How has blogging helped me understand Business Management better? Or, What has blogging taught me about Entrepreneurship?

You will not believe this, but blogging has taught me a LOT about Business !!!

Details below:

• TIME LINE: It taught me that it takes time to start something and build on it. Nothing happens overnight.
• SUCCESS: If readership is a metric of success, then success does not happen in a few days. It took more than a year for this blog to take wings.
• CONTINUOUS INFLOW: When you build a business, the money keeps rolling in, even when you sleep / are doing nothing. Not with a job - with a job, you ONLY get paid when you work actual hours. But even when I sleep, my blog gets hits. Once I have my business going, the cash inflow shall be regular through leveraging the work done by employees / website etc. The business shall work for me and make money for me!
• YOU GET BETTER WITH TIME: When you start, you do not know the tricks of the trade. You get better with time. When I started blogging, I did not know all the tools. Now I know more. Same with business. You get better as you go along...
• OWNERSHIP: In business, you build something that belongs to YOU. It is an asset that stays with you. This blog is mine and whatever I built is mine. In a job, you are doing something for your employer. Yes, you get paid a salary, but all that great work you created now belongs to your boss or to your employer or the corporation that you work for. All your ideas are gone and you have no ownership of them!
• More soon... time for my coffee break :)))
• - Gerry.  

How blogging has helped me become a better person and a better MBA student!

Now, a lot of people may assume that I am wasting my time blogging. That I am just being silly, putting my thoughts out there. Some may think that I am obsessed with myself or am Narcissistic, LOL. But I know what the truth is :) Here is how blogging has helped me:

• It has made me better at written English
• It has helped me learn new words
• It has helped me make new friends
• It has helped me learn new topics
• While attempting to teach others or share knowledge with others, I have learnt many new things myself, since I need to make sure that what I post for public consumption is accurate !!!
• It has helped me improve my computer skills. - there are things that I can do with Blogger now, that not many others can do, LOL. I am not an expert on Wordpress or any other blog site, but with Blogger, I rock, baby !
• It has given me online visibility - people write to me by email or Facebook messaging, people call me up and ask questions - which I answer for free, out of good will :)
• It has enabled me to learn from other blog sites similar to mine
• It has helped me become better at my MBA learning process.
• It has helped some of my fellow MBA students, when I have posted useful stuff - and they have been able to make use of some ideas from that stuff to do better on their class work.  
• More soon...

340 page views per day (in the last 24 hours). Picking up pace...

340 page views today - that is my highest to date in one day! For some reason, Blogger calculates the 24 hour period from 7 PM to 7 PM everyday. If this was the regular, everyday stats, then, there would be 10,000+ views per month.

Now, you may want to know - where do all the visitors to this blog come from? I can not pinpoint exactly WHO is reading my blogs, but I can tell from which country my readers are, from what sources they came to my blog, what was the search engine they used, what operating system, whether it was from a mobile or from a computer browser etc. A lot of my visitors are from Canada, USA, India, Russia, Germany etc. Plus there are readers from many other countries.

A significant number of readers are here from search engine referrals. I am guessing that many return. I have regular readers who read the blog on a regular basis - though I do NOT know who they are. I really can not tell or pinpoint - I do not have the technology for that nor am I interested. So, what started off as a fun thing is slowly becoming a professional thing for me!

I hope to someday soon make this the world's BEST MBA blog! I am sure that this blog of mine is ALREADY within the top 5 Personal MBA blogs in Canada and within the top 50 to 100 personal MBA blogs in the world. I have seen a LOT of MBA blogs and people have indeed done excellent work. But I have seen that a lot of blogs die down after a while. The posts are limited on some other blogs. My blog is among the few that add regular content and abundant MBA related content.

Cheers!
Gerry Som.

Today, on 16th January, 2012, I decided to Monetize this blog. Shall start accepting VOLUNTARY donations from readers.

Had a change of mind today. on 16th January, 2012, at around 5 PM, I decided to monetize this blog and accept voluntary donations from readers who feel like donating to support my efforts and help me generate better independent content. A few things happened, today, that made me think in a different direction, that made me change from a Not-for-profit blog to a For-profit blog. I did have Google Adsense on blog page in the past, but that was mainly to increase search engine connectivity (or so, I thought. I am not an SEO expert).

There was not much revenue in it. I have only made $60 from Google Adsense in the last 17 months, and Google does not pay out until there is a minimum of $100 in your account, LOL. Google Inc is stingy, indeed. You are getting rich with MY money lying around in your bank account, Google Inc, LOL !!! Well, the banner ads are like decorative pieces on the shelf. The blog would look dull / dry without them. And it helps, too, that Adsense throws up relevant content to the readers and trhe readers can benefit from them. It is a win - win situation for Google & me. This is exactly why Google is rich. Coz they always share the loot. They always create these Symbiotic, win-win relationships with clients :))) Go Google!

back to my point, the factors that made me monetize this blog or become a For-profit blog: 

• I noticed that my blog is now getting 6000 hits / views a month
• I saw that a few other blogs like mine are already accepting donations from readers
• I got a phone call from a reader today asking for advise about MBA application
• I realize my new born start-up company, "Som Group Consulting" needs to start generating revenue
• I realized that I am spending quite a bit of my time and energy on this blog. It makes sense to expect something for my hard work and to keep me going / keep me generating new content regularly to benefit the readers...
• MBA student life is expensive. MBA students are expected to maintain certain standards, LOL. One is supposed to wear decent clothes, attend parties and paid seminars. This, apart from textbooks, case studies materials, various online services, memberships etc... 

So finally, I decided that it is time to monetize my blog today. A change of heart :) So I have removed the name of the business school that I study in, from all the visible spots of the blog. I do have a registered business to legally permit me to monetize. I do have a HST account. I do have a PayPal account that I shall use to collect voluntary donations. And I shall pay taxes on the revenue generated. So all this is Halal / Kosher, legal LOL :)

There is a button on the right side bar of the blog that looks like this:

Not this one, silly :))) This is NOT the actual live link to make a payment. The one on the side bar on the top right hand side is :) Clicking there shall help the reader to make a voluntary donation to me :)

Clicking on that button allows a reader to go ahead and make a donation directly into my PayPal account. My Pay Pal email is gerrysom@yahoo.com . When a reader makes a voluntary donation there (no contract, no obligations), the money is directly deposited into my PayPal account and my bank account.

From my side, I hope to continue blogging regularly and generate good content for the readers. So far, this has been a one man show. I have done all the work here ON MY OWN ! I shall try to get some professional help in making this blog site pretty and more useful to the readers of this blog.

Cheers!
Gerry Som.
Blogger of www.gerry.in blog.
gerrysom@yahoo.com

Another AWESOME channel by Jodie: "Economists Do it with Models" Love it !!!

This is another awesome, cool gal. Jodie. Her YouTube channel is "jodiecongirl". Her website is "http://www.economistsdoitwithmodels.com ". Check out her introductory video below:

Good videos about Micro Economics on YouTube

Here are some good videos about Micro-Economics. Here is another teacher who is trying to educate the world. Hats off to her. I love people like her. I love people like Sal Khan. I actually love what I myself am doing, LOL ---> trying to educate the world and make the world a better knowledge.

What I am doing is to try to increase awareness about Business Management through my blog posts. Not only am I blogging about my experience as an MBA student, I am also posting useful information related to Business Management as my posts. This is a way for people to find  a lot of relevant information at one place. These were posted here after a LOT of research and sifting through articles, videos and pictures. They do NOT come easy :)))

Enjoy the video below. There are more such videos available at her YouTube channel "gewalker72". Enjoy :):

Just discovered some EXCELLENT videos about Economics on YouTube

Link: http://arnoldkling.com/econ/ecvidcontents.html

Table of Contents for AP Economics Videos (The lists are LIVE links. Click on them for the videos :) These videos are similar to the videos by Sal Khan of www.KhanAcademy.org . Only, these videos are on Economics. Just check them out, encourage Arnold with appreciative comments and help him get some fame, people :) People who work hard and try to do good to society NEED to be encouraged and appreciated. Trust me, every body needs some attention from time to time :)

Here is a sample video 

Below are the live links. Enjoy :)

1. The Entrepreneur
2. Rent vs. Buy
3. Opportunity Cost
4. Comparative Advantage
5. Production Possibility Frontier
6. Arbitrage
7. Factors of Production
8. Substitution
9. Outsourcing, part one
10. Outsourcing, part two
11. Outsourcing and technology
12. Outsourced beyond all recognition
13. Economic Concepts in starting businesses
14. GDP and what it measures
15. Nominal vs. real GDP
16. GDP Calculations
17. Growth Calculations
18. GDP and the Standard of Living
19. Income Equals Spending
20. Simple Keynesian Model
21. Fiscal Policy
22. Fiscal Policy with a tax function
23. Interest Rates, Investment, and Net Exports
24. Aggregate Supply and Demand
25. Long-run Aggregate Supply and Phillips Curve
26. The Great Depression
27. The 1970s and the Phillips Curve Shift
28. The Great Moderation and the Great Recession
29. Monetarism
30. Money
31. Neutrality of Money
32. How the Fed Creates Money
33. Tools of Monetary Policy
34. Liquidity Trap
35. Loanable Funds and the Money Market
36. The Real Interest Rate
37. Supply-side Economics
38. The Real Wage and AS
39. Saving, Investment, and the Trade Balance
40. The Foreign Exchange Market
41. Optimal Currency Areas
42. Market-clearing Price
43. Market Equilibrium
44. Supply and Demand Analysis
45. Substitutes and Complements
46. Elasticity of Demand
47. Income Elasticity of Demand
48. 49. Producers' and Consumers' Surplus
50. Price and Quantity Controls
51. Taxes, Consumers' Surplus, and Producers' Surplus
52. Private vs. Social Cost
53. Public Goods and Private Goods
54. Public Finance and Public Choice
55. Profit Maximization
56. Who's Yo' Demand Curve?
57. Total Revenue and Marginal Revenue
58. Average Cost and Marginal Cost
59. Profit Maximization, Demand and Cost
60. Monopolistic Competition
61. Perfect Competition
62. Oligopoly
63. Oligopoly and Game Theory
64. Natural Monopoly and Price Discrimination
65. The Law of Diminishing Returns
66. Fixed and Variable Cost
67. Costs: a numerical example
68. Price Discrimination Explains Everything
69. Consumer Utility
70. More Consumer Trade-offs
71. Factor Demand
72. PSST
73. When Copies are Cheap
 

Videos with Arnold's random opinions: 

(1) Where I Stand vs. policy wonks
(2) My Jobs Speech
(3) The Great Debate
(4) Game Theory: Two Illustrations

Schedule of my MBA classes for Winter 2012 term (January to April 2012)

This is just to give you an idea about how things roll :) As a Full Time student, I am allowed to take a minimum of 3 courses to maintain the minimum 60% course load (3/5 = 60%). Alternatively, I could take 5 courses to maintain a 100% workload (5/5 = 100%). I am doing my own thing (yup, I have a mind of my own and always do exactly what I want, LOL. The important thing for me is to be comfortable with my learning experience and realllllllyyy understand my subjects. I do not want to rush it or feel rushed :) and taking 4 courses at 80% work load (4/5 = 80%).

So there, I have to attend classes for about 12 hours a week. Plus there are a ton of:

• Assignments - regular 
• Readings - before classes and after classes
• Daily journal entries - for 1 course
• Regular problem solving and calculations  / practice
• Presentations - one to 2 per term per subject on average
• Team assignments - on a regular basis
• Report writing - on a regular basis
• and so on
  

No Sir, the MBA is not a cake walk and is not for the faint hearted. When I was in Medical School, thought THAT was intense. Bull shit. An MBA is one of the MOST intensive programs in the world :)

My weekly schedule at 80% work load is as below:

Tuesday:
2 PM to 5 PM: Consulting Skills
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM: Healthcare Policies, Management

Wednesday:
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM: Finance related class

Thursday:
9 AM to 12 noon: Logistics & Supply Chain Management

Management is NOT the same as Analysis

From the link: http://faculty.washington.edu/sandeep/d/mbaebook.pdf

Management ≠ analysis.

What you are learning in school is analysis. You are being taught
tools and techniques.

Analysis is just one of the ingredients in the recipe.
You may have the best analysis in the room. However, if your analysis
is not heard and taken seriously, it is of no value.
Too often, talented people with the best answers sit in the back of the
room while hacks run the show. If you enjoy the view from the back,
getting an MBA will not change anything.
A MBA degree only works if you are willing to transform yourself. Are
you?

What every MBA student in the world needs to know...

From the link: http://faculty.washington.edu/sandeep/d/mbaebook.pdf

The checklist for MBA students:

• Management ≠ analysis.
• It is not about being smart.
• Learn to Communicate.
• Don’t Lose Touch With What is Right.
• Got Gumption?
• Stay Current.
• Reinvent Yourself.
• Take Smart Risks.
• Don’t Stop Dreaming.

Slide show is as below. Enjoy !

What Every MBA Student In the World Needs to Know.

View more presentations from Sandeepkrishnamurthy