Day 4, or: Class wasn't as boring as warnings indicated! Wait what was class about again...?

Confession

I honestly didn't think class wasn't as boring as Professor Tuggle made it out to be at the beginning. Frankly, the structure and content reminded me a lot of what we are covering in Principles of Management, in the introductory chapters. 5 competitive forces. 5 competition strategies to combat these forces. Second list of additional strategies. Various theories here and there about business strategies and how to use IT to make the most of them. I actually thought class, overall, was more INTERESTING, if possible, because it integrated better the business side of this class and the technology side. If my complaints the first lecture were mostly because of the inundation of technical terms being thrown at me left and right, without much relevance to my major, this time around those complaints get answered.

Switching handwriting and pen holding styles slightly also helped me keep up more effectively. I tend not to have a set handwriting or way of holding the pen, except when I'm having to write my fastest, such as in timed essays. By using this style I feel like I was better able to keep up.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was that the two case studies were of major companies I knew. Before, with Sew What? one day and Autosystems the next, I had no idea what kind of companies they were and could not come up with general ideas on answering the case study questions either. However, knowing something about the distinction between FedEx and, say, UPS, and a bit about GE's power in its market, helped me appreciate the material more. I was surprised to learn that FedEx is as aggressively innovative a company as it is, with its "move, communicate, and shoot" slogan. Also kind of sad to see that DHL is moving out of the United States market, not finding a niche amongst the FedEx and UPS monopoly.

Another point of specific interest was the idea of locking in customers, and then raising the prices, told with the unique spin of IT. I loved the story of American Medical Supply, and how it won over the nurses and then held the high switching costs over the hospitals. Smart and yet sneaky business dealing. Also of Cisco, how it can enjoy manipulating its suppliers against each other.

Overall, although the class was still fast paced and the material technical, I for one enjoyed it and simply felt the time passed quickly and more interestingly.

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Although confession number 2: Being quite the recently converted tennis fan, I was nervously checking on the status of the rain delayed Rafael Nadal and Fernando Gonzalez match, when the material got too technical or the examples too hard to follow.
...A pity Rafa was too injured and not at 100% today to fend off Del Potro.