The final episode of the 20-Something Marketing podcast…sort of. Tune in to hear what’s happening.

Leave us your comments, questions and suggestions on the show notes!
Referenced Links:

• Marketing Diner Blog

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Regardless of where you stand politically, I think we can all agree that the 2008 election turned “conventional thinking” on its head in way that very few events in recent history have been able to. As a business student and a huge fan of socio-political trend watching, I also find that there are really interesting lessons we as MBAs can take away from the election, no matter what discipline we’ve chosen.

1 – The Next Generation Has Arrived

3.5 Million new voters were registered this election spanning not only age but also ethnicities.  In fact, according to national exit polls, 68% of voters that chose Barack Obama and 31% that chose John McCain were voting for the first time. To boot, turnout was as much as 89% in some states.

What this means for MBAs is that this election has marked the arrival of The Next American Generation culturally and demographically. Because of the strong impact this generation has shown in the election, what were once talking points for experts in finance, marketing, strategy and human capital will now become more like facts.

The lesson here is that the impact of this generation is no longer abstract for many of us, it’s reality.

2 – Stay On Message, Stay Authentic

If you had to pick a single word that described each candidate’s message, chances are that it would be “Change” for Obama and “Maverick” for McCain. Wait a minute, wasn’t it also “Change” for McCain as well? What about “Country First?”

The fact of the matter is that this election also proved a seminal rule about how consumers view authenticity and marketing. Because of the shifts that kept on being made in his message strategy, McCain lost a brilliant opportunity to capitalize on his own authenticity.

With the rise of new media and the Internet, consumers are becoming hyper-aware of who’s trying to get their attention and are becoming less forgiving to those they believe are just pandering to whatever they think they want to hear. The lesson here is to pick a message, whether in your marketing, strategy or in your mission statement that hits at the very core of your authenticity and then stick with it!

3 – The Black Swan Is Real

Even before you begin business school, you start to deal in probabilities.  In fact much of modern learning is built on confidence intervals, majority populations/outcomes and marginal risk.  What happens if an event lands in the long tail however, where the improbable becomes reality like it did in the recent financial meltdown?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls this a black swan and it hit this election like a Mack Truck.  The point of a black swan is though it has a very very small probability of occurring, it’s impact all but wipes out the effects of all the “normal” and “predictable” outcomes.

The lesson here is that risk and innovation go together hand-in-hand and just because a scenario has a very small probability of happening, it’s effects should at least be considered in forward-thinking.

This election has been an incredible ride; one that has kept us glued to CNN for way more hours than some of us would like to admit.  Now that its over, we have to ask ourselves “what’s next?” After all, we are all in this together and regardless of who you voted for, we all have to get jobs come May.

Technorati Tags: Black Swan, Election 2008, Financial Meltdown, MBA, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, socio-political, Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, voter turnout

Technorati Tags: Black Swan, Election 2008, Financial Meltdown, MBA, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, socio-political, Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, voter turnout

It’s been almost 6 months but I am finally getting back to DC for the annual Reaching Out for GLBT MBAs. Ever since I learned about the conference about a year ago I have been psyched up for this opportunity.

Given the fact that much of what I have gotten to talk about on this show about being gay and in business, you can imagine how great this going to be.

If you happen to be in town or are going to the conference, shoot me a message via the blog – I would love to meet up!

Best,

Jared

Technorati Tags: GLBT MBA, LBGT MBA Conference, Reaching Out

Are most MBAs out to change the world through business or is it all about the money? Dr. Mark Albion has a new book out that might just answer that question and even suggest ways MBAs can do both.

The audio quality of the interview isn’t the best but its well worth it for the content.

Leave us your comments, questions and suggestions on the show notes!
Referenced Links:

• OwenBloggers.com
• Amazon.com: More Than Money: Questions Every MBA Needs to Answer: Redefining Risk and Reward for a Life of Purpose
• Follow Me On Twitter!

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If you ask me what it is that I have done with my new media experience while getting my MBA – I probably won’t have a single, decent answer. Oh, I have plenty of decent answers, mind you; I just haven’t found one that fits all occasions.

At first, I started off thinking new media wouldn’t be a good hook for the more traditional brand management MBA internships I was after. Then, I realized that new media MBA internships actually existed and tried to pivot my search in that direction and new media became my main selling point. Ultimately, I ended up wasting so much time figuring out how to market myself that April came around and I still didn’t have an internship locked down.

While most of my friends were signing great summertime commitments with companies like P&G and Deloitte, I was stuck trying to figure out if I could realistically pass off the title of “Barista” as graduate-level job experience. Then, it happened; my dream internship fell into my lap when I was least expecting it.

Granted, the experience did come with a few strings. Before I could take the internship, for instance, I would also have to spend a month coaching undergraduates in business strategy. What happened here was real life…apparently it happens, occasionally.

Flash forward to the last four weeks of summer: Most of my friends are either getting ready to complete their internships or have so, already. I, on the other hand, am only a quarter into my dream internship, trying to figure out how to cram 8 to 10 weeks of experience into just 4. Though I have to spend countless hours over the weekend working on presentations and creative briefs – literally turning out pages of the best marketing ideas I have ever had – it’s the reminder that this is real life that keeps me going.

In new media, when we step out of the digital-meta-wiki-blog-pod bubble, we’re sometimes surprised to find that the real world can, and will go on without us. The benefit I have found however is that my time in new media has made me more entrepreneurial and ready to face those glimmers of opportunity, no matter how strange or oddly they are presented to us.

For that, I am eternally grateful for my circle of new media friends and the people I have met along the way. Thank you.

Technorati Tags: new media, mba internships, surviving business school

One of the more interesting sides of my various MBA internships this summer is the chance to guide undergrads through several, strategic-level consulting initiatives. Of course, my favorites are the ones where we are able to find ways to get your input into their direction.

In fact, here’s your chance to weigh in on a project we’re working on for KFC: http://urlzen.com/6k

The team has structured a quick survey about Fast Food in general, and KFC in particular, that we would love to have your opinion included in. As with most the of the surveys I work with, I’ve encouraged them to get creative with the insights they want to gather. Help us get to a statistically significant sample size (for the purposes of this survey, they want 100 responses by Sunday morning).

Again, we need your input on a survey for Fast Food and KFC so take a moment to browse over to our survey page and let us know what you think!

Technorati Tags: Colnel Sanders, KFC, Owen Accelerator, Owen Graduate School of Management, Accelerator

Not being the biggest fan of mud-filled fields of loud, drunken horseracing fans myself; I was inclined to agree with her course of action. The problem was that after weeks of intense work culminating in exams, I was counting on this trip to get me out of Nashville for the day.

After a couple of text exchanges, we agreed that a road trip of some magnitude was in order. Our destination, we decided, was Memphis. Only about 200 miles away, we could hit up Graceland, the Mississippi River and some of the best barbeque in the south – all while fulfilling the need to get us the heck out of here.

I have to say the trip was incredible from a lot of different angles. For instance, you know how they say, “getting there is half the fun?” Well, in this case the fun was discovering strange quirks about my future roommate.These quirks would include her affinity for singing along to Taylor Swift and her eerie ability to detect Wal-Mart stores from just about any distance. Seriously, it was creepy.

At the end of the day though, I was kind of left feeling that the trip had lacked somehow? We had a blast, we talked, we dove into some great ribs on Beale Street and yet I am still not feeling that the trip did the trick. Somehow, I needed more.

Business school, it turns out, essentially takes a lot more than hard work. It takes an almost maniacal identification with your chosen course of study. Simply stated; I didn’t have any work to do so even the most awesome road trip I have taken in years failed to validate me.

This is a problem that I think all of us have from time to time and though it’s not something to call a shrink over (yet), it’s still important to bring it to light. Honestly, as soon as I realized the problem, I was able to adjust my frame of reference. Instead of thinking of all the things I didn’t have to do – I looked for things OTHER than work that I could busy myself with this evening; writing my thoughts down on this blog being one of them.

The point is that just like “The King” and his life, you can’t let a job like getting drafted into the Army keep you from enjoying yourself. As I think back on today and the immense fun I had strolling the grounds of Graceland, I really am thankful for the ability to soak it all in. It turns out – that’s the only important thing; that I did it, enjoyed myself and get to take those experiences back with me whenever I do decide to get back to work. For now, I get to keep them to myself, and anyone that wants to see the photos.

That story being told; how do you approach this issue? How do you approach a problem like this of work-life balance?

Technorati Tags: beale street, elvis, memphis, road trip, work-life balance

On the last day of my first year of business school, I reflect on “what have I really learned?” as an MBA student.

• OwenBloggers.com

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Technorati Tags: Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, MBA, surviving business school, Vanderbilt

For the last four to five months, I have been knee-deep in work related to finding something substantive to do over the summer. Today, I am finally getting a chance to get in front of a company where I think can align all of things I am good at, with a position where I can make an impact.

As with any interview for an MBA Internship, the fact that I am coming from a non-core school is a sizable hurdle. Normally, the advantage in such evaluations goes to the students from the business schools from which the company already is aquatinted. However, I hopefully have something else up my sleeve that will give me a competitive edge equal to any other; new media.

Though not my main selling point for this particular position, my work in new media illustrates how strategic analysis intersects with creativity and technical competency. In interviews, I like to say that I can bring more to the table than just the ability to crunch spreadsheets and create SWOT analyses; that I also have the technical and creative background to bridge that work with just about any type of cross-functional implementation team.

It occurs to me that this revelation is not only my selling point, but the selling point of many of those traditional marketers fascinated by the world of interactive media, blogs and social networking sites. Its not just about being the marketer who can visualize solutions in the “cool new medium,” its about being able to apply analytic solutions to a rapidly-evolving playground of consumer choice.

Cross-Posted From The Marketing Diner

Technorati Tags: Marketing Diner, MBA, MBA Interviews, new media interviews, surviving business school

Answering questions related to getting your MBA including admissions, full time vs. part time, and what it’s like “on the inside.” Also, answering a deep backlog of other viewer mail.

• 20SMF’s MBA Spin Series
• Kindo – Cool Family Tree Building Site (Sent To Us By Daksh)
• Amazon.com – 20 Something Manifesto by Christine Hassler
• Christine Hassler’s Web Site

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Technorati Tags: 20-Something Manifesto, Christine Hassler, mba applications, mba full time, mba part time, Kindo

One of the highlights of this last MOD was a chance to run a full-scale, two week business simulation game. In it, teams of five business students were pitted against each other, charged with running a company by controlling all aspects of its strategy including finance, operations and yes, even marketing.

I can tell you that from my perspective, the marketing component was far from rocket science. It only allowed for basic sales and promotions planning around different customer groups but it did bring up an interesting conversation. Yes, this was a game and our “customers” were nothing but sophisticated algorithms, yet I did find myself defending the finer points of marketing to my finance counterparts.

The kicker was that we only started doing well when my group members started allowing the marketing department to drive integrated operations and production planning. Frankly, without demand forecasts produced by the sales and promotions outlays (don’t ask, it included a large and annoying spreadsheet we created for the occasion), the company produced way too much and caused my team to pay much more in holding costs than we would, otherwise.

At the end of the simulation, it wasn’t that that our marketing department had more vision than any of the other marketing departments out there. Nor did our sales and promotions budgets have a greater effect on the end result of the game. What happened was that our marketing department helped translate our companies’ vision into a tactical plan that touched everything from operations, to finance to HR. In the end, it was the teams that had marketing-centric planning that proved most efficient and profitable.

As you can imagine, this was only a simulation. However, it doesn’t take a venture capitalist to see that it has implications for those interested in cracking the code on succeeding in a world where technology renders a lot of competitive advantages, moot.

Plainly stated; the biggest lesson any of my marketing comrades or I learned from this simulation is that great marketers have to move beyond being just great creative minds, but we also become great office politicians.

Oh, and in case you’re interested in the outcome of the game: we only took 9% market share our industrey but our pricing and promotions strategy garnered our products an average of 47% on margins.

Despite the ever-growing workload I have here at business school, I have found a new way to keep in touch with people….Yes, I have finally gotten on the twitter bandwagon.

Whether you’re on twitter or not, you can keep up with regular musings about social media, marketing and business school via my twitter page at http://twitter.com/marketingdiner. It’s an exciting prospect to be able to get that much more engaged with people through mini-bloging but I think it will make a nice compliment for those of you who may miss my regular shows here at 20-Something Marketing.

If you haven’t already discovered twitter, it’s a neat little tool that connects people, 140 letters/charachters at a time. Definitely worth the time to check it out.

Catch you on the twitter-side, marketing fans!

Technorati Tags: Marketing Diner, social media, twitter

After about two years of stagnant growth, podcast audiences are now expected to grow 251% to 65 million by 2012, according to a new eMarketer article.

This news is not that surprising since podcast growth has been on the rise since many mainstream media outlets like CNN, NBC and the BBC have adopted the technology.

What’s really interesting about this is that it’s not the big media guys that are benefiting, financially. It’s the smaller businesses and content producers that are getting the majority of the new dollars being spent on podcast advertising, which is also expected to grow to $435 Million by 2012 (it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $143 Million right now).

What this means for businesses is that podcasting has reasserted itself as a way to target niche audiences and demonstrate product-area expertise. As a veteran podcaster - and you know I had to mention it at some point - this is a welcome validation of many hours spent convincing executives that the medium was worth it.

Ultimately, I think you’ll see a lot of businesses flock to podcasting as a way to create content in and around their products. I also think that consumers, as the digital music player market grows and becomes even more mobile with the advent of 3G phones, will continue the trend of seeking out more targeted and personal alternatives to traditional radio.

Technorati Tags: emarketer, OwenBloggers, podcast, podcasters, podcasting, podcast growth, strategy

Dollar General; Candidates’ Logos; WSJ News; What’s in store for Marketing Diner in 2008

Join in the conversation and tell us what you think – call dinermail at 202-552-1575.

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Technorati Tags: Logos, MBA, Nashville, podcast, political communication, strategy

Palms sweating and nerves racked, this time of year 1st year MBA students are frozen in place, hovering in a anxiety-stricken state of uncertainty. And that’s just before you hit the submit button.

It goes without saying that one of the most important parts of being an MBA student is finding the perfect internship. As a school climbing the rankings, Owen does all it can to help students get the right kind of exposure. However, the team here at Owen Career Management Center (CMC) seldom gets the kind of recognition that it should.

As rising stars in the career marketplace, Owen MBA, MAcc and MSF students have to work a little harder than most. In fact, some top tier employers are just now getting a glimpse of the kind of authenticity, drive and innovation Owen students bring to their respective positions.

What this means for Owen students is that the job hunt is more than just walking in the door of the CMC and expecting a job to be waiting. It means investigating multiple opportunities and dispelling the stereotype of the entitled business student.

In very real terms, the CMC is the living embodiment of how Owen works; a team of the best professionals in the business, succeeding when students decide to step up to the challenge. The only limiting factor to your job search is how much you want it.

Technorati Tags: MBA, MBA Internship, Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, Vanderbilt University

In what has become a 20SM tradition; the first podcast of the year, I dedicate to resolutions and some words to live by in 2008.

Referenced Links:

• OwenBloggers

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Technorati Tags: Owen Graduate School of Management, OwenBloggers, resolutions, Vanderbilt

Podsafe Music: City Skies – Dylan & The Movies

Technorati Tags: 2007, Marketing Diner, MBA, montage, surviving business school, Vidcast, vlog

The weekend before finals, Jared chats it up about being quoted in newsweek, surviving the first semester of business school and life in Nashville.

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Technorati Tags: MBA, Nashville, Owen Graduate School of Management, surviving business school, Vanderbilt, w00t

So yes, if you are asking how things are here at Vanderbilt, I am doing just fine .

Technorati Tags: MBA, Owen Graduate School of Management, Leadership Communicatins, surviving business school

Yeah, its a familiar subject but at least I found one way to make this show work for my career!

Cross Posted From:

Technorati Tags: MBA, powerpoint, business strategy

Ok, “avoid” may be an overstatement. Ok, I’ll admit that as I was writing this post, I checked my facebook wall at least three times.

It’s not that I don’t like my birthday, it just always seems to come at the most annoying times. Grad school has tempered my expectations of just about everything now-a-days.

For instance, I could be doing a lot of things today but the act that is bringing me the most pleasure is the completion of a marketing research focus group analysis. As long as I am procrastinating however, let’s see if I can’t ping out a couple of the things I learned when I was 26….Click Here To Read More >>

Technorati Tags: birthdays

Today, I got the chance to interview Carol Cone, Chairman of a consulting firm specializing in socially and environmentally responsible brand marketing. Carol was a trip to talk to and I have to admit that, because my curiosity got the best of me, I never got to a single question I originally intended to ask her.

Instead, I dove into the guts of what it means to be socially and environmentally responsible in business. She talked a lot about authenticity and how it’s probably the single most important factor in winning over the current 20-something generation.

At Owen, we tend to rely on that same kind of authenticity in order to differentiate ourselves in the MBA marketplace. For instance; we not only have an honor code, we practice it each day at places like the 8:10 Café where the cash register is open and you are relied upon to make your own change. We also have OwenBloggers.com, a student-run web site that evangelizes the virtues of attending Owen while still maintaining our right to disagree when we feel its right.

What Carol talked about and what I’ve seen in just over three months here at Owen syncs together, perfectly. It’s the same side of the same coin no matter how many times you toss it.

The reason I bring this up now is that walking around Owen as an insider during Net Impact, you can’t help but imagine a spunky, short-legged dog bounding around with a humongous bone proudly clenched in its teeth.

In case you didn’t know, we are the smallest school to ever pull off Net Impact and the fact that its being done so in full view of the largest crowd in attendance for this event is astounding. Perhaps it was a case of “biting of more than you could” at the time but I can’t help but see people like the design team and think; “where else but Owen?”

For those of you who may be visiting “our Tennessee home” and will depart in a couple of days to go back to your own MBA programs, think about what you saw, read and learned here.

The last thing I have to say is that Carol was right, you can’t fake authenticity. Also, thanks for visiting Owen and being a part of our story.

Technorati Tags: Owen, Vanderbilt

Between papers here at my MBA program at Vandy, its always cool to check my RSS feeds and see an article like his that says what we’ve been saying all along; 20-somethings are the next great business tool.

I’ll let you read the entire article (click here >>) but there was a snippet I wanted to point out:

“Of course, not every Gen Yer we’ve met is hankering to be an entrepreneur, but many still want to change the world through where and how they work, exuding an optimism more reminiscent of the 1950s than any other era in recent memory.”

It feels great to be an MBA student at this period of time and to anyone who is wondering if ambition is worth it, just ask Jack and he’ll tell you it absolutely is.

PS: In case you’re wondering; exams are next week – wish me luck!

Technorati Tags: Gen Y, Jack Welsh, MBA

Ok, so it may not be this easy but I just wanted to send a shout out to everyone.

It’s the second day of classes here at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management and the work is starting to pile up. I will leave it to Angie to entertain you but I did want to let you know that I am still alive, if not awake!

Also, if you are that interested, you can always check out my b-school blog at http://www.owenbloggers.com/jared.

“Out of a Job, In Front of a Mic” is four part series covering the ups and downs of being a 20-something marketing strategist.

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Of course, said opportunity is otherwise known as business school .

To help us all keep track of how long I have until I am officially a poor grad student, I have set up a special countdown timer on the left sidebar. I will also be including the countdown in any further posts untill 5:00 PM ADT, July 17th, 2007.

FYI –

Enjoy!

ps….oh, how I love to use Natalie Imbruglia lyrics in blog postings!

At this moment, I now think I have a good idea what it must feel like to be a ghost walking among the living.

It must be the same feeling I felt this week sitting in on group interviews for the person who will eventually replace me once I leave to go to business school; I am sure of it. What’s worse, everyone wants to get my one-on-one candid assessment of these people.

Forget, for just one second, that I have done some incredible things at this organization I doubt I could get away with at larger, more traditional businesses. There is no getting around that interviewing your replacement – no matter what the job looks like after your gone – is just plain weird.

The funny thing is that with the advent of the Internet and blogs, I am able to discern more information about a candidate than ever before. Exactly the same could be said of the candidates, who frequently research this blog before stepping into the office to be interviewed by me.

So, the end result is a situation where you want to say something about a candidate but know that decorum prevents it. I know who I want to replace me but by openly “dissing” a candidate, I am opening myself up to being evaluated and that distracts from them finding someone they can be happy with once I am gone.

The one interesting thing that this experience is leaving me with is the ability to see what truly exceptional candidates look and sound like. They paint a picture of what they would be like in the position and leave the room with you buzzing with excitement. A sub-par candidate leaves you with the feeling; “well, they can do the job but what else?”

Any warm body can fill a position, sit in a chair and take orders, blindly. Hell, I have seen people promoted for doing just that. The question is; do you have the capability to leave an organization better than when they brought you into it?

Demonstrate that and you’ve got me in your corner.

Robin “Kheperah” Kearse, sits down to talk about how she and her partner, Chris “Kazi” Rolle are changing the lives of New York City youth and charting a new course for hip hop culture, away from the destructive and towards the expressive.

Also, another OwenBloggers report from Vanderbilt-Owen Welcome Weekend.

The Hip Hop Project opens in selected theatres, May 11th – Get some friends, go see it and be amazed at the experience!

Referenced Links:

• Hip Hop Project: The Movie
• iTunes: Music from the Hip Hop Project

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I have to admit that even though I virtually eat, sleep and breathe marketing at this point; the allure of business school has taken hold of me like a buffet from which you want to take a bite out of everything. Lucky for me, these kinds of sentiments are apparently really common for incoming students but I wanted to share a really interesting experience from Vanderbilt-Owen’s welcome weekend a couple of weeks ago.

In a breakout session about the Marketing & Brand Management Track, the professor took out a case study to give us an idea of what a normal marketing class feels like. Suffice to say that my creativity was shot at that moment and I had a difficult time getting out of the B2B “silo” that I have been in for the last four years.

As you can imagine, this kind of took me by surprise because as a marketer, my initial response was to dig for more information. In a case however, you really can’t dig, you have to take what the story gives you and find a solution based solely off of that information.

I doubt this will be enough to throw me off a marketing track but it has given me a new perspective on reading business cases and applying what I know, internally in a B2B setting, externally to a B2C scenario. Next time you are reading the Wall Street Journal, or any other business publication, try to examine an article from a different perspective and see how it changes your approach to problems in your own “silo.”

After working a half day and arriving in Nashville 3 hours late, I was seriously ready take to take a nap. Unfortunately, that was not to happen.

A quick press of my suit and some preening (yes, I preen – get over it) and I think I am ready.  It turns out, though, that nothing can prepare you for this kind of experience.

With all of the months of research, interviews, the GMAT and an assortment of neurotic panic attacks, I walked into Owen’s business school building and it all slammed down on me – this is real.

Luckily, I think the feeling placed me in good company.

The general consensus was that we were all having a great time meeting person after person and trying desperately to remember each other’s names. Tips, questions and handshakes flew faster than I had ever seen at any previous networking event.

The verdict? In the words of one of my esteemed co-workers, “It’s a good thing.”