last quarter: a t-shirt from a band nobody has ever heard of, old jeans, and at least one tennis shoe. 

(Digression: we made it to the next round of the Knapp competition, the semi-finals.  But in this round, all of the businesses were put into different rooms based on industry, and the judges chose the best business of the ones that they saw, and that team moves on to the finals.

I didn't realize that you had to "win your room" until 20 minutes before we were supposed to present, I thought the judges all listened to the pitches, then got togeher and chose their favorites based on all of the rooms. 

But I was wrong, and naturally, we ended up in Food and Beverage.  Any muppet can figure out that a sari is neither a food nor a beverage.  But our objections were shot down (apparently, our industry room was "Retail".)  So there we were, presenting Sari Closet after two food trucks, a beer business, and a pastry shop.  Of course, we didn't win.)

So we are meant to present at 6pm, and I get the call at 4:45pm that changed everything.  It was from Mrs. V.  I left right away, and 4.5 hours later, Mrs. V and I introduced our daughter to this world.

Like I said, something happened that changed me forever.

So I never had the chance to post again to this blog, and then I graduated.

Tearfully, it is time for me to say goodbye. To the blog, and to UCLA Anderson, at least as a full-time student. I'm officially an MBA graduate, and a father. 

I'm not going too far.  I'm still dedicated to Sari Closet, and will stilll be following the sports industry closely - the sports entertainment business remains my professional passion. 

Those of you who have enjoyed my writing (all three of you) can follow me over at Perfecting the Upset, a new sports blog started by Rahat Ahmed, a friend from college, and focusing on the sociology of sports: why are we fans, what makes us tick.  There will be a heavy dose of nostalgia, plus coverage in a way that isn't blinded by commercial interests. 

I'll be focused on my beloved Washington Capitals and Manchester United, and possibly UCLA football / basketball and the Steelers, if my daughter lets me.  I'll join there later this month. 

I'll always love my two years at UCLA Anderson, and writing this blog.  It's a bittersweet good-bye for me, a time that I will always cherish and remember fondly.

Go Bruins.

 

 

Conference Season at UCLA Anderson

Today is the Conference edition of the blog - because there's lots of news on all of them! Contact me if you want details any of the events happening on campus!

* The International Food Festival is on Thursday, April 7, starting at 17:00 (that's 5pm) at Alumni Plaza here on campus.  This is where the International Business Association turns Alumni Plaza into a street market atmosphere with food stalls representing 15 different nationalities, music and dance performances from around the world, and a global selection of beverages -- all run by UCLA Anderson students!  Last year, over 500 people were in attendance.

Entry is just $20 which includes five free food tickets (additional food tickets can be purchased for $1 each).  All UCLA graduate students are welcome - from any school, not just Anderson - as are all UCLA faculty and staff.  And yes, you can bring your family!  Children's entry is just $10.

* UCLA Anderson is putting on the PULSE Conference on Friday, April 8. This is UCLA Anderson's first-ever Sports and Entertainment Conference!  The conference is a collaborative effort between the Sports Business Association, Entertainment Management Association, and UCLA Anderson's Center for Managing Enterprises in Media, Entertainment, and Sports (MEMES).

Ann Sweeney, President of Disney / ABC Television Group is the keynote speaker.  Other speakers include AEG CMO Sean Dee, WME's Head of Digital Media Chris Jacquemin, and Yahoo! Sports's Director of Product Strategy Dana McGraw, plus many more!  Check out the PULSE Conference website for more details!

* The International Business Association is working with the African-American Students Association to put on UCLA Anderson's first-ever conference about Africa!  The day will highlight opportunities to invest and grow on the continent, with a fantastic array of speakers including MobileXL CEO Guy Kamgaing-Kouam, Sterling Energy Partners CEO Clyde Sotomey, and the Consul-General of South Africa's Los Angeles consulate, Cyril Sibusiso Ndaba. The conference will be on Thursday, April 21 here on campus, starting at 14:00. 

So to recap, you could expand your business mindset around the world, learn about different cultures, and become a more global citizen, all from within the confines of our beloved university in two weeks.  Not a bad deal!

-- Sreesha

Food Festival Continues to Grow

It's been a while since the blogeteers have posted, so let me give you a bit of a fill-in as to what's happening:

* The International Business Association is busy planning the International Food Festival, where we transform Alumni Plaza into a street market atmosphere with students running food stalls from a variety of different cultures.  I'm a step removed from the planning this year versus last year, but there are already more tables lined up than last year - which means more cultures represented, more food, and more fun! The festivities will be on April 8.

* Jason Arnott has made an instant impact on the Capitals.  On the ice, he gives the Caps something that they haven't had since Sergei Federov retired: a second line that draws defenses away from Alex Ovechkin's line.  Off the ice, he's been an instant mentor to Alex Semin, and has been a vocal leader in the dressing room.  Great move.

* Dennis Wideman doesn't have Mike Green's Norris Trophy ability, but can fill in very nicely while Green is on injured reserve.

* If the Football Association really wanted to incease the development of English players in the Premiership, they should turn the Carling Cup into a competition for English players only.  This doesn't violate the EU's labour laws because the clubs can still employ anyone from the EU for their other competitions.  Plus, it would give a deeper meaning the Carling Cup, which in my eyes struggles for relevancy compared to the more coveted FA Cup.

* Air Canada's threats to pull their sponsorship of the NHL if the league doesn't address head shots more carefully is hollow given how much Air Canada gets from hockey, but it brings up another point: as the NHL gains more national prominence, the league will be under a microscope for situations that even five years ago would not have been newsworthy.

* There seems to be more of my classmates staying in Los Angeles this Spring Break than I was expecting.  I don't know if that is a function of the economy -- feels like more people have jobs at this point than last year's graduating class -- or of higher oil prices due to the situation in North Africa, but I was rather surprised.

* Of course, it could just be that the point of a Spring Break trip is to go to a warm, sunny place with lots of beaches and girls in bikinis, and Los Angeles already fits the bill. 

See you on the other side of the break!

-- Sreesha

Caps' Struggles Begin at the Top

Lots to talk about so let's get right to it.

* For all of the controversy surrounding Wayne Rooney earlier this season, he seems to have settled back into life at Carrington.  He's been relatively out of the spotlight, with United piling on points and Berbatov and Chicharito handling the bulk of the goal scoring.  And then he struck this masterpiece against City, giving United the badly-needeed three points.  Beautiful. 

* United and Chelsea were off from Champions League duty this week, but Arsenal and Tottenham represented England very well. I loved that Tottenham played their usual, aggressive, attacking style even though they were in the San Siro.  They needed Gomes to make some big stops especially in the 2nd half, but were rewarded with Crouch's late winner from Aaron Lennon - that's two English players that bring home a 1-0 Tottenham win in Mlan.

* Given how well Barcelona has played this year, a 1-0 defeat for the Gunners would have been respectable. But full marks to Arsenal for bunking that logic and going for the draw, and then the win, in the final 12 minutes.  Makes me wonder about Barcelona: La Liga has been almost too easy for them this year, with just a modest Real Madrid challenge to contend with; switching to the more intense Champions League is really difficult.

* This summer might be the end of the line for both Bruce Boudreau and George McPhee.  It is clear that the Caps players are no longer responding to their coach: the power play continues to be dreadful, there are too many lifeless performances such as home against Los Angeles and San Jose, then in Phoenix. As of this morning, the Caps have lost four out of five and 14 out of 25.  How long can we call this a "slump"?

* I question whethere McPhee has made the transition from "building for the future" to "time to win now".  He might be saying the right things, but look at all of the trades that have been made in the past couple of weeks by other playoff teams: Tampa acquires Brewer for a marginal prospect and a 2nd round pick, Boston gets Kaberle for nothing, Philly gets Versteeg for nothing - even Nashville picked up Fisher for very little. It's not that we needed any of those guys (except Fisher); it's that trades seem to be happening at reasonable levels and yet McPhee can't get anything done.

* Which begs the question: do other NHL GMs really respect McPhee?  This is a people business ultimately.  All of McPhee's trades over the past few years have been with Columbus, Carolina, and one with Colorado. Is it possible that people aren't picking up the phone when McPhee calls because of something else he's done in his past?

* The fact is, the Caps' top six forwards are not playoff-worthy, much less Cup worthy.  We have one great pairing (8 and 19), one fantastic but streaky commodity (28), a 40-year-old (22), and we're trying to fill in the remaining pieces with youngsters (85, 90, 26) or asking other veterans to play above and beyond their capabilities (21, 25, sometimes 10).  The trigger has to be pulled for 1-2 more top-six forwards.

* I could buy that the D will be fine once Green and Poti are healthy.  I'm ok with not getting a goaltender either, because (a) Neuvirth and Varlamov have played well this season and deserve the chance to play in the playoffs, and (b) look at the past few Cup winners / finalists: only one of them really is a top-five goaltender (Fleury) - and he developed into a top-five goaltender after winning the Cup.  Niemi, Leighton, Khabibulin, Osgood, Ward, Giguere - no one that really sticks out as incredible.  They all played well, but none were show-stopping.

Hopefully we'll see some changes on their way!

Tweets in Class, and the 1,000th Person

Here is a unique twist: I have a class this quarter that encourages us students to use our mobile phones during class.

The class is called Brand Management and is taught by Professor Sanjay Sood and co-taught by Jim Stengel, the former Global Marketing Officer of Proctor & Gamble. It is a really exciting class because Mr. Stengel is a world-famous and highly accomplished marketing executive, Prof. Sood is renowed as being one of the best professors at UCLA Anderson for marketing and entertainment, and together they have assembled a fascinating array of guest speakers in the field.

Further, a whopping 20% of our grade will be based on "social media"; we are tasked with tweeting our reactions to the presentations by the guest speakers.  We've only had one class with this component thus far, but I thought it was a unique take.  It was interesting to see what my fellow students found poignant from the presentation, and to give and hear our reactions. 

In the first class, we mostly quoted what we felt were the highlights.  I tried to highlight some parallels to other facets of industry, and asked a question or two.  I think as we get more comfortable with the concept, we'll have a broader dialogue, where perhaps the twitter feed will be almost like a separate conversation to the presentation -- ideally an interesting debate.  Definitely a unique way to change the classroom experience!

* * * * * * * *

I need to bring up something that happened last quarter, that I should have addressed after it happened.  Better late than never, I suppose.

I wanted to shout a hearty THANK YOU to a fellow Bruin.  I don't know her name or which school she is in (she's not from Anderson, or at least, I didn't recognize her).  But I really appreciated her sentiment and would encourage all of us to follow her example.

See, what happened was, I was driving out of Parking Structure 7, which has a ramp that leads to a three-way stop T-junction with the main road.  It was relatively late -- think it was about 10:30 PM or so -- on a Monday night. 

I got to the stop sign at the same time as another car reached the stop sign to my right. I realized then that I had forgotten to plug in my iPod into my car stereo.  So I put the handbrake on (my American readers should know that I drive a manual transmission), put my emergency lights on, and quickly fished out my cord.

999 cars out of 1,000 would have driven off from that stop sign and gone on their way.  But she was that 1,000th car.  Rather than go straight and away from the garage, she turned left, pulled up next to me, rolled down her window, and asked, "Are you ok?  Is your car ok?"  I told her that I was just adjusting my iPod, she said, "great", U-turned, then carried on her way.

It occurred to me well after the fact that she's a small woman driving by herself late at night on a dark campus, yet took the time to make sure I was ok before going on her way. I was touched.  Those of us to live in the major metros in the US are so used to mis-trusting people that we forget to help each other -- or in this case, just make sure we are all ok.

To the wonderfully noble-minded Bruin from that night, thank you very much.  You made my day.

-- Sreesha

Week of Andersonian Puckheads' Dreams

Happy New Year! 

This is week 2 of three great weeks for us Andersonian puckheads.  The Winter Classic -- where my beloved Capitals defeated the Penguins, 3-1 -- was fantastic, and the HBO 24/7 series featuring the two teams was captivating.  Tomorrow is the final installment of the series, which no doubt will focus on Eric Fehr scoring two goals for my Capitals en route to the 3-1 win.

But nothing will beat Monday late morning, when Brian Burke, president and general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, will be on campus here at UCLA Anderson!  We at the Sports Business Association are very excited at the chance to hear insights from one of the most accomplished executives in sports. 

Then on Tuesday morning, we've been invited by our colleagues at USC to a breakfast hosted by Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League.  He surely must be thrilled at the runaway success of the sport in 2010, as well as this year's Winter Classic. 

Hockey''s resurgence has given us cause to put a greater emphasis on the sport in our programming for the SBA, which is exciting for me both professionally and personally!

* * * * * *

There are two myths about the Penguins that I hope are finally being exposed, either by HBO in 24/7 or by NBC in its own Winter Classic coverage. 

Myth 1: The Penguins are an offensive team. This couldn't be farther from the truth.  When they have the lead, the Penguins play the same 1-4 neutral zone trap that former -- and current! -- Devils coach Jacques Lemaire used pre-lockout en route to three Stanley Cups.  When the Penguins are ahead or at the start of games, it's chip and charge -- never carrying the puck over the blueline unless they have an odd-man rush -- and two forecheckers attacking the other team's defensemen.  Classic Lemaire!

(Saying that, while HBO has made Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau into an internet sensation with his cursing, I actually have gained an immense appreciation for the way Penguins coach Dan Byslma goes about his business.  He really has his pulse on the games, makes timely adjustments, and has great control over his dressing room.  Watching Bylsma has been a revelation for me during the series).

Myth 2: Sidney Crosby is always cool as a cucumber.  There's no denying Crosby's talent, especially this season, but on the ice, he can be angry, foul-mouthed, arrogant, whiny, and agitated, all on one shift.  And frankly he's a better player for it - hockey is an emotional game, players typically play best when their emotions are running high (so long as they don't cross the line and take penalties - or worse).  He might always say the right things off the ice, but on the ice, he's an intense competitor.  It's what sets the best players (like Crosby, Ovechkin, Stamkos, and Toews) from other great players (like Malkin and Semin).

Time to set up the DVR for the week!

-- Sreesha

Finally Over

Here's the punchline of this post: first quarter of Year 2 blows.  There's no other way to say it. 

The problem -- and in fairness, it's a high-quality problem -- is that there are too many things that come up in the first quarter.  Because 1/3 of my 2011 classmates are abroad, and none of the first years are bidding for electives, it's the perfect quarter to take any of the professors or courses that you are eager to take.  Plus, most of us still here in Westwood started our field study projects (the acronym here is AMR, for Applied Management Research).  On top of that, most people are now involved in some sort of club leadership.  So yeah, it gets to be a busy quarter.  I'm happy to see the back of it!

I'll confess that I overdid it.  AMR takes up a lot of time.  I also took Real Estate with Professor Sussman, as well as Business Plan Development.  Both classes were rewarding - Sussman is one of what I call the five rockstar professors here at UCLA Anderson, the others being Alderton, Cockrum, Osbourne, and Sood, in no particular order.  It's not just that they were a LOT of work, it's that I wanted to gain a lot from each of them.  In hindsight, I wouldn't suggest over-doing it.  Do as I say, not as I do!

* * * * * *

Not at all happy with this past week for the Capitals.  To me, there are two glaring problems right now.

One, the power play.  It's not just that it needs to score, it's that the power play should generate momentum for the Capitals.  At the moment it's lifeless.  I've never liked Ovechkin at the point on the power play, he's better suited down low or on the half-boards.  It took until the Colorado game for Coach Boudreau to put more grinders on the ice during the power play. 

Two, we need an offensive zone system change - or at least, a Plan B.  Too many teams are collapsing four guys into the crease and letting the Caps play around on the perimeter.  So of course shots and passes are getting blocked, and when they are getting through, they aren't difficult stops for the goaltender.  Colorado did this to near-perfection on Saturday night.  The Caps lost, 3-2, not because Craig Anderson was a terrific goaltender (he played well enough to win but wasn't stellar), but because the Avalanche stopped 42 shots from getting to the target.  Backstrom seems to be the only Capital to have figured out what other teams are doing, because now he stutter-steps off the boards before making a play to try to create more space.

Yes, I know that had nothing to do with UCLA Anderson.  So what?  It's Winter Break!

-- Sreesha

London Calling...

Fellow blogeteer Jesse Ferlianto reminded me today that it has been a long time since I've contributed to the blog, so you can thank him for the fact that I'm going to tell you all about how I spent the US Thanksgiving holiday. 

Last weekend, while most of you were enjoying the turkey and the NFL, a motley collection of 21 UCLA Anderson students went to London for the 7th annual career trek there.  This year, I organized it alongside three classmates of mine.  The trip is in conjunction with five other US MBA programs and is cut across three verticals: finance, consulting, and the newly-created sports / entertainment.  Across all of the schools, we were approximately 80 students.

The trek was a success all ways around!  Personally, I was on the sports / entertainment verticals, and the companies were extremely receptive to us being there.  We got to meet some very senior people from a variety of exciting firms, including the NBA, NFL, IMG, ESPN, Harrah's, Disney, Paramount, Fox, and NBC Universal.  Above all else, I learned that while they all work for US-based companies, they have loads of opportunities to expand their business in Europe - in many cases, moreso than their US-based colleagues, who are facing a fragmented saturation of the American sports market. 

I'm also really happy that the finance and consulting verticals came out really well, too.  On the finance vertical, we saw Prudential M&G (the asset management arm of the UK's largest insurance company), Aerium Finance, and State Street for asset management; Carlyle and Providence Equity for private equity; and Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Nomura, Credit Suisse, and Citi in investment banking.  The feedback I got was that the companies were all stellar, and within the finance industry there was a decent amount of variety as well. 

On the consulting vertical, we saw McKinsey, Bain, and BCG, as well as Deloitte, E&Y, PWC, A.T. Kearney, Roland Berger, and Gallup.  This was the longest vertical of them all: the first meeting was at 12noon on Wednesday, and the last meeting on Friday afternoon!  But the feedback I got was that it was worth it, especially given the breadth of the companies and divsions that we visited. 

I'm also very proud of how we at Anderson did in terms of setting up meetings.  We arranged all of the sports / entertainment vertical - the Anderson alums there were nothing short of fantastic for us - as well as 2-3 headliners in both of the other verticals (McKinsey, Deloitte, Prudential M&G, Providence Equity, Credit Suisse, and Aerium Finance).  Big kudos to Abhijit, Pete, and Vivek for helping me make this trip happen.

More than anything, I think we showed a lot of multinational companies that, contrary to popular belief, Anderson students are willing to seek out job opportunities outside of LA. We came prepared, had great questions, and were extremely professional as much as possible. 

One thing that US MBA programs are known for are these sort of career treks, where you get to visit a variety of companies in different verticals.  Anderson frankly has been lagging other schools in this endeavour, but hopefully as the London trip continues to expand, we will be able to catch up.  Organizing the trip is extremely rewarding because it gives you direct contact with all of the people that you want to keep up with anyway -- so now you have delivered something for them, which differentiates you from the rest of the crowd.

Bottom line: these are the trips that are so critical to the MBA experience, and this one in particular is one that you should keep in mind for next year should you get the chance to join us here in Westwood. 

Reach out to me off-line if you want more details!

-- Sreesha

Incubating new ideas...

Team, I need your help!

A few weeks ago, I told you about my classmate who started edilex, a company offering professional grade business contract templates to legal professionals and business people over the web.  (My regular readers probably did this already, but if you haven't, check it out at www.edilex.com).

Well, this quarter, I'm taking a class called Business Plan Development, which is exactly what it says on the tin.  My classmates who registered for the course came with some fascinating business ideas.  The final project for the class is a fully fleshed out business plan for a new business, plus a presentation to a panel of venture capitalists.  Many Andersonians use this class as a stepping stone to launching their business!

I'm working with one of my classmates who is looking to launch a sari rentals business.  The idea is similar to tuxedos: rather than buy something that you are only going to wear a couple of times at most, you can rent them, look fabulous, then return them back at a fraction of the cost and without the hassle of having to deal with them.

The business is still at concept stage, so you can give us a major boost by filling out the survey at this link and giving us your views and opinions.  It will take you about 10 minutes, so I greatly encourage all of you to do this - men and women, South Asians and non-South Asians.  Oh and feel free to pass this is on to anyone who might help!

http://ucla.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5w2zmymvkHKnPE0

Thank you all in advance!  And your reward for this is that I will entertain you after the jump.

* * * * * * * * * *

Some random thoughts on the week that was:

* Our beloved Capitals are undefeated (8-0-0) when Boyd Gordon is in the lineup.  Is this just a coincidence? Or (as I believe) does he provide a consistent level of grit and faceoff expertise (the proverbial "little things), eat up valuable PK minutes, and is showcasing what made Jaromir Jagr once say that he would be a great player?

* Have to feel tough for Owen Hargreaves, who now appears to have suffered an anxiety attack during the match with Wolves on Saturday.  Oddly, I would believe that - this was his first appearance on the pitch in over two years, and there haven't been that many reports of him on the training ground.  Before his string of injuries he was a regular for England; here's hoping that he can finally get his career jump-started again.

* The top four teams in college football heading into this weekend were Oregon, Auburn, TCU, and Boise State - that's two teams not from one of the major conferences.  Could this be the beginning of the end of the dreaded BCS?  My view: not at all - the BCS is the greatest invention in the history of NCAA Football because anytime a college football fan hears "BCS", he immediately will stop watching any other sport and start talking NCAA Football - regardless of the time of year.  Instant newsmaker.  Genius.

More great ideas soon!

-- Sreesha

Laughing All the (Ooh-La-La) Time!

Mrs. V. surprised me with a belated birthday gift this weekend.  I didn't know what it was until we got there.

She told me to keep this weekend free, leaving Friday midday and returning to LA Sunday morning.  Driving distance, no passport, some general weather - that was it.  So we got in the car and headed south. 

A few hours later, we were at the Balboa Theater in downtown San Diego, waiting for none other than Craig Ferguson to appear on-stage!  He is a comedian who hosts the late-night talk show after David Letterman.  My friend Suman from New York switched us on to him (quite literally - after telling us about him, he left an episode on our DVR) and we've been avid fans ever since.  So a few months ago, she saw the tickets online for his show in San Diego and bought them.

She tried to do the same surprise in May, nearer to my actual birthday, when Ferguson was in Las Vegas, but I had planned to go to Vegas three times in May, and that was the one weekend I was planning to be in LA.  Plus, at that point I had accepted the summer internship offer to work for Harrah's, so I knew I would spend a lot more time in Vegas after that. 

Needless to say, she was extremely disappointed. 

And also needless to say, he saved my proverbial bacon last night by being at his absolute best last night. 

I was laughing so hard for most of the show that I nearly lost my breath.  His style is very similar to his monologues on his TV program, but more ebullient and with less restrictions on material.  He started off by saying he was going to tell a joke, rambled into many different topics - including a fantastic impression of Ellen DeGeneres, what it's like being a clarinet player in a heavy metal band, and a description of the sex education class he had to sit through in school ("Mr. and Mrs. Toad..."), -- and built up that one two-sentence joke which he shared at the very end.  And which was hilarious, I thought.

(No, I'm not going to share this with you now because (a) I won't do it justice, and (b) it's completely inappropriate for a blog focused on UCLA Anderson.)

(But mostly because of the former).

It was a fantastic night and a great weekend in San Diego - definitely one of the highlights of my UCLA Anderson experience.

-- Sreesha