It's 50 degrees F, it's raining, and leaves are strewn along the ground. Fall has definitively arrived and I think my days of beach volleyball here in Lausanne are numbered. Good thing I have a trip to Houston, where the beach volleyball season extends from March to December, coming up in a week!
Speaking of Houston, it seems that all of my friends there made it through Ike OK. The power is still out but everyone is safe.
Last week my ICP team presented our results from Phase II to our client in Zurich. Thanks largely to the efforts of Daniel, my German teammate who pulled triple duty as programmer/analyst, slide czar, and presenter, we turned out a quality product. Our client agreed that our project could help them add over CHF 100m to their bottom line! We are very excited about phases III and IV, which commence in two weeks.
First, however, we have a two-week deluge of recruiting activities. It begins tomorrow with a career fair at IMD then continues with multiple rounds of interviews over the next two weeks. I have an interview tomorrow with MTS Group, an Italian heating company that is concentrating heavily on solar thermal, and I hope to get interviews with GE Energy and Amazon at the fair. Tuesday I interview with Shell and Thursday with British Telecom. Should I succeed in the BT interview, there will be another on Friday, giving me just enough time to make it to Paris for the Jimmy Buffett concert. If Shell likes me, there will be another interview the following week--when I'm scheduled to be in Houston. I suppose we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it. I may also have an interview with Google this week but that is still to be confirmed.
This weekend I am spending my time researching the companies with which I have interviews and making sure I have a coherent story about the fit that I see with them. As much as I like to think of myself as a good ad hoc speaker, I'm definitely much better when I am prepared. In the meantime I'm also sitting on 10 companies to which I need to begin marketing myself and over 200 companies that I haven't yet vetted enough to know whether or not they are worth pursuit.
You'd think finding the right opportunity to help change the world wouldn't be this complicated!
2008-09-14
2008-09-12
Rock You Like a Hurricane
To all my friends in Houston, stay safe over there! Ike is bearing down and they're saying it will be Category 3 at landfall, so I hope for the best for all of you. I hope your possessions remain intact, of course, but most of all I hope for your personal safety. To anyone who's evacuating, best of luck on the trip and I hope it goes more smoothly than the Rita evacuation.
2008-09-09
Rice's Game Changing Performance
Rice's last-second, come-from-behind win made the final cut for ESPN's Pontiac Game Changing Performance of the Week. Please visit the site and vote for Rice; with such a small alumni base, we need all the help we can get!
Deja Vu
Everytime I think I've left IMD's first half in my rearview mirror, it jumps back into my life. It is late at night, I'm here at school with my team, and--just to ensure that I really feel like it's Q1 2008 again--we all just trampled each other to get at sushi left over from an executive program dinner. But I wouldn't have it any other way; these are the memories I will take with me years afterward.
Our Phase II ICP presentation is 36 hours away and there is still a great deal of work to do. However, it is interesting work so staring at it all day everyday is not onerous. Time constraints bring the challenge of finding the right balance between sophisticated analysis and quality communication of results. Growing anxiety over careers adds another dimension as teammates (myself included!) are pulled in other directions. This isn't unexpected, though, and I'm sure we can address it--after all, we will face similar challenges in the "real " world.
Our Phase II ICP presentation is 36 hours away and there is still a great deal of work to do. However, it is interesting work so staring at it all day everyday is not onerous. Time constraints bring the challenge of finding the right balance between sophisticated analysis and quality communication of results. Growing anxiety over careers adds another dimension as teammates (myself included!) are pulled in other directions. This isn't unexpected, though, and I'm sure we can address it--after all, we will face similar challenges in the "real " world.
2008-09-07
A Great Day for Football
Yesterday was a great day for football in my family. My mother's alma mater, TCU, destroyed SFA 67-7. Not to be outdone, my father's alma mater, Arkansas St, obliterated TSU 83-10. Meanwhile the University of Minnesota, where both my parents earned their PhDs, beat Bowling Green 42-17.
Rice's game against Memphis was much closer, but we still prevailed 42-35, scoring 29 fourth quarter points, capped off by a 69-yard interception return for TD with only 11 seconds remaining in the game. Go Owls!
Now if only my Redskins could pull their offense together . . .
Rice's game against Memphis was much closer, but we still prevailed 42-35, scoring 29 fourth quarter points, capped off by a 69-yard interception return for TD with only 11 seconds remaining in the game. Go Owls!
Now if only my Redskins could pull their offense together . . .
2008-09-04
A Trace in the Sky
Monday evening I was fortunate to have the opportunity to sit in on a session in an executive program for a major energy company. The speaker was Bertrand Piccard, who completed the first transglobal balloon trip. I had seen his balloon at the National Air & Space Museum, where my mother works, so I was intrigued to meet this adventurer.
His talk was very interesting. The first theme ws leadership of teams against difficult goals, a subject near and dear to my heart. The second theme was leadership and decision-making when you have little control over external factors. In a balloon, for example, you can change altitude but you have no steering control and you certainly can't control the weather. By recognizing that which you cannot control and focusing on what you can (adjusting altitude to take advantage of different wind directions and weather patterns), you will be maximally effective. The talk finished with a brilliant photo montage accompanied by "Let It Be."
Bertrand is now focusing on a new project: Solar Impulse, a 100% solar-powered plane to go around the world. I wish him great success, as such projects will inspire people. Many thanks to the most sophisticated woman at IMD, who was instrumental in helping me finnagle an invitation to the session.
His talk was very interesting. The first theme ws leadership of teams against difficult goals, a subject near and dear to my heart. The second theme was leadership and decision-making when you have little control over external factors. In a balloon, for example, you can change altitude but you have no steering control and you certainly can't control the weather. By recognizing that which you cannot control and focusing on what you can (adjusting altitude to take advantage of different wind directions and weather patterns), you will be maximally effective. The talk finished with a brilliant photo montage accompanied by "Let It Be."
Bertrand is now focusing on a new project: Solar Impulse, a 100% solar-powered plane to go around the world. I wish him great success, as such projects will inspire people. Many thanks to the most sophisticated woman at IMD, who was instrumental in helping me finnagle an invitation to the session.
2008-09-02
Condom Understanding
Yesterday was the first presentation to our ICP client, the definitive end of Phase I. ICPs usually follow a four phase format:
I: Industry Analysis - understand the client's industry and which factors are key to succeeding in it
II: Company Analysis - benchmark the client against those key success factors, identify gaps, and recommend initiatives to close them
III: Issue Analysis - take one of those initiatives and work it out in great detail to provide very specific recommendations on which actions the company should take
IV: Implementation - provide a plan for and participate in the implementation of change
Our project is a little different, however. The client arrived with a firm idea of which issues they wanted worked. Accordingly we combined the industry and company analyses into Phase I and used it as an objective validation of the specific issues on which the client wanted to focus. Our conclusions were that yes, supply chain mattered to this industry, yes, the client had significant room for improvement and, in fact, if they didn't address their supply chain strategy immediately, they would soon find themselves in a world of hurt.
Three of our client stakeholders--including one board member--came down to IMD. I was honored to be selected by my team to make this first presentation, key to setting the tone for the rest of the project. Our team worked long and hard to produce a quality deliverable and wanted to make sure that the presentation reflected that. Although I had to adapt my usual "jovial" style to the serious, Swiss-German audience, I think it went well. This should largely be credited to the team (including Corey, our faculty advisor), who offered me very helpful feedback during the several dry runs we went through.
There was one snafu, though, and it occurred at the very beginning. I was presenting with the display behind me and one of my teammates' laptops in front of me, controlling the powerpoint presentation. While presenting one of the first slides, a meeting reminder popped up on the laptop, obscuring much of the screen. It wasn't visible on the display behind me, however, so no one else knew about it. As I contemplated whether or not just to continue presenting that way, my mouth was on autopilot. I was supposed to say that our objective for the meeting was to build a "common platform of understanding" from which to launch the rest of the project. However, what came out was a "condom platform of understanding." Oops.
After that, though, it was pretty smooth sailing. We're glad to have Phase I behind us and today will immerse ourselves in Phase II: conceiving an optimization model for warehouse locations and transportation costs within Europe. Our next presentation is in 10 days--bring it on!
I: Industry Analysis - understand the client's industry and which factors are key to succeeding in it
II: Company Analysis - benchmark the client against those key success factors, identify gaps, and recommend initiatives to close them
III: Issue Analysis - take one of those initiatives and work it out in great detail to provide very specific recommendations on which actions the company should take
IV: Implementation - provide a plan for and participate in the implementation of change
Our project is a little different, however. The client arrived with a firm idea of which issues they wanted worked. Accordingly we combined the industry and company analyses into Phase I and used it as an objective validation of the specific issues on which the client wanted to focus. Our conclusions were that yes, supply chain mattered to this industry, yes, the client had significant room for improvement and, in fact, if they didn't address their supply chain strategy immediately, they would soon find themselves in a world of hurt.
Three of our client stakeholders--including one board member--came down to IMD. I was honored to be selected by my team to make this first presentation, key to setting the tone for the rest of the project. Our team worked long and hard to produce a quality deliverable and wanted to make sure that the presentation reflected that. Although I had to adapt my usual "jovial" style to the serious, Swiss-German audience, I think it went well. This should largely be credited to the team (including Corey, our faculty advisor), who offered me very helpful feedback during the several dry runs we went through.
There was one snafu, though, and it occurred at the very beginning. I was presenting with the display behind me and one of my teammates' laptops in front of me, controlling the powerpoint presentation. While presenting one of the first slides, a meeting reminder popped up on the laptop, obscuring much of the screen. It wasn't visible on the display behind me, however, so no one else knew about it. As I contemplated whether or not just to continue presenting that way, my mouth was on autopilot. I was supposed to say that our objective for the meeting was to build a "common platform of understanding" from which to launch the rest of the project. However, what came out was a "condom platform of understanding." Oops.
After that, though, it was pretty smooth sailing. We're glad to have Phase I behind us and today will immerse ourselves in Phase II: conceiving an optimization model for warehouse locations and transportation costs within Europe. Our next presentation is in 10 days--bring it on!
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