Xie Xie A

Soon to work...

2007-07-26T01:03:00.000-07:00

... And I can't wait! Most of the 3 people who sometimes read my blog because they made a spelling mistake in a google search will think that I am nuts but yes, I crave working. I am a man of action, and too much holiday gets on my nerves. Not that I have too little things to do: reading, sports, etc. But Anna cannot take 3 months holidays, and without her on my side, it's kind of, well, boring on the long run.
Anyway, I still managed this week to go back to Germany in the city where I worked for 3 years and see some old friends and colleagues. A travel in time indeed, and a nice few days. On saturday I will attend my dear friend V. and O.'s wedding in Bruessel, and will see there a bunch of GSBers, it's going to be hard core cool, especially because Anna will be here. Then the week after it is K. and O. 's wedding, can't wait either!
Anyway, on August the 6th, it's up to BAIN Stockholm, Yeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaa!

On a final touch, just saw a 'Bollywood' movie, called 'Bride and Prejudice', reallzy funny, I recommend it to the 3 lost souls who read this blog, at least their random errands might pay off...;)

New life...

2007-07-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

The last 3 weeks have been characterized by many, many changes.
First there was the "Adieu" to Chicago. Why farewell? Given that I spent 2 years there I do not think I would have it as my first choice for vacation, so unless my company sends me there on a business trip, chances are I will not come back before a looooooooong while.
It was hard but not in the way I thought. Anna and I stayed there 10 days, and to be honest it was too long. 10 days spent saying goodbye to some friends which you would actually see coincidentally the day after ("Oh, you are still here?"), or parting from some and suddenly realizing an hour later that you might never see them again... Weird, like saying goodbye for a very long period. At some point you just have to go.

Here I am now in Sweden. We just moved with my sweetheart in a lovely appartment, about 600sqft (55m2) downtown Stockholm, it is really nice and the rent is reasonable (about $1000 per month). The first days have been somewhat nightmarish for me: sweetie is working and I had nothing or a million things to do (question of perspective) and got bored pretty quick. I was surrounded by cardboard boxes... Depressing.

Then there was the moving. Anna's family gave us a big hand, it took us 3 truckloads and a number of staircases I just don'tr even want to start counting. My body the next day was just a full pain, my knees and my left Achilles Tendon are still insulting me every time I make a move. After that, 3 days spent cleaning/sorting/placing in the right place. I am kind of worried, the appartment is stuffed and my things are not even there yet... Sweetie, confident, reassures me, but hey HER stuff is already there and placed, huh. I just try to remember what Katya said: "Poops, you don't deserve her so shut up." OK... Pfff.

It is now 5:54pm local time, sweetie is about to come back, yipeee!

Last post?

2007-06-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

That's it. Yesterday I was sitting among 565 people and their families. After 2 hours sitting, the President of the University touched me with his stick, handed me a folder and I was a graduate. I instantly went from student to Alumn, from potential to 'Now you've got to prove yourself'. I had dinner with friends after that, and of course my sweet A. was there.
It slowly downs on me that most of the people I was with yesterday with I might never see before a very very long time, if at all. I would like to see them all again, but for having lived in 4 countries in the last 6 years, I am more realistic than that.
I guess it might be one of the hard things when you are ending your business school cycle: there is no real goodbye. You see some people, have fun with them, and you leave the party without really realizing that they are leaving tomorrow, or that you are leaving too. I wonder if that is not also what makes the bond strong after: you find yourself again litterally 'as if you had never left each others'. I will leave that to the future to tell me.

I have now a white page in front of me. The MBA was a way for me to get it in front of me actually. But now it is here, all white, pure and nice but scaringly empty for now. Well I guess I will do as I always did in the past and in this blog: I'll just start writing...

Case Challenge...

2007-04-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

I am currently in what I think is an interesting experiment... Take a renowned consulting firm. Make them send an email to a bunch of business schools, claiming that on a certain date, they will "rveal a technology that will change the world, and ask YOU (Yes! YOU) to see how this technology will change the world." Sounds fascinating, huh? So up you sign, and off you go on a friday afternoon to a presentation.
The appetizers are good, the presentation not bad. During the presentation, you hear a partner claiming "We partners often go to our associates to have them explain us how these latest innovations work". That's the first hint at what is going to happen.
And then comes the real challenge:
"Pick one 0f the fortune 100 companies and show how one of 4 technologies will change the fate of this company".
The four technologies are:

Crowd sourcing and co-creation (things like using wikipedia)
Ubiquitous broadband and persistent connectivity
Virtual worlds for commercial use
Smart networks elements and sensors

So basically we have to give them ideas about how to use the new gizmos for Fortune 100. Are these guys so out of ideas?

Now I cannot help but thinking: If really I have a billion dollars idea, WHY ON EARTH would I give it up for 1 chance out of 50 to win 10000$ ?

I guess this contest is nothing else than a smart application of the first technology: crowd sourcing. AND it's cheap. Congrats to that firm!

Boy it's been a long time...

2007-03-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

Last quarter has been busy but great. I had 4 great classes:

Advanced Investments - Prof. John Cochrane : If you intend to be an asset manager or a trader or simply are interested in the stock market, the class is a must. Be ready to put a LOT of work, but it is worth it. You learn hugely and John Cochrane is a fantastic lecturer.

Cases in Financial Management - Prof. Kevin Rock: Professor Rock was a banker and some of the cases he teaches are deal he was personnally involved in, or some of his colleagues were. Awesome. The guy pops out some documents and info that he knows about, it makes the whole case so lively you believe you're in the boardroom. Expensive class in terms of bidding points, but worth every point and more.

Strategic Investment decisions - Prof. Gertner: Really good. Enjoyed the assignments a lot too, Monte Carlo simulations have little secrets anymore (I hope) for me.

M&A Accounting - Prof. Sapra: If you want to be a banker involved in M&A just take it without discussion. Sapra is a great guy, he puts an amount of work in his teaching that I have seldomly seen and might cost him a heart attack within a decade. Highly recommended class.

After that, I went to Costa Roca with my sweetheart and a couple of GSB friends, Oleg & Katya. Awesome trip. Arenal Volcano, and a beautiful little village on the caribbean coast : CAHUITA.
We stayed in a set of charming bungalows called blue spirit, check it out! Otherwise, also have a look at "El Encanto" a beautiful little hotel near the beach. If you stay at volcano Arenal, the lodge "Erupciones" is recommended. And if you want to know about the zipline next to Arenal volcano, check my video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcKKkykwJ40.

One last thing: if you go snorkeling in the caribbean, wear a Tshirt. Index 30 3 times an hour was not enough and we grilled like lobsters...

Let it snow...

2007-02-18T21:14:00.000-08:00

Chicago is under a foot of snow and it is beautiful. I know I will seem pretty weird but I always loved winter. It is when it is cold that you realize how cosy it is at home. A little reminder about the comfort we live in and got used to so easily.
School is still so busy with 4 classes and TAing for 2 professors, but still so interesting. I posted my bid for next quarter's classes. If everything goes according to plan I will have Advanced Topics in Corporate Finance with Prof. Rock, Pricing strategies with Prof. DUbe and Mathematical Decision Models with Prof. Birge. Let's see if I will have enough points.
It is a weird feeling in some way. Did I take the classes I should have? Did I miss anything certainly a lot. There is not enough with one MBA to use all the opprotunities offered here. That might be one of the most important lectures here: manage time, make choices, learn to compromise with the scarce resource that time is.
In the news cast now, I started Matlab... I had managed to do all the 'Advanced Investments' assignments with XL until now, but the last one, with its extensive Mutual Funds performance evaluation, bearing on 6000 funds on 40 years of monthly data (yep, that's a 6000x480 Matrix) made it impossible. Actually Matlab is pretty powerful for whom knows a bit about programing before.
Anyway, in 3 weeks, my best half will be here, my sweet A, and we're gonna be heading to Costa Rica for a week. Baby, I can't wait to see you again.

Stress, my good old friend...

2007-01-28T13:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a s... day.
At 10 am my computer died. I realized at that point that 3 things actually make us the people we are: our credit card, our passport, and our computer. So off I went. The PC was still under warranty, so I thought 'no problemo'. Well my dear friends it will take about 3 weeks to repair the thing... Yes, 3 weeks. And I can't stay 3 weeks without computer. SO I had to buy a new one. I went for a $650 gateway computer, and you will never guess... It is 100 times better than my other which cost me 1500 a year and a half ago. The PC is faster, the network connection is faster, everything works better. The shitty thing is that I lost all my outlook contacts, and iTunes music, but I guess I will be able to recover them later. So al in all, it went ok, and I lost a day of work time, and a week of data (I had made a backup a week ago).
Fortunatley I managed to recover the one assignment on which I had spent 10hours already and which is due Tuesday: the battery in the old one still had 1%. The PC definitely died the second after I had plugged out the USB stick with the precious assignment on it... Saved!
That's still an assignment I will not have to redo.

Quarter...

2007-01-22T13:16:00.000-08:00

Allright I did not publish on my blog as I promised to. But this quarter has been nuts and great... Nuts because I have 4 classes, and I am TAing for 2 professors. One of the classes is "Advanced Investments" with Prof. Cochrane, and it is just really cool. I am happy I took prof. Bandyopadhyay last year, his class was a really good preparation, a lot of the things we do now he actually touched upon in his class so I am really building on my assets and having a great time. It is still a rough ride with about 15hours work a week, but hey, I enjoy it so much.
Other classes are great too, M&A Accounting with prof. Sapra, Strategic Investment Decisions with Prof. Gertner, and then the Ace of spades: cases in financial management with prof. Rock. That's a quarter baby!
Now just because I don't like to be bored, and sleep is overrated anyway, I TA for 2 professors... Yeeeeeeehaaaaaaa. But that's the only way to keep me from being too sad that my sweet A. is so far away. Be patient my love, in 5 months we'll be moving in together, for good!
Next quarter will be cooler. I intend to enjoy my last quarter much more on the cultural side. I am actually thinking about taking a class in history. I mean audit it.
Otherwise, for all those who think Hyde Park is a lame place, a smoking lounge just opened in Hyde Park: "Hookah Lounge", 1617 E 55th street. They have cigars, water pipes (hookah's) and all possible teas, coffees and lattes to make a great chill out moment. Went there on Saturday, Greeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaat place.
That's it folks!

Xmas...

2006-12-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

With my sweetheart and my 2 dear friends S. and S., France is sweet after a stop in Stockholm and Paris.We are having great fun, wine is pouring in our glasses, and the feeling of seeing the family again is great. Whoever you are doing an MBA, don't forget your roots. You might be VERY self centered for 2 years, but there are those who care and get hurt if you don't call them regularly, and they matter more than your job as an I-Banker.
Merry Christmas to all of you,
E

Thangsgiving...

2006-11-20T14:28:00.000-08:00

There is a fun fact that never ceases to amaze me in the Thanksgiving tradition. I noticed it the first time I was invited to Thanksgiving diner (last year) . We were all sitting and eagerly looking at the smoking turkey, the gravy, etc. Then somebody said "Well let's go" and off we went. A few minutes within the diner, a charming lady smiled at me and said in a soft voice: "Eric, could you please pass me some stuffing?". "Sure!" said I, eager to please. And then, I did what I had seen my father do for many year: I sttod up, took the knife and fork from the Turkey plate, and proceeded to search inside the Turkey's belly. This caused a lot of amusement among my US friends, because you see, in the US, stuffing is actually cooked aside the Turkey.

My cooking side (I watch Top Chef on Bravo) yells at this. The stuffing is suppose to stuff the Turkey...

So for those of you who would like to really stuff a turkey here is a short recipe. A gallon of this stuffing is enough to stuff a 22 lbs turkey

75 g [1/3 cup] butter500 mL [2 tasses] diced onions
500 mL [2 cups] diced mushrooms
500 mL [2 cups] diced smoked ham [1/2 lb]
375 mL [1 1/2 cups] hacked celery
2 garlic pieces, thinly mashed
2,5 mL [1/2 teaspoon] salt
2,5 mL [1/2 teaspoon] pepper
2,5 mL [1/2 teaspoon] thyme
2,5 mL [1/2 teaspoon] rosmary
3 litres [12 cups] small cubes of hard bread
250 mL [1 cups] parsil cut
125 mL [1/2 cups] grilled nuts
1 egg
125 mL [1/2 cup] chicken broth

In a big pan, melt the butter. Pour in everything except the bread, parsil, and nuts, and cook for 30mn, until the veggies are tender and the mix very full of fragrances.
Put in a big bowl, add the bread, parsil, and nuts, add salt and pepper if necessary.
You should do the stuffing the day before. NEVER stuff a Turkey with hot stuffing, you would break the cooking rules, and overcook the Turkey.
To stuff the Turkey, slightly cut at the level of the belly, fill in the beast, and sew it with some food-ready thread and a big needle.

You can make any stuffing your own by changing any of the ingredients. I love to add some ground cloves, and mix different sorts of meat, for example ground beef with pork and beacon, and loads of mushrooms, if you have truffle that is the place to use it.
Eat with a nice Pinot Noir from France or California or Oregon.

That's it!
I have Thanksgiving with my Texas Friend Sean, can't wait! I will sourly miss my sweetheart, though, she likes Turkey very much.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF YOU!!!

Le voyageur is posting rotten comments...

2006-11-11T16:05:00.000-08:00

Le voyageur has a kind of strange humor that might get the feds at my door on day for nothing...

I don't smoke anything else than nice cigars which I buy in a bona fide shop in Chicago (Hubbard street, very good). As I had to work during party, I took a few small breaks, so I had to dance in 10mn as much as I would have done in the 2 hours where I was busy serving guests.

As a consequence, my dancing might have seemed a bit... how could I say... chaotic. I would argue however that it could be considered a new form of art. Anyway, this evening is going to be "South Park" night at my place, I have to go put the beers in the fridge.

End of midterms...

2006-11-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

Midterms have gone by and grades as well as leaves are falling. However I still wonder where winter and fall are currently, today was a beautiful day and it was so warm I actually walked without sweater or jacket in the street and came at school soaked with sweat. It was so warm!

Anyway, to more serious matters. The admissions interviews are coming, we are getting prepped up and ready to meet the ones who got invited. We are all pretty exited about it, to get the first contact with future alumns. Good luck to all of those who face now this dreded moment. But please remember: it is not a moment to be dreaded. It is an opportunity to confirm our first impression, so keep up the good work you did in your application!

Otherwise, last Saturday was the legendary "Belgian Halloween Party" on campus. 14 years ago, a bunch of belgian students organized a huge party for Halloween where they would bring belgian beer and waffles. It was a blast and since then the tradition lives on, where the few belgian students get to organize the party. This year, due to reduced manpower, they extended Belgium to France (cheap manpower...;) ) so that I had the chance to help. It was great success, and I wish all people attending the Chicago GSB to come to the party.
That's all for today folks!

Am I boring repeating I'm busy...

2006-10-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

Yep, holy cannelloni, I just saw the date of my last post and my heart sank, boy have I been undisciplined. So let's sum up everything that happened since then:
- Recruiting kicked in at the GSB. Currently is the period where both 1st and 2nd years are recruiting, so the school is buzzing with people in suits who do cases cases cases. A big "merde" (ze french way of saying good luck, but not a very polite way) to all my friends Sean, Sandeep, Henri, Isabelle, and all the others who I forgot
- Our school got named number 1 by Business Week. Pretty nice feeling but at the end of the day now the hardest will be to keep it like that. And personnally I am not sure it changes who we are and how we do things in any way. But still...
- First round of application kicked in, so we are busy reading applications at DSAC. I mean GAs (Graduate Assistants) are busy doing it, as a DSAC Co-chair I am kept as a backup. Would love to read though, the quality level of essays is very high. Sometimes I wonder: "If I applied now, would I get in?". The applicants push every year the boundaries of quality, sometimes I doubt I would have gotten in... But who knows, so let's take that thought away.
- Fall preview went well. I always enjoy meeting prospective students, and imagining them here and working with them. It prepares some really nice moments.
- Yesterday midterm for "Managing in organizations" and tomorrow midterm in "Competitive Strategy"
- Prof. Bandyopadyay hired me as his Teaching Assistant in Investments. An honor, truly. A fntastic chance, but a nice workload. I never worked on a course material that much, even when I took his class. It is one thing to understand the material, it is another to understand it enough to explain some of it and explain exercises. However the 20 guys who come regularly to my sessions are really good and hard working so it makes the exchange really enjoyable, and what a presentation experience!!! 3 hours of presentation every week...
Well that's pretty much it until now. Let's go back to work!

Busy busy busy...

2006-09-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

To those who would do an MBA: prepare to be busy. But another kind of busy. On the job, even if you have a gazillion things to do, it is all centered around a certain, reduced (or manageable) number of topics. In an MBA, the flurry of topics (and I am not thinking only about academic ones) makes it easy to get lost in the maze of the thing that you have to do. At the end of the day, the biggest lesson might be to learn to manage your time.
Examples?
Well, my to do list is to long for me to put down here, both because I type with two fingers and because I am saturday-lazy, and finally because I have... well, a gazillion other things to do.
Got the gist?
Anyway, for those who would happen to read this blog, Fall preview at the GSB is coming soon, so register, it is a unique chance to come and visit the GSB, and live our life for 2 days.
Hope to see you all there!

Hurray I'm famous!!! ...

2006-09-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am famous.
The 2 people whom regularly look at my blog (mom and sweetheart) had already signalled me: last post in AUgust, the discipline is going down down down.
But now a new kick in my b... came to wake up my blogging stamina: the school's IT department finally linked me. So I might get hundreds, what do I say, MILLIONS of visits eagerly looking for crusty details about life as a business student.
So here we go, I will post regularly, and the next post will be about our life, our school (which we love and which you must apply to) and all the fun stuff that occur in Chicago.
Hurray Hurray Hurray, one step closer to the Nobel of literature.

Boy have I been busy...

2006-08-05T15:15:00.000-07:00

So yes I haven't written in a while, but it's because life is going 100mph, litterally. So since my last pot what happened?
- First week after the post was working hell. Don't misunderstand, it was really interesting, but I never made so many hours in my life. Fortunately, I took some long evening breaks with my sweetheart where we went eating together and sometimes swimming too. It did good, and made the 8am-11pm somewhat sustainable. But the reward was great, we got some really interesting stuff and we begin to really figure out what's happening on the market we are studying, cool!
- After that, 2 weeks holiday. We went to Turkey, it was great, took it's toll on the wallet (Istanbul is really expensive!). Highlights were Cappadoccia (Goereme) and Safranbolu, and of course Istanbul. For a look at our hotel in Goereme, www.kelebekhotel.com, a cave hotel GORGEOUS!!!! Also our hotel in Safranbolu was asounding, but I could not find any weblink... All in all a great travel, from which we brought 4 carpets for our future apparetment to come, yipeeeee
- Since then work work work. Now I am at the middle of my stay at Bain, like it very much, we'll ee what they have to say during the forthcoming midterm. I hope not to screw anything up...
See ya!

Damn I haven't written on my blog...

2006-07-10T03:22:00.000-07:00

Yes I am still alive, and Sweden is sooooooo coooooool that I can't find the time to write. So just a few words about a subject that interests me a lot: ME, hehe!

Week end was GREAT! Beautiful weather, went shopping with sweetheart, I was on a credit card killing spree. A pair of pants, a shirt, and another shirt (my first Dolce & Gabbana). Was not sure about it but when I saw the look on my sweet A's face...

Sunday spents washing, jogging, cooking, and... yeah, alright I'm going to talk about it: the final game of the worldcup. I guess a gazillion people comment about it and draw judgments and conclusions so I will just put my remarks and no conclusions, because honestly, who am I to judge some of the best players in the world?

- What Zidane did is unexcusable. You do not hit a guy on the field, period. On the other hand I can barely imagine what he went through during this whole cup. The media, the unbearable love of millions of people and the pressure, the pressure, the pressure... So he blew off, we all do. I am just very sad that he blew off at the worse moment.
- Italians are the worse actors of football. If I had gotten 1 dollar for each time one of these guys fell, allegedly screamed in pain, and then stood up to go on running like an antelope, I could pay my entire second year at the GSB. Add to it 10 bucks for each T shirt pulled and I can even replace my PC, TV set, and buy a Home Cinema system. It is unbarable, honestly. It brings some kind of a really bad feeling. Honestly, if Italians had won fair all along and square, I would even have cheered for their victory and smoked the cigar I reserved for France. But with such a 'constantly at the brink of dishonesty' attitude, my cigar stayed where it is: in my humidor.
- To be kicked out at penalty, that is really s***. Penalty is lottery, and you could see it on the french players face: after Zidane was gone, the heart was gone.

All in al, a bitter final. Congrats to Germany who was the real winner: the best organized world cup ever, and 'allez Zidane, on t'aimera toujours'. I scream often at people who judge me based on one event (co-chairs of different clubs, you know who you are). You judge a man by the sum of his achievements. Zidane, you still are the greatest. I will go on wearing my #10 T-shirt with your name on it with pride.

Bain and short stay in France...

2006-06-19T04:47:00.000-07:00

My first week started rather cool with a series of get-to-knows, training sessions, etc. It is really nice to see it now from the inside, rather than like a listener during a presentation. Actually I have the impression that the values that these guys presented during the sessions are even more present and lived than what they really conveyed last year at my school. Of course they conveyed it in a pretty powerful way, but it is even more than that. Client confidentiality, trustworthiness, and honesty are no empty words down here, and I am quite impressed at the way they convey it, through a series of mini cases “The client wants this, but this happens, what do you do?” The relation with the client is cardinal here, and there is no fooling around with it. I appreciate, I feel home here. The consultants are the biggest bunch of cool guys and gals I’ve met yet, maybe I am still in the honey moon phase but I am very enthusiastic about the coming summer. I am now waiting today to get staffed, the staffing officer is on business trip so it is a matter of hours and then let’s rock!

I spent this week end in Paris. My sister had her graduation ceremony. Nice, although the 2 hours of speech in the heat were a bit of a hassle. To that extent, and although it might seem arrogant from me to criticize a guy of that caliber, one of the speeches was made by the ‘godfather’ of the graduating class, the CEO of a leading French environmental company (a truly big one, and a truly big guy from the function). I was appalled. No enthusiasm, words of wisdom were carried out with the passion of a fortune cooky, he had a 3 feet long face while telling us “I am so happy to be there” and I would be rich if I had gotten 1 dollar each time he said “I” or “In my role as a president of...”. Honestly I was disgruntled, and, remembering what General Peter Pace said a few weeks ago at the GSB (“Choose companies which have leaders that emulate you and that you want to emulate"), I mentally barred that company from my list. I know it is harsh to judge an entire company just based on the speech of a CEO, but hey, there are so many companies that you have to have a few KO criteria and one of mines is “Passion of the CEO”, period.

Fortunately the speech of the school director was Fantastic, thank you M. Ramanantsoa.

End of year...

2006-06-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

In my last post I wrote emphatically about the quality of the ER. Yet everyone was very nice and I saw 2 people. SAW. They gave me their advice, took my blood pressure and heart rate. 2 Days before leaving chicago I got the invoice... 715 dollars. I calculated, these guys got per hour more than a manager of a top consulting firm is billed to his clients. But whatever...
Then I cleaned the appartment, put the keys under the door, and ... Swweeeeeeeeeeeeeeden!!!
Met a really cool guy in the plane and his wife in the plane - Dan and Nancy, Dan is a fighter pilot, flying on F-14 for the navy. Really nice guy, and a hell of a lot of good flying stories to tell, had a great time.
And since yesterday I live my dream: in Stockholm with my angel , in the company of my dreams: BAIN. Everybody is really cooled, currently time is devoted to education, processes, etc. Next week we get staffed and then off we go to Boston for the Summer Associate Training. That will be really good! The office is beautiful, the people really nice and I can't wait to start working on an actual case! I tarted together with 3 other guys: 2 are summer associates out of MBA first years (1 US citizen from MIT, and a Danish guy from LBS), and the last one is in College in Helksinki, and summer research associate.
The first grades just came in... I can't talk about it :)

Testing the UofC ER...

2006-05-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I might have been too pushy on the jogging and the soccer after. Back home I could not put my right foot on the ground... It was really painful. One painkiller later it did not get better, had to limp my way to a cab and to the ER. I feared a stress fracture, but it seems nothing like that, just a nice tendinite...
Well that's it for sports for the next 7 days... "sigh"

Great service at the ER, quick, nice, efficient, they were really perfect. That was their lucky day, I have never watched ER so they did not get the usual jokes.

Last run line...

2006-05-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

My folks are gone back home, and now starts the last straight line, the deep dive into the books, exercises, case studies, etc. Target: try to remember as much as possible, and then blast the finals. I still have this little challenge of mine to do good for finals and prove wrong this legend that when you have grade non disclosure, you just don't care about grades. The difference with GND is that it is just for you... and I am a pretty demanding jury for myself.

I'll try to do my best on the one topic I really feel stupid: coprorate finance. I really think that material is not the most difficult one, I just don't get the intuition. So as soon as an exercise is a bit different from the training I've done, BOOM! I'll try to get it next week.

Monday is memorial day, no class, one more occasion to study...

But the reward is soon to come: in 3 weeks I'll be in Sweden with my sweet Anna... "sigh" still 3 weeks to go.

Folks in town...

2006-05-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

Since last Friday, my parents, my uncle and my aunt are in town to visit. I wish I had more time to spend with them. Basically we spend the evenings together while they visit the city during the day.
Here are the sports we went to, for those who might be interested:
- BIN 36: Gorgeaous bar/Wine Restaurant where you can get real chees (Yum!) but at somewhat high prices, the reason being that they are really great cheeses (not predigested junk food branded spicy pizza stuff). Together with a splendid Pinot Noir from California, mmmmmmmm
- Indian Garden: On Ontario street, close to michigan. Delicious. Naans are warm, the sauces are hot, and dishes are served on some small copper pots on a candle so that it remains warm all along the diner. I had a chicken Vindaloo (for spices lovers only). Otherwise everything is good, I particularly recommend their sheep masala... Yum.
- Tonight is going to be Weber Grill, and then a nice beer at Rock Bottom on the other side of the street. Steak alarm!

Otherwise my dad and uncle loved the american beers until now. We went to a pub where I ordered some samples. Here are the verdicts:
- Sam Adams: Good beer, very refreshing and tasty
- Goose Island 312: Excellent, somewhat bitter for my dad's taste but certainly a must for those who like that
- Harp: Yum!

General Peter Pace...

2006-05-19T07:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday General Peter Pace was here to talk. For those who do not know, he is the chairman and joint chief of staff of the american Army. He sits every day in front of Donald Rumsfeld, discussing the what's and how's...
What an impressive man. Impressive on many dimensions. I have to admit I never served any time in the army. In France, slacking the military service was a national sport before it was capped, and I could go through the net. The reason is basically that the service consisted for 90% of people in washing the colonel's car or other stupid things. To do something interesting you had to either agree to spend 2 years in the army, or be a sports God and know people to have a chance to land in the equivalent of the navy seals, parachutes, etc.
In short, I have NO live experience about these people, and especially officers. So I am nourished by what others say, and it is often scary...
Well, I feel relieved. The man who is at the head of the most powerful army in the world is a remarkable guy. He is calm, strong, and definitely projects an aura of respect. I admired his gentleness, his availability.
There are definitely wrong ideas going on in the public about high ranking officers, thank you General.

Midterms are gone...

2006-05-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

... And it seems I lost my Exam-Mojo.
Corp. Fin.: Really I don't get it. The more I work, the lower my grades...
Investments: Went gooooood.
Strategy and Structures: wonder wherethe guys found enough bad things to kick my ass grade-ly, there was not a damn note on my exam book. Pristine, untouched, yet 20% points less... God I hate case-based exams. You can say what you want and the guy can like what he wants...

My God, I had my best grades where I worked the least. I am pretty puzzled at this fact and do not dare to draw the direct conclusion from that.
Anyway on another tone, yesterday was the first run at FOLLIES!. It was great! I was more than concerned at our dressed rehearsal the day before yesterday. Honestly, everything was a blast. Mikes were down all the time, and they managed the prowess to invert all the lightings in most of the skits, particularly in the one I wrote and am directing (recruiters feedback)... Imagine playing in the dark and having all light going up when you leave the scene... Ridiculous.
But yesterday was great and ran perfectly. The actors had great fun and were totally at ease (some started to improvise a few add ons to the lines and it was HILARIOUS). From the laughs we got from the audience, I guess we were not the only ones who had fun...
Tonight is the other show, with double the number of people in the theater.
I loved:
The 2 old guys mimicking the "Muppets Show" old guys (can't remember their names)
I'll strategize
S. G. in his guitar solo on "Hot Stuff"
Paul in his desperate messages left on recruiter's phone

The show must go on tonight.

4 Classes is a lot for my sleep...

2006-05-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

The other day I had a nightmare again. The interview stress takes its toll from everyone, and I guess I am like everyone. So there I was in my dream, dreading and stressing in the corridor leading to the torture chamber… I mean the interview rooms, for an interview at JP Bear First Bank Group. But wait a minute… I’m not a banker! What was I doing interviewing for a banking summer internship? Well, people, I said it already: it was a nightmare, right? So there I was, painstakingly trying to remember how you discount a WACC and calculate a cash flow… Or the contrary, I don’t remember, but whatever.
Suddenly, three of my best GSB friends arrived, walking along the corridor. They were Karol, Amanda and Natalia (I changed the names for the sake of their private life). All talented, all good looking, all bankers. The striking thing was their attire. Karol was dressed up like Princess Leia when she is enslaved at Jabba the Hutt’s lair… You know, the one where she has the cinnamon rolls hair dressing. I could not help addressing them.
- Hi guys, wassup?
- Well you know, banking interviews…
- Yeah right. Kris why are you dressed up like that?
- Well I’m interviewing with Frank Jones, 35, married, 3 children, star wars fan, likes to fantasize on Princess Leia, so I thought that the Leia attire would make the fit part easier…
- Yeah right…

But then my look fell on Amanda and Natalia. Amanda was actually dressed up like a Bavarian Beer drinker and Natalia like a nurse.
- And I guess you guys are dressed up like that because…
- Bank interview. My guy fantasizes on German girls
- And mine on nurses…
- Right…
- Didn’t you read the recruiter’s book published by CWIB?
- Her, no…
- Well you have to, everything you have to know about the recruiters is written in it…
- And where can I find that book?
- Aaah, yes, of course, well it’s a CWIB thing, you know so that’s why you did not get it, Karol said. No problem, look, here is my login and password for the CWIB vault on the GSB webpage, go and have a look. Check out the name of your guy, and you’ll get everything you need.
- Oh, thanks, I answered enthusiastically, and I rushed to the net room.

That’s the cool thing in nightmares: the timeline does not matter. So I spent a lot of time on the CWIB Vault. Impressive. For every single male interviewer, there was a complete Bio, private details, private address, preferred dish and perfume, preferred color of female underwear (why that info, I’m wondering). That’s how I learned that my guy was French (Yipeee! Fit’s gonna be a hit), loves cigars and loathes cookies and water, due to a story where his mother punished him a bit harshly because he had stolen cookies in the jar that was at the bottom of the swimming pool (hey, it’s a nightmare so who cares about realistic). I entered the room, and here is how my banking interview went:
The guy – Hello Eric, nice to meet you let’s start with question. Why do you want to be a banker?
Me – well I love deals and challenges and…
- I see, so how do you calculate cash flow?
- Her (I was a bit annoyed that I could not answer the question), well you take income and…
- Alright you know it, great! How is life?
- Well, good, but…
- How do you calculate a WACC?
- You study the…
- GREAT, you know that too, you are so good! And what’s the future of securities in the exchange market in Bangladesh?
- Well, her…
- FANTASTIC! You are so good at the GSB! What is the value of 10 Chinese Renmimbi in Sudan Ruppie?
- Well for that I need to know…
- INCREDIBLE, Eric you know that too! Do you have any question for me?
- Her (I said, sweating like a madman) well, her…
- This is a great question Eric, I’m really glad you asked it. Actually, not really, it is all a matter of taste. What other question do you have?
- But I didn’t ask any…
- Excellent question too, Eric, Boy you’re sharp! Actually I realized my passion for banking while urinating at soldier’s Field during a match between the bears and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Then I told myself, hey this is for me. And then I went wash my hands. Other questions?
- Her… Her…
- I’m waiting Eric, come on!

That’s when I felt my brain disconnecting. Half hearing what I was saying, I heard myself say:
- What do you think about cookies and swimming pool?
He stopped breathing, became red, stood up, wet his pants, yelled “Mummy, I hate you!” and jumped through the window.
I approached the window to see what has happened, or if he had hurt himself. Boy he had jumped from the GSB’s 34th floor (yeah I know, dream again). At that moment, my phone rang, and a voice said:
“Hello Eric this is Mike Boddington, from JP Bear First Bank Group. I hear that you pushed your interviewer to suicide in less than 40 seconds. For that reason, we doubt your interpersonal skills and will not follow with a second round, but we would LOVE you to apply for a full time position next year. Cheers.” A Click followed, and the beep from the phone… I left the room without looking back, and closed the door to prevent the crows that were already starting to eat up my interviewer’s body to get into the GSB.
After that I headed to my consulting interview. That’s the part where I was more confident, and when my nightmare became a dream. I sat down in front of a splendid brunette, who murmured in a silky voice:
- Well for the fit part I don’t need to ask you if you’re good looking, do I, Hihihihih…(dream again)
- Huhum, it’s a pleasure to meet you, miss…
- Natalia. Natalia Kissalott
- I see…
- So Eric let us do a case together – Our client is a major player in the condoms market and sees his growth stagnating. He would like to explore the potential for new products by assessing the water-balloons fight market in undergrad schools.

I rocked on that one. I talked about everything: elasticity, growth rate, everything… I was spot on. She was answering every single one of my remarks with little “aaah”, “oooh” and “yes” that were a lot of little encouragements. Then we went to the next case.
- Please evaluate the market for pink mens’ underwear among the Inuit population of Greenland.
I rightly evaluated the market to 35 billion dollars, and was spot on, it was exactly what they had recommended to the client. I was SO thrilled.
After that, she offered me a summer internship with a salary of 200000 dollars for 10 weeks.
That’s when my phone woke me up (darn I hate that thing). I called my girlfriend and told her about the whole thing, she asked me who this Natalia was, and if I had AGAIN forgotten my medication. Swedish women are supportive in their own way…

Sleepless nights...

2006-02-10T19:25:00.000-08:00

The other day I had a nightmare again. The interview stress takes its toll from everyone, and I guess I am like everyone. So there I was in my dream, dreading and stressing in the corridor leading to the torture chamber… I mean the interview rooms, for an interview at JP Bear First Bank Group. But wait a minute… I’m not a banker! What was I doing interviewing for a banking summer internship? Well, people, I said it already: it was a nightmare, right? So there I was, painstakingly trying to remember how you discount a WACC and calculate a cash flow… Or the contrary, I don’t remember, but whatever.
Suddenly, three of my best GSB friends arrived, walking along the corridor. They were Kristin, Ritika and Violetta. All talented, all good looking, all bankers. The striking thing was their attire. Kristin was dressed up like Princess Leia when she is enslaved at Jabba the Hutt’s lair… You know, the one where she has the cinnamon rolls hair dressing. I could not help addressing them.
- Hi guys, wassup?
- Well you know, banking interviews…
- Yeah right. Kris why are you dressed up like that?
- Well I’m interviewing with Frank Jones, 35, married, 3 children, star wars fan, likes to fantasize on Princess Leia, so I thought that the Leia attire would make the fit part easier…
- Yeah right…

But then my look fell on Ritika and Violetta. Ritika was actually dressed up like a Bavarian Beer drinker and Violetta like a nurse.
- And I guess you guys are dressed up like that because…
- Bank interview. My guy fantasizes on German girls
- And mine on nurses…
- Right…
- Didn’t you read the recruiter’s book published by CWIB?
- Her, no…
- Well you have to, everything you have to know about the recruiters is written in it…
- And where can I find that book?
- Aaah, yes, of course, well it’s a CWIB thing, you know so that’s why you did not get it, Kristin said. No problem, look, here is my login and password for the CWIB vault on the GSB webpage, go and have a look. Check out the name of your guy, and you’ll get everything you need.
- Oh, thanks, I answered enthusiastically, and I rushed to the net room.

That’s the cool thing in nightmares: the timeline does not matter. So I spent a lot of time on the CWIB Vault. Impressive. For every single male interviewer, there was a complete Bio, private details, private address, preferred dish and perfume, preferred color of female underwear (why that info, I’m wondering). That’s how I learned that my guy was French (Yipeee! Fit’s gonna be a hit), loves cigars and loathes cookies and water, due to a story where his mother punished him a bit harshly because he had stolen cookies in the jar that was at the bottom of the swimming pool (hey, it’s a nightmare so who cares about realistic). I entered the room, and here is how my banking interview went:
The guy – Hello Eric, nice to meet you let’s start with question. Why do you want to be a banker?
Me – well I love deals and challenges and…
- I see, so how do you calculate cash flow?
- Her (I was a bit annoyed that I could not answer the question), well you take income and…
- Alright you know it, great! How is life?
- Well, good, but…
- How do you calculate a WACC?
- You study the…
- GREAT, you know that too, you are so good! And what’s the future of securities in the exchange market in Bangladesh?
- Well, her…
- FANTASTIC! You are so good at the GSB! What is the value of 10 Chinese Renmimbi in Sudan Ruppie?
- Well for that I need to know…
- INCREDIBLE, Eric you know that too! Do you have any question for me?
- Her (I said, sweating like a madman) well, her…
- This is a great question Eric, I’m really glad you asked it. Actually, not really, it is all a matter of taste. What other question do you have?
- But I didn’t ask any…
- Excellent question too, Eric, Boy you’re sharp! Actually I realized my passion for banking while urinating at soldier’s Field during a match between the bears and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Then I told myself, hey this is for me. And then I went wash my hands. Other questions?
- Her… Her…
- I’m waiting Eric, come on!

That’s when I felt my brain disconnecting. Half hearing what I was saying, I heard myself say:
- What do you think about cookies and swimming pool?
He stopped breathing, became red, stood up, wet his pants, yelled “Mummy, I hate you!” and jumped through the window.
I approached the window to see what has happened, or if he had hurt himself. Boy he had jumped from the GSB’s 34th floor (yeah I know, dream again). At that moment, my phone rang, and a voice said:
“Hello Eric this is Mike Boddington, from JP Bear First Bank Group. I hear that you pushed your interviewer to suicide in less than 40 seconds. For that reason, we doubt your interpersonal skills and will not follow with a second round, but we would LOVE you to apply for a full time position next year. Cheers.” A Click followed, and the beep from the phone… I left the room without looking back, and closed the door to prevent the crows that were already starting to eat up my interviewer’s body to get into the GSB.
After that I headed to my consulting interview. That’s the part where I was more confident, and when my nightmare became a dream. I sat down in front of a splendid brunette, who murmured in a silky voice:
- Well for the fit part I don’t need to ask you if you’re good looking, do I, Hihihihih…(dream again)
- Huhum, it’s a pleasure to meet you, miss…
- Natalia. Natalia Kissalott
- I see…
- So Eric let us do a case together – Our client is a major player in the condoms market and sees his growth stagnating. He would like to explore the potential for new products by assessing the water-balloons fight market in undergrad schools.

I rocked on that one. I talked about everything: elasticity, growth rate, everything… I was spot on. She was answering every single one of my remarks with little “aaah”, “oooh” and “yes” that were a lot of little encouragements. Then we went to the next case.
- Please evaluate the market for pink mens’ underwear among the Inuit population of Greenland.
I rightly evaluated the market to 35 billion dollars, and was spot on, it was exactly what they had recommended to the client. I was SO thrilled.
After that, she offered me a summer internship with a salary of 200000 dollars for 10 weeks.
That’s when my phone woke me up (darn I hate that thing). I called my girlfriend and told her about the whole thing, she asked me who this Natalia was, and if I had AGAIN forgotten my medication. Swedish women are supportive in their own way…

CEO Challenge

2006-02-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

The BOOZ ALLEN CEO Challenge from the inside

Last weekend, I had the honor, together with 29 other students from 12 of the top US MBA schools, to participate to the BOOZ ALLEN CEO Challenge held at Kellogg. Here is a recollection of what happened there.

From surprise to surprise…

The first surprise was on arrival at the hotel Orrington in Evanston, the realm of our sister school, Kellogg: a snowstorm. Then it was the sheer reality of the selection that had happened before the challenge. While I had heard that some applicants from the GSB had not been granted the right to participate, the figure struck me: out of 450 applications, 30 people had been picked according to their application essays, and been carried by plane, bus, train, or magic carpet (?) to Evanston. Wow. While I had gone there with the “competition spirit”, I did not expect to be in a gladiator arena. I was ready to yell the famous “Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant” (Hello Caesar, those about to die salute you). But soon, the Booz people came to reassure us: it was not merely a competition, but rather a challenge and a learning experience. In the end, there would be only winners. It would be a real-life case based on a dynamic strategic simulation (also called wargame) that the company had conducted in the German market.

What is a dynamic strategic simulation or wargame?

A lot of you play Age of empires, Settlers or other strategy games on their computer. Most of you also know that the army originally developed some interactive games, computer-based or not, to simulate possible conflicts and how to best prepare for them., But what few of us knew is that wargames are played by serious business people as means to simulate possible business scenarios and to gain insights to complex problems, and that Booz Allen has gained for many years, amongst its other strategy offerings, a strong reputation for creating such games. The concept is roughly based on the following: 5 teams are created, mixing people from different schools who never had contact with each other before. 4 teams play competing companies, in our case the major mobile network operators (MNOs) in Germany, whose challenge is to establish their supremacy as providers of content using the recently introduced UMTS technology, which allows never before seen data transfer rates to cell phones. These teams will try to establish their leadership by devising a clear strategic plan and providing the market with clear value propositions. These value propositions not only include products and services, but must also include pricing, distribution as well as promotion. (that rings a bell, doesn’t it?). In creating their offerings, the teams can do anything they could in the real world, including the forming of alliances, striking of deals with other companies, introduction of new cell phones etc. etc. The only constraint given by the coaches was that the teams could not acquire each other or form mergers. A fifth team plays the market and controls the events in the simulation as well as slips into the roles of all entities in the market not explicity played by any of the competitor teams. In a first step, the team’s role is to define what consumers in the market really want. To this end, the team comes up with criteria and definitions of what constitutes positive or negative dimensions of the criteria. Based on these criteria, the team then evaluates and scores the product bundle and other aspects of the value proposition for each competitor team on a relative basis. Of course, the criteria are kept secret all along the different moves of the game. On top of the market, the team also plays the role of investors, who evaluate whether the value propositions and the deals proposed are financially viable or whether the company would be bankrupt in the next move. The game itself is played over 3 moves, each one about two hours long and each representing a time period of approximately one year. During each move the company teams analyze their own capabilities, the capabilities of their competitors and try to identify their opportunity in the market and hence formulating the value propositions. At the end of the moves, the teams reconvene in a plenary session and present to the market team, which will grill them with detailed questions just like in the real world. Based on the above mentioned criteria, the market team grades each of the team presentations and value propositions, which forms the input for the market model, which will help assign market shares and most importantly the change in Average Revenue per User (ARPU). After calculating the impact in the market and an assessment from the investor’s point of view the market and control team feeds back this data to the competitor teams, which use it as input for their next move.

Throughout the simulation, the challenge is manyfold:

- A human challenge: Each team must find its dynamic and transform into a performing entity over a very period of short time.

- A business challenge: The teams must create from scratch a complete value proposition with the corresponding marketing mix, while watching their available resources.

- A learning challenge: The teams must learn and constantly incorporate the lessons from the market. The teams must also give and receive feedback to and from their Booz Allen coaches.

- A flexibility challenge: Not only must the teams be prepared for the unexpected, such as BBC World News asking them for an interview, but also they must be able to recover from punitions by the market. I.e. if you loose 5% market share in the first move with a strategy that you thought was good, it takes flexibility in order to change the company around and recover quickly.

- Last but not least, the teams must survive the outrageous after party at the end of the simulation and still be fit for the feedback on Sunday morning!

Only winners…

MBA students are easily comparable with race horses. They are taught and trained to race. So leave them free, they will race. But in that case, although each company team totally identifies with the company it represents, and races to gain market share, meaning stealing them from the others, no one was frustrated at the end. There was no winner or loser. There was a new market situation, a new distribution of companies that needed to rethink their strategy for the next move. There is no real loser in a never ending game, except the ones who abandon the game… And yes, just like in the real world the starting point is different for the teams. Some are huge incumbent players, which control around 40% of the market, who must focus primarily on preserving their shares, while the smaller players are under a lot of pressure to find a justification for their existence and consistently reinvent themselves.

The greatness of the experience lies in its learning effect. When we study cases, we read such things as “Company X lost 5% market share within the last 2 years”, or “Growth is stagnating at a deceiving 2% per year”. Big deal… From the coziness of our apartment or study room, it makes a rather insignificant emotional effect except the fact that it is an important information to crack the case and get an A. But identify yourself with a company in an environment where the competitive threat is made real by competitive teams, lose 5% market share “for real for play”, and suddenly the life of managers and the stress they endure looks strikingly more vivid. It was a fantastic learning experience. Now, we KNOW why one has to “Understand your customer”. When the market doesn’t buy and switches to competition, it really hurts, not only in the powerpoint, but in the pride.

Another striking thing with war games remains for me the big lesson of that whole adventure. Although these games are highly simplified compared with a real situation, and deprived of a fantastic amount of difficulties, as much technical as economical, they ALWAYS converge to a realistic real life situation. Through this, they become a fantastic tool to develop and test a strategy for a company. And that leads me to rethink about the consultant motto: “What are the key drivers?” When you have the key drivers, you know where the game is going. The rest is statistical noise that will make the few percent points difference. After all, this is logical. Pareto is king: 20% of the causes are responsible for 80% of the effects in non chaotic systems. Markets are non chaotic systems. So look for the 20% really driving things.

Meeting the people of a company…

I could not stress enough how fun it was to interact with the Booz people. A company came to us, and during 3 days, educated us (we had some presentations on strategic management), challenged us, and entertained us. Actually, they also fed us (very well indeed). The people from Booz showed us “live” what it is to be a consultant. It was a chance and an honor. The 9 people that were representing the Chicago GSB thank you all again for the tremendous organization and the commitment, for the fun and the stress, for the cheering and the feedback, for the knowledge and the partying. We hope to see you all again, as colleagues or just as friends – in front of a business case or in front of a beer. Next time we should do this on the GSB campus – we will definitely lend you a hand in setting this up!

The Booz Allen Coaches were
Christine Rupp
Jumee Song
Lauren LeVeen
Daniel Oriesek
Bixby Elliott
Marcus Bauer
Sven Heistermann
Hanno Blankenstein
Andreas Spane
Dean Fechner

Interview with Dr. Daniel Oriesek, responsible for the Booz Allen European recruitment.

- What is your profile and what was your path at Booz Allen?
I am 35 years old, married, 1 son am Swiss citizen, born and raised in Zurich.
After working for UBS in Switzerland and New York, I got an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York Universtity, during which time I tried consulting with Booz for the summer. This was such a great experience that I rejoined the company after graduating in 2000. I did it for the great learning opportunities the company offered and also in part for their generous sponsoring of my second year at Stern. I started as an Associate and made project manager after only 18 months working in a multitude of industries. Over the years I specialized functionally along the lines of organization, change management and leadership. In late 2004, when our son was on the way, I took over as Head of European Recruiting for the firm.

- Why the CEO challenge? Who originated it and organized it?
The idea of the CEO Challenge was born when I and a couple of colleagues, who had worked on the actual wargame that is now the basis for the challenge got together and with help from local recruiting in Germany launched a test game in 2003. It was quite successful, but it was not until I had taken over as Head of European Recruiting in late 2004 that we could launch it in its current form. Ever since the early days it has always been organized by recruiting, but run by a combination of client coaches and recruiters.

- Is the CEO challenge a realistic simulation of the consultant job?
The essence of the challenge is to educate you about Booz Allen, our people and the kind of work we do. While not all of our work is wargaming, the scenario of the challenge makes it very clear what topics we work on for CEOs. The compressed time frame and the quality of the team participants and coaches gives you a good flavor for what you are getting yourself into at Booz. Last but not least, we hope you also see that we are more than just dull, boring business people, but each of us brings a lot of things to the table beyond just the smarts and that we can have some serious fun as well.

- Is the CEO Challenge a parallel assessment center? Some students were worried that not being selected would impair their chances at Booz. What would you respond to that?
The answer to that is twofold. First of all the challenge itself has only 30 slots and not being selected does not automatically mean that we are not interested in you. Throughout the MBA year, there will be plenty of opportunities to mix with Booz Allen people on other occasions as well and we highly encourage all people interested to do so. The second part relates to the Challenge itself. We originally were thinking of it as an assessment center, but quickly realized that if we did it this way, the pressure on the participants would impair their ability to perform in a safe environment and show us really their best. This said, although not an assessment in itself, we do notice if someone really impresses us, be it by quality of their work, their presentation skills, their personality or a combination of all of these elements. So in essence it is an opportunity to show what you have got.

- What were your impressions from the MBA students you saw competing this year? What were their most salient strengths and weaknesses?
I will not give you specific feedback for this group, but in general we always see that initially MBAs must overcome their egos in the group. We all tend to think we are the smartest and brightest and are conditioned to drive our points home. In a setting like the challenge (lots of information, little time) a team can only perform once its member realize that they have to work together as a team rather than trying to convince one another that only their way is the right one. Typically after move 1, when the market gives ice-cold feedback, the teams, which did not work together so far wake up and realize:”Hey, we are all in the same team and should focus on the enemy (the competition) out there…”

- Tell us a bit about these war games and Booz Allen’s history with them.
Wargames originated in China approximately 30000 B.C. with a game called Wei-Hai. From there over several iterations games like Chess or Go were developed in parallel to concrete military applications. Chief of Staff von Schanhorst in the Preussian wars against Napoleaon for the first time used extensive simulations to prepare for battle. At Booz Allen, we developed the expertise by leveraging experienced senior people on the government side of our business, who had extensive experience with such simulations from the military. From there we employed the methodology for all branches of the Armed Forces, the Department of Defense, the White House and other Governement Agencies before gradually employing the same methodology to do complex business simulations. In the mean time, the firm employs an expert team, focusing entirely on wargaming and has conducted well over 100 business simulations in most industries globally.

- Booz Allen is not as well known as some other companies. Could you tell us what you find unique in this company?
On campus, admittedly Booz Allen is not such a household name as some of our competitors. The reason for it may be that we kept a pretty low profile about the firm and the work we do, believing more in “delivering results” rather than just talking about it. And is exactly this “can do” and “will do” attitude as well as working with some of the greatest people you could possibly meet that makes working at Booz so great. I saw it always as a fantastic opportunity to apply a wide spectrum of what I had learned in Business school in the real world. Another great aspect of the firm is that due to their one- P&L approach at the partner level, people have a genuine incentive to work together across of borders. In comparison to some of our competitors, who are organized more locally, Booz gives you plenty of opportunity to travel.

- Anything else you would like to say?
I think your questions covered most of it other than that we would like to see many of you making it through the interviews, spending the summer with us and hopefully we can hold one of the next challenges on your beautiful GSB campus?!

Bluesy back there...

2006-01-03T12:08:00.000-08:00

It's raining on Chicago and I am back. Funny feeling. I guess today's easiness to travel creates new, never before seen or studied feelings. Something like "Enthusiadness", or "Melancappiness". A mix of the thrill of being back where you dreamt to be, or having arrived where you want to be, with so much, oh yes so much new to discover, but remembering what you left behind. 100 years ago it was weeks of see. Now it is about 8 hours flight. You cant' get used to any change. Change is just a part of your life. Anna's perfume is barely wearing of from my clothes, and I don't want it to go away, somehow.
But that's what I wanted and I will see her soon... At the end of the day it always boils down to what my grandad once told me: "Never feel sorry when what happens is exactly what you wanted. When you make a choice, you must always promise yourself never to regret it". Don't understand me wrong, you who might read me, I don't regret my choice to come her, that no. But there are some days where it is a bit more difficult to live with everything one misses or left behind.
I'll watch at the pictures, listen a bit more of some songs, and get along, as always.
It was nice to feel her in my arms again. 3 months to go, maybe less?

Julbord...

2005-12-16T02:43:00.000-08:00

That's it, after 26 hours of travel (thanks, United for 1:45 late departure, that made me miss my plane in Germany and have to wait 14 hours for the next one...), I am in Stockholm! It is cold but not as much as Chicago, would you believe it, and it is time to draw the conclusions of the quarter.

Microeconomics, Prof. Topel: Mindblasting, in the good sense. Beware, it's a baby turbo but if you take it you'll really learn things and hopefully know a bit about what you are talking about. A must for guys who want to go to consulting and want to prepare for interviews in winter quarter. Topel is a great teacher, his home assignments are a bullet in the head... Kidding, but not so much, that guy really make you think, and when you get it, it's forever. All in all, a course for those who want to learn something and really want to get themselves a few steps further, Thank you prof. Topel. BTW, to be noted: course notes online for free.

Regression (business stats), Prof Conley: I would not exchange my Conley for any other. Let me gather the pros: 1. His course notes are online for free. 2. Everything is done with Excel, so no 120$ software package that you will use one time in your life and never give a damn about anymore. 3. He ALWAYS explains what an equation means from a physical or statistical standpoint. 4. He puts a great effort to take the examples from business cases. 5. He invited us for a beer after the final. Any more question? Go for it.

Marketing, Prof Zeithammer: Young, cool, an eBay freak, his notes are really good, and the course is greatly interactive. The last hour: a hilarious demo of some adds with explanation of what part of the 3C-STP-4P framework they do not fulfill - really cool. A must if you are not willing to pay 5000 points to get Dhar: you get the same quality for a fifth of the price.

All in all, a great quarter, I can't wait for the next one, on the menu:
Macroeconomics with Prof. Mulligan, Accounting with Prof. Roulstone, and Managerial Decision Making with Prof. Wu, and Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting. And with all the points I saved, I'm gonna get myself a spring quarter "Royal with cheese". Pastor, you're MINE!

Building a Social Bomb – the French recipe

2005-11-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

In the light of the recent events that happened in France, a number of you came to see me with worried looks and equally worried questions. As much as I thank you for your concerns for my home country, I have to reassure you: it’s getting better. Or I would say it’s getting calmer, but the problems are still here. Nevertheless, I also have to counteract the ideas that front pages of newspapers with striking slogans have brought to your mind. France is not starting a new revolution (we have no king to behead anyway), Paris is not burning, and the French Riviera is still an expensive way to spend your holidays. What happened to France? It is the result of years of evolutions, and the convergence of phenomena which I would quote as “hard to explain”, certainly because I am neither a sociologist nor an economist, which does so that these events are for me, well “hard to explain”. But I thought that I would try to give you a few of my insights about these events. The following is the French way of building a social bomb. I apologize in advance for the length of this article.

· First, create a social broth…
You do not need to go far to identify the first thing that brought France to the events of last week. You just need to go to HPC06 once every week, in a microeconomics class. After a few weeks of hearing about supply and demand curves, you will hear about the Solow Equation. As much as this equation sounds nice and looks good, it hides one of the darkest realities of our developing centuries. While rich people get richer, poor people get poorer. You can do it the way you want, the curves are going away from each other. You can act, of course, on how they get away. But it’s unavoidable, it’s mathematic. So the gap between people at the top and people at the bottom gets higher. For less educated people, unemployment is the consequence.

· Then, add some spices to strengthen the broth…
France is a so-called welfare state. The idea behind it, although it might seem utopia, is beautiful. Part of your tax is used for the welfare of those who have less. Yes it might sound crazy, but without falling into the gap of hard core communism, I happened to derive some pride when I was paying taxes in France. Part of my money was used to provide blood to hemophiliacs, cancer medication for cancer ill people, some money to buy food for some who had just been not as lucky as I was, and were not born in a family of two doctors. Milton Friedman can see it as economically non-efficient, and his Nobel Prize is here to tell that he certainly is right, but I can’t help to think that it somewhat flattered some good things in the human being. But the theory of economics is right. Humans respond to incentives. What is the incentive to work when, in some extreme cases, welfare pays more than if you were working (I’m not making that up)? It is drastically reduced. What happens when minimal wages are kept high enough so that people allegedly have enough to live? The demand for workers diminishes. France has now an unemployment rate of 12%.

· Add some more spices…
France has very often been cited as a model of immigration integration. The truth is not so bright. By keeping the welfare so high, and the barrier to entry so low, more people came in that we could actually and efficiently integrate and help. Do not misunderstand. I am a deeply convinced proponent of immigration and melting pot. Immigration makes all civilizations better, and I am not only talking about the fact that my girlfriend being easily sun tanned, our children might be spared the torture of sun block cream that I have endured every single summer holiday day of my life (my Scottish ancestors do so that I don’t tan, I broil). But immigration is only profitable to both parties (immigrant and immigration country) when it is synonym of integration. It is not about the immigrant forgetting who he is, or where he comes from. It is about helping him find a place in the structure of the society. It is definitely not in the interest of an immigrant fleeing a poor country to be not integrated. Why? Because he will end up as poor as before, in a country that is not his. To the poverty he already faced, we add now homesickness and alienation. The consequence is a growing mass of poorer people, whether immigrant or not, whose ghettoization contributes to more social instability.

· Add some more spices, it’s still not tasty enough…
Today, children spend on average 7 hours in front of the television every day. By the age of 12, an average kid has watched the equivalent of 10,000 murders. As my father - who happens to be a psychiatrist for children, states it sometimes: “this puts us in front of potential consequences that we can only dream about. The truth is, we have absolutely no idea what the consequences can really be. Mankind has never been faced with such a phenomenon. But we conjecture that letting them see so much violence is not a good way to raise our children”. A typical kid will first watch one of these currently trendy French films where the French cop is shown as incompetent, stupid and callous. Then they will zap to some ads for some cool products their parents cannot afford. Then they will watch Chuck Norris stuffing a Vietcong boat with bullets. Then they will look at a beautiful massacre scene where a yellow spandexed blond beauty artfully slashes 40 guys with a katana. Finally, they will plug in their Playstation and launch “Hit’N Run” where you get 500 bonus points if you can crush the granny with a nice figure with your turbocharged Hummer, or 1000 points if you get the mother, the cradle, and the baby with the Ferrari.

· Spice that thing up again…
As the ghettoization of society goes up, instability increases. This fuels hatreds, angers and fear, which fuel racist responses. It is funny (or sad) to see that any riot, wherever it is, generally raises the number of those brainless idiots who go in direction of extremes and racism, and this even if the riot was performed and conducted by plain white citizens. The fear of “the other” comes back galloping, and while people are totally conscious that bad integration is ONE factor of instability, this very factor becomes THE way to explain things for them. Once again, people respond to incentives. It is an easy factor; you can put whatever you want in it. So what is the incentive to look for more complex factors? Nada. Right extremists are still a small minority in France, contrary to what the vote in the last elections may lead you to believe. What happened here? It was a protest vote. For months, the candidates to the election had been entangled in a pure political war. Although both biggest parties had extremely similar programs, each one was claiming that his opponent’s program was crap, while proposing near same ideas on the table. French electors got so fed up with what looked more like a fight in a 4^th grader class than a government of a developed country that 2 things occurred. First, we had a record and unprecedented abstention rate, reaching 28%. Nearly a third of the French people old enough to vote decided not to, out of frustration or disinterest. These people, statistics show, where mainly from the left side of the political parties in presence, due to the fact that this party had shown the biggest lack of union in its managing body and originality in its political program. The second phenomenon is that a lot of people voted for the bad guy out of bravado, as a sign of protest. The disaffection of left voters on one side and bravado vote of a lot of others led to the election on the second turn of a right extremist. When French people realized what they just had done, the wake-up was a bit hard, and our current president got elected with 80% votes. There was no real wave of right extremism in France. While the right extremists had seen a 3% raise of their members, mostly due the effect of insecurity, the lack of concern of the left side voters and the bravado vote left the flank wide open to them, because, contrarily to the others, they went to vote.

· Close with a nicely sealed lid
“Why don’t you regulate?” any sensitive person would ask. It is a bit more complicated than it appears. First, French citizens are the quintessential democrats. They love their freedom so much that they have a panicked fear to lose it. While they agree that problems like insecurity are huge, they refuse to give up any of their freedom to counteract this. Their marginal value of freedom is way higher than in many other countries. Otherwise, how would one explain that we haven’t introduced systematical fingerprint control at the airports, although we had bombs blowing up in the metro? We believe that it is an infringement of our freedom. I agree with your silent remarks at this point. We French people have not lost 3500 people in the biggest terrorist attack ever on Western soil. That might explain why we still don’t realize that such measures could help. But on the other hand, we had a pretty traumatizing experience not so long ago. A guy told an entire nation that giving a bit of their freedom would not be that big a deal. Not sooner than 20 years after, they were Nazis. So we are kind of stubborn about giving up freedom. We fear that giving up a bit of it would make us more prone to lose it all. To add to this, we hate violence and we stretch that hate to the point where we do not defend ourselves with weapons. One day a guy told me it is a lack of courage (I remember his exact word was “chicken”). I don’t think so. It takes a lot of courage to try to talk with someone who threatens you with a gun, and I’d venture to say that it is harder than pulling a trigger. Moreover, we realize that violence or arrests, though necessary, do not solve the problem. The source of violence is still there. But this problem gets solved at a smaller pace than it comes. A classic: the bathtub gets full and overflows.

BOOM

You saw it last week: the lid blew and the kids had the biggest Peugeot barbecue ever. The rest of the world discovered with big eyes that Paris nights and the French Riviera are as representative of the whole of France as Miami and Grand Canyon are representative of the US. France has poverty and violence too. It was spectacular, but at the same time very French. We French are very tolerant, extremely long to react, and we get pushed a long way. But once we get angry you don’t want to be around. But this problem is not only occurring in France; it is happening in all developed countries. It simply expresses itself in different ways. In France, they burn 500 cars. In Chicago, 12 students get robbed, and police officers panicked when they saw me with 2 fellow students after we had returned the U-Haul truck back from IKEA on 71^st. The 2 officers were literally rubbing their eyes, not believing they were actually seeing us, walking along 71^st for half an hour, at 1am in the morning, and still alive. They gave us a ride back to Regents and returned to patrol the gas station where a guy had been shot 2 days before…

As final words, I’d like to cite and comment a few words from my president, Jacques Chirac, who addressed the nation the other day:”We will build nothing durable without respect. We will build nothing durable if we let - wherever they come from - racism, intolerance, insult and outrage grow up. We will not build anything durable if we do not fight this poison for society that is discrimination.”

Statistics tend to separate us way too easily. It is our duty as responsible human beings to give those statistics a tougher job separating us.

PS: I promise I’ll try to write a funny article next time.

The Nightmare before Class...

2005-10-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

I can’t take it anymore…

This school is really taking too much place in my intellect. I’ve had my first set of courses now: regression, microeconomics, and marketing. The other day, I was sitting at my table in front of a bowl of noodles. Yes, pasta e basta, I am a student... So there I was sitting in front of noodles with meat balls in it. And then it struck me: I had a perfect model of a microeconomic model, right there in my plate. I started to think about what my Marginal value for noodles in terms of the meatballs was. “As I eat the meatballs, there will be more and more noodles and less meatballs”, I thought. “I love meatballs, but the noodles will be so dry and untasty at the end, I should adapt my flux of meatballs to the flux of noodles.”. So there I was trying to figure out how many noodles per meatball I was supposed to eat (trade would you say) so that I could leave the table satisfied with the idea that I had realized a good trade off and balance between my love of meatball and the fact that meatballs make the noodles so tasty. By the time I figured out that nobody cared - especially me, and that my noodles were getting cold, a second idea struck me: if I randomly stuck my fork in the noodles, what would be the probability of hitting a meatball? Aware that I had to make enough experiments to come to a reasonably clear idea of the curve (the big number of samples is key to the central limit theorem, guys!), I decided to grab 200 pounds of noodles and 25 pounds of meatball at the COOP, cook the whole thing, and then spend the day clogging my fork in them, realizing the first ever and most precise study on meatballs-hitting when eating noodles ever done by man.
The results where striking. Although there seemed to be a correct hint that the distribution would be a normal law, some bowls led to drastically different results. For example, while normal plates tend to iso-distribute the balls along their diameter, bowls tend to statistically make the probability of hitting a meatball higher in the center of the bowl… I loose myself in conjectures at the origin of this phenomenon, as I calculated that there is a 0.23 correlation factor between that phenomenon and the color of my shirt, a 0.5 correlation with the number of black cats on the east side of the Yang-Tse river, and a 0.78 (NEARLY LINEAR!!!!!) correlation with the number of cornflakes I ate the morning. Due to the difficulty of getting the data, I abandoned my original idea of testing the correlation with the number of Tibetan monks wearing blue underpants. But back to my conclusions, they are flabbergasting. I’ll go and see my professor tomorrow and deliver him that striking piece of modern economy: ”the more you eat flakes, the more likely you are to hit the meat at the center of the bowl.”. I’ll call this the EP Principle, and the Nobel guys will just love it.
It was right at that moment that my girlfriend called me, asking what I was doing. I explained. There was a long silence on the phone, followed by that kind of ironically destructive remark she is so good at. Then she asked me if I was feeling well and possibly had forgotten any kind of medication. Using my LEAD knowledge about interpersonal skill, I impact-feedbacked her, explaining my frustration at how little supportive she was for my great vision of modern science, and I also referred to all those Geniuses who had once been misunderstood, like Galileo, Da Vinci, and Britney Spears. She impact kicked my ass verbally, stating than any attempt at even thinking about doing my tests in her kitchen would end up with me sleeping for at least 3 weeks in a row on the sofa. After our conversation ended, I sat down to think about it for a while, and then Halleluiah, I got it. I had committed the quintessential beginner mistake, the absolute candid indicator, the utmost rookie stigmatizer: I had marched right at her without a good marketing strategy!!! . I started then to work, and rapidly finalized my 3C-4P “Pushing the boundaries of Meatball research” Project. I had everything. The customer? My girlfriend. The Company? Me. The competition? Well, my girlfriend has a crush on Russel Crowe, but the odds of him trying to step into the spaghetti Meatball testing are quite negligible I think. I am a monopole, baby, yeah! The 4Ps were kinda more difficult, especially the price. But I found, figuring a tricky system based on kisses and romantic diners incentives. The Promotion looks just great, especially my slogan: “Darling, do you have (meat)balls?”.
That’s just at that moment that my alarm clock rang, taking me out of that dreadful dream. I headed to school after having burnt every single noodle and meatball I had in the cupboards, reciting incantations just in case. If anybody knows a good shrink or an exorcist specialized in Business Schools possessions, I’d be happy if you could mail me…

Club Sandwich...

2005-09-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, some of you might think I am obsessed with my school, and I would answer from the deepest of my heart, the remotest of my soul and the abysmalest of my brain: yes I am. This being settled (any more question?) let us have a witty look on my activity of yesterday: the community fair.

For the neophytes (yes, I know words coming from greek, like Feta, Tzatziki, or Othorhynolaryngologist) who would not know what the community fair is (oh, poor of you), it is a gathering of all clubs that are available at the GSB. Among these (and I will forget 90% of them) the wine club, the gay and lesbians club, the golf club, the ski club... Basically there is a club for every single thing you could do on a daily basis, except for your shower (there was a shower club, but the campus had problem with the police) and going to the loo (that could be a cool one...).

Once again at the GSB, it is ALL about choice and priority assesment. Basically you have so many clubs that you can get nauseous about it. Plethore (once again a greek word woa, I'm so proud of myself) of offers, and only 24 hours a day minus sleeping time. What a dilemma. The classical "all that you can eat syndrom" is there, lurking at the innocent GSB Student roaming around the tables where smiling second years explain him/her how great is is to be in their club. And they are right. All clubs are cool. But you might end up like those savings-thirsty consumers who, facing an "all you can eat" buffet, stuck their plate with twice as much food as they can eat. Getting involved, yes - getting surinvolved, no.

I found 2 recipes to prevent overinvolvement:
- Remembering 25 times how much I pay for the courses at the GSB and the fact that too many clubs would take over my study time.
- Look at the price demanded by the club to become a member. Yayk.

Nevertheless, I could not resist and got involved in the DSAC (the group helping the Admission Committee to shape net year's incoming class), the General Management and Stategy Club, the European Business Club, and Giving Something Back - "the charity Club". All calculations done, I am thrilled to know that I will have something like 20 mn a day to review my courses, and 12 to do my cases. Cool. Or I can double that time by upgrading to an investment banker's life - 4 hours of sleep a day in the week end, 3 in the week. But if I do that, I could get into another club... there was this Golf club that made outrageously attractive offers, or the French Mba Club, they looked so good... Good lord! I'm club addicted! I must go to the CA (Clubist Anonymous)! I have to go to Club Rehab!

Whatever. As a last word, there is a motto at the GSB: "Look at the big Picture". It is not only some advise you can give to your child at the movies as he is conscienciously throwing his popcorns at your 220 pounds heavy seat neighbour who REALLY wants to see the movie. It can also help in life for considering a bigger scheme than you (in the movie example: Neighbour pissed - you dead). Thinking about that, I could not help but wonder if I would'nt found a Clubber Club. We would make a specialty going into clubs, and would gather every month to compare our memberships. Every guy who gets into a club would get a badge, and the guy with all the badges would get the title "Club Mogul". What a cool club that'd be...

John Kerry and the EAS Feedback...

2005-09-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

That'it, I lost... I'm the John Kerry of the Maroon Cohort, I ran for cohort president with a rather democratic message ("I'll do what YOU want") and ended up losing, goddamn Ohio... Or maybe my remark about the rock'n roll club made me lose all female votes... Ladies, it was bad humor only. However I lose against a contender (better than a Bartender, hurts less the next morning), J.L., nice guy, so I don't mind being presidented by him, he'll be great. A big "Good Work and Good Luck" to the whole elected team, I think we have a pretty awesome (don't forget the GSB lingo!) team.

And then there it was, I jammed the Chalk system, and made the EAS I feedback on the BHPT Formular... What a day... I'm sure I will have nightmares tonight of the whole cohort calling me loser while our professor holds a page with a bright red F on it, laughing frantically, just before the sky opens and the hand of God takes me and throws me to hell... Or I'm gonna sleep and try tomorrow to find a solution to the problem... Yeah, I'll try the solution one.

Fisch and the city...

2005-09-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

This morning, waking up from one of these Saturday Chicago nights from the GSB students, I had breakfast: Chunky Chilli from the tin can. As I was struggling to find some meat among the beans and thinking about how this could be metaphorical of some people's lives, I also thought about yesterday's party.

We all gathered at the Shedd aquarium in Chicago, and had party around (and not inside) the aquariums. Ever eaten "amuse bouches" in front of a tank filled with a reproduction of the australian coral reef? Quite awesome I would say. Nevertheless, I started to realize since last week that nothing here at the GSB is meaningless. There is to learn or grasp in everything we do. Without falling into the trap of over-sensifying every single action we perform within the school, I wondered what could be (if any) the hidden message behind this reception.

Then, swallowing my beans, I could not help but wonder: could a cocktail party in the middle of a crab exhibition be a metaphore of our future working environment? Is a Shark pool the closest we can find to an investment banking firm or a brand management office? Struck by the potential consequences of an affirmative answer to that riddle, I decided to head to the net room to spend some time with my sweet A .

Hail to King Mahonix...

2005-09-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had my EAS Class (Executive Action Skills). What a ride... Great experience to interact with everyone guys (another word in the GSB Lingo, here you don't talk with people, you interact with them, and promised there is nothing sexual). BTW, from now on I'll put the GSB lingo in bold so that you, my regular readers (Anna and Mum) get used to it. Seriously I liked it very much. The idea was to simulate short situations that can happen within the workplace, and in general at the limit of conflict, and have one member of the team simulating with one of our facilitators while the others where observing. This lead to feedback (a highly difficult science by the way).

We ended up paying tribute to King Mahoenix.

But who the heck is King Mahoenix ? (would you say, thirsty as you are for more knowledge of my fabulous adventures... )

A frog.

Yes you read well, our mascott is a frog. I inquired to see if as a french man I had to take it personnally, but it seems not (yeah whatever...). King Mahoenix is the guardian of human and schedule respect, whoever lacks respect or comes late has to endure his wrath, the rolling of the dice of destiny, and you certainly do not want to mess up with an angry frog. Or formulated another way, you don't want to mess up with Andrew, senior Wrestler and Rugby player, and official holder of King Mahoenix. Now that is a lesson of management: when you are tiny, green, and look like a frog, get yourself some reasonable assistance.
Comforted by the realization of this managerial breakthrough, I landed in one of the coolest seminars I've ever been. Actors interacting with the audience through sketches highlighting the issues (and not problems) that you have to manage (and not solve) when confronted with diversity at work (not difference). Really loved it, some of the themes assessed (and not dealt with or analyzed) might be a great start for awesome (and not fascinating) interactions (and not debates).
Looking forward to writing for you soon (and not Bye Babes)

What I learned...

2005-09-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, the weather was fine, sunny with a few clouds (happy, Cecile?)...

This week I learned a lot of things:
- Our school allocates courses on a stock exchange similar system: each student has 8000 points and bids on the course he wants. Once everybody has bid, the system determines the price in points for each course, and the points are debited from our accounts. Each finished course brings 2000 points, and all courses will be allocated each quarter based on that model. The possibilities of such a system leave me dreaming: trading of courses, risk assessing, hedging... I'm thinking about founding a Courses Pension Fund... Anybody interested?

- I don't know how to plan a meeting. We had that exercise about trying to sort the different work units of the preparation and driving of a meeting. Sure of myself and of the good old techniques I learned at Robert's secret service (my previous employer), I delivered state of the art german technique... Well there might be some kind of a cultural gap there, according to american standards I did poorly... And, truth be told, the plan they presented has some advantages. An interesting new way of doing things, I like it!

- I seem predestinated to such jobs as entrepreneurship (ok), Business development (yeah baby!), General Management (Yipee!), Marketing (what?) and Brand Management (what the hell is that?). Thrilling to discover that some funtions I NEVER heard about would fit my tastes, and truth be told again, the typical job descriptions just bring saliva in my mouth.

Definitely enjoying the ride.

White Sox vs. Anaheim Angels

2005-09-10T15:49:00.000-07:00

VS.

Today I cought a deep dive into an American Must Do : Saturday Base Ball Match. It was the white Sox against the Angels f Anaheim. I had hoped the Sox would give hell to the angels, but it was not the case. Anyway, a great feeling to see the first live home run in my life and to eat genuine hot dogs om this sunny and hot Chicago day. The Sox lost 10-5, but nevermind, Go Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooox!!!!

2005-09-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

Myself...

LOE Profile...

2005-09-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

Yirg... Wake up at 4:30 am to take the bus to Lake Geneva Wisconsin. Beautiful place and playing field for 550 GSBers for 2 days. Programme: sports to break boundaries, then challenging games with Feedback about team work. Party and games, after party, little sleep, then wake up... Low and High Ropes at snake road adventure center (Indiana Jones for dummies) and then Nap. After that Party time, Karaoke, drink, dance, Karaoke, drink dance...
After PArty and sleep at 3:30 in the morning. 3 night=15 hours of sleep. Basically I feel now like an investment banker: exhausted, but so much richer!
By the way I enriched my GSB lingo. Here you have to learn the local dialect. You don't say "I talked with him/her" but "I interacted with him/her". Here you don't have "Problems" you "manage issues". Something is not "great", it is "awesome".
And now, if you would please forgive me, my bed and an advil are waiting for me...

Writing the first lines on the blank GSB page...

2005-09-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know I did not write last week, but I was busy... Er... Well let's start with the beginning so to say, Tuesday was first day at school. Awesome feeling to meet all those people, coming from so many different horizons, all eager to talk and make contact. After Breakfast, inspirational welcoming addresses from the 2 Big guys of the school: Ted Snyder and Mrs Kole. If I sum up:
- GSB best school in the world (Yep sir)
- We are just cool (Re-Yep sir)
- And some of us are even good looking (they're not the only ones who're gonna make it in the business world, I'll learn Golf and compensate)

After that, different speeches, explanations, addresses during the afternoon, and "Sweet home chicago" to meet our cohorts... What is a cohort would you say?
No, it is NOT a bunch of legion soldiers on a bloody killing "Carthago Delenda Est" Spree, it is just a bunch of 50 GSBers with a funky name and one more reason to cheer up and drink together : they belong to the same cohort.
My cohort is Maroon, and they rock. 9 other cohorts compose the whole class of 2007, and they rock too, even if they were not lucky enough to belong to Maroon, sorry guys, you can't be always lucky.
We have a future president of the US in our cohort: GSB, looks good, already plays golf, and is a maroon...

Akuna Matata...

2005-09-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Shiny, sky Annaeyes blue, 25 Degrees Celsius, light wind NNW.

Yesterday was my brithday. The more I get old the more I hate birthdays. This one war caracterized by a hangover (great people discovered about my birthday when we were in a bar and went on a "let's pay him a drink" spree...), no advil, a fight with a loved one... a bad day. A big thank nevertheless to my A. whose present, even if opened in bad conditions, made my day, and to all those who wished me everything well and paid drinks, guys you made this day less horrible. A big "No thanks" to Jack Daniels, Absolut and Corona for the hangover.

Fortunately saturday came with better news on the beloved side, sports, a shiny weather... September 3rd is much cooler than the 2nd, actually. Mum, could'nt you have kept me one more day? I'd be born on a cooler day. Whatever.

In order to answer to the few people who make comments on my blog, I will now regularly give weather comments, as it seems that some REALLY want to know the weather here BEFORE to know how I'm doing. The customer is king, see on the first line.

I understood accounting (or I think I have...)

2005-09-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

Yep. Today was like a revolution to me: I got it. I should'nt say that, but it's the second time that I study financial accounting. The first time, I had ranked this science to the level of a conspiracy theory designed by an alien civilization to make human beings feel stupid and let them concentrate themselves on more intelligent and interesting activities, like watching Big Brother or playing with their Playstation II. But now I know, people, there is hope. There is this flame inside of everyone that one day could become the blazing fire of your pen scribbling right answers to an accounting problem on a sheet of paper. Accounting is like Jesus, it is inside of us all.

below
Saint Price Waterhouse, fighting the demons of wrong accounting (Spain, Beg. XXth Century)

Harric Pouper and the accounting Stone

2005-08-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

It was a shiny day at HoGSBarts, school of Financial Magic and Accounting Wizardry. Harric was sittig in class, listening to the professor teaching new hexes and jinxes, such as:
- "Assetus Investus", which makes you poorer in cash but richer in PPE so that basically you are still as rich as before...
- "PPEus Depreciatus", which makes your buildings worthless just by living there, even you have a condo on 5th avenue...
- "PPEus Sellus" which makes you Debit Cash, Debit Accumulated Depreciations, Credit PPEs, and Credit Gain, just when you think you were selling a thing...

Harric was looking with contempt at the coming classes, such as "Stock exchange divination", "Applied Microeconomics Potions", or "Private Equity Multiplication". There would be even more shiny days at HoGSBarts.

Lost in translation...

2005-08-30T12:03:00.000-07:00

On being a foreigner in the USA.
Today we learned a nice accounting concept, called the accrual method (as it seems, it is a classical concept but whatever). Problem: as a french guy I wondered for hours why the professor was talking about "a cruel" method, until I found the real name written on a paper. Desperated by my own stupidity, I lost myself in contemplation of my sweet A.'s eyes on my desktop picture. God was she sweet on this romantic estonian night... #sigh#.

E.T. wants Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooome

Round 2. Still standing?

2005-08-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today accounting day 2. The teacher is going a bit fast. We'll have to tell her it's not good for the baby she is carrying. Nevertheless, the salad was tasty at the cafeteria, and I have nothing less to say about it today.

Get on the ring and Rumble...

2005-08-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday nice restaurant downtown, boy what a steak. Finished late, so had only 5 hours of sleep, as I had to be at school at 7:30 for breakfast... Arg. Today first day of pre-accounting class. Accounting when you are tired, I don't recommend. Luckily enough the teacher is nice, and it goes quite smoothly. Plus the great news of the day: the book is included! I won't have to run and buy the "Stickney and Weil", that's good. Basically I learned this morning that upon enrolling for that class and paying by credit card, I generated a liability by the school (the school being liable to me), and an account payable. Still following? Right. Now it gets tricky... When the money was debited from my account last month, I moved this line of credit to the "Expenses" one (did I?). Nevertheless, the school was still liable... Still there? Boy you're good. Then now the school is performing the service, hence increasing my assets.
Damn, and I still thought until last week that you just buy things in life... How candid I was.

Operation Chicago I'm a GO

2005-08-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Day 1: August 23rd.
It was a cold, dark day... No, in fact the weather was great and I had just put foot on american soil after landing from Frankfurt. Yipeeeeeeeeeeee, 5 years work, hope and efforts, I'm there! I met Juan, argentinian and GSB student, in the bus. We rode to Regents, took over our appartments (really nice). In the evening, first hamburger at the grill in Regents club (not bad)

Day 2: August 24th and following
Citi Bank with Juanito to open an account. We met Mickael, Israeli, cool guy. Stroll through the campus. The building of GSB is AWESOME! Rental of a truck for what will be reminded as Operation IKEA MAYHEM. Direction Shaumburg, Illinois for a killing spree through the IKEA furniture. The truck is a 14fter, and is full, we left something like 6000 USD behind us, and unload the whole thing until 1 in the morning. Then comes the time to bring the truck back to 71st street, and find a taxi back. No taxi, we start to walk. A police car brought us back home. The officers might still wonder what those 3 nuts foreigners were thinking, walking in one of the most dangerous areas of Chicago, where a shooting had occured 3 days before... I see it more positively. By survivng there more than 20 minutes unattacked, we drastically improved the security statistics of that corner of the city, the mayor will be delighted ;).

The next days were spent assembling the furnitures, cleaning the appartments, getting our students ID, going to Wal Mart for a food shopping spree, etc... Friday evening nice evening discussing with Mike and Chloe (anthropologist who made it a hobby to study in nearly all possible Universities in the US) about Israel and the middle east conflict, the white californian wine helped. Saturday evening pasta session with the guys and chill out discussing about everything.

To be recommended: the Chili at Mellow Yellow. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Xie Xie A is born

2005-08-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

Halleluiah, Hosanna in Excelsis Deo, Xie Xie A was born, a little regular (let's hope it...) report of MY LIFE at GSB. I expect a single principle visit of my mother (if she manages to type the address) and maybe some lost internet exploring weirdo. But I expect regular ones from my sweet A.