--
There are three main categories of information that I would like to share with you in this document. Select one of the options below to see relevant information.
> [[Projects]]
> [[Classes]]
> [[Compositions and Arrangements]]
> [[I'd like a copy of your resume->https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0e0fAMNuy0oxyQ01YikgnXFCA#Resume_1/2022]]
> [[I've seen everything I need to see]]classesGlance: true
--
This is a list of every class I took as part of my MBA program, in the same order they appear on my transcript. If you click on a class title, the official description of the class will appear. Click the "Back" link at the bottom of the page to return to the previous menu.
{reveal link: '**Strategy for the Entrepreneurial Manager**', passage: 'Strategy for the Entrepreneurial Manager'}
{reveal link: '**Statistics and Analytics**', passage: 'Statistics and Analytics'}
{reveal link: '**Marketing for Global Managers**', passage: 'Marketing for Global Managers'}
{reveal link: '**Financial Management and Analysis**', passage: 'Financial Management and Analysis'}
{reveal link: '**Financial Accounting and Statement Analysis**', passage: 'Financial Accounting and Statement Analysis'}
{reveal link: '**Leading Multicultural Teams and Organizations**', passage: 'Leading Multicultural Teams and Organizations'}
{reveal link: '**Taxes in Business Decisions**', passage: 'Taxes in Business Decisions'}
{reveal link: '**Problem Formulation and Decision Analysis**', passage: 'Problem Formulation and Decision Analysis'}
{reveal link: '**Operations and Global Supply Chain Management**', passage: 'Operations and Global Supply Chain Management'}
{reveal link: '**Corporate Governance and Value**', passage: 'Corporate Governance and Value'}
{reveal link: '**Sustainable Business Model Innovation and Design**', passage: 'Sustainable Business Model Innovation and Design'}
{reveal link: '**Economics in a Global Environment**', passage: 'Economics in a Global Environment'}
{reveal link: '**Entrepreneurial Finance**', passage: 'Entrepreneurial Finance'}
{reveal link: '**Entrepreneurship**', passage: 'Entrepreneurship'}
{reveal link: '**Business Cycles and Forecasting**', passage: 'Business Cycles and Forecasting'}
{reveal link: '**Organization Change and Design**', passage: 'Organization Change and Design'}
{reveal link: '**Torero Ventures Lab**', passage: 'Torero Ventures Lab'}
{reveal link: '**Big Data and Business Analytics**', passage: 'Big Data and Business Analytics'}
{reveal link: '**Creating Project-Driven Alpha**', passage: 'Creating Project-Driven Alpha'}
{reveal link: '**Law, Policy, and Ethics**', passage: 'Law, Policy, and Ethics'}
{reveal link: '**Managerial Accounting**', passage: 'Managerial Accounting'}
{reveal link: '**Operations and Supply Chain Strategy and Tools**', passage: 'Operations and Supply Chain Strategy and Tools'}
{reveal link: '**Agile Strategies**', passage: 'Agile Strategies'}
{reveal link: '**Business Consulting Project**', passage: 'Business Consulting Project'}
{back link}projectGlance: true
--
These are a few of the projects that I have completed over the past year. Clicking on one of the links below will reveal details about the project, and often a link to where you can see it for yourself. Click the "Back" link at the bottom of the page to return to the previous menu.
{reveal link: '**Inventory management with The Broken Token**', passage: 'The Broken Token'}
{reveal link: '**Determining what factors make a Kickstarter campaign most successful**', passage: 'Big Data'}
{reveal link: '**Analyzing the most successful board games on Board Game Geek to see if there are useful patterns**', passage: 'BGG Forecasting'}
{reveal link: '**Composing, programming, and designing "Galaxy Taxi" in the Global Game Jam**', passage: 'Galaxy Taxi'}
{reveal link: '**Teaching aspiring game developers important entrepreneurial skills with IGDA**', passage: 'Designing For Success'}
See also the following two classes, each of which essentially being one long project:
{reveal link: '**Torero Ventures Lab**', passage: 'Torero Ventures Lab'}
{reveal link: '**Business Consulting Project**', passage: 'Business Consulting Project'}
[[Back->Home]] musicGlance: true
--
A full list of compositions and arrangements would be impractical in this format, so instead I included a few examples of pieces of mine that are mentioned in reviews or have a recording you can listen to. Click the "Back" link at the bottom of the page to return to the previous menu.
{reveal link: '**Three Bridges and a Fence**', passage: 'Three Bridges and a Fence'}
{reveal link: '**Songs With Flowers**', passage: 'Songs With Flowers'}
{reveal link: '**Tapestry**', passage: 'Tapestry'}
{reveal link: '**Galaxy Taxi**', passage: 'Galaxy Taxi'}
{back link}config.style.page.verticalAlign: 'top'
classes: []
projects: []
music: []
classesCount: 24
projectCount: 5
musicCount: 4
classesGlance: false
projectGlance: false
musicGlance: false
--
[JavaScript]
// initialize arrays
for (let i = 0; i < classesCount; i++) {
classes[i] = false;
}
for (let i = 0; i < projectCount; i++) {
projects[i] = false;
}
for (let i = 0; i < musicCount; i++) {
music[i] = false;
}
[Continue]
Greetings! My name is Colin Barkley.
If you’ve seen my resume, you probably agree that I’m an unconventional candidate (and if you haven't, there is a link to it on the next page). Not many people have years of experience working as a professional musician before getting a scholarship to attend a full-time MBA program!
To help better illustrate some of the skills I learned from my degree, I decided to create this interactive resource. On the next page, you’ll be able to choose from three categories to learn more about: Projects, Classes, and Music.
I hope you enjoy!
[[Click here to continue->Home]]
--
[JavaScript]
classes[0] = true;
[Continue]
**Strategy for the Entrepreneurial Manager:**
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a fundamental understanding of how strategy is formulated in a global environment from the perspective of top executives. Students will be introduced to and apply various core strategy concepts and models such as industry environment analysis, internal analysis of resources and competences, business-level strategies, business growth issues and its relationship to organizational performance. The intent is to provide students with a comprehensive perspective of how organizational infrastructure impacts competitiveness. Teaching methods may include case studies, simulations, projects, and field-work. [JavaScript]
classes[1] = true;
[Continue]
**Statistics and Analytics:**
This course examines how managers use data as the key input for systematic business problem-solving. Topics include collecting data, describing and presenting data, probability, statistical inference, regression analysis, forecasting and risk analysis. Extensive use of Excel for data analysis with a focus on applied business decision-making. Common business processes and business skills practiced are gathering and organizing data, quantitative data analysis, forecasting, decision-making under uncertainty and communicating or presenting results.[JavaScript]
classes[2] = true;
[Continue]
**Marketing for Global Managers:**
This course examines the key elements of marketing and the economic concepts that underlie them. Topics include understanding the competitive structure of industries, product differentiation, branding, pricing, promotion and distribution. Common business processes and business skills practiced are developing and positioning a product, choice of distribution channels, promotional techniques, demand estimation, pricing decisions and developing marketing strategy.[JavaScript]
classes[3] = true;
[Continue]
**Financial Management and Analysis:**
This course discusses how firms acquire, use and value capital resources. Topics covered are domestic and international capital markets, the time value of money, financial securities, risk and return, capital market efficiency, cost of capital and option basics. Common business processes and business skills practiced are free cash flow projections, capital budgeting and the valuation of a firm. Teaching methods are lecture, assignments and case studies.[JavaScript]
classes[4] = true;
[Continue]
**Financial Accounting and Statement Analysis:**
This course provides an introduction to the financial reporting system that business entities use to convey information to parties external to the firm. The primary emphasis is on understanding the financial statements, what they impart about a business entity, and how to use this information to make decisions. Students learn the accounting principles, conventions and concepts underlying financial reporting with the objective of developing the ability to analyze and interpret financial statements. The course provides an understanding of the financial reporting process from the inputs to the end products, including what motivates a manager to select a particular accounting treatment, how this choice affects the financial statements, what constitutes ethical financial reporting, how to assess the quality of the reported financial information, and how to adjust and use this information for analysis.[JavaScript]
classes[5] = true;
[Continue]
**Leading Multicultural Teams and Organizations:**
This course provides concepts and skills for socially responsible and ethical leadership of international teams and organizations. Students acquire competencies in critical thinking, comparative ethical reflection, situational leadership and multicultural team building. Topics include communicating across cultures, leading multicultural and virtual teams, adapting to different cultural behavioral styles, creative problem solving, conflict resolution, capitalizing on cultural diversity, motivating and empowering followers, comparative leadership theories and styles, moral considerations in power and politics, thinking strategically, and creating socially responsible organizational cultures. Pedagogy includes lecture/discussion, self-assessment instruments, case studies, team projects, experiential exercises, coaching in interpersonal skills and 360-degree feedback.
This course took place in Mexico. [JavaScript]
classes[16] = true;
[Continue]
**Torero Ventures Lab:**
The purpose of the Torero Ventures Lab is to provide real world, hands on learning to enable students to create their own ventures. During this course students will work in teams to bring their ideas into reality by working with customers, mentors, investors, partners, and other key stakeholders. Students will learn to confront the ambiguity, uncertainty, and the messiness inherent in the startup process, and navigate these to bring their ideas one step closer to the launch stage. In this course through a combination of lectures, interaction with potential customers and investors, live case studies, and readings, students will be able to create a sustainable business model for their new ventures, understand the concepts of customer discovery and prototyping, identify key practices involved in founding a startup, work in interdisciplinary teams to understand how to build and work in startup teams, and learn from failures to develop a workable business model.
My product in particular is a game that I designed that combines tabletop and electronic elements. It is still under active development. [JavaScript]
classes[15] = true;
[Continue]
**Organization Change and Design:**
Study of change, change theory and change practice, including both adapting to changes thrust upon us and initiating change toward a desired objective within the environment, the organization, the small group and the individual. Emphasis is on implications for administrative leadership.[JavaScript]
classes[14] = true;
[Continue]
**Business Cycles and Forecasting:**
This course examines the business cycle and techniques for forecasting
fluctuations. The emphasis of the course is to gain hands-on exposure to specific business forecasting techniques and learn to apply them to limit the range of uncertainty in management decision making. Specific techniques covered include lead-lag, exponential smoothing and econometric and ARIMA (Box-Jenkins) time series analysis. This course provides an introduction to the statistical tools used in forecasting. Its focus is on the application of these tools. While some statistical theory is covered, primary activities will center on data analysis to produce forecasts and insights in the same way it is done in business or policy context. Student teams will develop forecasting models for industries and/or macroeconomic variables. Students will be able to combine statistical rigor, economic insight and data presentation skills into a persuasive written forecast and presentation.
[if projects[2] == false]
{reveal link: 'Click here to reveal details about my final project.', passage: 'BGG Forecasting'}
[continue][JavaScript]
classes[13] = true;
[Continue]
**Entrepreneurship:**
This course examines the process of identifying and evaluating opportunities and the creation of new ventures to exploit those opportunities. Students will learn to evaluate the attractiveness of new venture opportunities and the key managerial skills required to successfully exploit those opportunities.[JavaScript]
classes[12] = true;
[Continue]
**Entrepreneurial Finance:**
This course is based on experiential learning and presents a comprehensive stage-sensitive approach to entrepreneurial finance. The course provides students with the opportunity to perform financial analyses and make financial decisions for a company in a real-world setting throughout a venture's life cycle, including the valuation of intellectual property brought to a venture at founding, production planning based on cash flow constraints, financial forecasting, venture valuation, venture capital funding, and the acquisit ion of the venture as an exit for investors. Financial modeling is used as a tool to analyze the various financial elements of a venture. [JavaScript]
classes[7] = true;
[Continue]
**Problem Formulation and Decision Analysis:**
Whether managing a task, a project, or a corporation, business leaders often must make critical decisions with seemingly insufficient information to structure an effective analysis. Such an analysis requires framing the problem appropriately, formulating alternative actions and evaluating their advantages and disadvantages. This course will provide the student with the skills necessary to be able to approach decision making in a systematic and fruitful manner. Using spreadsheets as the medium, this course will exam such topics as modeling, decision analysis tools, constrained optimization methods and Monte Carlo simulation. This course will also provide experience with using these tools in such areas as marketing, finance and operations.[JavaScript]
classes[6] = true;
[Continue]
**Taxes in Business Decisions:**
Case studies and current readings in tax issues relating to common business transactions. Students learn to recognize the tax problems and tax planning opportunities that attach to most business decisions. Topics include: concepts of income, forms of business, capital gains and losses, nontaxable transactions, corporate re-organizations, employee compensation and tax accounting methods. [JavaScript]
classes[8] = true;
[Continue]
**Operations and Global Supply Chain Management:**
This course examines the operational processes of the logistical chain from acquisition of materials through conversion to physical distribution of goods and services. Topics include supply systems, workflow systems, inventory systems, quality systems logistics systems, cost estimation, optimization tools and continuous improvement. Common business processes and business skills practiced are production planning, workflow scheduling, cost estimation, resource allocation, work methods design, inventory management and continuous improvement methods.[JavaScript]
classes[9] = true;
[Continue]
**Corporate Governance and Value:**
This course surveys the major corporate governance systems in the world, focusing on the values and legal and financial traditions that have led to the development of systems with quite divergent goals and institutional mechanisms. Topics such as the purpose and nature of the firm, models of corporate governance and their correspondence with legal and financial traditions, internal and external governance mechanisms, the role of regulatory authorities and executive compensation are covered in a comparative and interdisciplinary manner.
I took this course in Tokyo in February/March of 2020. A unique experience, to say the least. [JavaScript]
classes[10] = true;
[Continue]
**Sustainable Business Model Innovation and Design:**
Students work in teams to develop a CSR or sustainability project for an existing company or a new entrepreneurial venture. Consistent with USD’s philosophy that business leaders need to understand that success is more than just the bottom line, each project must also serve society in some way beyond the financial success of the private-sector organization. The business initiative must create mutual value, such as capacity building and sustainable wealth creation, for both society and the organization. All of the projects must be cross-functional in nature so that students use the full spectrum of knowledge and skill that they have acquired during their first year. [JavaScript]
classes[11] = true;
[Continue]
**Economics in a Global Environment:**
This course examines how the business environment and public policy affect industry and firm strategies for competitiveness. The focus is to enable students to identify, understand and evaluate the domestic and global forces causing economic change. Key concepts and ideas from both microeconomics and macroeconomics are introduced. Global issues are emphasized, such as the role that interest rates and exchange rates play in the movement of goods and capital between countries, national income and balance of payment accounting, trade barriers, regional trade agreements, emerging markets and political risk. It also examines these topics from an economic, social and ethical perspective. [JavaScript]
classes[17] = true;
[Continue]
**Big Data and Business Analytics:**
This is a graduate course (MBA level) on predictive analytics and is one component of four courses in the analytics specialization. Topics include, but are not limited to, programming, repository management, preprocessing & cleaning data, documentation & reproducibility, machine learning, and validation. By the end of the course, you will understand how to clean a data set and apply a predictive algorithm using the tidy data. Analytical Platforms: R (Swirl), Git, GitHub.[JavaScript]
classes[18] = true;
[Continue]
**Creating Project-Driven Alpha:**
This is a course on the project financing of a real estate/entrepreneurial business venture, using as an example the New York Wheel $600 million attraction project. The course will cover the realities of organizing and proposing the project, financing the project (in this case with senior debt, EB-5 immigration financing as mezzanine debt, grants and equity), seeking and getting regulatory approvals, documenting completion guaranties, launching the project, and how to deal with a myriad of problems and issues which inevitably arise in doing large projects. [JavaScript]
classes[19] = true;
[Continue]
**Law, Policy, and Ethics:**
This course examines the complex array of political, legal, historical and ethical concerns in the global business environment by analyzing the principles of social responsibility, ethics, diversity, and law and stakeholder theory as they apply to organizations, domestically and abroad. Coverage includes business ethics; diverse ethical foundations; diverse interests of various stakeholders; individual versus societal interests; pluralism and socioeconomic issues; anti-discrimination legislation; labor and employment issues; environmental justice; public policy; politics; globalization; and government regulation of business. Particular attention is given to cultivating moral reasoning skills. Fundamentally, we evaluate how businesses around the world do operate and, more significantly, how they should operate. [JavaScript]
classes[20] = true;
[Continue]
**Managerial Accounting:**
This course focuses on the design of cost systems and managerial accounting reports to aid in the planning and control of a business entity. Topics include incremental analysis, cost-volume-profit, activity based costing and budgeting.[JavaScript]
classes[21] = true;
[Continue]
**Operations and Supply Chain Strategy and Tools:**
This course is designed to provide students with simple, powerful approaches for improving supply chains and operations, particularly at small to mid-sized companies. The level of analysis ranges from strategic to tactical. Students will learn a framework for formulating and implementing an operations strategy. This simple yet powerful approach has been used frequently to add value to companies as they review their operations and supply chain strategies, as well as to help them develop one for the first time. It is also the starting point for companies as they address major strategic supply chain issues, such as whether or not to offshore or reshore their operations. Students will also learn a number of tools that have been successfully applied to help companies, large and small, improve their operations and supply chains. These include benchmarking, inventory management, production scheduling, production allocation and distribution, risk management, and implementing supply chain improvements.
[if projects[0] == false]
{reveal link: 'Click here to reveal details about the final project.', passage: 'The Broken Token'}
[continue][JavaScript]
classes[22] = true;
[Continue]
**Agile Strategies:**
This course builds on the basic understanding of how strategy is formulated (see "Strategy for the Entrepreneurial Manger" above) and on the various functional courses introduced throughout the MBA program. Topics may include but are not limited to executing strategic alliances, engaging in acquisition and restructuring strategies, developing and implementing sustainable business strategies and stimulating organizational innovation. The purpose is to provide students with an opportunity to integrate the various topics introduced throughout the program by engaging in strategy execution. Teaching methods may include case studies, simulations, projects and field-work.[JavaScript]
classes[23] = true;
[Continue]
**Business Consulting Project:**
Students working in teams provide consulting solutions to operating and strategic projects for businesses. Students bring their collective analytical abilities and diverse professional experiences to a business project, generating a mutually beneficial experience. Students will demonstrate the ability to formulate a statement of work, establish goals and milestones, prepare a schedule of deliverables and allocate responsibilities to team members. The consulting project will require students to apply creativity and analytical tools to complete the project and communicate the results to clients.
I was in a group of three for this project, and we worked with Taylor Guitars to provide recommendations based on two main concerns: the ongoing effects and trends stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how best to attract new and younger customers.[JavaScript]
projects[0] = true;
[Continue]
**Inventory management with The Broken Token:**
**The Broken Token** is a San Diego-based manufacturer of board game organizers and accessories. They have a huge number of unique products and little formal expertise in inventory management, so when I contacted them about doing a project to assist them in this area for my class *Operations and Supply Chain Strategy and Tools* last February, they leapt at the chance. Using their internal inventory data, I did three things: first, an audit to examine the effectiveness and costs of their current methodology; second, an ideal recommendation based on their stated priorities, with assumptions that can be adjusted across the spreadsheet in one Settings panel; and third, a comparison of the effectiveness and costs of those two, in terms of Cycle Service Level (P1), Fill Rate (P2), and Cost of Average Inventory. Additionally, because their business is highly seasonal, I gave recommendations for how best to prepare for the busy season using a "Newsvendor" model.
Since their organizer for the game Frosthaven was coming up, and all of their production capacity would be used for that for some period of time, I also used that Newsvendor model again to illustrate how many units of each product they should make ahead of time.
I presented my recommendations to their Operations Manager and my class in May 2021. Of my project and presentation, my professor had this to say: "In terms of content, you did a very nice job finding the relevant data for the inventory analysis. They overwhelmed you with data, and yet you handled it exceptionally well. Your recommendations... seem exactly on target to me... You were able to develop a deep understanding of their process and data in a short period of time, which is impressive. In terms of the presentation, you were superb. You were clear, tight, humorous, and full of good content." You can see the slides for that presentation, along with the presenter notes I used, with some minor redactions, [[here->https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/06GczaZyl_wus4EzUYoqOA9HA#TBT_Presentation_with_notes]].
Of course, some aspects of my recommendation [[are now moot->https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/22632835/broken-token-greg-spence-allegations-sexual-assault-abuse]], and they have [[bigger issues to deal with these days anyway->https://www.polygon.com/22661192/broken-token-ceo-steps-down-layoffs-greg-spence]].
[if classes[21] == false]
{reveal link: 'Click here to learn about the class this project was a part of.', passage: 'Operations and Supply Chain Strategy and Tools'}
[continue][JavaScript]
projects[4] = true;
[Continue]
**Teaching aspiring game developers important entrepreneurial skills with IGDA:**
I approached the San Diego chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) last February about putting on an event called **Designing for Success** for independent game developers. I had realized that a lot of the concepts that I had been learning in my MBA program, particularly from my entrepreneurship classes, would be relevant to them, so I had the idea of hosting a panel that could highlight those topics. I ended up moderating the panel, had a great time, and learned a lot. Here's the blurb from the [[event page->https://www.eventbrite.com/e/designing-for-success-tickets-150682903621]]:
Join IGDA San Diego for a panel event in which we'll explore how to design games people will want to play!
Whether you're making a game for commercial success or just for fun, one thing's for sure: everyone wants their game to be successful. Designing successful games is an immense challenge. It requires a solid game concept, knowing how your game relates to similar games, and knowing your audience can help make sure you’re making a game people will enjoy.
Join us for our Designing for Success panel on Wednesday, April 28 from 7-9 pm. We'll be joined by a panel of industry veterans for a moderated discussion followed by audience Q&A.[JavaScript]
projects[3] = true;
music[3] = true;
[Continue]
**Composing, programming, and designing "Galaxy Taxi" in the Global Game Jam:**
The Global Game Jam is an annual event held every January in which people come together to create a game over the course of a single weekend. This year, I worked with two other jammers (a writer and a programmer) to create **Galaxy Taxi**, a game about trying to solve passengers' problems as you take them to their next space destination. I wrote the music for the game, and also basically all of the programming that ended up in the final game.
[[You can play the game here.->https://callbark.itch.io/galaxytaxi]] [JavaScript]
music[0] = true;
[Continue]
**Three Bridges and a Fence:**
Every summer, SACRA/PROFANA hosts an educational workshop for high school and middle school students called the Summer Choral Intensive. In [INSERT YEAR HERE], they commissioned me to write a piece suitable to be premiered at the workshop’s concluding concert. It had to be suitable for both high school and middle school voices and skill levels, use only piano accompaniment, and fit the theme for the season, Building Bridges. I used a text written by [[Libby Weber->https://libbyweber.com/]]. You can see a video of the performance and the lyrics [[here->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_p4VGvw_6U]].
[JavaScript]
music[1] = true;
[Continue]
**Songs With Flowers:**
Emily Dickinson would frequently gift flowers to her friends along with a short poem. My composition, Songs with Flowers, is a series of short songs (30 seconds or less each) based on these poems. SACRA/PROFANA premiered them in a concert called The Poet’s Voice, which focused on the authors of the lyrics rather than just the composers or a particular theme. You can find a review of that concert [[here->https://vanguardculture.com/sacraprofana-regional-treasure-concludes-8th-season/]].[JavaScript]
music[2] = true;
[Continue]
**Tapestry:**
SACRA/PROFANA put on an innovative concert that involved performing arrangements of Carole King’s music, including the entire album Tapestry. I wrote several arrangements for the concert, including Smackwater Jack and Tapestry (both of which were mentioned in [[this review->https://sandiegostory.com/sacra-profanas-tribute-to-the-songs-of-carole-king/]]).
Tapestry in particular is one of my more interesting arrangements. First of all, it used a completely different texture and style for each verse. At the end, when the tapestry is unravelling, I brought back all of the different verses from earlier in the piece, except each section was free to sing them in whatever order they chose. This aleatoric (chance-based) technique creates a chaotic effect while still guaranteeing that the choir will end the piece all at the same time. projectSum: 0
classesSum: 0
musicSum: 0
--
{embed passage: 'Sum Classes'}
{embed passage: 'Sum Projects'}
{embed passage: 'Sum Music'}
{embed passage: 'Write 1'}
{embed passage: 'Write 2'}
I really appreciate your time and energy. If you have any questions, or want to learn more, feel free to email me at cjbarkley@sandiego.edu.
Thanks again!
***
{reveal link: '**About This Document**', passage: 'About'}[JavaScript]
projects[1] = true;
[Continue]
**Determining what factors make a Kickstarter campaign most successful:**
For the class **Big Data and Business Analytics**, our final project was to find some dataset and use techniques we learned in class to perform analyses of it. Each group would decide on what set to use and then individually code the necessary processes in R before comparing results to present. Our group decided to use data from Kickstarter to see what kinds of campaigns were most successful.
Perhaps unexcitingly, the strongest predictor of campaign success is the number of backers a project has, with projects in some categories having advantages or disadvantages.
I was also in charge of cleaning the data, since there were many columns that were redundant, irrelevant, and/or formatted in such a way as to be impossible to use. For example, a typical entry in the "Category" column might be “{"id":254,"name":"Performances","slug":"dance/performances","position":1,"parent_id":6,"parent_name":"Dance","color":10917369,"urls":{"web":{"discover":"http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/dance/performances"}}}". What a mess. So I designed an Excel formula that would remove everything except the end of the URL that contained the category and parent category using SUBSTITUTE nested inside TEXTBETWEEN. I also created a number of potentially useful columns, such as one that only contains the parent category in case the subcategories turned out to be insignificant. I then converted all campaigns that were currently live to NA, and these were omitted from our individual explorations.
I did two types of analysis: a multiple linear regression to predict how much money a campaign will raise, and a logistic regression to predict if a campaign would reach its goal or not.
[[Click here if you want to see my R code->https://github.com/CallBark/kickstarter/blob/7974a183905866322d40c1acb2d43f1472653ce9/kickstarter.R]]
[if classes[17] == false]
{reveal link: 'Click here to learn about the class this project was a part of.', passage: 'Big Data and Business Analytics'}
[continue][JavaScript]
projects[2] = true;
[Continue]
**Analyzing the most successful board games on Board Game Geek to see if there are useful patterns:**
[[BoardGameGeek.com->https://boardgamegeek.com/]] is an excellent resource for board game enthusiasts and data scientists interested in the subject. It has statistics for every game ever published, and you can download any selection of games into a csv file. I was working on a project involving augmenting a normal board game into one that has a campaign in **Torero Ventures Lab**, so I took the opportunity in **Business Cycles and Forecasting** to do some research into what effect that might have.
This class used Stata for its analyses. To see the Do File I created for it, [[click here->BGG Do File]].
To see the report I ended up submitting, [[click here->https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0l26e3Q0wMyGxa9wz-1NRXJOw#Campaign_Game_Analysis_Paper]].
[if classes[14] == false]
{reveal link: 'Click here to learn about the class this project was a part of.', passage: 'Business Cycles and Forecasting'}
[continue]clear
set more off
import delimited "/Users/colinbarkley/Documents/GSBA528/Top_100_Campaign_Games.csv"
\* Remove unnecessary variables
drop baverage numowned objectid weight rating numplays own fortrade want wanttobuy wanttoplay prevowned preordered wishlist wishlistpriority wishlistcomment comment conditiontext haspartslist wantpartslist collid objecttype originalname bgglanguagedependence publisherid imageid year language other itemtype barcode pricepaid pp_currency currvalue cv_currency acquisitiondate acquiredfrom quantity privatecomment invlocation invdate version_publishers version_languages version_yearpublished version_nickname playingtime bggrecplayers bggbestplayers objectname
\* Correlation table
pwcorr \*, star(.05)
\* Generate variables of interest
gen players1 = minplayers == 1
gen players2 = minplayers<= 2 & maxplayers>=2
gen players3 = minplayers<= 3 & maxplayers>=3
gen players4 = minplayers<= 4 & maxplayers>=4
gen players5 = minplayers<= 5 & maxplayers>=5
gen playersoptions = maxplayers - minplayers + 1
gen playtimerange = maxplaytime - minplaytime
\* Summary statistics
sum average rank avgweight players1 players2 players3 players4 players5 minplayers maxplayers playersoptions yearpublished minplaytime maxplaytime playtimerange bggrecagerange, det
\* Normality Checks
hist average
graph export averagehist.jpg, replace
sktest average
hist avgweight
graph export avgweighthist.jpg, replace
sktest avgweight
hist yearpublished // not normal
graph export yearpublishedhist.jpg, replace
gen yearalt = ln(2021 - yearpublished) // more normal
hist yearalt
graph export yearalthist.jpg, replace
sktest yearalt
gen yearalt2 = ln(ln(2022 - yearpublished)) // normal, but incomprehensible. Will be using yearalt
hist yearalt2
graph export yearalt2hist.jpg, replace
sktest yearalt2
hist minplayers // not normal
graph export minplayershist.jpg, replace
hist maxplayers // not normal
graph export maxplayershist.jpg, replace
sktest maxplayers
hist playersoptions
graph export playersoptionshist.jpg, replace
sktest playersoptions
hist minplaytime
graph export minplaytimehist.jpg, replace
sktest minplaytime // not normal
hist maxplaytime // not normal
graph export maxplaytimehist.jpg, replace
hist playtimerange // not normal
graph export playtimerangehist.jpg, replace
\* Initial Regressions
reg average avgweight minplayers yearalt
reg average avgweight maxplayers yearalt
estimates store m1
reg average avgweight players2 players3 yearalt
reg average avgweight players2 maxplayers yearalt
estimates store m2
lrtest m1 m2 // m1 nested in m2, m2 is superior
\* Forecast
reg average avgweight players2 maxplayers yearalt
di "Sentinels of the Multiverse Campaign Forecast = " _b[_cons] + _b[avgweight]\*2.50 + _b[players2]\*0 + _b[maxplayers]\*5 + _b[yearalt]\*(ln(2021-2011))
\* Post-Regression Diagnostics
vif // no multicollinearity
\* generate residuals
predict r, resid
\* check residuals for normality
hist r, normal kdensity // looks a bit skewed but not too bad over all
graph export residhist1.jpg, replace
sktest r // not normal, skewed
\* check for heteroskedasticity
rvfplot, yline(0) // inconclusive
graph export rvf1.jpg, replace
hettest // homoskedastic
estat imtest, white // heteroskedastic
\* Regressions without low-ranking games, to see if potential heteroskedasticity disappears at superior rankings (only most significant regressions shown)
reg average avgweight minplayers playersoptions yearalt if rank < 3000 // top 80
hettest // unambiguously heteroskedastic
estat imtest, white
reg average avgweight yearalt if rank < 2000 // top 60
hettest // unambiguously heteroskedastic
estat imtest, white
reg average avgweight playersoptions yearalt if rank < 1000 // top 40
hettest // both tests show homoskedasticity
estat imtest, white
reg average avgweight playersoptions yearalt if rank < 500 // top 30
hettest // homoskedastic
estat imtest, white
\* Forecast
reg average avgweight playersoptions yearalt if rank < 1000
di "Sentinels of the Multiverse Campaign Forecast = " _b[_cons] + _b[avgweight]\*2.50 + _b[playersoptions]\*3 + _b[yearalt]\*(ln(2021-2011))
\* Post-Regression Diagnostics
vif // no multicollinearity
\* generate residuals
predict r2 if rank < 1000, resid
\* check resituals for normality
hist r2, normal kdensity // much more normal than before
graph export residhist2.jpg, replace
sktest r2 // normal
\* check for heteroskedasticity
hettest // homoskedastic
estat imtest, white // homoskedastic
rvfplot, yline(0) // a few concerning values
graph export rvf2.jpg, replace
\* Forecast
reg average avgweight playersoptions yearalt if rank < 500
di "Sentinels of the Multiverse Campaign Forecast = " _b[_cons] + _b[avgweight]\*2.50 + _b[playersoptions]\*3 + _b[yearalt]\*(ln(2021-2011))
\* Post-Regression Diagnostics, top 30
vif // no multicollinearity
\* generate residuals
predict r3 if rank < 500, resid
\* check residuals for normality
hist r3, normal kdensity
graph export residhist3.jpg, replace
sktest r3 // normal
\* check for heteroskedasticity
hettest // homoskedastic
estat imtest, white // homoskedastic
rvfplot, yline(0) // looks better than top 40
graph export rvf3.jpg, replace
{back link}[JavaScript]
write('Thank you');
if(projectGlance || classesGlance) {
write(' for taking a look at');
if (projectGlance) {
if (projectSum == projectCount) {
write(' all of');
}
else if (projectSum > projectCount/2) {
write(' most of');
}
else if (projectSum > 0) {
write(' some of');
}
write(' my project');
if (projectSum == 0) {
write('s');
}
else {
write(' samples');
}
if (classesGlance) {
write(' and');
}
}
if (classesGlance){
if (classesSum == classesCount) {
write(' all of');
}
else if (classesSum > classesCount/2) {
write(' most of');
}
else if (classesSum > 0) {
write(' some of');
}
write(' my class');
if (classesSum == 0) {
write('es');
}
else {
write(' descriptions');
}
}
}
write('.');
[Continue]
[JavaScript]
if (musicGlance) {
write(' You even looked at the music stuff I decided to include');
if (musicSum > 0) {
write(' and learned about');
if (musicSum == musicCount) {
write(' all');
}
else if (musicSum > musicCount/2) {
write(' most');
}
else {
write(' some');
}
write(' of them');
}
write('!');
}
[Continue][JavaScript]
for (let i = 0; i < classes.length; i++) {
if (classes[i]) {
classesSum++;
}
}
[continued][JavaScript]
for (let j = 0; j < projects.length; j++) {
if (projects[j]) {
projectSum++;
}
}
[Continue][JavaScript]
for (let k = 0; k < music.length; k++) {
if (music[k]) {
musicSum = musicSum+1;
}
}
[Continue]I created this using Twine, an open-source tool for creating interactive, nonlinear stories. I used the story format Chapbook because it creates stories that are easy to read on mobile devices in addition to computers, and because it is extremely easy to extend with JavaScript.
Twine: https://twinery.org/
Chapbook: https://klembot.github.io/chapbook/