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....

Watch out Demon Deacons!

Every year, the Babcock School of Management at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC hosts a marketing summit. As part of the summit, they have a case study competition just for MBA's. Only 8 schools get to participate and one of those is WF. So basically there are only 7 spots. So seven of us Marriott School-ers put together a team and sent our application (our resumes and just 300 words on why they should choose us) off into the great beyond.

They chose us!

BYU has never been invited to this competition before so it's a pretty big deal. There is usually a high profile sponsor corporation that provides the real life problem to be solved. Previous sponsors have been Yahoo!, Motorola, Apple, Coca-Cola and more that you would recognize. Top MBA programs like Harvard, Dartmouth, Virginia, MIT, and UCLA are some of the past competitors. So we will be up against some tough competition.

We are definitely thrilled to be invited and are looking forward to showing what we can do in 36 hours with no sleep and no coffee! Hopefully we will come home with the $5000 first prize! WOOT! Go team!