Numbers

I have gotten through five chapters of the first of eight parts of first of two books on Business Accounting.  Too many numbers? I couldn’t agree more.

It’s not especially difficult (yet?) but I can already imagine what will annoy me through much of this process.  The names and numbers seem to flow backwards as often as forwards and I have to relearn what words like sales, purchase, debit, and credit mean within accounting practice.

I am now relatively comfy with the idea of double entry bookkeeping. I know what the “Accounting Equation” is, and how to use it.  I can balance off basic accounts with T accounts or a three column set up.  And when I’m done writing this entry (writing break much deserved), I will wrap up part one with The oh-so-exciting sounding Trial Balance.

Could someone in one of the dozens of faux companies whose books I have been working on today please buy a convertible or even a sedan instead of a van?  I have now accounted for the purchase (by cash, cheque and credit – oh my) of roughly twenty vans.  Someone wants to be looking a bit further down the auto lot.  I am not doing all this studying just to get into business and then discover the only company car is a bloody van.

Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken

I chose this in my first trip to the Dublin Central Library because of the author’s background – anthropology and corporate consulting on consumer behaviour.  It was a pretty amazing and lucky start to my little quest as in many ways McCracken was both making a case for the kind of role within a company I would love to have (Chief Culture Officer) and questioning if business school is the best place to gain the skills necessary for such a key role: the bridge between elitist top level executives and the end consumer who needs/wants/fantasizes/ rejects their product(s) and brand(s).  It’s me.  I want that job.

If once we were mainstream and avant-garde, now we are a great wilderness, with thousands of little experiments happening everywhere.  Point, counterpoint is dead. The struggle between status and cool is over.  – p 78

Corporations once lived a tidy life.  They made something in a factory.  They sold something in a store.  The transaction ended at the cash register.  Value given, value got; the relationship in Adam Smith’s world was crisp and fleeting…What Wieden did for Nike, what Jensen did for Volkswagen, what Bogusky did for Microsoft, what Unilever did for Dove, what Glaser did for New York City – all of these were contributions to our culture. What Hollywood, Nike, and Starbucks did for public life, these to rework, reform our culture.  – p 118

Read for yourself on Google Books

Looking for a Role Model

To figure out exactly what I should be studying, I’m going with “imitation is the highest form of flattery”.  I looked into the MBA rankings in Business Week (a US publication) The Financial Times (an English publication) and The Economist (largely international publication) to find a consensus on the best MBAs in the world.

The problem is no one can seem to agree.  There is some overlap, but these combined top ten lists have a total of not 10 shared schools, but 19.  Most of them appear only once, 7 twice, and only Harvard and Stanford make all three lists.  I gave points to each school for their rankings and arrived at the below table.  As I am not overly keen to have a purely American perspective, I will combine the core curricula of Harvard Business School (the overall and American winner) with INSEAD (international) and London Business School (UK) in the coming weeks.  It would be interesting to make contact with anyone who is attending these universities at the moment, so contacts appreciated.

October 2011

So I need to find somewhere to start: some goals, some structure. But while my research into MBA syllabi continues, I shall start here:

• Get through the insanely huge “Business Accounting 1″ by Frank Woods, all 762 pages of it. I will stop wavering on “accruals” and start talking with authority in monthly finance meetings.
• Read one business studies book “well-regarded on amazon.com”: The 80 Minute MBA
• Read one Topical Business Book: Chief Cultural Officer
• Read one Inspirational Business Biography: Business as Unusual by Anita Roddick of The Body Shop
• Get through BBC German Steps 1: Research has thus far shown if I do want to do an MBA for real later, that Berlin has a few great and affordable options, both of which are taught in English but require German proficiently to enter. Ja.