RateMyProfessors

I saw RateMyProfessors last year and thought it was a good idea. Apparently many professors aren't happy with it. Probably because it means they actually have to be accountable for their teaching style. What a concept. Anyway, I checked out MIT and none of the professors I've had have been rated although many others have. If you are an SDM'er, you should start rating your profs. I'm going to do it by the end of the term.

Sidenote: The wired story mentioned that the guy that created RateMyProfessors sold it recently for a seven figure sum. Hmm.

Confessions of an Engineering Washout

This is an interesting article (recently Slashdotted) about a guy that dropped out of engineering school and joined a liberal arts program because the quality of the engineering education was so poor. This is in a similar vein to what Sam recently blogged about (post: I saw a link to the same article in one of Sam's comments)

Since I'm attending a SmartyPants U, I can sympathize. Many of the professors either don't care if you really learn the material or are teaching material that is so out of date or irrelevant that it is painful to slog through. With the advent of disruptive forms of education, I think universities, regardless of their name, will need to do a better job or their role may be minimized in the future.

Two degrees for the price of one!

I received the good news today that I've been accepted into the Civil Engineering department's Information Technology Masters degree program. This means I'll graduate in June with two Masters degrees from MIT, one in engineering management and the other in information technology. I was hopeful that I'd get accepted, which is part of the reason I'm taking so many classes this term.

Here is more on the IT degree from the CEE website:

"The Department's program in Information Technology is intended to prepare students to play a leading role in the digital information age. Research efforts in IT focus on four broad areas: large scale information systems; sensing, data assimilation and control; modeling and simulation; and communication, collaboration, and decision support systems. In addition, students undertake study areas of web-based information systems, large scale product development coordination, signal and image processing, real-time control, computational mechanics, computational geometry, scientific visualization, large scale software engineering, parallel and distributed computing, database management systems, knowledge-based systems, and distance education."

Meebo

Meebo is a new IM client aggregator that is completely web-based. It uses Ajax so the interface is snappy. The remote SDM'ers that have companies that block IM should take a look.

Henry Mintzberg, author of "Managers Not MBAs" and Professor of Management

I didn't read much about this session before attending other than it was going to take a "hard look at MBA programs". I'm glad I went! Henry Mintzberg is a Professor of Management at McGill University and noted anti-MBA author. He was asked questions in a debate-like forum by the CEO of Semco, Ricardo Semler. Professor Mintzberg did not mince words. He has some strong views about the limitations of MBA programs. I found myself agreeing with him on most every point. He is a strong advocate for people getting real-world experience before being taught management skills. You have to earn your management stripes as he likes to say, not have them handed to you because you have a piece of paper from a university.

This is one of the reasons I did internships during my undergrad days. First I started at IBM my sophomore year and then I went to Cisco my junior year. Things worked out so well at Cisco that I never went back to school full-time. Now that I've had 10 years of experience, I'm enhancing my business and managerial skills through an education at MIT. Another key point from Mintzberg is that he believes MBA programs should be part-time. The education should go hand-in-hand with your work experience. Again, this is what I'm doing by continuing to work at Cisco while attending MIT. I doubt many of the MBAs in the room appreciated Mintzberg's talk, but for someone like me, he was preaching to the choir. Semler kept prodding Mintzberg on what MBA students currently in the program should focus on. Mintzberg said he didn't feel comfortable giving an answer because he didn't agree with the approach they are taking in the first place ;-)

My favorite quote from the talk: The problem with being in a rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat

Notes:

Can't create a manager in a classroom

MBA programs don't create managers

Management is the intersection of craft, art and science

Don't close MBA schools, just recognize them for what they are. They are teaching analytical skills to future analysts.

If you want to be a manager, get in an industry and be promoted to a manager. Then join a educational program that lets you enhance those skills

MBA programs should be part-time so they don't cut students off from their experience

Should earn managerial stripes, not get it because you have an MBA

You are being trained well on business functions, but NOT on being a leader of tomorrow

Cases are not a way to learn management (several digs at Harvard's style of teaching)

Students should build the learning around their experience

Management isn't like engineering or medicine – there is no such thing as a natural surgeon, but there are natural leaders, i.e., some leaders have never taken a single leadership course

The problem with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat

MBA is so hyped up

Only 5 of 19 Harvard superstars from 1990 were still "successful" in 2003

He has a pretty dire perception and outlook on American business

After Enron, schools added a course on ethics next to the 12 on shareholder value

Shareholder value is not a value

Softkills are blended in all courses, you don't need specific classes on it

The biggest problem in leadership today is selection

We almost never consult the people who have been managed by the candidates we evaluate

Beware of the company you keep

Another enlightening Business Law class. This session covered punishing companies, punishing managers, handling a crisis, and staying out of trouble. Akula went over a bunch of examples where executives got themselves in trouble and ultimately went to jail. It is a little scary actually. As a CEO, you can't just simply chose to ignore some wrongdoing within your company -- you can be held liable. If an employee does something really bad, unless you play your cards really well, you could get in major trouble.

The prof said the best single piece of advice he can give us is: Be careful of the company you keep. If you are being put in a position to do something illegal and you don't have enough power to fix the problem, you have to quit. Quitting works well most of the time, but nothing else does. And don't keep a paper trail (ie, a diary or journal detailing the events even if you express your disagreement).

Enterprise Social Software: Business Blogs, Social Tools & Narratives

There are several interesting events going on in the Boston area next week. I already blogged about the Emerging Tech Conference. On Sept 29th, the Enterprise Social Software conference is beind held in Waltham.

When I used to speak regularly on the conference circuit (before I started at MIT), I often had to pick one conference over another because there was so much overlap. There are two general conference seasons: one in spring from April-June and the other from Sept-Nov. Of course you'll find conferences outside of this, but a lot of the big ones happen in this range.

Career Interviews

The SDM program is intended to prepare mid-career professionals for leadership positions. At this point, my career path is leading me to be a CIO, CTO, VP of Engineering, or CEO/Founder. But how do I pick the one I want to do? The CIO role is typically quite different than CTO or VP of Engineering. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to start my own company yet, though I don't think I'm far away from it.

Even with all the classes I attend and the speakers I listen to, I get very little information on the specifics of what it is like being in a particular position at a company. So to help me decide what position I'm best suited for, I'm going to start doing "career interviews." I'm going to cold-email various executives around the Cambridge area and ask for an hour of their time to talk about their job and career. I'll ask a variety of questions about their role, the skills and commitment required, how they obtained the position, among others. One of the last questions I'll ask is if they have any recommendations for additional people I should contact. This will be a good networking opportunity.

I've already sent out a few emails and got a couple responses. I'll blog the notes from my interviews if given permission from the interviewee. A lot of the companies I'd like to talk to are outside of the immediate Boston area and since I don't have a car, it isn't feasible to visit them. However, I should be able to stay pretty busy with companies and organizations local to me.

On tap for tonight

Two events. First, I'm going to attend the $50K Fall Kick-off. This runs from 630-8pm. I'd like to enter the $1k Warm-up if I can find the right team soon enough.

Then I'm going to head over to the MIT Alumni Dinner at the Marriott. I don't have many details about the dinner, but it is free (I think) and has something to do with the Career Fair, so I figure it will be a good networking opportunity. Matti said he is going and Yoav may.

Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference 2005 at MIT

I'd go to this if I was going to be in town next week, but I'm not unfortunately. Bill Joy will be there; he usually has something thought-provoking to say. There are quite a few interesting sessions. If anyone I know attends, I'd love an update after the confernece.

Bike ride to BU and Harvard

This evening I went on a nice bike ride to the campus of Boston U. and then to Harvard. I've always enjoyed visiting college campuses (especially in the Fall). My two favorite campuses are UNC - Chapel Hill (of course) and Stanford. The two I've liked the least would have to be NC State and San Jose State. I've been to probably 20 others.

Where does MIT's campus rank? Somewhere around 6 or 7. MIT has a reputation for a boring campus and it lives up to it mostly. There are three exceptions. The courtyard in front of the dome is one of my favorite academic spots in the world....to think of all the smart people that walked down the infinite corridor. The main entrance off of Mass Ave is pretty cool too. Then there is the Stata Center, which is the home of the MIT Computer Science Dept and the W3C. It is a Frank Gehry design that invokes strong opinions, but at least it isn't the typical boring building! The campus also gets high marks for being beside the Charles River. Some MIT buildings have very nice views of the Boston skyline and the river.

Back to my ride....the BU campus was quite nice. At first I didn't even know I was riding through BU until I saw a sign for it. The campus has a much more homey feel than MIT. I bet all Red Sox fans that attend BU love the campus considering it is a stone's throw from the Green Monster.

I'd been to the Harvard campus a couple of times before so I knew what to expect. It is nice, though I don't think as nice as UNC or Stanford (maybe it would be #3 on my list). But then again, I may have not seen everything. Harvard Yard is cool. It was funny to see two or three different tourist groups making their way around the Yard. Next I headed down JFK St and over the bridge to the HBS campus. I considered applying to HBS before I applied to MIT, so I attended an informational session there last year. Later on I decided that if I didn't get into my first choice (MIT), Harvard would be my second choice :-P The HBS side of campus was much more subdued than up by the Yard. Very picturesqe though.

Oh one more thing. I took a brief break at Harvard and went in a couple of shops. I stopped in the Harvard COOP (bookstore) to see how it compared to the MIT COOP. Of course I had to check out their selection of Robbie Allen books. The other day I was at the MIT COOP and saw that they had 4 of my 5 O'Reilly books. The Harvard COOP is lacking a bit, they had only 3 of them. I knew I made the right choice in going to MIT!

15.021J - Real Estate Economics

Like the Business Law course, I've already learned a lot from Real Estate Economics after just two sessions. I'm going to sit in on this course as well and try to soak up as much as I can. Here is the course description:

Focuses on developing an understanding of the factors that shape and influence markets for real property. Includes demographic analysis, patterns of regional growth, construction cycles, urban location theory, and modeling techniques for predicting demand.
W. C. Wheaton

15.616 - Basic Business Law & New Technologies

I've attended two sessions of the Business Law course and have decided to continue sitting in on it. I've already learned a lot about torte law and fiduciaries. All beginning entrepreneurs should take a class like this. I bought the book for the course and will read along with the class. Here is the course description:

A broad introduction to business law, but with a distinctive slant. Covers the 15.615 topics, including the establishment of a new venture, but more quickly. Special attention to law-sensitive aspects of the commercialization of new technologies, and the legal issues raised by new products and innovative business models. Patents and other intellectual property rights in cutting-edge industries. Licensing. The liability risks associated with new technologies, including products liability.
J. Akula

TiE - Boston

Last night, instead of doing my plethora of homework, I went to TiE - Boston's Software Services Business Forum which was being held in the E51 building at MIT. TiE appeared on my radar a couple of months ago (they have a Raleigh chapter) so I thought this would be a good opportunity to see what they are about. Last night's session was a gathering of the Software SIG and Open Source was the topic. Larry Bohen, a VC that funds open source companies, was the moderator and the panel included Doug Levin, the CEO of Blackduck Software, Justin Steinman, North America Solutions Manager at Novell, and Bob Gett, President & CEO of Optaros.

I made a couple of good contacts. I met the CEO of a small firm that is in the business of turning companies around. It was quite interesting to hear him talk about companies as "systems". I asked him what are the biggest problems he sees in companies and he responded unsurprisingly with: people issues. Lack of visibility with what people are working on, people working inefficiently, people working on too many things, etc. He also said not having a comprehensive intellectual property strategy was a common big problem.

It was interesting to hear from the panel about how they try to sell Open Source software. Justin, from Novell, made an good analogy. He said selling Open Source is kind of like selling water. Sure water is ubiquitous and "free", but you are willing to pay every month to have it delivered to your house, have it purified, etc. I'm not sure that is a high growth, high margin model, but it will be interesting to see if Novell can sustain it. Larry, the VC said that they rarely see startups using .NET as their development language. I thought that was pretty interesting. I know some that do, in fact I'm a technical advisor for one, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if startups use Java or C++ significantly more than C# or VB.NET. There were several references to Tim O'Reilly and considering I was at the center of the Open Source world a few weekends ago, it shouldn't be surprising that I didn't hear anything new. The crowd was largely professionals with only a couple of students present.

The event cost $15 for student non-members, which included dinner. Membership to TiE is $100 annually and the TiE rep said you would easily make that up in a couple of meetings. I'm not sure about his Math. It cost student members $10 for the same event it cost me $15 to attend. If all events have a similar fee structure, I'd have to attend 20 events to break even and I don't know if they even have that many per year. I'm sure there are other benefits of being a member, but I think I'd rather pick and choose the events I want to go to and stick with being a non-member.

Real estate

Another course I'm interested in that I didn't list before is 15.021 - Real Estate Economics. My wife is a real estate agent and much like law, I've always had an interest in it. I attended the first class and I think we have another winner. Professor Bill Wheaton is knowledgeable and his explanations are relevant. He went through a bunch of slides comparing various real estate markets and drawing conclusions. I think I can learn a lot in this class, though I will only take it as a listener.

Here are a few notes I took:

- Most real estate markets have shown little gain over the last 25 years
- Within "markets" all properties move together; no cyclic trends; rising tides raises/lowers all boats; "market" = high substitutability; high mobility. Examples: Southern CA, Boston suburbs/neighborhoods, etc. So don't let a realtor tell you, for example: Back Bay property is hot, but nothing is moving in Cambridge. The trends just don't back up. All sub-markets move proportionally with each other.
- Gave an interesting trend of real estate prices in a certain part of Amsterdam for the last 375 years. The short of it is that inflation adjusted, the price is the same today it was back in 1650. He said we'll talk a lot about whether real estate is actually a good investment or whether it just keeps up with inflation.
- $500/per sq ft in DC for offices -- costs about $320 per sq ft to build
- Land value is residual
- Companies like to have offices near highways because the land is cheap

Jen-Hsun Huang, President, CEO and Co-founder, Nvidia

The Sloan MediaTech Club sponsored a talk by the CEO of Nvidia on Monday. Jen-Hsun Huang was charming and disarming - he started the talk off by telling us he didn't go to business school. The contrast between him and more typical CEOs of large companies is obvious. Mr. Huang's talked about how he started Nvidia and some of the lessons he learned along the way. He had a hunch, ran with it, and created a semi-conductor giant. Out of all the talks by CEOs I've listened to, this was the first where the person actually talked a little about what it is like being a CEO.

Jen-Hsun Huang's Biography

Notes:

Doesn't have a business degree

The ability to ask good questions will determine your success

30 years old, married and 2 kids back in 1993 when he started Nvidia

His goal was simple: he wanted to make the computing experience more enjoyable

This generation has a unique perspective about computing that kids 20 years from now won't have

Went to Don Valentine to get funding – Don turns out to be one of the toughest VCs in the business

Don gave him 2 pieces of advice and $2 million

Advice: 1) "We look for a big market, killer product, and a few good men", 2) "Startups must have laser beam focus" (ie, choose 1 thing, do 1 thing and have laser focus

You are up against people with a lot more resources and just as smart, so you have to think about how you are going to do it differently

Don's advice wasn't very helpful because when you create a new market, it isn't very large to start with

What you need in the beginning is a hunch (biz talk = vision)

His hunch was: 3D graphics will make the biggest waves in the consumer market. Traditionally it had been used in the enterprise.

When he started the company it was the only one in this space

His company followed Christensen's disruptive technology model. His first product was "bad". His second was also not very good, but was starting to become "good enough"

Always thought his purpose was to make the world a better place (not to make money)

It is important to realize that your company isn't about just making money. You need a purpose in order to keep people working late hours and loyal.

1 market, 1 product, 1 singular focus, and w/ laser focus they became the fastest growing semi-conductor company ever

But he doesn't want to be a 1 trick pony so they looked to expand scope

Looked for adjacency, not diversification

The hardest thing to do is recruiting; to convince someone to give up their job and come work for you for next to no money. Some recruits took years to convince.

Moore's Law is either your friend or enemy

If technology doubles every other year then prices halve every other year too. This makes it hard to grow.

So how do you grow in this environment? Go into niches. Fight "good enough"; continually make the products better.

Learned along the way:

1) He told Sequoia they should invest because they have unique technology. But technology is disposable. Ultimately what matters are people. It isn't money – he can raise $1 billion in 2 hours. Ultimately, his fundamental asset is people and great ideas.

So every one of your assets is up for the highest bidder. Your culture is the only thing that binds you together.

2) There is a difference between management and leadership. Management is a skill you can learn. Without management you risk losing money. Without leadership you risk losing the enterprise. You either have it or you don't.

3) Innovation is not about continuous improvement. He has to risk his company every day or else a competitor will beat them. When you encourage innovation, people will make mistakes.

4) There is no such thing as balance. Being a CEO is a 24/7 job so unless your family is supportive, you won't be successful.

He has dinner 1 or 2 nights a week with his family. And he doesn't go to many baseball games.

Somebody is always hunting you down. Your competitor doesn't stop working at 5pm because you want to go to a baseball game.

5) Every company needs a purpose and it shouldn't be to take the company public

Building a company is really really hard

You are going to fail some everyday so you purpose better be good or you'll want to quit

The first year is about finding your way

Don't "hire", always "recruit". Some people take a long time cultivating the relationship

If he did it over again, he would have found the money to invest himself

Not sticking with Innovation Teams or Dynamics of Biomed Technologies

I attended the first session of "Dynamics of Biomedical Technologies". The course is pretty loosely organized. The professor selected a key area in the biomed field (vaccines) and is basing the whole course on it. Last year they used medical imaging. The course would be an easy A, but I wouldn't take it for credit anyway. There are no exams. You just have to prepare some slides for one class. Vaccines are somewhat interesting, but I was looking more for the business behind biomed, not a review of vaccines.

I didn't even make it to the "Innovation Teams" class. I instead went to the Z center and played some hoops. Up on the Dupont courts they were running some good games. I figure with everything on my plate already, I'm better off not taking a evening course and instead saving that time to do homework and get some exercise.

I'm still going to consider the two H2 courses I listed earlier when they start up in November.

Two new links

I've created pages for the classes I've taken and the speakers I've seen while at MIT. I've taken (or in the process of taking) 17 classes and seen over 28 speakers. I'm getting my money's worth :-)

Saying MIT is International is an understatement

In my business law class this morning, the lecturer asked how many people in the class were born outside the US. I thought maybe 50% would raise their hand. It was more like 75-80%. Wow. And based on what I've seen around the MIT campus, that isn't an anomaly. Being a white male in the United States, I'm used to being in the majority, so it is kind of refreshing to be in the minority. However, I'm a little concerned at what this means for US students. Are they not as good on average? Does MIT want a disproportionate number of international students? If I had to venture a guess without doing any research, I'd probably say yes on both counts.

"Basic Business Law and New Technology" a winner

I attended my first session of the business law course this morning. It is excellent. John Akula, the lecturer, is very energetic and knowledgeable. The class is completely full and there is no chance of taking it for credit (which I'm fine with) so I may try to just tag along. I'm going to attend as many classes as I can.

I've had an increasing interest in law over the last couple of years and briefly considered going to law school before being accepted to MIT. This will give me a chance to see if law is something I'm really interested in or not.

Other class possibilities

I've already signed up for a lot of classes, but since this is my last semester on campus at MIT, I want to make sure I take advantage of everything I possibly can. So I'm looking at a few more classes that I may take as an auditor:

15.616 - Basic Business Law and New Techs
15.123J - Dyanmics of Biomedical Technologies
15.371J - Innovation Teams

These are second half semester classes I may attend:

15.396 - Tech Sales and Sales Mgmt
15.976 - Careers in Major Corps

John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems

The first talk I attended this term is fittingly from the CEO of the company I've worked at for the last 9 years, Cisco Systems. Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, often sends out emails to the company or makes a video-on-demand session for a topic he wants the company to hear about. Also, he holds a "birthday breakfast" every month where employees' whose birthday falls in that month can ask John questions directly. These sessions are also available on video-on-demand and I usually watch them because inevitably someone will ask about the stock, competitors, etc. So I hear John talk about a variety of topics pretty regularly. However, I thought it would be interesting to watch him present to a group of non-Cisco people. CSAIL brought John in as part of their Industry Leaders in Technology and Management Lecture Series.

Based on the 30 or so speakers I saw in the spring, I feel uniquely qualified to assess a presenter's ability to communicate effectively. Even though I've seen John present many times before (usually remotely), I was impressed at how well he came across in person. The talk was fast-paced and you can tell he really knows his stuff. His southern accent makes for a friendly tone unlike many of the corporate suits that speak northeast monotone. He also used powerpoint the right way! He didn't use the slides as a crutch to get through the talk, but instead used them as simple reference points for the audience to look at while he talked. Most good speakers do it this way. I feel proud to be a Cisco employee and have John as our CEO. That's not to say I like everything about Cisco - the company is too big which causes all sorts of problems (politics, stifled innovation, too much process, etc), but at least it is a big company with a good CEO.

Here are my notes from the talk:

He said when he was a student if someone told him he would be a leader of tomorrow he would have said "sell your stock"

Two equalizers in life: Education and Internet

Recommends The World is Flat because the author has it nailed

Future of countries, companies, jobs are going to be based on market transitions/innovation, education, infrastructure, and supportive govn't

He has been growing Cisco's productivity 10%/year - but doing much better because 50% of engineering has been re-orged which decreases productivity

Top 10 competitors from 10 years ago are gone

Top 10 competitors 10 years from now aren't in the top 10 now (and Cisco could be left behind)

If not one of the first 5 in the market, Cisco either acquires or partners. You can't go from 6 to 1.

Key to catch market transitions before it becomes obvious to others. If you wonder what you should be doing in China today, it is too late. Cisco moved in China 10 years ago.

Requires 3 to 5 years foresight in Cisco's industry

CEO/CIO top priorities now: 1. speed, flexibility, change; 2. Revenue growth; 3. Cost/productivity; 4. Customer focus

Not preparing students to be competitive against other countries

Jobs go with the best infrastructure and best educated workforce and supportive govn't; US is 14th in new broadband deployments

High tech companies are not good at research; so we have to fund govn't projects that use universities, but R&D money is going down

Moving from transactions to interactions

Jobs are moving more toward interactions, not transactions;

Technology w/o process change doesn't get the productivity results

Interactions are hard

Takes a min of 5 years to drive any goal through a company

You are not going to be smarter or work harder, you have to figure out how to do things differently

Innovation is not just about doing it yourself

Need the discipline to acquire and partner

5 rules of thumb for acquisitions: Long-term win-win, short-term win-win (people), shared vision, culture, customer driven

You have to think about how you are going to do it differently when others have failed

90% of acquisitions fail and partnerships are even worse

Doesn't surprise him there are unethical CEOs (any population has unethical people), but in each of the recent failed companies (Enron, Tyco, etc), there had to be 300-400 people that knew what the unethical CEO was doing and let it go

The most successful and strongest have an obligation to help the less privileged or weak

Don't penalize failure in a company – just don't make the same mistake twice

ESD.36J - System Project Management

Here is the course description for my System Project Management class:

Subject focuses on management principles, methods, and tools to effectively plan and implement successful system and product development projects. Material is divided into four major sections: project preparation, planning, monitoring, and adaptation. Brief review of classical techniques such as CPM and PERT. Emphasis on new methodologies and tools such as Design Structure Matrix (DSM), probabilistic project simulation, as well as project system dynamics (SD). Topics are covered from strategic, tactical, and operational perspectives. Industrial case studies expose factors that are typical drivers of success and failure in complex projects with both hardware and software content. Term projects analyze and evaluate past and ongoing projects in student's area of interest. Projects used to apply concepts discussed in class.
O. de Weck, J. Lyneis

ESD.355J - Concepts in the Engineering of Software

Here is the course description for my Concepts in the Engineering of Software class:

A reading and discussion subject on issues in the engineering of software systems and software development project design. Includes the present state of software engineering, what has been tried in the past, what worked, what did not, and why. Topics may differ in each offering, but will be chosen from: the software process and lifecycle; requirements and specifications; design principles; testing, formal analysis, and reviews; quality management and assessment; product and process metrics; COTS and reuse; evolution and maintenance; team organization and people management; and software engineering aspects of programming languages.
N. G. Leveson

ESD.34J - System Architecture

Here is the course description for my System Architecture class:

Covers principles and methods for technical System Architecture. Presents a synthetic view including: the resolution of ambiguity to identify system goals and boundaries; the creative process of mapping form to function; and the analysis of complexity and methods of decomposition and re-integration. Industrial speakers and faculty present examples from various industries. Heuristic and formal methods are presented. Restricted to SDM students.
E. F. Crawley

15.358 - The Software Business

Here is the course description for my Software Business class:

Seminar-style subject for those interested in founding or growing an enterprise or consumer software company (products, services or both), or working as a software company manager, product or program manager, or industry analyst. Examine approaches used for organization and product development at successful companies ranging from Microsoft and IBM to a variety of relatively new companies. History of software as a business as well as key trends in different software markets. Student-teams help teach weekly sessions and analyze "interesting companies" selected by students which form the basis for team projects.
M. A. Cusumano

1.124J – Foundations of Software Engineering

Here is the course description for my Foundations of Software Engineering class:

Modern software development techniques for engineering and information technology. Design and development of component-based software (using C# and .NET); data structures and algorithms for modeling, analysis, and visualization; basic problem-solving techniques; web services; and the management and maintenance of software. Treatment of topics such as sorting and searching algorithms; and numerical simulation techniques. Foundation for in-depth exploration of image processing, computational geometry, finite element methods, network methods and e-business applications.
J. R. Williams

1.264J - Database, Internet, and Systems Integration Technologies

Below is the course description for my Database, Internet, and Systems Integration Technologies class:

Survey of information technology covering database modeling, design, and implementation with an emphasis on relational databases and SQL. Internet technologies: http, html, XML, SOAP, security. Brief introduction to components and middleware. Introduction to design and implementation of multi-tier architectures, benchmarks, and performance. Data networking protocols and technologies. Students complete project that covers requirements/design, data model, database implementation, website, and system architecture.
G. Kocur

Back on campus

I got back from my vacation to Europe on Tuesday night and flew into Boston on Wednesday night. Needless to say, it has been a busy week. This is my last semester on campus at MIT, so I'm going to make the most of it. I'll finish up my thesis in the spring and take a couple of classes remotely next term. I've signed up for six classes this term so far and I'm evaluating a couple others.

Classes started at MIT on Wednesday and I've attended the first session of all but one of my classes. It has been good seeing my classmates again and the weather has been beautiful here (knock on wood). The good news is overall I think I'll get a lot more out of the classes I'm taking this term than either of the previous two. My professors are good and the material is interesting and pertinent.

This blog will once again become active as I write about my classes, experiences, and people that give talks.