Mega Blog

In an effort to make up for the lack of blog entries in the past week, here's my first Mega Blog entry...

MBA update

Firstly, the MBA is still going strong - I aced the Managerial Economics mid-term, and I was pleasantly surprised with my recent Organisations essay result. The focus for the next couple of weeks will be getting our syndicate assignments out of the way (we have four to complete), so that we can get into study mode for the final exams. It's a surprising thought that the first term of my MBA will be completed in just over a month's time.

Family

Easter's also a traditional time for a bit of a family get together, and this time around it's my mother who's in town. She lives in Bali these days, working for a NGO, so I don't get to see her very often. My paternal grandmother is also in town this weekend, staying at my father's place - now that my grandfather has passed away, she has the freedom to travel again. Since they were both in town, I arranged for them to catch up - I think it was the first time they'd seen each other in about fifteen years.

Football

This weekend also marks the opening of the AFL football season for 2002. Armed with my new MCC membership card, I went to the 'G on Friday night to see Richmond destroy Collingwood, and to check out the facilities at the Club - very nice, rather classy, you can even drink beer from a glass ;-) Today I'm taking my syndicate out to the 'G for a Hawthorn-Melbourne game. We're doing an assignment for Quantitative Analysis for Managers about the AFL, so this is actually a bit of a research mission - three of the people in my syndicate have never seen an aussie rules game before. Secretly, I'm trying to convince them all to support Hawthorn...

One of the electives that I'd like to do next term, Product Management, is run in intensive mode (6 hrs / week) over 6 weeks, with sessions on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons. Unfortunately, three of the Saturday afternoon sessions clash with Hawthorn games at the 'G. Where should my loyalties lie?

Star Trek

Finally, on the Star Trek front, there's much excitement amongst us Trekkies at the moment regarding the impending release of all the Star Trek TNG episodes on DVD. As the owner of a semi-complete VHS TNG episode collection, I've been at a cross-roads regarding how to handle this situation. Myer came to the rescue this weekend with their Easter sale - in order to clear stock in anticipation of the DVD release they've been selling selected VHS episodes for $6.50 each, rather than the usual $18. The result: I now have 22 additional VHS TNG tapes - plenty of viewing material for my holidays in May.

Woo hoo! Living proof that someone can be a business school student and a geek at the same time.

Glad that's over

Mid-terms are finally over. After a grueling Managerial Economics mid-term yesterday afternoon, we all celebrated with a big BBQ and plenty of beer in the b-school courtyard (many thanks to the MBS Health Professionals Club for hosting this event). Afterwards, I was absolutely exhausted, so I piked on the bar(s) options, and headed home. So ends week eight of the MBA.

We have five weeks of classes remaining, during which time I have four syndicate assignments to work on, then it's straight into final exams - one each morning during the week of April 29th - May 3rd. Also in the next few weeks I need to put in my application for Term 3 exchange, and I need to submit my preferences for electives for Term 2.

We have nine subjects in the core curriculum at MBS - Organisations, Marketing, Managerial Economics, Quantitative Analysis for Managers, Financial Accounting, Business Strategy, Economics & Public Policy, Information Systems, and Valuations & Financial Analysis - and eleven electives. Fortunately, I should be able to substitute out of Information Systems given my undergraduate studies in BIT and my recent industry experience. As a result, I'll be able to finish the core and complete two electives during Term 2. So far, I'm considering Business Law, Managing Innovation, and Decision Analysis, but there are around a dozen electives available, including several half-unit subjects.

Lemonade Stand

Some light relief from the economics study. Try this Lemonade Stand game. 30 days of operations. Changes in weather and market demand. Changing commodity prices, and stock that goes bad if it isn't used quickly. My net profit on first attempt was $116.65.

So what is Nash Equilibrium?

The central character of A Beautiful Mind is a mathematician / economist by the name of John Nash, who is most famous for his theory of Nash equilibrium. The basic concept of Nash equilibrium is that in sequential game theory you should work back from the end of the game, in order to determine the best decision to make at the beginning of the game. In the movie this is explained briefly by means of a situation in a bar where there are four guys and five girls - one of whom, the blonde, is regarded as the ideal woman. In any of the guys choose to go after the ideal woman, the remaining four women will take themselves out of the game, and thus at most only one of the guys will be satisfied (albeit with a major 'score'). The better option is for each of the guys to go after one of the less desirable women. That way each guys succeeds in obtaining a mate. The only loser in this particular Nash equilibrium is the ideal woman, but the problem is defined in terms of the outcome the four guys acheive as a group.

All of this is particularly relevant to my current study at b-school. This Friday we're sitting our mid-term exam for Managerial Economics. One of the most popular problems that we've been working on during our study time is a Nash equilibrium problem concerning five executives and 100 golds coins. Here's your chance to experience the study life of an MBA. Post your answers in the comments to this blog entry (current MBS students please stay out of the 'game').

Five senior executives (A, B, C, D, E) are on a diving expedition when they find 100 gold coins. There exists a hierarchy amongst the executives such that A is the most senior and E is the least. Moreover, A proposes a division of the 100 coins and that is voted on. If the proposed decision is voted down (i.e. a majority vote against the division), then A is thrown off the ship and the next most senior executive, B, proposes a division of the 100 coins. As before, if this is voted down (a tied vote results in the division being accepted), B is thrown off the ship, and C is left to propose the division. And so forth. Assuming that all the executives are rational, what offer will A make to the executive team?

(problem adapted from an original Melbourne Business School question)

First mid-term result

Woo hoo! Managed to top the class for the Quantitative Analysis mid-term exam. This was the exam that I had to reschedule (forward) in order to make it to Sydney in time for the funeral a couple of weeks ago. I think I've mentioned earlier that MBS has a policy of maintaining a 73% mean for all classes. As a result, for this particular mid-term, all of our exam results were scaled down by 4.5 percentage points. Interestingly, this makes it impossible for anyone to achieve a post-scaling result of 100%. Perhaps it would be better to distribute the results over a normal distribution curve, around a mean of 73%. This way my individual score would actually have been scaled up, despite the fact that the class average for raw scores was actually above 73%.

LOL! I'm using QA thinking to analyse my QA results ;-) Simple analysis: looks like I'm doing well so far in QA. Perhaps I should focus my study efforts on the qualitative subjects like Marketing and Organisations.

One down, two to go

Just finished my Financial Accounting mid-term exam, a quick 45-minute test of the core concepts and rules of the discipline in Australia. One tough question - how to record the sale/profit of sub-letting a long-term lease for telecommunications infrastructure if it's paid for up front. Several students have come up with very different answers.

Next assessment: an Analysis of my Syndicate's Team Performance (due Wednesday), and then a very imporant mid-term exam (40%) for Managerial Economics on Friday.

Language Barriers

For a fair proportion of my MBA cohort English is their second language. In fact, some students had never presented in English prior to arriving at the business school in January. The language barrier has made it difficult for them to contribute to class discussions and syndicate work.

For the first time yesterday, I had the sensational of experiencing the language barrier. For the past few months, I've been attending Japanese language classes at the CAE. Japanese has its own alphabets (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) with completely different symbols for each character / word. There is also a romanized version of the written language ("romaji") which uses roman letters for Japanese words. For the first couple of months, we've been using the romaji in class, and I've been progressing well at learning the new words and grammer. We're at the stage now where we're supposed to know the hiragana and katakana (kanji will come later), and in an effort to speed up the learning process, my teacher has switched to using hiragana only when writing on the whiteboard in class. I haven't yet mastered the hiragana (there are 104 characters in the hiragana alphabet), so it takes me a few seconds to translate the written word to romaji, and then to English.

Most of the other students in my class (who perhaps aren't quite so busy during the rest of the week) have already mastered the hiragana, and can thus focus their attention on learning new words and grammer. I spend most of my time converting words to romaji, and thus do not get a chance to respond to questions in class so frequently. Someone else has usually translated faster than me, and has already given an answer before I've even interpreted the question...

The Bank

I've been meaning to see this movie for a while. The Bank is an Australian film set in corporate Melbourne. The story centres around a brilliant mathematician (seems to be the theme for this week ;-) and a profit hungry CEO. Having run out of branches to close, the CEO turns to the mathematician who supposedly has developed a system for predicting stock market crashes. Mystery, intrigue, backstabbing, and heaps of scenic shots of Melbourne, this movie is well worth the effort.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Monique, are you out there?

It seems that my home telephone number used to belong to a girl named 'Monique'. She's been out of town for a year or two, but has recently returned and people have been calling for her using her old number (my number!). Three calls so far in less than a week. Monique if you're out there, please give me a call. You know the number ;-)

Mentally exhausted

Think I might go and rent a movie...

Going on Exchange?

Well, it's time to start thinking about the international b-school scene again. MBS students get the opportunity to go on exchange during Term 3, which for me is September - December 2002. We have about 30 schools that we're affiliated with around the globe, and there are approximately two places per school available. Despite the fact that exchange won't begin until September, we need to get our applications in by April 12th, and we find out in early May (just after Term 1 exams) which school we've been allocated to.

Since there are a few current MBS students who are reading this blog, I won't be revealing my application strategies until after April 12th, but I have made it fairly public to the MBS student community that I'm interested in exchanging to North America, preferably to a big city.

The US and Canadian schools that MBS have exchange arrangements with are:

• Columbia Business School, New York, New York
  
• Cornell University (Johnson Graduate School of Management), Ithaca, New York
  
• Duke University (Fuqua School of Business), North Carolina
  
• Indiana University (Kelly School of Business), Indiana
  
• Southern Methodist University (Cox School of Business), Dallas, Texas
  
• University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  
• University of California (Anderson GSM), Los Angeles
  
• University of Minnesota (Carlson School of Management)
  
• University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flager Business School)
  
• University of Southern California (Marshall School of Business), Los Angeles
  
• University of Texas at Austin (McCombs School of Business)
  
• University of Virginia (Darden), and
  
• University of Western Ontario (Ivey School of Business)

As you can see, there are heaps of quality schools on the list, although competition for the 'top' schools will be tight. We get allocated based on Term 1 academic results and our supposed 'ambassadorial qualities.'

A Beautiful Mind

Ron Howard and Russell Crowe have put together a cinematic masterpiece in A Beautiful Mind. The movie tells the story of John Nash, Nobel prize-winning mathematician from Princeton University, who suffered from schizophrenia. Very well made, with heaps of interesting twists, and a beautiful soundtrack. See it for yourself.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Big Weekend in Sydney

Back in Melbourne now after a big weekend up in Sydney. On Friday night I caught up with some friends at a new bar/establishment called the Arthouse. It's an former art gallery that's recently had a $14 million fitout/conversion into a very funky bar/restaurant. Very cool. Thanks for the recommendation Steph.

On Sunday, I had my first experience at liloing. A group of us went up to Wollangambi Canyon in the Blue Mountains for a full day's adventure - early morning rise, 2 hour drive from Sydney, 1 hour walk from the car park to the bottom of the canyon, 6 hours cruising down the canyon on a lilo (blow-up mattress), negotiating rapids and rocks, and a tough 90-minute climb and walk back out of the canyon at the end of the day with heavy wet gear on our backs. By the time we'd driven back to Sydney in the evening we were completely exhausted, but it was well worth the effort. (and a fantastic break from my MBA studies ;-)

Still blogging

Apologies to readers - I've been on media blackout most of this week. With the death of my grandfather on Monday, I had to shuffle some of my assessments at MBS around in order to allow time to attend the funeral and spend some time with my family. I ended up doing my QA mid-term on Wednesday evening, and then catching an early flight to Sydney on Thursday morning. Surprisingly, this was my first flight since November 2001, but Qantas still treated me quite nicely because of all the flying I used to do when I worked at Com Tech. I'll try to relax a bit this weekend, and then it'll be straight back into heavy study mode come Monday morning. I have two more major items of assessment coming up in the next couple of weeks - mid-term exams for Financial Accounting and Managerial Economics. But it's all fun, fun, fun.

R.I.P. Colonel Harrie Austin Hind

My paternal grandfather, Colonel Harrie Austin Hind, passed away on Monday at the ripe old age of 86. His distinguished career in the Australian Army included a stint in the Korean War, and two years in Darwin as the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Territory. We held the funeral service for him in Sydney on Thursday.

Mid-terms...

Busy studying for my Quantitative Analysis mid-term exam. More updates soon.

Two Aussies from small-town NSW...

Today Adrian Hind is busy working on a Marketing assignment for his MBA at Melbourne Business School, but things could have turned out very differently if he'd taken a greater interest in billycart racing as a seven year-old. Fellow Australian Mark Webber took part in his first Formula 1 championship race this afternoon at Albert Park, and put in an amazing performance by finishing in 5th place. Side-by-side, two Australians struggling to reach to top of their chosen professions:

	Mark Webber	Adrian Hind
Profession	Formula 1 driver	Full-time MBA student
Born	27 August 1976 Queenbeyan, NSW	23 August 1976 Wagga Wagga, NSW
Lives	Buckinghamshire, England	Melbourne, Australia
Height	184 cm	183 cm
Weight	74 kg	91 kg (hmm)
Martial status	Single	Single
Hobbies	Mountain biking and road cycling, tennis, squash, fitness training, flying model aeroplanes, PlayStation 2.	Travel, rollerblading, skiing, Star Trek, (web) surfing, weblogging
Current road vehicle	Renault Scenic 4x4	1990 Ford Laser sedan
Favourite bands	Savage Garden, Madonna, Gabrielle and U2	Garbage, Jamiroquai, Train, and U2
Website	www.markwebber.com	javaboy.blogspot.com

;-)

Off the air for the next 24 hours - I have a major Uni assignment to finish off...

Friday Five

This week's Friday Five is about travel, so I thought I'd join in for a change rather than just watching from the sidelines.

1. What's your favorite vacation spot? New York, New York. Both my visits to the big city have been facinating.

2. Where do you consider to be the biggest hell-hole on earth? Hmm, if there is a hell-hole out there, it's not somewhere I've visited regularly. Every place I visit is interesting in its own right. (bit too much of an optimist, aren't I?)

3. What would be your dream vacation? Six months, $100,000 spending money, travelling through Europe in style ... one day ...

4. If you could go on a road-trip with anyone, who would it be and why? My friend Kate - travel is one of her top priorities. If she has any spare cash available, she'll be spending it on something travel related. In fact she's on her way to Europe for a holiday as we speak.

5. What are your plans for this weekend? It's F1 Grand Prix weekend in Melbourne, but, for the first time in 3 years, I'm going to skip it. I have a major Marketing assignment due for Uni next week, so I'll probably spend most of the weekend working on that. I'm having some friends over for drinks on Saturday night - we're going to absorb the Formula 1 spirit without actually attending the event. On Sunday, I think I might call my mother...