Let it Be Known

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Not Soulless, It’s Life

I was having a conversation with a friend of friend the other day and he was asking me about my MBA. It was basically the question “so why an MBA?” As if the MBA is the height of disgust. (This was implied, not explicit.) My answer to him was simple. Because what you learn in business school are lessons that can be applied to the rest of your life. What is business but an institutionalized version of things that we do everyday? The give-and-take, the working together, the borrowing and saving. (i.e. economics, but in a more social context.)
Sure, b-school graduates get a bad rep because they go into finance and build a giant house of cards that collapses to destabilize the economy, then still take their big bonuses.  Yeah, I think we can all agree that those people aren’t heroes.
But understanding business helps you to gain perspective on the decisions you make and the decisions that get made for you. Although b-school trains you to think in dollars and cents about even human lives, more importantly, it teaches you to think about it.  It teaches you how to dissect and evaluate the problem and think about all the parts that go into it.
The analysis may be soulless, but its the person applying it to life that makes it interesting.

I’m Not a Felon

I had a good thing going with this blog. When you put my name into Google, things related to me and only me dominated the results. I’m sure the other Kara McIntosh’s of the world were angry, but unless they wanted to put the time and effort into it, they were just going to fall down in the results.

Then this happens! Some woman in Maryland commits mortgage fraud and suddenly my whole image is tainted. (Not that this post is helping).

Hopefully this will blow over quickly and I can go back to to front page domination.

Hobbies to Rediscover Pt. 2

A while ago I posted about hobbies I wanted to rediscover once every spare second wasn’t spent on studying for that MBA thing.  It’s only been a few weeks since my last exam, but I wanted to give a progress report.

The 5 things I was going to do were: read fiction, practice music, learn French, code and do some photography.

On the fiction front I have been devouring books on tape.  So far I haven’t sat down and actually read a novel, but I did read a book of lectures by Richard Feynman. So on that front, I am becoming a normal person again. (+1 for Kara!)

I did buy sheet music and tried to practice, but damn it was boring.  It’s so hard not to multi-task. I’m sitting at the keyboard doing the same progressions over and over and I get so antsy.  The internet has ruined my concentration.  But, kind of the whole point was to re-learn concentration. So I’m not giving up yet, I will force myself to do something boring and not feel bad about it.  It’s for my own damn good, dammit.  If only school hadn’t been so damn interesting. (-1 for Kara, and damn)

Instead of French, I’ve been trying Spanish.  I’ve got an audio podcast I’ve been listening to and a friend is going to get me a book.  Next step on that is to set up some goals and a game plan to get there (+1 for Kara!)

No coding has yet been done, nor do I have a coding project on the horizon.  I await inspiration. Ditto on the photography, since it is cold and no one wants to see shots of my condo and that’s the place I’ve been hanging out the most. (-2 for Kara)

I’ll give myself a month on these goals, then re-evaluate and see if I need new ones.

What I’m Good At

I just did my last group assingment at MBA school. I think it’s a good time to reflect on what strengths emerged over the course of 2 years. Here they are in reverse order.

5) Cheerleading! – Even after midnight when we had no clue what was going on, my team could rely on me to assure them that they could do it, and they always did.

4) Refocusing conversation when it goes off topic ( but sometimes talking over good ideas) – I can be very focused on the end goal, which is awesome when you know how to get there, but can kill the good ideas that come from wandering conversation. A total trade-off, I’m aware.

3) Talking really fast during the wrap up portion of a presentation ( which is invariably over time) – Hey, I’m a fast talker and I get to the point. Naturally I should be at the end.

2) Organizing the work and dividing up tasks – Once a project manager, always a project manager

And number one….

1) Making slides pretty! – “Line up your text! Stop mixing fonts! Add a picture! Use a graphic!”

Yes, you can see how truly invaluable I was.

p.s. this was a test post of the WordPress app on my iPhone.  Hence the unnecessary picture.

Things I Learned At School

Another thing I’ve learned while doing my MBA is that having understood roles or hierarchies are VERY necessary to get work done. I’m so close to the end and the closer I get, the bossier I get with my groups.

While I’ve learned that authority or respect is never given, it is earned, the short time periods that you work with people at school don’t afford you the time to develop respect and for clear strengths to emerge. Thus, it is in my best interest to just take charge and steer the group where I think they need to go. While sometimes this will hinder the group, it is overall preferable to the wishy-washy uncertainty that happens without a dominant leader. Who’s got the time to fiddle and figure it out?

Proud of This One

Marc and I volunteered to build a website for the building we live in.  It’s built on Wordpress and it’s my first experience with user demands. I had to install 9 plugins to deal with all the requirements.

The funnest thing is the theme, Atahualpa. It has an additional interface where you can customize a lot of the elements that you would normally have to do with code. That was really important to me because at some point I’m going to have to hand this thing off to someone else.

Anyway, check it out.  It’s at 388districtlofts.com

Things I’m Doing to Save Money

Hello, my name is cheapskate.  Sure, I still have as much money as I had before this supposed “recession,” but since it is now de rigeur to be cheap, I’m riding the badwagon to saved money.

1) Making my own lunch.  In my neighbourhood, you cannot go to lunch without spending $10.  In the summer I walk home, but in the winter, laziness usually wins.  Making lunch means more warm time and better food.

2) Non-instant oatmeal. I’m assembling myself.  Bag of dried grains – $8, dried apples bought in bulk – $3, cinnamon – $0 (due to being used in such low quantities), honey – Free at work.  Assemble, put in microwave, voila!  For 28 cents (11/40) it’s cheaper than quaker stuff (which is in the 30-50 cent range), and better for you.

3) Non-canned beans.  As a vegetarian, I eat a lot of beans, so I’m buying them in bulk, soaking them, then cooking them.

4) Making extra.  When I make meals now, I make it a bit bigger, then freeze some.  Saves running out to buy food later.

5) Shopping at Kensington Market.  It’s a hike, but the food is fresh and I can get a week’s worth of groceries for under $30.  It also forces me to focus on fresh food, rather than canned or dried stuff.

Idiom Death

It occurred to me today that there may be some idioms that will naturally die out because they can’t make the transition from verbal speech to text.

Example:

Speaker 1: Let’s call it a premium destination rather than a microsite

Speaker 2: Potato, potato.

Did that make any sense?  No!  But what if I had written:

Speaker 1: Let’s call it a premium destination rather than a microsite

Speaker 2: Po-TAY-toe, po-TAW-toe.

See?  It makes makes sense now.  I was in an instant chat with someone where I went to say “Potato, potato” until I realized how silly it would read.  Another one that I use in speech but can’t in chat is “The us”, short for “the usual”.

I wonder if they’ll survive.  I predict they won’t without some kind of textual intervention.

Productivity Project

Back on my productivity project, I’ve got another tip.  The worst possible place for a task is in your head.  Get it out of your head fast and scheduled to be done so that when the next thing comes along at any moment, your short-term memory isn’t already full.

I like sticky notes which I consolidate periodically. They either go into my calendar, or onto another sticky “to do” list, or into my client contact record, or whatever.  Just out and away.

A cluttered mind is slow, easily stressed and easily confused.