IS MANAGEMENT A PROFESSION ?

• Alec Horniman, Univ. of Virginia - "a profession has a set of standards that are defined, recognized, and acknowledged which implies the right way for the profession to be practiced"
• C. William Thomas, Professor at Baylor Univ. - people who practice in a profession are "franchised by the public to perform a particular service"
• Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice - a profession is an occupation that is "pursued largely for others" and for which "financial return is not the accepted measure of success."
• David Vogel, UC Berkeley - "management is not a profession and is unlikely to become one." If management were a profession, managers "would not be allowed to practice unless they were certified, but how could something like this be enforced? Would this mean that Bill Gates - who did not even graduate college - would not have been allowed to start or grow Microsoft?"

Case study - this is not fiction

Case study - this is not fiction.
(Chapters 1,2,3,4,6 were done.)

• "By putting oneself in the shoes of various decision makers, it is rehearsing the future career."
• "Cases give you the chance to practice the art as well as the science of management in a laboratory setting, with little corporate and personal risk involved."

MBA Program Registration Day - July 22

Ouch, 5 kg of readings arrived home, where to start? Sitting in front of me are the 4 cases, 7 articles, 2 textbooks and 1 handout. These are all supposed to be finished before the residential course MGTO 521 starts August 18, for 3 days locked up in a remote hotel. I reckon I need to download and install a module for speed reading... let me google some suitable modules.
Ai yo - what is "93122629"? Shouldn't I get one which has prefix "06"?

Tsunami in reef tank at home

Following the 2 weeks’ work in lower Manhattan, New York (6/18-30), I was vacationing in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia (7/1-8). After I am back home on July 9 evening from this 3 week trip to US, I believe there had been a severe tsunami inside my 24”x12”x9” reef tank at home. All 3 fish dead, 3 shrimps cooked, green algae grew dark and hairy, and water was ammonia-contaminated, de-oxygenated and covered with a thick layer of protein giving out strong smell of flesh. The ammonia alert indicator re-emphasized the hopelessness for any living things. Standing there and looking at the fish tank, I noticed that the bio-filtering system was unplugged [so bio-recycling has not been operating for weeks]. I could instantly certify there was no hope (and no need) at all to rescue anything inside the reef tank. I just let them decay till I have time to clean up the aftermath. I decided to seal the tank with cling wrap. Usually I only cling wrap un-finished tiramisu but this time the smelly reef.

July 15, 2006, Saturday, 10:30am - the reef tank is being dismantled. The whole life-span of this reef-keeping hobby/project is 18 months, since January 12, 2005 when I brought my fish tank home. Totally 350 liters of water and 8225 grams of salts were used to do 24 water changes. Unaccounted amount of reef supplements, fish food, pH stabilizers and nitro-bacteria were mixed to the water throughout the life-span of the project. Many habitants have been around for more than 9 months and the Lawnmower Blenny has been around for 16 months.

New York

New York, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia

Following the 2 weeks’ work in lower Manhattan, New York (6/18-30), I was vacationing in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia (7/1-8).