Lost but not forgotten

You, my (un)faithful readers, that is.

Consider this a social experiment. A dismal failure of a social experiment. I stopped posting to this blog in June, and through July and August I received one (1) email from someone telling me they missed my blog.

The email was from my mother:I did not feel very "missed".

Three (3) things have pushed me back to Switzian. Firstly, my nephew was born, and he's adorable.

Second, I'm off to South Africa at the end of September and hopefully going to Canada in between, and since I've last blogged I've also been to Kenya, Tanzania, and Lyon (France) and I thought it might be good to post some pictures of that stuff. They will come in the next short while.... if I get three (3) comments from different people on this post, verifying that I am at least assured a mild readership.

Thirdly, I got a comment from Jules guessing on the MENA literacy test. I realized I have no idea if she's right or wrong anymore. Oh how things have changed from my heyday as a global literati.

Another angle on butter

Back by popular demand:


In this land of dairy, can there be any finer?

Butter and popcorn

Yes, butter and popcorn. First, the butter:

This is at the Beau Rivage Palace, the swankiest hotel in town. It is so swank that there are actual treaties that divided up Africa signed at this hotel. I'm not kidding. My parents (Bob and Brenda, fyi) visited me on the weekend before exams (May 31-ish) and took me out to fancy restaurants so we could discuss my lack of an achievable career plan in finer surroundings. Anyways, back to the butter.... This is what they do to your butter at the Beau Rivage; note how much Bob doesn't care. Brenda, however, was highly amused by the butter, as was I. The food was quite tasty (I had the rabbit) but it was no match for L'Ermitage des Ravet. L'Ermitage was actually ranked the best restaurant in Switzerland recently, and it has amassed three Michelin stars for those of you who care about the restaurant rankings of a tire company. In terms of butter, their presentation was somewhat haphazard (it was in a small pot) but the butter came in different flavours depending on the course and the bread you chose. This was quite a meal. Really, to call it a meal would be to denigrate the hosts... this was an Experience! It took us almost five hours to complete the meal marathon, and I was afraid my palate would be ruined forever, but I'm ok now. Phew.

In other news, I'm done with pretty much all the "academic" stuff here. The second round of exams came and went; they were miserable to study for and terrifying to write, but somehow my grades actually didn't suffer that much, almost in spite of myself I think. The most amazing result was in Finance, where I actually thought I'd failed the exam, only to discover that somehow my overall mark went up! I'm waiting for the exam to be returned so I can see just how this manna from heaven event transpired. Apparently there are no bell curves at IMD.... we'll see about that.

The plan for the next month is rather absurd: We're off to Kenya here on the 20th of June for a ten-day school trip. Highlights of the trip include cocktails with the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, and a trip to a baby elephant sanctuary! They certainly seem to be doing it up right. A large number of my classmates were also particularly pleased to see three blocks in the schedule reserved for watching the semis and finals of the Euro Cup (soccer/football, depending on which continent you're on). Priorities, priorities. On the 30th, the school trip ends and Laura arrives in Nairobi. LB and I, along with about 10 other IMD people, are going on a 6-day safari in Masai Mara and another (forget the name) park in Kenya, and then we're going to Zanzibar in Tanzania. We'll stay in the town of Zanzibar for 2 nights, and then on the beach at Sazani beach for four days! The flight home to Toronto will take the better part of 2 days, and will involve five airplanes (2 shared, 1 for laura, and 2 more for myself), but this whole thing should be a hell of a trip!

So, enough about butter. Here is popcorn for your viewing pleasure:

http://www.maniacworld.com/making-popcorn-with-cell-phones.html

--
Update: more on the popcorn, but don't read this till you've watched the above:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/06/12/cellphone-popcorn-ho.html

It's like a montage, but without the singing

I would much rather just leave this to the picture, but I think it took me too long to actually get the camera out, and as such, obviously, the picture suffered somewhat. What you're seeing is a woman on a folding tricycle being pushed up a hill by her friend (?), while her other friend and one of their daughters looks on. The kid was a terror on the little scooter thing she had, and the old woman was a freaking disaster. Not once did I see them smile in any way, shape, or form. It was a beautiful day out, a national holiday. Everyone else was all smiles. These women were clearly having an absolutely miserable time with that godforsaken tricycle they never should have brought all this damn way in the first place!


And now, slightly forwards in time to the MBATs, the MBA Tournament, aka the MBA Olympics. This was a weekend event in Paris a few weeks ago, and although the sporting events were generally rather lame, the event itself was quite fun. About 70 people from school went (out of a class of 90), and lots of girlfriends and boyfriends too (including Laura). Each day was filled with badly run and overcompetitive sporting events, and each night had a dance. Yes, it does sound like a highschool track meet. On the Friday Laura and I championed our Ultimate Frisbee team, and we went 1-1. The first game we won because the other team didn't show up. Laura was so keen to play (she had really come a long way for that game) that she convinced another team that had already played that they would play us for fun. We won against them, but really, it was all about the fun... then. The second game, in the semi-finals, we got crushed. 14-0. When the score got to 6-0 Laura and I both opened beers on the sidelines. There had been a general promise to the team that Ultimate would be about fun, and not about winning/losing. We felt obligated to lead by example.

So that was Friday. On Saturday Laura and I went into Paris and spent about 3 hours with our feet up in the Jardins de Luxembourg watching the world go by. It was amazingly difficult for me to wind down (it's pretty much always go-go-go here) but I think I finally relaxed towards the end. It was really really nice just to sit and relax. Then we got back on the train and went back to HEC, where the MBATs were, in time for the Saturday night dance.

The best way to describe this dance is that it was like the season-ending dance on Dirty Dancing. Except without the pageantry. There were plenty of dirty, dirty dancers though. I think there is something to the rumours that MBA stands for "Married But Available"! Seriously though, the party was actually quite fun. LB and I were very restrained, but had a good time with the stage props beforehand, and the dancing afterwards:

When they first met, the snake and Laura seemed to get on just fine.
Then Laura got snake bitten. She's never been the same.

And finally in this series, Matt saving Petra from the snake's maw.

And this is general dance-mania at the MBATs. I'm pretty sure Laura's in there somewhere, but I can't tell from the picture unfortunately. This was the closing night party. It was very bizarre, but quite fun.

And now, out of MBAT land and back to Lausanne and IMD. This is a terrible video we watched in Accounting class last week about how an auditing firm screwed up. The word "terrible" is woefully inadequate to describe this video. Perhaps I will use "appalling" in future.

This is the side panel of some "ride" at the country fair right beside IMD right now. This fair has a bunch of "third-string rides" in the words of Dongao (whose nametag is featured in the previous photograph), three bumper car arenas, and at least two rifle-based shooting ranges that we found. Why is Switzerland so weird?
And this, this is as good as it gets in Lausanne-town. That's right folks. The name of her tour is "Taking Chances". Don't all pack your bags at once.I saw this on the side of a grocery store today. I turned around and walked back to get a picture. Someone watched me do this. I felt embarrassed until I remembered the woman on the folding tricycle.

Hero worship never had it so good

.
There was actually someone from the class who was so excited that he didn't sleep the entire night before. And, to top it all off, he never got to ask a question. The picture is also not very good unfortunately, but this one is a bit better:

For all you non-capitalists out there, the older man in the middle of the picture is not one of the 2008 MBA class, he's Warren Buffett. Getting to listen to and ask questions of the richest person in the world, the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of Capitalism, is pretty close to a religious experience for a class of 90 corporate acolytes. It's like meeting the Pope. To hear the Pope talk about how he figures selling a family business to a private equity buyer is a bit like selling the painting you've been working on your whole life to a porn shop: "they buy it, make the boobs a little bigger and the lips a little redder, and then put it in the window for sale again. Another porn shop comes along, buys it, makes the boobs even bigger, and bam, it's back in the window for sale again in a couple years." Or, my other person favourite: "I don't need due diligence to tell me if a company is worth buying. You talk with someone and within 5 minutes I can usually tell if there's a deal to be made. It's like a 350 pound man walking through the door: I don't know if he's 350 pounds or only 300, but I certainly know he's fat."

I heard the words "folksy" and "down-home" used later on to describe him...

But really, I found it extremely interesting. He was very up-front in his comments, willing to discuss anything, and extremely articulate. Charming. We were all thoroughly charmed.

I will blog more now. I didn't like blogging in the month of May for some reason. I think I was burned out. I'm less burnt now... the char is wearing off.

- i

MENA literacy test

Middle
East and
North
Africa

in case you're as ignorant as I was.

Here's another in the series of regional literacy tests:

1. There are over 2 million refugees from Iraq. In which two countries are they mainly?
2. The Al Yamamah Deal featured in recent newspaper headlines. What does it refer to? (Incidentally what does the word [اليمامة] mean in Arabic)?
3. What caused the Arla Dairy Company to lose tonnes of money?
4. Where did the “Cedar Revolution” recently occur and what triggered it?
5. Who was Gamal Abdel Nasser?
6. In 1977 which Arab head of government addressed the Knesset?
7. Which two Middle East countries were at war with each other between 1980 and 1988?
8. Which Maghreb country had a brutal civil war from 1991 to 2002?
9. What are the three main communities comprising the Iraqi population?
10. Who is the longest serving head of state in the MENA?
11. Who was Maimonides?
12. Who was Naguib Mahfouz?

- i

I'm back and I'm bad

Well that's not technically true. I am back, but probably only temporarily. We have another Integrative Exercise this weekend, starting tomorrow (Friday) evening and ending on Monday at 5pm. I'm somewhat concerned about what it will entail, beyond the obvious (i.e., my entire weekend.) In other news, I heard an interesting factoid just now:

- in the first quarter of 2008, China's foreign reserves accumulated at a rate of $1 million per minute. That is, in 3 months, they accumulated $136 billion (US) of other peoples' money.

I am left wondering how much of it was mine.

Oh, one other factoid: one member of my class is a communist party member in China. Another used to be, but quit. Not sure why that's significant (after all, I know plenty of NDP & Liberal members in Canada, and I suspect Alison probably considered PC membership at some point in her Hugh Segal days!)

Inder: your present is still coming. It's sitting in my living room, mooing.

Ian

There's a one-man oompah band outside my window

.
I didn't think it was possible. I never thought it could happen to me. Then I moved to Switzerland, and ended up living in an apartment that overlooks the Ouchy marina. It's very beautiful, very touristy, and very, very strange sometimes:




I cut off the video just before he said "Thank you!" into the mike. And in case you were wondering what happened next, he's still rocking outside my window.

You don't know from ASEAN

So we've started in a class called International Political Economy, taught by an interesting guy named Jean-Pierre Lehman. He's giving us "literacy" tests on areas of the world at the start of each class, and we're generally failing quite badly. I thought it might be interesting for people if I posted a few of them over the next few days, in case you're curious as to how uninformed you are! To give you a sense, most people in my class get 3-5 of these right, unless they come from the region (or have worked there). I'll try and scratch together the answers in a bit if people want them...

ian

---

Globalisation/Regionalisation Literacy Test

Southeast Asia

1. Name the member states of ASEAN. (There are ten, you need to get a minimum of 8 to get a point for this question!)
2. What is Temasek Holdings?
3. Who is Mahathir?
4. Who was Pol Pot?
5. Who defeated who at the battle of Dien Bien Phu?
6. Where is Aceh located?
7. Who is Aung San Suu Kyi?
8. Who is Bhumibol?
9. Where did the People Power Revolution (also known as the EDSA revolution) occur?
10. What is meant by ASEAN + 3?
11. What did Lee Kuan Yew say was the greatest invention of the 20th century?
12. What is Wayang?

Rational pigs

This is an assignment I have to do for Friday. I'm serious. My favorite parts are the Orson Wellsian assumption that pigs can reason like human beings, and the final question about similarities to business situations. Any submissions are welcome, btw!
--
Two pigs, one dominant and the other subordinate, are put in a box. There is a lever at one end of the box which, when pressed, dispenses food at the other end. Thus the pig that presses the lever must run to the other end; by the time it gets there, the other pig has eaten most, but not all of the food. The dominant pig is able to prevent the subordinate pig from getting any of the food when both pigs are at the food. Assuming the pigs can reason like rational human beings, which pig will press the lever?

Suppose 6 units of grain are delivered whenever the lever is pushed. If the subordinate pig presses the lever, the dominant pig eats all 6 units; but if the dominant pig pushes the lever, the subordinate pig eats 5 of the 6 units of grain before the dominant pig pushes it away. In the unlikely event that both press simultaneously, suppose they both have to run to another spot equidistant from their starting points. Suppose that the subordinate pig can run faster (after all, the dominant pig is probably fat!), it gets two units of grain before the domant pig arrives. Finally, suppose pressing the lever and running to the grain uses up 0.5 units of food for both pigs.

Show the matrix, and explain who will press the lever.

Are there any business situations that are similar to this?

The job market is changing, or so I've been told

I've been delinquent. I'm sorry. Here is some humour in an attempt to patch things up.



They're giving us a seminar on how to succeed in THIS job market next week.

Why is it so much bigger in Switzerland?

.
Yes, the fondue pot aisle at the local department store, that is! I couldn't even really fit it all in the frame, and I felt like a total loser taking this picture so I didn't stick around for a second or third attempt. Instead, I surreptitiously snapped it on my cell phone while pretending to text message or some other dumb thing.

Today I'm totally low-key. Finished exams on Friday, and they all went well enough I think, though I won't actually know the results for a while I guess. Friday was also a beautiful day, so I went out for a patio beer or three afterwards, and there was an IMD-sponsored post-exam dance party at a discotheque (yes, people really love their discotheques around here), which was also quite fun. I got vocal with the bartender for the ridiculousness of CHF16 single-ounce mixed drinks (I kid you not) and I guess he agreed because he started to be a lot more generous afterwards, and although the party raged until 4 at least, I was home exhausted from a serious week of exams by about 2. Saturday was spent almost entirely on the couch, and Sunday has been all about eating and drinking copious amounts of espresso in various coffee shops in town with various people, and now I'm done with blogging too!

Oh, and a special hurrah to Inder and Morwenna, who decided to get engaged yesterday, in case anyone reading this knows them but hasn't heard the news yet!

Oh, hello, I was just reading a book in a big Masterpiece Theatre armchair in a faked-up library, and I thought I'd share some weird advice...

Why is Ian in business school at all? His alter ego, Dr. Ian, New Zealand's leading business author, has the answer to some very fundamental questions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaovIt_MEvU

Note: I, Laura, once accidentally sent Dr. Ian my flight information. We had a semi-confusing email exchange.

Ian, fresh from exams, will be back tomorrow.

LB

Will the real Ian please stand up?

A guest blog by Laura, who is filling in for Ian as he writes exams...

Laura's version of Ian:


Adie's (Laura's sister's) version of Ian:
Yes, Adie's Ian has a more normal-sized head (I am still working on body proportions), but I think my hair is much better. Her ears are pretty good, though. Pretty good, indeed. She has also gone for a corporate look, whereas I was inspired by the epic motion picture Grease.

Ian v. John Travolta? I feel a comic strip coming on...

Laura of the Doodle Pad

(To make your own avatar and comic strips, go to bitstrips.com)











(Laura by Adie)

110 minutes to account for

.
Until my Accounting exam. I'm spending at least five of these precious minutes on the interweb, blogging my little heart out.

Four topics today:

1. Smacks
This is what a box of Smacks look like. It's almost as though they cut this box cover out of my French textbook from when I was in grade 6. Zip, Zap, Zop, and Zoup may well be on the back of the box, for all we know.

2. Leading People In Organizations

I wrote an exam on that yesterday. It included these pictures:











Yes, I drew that during an exam. What kind of life is this, that I get credit for pictures of concentric circles?????? Then again, who says I'm going to get credit for it?

3. Sailing past my window

People do it. Even if there's very little wind. I have proof:


4. Accounting exam

I'm not ready, but I'll probably never be. I've decided to go have a shower instead of studying anymore. The binder I have for Accounting is four to five inches thick. I don't even know what's in it.

Studying good times

That's what this weekend is about. I'm studying for exams that start on Monday, in 1.5 days. I'm somewhat nervous, though not totally so. There's a funny thing here about grades... the school doesn't release them; they're only for internal evaluation purposes. Exams here are not really about grades -- they're more about confirming that people have learned what they are supposed to learn from the courses, and that's the way I'm treating them. It takes a bit of the stress out of the preparation process, because I'm pretty comfortable in most of my courses, but I'm sure the exams themselves will still be extremely difficult next week.

To give you a sense of the marking schema, there are essentially 4 final grades: the uber-awesome 3-5 people get a "President's circle" designation (oooh la la); the next one-third of the class graduates with "distinction"; two-thirds graduate with plain vanilla standing; no-one gets the fourth grade really. I heard a rumour about two people who failed out in 2004... seriously. As far as I can tell, you would have to work pretty damn hard not to pass.

I have an exam on each afternoon of Monday through Friday next week. First up is Leading People in Organizations, followed by Accounting, Marketing, Finance, and Production & Operations Management. All but Accounting are open-book too, which is nice but also potentially a trap, because it will encourage people to spend too much time referring to class notes and not enough time actually answering the exams. Beware the open-book.

This is a random and disconnected post. Sorry if it reads like a mental purge of nothing interesting. Oh, forgot about the weather. Sunny and 14C. This is what happens when Laura's not here.

Last but not least, I ate cheese fondue last night. It was really really good. If you (and by you, I mean anyone) come to Lausanne, I can point you in the fondue direction now. I had yogurt and Smacks for breakfast this morning, in case you were curious. Is anyone reading this? Seriously. I feel like I can write anything and no one will say "boo". Oh wait, maybe that's because you're not reading it in real-time. Brainiac here.

ian

75

Yes, 75.

Lacoste has a small head office, and the entire rest of the company consists of contractors, partners, and suppliers. This is a considerable departure from when they were a thriving full-service clothing company way back in the day. When you stopped hearing about them for 10 years it was because they pretty much went under, and when they were restarted, it was with this bare-bones setup.

The guesses were:

Matt: 5,000
Laura: 5,001
Laura: 10,000
Inder: <5,000
Morwenna: 3,507
Arieh: 3,322
Brenda: ridicule and derision
Julia: 16,428
Cameron: 7,654
Hyuji Sagara: 1,436 (by my calculations, but you'll have to see the original comment and add it up for yourself if you don't agree)

None of the guesses except Inder's is even remotely in the range of close :( Inder's only works somewhat slightly better because it was a bald-faced cheating attempt. But, that aside, it's also the best we've got. So, here's your lucky winner, looking his best:

Sux, sux, double-sux

Sux. Laura's on a plane right now, somewhere over Ireland most likely. I can feel my Irish (citizenship) bones a-tingling... that's how I know. I walked her to the train station for her 5:39am Lausanne --> Zurich Flughafen (airport) trip. An early start to a rather miserable day... it was so great when she was here, but the leaving part has been rather terrible. So, train left, I walked home, fell asleep, slept through my alarm, woke up at 7:54am, ran to class, got here 10 minutes late, then wished I'd stayed in bed. We have a Career Services day that is all about writing one's 2 minute infomercial. And now I have to run and practice it with peeps! Hoorah.

Here's a fun pic of LB and I. This is back when we were hot shit.


Sux.

"Billy Idol!"

The Eiffel Tower makes it official -- we were in Paris:And it was a lovely holiday! While not exactly "spring" in Paris, we had amazing luck. Consider the following sequence of events and corresponding weather patterns:

Walk to brunch place near Centre Pompidou -- sunshine
Eat decadent brunch and watch world -- hurricane, complete with umbrella casualties of outrageous proportions and small children blown over (moral dilemma for mothers: hang onto umbrella or child?)
Wait in line at Pompidou -- sunshine and woman playing zither
Observe world from within Pompidou -- full force gale, apocalypse

In general, this was our rule: promenade in sun until rain clouds appear, then duck into bar. We remained dry, but only in the most literal sense. It also gave us the opportunity to check out local fashions -- as Sarah discovered, butt crack is in:Pompidou was great, though I might suggest that Louise Bourgeois had a difficult childhood:Misha was particularly inspired:
I liked the rhino (Ian photo credit):Sarah stuck to her eat-a-thon promises and provided amazing hook-ups. Let it be said: the Israeli-run L'As de Falafel knows what it's doing. Happy smiles = Falafel smiles:
We had a night out with her brother's boyfriend Paul, which meant his local Moroccan restaurant (more couscous than humanly consumable and merguez and lamb galore), and a recommendation for what became "oignon soup and duck gluttony" the next night. Perhaps, though, it was our post-duck adventures that were the most memorable...

We stumbled into the very quaint bar "Louise et Georges" (dying red roses, portraits of owner on the wall, old wood beam ceiling -- Sarah suggested you couldn't set-dress a "French bar" better) and ordered a bottle of wine...and then discovered the entire bar of extreme regulars was in the middle of a game, facilitated by Georges and his iPod...

The Game:
1. Georges picks a song on his iPod, which is plugged into stereo system
2. Crowd listens for .001 seconds before shouting out the name of the artist ("Le Clash!" "MC Hamm-air")
3. Much drinking

Wanting to fit in with our new friends, we desperately hoped to shout an answer and have the entire bar cheer us and thereby accept us into their fold. Unfortunately, that plan was ruined by Ian's very raucous guess of "Billy Idol!" for what was obviously a CCR tune. Alas. We regained some of our cred when we told Georges we were okay with smoking, thus allowing him to draw the blinds, lock the doors, turn off the front lights and hide the bar from the smoke police. When Misha lit up (luckily, he'd un-quit only that afternoon), the whole Billy Idol issue was smoothed over.

Now it's back to work...though we have a giant chocolate egg to get through before then...

LB for IB

300 kph, and it hurts

But technology is amazing, by and by(e).

ian of the tgv

observez-vous -- l'oeuf!

from our kindly landlord, emile.

Easter Blog Hunt

Ian and I are heading to Paris today by train. We'll be meeting up with our friends Misha and Sarah, and then commencing the weekend eat-a-thon that will be France.

I promise that no chicks will be dyed in the making of this vacation.

Spring,
LB

False Advertising?

Let it be known that I was lured here with promises of sunny skies and balmy breezes. Hmm...

Lausanne:
Paris:
That's okay. Ian is my sunshine.

(Awww...)

I'm pretty much like a genius

Ian is making a theorem to calculate the value of real estate and I am working on my manuscript, but we both have the same problem.

Laura of the Intractables

Equus (and not the Peter Shaffer kind)

You know how Ian is always blogging about Ye Olde Whitehorse and the large quantities of booze found therein? Replace "Ian" with "Ian and Laura," remember the fact that it always seems to be 2-for-1 happy hour at the Horse, then add to this delightful picture my idea to call Matt and Steffen. Follow this scenario to its logical conclusion.

I hate Ian's Casio "wave ceptor" alarm clock so much, I don't think I can be held responsible for my actions.

In other horse news, I think I should add this to my various money-making schemes:

SEEKING WRITERS NEW TO THE TRACK
Canadian horse racing publication Trot Magazine wants descriptive writers who have never seen a live horse race to take part in a unique writing project. Articles will be observation pieces written by newcomers to the sport, 1000 words max. Locations: Saint John, Truro, Gatineau, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Hamilton, Windsor, Toronto, Peterborough, London, Barrie, Edmonton, and Surrey. Some local travel may be required. Deadline: March 31, 2008. Payment: $300. Apply by email to: email to dkaplan@standardbredcanada.ca.

Trot Magazine as a publication credit? Too perfect.

Laura of the Equine Persuasion

Hugging for money = trouble with the law

Switzerlaura is back, bloggership! Stay tuned throughout the coming week(s)!

As for the subject line...

A group of Ian's colleagues hit the streets at Place St. Francois to kick off their "Hugs for Charity" campaign. They hugged each other (for free), and then proceeded to offer hugs to the public in return for a donation. At 10CHF, these hugs weren't cheap, but the IMD kids must have good technique: within two minutes, they sold three hugs! Then they were approached by a man who, no, did not want to pay to be hugged, but rather wanted to inform the hug ringleader of a few things:
1) said no-hugging man was a plain clothes police officer
2) begging for money is illegal in Lausanne
3) hug ringleader (Roberto) may shortly find himself under arrest, particularly if he can't produce his residency permit.

Crisis was averted and no one was incarcerated, but official police notes were taken and the charity venture was a bust.

The sixties may be gone, but love is still free in Lausanne.

Laura of the Cautionary Tale

Pop quiz

How many employees does Lacoste have, worldwide?

(and no googling or wikipedia-ing).

The winner gets a present, mailed from Switzerland.

Post your answers as comments, by 8am (Switzerland time) on Tuesday March 25th!

Let the game(s) begin.

ian

ps will anyone actually guess? this is like a readership straw poll.... so exciting.

I'm a bad blogger

And this should come as no surprise to anyone who might or might not read this, some time in the future. Sorry. It's been a very busy couple of days... my last post was on Wednesday; on Thursday we started the first Integrative Exercise, which went as follows:

Thursday
1pm: Receive a 30 page case on the Khala, a joint-venture project to launch a "motorized bicycle" in Pakistan, based on the Velosolex that was sold in France from the 1940s until early in the 'aughts':What you're seeing in a somewhat regular bicycle with a motor bolted onto the front wheel. You raise and lower the motor directly onto the wheel using some sort of lever, and there's a clutch and throttle on the handlebar. It's basically the poor man's moped, if you can imagine what that might look like. So, we read the case, in our study group, and we have until noon (12:00) Friday to come up with some sort of plan and present this plan. The challenge of the case is very broad: essentially, they have a product and some spare floor space in a factory, but not much else. The case asks us to construct a plan to market, distribute, sell, and finance the operations, based out of Karachi, Pakistan. We had a bit of learning to do.

The target agenda was to be done for the evening by midnight, and went something like this:
4pm: Analytic brainstorm (economics of the region, industry, and product)
5pm: Analytic content gathering (fill in the blanks from the brainstorm)
6pm: Strategic brainstorm (given the above, what do we want to do with this thing?)
7pm: dinner
8pm: Strategic content gathering (given our strategy, let's fill in the blanks on how to actually do this. e.g., what does the advertising spend look like, how many people do you have to hire to run the factory, what price do you set, how much money do you need to borrow, and when, etc. etc.)
10pm: Review strategic content, and prepare storyboard of presentation.
11pm: Review storyboard.
12pm: Finish for night.

We actually finished at 4:15am, and when we finished, there were still 5 or 6 groups working. We were actually lucky, because we had the latest presentation slot on Friday... many groups had to present at 8am. Things went somewhat smoothly until the 8pm Strategic Content Gathering section, when it fast became apparent that even with the best laid strategic plans, we could not pull together everything required to launch the Khala (the case's working name for the bike) in 2 hours. In retrospect, not much of a surprise. I get quite cranky by 4:15 in the morning, and I was our group's project manager for this... I'm happy to report I still have friends!

So, home at 4:30am (literally... the clock tower beside my house chimed as I was unlocking my door), and up again at 7:30 to be back at work for 8am.

Friday
8am: we actually all made it in on time,

Elvis has left the building

This is Elvis, in Finance class. Jim Ellert apparently taught Bob Brooks about 40 years ago. Bob may have fallen asleep in much the same way as Elvis. Did Bob snore? An interesting question...

Finance class is for losers. Too bad I have 16 hours of it this week. On the brighter side, Elvis gets more cheerful as he gets better rested.

Ian (daily posts) Brooks

Pay vs. performance

There has been some criticism about my lack of e-responsiveness. I confess to being a bit "off the blog" as of late... it's not that I don't like you, faithful readers, but rather that I've been distracted by things variously interesting and not. Irregardless, I will commit to trying to post every day, even if it's a short post.

So, it's just past noon, and we've just finished a 4-hour lecture entitled "Managing Appraisal and Reward". The conclusions: (1) pay-for-performance doesn't work. (2) Financial reward systems are typically demotivating over the longer term. (3) appraisal systems are often badly designed, and even more often, badly implemented. (4) personal biases influence appraisals. (5) doing this right can be a huge competitive advantage, because so many people and companies do it badly.

My favorite thing about this lecture was the discussion on reward systems for a Taiwanese doctor at Taiwan's largest medical tourism hospital:
.
Yes, that's right, there is an optimal number of lawsuits. Ain't that just a bit disturbing!

- i

Pictures pictures pictures

Hooray for pictures.

Matt, Ricky, Steffen and John (L to R)
Matt and a girl from New Zealand whose name I don't think I ever caught. Matt is quite possibly the worst karaoke singer I've ever heard.
I don't really know what to say about these cows. That's why I took pictures of them. I think (and really hope) that they are ironic.

These aliens were in the display case beside the cows.

This one's for Inder. I have no idea why it's in blue, underlined font. I can't seem to get it to stop. Chin chin, inder.There is a lot of ping-pong playing at lunch. Much hilarity typically ensues, as you can see from the smiles and laughter, I suspect. The tables are stone, all-weather, and it turns out you can actually play ping-pong in a light rain or below zero as long as you're desperate enough.
Lastly, I felt in my last pictures that I didn't go the dessert table justice, so here it is near the start of a meal rather than at its picked-over end. They will refill / replace most of these dishes at least once during the meal. More disturbing is that there is another dessert table at the other, non-MBA student, buffet station, where alternate and additional desserts may be had.
And finally, the cheese table. It's the smallest table, but by my count, they've managed to put 12 cheeses on it, which is more than respectable. Actually, it's disturbing. There's a 12-cheese cheese plate at my disposal at lunch 5 days a week. Bring it on.