Gen Y Management

I read two interesting articles from the economist this past week about management of younger workers.  Some of the points are pretty interesting because they really do relate to how I (as a “Gen Y” person) sometimes think and act.  The articles also do a pretty good job of pointing out that how older managers may look at younger employees.  It’s at least something to think about.

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12863573

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12853955

NECVA Preseason Poll

So for those of you that don’t know, I am going to be a volunteer assistant coach on the MIT volleyball team this year.  I’ve been pretty busy with work, but I make it over to MIT for practice whenever possible.

NECVA (our volleyball conference) came out with the first preseson poll. MIT is ranked 8th which is probably about right since we graduated 5 seniors. I even got a little love in the article.  If you read this too quickly it seems like I won a bunch of awards…then you reread it and see really understand it..

MIT, which will host the 2009 conference tournament, is picked to finish eighth. Paul Dill’s club was 25-11 last year, falling to Vassar in the NECVA Quarterfinals. With 27 points, the Engineers bring back six starters, but lose three-time First-Team All-NECVA pick and 2008 New England Division Player of the Year Praveen Pamidimukkala and Ryan Dean.

2009 Resolutions

So bpope and alice have inspired me to write down my new years resolutions.  Hopefully (I doubt it) posting them will encourage me to refer back to them and work on ones that I have fallen behind on. At least it will allow me to look back next year and see what I wanted to do in 09. So here we go…

Call my friends from home at least once every 2 months: It might not sound like a lot, but its more than the 2x per year that happens now.  I always find some kind of excuse not to, but this year its going to change.

Write thank you notes: I’m lucky enough to have a very generous family and I don’t thank them enough.  Whether it’s gifts from my relatives at Christmas or anything else, I should let people know I appreciate them.

Keep my weight under 175: It’s unlikely that I am going to get too buff this year, so I think my bigger concern will be gaining weight.  I weighed as little as 152 after my freshman year (probably a little too thin) and right now im probably about 170.  This being my first full year of work, I need to continue working out and stay concious of what I’m eating.

Stay aware of my investments: This year was pretty rough with the stock market and as I start to put more money away for retirement and investments I need to do a better job of staying on top of it.  With the market down so much the last couple months my current investments have been doing pretty badly and the only bright spot has been that I was so lazy with actually investing my money that some of it was in cash.  Since it was cash it couldn’t lose its value.  In 2009 I need to get in the habit of just being more proactive.  This is the time to do it since I am young and crazy stuff like the past couple months aren’t as big a deal for me.  Its a great opportunity to learn.

Leave Boston at least once a month: When I get a car this year it will be a lot easier to make this happen, but for now my goal is still once a month.  It’s too easy to get stuck in Boston proper just doing the same old stuff (bars, gym, TV).  I’ve already gone snowboarding this month and I am planning on going more this winter.  In the summer I want to do some camping and maybe even going whitewater kayaking.  In the mean time hopefully I can continue getting rides to volleyball tournaments when I need them.

A few more:

Work on my volleyball coaching skills

Have better posture

New year, new friends

It’s a new year and you know what that means, new years resolutions (probably coming soon to a website near you), and this year it got me thinking about keeping in touch with friends that I haven’t talked to in a while.  Taking a quick look at my buddy list its pretty obvious my friends have changed a bit since I got a screen name 10 years ago.  Even thinking back just over my 4 years in college its pretty different.

Think about who your closets friends are now, how you met them and who you hung out with before you knew them…

Stratton Snowboarding

Josh, Eddie and I went snowboarding at Stratton Mountain, VT this weekend. The snow wasn’t very good, but it seems like we got a pretty awesome deal. We snowboarded 2 days and stayed at a hotel overnight for $150 per person total. To put this in perspective: 1 day lift ticket =$82, 2 day lift ticket=$150…so basically we got to stay overnight for free. (Possibly another another post some other time to figure out if this was actually a good deal being that we may have gone for only 1 day instead of 2 without it).

The coolest part of the trip was when we found a picnic table set up as a jump/rail across a stream in some trees. Videos of Lake and I doing it are below. Turns out it isn’t as cool looking in the videos, but it was still pretty fun hitting a more natural jump instead of something just set up in the park for everyone.

Lake:

Dean:

States I’ve visited

I flew back to Boston last night from LAX, and it made me think about all the states I have never been to. I have the west coast and north east pretty much nailed down, but you may notice a pattern in where I haven’t spent much time. Maybe I can do another road trip sometime along a more southerly route.

Who would buy this? (part 3)

On my flight home for thanksgiving I decided this thing was too awesome to not share…(Yes is a portable garage type thing for your car)

iPhone Shortcuts

After playing around with the storm last week I got to thinking about ways the iPhone can be improved. I’m sure there are a lot of things everyone wants like copy and paste, but my idea is that the next firmware update should include a feature allowing users to customize shortcuts on thier phones.

My phone is usually left on Edge to conserve battery, but when I plan on using the internet for a while I often switch to 3G so its faster.  What I really want is a way to quickly turn 3G on/off without having to scroll though 3 screens to do it.

The app store revolutionized how we think about and use phones by enabling users to customize software, but I think there is an opportunity to use the physical buttons as hot keys for the most frequent tasks. The screen shot feature already takes advantage of the home/sleep keys, but owners should be able to customize any combination of the home/sleep/volume keys as shortcuts however they please.   Sure I have the option to set double-click home as my iPod or contacts, but since I barely ever talk on the phone I don’t really get much use out of it.

Storm

I finally got around to testing out the BlackBerry storm on Friday and was mostly unimpressed with what I found.  There have been a lot of reviews already, but I wanted to check it out for myself.

Overall I thought it felt pretty cheap and was  bit sluggish when navigating, but my biggest problem was with the typing.  The keyboard was hard to type quickly on because the entire screen acts as a single button.  It was easy to depress but since I kept forgetting to completely take my finger off the screen I continually missed a lot of the letters I was trying to type.  This may partly have happened because I am used to just sliding my fingers around the iPhone, but its likely this happens to others as well.

I probably wouldn’t buy one now that I have gotten used to my iPhone, but I am really interested to see where these phones go in the future.

UCLA is NOT MIT

I read this paragraph on ESPN in reference to how some guy on the UCLA basketball team is an awesome student.  Not to take anything away from him but isnt this just what normal kids do in college?  It just goes to show how bad college athletes can be.

“Aboya’s course load goes like this: He takes Principles of Microeconomic Theory three times a week and meets with the professor for 90 minutes a week; takes Statistical Method for Policy Analysis twice a week, with another 90-minute session with the professor once a week; and sits through Applied Policy Analysis twice a week and attends a nearly two-hour weekly tutorial session on Wednesday nights. In addition to all that, Aboya spends a minimum of five hours a week meeting with a tutor to discuss any or all of his courses.“
Sounds to me like Aboya’s course load goes like this:

• 14.01 + office hours

• 14.32 + office hours

• 17.__

• Pset help for varsity athletes (as needed)

I think this article backfired because to me it just makes his course load sound like a joke.  Imagine what other athletes do..

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?id=3682585&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab7pos2