The Countdown Has Begun...

To the wild end of the semester. Thankfully, Dr. Jih was extremely awesome in class today and will offer the option of completing a take home exam for Exam 3. This is crucial, seeing as how I will be out of town starting tomorrow (Tuesday) to see the family. I'm also 12 days away from taking the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and I'm getting a bit nervous about it. I'm going back to my roots, the University of Tennessee Knoxville, to take it, which I am excited about. I did my first two years of college at UTK and miss it sometimes. However, switching to MTSU was the right choice because I have loved every minute down here doing Criminal Justice Administration and Computer Information Systems.

When I come back from Thanksgiving, it will be time to buckle down and finish out the semester strongly.

Riders of The Storm

At 6:30 am Friday morning, the alarm clock went off signaling that it was time to go stand in line at Verizon, in hopes of securing the new Blackberry Storm. So, at 6:45am I arrived at the store, and was #9 in line to get the phone. The store opened at 8, however the manager came out at 7 and began issuing vouchers with the number position in line. I took this opportunity to go back and sit in the truck, grab a bite to eat and drink, and enjoy watching the snow flurries fall. 7:45, everyone reassembles back in line, and at 8 the doors open. I got my phone with no problem and had everything transferred over to the Storm from my BB Curve by 8:45 and out the door.

The Storm is a pretty solid phone in my opinion. It has a few operating system issues that have to be addressed (slow accelerometer, poor battery life, few other small things) but that is to be expected with the initial release of a smart phone. It is rumored that BB and Verizon rushed the released, and actually "downgraded" the operation system software, but that is yet (or may never) be confirmed. However, with almost three days of playing with the phone under by belt, I think it is a pretty solid performer. All the BB enthusiasts at CrackBerry have been helpful to one another in finding the pros and cons of this phone.

In other news, I'm looking forward to the Thanksgiving festivities. This is perhaps my favorite time of the year, marking the start of the holiday season. I think it is important that the observation of Thanksgiving is not overlooked. I have plenty to be thankful for in my life, and I know that regardless of what happens to me, I know that someone, somewhere, has it worse off than I do. I would also encourage everyone to go to www.letssaythanks.com and send a card, free of charge, to the men and women serving America. What an awesome way to show our appreciation for servicemen and servicewomen.

Class Notes 11/3/2008

"The Transformation of Business"

• Value is based on unique, personalized experiences of consumers
• N=1 (one consumer experience at a time)
• No firm is big enough in scope and size to satisfy the experiences of one consumer at a time
  
• R=G (resources from multiple vendors

• Model T
• Consumers were treated as an undifferentiated group
• All resources had to be within the firm to capture value

• TutorVista
• Student chooses the time when he wants to be tutored
• Lessons are personalized for that student
• Training for teachers, can take from 60 to 100 hours
• Initial results show that U.S. students participating in this sytem have dramatically improved their understanding of the subjects and their performance in them
• $99 per month
• TutorVista had access to 600 tutors
• Resources are accessed as needed from a global resource pool
• TutorVista currently has over 10,000 paying students, and it is expanding its tutor base of over 5,000 tutors to countries outside of India, including the United States
  
• The power of technology and analytics can be focused on the needs of single individuals through global rosources (N=1 and R=G)

• Truck tires
• Vendors sell their products competing largely on the basis of price, durability and brand awareness
• Contract with fleet owners to charge per mile of usage
• The reenue is based on the tire usage, not on a one-time tire sale
  
• The retial business shifts from a transaction base (selling a tire) to an ongoing relationship (continuous and ongoing measurements of usage and ability to provide feedback on better usage specific to a user) with the consumer
• Helps a specific drier improve their skills
• Installed sensors that measure tire performance in real time and relay the data to a central data center

• Goodyear vs Bridgestone
• Goodyear alreayd has a milage-based service for its fleet customers

• B2B and B2C
• The firm is moving from selling a product to selling as service
• The firm is moving from a transactional relationshp with a customer to a service relationship with a customer
• (B2B) organization, (B2C)

• Principle N=1
• One customer experience at a time
• Flexibility: if a company is focused on N=1 and that value is cocreated with the consumer then the firm has to be flexible
• Quality, Cost and Experience
• Collaborative Networks: no single firm can provide the ragne of skills to create N=1
• Complexity
• Customer Interfaces
• Scalability

• Principle R=G
• Access to Resources
• Speed
• Scalability
• Innovation Arbitrage
• The N=1 and R=G World
• N=1 and R=G: A Social Movement
  

Exam 2 was handed back today in class, I made a 95. I am content with this grade. We will have Chapter 2 of New Age of Innovation ready for presentation on Wednesday.

November is Here

Actually day 2 of November is here, and just about gone. I hate this end of Daylight Savings time. It seems as though it is dark at 5 o'clock now, and I don't care about the sun coming up earlier, it is always sunny out by the time I wake up.

I hope Dr. Jih will have the exams graded and ready to hand back tomorrow. I thought all of the questions on the exam were fair, especially since he told us to read more towards understanding the concepts versus reading to retain facts.

Once again, another weekend has come and just about gone. The Titans won today, improving their undefeated record to 8-0. Halfway through the season, I hope they can continue on with their perfect season. However, as they all say, it is hard to beat the same team twice.

I'm off here to hopefully start preparing for two exams and several papers I have due this week.