Love in the time of e-mail

[the age 30.09.2002]

Pertinent advice for an Aussie living so far away from home.

Clippings

Cameron's on again/off again venture, clippings is back on the air. As a well-travelled IT consultant, he has an interesting perspective on where things are headed, and why Australia is so different to the rest of the world when it comes to technology implementation.

Neglect

I've been neglecting the blog for the past week or so. I had three assignments due on the same day this week, so I was totally snowed under for the best part of four or five days. Things are a little better now, but I'm still annoyed that I seem to have no time to get out of town and see the rest of America. Two of the MBS exchangers here in New York have managed to get away this weekend. If I can manage my time well I might be able to follow suit next week.

BTW - subject reviews for Introduction to Venturing and Building and Managing Brands will be posted very soon.

Exposed: my life as a blog

The Australian ran an article a few days ago comparing the blog scene in Melbourne with that in Sydney. A few interesting quotes: ...

"Weblog culture seems to go deep; it is easy to find Melbourne weblogs with visual flair and good writing. None of this, of course, is obvious to an interstate visitor wandering along Swanston Street.

"Melbourne is very much a secret place," says Badger, who lives in East St Kilda.

"All our good bars and venues are hidden down scary, weird alleyways in places where the only sign is a projection on a wall opposite. We like discovering things, we don't want them to be too easy to get.

"So weblogs, and the anonymity they afford the writer, suit us and our dark, secret personalities – of course, this could well be just me."

Alas, I didn't receive a mention - probably because I've chosen not to take that anonymous route to the world of blogging.

Anniversary

It feels like a lot longer, but it's now a year to the day since I last did any paid work. On Sept 20th last year, I took my retrenchment package from Com Tech / Dimension Data after more than four years with the company. I was hoping Anthony (who took a retrenchment package just last week) would have posted his post-mortem essay by now, because I never really posted one in 2001.

Com Tech was a fantastic company with brilliant management and high aspirations. I truly admired its founder, David Shein, as a CEO, leader, and motivator. Unfortunately an international acquisition and a receeding economy caused major headaches for Com Tech. Hundreds of people have been laid off. Customers have left in droves, and the remaining staff, for the most part, do not have the same level of enthusiasm and loyalty that we all used to share together.

Add this one to your New York 'To Do' list - Arthur's Landing

I ventured out of New York state last for this first time since my arrival, to visit a restaurant called Arthur's Landing in New Jersey. I'll admit it's not very far out of New York state (7 minutes on the ferry), but that's America for you.

While enjoying a seafood platter, a delectable rack of lamb, good company and interesting conversation, I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the evening view of mid-town Manhattan from across the Hudson River. I'm not sure if it was the ferry trip or the company, but I was feeling very 'Sydney' all of a sudden. Perhaps I'm a little homesick.

(This was also my first opportunity to notice the gap in the skyline where the WTC used to be. I haven't visited Ground Zero yet, and to tell you the truth - I'm in no hurry to do so.)

New audience members

Readership of my blog has almost doubled in the past month. Two major reasons:

1. The MBS student community has become aware of the existence of the site, and
   
2. Soon-to-be-MBAs Tad and Martin have been sending new readers my way.
   

So, for everyone who is new to the site, I encourage you to read through the archives to get a feel for where I'm coming from. There's usually quite a bit of assumed knowledge when I make a post, so it's worthwhile getting up to speed. I try to post at least once every couple of days, but the MBA workload does get quite ridiculous at times, so hang in there if I occassionally 'disappear' for a week or so.

Life in New York

A few of you have been asking me to write about 'life' in New York, as well as just documenting the MBA student experience at Columbia. One must appreciate that 'life' as an MBA student is a very, very time consuming endeavour. A colleague of mine was commenting this week that, for him, the MBA is essentially lifestyle choice - instead of being paid to work 50 hours a week, we're paying to study closer to 80 hours a week and giving up virtually all our free time. Surviving the MBA requires skills in time management, prioritisation, and sacrifice - it's very difficult to find/make the time to do anything else ... but we try. In my both my first and second terms in Melbourne I found the time to travel interstate on three separate weekends. The Columbia MBA is definitely a notch higher in terms of intensity, but I am an exchange student after all and all I need to do here is pass my subjects (rather than striving for that magical mark of 80% which generates an H1 at MBS). In theory, I should relax a bit and ensure that I enjoy the New York experience.
So, what have I been up to since I arrived in New York three weeks ago? The short answer is: not as much as I was hoping to do. As far as the 'tourist' experience goes, I've revisited Times Square and the Guggenheim. I've attempted, on two occassions, to allocated a full afternoon to visit the Museum of Modern Art (temporarily located in Queens). I've caught up for dinner and a couple of beers at Washington Square with one of the MBS students studying at Stern. And I've been for the occassional walk/run in Central Park. In short - I'm not experiencing the tourist side of New York to the extent that I expected. It's amazing how much one can cram into a visit to a city when they've got the full day everyday available to them. I've had two short tourist visits to New York in the past, so I've been to most of the major museums, been to the observation decks at the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center (RIP), and taken the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty. There are a few other 'typical' New York attractions that I'd like to visit, but they may have to wait until I'm either hosting visitors from out of town, or until I've finished my studies for the term. In the meantime, I'm definitely having the 'living' experience in New York, and I'll do my best to find the time to write about it.

The Seven Great Private Business Schools

On Thursday, I attended a forum held by Columbia Business School's dean, Professor Meyer Feldberg. He outlined the role that he plays within the school, how the school has improved during his tenure (1989 to present), and how Columbia interacts with and benchmarks against what he refers to as the 'seven self-appointed great private business schools.'

Regardless of the rankings that come out every year from Business Week, US News and World Report, and the Financial Times, the 'seven self-appointed great private business schools' (hereafter referred to as G7) remain the same group. These are the business schools that have stood the test of time. They have massive alumni networks, great locations, very impressive faculty, and receive upwards of 5000 applications each year.

When I did my MBA tour of the United States in 2000, my eventual shortlist for applications was Haas, Stanford, Kellogg, Harvard, Sloan, and Columbia. Guess what? 5 out of the 6 happen to part of the G7. Haas is public (it's part of the University of California, Berkeley), so it can never be a member of the G7. The other two members are Wharton and Chicago, which didn't appeal to me for various reasons that you can read about in my archives.

In general, the G7 b-schools have lasting appeal - they're the brand name schools. When one pays in excess of US$60,000 for an MBA at one of these schools, they're not just paying for the educational experience. They're buying a membership card into a prestiguous alumni network.

I received an email yesterday from 'Tad Holbie' who's currently going through the application process for his MBA. He's applying to seven different private b-schools in the USA. Can anyone guess which ones? ;-) You can read all about the applications process on his weblog (mbawire.blogspot.com).

Bull spread, bear spread, box spread, strangle, straddle, strip, strap

Believe it or not, these are all finance terms. More specifically, their trading strategies in the world of options. What's an option, you might ask - well, it's a contract which gives you the right to buy or sell an underlying asset (such as a share in a company or a commodity such as wheat) for a particular price at a particular point in time or over a particular period of time. Why should you care? Well, I'm taking a course at Columbia called Options Markets and I may be referring to it from time to time...

B8311 - Options Markets (Associate Professor Zhenyu Wang)

Zhenyu Wang uses the text Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives as the basis for his Options Markets course at Columbia Business School. In essence, my thinking is that this course will give me an opportunity to heavilly exercise my quantitative skills (we're talking calculus here ;-) and possibly give me a bit of an edge over my MBA colleagues in the application process for Investment Banks and other finance firms. It's also reasonably interesting - in the world of options trading there is always a winner and a loser for each trade, and you can make big money in options trading regardless of which direction the market is heading. Think a stock is about to plummet? No problem - buy a put option. Think a stock will rise a bit (but not a lot)? Try a bull spread to capture the small gain, but lower the cost by giving up the full upside potential. Of course, there is a downside to options trading - if any of your 'bets' are wrong, you could be seriously out of pocket.

Where were you?

Avid readers of my weblog would be aware that javaboy.blogspot.com experienced a hiatus around September to December last year. Indeed my final post prior to this period was a brief mention about the world falling apart. In the spirit of the stories floating around in our conversations and in the media today, I thought I'd add my own answer to that question, "Where we you on September 11th?"

September 2001 was an difficult time for me. I was dealing with my parents' separation, which had only just been formalised. I had just finished a two-year project at work, and my position had been made redundant - but at this stage I had not taken a package - I was essentially waiting at home (in Melbourne) while my manager sought out other opportunities for me within the company. I had a meeting lined up with the manager of one of the divisions in our Melbourne office to discuss the details of a position in one of his groups, so I'd spent most of the day at home outlining a potential compensation package, updating my resume, and generally pondering my future. In the early evening, I watched the movie, Fight Club, which for those of you who haven't seen it, is essentially about a schizophrenic terrorist who blows up ten office buildings in America.

After the movie, I made some dessert and settled down to the latest episode of The West Wing on Channel 9 - I can't remember what the particular episode was about, but around five minutes before the end, it was interrupted by a newflash from Jim Whaley stating that the World Trade Center was on fire, and that there'd been an explosion of some sort. I don't think he mentioned that it was the result of an aeroplane. They had a visual shot of the building. I think it was only two or three minutes after the actual event. They allowed The West Wing to finish, and then returned with a (slightly) more informed report, before switching across to the CNN and ABC America coverage. It was late at night in Australia, past 11 o'clock. My friend Anthony called me, to ensure that my eyes were glued to the television. We spoke for a while in interrupted disbelief as more news came in. I called my friend Saj, who was asleep at the time. He thanked me for interrupting his sleep for such an important event. When the first tower imploded, I was on the phone to someone, but I can't remember who - it was all a bit of a blur. I think I stayed up until around 4:00am that night, absorbing all the news and trying to make sense of it all.

The next day, I came into work and continued to watch the news via a webcast. Not much work got done that day. I did have my meeting, but the outcome wasn't good. For various political reasons, the Melbourne position wasn't going to eventuate for me, and on September 20 I ended up taking a package (but we'll save that story for next week).

Columbia Remembers

Well, it's an awkward feeling being in New York on the anniversary of September 11. As I walked to uni this morning, the general feeling of solemnness amongst those around me was incredible. After a brief breakfast and a chat with Mark (my fellow MBS student on exchange here at Columbia), I proceeded to the steps of the Low Library and joined a crowd of over 2,000 for the University's official Remembrance Service, Columbia Remembers. After a minute's silence at 8:46, the University President proceeded to read out the names of the 107 people (alumni, friends, and family) associated with Columbia University that lost their lives one year ago. I felt somehow attached to all of this, and yet, so distant at the same time. At the end of the service, the crowd gradually dispersed, and I returned to the business school to resume my classes. Later in the day, over a period of several hours, current students and staff of the University, read out the names of all the victims, over a period of several hours. This evening, there are candlelight vigils being held across the United States, including a large gathering in Central Park that I (may) attend.

Welcome to the world of Investment Banking

Today was a bit of a crash course to the world of Investment Banking for me: I had my second Advanced Corporate Finance class, spent an hour with a careers advisor discussing my resume's suitability to American employers (specifically investment banks and VC firms), had my first Investment Banking class, and attended a recruitment presentation by UBS Warburg, a European investment bank that is making inroads into the US market and was recently rated the world's "best [overall] investment bank."

Continuing with my plans to provide an overview of all the subjects I'm undertaking at Columbia, here's my take on Jim Freeman's Investment Banking course:

B8317 - Investment Banking (Professor James L. Freeman)

Considering I'm so far behind the eight-ball as far as knowledge of the investment banking industry goes, Jim Freeman's aptly titled Investment Banking course should prove very suitable to my needs. Jim spent 17 years as an investment banker with Credit Suisse First Boston before founding his own firm, Freeman & Co. which specialises in management consulting and strategic advisory services for the financial services industry. The intention of his Investment Banking course is basically to impart as much of his knowledge about the industry as he can within 13 three-hour classes. Specifically, the course covers what an investment banking firm does, how it is structured, how the various components function together, how investment banks solve problems (bring on the cases ;-), and how investment banks make money. For our first lesson today, Jim provided an excellent overview of the industry as it stands today - which firms are dominating the market, which divisions are making money, where the jobs are, etc.

Interestingly, the class is no where near full capacity - there are only around 35 students (compared to 104 in my Introduction to Venturing class). My theory is that if someone has already been at Columbia Business School for a year, they've probably had the opportunity to obtain most of this knowledge through on-campus events and discussions with their network. Coming in as an outsider, I'm hoping this course will help me come off as a knowledgeable prospect when (if ?) I get some interviews with these firms. Indeed, Jim states that his main objective for the course is "to inform students; so they can hit the ground running day one at an investment bank and never be asked 'what rock did you come out from under?' "

Garbage on tour in the US this fall

No Doubt are touring with Garbage in the US in October / November. I missed out on seeing Garbage at the Big Day Out in Australia earlier this year, so I'm pretty keen to catch them this time.

If anyone would like to join me, I'm considering either:

• Philadelphia (October 17th), or
  
• Orlando (October 30th) - roughly coinciding with a shuttle launch on November 2nd.
  

Weekend wrap-up

The distinction between weekday and weekend has become a bit of a blur for me over the past few weeks, what with exams, holidays, long flights, decontructing my apartment in Melbourne, setting up my new room in New York, and the like. As such, there's no compelling reason why I should write a 'weekend wrap-up' as such. Instead, let me just tell you about some of the highlights of the past few days. My primary focus since my last class on Thursday has been career management and sleep catch-up. With a multitude of company presentations coming up in the new two weeks, I felt it was time to do some work on my resume (American-ise it so to speak). After five hours work on Friday and Saturday, I now have both a one-page and two-page resume designed for the US market, and well as my original one-page resume for the Australian market. I also prepared three job applications over the weekend: a summer internship with Deutsche Bank in either Sydney or Melbourne, a summer internship with Macquarie Bank in Sydney, and a part-time resume reviewing job with the Careers office here at Columbia. If I get an interview invitation from either of the banks, we'll have to do the interview over the phone.

Today I put the books and the career aside, and went for a stroll through Central Park. The weather is very nice in New York at the moment - around 81 degrees Fahrenheigt every day (which translates to around 27 degrees Celcius for all the non-Americans in the audience, myself included). It wasn't an aimless wander though - my destination was the Guggenheim Museum. They have an exhibition on at the moment called Moving Pictures which definitely had that 'modern art' feel about it - very abstract, lots of bright colours, and a dash of erotica. Interestingly, they also have a Rembrandt on loan from The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The web graphic (follow the link) doesn't do this painting justice. The realism and condition of this picture (it's over 350 years old!) are absolutely incredible.

Course overview: Advanced Corporate Finance

This is something I meant to do originally on my MBA-orientated weblog, but didn't get around to for Term 1 and 2 at MBS. I make heaps of posts referring to particular aspects of my courses, without ever providing an overview of what the course is actually about. So, over the next few days, I'll try to put together a summary of each of the courses that I'm doing at Columbia, together with my personal expectations / outcomes.

B8301 - Advanced Corporate Finance (Professor E. R. Arzac)

Advanced Corporate Finance at Columbia is pretty much the equivalent of Corporate Finance at MBS. It is "a course on entrepreneurial and corporate finance dealing with the design of financial policy and the valuation of firms and financial instruments." More specifically, the course uses cases, mostly developed by the professor (rather than published through Harvard), to demonstrate free cash flows in domestic and international acquisitions, private equity and leveraged buy-outs, equity derivatives (options, futures, etc), real options, mergers & acquisitions, recapitalisations, and asset restructuring.

Enrique Arzac uses his own text and his own cases, which is unusual for an upper-level corporate finance course. From my understanding most b-schools have adopted Brealey & Myers' Principles of Corporate Finance as the standard textbook for corporate finance-orientated courses. However, Enrique's classes are always fully subscribed, and receive consistent student ratings around 6.5 out of 7.

I'm anticipating that I'll get a lot out of this course. Being a finance course, there's lots of numbers and formulas to learn, but untimately it's a course about how proceed with a big corporate finance deal; which approach to take, and how to deal with each of the stakeholders. Should be challenging, engaging, and maybe even a bit of fun.

Adrian is now a NYC Blogger

Check out the other blogs on the '1' line in New York. My closest station is 'Cathedral Parkway - 110 Street'.

Columbia Business School - Fall Semester 2002: Day 0

Administrative day today. Picked up my Columbia student ID card. Paid off my accommodation for the semester. Met with some of the staff in the Columbia Business School admin offices. And also attended an careers information session.

Adrian's 60-second summary of the careers situation at Columbia
Columbia seem to have had more success in placing their 2002 graduates than back home at MBS. Roughly 80% of the graduating class are now employed, compared to the undisclosed (but significantly lower) figure back home. The Columbia Careers Office's way of explaining this was a 'flight to quality': recruiters are focussing their search on top schools, since they're not looking to hire so many people over all, and cannot justify the expense of visiting so many schools.

Several major employers have chosen NOT to recruit/present on campus at Columbia this year, including two of the biggest investment banks. Goldman Sachs employed the largest number of CBS grads (roughly 30 of the 600 or so students).

The I.T. systems in place for managing the whole careers process at Columbia Business School are very impressive. Interviews are scheduled automatically to avoid conflicts with class times, and we even get the opportunity to bid for interview slots with some companies (just like bidding for classes).

My GSB

The b-school also has a fairly impressive portal set up for students, which includes personalised course material, summarised reading lists for each week, and face-books for each class. More details on this system later, after I've had a better chance to use it.

Bring on the study

Despite the fact that classes haven't even started yet, I already have 'homework' to do. For my first (and every) class for Introduction to Venturing, I have to prepare a Harvard case, and submit my short answers to the case questions online the night before the class. The Professor collates all the answers and cold calls students in class, asking them to ellaborate on their answers. Awesome.

It's going to be a sensational semester.

Jet lag

I haven't usally been one to suffer from jet lag, but I think the time difference between New Zealand and New York is really getting to me. Since my arrival on Friday, I've been going to bed around 3:00am every night, and waking up around midday. I'd better fix this up soon, as I have an 8:15am class on Wednesday to kick off the term at b-school.

Monopoly

At the US Open last night, I was required to store my backpack and carry its contents in a US Open-emblazoned plastic bag. Apparently, this is some form of post-September 11 security paranoia. I'm okay with that, but I was most annoyed when they charged me US$5 to do so. FFS, $5 to store am empty backpack (especially since I didn't end up seeing any tennis at all, due to the washout).

And, once I was inside, 20oz (equivalent to about 600ml) soft drink bottles were priced at US$4. $8 Australia for a soft drink. What is this world coming to. That's not inflation - that's extortion. Of course, an economics professor would start arguing that it's all about WTP, and that there's competition for the monopoly, rather than competition in the monopoly. Maybe, but they didn't get any money from me.

New York Mega-post #1

"...If I can make it there,
I'll make it anywhere.
It's up to you,
New York, New York!!"

New York City, capitalism's home town, Columbia University heartland, and the major victim of the September 11 terrorist attacks on America.

After the two day journey from the adrenaline-orientated, fun-filled, scenic retreat that is Queenstown, New Zealand, I arrived in New York in the middle of the night (2:00am on Friday morning) disorientated and completely exhausted, and checked in to the most basic of hotels, West End Studios, for a few hours sleep. For $150 (Australian) a night, I had my own little broom closet, complete with creaky bed, barely working fridge, and a run-down sink that offered only cold water, despite having taps labelled both 'C' and 'H', and a 'color' TV with about 50 home shopping channels. (apologies for the partial nudity on the sink link)

Getting set up

My dorm room is surprising large by New York standards. For US$2300 for the entire term, I have a room over 4m by 4m in size, with nearly-new floorboards, a cupboard, twin-sized bed, basic office desk, and drawers. All my electricity and heating is also included. I'm just one block from the University, and I have cafes, restaurants, bars, and supermarkets all within a minute's walk of my front door. On a negative side, I have to use a shared bathroom and kitchen, both of which are rather unappealing. (The photos that I've linked to were taken within a few minutes of my arrival. I'll post some more photos when I'm more established)

I've had to go shopping for basics like sheets, pillows, laundry basket, etc, and I've also set up a fixed-line phone and a pre-paid mobile. Can you believe it costs me US$1.70/min to call Australia from my mobile?! Ridiculous considering there are calling cards available with rates are low as US4.3c/min which you can use from payphones. One of the interesting features of US mobiles (sorry, 'cell phones') is that users must pay to receive calls as well as make calls. As such, deals are advertised in terms of 'airtime minutes' (i.e. total time 'on the air').

Tennis

I also went out to the US Open on Sunday evening, but, alas, it was a complete washout. As a consolation, I get a free ticket to the same session again next year (now there's an incentive to get that job in New York post-graduation ;-)

But what about the b-school?

Well, it's a 'holiday weekend' here in the States, which means that things don't really start until Tuesday. There's a careers orientation session on Tuesday, and then classes start on Wednesday. My 3rd round bid for Building and Managing Brands was successful, so the list of subjects in the left-hand column are now confirmed. In anticipation of the new semester, I've changing the background colour for my weblog header to Columbia Business School navy blue, and I've adopted a new temporary title for the weblog, Melbourne MBA in New York.

Qantas gets a makeover

The Qantas website has had a fairly serious makeover, with heaps more features on the front page, but a fairly unintuitive navigation system. The <TITLE> tag for the main page is 'Homepage' which is very useful for bookmarking, not.

Term 2 Results @ MBS

Well, results for Term 2 are up, and I'll be the first to admit that I didn't do nearly as well as in Term 1. Business Law was the subject that suffered, which I deserve since I didn't do many of the readings and hardly ever participated in class. I also had a severe drop of 15% from my VFA midterm result to my final result, but I think that might be partially to do with the good old 73% mean requirement. Pleasing results for the other three subjects, but my Law result has really bitten me hard. My overall average has dropped from 84% to 79.6% (ouch! we're just below that H1 cut-off now).

• Valuation & Financial Analysis - 80% (H1)
  
• Economics & Public Policy - 81% (H1)
  
• Business Strategy - 75% (H2A)
  
• Business Law - 67% (H3)
  
• Project Management - 75% (H2A)

BTW, first New York post coming really soon...