We Volunteered for This! Late Stage MBA-Josh Moritz

My friend Tim Manners teased me a couple of weeks ago that I was not keeping up with my blog. So on this first day of the Jewish year 5770 I am going to resolve to keep this going no matter the guilt, the time or the school work. It has been all about the school work. As my study group mate Dan O'Neil quipped, we volunteered for this, and I have to tell you between family, work and trying to understand Activity Based accounting, operations research, data analysis, it is challenging: I can read and think, but I might as well be painting the roof of Sistine Chapel blind folded.



Even strategy stuff which I thought I had down cold, I feel like I am getting whipped around the head with a bag of nickels (a metaphor from the strategy professor describing some other challeging issue that I thought was pretty straight forward but was not). Just hope the nickels end up in my pocket someday.



The beauty of study groups is that there is always someone around who understands it better than me, and they make great tutors. I help out where I can, stronger in marketing. Perhaps the best part of the MBA education is group socialization. Maybe we get it right, maybe we don't, but we are learning how to figure it out as collaborators rather than an the lone knight or knightess. As a result, of I had done the MBA 20 years ago, perhaps I would have followed a more corporate path since I might have learned earlier better how to work with groups of people, to understand group politics and coming up with group solutions. This could have happened at Columbia, NYU, but I am doing it at Babson, so there probably is a unique flavor to this learning environment, which I enjoy. Well, maybe except for that data analysis assignment on page 803.

But forget the whinning. A number of my classmates are fasting for Ramadan during this semester. If friends and colleagues can follow religious tenants during this semester, go to work and school, I can figure out data analysis.

Late Stage MBA-Josh Moritz- Ethics, Sharing and Babson Fast Track MBA

My blog about my mother and the Maserati generated a solicitation from a site that allows people to share papers, projects, e-books, etc. for graduate and undergraduate students. There was no decision here: I rejected the comment out-right and it will not be published on this blog.

There is an element of self-righteousness here, and I am no angel--sure I have shared work with colleagues and in return they have shared with me in private with understanding that the sharing is to generate thought, not steal it --- but what is being drilled into the heads of my Fast Track Babson class is not just the concept of the law but what is also ethical. To wit: Such a blatant solicitation to share potentially copyrighted material, e-books and papers in a public venue without the potential of attribution or payment is odious.

The concept of law and ethnics is not just focused on one class, but is a theme that permeates the program. While we are being trained as large "C" capitalists, we are also taking a serious look at the philosophy behind our business conduct. It is a matter of understanding what we are selling and that the buyer understands what they are getting. There is limited stomach for promoting a product like a CDO (that odious word that is likley to get some people reared up for comment) when we don't understand exactly what it does, but selling it anyway to people who think they know what it does, but then does not.

We are encouraged to develop a general, yet flexible rule, to establish the guidelines upfront before faced with an ethical issue.

We are studying the law, but also the ethical construct behind the law. Our readings include: Kant, Aristotle, Confucious, Jeremy Bentham, John Mill, as well as others.

Perhaps the philosphy that Babson is trying to get across, more than finance, marketing, supply chain management, or strategy can be summed up by a quote from Peter Cooper in 1874, just after the rampage of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall in New York City:

"I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner. I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good."

Good philosphy, hope to do it.

Late Stage MBA- Josh Moritz- The $100 Derivative Guantlet Award

My last post got a response from Tyler who feels that the buyers of Derivatives are as responsible for their mistakes as the sellers. I agree. But what I don't agree with is that derivatives are as easy to understand as guns (don't point at yourself, you might shoot yourself) or as TV (just shut if off).

99% of us are getting an MBA to enhance our careers, which means more money or to use the degree in leveraging our passion whether it be a cause or to start a company.

There will always be a debate about fuzzy math and caveat emptor, but I believe that our responsibility is to be honest brokers of information. If we don't get it, we don't sell it. Idealized.

Since Tyler feels that the buyer beware, and I maintaint that the sellers were less than knowledgable, I throw down the guantlet. A $100 award for a debate between brokers circa 2006 and CFO's from small to medium sized municipalities, circa 2006. One has to pitch derivatives the other has to explain what they bought. The audience clap meter will tell us who wins.

I offer anyone this: 1) It has to be a debate has to be referreed by Babson professors with backgrounds in finance, ethics and law; 2) The rules are still in flux, so come up with a structure.

Late Stage MBA - Josh Moritz - The Final Derivative

A town of wealth is feeling the pinch. Tomorrow afternoon as I tool my way across Pennsylvania to pick-up my oldest son from freshman year at college there is a protest brewing in front of the Westport Town Hall. It's not about the non-existant draft, Iraq, or the underfed. Its about sports, art classes, music and drama. They are going to be cut down, not cut out.

Westport is fast becoming a town of too much new construction on fair sized lots that are remaining vacant an unsold. Like note in an earlier post, it ain't Detroit, but eyebrows that have not been botoxed do raise a bit when houses that were on the market for $4 million sell at auction for $1.9 millon. It becomes worrysome when even the well off are denied new credit cards because their Experien credit report indicates that the value of their house has declined past even a modest mortgage. Things are getting a bit serious.

Unlike in NY where you might lose Kindergarten, Westport cuts back on things children in most towns, including pretty well-off towns, would be amazed at, which is why we moved here. I suppose it is a bit of just desserts since many MBA's, Lawyers and executives who got us in this spot do happen to live here as well.

This whole situation is pretty ironic and brings to mind a story from my days at Rutgers. One night in 1972 a student commited sucide by jumping off the roof of one of the river dorms yelling as he went down "I am not a derivative." Ahead of his time, it should be the rallying cry for the afternoon protest in front of Westport Town Hall. Maybe we can get some of our money back.

Late Stage MBA- Josh Moritz -Captain Jack, Supply Chain Manage Will Save Us

Supply Chain Management. Before the course I thought it had to do with anchors on ships. But while I do know now that it really has to do with the process of manufacturing a product, delivering a product or providing a service, I had a revelation this morning at the gym that it still has alot to do with boats.

Fellow lap swimmer Captain Jack, graduate of the SUNY Martime Academy, ex- ship captain and now president of a privately held bulk cargo shipping company related how they are protecting their boats off the Gulf of Aden. Dripping wet, towl around his hips, Captain Jack did did say that whatever he was doing it was a way to get pirates to bother someone else. Deterence is the operating word.

I met Jack in Stamford at the Connecticut Martime Association convention a few years ago. Like Koreans who became green grocers in New York City 30 years ago, Greek and Norwegian shipping magnates moved to where other shipping magnates moved to and that was in the area around Greenwich and Stamford, CT., thus the area is now a shipping node as they say in the business. Their children are Americans, going to to Maritime Academies up and down the East Coast, marrying into each others families. They get Masters Degrees in International Transportation Management.They own ships, trade ships, book trade, they run chanderlies, supply ship crews, evacuation, customs paper work, ship hedge funds and private equity investments. In Feb. 2007 people were wondering when the party would end -- it had gone on almost 11 years. By September 2008, it ended.

Maritime conventions are interesting things. All things that matter begin with a chaplain reciting the Mariners Prayer. It don't matter your religion, you stand silently before invocation, because most of the audience knows that the Bermuda Triangle is a real thing. So are pirates.

Back to Jack. Jack's ships are bulk carriers. Pretty much recession proof since they move raw minerals from one place to another. Nice work if you can get it, just have to makes sure you have the right ship in the right place. If you can back haul stuff (learned about back hauling in Supply Chain Management), then you have a great business. As Jack notes, no man is an island and the supply chain is feeling the econonic heat. The biggest concern is staying in business and maximizing the ships. Like Wal-Mart 30 years ago where information allowed Wal-Mart to run trucks with cargo from stores as well as to to stores, the shipping business is trying to figure out how to keep those ships out there longer, competing for ever scarcer cargos. Otherwise Stamford, CT is going to have a lot of large ships sitting out in the Long Island Sound.

Sounds like a Babson Case Study in the making.



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Late Stage MBA-Josh Moritz- Plotz to You Drop-Saving the Economy One Challah at a Time

Three comments on Yvonne and Felice, ranging from get a cup of joe to musings of wondering if people are concerned about their jobs, making the mortgage payments or that their house dropped from $5 million to $1.5 million. I think I am going to do an interview with them on the subject of the economy and AIG.

Moving on. The real entrepreneur in the family is Jane Moritz now the owner of http://www.challahconnection.com. Jane bought http://www.challahonnection.com from sales guy about 6 years ago who had developed a business delivering challah every Friday morning via newspaper delivery people. Stuffed into postal service boxes, sometimes eaten by squirrels and deer with occasional protests from local postmasters, www.challahconnection.com is now a totally online business in the great tradition of catalogers stretching back to Sears and through Kati Muldoon, REI, Smith and Hawkins and even IBM.

Inventory arrives by UPS, USPS, FEDEX and delivery dudes in the morning and picked up as Jewish gift baskets by UPS, USPS, and FEDEX in the evening. Shiva baskets -- the event that marks a Jewish death for seven days after a funeral--are the big sellers, followed by Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa (go figure), Jewish High Holidays, Purim and Passover. Working with Sherry, her underemployed Columbia MBA mom (she should have gone to Babson) and several high school girls who know how to tie a ribbon, the business has grown a great deal through Search and PPC and social media and live chat. Direct mail and advertising are duds.

Over the years she has taken over a few competitors who could not adapt to the new way of the web catalog. They plotzed.

Now I know the goods are good because when I leave little tastings around Babson as bribes to professors and administrators and fellow students, they just kvell. He who shall go nameless even said it reminded him of his mother's baking.

Todays promotion will make you plotz (see it in full living color on her website):


"Mother's Day is May 10! It's the day to make her kvell, plotz and see what a mensch you
are. Free shipping on all orders over $75. Use code FS09. Follow us on Twitter!

For Mother's Day, Give Your Mom Something to Plotz About!
Shop Now and Get Free Shipping!*She'll be so proud of you for getting a deal. Why not make
her proud?"

While you got to love it --she is my wife afterall so I do love it-the real question is who is going to get us out of this economic mess? She and probably the 20 million new small business start-ups who like my wife who come up with a game changing idea that actually makes money, rather papers it over with derivatives, accounting changes to GAAP and the next form of credit default swaps.

Mind you I wish I had the brains to think up a legal and moral form of CDO's. That is why I am in MBA school to make me a more creative thinker -- I am seeing signs that might actually happen, but from a moral point of view, let's hope that some of the financial types out of work come back with some tangible substance buttered on challah.

Meanwhile, Jane is saving the economy one challah at a time.

Note: This is not a paid political announcement, all views herein are mine and not my wife's, the local caterer, customers, prospects or anyone connected with any government agency. But it could be a sales message.

Late Stage MBA- Josh Moritz- Can Felice and Yvonne Save America?

Felice is one of the Barbers I go to at the Compo Shopping Center in Westport, CT. His heavy Italian accent does not stop him from having opinions about everything ranging from the economy to AIG. One recent Friday morning he was exasperated; all the banks were crooks, the government can't figure it out, forget about the insurance companies. He runs a barber shop, he knows about money. No credit, no credit cards, just the cash or maybe a check if he knows you. While he didn't quite come out and say it, Felice wasn't so sure that these folks are any different than a two bit criminal. His solution is pretty simple, you take money in, you take money out. No derivatives and no deviation. While most of his clientele is driving up in BEEMERS, Mercedes and even the less than rare but more than common Maserati, he is thinking about the evil eye more these days and wondering about the tips.

Yvonne is another story. A long lost Texan gal, now Westport residdent who now owns a popular coffee shop in Westport called Docs is more worried that the solutions are coming fast enough. She'll tell you she did not vote for Obama, but she likes him, she just hopes there is enough time to fix the mix. A very plain speaking woman, Yvonne is quite colorful in describing the morning traffic that used to stop in on the way to the trains station: it is way down. She can't figure out if half the town has been laid off or is going on vacation. Wish I knew. Her solution to the whole mess is to keep on making that coffee. The parking lot is not half empty at rush hour, its still half full.