Georgia Tech MBA

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.

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.

Time for Transition & Training

Hey All - I know it's been tough going lately with the economy and the job market.  I know because I hear stories everyday of people losing their jobs.  Good people with good jobs.  Then I think - "yeah, and I've got to go try to find an internship in this environment?".  It's almost not that companies don't have the resources to hire (although that is true in many cases).  It's that the are afraid of the future.  No one is predicting anything and if someone is trying I don't think they will have a lot of believers.  So companies are holding off.  Their not hiring right now, but waiting and seeing.  When I only will be working for 10-12 weeks, waiting is not good.  When you have a mortgage to pay, waiting is not good. Is there any beauty to be found in this mess? Is there any hope glimmering through?  I'm going to be optimistic and say yes.  There's time for precious things like spending time with kids, family and friends.  There's time to make deposits into other areas of life that may have been lacking.  There's time to get in a good work and let your brain create.  There's time to decide what you REALLY want to do with your life.  When I can find a spare second between class, homework and group projects, I'm thinking about these types of things and what I can do with my life.  I'm excited about the possibilities and I'm grateful for the opportunity to identify the possibilities.

I want to take this opportunity to mention a resource for people in career transition that has started at North Point Church in Alpharetta.  The first meeting was this Monday, but anyone can join and attend.  It sounds like a great place for networking and encouragement.  If anyone goes, let me know how it is!

Tell Me A Story

I feel like we're heading back to using stories as a way to communicate cultural norms, goals, and truths.  Maybe it's because we're in the middle of an time that we've never experienced before and we're trying to figure out how to explain how it makes us feel, what it makes us think and worry about.  I would think that stories are a good way to work through all of that.  I also believe songs can be stories that help us get our arms around our reality.   

In the Change This newsletter this week was a manifesto titled Stories, Story-Telling, and Story-Selling in Business that started my thinking on the subject.  The author, Tom Nies suggests that there are two types of stories that have an impact in our lives - truth stories and true stories.  Truth stories are more like fables where it doesn't matter if the story is necessarily true because the overarching themes and lessons in the story are true.  True stories can share the same characteristics of truth stories, except that the events described in the story are actually true.  This is the case with history - and how many lessons can be applied from a study of those who have gone before us?  Endless.  Nies implores businesses to use stories to inspire employees and to encourage.  Times have been tough before and we survived.  We can do it again.  People remember the stories when they may not remember what's been codified in the employee handbook.

A cursory search about stories uncovered a research paper from the Learning Institute Laboratory at Harvard University about storytelling In organizations.  Stories in organizations serve many tasks including: sharing norms and values, building trust and commitment, spreading tacit knowledge, facilitating unlearning and creating emotional connections.  The authors also forewarn business leaders to watch out for a few key issues with storytelling.  Make sure that your purpose is clear, keep it simple, try more than one medium, and be aware of the audience reaction. 

I want to try to use stories more often when I'm explaining a concept or feeling.  I think I need to find time to read more and amass more stories.  Since I don't really have time to read anything besides text books and cases, maybe this is too much of a strech goal for right now.  :)  In the meantime,  I could try to keep a journal of stories that I run across in interactions with my friends and discussions in class.  Anyone have a really good story that has maybe changed your life?