aaron's blog

On the eve of one of the greatest sports rivalries of all time, the Ohio State vs. Michigan football game (which will be played tomorrow, Saturday, Nov 21 at 12:00 PM in Ann Arbor), I thought I’d share a few facts for the uninitiated about the game and the surrounding traditions.

• The Thursday night before the game, Ohio State students jump in Mirror Lake on the Ohio State Campus for good luck

• The Dead Shembechlers are a Columbus punk band that fight the “liberal Wolverine media” by performing original pro-OSU and anti-UM music the week leading up to the game
• Ohio State players receive a gold pin shaped like a pair of football pants when they win

• The game is always the last regular season game for the two schools
• Michigan leads the series (of 105 consecutive seasons) 57-42-6
• Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez’s record in the series is 0-2
• Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel’s record in the series is 7-1
• The last time Michigan won the game was in 2003—2189 days ago! And to help put this in perspective, I’ve attached a chain email that helps bring you back.

The last time Michigan beat Ohio State in football was November 22, 2003

On that date:

• "The Da Vinci Code" had come out earlier that year. Not the movie. The book.
• Saddam Hussein was still at large.
• Outkast had a big hit with “Hey Ya”.
• Theatergoers anxiously awaited the release of "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King", one month later.
• “Elf” was the top film that weekend.
• The European Union had 15 members instead of 27.
• The world had known the name "Steve Bartman" for about five weeks.
• The last "missing" episode of the recently-cancelled Fox cartoon "Family Guy" had been aired two weeks prior.
• Barack Obama was in the Illinois state legislature, and Sarah Palin was the chairperson of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
• None of us had seen Britney Spears naked yet, and it was still an appealing concept.
• LeBron James had been playing pro basketball for three weeks. .
• The CIA would still contend that Iraq had WMDs for several more months.
• The two defending NFL conference champions were the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
• A child who is in kindergarten today was born.
• This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_backlight_transparent.png) is what an iPod looked like.
• Avenue Q and Wicked had just opened on Broadway. Arrested Development's first season had premiered several weeks earlier.
• New episodes of “Friends” were being aired.
• GMail and Flickr were still months away from Beta release.
• Howard Dean's "scream" was about two months away.
• The minimum wage was $5.15 an hour.
• You could still buy a new Oldsmobile.
• Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were still alive.
• Tyrone Willingham had another year at Notre Dame.
• Urban Meyer was in his first year coaching... at Utah.
• The NFL's New England Patriots had a trio of rising-star assistant coaches who were expected to go on to great success in head coaching jobs: Charlie Weis, Romeo Crennel and Eric Mangini.
• Terrelle Pryor was in middle school.
• Rich Rodriguez would be the Big East Coach of the Year.
• John L. Smith would be the Big Ten Coach of the Year. Related: 8 Big Ten teams have changed head coaches since then.
• Notre Dame was on a 40-year winning streak against Navy.
• Michigan had the longest active streak of bowl game appearances.
• No Michigan team had ever lost more than seven games in a season.
• No Michigan team had failed to win back-to-back games at least once in a season since 1962.
• Every fifth year senior had left Michigan with at least one win against OSU.
• And finally...
• The last time Michigan beat Ohio State was November 22, 2003. Nine weeks later, Facebook was founded

Reposted from Fisher Grad Life Blog.

A

Cary Jenkins was behind one of the biggest tech exits in recent Columbus history. His company of TopNoggin, the producer of the innovative pension management software platform: Bluefin, was recently acquired by The Hartford Financial Services Group. Cary continues to believe that the IT departments of large companies are not designed to innovate; after TogNoggin he has continued to seek out technology needs with other ventures including Visible Equity and My Financial Guard.

As far as the Cullman lunch series goes, Cary was on the informal end of the spectrum. He spent some time demonstrating the Bluefin product and tried to let our questions lead the discussion.

A few themes that I picked up on:

• “Bullets in your gun” when brining in partners. Cary highlighted two selling points when trying to recruit partners away from lucrative corporate life: fun and a potential lump sum. When our group discussed our reasons for wanting to start a company, we boiled it down to “we just want do something different” and “fun.” Cary also pointed out that most millionaires become millionaires as the result of a lump sum (i.e. it is very hard to become a millionaire through a salary)—and by taking equity you create this potential.
• Be honest with your talents. Some of the first people Cary brought on when he started TopNoggin were a domain expert (an actuary) and a president. While Cary is very talented in crafting and selling a product, he is first to admit that general management is not his forte.
• Flexibility and Adaptability of new ventures: Cary took us through the startup history of TopNoggin and Visible Equity. Both companies began by doing something else and the economic situation (e.g. Housing Market Meltdown, Dot Com Bust) and customer needs led their products in new directions.

Reposted from Fisher Grad Life blog.

A

Ever since I got my snazzy new Fisher business cards, I’ve made a habit of leaving them in the “fishbowl” that frequently resides near the register at diners, eateries, watering-holes and restaurants. My persistence finally paid off: I had a pretty lucky weekend. Today, a couple of my starving MBA friends (including fellow Fisher Grad Life blogger Robin Jenkins) and I enjoyed a meal on the house at Noodles & Company. Also, taking a note from my Johnny-Appleseed-esque business card distribution scheme, Emma won a happy-hour (free drinks for her, and discounted drinks for her friends) at McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon in the South Campus Gateway. These two freebees were of differing value.

If you’ve never been to Noodles & Company you are missing out on some good and reasonably priced food—I recommend the Whole Grain Tuscan Linguini with Parmesan Chicken which you get in a few minutes for 7 bucks. The freebee, which they called a “tasting,” consisted of a family style meal for six. As a group, we picked a dish from each of the noodle menus (Asian, Mediterranean and American) and they though in a few salads, desserts and drinks. Although, their Pad Thai is far from the best I’ve ever had, it was a pretty low key and fun way to cap off the weekend.

The McFadden’s experience left a bit more to be desired. To their credit these complementary “happy hours” seem to be a pretty effective way of getting people in the door. As far as I can tell, they had 10-12 people on Saturday night that were hosting a happy hour for their social circle. The strategy probably does a reasonable job of compensating for the abysmal customer experience. When we arrived, we got a table by the window. At about 10:30, a McFadden’s employee came by to ask to us to get up so that they could “clear out” the table and chairs. In fact, by that time every table was taken and they asked everyone to get up. I’m not an expert in the restaurant business, but I would think that you would start removing tables like at 6:00 PM as the dinner crowd left—not at 10:30 when the restaurant if full. Besides that, the incredibly understaffed bar (3 bartenders to 150 bar goers) and the Howard-Stern-brand-of-inappropriate DJ, everything else was awesome.

Reposted from Fisher Grad Life blog.

A