Vacation!!!

It has been a couple of very busy days, but now it is finally reality! Vacation is here!

Thursday was the last day of OWP. I finished the day with an interesting case on Google and Baidu with Professor Didier Cossin. Baidu is a Chinese search engine that is beating Google at its own game by dominating the market for internet search in China.


Thursday during lunch we presented the Industry Analysis of our ICP projects. Many of the executives during lunch stopped by to have a look and provide input on their own industries.

Joe Nai [The Netherlands / Hong Kong] and Alex Rubio [Brazil] are ready to present.

Minli Zhao [Germany] and Myriam Vacher [France] with 'customers' in each of their industries.

Thursday evening the Scandinavians had arranged for midsummer party at the lake. We were lucky with the weather which stayed dry and warm. It was a great evening in the company of good friends.



You can get a feeling for the atmosphere in this video.


Henry Low and Chia Chia Lim [both Singapore] preparing dinner.


Of course there was also 'Sækkeløb', which best can be translated to potatobag race. Here Rasmus Figenschou [Norway] is sending off Kristin Sherwood [American] and Chia Chia Lim [Singapore].


No midsummer party without a midnight swim! Here the swim team is ready to get in the water.


Friday morning was a debrief on OWP in particular and on the first six months at IMD in general. The debrief was done as hundreds of short one-on-one interviews, which then was condensed into a number of Top-10 lists, such as 'Top-10 Buzzwords', 'Top-10 Learnings on Leadership', 'Top-10 Learnings on Learning' and so forth. There were many original and funny contributions, which combined with the relaxed atmosphere in the room created a lot of laughs.

Soon we found ourselves saying our goodbyes before we are dispersed all over the world. It was amazing to hear how much travelling everybody have planned. Most people seem to be visiting at least a couple of countries on their vacations and many of us will be either travelling or meeting with class mates all over the world.



The founders of Bacula Systems - the company for which we did our startup project - had invited our team and partners for lunch at CEO Jack Griffin's place. Jack and his wife Caroline have a beautiful house right on the lake.


Jack took us for a ride on the lake and showed us some of the amazing mansions on the lake, amongst others those of Formula One star Michael Schumacher and the Bonaparte family.

The startup project team and partners. It was great to leave the project with this celebration and the feeling of a job well done.


Thorsten