For many of us this has been a hard ole slug. Night after night of spreadsheets, on-line meetings, projects, papers, ... Finally, after countless encounters with counting and processing of processes we have finally made the grade. We deserve the congratualtory wishes. We have our MBA.
Yeah!
What's changed? Well for many of us not a lot. For others well, we are walking the hallowed halls of executive towers that dot the downtown cityscapes. Working and toiling trying to use ever facet of tacit knowledge that we have gained and absorbed over the years. We secretly peek into our strategy books, peruse our old leadership papers, and dust off Grade A+ presentations. A word changed here and there, no one will know its just as good.
Now we have arrived.
Can't help but feel a bit of remorse at no longer having so much to do. A slight mourning for the loss of our comradery. On graduation day we all said we would keep in touch, "Pal me on your Facebook page." or "Make sure you email me the moment you get home." We waited and waited but alas non-one wrote, and yes we did manage to adorn our networking pal sites but became one of the many on their list of friends.
Who is that guy, didn't we go to school together?
As we purge our colleagues from the rolodex we lose our connections to what once was to what we have become. Who can blame us; we are all busy people with good careers and families. Isn't that what comes first. What do we hope to obtain by hooking up again? Then again we do have a bond. No one will ever understand what it took to get that piece of paper better than my school mates. We cried, took up smoking (even if we didn't smoke), drank a lot of wine, yes we did have a lot fun didn't we. Yet, no one prepared us for life after MBA school. It kind of feels like letting the air out of a balloon that you assumed was already deflated from effort.
One could imagine that there are thousands of people in the world who have gone through these very things. Wouldn't it be great to have a dinner party with them, or some way of networking; a way to share our war stories? Utilizing our efforts as best we can.
As the great Oscar Goldman said, "We have the technology!"The other day I was at a friend's house for dinner. He was one side of the country and his partner was on the other side. My wife and I have been friends with these people for years. We actually did our MBA together.
We were in the midst of our dinner when a strange techno sound come bounding out of this computer screen. It was his partner calling via Skype. Like magic he answered the call and too my surprise there was Murray on the other end clear as crystal. In real time we spoke and as the evening progressed I forgot that he wasn't even here. He was at the other end of the country.
So effortless even I would do it.
Hence my idea; as people who spent a great deal of time and effort obtaining this credential we owe it to ourselves to keep in touch. Keep up with the Joneses (or however you spell that word). The proposal before you now is to keep this thread going with ideas and notions about how to connect with the rest of world. Post your own university or college link on here that tracks alumni. Find out what people in other countries are doing post graduation. Send out job leads. You name it.
Let get connected!
