My Last Semester
I’m one week into my last semester of grad school. In December, I’ll graduate with Master of Business Administration and Master of Industrial Engineering degrees. It’s hard to describe how different those are! When I’m finished, I’ll get all my thoughts down.
In the meantime, I am interviewing for full-time jobs and taking four courses: Simulation, Deterministic Optimization, Management of Financial Institutions, and Business Process Analysis and Design. But don’t worry, I’ll pepper in some Georgia Tech football games in there.
Starting today
Since last January, I’ve been working at Georgia Tech’s startup incubator, called the Advanced Technology Development Center. Starting today, things are going to be a lot different.
Starting today, any technology company can join, so sign up.
We’re expanding our services and even hiring new people so that we can help as many startups as possible. We’re also going to use more social media to stay connected to the startup community.
Call a pay cut what it is
Today Governor Perdue announced teacher furloughs and “advised the school officials to target non-teaching days set aside for lesson planning and parent conferences,” according to the AJC.
I get fiscal responsibility. I get balanced budgets. I get that the State of Georgia is bringing in less revenue and must lower its expenditures. I get that 75% of our state budget is for education and that public employees should share the pain that the private sector is feeling. What I don’t get is describing that pain as a furlough, which by definition is a temporary non-duty, non-pay status.
Teachers, in fact almost all salaried employees, don’t have easily atomized duties. If an hourly worker makes 160 widgets in a 160 hour work month, an employer might say, “Times are tough. We can only pay you for 120 hours this month, so we only expect you to make 120 widgets this month.” Does anyone think that if teachers are “furloughed” during pre-planning, they simply decline to prepare for the first day of school?
Calling this a furlough is completely disingenuous. Call it a pay cut and describe how it’s better for students than firing more teachers. People will get that.
Seems like a waste
On my lunch break, I was surprised the see the Meadow at Piedmont Park getting watered. Seems like a waste; I heard it might rain today and tomorrow.
He found a good bag
My friend, John Rathouz, was featured in a story written by the Omaha World-Herald and picked up by FoxSports.com. Congratulations, John!
John caddies for PGA golfer John “Johnny Clean” Merrick, who tied for sixth this year in his first appearance at the Masters.
A big thanks to my favorite caddy for practice round tickets. Eric Rasmussen and I hung out on 16 on Monday at watched the guys skip the ball onto the green. Here we are by the 18th fairway representing Georgia Tech and Nebraska.
Ras and I on 18.
End of the semester
The end of the semester is coming and that means things are busy. This week I have three final presentations.
Today in Project Management, my team is demonstrating Basecamp, a project management software. We liked using the SaaS platform to organize our activities and I’ll likely use it again.
Tomorrow in Revenue Management, another team is presenting our application of revenue management principles on a fictional Christmas tree lot. Bob Cross from Revenue Analytics is judging and the best team gets a prize. Update: we didn’t win first place, but congratulations to the team that did. Revenue Analytics put a great press release on Forbes.com!
On Wednesday, my last team is presenting the effects of the 2008 oil shock on Delta. Specifically we’re looking at how they hedged oil throughout. Oil hedging is tough since prices are so volatile, and many of the airlines are still losing money on hedging contracts from last year.
Succeeding on the new battlefield
Many fantastic people visit the Georgia Tech College of Management, and we had the pleasure this Tuesday of meeting Ambassador Henry Crumpton. As a Georgia boy, State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism and head of CIA operations in Afghanistan before and after September 11th, he brought unique insight about the new variables influencing world conflict. Asymmetry on the new battlefield has never been higher: with new weapons and free flowing information, small groups of non-state actors have increasing capabilities to impact their enemies.
Yet, Ambassador Crumpton promotes the idea that this asymmetry can also work to our advantage by advancing liberal institutions in new ways. By respecting the pride, prestige and honor of the people we engage with, and by bringing the full weight of military power, diplomacy, economic power, rule of law and covert action on our enemies, we can succeed in these new battles.
A few people whose work he suggested we read:
Dr. Stephen Flynn
Dr. David Kilcullen
Dr. Jennifer Sims and Mr. Burton Gerber
Thucydides
(Pictured L to R) Professor Joel Cowan, Ambassador Henry Crumpton, John Cottingham, Corey Johnson
Thanks to our professor, Joel Cowan, for arranging this opportunity.
365
In a recent post, Lance Weatherby wrote that Google is basically everyone’s personal homepage. Business professionals google you before they meet you or interview you. I googled “John Cottingham” to see what came up. There are 365 results before one that is actually about me. You could click on a link every day for a year and not read anything by or about me. And the 366th is a just list of Georgia Tech grad students. Boring.
I want people to know more about me, so this is where I’m going to share a little about myself.