Industry and Competitive Analysis
I sometimes wonder just how much in step I am with the whole campus opinion on various courses. Take for example Industry and Competitive Analysis. This is a course which professes to give you an idea of how to evaluate industries and find sources of competitive advantage. It is one of the P4 "blockbuster" courses. That's a course which gets above 4.5/5 on the professor evaluation. Once a course achieves this, people pick it just for the hell of it - the general opinion is that it is better to have a crap course taught by an excellent professor than vice versa.
So, diligently, I thought something that pulls a 4.93/5 would be worthwhile. What a stinker it has been. In a lot of ways it reeks of consulting to me. The readings are superbly academic. And yet they cover what are fundamentally fairly basic concepts. Like for example you need to know where exactly it is that your company adds value - e.g. production, marketing or distribution. And quite often people don't so they go off and invest in the wrong thing. Hardly rocket science. You'd think. Except this simple concept is couched in academic papers written in the 60s when the English was even more flowery than this blog.
And a lot of the class material, seems to me anyway, is of the sort where the 20/20 hindsight has added wonderful perspective to it. Time and time again things get explained along the lines of "This is the correct answer and is what the company should have done. Only a stupid person would do something else". Consultant speak once again.
Another gripe is the handouts. The professor has been doing this course since the beginning of time. And yet, the handouts have a feel that is very much "My first handout" feel to it. I am pretty certain that at some point in the handout generation process Clippy popped up and said "Looks like you're trying to write a handout. Would you like some help?". At which point the professor said "Do you know who I am????" and vanished old Clippy into a puff of smoke. With a shockingly bad handout being the direct result.
Moan over. It's my birthday. I am definitely older, but the question is, am I wiser?
CQW: What electives are you doing for P5?
So, diligently, I thought something that pulls a 4.93/5 would be worthwhile. What a stinker it has been. In a lot of ways it reeks of consulting to me. The readings are superbly academic. And yet they cover what are fundamentally fairly basic concepts. Like for example you need to know where exactly it is that your company adds value - e.g. production, marketing or distribution. And quite often people don't so they go off and invest in the wrong thing. Hardly rocket science. You'd think. Except this simple concept is couched in academic papers written in the 60s when the English was even more flowery than this blog.
And a lot of the class material, seems to me anyway, is of the sort where the 20/20 hindsight has added wonderful perspective to it. Time and time again things get explained along the lines of "This is the correct answer and is what the company should have done. Only a stupid person would do something else". Consultant speak once again.
Another gripe is the handouts. The professor has been doing this course since the beginning of time. And yet, the handouts have a feel that is very much "My first handout" feel to it. I am pretty certain that at some point in the handout generation process Clippy popped up and said "Looks like you're trying to write a handout. Would you like some help?". At which point the professor said "Do you know who I am????" and vanished old Clippy into a puff of smoke. With a shockingly bad handout being the direct result.
Moan over. It's my birthday. I am definitely older, but the question is, am I wiser?
CQW: What electives are you doing for P5?
posted by The Apprentice at 12:26 PM
2 Comments:
Holy Shit. I forgot your birthday. I suck. :(
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bulgar.
Whoa, poorly written material, same old stuff?
It can only be Karel Cool !!
Nothing has changed in the past 10 yrs !!!
Haha!
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