The class after the exam was an amazing experience. I thought that the test was fair but the first exam with professor is sometimes like testing the water, you don't know what you got your self into until you see the result. This wasn't a typical straight forward test and I'm glad that we got a chance to improve the grade.
I believe that people that opposed to editing the results of the test were not right when they talked about taking an advantage of the Professor because he was clearly enjoying the experience and all of it was his idea on the first place. That doesn't seem like someone who is being taken advantage of.
I was very surprised by lack of tact, respect and sensitivity of some of the classmates that started yelling at the people that didn't agree with the majority. Yes, we didn't have much time and it was a high pressure situation, but using dictatorship and force just complicates situation and leads to outcome not desirable by anyone involved.
To get to the blog assignment, I believe that my style of managing this situation was to compromise. My suggestion was to wait with the decision until the end of May, because than we would have more information that we can base our decision on. Until that point there were two suggestions, one to curve the exam and the other one to drop the lower grade. How there were two large groups on opposite sides I thought that it would be better to wait until the second exam and than to decide. Now, when I look back I see that was a terrible idea because it would caused even more fighting and people would never agree. At the end I was pretty happy with the outcome.
I don't think that this situation could be managed better in any other way because the lack of time. If we were to split in smaller groups we would have more suggestions and then groups would feel strongly about their choice, so that would only cause more conflict.
Honestly, I was pretty happy with the result and surprised that we got everyone to agree. I think we were lucky that those that still clearly don't agree voted for class' best interest.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Changing Trends in Telecommuting
Dear classmates,
I read this interesting article in WSJ so I would like to share it with you. The article talks about decrease in telecommuting trends and restructure in existing ones because the research that shows better performance of those working in companies headquarters.
Here is the article:
Some Companies Rethink
The Telecommuting Trend
The call came toward the end of my hour as a recent guest on a Minnesota Public Radio talk show. "Jim from Minneapolis" said he and many of his telecommuting colleagues were being called back to the office.
After years of working productively from home, Jim said he was surprised and disappointed.
Although working from home has been expanding steadily, some chinks are appearing in the trend. A few big promoters of home-based and mobile-office work arrangements, including AT&T, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and parts of the federal government, have called some home-based workers back to the office, causing some to quit. The callbacks are small and don't reflect a full retrenchment, but the factors at work -- a push to consolidate operations, and the notion that teamwork improves when people work face-to-face -- suggest other employers might follow suit as recession clouds loom.
MAILBOX
Sue Shellenbarger answers questions on contacting employers ahead of a move, and careers for those with a criminal record.AT&T called an unspecified number of its 5,000 to 6,000 telecommuters back to the office late last year as part of a consolidation of operations, a spokesman says. SBC Communications, which acquired AT&T and BellSouth, among other companies, and took the AT&T name, now has a national network of offices, making telecommuting unnecessary, he says. Also, some managers wanted to bring workers together to reorganize their work and build new teams quickly.
Intel recently began requiring many telecommuters in its information-technology group to report to the office at least four days a week. Full-time home-office workers now make up 1% to 2% of Intel's 5,500 information-technology workers, down from less than 4%, a spokeswoman says; managers wanted "to keep the team spirit strong, which requires face-to-face interaction, impromptu dialogues, collaboration and mentoring," she explains.
Hewlett-Packard, the company that invented flextime, called a significant number of home-office information-technology workers back to the office in 2006, during a consolidation of its 85 data centers into six.
And the federal government, also a big promoter, posted a 7.3% drop in telecommuters from 2005 to 2006, partly because of a callback by the Interior Department. Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary for the department, cites some managers' security worries about the potential theft of laptops with sensitive data, or hackers intruding on remote users' wireless networks.
All these employers insist they still fully support telecommuting. And U.S. corporate employees working full time from home are still rising, gaining 30% since 2005 to 2.44 million in 2007, says Ray Boggs, a research vice president with IDC, a Framingham, Mass., market-research concern. Nortel, JetBlue and others employers are expanding work-at-home.
But if these bellwether employers can call telecommuters back to the office, any company can. Telecommuters are easy to fire or relocate. Andrea Meyers had been working successfully from home for three years when her small employer laid off all of its 30 telecommuters with no explanation. It may be easier to sever people working from home, she says, because they're "not visible." Although she understood the move, "It was a shock," says Ms. Meyers, a specialist in online learning systems.
Some tips on keeping a work-at-home gig:
I read this interesting article in WSJ so I would like to share it with you. The article talks about decrease in telecommuting trends and restructure in existing ones because the research that shows better performance of those working in companies headquarters.
Here is the article:
Some Companies Rethink
The Telecommuting Trend
The call came toward the end of my hour as a recent guest on a Minnesota Public Radio talk show. "Jim from Minneapolis" said he and many of his telecommuting colleagues were being called back to the office.
After years of working productively from home, Jim said he was surprised and disappointed.
Although working from home has been expanding steadily, some chinks are appearing in the trend. A few big promoters of home-based and mobile-office work arrangements, including AT&T, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and parts of the federal government, have called some home-based workers back to the office, causing some to quit. The callbacks are small and don't reflect a full retrenchment, but the factors at work -- a push to consolidate operations, and the notion that teamwork improves when people work face-to-face -- suggest other employers might follow suit as recession clouds loom.
MAILBOX
Sue Shellenbarger answers questions on contacting employers ahead of a move, and careers for those with a criminal record.AT&T called an unspecified number of its 5,000 to 6,000 telecommuters back to the office late last year as part of a consolidation of operations, a spokesman says. SBC Communications, which acquired AT&T and BellSouth, among other companies, and took the AT&T name, now has a national network of offices, making telecommuting unnecessary, he says. Also, some managers wanted to bring workers together to reorganize their work and build new teams quickly.
Intel recently began requiring many telecommuters in its information-technology group to report to the office at least four days a week. Full-time home-office workers now make up 1% to 2% of Intel's 5,500 information-technology workers, down from less than 4%, a spokeswoman says; managers wanted "to keep the team spirit strong, which requires face-to-face interaction, impromptu dialogues, collaboration and mentoring," she explains.
Hewlett-Packard, the company that invented flextime, called a significant number of home-office information-technology workers back to the office in 2006, during a consolidation of its 85 data centers into six.
And the federal government, also a big promoter, posted a 7.3% drop in telecommuters from 2005 to 2006, partly because of a callback by the Interior Department. Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary for the department, cites some managers' security worries about the potential theft of laptops with sensitive data, or hackers intruding on remote users' wireless networks.
All these employers insist they still fully support telecommuting. And U.S. corporate employees working full time from home are still rising, gaining 30% since 2005 to 2.44 million in 2007, says Ray Boggs, a research vice president with IDC, a Framingham, Mass., market-research concern. Nortel, JetBlue and others employers are expanding work-at-home.
But if these bellwether employers can call telecommuters back to the office, any company can. Telecommuters are easy to fire or relocate. Andrea Meyers had been working successfully from home for three years when her small employer laid off all of its 30 telecommuters with no explanation. It may be easier to sever people working from home, she says, because they're "not visible." Although she understood the move, "It was a shock," says Ms. Meyers, a specialist in online learning systems.
Some tips on keeping a work-at-home gig:
Friday, February 29, 2008
Protecting our egg
Goals and objectives were clearly defined by professor so we skipped this part of the process. We went trough all other phases accept for picking the leader but that was mostly because lack of the time. We understood what was expected from us and we jumped straight to the process of constructing the device that would protect our egg. We worked very well as a team. We didn't have set roles in the group, but we were all jumping in with the ideas and to me this worked incredibly well.
We started by brainstorming ideas for the device and trying to predict it's possible success. When realizing that we need to share the scissor with the whole class one of us ran to the Writing Center to borrow a pair. To test on which side the egg is likely to fall (because eggs have that air bubble that would theoretically be on the top when the egg falls) we dropped the egg few times. Every one's ideas were taken into consideration and thought about. Finally we agreed on the final design and made the device. One person was specially skillful with bending the straws certain way, so he took over that part. One person was holding the egg the other sticking the straws on it. We decided that the shortest team member should be one to drop the egg. Unfortunately our egg, called Survivor, didn't "survive" the test. I won't lie, the failure was very painful, but the experience as a whole was positive. I can't think of anything I would change in our work, except of course for the design that didn't work:)
Everyone contributed very spontaneously. I am extremely proud how our group worked as a team and feel lucky to have such smart and considerate teammates. I believe that we did a great job in such short amount of time. Although our device wasn't successful in protecting the egg, this was valuable experience in terms of learning the planning process. If the planning process was just thought as a theory, it wouldn't be so well understood. This way we get to link the phase of the process with what we actually did on our project.
We started by brainstorming ideas for the device and trying to predict it's possible success. When realizing that we need to share the scissor with the whole class one of us ran to the Writing Center to borrow a pair. To test on which side the egg is likely to fall (because eggs have that air bubble that would theoretically be on the top when the egg falls) we dropped the egg few times. Every one's ideas were taken into consideration and thought about. Finally we agreed on the final design and made the device. One person was specially skillful with bending the straws certain way, so he took over that part. One person was holding the egg the other sticking the straws on it. We decided that the shortest team member should be one to drop the egg. Unfortunately our egg, called Survivor, didn't "survive" the test. I won't lie, the failure was very painful, but the experience as a whole was positive. I can't think of anything I would change in our work, except of course for the design that didn't work:)
Everyone contributed very spontaneously. I am extremely proud how our group worked as a team and feel lucky to have such smart and considerate teammates. I believe that we did a great job in such short amount of time. Although our device wasn't successful in protecting the egg, this was valuable experience in terms of learning the planning process. If the planning process was just thought as a theory, it wouldn't be so well understood. This way we get to link the phase of the process with what we actually did on our project.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
How not to manage people
My management problem in not knowing how to appropriately deal with "subordinates". It all started back in Croatia where I grew up and had few jobs before coming here to NYC, about four years ago. On my last two jobs there, when I had to train new people, I would loose my temper very easily. Also, here in school I had an opportunity to be the "project manager" on four out of the five group projects I was a part of. I don't assert my self to that position, it just somehow happens. And although I do have the natural ability to lead and direct, I don't think I do it effectively, although at the end all of the projects turned out to be successful. Few times I caught my self not listening to my team mate but thinking my own thing and then interrupting in half of their sentence with something completely different than they were discussing at the time. Also, it very hard for me to admit that my way of doing things is not necessarily always the best way. I don't think I show the respect to people, I get caught up in executing the project, and I want to do it as fast and as efficient as possible not paying much attention to what others have to say. But, the good thing is that I realized my mistakes and I am trying to be aware of them (the last project was much better), and hopefully with experience I will overcome them.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
subprime crisis 101 - lol
Following video analyzes sub prime crises in very comic yet simple and true manner.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
About me
Hi everyone,
I am from Croatia, here in New York four years now and I love it. The opportunities this country is giving..., you must be crazy not to take advantage of it. So basically I am trying to do what all immigrants came here to do, to become free, successful and filthy rich. Just kidding:) Or not:)
I completed my Associate Degree in Business Management/Finance and Banking in Borough of Manhattan Community College and currently I'm a Baruch student pursuing my Bachelors Degree in Finance and Investments. I still have two years to go. This blog is a part of my Intro to Management class and I'm hoping to learn from it as well as to contribute with my vision of the matter we are discussing.
I am from Croatia, here in New York four years now and I love it. The opportunities this country is giving..., you must be crazy not to take advantage of it. So basically I am trying to do what all immigrants came here to do, to become free, successful and filthy rich. Just kidding:) Or not:)
I completed my Associate Degree in Business Management/Finance and Banking in Borough of Manhattan Community College and currently I'm a Baruch student pursuing my Bachelors Degree in Finance and Investments. I still have two years to go. This blog is a part of my Intro to Management class and I'm hoping to learn from it as well as to contribute with my vision of the matter we are discussing.
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