Getting Defensive

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My first MRR defense presentation just finished a couple of hours ago and I'm still in a doozy. I was awake until dawn to make sure my quantitative analyses (QA) were OK. I only got a couple hours of sleep and I drove all the way to the Asian Institute of Management through rush hour traffic and managed to be at the GSB conference room with a few minutes to spare.

The thing with the MRR defense is that it will never be perfect. I had the mistake of thinking I could finish the defense in a razor sharp, clean cut fashion. I was tweaking my presentation up to the last minute before I started. I've never been obsessive about perfecting school stuff, but hey, this is the MRR we're talking about-- the final piece to my MBA puzzle... the big boss at the end of the video game. :P

BTW, my MRR is not the usual strategy paper or feasibility studies most AIM grads accomplish. I did a case series on internet marketing and blogging, with three cases. It was fun doing research about internet marketing and blogging and I learned a lot of interesting stuff (e.g. the Philippines is #2 most active blogging country in the world). I was worried I'd get too technical and jargon-y on the case, but I think I was able to put things in a level it can be appreciated by a bigger set of people.

My first case is about AIM and web analytics. Sounds geeky and not too "b-school", but thanks to my advisers for this case, Prof. Ricky Lim & Prof. Titos Ortigas (I chose them because I think they are the two most technically savviest faculty),  they were able to suggest some changes to make it more appealing to the business school crowd.

My defense was short by our class standards (an hour and a half), and it wasn't as grueling as I thought would be. No slogging and nitpicking, but good feedback to improve the case. I did commit one booboo-- the QA that I spent the night on turned out to be the thing that my advisers disliked the most. Why? Because I got it wrong. Ugh!

All in all, my first MRR defense went pretty well and I feel confident with what I'll do tomorrow for my defense for my two other cases. Wish me luck! :)

Comments

Unknown said…
Thanks Christopher! :)
December 3, 2008 at 3:19 PM
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