My MAP Fellowship Application
sharing the secret sauce
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sharing the secret sauce ~
The MAP Fellowship was one of the most impactful things of 2023. I met two incredible mentors, accelerated my career in AI, and became a yoga teacher.
With the MAP Fellowship, you are paired with a mentor from a different organization, and asked to solve a challenge. You have $5000 to spend on your learning and development related to that challenge.
I wrote more about my experience in the program here.
Dr. Danique Dolly, from Big Picture Living, was my mentor
Without further ado, here’s my MAP Application from 2022. I do know, however, that this application has changed.
What is the most and least important letter of the alphabet? Why?
Testing the assumptions of this question, we have two clear prompts: What does it mean for a letter to be important? To whom is it important?
We may consider a functional argument regarding the usage of letters, specifically the frequency of letters’ appearance in English language text to gauge their “importance.” This is common practice for cryptographers, wheel of fortune lovers, and keyboard designers. Accordingly, the E reigns supreme, accounting for 12% of all letters in this sample of 40,000 words done by MIT’s Math Explorer’s Club, and the Z falls last at 0.07%. This method, staid and practical as is it, reveals a weakness — the Z is a powerful letter of significance; it is the grizzled zenith of Zion National Park, it is the fizzle to a soft sleep ZZZ, and it is the core of every -ize: fantasize, caramelize, humanize.
An aesthetic evaluation may serve us, attempting to subjectively rank letters based on how they look, sound, and feel. In an ideal condition, we would need significant sample of individuals around America to rank all letters. Barring that, we can take a sample of Quora posts and internet articles to compile a data set of “worst”/“ugliest” and “best”/“prettiest” letters, taking the most mentioned in each category. A brief troll of 33 internet posts resulted in X as the most liked, and C as the most commonly disliked. It is cool to note that Q appears as a close second on both lists (it is both loved and hated!), and there is even a noted Facebook group titled “F is the worst letter of the alphabet.” Most of the nominations for both these categories are the less frequent letters (the bottom half of letter frequency), indicating that these letters evoke more intensity of emotion and therefore are psychologically important to English speakers.
A final method of inquiry might be using the stated utilitarian method of considering the “replaceability” of letters. In the Old English alphabet, we see precedence for the disappearance of “replaceable” letters, including the Thorn þ, replaced by using a combined th, and the Ash æ, replaced with simply an a or an ae written together. Admittedly, this method is most useful in determining the least important letter, and harder to choose the most important — we cannot have an alphabet of one letter. In this, I’d nominate a few: W can be replaced by UU or VV as it was in Old English, both of C’s sounds can be replaced by S or K, Y can be replaced by I.
Combining these methods, the least important letter is W. W appears in the bottom third of frequent appearances (at 2.09%), was never nominated as loved or hated letter (indicating a lack of emotional attachment), and originated as UU in Old English, meaning it is possible to be replaced. W’s name even implies its lack of individual agency as simply a “Double-U.”
Identifying the most important letter is an exercise in individuality and self expression. Thus, it must be S. Which other letter so aptly captures the substance of Self, a spiritual sovereignty? It appears in the top third of frequencies of usage (at 6.28%), was identified a few times as the best letter, and is not replaceable. S boasts magic multiplicative power, the ability to make anything singular plural, and S holds for me special significance, the first letter of Shannon.
Please conduct a SWOT analysis for Dollar Tree, providing a minimum of three points for each area.
SWOT
Strengths:
Dollar Tree has a significant operating moat as a multinational corporation with over 15,000 stores and over 193,100 employees, ranked 137 on the Fortune 500. The company’s significant distribution networks and relationships with producers are difficult to replicate.
Dollar Tree uses private label brands, owned by the company itself, to drive down costs and increase profit. These private labels are evident in food and beauty offerings.
Dollar Tree has established itself as the main market for discount goods, acquiring companies like Family Dollar and Dollar Giant.
Weaknesses:
Consumers at the discount price point are entirely price focused, and will prioritize price over any loyalty to brand.
In the focus on price, Dollar Tree has sacrificed, and likely will continue to sacrifice, quality. This sacrifice has resulted in significant product recalls — like salsa jars with broken glass in them, which hurt the brand’s image.
Employee turnover rate is very high, scoring in the bottom 20% of similarly sized companies, with over 53% of employees considering new employment.
Opportunities:
Information & Prediction: Dollar Tree has made significant investment in information systems, like automated replenishment systems. Harnessing big data on consumer behavior will allow Dollar Tree to better predict the popularity and demand of particular products and make more accurate profit predictions.
E-Commerce: Dollar Tree’s wonderful in-store shopping experience can be enhanced by a better e-commerce experience that integrates with a consumers in-person behavior. A better e-commerce network will allow Dollar Tree to compete against conglomerates like Walmart for consumers.
Dollar Tree may change from a renting to owning model for property in particular important markets, which will reduce monthly cash flow burden and increase property assets (which are likely to grow in value).
Threats:
Domestic and global economic inflation has resulted in higher cost of goods, impacting Dollar Tree’s profitability; Dollar Tree has had to increase prices to $1.25 for many core products, and may have to continue price hikes. This process may degrade the trust of consumers who have come to expect $1 goods.
Competition from sites like wish.com, low-cost international drop shipping, are encroaching on Dollar Tree’s market share, catering to the same market of price sensitive consumers.
Dollar Tree is substantially indebted at over 3,000M at a variable rate, which may make it more vulnerable to economic downturn, limit its ability to obtain more financing in the future, have variable debt service obligations each year. Additionally, the agreements that pertain to the debt may limit Dollar Tree’s operations.
My Analysis
The team is looking for people who are able to think critically and interestingly. It’s a small team, used to folks based in the non-profit space. They focus on leadership development, so show potential — show that you’re someone who wants to learn and who can use their help in the moment.