The AIM Blogger

Yesterday, in the Online Marketing elective class I'm co-teaching with Prof. Richard Cruz and Prof. Titos Ortigas, one of the cases I wrote for my Management Research Report (MRR) was tested.(As you may well know, the Asian Institute of Management utilizes the Case Method it borrows from Harvard and newly-written cases must be tested before they are released) While I was primarily an observer during the class session, deferring Prof. Ortigas' experience in leading case discussions, I felt a sense of satisfaction as I saw the class discuss the case I labored over during the last months of my MBA stint. I guess this feeling is common to all folks who come up with creative or intellectual works, like the feeling you get when an essay you wrote gets published, or when people hum a song you've written. (In my case it's when the members of the class use the words the words I wrote, or debate over the points I raised). It feels weird really, somehow ironic, since I...

By "it," I'm referring to my Management Research Report  (MRR). Yes, it's done, revisions, teaching notes, printed copy, electronic version and all. It has been signed by my MRR advisers as well. Well... not all of my advisers yet--  Prof. Ricky Lim is out of town and will be back tomorrow, but there were instructions that I could already have my clearance papers for the MBA program processed. Speaking of my clearance papers, I started getting it processed two weeks ago. Like most schools, students must secure clearance from the various units, like the library, dormitory, accounting, etc. in order to graduate and claim the diploma. With the sign-off from the MBA program, I went to the Student Services, Admissions and Registration (SSAR) to obtain my final clearance requirements. And with that, I was done. :D To be honest, it still has not sunk in my mind that I'm virtually done with my MBA.Maybe it's because I just finished everything a couple of hours...

If the MBA program at the Asian Institute of Management was a grueling marathon (sometimes I think it really is), I have reached the finish line. Roughly five hours ago, I finished my second MRR defense presentation for my case about blog marketing at SM Hypermarket . My panel composed of Prof. Ricky Lim and Prof. Jun Borromeo didn't give me much of a hard time because of the experimental nature of my case. On the suggestion of Prof. Borromeo, my case actually ended up as a case about blogging written as a blog, written by a blogger. Sounds confusing? Yeah, at some point at I got confused myself. But I thankfully I was to pull it off. I learned my lesson from my first defense presentation yesterday . Instead of stressing so much on the presentation itself, I just made sure my case was functional (since it's essentially a web application) and just came up with a basic presentation. I got more sleep and ultimately felt better during the presentation. So that's a tip: g...

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 abou...

Well, more like a couple of dates. This is written prominently in my schedule: November 27 & 28, 2008. 10am, GSB Conference Room, Asian Institute of Management . The reason why those two dates are very important? They are my MRR defense dates. I'm having two defense dates because I have two sets of advisers for the cases I've written. After stressing about whether or not I'll make the December 5 deadline for the MRR because of conflicts in my advisers' schedules , I breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when I learned I got a defense date from my advisers' secretaries. (Never mind of the date was much earlier than expected). My calendar has been marked, and preparations for the defense are well under way. I hope things go well.

While I've been utterly busy with my MRR lately, I realized a few days ago that finishing the MRR is not the final step to graduating with my MBA degree from the Asian Institute of Management  and I may not be able to do that final step in time. That final step is the MRR defense. I was coordinating with my MRR advisers late last week and I discovered that my advisers do not have common time together until December 7. The deadline for the MRR defenses? December 5. Ugh*! (For the MRR, MBA students are required to have two mentors and they have to be together when you defend your thesis.) The secretaries are trying to arrange a schedule with an earlier date where one of my mentors will be attending my defense via a teleconference. I'm not sure if this ever was done before, but the prospects of not marching during the graduation rites is already adding a great deal of stress from the accomplishing the MRR. I talked to Prof. Larry Tan in the morning to share my plight abou...

Yep, I'm now in panic mode as the MRR deadline is fast approaching. I've had a lot of progress in my MRR, but I still have to finish and defend it. To date, there are around 25 people in our MBA class have finished their respective reports and have defended it (some people still had to revise their papers). But they are virtually waiting for their diplomas this December. Speaking of MRR defenses, last night one group were grilled for more than eight, yes eight, hours to defend their thesis. (Well, any defense with Prof. Richard Cruz and Prof. Titos Ortigas in the panel will be at least four hours.) I believe that group set the new record. As for me, I'll be spending the next couple of weeks being an MRR hermit. This may mean blogging may be slower than usual. :) -- As for the people who are already finished, most of them are taking their time to enjoy their last weeks at the Asian Institute of Management . One of my classmates, Nikhil Bansal, was able to make a nic...

It's that time of the year for MBA seniors at the Asian Institute of Management : hot coffee is your drink of choice, you wear your jacket or sweater for the chilly air in the library, and the atmosphere of busyness. It sounds like Christmas, but it's really the MRR season coming to its peak. Everyone in our class seems to be in any of these scenarios: There are folks who are finished with their defense (good for you!), there are those who are almost finished and there are just some who are back from scratch after a massive revision order from their advisers (oh the agony!). We may all be in different situations right now, but we all want to be marching to the stage and getting our MBA diplomas when graduation day comes. So, this is really no time to be lackadaisical, unless you want to have an unwanted extended stay in school. That's why I've been spending a lot of time on my MRR as of late. One final thought: I've been avoiding to log in to Yahoo Messeng...

Note: This post is a follow-up to the Case Writing Workshop that started yesterday . Today's sessions at the Case Writing Workshop earlier were shorter and only consisted of two spots with Professors Gaby Mendoza and Mario "Mayo" Lopez but they were very filled with substance. The morning session was a presentation and critique of our case plans and outlines and I presented my outline for one of the cases in my Management Research Report  and thankfully it wasn't slammed by Prof. Mendoza. The afternoon session with Prof. Lopez was a more practical sharing/story-telling time as he shared his war stories of writing cases under James Culliton and other pioneers of the Asian Institute of Management . The workshop over-all had a tremendous impact on me in terms of my appreciation of the Case Method and the whole deal about writing cases. I also had a small epiphany on one of the reasons why I decided to do a case writing project for my MRR-- I realized that I wanted...

One of my advisers for my Management Research Report  (MRR), Prof. Jun Borromeo, required... er... invited me to join a special workshop for case writing pool of the Asian Institute of Management . As you may know, I'm taking the path least taken (or is it path of least resistance?) by writing cases for my MRR, as opposed to writing a strategic management paper for my thesis. All things considered, I think the Case Series writing option suits my strengths and gives me enough flexibility. Besides, I really think I can come up with cases that can maximize the Case Method used in AIM. The workshop kicked off with a case discussion with another mentor of mine, Prof. Ricky Lim . We discussed how the Case Method works from a pedagogical perspective and it was revelation. You know those moments in a movie where there's a big reveal, like say in Vertigo  or The Sixth Sense where everything unraveled when the truth was uncovered? I had that feeling because after learning how the ...

The theme these days is the glaring difference in the MBA life I'm leading today compared to last year. The best example is today, Friday. But what's with Fridays, anyway? One year ago, Friday was notorious for being the day our class had to accomplish our individual Written Analysis of Cases (WACs). It was a test in a lot respects, all right. WACs tested your stamina, energy, your decision-making and your drive to accomplish something. The approach was like a mission Jim Phelps would get in Mission: Impossible -- You had 15 hours to write a paper or else you get a zilch, as simple as that. It also meant that your social life was virtually suspended in limbo. For our electives term that started more than two months ago, Fridays are now designated as our "MRR Day," or a free day for us to do things related to our Management Research Report -- and that usually meant doing research on various data sources, going to our proponents' offices to do interviews...

So much for a smooth-sailing Management Research Report (MRR). I hit a snag when I got a very ironclad Non-Disclosure Agreement from my initial proponent-- there was a confidentiality period of five years. One of my advisers, Prof. Jun Borromeo, said that such terms is not feasible for a case series MRR because the case that I will write will no longer be that relevant in that time. Ideally, cases should be released as soon as possible, especially when the management issue in focus is very timely. (In my case, I'll be writing about online marketing). So what did I do? I immediately ran my Plan B-- which ironically was my initial idea for my MRR. I got to the phone and called up a few contacts and voila! My new MRR topic was in motion. I had to improvise here and there so that things would fall snugly into place. However, there are still some issues to be resolved like the consent of the companies I'm writing about, but I do hope I don't need to pull out my Plan C. -...

The natural order in the life of an 16-month MBA student at the Asian Institute of Management is: Core subjects - 8 months Action Consultancy (AC) - 2 months Electives - 5 months Management Research Report (MRR) - 6 months (5 months overlap with the Electives, 1 month for MRR defense) Currently, our MBA batch is in the Electives and MRR period. In previous batches, people had ample time to prepare for the MRR, which includes a separate break to do research, data gathering, analysis and some writing. But considering that the school removed a considerable amount of time to do those things in shortening the previous 24-month MBA program, the MRR has evloved a bit to suit the new prorgam schedules and changing global demands. The MRR was defined as "a major original work by AIM MBA candidates. Through the MRR, students are expected to apply knowledge and skills to actual managerial problems. The final deliverable is a thesis-like document that must be accepted as a final hu...