Hamburger University

With over 65,000 graduates since 1961, McDonalds' Hamburger University in Illinois has an alumni community that rivals that of Harvard Business School. Thanks for the tip Anthony, but I don't think I'll add it to my shortlist.

Remember the Titans

Disney's Remember the Titans is a feel-good American sports movie, based on a true story involving an integrated black and white high school football team in the early 70's. The movie's fairly predictable, with underlying themes of tolerance, sportsmanship, and driving ambition. Denzel Washington is impressive as the head coach of the team, as are many of the young actors playing the up and coming football stars.


Rating: 8 out of 10.

Made it to Melbourne . . .

Highlights of the past few days:

• locked my keys in my car on my last day in Sydney
  
• saw Blade Runner - The Director's Cut at the Moonlight Cinema in Sydney on Tuesday
  
• spent 10 hours driving to Melbourne on Wednesday
  
• slept on the floor in my new Melbourne apartment on Wednesday night
  
• removalists delivered all my things on Thursday morning (minus the DVD player which is currently 'lost in transit' - doubt I'll ever see that again)
  
• set up the new apartment, unpacked everything, bought a new fridge and washing machine
  
• still need a couch...
  
• still need decent connectivity... looks like I'll be putting in a ADSL connection, but it might be a while yet
  

London Business School in Sydney

London Business School are hosting an information session in Sydney on February 15th. Details below:


TRANSFORM YOUR FUTURE


We're just dropping you a line to let you know that London Business School will be staging an Information Evening in Sydney next month, on Thursday 15th February, at the Hotel Inter-Continental, 117 Macquarie Street, from 6.30-8.30pm. Attendance is free, and there are still spaces available, so if you would like to come along it will be great to meet you.


These evenings are designed to provide potential applicants with further information, and to answer any questions that you might have about our Masters Programmes. There will be a presentation lasting about 30 minutes given by members of the School's faculty, staff and alumni. Following the presentation there will be a question and
answer session and an opportunity to talk informally about the Programmes, the School, and life in London.


If you would like to attend this Information Evening, please register your interest by return of this email to: mbaauz@london.edu


If you have already registered with us for this event, thank you, and we look forward to meeting you there.


Best Regards.


The MBA Marketing & Admissions Team.

The 6th Day

Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest flick, The 6th Day, has been out in the cinemas for a while, and I was originally going to wait until the DVD release to see it. After a hard day of work and dealing with removalists yesterday (yes, it's all in transit somewhere right now), I was keen to sit back and enjoy an action blockbuster. Instead, I saw a movie that (almost) made me think. The 6th Day deals with the controversial topic of human cloning, indicating that 'sometime in the near future', the practice will be technically possible, but deemed illegal. Arnie is your everyday helicopter pilot chartering snowboarders for a living (a good excuse for lots of great action sequences). He gets caught up in a cloning experiment, uncovers the conspiracy, and manages to eventually kills all the bad guys. Pretty standard really, but thoroughly enjoyable.


Rating : 7 out of 10.

Wow - 109 people have checked out my USA 2000 photos. Please sign the guestbook if you do choose to drop by.

Vertical Limit

The disaster movie Vertical Limit is still showing in Australian cinemas. Armed with some movie vouchers that expire at the end of this month, I went to see it for a second time (the first time was back in San Francisco in December). The special effects in the movie are incredible - the entire movie is essentially a series of stunts and explosions, set to the story of a mountain rescue at K2 in Pakistan (although it was actually filmed in NZ). At the end of it you'll feel quite exhausted, and will find yourself contemplating the thought - 'Would you have cut the rope?'


Rating: 7 out of 10.

ASX Investor Day

The ASX are holding an investor day in Sydney this Saturday at the Convention & Exhibition Centre. $15 entry gets you briefings from investment managers and listed companies, heaps of brochureware from exhibitors, and a chance to win a $5000 share portfolio.

7 days to go...

Over the past three years, I've probably been to Melbourne on at least 40 separate occassions, mostly for work purposes, but also to visit friends and family, and to attend some of the great events like the F1 Grand Prix, the Air Show, and of course the AFL. Next Wednesday, I'll be fulfilling an ambition that's been brewing for a while - Melbourne is going to become my home again.


I've been in Sydney for seven years - four years of university, and three years working at Com Tech, and I feel it's time for a change. Fortunately, I'll be able to change cities without needing to change jobs - I've been able to transfer my existing job to the Melbourne office, so I'll still be working with some of the same people, albeit mostly remotely. Should be an interesting challenge.


My MBA ambitions are essentially on hold while I complete my move. Things should be ramping up again in early February, after I've unpacked everything, and had a chance to review all the material that I've gather in both my online and on-site research.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Crouching Tiger is an absolutely awesome martial arts film that is currently rocking the independent cinema scene in Australia. Set in ancient China, this film blends well-performed human relationship scenes of love and redemption, with incredible kung fu and sword-fighting between the film's heroes and villains. Stay tuned - this foreign language masterpiece could possibly be Oscar material.


Rating: 9 out of 10.

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

The Coen brothers have produced a very wacky movie in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?. Set in the deep south in the 1930s, and shot in dull colour, the movie tells the story of three prison escapees, seeking a treasure that isn't really there. George Clooney is fantastic as the hair-obsessed leader of the group. The period music definitely adds to the effect, complete with a couple of scenes where the escapees don long fake beards ZZ Top style, and produce a tune for $10 that turns out to be a best seller all across the state of Mississippi. Look out for a surprise appearance by Michael Badalucco (of The Practice) as a moody bank robber. While this movie is definitely classic Coen brothers, it's not up to the standards of Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski.


Rating: 7 out of 10.

USA 2000 photo album launch



I've put together 200 of my best photos from my trip to the USA into an album at zing.com. Please take your time to check out the photos, and provide some commentary in the guestbook. You'll probably need a few sessions to get through them all.


Hightlights of the album include:

• Shuttle launch in Florida
  
• Monuments and Sculptures in Washington DC
  
• Yosemite National Park
  
• New York, New York, and
  
• Streets of San Francisco
  

Thanks CM for the tip on zing.com, and all the best for your wedding next week ;-)

UPDATE (17/02/2002): Zing went under in 2001. My photos are no longer online.

Asia 2001

With USA 2000 now well and truly behind me, it's time to start planning for future international travel. In the works are two potential trips; Asia 2001 (Japan, Indonesia, and either Vietnam or Cambodia) and Europe 2002 (UK plus 2 - 3 other countries). Suggestions / ideas / travel buddies welcome ;-)

Digital Frontiers Conference @ Kellogg

Kellogg are holding their 7th annual Digital Frontiers conference next weekend (19-20 January). The schedule includes a range of sessions on the applications of technology in business today - wireless, e-learning, online entertainment, etc. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area (it's so annoying being so far away from all of this ;-)

Evening MBA info sessions

For those living in the Bay Area, Haas are holding several information sessions at various locations around the Bay for their 3-year Evening MBA program over the next couple of weeks. If any of you get a chance to attend one of these please let me know. Working in the Bay Area and attending Haas on a part-time basis would be a lot of hard work, but it would make financing the MBA so much easier...

Please donate to the Blogger Server Fund

Blogger, the free service that I use to update this web site, have been experiencing an incredible growth in their user base over the past few months, and desperately need some cash to finance an upgrade of their infrastructure. Unfortunately, investor money is hard to come by at the moment, so they're appealing to the blogging community at large for small donations. In the space of a week they've raised over US$8,000 (including $10 from yours truly). If you can, please donate a few dollars. It's an easy credit card payment using the Paypal service. 'Nuff said.

Weekend in Melbourne

Went to Melbourne last weekend to look for a place to live, and to spend some time with my family. Found a nice place with a study and a view of the city. For those that are interested, I'll be moving down around the 24th of January. Notification emails with new contact details will be sent out soon. If all goes well, I'll be in Melbourne for either one-and-a-half or two-and-a-half years depending on when I start my MBA.

Chicago mail

I sent several packages back to myself in Australia while I was travelling around the States, and they're finally starting to roll in now. My Chicago package arrived this morning, complete with copies of several MBA-related magazines and newsletters.


MBA bullet point is a brief newsletter with a combination of b-school news and general business news, that was available in most admissions offices at the US b-schools. The printed version has very well summarised content. Haven't checked out the online version yet.


The student paper at Haas is called HaasWeek, and is available online at www.haasweek.net


The student paper at Chicago is called ChicagoBusiness, and is available online at www.chibus.com

Duke University to Launch First MBA webcast course

Fuqua @ Duke are opening up one of their courses this semester to a worldwide audience. The regular class 'Global Asset Allocation and Stock Selection' will be broadcast live over the web to anyone willing the paying the US$1000 registration fee. "Business professionals without the time or resources to commit to an on-campus MBA program can utilize this course to advance their knowledge of global asset management, while earning a Fuqua certificate after acceptable completion of a final project." This also has amazing potential for MBA graduates to keep their management education up to date on an ongoing basis.

Coyote Ugly

Jerry Bruckheimer's been busy on the production front recently. Pearl Harbour, the latest 'most expensive movie ever made', is due for release this year, and he's also the main producer behind the new TV series C.S.I.


Coyote Ugly made it to Australian shores on New Year's Day, a surprising six months later that the US release, and well over a year since the first previews were shown. The movie is not the tits-and-arse joyride that the preview suggests, but actually the dramatic story of a Jersey girl trying to make it as a songwriter in the big city of New York. Definitely not your standard Bruckheimer action flick - the most 'action' you'll see is a couple of bar brawls. Newcomber Piper Perabo is cute as the lead character Violet "Jersey" Sanford, but I doubt she'll actually make it as a major film star. John Goodman puts in an average performance as Violet's disapproving father. The best character by far is Coyote Ugly bar owner Lil, a hard-arsed but damn sexy thirty-something blonde - my ideal manager.


Rating: 7 out of 10.

Stanford University and Harvard Business School Explore e-Learning Partnership

There's a lot of talk in the b-school press and current management education books about whether e-learning will ever replace the on-campus b-school experience. No matter how much technology you throw at it, when it comes to management education, on campus education will always be a much more rewarding experience. However, for those doing part-time study, especially those with their MBAs being funded by their employer, e-learning in combination with short-term residencies will eventually become the preferred model. Interestingly, the Stanford/HBS partnership is only looking at non-degree education opportunities at this stage.

B-School Bookmarks

I use blink.com to organise my bookmarks, and I've just made my b-schools folder public. Feel free to browse, comment, and add further suggestions: http://www.blink.com/members/adrianhind

Dot-Com Dropouts Head Back to Class

'B-school applications are surging, as e-commerce refugees clamor for business degrees'


B-schools such as Darden, Anderson, and Columbia are quoting increases in applicant numbers of around 15% this year, mostly from people who have been delaying their MBA and working in the now depressed 'dot-com sector'.

Why MBA?

'Five years ago Julie Perigo completed her Master of Business Administration at the Australian Graduate School of Management, University of NSW. One of her final projects for the degree was assessing the status of an MBA with the top 50 companies in Australia. The results were dispiriting, to say the least.


"I had some people ask, ‘Does this stand for the Master Builders Association?’," says Perigo, now a principal with executive search firm Korn/Ferry International. "I think more than the US and UK there is still a bit of ignorance about it." '


Brilliant collection of articles in this weekend's AFR BOSS magazine. The Australian MBA scene appears to be in trouble, with employers not rewarding MBA graduates in the same way as in the US. Looks like I'll have to work for a consulting firm in the US for a few years post MBA to make the whole experience worthwhile... [Thanks CM]