Jeremy Lin

I must admit, I am really excited about this guy and a lot of it has to do with him being Asian American and that he is a Warrior.  He also went to Harvard!

I can haz cheezburger?

I know I should be blogging about Google's impending entrance into social media or Disney's acquisition of Playdom despite slowing numbers for social media. That will have to go on the back burner for now.

I want to write about my favorite burger places today. I just came back from Los Angeles where I had possibly the most tasty burger of my life at Umami Burger. But I dine for the overall experience how would Umami Burger stack up to other burger places I have been to? I thought about this for a while and could not come to a conclusion without quantifying it. For this I created a spreadsheet of my favorite burger places that took the my individual ratings for taste, presentation and ambiance and the overall Yelp rating that the restaurant gets. I weighted to topics in order of importance and averaged the burgers score. I also wanted to know what type of value I am getting so I divided the burger score by the price. My methodology runs deeper but I don't want to get bogged down too much in the process.

I also added my friend Kent's burger in for fun and projected a possible price for him as well.

Cost

• 1 pound ground beef: 5.99
• Buns and Condiments: 2.00
• Total Ingredients: 7.99

Breakdown

• Makes 4 burgers
• Cost per burger: 2.00
• Projected Overhead per burger: 5.00
• Total Projected Cost per burger 7.00
• @ projected 30% mark up: 9.09

Criteria for selection:

• Burger cannot cost more than $15
• Less than 10 locations
• I must have devoured it

My Results:

Weighted Average = (Taste*4+Presentation*3+Ambiance*2+Yelp Rating*2) / 4

Despite my ultimate enjoyment of the Umami Burger, it appears that for the overall experience, Slow Club ranks higher. Good news, Slow Club is much closer, bad news, I will still miss Umami. Shake Shack is also a viable contender for those on the east coast. What I like about this place is despite lacking in presentation, you can take this burger down the street and eat in Central Park. My friend Kent's burger is also in the mix but you need a private invitation...sorry. There isn't really a big until Brickhouse, which is what I suspected, since that is really where I experienced a noticeable drop in taste. Gordon Biersch, Vals and Smokehouse lag significantly in overall experience and this tells me that I should avoid these places if money wasn't an issue.

However, money is an issue so I also want to know the value I am receiving.

Value = Weighted Average / Burger Price

Now the burger from Slow Club isn't looking so good anymore. In fact, Shake Shack's 7 dollar burger is overwhelmingly the best deal. Unfortunately, they are now 3,000 miles away. Smokehouses $4 burger pushes them into the number two spot, which makes a solid case to go out and have a burger from them. Kent takes third again, which means he may want to consider quitting his job and open a burger shop instead. In the mean time, I need to find ways to convince him to invite me over for more burgers. There are two sizable drop offs of .3 or more. The first between Shake Shack and Smokehouse. It appears that Shake Shack just has an awesome burger/experience. The second between Umami Burger and Father's Office, so whenever I am in the LA area, you can find me at Umami. Once again, Gordon Biersch is in the cellar so I will not be ordering burgers from them anymore.

* I used the McDonalds Big Mac as a reference because I wanted to see if there was really any value in going to a fast food restaurant. The answer is no!

What I learned from this:

• Umami Burger although still very good doesn't offer me the best experience.
• Kent needs to make more burgers
• I should continue to patronize Slow Club, Umami, and Shake Shack when I want a good burger experience in each respective city.
• I should continue to patronize Shake Shack, Smokehouse, and Umami when I want a good value.
• No more Gordon Biersch, Fathers Office or Vals for me.
• There is absolutely no case for going to McDonalds

TED Video - Matt Ridley

I was spending yet another exciting night watching TED videos when I came across this video. Naturally the title was intriguing but what this guy has to say is very insightful.



The escalation of our standard of living is based on sharing of ideas and innovations. Hunters can be hunters and gathers can be gathers and then they can trade resources. In this example Ridley points out that each individual can be specialists and become experts in their tasks.

Extrapolate Ridley's presentation to the current trend in technology, social media, and think of how fast the "sexual relations" of ideas can spread. Through blogging, micro blogging, videos, etc... users can easily learn innovations, cultures, and ideas they otherwise wouldn't be exposed to. This has sped up the waves of innovation as products have reached maturity more quickly, forcing companies to release newer products more frequently. Companies that do not, may fall victim to the proverbial "Frog in the boiling pot."

How games become viral

Lately I have done a lot of research into social gaming and what I have noticed is that many of these games have similar features. Farmville is like Farmtown and surprisingly enough, Mafia Wars and Sorority Life are very similar too. Yet Farmville has 64 million monthly active uniques and Farmtown only has 6 million. So what makes some of these games more popular than others?

The whole gaming environment has changed since the introduction of these social media games. Whereas, just a few years ago, games were popular if they were detailed, realistic and challenging. The introduction of social gaming has opened the market from 15-35 year old males to 15-60 year old males and females. Now the traditional games have become the niche and social media games have become the core.

What social media games did was create games that are easy to understand, engaging and takes very little time. Additionally, it seems the more complex the game is, the less viral it is. EA Sports FIFA should be getting a lot of traction right now, given the world cup and the marketing push by Playfish/EA. Yet their active users have started to level off at 2 million over the past week. It's not a complicated game but I feel you need to know who some of these players are in order to be really good at it. Games like Farmville reach a broader audience because practically everybody knows the basics of farming.

What makes Farmville more viral than Farmtown is that Zynga has been more effective at positioning their product. The games are naturally engaging to an extent but after a few hours it can become boring. Farmville tends to get users to invite friends earlier before the novelty has worn off. This effect engages the user even more because then it becomes a competition amongst friends.

In sum, if you create a game that is fun, easy to use, relatable and engaging, your game is positioned for virality. Now you must figure out how to monetize that....

The Final Days...

I have exactly one more night left in State College and then my MBA career will officially be over. It didn't hit me until I saw the slide show of the past 2 years of our lives. It's crazy to think how close my friends and I have become and how much we have grown (probably more socially rather than professionally).

Below are some experiences that has helped shape my MBA career and that I hold dearly. I am very fortunate to have experienced all that I have over the past 2 years:

Inaugural Party at Phillips - Walking into his Copper Beach house, I felt a sense of uneasiness because I was meeting everybody for the first time. Questions of whether they would like me and whether I would be accepted danced in my head.... and then I met Phillip, a fellow Niner fan! Although we disagree on the greatness of Joe Montana, I always had a friend to talk about my favorite team.

Purdue Case Competition - Between the first and second Mod, I entered a marketing case competition with 3 other first year MBA students, Sneha, Ilya, and Prashant. We drove 9 hours to Purdue to compete in a 5 hour long analysis, followed by a 30 minute presentation. Nonetheless it was an exhilarating experience in which we thought we totally blew it but to the contrary we took second, which extended our trip to Purdue a night so that we could celebrate with the Notre Dame team that came in first. Here is the blog post that I wrote.

Monday Night Football - Every Monday I drove to Scotts to watch Monday night football. The evening was filled with beer and wings from Wings over Happy Valley while we watched football with our computers doing "homework." Sampson, the dog that I dubbed the most disobedient dog I have ever met always tried to eat our food and eventually we would have to lock him in the bathroom.

San Franciscans in State College - In November, my friends Tyler, Kate, Deborah, and my girlfriend Lena, visited me in State College. The weekend entailed Deb taking down 5 Guys, 1 dollar beers at Tony's, and a football game in the rain. It was great having my friends visit all the way from California. I appreciate all of your support!

Prague - Our global immersion trip landed us in Prague where we drank every night and struggled to stay away during the day. I will always remember going to get coffee with Eleazar and the bus leaving without us. When they turned around to pick us up, the coordinator was not pleased with us. I also drank Absinthe for the first time and in opposition to what Jared says, that stuff tastes like shit.

Polartec - My summer internship consisted of my driving Margret and June around. Funny how Polartec did not mention that in my job description. They also failed to mention that Margret would make numerous attempts to donate my car to a local charity. The summer was filled with weekend trips to various New England destinations. I felt like a Vanderbilt, except for the whole asian thing, when I visited Newport. We also found a new job for June, a lobster saleswoman.

The rise of Choco - His real name is chocolate but facebook would not let me create an account with the name chocolate. He is a stuffed animal that Minaz won at Hershey Park and we took so many pictures of him that I created a facebook page. On a side note, I have never seen so many people afraid of a ferris wheel. You know who you are!!! cough* Varun! cough*

Weekly Ale House Trips - During the second year, the Ale House became a staple for my group of friends but honestly, how could it not when they offer 1 dollar blue moons for happy hour. Always great to see Blair order 15 blue moons right before happy hour ended, which worked great for Yvonne because she drank nothing but blue moon! Unfortunately for Nick and DJ, their girlfriends eventually quit the Ale House and were never heard from again. Conversations at the Ale House usually centered around several crushes on a several professors, imitations of fellow hand waving MBA's, and funneling down a three point speech.

Stanford Innovation - The theme was to create a video that showed how to make saving money fun. The team, consisting of Oscar, Natasha, Hector and myself, came up with a game to save on energy, water and gas. We were semi-finalists but unfortunately did not win. The video

AAMBA - The Asian American MBA conference was loosely a disguise to go to New York. Had a great time the night before, when I met up with Patrick (Patty Cakes as Richard would like to say) had bon chon chicken (53rd and 6th Chicken and Rice is better drunk food) and drank way too much. Conference was still useful, not too many companies that I was interested in but got to talk to Pepsi (only because I think their CEO is awesome), and Tmobile.

U2 in New York - Had a great time seeing U2 for the first time. Drove up with Kaushal (btw, thanks for all the rides to NYC) the day of the concert. Her aunt makes awesome food. If any of you are ever in the New Jersey area, I highly recommend it. The Concert was awesome! The Muse opened and even though I was never huge fan, they are great live. U2 was great, mixing a lot of their newer stuff with a lot of their older stuff. A bit theatrical at times but one of the best concerts I have been to.

Net Impact Leadership Conference - This event was held in Ithaca so naturally I had to call up my buddy Patrick to party while I was there. Sure it made listening to the lecturers a bit harder when I'm just trying to stay awake but I got the jist. ...be an agent for sustainable change,...community banks are great in theory but don't work,....invest in companies with a green focus!

Net Impact Case Competition - Our "controversial" entrance into the case competition was already an omen but a great experience even though it was the only case competition my team didn't place in. The team, Ryan, Rob and Christy worked tirelessly over the Thanksgiving break to learn about urban farming and sustainable farming methods to present a solution to the impending food shortage. Whether I believe there will actually be a food shortage as population rises is one thing but it's always great to find creative ways to improve the environment.

Duke MBA Games - I was a late addition onto the team but I'm glad I joined. Our Penn State team together raised over 4,500 dollars, over twice as much as any other school. Lots of fun watching Hector hurl a briefcase 4o yards, doing the crab walk relay race, and watching the dizzy bat participants try to maintain their composure.

Tailgating in the Nittany Gardens Parking Lot - Finally, the day of my move, the movers were 4 hours late and what I thought would take 2 hours took 5. So because I was missing own going away party, my buddies, Rob and Eleazar got beers and we drank in the parking lot while the movers moved. Nothing like a nice warm beer on a warm night.... I did finally make it to my going away at 1 in the morning.

Thank you all for the great times! Looking forward to the reunion in Austin for South by Southwest!

Topics in Entrepreneurship

Last week I had the good fortune of sitting in on the thought pieces presented by Professor Garud's 1st year entrepreneurship class. The topics were very unique and very intellectually stimulating. Needless to say, I learned a lot.

Some general thoughts as I heard the presentations:

Bootstrapping using viral marketing - Viral marketing is a very powerful tool but it has the possibility to be very dangerous as well. Two thoughts on this matter, with the proliferation of viral marketing, it will eventually lose its effectiveness. In the future, entrepreneurs need to innovate the way viral marketing is done. By this, I mean, the fun, engaging, personal form of viral marketing will evolve. What is important to understand, is what characteristics will be transferable and which will not.

Secondly, viral marketing can emulate the wrong message. Consider Molson's attempt to use social media and attract a younger audience. Their campaign attracted underage drinking and excessive drinking. 2 traits that are obviously frowned upon and a movement away from their brand image. Controlling brand image will get a lot harder.

Ecopreneurship- Solid presentation on a controversial topic. In order for this trend to take off, education on global warming and alternative forms of energy need to be enhanced. Maybe this topic could be linked with viral marketing to promote awareness.

Ecopreneurs should also understand that once the demand that they create is established, larger corporations like Chevron will enter the market. Either by acquisition or by research and development.

Institutional Entrepreneurs-Very applicable to the majority of the students as they will likely join an institution and will need to find ways to become innovative. Process innovation may be more applicable and easier to implement rather than product innovation. There are only so many companies like Apple and Sony who value innovation.

Social Entrepreneurship- On a side note, its encouraging to see so many individuals interested in social issues. What social entrepreneurs must realize is that while it is nice to do social good, their ultimate goal is to be sustainable. Community banks are a great idea but because they aren't profit motivated, they are at a higher risk to default. Thus there is the proverbial balancing act between social good and profit maximization.

The Case for Paddington

In the 1950's a small bear traveled from darkest Peru to Paddington Station in London. He was met by Mr. and Mrs. Brown and all he had was a brown suitcase and sign that read, "Please look after this bear. Thank You!"











Now before I infringe on copy right issues, I will stop there. Growing up, my girlfriend hated this bear! Despised him! He was always getting into trouble and causing mischief she says. "Stupid Bear!" This pains me very much and could be a deal breaker in our relationship in the future (kidding Lena). Paddington is soooo adorable and how can she be so angry at something so cute.

Yes I am pandering to his looks but it's not totally his fault that he gets into so much "mischief." It's not so much that Paddington is a bad bear but that he is becoming acclimated to his new environment. Peter Drucker once said that if a person does not perform in an environment, the organization has made the mistake, not the person. Paddington could very well be a well behaved bear in his own right. Furthermore, Paddington is a very polite bear, he always address' others by Mr., Mrs., Sir, etc. These are words many of us don't hear anymore in modern society.

Drucker has it right though, for Paddington, it's not that he was a bad bear, its that he wasn't given the understanding of social norms in London. He doesn't know the new technologies and may at times misuse these technologies. It can be argued that if Mr. and Mrs. Brown taught Paddington social norms, he would have been better off and my girlfriend would not think Paddington was such a stupid bear. In this case, the Browns have a stake in Paddington's mischief.

Barcelona

My recent trip to Barcelona was filled with great food and great friends. The environment was exciting and fun and we did what we could to assimilate into the Catalonian culture. Spain has always been a destination that I have always wanted to visit and Barcelona seemed to be ideal given my love of food and my need for sun. The former satisfied my needs the, later....not as much as I would have hoped as it snowed the last day that we were there.


The local culture is practically the polar opposite of the United States. They eat dinner from 1030 to 130, they take mid day naps and sometimes shut their stores down after lunch for a few hours. Highly unconventional to the typical lifestyle of an American, in bed by 11, work from 9-? eat dinner, and go to sleep. It appears that the lifestyle of the typical American is centered around his job while the lifestyle of a Catalonian is centered around friends and family. You don't see the proliferation of fast food joints in Barcelona as you do in the US and when you order coffee, it's considered odd/rude to take that coffee to go whereas in the US they serve you a togo cup unless otherwise specified. Food in Barcelona is amazing at almost any venue because they view dining as an experience among friends and family and take extra time preparing their food.

The United States has companies like Google where employees are encouraged to stay later and work longer through free dinners, a full service gym, etc. Not that either culture is better but I find it interesting that two completely developed economies can have such competing interests and both are still sustainable. For more information about the Barcelona Trip check out my friend's blog (Keenan and Lily's blog).

All in all, it was a great trip that left us feeling overjoyed!

Spaghetti in Clapham

Thought I would share a spaghetti recipe I made for my friends in London.

Meatballs:
1 kilo ground beef
1 kilo ground pork
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup cork flakes
1/2 cup parsley (chopped)
2 large eggs
4 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)

mash up corn flakes and add all ingredients. Mix well and make 3-4 inch meatballs. I tend to like making bigger meatballs but the size shouldn't matter too much. Heat a cup of olive oil in a frying pan over medium high heat. Add meatballs and do not disturb for about 3 minutes. Turn meatballs and brown for another 3 minutes. Remove meatballs.

Sauce
2 cans plum tomatoes
2 cans tomato sauce
2 cloves of garlic (sliced)
1 large carrot (cubed)
1 large onion (sliced)
crushed red peppers
fresh basil (sliced)
parsley (chopped)
cayenne pepper
raw sugar
salt and pepper

Place canned plum tomatoes into a bowl and mash. Combine tomato sauce. Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot and add the onions, garlic and carrots cook for a few minutes stirring frequently so that the onions or garlic do not burn. Add the sauce and the meatballs and cook for about 30 minutes longer. Add the basil and the parsley towards the end. Season with the remaining ingredients to taste.

You know you are an MBA student when you analyze the core competencies of a restaurant

We heard the above title in class a few days back and the whole class laughed. What was even funnier (or sadder) was that when were at Otto's Restaurant, we did exactly that. Here is our analysis:

The restaurant is looking to move to a larger location down the road but its current location is rarely full anyway. On the weekends it is at capacity but there isn't much of a wait and they have a decent size bar that patrons can wait in and, more importantly, buy drinks.

Otto's core competency is mid level restaurant that caters to grad students, adults 25 and up, and craft beer enthusiasts. Their prices are typically too high for undergraduate students. They have made a name for themselves in the State College area as a legitimate brewery as they are the only brewery in town. They need to focus their attention selling their beer and the food should just be a complementary good.

By moving into the larger space they will incur more overhead costs and they still won't be able to reach capacity on weekdays. Weekend they will likely reach capacity but they will have less of a wait for a table, which will eat into their bar revenue. Usually, restaurants make most of their money from the bar and by having patrons go to the bar while waiting for a table, they will be more compelled to buy a drink or two. During dinner time, patrons will typically have one beer if they even order. It is in Otto's best interest to keep their patrons in the bar long enough for them to order a round of drinks but not too long that they give up waiting on a table and if they do end up leaving to go elsewhere for dinner, it's not too bad, based on the assumption that the margins on their beer is higher than their food.

On a side note, I don't know whether to feel ashamed that I actually analyzed a restaurant or accomplished. I will take the prior as I do feel like a total nerd.

The music industry and disruptive technology

Inspired by a presentation I heard about the music industry today:

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 10 years you know that the innovation of MP3's have creatively destroyed the music industry. Analysts have continuously criticized the music industry for not adapting to the changing environment. In retrospect, it's very easy to consider the outcomes and make a judgement as these analysts have done and don't get me wrong, I believe the analysts were right but what is the argument for the music industry?

Like any type of disruptive technology, MP3 technology entered as an inferior technology to compact discs. It sounded worse, many of the songs were cut off, and the volume varied from song to song. Consumers who were used to CD quality music would never put up with the lack of quality. At the time, it was debatable if this technology was really disruptive in nature.

However, the music industry lived in its own little bubble. They neglected to consider the ecosystem they were in. The IT infrastructure was growing and was easily able to support the new technology, more and more people were becoming comfortable with the internet, and college age kids were willing to put up with poor quality to get something for free. As the quality got better and more companies entered the market, the problems MP3's once had were diminished and there was little reason for individuals to buy CD's. So they became the proverbial "frog in the boiling pot."

Social Marketing Experiment

So for one of my presentations I am presenting Swoopo.com, an entertainment auction site that, some critics say, plays off the emotions of the consumer. My team was talking about why these auctions evoked emotions from its bidders, which raised the question, what are some other forms of emotional purchases that people make and is widely accepted. We came up with a small list, like the wedding industry, chocolates, etc, but we didn't feel like we had anything concrete.

I chose to use social media as a source of finding our answer. On my facebook page, I posted the question, "Needs examples of emotion based purchases." The results varied from utterly hilarious (a wife, thanks Tom), to totally ridiculous (Condoms, maybe more of a passion based purchase Jeremiah), but many of the responses were pretty accurate (Wegmans chocolate cake ... when you are depressed about school..., Thanks Rowan, Louboutin shoes, Good one Katie) . All in all this was pretty accurate to what I expected from an open and flat platform but I found it amazing how many responded and if I were to transfer this to other topics, would I get the same quality of responses or is it that on facebook, users respond because they are within my network and my friend or do they feel empowered when they answer simple questions like the one I posted. For instance, if I were to post this on a message board, would people respond? What would be the quality of the responses? On a general message board, posters don't know me so why should they post? However, users visit these sites often to give their opinion because it makes them feel like their knowledge is important (and it is).

Social media has definitely furthered the path for 2 sided platforms and, for this reason, has become a very important tool for businesses today. Company blogs are an effective way for company's to not only promote their company through grassroots advertising but also gain insight from their customers. Sites like Yelp is a forum for advertising. Writers write because it makes them feel empowered but what they write is also a form of free advertisement for the establishment. Even negative comments can be used to improve processes and efficiencies.

foursquare

http://foursquare.com/
This is an interesting new site. From what I can tell it doesn't add much value to me right now but as I obtain more friends, network externalities should make my experience more enjoyable. Emotionally, I really like the site and I like checking into places and hopefully I will become the mayor of a place some day but logically, I don't see any value add and I feel like I should not like the site as much as I do.

The concept is that the user can check into places, which will let his friends know where he is. If the friends are in the area, they can meet up with you. The downside is that this could be a bit stalkerish if someone keeps following the user.

Hello

I am starting this blog because I want to get my mind of the impending issues surrounding my life. My name is Brent and I am an MBA student at Penn State. Currently, I have 3 papers due but I find it much more important to procrastinate and start this blog. I guess I was inspired by a quote my friend sent me earlier today.

"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same."


In 2 months I will graduate. I am both excited and worried about this. Aside from the statistical reasons (no job), I have also met so many great people and learned so much, like Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction, that I don't want to leave yet. However, on my path to being relevant again, I must start contributing tax dollars to my government once again.

Things I like:

Food!!!! bgizzle.yelp.com
Football
Cycling
Schumpeter

Upcoming blogs
Ronald McDonald House
Joseph Schumpeter
Barcelona for Spring Break
London for Spring Break

That's it for now. I must get back to my studies.