Saturday, April 10, 2004
A job, spring break, classes, TA'ing, Dean's house, Perot, Clarke
It's been a while since I've posted any updates. Partly, I've been lazy, and partly, I've been busy. So let me get you all back up to speed.
- The biggest news is that I accepted a job with Acosta Sales & Marketing, the largest consumer packaged goods brokerage in North America. They essentially act as an intermediary between CPGs and retailers, and they also offer a number of marketing services, which is what I'll be working on. I'll be in Boston working as a Category Development Manager. A good part of my time will be working with frequent shopper card data from retailers.
- Spring break was a few weeks ago. I spent time in Rochester, Boston, and New Jersey. It was nice to have a week-long break. I know I'll be having very few of these back in the real world!
- First-half classes ended right after spring break. I only had one half-semester class this time around (Government Regulation). I think it was the right decision to focus on full-semester classes. It's really hard to get deep into a subject in just 7 weeks instead of the normal 14. My only second-half class is the companion to the Government Regulation class, which focuses on developing technologies and regulatory concerns.
- Classes have been good. The workload hasn't been terrible, which is largely due to wise class selection. Data-Driven Marketing has been very interesting, especially since we have a number of projects that are similar to the type of work I'll be doing with Acosta. Negotiations has also been great -- I'm learning a lot of techniques that I've already put to use.
- I'm a TA this semester for Marketing Management (for non-b-school students). I've been learning a lot by being on the other side of the table -- and I appreciate how long it takes to grade papers!!
- The Dean had us to his house in groups of about 25 to talk about the school's five-year plan. The Johnson School is apparently going to position itself as a "general management" school rather than focus on a specific discipline, as some say that Kellogg does with marketing and Wharton with finance. We subsequently got a full-color brochure explaining the plan in marketing-speak. It seems good to plan, but they are talking about it an awful lot and I'm not sure why.
- My former employer, Ross Perot, was honored for his support of the military. He has done a lot that never received much attention, and I'm glad he received such a high honor.
- Richard Clarke has totally captivated me. I haven't been the biggest fan of the Bush II Administration (or the way government works, in general), and his insight has been fascinating.
|| 7:00 PM Eastern
Archive
What does RaceSco mean?
I wanted to call the site "RaceCo" for Race Company, since I was working with some auto racers at the time, but the name was taken. So... I adopted some logic:Race + Scott with "tt" cut off =
RaceSco!
It was close enough. Kevin Yeatts at http://www.kevscorner.com was the inspiration.
