2 campus & 2 intake dynamics

There have been at least 2 awkward introductions in the past week when I've met someone on the Singapore campus, I've asked them how they liked Singapore over the first 4 months of the program, and they explain that they actually spent those 4 months with me in Fonty. This is bizarre for the Singapore intake to see. They started with 100 in their class and they all know each other by this point. Fonty was different, the environment didn't facilitate interaction like it does in Singapore. For one thing, there are many more people to get to know (300 vs 100). In addition, students disperse themselves over the French countryside as opposed to concentrating themselves in 2 high rise apartment buildings as happens with Dover/Heritage. In fonty, you always saw the exact same crowd out at the social events (maybe 60% of the class). There was another 40% who rarely, if ever, went to the standard events. If you didn't share a section with these people, it was possible that you never properly met them.

There are 3 distinct groups on campus these days. The P4s who started in Fonty, the P4s who started in Singapore, and the P1s who just arrived here. The interaction between the 3 groups isn't as fluid as you might expect. P3's mingle and slowly break down the walls between the campus intakes, but their seems to be very little interaction between the P1s & P3s. It isn't suprising, P3's are still tired from meeting hundreds of new faces over the past months and the P1s have enough name learning to do of the people that are in their own boat. Judging from our first periods in France, the most successful ones to break the P1-P3 divide will be the P3 guys. They seemed to have some sort of power to win the attention of our intake's P1 girls. I guess girls are always impressed by the older, confident guys. Let's see if our P3 guys are able to find the same keys to success.

A new beginning

Stepping onto the campus in Singapore was a bit cathartic. P1 & P2 in Fonty were great, but I feel my MBA experience now has a chance to truly begin.

P3 is the opportunity to break free from the shackles....of core courses, of pre-defined projects, of a herd like mentality. Up until now, it was all too easy to be swept away in a current of convention. While the current is still strong, I am serenely content with the idea of breaking free and swimming alone.

So, P2 was not a very successful blogging period for me. It started off hot, I found a lot of success with my Sex & the MBA entry! On the other hand, someone or two took strange pleasure in making my anonymous blog a little bit less so. Maybe having my identity known made blogging subconsciously a little less fun...or maybe the mountain of coursework and group work made blogging seem less of a priority. Either way, in P3 I will pick it back up and share my perspective on this whole strange experiment called the INSEAD MBA.

Week 1 in Singapore was really great! It is not easy getting back into the casework mode after spending a non-stop 2.5 weeks with the person I love most in life on an amazing holiday. Plus, the feeling of being at a resort seems inconsistent with work for me. Being able to swim and play tennis in the sun each day just outside my front door is associated with vacation, not school. I've just drawn up a schedule of all key deliverable dates to force myself to stay on top of the workload.

The most work in week 1 seemed related to weekend trips. Just 1 week in and loads of people have all weekends through the end of P2 booked...Thailand, Bali, Vietnam, Cambodia, KL, HK, blah, blah, blah. I'm a bit slower to figure out exactly where I want to go and more importantly who I do and don't want to go with. Some location decisions area easy...I've never been a beach person, I enjoy the culture of the big cities or countryside much more. Plus, I hate group tours, that'll cross of lots of trips where half of the airplane is made up of INSEAD students. I've spent enough time on superficial relationships in the last 4 months, I look forward to building better and long lasting bonds in the next 4.

Blue Ocean Strategy

We had a very good class today in Strategy. It's sad to say, but it may be the only class I've really enjoyed this year at INSEAD. The core courses that we are required to take in P1 & P2 are so essential to anyone who will carry the MBA title but so mundane for anyone with a business background. On the other hand, I am so pumped for the electives I'll take in the last 3/5ths of the year & I'm sure they will more than make up for the lack of excitement felt until now.

To be fair, Strategy has been a winner all P2 long, but today I actually felt disappointment that the 90 min class had to come to an end. The professor, Peter Zemsky, is a really favorite among the class. He fits my stereotypical image of strategy professor. Very quirky, bouncing off the walls with energy, he is very much like a professor version of Jim Carrey.

The topic of the day was Blue Ocean Strategy, a concept made famous by 2 INSEAD professors. According to Zemsky, it is one of the biggest developments in the Strategy field in the last decade and definitely the most important idea to come out if INSEAD in that time. We started the class with a look at a very clear case of successful use of Blue Ocean Strategy; that is Nintendo with their development of the Wii. It looks like this, if Nintendo would have done the traditional move and developed a product based on graphics and power like Sony & Microsoft, all 3 firms would be fighting it out in the same ocean that would be turned red from the bloodbath. Instead, by leaving those two firms to fight it out for the traditional customer set, Nintendo developed a system that went after an uncontested market and thus was able to enjoy its own blue ocean.

We went on to a very fun discussion of the circus industry and how Cirque du Soleil's model is another successful example of Blue Ocean Strategy. By developing this concept which is something of a cross between a traditional circus and a Broadway show, founder Guy Laliberte has created $1.5B of wealth for himself....not bad!!!

We have been learning some frameworks to assist with the thought process behind coming up with these types of strategies, such as the Non-Customer Opportunity and Value Curves. It is really cool seeing how such simple tools can add structure to strategic thought development. Who knows, maybe they will help me come up with the next Cirque du Soleil or Yellow Tail wine.

Private Equity, the incredible dream

PE is quite probably the most sexy career out there for us MBAs. It has such an alluring appeal that even those who have no clue what the hell it is claim that it is their #1 aspiration post INSEAD.

I am too drawn in by PE. In what other career can you incorporate so many interesting facets of business? It can potentially cover everything from technical analysis, strategic planning, organizational engineering, and operations to networking, deal sourcing/structuring, and negotiations. It really appeals to me given that I know that I have all the relevant analytic skills and have convinced at least myself that I have all the business sense required to build businesses and create value.

The bad news is that it is almost impossible getting a job in PE. There are no formal recruiting processes on campus. Most positions are filled informally or through headhunters. We had one of the top PE headhunters from the UK in to present last week. He painted a grim picture... First, given the current financial conditions, growth in the sector is questionable at best. Second, unless you have an IB background or at least top tier consulting with serious focus on transactions, then you can forget PE or at least go get the relevant feeder experience and then you can dream.

Recruiters from industries that leach off of PE have found a unique sales pitch...join us as a gateway into PE. Bain & Co.'s head of European PE practice was in today to introduce his practice, a subset of their traditional mgmt consulting group which slaves away on due diligence work for, fair enough, a lot of the big deals taking place in Europe.

So, what to do? I would love to do private equity type work, maybe even on a very small scale with a couple of colleagues. Just have to figure out how to scape together the capital. I'm really excited for the Realizing Entrepreneurial Potential (REP) course in P4 that essentially prepares you to do all of this (sourcing/financing/biz planning) and then the follow-up in P5, First 100 Days, which actually replicates the intensity of the days following a takeover in a close to reality type format.

Conniving INSEAD bloggers

This is a bit bizarre to have to say, but if anyone has received an email supposedly from the author of this blog....let me set the record straight...it wasn’t me.

Guess someone dreamt up this misconceived tactic to shut me up or punish me for the last post…

Sex & the MBA

In the interest of preparing for my marketing and strategy classes which begin on Monday, I've decided to implement the oldest marketing trick in the book. Let's see if sex sells in the blogoshpere as well it does elsewhere...thank god I still have my anonymity :)

The underdog
How is a guy supposed to get laid in the MBA? It feel likes mission impossible, given the gender mix at INSEAD, there about 3 guys chasing each girl. On top of this, you have "the heros" who go out and get more than their fair share leaving the average guy fighting it out for the scaps.

The overpriced asset
I already miss Econ god, Nikos Vettas. How would he diagnose this predicament. Well given my top marks on his quizzes, I will speak on his behalf. The INSEAD market for tail is behaving like a closed economy. In a free market, there exists a market clearing price of X representing the value a guy must bring to the table in order to walk away successful. This could be looks, personality, power, yes....money, etc. However in INSEAD's closed economy, where supply is restricted by about 66%....there is a shift in the supply curve which forces prices WELL above the efficient market price. Right, but what does that mean for everyone who hasn't had Prices & Markets....well it means that MBA chicks can expect more than they would in the open markets of say NY or London.

The bright side
(1)top quality girls: The girls at INSEAD are amazing. Most are super bright and ambitious, 5% are super beautiful, an additional 20-40% could be considered pretty by various standards, the rest are...well, smart at least:)

(2)relatively weak competition: if you're a guy of average looks on the outside...you are probably above average at INSEAD....

(3)adjusted gender split: after adjusting for seriously committed people (a category to which I belong), I think the odds become relatively better for single guys. There seems to be a much higher percentage of committed guys in the program than there are committed girls.

(4)alcohol...ok, we all know that relationships start or progress thanks to alcohol. At INSEAD and I guess all MBAs, rarely is there a night here where you can't find some sort of social event. And never is there a social event without plenty of wine or other booze. Of course this can be a good or bad thing...I've seen some super sloppy hook ups on dance floors and outside of parties this year that shouldn't have seen like a good idea under any condition.

(5)biological clocks...the single girls are LOOKING FOR A PARTNER, some have this as an explicit objective for the year...wonder if that made it into any of their application essays

The heros
There are some guys here who know how to clean up in the given marketplace. They are able to win more than their fare share and are nimble enough to elude any relationship trap that gets laid out for them. One strategy I've seen very successfully played is "the bad boy". I'm amazed how many girls this guy has drooling over him, some of them are pretty top notch. It's not that he is a great looking guy but I guess he does have a blue ocean strategy in that not too many others are playing the bad boy persona.

The fling
They happen A LOT! They happen more than any of us really know, because in general, they are pretty discrete. What I do know, however, is that of my single roomates who have had some sort of fling, I doubt many other people in the class know.

The relationship
Often elusive for those looking for it. I think as we get closer to P5, the flings will die out and be gradually replaced by these relationships. There are, however, serious couples that have developed already. One couple I know started up by the end of the first week of class and are already moving in together starting P3. I spoke to a couple on campus for a 10yr reunion...apparently there were 10 couples married from their class. I think the same will happen in our class and all others. As I mentioned before...this is an explicit goal of probably most of our single classmates.

Virtual sex
Some of those with long distance partners need to find ways to be creative. I've heard the words porno-skype used.

MBA (Married But Available?)
Yes, a lot of relationships fail in the MBA. There is A LOT that one side of the relationship is going through and it is not easy to relate this to the partner. There is the jealousy from the partner who is maybe working in a distant place and possibly feeling marginalized by the intense work and social schedule of the participant. However, for me and others who are very certain about their relationship, I think the risks are overblown. There are many "committed" people who have come into the program and were clearly looking for better. I have definitely seen it...from those dating and those married. There is more than one example of students with partners far away where the phrase "out of sight, out of mind" seems applicable.

One incredible story that I've heard about was the partner of an INSEAD student. Apparently she accompanied the student to campus and had the reputation for having A LOT of fun outside of her relationship...with other students & partners... Sounds over the top, but with so many people mentioning it, could it be true??

Blogger sex
Two of my fellow July 08 bloggers seem to be spending A LOT of time together...and have been from week 1. Seems that they hit it off so well in blogland before meeting in person...could blogging be the next big way to find dates??? Hmmm...could be the first INSEAD blogger couple ever!

Who cares about MBA exams

My first ever MBA final will held tomorrow morning followed shortly thereafter by a second in the afternoon. Tuesday looks the same and then by noon on Wednesday, we will be celebrating the end of P1 (or wondering where the hell it went).

But why, I wonder, is there so much anxiety about these final exams.

Did I pay 50,000EUR to stress out once every 2 months and try to cram cram cram....NO. Sure I want to learn, but anything I wasn't capable of absorbing in the past 2 months probably won't stick if I try to jam in in my head with 500 other concepts in a 72 cram session.

Is there a chance that any of us will walk away without a diploma...Ha! are you kidding. I stopped worrying about that after I passed my 3rd language requirment with a score of 50/100 where pass requirement was...well 50/100.

Don't I want to work my ass of to make dean's list...not a chance, and the day someone comes to my office looking for a job and claims that being on the dean's list makes them a good candidate....see ya...it's laughable that the likes of McK & some big banks can drive students to strive for the DL. Smart of them, now it they want to know who will be willing to sacrifice all aspects of their personal life for an overrated job, they have a good proxy.

Why are all these consultants, who already have guaranteed jobs to go back to, interupting class to ask if X & Y will be tested on the exam, or if the professor can provide 20 more practice tests for them to do!?!?!? Is it just some irrational competitive drive. For me, it shows a lack of touch with reality. Even the professors repeatedly tell these people that the tests are not what's important, most think there shouldn't even be final exams in a masters program.

Results on the finals will be correlated to absolutely nothing that's important in life, so let's stop stressing people.