Today and tomorrow are dedicated to studying presentation theory, making presentations, analyzing video recordings of our presentations, receiving (and providing) feedback, repeat. Our leader for these sessions is Steve Knight, who has been awesome so far. He has offered plenty of relevant advice to everyone, especially the non-native English speakers.
My mobile phone all but died last night so I am in the market for a new one. Accordingly it may be a few days before I am taking pictures again. In the mean time, February's pictures thus far are here.
Happy [belated] Valentine's Day to all and thank you SO MUCH to those who sent me cards. I know it isn't cheap to send real mail across the Atlantic but the smiles your cards induced were priceless.
2008-02-15
2008-02-13
International Wisdom
On Monday we had a cultural values exchange--in ICA/E of all places! We were divided into groups by nationality (44 different groups!) and given a list of 12 virtues. Each group was then instructed to provide at least one proverb from its country about each virtue.
Although there were many great ones, my two favorites hands-down were:
Virtue: Fidelity
Nationality: French
Original Proverb: La fidélité en amour n'est que la paresse du désir.
English Translation: Fidelity in love is just the laziness of desire.
Virtue: Temperance
Nationality: Finnish
Original Proverb: Hosumalla ei tule kuin kusipäisiä lapsia.
English Translation: Rushing won't get you anything but stupid children.
Awesome.
Also awesome: today in Accounting we dissected Carlsberg, a huge beer conglomerate.
Although there were many great ones, my two favorites hands-down were:
Virtue: Fidelity
Nationality: French
Original Proverb: La fidélité en amour n'est que la paresse du désir.
English Translation: Fidelity in love is just the laziness of desire.
Virtue: Temperance
Nationality: Finnish
Original Proverb: Hosumalla ei tule kuin kusipäisiä lapsia.
English Translation: Rushing won't get you anything but stupid children.
Awesome.
Also awesome: today in Accounting we dissected Carlsberg, a huge beer conglomerate.
2008-02-11
Ping Pong
Ping Pong has become a regular part of life here at IMD. After lunch it is a great way to get the blood pumping before afternoon classes. Most of the people who play are a lot better than I am, having played much longer and more consistently. This afternoon, though, I was briefly on fire. I absolutely nailed a forehand with just about everything I had. It felt good. ICA/E with Boschek felt less good. Oh well, I call it a net positive.
2008-02-10
Saturday Night Fever
Last night was a blast. At least a third of our class made it out to l'Atelier Volant, a night club in Lausanne's Flon district. Several girls in our class have been going there practically every weekend so I figured it must be good. Surely they would have hookups with bartenders, doormen, etc.
Objectively speaking, I was a little disappointed with it. First off, no such hookups existed. This may just be a difference between European and American clubs, but I suspect that it's not universal. If my Houstonian partner in crime (whose birthday it was yesterday--Happy birthday, Cox!) and I had been to a place several times, I think we would have established more relationships--as we did when we took St. Martin by storm.
The club featured three levels, each with a different style of music. The upstairs was purportedly 80s music. It turned out actually to be mostly 70s and 90s, without a great selection of either. When pressed for 80s staples, the DJ didn't even recognize most of the names (although that could have been affected by my French skills!). I miss The Handsomes. At least this floor DID have Top Gun playing in the background, although most people there didn't know the movie well enough to catch quote references. I miss my wing man.
The middle floor was salsa/latin, but we didn't spend any time on this floor. The bottom floor was supposed to be Top 40 and it was . . . from four years ago. By the time we made it down there, it was nearing time for my departure and hearing the same tired reggaeton beats over and over again (which, apparently, are the same songs they play there every Saturday night) reinforced my decision to go.
Griping aside, I had an awesome time. It was great to get out there and let loose for a few hours. Each time more members of our class showed up there was this great feeling of inclusion and excitement as we welcomed them to . . . somewhere that wasn't IMD! We had one classmate with a birthday and another with his wife's birthday so it was fun to celebrate with them. It's actually a good thing that the club didn't wow me. If they had been playing classic 80s and/or rock upstairs or good hip hop downstairs, I may have been caught up in my own energy and stayed way too long. Instead I extracted myself by ~1:15, got some reading done at home, and went to bed in preparation for a morning workout--which I'm off to now!
Objectively speaking, I was a little disappointed with it. First off, no such hookups existed. This may just be a difference between European and American clubs, but I suspect that it's not universal. If my Houstonian partner in crime (whose birthday it was yesterday--Happy birthday, Cox!) and I had been to a place several times, I think we would have established more relationships--as we did when we took St. Martin by storm.
The club featured three levels, each with a different style of music. The upstairs was purportedly 80s music. It turned out actually to be mostly 70s and 90s, without a great selection of either. When pressed for 80s staples, the DJ didn't even recognize most of the names (although that could have been affected by my French skills!). I miss The Handsomes. At least this floor DID have Top Gun playing in the background, although most people there didn't know the movie well enough to catch quote references. I miss my wing man.
The middle floor was salsa/latin, but we didn't spend any time on this floor. The bottom floor was supposed to be Top 40 and it was . . . from four years ago. By the time we made it down there, it was nearing time for my departure and hearing the same tired reggaeton beats over and over again (which, apparently, are the same songs they play there every Saturday night) reinforced my decision to go.
Griping aside, I had an awesome time. It was great to get out there and let loose for a few hours. Each time more members of our class showed up there was this great feeling of inclusion and excitement as we welcomed them to . . . somewhere that wasn't IMD! We had one classmate with a birthday and another with his wife's birthday so it was fun to celebrate with them. It's actually a good thing that the club didn't wow me. If they had been playing classic 80s and/or rock upstairs or good hip hop downstairs, I may have been caught up in my own energy and stayed way too long. Instead I extracted myself by ~1:15, got some reading done at home, and went to bed in preparation for a morning workout--which I'm off to now!
2008-02-07
Brazilian High
Yesterday was awesome. It was full of surprises from our faculty, each one better than the last. Because some prospective students read this blog and because the surprises were critical to today's success, I'll refrain from any real explanation. The cool part was that it was our first day of cross-functional project work: addressing a business case from accounting, marketing, and leadership perspectives within our groups.
At the end of the day, three groups were selected randomly to present their arguments. For each group, one member was selected randomly to do the presentation to a panel of faculty members who played roles of actual decision makers/influencers in the case. Given the amount of time we had to prepare, any presentation was essentially an improvisation.
When we were first told about the presentation part of the assignment, my natural reaction was to hope that I was selected. After all, I love presenting to an audience; it's my element. Then, as I realized that I had gaping holes of knowledge about the accounting and marketing aspects of our group's proposal (We split up the work but didn't have time to regroup before the deadline.), I became a little more apprehensive about being selected.
Our group was the second of three selected to present; I was selected from my group to be the presenter--be careful what you wish for! The faculty decision makers' roles were intended to poke holes in whatever we presented, be interruptive at times, and generally stress the presenter out. I didn't know the supporting evidence for several aspects of our plan and hadn't even seen the powerpoint in its entirety, but hey, I didn't come here not to be challenged!
The faculty gave me a hard time, especially on the quantitative stuff, but it was a big rush to be up there. The class gave me a lot of support from the audience, which felt great. At the end of the day, my presentation was pretty BSy, and probably was especially underwhelming to Stewart, the Accounting prof. I spent a significant amount of time afterward thinking about what I would have/should have said and receiving explanations from my teammates about what our slides actually meant. However, I received numerous backslaps and congratulations from my classmates afterward so I think I held my own.
Regardless, it was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again. Afterward the class and the professors (out of character) met in the lobby for Brazilian (The case was set in Brazil.) caipirinhas before heading down to the dungeon for a long night of project work. What a day; I can't wait to do it again!
On another note, the Chinese students made a very gracious presentation for lunar new year and gave away Chinese gifts to all the students. Coming from a country where everyone seems to be leery about competition from China, I found their unsolicited offering to be right in line with the warm, generous culture I've come to know and expect from these students.
At the end of the day, three groups were selected randomly to present their arguments. For each group, one member was selected randomly to do the presentation to a panel of faculty members who played roles of actual decision makers/influencers in the case. Given the amount of time we had to prepare, any presentation was essentially an improvisation.
When we were first told about the presentation part of the assignment, my natural reaction was to hope that I was selected. After all, I love presenting to an audience; it's my element. Then, as I realized that I had gaping holes of knowledge about the accounting and marketing aspects of our group's proposal (We split up the work but didn't have time to regroup before the deadline.), I became a little more apprehensive about being selected.
Our group was the second of three selected to present; I was selected from my group to be the presenter--be careful what you wish for! The faculty decision makers' roles were intended to poke holes in whatever we presented, be interruptive at times, and generally stress the presenter out. I didn't know the supporting evidence for several aspects of our plan and hadn't even seen the powerpoint in its entirety, but hey, I didn't come here not to be challenged!
The faculty gave me a hard time, especially on the quantitative stuff, but it was a big rush to be up there. The class gave me a lot of support from the audience, which felt great. At the end of the day, my presentation was pretty BSy, and probably was especially underwhelming to Stewart, the Accounting prof. I spent a significant amount of time afterward thinking about what I would have/should have said and receiving explanations from my teammates about what our slides actually meant. However, I received numerous backslaps and congratulations from my classmates afterward so I think I held my own.
Regardless, it was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again. Afterward the class and the professors (out of character) met in the lobby for Brazilian (The case was set in Brazil.) caipirinhas before heading down to the dungeon for a long night of project work. What a day; I can't wait to do it again!
On another note, the Chinese students made a very gracious presentation for lunar new year and gave away Chinese gifts to all the students. Coming from a country where everyone seems to be leery about competition from China, I found their unsolicited offering to be right in line with the warm, generous culture I've come to know and expect from these students.
2008-02-05
Learning Russian
It's approaching midnight as we're working on accounting problem sets, seven guys holed up in a room all night after spending most of our day in here as well. Just spoken in Russian by our Czech to our Belarussian:
"Odkryt okna byla tvoja lucnaja idea sevodna." Excusing the probable misspellings, this translates to "Opening the window was the best idea you've had all day!"
"Odkryt okna byla tvoja lucnaja idea sevodna." Excusing the probable misspellings, this translates to "Opening the window was the best idea you've had all day!"
Accounting
If I had to choose one word to describe Accounting professor Stewart Hamilton, it would be "curmudgeonly." He's a crotchety old Scot who is very emphatic that we should not question the "why" of accounting practices; we should just accept them. He has already yelled at me in class because I applauded him. I can't help it; his stodginess is hilarious.
So far our accounting education conjures up images of dusty old books and quill-written ledgers. As a software guy, that's a little hard to stomach. IMD is very clear that we are not here to learn to be accountants. We are here to learn to be better general managers--the best general managers--so the intent of this course is to educate us just enough to be dangerous.
Our major takeaways from this course have been centered around how to analyze balance sheets, income statements and cashflow statements to support investment decisions. I've had plenty of exposure to these reports before in a software context so it's interesting to see them applied to manufacturing, services organizations, etc. I'm also hoping to benefit from Stewart's knowledge of fine Scotch whiskey.
I'll leave you with a quote from Stewart: "You know you're due it so you have to accrue it!" Imagine it with a thick Scottish accent.
Happy Mardi Gras!
So far our accounting education conjures up images of dusty old books and quill-written ledgers. As a software guy, that's a little hard to stomach. IMD is very clear that we are not here to learn to be accountants. We are here to learn to be better general managers--the best general managers--so the intent of this course is to educate us just enough to be dangerous.
Our major takeaways from this course have been centered around how to analyze balance sheets, income statements and cashflow statements to support investment decisions. I've had plenty of exposure to these reports before in a software context so it's interesting to see them applied to manufacturing, services organizations, etc. I'm also hoping to benefit from Stewart's knowledge of fine Scotch whiskey.
I'll leave you with a quote from Stewart: "You know you're due it so you have to accrue it!" Imagine it with a thick Scottish accent.
Happy Mardi Gras!
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