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Corporate Residency MBA

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Blazing a trail – Jordy’s story

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Originally posted by Scott A.E. Smith.

If you’ve read this blog before, or if you ‘like’ or follow the Dal MBA on Facebook or Twitter (@dalmba), you’re probably familiar with Jordy Fujiwara. He has been the leading voice of the program in the world of social media, including as the original author of this very blog.

In this space, he’s told the stories of so many people in the program, including those of nearly all his classmates in the Class of 2011. This was the inaugural class of the Corporate Residency MBA, which was launched in 2009, and the first to graduate from the program this past spring—which makes Jordy the first-ever Corporate Residency MBA alumnus to be featured here. And the first time anyone other than Jordy has told his story. So here it is.

Jordy Fujiwara grew up in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia. He was quiet growing up—a surprise to anyone who knows him as the fun-loving, outgoing guy he is today—and considered himself a bit of a “nerd” as a youngster. He did well in high school, then went off to Dal to study Computer Science, which, even as a self-styled “nerd”, he eventually decided wasn’t for him and switched to Psychology. This became his major and he stuck with it for the next four years.

With the “real world” beckoning after convocation, and unsure of what to do next, he decided to apply for the Corporate Residency MBA program (which was just starting at the time). And the rest, as they say, is history.

Before we get into that, though, I asked Jordy to update us on what he’s doing now.

“I am working on full-time contract with the full-service communications company Colour Creative Persuasion. In short, the ad agency Colour. We do everything from PR to TV spots to social media training to radio and print. It’s a great gig. I’ve had like four titles since starting there… I’ve basically been put on an unofficial rotation term, filling spots where voids occur.”

He started off as Digital Community Liaison (read: Community Manager), handling Nova Scotia Tourism’s Facebook page and other social media platforms. More recently, he’s been working as an Account Coordinator on their Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC) business. As an aside: the agency has just revamped their website (www.colour.ca)—check it out (and scroll down) to see Jordy’s photo along with his new title!

The work that Jordy is doing now for Colour is thanks in large part to what he chose to do for his residency in the MBA program. Rather than taking the well-worn path of working for a big, established company, he chose to blaze his own trail. He and classmate Randel Madell purchased a student-owned consulting firm called Coburg Consultants Ltd., and Jordy ran the business full-time for his 8-month residency. In short, he got to work for himself for 8 months!

“It was an interesting work term, different and arguably riskier than other folks’ because I wasn’t directly establishing myself with a company.

Our main contract was the Corporate Residence MBA social media campaign, which is the contract that kicked off this blog, incidentally. We also sold advertising spots on our reusable calendar product, called the Informer. And there were some market research gigs and fairly big business plan creation deals.

I used a lot of my time on the work term polishing my social media and digital marketing skills so I could emerge with a degree and a specific skill-set. I also met my primary contact at Colour during my work term.”

This kind of entrepreneurial residency proved to be “an amazing differentiator,” he says, but it was not without its challenges.

“At times, it was tough living with an irregular paycheque and knowing that it was all down to me and my business partner to make it a success.”

One of the best parts of the experience, he says, was writing this blog.

“Because of the blog, I was able to touch base with 90% of my classmates (100% of the “away” ones) during their residency. And not just a “hey, what’s up” touching-base, but a highly personal event—writing their Corporate Residency MBA story. This kept me connected to them in a subtle but ultimately very meaningful way. I had some insight into everyone’s residency, and they into mine. I grew closer to the whole class in a sense, which was very rewarding.

To describe it in more concrete terms, a lot of us are friends for life now. We felt like we’d all known each other for years and years just three months in. I would feel comfortable ringing up 90% of the class 10 years from now out of the blue and seeing if I could crash on their couch. I would go out of my way to help any of them, without question, ever. Through the fire and brimstone that the program throws at you, we all stuck it out and supported each other. We shared the bad times and we sure as hell shared the good ones, too. Not once did anyone really burn out or abandon anyone (at least, not in my experience). If you do this for 22 months straight, then you get a very strong bond.”

Reflecting on his own personal growth over those 22 months, Jordy likens it to a personal 180°:

“I came from a nerdy, quiet background. I entered the program as a passive kind of dude, and came out as this guy eager and hungry to network and start making changes happen. I was hugely, indescribably energized by my incredible peers.”

As for what else makes this program special, and why he would encourage someone to apply, he says:

“This program is set apart by simply being aware that the old MBA model is dusty and becoming obsolete. It was built on asking business leaders what they really wanted from an MBA program… and then actually implementing a program that delivers it. This attracts faculty and students who share that view, and breeds a curriculum that embraces self-awareness and corporate social responsibility.

I usually start my recommendation for this program by telling people that it changed my life. That’s usually a good hook.”

A unique perspective – Scott’s story

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Originally posted by Scott A.E. Smith.

This is not the first time I’ve been featured in the dalmba.ca blog, but it has been a while! If you were to look back in our archives to April 23, 2010, you’d find the rather uniquely titled edition called “A Twitterview from Toronto” featuring yours truly: Scott A.E. Smith.

In that long-ago edition, our former editor (and noted social media guru) Jordy Fujiwara thought it would be cool to make a bit of a splash with the weekly interview format by taking it into the previously uncharted waters of social media: namely, Twitter. And rather than interviewing a then-current student, he decided to exchange 140-character questions and answers with me, a fourth-year student at Queen’s University at the time, who had recently been accepted to the Corporate Residency MBA program.

I, too, had taken an interest in social media, particularly by starting the Facebook group for the Class of 2012. And that interest continues. In fact, I’ve taken a leading role, along with my partners at Coburg Consultants Ltd. (fellow Corporate Residency MBA students James Ewart, Blake Jeffrey and Sean A. Sinclair), in managing the Class of 2013’s presence on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as in this very blog!

But wait a minute! I was the founder of the Facebook group for the Class of 2012, not 2013! How is it that I’m now so involved with the Class of 2013?

The short answer is that I’m now part of the Class of 2013! I chose to defer my acceptance for one year in order to gain some work experience before starting the program. I landed a job at an advertising agency in Toronto, where I worked primarily on the company’s TELUS and Scotiabank International accounts, and even got to do some in-house consulting on social media, of all things, and where it may be headed in the future!

What’s most fascinating about looking back at our “Twitterview” nearly a year and a half later is how few of my answers I would change. Even today, when people ask me the moment, or the reason, that I knew I wanted to be part of this program, I tell them the same thing I told Jordy then: it was Dean Peggy Cunningham’s interview with the Globe and Mail in March 2009. It’s also interesting to reflect on the potential employers I had in mind 17 months ago—especially since, just last month, I accepted an offer from one of them, American Express, and will be starting my corporate residency there (in Ottawa, specifically) in January!

Most of all, though, the words that resonate are these (if you’ll allow me the indulgence of quoting myself, for the first and last time ever):

“I would say: if you think this MBA program is for you, it probably is. The people are first-class every step of the way. Apply!”

If I could ‘re-tweet’ anything from our “Twitterview” that day, that would certainly be it.

So there you have it: my unique perspective on the Corporate Residency MBA program here at Dalhousie University. Since I’m inheriting this blog from the recently graduated Jordy Fujiwara, I thank him for his pioneering efforts writing about the program and the wonderful people in it over the past two years. He will continue to be a friend of the blog, and I look forward to telling the stories of our students, alumni, professors, administrators and partners in the way that he did so well.

From a broad to narrow scope – Jordy’s story

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Originally posted by Jordan Fujiwara.

That’s me, by the way. That’s right, this week’s blog is about my experience with this program thus far! People have been asking when I was going to blog about myself so I figured I’d dish one out. They’ve also been wondering when a prof might show up here; that is also in the works! So, about me: I’ll be 24 in exactly one month. I grew up in Eastern Passage, a then-small but now-bustling fishing town just northeast of Halifax, right across the harbour. I’ve been going to school in this neck of the woods for pretty much my whole life, receiving my BSc in Psychology from Dal (2009) and now, of course, the Corporate Residency MBA at Dal.

I’m doing something a little different for my Corporate Residency. While my peers have all gone off to work, I am working for me. The program’s flexibility allows for entrepreneurial residencies provided you put together a solid case for a business. For me, the opportunity was obvious. For decades there have been MBA student–owned consulting firms operating out of Dalhousie’s School of Business. Traditionally they were run full-time in the summer months by MBA students entering their second year and sold to fresh students around April. However, the new CRMBA curriculum has all its students off to work for 8 months, starting in January… tossing a wrench into those decade-long traditions.

Like I said, the opportunity was quite clear for me. I’d buy one of the firms and do that as my residency, and be able to work for myself for 8 months while learning the ups and downs of running one’s own company. It was a good choice for me because, despite having a BSc and starting a master’s degree, I was one of those classic students who didn’t reallllly know what he wanted to do. I knew I liked psychology (but not lab work, so much), and I knew I was interested in marketing or advertising or PR, and that was about it. Quite a broad scope. I felt the whole sandbox situation with the consulting firm would be a great way for me engage with the local business community and test many pieces of the business world at once to help guide me towards that narrower scope. So I went ahead with the plan. Randel Madell and I purchased Coburg Consultants Limited. Randel is an equal owner but works part-time. She is also a Corporate Residency MBA student with a full-time residency; can you say ambitious? You’ll meet her in the weeks to come.

Here’s the cool part: three months in and I’ve achieved that narrow scope! Yep, I know what kind of career I’m aiming for. The story goes like this: one of our first contracts was with Dal itself, to help market and promote the Corporate Residency MBA program. As current students who work in the building and are constantly accessible and have genuine connections to the rest of the class, Randel and I (and consequently, the company) were viewed as a huge asset. Part of the marketing contract involves a social media campaign. In fact, this blog is a part of that campaign, as well as the new Twitter feed and revamped Facebook page. Before rolling out all those shiny toys, I had to do a lot of research into social media and social marketing. And I kind of got hooked. Like a lot of us 20-somethings, I grew up as the Internet did and was around to see the birth of Google and Facebook, so I was pretty knowledgeable about how to use social media… but I had never truly looked at it through the lens of business and especially not with the tools and techniques that the program had provided me with.

What I found was mystifying. The entire landscape of marketing is being transformed at an unprecedented pace by the explosion of Web 2.0 tools and online communities. It’s changing so fast, in fact, that tons of companies find they can’t or can barely keep up. I want to ride that wave, since as long as the Internet is around, it won’t be stopping. Social Media and its applications to business / marketing is my narrow scope, and now I have 5 months in this “sandbox” as well a bunch of elective courses in the 2010/2011 school year to actively position myself to land a tremendously inticing career upon graduation. All thanks to Coburg and the Corporate Residency MBA.

I could write a lot more, but this blog is long enough as it is. If, as a prospective student or a curious individual, you have any questions about Coburg and how it’s been going, feel free to get in touch with me! You can find my email through the Coburg website (linked above) or ask a question on the Facebook fan page wall (also linked above). Cheers, and see you next Thursday (or earlier)!

The Corporate Residency MBA enters the 2010 blogosphere

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Originally posted by Jordan Fujiwara.

Hello and welcome to the very first blog entry for the Corporate Residency MBA at Dalhousie University! This is a new and rather exciting venture: it’s untested, full of potential for incredible stories and interactions.

Let me get started by introducing myself and how this page will work. My name is Jordan Fujiwara. I am a current Corporate Residency MBA student – part of the very first class in fact. I’m actually working for myself during the 8-month corporate residency, and part of my job will be to publish this blog. Every week (on Thursdays, starting February 11) there will be a new entry. Most of these entries will feature a current student and give you some intimate insight into what they are doing, how they are feeling and the challenges they’ve conquered. Every now and then we might do a feature on a particular professor that a new Corporate Residency MBA student is sure to encounter, or perhaps regale you with tales of some of the amazing experiences the current class had during the 2009 summer and fall semesters.

I said this blog has the potential for some incredible interactions – that declaration comes from the hope that YOU, yes you, will actively participate and help steer the direction of this particular piece of publication. There should be a comment section somewhere south of all these words. Find it, and let us know what you want to see here. I’ve got some pretty good ideas for what to put in here and I’m sure my classmates will be able to provide some wonderfully entertaining content… but the primary purpose of this blog is to let the greater public know about our truly unique and innovative program. We want to showcase not only the academic and professional benefits but also give you a glimpse into the lifestyle and social aspects of the program. So I highly encourage you to make suggestions, provide feedback and requests (and praise ;) ) so I can adjust the content of this blog to best suit those who are the most interested in exploring the opportunity that Dalhousie has created with this fascinating new graduate program. That goes for prospective students, employers, professors, alumni and John Q. Public.

I’ll touch briefly on my own experience and background so far. I was born and raised in the Halifax area and did my BSc (Psychology) at Dal. I always did well academically but never really knew what it was I was going to do in “real life.” Bet you’ve never heard that story before, huh? The Corporate Residency MBA was exactly what I needed. It not only doesn’t require any prior work experience, but actively encourages students to apply straight out of their undergrad. I’ll have my MBA before I’m 25 and be able to fast-track my career. My professional network has ballooned extravagantly: I’ve chatted and dined with CEOs and VPs and Presidents of various firms (many of these events occurred during the regular semester just by the nature of the program), not to mention my forty-odd classmates who are now out there in the workforce impressing people and building their own (and by association, my) networks.

Have you gotten the impression that this program is intense? Good. It is. But in a really great way, kind of like a good roller coaster rather than a life or death struggle. Have you gotten the impression that this program is for the hyper-elite, super-sparkly, A+ honour roll valedictorian students? If so, my bad. My candour may have made this out to be a wildly exclusive club. Truth is, while your grades do matter for getting in, that’s not the end of the story. The gatekeepers are also looking for employable people. Sociable people. Friendly, good-hearted folks who are aware of the fine line between confident and cocky. They did a damn good job of picking those folks for my class, and they’ll continue to do so for the years to come. My classmates are among some of the most engaging and enjoyable people I’ve ever met, and the experience of the first week of orientation will be sure to solidify the bond that will exist between every class of Corporate Residency MBA students in the future, as it did for us. You’ll get to “meet” these lovely individuals in blog posts to come. Stay tuned.

So, have I found what I want to do yet? Not exactly, but I can feel myself getting closer. This program has provided everything I need and more when it comes to answering that existential question. For those who already know, they’re getting to where they’re going even faster than me.

Why don’t you join us on the fast track? At least check in with us every week or so; comment and suggest, or just chat! We love talking to new people. See you next Thursday!