Final Project! :)

I currently do not work in the area of Smoking and Health/Tobacco Control, but I have always wanted to be a Researcher in this area, and maybe one day I will be. :) My organization's Office of Smoking and Health has done an impressive amount of tobacco control and tobcacco policy research, and I wanted to use their research as a starting point for my project.

The overall objective of my Application/Final project is to determine the impact of various health policies and multiple policy scenarios on adult smoking prevalence, as well as their Public Health and financial benefits, on a state-by-state basis.

Check out my project report here, and click here for the actual DSS.

Optimization Project

It's time for some Optimization for the fictional Transco company which sells several types of radios and needs to decide on the optimal product mix which will yield--you guessed it--the optimal profit. To join the fun, you can view my project report here, and click here for the accompanying Excel file.

Monte Carlo Simulation Project: Quantifying the NPV of An Oil Field

For my Monte Carlo simulation I worked with a model on Oil Field Development to determine the most likely NPV of an oil field given five inputs which were uncertain. You can see my project here, and click here for the accompanying Excel file.

I was able to load the file into the Google host site, but not open it to get a web address for the .rsk file . . . so you'll have to open in directly from the Google host site here.

A DSS for Predicting Firm Demand

To see my DSS to predict firm demand, check out my report here and click here for the accompanying Excel file.

***7/12/09: I added in the Forecasted Residual for AFD and fixed the comment detailing the exogenous demand formula (adding extra parens) in the DSS suggested by Alok in class on 7/8.***

Project 2: Regression Analysis to Predict Adult Smoking Prevalence Rank by State

Well folks, maybe the 3rd time will be the charm?!?

You see, here in MGS 8150 I ran into the same situation as I did with my regression model that I tried to build last year in MBA 7025 . . . what started out with three darn good independent variables (or so I thought) in the end only left me with one independent variable which was a paltry predictor of my dependent variable (R^2=.23). I think my lack of experience with analysis design is to blame, but the only way to get better at this is to keep on trying! :)

This time around, unexpected multicollinearity hindered my ability to properly (i.e. using more than one independent variable at once) run stepwise, backward, and forward regressions, and it turns out that ranked data doesn't lend itself well to regression analysis. So I live and learn. Again.

I am not a data person. I never have been as far as job experience or studies until now. But I am trying to be and I will persist and learn! :)

Anyway, please click here for my Regression Project and here for the accompanying Excel file.

Experimenting with Seasonalized Data

Since my application data is annual prevalence data with no seasonality, I thought it was a good idea for me to play around with a dataset with some seasonality so as to learn how to deseasonalize and then forecast. I didn't do a formal write-up and this isn't a formal project, but more of an exercise to help me learn.

You can see my little experiment here. :)

Project 1: A Forecasting Model to Predict the Prevalence of Adult and Youth Smoking, 2009-2019

Click here to see my forecasting project. The objective of my project is to is to predict smoking prevalence (current smokers) amongst adults and youth for the 10-year period between 2009-2019.

The accompanying Excel spreadsheet can be found here.

Five DSS Analyses for Your Viewing Pleasure

Click here to see my five DSS projects. Good times! :)

My Future . . .

So I hate when I am asked where I'll be in five years--does anyone who believes in happy accidents and seredipity alongside careful planning *truly* know? Anyway, we were asked why we are doing/thinking/being what we are, and told to summarize our vision of ourselves in five years . . . then talk about how our goals and aspirations will create value for our stakeholders. Here goes . . .

I have a couple of goals that I plan on reaching in the next five years. One entails working for someone else and drawing a consistent paycheck with no risk until the other one pans out. The other? Well, I'll get to that . . .

Very generally speaking, I want to have a career in the Beauty industry. Beauty products really are my passion, and I crave a job where I am surrounded by them! I am concentrating in Business Analysis, and I’m very interested in Business Analytics and Modeling, Data Analysis, Statistical Control Processes, Process Improvement, and Supply Chain Management. I’m not sure who I’d work for doing that in the Beauty Industry, but I guess I need to be doing some research now.

The other goal that I've had in mind for about five years is to open my own beauty boutique (selling beauty products, not services). I am a beauty product freak and I've spent enough money at Sephora to have a pretty good idea on how to market products to young women. I know exactly what plot of land I want to buy too! :) I plan on taking a course in Entrepreneurship while at Robinson and incorporating the skills learned therein to get me going. I need to learn how to write a business plan, how to find investors, whether to rent or buy land, etc . . . all this I will hopefully learn in school. Until I do, I don’t plan on taking action to open my business. Heck, I don't even know what actions to take. :)

As far as how my goals and aspirations will create value for my family, well they have always been proud of me and as my mom has expressed before, "I love you no matter what because you're my daughter." It's the same for the rest of my family. So, when I think about how my goals will create value for my family I'm thinking more along the lines of my future with my future hubby and pets (no children, thank you!) one day. With an increased salary we can buy a nicer home, nicer cars, travel more often, etc . . . in that regard, my accomplishments will add value to my family.

My employers hopefully will continue to recognize my strong people skills and creativity, but with the addition of the skills I learn in my MBA program they will also recognize me as a LEADER! I aim to make high-impact, sound decisions based on data and "on the fly" so to speak. When I am my own boss (when I own my beauty boutique), the value I will create for my employees will be that of a leader who can advise, teach, and listen.

As far as society . . . I have spent my "first career" in Public Health, and it's very easy for me to tout my contributions to society heretofore as a result of my various jobs. But looking forward, I have what I think is a pretty darn good idea for non-profit for women-in-need that I’d like to start one day . . . and yes, it actually does have to do with beauty products-—surprise, surprise. I wrote a prospectus to develop this idea for my Social Enterprise course Maymester, and I really think it’s a solid idea. If it takes off, then I will be creating value for my community and society as a whole.

My Present . . .

Here I will summarize my current employment sitaution, current interests, and expectations of my MBA program.

I am currently a Researcher/Writer in the field of Genomics, and in this position I am contractor at an organization with stellar scientists and the top Subject Matter Experts in every aspect of Public Health. I am so blessed to have an amazing boss, work with people whom I truly believe are some of the smartest people in the world, and work for a purpose-driven organization. I am incredibly proud to work where I do, and not many folks can say that! Also, this past year has been exciting because my boss has allowed me to integrate some of my newfound business knowledge into work projects, such as organizational development, budgeting, and writing a business plan for a new project.

Another large part of my identity is my hobbies and interests, but ever since starting school in January 2008, I’ve had to give up more and more of these. I have an alter-ego and used to have a part-time career as an actress/model. Now that job is something that I loved! I created, branded, and managed this alter-ego. I even designed and maintain her website. As Lennox, I've done some really neat and very diverse stuff--I've been featured in Maxim magazine, I've played Barbie for little girls at the premier of a Barbie movie, I've interviewed some interesting folks like T-Boz from T.L.C. and Butch Walker, I've been sliced and diced in horror movies, and well just about everything there is to do in the film, TV, and print world. And I've loved every minute of it! :) Surprisingly I was able to turn a shy, introverted bookworm into an actress/model, and have had experiences I never would have dreamed would be mine. Now THAT is a big personal accomplishment that has had ripple effects into a professional accomplishment as my successes have mean getting national and better paying jobs. However, "thanks" to school, I have zero extra time for gigs, and very sadly I’ve all but given up this hobby. :(

Writing is also a very special part of who I am, and I used to not only have my own celebrity blog site (right here at this domain, folks!), but also was employed as a Staff Writer for a popular celebrity blog site. As you may have guessed, I’ve given that up too thanks to school, however I am exploring somehow carving out time and jumping back in to write for beauty-product related sites both because I want to keep my writing skills fresh and because I AM OBSESSED WITH BEAUTY PRODUCTS! :) I truly believe Sephora is the best place on earth!

Speaking of beauty products, a primary driver of why I returned to school to earn my MBA is to, well, get a job that allows me to “play with makeup all day”! Yeah, seriously, y’all! I hope to one day own a cosmetics empire rivaling Sephora, but before that would be happy working in the corporate world of someone else's cosmetics empire. What I know for certain is that I want to get paid to work with makeup and hair/skincare products once I have my MBA. Beauty products are my true passion in life, and I spare no expense in buying premium makeup! :) So, I’m here at Robinson to learn about the business world I’ve been isolated from due to hanging out in the Public Health world for so long, and to acquire stronger leadership skills through my MBA program. At different points in my career, I've been a project lead and a project manager, but I feel like I've never incorporated actual management tools into my decision-making—because I didn’t know what those tools are . . . but now my eyes have been opened and I am really eager to implement what I’ve learned.