Posted 4:12 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
University of Michigan in Springtime

(Naturally, we had snow flurries just a couple days ago, but who's keeping track?)

Posted 5:39 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
MAP Capstone
My group had its final presentation to our company sponsor this morning; it was a professional, somber two hour discussion of the industry structure, market potential, strategic possibilities, and our recommendations. For me, it was the peak of the project--it went much better than I expected--and the next few days are mop-up duty. We'll do some editing/revision to our 100+ page final report and be done with it.

I've been reflecting on the tangible benefits I got out of this project. Here's what I came up with:
1. Industry Analysis from A to Z - Unlike in strategy class, where the cases hand you all the pieces of the puzzle, we had to build an industry and competitive analysis from scratch. It's good experience to go take readings and interviews and turn them into a useful and thorough summary of the situation.
2. Interviewing Skills - Running an interview is much harder than it looks. It's a constant juggle of listening, analyzing, reacting, taking notes, and schmoozing. Not a bad skill to have, if you ask me.
3. Marketing 101 - Although my project was less marketing focused than others, I did get a chance to think about customer segments, consumer education, and pricing issues through a real-world lens. Out of all the core MBA vocations, I think that the MAP program is most beneficial to the marketing area.
4. Start-Up Experience - Before school I worked for an international investment bank, as I will this summer and [knock on wood] after graduation. It's been an education to work for a company that's young, small, and hungry.
5. Yachting - Before this project, I knew next-to-nothing about recreational boating. Now, I know a whole lot more.


(The goal of any MBA education)

6. Teamwork - Although most of my professional experience involved team projects, MAP certainly forces students to learn to work well with others. I got lucky in that all my teammates were 100% cool, with similar goals and motivations. Others were not as lucky, and had a lot more challenges in this area.
7. Ireland Visit - Expenses paid trip to Ireland. St. Patrick's Day. Can't beat that.

All in all, a great learning experience from start to finish.

Posted 10:58 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Burning the Midnight Oil
* First sign that MAP is eating MBA1s alive: I received about ten times more e-mail from classmates yesterday than I have on any other Saturday of the year.
* Second sign that MAP is eating MBA1s alive: The first MAP e-mail received yesterday arrived at 7:37 am.
* Third sign that MAP is eating MBA1s alive: I've written about 80 double-spaced pages of report in the past 4 days. And this is still just the first draft.

Thankfully, the weather is helping make this work weekend more palatable: cool, rainy, and worse to come (lows below freezing next week: fun!)

Posted 1:17 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
MAP Endgames
Most MAP teams are now hard at work on their final presentation and report. The reports seem to run anywhere from 50 to 300 pages for IMAP teams (US MAPs are capped at 30 pages, lucky devils), depending mainly on how much hard (i.e. numerical) data the team's come up with.

Like others working for smaller/technology companies, my project has focused more on qualitative research--conversations with the company, numerous interviews with reporters/boat dealers/competitors/potential clients, and visits to boat dealerships and shows. Working in a small, fragmented industry as we are, we've had to deal with a lack of hard data, which has presented challenges and opportunities (but mostly challenges). As a result, our final report probably won't run into the 100+ page range, and will describe a situation that is gray, rather than black or white.

In contrast, I know teams that have spent thousands of dollars on surveys of thousands of customers; teams with stacks of audio tapes of interviews; teams with spreadsheets full of financial numbers. The XMAP teams just returned this week from India, and some of them had really great experiences and some didn't (and all of them will be contributing to a book on their projects). One classmate mentioned that their team would save a company millions of dollars through a new leasing program; other projects will be delivering the hard news that their sponsors' products just won't sell.

Overall, I think most students, while enjoying the MAP experience, are happy to be wrapping up the projects, and are looking forward to some travel and their internships. There's a sense that this chapter of business school is coming to a close...

Posted 2:14 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
MAP Crunch Time
Well, this is certainly a new experience: staying up until the whee hours of the night writing a research paper. It almost feels like I'm a...gulp...regular masters degree student!

Kidding aside, these final two weeks are chock full of meetings, presentation preparation and practice, and report writing. I've just come off a good six hour streak of summarizing thirty interview reports in eighteen pages. As well as completing the expense reports for our team (I'm the team CFO). In addition to working on a ton of Finance Club business.

In the meantime, I had the opportunity to head down to central Detroit today, for the first time, stopping by GM's world headquarters in the Renaissance Center. They have quite a nice setup there, and I'll post more (including photos) at a later date. The views of the bridge to Canada from the exterior elevators were gorgeous.

Posted 5:43 PM by Zachary (e-mail)

Posted 6:39 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Michigan Weather: Spring has Sprung!
March 13 - April 15
Yesterday, Spring finally, finally arrived in Ann Arbor. Bright blue skies, temperatures in the 70s. Students in shorts and skirts crowding the sidewalks. It's great.

The weather over the past month continued to be volatile, alternating between annoyingly cool and surprisingly chilly. It hasn't rained much, but been overcast a fair amount. Now it looks like the 70s will continue for a few days, and we'll have highs in the 60s the rest of the time.

Previous Update: February 1 - March 12

Posted 1:51 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
The Next Bubble?
Rober Samuelson's column in this morning's Washington Post is the second piece I've seen in the past week shining a spotlight on the nation's housing prices. More accurately, he discusses the problem of combining enormous increases in housing prices with tumbling standards in mortgage decisionmaking with interest rates that are just primed to jump. It's not a pretty picture.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells' piece in the Washington Monthly goes into a bit more detail, and brings into play the fact that homebuyers are borrowing more--as a percentage of their income--than ever before:

"Perhaps the crucial ratio from which economists determine whether housing markets are out of whack is the ratio of home prices to annual income. In most of the country, it is modest, 2.4:1 in Wisconsin, 2.2:1 in Kentucky, 2.9:1 in Illinois.

Only in about 20 metro areas, mostly located in eight states, does the relationship of home price to income defy logic. The bad news is that those areas contain roughly half the housing wealth of the country. In California, the price of a home stands at 8.3 times the annual family income of its occupants; in Massachusetts, the ratio is 5.9:1; in Hawaii, a stunning, 10.1:1...at some point, incomes simply can't sustain the prices. That point has now been reached. In California, a middle-class family with two earners each making $50,000 a year now owns, on average, an $830,000 home."

He goes on to point out the divergence in home purchase prices and apartment rental prices--a divergence that doesn't promise to hold indefinitely.

I purchased a property in the New York area in mid-2001, and sold it in mid-2003 to move to Ann Arbor. At the time, I was both astounded and thanking my lucky stars that, despite 9/11, the recession (especially in NYC), and war with Iraq, housing prices had jumped 30%+ in my neighborhood (and most surrounding areas). What about rentals? The monthly rent on the Jersey City apartment I lived in pre-2001 is exactly the same today as it was then, despite tremendous upgrades in the neighborhood. Something's out of whack here.

Interest rates are set to rise, and probably rise sharply. Homeowners are more leveraged than ever. Salaries have remained stagnant. Apartment rents are stagnant. Tax rates are lower (diminishing the mortgage deduction). And home prices continue to head for the stratosphere. The important questions now are when (not if) the bubble will burst and how hard the landing will be.

Posted 8:19 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Press Freedom
I've uncovered a couple articles about the consequences of stealing newspaper print runs (yes, it's apparently a crime):
USA Today - 'Berkeley mayor guilty of stealing newspapers'
Henderson State Oracle - Editorial

Posted 4:40 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
MAP Diversity
One thing that's been impressed upon me over the past week is what a broad array of MAP projects there are. Some teams have conducted literally 75+ [taped] interviews and have reams of spreadsheet data, and are struggling with how to analyze and condense it all (usually these are CMAP teams, doing some kind of internal company analysis for a large firm). Some teams have only conducted a handful of interviews, and are trying to tease out some concrete lessons from a small, vague set of information (often IMAP teams, or those working for smaller/niche companies). Some teams have been solely based in Ann Arbor, whereas others have added side trips (the coolest: IMAP teams visiting Las Vegas and San Diego after their respective trips to Europe). Generally, the happiest MBA1s are those who 1. have teammates they like (which we had little control over) and 2. are doing IMAP projects.

Posted 3:12 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Getting Ready for Summer
Since the MAP experience feels more like a work project than an academic experience (and I mean this in the best way), the typical rythm of the school term is broken.

Last night was the annual Finance Club officer dinner, a tradition in which the outgoing (MBA2) officers and incoming (MBA1) officers dine together. After talking with the second years, it hit home that there are only a few more weeks left in the term. Most of the MBA2s discussed their travel and moving plans (since most Wall Street full time jobs don't start until August, UMBS grads have several months off beforehand). MBA1s are in the midst of visiting New York for bank orientations and planning summer living arrangements (hello Craig's List and Sublet.com!)

Michigan had a really good year for Wall Street recruiting, and it's going to be an awesome summer in New York with so many classmates. Having worked so hard to land an offer in January, it's funny to admit that I haven't given my summer job much thought over the months following. Now I'm getting geared up for the challenge and the fun of it all.

Posted 1:39 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
UMBS Diversity
This weekend the business school hosts it's "Go Blue! Rendezvous" weekend for the Class of 2006 admits. It's a great chance for admitted students to meet other members of their class, talk to current students, familiarize themselves with Ann Arbor, and (hopefully) make the decision to attend Michigan. The three day schedule is run almost entirely by current student volunteers.

I've volunteered to be a student host for an admit, and thus have spent a bit of time familiarizing myself with the school's stats. I came across a good metric for the diversity of interests and pursuits here.

The top ten employers (for full-time positions) of last year's class were McKinsey, Johnson & Johnson, Ford, Medtronics, Booz Allen Hamilton, American Express, Citigroup, General Electric, Deloitte Consulting, and General Mills. That's as balanced a list of firms and industries as you'll find at any top school.

(From the employment profile for the Class of 2003)

Although my career focus has firmly remained finance, I'm glad to be surrounded by students with a broad set of interests. Frankly, it makes school a lot more interesting, and is a big plus for Michigan.