Results tagged “INSEAD” from INSEAD insight

This evening, we gathered at Amphi Mork in the Singapore campus to meet our new Dean, Dipak Jain. I’m listing out what I remembered from his speech to give you an idea of what he’s like, beyond the formal CV and press release. Fellow alums who were present - do chip in and let me know if I missed anything out, or recorded anything mistakenly.

Overall, Dipak came across as an unassuming man - thoughtful and perceptive. He is also a great storyteller. He told us of how, along the way, various people mentored and shaped his future to what he has become today. He had a strong mathematics background and was advised to apply for a teaching position at Kellogg. He didn’t think he had much chance of getting in, but managed to impress marketing guru Philip Kotler during his ‘test’ lecture, and was hired on the spot!

His own students proved to be another group of mentors, when they gave him suggestions to improve his lecturing style. I found this remarkable because it isn’t something you hear top professors talking about candidly. Yet, by listening to feedback from his students and peers, Dipak improved and became a consistently top-rated professor at Kellogg - and in marketing, at that.

His first stint as Dean of Kellogg came during a difficult period - September 11. Halfway through the students’ welcome reception he was informed of the tragedy that struck the twin towers, and the event had to be cut short. Some students lost the financial assistance/job assurances from their companies (?), and Dipak decided to ask the community for help, despite a peer believing he would tarnish his reputation by doing so. Dipak’s response was that he had not yet developed a reputation as a dean, and so had nothing to lose! :) His actions led to a surplus of jobs being offered to the affected students. His point was that relationships with his students were important to him. My sense: This is a leader who will take care of INSEAD.

Dipak mentioned his vision of the 4 pillars of INSEAD - I didn’t take notes, so am relying entirely on slightly dubious memory - but I recall his emphasis on the following:

Continuing the global heritage of INSEAD. He was proud that we had 80 nationalities in one cohort; it’s something that US schools cannot compare with. In fact, big US companies have realised that their staff need global experience, and this is an opportunity for us.

The Executive MBA programme is important and will be pursued more aggressively. These alums are in a better position to contribute back to INSEAD readily. Dipak noted that the top EMBA programmes are mainly from alliances of various schools and Kellogg came in tops. Our new Dean of Research, Ilian Mihov (whom many of us remember fondly as an outstanding macroecons professor and Bulgarian hero), threw in a comment that we can now test whether it was due to Dipak that Kellog became number one… we shall now wait and see if INSEAD takes top spot, with Dipak’s leadership!

Alliances will also be strengthened and new ones will be formed. How about a Wharton-INSEAD joint programme, not just an exchange? Recently, we paired up with Johns-Hopkins as well. He shared that other Ivy League schools are keen to partner with INSEAD. However, we must choose our partners wisely. Allying with one top MNC to provide them with a special EMBA programme may alienate our relationship with their rivals, who also send their staff to INSEAD for training.

Dipak firmly believes that research and teaching go together. When you teach, you also learn. So research will be beefed up. Thought leadership will be strengthened. One alum asked how would we measure thought leadership, and Dipak listed out some indicators: The strength of the faculty, whom he believes in continuously nurturing, our publications and the growing number of INSEAD alums in top management positions throughout the world. He cited the composition of the current INSEAD Board as an example.

Business school rankings were also another indicator, although he noted this was subject to the scoring criteria of the publication doing the ranking. Some schools fared more poorly simply because they had more social entrepreneurs than bankers. One alum was concerned about the poor rankings we had in the Economist, but Dipak said that this particular ranking should be read from bottom up :) Now it makes sense!

Given the risk-averse nature of business school faculty (who are used to calculating risks and usually prefer not to embark on new ventures), Dipak admires INSEAD’s bold move to open the Asia Campus in Singapore a decade ago. Not many schools can do it well in such a short space of time. The question that an alum had, were whether having classes on the third campus in Abu Dhabi would affect the relationship-building among the student body. Dipak believes that the students in the third campus can be limited to very small numbers, and they will test this out. The plans for this are very much a work in progress.

Dipak has a vision to move beyond the ‘cold, hard’ business world, and do good. He is planning to open a university for women in Bangladesh, teaching them entrepreneurship and other useful skills. Other universities in Angola and South America are possible as well. He feels that women will play a bigger influence on their children, and this is an area with greater room for impact. INDEVOR will be involved. I think this is a noble move and will definitely find support among many of us.

Another comment, sparked off by feedback from my classmate (our first Mongolian!), was made by a former Alumni club president: We should identify high-potential people in developing countries who would otherwise not afford to take the GMAT and apply to INSEAD. Dipak said he and his team are open to feedback; they would take suggestions from alums seriously.

So what’s the new org structure going to be like? Altogether there will be 3 deans under Dipak (MBA programme and other programmes; Research; and something else…). The new programme and research deans were present with us.

All in all, the session went well. It felt like we were part of the club; our opinions mattered and that’s why some of us get to interview applicants - to see if they belong with us. My sense was that people were satisfied with what they heard and saw.

Early into his speech, the power supply in Amphi Mork went off and we sat in darkness. Dipak continued talking to us, and technicians came in bringing coloured containers with candles in them. Dipak picked one of these containers up, and told us that this was what he was named after. His father was blind, and so when Dipak was born, he was named as such, to give ‘light’ to his father.

I certainly hope that Dipak will help shine a new, bright light onto INSEAD, and that we ourselves can use our talents and world-class education to be a shining light to the rest of the world.

I have been rather busy (doing the work of 2 managers, leading a team of 17 relatives for a big family event, launching a big, international Tender, preparing an academic paper). Soon I will be flying to Hong Kong and then the UK for a reunion trip.

So, what have I been doing, INSEAD-wise?

I have been meeting up with my boyfriend (INSEAD Alum 06) and, every now and then, his very nice classmates, over a nice dinner party or drinks. I met up with my own classmates a number of times but have had to pass on the most recent ones - too many things happening concurrently!

As an alumna, I have also received invitations to attend various leadership talks, a couple of which I’ve attended so far. I maintain relations with the Singapore library (with the occasional email query or borrowed book), am still in touch with folks from the Career Services (met up with a senior manager, DY, who came over briefly from Fonty), and have added a few more classmates to our Singapore July 09 mailing list as they’ve moved here to work.

And I’ve only just realised my contact form has somehow gone kaput. This is weird because I obviously haven’t touched any code on my blogs in what feels like years. Anyway, I pasted in some new code and voila, people can write to me again. I was impressed with the resourcefulness of one INSEAD applicant who, last week, managed to track down my email address and contacted me there instead, after noticing that my form failed. She’d get bonus points for resourcefulness, if I were on the admissions committee!

However, I have been so busy that I’ve had to prioritise my office work, career development, family matters before I answer queries from people I haven’t met in person. So please be patient with me and if you must remind me, do so gently :)

Also, I am not obliged to reply to all queries, so do keep your emails succinct and do as much research as you can before asking me questions about INSEAD.

Support your local INSEAD alumni association by signing up as a member in your respective country.

I’ve joined the Singapore alumni association, which is pretty active. They organise a number of social activities, culminating in the annual Monsoon Ball which seems to be getting bigger every year. Usually, paid alumni members get a discount on tickets to these events.

And even though we’ve graduated, the learning continues (not just the partying!) as you also get invited to guest lectures. Also, this may sound nerdy, but you get to use the library services 24/7.

As an INSEAD alumnus in Singapore, I tend to receive a fair number of requests for help from current and incoming students, alumni/classmates and partners.

Specifically, when it comes to requests for getting a job in my workplace or with local companies I’m connected to, I’ve decided I can help with certain things.

The baseline is that I will help you get your foot through the door. I will forward your CV to the relevant decision makers and mention that you are a fellow INSEADer. If I’ve worked with you before, I’d be happy to add a few good words. I’ve already done so for two classmates I’ve worked with.

If time permits, I can also share with applicants (those interested in joining my organisation) some of my insights on the working culture and career prospects, and the wider context of the health and public sectors. So far I’ve done this with at least 3 people (a current student and 2 partners).

On the other hand, I also have to balance my desire to help INSEADers with the needs of my organisation and the public sector. Remember that I’m wearing two hats now - that of a fellow INSEADer and a prospective employer. So I need to know how you can contribute to our cause, not just how you hope to benefit from getting a job with us. I need to believe you’re serious about contributing and aren’t using us as a short-term stepping stone.

I say this partly because of recent experience shared by an alumnus who has experienced this attitude with other INSEAD grads. It saddens me, because our reputation deserves better than that. Even if we have MBAs, it doesn’t mean we’re automatically entitled to a cushy job - we have to prove our worth through our actions.

So I too will be more discerning in who I refer, and how much I will stick my neck out. In any case, our hiring process is fair, so if you’re the best fit, you will get the offer on your own merit. And that’s probably the best outcome for all of us.

At work today, I listened to two colleagues relating how they spent the past week doing a crash course. It involved situational analysis, defining and categorising the issues, writing and then presenting a proposal. They told me of how they worked past midnight every day. I learned that some of their groupmates came from other parts of the region, and one was even a Belgian who resided in Singapore.

I looked at both of them, and wasn’t greatly impressed. It was not that I was merciless or wanted to put them down - I respect my colleagues. It’s just because this sort of intense work is commonplace at INSEAD. Especially in the first two periods (P1 and P2) - that’s four months, not just 5 working days. And to top it off, we have exams!

It’s just as gruelling if you took the optional INSEAD Business Foundations course prior to P1. In fact I suspect Business Foundations doesn’t just give you a grounding in the basics (for those of us with no business backgrounds) but jolts you into realising, “What have I got myself into??” as you plough through your notes into the wee hours of the night, trying to complete your assignments with your groupmates. It’s not an experience for the faint-hearted.

With crash courses, you don’t just gain vast quantities of insights in a short space of time. Because of the brutal pace of learning, you also bond with your groupmates quickly. One of my colleagues befriended a foreign participant in her group and is meeting up with him tomorrow. And so classmates become friends, across different continents and cultures.

If such international friendships can develop in the space of a working week, with just 18 people, imagine what can happen at an accelerated full-time MBA at INSEAD over a period of 10 months or more, between 450+ students around the world.

Afternote: I have to write a paper involving bilateral relationships (i.e. international relations between countries) within the next day, present and get it approved by senior management by this week, submit it to my Ministry for approval, after which it will be will proposed to the WHO. Is it daunting?? Not quite, because we’ve done this kind of work at INSEAD already.

I look at such challenges through a very difference lens now. And after INSEAD, you will, too.

I’ve created a Google Groups mailing list for those in my cohort (July 2009) who are based in Singapore. This is to reduce the chances of anyone being left out in a mass mailing.

Now we only need to email a single address for everyone to be updated. Members can also choose their preferred format - to receive emails as they come, as a daily digest, or view all discussions via the web only. They can also unsubscribe themselves if they leave Singapore and invite newcomers to join the list. The list is private so only members can view our discussions.

Currently, there are over 40 of us on this list. Most are working in Singapore while a few are living in the region and visit Singapore frequently, so they don’t seem to mind being kept in the loop.

So if you’re moving to Singapore for the long haul, let us know, and we’ll invite you to join our mailing list. If you’re just popping by for a short visit, let us know as well and we can arrange a get-together.

Instead of publicising the link to our Google Groups page on this blog, I’ll post it on my Facebook profile, to minimise the chance of getting spammed.

Last evening I organised a big INSEAD get-together to welcome back my P1-P2 groupmate, RB, otherwise known as ‘the Professor’ - for giving some of us Finance tuition and also for topping the entire INSEAD cohort via mastery of the Z-curve. After travelling the world and making the rest of us jealous, he has taken on a ‘new look’ which will surprise you all.

It was heartwarming to see everyone again and meet a few new people - i.e. the ones who were mostly in Fonty whom I never really got to know. I’m convinced that, with such a large cohort split across 2 campuses (3 if you count Wharton) and relatively little time, it’s not possible to know everyone. But you can still try…

And I used to be paranoid about hosting anything on a large scale, because I didn’t think I was a natural at such things. But it isn’t so bad after all if you can simplify the work, like the choosing of food (we had an Indonesian buffet at Rice Table which catered to all diets) and getting others to help out.

Meanwhile I hear other INSEADers in other parts of the world are pining for some familiar company ;-) If things aren’t so happening where you are, then why not organise a gathering of your own? Or, maybe it’s time to pay some of us a visit!

Every year, INSEAD alumni are invited to a Meeting in Asia where they are updated on what’s happening with the school, ask questions and network.

I surreptitiously took some photos, sans flash (not wanting to look like a tourist, but still a blogger at heart). Let me give you a glimpse into the life of an alumnus:

Prof Ilian Mihov, who taught many of us J09ers and also won the best teaching award, gives us an update on the state of the economy.

Dean Frank Brown speaks.

INSEAD co-founder and Honorary Chairman, Claude Janssen, speaks in the auditorium named after him.

I was moved by a current P2’s speech on how important it is that we keep alumni scholarships going. Many students in my batch gave to the Robin Hood fund, breaking the previous year’s record if I’m not mistaken.

It was nice seeing one of my INSEAD interviewers, SA, speaking next. It’s been over a year since we first met, and she looked and sounded fabulous.

Unfortunately I had to dash off for an appointment, and missed the rest of her panel as well as the final talk by Prof JC Larreche on the Momentum Effect, which seems to be the next big thing after Blue Ocean (at least, from the publicity it’s been getting). Time will tell…

Then in the evening we headed to the Ball. But that is worthy of a separate post in itself!

I’m probably one of the few INSEADers who have visited the campus in Second Life. Which is a shame, because it is quite a pretty place - even if there’s nobody else in sight except for some semi-intelligent bots that look like human beings and attempt to make conversation with you.

I teleported back into the virtual campus just now, and heard a familiar voice around me. It was that of our Dean, Frank Brown, being interviewed on a big screen. It’s nice to be immersed in multimedia all around your Avatar.

What have I done on the INSEAD Second Life campus so far? I’ve attended a talk and reviewed some slides from a previous presentation by a professor. I even chatted to employees of the Hungarian company that developed this virtual campus. In fact I think Second Life is a good medium for an international school operating on different continents and timezones.

However, overall, I feel the virtual campus is underutilised because it’s not as easy to access as Facebook; you need to download a huge installation file and hope that your graphics card can support the 3D rendering.

Still, I’ll continue to support our virtual campus because it reminds me of how INSEAD has shown innovation. Being the first (or one of the first) to have an accelerated MBA course and coming up with the idea of Executive Education, INSEAD’s foray into virtual worlds is another far-reaching step, even if it will take some time to bear fruition.

Back in Jan 2009 I was happy that this blog had 40 subscribers to the news feed.

Today, this blog has over 200 subscribers. Woot!

Thanks for your support, even into my post-INSEAD days. I will continue to post INSEAD-related updates on life as an alumna.

Depending on which INSEAD campus you intend to be on during the summer and winter periods, you may get to attend the Summer Ball in Fonty, the Montmelian students’ ball, also in Fonty, and/or the Monsoon Ball in Singapore - or none at all.

Being in the July class, I was able to attend both Balls by virtue of being in Singapore during P1-P2, and then in Fonty by P5. Of course, my choice of campus location wasn’t influenced primarily by the Balls ;-) but it was a happy coincidence as it made the INSEAD experience more colourful.

An INSEAD Ball is worth attending, if you don’t mind splurging a little. The price of this year’s Monsoon Ball is S$225/$260 (early bird/normal price). The Summer Ball usually costs slightly more, probably because it is more expensive to rent a palace in France. For my cohort, I heard that the Montmelian ball in Fonty, which is traditionally organised by fellow students, was apparently better than the Summer Ball.

This year’s Monsoon Ball is on Sat 7 Nov 2009, following the alumni forum which takes place earlier on the same day. The food, champagne and entertainment at last year’s Monsoon Ball was pretty good and I look forward to another spectacular experience this year.

See you there!

A few of you have followed me on Networked Blogs, a Facebook app that keeps track of who’s following which blog. I thought this was a great idea to put faces to some of my readers, if they aren’t shy about it.

So if you’re on Facebook, do add me to your list of followed blogs. See you online!

INSEAD celebrates its first 50 years. I’m keeping an eye on Frank’s blog ;-)

And after the relatively low rankings The Economist has given us, it’s nice to hear something more positive from them:

INSEAD, in France, has just admitted its 50th MBA intake. In 1959 George Doriot, a Harvard professor, persuaded the American School of Art in Fontainebleau to open a European business school to rival those America. It has since become one of the most prestigious names in business education.

Intriguingly, Helen Alexander, the CEO of The Economist Group up to last year, was an INSEAD alum.

Some encouraging news:

Among the top non-U.S. one-year business schools, Insead topped the rankings. The class of 2004 at the school in Fountainbleau, France, had median salary of $218,000 in 2008, which compares with the $64,000 pre-MBA salary they made.

I received an email from Alex Gladstone, INSEAD Class of July 2010, regarding the INSEAD language requirements which some incoming students may be slightly concerned about.

Some already know 3 or more languages - think of the Europeans, especially the Swiss. But there are others who don’t know a 3rd language yet - think of the Americans :P Let me put it this way: P1 and P2 will be hectic and by P4-P5 you’re likely to be busy getting a job. You should really get the 3rd language requirement out of the way so you don’t receive a blank scroll at the graduation ceremony (that’s what I heard they give you if you haven’t met all the requirements yet!).

I’ve copied Alex’s message below. It is mainly for admits from the US and Canada, whose second or third language is likely to be Spanish.

If you are an American or Canadian INSEAD admit that needs certification in Spanish you basically have 3 options. The first is to fly to France and take the language test in Fontainebleau with FL&C language school, but I wouldn’t suggest that unless you are already pretty close to fluent.

The second option is to study independently or with a school familiar with the DELE exam, but this is fairly difficult since the DELE exam is only given twice per year. Regardless of whether you are in a January or July start and when you might get your acceptance letter, you will be in a situation where you’ll only have one shot to take the test. The DELE takes a very long time to return your results (up to two months?) so while you wait you’ll have to keep studying hard in case your fallback is to take the FL&C test instead.

The third and IMHO the best option is to take classes with tradfax.com to prepare for the FIDESCU D.I.E. (I know its a terrible acronym for an exam but don’t worry) which is also accepted at INSEAD. Tradfax is the first (and right now the only) school and examcenter_ in North America that is associated with FIDESCU.

Tradfax is physically in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Its run by Francis Guinazu who has been teaching Spanish, Portuguese, and English as a foreign language for over 25 years. He’ll assess your skills and if necessary set you up with an intensive course of study (say, 8 hr/week or so) to help prepare you for the exam, and you can do it in person via skype or even by phone. You can take the test with tradfax directly rather than having to fly to Spain or elsewhere.

I’m plugging them because I personally used their services and went from a very basic level of Spanish to the required level in just a few months while working a full-time job by using their intensive course.

Check them out at http://www.tradfax.com And good luck to you all!

Thanks Alex for helping out your fellow classmates, in true INSEAD spirit.

If anyone else has any feedback on language schools, just post a comment here. Or, continue the conversation on the INSEAD MBA intranet when your online account has been activated.

The INSEAD administration just emailed my class of July 2009 to inform us that we now have full access to the alumni website, and that we can activate our alumni email addresses.

We were also given a trial membership before deciding whether to join the alumni club of a specific country.

And over the next few weeks, I’ll be meeting up with fellow graduates who are still in Singapore.

Ah, the life of a new INSEAD alumnus.

I am now an INSEAD graduate and alumnus. It feels strange. For the past 10 months, we were running a race. We began unbelievably quickly, lunging down the racetrack, at times feeling like we were going to fall on our faces. Then as we got to the top of the hill, gasping for breath, we saw the beautiful horizon in front of us. We kept on at it, knowing the end was near. Finally as we passed the finishing line, our legs still felt like running - but now we’re back in a different type of race, in another paradigm.

Just 2 months ago I was only just settling down in France, apprehensive of driving a manual car on the other side of the road and speaking as far as possible in French.

Soon I figured my way around and didn’t need the GPS all the time. I got used to cooking food using French ingredients, enjoying bread, cheese and wine. I loved having long conversations and evening walks with my housemate after dinner. We made bold weekend driving trips to distant parts of France. And now I’m happy making dinner reservations in French and not relying on the phrase ‘Parlez vous anglais?’ so often anymore.

Just 10 months ago, I started my first term at the INSEAD campus in Singapore. Being Singaporean, I felt obliged to help classmates settle down. Then I was voted into the Students’ Council which resulted in me getting to know the administration better. Club work took up the rest of my time - the most scarce resource in the early months at INSEAD. My mind was spinning, not just with the new concepts we had to learn, but with meeting people from all parts of the world with backgrounds very different from mine.

Just 1 year ago, I was in London, meeting up with some new classmates at a chic wine bar. We were curious, asking lots of questions about each other. The perennial question was, “Fonty or Singy?” which means, “Are you starting in Fontainebleau or Singapore?” The financial crisis had yet to explode, and we were young, optimistic and ambitious.

1 year later we are slightly less young, but still optimistic and ambitious - even if we have to wait a bit longer for opportunities to come our way. There will be reunions and many gatherings as I know people are planning to return to Singapore to work, or look for work.

So, life will go on. But life will never be the same, after INSEAD.

My time in Fonty, while short, has been quite productive. This post will describe how I ended up playing for the Cabaret in Fonty last Saturday, and how it went.

It all started because my housemate invited me to the home of Professors Casanova and Dutta (as mentioned in previous posts). They encouraged me to play on their piano. My classmate Basile arrived and joined in. As he was French, and as I knew that the song “My Way” was originally French, I played the tune. He sang it so passionately that everyone in the room was cheering. From that, we decided to perform for the Cabaret. Prof Casanova even printed a set of lyrics in different languages, while Prof Dutta videoed us! We submitted his video for the auditions.

Basile invited a number of classmates to sing in their languages, and we met up for rehearsals. Because of the tight timing it was difficult for everyone to show up at the same time. Even on the day itself, a few singers had classes and the timing wasn’t good for them. Finally, everyone arrived and for just 10-15 minutes we rehearsed the song. Somehow I felt things would go fine.

However, Murphy’s Law had a part to play at the beginning, when the electric keyboard I was supposed to play on had been pushed to the side. Amir helped me move the keyboard back into place. Then there was no sound! In the meantime some videos were playing and the crowd was getting restless… Eventually everything was fixed and I started playing the piano introduction.

First, Connor from Ireland sang in Gaelic. Then Amir sang in Hebrew. Basile got the crowd cheering with the original “Comme D’habitude” in French. Ben sang in Malay (credit to him for joining us at very late notice and quickly rewriting his lyrics). Azmat and Jasmeet sang in Urdu (I think). Finally, everyone combined, together with Raphael, to sing the final chorus in English. I recall smiling a lot on stage because I was happy to hear each person sing in their own way. I look forward to seeing a video of our performance and am glad to have worked with these guys. I am also thankful to those who came up afterwards to compliment me.

The other Cabaret performances made me realise INSEAD has so much talent. I liked Jamil’s Dinged list and thought a lot of effort was put into coordinating the Thriller dance as it was a huge group.

What stole the show, for me, was the sight of such lovely ballerina dancers. The Singapore Cabaret had a similar act and I feel it should be an INSEAD tradition if it isn’t already. For another act, we were also exposed to a magnificent view of rugby balls. Sorry, can’t post any photos ;-)

Our career rep Abs just posted this on Facebook and I’m so pleased I have to share it with everyone. Among employers in Europe, INSEAD is the most preferred b-school (LBS coming in second). Likewise, INSEAD is the most preferred b-school in Asia, among all the business schools in that region.

Walk tall, INSEADers…

Goodbyes are so hard to say. So, we at INSEAD have made sure that there are many opportunities to say near-goodbyes as we approach the end of P5. I say near-goodbyes because we may still see each other during the graduation, and many will be at the grad trip - and even after that it is not the end, is it?

First, after our Cabaret rehearsal this evening, I had a BBQ dinner with fellow Singaporeans and my boyfriend R, then was planning to head home with my housemate, and then to meet AB, a fellow jazz-loving classmate at her place. I gave a lift to JT who was going to the same Chateau in Samoreau for the Chinese BBQ party, which I ended up popping by as well. I moved to the other side of the building where the party was just starting, with lots of P3s and their friends, some of whom I met and somehow ended up in a photo with them. There were even a few potential INSEAD applicants, and I must applaud them for their due diligence in not only attending today’s Open House but also going for our parties.

While there were torches and candles, the place was still dark so I was going around saying “Hi! I can’t see your face but you are…?” and we’d use the light from our mobile phones to see each other. I know I met a few more P3s this way, but as one girl said, she probably won’t be able to recognise me in broad daylight!

Eventually more P5s arrived and we talked about our plans for the future. Seems quite a few may be returning to Asia, for work and/or holidays. I am very happy that classmates like HA (aka HLTH) will be working in Singapore, and RS will be going around Asia with his family until he returns to McKinsey later in the year. And at least another INSEAD couple will be moving to Singapore. Maybe I shall organise a gathering for our cohort in Singapore.

So, it is not the end of the INSEAD story! It is only the beginning of a lifelong relationship, all over the world.

In my final Ethics class I raised the question of whether anyone would sign up for the MBA Oath. I added that I had just read a media report saying that even students from even INSEAD have signed up. Curious, I went to the website and found one INSEAD signatory*, from a much earlier promotion. Would the rest of us sign it?

My question brought mixed responses. Some would sign it, and felt that most of our cohort would, too. Others said there was no need to sign it, and just because some signed it and others didn’t, doesn’t mean that the non-signers were unethical. A good point raised by a classmate was that, in contrast to other Oaths like the Hippocratic one for doctors, how can this MBA Oath be enforced?

While surfing around for opinions on the MBA Oath I read a comment from another b-school student that signing the Oath may imply that his school’s curriculum is lacking in an ethics focus, i.e. it would backfire.

Our professor threw a question back at me - Should there be an INSEAD Oath? I said, on its own merit that was feasible, but now, why have an INSEAD Oath when the Harvard Oath has already gained so much publicity? Launching our own INSEAD Oath may imply that the Harvard version is lacking somewhere. (And wouldn’t it look like a ‘me-too’ reaction?)

Finally, another classmate said that we should re-iterate INSEAD’s existing values and that should cover it. There’s no need for a separate Oath. I think most of us agreed with that.

Personally, I am curious to see if, many years down the road, any signatories from this oath are able to stand by what they’ve sworn. Their names are on the website and the media can hold them accountable. Many are Harvard MBAs, likely to become top executives of major companies. Hopefully the Oath will reduce the chances of another Enron. But a once-off signing with no follow-ups and no enforceability would make it less effective.

Another cynical comment I read online said that this Oath was cleverly set up to help MBA grads look better as they search for jobs in a difficult climate. I disagree because many employers won’t necessarily prefer someone who signed it as opposed to someone who hasn’t. There are so many other qualities; no MBA grad, even from the same school, is exactly alike.

So the conclusion is, if you want to sign it, by all means, go ahead! It may improve the way we do business, or it may not. But if you don’t sign it, it doesn’t mean you are unethical either. Nobody is perfect and even those signing it may one day be forced to make an uncomfortable decision.

In the meantime, I am following the MBA Oath on Facebook and Twitter to observe it.

[ Update: 3 INSEAD alumni have signed the Oath ]

We can now vote for our best professors for core subjects and electives on the Intranet.

I’m curious as to how the voting system works. Hypothetically, if there are two outstanding core subject professors, one in Fonty and one in Singapore, and most students on both campuses vote for them, isn’t it more likely that the one in Fonty will win because there are more students there?

Unless, of course, that professor taught most of us in P3. This is quite possible for the July promotion, as P3 in Fonty is in the dead cold of winter and so many Fontysiders tend to move to the Singapore campus. Hence, I think an outstanding professor who taught most of us in P3 stands the best chance of winning the best core subject.

As such, my pick for best Core subject professor is Ilian Mihov for Macroeconomics, and I think he may stand a pretty good chance of winning once again. My next bet is Michael Witt for International Political Analysis.

I think our P1 Microeconomics professor, Brett Saraniti, also rocked, and it’s great that he is returning to teach at INSEAD. Even though I wasn’t interested in a career in Finance, I liked both our Finance professors, Pierre Hillion and Theo Vermaelen, who were entertaining in their own ways. I liked our Organisational Behaviour classes and how, even after they came to an end, we could still talk to our professors (Alan Filipowicz) and Henrik Bresman about real life situations.

For electives, I thought most professors were not bad, but as I have to pick one, I would choose the one that gave me skills I could use for the rest of my life, and who was also kind enough to follow up with me, beyond the classroom. So Horacio Falcao it is.

An indication of a professor’s popularity is the number of sections his electives have been alloted, the minimum number of bid points required and finally, the length of the waiting list. Positive word of mouth from students who’ve taken those electives will encourage the new intake to sign up as well. In some cases, you can also view the evaluation scores given to the professor by previous cohorts.

The last two months I’ve had amazing opportunities to bond closer with my Electives professors and even other professors who haven’t taught me before! Firstly, at the end of P4 I went on the Building Business in India trip and got to know Patrick Turner better (another professor with strong word of mouth recommendations and many rounds of electives!). I will definitely keep in touch with him when I return to Singapore. Then I had 2 dinners at the home of Lourdes Casanova and Soumitra Dutta, the author of ‘Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom’. I met up with him again to discuss a tech project. And, inspired by playing piano at their place, with their encouragement, I am now performing at the Cabaret.

At church, I chatted with INSEAD Dean Frank Brown and his wife and was impressed with his humility and his ‘frank’ sense of humour. Then we met Chan Kim and overshot our appointed time listening to the advice he was giving us, beyond Blue Ocean strategy. It was enlightening and I hope we will indeed meet again when he visits Singapore.

So it seems that my INSEAD experience is ending on a crescendo. But hopefully this will only be the first movement of the symphony of my life.

I’ve had an interesting conversation with some classmates and thought I should post it here.

At INSEAD, I’ve noticed that where you spend your first two periods (4 months) will distinguish you for the rest of your time here. Firstly, people tend to be closer to other people they’ve spent their early days with. Also, people tend to be associated with the characteristics of the campus. Singapore campus people are supposed to be laid back, casual, island-hoppers. Fonty people are supposed to be more hardworking and competitive. Of course, as with all stereotypes, not everyone fits the bill.

What I didn’t expect was that those from the Singapore campus are called ‘Singaporeans’ - whether they really are citizens or not. I know it is fairly easy for top foreign talent to get Permanent Resident status in Singapore, but not that easy!

So, when I met a few Fonty people for the first time here in Fonty, the conversation ended up something like this.

Fonty person: Hi! Where are you from?

Me: Singapore!

Fonty person: I know, you’re from the Singapore campus. But where are you from, originally?

Me: Singapore!

It was amusing. As I related this story to another Fonty classmate who I met on the Singapore campus (i.e. a fellow exchanger), he said, “Funny how there’s a name for the Singapore campus people (i.e. “Singaporeans”) but the Fonty people aren’t called French.”

While this is true, I have heard fellow ‘Singaporeans’ call the other group various Fonty-related names, usually in relation to how they seem so much more hardworking and volunteer their opinions more readily in class. I myself call them ‘Fontysiders’.

Of course, years from now, we may forget these little nuances and distinguish ourselves based on graduating class. With more time, we may simply remember ourselves as INSEADers. And that’s all that matters.

I’ve had my happiest day at INSEAD so far. Saturday morning began with a church rehearsal followed by lunch with WY and a visit to Picard. Pretty normal so far. The weather wasn’t that nice, but at least the people were.

Then I discovered some new stores at Avon which had pretty good deals and noted down the prices. I went home, bumped into my landlord and learnt that he has boosted the wireless internet signal strength. So far it’s holding up well!

With my newly-empowered surfing abilities, I went on Facebook and was invited by my Algerian-French classmate AB to join her for drinks. I told her I’d meet her after dinner.

I went for dinner at the home of two INSEAD professors (the same couple I mentioned earlier) and got to meet more P3s who are going for the Brazil trip. I was invited again to play the piano and this time was accompanied by French classmate BC who also played the piano. He sang with such passion that we are now forming a Cabaret team! My housemate had arrived by that time and we also got her to sing, heheh.

After dinner I headed to another part of Fonty and found AB and her housemate PR there. We headed over to their place where I discovered that AB and PR are fellow jazz lovers. I told PR about my jazz piano lessons and listened to lots of artistes, particularly French jazz which is what I was looking for in France. Then I played some of my own compositions and they liked it a lot. They asked me what I was doing, getting an MBA! PR has requested I play the piano at the INSEAD bar.

After that episode of self-rediscovery, I went home. Then I got a call to fetch my housemate home so I drove out again. All in rainy, cold weather. I am overall happy and strangely not tired. The only downside is that I will not get much sleep before church rehearsal in the morning followed by the actual performance. I know it’s not going to be perfect but I certainly hope the worship will be smooth and that I will play a constructive part in it.

Now, to sleep!

I’ve decided to put myself up for the Cabaret. Have posted my availability on the INSEAD Music Lovers’ Facebook group. If it happens, it happens. If not, I will just enjoy the show!

As a performer, my style is jazzy, which is why I believe I would best fit into that genre, although I can easily do pop and rock as well. I can sing too, having won a contest a few years ago, but am happy to let someone else take the limelight. Or it can simply be a three-piece band - it doesn’t have to be complicated. I am happy to play some latin jazz as well. I also do electronica provided we have a suitable keyboard.

I write and produce my own music in my home studio. I’ve led two jazz bands and played in two concerts held by my music school. Prior to that, as a classically-trained pianist (I finished Grade 8 but decided not to do the Diploma in Music as it clashed with my undergrad law studies) I also performed at various school concerts and various church events. As such I don’t get very jittery about such things and will focus more on playing my part in the band.

Also see my philosophy about how playing in a jazz band is how moderns teams should be working - having a framework we agree on yet allowing flexibility for each member to improvise freely, giving each other the chance to shine.

So, shall I be a performer or just a member of the audience? Any takers?

So, here I am on a fine sunny day in Samoreau, surfing the web on a canoe.

To be precise, the canoe is upside down, and I am resting my laptop on the base of the canoe. Before you make a call for 911, rest assured I am not sitting in the river near our cottage on a capsized canoe, but quite safely on our landlord’s garden lawn.

The reason for my unusual position is that the wireless internet connection is strongest around this point, because my landlord indicated where his wireless transmitter was located in his home, and so I am now standing outside his locked-up house (he is only around on weekends) trying to pick up the good vibes. At least he was kind enough to let us use his existing connection. I was told by many people that things here are so slow, by the time I set up my own independent Internet account, it would be time to go home to Singapore.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m loving my stay in France. The food and wine are great, we are soaking in the culture and the sunshine, and being in P5 we are truly enjoying ourselves. However, in France it does take a while for things to get fixed. The Internet issue is a minor problem, in fact…

A more serious example: A pebble flew into the windscreen of my housemate’s car. She made an appointment to get it fixed at the nearby Peugeot workshop. Then a couple days later, she had a flat tire. The car was towed to a second workshop as the first one was closed. So now she has to fix the tire (where she was quoted a whopping 360 euros, not including towing charges) at one workshop, then fix the cracked windscreen at another workshop. After some waiting she was told she actually had to fill up a form to authorise that work be done. She was not told this earlier on, or else she would have obviously done this immediately. Fortunately in the end, after some effective negotiations, the cost of the tire replacement was covered. But why would it be so expensive, and why would it take so long?

I am also writing a note to our landlord regarding the newly-renovated cottage which has some defects, like a door that can’t close properly, a leaking sink, a tap handle that flies off because of a missing screw, among other minor things. I heard that French workmen don’t come back just to fix one or two simple things they omitted to do properly the first time. I hope our list is long enough to warrant a second visit.

In the meantime, I will continue enjoying the fine weather while surfing atop this canoe.

Me and some really nice classmates (WY, JJ, AH, GE)

There were high expectations for the INSEAD Summer Ball, which is an event not to be missed while you’re in Fonty. Up to the day itself, people were vying for tickets which had been sold out long ago, even though tickets were fairly expensive. I paid an early bird price of 130 Euros (about S$260) which got progressively higher after that.

Because of the high price and the glamour of the Ball, expectations were also high. We heard stories of how, during the previous Ball, the organisers ran out of champagne, which is a big no-no especially at INSEAD. This year we were told by our Dean that there would be no fireworks, which disappointed a lot of people. The reason was that INSEAD had to be more conservative and sensitive in the light of the financial crisis. There was thus a heightened expectation that the money saved from these fireworks had better be deployed in other parts of the Ball.

Wanting to find out more details, I chatted with an INSEAD administrator who explained to me that the Ball was in fact loss-making and that INSEAD had received complaints in previous years from residents about the noise created. They also ran into French bureaucracy when applying to have fireworks. I relayed this information to other classmates who were surprised at this. And, with all of us having had Managerial Accounting training in P2, we were curious as to how efficiently things were planned (even though I’m sure the Administration did their best)…

Of course, these issues should not have allowed us to be distracted from enjoying the actual Ball, which I felt was set up quite nicely. A big tent was erected inside the Chateau and that was where people gathered at the beginning. What I liked was being greeted on both sides by a row of waiters with many choices of beverages, alcoholic and non-alcoholic.

I also loved the DJ’s chillout music. This was taken when we just arrived, so the place still looked pretty empty.

Later on, there was a man in the middle of the tent who improvised on the trumpet on top of the chillout music, which I thought was a great idea. Later he also played bongo drums. You can see his instruments set up in the middle of the bar:

There was some food in the main tent, which was mostly OK except for one dessert which tasted like hamster cage lining to me - maybe it was. Security staff were visible at key entrances. Generally the ambience was great and I got to meet some new people, including partners of classmates as well as alums.

Inside the chateau there was a lounge, and upstairs the INSEAD band rocked us into a new high from midnight, with multiple encores. However it got very hot and one classmate opened a window to let some cold air in. Later however I noticed the window had been closed back. My feet were worn out (from wearing high heels, walking on cobblestones and then from dancing). I went home at 2+am via the shuttle, and got home at 3+am. This meant that I had missed some bits of drama that unfolded, apparently, when the music stopped earlier than expected. The Ball was advertised to end at 5pm, so understandably people were unhappy that it was cut short at 3+am.

A note was sent to the Dean, citing these complaints, and his reply seemed fine to me. He was still at the Ball when these things happened. As I wasn’t around to personally witness what happened I can only go by hearsay and the emails that have been circulated to all of us. I think however some communication could have been done earlier on so that we knew what to expect. When the music ends and the lights are turned on earlier than expected - these are all things we interpret as spoilers. Also we were told that Alumni were unhappy because they paid even more to come to Fonty, some with their partners.

Sadly, though I’m sure a lot of effort was put into planning for this Ball, most of the talk I heard was not “How great it was!” but “Did you hear, it ended too early… it was so hot but they refused to let us keep the windows open…” It’s human nature, I guess, but still it’s a shame it ended this way.

People have started to ask me how the Moonsoon Ball (the Singapore equivalent) was in comparison, as not everyone gets to go to both, depending on which periods you choose to be on either campus. I liked both Balls, largely because of the people who were there, but of course each Ball is unique. I’ve blogged about this ball previously but will compare it with the Summer Ball below.

The theme for the Monsoon Ball last year was ‘Red Dot’, which represented Singapore, though most of us didn’t come dottily dressed. I felt the food at the Monsoon Ball was much better and in more copious amounts, distributed in almost every room upstairs and downstairs. It was so tasty and there were so much leftovers I almost felt like doggy-bagging some of it! The location was also quite nice as it was in Sentosa. The only spoiler for this ball, I heard, was that some people were totally wasted by the end of it - obviously these organisers had not run out of champagne but were in fact topping up our glasses regularly. However I personally did not see anyone lying on the floors, and eyewitness accounts on this are mixed.

I am glad I got to attend both Balls, and in time I doubt we will remember the little bad things but just the good memories we had, catching up with old groupmates, sectionmates and other classmates. We will keep our many photos and share them, on Facebook and otherwise, and doubtlessly some of us will return as Alumni and hopefully enjoy ourselves again at other INSEAD Balls.

I had to finish re-reading ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ (BOS) by this weekend in order to prepare for my contribution to the group project. For the past few weeks I felt some inertia in doing this, because:

1. I had already read the book back in 2005/2006, before I even harboured thoughts of doing an MBA and at INSEAD.
2. There was a summary available on Wikipedia, which I also read
3. A hardworking groupmate had already sent us slides/templates from his Blue Ocean classes in P4

I strived to complete the reading anyway. And what better time than to do it at the gym, while exercising! Kill two birds with one stone and maximise my personal productivity! On the other hand, I did not want to look like a nerd. So I decided if the gym was very crowded I might not read the book openly.

The gym was almost empty so I whipped out my BOS book.

And then… someone from INSEAD marketing department showed up with a group of (prospective?) students. She recognised me and laughed, saying I was reading a book that was so representative of INSEAD! That of course made the group of visitors peer at me and my book… They walked off, amused, and I shouted in defence: “I have a deadline!!”

The gym did fill up a bit more but by that time I didn’t care. After an hour of cycling I finished reading the BOS book and went for a shower.

Just another day in the Fonty campus…

In the past week, three people who read my blog approached me. One guy wrote to me, suggesting we catch up for lunch. Another guy wrote to me as well, asking for a job lead. One gal spotted me as I was walking across the Bar and called out my name, even though I hadn’t met her before. Two are P3s and one is a fellow P5. In time I hope I do get to meet them face to face.

If you do see me around, say Hi! It’s nice to meet you in person and I do hope some of you have found this blog insightful.

So I’m finally feeling like a tourist, because I’m no longer in my home country. On Friday I, my housemate SA and another classmate EH headed out to Epernay. We had an appointment for a tour at Moet & Chandon in the morning. We visited the cellars (carved out of limestone), tasted some champagne and bought some since the price was decent.

After that, we drove to Reims for lunch at Les Charmes, which gave us a very good 3-course deal. Then we found our hotel, Porte Mars, which was facing a landmark with the same name. However, the area was in the midst of re-construction so the view wasn’t as pretty as it was in the guidebook. We visited the Notre Dame cathedral (a Unesco world heritage site) where French kings were crowned. We walked around the city centre and had dinner at Le Grand Cafe which is famous for its mussels. We had 3 types of mussel dishes, then went back to the hotel and drank more of our champagne. Hic!

The next morning we drove out to Marne and visited another cathedral. We took a 2+ hour drive back to Fonty.

After that I headed out with WY to the Chateau de Fontainebleau which had a musical event. There was a mass of people in every chamber. At one point we were squished so badly I just wanted to get out! Crowd management could definitely be improved.

We saw performances by a flutist, who was then accompanied by what looked like a violinist (though the instrument looked more medieval). The next chamber of music had 4 harpists - 1 teacher and 3 students who were of different standards. Finally we listened to someone play a harpsichord. I shot videos of each performance.

Updating this blog at WY’s place now, since I still don’t have internet at home. AHEM. Definitely have to raise this to our landlord when we see him tomorrow.

Good idea: Tagging along with housemate, who registered her interest in dining at a gourmet restaurant in Paris (which is difficult to get into), and recently received good news that a table would be available today for lunch.

The food and service was excellent, and if we hadn’t ordered 2 cups of coffee, the bill for our three-course lunch would’ve amounted to only 37 Euros each. (With the coffee it came to 40 Euros)

Bad idea: Thinking we can make it to Paris and back in less than 2 hours per trip (i.e. to Paris and then back from Paris). Paris traffic was bad. Along the way, we started to appreciate the value of our Electronic Road Pricing system back in Singapore.

Mitigating factors: Telling our professor in advance that we may arrive late to school (which did happen), and contributing more in class to (hopefully) make up for whatever we missed earlier on.

God, please, I want a 4.0 for this subject….

Learning points:

• Good to tap on INSEAD classmates’ knowledge of getting around Paris - that helped us find a cheap parking lot
• Good to be friends with your GPS system which can help you avoid heavily congested areas - though we have yet to find out for sure if it helped or made things worse, or made no difference at all
• Bad idea to leave the car park ticket in the car, because we required a code on the ticket to get back into the car park!
• Good to speak a bit of French so we can ask for directions when really lost

I’d like to upload photos of my Paris escapade but have to dash from school now and get home. The internet connection at home is busted so I can’t update anything from there. This is not how I’d like to operate… hopefully we can resolve this problem soon.

I had a most unusual weekend.

Let’s start with the story of the chance encounter with a professor I’ve been yearning to meet for some time. If you’ve been following this blog or my main blog for some time, you might know that one of my passions is for social media.

I learnt that an INSEAD professor had co-written a book, “Throwing Sheep In The Boardoom”, which was on social media invading the corporate world. This was right up my alley, and I was proud that one of our professors had taken on this topic. ‘When I go to Fonty,’ I decided, I would drop Professor Soumitra Dutta an email and see if I could meet him.

Little did I expect how I would meet him, however. On Saturday, I attended a dinner thrown by a nice female Spanish professor, Lourdes Casanova, for her Brazil field trip class. As my housemate Sing Ai was part of this class, she asked if I could come along, and so I too was invited. All I knew was that she was married to an Indian professor. At first he didn’t mention his name, but he looked rather familiar. Later when I offered to help lay out the food, he asked me what I did, and I replied that it was mainly “social media’. He said, “I wrote a book on that.” I looked at him and exclaimed, “You’re Soumitra Dutta!”

My next comment was, “You’ve been following me on Twitter!” (I did, of course, return the favour out of Twitter courtesy.)

Needless to say we had an interesting conversation and I will meet with him again to discuss social media.

The second element to this most unusual night: Music. I noticed a piano in the corner of the living room and, being curious as always, lifted the lid to see what brand it was. Our Spanish professor noticed my interest and invited me to play. Since it was a dinner for the Brazil trip folks, I started with my familiar number ‘Girl From Ipanema’, which was well-received, Corcovado (Quiet Nights), La Vie En Rose (since we’re in France), Autumn Leaves, Music of the Night, a couple of Beatles numbers Yesterday and Hey Jude, and ended the night with Con Te Partiro. Since I haven’t practised in a while, I improvised. Along the way another Brazilian classmate, S, started singing. It was a magical moment!

As a result of my entertainment value, I have been invited to a second dinner. I would however like to get some practice first. Already I have found the grand piano at the INSEAD bar very tempting, and maybe one night when nobody is around I will sneak back in and start playing on it.

So far, I’m lovin’ the Fonty campus. It is much bigger than the one in Singapore and more spread out. Despite the huge number of students now in Fonty (close to 400 for my promotion alone), we have not had much problems finding empty cubicles to work in.

The weather is splendid today. The sun’s out, but the wind’s cool enough for comfort. There’s a lovely forest at the back of the campus which I walked through yesterday.

The selection and quality of food here is amazing. Fish and meats are cooked right in front of you, Teppanyaki-style, and somehow that makes it feel more delicious. Some people think that, being Singaporean or Asian, we will miss Asian food, but I beg to differ. Back home, the nickname for me was ‘jiak kantang’ which means ‘eat potato’ which in turn means that I’m more Westernised than the average Singaporean. I know some other Singaporeans have packed Asian sauces but I didn’t bring any seasonings with me. My flatmate Sing Ai and I will jiak kantang all the way (or so we hope).

Very importantly for me, the Internet connection on the Fonty campus is much faster than the one in Singapore. I suspect it is because there is lower population density in this region than in Singapore, and/or the website we visit tend to be overseas and the servers are in or nearer to Europe than Asia. It is such a good feeling to click and have an entire web page loaded in a couple of seconds.

The facilities in the Fonty campus are fantastic too. The gym here is bigger and brighter and I have already paid my 85 Euro membership for 2 months, because I really have to exercise and work off the cholesterol that has surprisingly built up over the last couple of years since my last health screening. My diet hasn’t changed much and the only thing I’ve stopped doing is exercising regularly, so that has to resume soon. Also, the shower facilities here are nice and clean and towels are provided on weekdays, which is good enough for me.

Of course, administration-wise things are much slower. A classmate tried to collect a box that was shipped to him and was simply told to go into the store room and look for it himself. Stationery and other items are more expensive, but (naturally) the wine selection is vast and attractively priced. We are living off different types of jamon and fromage (ham and cheese) and have so many kinds of breads at home it is turning out to be a ‘pain’ [that’s a pun!].

Our landlord however warned us that utilities are costly here. 1 cubic metre of water costs 4.50 Euros! I think it’s more expensive than in Singapore - and we don’t even collect enough water on our own! Also, our landlord’s internet connection is slow and wonky.

So it looks like I will spend more time on the Fonty campus than in Singapore, even if I only have 2.5 credits of classes left to take.

Today was the busiest day in terms of interviews. An interview with a global agency early in the morning, then a chat with an INSEAD alumnus and his colleagues (I thought it was just to tap my brain about using blogging for Marketing/PR but it ended with a request for my CV, which I provided). Lastly, I just had an interview with a top cosmetics company. On top of these interviews I have 2 other offers to do work which I’m familiar with, in a managerial and/or strategic position.

If reading this depresses you, then stop here.

Because what I am going to say next is: I didn’t apply for any of these positions. I was headhunted, referred by word of mouth or reputation, or shortlisted via Career Services. I know many people are getting dinged. I decided not to apply to lots of random companies but to stick with what I felt comfortable with. Of course, in difficult times it is not easy to get what you want. But I’m not sure if it’s simply ‘luck’, because that implies that these opportunities fell on my lap without me having to work at it.

You see, I began ‘networking’, as some people call it, years ago. I decided I liked social media, PR, marketing and technology quite a while back, and while I didn’t plan to end up getting lots of leads, I mingled with like-minded people, did a few things that got me into the newspapers, generally endeavored to be nice, friendly and helpful to everybody.

I also knew what I didn’t want to do, and where I wanted to work, so I updated my profile in local job search websites and got in touch with headhunters, which resulted in one of these interviews.

Today, my chat with the alum was about wooing new customers via influencers (in this case, bloggers). I saw similarities between selling a product to potential customers, and selling your expertise to potential employers. For both cases, you cannot simply knock on their door and expect them to buy your product (or hire you). Quite often, of course, you can make a pitch on the spot and they might buy it, because you are better qualified than other people who have already knocked on their doors. (PUSH factor)

However, if you have established a network and a reputation for being particularly good at something, your customer will come knocking at your door. (PULL factor)

I am fortunate, blessed, honoured even, to have my door knocked on multiple times, and so my dilemma at INSEAD is not about finding a job but which job I should choose.

Here’s wishing my fellow INSEADers all the best with their job searches. May we make the right choice for our long-term future!

At this point I have been getting advice from extreme ends on 3 different topics. Starting from the mediocre to more serious:

1) Should I ‘bring lots of instant noodles’ to Fonty?

At first thought, why on earth should I rely on quick fixes when I’m living in one of the most sophisticated culinary countries in the world? There is good wine, cheese, bread, confit, boulliabase, etc - I love them all! However, I heard from other Asians that they get sick of the food after a while, and yearn for something spicy. I am not the type of Singaporean who brings packets of chilli sauce wherever she goes, so I think I can accept the fact that things will be blander in that sense, but there will be other flavours to savour.

Now I have decided to not just listen to the different pieces of advice but also look at the background of the person. If they have been in Asia all their lives, I can expect them to miss Asian food more which is why they rely on recreating Asian flavours more often. I have survived eating English food for 3 years. I’m as happy with potatoes and pasta as I am with rice. I think I can handle anything. (But note these famous last words and check back with me in 2 months’ time)

2) Should I get an auto or manual car in Fonty?

There are very strong, opposing views on this. Those who are for manual cars say that it’s not as difficult to get used to; most cars in France are manual anyway, and of course manual cars are cheaper to rent. “Don’t worry”, they tell me!

Those against manual cars have a common reaction: “You siao ah??” (are you crazy?). Reasons cited for my madness include not having driven manual cars since I passed my driving test 9-10 years ago; arriving in a strange land without having ever driven on the OTHER side of the road; arriving at 6am at Paris CDG and probably being fuzzy-headed, driving 82km to Fonty/our little cottage in Samoreau. Then there are also disaster stories with the moral being that an auto car should have been rented. I’ve experienced it once myself, travelling with a group of girl friends struggling to drive a manual car in another foreign land.

I will see if our dear car agent can upgrade me to auto. But it is gonna be pricey!

3) Should I return to work for the Government or shall I return to the private sector?

I really don’t know. My expectations and priorities before INSEAD and now, during INSEAD, have changed. I want to do something engaging that will allow me to sleep well at night, to work with people with mutual respect and trust, to regain the sense of ‘flow’ during my most productive period, to position myself for further career progression, and now, to have work-life balance.

People say I would make a good brand manager or similar. However I am starting to wonder if I can be marketing-oriented in my job without needing to be in marketing. Likewise, I can be media-savvy without needing to serve in PR. I wonder if it is weird to do my MBA and then step back into a client-serving role, when I can do more meaningful work strategising and changing the lives of people in the long term. However, will staying in the Government for too long count against me? Why am I doing my MBA if I’m going back to the same place? But what if I want to settle down soon - wouldn’t I want a company that respects my personal time?

So many questions I am trying to resolve and rank in my head. Which are more important than others?

Just checked my web stats and learned that this MBA interview website linked to me.

To those of you who’ve just found this blog via the website I’ve linked to above, welcome!

And yes, I did get admitted ;-)

I can’t believe P4 is nearly over. I can’t even believe I’m in P4 - wasn’t I just in P2 a few months ago?! An MBA at INSEAD is indeed accelerated and I feel that part of my life just fast-forwarded itself, and I want to hit the rewind button to relive some parts of it again.

Right now I’m busy tying up my job interviews. I have 2 clear offers and think I’ve made it to the 2nd round of another interview with a well-known MNC/agency, and next week I have an interview with L’Oreal. It sounds glamorous but they have called up quite a few of us for interviews so I will not set my expectations too high.

This period I decided not to follow the usual OCR (on-campus recruitment) route where everyone turns up for company presentations, mingles with the speakers and applies for jobs via the careers website. I felt it would be so hard to distinguish myself when every other candidate is also an INSEAD MBA. Since I wanted to be based in Singapore (preferably as the regional headquarters of an MNC), I went to local job websites instead, or to local branches of MNCs I wanted to work for. Also, I decided not to apply to lots of companies I would only be remotely interested in, because that would be insincere and a waste of everyone’s time.

I am fortunate to be in a less desperate position than others, because I have always had a BATNA, just like those super smart McKinsey consultants who are sponsored and are sitting pretty on the Dean’s List ;-) Also, having sometimes been in the public limelight for the past few years, I had the honour of getting cold calls via my office line (ironically!) with job offers from bosses of companies. I turned down a few of them, even though a few years ago I’d probably have taken up a couple of them.

Now I face an even bigger crossroads in my life. Currently I have 2 or 3 possible directions to take, and the choice I make will affect the rest of my career. Should I stay on the same path that I’ve been treading on for the past 4 years, knowing that now maybe my road will be paved a little more nicely and it may connect to a much larger, international highway? Or should I veer in a very different direction, join a small, unbeaten track where I can help to steer a ship on the second phase of its journey? Or should I take another path in between, also nicely paved (maybe even glittering) and connected to other roads and highways, but with more uncertainty?

And by next week I shall learn if another path has been presented to me!

It is not a problem I should be complaining openly about, but it is also not in my nature to play groups against each other and leave things hanging for too long. I prefer having obvious choices to make things easier for everyone. However, no job or person is perfect, and I need to decide what would be the best fit for me, what I love doing most, and where I can add the most value (I am sorely tempted, after 4 periods at INSEAD, to design my own matrix for this purpose!).

What do I want in my new job? Definitely, a conducive working culture that allows sharing and innovation, high productivity, lots of fun and the power to make a positive impact on lots of people’s lives. Career progression and the opportunity to lead a team would also be great. Times are hard; I won’t complain if I don’t get it all, but it would be ideal. Salary has to be fair and my MBA from a top b-school should be valued, but I will look at other benefits as well. Work life balance will be necessary if I plan to settle down in the near future as well.

Anyway, that’s it from me for now… I have to start packing for my India study trip and the big move to Fonty!

I can’t reveal exactly what happened in my PIM class (Psychological Issues in Management) but this is what I’ve learnt, personally:

1) The person who’s designated as leader may not really be the best leader. On the other hand, other people can step up to the role pretty well.

2) A good leader doesn’t do all the talking but gives his team the chance to speak up. Initially I had a personal bias which made me think that that loud, outspoken and smart people would make great leaders as they were good at getting people’s attention and so the team would all rally together. However, in a team more people are trying to have their opinions heard, too, and if we feel we aren’t heard then we stop contributing.

3) A good leader doesn’t have to bang his fist on the table or do anything else spectacular (that didn’t happen, just figurative speech). His gestures can instead be subtle but everything he does is for the team’s benefit.

4) A good leader makes all the difference to whether a team succeeds or not. Obvious, but when you see it literally happening with your own eyes you will appreciate it more.

5) Being a good leader is hard. The team I thought had a great leader, lost out to another team that ‘stole’ the project for themselves. This happens in real life, when everything’s done well but jealousy sets in, and the other team wins at politics. So a good leader has to protect his team from external factors and not just focus on internal operations. I think I’ve seen that happen at least once, in my own work experience.

6) There can only be one leader in the team. Too many cooks spoil the broth; too many leaders spoil the team.

So I finally went out and partied a bit on Thursday. It was a brilliant idea to put 6 business schools together - NUS, NTU, SMU, Essec, INSEAD, SP Jain. How could I resist it?

Strangely, for all it was worth, I didn’t think there was much voluntary integration. When I arrived I saw the Indians sticking with the Indians, the ethnic Chinese sticking with the ethnic Chinese, and large groups of French people who did not look like they were from INSEAD, also sticking together. It was a good party but next time I suggest the organisers make us play a game, whereby we have to meet 5 new people, each from different schools and exchange name cards!

Also, the alumni from local schools were invited, whereas when I emailed 2 INSEAD alums they were not aware of it. Which is probably why INSEAD was a little under-represented. Of course the other reason is that the rest of you have already left for Cambodia this weekend!!!

Anyway, I bumped into 2 INSEAD guys and we decided to get drinks. While waiting at the bar, I introduced myself to 2 strangers and learnt they were from Essec. Then I introduced myself to 2 Indians standing nearby, thinking they were from SP Jain but turns out they were from NUS. Then another Singaporean INSEADer arrived with many friends and I had a long conversation with one of them.

Then I edged further out to an ethnic Chinese group and learnt they were really from China, studying at NTU. We discussed Chinese energy needs, then I moved on. Another couple was from Cornell but I didn’t get to chat with them (what’s Cornell doing at this bash?).

By this time half the section was occupied by Essec students who were talking among themselves. Where were the other INSEADers?? They were fashionably late. I headed out to greet them and we went to another section of Mimolette.

Then I went outside and saw many Essec-only groups. I decided to join a group of nice-looking young men who were very polite, and had a long chat with them. I learnt more about Essec. I think INSEAD is much more international - they told me Essec is about 75% French. I like French people but if you want diversity there must be more nationalities represented. We discussed living in France as well as French football, which I also like.

The P4s started to leave but the P2s were now in full swing so I met a couple more of them and their friends. Then I bumped into more P2s on my way out and chatted to them at length about some plans we are planning to execute on campus. You will hopefully get a surprise next week.

So now I am home, happy and glad I met new people outside of INSEAD and within INSEAD, and got to know the wilder side of some classmates whose moments of joy may now live on forever in Facebook, untagged or otherwise ;-)

Have a good weekend!

My blog’s being hit by lots of comment spam (over 13,000 since launch) and I’ve received multiple warnings that the bandwidth limit is being reached, which means that you may not be able to see this site until next month when my limit is reset. Hopefully nothing of the sort will happen! Begone, evil spambots!

In other news, I am really glad that I can go to Fonty, and am now waiting to hear back from prospective employers. I prefer quality not quantity and so would rather apply well to a few companies I feel I’d fit well in, than lots of companies just for the sake of it.

I’m also getting some assignments done, overseeing some club stuff, meeting up with people I used to collaborate with, and spending more time with family, especially with my grandmother who’s in hospital. I’m also going to confirm which car to rent in Fonty. Meanwhile, Career Services has started sending me a couple of leads specific to my area of interest, which is quite thoughtful. I once harbored plans of working overseas, but I think it’s better to be based in Singapore since I’m now happily attached to an alumnus who’s working here.

I’ll also be attending an INSEAD 06 alumni’s wedding on Sunday, and in April another wedding of 2 INSEAD 06 alumnus. One day, someone should compile a book titled ‘INSEAD - the greatest love stories’ featuring all the INSEADers who married each other.

Results

Got my P3 results. Not used to seeing so many 4.0s :) We generally do better for electives, although I heard you can still do badly if you don’t put in any effort. I hope to repeat the good scores for P4 and P5. My groupmates from one elective were pretty happy, too. I’m working with one of them again for a P4 elective.

Groupwork - past and present

Speaking of groupwork - it’s starting to build up. So far P4 is nowhere as bad as P3, where there were more subjects and scheduling was difficult as everyone in the group was taking different subjects at different times. However, in P4 people get busy applying for jobs, which is not an easy thing to do considering the economy.

The Ding bell (which as part of INSEAD tradition you are supposed to strike if you’ve been dinged for a job), will be brought back, thanks to a fellow student council member, HN. At the same time I’ve learnt in my Psychological Issues of Management elective that we should not be succumbing to self-fulfilling (negative) prophecies! However those who do get dinged will hopefully get treated to a drink at the bar.

For P1-P3 core subjects, you get paired with people who have different backgrounds. For P3-5 electives you can usually choose your own groupmates. As a result of this freedom of choice, we tend to join people we already hang out with. In a way it’s convenient because you know the people, what their strengths are, and are more likely to hit the ground running. However that also means you don’t get to work closely with lots of other people, and there may be a higher chance of groupthink. It’s a tradeoff we have to make. Also I’ve found that you can sometimes learn more by not having any ‘experts’ in that group. It’s good if the expert sets the tone right and guides the rest but is also open to suggestions, but bad if the expert decides on everything and makes others feel sidelined. Let’s see how it goes ;-)

Also, in classes where we sit at tables instead of being in the amphis, the groupings have become more obvious. I decided to break the trend today and sit with people whom I didn’t know. We introduced ourselves and got along well. I know we all have different objectives at INSEAD, but one of mine is getting to know people I’d otherwise not have the chance to meet. We only have 10 months together, and in some cases, 2 months max (if we happen to be in different campuses for the other 4 periods). Sure, in the years to come if I need help I could still look up the alumni directory, but it’s even better if we knew each other in person already.

Remarkable networks

Interestingly, the partner of one of the classmates I had just met at the table, emailed me an hour after class asking about for my help on a research project. Small world indeed! You really never know what you may be doing with the people you’ve met… or their significant others.

And even people whom I met at the INSEAD open house, who are interested in applying to INSEAD, have been helping me. One of them, MT, came over to chat with me and we exchanged contact details. I decided to add him to Facebook and Twitter too. One day I Twittered that I was looking for a specific type of job. and he gave me not just a lead but also a contact person in another part of the world. What’s amazing is that I didn’t plan for any of this to happen - I was simply happy to help people and answer their queries about getting into INSEAD - and when I needed help, I received it. That’s the spirit!

Something interesting happened in class today, but because some of you reading this may be new INSEADers who might take this elective, I will avoid giving too many details which could influence your own answers and give inaccurate results, which would do you a disfavour.

We all brought our laptops to class and filled in two Excel forms which generated a certain number. My score for the first assessment was very low and I realised people around me were scoring several times that number. (After officially reporting my score, I tinkered around with the Excel form, changing one of my answers to something I felt was less ‘harsh’ to see if my score would go up - and instead it went further down! So I really was an extreme case.) The professor then keyed in our numbers in a certain order. Then we did the second assessment and this time my score was fairly high.

Then the professor revealed a matrix (he joked that all self-respecting MBA professors have to use matrixes!) and suddenly I found myself in the best possible quadrant, having a combination of the two positive leadership attributes. The other 3 quadrants reflected different combinations of these characteristics (being present or absent). Because of my very low score for assessment #1 I found myself at one extreme end of the matrix, which made my little dot stick out conspicuously from the cluster of dots in the middle. The professor singled out my dot and a few other people’s dots that lay on extreme ends of each quadrant.

Someone asked if cultural differences would affect the scores and while it was possible, I also noticed that the classmates who had the highest and lowest scores for one characteristic (which reflects a certain personal value) were both from the same country and from the same sector.

Later on, a few of us were still discussing the findings and how my score was so extreme in the best segment. I said I was influenced by my own mother, who would question my reactions to things when I was younger, and so now I think more like she does. In fact, her score might even have been more extreme than mine, because she managed to rise up in the business world, got featured in business publications and still has lots of loyal employees under her who remember her to this day.

I’d love to discuss this further with people who have already taken this test. In any case it has been very encouraging for me. Of course a test alone may not be indicative of real life. What we say is different from what we do, although it may be a close enough comparison. Having the potential to be a great leader is very inspiring.

Alumni and classmates have spoken of the “INSEAD Effect”, whereby couples break up when one partner is studying full time at INSEAD.

You may wonder, “Is INSEAD really that bad??” Admittedly, the workload is tough, and you won’t be able to spend as much time with your partner as before. If the couple is living apart, the long distance relationship may be an added strain. But conversely, couples that are studying at INSEAD together may become closer. Similarly, some people choose to go to the Asia campus because their partner is also posted in Singapore or a nearby city.

Some of us have in fact experienced the “Reverse INSEAD Effect”. Either classmates hook up with each other, or with alumni, or couples get engaged (which just happened to a guy classmate of mine). I and another female classmate are currently dating alumni who happen to work in the same company. Now, how coincidental is that! :)

On a related note, I heard rumours that I’d like to nip in the bud. A classmate of mine asked me today if the alum I’m going out (whom I call R in my main blog), was actually my groupmate, RB!

Firstly, RB is not yet an alum. My boyfriend is another R and he is an alum. Also, RB is now doing his exchange in Wharton, so how can I be going out on weekends with him?! :P Anyway this is amusing. I think our other groupmates would keel over with laughter (or something else) if we ever got together.

That’s all I wanted to say for now. Job applications will be keeping me busy!

Finished 3 days of China Strategy and it has been amazing. Don’t have time to give a lot of details (have to prepare for 3 classes tomorrow, plus job search) but let’s say it’s been so fascinating, better than I had hoped. If it continues, and I’m sure it will, I strongly recommend INSEADers who have some interest in China, to take this course.

For me, the main points were the global-to-local and local-to-global issues facing MNCs and ambitious Chinese companies; questions of ethics versus profitability/competitive advantage, and Guanxi, which was a huge area of discussion every day.

Our professor WC did everything he could to give us a better understand of the Chinese mindset. He told us that as a teacher, he treated us like his children and he really went out of his way to look after us. He said this experience has showed that despite being out of China/Taiwan for 10 years he still has inherently Chinese behaviour :) I’m not complaining there.

Had a pleasant surprise at the China Club dinner last night, when I met the man behind KFC China’s success (to be precise, part of the ‘Taiwan Gang’ of elite overseas Chinese recruited to run KFC in China). He told me his book was selling at Borders. I joked that he should’ve told Borders and they could have arranged an autograph session. That gave him an idea: He said if any of us bought his book, he would autograph them for us as he would be returning on Day 3 to participate in the panel. I informed some classmates and the professor, and then I another classmate CS headed to Borders to buy some of his books. The proceeds go to help the education of poor children in rural China so it is totally worth it.

We received lots of good advice from our speakers. Even among us students - those from China, those of us overseas Chinese, and non-Chinese who worked in China and/or spoke the language, and even non-Chinese with no background in China at all, had different angles and questions to ask, which made this an intellectually interwoven fabric of fine Chinese silk :)

I seem to have a penchant for bidding for courses that inevitably stretch across the weekends. On the plus side, I’d have cleared one elective in just a few days (not counting the final group assignment and presentation a few weeks later). And we get Executive treatment at MBA rates :P

This Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be spent on China Strategy. On Friday our Chinese professor WC gave very substantial information on China’s growth, which we all know as phenomenal, but there were extra insights. He also invited a very good speaker from KFC to share with us how they’re winning the fast food wars with McDonald’s through their entrepreneurial spirit, Chinese-oriented leadership and willingness to introduce dishes that Chinese like. In contrast, McDonald’s has stuck firmly to its global image and made relatively few changes to its menu, bringing in Western executives to address issues that are inherently Chinese.

It’s been excellent so far. Everybody I’ve spoken to has said it’s great. Even a classmate from China told me she’s learning something new. Now that’s the spirit! Looking forward to more great insights today (Saturday) and tomorrow. Tonight we’ll also be having dinner at China Club, thanks to our sponsors.

I’m happy to report that today, INSEAD was in the news, not just once but twice. Our Dean, Frank Brown, was featured in a front-page splash, besides Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston.

No, wait. He wasn’t at the Academy Awards with her :) I meant to say that the interview with him was featured on the front page of the Straits Times, our major broadsheet. Aha!

Click on the photo for a higher-res version of the full page article to read it. Frank’s main point was a little scary - good CEOs should leave after a maximum of 7 years, preferably 5. But from what I learnt in my Strategy Execution elective, it is true that over time, CEOs get less access to new information as they become surrounded with ‘yes-men’. Also, in time, the more towering the reputation a CEO has, the more unlikely - especially in the more reticient Asian cultures - he will receive honest feedback. Frank notes that many CEOs from companies that have been badly hit with the recent credit crunch, had long tenures.

Some transcultural anecdotes from Frank’s book, The Global Business Leader, are mentioned, including the tale of the Japanese executive who finally spoke up after a long meeting, about how the name of a new initiative sounded like ‘your ugly sister’ in Japanese.

I was a little sad to hear that Frank would be leaving in 2011, but I guess he’s practising what he’s preaching. As an INSEADer I have to say that Frank has been as candid as his name, when speaking with us. He doesn’t have airs and sometimes when we see him walking around the campus, we give him a wave and a smile. I’d say almost everybody has had a chance to have a chat with him.

The next article involving INSEAD is part of a job hunting theme. Specifically, it’s about how taking part in contests like Loreal’s EStrat could land jobs for the more successful contestants. One semifinalist, our classmate Sameer, was quoted:

Good job! Do us proud on 20 May and win!

We should congratulate INSEAD’s corporate communications team for landing 2 articles in a day. Of course it may not have been planned this way because two different papers were involved (albeit by the same parent company, SPH) and you don’t always know when exactly something’s going to be published.

Also, while senior writer Sandra Davy calls INSEAD a ‘premier’ school, in the L’Oreal article we’re mentioned, strangely, just as a ‘postgraduate’ business school. I’m not sure how that description adds value to the article, unless it means we’re older and have an unfair advantage against undergrads? (Am I just reading too much into this?)

In any case, the more senior professionals are aware of what INSEAD stands for. The more INSEAD gets into the local news, the more people will know about us and what we can offer.

Dear readers,

You won’t be hearing from me in a while - at least for the next several days. Everytime there’s a long time lag in between blog posts, please assume that I’m busy - most likely with schoolwork. Exams are just next week, and I have a lot to catch up on - more than many classmates.

Right now I really need to focus. My P3 was spent doing too many things, particularly for the club, but I think it’s a question of my own time management and not anyone else’s fault in particular. I have to be more efficient and as always, learn to say no even if it makes me feel bad at first.

Goodbye for now.

Being a Singaporean and living with family while studying at INSEAD Singapore campus comes with its pros and cons. Yesterday I had plans to finish writing my Negotiation essay so I wouldn’t be rushing it out at the last minute at 6pm today. However I learnt at the last minute (which is often the case) that relatives were invited over, and dinner lasted between 2-3 hours when I’d normally just take 30 minutes.

On one hand I wanted to walk off after finishing my meal, but it would have been rude. Plus, I hadn’t seen some of these relatives in a while, and my latest baby niece was there too. So I stayed till the end. Thus all the items in my to-do list were undone as of this morning and I wasn’t very happy about it.

This morning I continued writing my essay, and arrived in school at noon for MarkStrat decision #6. I learnt we were still kicking ass and received double the previous budget, which was remarkable. So things are much better now. I was also happy to receive feedback on what I could do to help a team mate work faster and will be doing that in future.

Then I dashed home to finish writing my essay, grabbing a quick lunch along the way. I reviewed and submitted it at 6pm on the dot.

I was going to attend the Chinese dinner tonight and buy 2 T-shirts, but alas my sizes were already sold out, and there were 2 more group assignments due soon that I hadn’t started on yet. It’s good to have fun, meet new people and support your ethnic week, but it’s quite another thing to show up for group meetings unprepared. I believe in completing the latter before enjoying the former. So I’m staying back to finish my work and not let my teams down.

Our bidding results for P4 electives are out. I got everything I bid for, except that one course I thought would be very relevant should I return to the public sector, “Business & Public Policy”, was dropped due to low demand! Which meant I had 1 remaining credit for P4 and had to pick another course.

So I tried registering for 2 other courses I had in mind as backups - Econ in Developing countries and The Making of Strategy, but alas both clashed with other courses I was going to take. So my next option was China Strategy, where at least I had a bit of familiarity and interest in the subject, and fortunately it did not clash.

I guess there are tradeoffs in everything we do but it makes me hope that whatever I bid for had better be worthwhile!

A quick one from me before I dash off to meet my Strategy Execution groupmates.

I had just one class yesterday, Market Driving Strategies, and the topic was on online advertising. As some of my main blog readers will know, I am no big fan of advertising when PR can do a more convincing, long-term job. 2 other classmates who had advertising backgrounds were speaking the most in class, and I didn’t feel like interjecting in something I didn’t believe strongly in. However after some time another classmate MG looked at me across the aisle and said, Go for it!

At one point, the question was what could a smaller online advertising company do when it lacked the clout of a big player. I said that smaller companies could partner with online publishers and give them a commission for referrals, which is exactly what I’m getting for my own blogs.

I was thinking about this topic again this morning. Pardon me if my imagery isn’t appropriate, but I think that if using big blitz advertising is like having a Caesarian (in the sense that everything is timed and executed as a concerted effort, and you have to pay extra for these services), and hiring a traditional PR firm is like getting induced (less interventionist but the baby still needs help in coming out), then I’m all for natural birth (no extra help required)!

Of course, your brand has to be a good enough ‘baby’ for that to happen. However, for most brands a lot of effort is required, for new launches and sustaining existing products or services. But I believe that getting mentioned and linked on the Wall Street Journal (which happened to our High Tech Club speaker Paddy Tan’s company) is much more powerful than buying a load of online ad placements or paying a bomb for a television spot. Of course there are exceptions, but if you also look at return on investment, PR or Word of Mouth gives you much better bang for the buck.

Also, I believe marketing is much more than taking the end product as a given, and promoting it. As we learnt in the core Marketing class and beyond, it’s also about playing a role in improving the product/service. Which is not what many marketing departments may get to do, from what I’ve seen. We need to break down the hierarchies and get more cross-pollination going. That may require structural and cultural changes.

After class we had a group Markstrat meeting. I’m pleased to report that we finally kicked ass at MarkStrat and that has lifted our mood. We had other teams laughing at us for weeks and calling our bluff, and we finally beat many of them! Mwahahahar.

Off to meet my Strategy Execution groupmates!

During lunch today, I met a P3 Fontysider who instantly associated my name with my blog. This has happened on many occasions this period. 2 of my new groupmates, JPD and SA, who were sitting with me, asked why don’t I blog about the new core subject group.

Well… I feel that we still don’t know each other that well as we only have two core subjects. I see these 2 guys in other electives so I know them better, but I don’t think I share elective classes with the other 2 groupmates (JS, SD). However I had a meeting with SD on Monday and we got our part of the homework done pretty efficiently. I also appreciated that while JPD was clearly overloaded with other work he still tried to help, and offered to lead the next assignment.

I do miss my old group sometimes - the easygoing hotel magnate GM, the ever efficient professor RB, the all-rounded rockclimber MEK and the passionate chessmaster ES. We used to joke about our behaviours by referring to our Meyers-Briggs personality types. What I appreciate (although at the time it felt awkward) was that we spoke up quite frankly to the specific people when things weren’t going well. I’m starting to see how useful that is. We argued because we cared.

With the new group, I’d say the dynamics are different - not quite opposite; just very different. This week, for instance, I never imagined I’d be the one wielding the whip. I just wanted to get our work done in a manner which doesn’t waste anyone’s time, and submit answers that gelled together. Maybe I should find out my new groupmates’ personality types too… I’m getting curious. My ‘Feeling’ side is fairly sensitive to nuances and I’m picking up some vibes.

I also have 2 elective groups. MarkStrat has made me feel a little topsy-turvy and I’m not enjoying this as much as the core Marketing course. Our virtual company went through a lull as the low-margin underdog but we have finally done well this week. However it’s mainly because rivals are spending lots of money on the next step while we’re still catching up. Also, having international classmates sometimes creates miscommunications even though we have good intentions. This happened with my old group and it seems to be happening with this group as well. Last week after the professor gave some tips in class about following through big ad spending with salesforce spending, I wanted to boost our sales force in our strongest channel by percentage as well as absolute numbers. As I changed the numbers in the software program, the 2 non-native English speakers in my group shouted incredulously, “What are you doing?!”, then we realised we meant to do similar things. We just had to stay calm! Also, 2 of us are risk takers and the other 2 are conservative, so we sometimes have a split decision.

For Strategy Execution, I’m excited to be working with JL and JP who I think are great people who can be longlasting friends. It helps that I’ve known them for a longer period of time. Would you believe I’ve never worked with a fellow Asian from P1 until now!? I appreciate how the administration arranges things so that we get good exposure to other nationalities, though. Here’s hoping for a most productive assignment with ingenious solutions!

Gotta go sleep. Marketing class is in the morning and we have to write a 10 page memo by Friday. Ugh!!!

2 classmates posted this INSEAD Cabaret video, which spoofs Apple’s ads. It shows how we put the IN in INternational ;-)

So this is probably the second and last time I organise a massage service in school, in my capacity as the outgoing campus rep (let the P1 reps take over!).

We had 4 signups for the morning session starting at 10am. One cancelled, while 2 didn’t show up. Fortunately we publicised the available slots from 10.30am to noon, and 2 walk-ins arrived, so that makes up for it.

Earlier on, one masseur (who got great reviews from classmates the last time he was here) was showing me how to find tense spots on the back. They were joking with each other about all sorts of things, and I realised they were such happy people. They’re doing the best they can with the abilities they were given, and I really want to help them.

I also like seeing the (previously tense) faces of students as they enter the room, and 30 minutes later they’re all relaxed and smiling. That makes me happy too!

My masseur Richard gave me a piece of advice when he massaged my head and some parts of it hurt. He asked if I had headaches, and remarkably I did have headaches last week (I usually hardly ever have headaches). I said it was probably due to eye strain as last week I had a lot of homework to do.

He told me to take good care of my eyes.

Now, when people with perfectly fine eyesight tell us to do that (like our parents and teachers), we may think, “OK…”, but sometimes we still forget to take eye breaks and stare at the computer screen for too long.

However, when a blind person who paid to have an operation so he could at least see some “shadows”, tells you to take care of your eyes, you listen!!!

I also noticed my masseur was well-informed about very recent events. I asked him how he kept up with the news, and he told me he listened to the BBC. I was impressed because he had hardly any vision yet he was so up to date. Some people with their full senses intact would probably be less interested in learning about the world around them.

While having my own massage I also told them a bit about INSEAD because Singaporeans like them, who live in the heartlands, have little or no idea who we are or what we do. In the end I’d like to say I made new friends and learnt a lot in school today - not just in the classroom but in the massage room.

Hope to see them back again :)

The latest 2009 rankings are out! We have moved up one place to #5 while Harvard also moves up to #4. Stanford moves down to #6. However, LBS is now joint 1st with Wharton! Bah.

A small piece of good news in the midst of a really crazy schedule this week. I just wanted to let you know.

Back to work!

This ia a very quick post as I am very tired.

Last Friday I spoke at the Open House event for prospective students. I met 2 readers of my blog, which was nice, and I talked a lot. Hopefully I did not scare any people. I simply wanted to paint an accurate picture and share things that I myself did not know before joining INSEAD.

I spent the entire Saturday, Sunday and Monday having Negotiation lessons. Thank God that Prof Falcao is one of the best kickass professors ever. He is up there, in my books, with Prof Saraniti for Microecons. They make learning so engaging! However we can’t reveal the actual details of our negotiation work because that would spoil the effect for future INSEAD students. Let’s just say it was SO good, I strongly recommend you take this elective when you come to INSEAD. You will need this skill in all aspects in your life, not just at work.

The only bad news is that we didn’t finish in time. So we also have a final class this Tue evening! There goes my entire 2 days of Chinese New Year (public holiday). Such is life at a crash course top business school that is so international, we don’t recognise any national holidays!

I am so friggin’ tired and still have Marketing homework not done and due soon. Argh!!!

If you don’t hear from me in a while, assume that I am still very busy and exhausted because of schoolwork. Which in itself will give you some insights on life at INSEAD.

I passed my Delf A2 exam with flying colours. Woohoo!!!

Thanks to all the intensive French lessons I had with classmate HT. There we were, hoping to just pass everything by 50%… and I exceeded my own hopes and expectations by a mile. Had nearly full marks for written comprehension and oral comprehension.

This is a great relief. I have now officially cleared INSEAD’s third language requirement for graduation.

If you’re in Singapore and are also thinking of learning French as your third language, you may only know of Alliance Francaise. However if you have limited time, you may prefer a much more flexible course which focuses on particular areas you’d like to improve. Also, as you need to pass an exam, you may prefer getting more attention from the teacher (individual or small groups of 2-3).

As a former student at Alliance Francaise I felt the classes were too big for the professor to have time to fix your pronunciation individually. Then, if you want individual tuition at Alliance Francaise it is quite expensive.

So instead, I strongly recommend another school called French Faster, which has more personal attention at a more reasonable price. You’re made to understand why things are done in a certain way and not just because “that’s French, that’s how it is”, which is more the attitude I got from my professors at AF. This is just my personal take; I prefer to understand things then remember them, rather than just memorising for the sake of memorising.

Now, I need to keep practising my French so I can speak with the locals when I’m over at Fonty… and for all those visits to Paris ;-)

Day 2 was more quiet, after an energetic Day 1. Today, we had to make a group presentation on a chosen topic, within a time limit. So we rehearsed this morning and made a decent presentation. We all took turns to critique other teams. Then after lunch we were supposed to go back and improve our presentation based on the feedback.

There were funny moments. My team was sleepy after lunch, and at one point I was the only person in the breakout room with eyes open, still working on the slides. One guy fell asleep and snored, and we caught him on video. Later we played a trick by setting back our clocks and telling him an hour had passed and we had to make our presentation now!

All in all it was an interesting course, but when we’re of a certain standard and still are asked to critique each other, it felt like nitpicking. The entire team had to sit on stage during the presentation, so our body language, even while NOT presenting, was critiqued. I suppose this is fair game, because in business settings you also need to project a professional image off stage. But I think it could get a litttttle out of hand…

For instance, we had comments like:

“P, while your teammate was presenting, I saw you clutching both sides of your arms, like this…?”

P: I was cold.

“J, I saw you looking at your phone. Please don’t tell me you were sending an SMS while your teammate was speaking…”

J: I wasn’t sending an SMS! I was checking how we were doing for time.

I escaped that round, but received some valid feedback during my 2 presentations. One comment for me was, “I noticed you looking back at the screen and pausing…”

I replied that the remote controller’s reception was weak and when I clicked, the presentation didn’t move to the next slide. So I looked back at the screen and clicked another time. Of course I could simply have looked at the laptop in front of me and clicked again, so point noted.

“You gave extra information in your summary which wasn’t mentioned earlier. You showed [name of Opposition member in Zimbabwe] …”

Actually my classmate A had mentioned the opposition member about 5 times a few minutes before. Fortunately A spoke up to clarify this, and then the critique was that A shouldn’t gloss over the name the next time. So in our 2nd round he made it clear to pronounce the person’s name.

I think I’d be speaking for most of us if I said we felt a bit jaded. This was because the topics were the same, even if we improved on the content and delivery. Anyway, we lasted till 6+pm. On a Sunday!

Throughout both rounds, my slide design skills received a lot of praise, though I also didn’t want it to distract from anything else I did well. Also I believe that content comes first, and design should facilitate it. Since we agreed on our content early on, we wanted to make the slides look good as well. Now, the professor wants to use my slides as examples in future classes, which I take as an honour, considering he’s taught so many other business schools before ;-)

I was grateful that we got along as a team and that we didn’t impose our own thoughts on each other but had a logical discussion. We also ensured our points gelled and from the start we wanted a consistent story and slide design, down to using short bullet points instead of lengthy text (Hallelujah!). My teammates were a Lebanese, a Frenchman, a Whartonite from Benin, and a Brit-Belgian. I’m glad we had fun for the past 2 days and I dare say we’ve become friends.

Content-wise, I would’ve preferred a topic I was more familiar on, especially as I was doing the summary and couldn’t memorise all the points until I knew what the rest were going to say in their slides. However 2 teammates were very passionate and knowledgeable about the topic, and it also moved other teams to ask more questions than planned, so I feel we achieved our objective.

For today’s presentations, I looked too often at the big screen behind me. The second time round I had improved, but still could cut down on it. Everything else I did was apparently good. Maybe I could’ve just shot from the hip / presented from the heart so I wouldn’t forget about the overall stage presence I needed to build. I had better eye contact on Day 1 when I was sharing a personal story which I knew well, without slides; on Day 2 I focused too much on the screen. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to presentations, so knowing that I wasn’t perfect today made me disappointed.

However the feedback from classmates and the professor was, overall, invaluable. This course isn’t about people blindly cheering you, whatever you do - it’s designed to help us improve. As INSEAD students we were generally 98-99% there already, and so the remaining 1-2% had to be critiqued even though it sounded fussy sometimes.

We had an interesting session with Steve Knight (formerly from the BBC). There were just 30 of us, so it was cosy. We were divided into 6 groups of 5, with exactly 1 girl per group. Apparently the turnout for females is typically low. Then again, I thought that was the rough proportion of females in INSEAD’s MBA programme.

Why choose a communication elective? Because presentation skills are ranked #2 by employers, after business knowledge. And besides, I love this kind of work. Sure, we have to give up a weekend as the 2-day course runs only on Saturday and Sunday, but that’s 0.5 credits wrapped up.

For day 1, we each had to prepare a 1 minute speech on something not related to work. So I told everyone about the time my hair caught fire - at my best friend’s wedding. I had mostly positive feedback, with Steve asking if I had professional experience. It was nice to hear the word ‘fantastic’ from a guy who’s worked at the Beeb. However after reviewing my video I think there are some areas to improve and I was also grateful to my classmates who gave specific feedback on things I could do more or less of.

Good points:

• Voice projection was good
• Good use of hand gestures to explain the situation
• I clearly enjoyed myself while speaking
• Interesting and funny topic
• Clear diction
• Good eye contact (feedback from classmate in the middle of the audience)
• Generally the majority of feedback was strongly positive

Areas for improvement:

• I could speak more slowly. My reason for rushing was that I thought I wouldn’t make the 1 minute limit otherwise. We’re supposed to say 150 words per minute only.
• Could have paused after the first sentence for more dramatic effect.
• Could make more eye contact with the audience on the sides (feedback from classmate in the last row). I think I was very camera-oriented (already thinking of how my video would look on Youtube!) and so I focused on the middle. Our professor was sitting there, too
• Apparently I swayed a little bit, but because of my height it wasn’t obvious, compared to taller classmates
• After watching my own video I realise I could’ve removed a few filler words. They occured at points where I had changed the story from what I had memorised. I did this because I noticed most of my classmates’ speeches were LESS than 1 minute, and I knew my original speech would exceed 1 minute. I didn’t want to be the longwinded one, so I cut out a couple of sentences that weren’t essential to the story. At those points my ‘erm’s came in.

But generally, I like presenting and hope to keep getting better at it. My other classmates are not bad at all, either. What amazes me at INSEAD is the generally high standard of performance, considering the relatively little time we have to prepare our work, compared to normal business schools. And remember that most classmates are not even working in their mother tongue.

Day two will be tougher because we’re presenting in a group on a business-related topic. Which means we need coordination, sufficient knowledge and passion for the subject. I’ve had fun designing the slides and we hope to move the audience to action.

I am proud to unveil my masterpiece, the INSEAD Dash video:

At INSEAD, you can do two types of clubbing.

Type one involves lots of loud music, sweaty bodies on the dancefloor, and alcohol. You may get pissed drunk, have a hangover and feel really tired the next day. You will come late for class (if you actually make it at all) and get a Champagne Fine.

Type two involves hours of a different kind of labour, also dancing around many people around you, but without music and alcohol. You may want to get pissed drunk but don’t have the time; and you may feel exhausted too.

Working for an INSEAD club, that is.

I’ve spent the last two days just preparing for club stuff. This afternoon at the Club Fair, I was stationed at a desk for hours, welcoming P1s and answering their queries. It was great meeting new people, actually.

This evening I was working on more PPT slides for our meeting tomorrow. This is all partly because I didn’t delegate enough, as I feel bad that other people are busy, and when it come to inserting local content, I’d be the best person for it. However, other committee members offered to help, and I should also ask for their help more often. So I’m very openly calling for new P1s to provide new ideas, leads and help run the club.

To make things move faster and to let members have more say, I propose that those who are interested in running a new program, event, trek or anything else can do it independently once the club in general approves of it. Neither I nor the rest of the committee will be a bottleneck… just go with it! I’ll be around to provide local support if members need a Singaporean to speak to someone, but otherwise I’m happy for a little extra time for myself ;-)

Our P2 grades are out! I did much better than P1, doubling my previous GPA. As regular readers know, I was very sick in P1 when I took my exams, so this is highly encouraging news to me. It means there is HOPE…

Beyond simply staying healthy during the P2 exams, there were other factors which helped me improve:

1. The presence of more qualititative subjects
2. Much better class participation grades (I got 9/10 for Operations and 88% for Marketing), because I spoke up more.
3. Better time management, which meant I had more time to spend revising
4. I studied more. I did as many practice exercises as I could get my hands on. It seems pretty obvious but in a crash course like INSEAD, time simply flies and before you know it, it’s exam time.

Amazingly, my best subject this term was not Leading Organisations (as I had hoped), despite getting close to full marks for my individual essay. My best subject was …. Managerial Accounting!! How did that happen?!? :P It is one of life’s great mysteries. Maybe quantitative stuff isn’t so bad after all.

This has put a stride back in my step. Now I just need to focus, continue doing what I did in P2, doing it better and doing more of it.

Onwards and upwards!!!

I’ve been invited as part of a student panel to speak about my experience at INSEAD so far.

Considering I’ve been pretty open about things (good and bad), and how staff are aware of what I’ve been writing, I was glad to be considered. I’ll be speaking in a couple weeks’ time at the Auditorium.

Previously the information sessions were held at smaller amphis, so I’m wondering if there’s a much larger turnout now, especially with the economic downturn. I wouldn’t be surprised.

The good news is that I would have completed the Art of Communication elective a few days before, so I should be adequately prepared for my latest round of public speaking.

If you’re a prospective applicant and are reading this blog, do say hi at the networking and drinks session right after our panel!

I arrived late at the KM8 party sponsored by Bain. To get a free drink, P3s were supposed to go to the bar with a P1. However the organisers had run out of drink coupons. Darn!

Before I could do much about it, my old groupmates RB and ES appeared. And before I knew it, they and other guys hauled me to the pool. Fortunately I gave up my electronic gear (iPhone, camera, electronic car key) before I hit the water. Many other people followed. Some guys were thrown in wearing shirts and trousers. A few girls wearing evening dresses were thrown in. There was no mercy. In the land of KM8, everyone is fair game.

In the pool, a guy came up and asked if I’m Vanessa Tan. I said yes. He said he was one of the guys who responded to my blog. I said it was great to meet my readers in person. And he’s a P1!

After some water fights I eventually emerged from the pool and started looking for the kind person who had kept my belongings. I was also still looking for classmates who had drink coupons!

In the semi-darkness and among masses of people, I bumped into a guy whom I thought was S, a Chinese-American who sits in front of me. Then I realised it wasn’t S but a P1. He was holding a drink coupon. I told him that drink coupons had run out, and he kindly offered me his coupon (despite my insistence that he should keep it for himself) and bought himself a drink instead! I think his name was ‘Yong’ and he’s from California … A big thank you for this chivalrous act!

He raised a question which I will answer on this blog: “It seems that the locals I’ve spoken to don’t know of this place. Is that true? Where do the locals really party in Singapore?” My answer was yes; locals go to Zouk, which is probably the longest-surviving club that is still quite popular, and more recently, St James’ Powerstation. Clarke Quay has a mix of locals and expats.

I hit the beach, found my stuff and started snapping photos of other people getting dunked. They will be posted on Facebook, and some photos will not be tagged. Some of you will thank me for this ;-)

I bumped into a P3’er from Fonty who was Israeli and I asked him a question I’ve been wanting to ask Jews for a while: “Do you know which tribe you come from?” He said 10 of the 12 tribes were no more, but he himself didn’t have records of which tribe he came from. I had thought if they were still records, it would be quite cool to say “I’m from Judah, from the line of King David”. I am sure there are some of his genes around. I also asked if his family was safe in Israel, and learnt that different parts of Israel are in danger at different times, while other regions are relatively safe.

On my way back to the car, I bumped into a group of P3ers from Fonty who had to wait an hour for the next bus. I gave them all a lift to St James so they could catch a cab instead. One of my passengers was MZ who has his own blog (we’ve been linking to each other for a while but had yet to meet in person).

Now it’s time to sleep, and after church I had really better finish some work!

This post is especially for the P1s who read this blog. As you know, INSEAD has a number of clubs catering to different sectors and interests. I am the president of the INSEAD High Tech and Telecom Club (IHTC) in Singapore. Previously we were simply the High Tech Club but after discussions with the Fonty side we have expanded our scope on both campuses.

We will liaise closely with the Fonty side for consistent messaging and pooling of resources such as job postings. We will also launch a new club website and keep an active mailing list for members.

As president, my focus for this club will be on careers. This involves getting interesting speakers to share industry insights, going on career treks, networking with speakers, mentors and alumni and getting your CVs to prospective employers, via a special High-Tech and Telecom CV book. I will also call on the new generation of P1s who wish to play a more dedicated role in this club. More ideas and suggestions welcome.

So if you’re interested, do check us out at the Club Fair this coming Tuesday!

I recently wrote about how I’m now meeting Fontysiders who have already read my blog and/or experienced my hyperactive Facebook presence. It’s nice as this means we start off on more familiar terms. And I don’t have to introduce myself a lot to them, since they’ve already read about me!

Today I learned that staff in another INSEAD department are reading my blog as well. I was introduced to their Director today and she mentioned my latest post! That’s amazing and I was impressed at their interest. Over the years, though I didn’t plan it as such, blogging has gotten me some publicity, including interviews with the press and a number of job offers. But blogging also comes with a responsibility. The information I put up is read by a number of people who could - in the case of this INSEAD blog - choose to apply or not to apply. I don’t think one little blog will change an important decision but I hope it can fill in the gaps on the fun and frenetic sides of INSEAD that corporate brochures won’t provide.

Today, a classmate asked me and another INSEAD blogger how we could spend so much time blogging, and we simultaneously replied that for us, it doesn’t take much time! We’re so well practised already that it just takes minutes to write something. I wish my homework could be done as fast.

As a blogger I should also know what can be published and what is off limits. Any P1 reading this should know very well their responsibilities too ;-) I hope everyone had a great Friday evening. See you at the Bain party!

It seems that a number of Fontysiders now in Singapore have heard of me before meeting me in person, thanks to Facebook and this blog. I’ve just been told that this is one of the more interesting and active INSEAD blogs around … thank you! Also it is nice getting emails from people on various posts including the last one. It’s great to see I have nearly 40 feed subscribers already, which could mean even more people are reading the blog directly.

School-wise, things are good so far. I already have one Markstrat assignment involving groupwork. I will be working entirely with Fonty people for this, and 3 out of 4 of us are females, so it will be quite different. But I am also nostalgic for my old groupmates. Likewise wth my new P3 group for core subjects who are mostly from Fonty. The phrase that comes to mind is “Same same but different”.

Another 8.30am class tomorrow. 3 classes tomorrow in fact. It will be a long day…

Aiyoh, some of my classmates ah, si beh jialat!

They think every part of Singapore I also know. They expect me to be countrywide ATM locator, and of course I must know every single place in Singapore that has alcohol, including the tempolaly watering hole, what they call it, Aqua (like tranny issit?) at Riverside Point where we had our party tonight.

First of all, olganisers give instructions must give zai zai one! Tell us Clarke Quay, of course I go to Clarke Quay lor! Acherly at Riverside Point, must cross river, dun talk cock lah! Make me walk all over the place until my feet red red, very pain!

I know we are all in INSEAD, very crever one, but I also very atas hor. I also very guai, hardly go out since I studied in Engrand where I also drank a lot cos all these ang mohs ah, very crever to drink. Then I stopped partying cos got to work very hard in Singapore. Then I go to INSEAD then I start drinking all over again.

Tonight very good already hor, me and Sim the only P3 Singaporeans around OK! We very happening sia! Anyway like other times we all drink drink talk talk laugh laugh and den when we see someone we know, we muah muah kiss kiss also … barely know people also kiss… If we do that at work in Singapore, everybody will stare at us! They will call us Siao! Shake hand greet people already very good hor…

So you see what we go through. You treat us like walking dictionary - no - street directory! Hello ah… if we know so much why would we be in school??? You think my head got GPS issit? Also ah, most of us quite conservative one. Maybe dinner we go out, but we don’t drink so much lah! We go beach party but maybe we dun wear bikini lor … or our swimsuit dun look like postage stamps, like yours.

Also in crass today, some of you say our Gahmen not democratic one but never exprain why you say so … I also dunno what to say liao. Maybe our biggest party can have more competition but we can still vote what (even if I never got chance to vote before). Next time I will ask you all to exprain why. We are not a regime hor.

Anyway I also got crass again early in the morning, tabuleh tahan, dun argue with you all anymore. Got to koon.

But next time you kachow me … I hantam you then you know!!!

First day of P3’s been going well so far. I had Organising for Strategy Execution at 8.30am, and not too surprisingly the class was only about half full. Then most of the P3s from Fonty left halfway to attend the integration talk (for Fontysiders to learn more about the Singapore campus) so that made the class even smaller.

As a result it was just me, JM, MB and a few others sharing our views on what should be done to help the ailing company in our case study.

After lunch I met most of my other groupmates who are all from Fonty. It is a little strange returning to INSEAD as a senior, and also with so many new faces from Fonty. Those of us from the Singapore campus are simply happy to see each other and catch up, and the Fontysiders are doing the same thing too.

There is a party tonight and I hope my health permits me to attend…

Hi everyone,

I’m sure the new P1s are excited at starting term. Some of you have already had a taste of it at Business Foundations. And the P3s newly arrived in Singapore should be busy setting up their new homes and exploring Singapore.

Before I forget, may I say WELCOME to Singapore!

I have a couple of things in store for you guys (pending approval), which will be revealed on this blog and also in a mass-email to everyone in the Singapore campus. Look out for it!

In the meantime, some quick tips:

1. You don’t have to give monetary tips. This applies to every kind of service but if you really, really want to I don’t think you’ll be stopped. Service charge is already included in restaurant bills. There’s no need to tip the taxi driver (although in my family, occasionally we tell them to keep the change).
2. Try the local food. Try our local coffee and tea (called ‘kopi’ and ‘teh’) at our coffeeshop (called ‘kopi tiam’). Don’t criticise our Western food just because it isn’t the same as yours back home. Also, don’t assume things like ‘all pizzas in Singapore suck’ just because someone else ordered a pizza from a really average joint which no Singaporean even raves about. I’ve heard all these criticisms and would like to address them on this blog. Presumably being in INSEAD and living in a new country most people will be open to trying new things, even if the chilli nearly kills you the first few times ;-) There is a Foodies club in Singapore as well, for the epicurious.
3. Explore Singapore. It may seem small to you, but we’re densely populated with a few races living together harmoniously. Knowing Singapore is not just about visiting many clubs and pubs and Western restaurants. I strongly recommend the Night Safari. If all goes well I may be organising heritage tours as well.
4. In case you think Holland Village gives a flavour of the ‘real’ Singapore, it isn’t exactly so. It’s one of the more ‘expat’ places and therefore more international, just like INSEAD. This is another real question I’ve answered in the past few months. If you want to see a real Singaporean neighbourhood I’m sure I or my fellow countrymen/women can take you to a local HDB flat for some kopi or teh.
5. I don’t need to tell you guys to explore the rest of South East Asia as well. You’ll be going off travelling in groups almost every weekend. It’s a great opportunity, so enjoy yourself! But don’t think that Singaporeans don’t travel, because that isn’t true. We’ve been in this region all our lives already, plus we spend our weekends with family. When I’m in Fonty I hope to travel more.
6. If you’re buying an iPhone, show your student card. I got S$50 off my iPhone at SingTel ;-) If you want to get computer and camera equipment, ask me along!
7. And if anybody wants to play golf or join me at the driving range … let me know!

Here’s a glossary for ordering local coffee and tea, taken from Wikipedia’s article on Singapore cuisine:

At kopi tiams, coffee and tea are usually ordered using their local names.

Coffee

* Kopi, coffee
* Kopi-gau, coffee (strong brew - "gau" is "厚" in Hokkien)
* Kopi-po, coffee (weak brew - "po" is "薄" in Hokkien)
* Kopi-C, coffee with evaporated milk
* Kopi-C-kosong, coffee with evaporated milk and no sugar ('kosong" means empty in Malay)
* Kopi-O, coffee with sugar only
* Kopi-O-kosong, coffee without sugar or milk
* Kopi-O-kosong-gau, a strong brew of coffee without sugar or milk
* Kopi-bing or Kopi-ice, coffee with milk, sugar and ice
* Kopi-xiu-dai, coffee with less sugar
* Kopi-gah-dai, coffee with extra sweetened milk

Tea

* Teh, tea with milk and sugar
* Teh-C, tea with evaporated milk
* Teh-C-kosong, tea with evaporated milk and no sugar
* Teh-O, tea with sugar only
* Teh-O-kosong, plain tea without milk or sugar
* Teh tarik, the Malay tea described above
* Teh-halia, tea with ginger water
* Teh-bing, tea with ice, also known as Teh-ice
* Teh-xiu-dai, tea with less sugar
* Teh-gah-dai, tea with extra sweetened milk

Right after the last exam, we headed to the bar, and were greeted by a lovely ice sculpture shaped in the words “INSEAD” and “A1 A2” which are the names of the two sections in Singapore. You pour vodka on the ice and drink at one end of the sculpture. It was very impressive. And lots of free champagne, funded by our champagne fines. Our social reps did an amazing job!

At the bar, the Zero Coupon band gave what was perhaps its finale performance. I also “guest-starred” by playing one song, and was pleasantly surprised at receiving lots of cheers and praise from classmates. I am feeling the love!!! :) It was great to play in a band where there’s lots of spontaneous teamwork - especially in my case as I didn’t rehearse with them before that. It went well enough.

Our MBA Dean Jake Cohen even joined us at the bar for a while. Later, one classmate (who was a bit tipsy) saw our INSEAD Dean, Frank Brown, walking out of the back of the building and called after him, “Mr Brown!”. Frank Brown actually popped back to ask him what’s up… it was hilarious.

Another classmate barged into the P1 Business Foundations class and popped a bottle of champagne, welcoming the participants to INSEAD and probably stunning them. He later got dunked into the fish pond.

We left for dinner at Cicada and had a great time, then headed to Oosh! at Dempsey for drinks. Met RT after that for and we caught up over ice cream. It was a great night!

My tasks for the next few days:

Sort out INSEAD High-Tech club rebranding… Seems we may have to split up the Fonty and Singapore clubs if the direction is different. Have yet to hear back from Fonty and do a teleconference to sort things out. So we will miss the first round of club presentations to the new P1s and will aim for the second round. In the meantime, there are other new interesting clubs for you guys to check out. For those of you with media, telecoms and tech experience and interest, do save a bit of time for us, OK? ;-)

I am also in charge of putting together the Dash video, which I’ll work on during my holidays, so watch out for it!

Also, I will be going on two holidays: a cruise to Penang, then back home for Christmas, then to Dalat in Vietnam to play golf. Yesss….

My holiday reading will be a new book on Social Networking written by a professor and a senior research fellow at INSEAD. It’s called Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom. I am considering doing an independent project on social networks if it’s feasible and there aren’t other electives I want to take. Or at the least, getting in touch with the authors because it is an area of high interest to me, as many of you know.

Also, the job market is pretty tight and our Alums who graduated in the last difficult period (post-dotcom boom) have sent us advice via Career Services. Some say we should just go back to our old job/company and hang in there, gain more experience and then when times are better, move on to what we were planning to do. This is a bad time for aspiring career switchers. So we’re grouping ourselves according to experience, expertise and region and leveraging more on our networks there.

Oh well. We’ll see how things pan out. They can’t get much worse than they already are, or so I hope.

Exams could’ve gone better, but this time there seemed to be more people with similar sentiments. Overall I am sure I’ll do better than in P1. Heard from another classmate-blogger that our seniors’ average grade for Finance (a really, really tough paper) was 17%! One finance-savvy classmate told me we should pray for the standard deviation to also be 17, so even if you get 0 you will be only 1 standard deviation away, and pass. Which sounds pretty ridiculous but that’s how the Z-curve works.

Also in P1 I didn’t get any negatives (a negative score means you’ve failed and definitely need to resit), though I may have to resit something anyway to pull up the average. If so, it will likely be the paper(s) I took while suffering from food poisoning…

I actually like our Finance professors and wish it didn’t always have to end this way, especially as I learnt so much from this class. Prior to INSEAD my knowledge of Finance was zero (not counting knowing how to manage my bank accounts, buy and sell shares, fund my projects).

Since then, my finance knowledge has moved up to, say, 50% or 60% and for the sciency/engineering types who grasp quantitative concepts faster, say it’s 70% or more. However compare that to classmates who have worked in Finance all/most of their lives, have a Masters or other qualification in Finance and gets full marks the P1 Finance quiz. There’s a bunch of them asking questions so advanced that the professors say it’s beyond the syllabus. Let’s say that at INSEAD, their knowledge moved up from 90% to 95%. Obviously on an absolute scale there’s no contest, and on a comparative scale I’m pummeled to death. However thanks to the smarties, we also get a bigger standard deviation which will hopefully save my ass.

The last exam, Process and Operations, had twists in the questions, some easier, one definitely the hardest, and I kicked myself for not spotting some things but oh well, it’s over. I hope the soft subjects will help me. I told God, “If there’s only one subject I can do well in, let it be Marketing”. However the paper required a lot more calculations than we expected! Doing well at Strategy would be nice too, as I plan to move into a strategic role. I will be focusing on these areas (as well as Organisational Behaviour) because I have a genuine interest and my career path will continue in that direction. Whatever you do, as you move up in life, you will have to start managing and leading people, groups, organisations. Had an interesting conversation over the weekend with my former HR boss about it and maybe I will chat more with her in future on this topic.

Still, I wish I could ‘get’ quant concepts faster like my classmates with engineering, finance and science backgrounds. Those of us with more artsy backgrounds rely a lot on more savvy classmates to explain things to us, and I’m grateful for the Finance help, particularly to “Professor” RB, and to MEK for clarifying things shortly before the exam. What gets me however is that the standard at INSEAD is high, it is not easy to get in, and I’m in a company of very talented, brilliant people.

Overall for the subjects, I feel I grasped the key concepts enough that they will linger in my memory, and I can apply them to my future work and that will be important in the long run. However in the short run, I must get through to the next round!!!

That’s all I have left to say about the exams. Onward to P3!

Two articles I spotted in the local press today refer to INSEAD:

The Straits Times ran an article, ‘Surge in MBA applications’, a rising trend in this economic downturn. [You can now view the full article.]

Here are relevant excerpts about INSEAD:

“French business school Insead reports more applications today from the unemployed, compared to a year ago.”

Our local press always refers to us as a ‘French’ school despite our slogan, ‘The Business School for the World’. Our PR team really needs to work on this. I thought our Dean Frank Brown was very particular about our positioning as international, not French, especially now that we have centres in other regions as well.

On increasing the cohort sizes:

“Others like Insead are expanding enrolment next year, from 919 to 960.”

This statement as a standalone is OK, but wait till the end of the article…

There are quotes from various MBA applicants in Singapore and their reasons for doing an MBA now. An incoming INSEAD MBA is cited:

“Computer engineering graduate Chow Lee Ling, 28, is looking forward to starting at Insead’s Fontainebleau campus next month, because she will ‘get to analyse the crisis as it unfolds in her classes with people from different backgrounds’.

She also hopes that networking with successful Insead alumni will give her a ‘leg-up’ in her career.”

(To the incoming student: Actually, your Finance classes will begin with a much more basic and mundane topic, the time value of money, and in between you will probably get insights from professors on the crisis. But yes, the networking is great :))

[Update: Lee Ling wrote to me after viewing this post - she was misquoted in the article.]

What is slightly puzzling is how the article is structured, such that after quoting these students from various schools, it then ends by mentioning two ‘top’ schools - Rutgers and Chicago.

“However, schools say the spike in applications means it may be harder to get in as top schools like Chicago Booth School of Business, which takes in about 90 students yearly, and Rutgers, which accepts 50 students a year, are not increasing their intake.”

The sentence is clumsy and misleading. I interpret the overall point is that the really good schools wouldn’t increase their cohort size - perhaps referring to quality control. Which then implies that INSEAD isn’t as good. Admittedly, overcrowding is a valid concern as we’re already feeling there are too many students on campus. But increasing cohort sizes isn’t indicative of diminishing quality. Some top US business schools have far larger intake sizes than we do. So the point here is weak.

Also, the writer should understand that a top university doesn’t necessarily have a top business school. For instance, universities like Oxford and Cambridge are also top in many areas but their business schools are ranked above average, not number 1. We should compare apples to apples.

Next, I wouldn’t deny that Chicago is a very good university with a great business school, but it only has an EMBA programme here - the MBA programme is only in Chicago - so again, the journalist is not making the right comparisons.

And when you do make the right comparisons: INSEAD’s ranking is far better than Rutgers’s business school, which is not in the BusinessWeek top 100 at all but is only listed as as “U.S. Programs Also Considered For Ranking”. INSEAD is currently #3 on the non-US list, #6 in the Financial Times 2008 rankings after Harvard, with Chicago as #9.

The article also praises Rutgers for updating their syllabus to include macroeconomics to help students better understand the current economic crisis…

“Others like Rutgers are wasting no time retooling their MBA programme to make offerings more recession-focused. Come next year, it will offer electives like a macroeconomic policy course examining the US credit crunch to address the current climate.”

…when INSEAD has long included macroeconomics as a core (compulsory) course. We saw it coming a long time ago. And ‘International Political Analysis’ is also a core course, so you can say we’re very holistic; definitely a school with an international, big-picture outlook that fits our slogan.

In short: Between us and Chicago, we are the best business schools with campuses in Singapore. And we have the best MBA programme in the country.

Maybe we have a communication problem; maybe our official spokespeople aren’t that passionate about it and other schools seem to get the limelight more. But I’m sure many classmates are proud of being at INSEAD for many other things as well and we ought to have better recognition overall.

Of course, what matters more is how much you get out of the school, not just the prestige that goes with the brand name, but I’m also sure if you name-drop “Harvard” you will see Singaporeans going all agog with admiration. INSEAD is much newer, more specialised (business only), and thus it faces an uphill battle in name recognition among people outside the business community.

There is another article which briefly quotes INSEAD’s Executive MBA director on Singapore’s decision to embark on a trilateral partnership involving US and Chinese universities.

We’ve had our Strategy, Managerial Accounting and Leading Organisations exams so far. Today marked the last of our existing group’s work together. We’ve done assignments together for the last 4 months - that’s 40% of our time at INSEAD. I can hardly believe it’s over!

We worked pretty well for the last group exam, and did quite well too, and we’re hoping for a similar result this time. We had the same plan but this time more time was spent brainstorming as it was a more complex, intertwined case. But our views were aligned and our writing styles were (amazingly) so similar this time that integration was smoother.

As with any other group with a diverse mix of people, we have had different views about things over the course of time. I believe these differing views helped to create a stronger alloy and avoided groupthink. And I do hope we will all remain friends.

Onwards to Marketing, Finance and Operations exams next week!

Today was my supersmart groupmate RB’s birthday, and I was trying to think of something interesting to do to him. It also happened that this morning, our Strategy professor liked our group’s submissions for the Apple case and wanted us to present our views on a particular question.

My groupmates asked me to make the presentation as I was the one who prepared the slides for that question! Despite being a big Machead (i.e. Apple fan) I had long abandoned any notions that my work would be singled out for show and tell at INSEAD. So this certainly gave me a confidence boost which will hopefully help as the Strategy exam is this Thursday!

RB had improved many of our slides before submitting it, so he offered to come up with me to present. Then I realised we could spring him a little surprise. So I told RB he could present 1 slide and I would present the other. I quietly passed a note to another groupmate MEK to tell her that when RB presents we should sing ‘Happy Birthday’. And so the whole class sang!

We proceeded with our presentation. At the end, the professor told me ‘very good’ and we saw similar comments written on our paper submission :)

Then we got news from our Marketing professor that we scored 93% in our last case. I think we learnt from our mistakes in the previous case and did a much better job this time. We seem to get consistently high scores for analysis and this time, full marks for recommendation. Last week we scored 25/25 for a Managerial Accounting case where the mean was just 19.82 marks, even though at one point it nearly killed some of us (with angst). So it is heartening to know we can get full marks for qualitative components as well. Overall I hope this makes our group above average. We need every ‘competitive advantage’ we can get! ;-)

Gotta go. This may be the last you’ll hear from me until after the exams which end next week (unless something very significant happens)…

After interrogating various classmates, with all of them refusing to tell me what exactly I was nominated for on Santa’s naughty list (they were made to swear an oath of secrecy to non-attendees), I finally found someone who told me.

I was nominated, apparently, for having 1000+ Facebook friends and updating my status 15 times in 20 minutes. Wow, someone counted?! :P

How can it happen? Well, I have set things up for automatic updates. When I update my blog, it pings Twitter so that my Twitter subscribers are alerted to a new blog post. And when Twitter is updated, my Facebook status is updated automatically as well. It is a whole chain of events. You can call it an assembly line with no bottleneck. Of course, I can also choose to Twitter without blogging, and update my Facebook status without blogging or Twittering. So you can imagine the potential here.

Having said that, I don’t think I could have done 15 updates in 20 minutes! But I might just do that now to prove your point. Since I’m naughty already, I have to live up to the reputation, no?

I guess it doesn’t help to announce I just added 2 more friends this evening. Actually a few hundred friends come from INSEAD alone, and because I also joined our juniors’ Facebook group a lot of them have become my Facebook friends too. I have many friends from other schools and workplaces. Then there are 200 odd people I play Mob Wars with, and I don’t know them in person and they can only view my Limited Profile. Apart from that and several other random friends of friends or people I’ve met online via blogs or other community channels, I know everyone else personally.

INSEAD’s very own Sinterklaas (Santa Claus) is coming to Campus this evening. And apparently my presence was expected, because it seems Sinterklaas thinks I have been naughty in trying to do well this period and might thus affect the Z-curve.

I am not sure what punishment would have been meted out on me, but since I have dinner plans tonight, too bad! (In Singlish: You want to saboh me? I siam!)

And me, disrupt the Z-curve? I am so flattered. I’d be happy with an average score - anything so I don’t have to resit any papers. If it’s Z-curve disruptors you want, I’ll gladly volunteer my groupmate RB of 6 Sigma fame. I’m sure he has a much greater impact on the Richter scale.

Stress levels all around seem to be rising as we wind down to the final week before P2 exams. This week for me has been one of improving relationships with classmates I didn’t know so well, and confronting a couple of sensitive incidents, which is also good training for me.

My style is more collaborative than confrontational. I usually do not go heads-on with people unless I feel very strongly against something. And those of you who’ve been my colleagues will know quite well that I can be quite outspoken.

At INSEAD I’m toned down because there are a lot of issues my classmates know more about. One thing I hate is talking rubbish when there are experts at the table. However in other cases there comes a time when the line has to be drawn. If I feel something unfair is happening, or if I really don’t agree with something, I must speak up even if it could become ugly. I’ve spoken up for other people in weaker positions even though their aggressors didn’t like it. I didn’t give a s* what they thought of me, at that point. Likewise, now I should be doing more to help myself!

Future business leaders of the world can be nice, but they shouldn’t be pushovers, either. That’s all I can say about this week.

While speaking to our MBA programme manager Aaron this afternoon I learnt that BusinessWeek 2008 rankings are just out, and INSEAD has moved up to third place in the international MBA category!

This is great news; we’ve been moving up the Financial Times rankings over the past few years and are current #6 on a worldwide MBA scale.

Well done, everyone!

Yesterday evening a journalist contacted me regarding the INSEAD Dash. Thanks to my earlier post on the Dash getting featured on Tomorrow.sg which drew lots of new visitors, we will now get coverage in a national newspaper!

It happened all in a rush. I and the INSEAD Corporate Communications team in Singapore were notified just half a day ago, while the Cabaret was taking place, and news being news (tight deadlines!) I had to mobilise help fast - photo contributions and more interviews with classmates.

There were lots of photos in our shared folder but we seemed to be short on road-crossing scenes. These would have been the funniest, especially from the point of a passer-by who’s on his way to work and is stunned by this tidal wave of costumed freaks running past. I found a few photos of such locals looking stunned, which is pretty hilarious!

I also notified the P5s (thanks to RBenson for relaying the message!) and one guy sent me really good road shots. I’ve noted wherever possible the names of all the photographers, and hope they will be credited.

Anyway, I shan’t mention more. I don’t know how much of what I said will be reported, and I don’t know which photos the newspaper is choosing, so we shall just have to wait and be surprised on Monday! :)

Like the Dash, Bar of the Week, Cabaret, Olympics, national weeks and Champagne Fines, logoff messages are a tradition at INSEAD. This is a prank which occurs when you forget to log off from a computer in school. Someone else discovers it and sends naughty emails using your name. Some even consider it an art to write a convincing message that gradually reveals itself to be a fake. My Greek groupmate in particular is a Master in this art.

Our batch has seen several good logoff messages so far. One of the best ones - right before the Dash - was sent from the account of a pretty Italian classmate who announced she was going in a bunny suit and asked if anyone wanted to accompany her as carrot. Immediately many men announced that they would be her carrot, a few even claiming have to purchased carrot suits already. Finally, the real girl replied to confirm it wasn’t her, with a humorous rebuttal. However it wasn’t the end of the story as our marketing professor got wind of it, and inserted a bunny and carrot in his lecture slides!

An Asian female classmate forgot to log off twice in a day. Both times, logoff messages were sent, e.g. about how she was so stressed and needed an Italian ‘stallion’ to comfort her. The message didn’t deride the victim but simply praised the sexy Italian men (which kind of indicated who exactly might have written the message!). Her rebuttals to both fake messages were impressively witty as well. It doesn’t just happen to girls. Guys who forget to log off are usually made to sound like sissies who need security blankets and children’s toys. Other logoff messages announced the victims’ supposedly secret feelings for unlikely people (like Accounting professors or admin staff).

However today I was informed of a more malicious type of logoff message that wasn’t so funny. It was sent from the account of another Asian classmate and implied that sexual favours would be given in exchange for a place in an elective. However many times I re-read the message, it didn’t look funny at all. My female classmate replied to tell everyone on the list that this was not in very good taste. The thing is, the message was sent while my section was in class, and a lot of unfamiliar names were CC’d as well - presumably our P5 seniors. I think it’s not so bad if the joke’s sent to people you know, who will understand it’s a prank and laugh it off, but it’s worse if it’s sent to people who don’t know you.

Thing is, I didn’t even receive the email myself, as I was in French class this afternoon. I guess the IT Department deleted it off the server before the rest of us could see it. I don’t think we need to ban the logoff message tradition because 99% of the messages have been roaringly funny so far, and rather harmless as we all know it’s fake. However, one requires a certain skill to craft such messages well. Even if you want it to sound kinky it should be done with class.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my post on the INSEAD Dash has been featured on Tomorrow.sg. For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s Singapore’s premier blog community portal. It’s possibly the equivalent of getting linked from BoingBoing (for want of a closer example).

My analytics is now reporting an overwhelming number of visits from Tomorrow.sg readers.

Thanks to Tinkertailor for the link love :)

Got my first job application ding from my #1 favourite company of many zeros. I was not too surprised, and in a way I feel almost relieved. During the phone interview last Friday, I had the impression that they wanted more senior. Even if I did have the potential to lead this new team (which I still believe I do), I sensed they wanted someone with lobbyist experience, which I do not have. I nearly wanted to reply, “Here in Singapore you don’t exactly do that sort of thing, and if you asked any other local candidates they’d say the same thing too” but thought that would sound a bit rude.

As for the job itself, I had lots of ideas on forming a strategy, and did research on each country in the portfolio. However I wasn’t asked about my plans at all. The good thing about being in such a diverse school, however, is that you will find classmates from the country/industry you’re targetting. Plus, everyone was very supportive of my interview. I must thank G, H, N and Z for advice on their countries.

I was also curious as to how the position has been advertised since at least Nov 2007 and has yet to be filled. Obviously there were very particular needs and I am not sure if all the checkboxes can be ticked, because it will be very hard to find someone with all the required experience and qualifications in this region. Not that it’s impossible; just very difficult. I would not be surprised if this position is still unfilled a few months down the road. But I understand the company’s need to find the right boss who will then form a team. Having the right manager/leader is so important.

In response to their questions on my rank/experience, I explained that despite being relatively junior, my input was consistently sought at much bigger agencies and that was an achievement. However I respect their decision and will remain on their file for other positions, so it’s not the end of the world. I have many more months to go. Most classmates were surprised that I was being called for interviews so early.

As for school - while I understand P2 topics better, that isn’t going to be enough. I need lots more practice and re-iteration to improve my scores. So as much as I’d like to enjoy myself I have to cut down on events. INSEAD Cabaret beckons but … most likely I will not even show up. There’s the INSEAD Olympics at Sentosa which I will skip in favour of French lessons over Saturday and Sunday, as well as the Lexus Cup golf tournament which I shall tryyyy to attend briefly.

I’ve had second thoughts on whether I made the right choice - whether rushing through 10 months of business studies just to re-enter the workforce quickly was the best idea. If my priority was to learn and enjoy new friendships, then I could’ve given myself a longer time. Quite often we classmates talk about how we’d love to do more things but there’s just not enough time. I told an academic rep that if you graded me on how much I actually learnt, my score would be infinite. From having zero knowledge on Finance, Accounting etc to having some knowledge which I can apply to my work and personal life, means I have achieved my personal goals.

Also, I wonder if I’d have chosen INSEAD if I knew what I was going through now. In case you’re still contemplating which business schools to go to, let me elaborate on the grading system. Here, you aren’t graded by absolute scores but on how the rest of the cohort did. You can get a good percentage, but if the majority of your cohort has better grades, you will fall below the average and this will affect your GPA. You thus need to be even better in other subjects to make up for this. On the other extreme, if you kick ass, you may get a GPA of 4+ or even 5+ which sounds crazy, as we are used to having a maximum of 4 only. As you can imagine this also means that some of us have grades of less than 2 or 1, because the system just makes grades more extreme.

To be fair, those who already have strong groundings in certain subjects can get exempted, but these classmates were told they needed to take another subject when they’re in P4, instead of being able to join their seniors immediately for an elective. So, this resulted in many whizzes in Finance/other subjects remaining in our class, scoring full marks. The only consolation is this widens the standard deviation which also affects the GPA. But many of us see this as a waste of our whiz classmates’ time and an unfair comparison for those with no such background and only 2 months (or less) to learn everything.

But don’t get me wrong - I do enjoy the classes, I like my classmates, and every day there are jokes and laughter and lots of participation, which is hard to find in most local schools. However, sometimes I wish I could upgrade the RAM in my head and also my hard disk space and write speed so I can simply take in everything that’s being hurled at us and regurgitate them at the right moments. When we graduate, will we remember everything we were force fed? I also learned that while my GMAT score is above the average, that doesn’t necessarily make a difference. And if you fall very sick during the exams, that isn’t taken into account by your markers. I found out the hard way. So keep yourself healthy when you come to INSEAD, especially when it’s time to perform.

It was a calm, clear morning in Singapore. Buona Vista Road was busy as usual. A steady stream of traffic droned by, adding to the humdrum of yet another working day.

It was, really, just a normal Friday.

And then a cluster of crazed students dressed as chickens, ducks, bears, bunnies, female fantasy figures (including cross-dressers), superheroes, warriors, scuba divers and other oddities streamed past, cheering all the way into school.

Exhibit 1:

Which brings up a familiar riddle:

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road? A. (Modified) Because it was part of the INSEAD Dash!!!

The Dash is something you CANNOT miss at INSEAD. It takes place in the Singapore campus. Being encased in furry suits, large headgear or capes also means you will end up rather sweaty, but still pretty happy, by the time you reach school.

INSEAD staff and faculty are fully aware of the Dash. So while ordinary passers-by may stare, inside the campus nobody would blink an eye. Which makes it all the more hilarious.

After the Dash, many remained in their costumes while engaging in discussions with our Processes & Operations professor. You’d see the seriousness of our questions and our rapt faces as we hang on to the professor’s every word, even if some peoples’ wigs were obscuring their vision (and of those sitting behind them).

In between class, other INSEADers opened our amphi door and squeeze a rubber duckie at us. Then a few furry beasts broke in, ran to the centre of our amphi, did a jig, and ran out. We also had a mystery guest, Fred Flintstone, who refused to unmask his true identity and thus the professor said he was unable to give a class participation score to him.

I took some high-definition footage which should be processed and uploaded eventually - when I have the time.

Friday is going to be a big day for me and others at INSEAD. First of all, at 8.27am at Heritage View, a motley group of MBA students dressed in costumes will be making the traditional INSEAD dash to school.

I am torn between volunteering to take photos/videos or wearing a costume. Some of us Singaporeans are looking for a Lion Dance troupe outfit, complete with lion head. If we find one, I want to be the cymbal crasher.

After the Dash, my section will probably have Operations class, which is supposed to begin at 8.30am but we will probably start late after all the revelry. And after class I will find a quiet room and await … a telephone call from Google!

Yes, my dream company has finally called, for a position which had very specific requirements which I happen to meet. It is not an easy job in terms of scope and depth, plus the vastness and diversity of the regions to be covered will probably require heavy multitasking and political savvy. I believe it is important for both sides to find a good fit and I hope to ask some salient questions about the job as well.

Send good vibes my way!

Just to let you know I’m still alive, running on adrenaline (actually, it’s sangria left over from dinner), checking on groupmates down the assembly line who are reviewing our Marketing and Strategy graded assignments for one final round of quality control. It is going to be a tough week ahead… and 3 more weeks before exams!!!

I received many questions from classmates wanting good, cheap, convenient massages in Singapore. My answer was usually that the ones in town aren’t that cheap and they’re better off getting massaged over the weekend in Bangkok/Bali etc.

So the thought occured: Why not organise an on-campus massage? Get the visually handicapped masseurs to come to INSEAD. There’s no overhead costs and their rates are reasonable.

I sounded the idea with James the head of Operations, who was very supportive of the idea. In fact INSEAD staff already had one massage session with the Singapore Association for the Visually Handicapped (SAVH) so I invited SAVH to send its masseurs again, this time to massage the students.

They were only able to make it today as the service is very popular. Also, they sent just two masseurs with the request that each masseur makes at least S$60 to cover the cost of their trip to INSEAD. I offered to fetch them from Buona Vista MRT but emphasised that they should go to the bus stop near the Ministry of Education. They were misdirected and ended up on the wrong side of the road, but thought they were on the correct side, and thus I was unable to locate them. They took a taxi instead and arrived in the middle of my Operations class, so I asked the professor to excuse me while I settled them in. So my plan for a perfectly timed schedule where everything would begin before I started class, went out of the window.

The other thing I underestimated initially was demand. Feedback from classmates on the idea of a massage (aka my ‘market research’) was quite strong, so when the service was confirmed I only emailed the P2s. However in reality not as many signed up - even though many said it was a good idea (i.e. one does not totally translate to the other). Many had groupwork at the time. I also learnt that early morning massages are not popular, so in future these sessions will be scheduled later… provided we can find another suitable date!!

Faced with the prospect of some empty slots, I wanted to announce the service to all at INSEAD, but another classmate assured me that more A2ers would sign up at the last moment so I waited longer. It didn’t happen. So the day before the massae, I asked for the message to be passed on to the P5s but it wasn’t sent out. I sent another email for dissemination to staff, but it also wasn’t sent out in time. I sent another email to another P5 councillor who offered to spread the word, but it was rather late by then. I resorted to designing a poster for passers-by to see, and made acquaintances with a few curious P5s in the process - all of whom said it was a good idea but they had classes on.

Anyway, I also learnt that as neat as my scheduling was, it did not have enough buffer time to acommodate people who were 10 minutes late at the beginning. I was supposed to give a 5-10 minute break every 2 hours. I decided to be generous and allocate 10 minutes, but learnt that if there were 4 customers every 2 hours and if each customer arrives just a few minutes late each, that would have eaten into the break time already. Alternatively if I scheduled a 5 minute gap between each session that would help, but if classmates were punctual (most were) then the masseurs would also serve less people in total.

A similar thing happened with the lunch break. I thought 30 minutes would be enough, but spent 10 of those minutes in the toilet waiting for one of the masseurs. I couldn’t leave her alone and dash off to buy lunch for them, as this masseur was almost (if not totally) impaired and would walk into the wall if I wasn’t holding on to her. Poor thing! It taught me a good lesson, that I cannot just give a little bit more allowance because they have much slower movements.

As a memento, I got satisfied classmates to sign on the poster, and took a photo of the masseurs with it. May I say to my classmate-patrons that they were happy that you were happy, and they went home with decent earnings. Many good learning points and good vibes too.

I was happy that the girls and guys (mostly in my section) were supportive of this initiative - my first attempt at enabling social entrepreneurism. Feedback has also come in. Yes, I will make bigger announcements in future when there is more supply available. Also I will ask for someone else to help me because it is a time-consuming job, having to be there as a guide.

Thank you to those who made this initiative a success!

This morning I was early to class… but not early enough to catch a small slim black snake slithering across one of the long tables in our amphi. However, some classmates and our professor were at the scene.

According to one eyewitness, the snake was so thin, it was easily mistaken for a laptop cable. Another eyewitness said it had red and black markings. However, our professor has experience in jungles, he apparently could ‘smell’ the presence of a snake, and said it wasn’t poisonous because it emitted a smell; non-poisonous snakes do that to compensate for their lack of venom power.

He called maintenance, who apparently did not seem very surprised about it (has this happened before???). They used a bamboo pole to hit the snake’s head repeatedly until it died, then it was lifted up and disposed of.

I started wondering which nook and cranny the snake slithered in from. Our doors? The air con vents? Some unseen crack? Surely not the large glass windows because they’re sealed in… I theorised that maybe it came here to lay eggs and more snakes would appear soon! Ssssssssss!

One classmate, who is a mother of two young children, had an opposite reaction from the rest of us. She said the snake was obviously a baby, and its mummy was probably looking for it along with its siblings, and she felt sorry it was dead. I was like “!!!!!!!!!” but didn’t hesitate to frighten another more squeamish female classmate that maybe its family would miss it and come to our amphi to look for it! Other classmates who came later refused to believe there was a snake, until more of us chimed in, along with the professor. One guy was told that the snake had been on the part of the table where he sat … fortunately he wasn’t squeamish (at least in public).

So anyway, that was the exciting event that was experienced by only a few early birds … who most certainly got their worm.

This year’s INSEAD ball theme was Red Dot, which represents Singapore. It all began when an Indonesian politician said Singapore was just a little red dot. Somehow the name stuck and it doesn’t have very negative connotations anymore. It is true, on the world map the dot marking Singapore can be bigger than Singapore itself. Yet our small size has also been our strength as we are more determined to prove ourselves, surviving on human capital and working efficiently to compensate for our lack of natural resources.

So I came in pink today (closest to being a red dot) and someone actually said I was following the theme, so - yaay!

Many of us supported our Zero Coupon Band (or bond?) and screamed support for our classmates on stage. Virginia had the biggest fan club… I just started a Facebook group for them!

We felt hot and went downstairs to some air-conditioned rooms so it was less hot. Seems like our seniors knew where to go, cos they were already there. Consumed lots of appetisers - smoked salmon, seared raw tuna, absolutely delicious and fresh brie on french bread… it was great for hungry people. Then the pyrotechnics came on outside, and the Singapore percussion band gave a long, powerful performance. I think this was the band which performed at other big events (like National Day last year, I think). I was so proud to be Singaporean when I saw these young performers doing a great job and getting lots of cheers from my international classmates.

Danced a lot with Julian in the Bhangra room where there were lots of Indians showing their rhythmic skills. Felt a little woozy, walked out to another room, bumped into Panos who gave me bread and told me to drink water. Went to the bar across the corridor and drank water. Bumped into Raphael and Amel’s friend who’s contemplating going to INSEAD, and we both encouraged him to apply. Stepped out for a heart-to-heart talk with Raphael about how I can improve from P2 onwards (yesss even at parties I take my groupwork seriously!!!). At different stages, Eloy popped around to see how I was doing; thanks a lot for your concern!

Me with Raphael

Me and Eloy

At the end I felt much more stable and went home successfully, my feet aching but my heart feeling quite happy.

Juniors, if there is only one event you ever go to, make sure it is the INSEAD ball, either in Fonty or Singapore. It was a tremendous bash, definitely not a place where you’d wanna leave halfway. Enjoy it to the max.

And guess who else I met there … Stefanos, the most famous INSEAD blogger!!! Hey dude if you read this blog, remember my request and link to me too! Great to see him back in Singapore.

Now I am home, blogging this while feeling high, and I somehow have to go to church in 7 hours’ time….

INSEAD’s logo may be green, but on Wednesday those who believe Barack Obama will win are wearing blue, and those who believe it’s McCain, red.

So I just found my bluest T-shirt, a pair of blue slacks to go with my blue sports shoes. My schoolbag is already blue. Pity I don’t have blue socks.

Some of us may not be in the mood to concentrate in class in the morning. I sense that we in INSEAD support Obama more. I haven’t heard the views of most of my American classmates specifically on each candidate, but sentiments about George Bush are consistent with the rest of the nation…

I’ve decided to post questions emailed to me, on this blog, so that everyone gets the information and I don’t have to repeat myself.

Q. How many hours a week are you in class? I can’t seem to find that on any website. Also, for every hour you’re in class, about how many hours does the average student spend on preparation?

A. For both questions, it depends. So far for P1 and P2 (where we only have core courses, not electives) we usually have 2-3 classes a day, each class lasting 1.5 hours, and in between we have a lunch break. However we also have other activities like career talks, club meetings and groupwork.

[Applying what I’ve learnt for microeconomics, there are fixed and variable times in the equation. We have a certain fixed time of 1.5*3=4.5 hours per day. However, lunch break is usually from 12-2pm which is an extra 2 hours. It doesn’t make sense to walk home to Dover or Heritage to prepare lunch then walk back, so most will have lunch in school. When you have lunch in school you tend to linger at the tables talking/networking, or dashing off for some other activities. These other activities are like ‘variable times’. Career talks will last a fixed period of time, but you might linger on to ask more questions. There may also be club meetings. Time spent during group work also depends on how efficient your group is. So if you have many activities and lots of time spent on groupwork, you could very well stay past dinnertime, which has happened to me several times already. ]

The time spent on preparation varies for everyone. Some already have quantitative backgrounds, so it’s faster for them to complete the readings and exercises, while others who have non-quantitative backgrounds will take a longer time. Some even go travelling almost every weekend.

Having said that, the readings are generally heavy and many of us think it is impossible to finish everything all the time. From what I see, even if we do the readings, not all of us complete the exercises for each session. However, given how fast-paced INSEAD’s MBA programme is, I’d strongly advice those weaker in a particular subject to prepare as much as possible for it before class starts. I am trying to do this myself as it really facilitates my understanding.

P2 began well, because I stayed home during the short break and prepared my readings. I also compiled a list of assignments due this period in a Google Docs spreadsheet for my groupmates. Our seniors weren’t joking when they told us P2 would be more hectic than P1. We have 6 subjects this period compared to 5 in P1, although there are also less sessions. We have many more graded assignments, including individual online polls which count for a small percentage of your grades.

While it is hectic I think it is a good idea to make us do more work consistently, so that we’re constantly revising what we’ve just learnt. The only subject where exams count for 100% is Corporate Finance. This means that teamwork is essential. Our group has had mixed levels of efficiency so far. On the plus side, we worked well for the Leading People and Groups exam in P1 as we all had a common goal - agree on the theme, split the workload and then merge our input. We also planned our roles in advance.

This period I had hoped that my schedule would give groupmates more advanced notice to volunteer as leader for specific assignments. However, this week nobody volunteered outright, and when there isn’t a clear leader we go in different directions. I am now contemplating ‘arrowing’ people by random selection, so at least someone will crack the whip! ;-)

This period, I hope to contribute more for Marketing and other subjects requiring ‘softer’ skills. Like I told one of my groupmates, this is the area I am most familiar with, and while my knowledge was gained on-the-job in a specialised field, I could offer a more creative perspective to complement the quantitative analysis provided by other groupmates. Of course, we all have to agree on the quantitative analysis in the first place or else we won’t make sense!

I had a nightmare about my makeup microecons exam which is this coming Monday. I dreamt I turned up for class but along the way it morphed into my primary school exam hall. My classmates seemed to be a mix from INSEAD and other schools in my past. They were all informed that the microecons exam would take place very soon, and I was the only one who wasn’t informed! I didn’t even have my cheat sheet (a list of formulas we can use in the exam) with me. Alarmed, I ran downstairs looking for people I could borrow notes from, weaving through the crowds in a corridor which somehow morphed into a row of ‘pasar malam’ shops (night market) selling clothes and other things. All this while time was ticking away and the dreaded exam moved closer…

It was a very strange dream. The only good thing is that usually when I dream of bad things, the reality isn’t as bad, and vice versa - when I dream of something good, usually the reverse occurs. So I hope the classmates who told me the microecons paper wasn’t too bad, weren’t bluffing. Assuming that I’m not taking a totally different paper from them.

This afternoon I settled some High Tech club event planning with my senior, the outgoing President. I will be taking over the reigns soon, and am thinking of changing the club’s name and widen its scope. We also need to reach out to the new P1s coming in January because we need a team, not a one or two man show.

This evening I prepared a business plan presentation for a new venture idea I have. It will be presented to classmates in the Entrepreneurs Club who will critique it and give advice. So far at INSEAD, the spirit for innovation is enthusiastic; the vast majority of classmates think I have a good idea going, although I need to reinforce its selling points.

Later on I was pleased to learnt that the Wall Street Journal is giving INSEAD students free online access. This is in addition to the free Financial Times online access we already have (I obtained it via the FT Facebook link, which requires activation via student email address). We already get a load of free FT newspapers every morning. This afternoon I went for training to use a very comprehensive and intuitive financial news system by a subsidiary of Standard and Poor. Some of us may go for free Bloomberg training as well. It’s great being a student in a top B-school because these financial news providers like baiting us with free trials, hoping that once we rejoin the workforce we will pay for their expensive services!

Even later on tonight I gave an interview to a journalist on a subject in which I’m viewed as a bit more of an expert, although I cannot divulge details until the news is published. At some points we talked about INSEAD as well, though I’m not sure if the school will be mentioned along with my quote.

Lastly I wanted to say thank you to all my readers who have been sending encouraging emails to me. I now get 1 or 2 a week from you. These are mostly the newly accepted who will soon be joining our ranks. It’s a pleasure to know that my insights are helpful, and you guys are partly the reason I keep on writing. I do my best to bring out the exact flavour of my experience, good and bad because that is how I believe blogging should be.

Look forward to the best year of your life!

Today my class started at 10.15am so I thought I had enough time to get to school. However on my way out, I found a silly car parked in front of my gate. At first I thought the driver wasn’t in his car, but when I sounded the horn he jerked his head up and I realised he had been slouching in his seat. Still he took a looong time to move off. I was so mad. I called up one of my Social reps to let him know that I had a legit reason to be late (so I didn’t get a champagne fine!) and dashed off the moment my path was unblocked.

As a result, I was several minutes late and quickly walked in to class, trying my best not to disturb anybody. Our marketing professor didn’t look too pleased and I thought I had better explain my tardiness to him after class. It didn’t seem to make a good impression. Maybe I was being too sensitive but initially when I raised my hand to speak a couple of times, he would call someone else near me instead, and not get back to me. Anyway the questioning became more complex and there was silence… and I did have some specific insight to share on the music software case we were working on, that would add value to the marketing proposal. It seemed to make an impact as later on he referred back positively to my point.

After class, I quickly went to the professor and apologised for my late arrival, explaining what happened. He was amused and acknowledged the irony that those driving in Singapore sometimes have more difficulties than those who don’t! He extended his hand, and we shook on it. I told him I enjoy his classes (which was true, and what other people have been saying as well).

As we barely finished speaking, one of the visitors (prospective students who get to attend a sample class at INSEAD) asked me for advice about INSEAD. I spent my break time telling him about the pros and cons. I didn’t realise that beside him was a lady who I thought was a P5 senior, but turns out she was from INSEAD’s Marketing department. She thanked me for being able to advice this prospective student at such short notice. I didn’t mind at all.

I quite like marketing, naturally, because it’s the closest subject to what I was doing in my previous life. But after reading the course materials, I realise what I’ve done has been relatively tactical compared to what I’m learning now.

The visitor asked me if an INSEAD MBA was worth it. I told him that how ‘value-added’ an MBA is, depends on what you make of it, and where you’re starting from. For me, even though the quant can kill, I wouldn’t have learnt this at work on my own, so there is a lot of value-added for me. The question specifically for those interested in INSEAD, would be whether they want a truly international experience, and whether they can handle a really compressed MBA and all its sacrifices. Another question of course is the cost, and whether you feel INSEAD is worth it.

It is so interesting how, just months ago I’d look up to INSEAD alumni for advice, and now I am giving advice to juniors and visitors. They say time flies, but at INSEAD, it’s at Concord pace. If I had more time I’d have chatted more to that Marketing gal as well. I told her I had an INSEAD blog but never got to give her this URL, though I know other INSEAD staff are aware of this. We could do more with social media - but now I might hold myself back while I recalibrate my instincts with some more strategic training.

Just got back from the INSEAD end of P1 party at Dover. There are two more parties tonight for those with more energy - at Le Noir, our favourite club at Clarke Quay, and at another yet undisclosed venue. Our social reps have done a great job putting things together!

As for other happenings: I was supposed to go for band practice this evening (we’re trying to perform as an INSEAD band for our Ball) but I couldn’t make it due to groupwork, and work comes first, so again music has taken the back seat for me :-/

In any case, things are feeling good and I just hope my health improves so I can get some real exercise.

For most people, exams are over! Unfortunately for me, as I was quite sick on Monday morning with vomiting and diarrhoea, I could not take the Prices & Markets (microecons) exam and will do so somewhere at the start of P2, hopefully in the next couple of weeks before I forget what I’ve learnt!

I hope to have a fresh new start with P2. There were some things in P1 I wish I had done. Improving my time management is probably the most essential thing, followed by having the courage to ask more questions instead of quietly telling myself, “It’s OK I’ll figure it out when I have the time” - because at INSEAD there is no time for long reflections!

Another thing is fitness. Before I started INSEAD I had an ambitious plan to wake up fresh and early, go to the gym and then to school. However, during the first month I was simply too sluggish (back to my first point about time management). Then I had an unfortunate blood clot that filled up a sac that was threatening to burst, and I was advised by my doctor not to strain myself or exercise. So that was the end of my exercise plans!

However, being around highly motivated and intelligent individuals has influenced me. I know who works out at the school gym and every time I see them it reminds me that I really should be going back. It’s been years since I was a regular gym goer. And to think I have a small gym at home which I hardly use…

The other thing is, simply hanging out with more people. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I need to play hard too, but have to address my concern that I’m not doing enough academically and therefore should not be going out so much. P1 is the most quantitative that it will ever get for me, hopefully.

Many others are going to various parts of Indochina or Malaysia, but I am staying put. I need to keep up my golf to prepare for two pleasant golf outings, beyond Singapore, in the next few months. Also good for a future MBA graduate to be able to play golf! ;-)

Also, I have to review my French. My class resumes in the morning. I really hope to pass the DELF A2 in December and be done with it. Classes at INSEAD are so tightly packed that I may only be able to have French classes during evenings or weekends.

That’s it for now… time to sleep.

This evening, INSEAD was honoured to host the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. I read in the local papers today that the Crown Prince is in Singapore for 3 days to meet with various leaders here.

Professor Helmut Schutte first introduced one of our seniors, Eyad, who is Bahraini and also a member of the outgoing Students’ Council.

Eyad gave a polished speech, introducing the Crown Prince and the roles he had played in shaping the modern policies and strategies of Bahrain. Consulting Wikipedia on my iPhone, I learnt that the Crown Prince was educated in Washington, DC and also in Cambridge like his father.

The Crown Prince’s speech broadly covered his plans to take Bahrain to the next level. He wanted Bahrain to diversify its economy, beyond oil. He stated that Bahrain should retain its Muslim values while at the same time respecting the cultures, nationalities and ethnicities of people who come to Bahrain to work. At one point the Crown Prince seemed to address our Singapore Minister who was also in the auditorium, recalling Singapore’s own rapid developments in its recent history and adding he looked very much to meeting Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

The Q&A session that followed was more interesting, with classmates from various countries like the US/France, Turkey, Pakistan/Bahrain, Malaysia and Ireland asking him about his plans for education, developing other industries in Bahrain, elaborating on the difficulties in effecting change, and his thoughts on the region and sharing of know-how between government officials from other developing countries. Professor Schutte also asked if INSEAD entrepreneurs would find it easy to set up business in Bahrain.

One area I felt Bahrain was more progressive was how it did not make its scholars (who are also sent to top universities like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge etc) return straight to public administration. Instead, they were allowed to join the private sector right after graduation, but would be asked to mentor the new batch of scholars.

Overall I felt it was a good talk; nothing mind-blowing but not boring either. However some classmates felt the Crown Prince was not detailed enough. I actually did not expect him to be too specific. I am not sure how many of you have been in public service and have written speeches or talking points for important Government officials.

Firstly, if the speech is made to the general public, the subject matter will probably be broad, to cater to everyone. Already the Crown Prince seemed to focus more on business development and public policy aspects which would appeal to us MBA students.

Secondly, one should avoid being too specific especially about things that might change later, especially if one is a political figure being watched by one’s own people and the international press. I’d think the Crown Prince’s Ministers would be the ones to give specific details. For instance, one INSEAD Alumnus cited very specific figures and the Crown Prince looked at his Ministers to confirm the facts first, although he was mostly on top of things. This wasn’t meant to be a low-level sales pitch but a big picture speech. (Of course, if our Prime Minister gives his Budget speech we expect him to give us financial details, because there is a specific topic in mind already. And Barack Obama, who used to be criticised for not being specific enough, is now scoring points for giving lots of details about his policies. So it is a case by case situation.)

Lastly, if you want to cover a wide area, you can’t get too detailed within a limited period of time. I’d rather paint the broader picture and if asked again, I’d go into the details. Our professor was also very mindful of the time constraints due to the Crown Prince’s busy schedule.

As a Singaporean, what the Crown Prince said had an added dimension by reminding me about what my country has achieved. Sure, we’ve heard it all before - we had no natural resources, a tiny piece of land, a small population; we are just a ‘little red dot’ on the map, yet we have become a developed nation. Nothing is perfect, of course, but we definitely could have done much worse.

Another insight shared by the Crown Prince was his observations of other countries’ officials. There were officials who cared about the country and were comparing notes at meetings, telling each other to avoid the mistakes they themselves had made. It is heartening to hear these little anecdotes from a high-level figure. Then there were other officials who didn’t take such pride in their work and the difference was telling.

So overall I still think it was a good session, because it was a little better than how I expected it to be. Frankness and occasional displays of wry humour are refreshing in any sort of politician or statesman, and the Crown Prince will definitely be a most urbane, intelligent future ruler.

Update: My classmate Mel H has similar thoughts on her blog.

Today is Friday and we have just another week of lessons before exams begin! The library gets pretty packed during the day.

My group has been working very fast as usual and scored top marks for our first Finance assignment. We have been quite enthusiastic in volunteering to present our work, and today a few of us - including myself - received feedback from numerous people that we should take it easy and give others a chance. I’d be happy to :P

We were all playing the Prices and Markets online trading game (aka our first taste of Game Theory) for the past couple of weeks. The point is to make as much profit as possible. We do not know who the other teams are - they are from the Fontainebleau campus and Wharton - and cannot collude with them, just like in real life when duopolies are forbidden to price fix together. We did OK as our competitors understood we could both benefit by choosing a certain price. The last team tried to screw us but also screwed themselves in the process.

However, overall the atmosphere in class is still lighthearted and we are becoming more mischievous with our professors.

Today was our very last Statistics (aka Uncertainty, Data and Judgement) class and since we all like Professor Lobo - particularly the girls! - we decided to spring a little surprise for him during our multiple regression presentation.

As he could pick any of our groups to make the presentation, we all inserted a couple of slides at the end our Powerpoint files, thanking him but adding there was one question he has yet to answer: “So how can I be sure that I am satisfied with the sex….?” It was accompanied with a photo of the poor classmate who uttered that unfortunate phrase - he was quite a good sport about this! (Read my previous post if you don’t understand what’s going on)

Lobo said he would definitely remember our class and relate this story to future students. We gave him a standing ovation.

Later on, we had Financial Accounting with Prof Segal, who requests all latecomers to leave the classroom (unless they have a very good reason, like being caught in the rain). Anyway, this time HE arrived late, so we immediately waved our ‘Champagne Fines’ cards at him. It was quite funny. He asked if he had to pay just $10 (our standard fine) and we shouted no, he should pay $700! (the number of students in the class)

We asked him questions about the current crisis so the lesson was more interesting than usual. We actually applauded at the end of his class, too.

Finally, we had an interesting session with Prof Hawawini, who is a Finance legend, author of our Finance textbook and former Dean of INSEAD. As we waited for the projector to be fixed, we asked him about his thoughts on the crisis. Another of my groupmates wanted to know whether this was the worst crisis in Hawawini’s living memory, and began by saying, “You’ve been around a long time…”

The class immediately started waiving the Champagne Fine card at him because it sounded like B was implying that Hawawini was old! You can get fined for being late, having your phone ring in class, or by asking smart alec questions. Later on we learnt from our social reps that thanks to the amount of fines collected, we are going to have a great post-exam party!

But back to serious stuff … I don’t have anything much planned except to catch up as much as I can with my brilliant classmates and groupmates. Actually I think a lot has to do with time management. If I sleep earlier, and get more sleep, I will be more alert. Then I will wake up earlier. I could do my work in half the time, if I wasn’t easily distracted. There are however some concepts I need to grasp well. I know what I don’t know and will be going for some tutorials and review sessions.

Interestingly, I heard from groupmates that our seniors think we are working too hard and that the library has never been so crowded before. As much as I’d like to think we’re a bunch of nerds who could cut ourselves some slack, times are also difficult, and people are trying to get good grades so they can get good jobs. Dean’s Listers get picked by top companies. Also, our seniors are in P4 and are now doing subjects they’ve elected to do, winding down as they hand over the club responsibilities to us, and their main focus now is job interviews. So we think our seniors may have forgotten the madness that is P1.

A few people have asked what are my plans for the break. Well, it’s a short break and I don’t intend to spend money on an overseas trip. Firstly, I am definitely going for the post-exam party! I will also be going for French classes again to prepare for my DELF A2 test. I and an Italian classmate will also be playing tennis together. Maybe then I’ll also have time to repair my Mac and restore my home studio activities. I also intend to go for the INSEAD Ball, and I will be preparing for my new term as President of the High Tech Club.

But for now, it’s time to hit the books!! Tomorrow the family is throwing a party so I will not have much time left over the weekend after that. I have started to think that it is actually a disadvantage being Singaporean, living with family, and going to the Singapore campus. But that will be for another post.

I was present for the first half hour of a live streaming presentation in Second Life, titled ‘Capacity Building and Partnership in Development’. This is the first of two talks, as mentioned previously. The next talk is by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate so it is worth catching as well.

There weren’t many of us Second Lifers in the audience, but the real life audience and speakers were aware of our presence. I had no problems getting Second Life to stream the video. There was a bit of lag every now and then but that always happens when accessing Second Life in Singapore.

However, my MacBook Pro (2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM) started freezing intermittently, until it happened every few seconds which was quite disturbing, so I had to quit Second Life. I restarted Second Life and the problem occured again. I gave up and started doing my homework instead. I haven’t had this problem on my powerful machine before. It could be due to the latest Second Life software update.

However, I did manage to take some screen shots and learn a little bit about what Lilly was doing about Corporate Social Responsibility. I left when they were discussing HIV/AIDS issues, which is a pity because I handled the new media campaigns for AIDS at the Health Promotion Board, and it would’ve been great to hear more.

I am not sure if there was any interaction between the Second Life audience and the speakers. They just told the real life audience that we were watching the live stream. Someone joked that if confidential issues were discussed, they should ‘accidentally’ pull the plug on the Second Lifers, to which I replied, “HEY!!!” but I’m not sure if they saw my message.

If there isn’t interaction between us and them, and if they really turned off the telly at some point, then I fail to see much value-add using Second Life as opposed to normal web streaming, like ustream.tv. Second Life takes up a lot of processing power already. At the same time it is still a good platform for simultaneous, international dialogues. I was just hoping that it would be a full conference in Second Life, like other sessions I’ve attended on other educational campuses. Maybe one day…

From tomorrow we’re deciding whether to go do a campus exchange in P3. Initially my plans were to go to Fonty only in P4 when the worst of the winter is over. However, another Singaporean classmate told me it is better to go in P3, then return to Singapore in P4 and P5 to look for a job here or in Asia (where I’m planning to work). So for a while I thought of going to Fonty in P3.

Then I looked at the electives I wanted to take in P3, and realised that a lot of them were taught on both campuses, so there was little pull factor for either side. Next, I looked at the evaluation scores given to these professors by our seniors. From what I saw, the higher-rated professors (a few scoring over 4 out of 5) will be in the Singapore campus in P3 while the others will be in Fonty (scoring over 3 out of 5).

I know evaluations can be subjective but some of these were done a few times over the course for the same professor. If this professor is given roughly the same score each time, I am sure that the rating would be a good indicator. Maybe the seniors in Fonty were feeling cold and grumpy and gave lower marks - but I really don’t think so.

The other aspect is the networking. If a lot of Fontysiders move to Singapore in P3 then return to Fonty in P4 and P5, and if I’m going to do the exact opposite, there is a chance I will not meet a lot of classmates, ever. Of course I think with the possible permutations I may not meet some classmates anyway, but the winter season is when a lot of classmates want to come to Singapore, so I might as well stick around.

The only thing I will miss in P4 in Singapore will be the famous INSEAD dash, where everyone living in Dover and Heritage will dress in costumes and run across the public roads of Singapore to school. But my priorities are academics and job search. I still think I can handle a job search in late P4 by applying then, and returning to Singapore in P5 to go for interviews. At worst I can do video interviews in Fonty.

So tomorrow I will probably not request to go to Fonty in P3.

Today, we had a pillow fight! We came in our pyjamas and brought pillows. In the Singapore campus we are divided into two sections, A1 and A2, and we were pitted against each other after our two morning classes. Whoever took over the rival amphitheater would win.

This morning, our amphitheaters looked like large bedrooms, with pillows on our desks and seats and some even on the floor. Some guys were wearing boxers and cotton t-shirts! A few girls wore nightgowns. One guy from the other section came in full striped pyjamas. One girl wore fluffy bedroom slippers. One guy wrapped himself in a blanket with his pillow tucked behind him, looking dreamily at our Econs professor who told him jokingly not to fall asleep!

Of course there were a few spoilsports who didn’t come in their pyjamas and tried explaining to the rest of us that they really did sleep in jeans and polo t-shirts … yeah right! However, many who wore pyjamas changed into normal clothes after that. I thought the fun part was staying in your pyjamas! How often do you get to wear PJs to a top b-school and get away with it?

Anyway… how it works is that our professors take turns to teach us. My section had Econs first, followed by Accounting. The other section had Accounting followed by Econs. Unfortunately I think they ended their class slightly earlier and stormed into our amphi. We fought bravely but alas, after a few minutes of mayhem, A2 declared themselves the winners.

As they cheered, we booed good-naturedly, and one classmate muttered, “Stop disturbing us! We’re studying!” and we laughed.

I took a few blurry photos of the pillow fight but my iPhone was whacked out of my hands!! Fortunately nobody stepped on it. My groupmate, however, had his camera lens knocked sideways and so it couldn’t retract back into the camera… I empathise with him because a similar thing happened to my camera last year.

I’m sure there will other interesting social events coming up … kudos to our social reps for coming up with such wacky entertainment!

I thought I better write this story down before we all forget about it!

A few days ago, in Statistics class, our professor was showing us how different types of data polled from our two sections, such as age, gender, shoe size and weight, could be used to determine each other. Some factors were more correlated while others were irrelevant and could be removed from the equation.

For instance, to predict someone’s height and weight, age would not be a good factor (seeing how our age range was narrow, and being older doesn’t necessarily make you much heavier), but shoe size would be better (because if you’re tall you tend to have a larger shoe size, and possibly weight more).

Along the way, questions were asked and we were quite engrossed in the data, because it was about our own class!

One Italian classmate looked intently at the screen and asked something like, “But how would I know if sex is a good factor?”

There was a split-second pause, then the whole class erupted in laughter!!!

Our classmate was a little embarassed as he didn’t mean it that way, but we all found it pretty funny. Needless to say we were in good spirits…

(Classmates reading this: If you recall the exact line used, please let me know!)