Portfolio Final NGM DCU MECB 2012

Forward I Go!
Next Generation Management:
2011/2012 James Dellinger Personal
Opportunties for Development Portfolio

DCU BUSINESS SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION
Student Name(s): James Dellinger

Student Number(s): 11210889

Programme: MECB1 - MSc in Electronic Commerce (Business)

Project Title: NGM Portfolio

Module code: MT5113

Lecturer: Des McLaughlin

Project Due Date: 25-JUN-2012

11210889

DCU BUSINESS SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION

Student Name(s): James Dellinger

Student Number(s): 11210889

Programme: MECB1 - MSc in Electronic Commerce (Business)

Project Title: NGM Portfolio

Module code: MT5113

Lecturer: Des McLaughlin

Project Due Date: 25-JUN-2012

Declaration

I the undersigned declare that the project
material, which I now submit, is my own
work. Any assistance received by way of
borrowing from the work of others has been
cited and acknowledged within the work. I
make this declaration in the knowledge that a
breach of the rules pertaining to project
submission may carry serious consequences.

I am aware that the project will not be
accepted unless this form has been handed in
along with the project.

Signed:___________________________________

CONTENTS
DCU Business School Assignment Submission..................................................................0

DCU Business School Assignment Submission..................................................................1

Introduction.............................................................................................................................4

Who is James Dellinger?.......................................................................................................6

M. Sc. Electronic Commerce (Business)...........................................................................11

Next Generation Management ..........................................................................................14

Personal Development Plan...............................................................................................22

Personal and Career Development ...................................................................................25

Business and Society ...........................................................................................................80

Research ...............................................................................................................................118

Digital Skills, Media and Communications .................................................................154

Prince2 Online Completion ............................................................................................186

DICE: Project Manager’s Report Group 1A ..................................................................187

Appendix A .........................................................................................................................221

Appendix B..........................................................................................................................226

Appendix C..........................................................................................................................228

DICE: Interaction Excerpted Diary Appendix..............................................................267

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my incredibly patient wife, Kathleen Dellinger, and my supportive
family and friends on the other side of the Atlantic, in Washington, Georgia and the
Midwest. Without your financial support, generosity, and kind words this journey would not
have been possible.

I would like to thank every member of the Next Generation Management (NGM) Staff:
lecturer Mr Des McLaughlin; Dr John Connolly; Mr Gerry Conyngham; Dr Claire Gubbins,
and Dr Theo Lynn, Teaching Assistants: Mr Terry O’Brien; Ms Bettina Wűrdinger; Ms
Ciara Elston and the Dublin City University Business School (DCUBS) for their hard work
in making our learning experience and outcomes as rewarding as they are. I want to thank all
DCUBS and Dublin City University Computer Applications School (DCUCAS) staff, and
especially M. Sc. Electronic Commerce (Business) (MECB) program chair Regina Conolly,
for their collective efforts to improve our learning environment and the value of the degree
programs we are enrolled in. I would also liketo thank the staff of the DCU LINK Research
Centre for all their efforts in makng Techspectations such a great part of our NGM
experience and to Laura Farrell as our client Digital Marketing Report client. To all of my
fellow Next Generation Management classmates, I have learned to appreciate your incredible
ambition. To my various NGM and MECB project working groups, thank you for your hard
work all year. I would like to thank my employer, Matthew Sheffield, President of Dialog
New Media, and my mentor, Bob Benz, President of Content at Hanley Wood, for
understand and supporting my journey to Dublin and throughout the Next Generation
Management experience. FORWARD I GO!

I am dedicating this hard work to my grandfather, Samuel Douglas Guy, who passed away in
March 2012. His life, memory, and work ethic will serve as an inspiration to me always.

-James Dellinger

INTRODUCTION
The document you are reading is the culmination of two semesters of work from
September 2011 to June 2012. As a requirement of the M. Sc. Electronic Commerce
(Business) (MECB) degree at the Dublin City University, I was required to take a
two-semester twenty-credit module known as Next Generation Management
(NGM). As part of the course curriculum, I needed to carry out forty out-of-
classroom learning activities which would develop my skills and future
management potential in different ways. I actually did many more but the ones you
will hear about made the cut because they fit my Personal Development Plan goals
for the near term and future. These activities were known as personal opportunities
for development, referred to as PODs. The forty activities were split into four
different themes according to the learning outcome underpinning NGM; they
consisted of:

Personal Career and Development

Business and Society

Research

Digital Skills, Media and Communication

I carried out these PODs during the nine-plus-months I was in the program, and feel
I had a good spread of learning experiences in all four themes. No one event or
experience carried out was the same. Each held a unique learning benefit for me in
regards to my future goals moving forward into a career in sales and marketing. For
some it can be tough to understand why the four themes are grouped together but
not for me. The main aim of carrying out the forty outside activities was to give
NGM students a deeper understanding of the four themes and to force individual
self-motivation. It allowed us to find things we wanted to learn more about and
develop lifelong learner skill sets.

It is fair to argue that I likely would not have attended some of these activities had
the Next Generation Management (MECB) module not made it mandatory to find
these unique experiences. However, I would not replace the experiences and time
with any others. Historically my formal education has been done in a classroom or in
an office project management environment, something quite different from the first
handknowledge gained from the NGM POD experience. This cannot be
underestimated. Despite being a mature student, I am quite grateful for the

opportunity as this module has taught me how to peruse lifelong learning in new
ways.

The volume of team driven assignments and activities incorporated into the NGM
learning theme has taught us positive team work skills like facilitatation. As such,
the completion this portfolio was a real challenge. It’s not that I cannot complete
work on my own; it is that I have come to feed off the team driven energy. It drives
my own work product beyond where it would be in, no longer in a sequestered
bubble. This may not be the case for everyone in our class, but it has been especially
true for me.

This document is really much more than a reflection of the forty plus learning
activities, which I have undertaken for the NGM portfolio, but a reflection of a
mature students memories and learning in a strange new land, Dublin, Ireland. He
was trying to figure out where he belonged, both there and in the world at large. The
wonderfully experimental nature of NGM and the individualistic nature of the POD
experiences have helped immensely in fulfilling those Personal Development Goals
that I set out in the first weeks of NGM. Thank you for reading.

Best,

James Dellinger

WHO IS JAMES DELLINGER?
Sometimes in order to find a home in this world, you must embrace a bit of restlessness and
have an adventure.

This is exactly what I did, or shall I say we had to do. I am a mature student, and am married
to my wonderful wife, Kathleen Dellinger, a graduate student at Trinity College Dublin
working toward a M. Sc. Neuroscience. I have been pursuing my postgraduate education at
Dublin City University. We made the choice to pursue graduate education together as a
family. Washington, DC is a great city but after ten years there we were ready for a change
and to accelerate our career prospects.

The below email was sent via the PAC application system on 4/19/2011 in an attempt to
help earn my acceptance to Dublin City University’s (DCU) MECB program as I had been
out of school and had neither a formal business or technology background. I am not sure if
anyone read it or not, but it is a great starting point in my Next Generation Management
portfolio, showing where I was coming from. I want you to know that coming to DCU in
Dublin, Ireland was the smartest move I could have made. Note that some of the links no
longer work. I hope you, a future employer reading this, understand that I felt including
this was important. I had just been accepted into a different program, at a different
University, but wanted to attend DCU.

- James Dellinger

Dear Sir or Madam,

I thought this brief work portfolio below may be helpful in deciding my acceptance to
DC506 or DC821. Honestly, I would be very excited to join either program in the fall. I was
recently accepted to an Interactive Digital Media (M.Sc.) at school in a different city. I would
rather attend a more commercially focused program in Dublin like your M.Sc. in Electronic
Commerce (Business), but now I need to let them know if I am going to accept attendance in
the next few weeks.

Best,

James Dellinger
Assistant Managing Editor, Web

Washington Examiner

Office: (202) 459-4973

Mobile: (770) 403-5978

jdellinger@washingtonexaminer.com

My background is as a practitioner of digital media and as a light-to-mid-level
designer-developer from an online publishing perspective. For the last two and a
half years I have done this at a newspaper group in digital transition. Before that I
spent 3 and half years a small NGO that was experiencing dramatic changes due to
their new web needs and demands from donors. Before that I spent about two years
on a start up technology NGO bring computers and skills classes to a select number
of senior centers and coached rowing at American University in Washington, DC.

Most recently I worked in small interlocking teams on different projects, depending
on what work was needed by my employer, the Examiner Newspaper Group.
Arguably, my creativity has been well filtered through the 'will it bring traffic'
meme, driving up our revenue or influence on the web in political discourse. This
has kept me paid and most of my work has involved efforts big and small toward
this one goal. Part editor, part web producer, part site admin, and part developer, I
have learned many skills on the fly out of occupational need. Now, I am interested in
refining many of those skills and learning new ones regarding the operations of
online commerce infrastructure.

Here are some examples of what I have been working on:

Below are the two blogs I manage after recruiting 80+ contributors:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/opinion-zone
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/local-opinion-zone
They produce roughly 180 content items a month, some multimedia enriched, that I
edit and publish.

I manage the web desk from 11am-8pm Monday through Friday and many
weekends troubleshooting content, communicating with our 50k-100k a day online
audience, and as an admin for the sites, tweak features I am responsible for.

Below is a beginner search engine optimization and social media power point
presentation entitled, Content Marketing For Activism: "RSS, Social Media, and Search

Engine Optimization." I teach younger American political activists at a program
outside Washington DC. I handle all our systems for title, meta, and description tags
for our papers.

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Af78cB-
5ICerZGN0cmRtNG1fODM5MmZ0czVkeg&hl=en

About a year ago I implemented Disqus as a third party comment feature on our
sites. I still manage and admin its numerous semi-automated moderation features.
http://disqus.com

Management of our technorati account.

http://technorati.com/blogs/www.washingtonexaminer.com%2F

Below are some specialty pages I have built for the papers. (I hand-built and
implemented these pages.)

http://washingtonexaminer.com/rss-feeds-directory
http://washingtonexaminer.com/twitter

A recent marketing campaign page I built for us.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/freedom

(I did not build or implement the below app, but have a hand in managing the feeds
that keep it fresh)

http://washingtonexaminer.com/iphone-app

I also manage our constantcontact.com email system and have been deeply involved
in our future move to a more up-market Datatran 'Stormpost' automated email
system. We have just begun to implement this.

I manage our Associated Press automated web feeds infrastructure, one that keeps
our site fresh with AP news.

Below is a map project we did last during the 'stimulus debate' in Washington circa
2009.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/maps/Bogus-jobs-created-or-saved-by-the-
Stimulus.html

Or a Healthcare debate map

http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/dirty-deals-pushed-health-care-through-
senate

I have also touched most page elements on every template of viewable content on
both sites in some respects. I have implemented many third party multimedia
applications in our various Clickability, Wordpress, and Drupal 7 systems we used.

http://washingtonexaminer.com
http://www.sfexaminer.com
(And our old site http://dev.washingtonexaminer.com)

I learned and hand coded in 'Velocity', a dead Apache language, to built RSS feeds
and Search and Google News sitemaps. I also built our entire automated and hand
curated Twitter and Facebook offsite infrastructure.

Two examples:

http://twitter.com/dcexaminer
http://www.facebook.com/washingtonexaminer

I manage our Google Analytics account and produce weekly reports about traffic
trends. I advise and implement SEO strategy and have had the opportunity to run
SEM campaigns for us. I also manage all our Webmaster tools accounts, Google

Yahoo and Bing. I manage a few relations with some of our third party vendors like
United Kingdon based sports web video vendor Perform.

Previously I was at the Capital Research Center as an editor and programs manager.
I also was our site admin and managed all the development work (again I was an
onsite very light-developer at that stage) on the site; this included 3 development
rounds of site upgrades and a Wordpress powered blog upgrade. I developed and
managed our podcasting programs and the web infrastructure to distribute it.

http://www.capitalresearch.org/

If you care to chat with my current boss, the head of our digital department, please
do. He is aware of my decision to go back to graduate school and is very supportive.
His contact info is below.

Bob Benz, chief digital officer

Clarity Media Group

bbenz@claritymg.com

202.459.4904 (office)

202.604.6161 (cell)

My goal has been to be able to leverage my experiences in online publishing and
shift my career focus sales and marketing with an emphasis on technology. I thought
I was coming to Dublin City University wanting to learn a few specific things, but
found I learned so much more than that, and even more about myself.

M. SC. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE (BUSINESS)
What was it exactly I was trying to leave and why did I want to come all the way to
Dublin to study at Dublin City University Business School?

In my previous work roles I experienced, used, and evangelized many digital
marketing tools. However, many of this was more in a superficial role than I would
like to admit. I was utilized as more of an onsite tech support admin, something
other what they told I was hired to do. However, I did get to witness the quiet wrath
of our CEO against his Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Technology Officer on
more than one occasion. They were both fired for failing to move at the sufficient
digital marketing speeds in aiding our organizations transition.

Let me give one anecdote from this time period. Our iPhone app was launched
when I was away on holiday, with a nice article in print and small marketing blitz.
One problem - there was no link or direct way to get to it from our actual website
and zero efforts were made in social media to promote it. The daytime operations
group, my team, did not even know it was in development. Needless to say I had to
play clean up when I returned.

This was symptomatic of our corporate problems and culture with respect to
coherent digital marketing, and more specifically digital strategy. These were not
generally one-off failures, but a consistent number of failures despite stated shifts in
corporate policy expectations of digital media and digital publishing operations in
our enterprise. It showed me that success, even in the C Suite offices, now demands
an in depth knowledge of digital strategy from end to end. The transition to digital
has been tough across the whole subscription model publishing industry (O’Reilly
Radar 2011). The news business is not really alone in this struggle. Many large
organizations are dealing with the dilemmas of this profound change (Court,
Elzinga, Mulder, & Vetvik 2009).

The business and technology ends of the company were always at each other’s
throats with blame and recriminations. I wanted out of publishing. I wanted to be
the change. This led to my eventual frustrations and desires to do something
different. Then I found it, the M. Sc. in Electronic Commerce (Business) at Dublin
City University. I also wanted a new career in sales and marketing, preferably with a
technology company. This was the place to start.

The MSc in Electronic Commerce (Business) is part of DCU Business School's Next
Generation Management initiative. Starting with a weeklong immersion course, this
initiative provides students with a unique and flexible learning opportunity to develop the
competencies required for successful management careers and to contribute to business
success. Particular emphasis is placed on reflective and critical thinking, collaborating with
people, creating and sharing knowledge and dealing with complexity.
The module is structured around the major personal, organisational and contextual
challenges in modern management and focuses on four key themes: personal and career
development; leadership, teamwork and corporate accountability; global and societal
awareness; and research, media and communication. (Dublin City University, 2012)
When I read the above for the first time, I wanted to be among those who
endeavoured through this program. I wanted to exorcise my professional demons
and be a part of the global vanguard helping business and engineering experts
change the world.

Of our required coursework has each given me at least one take home lesson from
the year:

Web Design & Implementation

• CSS styling sheets are not as scary as I thought they were.

OO Programming (Java)

• Java is hard but a very important development language to know.

Organisation & management in the Networked Era

• Information technology has transformed how management operates

Business Modelling & Process Innovation

• Continuous improvement initiatives are difficult to maintain but required in modern
enterprise.

Digital Business

• Strong business models are required for enterprise success.

Innovation & High-Tech Entrepreneurship

• Product and business commercialization is a long and winding road.

Networks & Internet

• Internet network security is in a constant change.

Risk, Regulation, & Ethics in eCommerce

• Risks to an enterprise come in many shapes and sizes.

eCommerce Infrastructure

• Middleware is the glue of the modern internet and every e-commerce enterprise.

Information Access

• Information management and retrieval is important in every enterprise not just Google

Then there is Next Generation Management, the glue of the entire MECB program
and my business management training experiences at Dublin City University. It is so
important it has own entire section for you to comprehend how crucial its role is in
the overall masters degree program, and to me personally. It has taught me many
lessons; this document is a testament to that fact.

NEXT GENERATION MANAGEMENT
This portfolio gives readers a detailed look into of my personal career interests and
considerations for development, through the NGM Personal Opportunities for
Development learning structure. It describes the steps I have taken over the past two
semesters to improve many aspects of my professional skills, and the positive impact
on my life. Personal skills development and career development work hand in
hand. Education can only take you so far. Life experience and work experiences
enable a person to develop further and change further.

I found this to be the case as my work life and school life interacted this year. As an
“implementer” as described by Belkin, and an action learner as described by
Marquardt in his 2004 book, “Optimizing the Power of Action Learning: Solving
Problems and Building Leaders in Real Time” and followed up with his work in 2009.
There are only so many things I can learn from within a classroom. The way I have
found of implementing this information and knowledge is by applying it in the real
business world. NGM has allowed me to do this with my personal opportunities for
development (PDP) ( Marquardt, 2009).

In accordance with NGM learning outcomes and indicative content: to develop
interpersonal skills; networking; skill development; leadership, and in alignment
with my personal development plan competencies to understand the big picture,
networking, and develop my leadership tone, I chose my PODs carefully. It was my
way to prepare myself for a future career in sales and marketing. Developing
personal skills and inner capacities is not just crucial for your career, it can help you
survive the challenging world and possible daily grind of corporate life. I have lived
this. But the important and great relationships you make can survive even the most
hostile work environments if you know how. They help us bring out those inner
resources that enable students to flourish in a career path, not merely a job.

Next Generation Management (NGM) is the master master’s module. I have spent
the most hours on its work in the pursuit of completing my overall MECB
coursework than any other. NGM is a twenty-credit module beast, meaning the
weight it carries is four times greater than that of a standard module. It equates to
roughly two regular class modules each semester.

I came into NGM without the benefits of any proper business education in my
background. Because of experiences and activities incorporated into the NGM

module I can confidently say, I do now. As a mature student with six years of
publishing industry experience, I would argue that sometimes the work load can be
much tougher than some day to day industry work I have personally experienced.
However, this is all a part of its plan to make graduates battle hardened, ready and
more prepared for the job hunt and professional work culture, as Dr. Lynn explained
to us in that in that September’s introduction to Next Generation and its uniqueness
to DCUBS. It has been incredibly useful experience when former student seek
employment to explain their work ethic and intellectual maturity. Why else decide to
complete a Masters degree, if not to improve employability and paid market value in
your chosen professional field?

In the beginning, back in early September 2011 during our “Intensive Marketing,”
Orientation Week, we were introduced to the course module, our fellow students,
and the recent graduates of the 2011 NGM class. They expressed to us that Next
Generation Management would take over everything we did during certain parts of
the year. Yes, they were right, I only now fully understand what they had meant in
compiling and editing the document you now read. Then again, Next Generation
Management truly is class like no other I have experienced. Let me tell you a bit
about it and how it is so related to this portfolio.

The modules learning outcomes have been designed to improve us in many different
skill areas, but particularly to give us an understanding of the time and teamwork
constraints involved in a real days work.

Let me share them with you so you can understand the document you are reading
and some of the concepts:

1. Assess a range of personal management competencies to identify strengths and opportunities
for development and develop a personal development plan (PDP) and career plan.

2. Engage in and reflect on a range of competence development activities.

3. Evaluate and manage creative processes including forming routine and non- routine
solutions.

4. Demonstrate mastery of effective communication including the selection and use of media for
specialist and non-specialist audiences.

5. Critically assess and apply a range of research methods.

6. Evaluate the arguments for business ethics, corporate social responsibility and sustainable
development.

The last element of Next Generation Management module is the document you are
reading. This is worth forty percent of the Next Generation Management module’s
grade. The work that has been required in production of this portfolio has been
intense.

This portfolio is divided up into four key themes. Each of them is designed to
broaden our general knowledge and skill sets toward accomplishing the learning
outcomes.

The four key themes are the following and include their own indicative content areas
of learning:

Management and Personal Development

• Self-management
• CV Preparation
• Interview Skills
• Personal Development Planning
• Career development
• Interpersonal skills
• Learning Competence
• Managing Others
• Relationship Building
• Leadership
• Conflict Management
• Motivation
• Teamworking
• Negotiation
• Managing Business & Strategy
• Management
• Planning
• Organizing
• Decision Making
• Creative Thinking
• Analysis
• Strategic Thinking
• Problem Solving
• Business Acumen
• Customer Management and Focus

Digital Skills, Media and Communication

• Digital marketing and e-commerce
• Mobile marketing and m-commerce
• Report writing
• Communication skills
• Presentation skills

Business & Society

• Global economics
• Business in Society
• Business Ethics

• Cultural Awareness
• Global Thinking
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Corporate social responsibility
• Regional business system workshops
• Corporate accountability

Research

• Library & information management
• Research ethics
• Research planning
• Research proposals
• Literature Review
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Quantitative Research Methods
• Presenting research
• Case preparation and analysis

The indicative learning content was not meant by the creators to only be covered in
this portfolio, but as part of the entire module; however, they have helped focus the
personal opportunities for development (POD) choices I made. You will see them
incorporated as you read the documents in the theme areas.

Next Generation Management required a lot of work. The main requirements were
trying to both our intellect and mental toughness. Class was held two or three times
a week. Each class was completely different than the one before and it was governed
by our lecturers, Mr. Des McLaughlin, Dr John Connolly, Mr. Gerry Conyngham, Dr.
Claire Gubbins, Dr. Theo Lynn who covered the four different themes. Different
lecturers have managed each of the NGM themes with specific expertise in one of
these areas. We also had a number of excellent outside speakers like professors
Geraldine Lavin, Brian Levy, and Simone De Colle. We also had a number of mini-
conferences throughout the year in part of our Dice project management work in
NGM.

11 October (2-6, The Helix) – DICE Briefing Session

25 October (2-6, The Helix) – Get Mobile

18 November (2 – 6, The Helix) – Get Social

14 February (2 – 6, The Helix) – Get Creative

20 March (2 – 6, The Helix) – Get Started

17 April (2 – 6, The Helix) – Poster and Presentation Day

These included some of the most up to date industry players in the fields of
marketing, mobile, and computing. You will read more details about Dice toward

the end of the portfolio, in the Dice documentation section and its companion
Interaction and Facilitation Appendix. Dice was new this year and had a few bugs to
be worked out. However it was a fine concept and module component to get first
year students to function at tertiary level thinking quickly. It gave NGM graduate
students the experience in managing and facilitating the completion of work projects
we could not do ourselves. Dice student teams came from many different University
program coursework paths. This is actually also how our NGM team groups were
devised, with marketing, business, and e-commerce students represented on each
team.

Dice related work and activities weighed on our workload heaviest in the first six
weeks of semester in our efforts to get four or five first years to turn up and
constructively interact with each other.

This part was tough and required many emails, Facebook messages and text
messages. My excerpted interaction log with my Dice team can be found in the
Appendix. This load Dice took on project managers gradually improved to the point
where toward the end of second semester the groups (and mine specifically) were
able to be fairly self-organizing. Project Managers were relegated to running down
information about their course to ensure they did not have things slip through the
cracks. My group got to the second round in the presentations of their Windows
Phone app. I was very proud of all of them that day. As part of the Dice project the
students had to sit for the PRINCE2 project management exam. In order to help
them with the system and to manage our groups NGM students were expected to
pass the online PRINCE2 prerequisite exam. The image of my online passing of
PRINCE2 is also available towards the end of the portfolio after the Digital Skills,
Media and Communication section.

The volume of team driven assignments and activities incorporated into NGM team
group learning and has taught me positive teamwork and facilitation skills.

I can still complete work on my own, of course, but I have come to feed off the team
energy. It seems to drive my own work product beyond where it would be otherwise
due to pride and competition. This may not be the case for everyone in our class, but
it has been especially true for me. As a former team athlete who rowed competitively
for nearly a decade it was my favourite element of NGM’s teaching style. The team
working assignments were definitely my favourite.

Early on Dr. Gubbins lectured us about competences and we were given
assignments to find out more about our strengths and weaknesses when it came to
them. Most elements of this portfolio were an attempt to understand and improve
them. There is no doubt, that the competency assignments have shed new light on
the person I actually am, and now I can be less focused on how I or others perceive
myself to be.

Through NGM I have had to become a well-rounded individual in some specific
areas and more learned and specialized in others. The competency assignments were
completed mostly in late semester one and early semester two. You can find three
and an updated resume included in the Personal and Career Development Sections
of this portfolio. These were also often the classes where we learned early on about
the process of learning and how our reflections would take shape in this document.
Our use of the Gibbs Model and its reflective cycle has been helpful in learning new
insights and in thinking harder about what I was learning while participating in or
witnessing events (Gibbs, 1988).

The reflections you will read use this Gibbs Reflective Cycle to express my learning.
We were also required to develop and refine personal development plan as part of
our NGM course work, to guide our POD choices and develop various personal
competencies required for modern career success in accordance with our individual
needs. You will find it in the next part of this portfolio.

With the work of our Persona and Career development theme, I have even come to
find an academic framework that explains how I learn best, through action-
orientated activities (Marquardt et. al, 2009). During the year we learned a lot about
the different competencies that separate leaders from managers (Tubbs, 2006). We
also learned a lot about the competencies needed to become a competent manager
(Whetten, et al. 2007). We were instructed frequently and forcefully about the value
of being the master of our own career destiny in the modern global marketplace
(Beeson, 2009). We also learned about the importance of networking in making the
“luck” that is professional success.

Then there was the research theme, which was the first significant set of focus
groups research and intensive need to learn how to be comfortable with using the
PASW statistics software package to manipulate data. Dr John Connolly and Mr.
Gerry Conyngham worked hard at explaining to us and walking us through some
difficult and thought provoking areas of research methods. I learned the most about
how to think about research and design in these classes.

As part of the research theme we were also required to carry out two separate
projects. One was a qualitative focus group and the other was testing our PASW
data manipulation skills under the gun of a clock. I had a hard time with some of the
parameters of the qualitative research project, but learned a lot from my mistakes. I
also enjoyed leading the focus group process and would not have a problem being
involved in managing one in a future role. We were given training classes and
workshops, by Mr. Gerry Conyngham, on how to use PASW; you will find
reflections in the research theme about them. I enjoyed gaining the skills and
confidence to manipulate data by learning SPSS in NGM.

We also had two marketing projects this year. One was participating in the Google
Online Marketing Challenge and creation of a digital marketing report for an
assigned client. This project was part of our Digital Skills, Media and
Communication theme of Next Generation. The other was a market entry report for

a specific emerging market that the team was unfamiliar with. This project was part
of our Business and Society them of NGM. Our’s was the region of Southern India.

These took a huge amount of time and effort. What made the Digital Marketing one
so important to me was the fact of having client was relying on us. I enjoyed the
GOMCHA project the most, as I got to mastermind our Google AdWords strategy
for my team. The two reports took many hours to complete. I hope that the
GOMCHA and digital reports helped our client Rocknbowl.ie realize the important
role a comprehensive digital strategy can play towards their business growth and
customer engagement as well as the value proposition Google AdWords provides
SMEs like them. I sure learned these facts from these efforts.

The market entry project taught me the real difficulties that enterprises face and
about the energy required to expand outside of home markets. In our business and
society theme, heavy efforts were made at expanding our understanding of the
modern world of enterprise and of some of new unique challenges presented to
them today like: cultural awareness, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and
governance and accountability. The outside lectures we had for this theme were also
top notch.

As for the documents in this portfolio, I was required to attend events or partake in
activities in accordance with the four themes and then reflect, via the Gibbs Model,
upon each. These activities were known as personal opportunities for development.
Colloquially we just call them PODs. I attempted to carry out a diversity of PODs.
They carried a weight of one, two, or three “POD credits”. We needed to get to forty
POD credits for this portfolio to be complete. As you read you’ll see the POD
diversity is evident throughout this portfolio. The Next Generation Management
module and PODs have provided me with an invaluable set of new experiences to
go back into the professional work world.

I have learned insights into myself, new skills, and built a strong network of
professional and personal contacts. I am extremely proud to have completed NGM
and theportfolio you are reading. I will include experiences and tales from NGM in
job interviews from here on. It has been an extremely meaningful part of my
personal and professional growth. I am confident they will help me in landing the
sales and marketing career I seek.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
My end goal is to possess the skill sets defined in the link below up to 70%
proficiency. More skill areas would be great in both depth and width and will be
helpful in a sales and marketing career. Understanding the Big Picture is very
important to me especially since I did not previously have a background that
included business education. Redeveloping my public leadership voice after 6 years
of it being fairly quiet is important to me. Improving the depth and an abilities to
network and understand Statistical Research tools are also important. Networking
and becoming more empathic toward others is also important to me.

SHORT TERM GOALS

Competency to Rationale Development Time Evidence of
Develop Action scale Completion

Understanding Seek out skills, Undertake challenging One Year PODs
of the Big develop skills-based learning
NGM
Picture opportunities, tasks to learn much
and put them into more about subjects I MECB
real world context currently possess and
and frameworks a superficial
for use. knowledge of those I
do not.

Networking Seize Attend widely held Unlimited PODs
opportunities for events with current
NGM
networking and future leaders that
growth with both make use of or DICE
individuals who support people and
are technical or products I need to
business savvy. know to help DC meet
Dublin and vice versa.

Communication. Learn to find my Reflect, blog, tweet, Unlimited PODs
Development of unique voice and update, post, use
NGM
a Leadership use it on a wide dormant posting

Voice and Tone range of topics rights to speak out on DICE
after having it things I am
MECB
hidden behind knowledgeable about
organizations for in society and the
6 years. world at large. Don’t
fear the sound.

Research Tools Managing Key Don’t fear the data. One Year PODs
and Analytical Performance Participate, aid, and
NGM
Skills Indicators learn skill sets that
requires data will aid my present
manipulation and ability to interpret
understanding of context from data.
data context.

LONGTERM GOALS

Leadership Development of Help, advise, and learn Unlimited Undetermined
and Change conflict from others mistakes
Management management skills regarding the
during both management issues
segmented change surrounding change.
and slow
Attend events and meet
continuous
inspiring leaders.
changes

Attitudes and Improve self- Develop deeper Unlimited Undetermined
Empathy awareness of emotional intelligences in the short

Efficacy attitudes and via engaging in group term
empathy within driven pod projects.
myself, those I Help others as well as
work with, and myself. Generally
those that I through instruction.
manage or have
managed in the

past

Career Learn tools and Create a new resume One Year PODs
Management procedures that tailored to different job for short Networking
can aid in markets. Participate and term and and Solid
developing good seek out people and kaizan- Work History
career habits. workshops with staff like long
and mature career term
focused skills
developments and
focused projects.

PERSONAL AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT
This portfolio section theme gives readers a detailed look into of my personal career
interests and considerations for personal skills growth and development. It describes
the steps I have taken over the past two semesters, to improve many aspects of my
life, which had a positive impact on my life. Personal skills development and career
development work hand in hand. Education can only take you so far. Life experience
and work experiences enable a person to develop further and change. I found this to
be the case as my work life and school life interacted this year, both as an
implementer, as described by Belkin, and an action learner, as described by
Marquardt in his 2004 book “Optimizing the Power of Action Learning: Solving Problems
and Building Leaders in Real Time.” There are only so many things I can learn from
within a classroom. The way I have found of implementing this information and
knowledge is by applying it in the real business world. NGM has allowed me to do
this with my personal opportunities for development (PDP).

‘Developing management skills is not intended just for individuals who plan to enter
managerial positions or who currently manage organizations. It is meant to help you better
manage many aspects of your life and relationships…’ (Whetton & Cameron, 2011).

In accordance with NGM learning outcomes and indicative content my goals were to
develop interpersonal skills, networking, skill development, leadership and align
them with my personal development plan competencies. This would help me to
understand the big picture and networking, and to develop my leadership tone. I
chose my PODs as a way of preparing myself for a future career in sales and
marketing. Developing personal skills and inner capacities is not just crucial for your
personal career goals, but can help you survive the challenging world in general and
the possible daily grind of corporate life in a occupation you do not have control
over (Beeson, 2009). I have lived this, but the important and great relationships you
make can survive even the most hostile work environments, if you know how. They
help us bring out those inner resources that will enable oneself to flourish in a career
path, not merely a job (Drucker, 1999).

Personal skills growth and development has never been more important due to the
competitive nature of our globalized economy. The demand for job slots among
exiting students (and actively seeking professionals too) in 2012 is particular tough
as employers can demand much more than rote academic knowledge, given the

economic volatility and competitive labour marketplace. Applicants who have a
keen knowledge, in other aspects of life and a bit of applied knowledge and interest
in life-long learning have a distinct edge (Drucker, 1999).

We live in a business culture that is dynamic and changing quickly and the ability to
know ones strengths, weaknesses, and desired areas of improvement will rise over
other candidates. I learned this from attending and participating in the many PODs
and lectures over the last two semesters. Self-awareness of our strong and weak
competencies is arguably the most important aspect of career development I have
learned in Next Generation Management. This module has allowed me to experience
much more than I ever could have imagined last summer before I arrived. I got to
develop interpersonal skills by working in groups and networking. I had to seriously
think about the future of my career development and create an action plan to direct
my future. I experienced strong help in resume preparation and a world of self-
realization about my leadership style and learning competences.

The personal and career development aspect of the NGM portfolio has given me the
opportunity to carry out activities which have developed me in both the activist
learning of skills and personality self-realizations. I hope to continue the progression
after I matriculate in the fall. I think the PODs that I have carried out are broad
indicator that I am not unwilling to challenge my weakness and make my strengths
stronger. They enabled me to gain actionable experiences and competency
development.

These have been beneficial to me, each one of them unique. The following are the ten
PODss you will read about for NGM’s personal and career development theme. I
have also included an assessment of my personal competencies before the PODs and
an analysis of my social networks afterwards. These were specific personal and
career development assignments during the year for inclusion as well as my future
biography and current resume, which you will find after:

• PERSONAL COMPETENCES ASSESSMENTS
• CODE ACADEMY
• SCIENCE HACK WEEKEND
• EPAS PRESENTATION
• MENTORS AND MENTEES
• UNILEVER SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE

• SELLING IN AMERICA
• ENGAGED ACTION NETWORKING
• ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL NETWORK
• FUTURE BIOGRAPHY OF SELF
• CURRENT RESUME

This NGM theme section has been beneficial to me. There is no doubt the
networking and career management and competency awareness skills help
individuals prosper professionally. I am by no means a expert at the described POD
entitled subject matters, but this pod has given a great foundation skills and
understanding to build upon in accordance with my personal development plan
competencies like networking, developing leadership tone, and career management.
The POD experiences I have chosen will open future doors. I have a substantially
stronger understanding of what networking and inter-personal skills are required
for sales and marketing jobs. Thanks to NGM’s personal and careers development
theme, I will have much greater confidence in my ability to operate in the
marketplace as a professional in sales and marketing. This section has been
especially helpful for any mature student attempting a career change or upskilling
after a number of years in the workforce.

PERSONAL COMPETENCIES ASSESSMENTS

“Know thyself.”

Famous dead Greeks long ago were not wrong. Knowing yourself is one of the most
important paths toward true self-improvement no matter the rationale, be they
work, family, or peer-social. The classics were not wrong, however, the tools to get
one to an improved point have changed. There are many ways to get there from
here. This is the point and purpose of doing personality, leadership, and learning
style exercises and tests. I am imaginative cynical idealist. This bled through most of
the tests we took.

Why do them? Because we divide ourselves’ early on in the real work world into
those who continuously learn and those who do not. But for many the destination is
also important. Where are you going? It is hard to know where you are going and
why you are going there if you don’t know what your strengths and weakness are,
One has to know what’s within oneself to manage develop or overcome.

I think doing these exercises are useful in the attempt to develop a career path but
also to reengage those who are mid-career, perhaps trying to redesign the ‘next step
in the path.’

Learning styles or knowledge acquisition has been big since the 1980s; I aware of this
because I have had the concept beaten in to me since the first grade.

How do you best learn? On the Honey and Mumford Learning Styles test I scored
strongest with 18 for Activist; 16 for Pragmatist; 12 for Reflector; and 10 for Theorist.
This is not a big surprise for me because I have always learned best by doing and
have always required a ‘why’ question or 12 regarding whatever subject matter I am
not particularly interested.

This to me is the most important part of the assessments I did. It confirmed some of
what I already learned about myself and the ways in which I learn best.

However, I enjoyed Jung’s Personality Assessment and ended up scoring the below
ENFP.

“ENFP Warmly enthusiastic, high spirited, ingenious and imaginative. Able to do almost
anything that interests them. Quick for a solution for any difficulty and ready to help anyone

with a problem. Often, rely on their ability to improvise instead of preparing in advance. Can
usually find a compelling reasons for whatever they want.”

This description is of my personality is correct. That said I am not high energy. In
fact I am so not high energy that when I was about seven years old my mother took
me to the doctor because I was not high energy like her. I do think this personality
assessment it is a double edged sword for me in that the quick creative solution is
not always the best or ideal long term, but in a fast paced daily changing work
environment it is very much desired and is appreciated as the solutions allow others
to get back their day to complete work. This was a typical problem set for me on at
least a once a week basis in my last two jobs.

This dynamic basically describes my former day-to-day work interactions to the
doted I’s and crossed T’s in my last job as an Assistant Managing Editor, Web for a
news website in Washington, DC. The one weakness I see in it is my strength to
rationalize just about anything. This can be a huge problem if you are not aware, as
this also means a person may fool himself by rationalizing the wrong conclusion
from a situation and live in an alternate reality from those working around him if the
creativity goes to one’s head. I generally try not to believe my own spin, unless I
really do and I am a proactive evangelist for it.

I don’t know if this is an optimal way to function in professional life, but balancing
unrelenting idealism and cynicism is generally what I am known for. Then again, I
have always functioned this way, at least as long as I could remember, but have
never seen it described so eloquently as in the Jung’s personality test conclusions.

The Managerial Grid and Leadership questionnaire was fairly interesting and useful
to me as well. I fell into the team leader quadrant 8.4 on the “people” axis and 7.6 on
the “task” aspect.

I am not surprised, I have been functioning in adhoc daily teams of eight or four
competitive team members since first year of secondary school, when I started
rowing. When I left rowing, my exit was slow, as it is for many who get involved in
the sport. and I coached for two years. In this role, I learned about managing
personalities toward joint goals. Not just as it related to my boats, but also my other
coaching staff’s boats too. Idealist cynicism is ideal for coaching rowing because they
are the laziest hard working athletes around.

Is it useful to take a test and have knowledge about what you already believed about
yourself confirmed? Maybe. I would argue it is possible to play to the test and
personally, I would rather be judged on my team leader qualities, by how I perform
within group work tasks and on how the group performs. I would still argue that the
people axis is generally more important to me personally, as most project failures I
have been involved with have failed due to poor relations among the team members.
Luckily these situations have been rare but useful learning experiences.

On the Whetton and Cameron “Locus of Control Scale,” I scored 7 where corporate
business executives average 8.29 with a standard deviation of 3.57. This evaluation
was somewhat useful to me. Learning and or being able to control yourself and
things around you to best you can but not getting too stuck on you if it somehow
does fail or you don't really want to own it in the first place us helpful. I try not to be
too extreme in this one, because on the one hand you must look inside first if
something goes wrong (Drucker, 1999). The other side of this is understanding that
in some circumstances no matter what you do something will go wrong. Sometimes
things are just entirely out of your control. Complaining can be legitimate, but I
prefer it be a cathartic team building exercise, if at all, otherwise you just sound like
a whiner. I do have a hard time with whiny people. American’s are fairly big
complainers and whiners about everything. Two semesters in an Irish University
proved that to me.

My Whetton and Cameron “PAMS” test score was 402 against the maximum
possible (462) where a score or 304 or above put an individual into the top quartile.
This was the test I disliked the most. I feel my scoring is not right. I do feel that way,
but am not entirely sure if observed by a third party they would agree. This test, I
think, is easier to over rate oneself while not trying to do so on purpose. I did not get
much value from the PAMS test.

I feel like I knew myself pretty well before doing these various evaluations,
primarily through trial and error in different job roles and projects over the last few
years. Doing them has allowed me to think back on situations where the various
aspects and competencies would have come into play in both the work sphere and
personal sphere.

I learned the most from the learning styles assessment and the personality test. They
confirmed things that make me more comfortable with describing myself.

However the cynical idealism I arrived here in Dublin with is perfect for any towns
people that thrive on politics and debate of big ideas like those that happen in
Washington, D.C., where folks do it for a living. But it can at times come off as crass
and rude or off putting, in other cities (Atlanta or Dublin) where being able to argue
three different sides of an issue well, and not really believing any of them too deeply
is not the norm. Moving to Dublin has helped me move away from some of this as
have exercises forcing me to think deeply about how my personality and various
life experiences impact my social and professional communications and the image of
me that is being projected. This project has helped me know myself and my
competencies strengths and weaknesses much better.

Personal and Career Development PODS

CODE ACADEMY

Event: Online JavaScript Tutorial and Learning Course

Presenter: Codeacademy.com

Date: 12/01/2011 – 30/04/2012

Venue: Home Computer

Weight: 1

As a Belbin described implementer and action learner, I learn by doing. I believe I
need to continue seeking out opportunities that will allow me to witness and
participate in situations that will enhance my understanding of digital languages
and communication tools. This is in accordance with Next Generation Managements
learning outcomes of assessing my personal competencies improving my use of
digital communication tools. It also is consistent my personal development plan to
improve the use digital communication tools. Languages are used to communicate,
even computer coding ones. It is also a job skills development that gives me
empathy with software engineers and developers.

JavaScript is the most important front side language to understand after html and
CSS. I had previously done a little bit of JavaScript coding in my previous job as
Assistant Managing Editor, Web at the Washington Examiner, to create dynamically
linked content boxes for special projects. Web scripting languages are important
because they can save website developers and admins time in automating fairly
routine features that would require many hours to insert by hand, on thousands or
hundreds of thousands of web pages. However, I was not very confident in these
skills in my old job.

The POD I accomplished was the codeacademy.com JavaScript basics code to learn
online coding lessons. This was to remedy this lack of confidence and it was
interesting to me. I had wanted to expand my hard skills in my year in the Dublin
City University E-Commerce program (MECB) and the Next Generation
Management Pod structure allowed me to do that with this specific pod activity.

Observe below my completion of, “An Introduction to JavaScript a beginner-friendly
programming language.”

(My JavaScript Basics Pass Mark in CodeAcademy, 2012)

I began working on this Pod in late December, over the Holiday break when this was
the only course work offered by the website. At first it was easy due to what I
remembered vaguely from implementing some code for others at my old job. Then it
got harder and I found myself looking up help both on their site and others to
complete the various tasks. After a while it got a bit easier as I noticed the logic was
getting more similar to Java, which many MECB students were required to take
during our fall semester. I got most of the way through all the exercises, but then
exams crept up and I had to put it down for a while.

However, as of April when I finished the few I had not completed before the first
semester exams, many new additional courses are now available to expand skill sets
in JavaScript and other languages much further. This was fantastic news to me as I
enjoy the way they teach coding. I plan to continue with the lessons over the
summer and into the future. I actually have begun the Code Academy HTML
Fundamentals Course as well as their CSS course to challenge me further than what
we learned in Web Design the first semester of our MECB module course work.
However, again my efforts were cut short as second semester exams, Practicum
meetings and portfolio writing crept into my daily routines.

(My profile accomplishment badges in codeacademy coding courses)

I have also begun subscribing to many different podcasts and lectures via iTunes
that teach JavaScript. I do this to learn more and to fill in holes in my knowledge sets
when I get stuck. This tends to happen when I am tinkering and learning coding
skills.

(JavaScript iTunesU lectures)

I hope to continue my computer languages learning and iTunesU and
CodeAcademy.com are not alone in my growing self-education tool kit (Dellinger,
2011). I have joined teamtreehouse.com which is a much more professionalized and
paid computer development and programming skills course online than
thenewboston.com, by “Bucky,” which is great, free, and got many MECB students
Java in semester one of 2011. The class of 2011 actually told us about Bucky during

the Orientation Week for NGM. I can’t wait to tell next year’s class about him either
and tell them about the other tools me and my fellow NGM students acquiring Pods
related to coding skills do next year. I actually create a blog post to allow this
information to condense a bit onto one page my
http://cantankerousgentlemen.wordpress.com/ blog I began writing.

(Team Treehouse instruction interface)

I am by no means a professional or “JavaScript Ninja” in front side development, but
this pod has given a great foundation to build deeper skills and understanding upon
in the future. Accomplishing this pod was about more than learning basic JavaScript.
This to me is a life skill. I now also feel much more confident in my use of JavaScript
and my ability to learn the harder elements of it and maybe even try to tackle harder
and newer languages with the help of the many aids and online tutorials found over
the year in NGM and MECB.

However, this pod like many of my others this year were about building the
confidence in being able to discover places online to learn new and changing skill
sets and be a more adaptable and marketable worker despite the changes and
evolutions occuring in web technologies in the next few years (Drucker, 1999).

SCIENCE HACK WEEKEND

Event: Dublin ScienceHackWeekend

Presenter: TOG and DCU and Redbrick and ETC

Date: 3/3/2012 and 4/3/2012

Venue: DCU The Hub

Weight: 2

In accordance with my personal development plan (PDP) actions to, “Attend widely
held events with current and future leaders that make use or support people and
products to help DC meet Dublin and vice-versa,” and in order to develop my
networking competencies I attended the first ever Dublin Science Hack Weekend. I
have made a concerted effort to get out of my comfort zone, grow my weak ties and
strengthen my strong ties in my professional network. My PDP also “Undertakes
challenging skills based learning tasks to learn much more about subjects I currently
possess superficial knowledge about,” in order to develop my Understanding the
Big Picture Competencies, Networking, and Leadership Voice.

In accordance with NGM learning outcomes engaginging in competency
developments, I decided to attend the first annual DublinScienceHack to meet
people, let my creativity run wild, and develop my leadership voice. We will reflect
upon these activities using the Gibbs Model of reflection, I will explain this PODs
importance to my year. I am a team oriented leader and action learner as described
by Michael J. Marquardt in, “Optimizing the Power of Action Learning: Solving Problems
and Building Leaders in Real Time.” The DublinScienceHack let me challenge these
competencies and grow them.

The weekend of March 3 and 4th of 2012 the first Science Hack Weekend was held on
Dublin City University’s (DCU) campus in the Hub. This was a 36 hour attempt to
bring science and technologists together to come up with creative solutions and use
technology and science in a creative fashion, where a person perhaps centers less on
outcomes, that are related to new companies being formed and just create. I mention
this because the same weekend of the Science Hack, a Startup Bootcamp took place
that many of my fellow DCU E-Commerce students attended. Generally speaking,
the Bootcamp weekend might normally be more of “my thing” as I like to focus on

the commercial viability of ideas more than just watching where they lead. I am
actually a very creative person and have preferred science and history as my
favourite subjects and topics from a young age. This is particularly why I was
interested in this pod. Where would I fit in with my skill sets? I had no clue. Would I
be more useful, more than just another set of hands? Take a look at some of the
people working.

(People working at Dublin Science Hack Weekend)

This was to be s 36 hour lock-in style event. I did not stay for the entire 36 hours, but
I did stay for about 15 hrs the first day and about 5 hrs the second day of the event. I
wanted my bed. I was not alone in venturing into this motley crowd that was very
different from either the DCU School of Computing or Dublin City University
Business School. A good number of my fellow E-Commerce students were with us
for the first day, for about 8 hrs, and Patrick Greene stayed as late as I did and came
back early on the second day, which was Sunday.

The creative juices were flying and flowing and many attendees came prepared with
interesting ideas. My background is in content, the promotions of ideas embedded in
them and in promoting them to an online audience. My skills were not in creating a
visual display of the aura borealis, software to hear the sounds of the stock market
during trading, the real iToliet (which was a joke in early NGM lectures thanks to
Craig Martin) to put QR codes on every public toilet in Dublin, in or building some

robot out of tearing down 4 or five different kids toys. There was many more ideas,
some big some small, some teams were big some were a team of one. One more
science orientated attendee crocheted various cells involved in the circulatory
system. Even though attendees were friendly our E-Commerce related skill sets were
not the most useful here to the event theme.

(Team NGM working hard: Niall Shanahan, Michael Porter, Niall Hanlon, and Patrick
Green at the DublinScienceHack )

However, only one person was handling promotions for the event, Ellen Byrne, who
I was glad I got to meet and help out. She was a former DCU M. Sc.
Communications student who is Head of Digital Strategy & Events - ESOF 2012 /
Dublin City of Science at Office of the Chief Scientific Adviser and the Co-Organiser
at Science Hack Day Dublin. Meeting her and helping her promote the event alone
made the Dublin Science Hack Weekend worth my effort of attendance. I helped her,
as I built out a foursquare location, tweeted, and posted Facebook updates and

photos from the event in real time. I provided live news coverage. Now, that I can do
well.

I aggressively tweeted and promoted the event and the project on the second day
during the awards. Patrick and I promised her we would promote the event with
content and created a blog post about our experiences and the people we met.
Patrick Greene and I used our media savvy and created a blog post about the event.
He wrote it and I edited it (Greene and Dellinger, 2012).

I also met other a new friends. I met software developer and NUI Maynooth PhD
candidate Ricky Jacobs. Ricky used to work for Google in Hyderabad, but came to
Ireland for his PhD. He needed help in testing his project, “GeoWand” app, which
added some interesting near-field communications (NFC) related activities to more
tradition mobile mapping apps and “check ins” like foursquare.

I am by no means technical enough, nor creative enough to be a legit “science
hacker,” but this POD gave me a great opportunity to meet other technology
industry contacts that are not affiliated with Dublin City University. It felt like a
“lock-in” one might do when you were thirteen, except with more pizza and more
computers. I enjoyed the freedom of the event, to spend a night not thinking about
practical things like business plans financing. I also learned that is the technology
environment I function in better, product commercialization, not blue ocean
ideation. Due to participating in this event, I would no longer feel unwelcome or
uncomfortable attending an event like the ScienceHackWeekend, even if I ended up
helping with public relations or product testing.

EPAS PRESENTATION

Event: Participating in MECB EPAS Certification Process

Presenter: EPAS Certification and MECB Students

Date: 21/02/2012

Venue: Dublin City University Executive Business Center

Weight: 1

On February 21, 2012 I was among the small invited group by course Chair Dr.
Regina Connolly to help make the student case for the Dublin City University’s
Masters in E-Commerce programs (MECB) continued certification by the European
Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) board as one of the top
management programs in Europe. As a fee paying mature foreign student from
America, my opinion or insight would be helpful. As an action based learner, I
kearn best by doing, and need to seek out opportunities that will allow me to
participate in situations that develop my competencies in accordance with my
personal development in leadership and change management.

Why in fact did I choose to come so far from home for my graduate education? This
would be a key question for me to answer and support my MECB program.

But what exactly is the EFMD? And EPAS?

EFMD is an international, not-for-profit, membership organisation, based in Brussels, Belgium.
EFMD provides a unique forum for information, research, networking and debate on innovation and
best practice in management development.

EFMD – the European Foundation for Management Development – is an international membership
organisation, based in Brussels, Belgium. With more than 750 members from academia, business and
public sector organisations across 80 countries, EFMD provides a unique forum for information-
sharing, research, networking and debate on innovation and best practice in management
development.(EFMD, 2012)

What exactly is EPAS certification?
The EFMD Programme Accreditation System (EPAS) was introduced in 2005 to complement our
other accreditation services. EPAS is a service for EFMD members seeking recognition for excellence
and successful internationalization of academic programmes. EPAS is based on the same process as
EQUIS and covers the full range of academic programmes from the Bachelor to the doctoral level.
EFMD members may apply for stand-alone programmes, programme suites or joint programmes.

The EPAS Standards and Criteria cover all facets of programme provision: (1) the institutional,
national and international environment, (2) programme design, (3) programme delivery, (4)
programme outcomes, and (5) quality assurance. (EFMD, 2012)

They particularly emphasize achievements in the area of academic rigour, practical relevance and
internationalization. “The EPAS procedures are designed in such a way as to provide for further
development of the whole school, not only of the programme under accreditation. It will make the
programmes more attractive for national and international students, lecturers and researchers, as well
as future employers of the graduates.” Elena Zoubkova, Vice-Rector, Moscow Business School
MIRBIS, Russia. (EFMD, 2012)

We made our way up to the third-floor of the Business School EPAS and waited for
first of the other EPAS student meeting to finish. As we entered we were split into
two groups and taken to conference rooms. We were talking with a Swedish
professor, who was fairly tough on my comments, and a French professor, who was
in charge of the business school in London. The latter was very friendly and asked
good questions. I generally have a big mouth and like to talk, but the Swedish
professor made this hard. I had two main points that I wanted to make, as they
harped specifically on the intense student workload of Next Generation
Management and PODs specifically. The MECB program deserved the EPAS credit
for not being conventional when it comes to a graduate level educational experience.
Why? The experimentation and re-invention of course material year over year offers
a unique and practical education that prepares students for the real work world. I
think my point was taken, but then again, I did come all the way here from the
practical practitioners point of view. with skills upgrades and top notch
management education on my agenda.

EPAS aims to evaluate the quality of business and management programmes that have an
international perspective and, where of an appropriately high quality, to accredit them. The
accreditation seeks to make the global market for degree programmes more transparent for employers
and students alike. (DCU MECB landing page, 2012)

I learned quite a bit about myself from this experience in that I love to express myself
but can have a hard time when I do not feel much feedback from the individual I am
having the conversation with (in this case, the Swedish professor.) I liked that I was
selected to provide input though and felt like I got my points across despite his
scowls.

I have never had a problem expressing my opinion, but this POD has made me
more confident in putting myself forward in other leadership positions in the future.
Putting ones name forward or accepting when asked is 80% of the battle. In modern
management, the Steve-Jobs-like leader is rare. Management authority may come

down from on high, but true leadership respect must be earned bottom up. This is
probably why my MECB classmates voted me, “most likely to be a politician.”

In the future, I plan to continue to put myself forward and volunteer to take the lead
on work and projects I feel comfortable with, and even those where I may not feel
completely comfortable with. If I am interested in the work or subject matter at hand
to be accomplished, I will throw my name in. It is important to support your
University and be a team player, especially when its goal is to make the university
program you attend more prominent and attract even better students; it is in your
self-interest to help raise the perceived value of your degree (Veloutsou, 2004). I am
by no means a professional or expert in leadership, but this pod has given a great
foundation to build my leadership competencies.

MENTORS AND MENTEES

Event: Career’s Mentoring
Presenter: Bob Benz and Francesca Chambers
Date: 09/01/2012 – 05/15/2012
Venue: Email, Twitter Direct Message, VOIP Phone, and Google Chat
Weight: 2

“Content is King.” Sumner Redstone –Viacom Chairman

Working with the content industry was my career path before I came to at Dublin
City University (DCU). I am still unsure if this has entirely changed given that even
formally mechanical Search Engine Marketing (SEO) are getting more like content
marketing after the Panda updates to the Google search algorithm.

Networking is an integral part of career development; however, there is also deeper
relationship that is also needed: mentoring of people at different career stages (Chao,
1997). As an action based learner I need to continue seeking out opportunities that
will allow me to participate in activities that will enhance my understanding of how
academic theory can be put into practice. Mentoring is not an exception. The four
mentoring phases are Initiation, Cultivation, Separation, and Redefinition (Kram,
1985). I have experienced all of them in this POD.

In accordance with my personal development plan competency needs in
Networking and Leadership I created this experience for myself. Doing so seemed to
be consistent with the Next Generation learning outcomes to engage in activities that
develop my competencies and develop solutions for others working in digital media
with a specialist audience.

This was a career development project I wanted to create during my year at Dublin
City University and it was formalized in September, once I arrived into the yearlong
Masters in Electronic Commerce program. Formalizing a mentor/mentee
relationship with someone in a chosen industry is not always easy. In coming across
the pond I was worried I would lose touch with many of my old networks. This has
not been the case, but the fears allowed me to formalize mentoring relationships and
for this I have DCU to thank (Higgins And Kram, 2001).

My mentor is Bob Benz, who we will learn more about shortly. I went one step
further in finding a younger professional to mentor. This happened by a happy
accident. She not officially working for my previous employer as young editor yet,
but asked for advice through other friends and former work colleagues. Her name is
Francesca Chambers. She now runs a website called RedAlert Politics, which is
owned and managed by the same people I use to work for at Clarity Media (who
own the Washington Examiner). So who are these people and how do they impact me
and vice-versa career wise?

Francesca is the Editor of Red Alert Politics - an online publication written by and for young
conservatives. Red Alert Politics is a product of Clarity Media Group, the parent company of The
Washington Examiner and The Weekly Standard. She is also a contributor to The Examiner's
Campaign 2012 coverage and its Beltway Confidential Blog.

Francesca is a veteran of several political campaigns -- most recently served as campaign manager for
a state senate race in Northern Virginia. She has also worked in new media at The Leadership
Institute (where she continues to serve as a new media trainer), at the Republican National
Committee, and on Capitol Hill.

Francesca graduated from the University of Kansas with BAs in Political Science and Journalism. At
KU she was an editor of the University Daily Kansan and an active member of Student Senate.

Francesca needed advice and counsel in regards to dealing with the internal politics
in my previous employer. This began in email, but evolved into a long-term ongoing

Twitter direct message (DM) conversation that has lasted from her projects official
launch until today. What the primary issue? Going digital. Working for and with a
management infrastructure that has been groomed and thought of nothing, but print
for a generation of work experience is really tough for younger Net Generation
employees. How could a career in print possibly prepare a manager to run web
based enterprises and content websites? This is a question being asked throughout
the publishing world today as digital revenues are not making up for losses in the
advertising spending that previously came from the print versions of their products.

However, this POD is about mentorship and I provided counsel and advice in
dealing with key leadership personnel, things I developed during my nearly three
years of having many of the same email fights and philosophical and territorial
disputes that can occur in the content centric industries. Why me? In my former role
I was forced to interface with every operation and department in the company
except the print and physical distribution of our print operations.

I managed key aspects of online content distribution as Assistant Managing Editor,
Web and attempted to break many organizational logjams as our mandate from our
corporate leaders was, “web first,” web-centric. Conflicts, between the IT and
Editorial departments; or between IT and Advertising; or between our corporate
parent’s management team were commonplace. Every one of these departments, I
failed to explain also claimed to know exactly what was best for the web department
to be focusing on as well. It was just a real mess. There was a lack of leadership from
day one. This led to my embracing the MECB program in order to help organisations
overcome this problem in the future be they in publish or other adapting in the
digital transition.

However, my institutional influence and gravitas was never strong enough to
impose my will so I was merely a facilitator of change for most of my time there.
This created a level of frustration, as I was way over my head. I reached a breaking
point in the fall of 2010 as I witnessed outright lies from our corporate parents
management team to my face. Then I encountered a physical altercation with a direct
manager over an email, that was sent to him. It actually turned out I never wrote the
email in question, I am not that stupid. It was the work of our Liverpudlian IT
director. This was why I chose to pursue a graduate education at Dublin City
University and leave Washington, DC.

I had met Francesca a few times in Washington but we were hardly friends. When
she joined up with Clarity Media she was given a huge opportunity at twenty-four
to be the editor of a youth orientated political website and manage many freelancers
and contributors. This was something I had some experience with when I
idealistically joined the newspaper division of Clarity Media in 2008 after the
Presidential elections at the ripe age of twenty-seven.

Francesca and my mentorship is at the early phase of the mentoring relationship as
described by (Kram in 1985). Now Francesca and I still have conversations in regards
to managing and promoting work in digital media. I also helped her deal with some
very rough patches and brutal burnout in the first months of her websites launch in
February of 2012 that almost led her to quit her job.

(Digital media executive - Hanley Wood - Washington, D.C. - Bob Benz, 49, is media executive with
experience in newspapers, television and interactive.)

Bob Benz was on the other hand was my former boss at Clarity Media, as the Chief
Digital Officer for our newspaper and all other of Clarity Media’s other online
products and projects. I worked under him for less than seven months, but our
personalities clicked very quickly for the creation of quality work product and

desired institutional change. Benz was hired to perform an audit of Clarity Media
print properties digital assets. He however was not hired as a employee until
January of 2011, by which time I had already decided to move my career in a path
that lead to Dublin City University and away from the running the paper’s website.
In those short months I was one of Bob’s most loyal lieutenants, as he was the first
person in management to be empowered to make cultural changes in the way the
newspapers operated. Bob had a number of years in many different roles, but
crossed the fence to digital media so early he is now a “web person.”

However, there was a bit of a catch as, he physically was not able to carry many of
these tasks out. As my former boss and friend who was the Managing Editor of the
website departed in that same January 2011 I was in an unusual position. It was my
job to be the enforcer and implementer of his policy changes and directives. Since
coming to DCU, I have discovering implementation is among my strongest
leadership style thanks to Belbin.

I was finally getting listened to and getting new resources allocated in a rational way
that promoted our online products. My “hedgehoging,” as he called it, through the
darker days lifted. Those last 5 months working for Bob were the best ones I had in
nearly three years, as a level of web professionalism was allowed to prosper that had
previously been squashed by reactionary anti-web elements in our mid-upper
management, that always had promoted backsliding on all of corporate
managements web-centric projects. Bob ended this within weeks with a very loud
and boisterous chat with our papers Editor and Managing Editor. It worked. I was
allowed to help tailor strategic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns, as well
as help critique and improve our brand and strategic SEM spend.

Why do I bring this up? The hardest day for me came in March of 2011, when I had
to tell Bob I would be departing at the end of May and headed to Ireland for
graduate school once my application via PAC were finalized. Instead of being
angered or upset, he just told me, “That’s great, go get a grad degree and get some
management chops. The work will come to you. I am sad to have you go.”

After experiencing weak or incompetent management for year, I had a great
manager who I actually trusted and trusted me. Who would not ask that person to
be your mentor? Especially knowing of an impending life change quickly around the
corner.

Bob and I still chat, deeply about once a month and share links and advise, now
about staying in Ireland or coming back to America and which career direction to
chose in sales and marketing. Bob also had hired Francesca and he appreciated my
aiding and mentoring her, in dealing with her supervisors and managers, as he was
working on an exit strategy for himself, which led he to becoming President of
Hanley Wood one of the largest trade magazine and website publishers in America.

I am by no means the best mentor or mentee, but this pod has given a great
foundation to build deeper these kind of relationships that make for deeper strong
network ties and aid my career development I think I have learned a great deal
about why these relationships are important in our expanding careers, especially for
mature students (Higgins And Kram, 2001). I have experienced all four mentoring
phases described by (Kram, 1985) in this POD. I learned a good bit about the theories
that underline why exactly mentorship is good for career progression. The
confidence he has in me and the confidence earned in mentoring Francesca has lead
me to apply to a management training program, at the Irish Times in June 2012 while
writing my NGM portfolio. I will likely apply to more sales and marketing in the
future. NGM provided me the opportunity to take an informal professional
relationships and make them a proper Mentorship program. It is important to be on
both sides of these relationships.

UNILEVER SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE

Event: Unilever Sustainability Challenge

Presenter: Unilever with John F. Kennedy and Nial Hanlon

Date: 08/03/2012

Venue: DCU Postgraduate Computer Lab in Computer Applications building

Weight: 1

As an action based learner, I learn by doing, and must seek out opportunities that
will allow me to and participate in situations that will enhance my learning.
Consistent with Next Generation Management learning outcomes to develop
competencies found in my personal development plan (PDP) and understand the
arguments for business ethics and sustainable development I joined a team to enter
the Unilever Sustainability Challenge. This was consistent with my PDP and my
goals to understand the big picture and develop my leadership voice, understand
corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how small our world really is (Friedman,
2007).

This pod was an attempt to get graduate students brainstorming on making business
more “sustainable” both environmentally and socially. The goal was the write up a
250 word concept to make Unilever operations more sustainable to help the
company reduce waste and negative externalities related to the products they sell.

Our concept was “healthier is wealthier.” The idea being to start with the companies
deep supply chain of farmers and workers that are already connected to Unilever
worldwide and help bring up some of their standards of living via clean water and
improved hygiene. The results would create a more productive and healthy
workforce that in turn would be in a better position both health and economically to
purchase Unilever goods. Here is what we came up with in 250 words:

Healthier is wealthier and vice versa, it is also more environmentally sustainable. How do we
improve the lives of millions of subsistence farmers and workers and make them new consumers of
Unilever products?

The first stage of the process would include implementing sources of clean water and improved access
to basic hygiene and health care. This would improve productivity for these workers more productive

workers means growing of more sustainable crops, which could be sold to Unilever and other on the
market.

This would mean extra income, which can be in turned used for new basic Unilever consumer
products and education access for their children.

As communities get wealthier and healthier they can be more proactive in improving local
environmental conditions.

As the living conditions improve for them and future generations are better educated they will
continue to move up the Unilever product consumption chain as their tastes and wealth evolves and
grows.

Driving productivity improvements via basic public health and hygiene is more than a challenge it’s a
necessity. We can help make the difference and provide this hand up. (Sustainablity Challenge Entry)

Now that I look back on it, the concept was a touch naive. Conceptually the idea
worked well in our heads. Since I come from Washington, D.C., I generally think like
a wonk and was attempting to create the most cost effective outcome on dollar and
not a concept that would make Unilever more money(marketingweek, 2011). My
team liked this idea. It seemed very people centric. I was wrong and my team was
wrong.

As the teams were drawn for the final presentation, we were not selected. No
worries, we were glad to see that, NGM was well represented by Aoife Dempsey
and Kate Desantis. They had a good idea; as well it was a bit more practical than
ours to boot. They noticed a strong priority shift once they talked in person to people
associated with Unilever's contest versus their dealings with them in email. The
product concept that won had to do with labelling and use of containers in the
developing world, as packaging matters much less and less can be priced in for the
packaging than it can be in the industrialized world given the earning differential.
Now sure, I am more use to American corporate citizen, Greenwashing and
Sustainability initiatives, which only differ slightly than the European versions. They
are arguably, more people centric and less product centric in my opinion. Real
people and their stories make for better public relations materials.

My example would be first, Ronald McDonald House and the affiliated charities that
help families dealing with longer and more complex childhood diseases and the
comfort they offer. This would be against all of what some environmentalists would

argue is that, their “pro-meat,” “pro-beef” organization represents, given toll
increased beef consumptions puts on the worlds arable lands an water resources.
The second would be the greening and charity of Walmart/Asda. They are seeking
ways to cut costs always and everywhere, it is their business model. One has been in
regards to redesigning stores to use substantially less electricity since, it is a
fluctuating cost of doing business. The other has been their effort to green their
delivery and supply chain via less use of fuel or use of cheaper and less polluting
fuels. These efforts are occurring arguably, because it has been harder to wring the
price cutting out of suppliers than it was of the previous 30 years, as production of
many of the items and products have moved to lower cost production markets like
Mexico and China.

Rural and suburban Americans love Wal-Mart despite the CSR and other moral
objections of urban activists given their strong cultural objections the unionism.
Why? First they do an amazing job of helping the people and the charities connected
to the people, where their store locations are in terms of money and man-hours. I can
attest to countless in kind and cash for various charities activities allowed to be done
on their premises from car washes to gift-wrapping during the holiday season.

I am glad I took part in this project and got to spend some time thinking more
deeply how a consumer products company could be more sustainable. However,
there is a limit to how far consumers are willing to go to save a few cents. It has been
my experience that there are certain everyday use products in my months in Ireland,
that are either substantially better or worse than the equivalent in the United States.
Some examples: trash bags; aluminium foil; sandwich Baggies; and food packaging.
As an American, these products all feel substandard to me, but Irish and UK
consumers would consider them just fine. However, some products are superior to
what America consumers are willing to put up with including most fresh fruit, fish,
and certain alcoholic beverages of cultural significance. Americans will not purchase
bread that is not in packaging or eggs that are not refrigerated and Europeans will.

Different market preferences and tastes are important and impact how a company
may be able to proceed in making their business more sustainable or claim to.
Different markets have different concepts of fairness and price to value of products
and services. However, many of the end goals are the same and translate across
cultural divides. We need to think deeper about how exactly we will function as a

planet, with the billions of people in the developing world wanting and desiring
similar lifestyle expectations as the modern American or European has today.

This POD forces teams to consider some of the big social and environmental
challenges companies face, in our near and further term future that must be dealt
with. I am by no means an expert in regards to CSR and sustainable development,
but this POD has given a great foundation to understand the scale of the challenges
these subjects present to businesses in our economy.

SELLING IN AMERICA

Event: Selling in America

Presenter: James Dellinger and John Walsh

Date: 20/04/2012

Venue: WebEx based Webinar

Weight: 2

I spent weeks thinking about doing some kind of pod that would help bring some
element of Business Development skills and help connect my new Irish network
with my technologist network in the United States to my Next Generation
Management classmates, since networking is so important to develop leadership
(Ibarra, 2007). As an activist leader, and an action-based learner, I was only really
inspired when I was sadly diverted back to Atlanta, Georgia during our semester
two reading in March. My grandfather and personal hero was very ill and likely not
to make it much longer. He had come down with double pneumonia and it was
taking him from us.

I made it home to be there with him before he passed and I am glad I was with my
family through the whole week and especially for my mother. However, something
struck me, in being away and having to give a eulogy for one of the hardest working
salesmen ever born. I was inspired by his legacy to me, to teach his “rules of sales” I
found in the autobiography my aunt was helping him complete before he passed
and create an event that I could share my some of the key links in my social network
as they work primarily in sales in the technology industry.

SAM D. GUY’S 10 RULES OF SALES:

1) CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.
2) DO YOUR HOMEWORK; KNOW THEIR BUSINESS.
3) SEEK OUT THEIR CONCERNS AND ADDRESS THEM HEAD ON. DO EVERYTHING
AND ANYTHING TO ADDRESS THEIR CONCERNS.
4) GET TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS AND POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS AS FRIENDS.
INQUIRE ABOUT THEIR FAMILIES AND INTERESTS AS WELL AS THEIR BUSINESS
NEEDS AND CONCERNS.
5) CARRY SOME FORM OF NOTE TAKING DEVICE AND JOT DOWN PERTINENT
INFORMATION IMMEDIATELY AFTER A MEETING WITH A CUSTOMER.
6) ALWAYS PRESENT A TIDY, CLEAN APPEARANCE WITH THE APPROPRIATE DRESS
FOR THE OCCASION.

7) WHEN MEETING A NEW CUSTOMER, DO A DRY RUN OF THE TRIP AHEAD OF TIME.
8) BE PROMPT FOR APPOINTMENTS; 5 MINUTES EARLY IS 5 MINUTES LATE.
9) REVIEW INFORMATION IN YOUR NOTEBOOK, OR MOBILE PRIOR TO YOUR
MEETING.
10) THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

Below is actually how my event, “Selling in America,” came together. This project
was in accordance with my personal development plan to develop networking and
leadership skill and the NGM learning outcomes to manage creative processes and
create solutions. This was my first webinar and WebEx I had ever produced so this
caused some learning difficulties as we were getting the it off the ground. However,
getting the Pod produced and managed would not have been possible without the
help of fellow MECB classmates John Walsh and Euan Callow. Mr. Walsh was very
helpful in connecting the concept of why it is different to Sell to Americans as a non-
native since he had a number of years selling heritage products to American’s in the
Armed Forces worldwide. Mr. Callow as very helpful in aiding my understanding
and management of the WebEx software and also taped the webinar for future
listening to for portfolio review use as well as if people wanted to attend but had
poor internet connections at home to join us the day of, which was fairly late on a
Friday evening.

Selling in America" - For ONE pod.

NOT IN A ROOM, just a WebEx webinar.

Topic: Selling in America

Date: Friday, April 20, 2012

Time: 1:00 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00)

Meeting Number: 730 280 329

Meeting Password: atl2dc

-----------------------------------------

To join the online meeting (Now from mobile devices!)

-----------------------------------------
1.Goto https://freetrial.webex.com/freetrial/j.php?ED=186856427&UID=1073322542&PW=NZGNi
M2JlM2Vi&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D
2. If requested, enter your name and email address.

3. If a password is required, enter the meeting password: atl2dc

4. Click "Join".

To view in other time zones or languages, please click the link:

Portfolio Final NGM DCU MECB 2012

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