DBA Chronicles Blogger: Amy C. Horner, CPA, MBA
Confession: I am an extrovert!
Okay, maybe that is less of a confession than an obvious statement. However, as an extrovert and the lead on communications and outreach for DBA Chronicles, I am fortunate to have had the chance to meet with many others inside and outside the DBA community to chat about our organization.
Of course, most people are naturally curious, which leads to several questions about the origin of DBA Chronicles. How did it come to be? What drove us to embark on this journey? Why did we create a podcast and accompanying resources while knee-deep in a DBA program? These are great questions, and sometimes, we ask them ourselves!
To give our readers answers to these questions, I’ll start with a bit of background about our program. Our DBA program is organized over three years, cohort style, with required in-person attendance. During the first two years, we meet once a month, Friday through Sunday, in the classroom from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. In the program’s third and final year, we are individually responsible for working on our dissertations in coordination with our chair and committee.
With this description in mind, picture Val, Kelly, and I meeting for dinner after class in the early summer of 2023. The three of us found ourselves in a passionate conversation about the many things we wish we had known before we enrolled in a DBA program. Over a bottle of wine later, we covered several topics and viewpoints. We knew we had “something,” although it had yet to come to shape what that something was.
Shortly after this commiseration, er, conversation, Val drafted a list of podcast episodes – twenty of them, to be exact! The name “DBA Chronicles” and logo options were also created. A few days later, Kelly designed and built our website, and I began identifying and reaching out to potential guests. We recorded and dropped our introduction episode in October 2023!
The podcast inspired the blog. As we developed them, we committed ourselves to creating a community and amplifying the recognition of the DBA in industry and academia. From this commitment, we began outreach to DBA programs in the U.S. and abroad, which has inspired us to develop a research project specific to the DBA community. We are conducting this research concurrently with our dissertations. In January 2024, we filed paperwork that makes DBA Chronicles a registered non-profit organization! If this leads you to new questions about our sanity or time management skills, we acknowledge it is a lot to take on! We wouldn’t have it any other way.
DBA Chronicles is truly a collaborative effort that succeeds because the three of us contribute in ways that leverage our unique strengths. Of course, we co-host all podcast episodes and have contributed to the blog. To run the organization, Val takes care of our content and technical needs. Kelly ensures our marketing remains sharp and tends to our technology needs, and I handle our communications and networking. If there is a secret sauce, it is truly that we have taken on separate responsibilities and trust each other to execute them.
Ultimately, to answer the origin questions, I’ll borrow a phrase from academia: we identified a gap. We created DBA Chronicles to address that gap. Where will it take us? I invite you to stick around and find out!
