grad school – year two

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When I started the MBA program, my oldest sister joked that it wasn’t a real graduate program, it was just finishing school for business people. The truth is, I kind of agree with her. It’s not that we don’t learn a lot. We do. But it is a type of finishing school. Of course, that may be because my focus is on the “soft skills”. Although, the fact that the skills are soft does not mean that acquiring them is easy for everyone, as I’m discovering. I thought most of these skills would be intuitive. Such is not the case.

So, here is a list of things that I am learning in “finishing school”:
  1. Thank you notes are very important. Writing them properly is less important, but spelling names correctly is…and lots of people misspell names.
  2. Leadership is not intuitive for most people.
  3. You should think before you speak. If you don’t think about you’re audience, you are going to be surprised by how you offend people. If you do think about you’re audience, you will still offend people. You just won’t be surprised by it.
  4. People like to joke about HR (think Toby from “The Office”) and it would be easy to get offended. To those people I say, “Just remember who had job offers and how many they had.” (Oh, and if anyone thinks that I’m like Toby, just try working with me.)
  5. Feedback really is a gift. And I am like, the best gift giver EVER. Oh, and when someone says, “I’d like some feedback on…” it’s a good idea to clarify what the person actually means. The question I like to ask is this: “So, when you say you want feedback, do you mean that you actually want me to tell you what I think, or do you just want me to give you a little ‘pat on the head’ and say ‘good job’?” And admittedly, I admire people who ask for a ‘pat on the head’ as much as those who want the real deal. I always admire honesty and self-awareness.
  6. Which brings me to self-awareness. I have been amazed to learn about the incredible lack of self-awareness that exists among the general population. On that same note, I have been equally amazed to learn the extent to which I am self-aware and that it probably merits some therapy (or a lot of therapy).
  7. Networking is an art. Some people are naturally gifted. Some really have to work at. But there are rules that we all need to learn.
  8. Decision making should involve some kind of strategy and end goal.
  9. Everything is negotiable…but not unless you actually know how and what to negotiate.
  10. Graduate school is way better than undergrad. It is making those four (or six?) years of college totally worth the effort (and by effort, I mean showing up for tests when I wasn’t skiing).
Yes, I am learning more than just the finishing school stuff, but the ins and outs of organizational structures, Kotter’s Leading Change model, McKinsey’s 7-S model, etc, just didn’t seem like they’d appeal to the five or so people who still check my blog. Or at least, not without a lot of explanation, and I don’t want my blog to feel like homework.

quick update…

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So, I know I’m a crappy blogger. I have lots of excuses about why this is, but this post isn’t about that. What this post is about is the decision that I made official this morning.

Starting in July of next year, I will officially be a New Yorker!!! I just accepted the offer for full-time employment with the company that I interned with this summer.

a photo shoot with some visitors of the kansas variety

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First of all, how have I not blogged in almost three weeks? Okay, I know the answer to that question, but sad.

Second, and more importantly…these three lovely people were in town this weekend, so this morning we had a little photo shoot. I always get super nervous taking pictures for people when they actually hope one is going to turn out…but thankfully, I got a lot of cute shots. Here are a couple of them. And I’m not saying are my absolute favorites, but they were the quickest to get edited and up on the blog.

P.S. I’m not sure why these look so pixelated, but sleep is at a premium these days, so I’m not going to worry about it.
P.S. #2 The actions I used are Pioneer Woman’s Old West (I customized it) and Pioneer Woman’s Quick Edge Burn

Can pornography be made unpopular?

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This is a repost from a blog belonging to a friend of mine. I rarely get into morals on my blog, but this is something that I think is really important and I was excited to read it and find an organization that’s approaching the problem in such a thoughtful way.

My friend Cam has started a cause called Fight the New Drug (FTND). That “New Drug” is pornography, and their approach parallels the fight against tobacco.

This is about changing the messaging. For example, if smoking is a way to rebel against authority, then parents and medical experts saying Don’t smoke!only reinforces the rebellion. But if smoking is succumbing to executives at Big Tobacco, then smoking isn’t a form of rebellion at all, it’s a form of conformity. What rebellious kid wants to conform to Big Tobacco executives? That’s the message of The Truth campaign.

Become a Fighter - Fight the New Drug

Fight the New Drug

Imagine a similar change of messaging around pornography: Pornography isn’t glamorous, it isn’t sexy. Love and romance without pornography is glamorous and sexy. By making the negative externalities of pornography more visible, it would become less appealing. While organizations like CP80and Lighted Candle Society fight the supply-side of pornography, FTND fights the demand-side.

I’m very excited about this approach.

Mary Eberstadt at Stanford’s Hoover Institution calls pornography the “new tobacco” and said:

Yesterday, smoking was considered unremarkable in a moral sense, whereas pornography was widely considered disgusting and wrong — including even by people who consumed it. Today, as a general rule, just the reverse is true. Now it is pornography that is widely (though not universally) said to be value-free, whereas smoking is widely considered disgusting and wrong — including even by many smokers.

Can we change minds again?

Columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez said:

…I’ve been flashing back to something Traci Lords once said: “I have to thank Ed Meese for saving my life.” At 18, her career as a porn star ended in a federal raid. How many Tracis are on a computer near you today? And who else is porn harming? It’s a question that our society — which in its rhetoric and culture says it cares about women and children and lives and love — needs to grapple with. If Eberstadt’s comparison is right, the time [is] coming. The shrugs will cease. Yet I hope the turnaround comes, not because the government has made porn highly inconvenient, but because we have decided we want something better. (Smoking Is Out, Porn Is In.)

Seth Godin said you can’t fight an ideavirus (”pornography is okay”) by “challenging the medium in which it spreads.” Instead, you must counter “one ideavirus with another one.”

You don’t counter racism by making the act of uttering racist statements against the law. You do it by spreading an idea (racism is hateful, wrong and stupid) that keeps the racist from expressing his ideas because all his friends will shun him if he does. (“Thinking about this war”.)

Here is some of the FTND messaging, paraphrased:

1. Educate people about the negative effects of pornography and let them choose their pornography involvement for themselves. We do not contest the legality to produce pornographic material.

2. Just because it’s legal to smoke cigarettes, doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Similarly, porn can have devastating effects on you and your loved ones.

3. Although pornography consumption can lead to powerful addictive behaviors, we don’t contest people’s right to view it.

4. People need to be educated about the negative effects of pornography on individuals, families and businesses.

5. We fight against the demand for pornography. Through education, we believe people will no longer want to use porn and those with addictive behavior will seek help from professionals.

6. People addicted to porn often feel they have no options. We’re letting people know that they have a choice.

7. We want to infuse more sexiness into the world. Two committed people together — that is sexy. A lonely, addicted person sitting in front of a computer is not sexy.

Please make a $10 donation to FTND to become a “fighter”. Ten dollars from 1,000 people is better than $10,000 from 1 person. The money will be used to develop messaging campaigns to fight the demand for pornography. This will be a grass-roots movement to make pornography unpopular.

I’ve put in my $10 and I’m hoping many, many more friends will as well.

And, like my friend Richard, I have also made my donation.


sometimes…

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This post could also be called “Confessions of a Wannabe New Yorker.”

Sometimes…on the train, if someone was standing just a little too close to me (not when he or she couldn’t help it, of course), I would turn away from the person with just enough force to throw my handbag right into their stomach.
Sometimes…when people (mainly tourists) were walking just a little too slowly, I would sweep past them without even attempting to not slam into them just a bit.
Sometimes…even if I had every intention of standing (on the right) of an escalator so I could get in one more page of Atlas Shrugged before work, I would start walking (on the left) if I saw that someone was standing on the left just so I could ask tell the person to move over. And sometimes…I’d roll my eyes at the person.
Sometimes…when a person was not paying attention to where his/her dog was walking (as in leash stretched across the sidewalk) I would walk right where his/her dog would be right in my way…even if I could easily go around.
Sometimes…when I got home and people were sitting on my stoop, and therefore had to move so I could get into my building, I would take my sweet time getting my keys out. And sometimes…I would decide that was a perfect time to text message Kelly or Sarah.
KP, did I forget any?
Just so you all know, I did lots of nice things too, like give people directions and when it was obvious that they were geographically challenged (and sometimes more than just geographically) I would actually walk with them to wherever they were going or get them on the right train or the right street.
However, you can now see why some people don’t like me.