Life outside TMMBA « TMMBA Talk

Life outside TMMBA

TMMBA b i e s

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

Wei Huang Class of 2012

As I was headed out to the MBA Forum at UW this spring, I checked my voice mail. I heard our midwife telling us to take my wife to the hospital because she had a case of preeclampsia, which is a pregnancy disorder that affects the mother and unborn baby. Our baby was full term at 38 weeks. On April 5, 2011at 10:59 PM PT, our first baby Hana was born. It was amazing to see the little one who was kicking my wife all those weeks.

Since the TMMBA program started, nine babies have been born to date (still working on getting the pictures of the others). Many of the fathers are new and some of the fathers are already experienced. The first 3 months were the hardest and I advise anyone entering the program to get a lending hand while adjusting to their new lives. I was fortunate to have my father-in-law and mother-in-law help out. I also had a great team (C5) to pick up the slack for me. I’m not sure how my classmates who have multiple kids do it but they an amazing group of people. Can you imagine going to school and work full-time with children? I’m envious of how my classmates with multiple kids survive school and work. But in case you have kids and you are interested in the TMMBA program, having a baby or having kids in the program can be done!

Here’s the unofficial TMMBAby stats.

1 baby – January

2 babies – March

3 babies – April

1 baby – May

2 babies – September

1 girl (Hana), and 5 boys.

My little Hana!

Proud father to Xiaoyuan

Proud father to Chongguan

Proud father to Adarsh

Proud father to Jason

Proud father to Amador

Posted in Life outside TMMBA, Student Advice, Why TMMBA? | No Comments »

Takeaways from Pitch, Don’t Spin: How to Create Buzz Around your Start-up

Sunday, October 16th, 2011

Rae Wang, TMMBA Class of 2003

TMMBA sponsored an MIT Enterprise Forum Northwest entrepreneur meet up last night, the topic was Pitch Don’t Spin. I was very excited that the TMMBA program reached out to the community to connect with other tech enthusiasts, meanwhile making such events available us, the alums, to attend. I have a two years old startup and customer acquisition through new media is always on my marketing agenda, so this topic caught my interest right away.

The panel consisted of the co-founder of GeekWire, Founder of Newsvine, editor of Seattle Business Magazine, Seattle Times Technology Columnist, and the senior editor of Xconomy. They gave us a wide range of opinions on how to approach media in this new media age. General challenges in the tech media today are:

Too much information is flowing around
A lot of people are writing
New media and old media provide a lot of choices for entrepreneurs, it can get overwhelming

The panel presented very interesting points and suggestions on how tech entrepreneurs can effectively tackle these challenges:

Be authentic, be honest, and be yourself
Sell your true story not your credentials
Have a story: just because you have an app, it does not mean you have an interesting story
Explain your technology in layman terms
Get the reporters interested in you
Know your audience and use the correct channel to pitch: no need to do Twitter etc if nobody reads it
Get your interesting nuggets of news prepared ahead of time before meeting the press
Rethink press release and don’t be afraid to use new media, such as emails

If you would like to learn more about this event, my fellow note taker over at fireundereverybutt.com posted a visual note from the event. Check it out at http://fireundereverybutt.com/visual-note-taking/.

Posted in Alumni, Events, Life outside TMMBA, Networking, ROI, Uncategorized | No Comments »

It’s Business Time!

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Aaron Lykken, Manager of Academic Services & Technologies

The smell of fresh cut grass. The afternoon summer sun shining bright. The company of good friends. Loads of exercise. Tons of fun. These all help describe the opening season for the TMMBA alumni ultimate frisbee team, It’s Business Time. The TMMBA program fielded a team for DiscNW‘s 2011 Summer Corporate League and saw a lot of success, going deep into the playoffs and playing for 3rd place in a league long dominated by titans such as Microsoft Corporation, Amazon.com, and the Boeing Company. The league pitted Seattle area companies head to head each Wednesday evening on the fields of Magnuson Park. Plastic flew, the chants were loud, sportsmanship high, and the victories sweet. We started as a mixed band of talents, with alumni from over the years with varying athletic abilities and staff. As the season pressed on we learned each others playing habits, grew as players, got in better shape, and saw our offense and defense come together in harmony. The experience was unique from other alumni activities in that we were able to strengthen connections with people we already know but also to meet new people and get to know them over the course of the season. There is already discussion of an end of season BBQ and putting together a team for next summer!

Posted in Alumni, Life outside TMMBA, Networking | No Comments »

Do you feel the difference already?

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

Hamed Ahmadi – TMMBA Class 11

The music has been always “rock and rolling” in my car and everyone enjoyed riding with me. Not anymore!

Well, unless you like to listen to all the business news broadcasted from reachable radio stations around the Puget Sound. I never thought I would prefer business talks over music. I even felt insulted the other day when my friend, sitting in the front seat of my car, changed the channel to listen to rap music while I was listening to NPR morning edition discussing the interest rates. I do not blame him, I had not anticipated that myself either.

That is a small example of the how my life changed since last December, besides not getting enough sleep or missing my soccer games. It is amazing how the “noises” I’ve been hearing all these years around various business topics are gradually turning into dialogs, talks, discussions, and decision makings … Right, because I can now understand it and be a part of it; and that feels really good

Good day to you.

Posted in About TMMBA, Life outside TMMBA | No Comments »

How do you keep up with technology and business events?

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Jared McInelly, TMMBA Class 11

Everyone is very busy. There are so many demands on our time, work, family, school, etc. I’ve found that school has taken all of my leisurely browsing-the-web-to-keep-up-on-technology time. So, I have to boil things down to a few key resources. Here are the things I use to keep up on technology and business issues along with a short description of each.

Podcasts

I love podcasts. By subscribing to them in iTunes, new updates are downloaded to my iPhone automatically. I have an FM transmitter that allows me to listen to them on my car radio while driving around in the wonderful Seattle traffic. Here are my favorites. All of these can be subscribed to in iTunes by searching for them by name. (Sorry Andriod users, I have not joined your secret society and so I don’t know how to help you get these).

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series. Stanford University. This is a weekly (during the school year) speaking event open to Stanford students. They record it and post the talks online. This is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to. Because it’s Stanford, they get some of the best speakers from some of the most interesting companies in the world.

TWIT: This week in technology. Leo Laporte is the moderator with a panel that changes weekly. They discuss the tech news of the week. This is a great way to find out what is new and upcoming. Plus, there are some great personalities in the group (and some consistently grumpy ones).

HBR IdeaCast. This is a 20 minute interview with the author of one of the main articles for the week’s Harvard Business Review. Very insightful and a quick and easy way to get the point of the article without having to read it.

Business Week – Behind This Week’s Cover Story. Similar to the HBR IdeaCast, this is a short interview with the author of the latest Business Week cover story.

Manager Tools. I don’t know where these guys came from but they are pretty good. They discuss, sometimes in painstaking detail, specific, actionable tools you can use as managers. My favorite Manager Tools podcast was the one that had 17 steps to remember for a perfect handshake. I don’t bother trying to remember all of their items but I do find the overall point of each podcast very helpful.

RadioLab. If you like science, even a little bit, you’ll love this podcast. I look forward to a new episode of Radiolab like I look forward to Christmas. Yes, I’m a geek.

Websites:

Geekwire. This is a site founded in Seattle to cover the tech beat in the Seattle area. These guys are good. They also have a podcast but it tends to be boring.

Google News:

I set up alerts on topics I care about and check it on occasion. I include on this list all of the blogs that I like to read. That way I get to see them all at once and it’s easy to tell if they have a new update. Which is much better than checking them all individually.

I’m interested in what you have found helpful, please respond in the comments if you know of a good site, podcast, etc. that you use to keep up on the latest business ideas and technology.

Posted in About TMMBA, Alumni, Life outside TMMBA, ROI, Student Advice | No Comments »

Your Schedule and the TMMBA

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Chris Rosenquest, TMMBA Student (Class of 2011)

Since I started this program a lot of people have asked me, “How do you manage school, work and everything else you do?” Here’s my take on scheduling during the 18 months of the program.

The first thing I tell them is yes, it’s possible to manage it all and do well at all of it. The second thing I tell them is I use a calendar.

Schedule Your Life:
So a lot of people say “work-life balance”. Now add school into the mix and then make it all work. It’s entirely possible to make it all work and be satisfied and happy without suffering. In fact, it’s entirely possible to not only make it all work but to excel at it all.

This part is more training on scheduling than having specifically to do with the TMMBA program, but for those of you who haven’t had much training with your schedule you’ll find that being thrown head first into school will provide that for you.

Schedule everything. And I mean it. When you get up, when you go to bed, when you have lunch, when you spend time with friends, when you spend time with family. Schedule work meetings, home work, classes and personal days…
All of this scheduling is more of an exercise and less of a necessity. I recommend all of this scheduling for the first two months of your TMMBA so you can get a real sense of how long things actually take.

You might say, “it only take me 25 minutes to get ready in the morning,” when it actually takes 35. “It takes me 10 minutes to get to work,” when it really takes only 5. All of this scheduling will allow you to find out how long things actually take. This alone will give you a good sense of scheduling and how to maximize your time. From me doing this, I know it takes 3 minutes to read an 8×11 page of normal size font. This comes in handy when scheduling time during the lunch hour to read an assigned case.

Find a way to share your calendar with friends and family. This allows you to easily schedule your school time, work time and play time. The people you enjoy spending time with will be able to easily schedule time with you because they will also see when you’re free.

You will become hyper efficient with your time and ability to accomplish tasks.

Keep it in mind:
This is an 18 month program that will end in 18 months. Meaning, your friends and family will be there at the end of the 18 months so keep them in mind during that time and make sure you’re spending time and appreciating them through this process. Schedule time with them or at the very least keep them in the loop on a regular basis. This is the same thing with work. Let people know what support you need and reach out for help when you need it.

Besides, you want people to be at your graduation don’t you!?

Posted in About TMMBA, Life outside TMMBA, Student Advice, Why TMMBA? | No Comments »

Lights, camera, action! A look inside the UW Business Plan Competition

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

Sara Jones, Assistant Director

Last quarter, 12 TMMBA students successfully made it into the Investment Round of the UW Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) Business Plan Competition. This is no small feat since only 36 out of 92 teams were accepted. During the Investment Round, 230 judges each had $1,000 CIE dollars to “invest” in the teams. The 16 teams with the highest investment advanced to the Sweet Sixteen Round. I really enjoyed attending the event this year. There was a lot of excitement in the room and it was fun to see our students pitching their business ideas to local venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and investors. This year TMMBA had 7 students on 3 different teams make it to the Sweet Sixteen Round!

Here is a short video from the Investment Round to give you a feel for the competition.

UW Business Plan Competition – 2010 Investment Round from Foster School of Business on Vimeo.

Tags: Business Plan Competition, TMMBA, TrueLight, TrueLight FLIIP
Posted in About TMMBA, Events, Life outside TMMBA, Networking | No Comments »

Putting a cap on the capstone

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

Scott Hannah, TMMBA Student (Class of 2010)

Sitting here basking in the relief and exciting that comes from having been part of a successful capstone presentation, I’m amazed at how fast these 18 months have been. So much has been packed in this past year-and-a-half it seems almost a blur. This truly has been a wonderful adventure, with it’s share of excitement and drama. When I initially started this program I was somewhat uncertain as to how management of technology would be brought out the course. What I discovered was that it was less about the technology and more about the contacts and shared experiences with professionals in the fields of technology. One of the key benefits of this program is the exposure you get to diverse backgrounds and experiences over the 18 months we’re together, and the contacts we make now will benefit us in years to come.

Having just had the course, I can liken my experience to Leading Organizational Change. There was some resistance along the way, but the TMMBA program has been successful in transforming our organization (the student body) into MBA graduates. And to paraphrase the leading organizational change course, there are some things I will miss (learning something new, the shared comraderie of classmates, the pampering of the TMMBA staff, and more), there are some things I won’t miss (16-hr exams, late study nights, too much coffee, having no free time), and things that I missed out on (hanging out at the Keg after classes).

As I sit here relieved and excited to be done, I cannot stress enough how rewarding an experience this has been. Eighteen months go by quickly, and to sit here and feel what I feel cannot be missed.

Go on, take the leap, and enroll in the TMMBA program. You won’t regret it!

Posted in About TMMBA, Alumni, Curriculum, Life outside TMMBA, Student Advice | No Comments »

Learn From My Mistakes: Networking Events

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Kalpesh Shah, TMMBA alumnus (Class of 2009)

The most effective to find a job, no, the only way to find a job in today’s economy is through someone you know within the company. Building your contacts through networking events is one way to get our foot in the door.

I have attended a number of networking events. There are a number of things I wish I had done differently to make these events more productive for myself. I am sharing my experiences so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes.

Start Early: This is the biggest mistake I made. I started attending networking events only AFTER I was looking for a job. By then, it is almost too late. The best time to start attending networking events is NOW. There are a number of benefits to an early start. You will be able to build contacts way before you need a job. Since you won’t be desperate to land a job immediately, you will be more relaxed and confident.
Get Information: Gather as much information as possible about who is attending, the companies they represent, who is the featured speaker, etc. Research the event‘s topic. By doing so, you will always have something to talk about. At more than one occasion, I have had a deer-in-the-headlight look on my face when somebody spoke about the featured topic/speaker. That is not the best way of creating a positive impression about yourself.
Mark Your Target: Make a list of people you want to talk to at the event. The list can be short or long depending on how long the event is. Then, make a list of things you want to talk about with each person on your list. If it helps, write down the list of people and topics on a 3×5 and carry it with you to the event. You don’t have to stick to the topics on your list, but the list will help you to get the conversation started.
Arrive Early: If possible, arrive a little bit early to the event. You can become familiar with the room which will make your more comfortable. In addition, it will give more one-on-one with people on your list, if they arrive early as well.
Business Cards: Carry enough business cards so that you can give it to everyone you meet. Similarly, get business cards from everyone you meet. If possible, note down some interesting/relevant information about them on the back of the card. The business cards will help you to:
Follow Through: Reach out to people you met within next 24-48 hours. It can be as simple as an email saying “It was nice meeting you at…”. Include some information that you think the other person might be interested in based on your conversations during the event. If you promised to get something done, follow through with actions within a reasonable period of time.
Others Interest: Networking is a two-way process. So, offer to help others who can benefit with what you bring to the table.
Have Fun: Last but not the least, have fun at the event. You can only do so if you are genuinely interested in meeting other people. So, show sincere interest in people and what their goals are in attending the event.

As always, your feedback/comments are welcome. If you can contribute something to make networking more productive, please leave your suggestions in the comments. Thank you.

Posted in Career Development, Events, Life outside TMMBA, Student Advice | No Comments »

Learn From My Mistakes: Getting Ready for the MBA Program

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Kalpesh Shah, TMMBA alumnus (Class of 2009)

Class of 2011, welcome to the great TMMBA program. There are certain things I wish I had done differently when I was going through the program. I am listing these things hoping that you learn from my mistakes as you prepare yourselves for the grueling schedule of the next 18 months.

The first quarter: Welcome to your worst nightmare, the first quarter. I am sure you have heard that the first quarter is very challenging/hectic/difficult. Let me assure you that every one of those stories is correct. This program is front loaded with a lot of content covered during the first quarter. This is by design as a lot of things you will learn during this quarter will be handy later in the program. This quarter might be even more challenging for people who are new to financial accounting and economics. The sooner you accept this fact, the better you will be able to prepare yourselves to face this challenge. This brings us the next point.
Prepare yourself: The best way to get the most out of the program is to be prepared for every lecture. The rule of thumb is two hours of preparation for every hour of lecture. There are a number of things you will need to do to be fully prepared. Most important of all is to complete all the reading assignments before the lecture, take down notes and questions while doing your reading. This will help you better understand the concepts discussed during the lecture. The other advantage is you will be prepared if the professor cold calls on you with a question.
Prepare your loved ones: With all the time spend on lectures and preparing for the lectures, you won’t have as much time for your loved one as before. Therefore, it is very important that you manage their expectations right from the beginning. If possible, use them as sounding board for your ideas/assignments. This will make them feel more invested in your studies and you will have more time with them.
Prepare your study team: Your study team will have a very big influence on how much you get out of your program. I was extremely fortunate that my study team was in sync with our goals as individuals and as a team. Try to come up with a plan to meet regularly to discuss your team assignments. Some of the students use the dinner time before the lecture for networking with people outside of their study team. I would suggest that you use that time to discuss your thoughts on the day’s lecture. This way you can hold each other accountable for completing the reading assignments for that days lecture and get more ideas to share while discussing a topic during the lecture. You can still network with other students during the break time.
Early Start: Although this might be easier said than done, try to get an early start on your individual and team assignments. This will help you overcome unforeseen obstacles. Yes, there WILL be many obstacles along the way.
Professors: TMMBA program’s professors are not only brilliant, but also very accessible. You can make appointments with the professors to help you with any topics you are struggling with. Every professor has a different schedule, so check with them for times when they are available for these appointments. Similarly, you can get a lot out of the TAs.
Workout: Even if you do it only for 10 minutes a day, try to make your favorite workout a daily part of your day. This will give you some time away from the daily grind of going through a MBA program while having a full time job and keep your mind and body feeling more energetic.