Month: April 2009

The public/private divide in MBA rankings

/ Robert Pease / 7 Comments

The latest MBA program rankings are out from US News and World Report and the usual suspects are at the top of the list.  What really struck me were the price tags and continued dominance of private versus public universities in the top 20.  In many cases, the business schools at public universities that are in the the top 20 have different tuition structures than the other programs and schools at that university and are essentially private schools. 

Now, admittedly, I am a state school boy and was fortunate to be able to attend business school at the University of Tennessee (#54 on the list) directly after doing my undergraduate work and had an assistanship to help pay for it so I am coming at this from that perspective.

Is the price tag of a top private school worth it?  I guess that depends on what you are looking for.  I personally believe the importance of where you go only matters until you do something else significant and have met lots of folks that think getting an acceptance to a top school is the end of the journey not the beginning.  I have friends who have attended the top schools on this list and some who have no college education and they define themselves by their successes not their academic credentials.  That is why they are my friends.

The investment justification seems especially difficult now that lots of high paying jobs have evaporated on Wall Street and the pace of MBA hiring has subsided.  Every school in the top 20 is over $40k per year for tuition alone (I am looking at out of state numbers for state schools) and most are located in cities with a high cost of living.  You easily spend over $100k plus two years out of the workforce where you were probably making $40-70k per year.  The investment hurdle easily becomes over $200k to recoup. 

If you can score a grant, fellowship, scholarship, generous corporate sponsor, or if someone in your family (including you) has deep pockets the math is much easier to swallow.

I believe education is one of the most valuable things we can spend our time and money on but the price tag for a "top MBA" is daunting and seems like it will force really bright people to take jobs to pay off debt (if they can be found) vs. having the freedom to put their newly acquired skills to work in more entrepreneurial efforts.  I suppose that begs the question of whether or not an MBA matters for an entrepreneur.  A topic for another day…

Lots of great news from nuBridges

/ Robert Pease / 1 Comment

Nubridges_logo

Congratulations to the nuBridges team on a series of announcements this week that coincide with the big RSA security conference in San Francisco.

Among the announcements are the release of a new data security product and two awards from Info Security Products Guide (one for compliance and one for innovation).

I was fortunate to be part of the team that started nuBridges back in 2001 and the company has grown successfully since.  If you are looking for a solution to secure your data or help share it with your customers or suppliers, give them a call.  Also, be sure to check out their blog and follow them on Twitter.

Email policy enforcement goes mainstream

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Microsoft announced the public beta of Exchange Server 2010 today and it includes something called "MailTips" to add a layer of oversight to end-user actions.  No, this is not big brother. This is about self-policing.

I view this as further confirmation that the enterprise needs a greater level of control and monitoring over what happens in their email systems. For many years during my tenure at both Orchestria (now assimilated by CA) and MessageGate, we advocated and demonstrated how varying degrees of control and monitoring could not only reduce risk but save money. Absent specific security or compliance regulations, most companies need to focus solely on the end-user and their daily activities by putting the control and oversight directly in their hands.

Functionality like MailTips is targeting the hardest problem to solve – end user behavior. One of the use cases referenced in John Cook's TechFlash post is one that we always saw and specifically measured for customers at Orchestria and MessageGate. It is way too easy to inadvertently send something outside the company with auto address completion and the like. Where it gets tricky is when the definitions of outside and inside are complex like across business units, joint ventures, or subsidiaries all with multiple domains and constantly changing employees.

I am confident that MailTips will satisfy the baseline use cases for the end-user but there is still a need for technologies that can handle additional complexity or where more robust rules and dispositions are required.

Optimism

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

This is an important trait if you seek to start a company or embark upon a new adventure.  There will be many naysayers and it takes a true optimist to take the negative in stride and see the positive in it.  Like Lloyd…

Typing evolution

/ Robert Pease / 1 Comment

I overheard a conversation a couple weeks ago between two older gentlemen as they were trying to get their laptops to connect to the available wi-fi.  I had just provided a bit of tech support to them so don't feel too bad about sharing part of their conversation.

They were discussing computers and all the other gadgets that dominate our lives these days and one made the point that, when he was in school, learning to type was viewed as a clerical and non-essential skill and that during his career he always had somebody to type for him.  He went on to point out that it is a bit ironic that we all seem to sit in front of keyboards and type away these days….and that he was glad he had learned to type along the way.

I took a typing class at some point that taught me basic finger positions and commands but have met lots of folks over the years that have just figured it out on their own.  In fact, one of the smartest developers I know types at blinding speed with only his index fingers.

It seemed a bit ironic to me that something that was once viewed as a clerical skill is now the primary gateway to our on-line world and an assumed competency.

The New Selling Reality

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

How do you sell to someone that doesn't want to be sold to?

If you haven't asked yourself this question and you work in sales, marketing, or business development it is time to embrace the new reality.  The leverage in sales has been turned on its head and if you have something to sell you need to know that the person or persons you are contacting are better informed and have more information available at their fingertips (via a search engine) than ever before.

Prospecting still matters but the way to do it is changing.  Cold calling can make you feel better in that you are doing "something" but it might not be the something that matters.  Give them a reason to learn more about you especially if they are actively seeking an answer to whatever problem your product or service addresses.

How do you do this?  This is about more than just cranking up the PR engine.  This is about projecting your expertise not your marketing message, building a strong customer reference base, and actively nurturing and enabling it.

Think I'm kidding?  Check out this post by Tony Wright.  Tony runs a really cool company called RescueTime here in Seattle and is also a small businessman.  My favorite part:

"Why would I ever buy from the salesperson who happens to be calling me?
Even if they were introducing me to a class of software/service that I
wasn’t aware of and really wanted, the first thing I’d do is thank them
for the info and start googling."

Well said Tony.  If you sell or enable selling for a living, print this quote out and put it on your wall.  It defines your new selling reality.

Two Years

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Today marks the two year anniversary of my blog.  574 posts over 730 days…wow.

Rather than share stories of vast financial riches generated (there haven't been any) or my traffic rank (not very high), I just wanted to say thank you to all who routinely read it and those who have stopped by for a bit. 

I really enjoy blogging and the motivation is more selfish than anything else.  It allows me to satisfy my urge to write, to learn new things as I write, and to connect/reconnect with great people.

I look forward to many more years of it…