Paul Pettengill's (way too long) Alternative MBA Application

Clay Hebert (who is also applying you can find his submission here http://www.squidoo.com/Clay-Hebert-Alternate-MBA-Application ) introduced me to Seth's work, and for that I'm truly grateful. Clay also introduced me to tons of productivity enhancers, and new interesting ideas that we've gone on to discuss. That's why Clay and I created our company Cerebral Element. Cerebral Element is a placeholder for all of our nascent ideas that we are trying to decide how to bootstrap.
We currently have 4 ideas in various stages of development. I'll touch on them briefly.

We actually are proud to credit Seth for providing the genesis for this idea. One of Seth's posts discussed how interviews were a bad way to hire people, and that really what the job market needs is transparency into the work of the person you're hiring. That's where we jumped off at. There are tons of great technologies emerging that make it possible for you to show your actual work, Slideshare.net allows uploads of presentations onto the web, youtube can hold video of your talks, and Omnisio can merge them together, published whitepapers and blogs can you give a great sense of how well someone writes.

Top candidates will want to show potential employers all of these things. Top employers looking for top candidates will want to see all of these things in a consistent format, if today's word docs are closest to myspace, foglift would be closest to facebook. Add to that some other elements such as a dashboard to see all of your open job opportunities, and what state they are in, and you get the idea. Also on the employer side, they could upload videos of what its like to work for that company in that position.

We had mixed emotions when we found that another company called VisualCV is already in the space after a great deal of time invested in the design and development of the idea. We were happy to see however that they are moving strongly and quickly and that its being led by the founder of WebMethods. We're still toying with the idea (we do like our name better), but wanted to be the first mover.

Clay and I belong to an email group known as the Cabinetarians, which we are trying to convince to move over to a public message board. It's definitely quite the tribe (thanks for the term Seth), they are all brought together through some friendships that developed in college and after. They keep in touch over frequent email and an annual trip to a cabin in the midwest. The great thing about this group is that it is filled with intelligent, passionate people from the entire political spectrum. The dialogue is smart and a step up from the blather on CNN, Fox News, NPR and whatnot, with each side bringing new arguments and conceding points. The group was sending emails back and forth about the Obama election, and what it means, and how successful he will or will not be, and by whose measurements.

That's where Clay and I took the ball and kept moving forward with it. We've come up with a set of metrics that are results focused, and leading indicators. Metrics such as % Childhood Obesity and # of ER Visits to # of Primary Care Visits ratio for Health, and metrics such as %Worldwide Patents by US educated for Education (as opposed to more arms race type metrics such as %MBA ;-). We envision a national dashboard that would show a trailing 4 -year Edward Tufte sparkline for each measure and a modified Stephen Few bullet graph exposing historical highs and lows and term highs and lows. We think that such objective measurement seen in dashboard form would give people a much better idea of how things have changed over a term. Ultimately if we do it right, it should be something a president would want to look at as an executive summary of how the country is doing.

I thought of this as a fun idea to play with the burgeoning mobile market. Essentially its an application that will help prevent you from getting drunk and dialing or texting your ex. I've thought of lots of different mini-applications to bundle under the name that will help you have a good time while out, but essentially that's it. We just thought it'd be fun and a great learning opportunity as well for us to play with the iPhone SDK

This is one of Clay's ideas that essentially is attempting to be a Yelp! for those of who just like to go into a plain old bar that's unique, but not a total dive. Clay and I both feel there's a tribe of people like us who have the desire to be able to go into a new town and find the type of bar that feels like home. Sort of like the opening theme to Cheers! We did find Seth's recent post on not selling to bar owners enlightening, but we see this as a passion project, that doesn't really matter if its really successful or not, but we just want to help.

In addition to being the co-founder of Cerebral Element, which means working on bringing a ton of fun unique ideas to market, I have a day job as Director of Product Management for Contract Analytics at I-many. I-many is a small twenty year old micro-cap that focuses on enterprise software to help companies (mostly in the pharmaceutical industry) author and adjudicate their contracts. I am currently building an OEM of QlikTech's QlikView technology to sit on top of a datamart that sits on top of I-many's proprietary products. If you are working with Analytics, I'd really recommend considering OEMing QlikTech. They have tons of great stuff, and it really speeds up development.

I took this job for a couple of reasons, coming out of college as someone trained in Mechanical Engineering, but someone who knew that they did not want to spend a lot of time doing CAD work, I took a job with a consulting company, Accenture. I spent the next seven years working within Accenture in their practice dedicated to pharmaceutical contracting. I loved my time at Accenture, it certainly was a grind at times, but I was introduced to so many intelligent, passionate people with excellent interpersonal skills that it made me a much better person for it.

It was during my fourth year working at Accenture that I became introduced to my current company, I-many. I installed I-many's Government Pricing module at Johnson & Johnson, and became very familiar with it and how it works. About 5 months later I was offered an opportunity with Accenture to help I-many develop a totally new version of their GP product with a visionary product manager, Chris McKeil who had just taken over their GP product. I spent the next 12 months working exhausting days, but having the time of my life developing software from the ground up.

Shortly after I was done with this project, I was offered a position with I-many as their Director of Strategy for Life Sciences. The offer included the possibility to live in the bay area, which I loved for the weather (I must like fog), the great culture of San Francisco, but most of all, the entrepreneurial spirit. I knew I wanted to start my own company, and that this was the right area for me to learn in. I also was excited about the possibility to work in marketing, which was a bit of a first for me. It was also a pay increase of 1.5x what I was making at Accenture, so from a financial point of view it made a ton of sense.

A couple of months into my tenure at I-many I was offered and opportunity to work on the engineering side of the house with a new Analytics package they were thinking of bringing to market. This fit squarely within my wheelhouse, as I had the business knowledge of what was important to our clients from having worked with them directly for several years, and the technical knowledge from building systems.

I also have been truly motivated by metrics, ever since one of my managers at Accenture, Dan Connolly told me if you can't measure it, you don't have a way to understand how you're doing at it. Another Accenture colleague, Mike Raak (who happens to be the same height as Dan at 6 foot 7), introduced me to Moneyball, and that also changed my outlook, as I've become passionate about finding new and important metrics for measuring success. So I've jumped in and am learning a great deal, and having a lot of fun talking to clients, and building a vision for some huge value drivers for our company.

I don't have a particular thing I'm looking to learn. I imagine that I will learn so much, that I can't even begin to say how much. I'm most looking forward to great dialog about big ideas. I'm looking forward to discussions that focus on changing outcomes and what that means. I'm looking to see how Seth has structured his life, and that I might emulate some of those successes. I'm really most excited to meet all the other extraordinary people that will be brining into this group, and learning from their backgrounds.

I guess that would depend upon, what I learn. I think though in general, I will move forward on one of my nascent ideas. I really am thinking right now that while foglift may have the largest commercial market, that presidential rubric might have the greatest reach into the world. I'm most excited that this will give me the freedom to focus on my dreams and not let my day job get in the way by distracting me.

I've been very involved in pointing people to micro-loan programs such as Kiva as an alternative to traditional charity. Micro-loans have proven to be far more effective at helping people get out of destitute poverty than typical aid programs. As someone who is focused on outcomes, I'm a big fan of promoting methods that have the greatest effectiveness, and with the money coming back as a loan, its possible for people to invest much more than they ordinarily would in micro-loans. So next time you give to charity, think of giving a loan, and keep loaning.

On a more personal level, I've registered over 200 people to vote in the last two presidential elections. I specifically targeted younger voters who are underrepresented in the electorate. I spent over a hundred hours volunteering to do this, and getting the scorn from many a passerby, but I knew that registering more voters was key to our democracy. Voter participation had dipped to historic lows during my lifetime, and I'm excited to see a reversal of that trend, and to know that I've had a part in making that happen.

I think if I had to look at the biggest dip in my life it would probably be when I dropped out of college after 4 unsuccessful semesters at Appalachian State University. I spent the next year working odd jobs around the college town of Boone, North Carolina. Then I headed back to my hometown of Raleigh, NC thinking of going back to school. I worked several different odd jobs throughout that time, and went to school part time at NC State. During one of my first semesters of going part time I took a class in Forestry, since that was the only school that would allow me entry at NC State. I studied like mad for the first exam, felt excellent about it, got it back with an F.

I knew at that point that I wanted more than anything to expand my opportunities, and for me that meant getting into Engineering school where I felt I had belonged all along. This F however was going to be a huge red flag to the College of Engineering. I went to my professor for every extra session I could, spoke with him in detail about what I was thinking with my answers and where I was coming from. I literally spent hundreds of hours studying dendrology, forest management, natural secession, and historical environmental figures like John Muir. The ultimate outcome was an A in the class, but more importantly a strong belief in myself, that allowed me to ultimately graduate magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering, after flunking out from my first college.

I think one of the things that usually gets people is the number of different companies and positions I've had before I actually graduated from college. Starting at age 12, I worked summers as a mechanic for my father's automotive repair shop. I also delivered pizzas during the HS year. In and out of college, I've worked at a coffee house roasting the beans, I've worked at a Ski Mountain, I've worked at a movie theater selling tickets, slinging popcorn, and threading up movies. I spent a year working at UPS sorting packages and unloading tractor trailers. I've worked at a Barnes and Noble. I also worked for an engineering consulting company, and while everyone was doing Y2K work, I was on top of rooftops looking at Air Conditioning units to grab model numbers and serial numbers to make sure that the elevators, AC units and security units wouldn't fail.

I think though that my all-time favorite way of making money is when I was backpacking in Europe, and I ended up juggling on Las Ramblas in Barcelona with a Kiwi I'd met at the Hostel. We were doing some juggling passes back and forth and juggling fruit. I'm not sure whether people paid us because of our skill or if it was because of his New Zeland flag that he laid out for donations. Either way, I'm so glad I brought my juggling balls, as that made me more friends and really broke down a ton of language barriers.

I wish to improve transparency of actions and reactions, so that the economy could operate at a near optimum with low barriers to entry across all fields. This, I think would pretty much help abate everything ill I can think of from poverty to war.

You should know that I have been blogging for the last year and a half or so. My blog posts are infrequent, but informative. I post entries on non-fiction books that I've read and found interesting and try to extend the main ideas so they are more accessible and digestible.
You can find my blog here:
http://cosmicwanderlust.blogspot.com

Books I've profiled in my blog (in no particular order)
Competing on Analytics
The Long Tail
The Black Swan
The Wisdom of Crowds
The Halo Effect
Dreaming In Code
Getting Real
Sketching User Experience
Brain Rules
Wikinomics
The Back of the Napkin
Presentation Zen
Getting Things Done
The Blind Watchmaker
The No Asshole Rule
Trading Up
Blink
Your Brain is (almost) perfect
Crossing the Chasm
The Definitive Book on Body Language
Marketing Mavens
More Sex is Safer Sex (an economics book)

You should know that I just started to twitter, and I love the sharing of ideas that comes from twitter, you can see my twitter feed here:
http://twitter.com/prpetten

You should know that the company I've started on the side for my ideas called Cerebral Element is located here: http://cerebralelement.com

You should know that I have a couple of presentations I've created recently up on Slideshare, they can be found here:

http://www.slideshare.net/prpetten

If you want to see my linked in profile, its here with a couple of references even.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/5a2/a1b

You should know that you should also take Clay Hebert for this opportunity, and that you won't be disappointed if you do. He may be your biggest evangelist, and he will bring a great perspective to your conversations.

I also recommend that if you ever see these names, that you pay attention to them, as each of them I've found has an incredible intellect, an engaging personality, and an awe-inspiring work ethic. I've encouraged several to apply to this position, as I think it would be a great opportunity for them, and I'd love to get the opportunity to work with anyone of them again, so I know you would cherish a relationship with them as much as I do.

(In no particular order): Mike Raak, Paul Straw, Eric Straw, Mike Yu, Laura Borst Pappas, Kristen Bauer, Dan Connolly, Dave Aljadir, Nate Massari, Yuriko Kanno, Mike Palladinetti, James Arima, David Pettengill, Marcy Cautreels, Julie Finnegan, Tony Romito, Jeff Cope, Mike Frost, Howard McKinney, Debbie McKinney, Tim Pytal, Jennifer Craig, Marilyn Pettengill, Brian Kite, Tim Kite, Jennifer Norton, Mark Morgan, Simon Lee, Richard Prest, Tori Branch, Kerry Verne, Marco Soto, Brian Dexter, Marie Dexter, Dave Carlson, Chris Czerwonka, Andrew Schneider, Nick Baker, Ethan Fingermann, and just about everyone else I've been associated with (I've been really, really lucky to have known such great people).

Thank you mom!

To Seth Godin,

Re: Personal Reference letter for Paul R. Pettengill

I am writing this letter of reference for Paul Pettengill because in my 20+ years of knowing him, I have never found a person who I find more inspirational and compelling.

From a very early age, Paul has always challenged and questioned every aspect of development. If you played a game of H.O.R.S.E with Paul, you played a game of H.I.P.P.O.P.O.T.A.M.U.S. because it was more of a challenge. And even though Paul would beat me in every game of H.I.P.P.O.P.O.T.A.M.U.S. he continued to encourage me as we played because that forced him to play that much better. As a child, I remember being amazed that losing at a game could still equate to "fun" and I solely attribute that to (the many) lessons Paul taught me.

As a teenager, Paul would always elevate the task in front of him to challenge himself and the others in his life. Paul was the first person in my age group to have a job. At a young age, Paul worked with his father at his garage to earn money and help the family business. He spent many hours in the shop and it was very easy to see him develop a work ethic that still defines who he is. Paul was always willing to teach the lessons he learned and those lessons still prove useful today.

Beyond childhood lessons, Paul has continued to be a substantial influence in my life. As we've grown older together, he has provided invaluable insight and wisdom for so many aspects of my life. From relationship advice, to financial planning, to telling me about an artist he heard on the radio that I would like and him being spot on. He is a constant source of knowledge and he is who I would first turn to for advice in any aspect of life.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at anytime.

Thanks,

Paul J. Straw

Phone: 919-868-1021

Email Address: pjstraw@gmail.com