There she....isn't.

I'm not really into the beauty pageant thing. Seems to be all fake and superficial. But one of my very best friends was a Miss America contestant and hearing her story a few years ago about competing in the pageant changed my mind about a few things.

Then this year Miss Utah Jill Stevens, army medic, marathon runner, fellow SUU college graduate, and nurse seemed to represent a different kind of girl. So I decided to not only watch the pageant, but follow it on TLC's reality show Miss America: Reality Check. The entire show was about how they wanted to contestants to throw out the pageant hair, the robotic walk and represent the modern woman.

Last night the pageant finally aired and Miss Michigan Kirsten Haglund took home the crown.

So... they wanted to update the Miss America pageant....but the problem is that the judges still chose an old school contestant as the winner. Miss Michigan is a very beautiful girl and I'm sure she is very intelligent, but she grew up in the pageant system and seemed very stiff and old school on stage. Big hair, plastic smile.

Where is the change? How about looking closer at some of the other girls that don't fit the mold. Miss Alaska? Or Miss Vermont? Or what about Miss Utah? She didn't start doing pageants until a few years ago, and only then at the urging of friends and a desire to get the word out about her platform of emergency preparedness. She is a Miss America contestant who truly represents us: the real American woman.

I was really excited to see how this year's pageant would be different. It wasn't. All the "changes" made were merely cosmetic.

Until the Miss America pageant can make changes that will result in the crowning of a young woman who we relate to and can admire, the ratings will continue to drop to all-time lows.

We'll miss you.

Tonight at about 6:30 p.m., our beloved President Hinckley passed away.

Although very sad for those of us left behind here on earth, I know he is in a better place and currently enjoying a joyous reunion with his wife, other family members, past leaders of our church and many others.

I followed him and listened to his counsel not only because he is a prophet of the Lord, but also because he is someone I respected and admired. I love his speaking style: his mix of self-deprecating humor with straight talk were always a joy to listen to. Although I hate to admit it, I would always sit up and pay attention to his talks during General Conference...even when I spaced out or nodded off during the rest. He always had a way of building me up, making me feel like I was a good person who just needed to do better.

One of my favorite memories was when I had the opportunity to attend Conference in person. The Conference Center is a HUGE auditorium that seats 30,000+ people and as people are filing in, it is always a bit noisy. But as soon as President Hinckley appeared at the door, the entire room fell silent and everyone stood up. It never ceased to surprise me. This particular time, he was walking in waving hello with his cane and as he passed the General Authorities seated on the stand, he pretended to rap them on the head with his cane. It was truly hilarious!

So President Hinckley. Thank you for leading and serving us for so many years. We will miss you dearly.

The rest.

Tech Trek 2008 wasn't all business. We couldn't stay in the Bay Area without seeing the sites in San Fran. A group of us had a blast playing in the city Friday night and Saturday morning. Even though Friday was a bit soggy, we checked clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl off our must-east list (as well as the Cali classic In N Out Burger). Here are the highlights:

Eatin' (inside thankfully) at Boudin at Fisherman

Justin and The Rock (Alcatraz)

Marta at a ginormous crab sculpture at Pier 39

Marta, Justin, Cray, Dave, me overlooking the Bay Bridge

Coit Tower

Alcatraz from the Coit Tower hill

Tech Trek: Day 3

Our third and final day of visits in the Bay Area began at Cisco. They also brought in some great presenters for us. Our executive-level speakers covered the spectrum: from marketing to finance to hr. Here are some of the things that I took away from the discussion. Cisco is looking for people that have leadership capability. They emphasize three areas in their hiring decisions: process, results and relationships and value people who can work in cross-functional teams. Next, anytime you are interfacing with a company (be it for a group information session or a informal networking event, make sure you have done your homework. In addition, become a well-rounded person. While your forte may be in finance, for example, you should gain perspective along the way in other areas like hr and marketing so you can understand your own business better.

One of the things I thought was most interesting was that Cisco recognizes that different generations of workers want different things and work in different ways. For example, they are restructuring their work spacing into larger, group cubicles to be more collaboration friendly.


Our last and final visit was to the #1 tech company right now: Google. It was everything you've heard it is: fun, casual, colorful, free food, free gym, hip, cool etc. etc. etc. We did a little walking tour of the campus, they fed us a delicious lunch and then had a Q&A session with some BYU grads and a few others. It was incredible to hear about life as a "googler" working in the "googleplex." I see now why literally EVERYONE wants to work there.

Tech Trek: Day 2

On Day 2 of our BYU MBA approved field trip, we scheduled visits to two more leading tech companies in Silicon Valley: hp and Apple.



We started our day off a hp. We listened to several presentations about the company and learned more about some of the hr strategies they are implementing as they increase their mergers and acquisitions. We also got to see a demonstration of their awesome new teleconferencing technology called Halo. It was incredible and will change the way companies do their business all over the world. Very very cool.





Then it was on to Apple. They really brought in the big guns for us. Our host, Scott gave us a great intro to the company product lines and the structure of the company. Then we heard from Frank Casanova, a very senior VP and one of the big guys behind Quicktime, the mega popular Apple application. In addition, they treated us to a yummy lunch in their cafeteria (which featured sushi, a real brick oven for pizza and calzones, and basically anything else you can think of), plus a couple more presentations/Q&A sessions. Then we finished off the day in their company store. Thanks to a 10% discount, several of us took the opportunity to buy some exclusive merchandise for the loved ones back home.


A couple of my takeaways: Apple says they look for people who are passionate about stuff (and that "stuff" doesn't necessarily mean Apple). They want to see that you have passion and you'll bring that passion to your work.

Next, they discussed the approach to their brand. They aspire to make every part of a customer's experience consistent and that includes everything from how they design the stuff, all the way down to the customer service (called AppleCare). Lastly, they expect perfection in everything they release and this philosophy is why they are so successful.

Later that evening, we attended a networking event at a chapel in Palo Alto. It was a great experience to informally talk to former BYU students and Utah residents about life in the Bay Area and their places of employment.

The evening concluded with a competitive round of Super Mario 3 on the class NES system. Good times.

Tech Trek: Day 1

After arriving in San Francisco a little later than expected (thank you flight delays), we got an early start for our first visit of the trip, ebay over in San Jose!

ebay gave us a great perspective on their business: about the different spaces they are in and where they are going. Something interesting I took from their discussion was this. When asked what the biggest threat to their business is, they said it is complacency. They explained that while they are right now at the top of the their game in virtually all their lines of business, if they don't stay up on the latest technology and what consumer wants, that won't last. This was a valuable insight to me.


Then we hopped on over to Palo Alto (home of Stanford U.) for our visit to the creativity experts at Ideo. They have an incredible philosophy and approach to solving problems. One of the things that spoke to me was they hire what they call "T" people: people with expertise in a specific area (depth), but also have skills in a variety of other disciplines (breadth). Very cool. And seems like it working pretty good so far for them. :)

Less wise?

Also one more quick update.

I survived getting my wisdom teeth out right before Christmas. Fortunately for me, it ended up being not too big of a deal. They put me out. It only took 20 minutes. I was outta there. I was up and about by Monday and at 100% on Christmas Day. Many people I talked to had horrible experiences, so luckily I came through okay and relatively unscathed (minus my two teeth).

Live better.

So I'm not really sure why I having written about this yet, but I figured I probably finally should.

The week after Thanksgiving, I officially accepted my marketing internship offer from Wal-Mart! So it's off to Bentonville, Arkansas for three months starting on May 19th. I'm really excited because WM is doing very progressive and new things with their marketing strategy and it will be awesome to learn from THE Fortune 1 company.

WOOT! I'm excited!

1 down. 3 to go.

Well, I made it. Barely. My first semester of the MBA program is officially done. I really can't believe it.

This semester has been full of ups and down emotionally. One of the things about being in b-school that I never anticipated was the toll it would take on my self esteem and my self identity. I've always seen myself as a pretty intelligent person; definitely not brilliant, but at least above-average. This semester made me unfortunately question that a bit.

Now I knew that business school was going to be tough. I was going to be challenged and stretched in ways I never could have imagined. I was going to have to work harder than I'd ever worked before. I knew I was going to have to push myself to do my very best.

But what I didn't know was that my best was not going to be good enough. That pushing myself to the edge of my abilities was still not going to be enough. Naturally the feelings of inadequacy and "do I really belong here?" start to come out. There are so many talented people in this program that I sometimes wonder if I'm in over my head.

But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. This semester has shown me that I need to make a few changes. The rest of you probably figured this out a long time ago, but apparently I am a little slow. I still need to learn to see myself based more on my individual accomplishments instead of in comparison to others. My self esteem needs to be more focused on internal elements that are constant, rather than external forces that are always changing and out of my control.

I've had the last few weeks to decompress, process the experiences of the previous four months and spend quite a bit of time reflecting on how to make this next semester different/better. My grades were not as good as I would have liked, but I'm determined to do better this time around. I'm sure I will pick up a few things every semester and by the time I finally graduate maybe I'll figure this whole business school thing out.

Here goes nothing....