Professor Elam

MBA Life at Yale

Tuesday Nov 29, 2011

Business Insider has a Day in the Life for an MBA student at Yale. Seems Yale has eliminated the traditional silo system of mgt, mkt, accounting for an 'integrated' curriculum covering the nine things a manager needs to know. 

Observation

I see this is pass fail.

At the end you will note she is doing everything in a group on a laptop hello group power point. 

I wonder, is there any individual accountability here?

Yale produces folks like Al Gore, George Bush, Tommy Lee Jones, Gerald Ford, John Kerry, Kerry and Bush were both C average students. My point is that Yale and other Ivy League schools are not so much schools are fraternity sororities, get along and you go along to an expected fraternity in the outside world. 

A & M Really Says 'Goodbye to Texas University'

Another Tradition Bites the Dust

Texas A&M's last Big 12 game and the 118th meeting between these bitter rivals before the Aggies depart for the Southeastern Conference next season was a thriller befitting one of college football's oldest and most storied matchups.

College Station AP 11/24/11

UT Austin won the game 27-25 with a time expired field goal. But fans on both sides are the likely losers. There are no more games scheduled between A & M And UT Austin. What’s going on here?

This is not just another football game. Consider the history of the two teams. A & M began way back on October 4, 1876. That’s just eleven years after Lee surrendered to Grant! Today it boasts the second largest enrollment among campus systems in the State. Along with UT and Rice, it is one of only three recognized  Tier One Research Campuses in Texas.

UT Austin began in 1883. It is the largest system in the state. As recently as 2002 UT System granted 63% of al bachelor degrees in Texas. Graduate degrees conferred are an even higher percentage.

The legislature granted both institutions income from the sale of land and grazing rights on vast tracts of land, right here in West Texas. Oh, they also got the mineral rights……The discovery of oil on these properties in the 1920s led it to become the second largest endowment in the country.

This grant became known as the Permanent Fund. UT Austin receives two-thirds of its income and A & M the other third. Institutions serving large Texas cities such as North Texas (Dallas) and University of Houston understandably objected to channeling money to the smaller communities of Austin and College Station.   Fearful of the funds being diluted, UT Regent Frank Erwin hatched a plan.

The plan would place a UT or A & M branch in at least a dozen of the 31 Texas Senate Districts. Erwin figured that if the money was being spread around the state via other campuses,  that would be defense enough to keep the Fund in tact.

The scheme worked. This created other large campuses like UT Arlington, UTSA, and UT El Paso. A & M  gathered eleven  smaller schools under its umbrella.

But this still does not project the reach of these two schools into their domination of Life in Texas. A & M has a reach into every one of the 254 counties in Texas with its Agriculture Program. Its not required that a County Agent but an Aggie but its hard to find one who graduated elsewhere. The A  & M Engineering Department virtually staffed the Texas Department of Transportation for years. It Corps of Cadets graduates more military officers than any other school save the military academies themselves.

UT Austin with its Medical Schools in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio dominates the health care landscape.  And then there are the  Pharmacy and Nursing Schools.  Being student body president has been a stepping stone for Texas politicians. Its Law School graduates were one and the same with the  Texas Banks n pre-branch banking in the state.

But let’s get back to The Game. The two began playing 1894. That’s two years before Charles Dow created his Dow Jones Index. They have played every year since 1915. The Thanksgiving Day game is a tradition. It is celebrated at UT and A & M Alum parties across the State. But all that is now ended.

UT has created its own Longhorn Television Network. But UT is Permian and A & M feels like Odessa High. And so A & M is headed out of the Big 12 and into the even tougher Southeast Conference SEC. There are no more UT – A & M Match ups scheduled.

We are about half way through an 18 year period of negative mood and economic stagnation. This break up is yet another manifestation of negative mood. Penn State has really wanted Joe Paterno gone, they now have their wish granted.

Did  UT and A & M really want to quit playing altogether?  Sure other games can be scheduled that will fill the stands and the motels and restaurants. But 118 years of tradition can’t be replaced with a check the box, who’s available mentality.

Gee that’s odd. The official schedules for both teams list November 24, 2012 as To Be Announced. That’s negative social mood for you. They’d rather be apart looking for a partner than together for the 119^th time.

Dennis Elam hold three degrees from UT Austin and teaches at Texas A & m San Antonio.

 

 

Netflix Dilutes Stock

Thursday Nov 24, 2011

Netflix provides the perfect example of why we study accounting. NFLX bought back $400 M of its own stock since 2010, a good deal of it at $228. Now it is issuing more stock and bonds to raise cash. Total debt is more than the market capitalization. 

NfLX foolishly bought its own stock at high prices and now is paying the price. Here is more than you might want to know but as you can see the stock continues to fall in price. 

Along with Olympus this is an example of just how fast a company can go from yesterday's hero to today's clown, along with its management. 

We are studying basic and diluted earnings per share in ACCT 3301, 3310, and 3312. How has NFLX diluted its earnings?  What were its mistakes?

Kirk Tuck on the Kindle Fire

Monday Nov 21, 2011

Kirk Tuck  likes the Kindle Fire. I do not know how compatible it is with various textbooks. 

The tablet business is about where the PC business as in the late 1980s. We have multiple platforms with no clear leader, other than IPad. 

As Kirk says having the AMZN warehouse is handy. I see one of the comments is that magazines like Nat Geo are hard to read, that's a negative. We faculty are supposed to get iPads this fall. More to follow. 

Twilight Breaking Dawn Breaks Box Office Records

Monday Nov 21, 2011

The film premier of the first of the last two books in the Twilight series was this past weekend. 

The movie took in $283.5 million world wide in just three days. 80% of the ticket buyers were women. 

Twilight had a midnight showing last Thursday to kick off the premier. 

I have been harping on how socionomics, understanding mood, can improve a company's marketing ability. I have suggested that designing products for the market understanding the mood of the market would reap superior returns to investors. Here is a case in point. 

Ask yourself, how is it that this story resonates so strong among women?  Yes  a female has the lead but that is hardly unusual. In this story she marries and become pregnant, by a vampire. Not exactly who Mom and Dad had in mind as a son in law I would guess....

Gifts by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday Nov 21, 2011

I have posted this excerpt from Emerson's essay on Gifts at this time over the last few 'Black Friday' shopping seasons. He wrote these essays from 1830-32. Note the relevance of the first two sentences. Gee nothing has changed.  You can google 'Gifts by Emerson' to read the entire passage. 

Already the WSJ has an extensive article today 'handicapping' the various retailers and their 'chances' this season. 

Follow Emerson's dictum, give something of yourself.

 

"Gifts"
By Ralph Waldo Emerson.

IT is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery, and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a workhouse. Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favour, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. Something like that pleasure the flowers give us: what ant I to whom these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine summer fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the labour and the reward.

For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat bread, or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to that of the Furies. Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift which one of my friends prescribed is, that we might convey to some person that which properly, belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to the primary basis, when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an index of his merit. But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's. This is fib for kings, and rich men who represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of black mail.

 

 

Black Swans and Randomness

Monday Nov 21, 2011

Nassim Taleb  is the author of The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. Here he makes some socionomic observations. Are people depressed by reading bad news or do depressed people seek bad new?

Note the comments, he is dismissive of other methods but this is an interesting read.

Reading the Wall Street Journal

Thursday Nov 17, 2011

Few to no students  at Texas A & M San Antonio subscribes to the Wall Street Journal. Too bad. 

Two days ago I made  a post on great designers, leading off with Leonardo da Vinci. Today on page D7, 

Masters of Men and Machine reviews a gallery exhibit in Rome on Michelangelo and da Vinci. The drawing by da Vinci of an Archmedes Screw is simply amazing. I suggest you attempt to find the article. Most WSJ content is blocked to non subscribers. 

We have mentioned the importance that social mood plays in forming cultural tastes. Below the da Vinci article Men and Machines is an article explaining how a young group calling themselves The Pendletons auditioned a Four Freshman song in a  re arrangement of'Their Hearts Were Full of Spring.'  The record producers went thumbs down on that idea, but liked another tune in the works called 'Surfin.' Months later a re named group, the Beach Boys, went to number one on the Southern California play lists. ONce the producers tuned the music to the mood of Southern California, they had a hit. 

On the last page, What to Wear That Says, Buy this Porsche, tells how car show models have dramatically change. Rather than sport skimpy outfits and drape gals across the cars, now the models wear the same clothes as the market segment the car makers are targeting. The models, often actors and actresses, are trained to be expert on the car features. And so the potential buyer sees him or her self in the model.

I continue to be convinced that socionomics is even more applicable to marketing than financial markets. Here the automakers are projecting their desired mood onto the shopper.  

Anyone out there interested?

Reading the Wall Street Journal

Thursday Nov 17, 2011

Few to no students  at Texas A & M San Antonio subscribes to the Wall Street Journal. Too bad. 

Two days ago I made  a post on great designers, leading off with Leonardo da Vinci. Today on page D7, 

Masters of Men and Machine reviews a gallery exhibit in Rome on Michelangelo and da Vinci. The drawing by da Vinci of an Archmedes Screw is simply amazing. I suggest you attempt to find the article. Most WSJ content is blocked to non subscribers. 

We have mentioned the importance that social mood plays in forming cultural tastes. Below the da Vinci article Men and Machines is an article explaining how a young group calling themselves The Pendletons auditioned a Four Freshman song in a  re arrangement of'Their Hearts Were Full of Spring.'  The record producers went thumbs down on that idea, but liked another tune in the works called 'Surfin.' Months later a re named group, the Beach Boys, went to number one on the Southern California play lists. ONce the producers tuned the music to the mood of Southern California, they had a hit. 

On the last page, What to Wear That Says, Buy this Porsche, tells how car show models have dramatically change. Rather than sport skimpy outfits and drape gals across the cars, now the models wear the same clothes as the market segment the car makers are targeting. The models, often actors and actresses, are trained to be expert on the car features. And so the potential buyer sees him or her self in the model.

I continue to be convinced that socionomics is even more applicable to marketing than financial markets. Here the automakers are projecting their desired mood onto the shopper.  

Anyone out there interested?

Ford Goes the Common Route

Wed Nov 16, 2011

Alan Mulally puts it this way. Can you imagine one Boeing 737 for Europe and another for America?

 

Of course not and that has been the route Alan has pursued since assuming the CEO job at Ford. This week Ford will unveil the new Escape. From this common platform it will make

the Focus

two future mini vans

and six other models.

Sharing platforms and parts on a world wide basis leads to massive cost savings. This is what we are studying in cost managerial ACCT 3301 at this time. Please read this article to see how Alan brought a world class strategy from Boeing to Ford.