The Dream Bag Marketing campaign - 3 videos

Here are the three videos we used in our marketing campaign for bag in the innovation challenge. Enjoy!


The Dream Bag - Part 1



The Dream Bag - Part 2


The Dream Bag - Part 3

The innovation challenge

It is well after midnight and the dungeons are buzzing with activity. The second integrative exercise have been underway since 15.00 this afternoon. The task: Design, build and sell a bag using only Tyvek, Velcro and duct tape. Delivery: Tomorrow morning 9.00 AM.

Each of the 12 study groups must come up with their own design. The buyers will be the 40 people that currently are attending the Program for Executive Development (PED) on the school. They will vote for the bag that they like best. Likewise the PEDs will produce a number of bags of which the MBAs will choose a winner.

It is all part of the Innovation stream taught and headed by Professor David Robertson. We have spent the past couple of weeks investigating customer behavior and needs and have used different idea generation techniques to translate the needs into solutions. You don't really have to be that creative to come up with new ideas as long as you have the right tools and processes in place. At the same time, it is actually good fun.

Most groups have covered the glas in the door to the rooms in an attempt to keep designs and prototypes secret, but industrial espionage has still proven difficult to avoid for some. Like any other product bags do not sell without a proper marketing campaign. The opposite is also true: With the proper campaign anything sells! I assume that is why I see so much creative effort being used on the 6 minute sales pitch that each group has available tomorrow.



Sato Konagai has started the construction of the bag with a roll of Tyvek.
As you can tell it is a quite strong material.


Group 3, also known as 'The Roos' are showing off their 'Roo bag' with a group phoon . From the left it is Adrian Smaranda [Romania], Prashant Biwal [India], Rasmus Figenschou [Norway] (with the Roo bag) , Carsten Bremer [Germany], Andres Akamine [Peru].


Group 5, now known as 'Catch me if you can!'. From left it is Valeria Pavlyukovskaya [Russia], Joe Nai [The Netherlands/Hong Kong], Lisa Bridgett [South Africa/UK], Kornelius Thimm [Germany], Stone Gao [China], Nader Ashoor [Saudi Arabia], Stefano Cazzulani [Italy].

Friday in Pictures

The day started with Innovation professor David Robertson demonstrating a technique for idea generation. Here he is 'Decomposing the problem' as it is called; the problem being a vegetable/fruit peeler.


The problem was decomposed into 'Apply pressure', 'Remove peel' and 'Manipulate/rotate fruit' and the class was asked to create solutions for each part.


Engineers on home turf! Paolo Guglielmini [Italy] (in front) and Karim El-Koury [Austria] creating solutions for how to 'Apply pressure'.

David demonstrating a machine (lower right) that peels, slices and cuts out the core of an apple in one go. He got it on eBay.


A cup of coffee in the IMD café after lunch has become a daily ritual for many of us. Here it is Eva Hubsman [Israel], Kornelius Thimm [Germany], Johan Jansén-Storbacka [Sweden/Finland], Stefano Cazzulani [Italy] and Sebastian Guery [France]. The latter three surprised me by speaking Italian to each other despite only one of them being Italian.

Modern mom keeping in touch with her off-spring. Lisa Bridgett skyping with her two boys Julian (4 years old) and Aurelien (9 months). I am so impressed by Lisa and the other MBA parents. On top of all the work the rest of us are struggling with they manage to find time for their families.

We had Finance Professor Jim Ellert most of the day on the subject of 'Capital Structure and Dividend Policy Guidelines'. It is known stuff for the bankers and accountants in class, but most of it is a new world for me.

Looking sharp!! The period of company presentations has started. A number of companies will come and present themselves and answer questions from the MBAs. The companies will likely be the ones coming back to hire MBAs in September. Here it is (left-to-right) Cedric Jusseaume [France], Shibu James [Indian], Oren Yehudai [Israel] and Suchir Swarup [Canada/India] dressing up for their potential future employers.

2009 meets 1979

I was standing outside the auditorium yesterday around lunchtime when I heard someone saying 'Here is an MBA 2009 student'. I turned around and found myself being introduced to a gentlemen some 30 years older than me. He was from the MBA class of 1979. 'So how is life?', he asked. 'Life is good', I replied, my standard answer to that question. I had just come out of the powernap room, so I actually did feel quite OK at that very moment. 'Well, then you are not learning enough', he said. From that I gathered that the workload around here is not something that was invented yesterday. It was here in 1979 as well. 'But the volleyball court is missing', he continued, 'it used to be between the old building and the restaurant.' I afterwards realized that I don't even know which building that is the 'old building'. I assume it must be the building with the reception. If that is the case then the volleyball court must have been where the table tennis is now.

Reflecting on that conversation afterwards painted a picture in my mind of what this place is all about. Although the buildings and the sports we play may change, the fundamentals remain the same: Hard work and good fun.

The dungeons are buzzing these days. Everybody is running flat out trying to coordinate the work across the groups each person is in, getting the piles of cases read and the numerous assignments in on time. Despite the insurmountable workload the class still chooses to prioritizes Accounting with Professor Stewart Hamilton. I have read tomorrow's case on the Mannai Corporation twice and made an effort to answer the questions. I really look forward to an interesting discussion with my classmates whom I know also have been working hard on this.



Table tennis is a favorite pastime during lunch breaks. Apparently volleyball played the same role in 1979.



The MBA 2008 Ultimate Frisbee team is preparing for the MBA tournament that will be held in Paris mid may. Here Cathinka Scheie [Norway] shows the talent of the team. Left-to-right it is Wouter Naessens [Belgium], Chia Chia Lim [Singapore] and Ilya Syshchikov [Russia] watching.



Carsten Bremer [Germany] selling the idea of Micro-finance to Valeria Pavlyukovskaya [Russia] in the IMD café.

Meeting the 2008 MBAs

Today was the day for the long anticipated match of the generations. The 2009 MBAs versus the class of 2008. The 2008 class had apparently suffered some casualties at the party the night before but was nevertheless strong in numbers and on the field. We had to use almost the entire length of Parc de Milan as we were playing 12 against 12 or something like that. It was a great match played in the spirit of the game.

For me it was particularly interesting to meet last year's diary writer, Mathieu Pointeau, who's shoes Kristin and I are trying to fill this year. It was also interesting to hear to old class' stories about the life both during and after IMD. It was clear that they had experience IMD very differently between themselves. For instance, some of them thought that February was the hardest month to get through, whereas others thought it was May. To me the week we just have been through have been the toughest so far and I sincerely hope that we have peaked now.

It was also interesting to learn that more than a third of last year's class have stayed in Switzerland after graduation and more than half of those are in the Lausanne/Geneva region. You can't really blame them. Life is so convenient and the nature so impressive around here.

We should be seeing much more to them in the coming month. Several of them will come to present the companies that they now work for and many apparently intend to join the IMD networking event on June 6th, where this year's class get the chance to meet all those that now can call themselves IMD Alumni, whether from 2008 or before.

And for the results of today's match, I will just let the numbers speak for themselves: We won 5-0. Thank you, 2008 class, for a great match. We look forward to you coming back for a rematch.


The Latin Express on the move. 09'er Andres Akamine [Peru] in pursuit of 08'er Janislav Marinovic [Chile].


Game over and a 'Great game' handshake


Line-up of the players of today's match. A good mix of the 2008 and 2009 classes.

A night in Bollywood

Today was one of those days that just disappeared too fast. Class all day and a three hour start-up meeting afterwards. Two things were different, though.

First of all my old friend, Stefan, was visiting from Denmark. Stefan is half Swiss, half Danish and found time to stop by Lausanne while visiting his family close to Zürich. I think he got a good first hand impression of the frantic speed at which things pass by at IMD.

Secondly, tonight was the night of the Bollywood party that our Indian friends have been working on for the past couple of weeks. And what a party it was! There were shows prepared by those who really knows how to dance the Indian way and there was dance tuition by Suchir Swarup for those of us who have absolutely no clue how to do it.

The evening ended on the peak with Kanika Lakhwani showing a video of a somewhat younger version her husband Ajay in a real Indian TV soap opera! All this time we have had a real Bollywood star walking among us without knowing. Ajay is in my startup group. The group will never be the same again now that this fantastic secret has been revealed. It can only make you wonder what other talents or secrets that are kept hidden in the class.

Thanks to all our Indian friends for a fascinating and fun evening!


Left-to-right: Gerrit Sinderman [German], Marco Simons [Dutch] and Ruslana Zbagerska [Ukrainian/Canadian] looking great at the Bollywood party. Not surprisingly Gerrit went on to win the price as the best dressed.


Ajay Lakhwani and his wife Kanika showing how real Indian dancing is done. It was fascinating to watch. Shortly after this picture was taken Kanika revealed Ajay's Bollywood stardom to the class!

Phooning

Yesterday I was still taking it easy back home in Denmark. Today we are back in the pressure cooker and yesterday is only a faint memory. I barely landed in Lausanne yesterday before I went to work on the pile of emails that I use as my to-do list. It was in the early ours of the morning before I felt that I was just reasonable up to speed and could go to sleep. Today was the usual full speed schedule and the next four days are packed to the brim as well. Assignments, startup projects, carreer coaching, personal development initiative (PDI) and the regular class preparation. You name it and we have got it at the moment.

Professor James Henderson introduced the International Consulting Projects (ICP) today and asked us to state our preferences for the project. It was a bucket of very varied projects that was presented. Different industries, different tasks and different parts of the world, some very far away and others just around the corner. The ICP is the part of the year that I look most forward to.

The morning started in celebration, though. Rasmus Figenschou from Norway turned 30 on Monday and the class had prepared a special gift for him. Rasmus is a fan of 'phooning'. To phoon means to have your picture taken as you strike a pose like a runner in special places or under a particular set of circumstances. Here Rasmus shows how it should be done.



Rasmus has previously declared that his biggest 'phooning' dream is to have all 90 students phooning on the tables in the auditorium. So last week, while Vahid Khamsi lured Rasmus away, Henry Low [Singaporean] snapped the below picture. You can probably imagine Rasmus' reaction when the picture popped up on the screen in the auditorium today. It was great to kick off this period of heavy workload on a less serious note.

Swiss Fondue, the Danish way!

I am SO full again. Again I had too much of the Swiss cheese fondue. The only difference is that this time I had it back home at my parents place. It was my Dad's birthday last week and his four kids decided to give him a Swiss fondue set. I brought it home on Friday together with 2kg of good Swiss fondue cheese. I am out of a very cheese loving family, so I am afraid that we have just started a tradition that over time will add many kilos to the combined weight of the family. We don't have any fondue traditions in Denmark, but we have plenty of traditions for good cheese and I am confident we will find great ways of combining the two.

This 4-day break has been very different than the one we had after the exams a couple of weeks ago. First of all, the after-exam break was spent with my girlfriend in Copenhagen, whereas this one has been spent with my girlfriend visiting my family. This largest difference was mental, though. Last time we had just completed the exams and thereby Building Block 1 and we had only a few new assignments. I really felt very relaxed. This time we are in the middle of everything and the assignments are piled up (4 in next week alone), so mentally I have not been able to leave the school like I did last time. I came home with a long list of things that I wanted to get done, but I hardly managed to get anything done. So the usual sense of guilt has been nagging all the time. The only good thing, I guess, is that I have slept a lot, so the batteries are fully charged. This will give me some extra work hours over the coming week.

Tomorrow is the return to reality. My girlfriend and I will take the car back to Copenhagen. We are stopping by an old friend of mine on the way, just to say hi and get a cup of coffee, but otherwise it is straight to the airport and straight back to Lausanne. To be honest, I don't feel very much like it. I could really spent some more time up here. On the other hand there is only two months left of the Building Blocks and with the pace that times passes in Lausanne the summer break will be here before we know it. To me it is not even a matter of making it THROUGH the exams, though, it is just a matter of making it TO the exams. As I have said a couple of times before, the exams are wonderful peaceful times compared to the daily chaos. I may very soon regret saying that, though, because the first thing that awaits us on Tuesday is our exam results!



I took this picture outside the Copenhagen Congress Center, where a giant wind turbine has been raised in the parking lot. We have several times during the Responsible Leadership Summit at IMD and during the Global Political Economy classes discussed the Copenhagen Summit, which will take place in 2009. Business and government leaders from most of the world will meet to discuss climate change and how we proceed beyond the Kyoto targets that will expire in 2012.

The end of Cloud #9

This morning we were back in the dungeons and back in our old study groups for one last time. The purpose was to give each other feedback on our behavior the past three months. The basis of the discussion was an online survey that asks you to rank both yourself and each individual in your group. The result gives you a picture of how you see yourself compared to how your group sees you. I guess that it is no surprise that we all tend to rank ourselves higher than our peers rank us, but what is really interesting is to learn where the big gaps are, the so called 'blind spots'. This also include unknown strengths, meaning areas where your peers actually thinks higher of you than you do of yourself.

It is amazing to see what a transformation 'The Group formerly known as Cloud #9' has gone through the past three months. I cannot help smiling when I think back at our first group assignment. We were all so intensely trying to convince each other with hard facts and loud arguments. Within minutes the group split into pieces: Two people were heavily debating and writing on one white board, another person was writing on the white board on the other side of the room, one person was eagerly drawing his thoughts on the flip chart, two people were on the laptop looking into the databases and the last two were sitting behind looking somewhat lost. None of this was coordinated and little of it was ever used in the final solution.

Three months later we are sitting around the table again. We take turns at speaking. The tone is direct but respectful. We explore the differences in our most fundamental beliefs but we never judge. I believe we have had some very unique challenges to bridge and I believe we have every reason to be proud of the way we have handled it. Although there has been very intense moments, we have always had the courage to continue the talk. Along the way we have produced excellent results and some that were less excellent. Much have been learned from analyzing these ups and downs.

We are only one week into the new study groups, but it has already given us a lot of perspective on the old group. I don't think anyone ever forgets their first IMD study group. I for sure will not.


Today's Career Service workshop on writing motivating letters was partly held outside. Here it is (left-to-right) Andres Akamine [Peruvian], Jodie Roussell [American], Chuks Onunkwo [Nigerian] and Slava Raykov [Russian] giving each other feedback on their work.


My own workgroup for the afternoon consisted of Johan Jansén-Storbacka [Swedish/Finnish], Cathinka Scheie [Norwegian], Fadi Sbaiti [Lebanon/USA], Ilya Syshchikov [Russian].



Back: Stefano Giussani [Italian], Stelious Vytogiannis [Greek]
Front: Seif Sieshakly [Saudi Arabian/German], Misayo Matsumoto [Japan], Kornelius Thimm [Germany]

Spring, Sake and Fondue

The spring had chosen to come to Switzerland today with temperatures around 17C. Last time I wrote that the spring was coming it snowed three times the following week, but this time I really believe it is here. The doors and windows in my apartment have been open all day and the fresh outside air has replaced the air that has been trapped inside for too long. It is such a relief to be able to do that after a long winter where everything has been locked up.

My new group just left after we spent a great evening with Swiss fondue, Japanese Sake, a bottle of French red wine and stories from all over the world. It has struck me how different it is entering into this second study group compared to the first one. I cannot help thinking about how much of this difference that is due to the personalities in the group, how much that is due to the fact that we already know each other and how much that is due to what we have been through already. There is no doubt that we are much more cautious and aware this time. First time most of us just plunged in head first without thinking of much else than the task we had been given. That gave rise to many long discussions and - let's be honest - conflicts, that had to be solved. This time we are slowly feeling our way into it one small step at the time. That definitely has its advantages in terms of comfort, but if we are not careful we loose the positive energy of a 'constructive conflict'.

We set out to find a name for our new group. We came up with a large number of different suggestions ranging from 'The Zen Team' to 'Kizomba'. The latter is both the name of Sylvain's dog and the name of a type of Angolan music. We never did decide on a name, though. Perhaps we are still being 'too' nice. Nevertheless, I look very much forward to working with Group 10 over the next three months.


Group 10 around the dinner table. Notice the green bottle of Japanese sake. It is excellent with a Swiss fondue.
Left-to-right: Satoshi Konagai [Japanese], Sylvain Cabalery [French], Fabiana [in front, Brazilian and married to Alex], Olivia Assereto [Italian], Thorsten Boeck [Danish], Simon Brunner [Swiss], Ruslana Zbagerska [Canadian/Ukrainian], Alex Rubio [Brazilian].


The same group of people in their working environment.


Another Lake Geneva sunset picture. This time taken through the window in our study room.

Indonesia

Professor Jean-Pierre Lehmann's classes in Global Political Economy (GPE) has taken us on quite a bit of a world tour. We were around US, China, India, Russia, Africa and the Arab Region before the exams. Yesterday we 'went' to South America with presentations about president Lula in Brazil and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and a second presentation on the drug trade in the continent. This was spiced up with a presentation of Colombia by our two Colombians, Yadira Sierra and Juan Benitez. It was fascinating to hear the story of a country that to a large degree has freed itself from the hands of kidnapping and corruption and who still is in the process of freeing itself from the drug trade.

Today's GPE 'trip' went to South America in general and to Thailand and Indonesia in particular. I had been looking forward to this as I spent two years Indonesia. The best two years of my life. Indonesia and its people will always have a special meaning to me. I am proud to say that I still have many friends out there that I still stay in touch with. I went back to Indonesia in October last year for the first time since I left four years ago. It was like coming home, home to all the smiles, volcanoes and rice fields.

Today's discussion on Indonesia was centered around the country's transition from dictatorship to democracy. I was in Indonesia during the last elections, so I found it particularly interesting to get the view of the 'outside world' on a situation that I only had experienced first hand.

As you may already have noticed I very quickly get excited, happy and a bit sentimental, when the discussion touches upon Indonesia. I therefore also had to pace myself a bit in the class today. Make sure you have the entire evening available if you ever get me warmed up on the subject. Particularly, if you get me started showing pictures. I couldn't help including a few appetizers below.



My colleagues and friends in the office in Semarang, Indonesia in 2004.


Have you ever seen a new day begin from the top of a volcano? You climb the volcano during the night and then you just sit and wait for the dawn to come. It is a breathtaking experience.
Mount Muria, Central Java, September 2004


The Dutch brought the railroad to Indonesia. In Ambarawa, Central Java, there is still a fully operational steam engine.
November 2004


On a roadtrip with friends. I am the tall one :-)
Bandung, Western Java, February 2005

An inspiring day

Jogi Rippel from Tignum, the man who taught us the fine art of powernapping was back today. Back with his message on how to maintain a 'Sustainable high performance'. The keywords were still Movement, Nutrition, Recovery, Energy levels, hydration, etc, but this time with less focus on the individual and much higher emphasis on how to work with these things in a team or an organization. We were amongst others given the task to build a model that could calculate the ROI (Return on Investment) on initiatives that create 'Sustainable high performance'. The accounting definition was pretty straight forward as the accounting exam still is fresh in our memories, but defining the value of such subjective items as 'Improved innovation' and 'Better working enviroment' was no easy task.

We had lunch together with some of the participants from the school's Program for Executive Development (PED). This was arranged by our 'new' Innovation professor David Robertson and the aim was both for us to get to know some of the other participants at the school and for us to probe the customers of our 'Innovation Challenge'. The Innovation Challenge will run in late April and is about designing a bag. Each MBA team will design a bag and the PED participants will choose the winner. Similarly, the PED teams will design a bag for the MBA class who will decide on a winner. Sounds like a lot of fun!

Most of the afternoon was spent in the company of the Career Services team. Katty Ooms-Suter gave an update on the current job market. It is tough times 'out there', but there are still plenty of companies signing up for on-campus recruiting, so we should be in fairly good shape as a whole. Céline Beaurain-Casemi followed up with instructions on how to write a good cover letter when applying for jobs and asked us to have the first draft ready next week.

Then followed a quick meeting in my 'old' study group. As we enter into the month of April the group officially ceases to exist. As its very last assignment the group is preparing a presentation that compares and contrasts Brazilian president Lula and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. This is for Thursdays class on Global Political Economy with Professor Jean-Pierre Lehman.

After that classmates Alejandro Salcedo [Mexican] and Gerrit Sinderman [German] held an interesting presentation on 'Search Funds' for the self-established Entrepreneurship Club. This was followed up by a live video conference with Alejandro's cousin Gustavo Fernandez and his partner Eduardo Clave. They are MBA students at Harvard Business School and are currently setting up a Search Fund together. A Search Fund is basically a fund that is set up to give an entrepreneur time and money to search for a company to acquire. You will normally get two years to find the company plus a bit of money to keep you going while searching. Once you have found the company to acquire the investor then submits the bulk of the committed capital. The concept, which was completely new to all of us, is relatively unknown in the US and is non-existing in Europe. It was nevertheless a thought provoking presentation.

Thorsten

Releasing tension by massaging yourself with something as simple as a tennis ball. Part of today's session on 'Sustaining high performance', which also included breathing techniques.

Video conference on 'Search Funds' directly from Harvard Business School.
Cool technology by the way. It was a first for me.

Study group no 9, better known as 'Cloud #9', as it looked in 2009 on Building Block 1.
Left-to-right: Kornelius Thimm (standing) [German], Thorsten Boeck [Danish], Misayo Matsumoto [Japanese], Fadi Sbaiti [Lebanese/American], Eva Hubsman [Israeli], Juan Benitez [Colombian], Liesbeth Bakker [Dutch] and Eric Vergara [Thai].