IMD 2008 MBA Story so far...@ YouTube

Thanks to Paul, now we have the first video clip on YouTube from Class 2008. Enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkM0UGGW4Bc

Meanwhile, as the IMD MBA Diary explains, from now until early April, life is going to very very tough with integrative exercises, many assignments and exams. Cheer On:-)

Accounting / Risk / Poem

During the accounting class on Wed, Prof. Stewart shared with us a beautiful poem as the closing of this session on Risk Managment:

Risk - Author Unknown

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental

To reach out to another is to risk involvement

To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self

To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss

To love is to risk not being loved in return

To live is to risk dying

To hope is to risk despair

To try at all is to risk failure

But risks must be taken

because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing

The person who risks nothing has nothing and is nothing

The person may avoid suffering and sorrow

but cannot learn, feel change, grow, love, life

Chained by attitudes he/she is a slave, and forfeits freedom

Only a person who risks is free.

New Year, New Challenge

The 4th day of Chinese Lunar New Year (Vietnam, Singapore, Korea, etc. use the same lunar calendar) or so-called Spring Festival, many inter-groups meetings are going on, thanks to Prof. Ralf. There'll be 6 industry analysis presentation on Tuesday, each combined of two different industries, e.g. Steel & Commodity Chemical, Pay for Contents & Free Media. Each study group has spent hundreds of hours on our individual presentation, the story lines, the contents, the graphs, the colors, etc. After a pre-run on Friday afternoon, now we have to merge the presentation with our neighbouring group to find out the common characteristics of both groups and come up with a combined presentation & report.

This is one of our first major group projects and has presented a lot of new challenges. Different groups adopted different approaches, each has its pros & cons. And it's not easy to avoid being frustrated, no wonder more & more colleagues have signed up for the PDI (Personal Development Initiative) and talked to professional psychoanalyst. Managing emotions, balancing group task & individual reading, we'll keep learning!

新年进步！

Banana, Bicycle & Watch

"Watch out the banana tree while riding your bicycle along Lac Leman...", this is just an old game when we used to play at primary school - making a sentence with the given words, in this case, banana, bicycle & watch:-) I always thought it was just a fun game to play with your own imagination.

However, it can be as creative as a good marketing plan. That's why we've decided to include the 3 words for the coffee brand marketing plan. Some group did it seriously, some group forgot about it during the disucssion. Of course, it's interesting to see how creatively these elements have been incroporated in a serious marketing plan, especially when the presenter was not aware of the game.

* Banana flavour coffee
* Coffe Boutique in high streets of big cities, e.g. where the watch shops locate
* Sonsporing a bicycle team in Tour de France

How do you like this marketing plan? Creativity comes "out of the box" thinking!