a long and rambling introduction to LGO that seems to go nowhere before somehow suddenly ending

Currently Ms. Duncan is in the third week of school and the second week of classes. Thus, a post on classes is in order but not before we present a general introduction to the program.

In the words of the immortal bob slydell - What would you say ya do here?

Yours truly has been somewhat skeptical of business school in the past partly because of a lack of understanding for what they actually do at business school.*

In regards to this misunderstanding, I present the following dialogue:

Me: Hello Good Sir, off to where are you?***

MBA student: Good Morrow old chap, why I'm off to get an MBA.

Me: An MBA dear sir, at a business school I presume ... what would you say ya do there?

MBA student: Why I suppose I learn about business

Me: Yes, yes, of course, but what do you actually learn

And that's where I get stuck as I don't know how the MBA student responds and as I had a sour opinion of some of my undergraduate friends who got undergraduate business degrees I've always been doubtful that the true answer is anything more than 'buy low, sell high' and 2 years of thinking of other ways to say it.

That skepticism is certainly overly broad and uncalled for - Ms. Duncan is learning some 'rules and tools' of general business here (i don't know exactly what they are yet but I imagine I will over time ... something to do with flow charts i'm sure) - and I do in general respect the case study method (the method generally used for teaching those rules and tools at business schools) something i'll be commenting on later so I will attempt to withold judgement, give benefits of doubt where necessary and to be generally more credulous than sceptic and I advise my skeptical brethren to adopt similar attitudes as we follow our fair friend through her educational journey. Besides which, its not like she went to Harvard business school like our late president (late not as in dead but as in dethroned) - that would just be extraordinarily mockable.

Furthermore Ms. Duncan is not just attending business school but is instead part of the Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program - which bestows both an MBA and Master's of Engineering (in Ms. Duncan's case, in Civil Engineering) - a sort of Navy SEALs of the business school world if you will (and I will). This pleases yours truly immensely as yours truly has never had any disdain for engineering degrees and indeed is quite fond of them and might have gotten one himself if it weren't for the fact that there apparently is some kind of pre-requisite that one be a bore of a writer (I jest ... sort of) or at least not so long-winded as I am accustomed to being.

The current summer session is almost entirely independent of the general MBA courses (which begin in the fall). A brief rundown of the program is in order

Summer 2009 - introductory LGO classes (more on these shortly)

Fall 2009 - MBA intro classes taken with Sloan students (Sloan is the MIT Business school) and some LGO/engineering electives

Spring 2010 - MBA and Engineering electives

Summer and Fall 2010 - Internship (almost certainly unpaid) with LGO program sponsors (Ms. Duncan is hoping for somewhere abroad)

Spring 2011 - MBA and Engineering electives and writing LGO thesis and graduation in May

Voila

As for the current session, it is most deranged. All 47 LGO students take the same 5 classes (Operations Management, Probability and Statistics, High Velocity Organizations, System Optimization and Analysis, and Leadership) which are taught in the same classroom. Since all the students take all the same classes in the same classroom, scheduling these classes is incredibly easy and seems to have been done to please various professors' schedules - as far as I can tell, the classes seem to change times every week depending upon which professor is going to a conference (i'm only slightly exagerrating) - my old profs would be enormously jealous.

We'll try to give each class its own post later (although we'll have to do so in a way that no criticisms can be linked back to Ms. Duncan) but a general note on their operation is in order. Each class is graded on homework (of which their is quite a bit), tests (of which we have yet to be acquainted) and participation. I taught before and I gave participation grades and I can't say that I really treated it that seriously - 80% of the people got a B for participation and 10% who I really noticed got an A and 10% who I didn't notice at all got a C or D. I didn't have a teaching assistant.

In these classes a TA is documenting how many times each person speaks in class and whether or not their comments were cogent or vacuous. This to me seems like a good intention leading to a bad conclusion. They already have 47 highly ambitious type A personalities - do you really need to incentivize speaking up? One wonders how the classes ever end.

But then again, the kettle must not degrade the pot.****

Currently, Ms. Duncan spends most mornings in these classes (9ish-12ish) participating to various degrees of success***** and most afternoons in meetings with her El Giocho comrades discussing the various cases and problems given to them and most evenings doing homework and reading while yours truly is stuck doing the dishes.

*Also for shock at the exorbitant salaries demanded by business school grads and also due to the lack of recognition for luck**. I had my own personal theory related to the salaries that I'm hoping will not come true (as I stand to benefit from said exorbitance) - basically that there was/is a business school graduate bubble powered forward by increasing returns effects and incestuous relationships between the top schools and the top financial companies - basically I was thinking that the eventually the bubble would pop and business school grads were start to be valued at a more realistic level - you know what helps a bubble pop - an economic collapse maybe? - hopefully this isn't going to happen, or at least not for MIT LGO grads. I could expound on this theory (and its many holes) but it would take an article of its own.

**I think of luck as one part tenor of the times and one part RightPlaceRightTime-ness. As proof of the tenor of the times point I offer the current times - a preposterous number of incompetents were wildly successful during the latest bubble - it had nothing to do with their MBAs or their education or experience or keen insight or business acumen and everything to do with temporary collective insanity. As for the other part of luck ... being a student of the economics of science and technology has made me intimately familiar with the importance of advancement in S&T for general societal economic advance and for the success of individual business ... but no amount of technological ingenuity or business intuition can substitute for Being in the Right Place at the Right Time - Bill Gates might be a technical genius and a business mastermind but if IBM had called someone else (as they easily might have) in their search for an early OS neither of these great skills would have led to the mammoth monopoly we see today ... and rest assured, there is always someone else lurking in the shadows with the same basic technology that suffered from a deficient quantity of RightPlaceRightTime-orade - see this 1922 paper on the number of inventions which have been independently invented at the same time

***I had enormous trouble with this sentence - first it was 'where are you off to' but that ended in a preposition and that would not be Proper, so I changed to 'to where are you off', when to my surprise, what should I find at the end of the sentence but another preposition! So I finally changed it to the above formation which I think we can all agree is just stupid.

****One wonders how these posts ever end.

*****If you're not called on, are you supposed to inform the TA that you had your hand up, that you were trying to participate but for reasons outside of your control were prevented from doing so?

joyeux anniversaires

Ms. Duncan and yours truly recently celebrated our birthdays (interspersed by the birthday of mon pere). Ms. Duncan celebrated this honorable occasion at the romantic Pigalle, with pork chops. She profited magnificently from the celebration making out with an MIT sweatshirt, an iPhone and best of all, cette blog*.

In addition, Ms. Duncan and three others in her program with very close birthdays feted (at some point I'm going to have to find out how to insert french accents in these posts) the occasions at a class barbecue. Curiously last week's statistics class included an exercise in calculating the probability of the likelihood of two (or more) members of the same class having an identical birthday - its surprisingly high**.

Yours truly celebrated in a more nerdy way by going to a Shakespeare play - Much Ado About Nothing - during which performance i was pulled onstage so that the drunk character could have someone to whom he could ramble on and ultimately implicate himself. Even better, Ms. Duncan prepared 2 peanut butter pies.

In other non-LGO related activities - there was much biking and some introductory sailing on the Charles River. So far, Boston has been an enjoyable place to celebrate birthdays.

*There's actually a double entendre here - the french "blague" meaning joke - a suitable epigram for this entire exercise

**If I recall from my undergraduate statistics class, the correct way to go about doing this is to calculate the probability that no one shares a birthday (which would be (365*364*...*365-(n-2)*365-(n-1))/(365^n) where n=# of students in the class) and then take that probability and subtract it from 1 - thus for a class of 20, the probability of at least 2 students sharing a birthday is something like 0.41 - relatively close to 50/50.

An interesting point was raised by Ms. Duncan's statistics professor - if the probability surprises us, perhaps we need to reassess our assumptions and realign them in a way that allows us to accept the probability without being surprised. A similar curious point was raised in The Metaphysical Club's discussion of the Howland Will case - a case in which a will forgery was revealed by statistical analysis of handwriting - in 1868. Apparently, the revelation that our actions are somewhat governed by statistical laws or that statistical proof might be superior to human testimony was quite shocking to the 19th century American public. Is it any less shocking now?

Le Commencement

A new approach - brevity.

I switched books - gone is the pompous victorian narrator and enter the intense brooding underclass narrator (i just read White Tiger - a sort of Invisible Man for the Indian underclass) ... not really though.

The first week of Ms. Duncan's program had a not too dissimilar appearance to Peace Corps staging/stage (that last word is correctly pronounced with a french accent - staahhje - training for those non-rpcvs) - lots of flip charts and icebreakers or if not actual flip charts and icebreakers than flip chart icebreaker-esque activities. The most notable perhaps being a game in which a group is supposed to pretend that they have crashed in the artic and they only have time to remove a few items from the helicopter before it sinks. First, people rank the items in order of importance on their own and then they rank them as a group - its supposed to show that you gain by group work. Your money back if you can guess the first item on the list.*

Apparently this is a common businessy activity - for a take on a similar activity conducted at GM that reveals a lot about why they have recently become officially America's largest company (note the ownership apostrophe - and pronounce apostrophe with a french accent if you want to be particularly snotty - as I do) see here.

Another common business activity - teamwork. During the first day, the class was split up into 8 different groups - groups that will doggedly persist throughout the summer semester. Ms. Duncan joined group 8, AKA El Giochos**

Another common business activity - watching Dead Poets Society (as I recall the movie was good but imagine how interesting it would have been if it had been Dead Poet's Society - a sort of melange of zombies the fantastic four - but in verse!). Apparently, the movie is filled with various leadership styles that serve as a useful guiding point for discussion. Also on tap was some war movie that I forget the name of for the moment - as soon as I remember it, i'll edit the post and we'll pretend this memory lapse never happened.

Yet another common business activity - wall climbing and walking around blind folded. The third day took place on an island in the bay that has been appropriated for business bonding purposes. Some of the activities involve being led around by a partner blindfolded (apparently somewhat interminably or so a little birdy tells me) and the climbing of objects (presumably sans blindfold).

Little will be said of the blindfold (as little was seen) but as for the climbing, a petit digression is called for.

Yours truly is a big fan of climbing of objects and if I may brag a little there is a virtually uncountable list of objects that I have had the honor of mounting (mounds, hills, mountains, couches, chairs, countertops, shoulders, diving boards, stairs, elephants, walls, etc.). But Ms. Duncan is entirely unimpressed by such feats of vertical ascension. Now some people might take this as a metaphor - an example if you will that shows that Ms. Duncan is somewhat deficient in the finer points of ambition - i.e. she has no drive to get to the top so to speak. But this would be digging to deep to use another metrically measureable metaphor. I assure you, she is incredibly ambitious - as judged by her entering this program - she just cares little for physically being on top of objects, in particular tall objects. Again, this has nothing to do with any phobias - in fact, as long as I've known her I cannot recall any signs of any clear phobias*** - she is not scared of being on top of objects, rather she is completely indifferent and tall objects require even more time in the mounting, thus her indifference eventually manifests into disdain. Thus, when it came time for her to climb said businessy object with the encouragement of her peers Ms. Duncan went halfway up, declared herself satisfied with this accomplishment (this was almost certainly a lie - a little one, just to feign respect for an activity for which she cared not at all) and jumped off.**** Needless to say, her compatriots were somewhat confused by this behavior and Ms. Duncan did not deign to explain herself.

As for other activities, there was an introduction to case studies, several speakers, building of egg droppers (most passengers sadly did not make it) yada yada yada, and of course - for business schoolers are nothing if not vain - a professional photo shoot.

So much for the brevity.

Before we part dear reader*****, a note on businessy activities and gender for Ms. Duncan is nothing if not the most dedicated of feminists (or vain - see above). It is at least curious that the two movies that were shown had almost all male casts (an all boys school and the military) - to be fair they did show one speech by a female CEO (see - this is what women leaders are like!) - and that of the other prominent business activities, one involved physical activity (climbing of objects) and another involved camping knowledge (ranking of survival tools) and this is to say nothing of the multitude of sports metaphors utilized throughout the week. One wonders how the week would have gone if women ruled the roost.

All in all, an interesting, mostly useful if a little exhausting (8-5 days) introduction to the program.

More to come later on actual classes, living in Boston and the occurence of two days for the celebration of a personally important rotation of the earth around the sun.

*matches - duh. and since this website is free - you get nothing - wah ha ha

**taken from LGO and the hispanic 8 for those who don't want to take the time to think deeply about an existentially meaningless factoid ... one wonders if they call themselves the El Giochos, as in the the Giochos - similar to The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (the the angels angels of anaheim)

***although she still makes me kill all the insects (with apologies to Matt)

****she was attached by a rope to the top so don't get worried that she was injured in the jump

*****it appears that the pompous victorian novelist will persist for a little while

Le Bouleversement

Short version - we move to boston after finishing work and education - we're settling in

Long Version - 

This humble author recently composed a 40 page research paper on the photovoltaics industry (quite entertaining I assure you). During my writing I like to throw in somewhat random literary references and foreign language words and this paper had its share - including the use of "bouleversement". It's one of my favorite french words in that its sound seems to convey its meaning of an overturning - being bowled over or inverted and upturned - a sort of french counterpart to the easily understandable english 'discombabulated'. Unfortunately, it turns out to be an english word as well... harrummph.

Néanmoins (or if you prefer the english, nonetheless*), Ms. Duncan and her handsome SO have certainly experienced quite the bouleversement what with the recent parting from the nation's capital and the voyage to the wicked awesome city on a hill. Ms. Duncan ended her superstar position at Northrop Grumman (she was the superstar, not the position) at the end of the first week of May (there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments and such frivolities at her place d'emploi). Concurrently, the SO concluded his aforementioned research paper (available upon request) - his final labor required for his degree of mastership (why when you get a doctorate, you're referred to as a doctor, but when I get a master's no one refers to me as the master?). We temporarily moved from our southwest efficiency to the house of our lovely former landlords (the illustrious Matt and Rachel), took advantage of visiting parents for an excellent (and expensive) repas (french and old english for meal**), walked across a stage for graduation, went on a cruise***, mailed 7 packages to Boston, and then drove up in gypsy**** style - our tiny but beloved prius packed to the gills.

After the 9 hour trip from DC to Boston via Baltimore, Philidelphia, Trenton, Newark, New York City, New Haven, and Providence (apparently I-95 was created as a contestant for the Guiness book of world records in the category of longest continuous traffic jam - in both the time and distance sub-divisions), we arrived at our humble summer abode (pictures forthcoming) - a sublet***** right above central square in cambridge that was disconcertingly not entirely empty of our landlords' possessions. To the surprise of yours truly, not only did our packages arrive the next day (fully intact - including the bicycle we mailed), but everything actually fit in our apartment with room to spare. Tout le monde est invités de prendre un séjour avec nous dans cette belle ville (you're invited). As for being invited in the fall, we'll wait and see how large the student family housing rooms are.

We've somewhat settled in, we've taken a bike ride to the "beach" (my florida mother scoffed, justifiably at this appellation), we've dined out in a couple of nice restaurants and we've drunk****** at a couple of nice pubs.

We're still lacking in that most precious of commodity (dear friends), but hopefully this will be a temporary malady as we fully intend to force some of our DC friends to move up here (at gunpoint if need be)... alternatively, we could find new friends... harrumph once more.

Up next, an overview of Ms. Duncan's first week at school ... she looked so cute getting onto the bus with her bear-shaped backpack and her cabbage pack kids lunch box.

*if you haven't gathered already, I assure you this will be an endlessly pompous blog

**I really do think some of the pompousness will end when I finish reading Vanity Fair - a 19th century book with a very pompous and overbearing narrator

***the cruise was nice in that we had absolutely no pressing demands for a week (or at least no pressing demands we could do anything about), but it failed to live up to expectations in that we suffered a rocky and rainy voyage down to the bahamas, spent a total of 20 minutes off the boat in the bahamas (alright, it was a little longer than that, but not by much), and we're surrounded by gluttony the likes of which I have not seen since my last trip to the chinese buffet with my fraternity brothers - the second comedien was nice though

****the 42nd longest english non-vowellic word

*****Over the objection of Ms. Duncan I've decided to bring up that somewhat uncouth subject of funds in regards to our living situation for the benefit of those moving to cambridge in the future. For the summer we're paying 1400/month plus utilities plus parking for a one bedroom apartment right above the subway in central square cambridge (and we actually received a discount - our landlords pay 1700/month i think). C'est incroyable!

*****I propose that we abolish drunk as verb form of drink and instead utilize it only as an adjective*******

*******Mostly the footnotes are just to annoy Ms. Duncan

About this blog

Short Version: this blog is about Tyeliah Duncan's LGO experience, ghost written by her SO (significant other)

Long Version:

If you've done any research on the program - and you almost certainly have if you've ended up here - then you must know that the program is intensely time consuming. As such, Tyeliah Duncan (LGO '11) is a little bit too busy to update various readers and/or family members of her progress in the program on a regular basis. Furthermore, Ms. Duncan has gained a significant amount of management experience and has learned the fine art of delegation (thus extending the famous quote sometimes attributed to H. L. Mencken or George Bernard Shaw - "those who can, do; those who can't, teach" - by adding "those who want to make money, delegate" - personally, I prefer the woody allen extension - "those who can't teach, teach PE"). Therefore she has searched near and far for someone to whom she can delegate the fine art of LGO scribe.

She didn't really have to search very far at all. It just so happens that Ms. Duncan has a significant other with a fair amount of time on his hands (what with being grossly underemployed at the moment) and a keen way with words that he wishes to practice on a semi-regular basis in the service of his dearly beloved (I'm reading 19th century english literature so if I happen to stumble into aristocratic tones for a moment, please forgive me - it will only be a temporary phase). Perhaps you've heard of him - he's the noted author of unfinished and unpublished possible classics such as "The Post-Modern Prometheus", "Charlie 'Midas' Brown", or the self-referential "The Writer Becomes a Writer by Writing" (a working title)... Perhaps not.

Nonetheless, it is to this amanuensis that the 'manual' labor or writing goes. Me thinks a brief biography of both principles is in order.

Ms. Tyeliah Elaine Duncan:

Born in OKC, OK; attended 13 different schools in 12 years (not entirely accurate, but close); went to community college in OKC; transferred to Michigan (University Of) and graduated with a BS in Industrial Engineering; served in Peace Corps Burkina Faso as a middle school Math and Biology teacher (met aforementioned significant other in said poor country); worked as in english teacher at Chengdu University of Information Technology in Chengdu, China; worked as Systems Engineer and then Manager Project and Planning Second Class (I'm just making up job titles) with Northrop Grumman in support of the FAA in Washington, DC; currently is attending MIT's LGO program from which she will receive an SM (in Civil Engineering) and an ABM (I'm not sure if MIT gives the MBA degree backwards but I think they do it for everything else) in two years time; has been described as witty (mostly by herself - she finds it funniest when only she gets the joke), extremely intelligent (by yours truly and many others), a true superstar (by her last boss), an excellent manager, a committed feminist ... what else ... oh yes, ambitious, driven, sassy, and occasionally ornery - many have also noted that she has an extremely intelligent, charming and handsome significant other.

Significant Other (henceforth referred to as Peaceful Tiger Mountain ... not really - henceforth referred to as SO):

born in New Orleans where he was schooled in the ancient Dahomian art of Houdou which he infuses into his language to bewitch unsuspecting readers; spent four years in solitude in the Rub'al Khali (the desolate Arabian desert known as the empty quarter) learning the secrets of the pizza sheik (although he took frequent breaks from the solitude to play with his GI Joes); ventured to the American midwest where he joined the viscious St. Louis gang known as the 'Cardinal Nation' and became a master of the ninja weapon the Coltrane Katana (otherwise known as the Saxophone) with which he can deliver sonic death; returned to New Orleans to advance his houdou skills to the next level by immersing himself in the study of Politic Science at the Sacred Temple of the Green Wave; voyaged abroad to the resort country of Burkina Faso (where he met Ms. Duncan) for a year and a of half blissful relaxation; traveled to far east (nothing exotic discovered there); came to houdou capital (washington, DC) where he studied the politics and economics of primitive magic*; infiltrated the confines of the rival gang 'Red Sox Nation.'; the SOs personality need not be described as it will be revealed in his frequently ridiculous writings.

In all seriousness, the SO (me) is pursuing work in the renewable energy industry and will soon have his own website up focusing on news in the solar energy industry.

*From Clarke's 3rd law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"