Excel 2007 Can't Multiply

According to AppScout, there is a bug in Microsoft Excel 2007 which produces the wrong answer whenever the product of two numbers is 65535.

Here's the whole story. And here is Microsoft's answer.

What is 65535? Why it's 2^16 - 1. Hmmmm.....pretty significant.

Careful how you use those numbers to make decisions - don't repeat TransAlta's mistake.

Marketing Concepts

With the start of my first ever Marketing class, I've started to become more aware of advertising and messages that companies are using to communicate with potential customers. I've also become aware of all the scorn that has been inflicted (or justly earned depending on your point of view) on the Marketing industry. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this as I get further into the "Art of the Message".

A quote from Peter Drucker:

There will always, one can assume, be some need for some selling. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.

A recent Dilbert.

Apologies to Mr Porter

For those people who have studied Michael Porter's 5 Forces, have a look at this at the Indexed site.

Indexed has some great cartoons - really worth reading on a daily basis.

Where are all the Executive MBA bloggers?

I know that blogging isn't quite de rigeur in the working set. It's still relatively new in the student set - but it's becoming more and more prolific. There are some great MBA blogs out there and most of them are aggregated at the opencoder.org site for Students, Applicants and Alumni.

There seems to be a complete absence of Executive MBA bloggers. On the opencoder.org list, this is the only EMBA blog and one of only 3 from Canada.

When prospective students are looking for the program to invest their time in and wondering if they can cope with the work/life/school balance, any prior experience that can by provided by current students is greatly appreciated.

I remember the first week at school where we had a panel discussion with some recent graduates and it was fascinating to hear their "coping" mechanisms as well as dirt on all the courses to come. Tips and techniques are always appreciated.

Go on, you can do it. Just start up a blog here at Blogger or at WordPress - they both have good blogging systems that are easy to us. It's really very easy and you have lots to say.

First Week of Classes

In the Executive MBA program, we attend two full days every other week. So, every second Friday and Saturday we are in the main lecture theater in the Haskayne School of Business at Scurfield Hall at the University of Calgary. We are enrolled in four subjects this semester: Data Analysis and Data Modelling, Financial Accounting, Marketing and Human Resources. Two hard numbers type courses and two "soft skill" courses.

Coming from a fairly scientific background, I'm looking forward to the numbers courses, I expect that I will find them relatively easier, but I'm also looking forward to the Marketing and Human Resources courses as I haven't been involved in them as much and therefore I have a lot to learn.

The downside of the Executive MBA program is the long days. Friday goes from 9:00am to 6:15pm and Saturday goes from 8:00am to 5:00pm. Each course gets 4 hours per weekend, which means the 1pm to 5pm slot on Saturday really starts to drag along. Not because of the content, but because we have been there all weekend, are thinking of getting home (or to the pub) and we are usually full of the wonderful food that is available. Most professors realize this and allow for more breaks during this session.

We have been handed our first assignments. The first ones are individual assignments, with the latter ones being group assignments. I'm happy about this as it allows me to get a firm understanding of the basics of each course, before going into "group" mode.

I've been impressed with the instructors thus far. They are all senior professors and are very good at motivating the class. Sometimes the subject is a bit dry (but necessary) and they know how to keep the class moving along.

I'll be posting about some of the courses as time goes on.