MBAs – What do you get for your money? Hints and tips to make the most of an MBA

I recently blogged on whether I thought my MBA was worth doing (considering the time, cost and opportunity cost investment (here: ‘A reflection on MBA programs – was it worth it?’).  That was very much a personal reflection on my own MBA.

I have also been thinking about MBA costs in a more generic manner, in particular about what it is that you actually get for your money – I’ve structured these thoughts into two levels: (i) what you actually receive, as a student, and (ii) the other costs of providing an MBA program.  Clearly there is a connection between these two categories, but the thought approach is slightly different.

7 things that could define the core of an ‘alternative’ MBA

Both during, and since my MBA there is a topic that has been eating away at me – was there anything missing, or could the experience have been improved by the inclusion of other study topics? Don’t get me wrong, I thought my MBA was excellent, but I’m always looking to see how things might be further improved.

Most MBAs deliver a mixture of core material (finance, economics, accounting, strategy, etc.) and electives (optional topics that are either more niche or are perhaps addressed in greater detail, often relating to a topic that the school is known for being strong at). The elective topics nevertheless tend to revolve around academic content/theory, with case studies to provide a bridge to reality.

Could other topics, which are perhaps not considered as classical MBA topics, be useful additions to an MBA?

Starting a blog – the basics

I’ve had a number of people tell me that what I’ve told them about my early blogging experiences has encouraged them to consider also starting a blog, and for that reason, and now that I am past my first 100 days as a blogger, I thought that I would summarize how to start a blog, based on my own experiences.

The information age – thoughts on how ‘search’ is evolving, and the impact of Google Books

Some commentators say that after the agricultural and industrial ages, we are now in the information age. That may be true – information is everywhere, to the extent that we are almost drowning in it. Websites, blogs, podcasts, webcasts, etc. And that’s only online – on top there are newspapers, books, DVDs, videos, records, tapes, and live performances (unrecorded, and lost forever except in the memories of those present?). Google, and others, are trying to help people search through the world’s information, including now also the information previously not available online.

As part of its goal to help people search through the world’s information Google is digitizing ‘old media’ content so that it can also be searched (Google Books’ Library Project and Partner Program).

10 hints and tips for learning a new language (from my experiences learning German)

I’ve been in Germany now for almost 10 years (the anniversary is a few weeks away yet) and I recently thought that it might be a good time to reflect on what has been successful for me in developing my German language skills (bearing in mind that I had studied German at school in England). I was brought up with English as my native language, and my comments below, on learning a foreign language might be more relevant to English/Anglo-Saxon people, who grow up speaking one of the most commonly spoken languages.

Some days are better than others (but isn’t it great to be alive?!)

Sometimes life can knock you back a step.  In fact, if it doesn’t, it probably means you either don’t know which direction your moving in, or you’re not moving at all. If you want to make progress, then it seems necessary to accept that once in a while you won’t achieve everything that you set out to (it also means that you are probably setting your goals at an appropriately challenging level, such that they are mostly just achievable).

Ensembli – a solution to information overload?

Ensembli is an interesting website which I think starts to look at ‘search’ in a slightly different way. That said, Ensembli doesn’t really sit alongside Google or Bing – it’s different. In some ways it’s more like an RSS reader, in that it brings stories to you as they become available/published.

The best ways to keep informed of new blog posts

So, you like what you see, but the internet is simply too large and you have too little time to keep coming back to see what’s new (if anything)?

There are better ways to follow blog postings than to have to keep re-visiting the blog’s website address:

Hints and tips before your first marathon

First up, these thoughts came to me after my first (and so far only) marathon (last year, Frankfurt marathon: 3:43.36). I don’t claim to be an expert in marathon running, nor are the ideas below guaranteed to work for everyone – they are things that I did (and sometimes didn’t do) that I felt resulted in me completing the marathon inside my goal (sub-4 hours) without too much pain (or at least, I survived).

Now that’s incredible – WordPress blog statistics for July 2009

You can read the statistics here.  I’ve copied a selection of them here (per another ‘Matt’ on wordpress.com) so that I can comment on them:

Here are July’s stats:

• 394,609 blogs were created.
• 5,666,839 posts were published.
• 418,946 new users joined.
• 6,594,795 file uploads.
• 3,762 gigabytes of new files.
• 839 terabytes of content transferred from our datacenters.
• 7,890,707 comments.
• 6,681,646 logins.
• 1,253,217,900 pageviews on WordPress.com, and another 1,289,187,116 on self-hosted blogs (2,542,405,016
  total across all WordPress blogs we track).
• 2,146,576 active blogs where “active” means they got a human visitor.
• 1,419,364,230 words.

Some amazing figures here.  Over 2 million ACTIVE blogs.  Wow. Over 2.5 billion pageviews in a month.  Astounding.