Three weeks to go

So here we are, almost there, almost finished. Only one of each left:

• one normal class week,
• one revision week,
• one exam week.

And then the first term of the MBA is over. It feels like time to to look back and evaluate how things have been so far, but I am no there yet. Let's leave it for later. For now, there are still two major assignments to deliver, and both have to be started. There is still all the revision for the final exams to be done, and that's a lot. And there are still many hours with good people to be enjoyed.
Actually, there are many people in the class I didn't really got to know. But this is OK. With a class big like this (82, AFAIK), it was to be expected. Anyway, I still wish to have two or three chats with some interesting people. Don't want the feeling of missing an opportunity now, although this is unavoidable.
And I still have 3 very special weeks to enjoy with all I got before parting to thousands of miles (yes, they are anglicizing me) away.
But enough of sentimentalism, let's talk about London. But not too much, I really do have those assignments to start. The weekend was great, the weather was even not too bad. It was cold, really cold without freezing, but we even saw some sun rays from time to time. And it was busy, walking around the city and showing the sights. I was impressed of how familiar I am with the city and its transport system, after only two visits (now three) and some 13 days.
We had a situation with our hotel reservation which turned out well (or at least didn't turn out bad) right in the first hour of London. Then a very cold night in a cold top floor hotel room for fifty pounds. It is strange to see oneself thinking that 50 quid for a room is not expensive. After that a busy Saturday with parks and palace in the morning, Primark and Oxford Street in the afternoon and an Arabic music concert at Saint Barnaba's church.
Back to another hotel, Sunday. Camden Town station in the morning with its markets and curious shops. A great lunch with very dear friends who are at this moment flying over the Atlantic to Brazil and an afternoon on the Southbank. Walk, walk, walk. An evening at Picadilly Circus, China Town and Regent Street with its beautiful lights. Victoria Station and the long wait for the, of course, late Megabus coach. After another delay due to a fuel system fault and two bus exchanges we arrived safely at Cannon Park, just half an hour of more walking to the residences in the middle of the night.
No, I can't complain. It was a great weekend. But London was just the scenery, not that important at all.
And if I don't update this too much you know: only 3 more weeks to go. Gotta be here, now.

The Language Centre

The Language Centre is the language school here in the University of Warwick. There the students can take the core language courses (one term) they need for the MBA and other courses, but they also can take extra-curricular courses, called leisure courses.
Originally, I wanted to take up French again. But I found it to be too much.

• First of all, the courses usually take up two terms, and I would be able to use them only for one term.
• Secondly, I personally could not free up the time for language studies. Just not high enough in my priorities list.
• Thirdly, there is a cost involved, about one hundred pounds for each course. So I decided not to try it this time.

Apparently, the Language Lab also has good multimedia facilities and material available to the public, so you could, in theory, go there to use their learning DVDs and do some private study in the language you prefer, on your own time and rhythm. I haven't tried it, though.
The full time MBA students will have to take one language course next term, when a second group of Mannheim exchange students will come. This means that they will have a group of colleagues to accompany to the language course, and this might work as a good incentive. Here is their website:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/languagecentre/courses/


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Deloitte and Royal Bank of Scotland at WBS

Royal Bank of Scotland Building, Deansgate
Originally uploaded by lexhall

Yesterday we had two company presentations overlapping.
I chose first to go to the Deloitte presentation in the Teaching Centre. The director of strategy spoke about, hm, strategy. They promoted the event as something like "what you will not learn at university about strategy". Well, not really. Nothing new about strategy in this presentation. Mind you, it was a good and interesting presentation, but really nothing new. But it served to show that actually our marketing course is very much about general strategy and to confirm that what we are seeing at the MBA is what people are using outside.
Then I was able to participate in the networking part of the MBA RBS event. And this was really cool. The people from the bank were very accessible and keen to talk to us, MBAs. They really want to employ some of us in the near future and I had a good personal impression of the people working there. So much so that I feel inclined to take a better look at corporate banking.

Snow at the University of Warwick

Yes, it really is snowing. In the beginning I thought it would be that disappointing sleet so common in late autumn, beginning of winter. But my expectations were exceeded, and now we have a couple or a bit more centimeters of fresh snow on the grass.

I like the snow. Actually I love it! It is not by chance that my favourite sport now is snowboarding, I just hope that I will be able to do some in Canada, but this is not very probable. But I had a lot of fun tonight, already.

It is nice to see grown up adult "mature" students turning into kids, going out on the court yard and starting snowball fights with strangers they would otherwise ignore during their routine on campus residence. But it is such an important event for many of us, who had never seen snow before. I caught some of them on video. For people from Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Mexico, this is really something special.

Now I just hope that the snow will still be there in the morning.

More pictures on Picasa, of course.

071118 Snow on Campus

Marketing success stories

Today we had 4 group presentations for the Market Analysis course. Each group got one company to analyse and explain to the class why it had found the company to be an example of a marketing success story and which criteria the group used to get to its conclusion.

My group was first and, I must admit, the best. The guys did a great job in researching, analysing and presenting the material. Sascha's slide looked great and the story we told was compelling. Of course, we chose the most fun subject: Sony vs. Wii. Really interesting case, I can only advise you to take a look at Nintendo's President's series of internal interviews, quite rich.

The other groups also did a great job. The BAA group with the noisy jet sounds and the great consumer type incenations were really memmorable.

The Boeing group packaged the presentation in a virtual flight with stewardess (oh, flight attendant, sorry), captain and first officer. Of course, in my humble oppinion, they couldn't have chosen a prettier flight attendant.

By the fourth group I must admit I was already really tired. They talked about Samsung, and now I will take a look at their mobile handsets. I am looking for a new one, and Sony Ericsson seems to have what I want. But the presentation convinced me to give Samsung a chance. What I also liked was that they were critical enough to cast some doubts on the sustainability of the current strategy.
All in all it was an interesting morning, eventhough it extended far too much into hour already reduced lunch hour. I believe the teacher was too optimistic by reserving only 25 minutes per group.

An unexpectedly busy week

This week we had the practice of management presentation and in a few minutes are going to have the marketing presentation. This has made this week extremely busy, unexpectedly. And the fact that we had to review our CV for the Mannheim CV book added to the strain.

It has also been quite cold during the night and, for the first time, we had beautiful frosty mornings.

Yesterday we had also the A. D. Little management consulting firm visiting, which was interesting. It is important to compare company styles to see with which corporate culture you identified yourself more. Management consulting really seems interesting, but there will not be a way of getting around the 60 hours week, it seems.

And, to finish off, I arrived late for the Jan Garbarek Group concert yesterday. This wasn't really a problem and the concert was magnificent! I didn't know Jan's work before, only his fame, which is good enough to ensure that I wouldn't miss this concert. The hall was pretty full, (almost) everybody pretty respectful (I wanted to shout to a pair of female undergrads: "Be pretty and shut up!"), the lighting wonderful and the music phenomenal. The band is exceptional, and I especially enjoyed the piano player, who filled the room with his sound in a way I had never heard before and the drummer, who was really impressive. I had to think of my friend Mathias Rempel, now in Munich.

and now is time to dash to the market analysis class

Morgan Stanley presentation and networking

Today we had the best company presentation so far in the MBA course. The folks from Morgan Stanley drove up from London to talk to us about working for their company.

They started with a very impressive video where several employees from all over the world talked about why they liked to work for MS. I personally liked the way the video was built and the images laid out on the screen. And people where quite convincing there too.

Then Stuart Guest, VP of private wealth management, presented some basic facts about the company and opened the session for questions, which were many. He had with him other 5 people from the office London, 3 of them quite recent hire (1 month, 3 months and 1 year). Everybody seemed very happy to be working for MS (and I wouldn't have expected otherwise).

All in all a well rounded presentation, which made the time go by quickly. Some extracts from the session:

• Russian and Chinese languages are in high demand, even though MS has a dedicated language programme with over 10 languages.
• "It is genuinely a nice place to work. ... I even find time to run a marathon." Stuart Guest
• First time I heard the phrase: "to export a CEO".
• They offered us best in class clients. That's an interesting offer.
• "Clients like dealing with interesting people." Yes, quite obvious, but I had never heard it put so clearly.
• Employees own 25% of the shares.
• ROI expected: 20%
  
• "There is a collaborative effort in Europe, in the US this is a bit different." C.

After the presentation we had some snacks at the lounge and, for the first time, I did really "network" a bit. The fact that MS was represented by 6 people made getting involved in a conversation with one of them easier.
And everybody, both from Morgan Stanley and from WBS, made a good impression, looking smart in suits.