Blonde MBADocumenting the life of a blonde MBA student in sunny California. Maybe some blondes DO have brains!

Yes, “I must be crazy,” “What was I thinking,” and “I’ll thank myself later” have all been going through my head this week. As you can see, I have/will have had three MBA project presentations in three weeks!  And it’s my own fault…

Two are with my winterterm class “Creativity & Innovation” which is hectic enough with 2 midterms and 2 projects in a short 4-week period. My group already did one last week on Apple vs. IBM, and this week our project is more creative…establishing a viral marketing campaign for Chapman University’s Leatherby Center for Corporate Entrepreneurship & Ethics. I can’t divulge any details (as we’re ‘competing’ against 2 other groups this week), but I hope know we’re going to KILL it!

Finally, next week I’m competing in the ACG (Association for Corporate Growth) Case Competition, where we will prepare a strategy & the corresponding valuations for a possible merger & acquistion. Have I taken finance yet? NO.  Have I ever done a valuation in my life? NO. Do I know anything about the M&A field? NO. Are we going to win? Well, I don’t know but thankfully it’s a team effort, so we’re all bringing in our respective strengths. Oh, & I’m teaching myself valuation and M&A this week…I just joined the group last week.

So wish me luck, as I don’t want to look like a dumb BlondeMBA.  At least I’ll get all those oral presentation/public speaking  jitters out of the way…one “um” and “uh” at a time…I’ll thank myself later, right?

In an effort to finish my program my next December, without having to take summer school or finish 1 class next year at this time, I chose to do the MBA winterterm class…a good choice, but it feels too soon to start the semester!

That said, I’m taking “Creativity and Innovation,” a.k.a. corporate entrepreneurship.  My school, Chapman University, likes to focus on “reality-based education,” so while this class may sound kind of vague and an “entrepreneur” can really be anyone, this class seems to be good as it focuses on honing creativity & innovation even if you’re working for someone else. (FYI, if your school is #9 for graduate entrepreneurship programs, chances are a majority of your opportunities & even class electives will have this focus, in case you were wondering).

So far, our creative assignments for the class really are “real,” involving PR and promotion of both the entrepreneurship center and Chapman University. (FYI, my professor is also the director of the entrepreneurship center, so will be gleaning from our ideas.)

All in all, creativity & innovation does seem to be an extremely important topic for the next wave of business leaders. A recent BusinessWeek article highlighted the downturn of Silicon Valley, long the hotbed for innovation and new techie products, citing that there haven’t been any NEW big players that are really making a mark…Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, etc. are the most recent.  Most companies are just improving on existing technologies.

Obviously, if the U.S. is to succeed in keeping up with global competition, we need to figure out a way to improve our level of creativity and innovation in bringing new, market-changing products to the table…food for thought as I undergo this 4-week class.