Three Things MBAs Can Learn From The 2008 Election

by Jared on November 5th, 2008

Originally Posted On OwenBloggers.com

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

Be Careful What You Blog About, People May Just Take You Seriously

by Jared on December 15th, 2007

Ever wonder what it would feel like to have one of your best friends calls you up to ask, “did you know you were quoted in Newsweek?” Yeah, now I know.

My friend Steph called me this morning to alert me to the fact that a recent post I did on my business school blog at OwenBloggers.com was quoted in a recent web-article on the word “w00t;”

“But w00t has done just the opposite: it started on the keyboard, made its way into SMS texting, then into writing, until it was finally spoken out loud….”This momentous selection is just another sign that the American lexicon is increasingly defined not by scholars but by raving lunatic bloggers like us,” writes Jared, a blogger on Owenbloggers.com”

Now normally, I don’t consider a ton of what I write to appeal to mass audiences. In fact, the very nature of writing about business and marketing makes me, by default, a niche blogger. That’s exactly why when someone tells me that a popular newsmagazine thinks I am on-point enough to cite, I begin to realize that blogging is a much more powerful tool than most people think.

Think about it, where else would you be able to add “have been quoted in Newsweek” to your list of accomplishments in an interview?

Technorati Tags: blogging, w00t

Op Ed: 20-Something Predictions on the iPhone

by Jared on June 22nd, 2007

With a week to go before the official consumer release of the iPhone, I would like to make a couple of predictions about its initial launch success as well as its long-term viability.

Though I am certainly not a wireless industry expert; based on my experiences as a marketing blogger, a self-confessed Mac-head and most importantly a 20-something, I believe that these predictions are fairly solid. More

Op Ed: Double Tall/Half-Caf Yellow Submarine, Anyone?

by Jared on March 22nd, 2007

Yes people, the downfall of music has begun. AdAge.com reports that Starbucks’ Hear Music Label has signed record producer Paul McCartney after 43 years at Capitol Records as its inaugural artist.

Despite Chairman Howard Schultz’s promises to keep it “about the coffee”, this move seems to confirm what most of us already know for some time now; Starbucks is trying to leverage its massive 9,400 store network into a media distribution network.

With McCartney on board, look for artists of all shapes and colors to undoubtedly sign on to this new venture, doing to decent music what Starbucks has previously done to decent coffee.

You’ll recall Starbucks’ success with that Ray Charles album emboldened them to tap into an apparently undersold adult yuppie music lover too lazy to go to a music store or download iTunes.

Now, I don’t fear this because McCartney’s music sub-par. In fact, I fear it for the exact opposite reason.

We’ve seen how a massive distribution network like Wal-Mart can force suppliers to tailor their products, including shaping media like CD’s & DVD’s. I fear that this new move by Starbucks will only further mar the cultural diversity in this country and zap its creative personality until we are all a bunch of mindless, caffeine-addicted, soft pop-listening sycophants!

That being said, watch this particular blog posting come back to bite me in the {explicative deleted} when I am just getting out of business school, attempting to get a job with them.

Define: Hipocracy

by Jared on March 17th, 2007

See! This is why I am not in political communications; I would shoot myself:

The White House declared its opposition yesterday to a bill that would give the District its first full seat in the House of Representatives, saying it is unconstitutional, and a key Senate supporter said such concerns could kill the measure. (WASHINGTON POST)

If the president is so adamant about the spread of democracy, why in all hell is he opposing the residents of the District of Columbia (who pay more than their fair share of federal income taxes – bty) having representation in Congress?

Taxation without representation = unconstitutional.

‘Nuf Said.

Op Ed: To DRM or not to DRM

by Jared on February 7th, 2007

On this show, contributors have agreed that the single most important development that could benefit marketing technology to 20-somethings is the abolishment of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Yesterday, Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Inc.) openly called for this as the next big step in the evolution of online music sales.

DRM software, in a nutshell, is a protection added onto most music sold online that prevents the user from doing things that would supposedly violate the copyrights of the music producers. The problem with DRM is that is that it also restricts a user to only buy music from those online stores that support that users’ hardware (i.e. Apple iTunes-iPod, Microsoft Zune Store-Zune Player, etc.).

What Jobs is proposing is to eliminate DRM completely, thereby hedging his bets that users of products like the new Microsoft Zune – which can only increase given Apple’s 70% player market share – will generate a net gain by buying their music off of iTunes.

I’d say that this is a good move for Jobs, given the current long-term market conditions he’s facing and his vision for Apple to become a lifestyle company rather than just a computer manufacturer (they even dropped the word Computer from their name).

The one thing I would point out is that this DRM has to be dropped for everything if Apple is to successfully establish sustainable revenue lines beyond its hardware. DRM restrictions have to be dropped on music and TV/movies in order for Apple to win big on this.

My money is on that this is exactly what Jobs is aiming for. He wants to get the music companies to agree to this now and then look for an expanded call for DRM repeals on movies and TV rights just around the time that Wal-Mart goes full force on its online movie sales.

Op Ed: Its official, I’ve reached the bottom of the 20-something, DC dating pool

by Jared on January 12th, 2007

Warning….random personal rant ahead:

Every once in a while, my boss and I hit a patch of conversation where all we do is talk about the lack of depth in the DC dating pool. This most often occurs when I am sick of looking for dates and need to vent and when my boss, well…let’s just say he’s been at this longer than I have so he’s perpetually jaded no matter how full his dance card.

That being said, here’s what we have decided on as the basics of the DC gay dating scene:

1) Gay males in DC come in three different maturity levels; twinkie, oldie, and jaded. (one guess as to which category my boss and I fall under)

2) The first evaluative question in sizing up any date is “what do you do?” It’s the equivalent of the “call” in poker; if you’re bluffing you better be damn good at it to get this right.

3) This city is so small, you know you’ve hit rock bottom when you can ID just about everyone at a random party you get invited to by their match.com/craigslist/myspace/friendster screen names.

Now for the fun part: More

Steve Jobs to Dithering Mac-Addicts: “Can You Hear Me Now?”

by Jared on January 9th, 2007

So, we are now informed that Apple will most likely unveil a new phone today at their Macworld 2007 conference. See Story Here>>

Because this announcement has such broad implications for 20-somethings (c’mon, what 20-something doesn’t want a new cell phone every other month?), though I will not be drooling over my keyboard from 12 PM – 2 PM EST, I will be providing some analysis on the next show. Perhaps I’ll even dish out a second post towards the end of the day if the reactions are really that spectacular.

Before the unveiling, I do have one thing to say about putting such a “killer product” on the market; If Henry Ford taught us anything about quality, its that it is produced from those who seek to specialize their trade and dedicated themselves to the quality of that one specialty.

Jobs might be able to pack all the neat tricks he wants to into this new iPhone (or whatever its going to be called) but don’t be surprised if its quality as a phone is on par with or below that of other “smart phones” (e.g. the Treo).

It’s consumerism versus quality, folks. I love my iPod as much as the next yuppie urbanite but there is a line between buying a product for its functionality and buying a product just because everyone else has it.

Apple has built what can only be described as a brand that all other marketers seek to replicate. It’s so strong, that even the hint of a new product creates demand for it. We’ll just have to see if it performs half as well as we want it to.