Back to work!

I just got back to Lausanne a couple of hours ago. My suitcase was packed with liver pate and marinated herring, the good ol' traditional Danish dishes that any good Dane craves for when abroad. In Denmark we prefer to eat these delicaies with dark ryebread for lunch. The only places I have found the ryebread outside of Denmark is in Germany and - to my great surprise - here in Switzerland. I then only need to get the aforementioned toppings from home, which my girlfriend sofar has supplied on her frequent visits. So with the IMD restaurant for lunch and my native food for dinner it is understandably a serious challenge to keep the extra unwanted kilos away.

I feel better than I have done for three months. I need to say that while I can. Tomorrow we dive in again and soon we will have forgotten how strong and confident we feel when we are completely rested. I have slept a lot over the past four days, but it feels like we have been off for much longer than that. Most of all because the week of exams is much less stressfull than the normal IMD schedule. Nevertheless, I managed no less than three naps on Thursday: I slept half the flight to Copenhagen, took a nap in the afternoon and another one after dinner. Still I had no problem at sleeping from 11pm to 9am. I think I had some catching up to do.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Building Block II. That means a goodbye to Operations with Professor Nikos Tsikriktsis and a half goodbye to Economics and Professor Ralf Boscheck who dominated Building Block I, but who only will be back for a few 'guest appearances' in the next Building Block.

The new Building Block also means new study groups. The new groups will effectively start on Wednesday, but we should already be informed about the new groups tomorrow. I believe it is fair to say that everybody is excited to learn about their new groups as they will be the center for many hours of work on assignments, projects and integrative exercises until the summer break.

Thorsten



This is what an MBA exam look like in 2009. Here it is Finance.



Same exam, different angle.

Change the chip

While the snow was falling heavily this morning outside the auditorium we were presenting our Economics projects inside. Six of them in total, which means that we were nothing less than 15 in each group. The challenge with such a large group is to keep it running effectively and to get a coherent result. It requires a large amount of coordination to get it right, but all six groups pulled it off and gave very interesting presentations. It was big audacious subjects that were on the agenda: Environment, Poverty, Climate change, Intellectual Property and Food Supply. All of them presented in an Economic perspective and all of them with great complexities and dilemmas built in. As he has done many times the past two months Economics Professor Ralf Boscheck reminded us that it is time to 'Change the chip'. This is Ralf's code for saying that it is time for a change of mindset, time to realize that the one-eyed capitalist's relentless pursuit of 'growth, growth, growth' will not give us the world we dream about. Today, he added that if we cannot change the chip, then we can at least 'add a new one to balance the old one'. It is interesting to learn Economics from someone who studied Philosophy before studying Economics.

The 'Intellectual Property' group used the Music industry to demonstrate the importance of intellectual property rights and showed this video on the future of the internet, which I found very interesting.



The theme of 'Critical thinking' spans across all classes. We have had 'Critical thinking' in very broad terms with Phil Rosenzweig , in Marketing with Martin Koschat and in Operations with Nikos Tsikriktsis. Today Arturo Bris, whom we met for the first time, took us through the overarching philosophy and psychology of Finance. No easy task to complete in an hour and a half in a class where sleep deprivation is taking its toll. This has without a doubt been the toughest week so far and the number of red eyes in the class room are growing. And there is absolutely no signs of the pressure easing any time soon.

Thorsten

Spring is in the air

This morning we had the much anticipated economics test on the material that we have been through so far. Some of our classmates had made some excellent summaries which they shared with the rest of the glass. That was a great help, thank you! It is hard to gauge how we have done on the test, but it was nevertheless nice to actually see a test so we can get a feel for what they will be looking for at the exams.

The economics class continued with Economic Policy, which in Ralf Boscheck's usual fast-paced style covered the fundamentals of classic liberalism, Keynes, Fiscal versus Monetary policies and political communication in no amount of time. We were then split in groups representing the advisors and different stakeholders around Obama; each with there own agenda and with plenty of good advise to the new president on how he should run his country. Jodie Roussell [American] impressed everyone with a very well articulated speech. Perhaps we have a future politician in the class!

Accounting professor Stewart Hamilton finished off the 'Profit & Loss' and took us straight into the 'Cash Flow Statement'. I don't know what it is with accounting. It is the most simple, structured and straight forward subject we have, but for some reason it never adds up the first time.

It is a beautiful day in Lausanne today! It may be a bit too early to talk about spring (it snowed yesterday morning), but the light is definitely coming back and you can feel that the air is changing. This weekend we have a bit of breathing space for the first time in a long time. Everything is relative, of course, and 'breathing space' in IMD terms means no hard deliverables in the next few days. There is, of course, still class all day tomorrow, several projects going on and a ton of reading for next week, but I guess we are learning to appreciate the little time we occasionally have for doing other things. Some of that time will be spent celebrating the birthdays of Wouter Naessens [Belgian] and Coralie Leresche [French/Swiss] at the White Horse tonight.

Thorsten

Economics Ironman

We kicked the day off with Accounting and continued with Operations with Professor Nikos Tsikriktsis. Todays subject was on Process analysis and took us around the concepts of Cycle Times, Throughput times and bottlenecks. 'You are not engineers', Nikos said, 'but you need to know what questions to ask!'

Today was crunch-time for the ICA projects that we have been working on for the past two weeks. The projects were handed in last night, and today some of the groups were picked to present for the class. We got some very interesting presentations on topics ranging from IT and Oil Explorations to manufacturing of helicopters. Another reminder of the enormous collective experience there is in the class.

We all felt relieved that the project was over and we could get back to all the other stuff we need to do. Economics Professor Ralf Boscheck let the air out of that balloon very quickly though with one sentence: 'And tomorrow we start another project.' Well, at least we felt good for about an hour or so.

Class was over at 19.15 and 15 minutes later some twenty of us found ourselves lined up for another round of fitness with Patricia. No time wasted! Neither is there during Patricia's sessions. The program is designed to take us through both cardiovascular and muscular training as well as some stretching in just one hour. There are no breaks, of course!

If last fridays full day of Economics was a marathon, then the coming days are an Ironman. From now and until saturday at lunch time we are basically only doing Economics. Macro-economics that is, starting tomorrow. Ralf Boscheck only gave us one assignment for tomorrows class: 'Get a good nights sleep!'. That's an order I can commit to!

Goodnight,

Thorsten

Economics marathon

Today was an 8.00-to-18.00 Economics Marathon with Professor Ralf Boscheck on center stage all day. The morning session went with 'Institutional Economics'. This gave a great insight in the theories behind how you decide which functions to outsource and which ones to keep in-house as well as what decisions you should make centrally and which ones that are best done locally.

The afternoon session was on the subject of 'Regulation' in an economic perspective. I will never look at our politicians and legislators the same way again after that session. Now I have an idea of the dilemmas they are battling. The session was vividly illustrated by examples of the consequences of deregulating the US airline industry, UK water and electricity supply as well as the health care sector in general. I can see why it is practically impossible to come to a clear definition on the optimal balance between regulation and free market forces in these markets.

Today was just a warm-up for next week, where we combined have economics for almost four full days.

Thorsten


Economics Professor Ralf Boscheck in a nutshell. He has filled in seven blackboards (two more outside the picture) and continues on the flip-chart. I think it would make him feel empty inside if he ever was to leave a class room with empty space on the blackboards.

It is finally warm enough for an outdoor ping-pong game after lunch. At the first table it is (left to right) Bruno Portnoi [Brazilian], Stefano Giussani [Italian], Shibu James [Indian] and Yury Vasilkov [Russian] that are showing the hidden talents. In the back is Seif Shieshakli [Saudi Arabian/German] and Ilya Syshchikov [Russian].