I am loving P3; it's a combination of being in Asia and finally being able to choose courses. Here is a quick breakdown:
VOBM (Venture opportunities & business models)
Professor Phil Anderson is really incredible. The guy is the most efficient person I have ever met...I think he may have an agenda for each class broken down to half-minute intervals; not even 1 second in his class is misused. What's more, the class is so interesting. Many name it their favorite class of the period. The class is kind of an intro to venture capitalism. Phil puts a lot of effort into these classes. He writes several "live cases" for each period where you read of a current dilemma faced by an entrepreneur and then the case "comes to life" as the entrepreneurs come to discuss the case in class. The guy even personally takes ~14 pg transcripts of everything that was said during the visiting lecturers and sends them out in “less than 24hrs”…amazing.
Strategies for Asia Pacific
Fantastic look at doing business in Asia. Professor Michael Witt seems to be quite an expert on the region and makes even history lectures entertaining with his un-PC version of events. The first set of lectures were backgrounds of the larger countries (Japan, Korea, China) and then we moved onto case studies looking at how to partner and what to look out for. The professor’s explicit objective is to make sure we don’t get completely taken advantage of on business deals in the region. Seems that screwing people in Asia is popular in more than one way.
Negotiations:
OK, this is a good course and could make it into a core course. I think maybe it was a bit over hyped (as seen in that it is the only course that cost most people some of their bid points...even though there are 4 full sections offered). Professor Horacio Falcao is certainly entertaining, but the best part of the course is the frequent role-playing negotiation exercises that we carry out. Debrief discussions in lecture tend to drag on a bit too long for my liking. I think the course only needs 12 lectures rather than 16 ala IPA.
The last 2 core courses are also very good. International Political Analysis is relevant to business people…even if some people grew tired of Kapstein’s Davos name dropping. I liked the guy and found the course great. Apparently some of French students were offended by some of his views on politics in their country. E.g. France turned over monetary policy to Germany because they “needed adult supervision”. Probably most realize that French policy kills businesses and growth in their country, but I guess they don’t like being told that by an American.
Macro is also very good. I’ve had the course in undergrad, but it is a nice refresher and Ilian Mihov is a great professor…keeps it at an “Econ for MBAs” level.
P4 electives are shaping up to be just as good. Here are a few of the courses I’m looking at: Realizing Entrepreneurial Potential (basically a step-by-step guide to acquire a company), Private Equity, New Business Ventures (taking a venture idea from the P3 VOBM or Ent. Field Studies course to the next level).
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I finally got around to commenting on P1 and your fair points about the 10 month INSEAD.
I guess you'll read about my change of view - but not having been to Fonty (yet), I'm curious as to your thoughts about my different campus different view idea?
Hope all is well.....
Accipiter
Nice insightful post -- makes the reader feel physically present. And I liked the pictures also.. maybe someday I can learn from you where to get such poignant pictures.
I was looking at the P3 and P4 electives for INSEAD ( jus checking out the college to see if it fits me ) .. in New Business Ventures (P4) are you allowed to develop your own business ventures -- if you already have a idea which you want to crystallize into a new business venture -- do you get to follow it up? How do you choose the team -- people you already have been socialising with or do you pitch your idea infront of the students and find who wants to work for it?
Same Anonymous :-)
I couldnot find the VOBM course offering from Prof. Phil Anderson on the INSEAD edu site. Would you chance to have it?
I have read a lot of Prof Anderson's teaching capabilities and was quite interested in his course offerings?
Btw -- would you say it is too premature to do this, since I have not yet applied ( and hence not yet admitted {or dinged}) .. but I was really interested in knowing whether the curriculum will fit my goals.
- Parth ( from legends of Hindu Mythology )
Hi Parth
The electives are definilty set up so that you can generate your own entrepreneurial ideas and then take them all the way through to reality. Students set up their own teams (in all classes except the core courses). This can go one of 2 ways...first, people join with their friends. I've done groups this way, but I prefer the second approach which is finding people who are interested in focusing on the same topic as you and joing a team with them.
Sadly it seems the VOBM course will not be taught anymore. A real shame since it was one of my favorites all year. It seems that Phil needs to devote his time to other purposes (and this course sucked up a lot of his time).
Thanks for the response.
I am sorry to hear that Prof Andersen will not be conducting the VOBM courses any more. Will he be teaching any other courses in Entrepreneurship area?
Probably I misunderstood your response -- did you mean that the entire VBOM course will be taken off -- or some other professor will be conducting that course?
Did you take any course from Prof Patrick Turner -- I have heard a lot of key EFE courses are conducted by Prof Turner?
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