Successfully advancing businesses and the academic community to the next level through software and consulting.
The Law of the Farm and Your Dissertation
Too often in our undergraduate years we’ve learned to cram for school and tests. You may have procrastinated all semester, and then pulled all-nighters for the final paper or test. Cramming is antithetical to the law of the farm. The Law of the Farm essentially says that to be a farmer, you have to plan, … read more The Law of the Farm and Your Dissertation
The Greatest Stress
At the risk of sounding too philosophical this month, here’s one of my favorite passages. Nietzsche, in 1882, wrote about “The Greatest Stress.” Essentially he said to imagine that what has happened, and is happening, will happen again and again and again (eternal recurrence). “This life as you now live it and have lived it, … read more The Greatest Stress
Testing Your Elephant Beliefs
This month I want to talk about elephants and testing out our beliefs. Elephants are known for their memory, but memory is not always a good thing. For example, when the elephant was a baby, the owner could simply put a chain around the elephant’s foot, and the elephant stays put. When the elephant grows … read more Testing Your Elephant Beliefs
Effectively Linking Customer Segmentation to Profitability
Effective customer segmentation is about knowing your customers and their profiles, and tying that knowledge to profitability. One of the best examples of a company profiting from segmentation is Marriott International. Do you know how many hotel segments Marriott pursues? Six hotel segments consisting of eighteen different brands! They have the Ritz Carlton and Renaissance … read more Effectively Linking Customer Segmentation to Profitability
Success in 2013
Everyone seeks to be successful, yet success is a matter of setting, moving towards, and accomplishing goals. When thinking about goals, I think about Earl Nightingale’s talk entitled, The Strangest Secret. Nightingale essentially says that to meet your goals you have to know what you want. He gives the metaphor of a ship without a … read more Success in 2013
Goals, CRAP, and the Marx Brothers
Happy New Year to you all! The New Year is a time of retrospection and to set goals for 2013. I like Winston Churchill’s quote that, “success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” So, you may have had some success over the past year—don’t lose your enthusiasm to be engaged … read more Goals, CRAP, and the Marx Brothers
Sugar Plums and Sample Size Blues
Its Christmas time again, and a good time to plan getting your dissertation completed, and that pesky scientific merit review, IRB application, concept paper, and dissertation proposal meeting. In the spirit of completing these tasks, there is a consistent problem that I find: graduate students struggle with the sample size determination. [Read More]
Dealing With Stressors
It’s November, and Thanksgiving is here and Christmas/Chanukah is just around the corner. It’s a busy time of the year while completing your degree and dealing with stressors. Clay listed the Top 15 grad school stressors: here are seven stressors by the percentage of students experiencing them. (One thing is see immediately is that you are not alone!) [Read More]
A Worm in Horseradish
“To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish”
–Isaac Bashevis Singer
The horseradish phrase was shared by Malcolm Gladwell when talking about Howard Moskowitz, a market researcher, who really got into his research on horizontal segmentation of spaghetti sauce. (For a really entertaining TED talk, click here). For my part, I’ve been thinking a lot about segmentation analysis for the past several weeks. Segmentation is a process of grouping things or people together who have similar attributes, while things or people in different groups are maximally dissimilar. [Read More]
Remembering Steven Covey
Steven Covey passed away this past month and so I dedicate this newsletter to his teachings. Covey is most famous for writing The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In addition to his 7 Habits, he spoke passionately about being a leader, private victories, and other topics related to the choices we make in our lives. [Read More]