Georgia Tech MBA

Ignite Atlanta

A quick recap of the second Ignite Atlanta:

To get the negatives out of the way - we didn't get to see the Belugas and I didn't win the iPad.

Great job to Patrick Nickles and team for organizing, getting an awesome venue and a diverse speaker line up. The highlights (IMHO) include Matt Smith with his passionate and crazy Hackintoshing presentation (I kind of want one), a happy septic tank success story and a reminder (as if one was needed) that jets - especially F-35's with $1 million prototype helmets for the pilots - are really cool.

I especially enjoyed Karen McKay's urban farming presentation. She uses clay pebbles and felt to grow a sweet salad in her apartment. Sounds like a good post-graduation project for me. Dr. J did a great job presenting the food matchmaking service of Usable Health. We are working with Usable Health at GTRI and they are planning a beta release in the next week or two among the Georgia Tech community.

I would also give a "Like" button to Buzzy for needle pain relief, the super powers of babies (Did you know that if your baby needs to be warmer or cooler, mom's body temperature will rise or fall as needed when skin-to-skin with the baby?!), and MobileZen for text message sharing of contact info.

I think it would be fun for me and Phil to tag-team present on something clever...and it certainly won't be a pitch for something! Any ideas?

Oh - one other thing I wanted to add - I'm surprised that no one gave a presentation about bacon. It's SO trendy right now! Maybe that's what we can talk about next time...

Pics from Japan!

What an amazing experience! I just spent 11 days in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto exploring the Far East and eating everything with chopsticks. Here are a few pictures from the trip. I'll try to blog a bit more about the trip shortly.

 

Hudor Hero @ Ideas 2 Serve

Last week, Phil and I debuted our extremely simple solution for water disinfection at Georgia Tech's Ideas 2 Serve competition. This product is aimed at third world countries and the 1.1 billion people who do not have sustained access to clean water. While we didn't win the competition, we received some great feedback from the judges and we have decided to continue with the project. I am in the process of creating a website for our Hudor Hero solution, so stay tuned for more info. In the meantime, this video will hit all the high points about the solution. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!

Maybe I'll actually end up at SOCAP this year. 

Ducks Quack - Eagles Soar

I'm passing along a wise word from Dan Miller's (highly recommended) e-newsletter. It's inspiring and encouraging! Thanks Dan!

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This is a popular story that you may have seen before. Even if you have, it’s a great reminder that just doing little common sense things can make us stand out in a crowd. When times are tough we need to take advantage of the many ways we can prosper and thrive – and bring more joy to ourselves and the people we meet.

Ducks Quack - Eagles Soar
No one can make you serve customers well....that's because great service is a choice. Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.

He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey.

He handed Harvey a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.'

Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment....

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean! As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.' Harvey said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.' Wally smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.' Almost stuttering, Harvey said, 'I'll take a Diet Coke.'

Handing him his drink, Wally said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today..'

As they were pulling away, Wally handed Harvey another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'

And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts... '

Tell me, Wally,' Mr McKay asked the driver, 'have you always served customers like this?' Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.

He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'

'That hit me right between the eyes,' said Wally. 'Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers.. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'

'I take it that has paid off for you,' Harvey said.

'It sure has,' Wally replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.'

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. Harvey says he's probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever he goes to their cities, he gives them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told him all the reasons they couldn't do any of what he was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar

Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans.

Be Inspired.

Open space, natural light, a chalkboard wall and a wall for pushpins. Crayons, a slinky, and a bean bag chair. Oh, and a projector, prototypes and large monitors featuring existing patents. That's not what you were thinking at first, was it? It's my latest idea to foster an innovative culture around me...a sort of "inspiration room".

Take a place that has a thousands of patents on record, say a research university or big technology company. I believe it is safe to say that many of these patents were never commercialized. Sure, a lot of the technology is old and no longer applicable, but what about the concept or the challenge that was being solved. Or is there a new way to apply that technology to solve a different challenge? Has a market grown for an older idea that was too advanced for its time? So much potential just sitting there. Potential needing new minds to take a fresh look. 

Is is possible to create a database with a user-friendly interface where people can search through the organizations patents and look for new ideas? And then unlock the potential of this database through the use of an "inspiration room". The space should have prototypes and large monitors to search the database. Sessions held in the space can focus on a type of technology of challenge being addresses and people connected in that field can go through a facilitated brainstorming session. People needing a dose of creativity can use the space to imagine and feed off of others' ideas. Inventors can present their previous creations and ideas to panels tasked with finding a new use or solution.

Is this being done somewhere already? What else should be included? What won't work?

Credits: University of Southern Indiana's Innovation Discovery Process and a white paper by innovation strategy firm, Strategos.

My Video Game Week

The week from November 9 – 15 was a video game week. Woohoo! The Georgia Tech MBA marketing club decided last week to create a video game for a competition entry. I applied for an amazing associate brand manager position at Activision. And then - I worked on a team that built and launched a Facebook game in a weekend! That’s a pretty great week if you ask me. Now that I’m all hyped up about it, I want to work with the resident video game expert in my class to create a Guitar Hero video of me and take it viral! (It’s probably not cool to talk about taking something viral, is it? Just do it.) This sort of viral, guerrilla marketing reminds me a little bit of that girl who made www.twittershouldhireme.com website. Oh – anyone want to help make the video?

We’re still working on the GT MBA marketing club game. There’s not a lot of time to get it done, but we’ve got a great team and a killer offering. I’ll keep you updated on the progress with that. Some key messaging for Georgia Tech MBA marketers has already come out of the project and I can use that to really push the idea to come to GT for fantastic marketing talent.

Now, the Facebook app – it’s actually up and running. Go – sign up today!! (I’m training my team while writing this.) About 100 people got together Friday night and pitched 60 ideas for new startups @ ASW3. Teams were formed and started working on about 15 different ideas. On Sunday night, 12 teams presented and about 8 groups had alpha or even beta products to demo! How cool is that?!? Todaysbrackets.com, gomodo.me, Voicify, xpensetrack.com, FanTrendz, FlexSeats, Moody Tweets, Fake Whale, EventTank. Really great stuff. I worked on a team that was full of awesome talent, cooperative attitudes and a strong work ethic. The game looks sharp and is fun to play even at its basic level. I’m pretty sure the team will keep working on it. The marketing group (including me!) created Twitter, Facebook, a blog, a name, a URL…Touchdown Nation! We tweeted about it, invited friends, posted videos, showed screen shots and built excitement for the release. And it worked! Over 80 users signed up yesterday and the number continues to grow. It was a great experience about feature creep, statistics, Ruby on Rails, Facebook games, revenue models, target markets, key word advertising. Oh, there was also great food (thanks John!) and entertainment (thanks Lance!). Pretty great weekend.

Back to training my team.

And making that Guitar Hero video.

Business Plan Competition: Here We Come!

I got some exciting news yesterday (at least I think it's exciting). Georgia Tech hosts an annual Business Plan Competition where business students gather with technical students and pitch a business plan.

Through random chance (or is it?), I met a materials engineering Phd student in the Tech Starbucks back in August. Yesterday, I found out that the early stage technology created by my new friend is a viable entry into the competition! The technology works, but we're not sure if the process can be sped up enough to be commercially viable. But if it works - it will be huge.

What do they say about the young...? Oh yeah. Young and idealistic. Throw in some over-optimism and maybe some over-confidence. That's us. Young and entrepreneurial - out to change the world. I love it! Maybe it won't work. I mean, we're going up against a process that has been around for over 50 years. A lot of people have attempted to overtake the labor-intensive and time-consuming refining process (no, it's not oil). However, it's going to happen one day. Why can't it be us? This is probably a bit dreamy for a university business plan competition. 

Let's start with market sizing, target market and technology. Business plan here we come... 

More Metrics: Build a Business Case for Social Media

I should be studying for the Brand Management midterm I have tomorrow morning, but what I just read in one of the chapters got me thinking. Yesterday I read a great blog post on the relevance of social media in business and - finally - there is someone calling for metrics! Today I read about Brand Value Creation and how marketers can evaluate and measure the value created by brands. Combine the two: what role does social media play in brand value creation - so that social media efforts can be measured?

Here's the Brand Value Chain (from Kevin Lane Keller's Strategic Brand Management book):

The value chain starts with the assumption that the brand ultimately resides with the consumer and and the value creation process begins when the firm invests in a marketing program targeting actual or potential customers.

Price premium, price elasticities, market share, cost structure, and profitability are all objective measurements. So are stock prices, P/E ratio and market cap! Compare these metrics before the marketing program and then again after implementation. It may not be 100% correlated, but taking market place conditions and investor sentiment into consideration should allow marketers to attribute come of the favorable growth to the brand contribution.

Relating this to social media and the blog post I read yesterday, Tom Webber believes that in order for social media to be really effective, it needs to have a strategy that goes beyond the marketing department and allow "rank-and-file employee to be a real human, to stop the assembly line (like a Toyota factory employee can) and communicate transparently with customers and prospects". This feels like that Employee line under Marketing Program Investment.One of the big reasons why the Starbucks brand is so strong - with little to no national advertising btw - is because of the people and the service you receive at Starbucks. Social media is kind of a way that other non-retail companies can make employees be a part of the brand. That seems like a very strong association to me. (I think I have drifted from my initial thoughts on metrics.)

Back to the point, social media, when used not just as a marketing tool, but also as a way to establish a real connection with followers, can greatly affect the consumer mindset. Social media probably doesn't do a whole lot around Awareness and could play a little in Associations and Attitudes. But I bet that social media can go gang-buster for growing brand Attachment and brand Activity. Attachment: the consumer's resistance to change and the ability of a brand to withstand bad news (a.k.a. - price elasticities). Activity: extent to which customers use the brand, talk to others about the brand, seek out brand information. Yeah, sounds like social media to me: re-tweet, blog about, comment, fan on Facebook... Could be market share, price elasticities, and extension success. 

Another block to the case. Thoughts?

Re-Inventing Your City In The New Economy

I'd like to make a few comments about an article I read in Business Week (Sept. 28, 2009) recently. The article discuss the transformation that Pittsburgh has made in recent years in response to the decline of manufacturing in the US. Pittsburgh lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the 1980's and the lost doesn't seem to be recoverable. The city could have given up, people could have moved away and stores could have closed their doors. Instead, "eds and meds" stepped up to the plate and offered another way for the former steel town to survive. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has focused on economic development recently and created jobs and opportunities that have more than made up for the lost jobs in heavy industry.

"The cities of the future...will be driven by companies like UPMC and sophisticated universities that take intellectual property and translate it into services and commerce." - Jeffrey Romoff, chief executive of UPMC.

This process is positive, but slow-growing. In an all too familiar phrase, "the city has not yet produced a critical mass of high-tech startups that can grow to be major employers." Are there lessons that Atlanta and Pittsburgh can share? What other cities are focused on economic development through high-tech startups? One lesson that Pittsburgh is sharing is that "persistence with new ventures is critical. Pittsburgh people take the long view". And my favorite quote of the article: "They do economic development the way the Steelers play football. Not flashy. You win as a team. You get the job done."

There has been a lot of discussion about the viability of Atlanta as a startup cluster. If one looks at resources in the metro area, Atlanta can certainly compete with (or exceed?) Pittsburgh - Emory, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, UGA, Piedmont & Northside Hospital, Southern Company/Georgia Power. I don't know that whether the startups are B2C or B2B really matters. I like the focus that UPMC seems to have - "high-tech startups that can grow to be major employers". Actually, to me, 'major employers' mean B2B and health care. I think we're well positioned for that.

Hard Work and Remarkability

I'm a big fan of Dan Miller at 48days.com. His life-coaching stories are inspiring and the lessons are transferable. I think he does a good job at utilizing a freemium model by giving away things like his weekly podcast and e-newsletter (as well as PDF copies of his books) as a way for people to buy his print books, audio books, coaching and seminars. Dan believes that everyone can find the work they love and they can act on it right now. In the new economy, the skill to figure out what you want and how to make it profitable will be extremely valuable.

In this week's newsletter, Dan has a few blurbs of wisdom and he recycles a great tool from Seth Godin. A few things that I like:

• A now famous Yale University study reported that 15% of the reason for a person’s success is due to technical skill and knowledge, and 85% of the reason originates from that person’s personal skill; attitude, enthusiasm, self-discipline, smile, tone of voice, desire, and ambition. - This ties in well with a word of wisdom from Larry Huang (a founder of Ciena and the donor of the executive education wing in the GT College of Management).  Larry told me that his success is certainly a result of luck, but it is more a result of hard work and dedication. He recommended "Talent Is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin.
• Dan also sent out Seth Godin's "99 Cows" - a collection of 99 "remarkable" ideas to spark creativity and enthusiasm. I found Cow #63 to be particularly insightful (maybe because it has to do with recruiting MBA's). The moral of Cow #63 is to make your resume and first-impression clearly communicate rock-star status. It's not the generic, well-rounded people who get the job. It's the remarkable (and memorable) individual. (my paraphrase)

So today and this week and the rest of this soggy month will be dedicated to hard work and remarkability. (I realize, of course, that this will need to be an ongoing dedication.) :)