an interesting couple of weeks
I have decided that I am incapable of doing much without a deadline of some sort or having a big chunk of my life being taken up by a job or something. I am not good at structuring my time when I don't have much to structure.
Case in point: here I am, spending summer vacation without a paying job, and while there is stuff I could be doing (working on my self-directed summer course, writing an absolutely fabulous fantasy novel, developing any number of D&D campaigns, or better yet getting some sort of part-time job to help pay bills), I am not doing much of anything right now. Admittedly the changes sokmunky, jadasc and I are implementing in the store have sucked up a large amount of my time to date, but I have realized that I am beginning to get underfoot there. The store is simply too small to handle 3 people behind the counter. One of these days, we will have an office, oh yes!
I have started getting into the meat of the summer course...finally. For those just joining us, I am essentially doing a business plan for my store as a self-directed course as part of my MBA program. Yeah, I am getting academic credit (and paying $3K) to do something I would be doing otherwise. But this gives me a deadline, academic oversight, and access to the resources of Boston College! Woot! I have started interviewing owners of businesses similar to mine, with the hopes of learning new methods of management and also to benchmark their performance against my store's. So far I've talked to the owners of Kate's Mysteries (a fellow specialty bookstore up in North Cambridge), Curious George Goes to Wordsworth (a specialty children's book and toy store right in Harvard Square), and Danger Planet (an excellent game store in Waltham). It is fascinating to see how similar our businesses are. Still, got a lot more to do!
Some good news: I am applying for a marketing analyst position for a company thinking about branching out into video game accessory. Essentially the company wants me to determine the size of the potential market for a specific flavor of video game accessory, and then if there is a big enough market, determine what price would be appropriate for the product. Since my bookstore targets a niche market itself, I think that getting experience in measuring niche market size and in pricing goods and services that cater to such markets would be a very valuable experience to me.
[Mental aside: just how many SF fans are in the Greater Boston area? Of those, how many are currently customers of the store? Must find out! ALL YOUR FANDOM ARE BELONG TO US!]
The job is a little intimidating because while we covered this sort of thing in Marketing last semester, I have no real experience in this, and the folks hiring me will expect me to go out and do all this with no supervision from them. Scary!
I did pop an email over to my marketing prof to make sure I had the chops for this sort of job. He was glad to give me some pointers on methodology and essentially said if I had questions I could go bug him. Nice guy! So that's a safety net. Also, this company is looking for first year MBA candidates to do this as a summer internship project, rather than a full-fledged marketing firm. One has to ask what the company's expectations are. (shrug) Interview's tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Looping back to the first paragraph of this missive, the irony here is that I sincerely believe that once I get a full-time job, I'll actually get more of my other work done. I will no longer have all this time to lie around procrastinating.
Speaking of which, I'd better be off doing some of that work stuff done. Charge!
Case in point: here I am, spending summer vacation without a paying job, and while there is stuff I could be doing (working on my self-directed summer course, writing an absolutely fabulous fantasy novel, developing any number of D&D campaigns, or better yet getting some sort of part-time job to help pay bills), I am not doing much of anything right now. Admittedly the changes sokmunky, jadasc and I are implementing in the store have sucked up a large amount of my time to date, but I have realized that I am beginning to get underfoot there. The store is simply too small to handle 3 people behind the counter. One of these days, we will have an office, oh yes!
I have started getting into the meat of the summer course...finally. For those just joining us, I am essentially doing a business plan for my store as a self-directed course as part of my MBA program. Yeah, I am getting academic credit (and paying $3K) to do something I would be doing otherwise. But this gives me a deadline, academic oversight, and access to the resources of Boston College! Woot! I have started interviewing owners of businesses similar to mine, with the hopes of learning new methods of management and also to benchmark their performance against my store's. So far I've talked to the owners of Kate's Mysteries (a fellow specialty bookstore up in North Cambridge), Curious George Goes to Wordsworth (a specialty children's book and toy store right in Harvard Square), and Danger Planet (an excellent game store in Waltham). It is fascinating to see how similar our businesses are. Still, got a lot more to do!
Some good news: I am applying for a marketing analyst position for a company thinking about branching out into video game accessory. Essentially the company wants me to determine the size of the potential market for a specific flavor of video game accessory, and then if there is a big enough market, determine what price would be appropriate for the product. Since my bookstore targets a niche market itself, I think that getting experience in measuring niche market size and in pricing goods and services that cater to such markets would be a very valuable experience to me.
[Mental aside: just how many SF fans are in the Greater Boston area? Of those, how many are currently customers of the store? Must find out! ALL YOUR FANDOM ARE BELONG TO US!]
The job is a little intimidating because while we covered this sort of thing in Marketing last semester, I have no real experience in this, and the folks hiring me will expect me to go out and do all this with no supervision from them. Scary!
I did pop an email over to my marketing prof to make sure I had the chops for this sort of job. He was glad to give me some pointers on methodology and essentially said if I had questions I could go bug him. Nice guy! So that's a safety net. Also, this company is looking for first year MBA candidates to do this as a summer internship project, rather than a full-fledged marketing firm. One has to ask what the company's expectations are. (shrug) Interview's tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Looping back to the first paragraph of this missive, the irony here is that I sincerely believe that once I get a full-time job, I'll actually get more of my other work done. I will no longer have all this time to lie around procrastinating.
Speaking of which, I'd better be off doing some of that work stuff done. Charge!