Motivated Innovation

*formerly posted on the BGSU MBASA website in 2009 Good evening from Cleveland! I was checking my email before heading out for the night and noticed I had received some job stuff. It reminded me about a valuable tool I was able to use while in undergrad and early after graduation. Some schools participate in "reciprocity agreements" in which they allow brother/sister schools' students to utilize each other's job search sites (like WorkNet at BGSU). This is useful for finding additional internship or full-time job opportunities. For me as a student at Xavier University in Cincinnati, a fellow school was John Carroll University, which is located in the Cleveland area (where I grew up and was moving back to after graduation). I found out about open positions at Sky Bank through John Carroll's site. Because of the reciprocity agreement, I was able to make a smooth transition from a retail management position at Walgreens to a Client Service Associate/teller positi

*formerly posted on the BGSU MBA blog in 2009 A couple months ago, I was eating out at a Chinese buffet with a handful of classmates.  A few of us were joking around that we would take the fortunes from our fortune cookies and make them our statuses on Facebook.  Anyhow, I opened up my cookie and received an intriguing fortune: "Failure is opportunity in disguise".  This seemed to contradict some of the 'wisdom' that is force-fed to us through tradition, culture, and society. A few years ago, I read a book by Vince Lombardi, Jr., taking quotes from his father, legendary National Football League coach Vince Lombardi, Sr.  One of the coach's famous lines was: "Winning isn't everything.  It's the only thing."  While this is a highly motivational quote, I have to disagree with the quote in the context of this blog post.  Lombardi's quote suggests that losing is not an option and making mistakes is only detrimental to one's goals. Meanwh

*formerly posted on the BGSU MBASA website in 2009 Tonight is MBASA's Texas Hold 'em night; hope to see you there. In business and in life, we are constantly dealt cards. The Texas Hold 'em games that we play in our careers and in our lives carry on until we retire from the workplace and from the world we know. Each hand we are dealt, each assignment and each day that we face, is new--even when the combination of cards initially is the same. Over the years, we learn and develop strategies to handle the work in front of us and cope with the stress that comes with it. We hope for the best hands to start--perhaps pocket Aces (a pair of Aces) or two suited face cards (such as the King and Queen of Hearts). Yet, even with the best starting hands, we might not win the game. Someone may bluff with the worst starting hand of all--2-7 off-suit--only to find two 7's and a 2 on the flop to give them a Full House (three of a kind + a pair). That is, some things in business and

*formerly posted on the BGSU MBA blog in 2009 In the interview process for any job or academic program, we need to be prepared to answer numerous questions about our experiences, our careers, and our means of handling situations and problems.  Thus, we should always review our information and essentially 'know ourselves'.  There are also lists of sample questions out there that we need to understand--not only how to answer the questions, but why the questions are being asked (what is/are the meaning(s) behind the questions).  Overall, our preparation reflects our readiness and competence for the job or program at hand. Yet, the interview process is a two-way street.  As we are being interviewed, we are also interviewing the company or school.  As the interviewer and the company or school are trying to see if we fit into the job or program, we are trying to see if we fit and the company or school fits us.  This means that we should be ready and willing to ask the interviewer

*formerly posted on the BGSU MBA blog in 2009 There is a job fair tomorrow on campus.  I am not sure about my classmates, but I am feeling a little nervous about it.  With expectations being higher as an MBA student than when I was an undergrad, and yet expectations being lower with the job market and economy being worse than it was when I was an undergrad, I guess I do feel a little extra pressure to come across well to the employers. One valuable concept in today's competitive work environment is having 'transferrable skills'.  This means being able to make connections between school, various jobs, and various fields and carrying over skills from school, various jobs, and various fields to new jobs/fields.  Being able to show transferrable skills has helped me survive in my early career, and as I saw at the end of last semester, the final exam in Dr. Mota's Ethics, Law, and Communications class for me was basically a day working at my last job before coming to BG.

*formerly posted on the BGSU MBA blog in 2009 Each MBA student has a reason or set of reasons for why he/she has entered his/her respective MBA program.  For some, the transition directly from undergraduate studies to graduate school seems logical and natural.  For others, the first years of the post-undergraduate career are unsatisfactory or unfulfilling, meaning that a career change is in order.  Yet, others see the MBA experience as a chance to advance further in their current career track. While sick over the past weekend, I spent some time trying to put to guitar music a song I had written back in January 2008.  I am not a ‘musician’ per se, with minimal training and limited talent.  Anyhow, I had written this song called “Malcontent”.  At that time, I had continued to be thankful for having loving family and friends and decent work.  However, I had felt a general desire to take my life into its next phase.  Aside from my 8 semesters of undergrad spent in Cincinnati at Xavier,