The Crop Circle

B-School Crop Circles

I just got back from yet another business school event and just wanted to talk about the crop circle phenomenon. For those unfamiliar, crop circles are basically pools of business school students sucking up to any recruiter in site, in the hopes of securing an interview. All the big investment banks and consulting firms host events throughout the year to try and pique student interest in their firms. What starts out as an info session quickly turns into a feeding frenzy. B-school students attack each person they want to talk and elbow each other out for the privilege of talking to one of these freshly minted MBA's who managed to secure a job at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. It's pretty sad at the end of the day. 

Positives: Usually these things have great spreads of food and drinks. Also, crop circles are a great way to meet people at the firms you are interested in and gain some valuable insights into why the firm is unique. However, they are only useful in this regards if you somehow manage to find someone who is being open and honest (there was one recruiter today who was particularly helpful). 

Negatives: Everything else. These things are huge time drains and don't really provide a way to differentiate from the pack. What ends up happening is people trying to sound smart by asking crazy weird question or boring, stereotypical questions that make me want to poke my eyes with the plastic forks I am using to eat the chicken satay they provide. Today for example, I actually got nudged out of a circle by an overly aggressive student looking to make an impression with the recruiter. In an act of great originality, he used his moment in the sun to ask what McKinsey consultants do on a day to day basis! 

The beauty of the situation is how clueless some of these students are in regards to the impressions that they are giving. People want to make friendly conversation, not be harassed by over eager MBA's. If you are sweating and stiff, I recommend you take a time out and compose yourself before elevating the volume of your voice to overshadow everyone else in the room. Yelling your credentials, faking laughs, and providing a 30 second elevator pitch is not going to win you the job. 

That brings me to another point. Elevator pitches are not appropriate for these forums! It looks canned and forced. No one wants to hear about your random consulting project where you led a team and saved the world (actually, if you save the world that would be saweet)! Crop circles have 5-10 people surrounding one person. Forcing your story into the mix makes you look like a socially inept buffoon. 

I write this with a lot of love. I probably do the same things at times (and I hate myself for it). I just think everyone needs to take a chill pill --myself included. 

Pretty Cool Graphic

Pretty cool word cloud about Edit Huddle that I felt I should share with the world. 

Startup Weekend and Hackathons

The best place to start a tech business is BY FAR at a hackathon. I know that these things are getting to be dime a dozen now, but I think it's for a good reason. These weekend hack sessions are great for socializing with quality people, testing your idea, and then trying your darndest to make the idea become a reality over the course of a three day weekend. These crazy all-night sessions have the potential to change your life, and if you play your cards right, can lead to a successful start of a new company.

I have recently been involved in two such hack sessions. The first hackathon I was involved in was Chicago SocialDev Camp.  This was my introduction to the world of weekend hack sessions and got me hooked. I did not know anyone else going to DevCamp and walked into a room full of geeky hacker types who were ready to code away. I loved it. As a "business" person, I thought I would be shunned for not being a gung-ho coder, but I quickly found out that everyone was there to just have a good time. If the concept of coding for three days straight and building something from scratch is not appealing to you from the outset, you MUST attend one of these so you can be disabused of that notion. 

Anyways...back to the story. 

I sat a table and started to socialize with everyone within 10 ft of me (for those who know me...thats pretty standard practice). I met people doing some interesting things and wanting to try out some new ideas or just learning how to code. I ended up pitching some quirky idea to a random hodgepodge of people and lo and behold, some of the guys around me liked my idea. We tossed around several more ideas, but then we decided to stop wasting time and just start coding. After some preliminary planning, we identified what we wanted from a minimum viable product and started to code. 

But wait....i'm not a coder. What did I end up doing for three days? The answer is everything. Just because you can't code, doesnt mean you can't contribute. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off the entire time, helping with design, functionality, marketing, and finally making a presentation. Just to be fair, I am a little technical, but not technical enough to get dirty in the code.  

I am clearly not Neo from the Matrix

Anyways, after three days of development, we ended up with the bare bones basics of what is now Edit Huddle. We ended up adding to the Edit Huddle idea at Startup Weekend Chicago. We placed pretty well at both events and now Edit Huddle is up and running into a real company. 

Actually, dont take my word for it. I'm pasting a post from one of our helping hands at Startup Weekend, Rachel Hyman. You can see the original post here.

Hello World

Just wanted to make sure everyone was paying attention...yes, I have another blog titled ImmyEatWorld. The music blog kinda died due to inactivity and the fact that I was not finding the time to post music. The fact that half my YouTube links didn't show up as images on my WordPress blog didn't help. You can still visit it here: immyeatworld.wordpress.com. 

I think I am going to use this blog to talk about some of my experiences, be they startup stuff or otherwise. Sometimes I will directly repost blog from my various Edit Huddle blog posts as well. Keep in mind that so long as Edit Huddle is running, you will see quite a few references to it. Personally, I think it is pretty interesting stuff and hopefully other people will find it interesting as well. I can tell you about it in another post, but chances are, if you are reading this, you already know what it is about. 

I am trying to write all my blog posts as a stream of conciousness with very little editing. I'll be adding my Edit Huddle "Fix It" button to the blog, so you guys can send me any issues that come up. Additionally, if you want me to blog about something in particular, let me know. I'm open to suggestions, and I have very few original ideas. 

Ok, keep beasting it.