October 2009 Archives

I met up for drinks with INSEADers over the past 2 days. From our exchanges, we noticed how a particular classmate was very good at networking. Despite the downturn, she clinched a nice job in an industry that many INSEADers would find attractive. Of course, she has relevant work experience and a famous MBA (ahem), but she also seems to know lots of influential people. That surely cannot hurt.

So we asked her how she networked. I will share her tips from a more generic point of view, so it can be applied across industries.

1. You have to meet people. I’m making this the first step even though she didn’t say it outright, because without this you can’t proceed with the other steps. Anti-social people, take heed.
2. Remember the names of the people you meet at each event. Write them down (if you don’t have their name cards).
3. Find out who they are and decide who are the ones who could help you.
4. Among those people, drop a note to the ones you had chemistry with. Those would the easiest to communicate with.
5. The next tier is made of those you had less chemistry with, but could still be in a position to help you. You will have to put in more effort to communicate with them. But do it anyway.

An implicit point I picked up was that you can’t possibly follow up with everyone you’ve met. Instead, you should be selective.

That’s about it for the basics. When I have the time, I’ll add on my own tips as a part 2.

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.

Actually I noticed that Interviewbay.com linked to this blog a while ago, but it’s nice to receive an email acknowledgement from them:

Hi Vanessa

You have created a great resource for MBA applicants, and especially for people who are looking to get into INSEAD. We have added your blog as one of the best blogs to help INSEAD applicants. You can visit http://www.interviewbay.com/interview_resources.php for more information.

Read on for more info about Interviewbay, based on the email they sent me.

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!