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

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

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

“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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According to a recent post on Endgaget; quite a few.

Check out this recent post about an iPhone sighting. Scroll about a third of the way down the page and you’ll see what I mean.

I admit the guy with the iPhone is pretty cute but more interesting is how easy it is to get the fan-bois (intentional, btw) all riled up. Then again, technology AND hot guys? It’s like Christmas and my birthday all rolled into one!

…and yes, this is another post made during a VERY boring Friday.

Catch you guys later!

After years of complaining that others got to work from home and he didn’t, I can’t imagine this offer coming without ulterior motives. After racking my brain, I think I have narrowed it down to a few possibilities. He could want to…

• Get a head start on converting my office into a sauna
• Rifle through my files to see if I am attempting to steal office supplies before I leave.
• Or, he could have just realized I am filling the downtime writing in my blog entries.

Either way, if he is reading this; why would I leave the office? I am having just as much of a ball with my final projects as I have been messing with your mind….come on down, I am making margaritas at 4:00 PM!

Thursday – 12:30 PM…

I am staring at a marketing award application and contemplating how much better it would sound if any of what I was writing was true.

Then, an email came from an ex of mine with this header:

SUBJECT: You crept into my subconscious…

I respect this ex too much to publish the full e-mail but let’s just say this; it was about a very strange dream he had about me running away with his current boyfriend. This was one of those e-mails that just made me sit up and say WTF????

Now, these two have been together for a little more than a year and a half and I consider them both friends however, this is the kind of crazy I just didn’t need today.

Deciding to skip lunch, I went immediately to the gym. I pounded out 35 minutes on the treadmill, returned to the office and am now downing a green tea smoothie. The funny part? I just checked my e-mail and found a similar e-mail from another ex.

Given my morning, I have to conclude three things:

1. Crazy has it in for me, today.
2. I seriously need to re-consider the types of guys I’m dating.
3. If you have a dream about an ex – please keep it to yourself.

The only good thing about this is now the marketing award seems much more appealing for some reason…