Marketing in Moab

I know this will come as a shock to one and all, but here is a post that is actually about the MBA program. I know! It surprised me, too.

Every fall before class starts, MBAMA (the MBA Marketing Association) goes down to Moab for a weekend of frivolity and merry-making. The new first-year students come in, all wide-eyed and full of trepidation, and the second-years promptly toss them in the river.

Julianne Hall, the MBAMA Vice President of Something, asked several of us to write blurbs about how much we liked it, so she could email the newbies and give them our endorsements. I, of course, overlooked the part of her message that said "only 1-2 sentences," and I wrote a freaking novel. So, here it is in its entirety, since it likely won't get emailed to anyone.

First of all, let me just say that I hate Moab. I hate its weather (because, holy crap, it's 110 degrees). I hate its over-the-top commercialism (I like to imagine that there's a sweatshop in Burma, where six-year-old kids do nothing all day but apply Kokopelli decals to shotglasses). I hate its very philosophy (last year, I took along a copy of Edward Abbey's The Monkeywrench Gang just to offset all the weekend-warrior, the-world-is-my-roller-coaster nonsense).

I don't like to golf. I hate to mountain bike. And last year we slept in a hostel with overflowing toilets and no air conditioning. (I understand that we have a real hotel this time around.)

And yet, in spite of it all, I loved the Moab trip.

The way I see it, you can get acquainted with people in a few different ways. They can leap from their canoe into your raft, grabbing the straps of your life preserver to toss you into the Colorado River--you'd need to learn their name there so you can exact your revenge later. Or, you can clutch onto their leg as your open-air Hummer speeds along the edge of a cliff (all while the driver is turned around, chatting with you)--you'd need to know their name in that situation so that you can shriek it in terror. Or, you can sit in the shade of Delicate Arch, surrounded by red, wind-worn stone and a spectacular view of Canyon Country--you'd need to learn their name there so that you can say "Man, this is breathtaking." Or, I guess, you could learn someone's name while you're crammed tightly together in a too-small study room, wearing too-tight suit coats, while trying to do too much homework in too little time. I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd pick that last option.

You guys already know the features of the trip: recruiters, rafting, whatever. But the whole point is that I met Brian Steffen on that trip, and he and I instant message each other almost every day; I met Charlie Skinner on that trip, and he and I are interning at the same company; I met Julianne Hall on that trip, and now she's the person I email when I need to vent my frustrations; I met Terence Stephens on that trip, and now I read his blog religiously; I met Anthony Nielson on that trip, and we sat together at General Conference.

The MBA program is only tangentially about how well you can determine the value of stocks, or reduce transportation costs in a supply chain, or deduce the necessary sample size of your market research. The MBA program is about people--and not in a hollow networking way, but in the sense that your ability to succeed in the program (and the business world, and life) lies in the relationships you make with other people.

Come to Moab. I promise that it will be worth it. And I promise that I hate that city more than you do.