Flip side of Hsu case

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While Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu was arrested last week, blogger Philip "Flip" Pidot was searching for data and crunching numbers to document that the political contributions made by Hsu's network totaled nearly $1.6 million, substantially more than news organizations previously reported.

Posted at his "Suitably Flip" site (http://suitablyflip.blogs.com), Mr. Pidot's blogging reflects the 31-year-old's various interests in economics, technology and politics. A financial analyst with a master's degree in business administration from the University of Virginia, Mr. Pidot was a Republican candidate for the New York state Senate last year, winning 21 percent of the vote in a race against an incumbent Democrat in a liberal district on Manhattan's East Side.

The following questions are excerpts of a recent e-mail interview with Mr. Pidot:

Question: How does a University of Virginia MBA end up blogging about politics?

Answer: If Thomas Jefferson were with us today, I think we'd certainly find him doing some political blogging on the side (think of the time savings if King George was able to read the Declaration in a feed reader).

Before business school, I worked as a corporate fraud investigator. I think part of the appeal of blogging is the opportunity to indulge that sleuthing urge. My primary interests being finance and politics (and the intersection of the two), that's generally what I'm blogging about.

Q: Does blogging help pay your bills? Or is it just a hobby for you?

A: I think I generated about 80 cents when I briefly experimented with Google AdSense a couple of years ago, but since I never received it, I think technically I get to maintain my amateur status.

Q: You did database research, spreadsheets and charts on the Norman Hsu fundraising scandal. Are those kinds of business-school skills helpful in blogging?

A: I think research skills in general are valuable blogging assets, which is probably why we see a lot of lawyers and professors (and law professors) among the most influential bloggers. Being comfortable seeking out, harvesting, analyzing and commenting on data (and doing it fast) is an advantage, and business school is definitely a good training ground for that, but probably no more so than law school, journalism school, etc.