tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15865873073888963252024-03-04T21:39:16.284-08:00Ivey MBA blogExperiences of curious minds living and working in Asia.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-24297690158389945802012-07-10T07:38:00.002-07:002012-07-10T07:38:42.588-07:00My Singapore insurance news blog<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
Now that I'm doing a lot of market research as part of my day to day activities, I thought why not put it in a blog by itself. In case you are looking for the same info or are just curious of what's going on in Singapore insurance. </div>
<br />
Here you go: <a href="http://singaporeinsurancenews.blogspot.com/">singaporeinsurancenews.blogspot.com</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-50041311741605238132011-12-17T21:55:00.000-08:002011-12-17T22:13:35.025-08:00Have you met George? (2)<link href="file://localhost/Users/GK/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCw4RyJSOxmEabiXOeciQdlz89JcoFZL7Q-Co2NBeaEdsnLLgoh9Cb-9MILDnascFJsMZgfng9oXOBRxUGUDM1uvqRxGahLEXYDF6wiO8MiOzufzRZF6pZi3gLp874mV4QhhCZHaSlw-3_/s1600/untitled+event+-+558.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCw4RyJSOxmEabiXOeciQdlz89JcoFZL7Q-Co2NBeaEdsnLLgoh9Cb-9MILDnascFJsMZgfng9oXOBRxUGUDM1uvqRxGahLEXYDF6wiO8MiOzufzRZF6pZi3gLp874mV4QhhCZHaSlw-3_/s320/untitled+event+-+558.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The
next </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">huge change came when we were planning the move to Canada in 1998. The
tough part was that my own mom was using me as leverage, telling my dad to
exchange my share in her apartment for her permission for me to leave the
country. After going through messy divorce my dad didn’t trust her a bit though and I
volunteered to be a mediator between them. I asked my dad if he is OK for me to
transfer property rights to mom and he was, but he said he didn’t trust
that she would give me the permission. They were at a gridlock telling the each
other to make the first concession. I thought it’s easy: I would get my mom to
write permission first and then I would ensure that she gets the property share.
I talk to her and she agreed that it was a good way to proceed. The biggest
shock came when after agreeing she went back and said that she’s not going to
do it. My trust foundation was rocked.. it affected me fundamentally,
afterwards I kept asking myself a question: if I can’t trust my parent how can
I trust anyone. It was a fundamentally difficult question which had significant
trust repercussions for the coming years. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">As
the result of this we also had to hide the fact that we’ll try to sneak out of
the country so I was prohibited from telling anyone that I might be leaving the
country for the fear that my own mother is going to discover that we are
leaving and try to stop it. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">It
was a difficult thing to comprehend for a 15 year old. The only two people whom
I told a day before leaving Russia were one neighbor who acted as an adopted
mother to me and my girlfriend at the time. And precisely what I told them was
that I’m going tomorrow and I might or might not come back. I think it was the
biggest shock for my girlfriend who I’ve been seeing for 9 months. Essentially
she thought I was joking... </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
next day we packed and went to airport. We deposited our luggage and then it
came turn to the airport immigration. The official asked where my mom’s permission
for me to leave the country is. My dad sunk.., I thought to myself, this is a
deciding moment of my life, which it really was. On one side I get turned back
and return to my previous life and the prospect of being drafted into Russian
army in the coming years. On the other hand there was an exciting prospective
of going to Canada and starting anew. We wouldn’t get second chance to try. All
of these things passed through my mind in an instant and I said “mother is just
outside terminal, she brought us here and will be joining us in Canada later”. The officer gave me a mean look and after checking with her superior gave us a nod. And off we went to Canada. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Canada
didn’t seem real for the first while I was there. The fact that my dad up to
the last minute didn’t believe that we had a chance to get out without my mom’s
permission resulted in me not having a chance to prepare myself, which
complicated matters. I would dream that I’m still in Moscow and that move to
Canada was indeed the dream. I would dream of army drafters knocking on my door
and wake up in cold sweat. The language and cultural barriers were quite
significant too. I would have a feeling that everyone around me can speak
Russian and just pretending that they can only speak English to make my life
difficult. Guess perception is a funny thing when you are younger. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Think
we invent shortcut in mind to make life more logical and easier to comprehend.
Those ideas came under a lot of pressure when we moved to Canada. It was really
a big challenge to adapt and again I stood up to it and faced it. Or did I? </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
realized that a lot of times what I was actually doing is absorbing the
challenge and moving on, thinking that a passive response is the easiest. I saw
the very same approach from my dad when he struggled to find application for
his experience and who university masters degrees from Russia. He took it in
stride and went for the available choice of a laborer. I saw disappointment in
his eyes as he moved to Canada thinking that it’s a land of opportunities and
instead discovered that it was precisely the opposite for him, more like a step
back. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
went back to last grade of high school in Canada as I was too young for
university and to improve my English. Then as my grades were all A’s my dad
told me to follow in his footsteps and become an Engineer. The following four
years are an absolute blur, I don’t remember much from university. I found it
completely uninteresting and not engaging, repeating my Russian high school
experience. I kept on thinking to myself, why am I doing this? I cruised along
taking as many courses at a time to finish it faster, having an idea that
there’s going to be a good job waiting for me at the end…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
wake up came when I graduated from university and discovered that no one
actually was interested in hiring and average engineering student without any
work experience. I reacted in my normal way, retreating and waiting for the job
to come. I started sleeping late and waking up late. I lasted for three months
just sending around resumes and waiting for people to reply. At which point I
realized that I’m pretty screwed. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
also realized that I’m at a crossroads. I thought of my dad. I respected a lot
the fact that he sacrificed his business in Moscow to move me to Canada. At the
same time reflecting on his and my experience I saw similarities. All of a
sudden I come to realization that if I was to continue cruising along I was
going to end up average and struggle through life. I started reading
biographies of successful people trying to understand what was going through
the minds and learn from them. I didn’t have any role models or mentors and
therefore I was seeking the advice indirectly from those books. I found that
what differentiated majority of those people is that they tried and were not
afraid to fail. The definition of success of course can be argued, but I
believe having comfortable conditions in which you don’t worry about food is
essential. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">With
that idea I decided to try get out of the conundrum I got myself into by
getting experience and since no one was willing to pay me to get that
experience I had to get it for free = volunteer my time in return for
experience. I went around looking for volunteering jobs, and to my surprise
couldn’t find any neither. Nobody was keen to take a recent grad. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">At
that point I started to get quite irritated; I came to the local Chamber of
commerce and asked for a volunteering job. They said they had nothing… I said I
could sort paper clips for all that matters as my only other alternative would
be to pay somebody to give me work. Fortunately they were encouraged by my
enthusiasm and called me the next day and said that they actually had lots of
things I can help them with. That’s how my full time three months stint with
them started. I ended up doing quite a bit of interesting work with them,
including public policy design and negotiation and membership drives. On top of
that I’ve got loads of local business contacts from the Chamber and was able to
land a couple of decent jobs as the result. I was on fire and continued getting
involved in more and more stuff. Doing projects with government and local non
for profits, participating in community leadership programs and speaking about
immigration issues to college and high school students. I felt alive again. I
was the youngest among all these groups and people looked at me with amazement
and that I thrived on that energy and recognition in addition to feeling good
about the things I was involved in. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
city we moved to is in mid-Canada, relatively quiet and remote place and I
quickly felt like I was outgrowing it. And despite people telling me it’s
better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond I made
a decision that there’s something more than the city and I need to make the
move sooner than later. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
MBA was my ticket out. I studied really hard for GMAT and surprised myself and
people who knew me from university with the result. I then spend time
diligently researching schools and choosing the one that appealed to me
carefully. In the mean time I started writing a blog about the whole
experience. To my surprise I started getting a lot of readers. I was excited
again, even though I have never thought that writing has been my strength I
found myself really drawn to writing and spending countless hours reading other
blogs for ideas and style. My writing gradually improved and I started getting
even more readers. At the end I was getting more than thousand people from all
over world reading my blog monthly. I was on a cloud 9. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
MBA experience was more interesting than my prior educational experience and I
came out more confident. Thinking that I want to do consulting or finance in
Toronto. Apparently life had added a slight twist to that plan and I ended
moving to Hong Kong instead. I felt energized again, trying something
completely different, moving away from small Canadian city to an exciting place
in Asia. I didn’t even think twice about moving. I just packed and said bye to
my dad, who I think was slightly surprised that I didn’t hesitate to move so
far. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Since
moving to Hong Kong with Prudential though I feel like I lost the thread. The job was going all
well and I’m paid a multiple of what I was paid in Canada. I should be happy as
I can now afford majority of things that I dreamed off before. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I’ve
been in Hong Kong for a year plus and after that moved to Singapore, where I’ve
been for a two years. Looking back I feel like life kinda stood still
since I left Canada. Like a hamster in a wheel I move my legs, sometimes even
run, but looking back the progress has slowed down.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">The things have a potential to change though, and since three months ago I've joined AXA. There has been a multitude of new challenges awaiting me there and I'm hopeful that I can accelerate my learning and make a positive impact on the business. More on this later..</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Hope you have enjoyed this little trip down my memory lane!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Till next time, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">George </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-71837651834774193422011-12-06T21:35:00.001-08:002011-12-06T21:59:58.513-08:00Have you met George? (1)<link href="file://localhost/Users/GK/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQtjp7H6kDU9U-wT6EpifzuRoJIu47yQIRM4GyH9L4_KIoJ7sJUR3BYLWt4Bblu60qCWxl_598jQJ9moGwwbW6JCSxTy_g8F6MOkiajxN1qbC6eI-fvUH2HHiV8F6OuDfgnO1Mesluf0L/s1600/IMG_0829_web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQtjp7H6kDU9U-wT6EpifzuRoJIu47yQIRM4GyH9L4_KIoJ7sJUR3BYLWt4Bblu60qCWxl_598jQJ9moGwwbW6JCSxTy_g8F6MOkiajxN1qbC6eI-fvUH2HHiV8F6OuDfgnO1Mesluf0L/s320/IMG_0829_web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>I want to share with you something about myself, something that made me the person I am. Trust me, it was not an easy decision. I was debating for a while whether I should </b></span><b>reveal some personal things on not. Having given it more thought though I'm hoping that you'll find it interesting and won't use it against me in the future.</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">My
life began in Moscow, Russia. I don’t recall any extraordinary happenings in my
earlier days. I was generally a happy kid; although my parents might argue that
I was a bit oaf a hand-full, and at times quite stubborn. I remember being told
that I was an angel, but only when I was asleep...a</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Now
that I think of it, the most memorable early life moments included my uncle, he
was the most adventurous of the family and always came up with ways to
entertain and excite me (from parachuting a pair of goggles when I came to
visit him to flipping his kayak twice, once with me in it). He used to take me
travelling every summer, kayaking through less explored parts of Russia and
camping. It was a blast!</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Unfortunately,
the end of stability happened early for me, coinciding with some major changes
in the country at the time. The wave of major transformation swept across the
country ripping it apart and causing some major overnight changes. I was only 9
when it happened and to me those things were more entertaining than anything
else. Tanks on a street one day, change of government the next week and snipers
on the roofs the day after. The more direct impact happened when the 1000%+
inflation hit, all of a sudden I remember that certain staple foods simply
disappeared from our table. At the time I didn’t quite understand why we can’t
have my favorite- cheese. I remember having to go to stores to line up for
cooking oil and getting a number written on my hand to mark the place in line
(1168)...</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Then
it hit even closer to home, our family rapidly fell apart. It turned out that
my dad’s salary went from being quite decent to provide for a family of four to
peanuts as he was working for a government research institution. My mom, on the
other hand, was giving private lessons in high-school and was doing well. The
fact that she became the main bread winner put a lot of pressure on the family.
It was unfortunate when it happened, as I was only 11 and my sister 3. I don’t
think our family was unique in that respect though, the whole country was going
through an incredibly stressful time. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"> I made a choice to stay with my dad and the
next thing I remember were the hardships of the next few years. I remember the
winter of ’93 was particularly a tough one, I recall having to eat spoiled
spaghetti with milk every morning before school and complaining about bugs
swimming and being told that those were just sugar bits. I don’t think I
perceived it as being a hardship at a time, just thought of it as a
peculiarity. Funny how the prospective differs when you are younger and don’t
know any better. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Not
sure if parent’s divorce affected me much, just remember being sad and not sure
why things happened the way they did. Before the split up my mom used to take
me and sister on “dates” and I remember being quite irritated after the
split-up when I understood that the guy was not “just” a friend. I actually
originally stayed with my mom and the guy was really trying to be mean to me
and get rid of me. I got the message…</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">When
I think back, I think I really grew up mentally during the period. It was an
accelerated school of life. I also recall feeling rather strange at school. I
never “fit in” I tried smoking and let that go after a year as I realized that
I was doing it for social purpose rather than actually enjoying it. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I’ve
never felt like something was missing, my dad tried really hard to provide for
me doing some odd jobs here and there. One day he’d be selling carpets, the
next day he’d be a courier and the next month would be working as a laborer in
construction. It must’ve been really tough for him just to provide enough for
us to have food on the table every day. A different set of challenges, to say
the least, really puts things into prospective… My granny on the other hand
went through WWII in Russia and always recalls being starved and as the result
always tries to eat as much as possible as a matter of habit. My dad had his
own very tough period in life where everything he was used to went away and he
was left with no income and a kid. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
went to a very good school in Moscow and the only strange feeling I had was
that my classmates had infinitely more things than me. The moments I recall
from my schooling in Moscow were winning marathon and another schooling
competition. Other than that I struggled with school, mostly because I couldn’t
see the purpose of doing exercises and spending time learning. I was getting
all average marks and some teachers actually told my father that I was not
capable of learning and he should hope that I become anything in life. Having
said that, other teachers saw through my aloofness and said that I was one of
the most capable students but I’ve never bothered to study so never got to
realize the potential. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
was average student in all areas except math, in which I all of a sudden got
near the top of the class towards the end of high school, to everyone’s
surprise. To me it was quite apparent thought. One semester I was sick for a
long time and accidentally spend more time than usual studying. I passed with a
flying colors and realized that it was not only quite easy to do math but also
enjoyable to be featured as a top students. That was the very first example
when recognition pushed me forward. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
years went by and my dad gradually recovered and found something that could pay
for our bills on a more of a permanent basis. He got a stall in downtown Moscow
selling books and magazines. It was a small business but a decently profitable
and my uncle got involved as well. Together they were able to gradually grow
and make it more successful. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">At
the same time they saw an opportunity for another small business nearby. They
didn’t want to be distracted from their own one so they gave me an opportunity
to try it. It was selling joke ids (i.e. ID of an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">alcoholic</i> or an ID for a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lazy
bum</i>, Russian humor is slightly different from Western one). The business
was doing well and I spend summers and time after school running this venture.
I found it was one of the most fun things that I’ve done. Considering I was
only 13, I had an early start in business world: sales, managing merchandize,
figuring out profits. To say that I really enjoyed it would be a big
understatement. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">At
the same time I had couple of interesting side lessons like dealing with mafia
one day and drunk special forces marines another day. Police would occasionally
pick me up and put me into police station for running the business underage.
The normal rules of doing business clearly didn’t work! When I was 14 I learned
that gambling is not good after losing a day’s salary in a slots machine, since
day I stayed away from gambling. </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">This concludes the part 1 ;)) of my journey. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Hope you have enjoyed it,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">George</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-39556975482117368722011-12-01T21:45:00.001-08:002011-12-01T21:52:30.341-08:00Diamond and dog food shopping.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLM6nj0uQSy2B7T5SHaoJqmvidR0Ur4S-gfrsLtt-5mkCw6gQro9HYlA5ctkhl1T1YiqD0JIhH9WyBGvHfszJAUwWF3fo3qGruNATsvjW8JyL2IvnaxsTTHH7eM7Sx4kgmfccO9cAx-4PX/s1600/diamond.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLM6nj0uQSy2B7T5SHaoJqmvidR0Ur4S-gfrsLtt-5mkCw6gQro9HYlA5ctkhl1T1YiqD0JIhH9WyBGvHfszJAUwWF3fo3qGruNATsvjW8JyL2IvnaxsTTHH7eM7Sx4kgmfccO9cAx-4PX/s200/diamond.jpg" width="200" /></a>Today I want to share my thoughts on something that a lot of
people, especially of male gender are acutely aware of. A lot of guys have
either experienced it personally or know of what’s coming down in couple of
years. Its called girl’s best friend and guy’s worst nightmare: diamonds;
alright maybe I’m exaggerating here slightly but none the less it usually ends
up being a larger than expected ouch to our financial well being. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
To start lets get a bit scientific here, if you don’t mind,
and understand what are we really talking about here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Diamond is essentially a very old piece of
pencil that has been cut and polished to reflect light. It does help that its
also quite strong due to the long time it was sitting there being compressed
under earth. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
For more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
It sounds a bit simplistic, and it is. The value of the
diamond is actually the marketing behind it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
The greatest gimmick of diamond marketing is that majority
of marketing is done to the user (female) rather than the buyer (male). It is
then the female who takes up a role of an influencer and tell the guy that she
wants a big “rock” as it will reflect on the financial standing and success of
the groom. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
DeBeers was the company which initiated this successful
tradition and marketed the diamonds as sign of love and commitment, really
ingenious if I may add. It tricks people into thinking that they are buying a
valuable thing, investing in the future. What you are really buying is a piece
of personal branding, courtesy of the DeBeers. They spend billions of dollars
telling everyone for the best part of the 20<sup>th</sup> century that diamonds
are forever and are signs of love and success. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
So here I was, earlier this year, I was finally in the
market for diamond shopping. Over the years I’ve heard both sides of the story:
girls telling me that they have a “number” in mind, referring to carat and guys
complaining that it’s largely a rip-off. I remember watching Blood Diamond
movie with Leonardo De Caprio couple years back and thinking… oh man, now I get
it why diamonds are so expensive. It did leave me with a question mark in,
about origins of diamonds and at least doing my little bit not to sponsor harm
when I will be in the market for a diamond.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Where could I find some info about Diamonds? Internet was of
course the first choice. Then came a visit to a local branded shops, where I
was starting to get a sense about the price and 4Cs: Carat (size), Cut,
Clarity, and Color. Its quite a process, I tell you. It made me wonder if all
these things were simply invented to increase the value of the stones. And
perhaps I wasn’t very far from truth, majority of these Cs did not exist till
DeBeers introduced them in early 20<sup>th</sup> century to differentiate their
diamonds (commodities). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
OK, let me share why Diamond is really a commodity: there’s
actually a significant supply of them in the world, chemically its not unique
and to majority of people it looks more or less the same. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
So why are diamonds so expensive? The answer is simple: there
are essentially price controlled. The couple of very large minding companies
controlling the market set the prices to maintain fat margins. That is possible
as long as people are buying into this trick: the more expensive the more
valuable it must be. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
The tricky part is that the resale value of diamonds is
actually quite low and if a lot of people tried to resell their engagement
rings in the market the prices would drop by half or maybe even 80%.
Essentially it’s an artificially created bubble which has been sustaining
itself on marketing for a very long time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5tlaH9EYev0tFahjERQuOH6TzrvXIcQS2E1s8ayS1U-zjoS4X0zpNg98u0CpD7OLIBEwIWthnK5fQhiJVD7nlWimc-94QpEUYVMd8qWftXFDxw0RDlNg8ksw2uF7fx0Kib57EJYrya1bO/s1600/IMG_0142.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5tlaH9EYev0tFahjERQuOH6TzrvXIcQS2E1s8ayS1U-zjoS4X0zpNg98u0CpD7OLIBEwIWthnK5fQhiJVD7nlWimc-94QpEUYVMd8qWftXFDxw0RDlNg8ksw2uF7fx0Kib57EJYrya1bO/s320/IMG_0142.JPG" width="320" /></a>Back to my own experience, after doing the preliminary
research myself I decided to bring my girlfriend shopping for the ring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has never been much into diamonds and I
thought it would be a relatively easy task to get something reasonable. By that
I mean something that is not going to hurt my savings too bad and at the same
time will make her happy to wear day to day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was wrong… the marketing pull proved hard to resist and all of the sudden
I was getting told again of the two month salary benchmark, where girls tell
guys to get them a ring that is at least two months their salary. Guess this is
done so that the girl can show to her friends how successful the guy is, or
something along those lined. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
As my shopping progressed so did my stress level, every time
we would walk into a branded shop my heart would skip a beat. “Oh this one
shines so bright” and is only whaaa? Tiffany and Cartier were in particular
pricey. At the same time the branding is so strong that my girlfriend was
telling me that one of the colleagues at work got an Tiffany engagement ring
and how happy she was and how other girls were jealous. The part I found
particularly fascinating is the strength of marketing. After you buy a Tiffany
ring, it looks exactly like any other engagement ring. The dominant part is the
diamond, which the company buys in bulk and cuts, just like majority of other
brands. However, that one simple world: it’s a Tiffany and the fact that it
came in a blue box stays with the person forever and differentiates them. They
can keep piggy backing on the company branding. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Actually the concept is very interesting, so lets take a
second more to discuss it. What you actually buy doesn’t have a value in itself,
it’s a piece of branding. Just imagine a large Blue tiffany box, you throw in
your money and in return you get branding. In this world of marketing this is
actually what sells the best. And companies love it, because the actual product
can be an absolute commodity and the value comes from what’s happening in
customers head. They get your hard earned money and in return you get a little
piece of happiness, because people around you will now know that you have a
successful fiancé and they might even be slightly jealous. So if we think about
it, jealousy and perception is the real currency! <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Getting closer to my own finale, I finally decided that
buying branded ring is not for me. I did some more research and found that
there are number of reputable online retailers who sell engagement rings. You
could even customize a ring and the diamond that you are getting. And the best
part was that it’s almost half the price. I did my careful research and picked
a diamond that was exactly the same as the ones sold in Tiffany. It wasn’t easy
but the dimensions, cut and all the other qualities were precisely the same.
The only part I didn’t get was the assurance of the blue or red box. I will be
absolutely honest, I was a bit scared that the diamond was not as shiny or clear,
or the setting not as nice as the one in the branded shop. The only thing that
kept me less worried is the 30 day return guarantee for the online purchase. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Once the ring was delivered to me though I was more than
happy, I kept on looking at it and trying to compare in my mind to all the
rings we saw in the shops. I couldn’t tell the difference. I was brilliant with
all the sparkle that the other ones had. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Having said all of this, the ring was received well by my
girlfriend. Even though I know it’s a piece of marketing that I put on her
hand, she likes it. It makes her happy and I’m happy as the result as well. All
I’m saying is understand what’s going on, as it will help you make a more
conscious decision and hopefully save you some money. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
The reference to the dog food was a bit cheeky, on my part.
It refers to my previous post in which I mentioned that the price for the
premium dog food is actually set by the manufacturer and the user (dog) doesn’t
have any way to tell the owner if its really worth the premium. Diamonds are
“sold” to us and the price is set on a subjective set of criteria called 4Cs.
Maybe next stage would be 4Cs of dog food: color, calories, cholesterol and
crunchiness hahaha <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Till next time,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
George<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-1288358698751585612011-11-24T06:47:00.001-08:002011-11-24T06:49:48.257-08:00Dog food marketing<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxpTDWu-FYQA3N38CT101fJePU7Zl3RB8aYGhTjRpFNu7NojZxaOrOPmUFr7AeUHCCGStoOLLAnBaJ1z8w4GoPwapR3wC-82hf7es5nnPD7LpbDNn4ojBTw17XsjUy_hSTSdWLO7wV_ouk/s1600/doyoureallyneed.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxpTDWu-FYQA3N38CT101fJePU7Zl3RB8aYGhTjRpFNu7NojZxaOrOPmUFr7AeUHCCGStoOLLAnBaJ1z8w4GoPwapR3wC-82hf7es5nnPD7LpbDNn4ojBTw17XsjUy_hSTSdWLO7wV_ouk/s320/doyoureallyneed.png" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Do you really need another one?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria;">Let me ask you a question? How can you tell a difference
between an average dog food and a premium dog food? I can bet that majority of
you have no desire of trying it for yourself, and unfortunately until the
powers of science can translate dogs barking into English we are left with an
interesting dilemma: do we trust the very same people who are trying to sell us
the product. This IS the best dog food in the world!!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria;">
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This is actually quite a common occurrence. In our daily lives
we come to rely on the advice of the very exact people who are trying to sell
us to goods. Its called one of the two things, Advertising: which means that
the company tries to beat its chest and tell you that they are the best and PR:
in which case the company convinces somebody who you trust that they are those
people in turn tell you that the company is the best. I find it really
fascinating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to understand
what’s happening you have to sometimes stop and take a breather, am I really
doing something that makes sense or something that you are being told? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Being in the Marketing field I used to think I could
identify the tools of the trade and avoid their influence. This is indeed not
the case, the volume and sophistication of tools is such that you actually grow
to “want” to give them your hard earned money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It went from being a field in which you are made aware of the company
offering to something in which your brain is being tricked into thinking that
you absolutely need the thing. It appears that the strongest linkage is the one,
which identifies the product with happiness. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Essentially if people can be convinced that they’ll become
happier if only they had this bigger car instead of the smaller one their
neighbor drives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This in itself not a
bad thing but we gradually get pulled into a treadmill of unhappiness. People
start associating happiness with material things; this lays a foundation for a
life long quest for things to make us happy. Its very rare that people can
unplug from this idea and really ask themselves, is Ferrari going to really
make me a lot happier than a Honda? Do you need yet another Watch to make you
feel good? Does the money a guy pays to De biers equal his love for the girl?
Which business De Biers is really in? Diamonds or brides?<o:p></o:p></div>
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More about this in a later post… <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let us dig a bit deeper now, and touch on a concept of
value. For example, how do we determine what something is worth? In the old
times it used to be a lot simpler. If you need it to survive its worth a lot and
if you don’t need it then it doesn’t have intrinsic worth to you. Then it
became a bit more complicated.. if other people wanted it then it became more
valuable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I said old times I was of
course thinking slightly further out. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Its really fascinating, we are not only told that we need it
to be happy, but also that the more it costs the more happier we’ll be. Guess
we haven’t really gone far in terms of old times when magical potions that will
make you healthier and happier were pushed by some shady characters. <o:p></o:p></div>
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So the next logical question then becomes what Should
marketing do? I believe that instead of tricking people it should actually help
them. For example can Marketing be a feedback channel to the Product
development. It’s a bit of an idealistic view of the world I guess. Perhaps
marketing should also help people realize that more things don’t necessary mean
more happier, it just means more clutter and waste. Certainly it’s a risk on
behalf of the company and a lot of marketing executives would argue that it
would be a best career suicide. Best stick to the majority and continue trying
to trick people into getting more and more useless stuff. What’s interesting is
that your customers are getting drowned in the ocean of marketing bombardment.
Customers evolve to protect themselves against marketers, marketers try to
invent new ways to trick them into buying. Whole companies structure their
proposition around delivering the most targeted tricks: Google and Facebook.
The trend is that advertising is going to be living with us for a long time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the other hand we have the best example of how to live
happy, take Warren Buffet. The guy is worth billions and he lives like you and
me. I was really impressed with his humbleness, the only thing he says he is
different from me is that he gets to fly his personal jet which saves him some
hustle at the airport. Wow, he lives in the same modest house for the longest
time, drives an OK car and eats burgers. He really sounds like the guy who
figured what’s important in life. Moreover, its really amazing that the guy was
able to resist all the wealth managers and sales guys who hound rich people for
their money. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Excuse my ranting, its part of me thinking process of
figuring out how to live rightly. I’m not saying that I’m righteous person, I
have faults and my own lost moments. I am trying to find the answers and I
won’t give up until I find those. I recognize that its an upwards slope and the
going is gonna get tough, at the same time I’m lucky enough to have luxury of
being able to get involved in these type of mental exploration and self
searching. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In any case, I’ll continue sharing these ideas on this blog together
with some thoughts about marketing, and will try to keep it less philosophical and
not to bore you with some more hypothetical ideas. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Oh, by the way, I live in Singapore, I have quite an interesting
path that lead me here, I’ll share bits and pieces of that journey in the
future posts! Stay tuned. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
George<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-56623540771304833162011-04-30T23:59:00.000-07:002011-04-30T23:59:31.005-07:00Life in AsiaIts been a really long time since I wrote anything here. Partially I felt like a lost my creative thread and partially it wasn't as relevant to the MBA, which was the original topic of this blog, so I wasn't sure if its going to be relevant to you, my reader. In any case, here goes my attempt to resurrect the blog and hopefully we can both find it interesting and relevant to start this new chapter. <br />
<br />
Quick recap of what you might have missed: I'm originally from Moscow, moved to Canada when I was 16, did my Computer Engineering degree at University of Manitoba and then worked for couple of years in IT before venturing out to do an MBA at Ivey School of Business. Since graduation I've been working in Asia, with Prudential UK, first in Hong Kong and now in Singapore. Its been a very interesting journey and I'm happy to share with you, my reader my ups and downs.<br />
<br />
A lot of my friends were asking me, when I first moved to Asia, if I'm finding it very difficult to live here. A lot of people thought it would be a different world out here. In reality it does have its differences and that's what makes it interesting, but so far nothing that I haven't been able to overcome. Having said that, I'll make a disclosure that I've taken the route of working in a more developed Asia so far. So the experience might be slightly different if I would have been working in Vietnam or Indonesia where conditions are more extreme than Singapore and Hong Kong. <br />
<br />
I love both cities! Everyone always has this question: which city is best? Hong Kong or Singapore. My answer to that one, they are different, its like asking: do you prefer coke or pepsy. Hong Kong is a very vibrant city and is my first Asian love. Its the city which never sleeps! You can be going to the gym at 8am on Saturday morning and people are coming out from clubs, or if you are hungry at 6am I came out to discover on Sunday a bustling flee market right outside my doors in central HK. Even though Cantonese (Traditional Chinese)is the official language in Hong Kong, its very hard to find people who won't try to help you when you speak English to them. Even though the pace of life in Hong Kong is really fast (some people actually run from the train to escallators in the morning to beat the crowds) people won't hesitate to stop and try to help you. <br />
<br />
Singapore is great and I love it a lot too. The ease and cleanliness of Singapore is hard to deny. Everything is in English here, taxes are low, and things just work. The air is generally much cleaner than in Hong Kong too, which makes it a lot better for outside activities. Moreover, the city is so close to other travel destinations that it makes it a perfect base town if you like travelling to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia. All within a short flight over from Singapore.<br />
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Singapore has also been the place where I found my lovely girlfriend, who has brought a lot of joy into my life over the last year. The journey continues...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-54037766102176905102010-05-02T07:25:00.000-07:002010-05-02T07:25:58.818-07:00Keeping it together, and mostly stable.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvt9irpjTRXdOpqyMeTfeiI4oM7G9TDlCYvi5pBiaii_DlCcXQN22Qy5ODlNjEvkTvH9-uYCc28kMdc-FyqjkhoXlpMIZ7t-f3GLvsg-zdC5GCCRWLGQBK7T44UtDnsA4OT9PkoNyz7GSl/s1600/TableStep2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvt9irpjTRXdOpqyMeTfeiI4oM7G9TDlCYvi5pBiaii_DlCcXQN22Qy5ODlNjEvkTvH9-uYCc28kMdc-FyqjkhoXlpMIZ7t-f3GLvsg-zdC5GCCRWLGQBK7T44UtDnsA4OT9PkoNyz7GSl/s200/TableStep2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Today I'd like to share a bit more of a personal note with you. While also attempting to introduce you to my theory of pillars. In my life I found it to be helpful to think of ones mind/existence as a table top resting on four legs/pillars. Those three legs are: family, friends, career and personal relationships. Moreover, think of having objects on the table, we have plates, cutlery and food, which metaphorically represents stuff, like thoughts, ideas, aspirations, worries and so on. OK so you get the picture.<br />
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The tricky parts with tables is that you have to keep all the legs equally strong to provide the adequate support for the stuff on top. The idea actually came to me couple of years when I was sitting at a coffee shop in Toronto and the table was just not cooperating. One of the legs was clearly shorter and the second you leaned on it slightly the coffee cups went sliding all over the place and I had to scramble trying to catch them. After that point came number of make shift solution attempts: napkins under the table leg, sugar packets, shifting the table to find more solid ground... but all the attempt were futile. At that point I was dating a Russian girl, Ekaterina who had a lot of issues, so somehow in my mind I saw a parallel between those two.<br />
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I really think that in order to be “balanced” you cannot forget/disregard one of the pillars. The main difference in this metaphor is that the table is gonna stay the way it is if you just leave it along. While we have to constantly reinforce our pillars to ensure that our life remains stable and things don't start falling off of the top.<br />
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Unfortunately, Ekaterina had a lot of family issues and her table was very shaky indeed. I tried to explain that by ignoring the issues it won't go away and only will bring more instability into other aspects of her life. Furthermore, when you try to combine one unstable table and one stable one it rarely works. There's only so much you can do to bring stability to the person that you care about. Only if they realize that its very tough to try to fix all the pillars at the same time.<br />
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Anyways, whenever I feel like things are shaky in my life I keep on thinking of Ekaterina and table tops and things become a bit more clear. I realize that I've disregarded one of the pillars for a tad too long and its time to invest more time in one of those four key areas.<br />
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Interestingly enough, I thought things were going quite well with Ekaterina. We've met at a salsa dance studio, where she was an instructor. She was a very smart and cute gal and we got along well. However, after a number of months of seeing Ekaterina she got engaged to her best friend, which happened completely out of the blue. The best part was that I found out about it really randomly. I thought that kind of stuff only happens in movies. ie. I was sitting in Starbucks with her friend. The friend left to the washroom and I decided to play a prank by writing something funny in her calendar. Instead I got a shock of my life when I opened the page onto Ekaterina's engagement dinner date ... big ouch indeed ;)) It further confirmed my theory about instability: basically her life was very shaky and she didn't really understand that the source of it was her own family situation. Things became even more tangled up when she came back half a year later saying that she broke off the engagement and wants to get back with me... Very unstable table indeed.<br />
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The moral of this story is that by disregarding one of the legs you are ultimately risking the stability of the whole. Moreover, if too much focus is concentrated in one direction the table is gonna end up lopsided and you'll likely come to regret it at one point in the future or other, although you might not openly admit it.<br />
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Just some food for thought, as usual.<br />
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The end ;)) <br />
- GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-9779274722982487242010-04-11T01:44:00.000-07:002010-04-11T01:44:40.642-07:00Life in a fast and busy lane<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzdriWfGNOuNunftkgFS5vILNu4sKRdwVJwzy9H9MGbCCyunJr5mD4-7wsZ1XsPGoBniXrxl33InWUdZHmqNGMlKbNvg2Fl67YKwUe8WyiAmRhMhlqgRtn5uol9zB_16kbGGnJQOb8PagI/s1600/23singapore.large2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzdriWfGNOuNunftkgFS5vILNu4sKRdwVJwzy9H9MGbCCyunJr5mD4-7wsZ1XsPGoBniXrxl33InWUdZHmqNGMlKbNvg2Fl67YKwUe8WyiAmRhMhlqgRtn5uol9zB_16kbGGnJQOb8PagI/s320/23singapore.large2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Call it whatever you want, I actually feel my life getting better and more interesting by the day. Whether its sheer luck, like some of my friends say, or some careful planning and execution, which I'd like to attribute where I am now to. In any case, I am greatly enjoying the experience. For the first time in life I'm in the place in which I'm challenging myself. Moreover, I am putting it seemingly to a good use helping the organization see the gaps and move forward in return for it giving me a lesson in what works and what doesn't work in the world of business.<br />
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Its been four months since I came to Singapore, and I have been fortunate to be able to gain exposure to lots of different projects. Both the organization and my bosses are being surprisingly very accommodating to my learning style. I basically get involved in anything and everything. I started in the Product Management position which mostly entailed analyzing the performance of our product promotions as well as bringing quantitative rigor into the design of the new campaigns, an interesting tasks in itself and the best part being the exposure to all the various departments that Products naturally impact: Sales, Actuarial, and Finance. I quickly discovered that I needed to keep everybody in the loop to make it a successful exercise. The Product Management remains the core area of my responsibilities.<br />
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As an aside, there were two funny questions that people kept on asking me when I first joined our business in Singapore. First of all, the question of how old was I, kept on coming up time and again. It was a safe bet, no matter who I got introduced to, the first question never failed to be related to my age. It was a bit shocking for the first little while, as I couldn't understand if its simply part of the greeting or there was something wrong with my age. The answer turned out to be that people were apparently really curious about how young I looked for the position. Which is really not the case, but I attributed it to the fact that I was a new face and everybody wanted to know who I was. The second question was whether I have a girlfriend. Honestly, I was a bit shell shocked for the first couple of days by this friendly interrogation. I ended up shifting the topic by asking them why they were curious about my age / relationship situation and than talking about an unrelated topic of mutual interest. The girlfriend question was even funnier, as it turned out that people's curiosity went to the extent of doing a due diligence on my life back in Hong Kong. I took it in good heart though as people were surely curious, and sometimes a little bit too so. At the same time its good to know those things right off the start, so that you can manage them appropriately going forward.<br />
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So in terms of the actual work, the first month was mostly concentrated on learning about the products while helping on the product launch initiatives. It did not take long to land in the thick of the action. I remember the CMO calling me into the office and explaining that he needs a simple calculation to estimate an impact of a promotion, easy enough that spiraled quite quickly into a model which spanned multiple spreadsheets. That marked the beginning of lets go to George as he is the Excel guy story. Of course I didn't mind as I was actively adding value to the team and helping them to become more data driven.<br />
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Second month was more interesting yet. In the beginning of the month it was announced that we have signed a distribution deal with a major partner and also as part of that have to take on their insurance business. The next day I was informed that I'm going to be spending a large part of my time helping with the integration of the two entities. As the integration project progressed I have gradually get to participate in all the various parts of the project eventually ending up playing a supporting role on Steering Committee for the whole integration. It has definitely been an eye opening experience as far as the complexities go. Giving me visibility into some foundation things that happen in all the various areas to write a new business. <br />
Lastly, my boss suggested that we have a challenge with one of our distribution channels and he mentioned that he volunteered me to provide an objective assessment of the problem and come up with potential solutions. So that was actually very interesting as I got a chance to spend time with our distribution people and understand how the whole sales process happens on the front end of our business. I've spent number of days interviewing various stakeholders. After spending some time on the project, I did come up with three main ideas, two of which was very well received by the channel head and one is already being implemented. And the best part? I'm actually getting to implement the second idea which can have a potential for a major impact on our distribution.<br />
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I feel that my work is finally having a meaningful impact on the business rather than simply recycling information and putting it in different formats. This is exactly what I was looking for and I'm glad that I was finally have been able to get to this place.<br />
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Till next time,<br />
GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-28891481404155997492010-04-02T04:19:00.000-07:002010-04-02T04:19:04.953-07:00Call it a gut feeling..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgjgcjvCS9rfWqcAmzjtJswLkaxKYsEC3etS_MzLmqQZWIU_7v-oGIM9NCyFtNXYiSCct2BW3zZ08elZbSWMSPu4A-zqzlHF-qfcUnhUYKKLCMiMcqlMBvj6-7B0SH6x7XyHZhJYgIG6jo/s1600/070713_EX_gutsTN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgjgcjvCS9rfWqcAmzjtJswLkaxKYsEC3etS_MzLmqQZWIU_7v-oGIM9NCyFtNXYiSCct2BW3zZ08elZbSWMSPu4A-zqzlHF-qfcUnhUYKKLCMiMcqlMBvj6-7B0SH6x7XyHZhJYgIG6jo/s320/070713_EX_gutsTN.jpg" /></a></div>So let me share with you today what that mysterious gut feeling means to me. First of all, I believe all of us have it and its the matter of choice if we chose to listen to it or not. The gut feeling is technically a subconscious process which happens deep down in your mind and does not really require much conscious effort on our part. When it happens people say... I feel, rather than I think.<br />
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All of the people are born with this shortcut hardwired into our brains. Its such an integral part of our essence that when activated it causes physical reaction akin to when all of a sudden we feel thirsty once the body starts to run low on liquids. You can say that this gut of ours has a dual purpose, keep the owner happy with the supply of tasty energy while at the same time keeping us out of major troubles.<br />
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Personally I've discovered the gut feeling for the first time at a tender age of 12. Obviously back then I didn't know what it was. Let me share with you the experience and hope that should make things a bit clearer on your end of things as well.<br />
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At the time I was in an all boys summer camp. Which by itself usually spells some trouble. To set the scene, just imagine Sunday, parents visiting day. Excitement is in the air and camp management lets us go up to the road and wait for the arrival of our parents. This was clearly a mistake on their part. Combine bunch of excited mischievous boys with an occasional fast moving vehicles and something is bound to go wrong sooner or later. In this case thankfully nobody got hurt, although we came quite close... so here's how it went down:<br />
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Two of the camp troublemakers decided to conduct a live experiment. They would pick up a small rock and throw it up in front of a car as it would be passing by ay 100km/h+... smart right?! Since the rest of us were there just to wait for the parents we could care less about their experiments. So clearly seeking more attention those two decided to up the ante by increasing the effect, now those guys weren't educated in physics but they thought that if a single stone wasn't producing enough effect why not pick up a handful of stones and through them in front of a car... I think you can imagine that nothing good was gonna came out from that idiotic experimentation.<br />
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I just remember looking away for a second and the next thing I remember hearing was squeaking of tires. And then a driver coming after everybody screaming on top of his lungs as we ran back to the camp....great adventure the troublemakers got us into. Thanks guys!! <br />
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Right after the incident the driver had a discussion with the camp management where they paid him for the ruined windshield and damages to the car. In the process the driver pointed out the boys which he could remember running away from him.. and guess if yours truly was among those pointed out......hmmm double great. That day was just getting better!<br />
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So I'm telling you all of this just to set the scene. The fun part which had to do with the gut feeling is coming shortly, I promise!<br />
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So here we are, the two troublemakers and myself and another kid. To make things more interesting it turned out that one of the troublemakers' mom was an assistant camp supervisor, which created a potential for an explosive situation, at least for a 12 year old. I mean, I point them out and his mom comes after me hard, I don't point them out and the camp supervisor comes after us two innocent bystanders.<br />
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To add some spice to the story the bullies started using all kinds of mental techniques on us two, it consisted of threats as well as incentives (in Russia we have a saying which translates literally into them using both sweets and wips on us, how wonderful, right?).<br />
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The basically told us: you tell on us and we'll beat the crap out of you (and I knew that it wasn't an empty threat) and if you say that it was you than we'll give you this brand spanking new flashlight with a radio... wow amazing, (OK don't laugh, when you are 12 it did seem pretty enticing OK!) The camp management wasn't helping the situation neither. They kept repeating that somebody should just confess and there are absolutely no consequences to us, apparently they just wanted to know... all of them were very convincing. But even as a 12 year old I knew that something was fishy...<br />
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At the time I remember weighting all of the options: on one hand I had a seemingly harmless take the blame option, I get the flashlight and no harm comes to me and the situation resolves....riiiighht? ;)) Second option: tell on the troublemakers, that's not so great neither as I don't have any guarantee that anybody will believe me plus likely him and his mom are going to come after me....at night???.... help anybody?? ahahahah<br />
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Anyways I actually came close to picking the option numero uno (1), taking the blame to get it over with, and in reality there was a lot of pressure on me from everybody to take that choice. But something invisible was not letting me take the seemingly easy way out, something from within my gut was reaching out and putting a breaks onto my false admission. I could not grasp that it was my brain telling me not to pick the stupid option. So the choice that I wisely settled upon with the significant assistance from my gut was the option 3: deny your involvement and say nothing else...<br />
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At the end things turned out relatively OK. After a day of trying to get a confession out of us by putting us to bake under the sun while trying to get a confession out of us they gave up. Russian camps are tough but Russian kids a even tougher...And everybody learned something:<br />
Management: Don't EVERRR let boys out of sight;<br />
Troublemakers: Don't mess with expensive things and you can't always force a false admission;<br />
Me: Nothing is without consequences even if people say that it is. And gut feeling saved my neck and probably quite a bit of money for my parents.<br />
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Who would have known that this lesson would come handy over and over again. Get this: Only one year passes by and I'm on my way back from school. I heard a hissing sound when walking by the neighbors truck, that's strange I thought to myself as I paused to listen. Oh well, must just be my imagination.. as I continued walking home. Little than 10 min later the door bell rang, and I've heard some commotion as my dad answered the door. My dad came out and asked me if I've punctured the tires on the neighbors truck?? say Whattt dad?!<br />
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And here it came again, the neighbor was using the same techniques on me again: just say that you did it, I promise there won't be any consequences. I understand that you were just playing around and I'm not angry with you, just say that it was you! I thought to myself I'm not as dumb as you think I am and having learned my lesson in the summer camp I wasn't about to fall for the same trap again. But he kept on insisting that I did it, apparently his sons actually saw me do it and then running away, they saw the knife in my hand as I punctured the tires.<br />
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I have to admit, at this point it was starting to get a bit confusing. I mean for a second it sounded so convincing that I started retracing my steps back in my mind to when I walked by the truck and thinking maybe I was sleepwalking and my alternative personally kicked in??? huh? but than I ultimately knew that I didn't do it and so I stuck to it. At the end all I got was an empty threat from the neighbor: apparently if he'd seems me anywhere near the truck he'd come after me... OK pal, you do that, I thought to myself.<br />
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Subsequently I had numerous times through which I gradually learned to trust and work with my gut or inner voice, whichever you want to call it. I'm also trying to further hone it by reading books about people making right and wrong choices: ie. lots of biographies and historical books. I obviously use my own head when taking the information from those sources as sometimes its presented from a bit of a pedestal (the author uses the book to say how smart and gifted they are and give themselves a pat on a the back). The latest best example of the later case being: A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O'Reilly. About 20-30% of the book actually strike me as genuinely interesting while the rest reads like a personal soap box monolog of a guy who wants to rail against the world. None the less most personal books are a good way to hone my gut to recognize the differences in people's thinking and get a glimpse into their mind.<br />
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Alright, I think I have said enough. The only thing I'll add is that gut helped me in both personal and professional life. It none the less best used together with the quality of knowing how to settle which I discussed in the previous post. I think it really helps to polish off the inner voice by putting the upper limit on what the gut is allowed to tell you. Meaning that if the gut feeling at times gets too sensitive and starts telling you that you are basically get screwed in everything. Than its time to let fire up your settling engine and desensitize the gut of yours. As you probably have figured by know, I'm a big believer in balance, too much of anything is bad...<br />
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Hey Gut, I guess I owe you one big Thanks!<br />
- George<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-31320168468332966552010-03-11T07:22:00.000-08:002010-03-11T07:23:43.712-08:00Thoughts from SingaporeIts been a really long while since the last time I wrote, the two contributing factors being that I got really busy as work as well as I wasn't sure how interesting my new adventures is going to be for everybody. Anyways in the past couple of weeks I got messages from various people who suggested I pick it up again and so here I am.<br />
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First of all, thanks to all of you who followed up with me and bugged me to pick it up again.<br />
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In any case, I figure it might be interesting to follow somebody their MBA and see how their life continues, beyond the walls of the educational institution. Perhaps, the real value of your investment actually comes as you embark on your career, after the program completes.<br />
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As some of you might recall, I was really lucky to have come across and ended up connecting with Prudential UK. At the same time I'd like to share the following pearl of wisdom which I discovered through a lot of pain and mental exercise in the past 3 years. Things come to those who believe in themselves and work hard to make others see it too. It turned out to be actually much tougher than you think, but trust me, its worth it.<br />
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Basically it goes like this. You think you can reach some goal, but everybody around you just don't see it. Starting with your school teachers and finishing with your own family, everybody keeps on telling you that you are just an average Joe Shmoe. In the beginning it hurts, you don't understand why people don't see what you see in yourself. Then you start to wonder if those people are right, and that maybe you are really not worth all that much and that you should settle for something that's available to people with you supposed level of intellect and mental abilities. Well and in here comes the challenge... do you settle (like a number of my ex girlfriends suggested, in those particular cases, on them) or does one keep on looking blindly believing that there's something out there that's going to be worth your time, mental efforts etc.<br />
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I've learned this lesson the hard way right after my undergraduate days. Since I've never really found school mentally stimulating nor particularly applicable to the real world I didn't put an excessive amount of effort into it for the four years of my Computer Engineering degree. I didn't understand nor do I still do the value of learning all the various theories other than to build a learning strength of your brain. But at the same time I had a lot more interesting ways to build that strength, for example through challenging and learning by yourself. Anyways, back to the point of settling. Since I was an average student I really didn't have employers lined up to hire me. Perhaps contributing factor was the fact that it was a smaller Canadian city, and that it was 2004 when the job market for IT jobs has not quite recovered after the Internet Bubble of 2000. Whatever the case might have been I found it next to impossible to find a decent job upon graduating from my undergraduate degree.<br />
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So what choices was I left with, may you ask? Fresh grad with no real experience and no outstanding academic record, in a smaller Canadian city.. I was cast to live a life of mediocrity. Fortunately I didn't follow my families advice and get a job at Canadian coffee chain, Tim Horton's, not did I take an enticing offer from Philips Medical Systems to move to an even smaller Canadian city to become technologist fixing their medical equipment. I sensed that both of those would have been absolute dead ends. Years later when I was working as a Product Manager in a fast growing IT company, I used to still see my uni classmates working in jewelry and photo processing stores.. quite sad.<br />
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So how does that have to do anything with a belief in yourself, you might be asking yourself at this point.. Or more like, well not quite sure where he's going with sharing his whole life story. Or even, c'mon George get on with it, the lunch break is running out.<br />
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Without further adieu: the belief in yourself in the missing component of when they tell you that you have to work hard and you'll get places. Or if you look at it in a different way its the zing while pushing ahead is the zang. Very creative, I know...<br />
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To cut the long story short, after the undergraduate I ended up spending couple of months scouting around for my ideal jobs, gave up on that and instead walked into the local Chamber of Commerce and asked to volunteer with them instead. And after volunteering with them for couple of months I managed to make enough contacts to land me my first and second jobs.<br />
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I had the same lesson reiterated to me after the MBA. Wherein due to my limited years of experience and IT background I wasn't a best fit with Consulting and Ibanking, which are both traditionally big recruiters of MBA Grads. This time around though I took it a lot less stressful and just had a blind belief that settling is not the answer and I'll find a great opportunity if I keep on looking and constantly working towards finding one. To which after three months of soul searching came the answer of the career at Prudential.<br />
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So here I am, you can guess the place where I'm writing this. Starbucks of course... Its month number four in the new Asian city. The second part of the adventure started last November when I moved to Singapore to join our local operations here. And what's the most important is that I love my job here. Its full of learning and challenges. Perhaps for the first time in my life I feel like I can do this for a long time and not get bored.<br />
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Let me put a disclaimer about the things which I said above. I recently read a very interesting book, which is called “Marry Him”<a href="http://9im6jjs425770o267f7u4gprd0l4tbn2.a.blogger.gmodules.com/gadgets/ifr?v=c694ddc5a48660f2a298a825478864&container=blogger&view=editor-sidebar&lang=en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwms.assoc-amazon.com%2FGoogleGadgets%2Famzn_monetize.xml&country=US&libs=core%3Adynamic-height%3Agoogle.blog%3Agoogle.blog.editor%3Alocked-domain%3Arpc%3Asetprefs%3Asettitle%3Aviews&parent=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogger.com%2F&mid=1268319984187#">LINK</a> , in it the lady by the name of Lori shares with readers her ideas about finding a right husband. The key to the book is the fact that author recommends to draw a set of key criteria which the lady needs in a husband and settle for a guy who satisfies those criteria even if the guy does not satisfy other less important criteria (like hair and physical shape – ie he is bold and short). It was a fascinating read and its exploring a very interesting concept. One would think that the concept of settling is foreign to a lot of things that we do in a modern world, we want the biggest TV the best Stereo system, the highest paying job, the spectacular looking partner, etc. And what's more important yet, we might not want to settle and be happy with what we've got. That sadly predisposes us for a life of unhappiness as we will feel that we've settled on something that wasn't good enough.<br />
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Settling is not really settling if you have reached your goals. It actually something that gets you out of the hamster wheel at the point which you think you have reached your potential in that particular area of your life. Its actually something that should make you really happy, as you've reached a lot and its time to concentrate on finding a balance by striving to reach higher in another part of your life, whether that being a family, or mental or spiritual development.<br />
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So lets go back to the believing in thyself and using that to reach forward. I guess the lesson for me would be to be ambitious and at the same time realistic about your own potential. More importantly yet, I think setting time bound efforts helps one to focus the efforts in a particular area and achieve the most before you move onto the next area/challenge.<br />
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Its all obviously not mean to be prescriptive, as each individual has their own path in life. Just thought that by sharing my thoughts I might trigger some positive ideas in your mind.<br />
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Cheers,<br />
GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-64148801299330314172009-08-13T01:30:00.001-07:002009-08-13T01:30:57.051-07:00Hong Kong lifeWhen I came to Hong Kong, I had a couple of major curiosities, among other things I wondered how the work environment going to be like as well as how I’m going to fare outside work (i.e. finding friends and in general people to hang out with) and how I’m going to adapt to the local climate. <br /><br />Being five months into my rotation I’m happy to report that I find people to be very positive and respectful at work. Thing that one notices is that people are in general are a bit quieter and a lot of things get decided after the meetings, face to face, especially true with respect to a larger meetings.<br /><br />“Face” is in general a very important concept in Asia. The last thing people want to do is to challenge their superior openly which could lead to the loss of face. So one finds majority of Asian people are rather quiet in meetings vs. North Americans who are used to the style of meetings in which if you didn’t speak, your ideas would not likely to be taken into the consideration. As the result, I have to keep reminding myself that I’m in a different environment and people might perceive me as being overly aggressive if I continue with the style that I was used to in Canada.<br /><br />Hong Kong office composition is roughly 90% Asian and 10% European/North American. Naturally, one of my initial concerns was the fact that I don’t speak either Cantonese or Mandarin and I won’t be able to effectively communicate in the office. Thankfully, it turned out that even though the conversation language for majority of Hong Kongers is Cantonese, everybody in the office is fluent in English. The only problem that I occasionally run into is when I travel somewhere, majority of taxi cab drivers don’t speak a word of English, so you are stuck with either going to the major tourist destination spots and walking from there, or keeping handy a phone number of a person who can translate to Cantonese. The one other downside or upside, depending on how you look at it, is the fact that the office gossip is in Cantonese so it all sounds like gibberish.<br /><br />Finding friends and people to hang out with didn’t turn out to be a challenge neither. Majority of expats are here are on a 2-3 year secondments so none have an established circle of friends and are quite open to meeting new people. I found the easiest was to meet people in the office or through common interests/activities. I quite enjoy hiking and dancing salsa, so I’ve met a group of people through both of those activities.<br /><br />Hong Kong is great, like Vegas it’s the city that never sleeps. Any time of day you will find people on the streets of Central. Some bars have people partying till 8am the next morning and a lot of food places stay open through the night. Everything in the city is really close and convenient (i.e. 20 min is considered to be a long commute). The coldest it got so far has been +8C, and people were complaining how cold it was and wearing fur coats and parkas. I mean I can definitely get used to this, after the -30C winters in both Canada and Russia.<br /> As with anything there is couple of negatives to offset some of the positives. The summers here are quite hot and humid, which I hear makes for a moist walk to the office. Pollution is bad and is due to the heavy industry across the border. And finally the city is way too crowded, which could simply mean that I’m not the only one who likes this city. <br />Cheers,<br />GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-85761744653616787262009-08-07T02:01:00.000-07:002009-08-07T02:03:05.318-07:00Hello brave new world!I moved to Hong Kong in mid-October ’08. It was quite a welcome move for a number of reasons not the least of them being the fact that October was the month that one had to start scrapping ice of the car in Canadian icy mornings. While Hong Kong welcomed me with the +31C degree weather and all of ice contained in the fridges where it truly belongs as far as I’m concerned, and not on your car.. brrr<br /><br />Having visited Hong Kong for the first time in December ’07 as part of the MBA school trip, I was really looking forward to the chance to experience living in it. The impressions that I carried from the ’07 trip were the vibrant city which people defined by three simple words: work, eat and shop, and just shrugged their shoulders when I asked about another one that they’ve seemingly forgot to add to the list: sleep. As I know now, being here for three months, they weren’t that far off, after all.<br /><br />My friends in Canada were shell shocked when they’ve heard that I’m moving to Hong Kong to start a job with Prudential UK. They were wondering if I was crazy and what made me accept the job half a way across the world. I’ve been warned multiple times that it’s not only going to be really different culturally wise, but everything else is going to be difficult as well. The question that kept on popping up was why I didn’t just get a job in Toronto instead. I think though, they were secretly jealous of my upcoming adventure.<br /><br />One of my life passions is travel. But what I was dreaming of was actually a get a chance to experience a new culture on a deeper level than what you get on a two-three day tourist visit. So when Prudential offered me the opportunity in Hong Kong I jumped on it. Don’t get me wrong, it was an interesting opportunity to start with, but the location was a big bonus for me.<br /><br />Now a little bit more about the actual opportunity. Through the interview process Prudential matched me to the Business Analyst role in the New Markets development group. We are part of the Prudential Corporation Asia regional office. My role focuses on providing analytical support for the Prudential’s expansion in Asia and beyond, helping to identify and execute expansion into new areas within our current markets as well as brand new markets. We are basically the team which is on the bleeding edge of Prudential UK. <br /><br />It was October 9th Thursday when I touched down at my newly found HK home. It honestly didn’t feel real for the first little while. Part of it was probably due to the fact that the whole process happened so smoothly, for that I have to praise to our HR department, they helped to make it go off without a single glitch considering all the little details that needed to be taken care off before it could all happen. There were all the employment contracts that had to be UPSed back and forth between HK and Toronto, the HK employment visa that luckily took only two weeks to process, and then all the other nitty-gritty stuff that had to be taken care off before I could start.<br /><br />I was to start the job on Friday, the day after my arrival. The 13 hour time difference and the 16 hour flight didn’t help, what did help was the fact I was full of excitement and quite busy right from the start. Well that and couple of double espressos that I might have accidentally grabbed from Starbucks ;)<br /><br />Before starting at Pru, I have been familiarizing myself with insurance industry, the company and our product specifics. However the first couple of days were a deep dive for me, getting a full overview of our product set and our presence across the region. That was followed by the overview of framework for new country analysis and examples of the countries that we considered before.<br /><br />I was a bit of an early starter at Momentum as our official start was supposed to happen in London on November 9th. We were to spend a week in UK building our understanding of the group, meeting with managers from various members of Prudential family and getting to know other participants in the Momentum program to help build us a support network in whatever we decide to tackle later on.<br /><br />Till next time,<br />GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-89968672569766051512009-07-20T09:19:00.000-07:002009-08-13T01:47:00.940-07:00The other side of the pacific<a href="http://www.destination360.com/asia/china/images/s/china-hong-kong.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 251px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 152px" alt="" src="http://www.destination360.com/asia/china/images/s/china-hong-kong.jpg" border="0" /></a> Sitting at Starbucks and sipping on a caramel late I glance outside at a beautiful harbor. It could be just like any other Starbucks in Toronto, Vancouver, or New York, but it is not. This Starbucks is actually in another part of the world, far far away from Toronto. I’m actually sitting at Starbucks in Hong Kong, the city which I’ve been calling my new home for the past three and a half months.<br /><br />Before I jump into telling you more about my life in Hong Kong, let me share with you a bit of my background. I was born in Moscow Russia, where I lived until the age of 16, at which point both me and my dad moved to Canada. After a year of Canadian high school I enrolled into a Computer Engineering degree at University of Manitoba. That in turn led to a relatively uneventful four years of school and put me squarely on track for a career in IT. Fortunately, at that point I was brave enough to admit that IT wasn’t the right field for me, and after taking number of Project Management courses I decided to pursue graduate business education to help me switch into Finance. So long story short, after working couple of years in IT sales and then in Product Management I decided to take a plunge and go get an MBA.<br /><br />As a bit of a side note, I find it really funny that my pursuit of education is perfectly aligned and correlated with the global recessions. Well, to be more precise it actually precedes them by about one year. Let me elaborate: I started my Computer Engineering degree at the peak of the tech hype in 2000 and saw the whole bubble burst a year after, same deal with the MBA which I started in early 2007. Fortunately the second time around I’ve learned my lesson and chose to do a more intensive one year MBA instead, finishing couple short months by before the market collapsed in September ’08. Moreover, it seems the more serious my education gets the more severe the associated recessions, so watch out the world economy if I ever decide to do a Ph.D., cause by the time I’d be done that the world would not be the same, if its still around that is…<br /><br />On a more positive note, Momentum program @ Pru has turned out to be everything that I’ve though it could and would be. Great people, awesome company and an amazing location. Doesn’t get much better than that, if you ask me.<br /><br />After finishing an MBA mid 2008 is was really torn, I had an offer from IBM to go into their Project management training program in a smaller Canadian city, I was interviewing with Eli Lilly and Company for the pharmaceutical sales and had some discussions with boutique management consulting firms. But it all felt quite routine and didn’t excite me at the very least. I mean all of the positions were solid, but it felt like I had to sacrifice something in order to take each and every one of them. I would have had to settle if I was to take one of them, so I kept my fingers crossed and continued actively looking for an opportunity that would be a better all around “fit” for what I was looking for.<br /><br />And I can tell you this: I wasn’t looking for a horizontal comfortable move. I was searching for a stretch opportunity that would be both interesting and challenging. And to my surprise I did find it, browsing through the Pru’s Momentum website. I remember reading about the Momentum and thinking… wow, this sounds exactly like a perfect opportunity for me. The second though was… is this really real or just one of those smart marketing tricks.<br /><br />After the chance to meet with men and women of Pru including people who were already in the Momentum I was pretty convinced, this was not a marketing trick, the Momentum program was exactly what I was looking for and I desperately wanted in.<br /><br />To be completely honest with you, I had always envisioned Insurance organizations as a bit of slow moving entities, unexciting, and such. But after getting to know number of people at Pru and chatting with the CEO of Insurance operations as part of my interview process I was absolutely sold. Apparently I was mistaken, insurance companies are not all alike and after 160 years of existence Pru is still very much alive and kicking [competition].<br /><br />So three rounds of interviews later, I was in. I landed the job that I really wanted and was packing my suitcases in Toronto, Canada and getting ready for my cross Pacific move to Hong Kong.<br /><br />Hello new world!!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-81464465886749218782008-11-27T05:48:00.000-08:002009-08-13T01:45:44.373-07:00Real life beginsNow is the time to begin an exiting new chapter in my life…<br /><br />That was exactly what I was hoping to say thinking about my future two years ago. I was debating with myself whether the investment in an MBA is going to be worth my time, effort, and even more significantly if it is worth it going back to the life as a poor student, giving up the car, salary and jumping into the deep end of student debts. The feedback from my family didn’t help my decision process neither, they simply told me that it would be a mistake to waste, such a big pile of money on an Education.<br /><br />For those of you who have followed my blog for a while, you can see that my MBA experience has been an uphill battle with its fair share of ups and downs. I’m happy to share though that it has accomplished all of the things that I ever wished it to. I ended up in an international position in Hong Kong, switching career from IT into Financial services and as a cherry on top is a significant boost to my pre-MBA salary.<br /><br />Some people might say I got really lucky with my post MBA career, some others might argue that it was a deliberate concentrated effort that I put into it, and the truth would be somewhere in-between. Just like one of my favorite cheesy movies “Shakespeare in Love” says: it will all somehow come together, and it certainly did for me.<br /><br />Looking back, one of the best things that I’ve learned at Ivey was to trust in myself. And it made all the difference in my MBA experience. I stayed happy throughout the time in school and I landed a great job, even though it did take me a while to find it.<br /><br />You are the one who knows yourself the best. You know just what you are capable of. The key becomes to find an employer who shares your vision. Rejection in this context is actually quite a lucky event. Rejections do sting your pride, but if you think about it, they are actually quite helpful. For example, without rejections I would have never landed my current opportunity. But unfortunately its not nearly as easy as letting rejections do all the work. You have to be selective as well.<br /><br />If I would have accepted that first lower offer after my undergraduate degree to go and work in a small town for Phillips Medical machines as a technologist, I can almost guarantee you that I would have not been here or nowhere close to being as successful as I am right now. But temptation is always there, like the IBM asking if I would consider taking a good opportunity, but in Winnipeg... And again you have a choice of either playing it “safe”, taking that sure bet position and a comfortable life, or betting the house that something much better is going to come along.<br /><br />In Russian there is a saying: “if you don’t risk you won’t get to drink a Champaign”, and so just happens that I really like the taste of Champaign ^^<br /><br />GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-42027807975715494162008-09-29T12:11:00.000-07:002008-10-03T18:24:31.480-07:00Ivey MBA Career quest, going in “deep and wide”<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHgQbp2bwRLB1jBtkqsX39O0k2uxMALf5nAZrSNt-NMfHMa5F-fgu_FoUEngvuh-u-dAp0jTSY0EsDVpxY1QxLgV5uNs7CvYwBGmKN8f7GsfGVEj-5JvjaRiAY9zBi0soPH3SnavciLVm/s1600-h/Roller-Coaster.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251524189708249938" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVHgQbp2bwRLB1jBtkqsX39O0k2uxMALf5nAZrSNt-NMfHMa5F-fgu_FoUEngvuh-u-dAp0jTSY0EsDVpxY1QxLgV5uNs7CvYwBGmKN8f7GsfGVEj-5JvjaRiAY9zBi0soPH3SnavciLVm/s200/Roller-Coaster.jpg" border="0" /></a>Let’s make this a part 2 of the George’s MBA career search series. A quick recap of where we left it off last time:<br /><br />1. Came into the MBA program over ambitious<br />2. Thought a top tier consulting job was the “it” job<br />3. Started wondering if consulting was really “it”<br />4. Didn’t get second round consulting interviews<br />5. Thought I was a failure<br />6. Took another look at non-Investment Banking and non-consulting jobs to realize that despite the lack of glamour they are jobs out there that might be just as good if not better that those “it” jobs<br /><br />Alright so here you might start to get a sense of what the MBA career search really feels like. The analogy that comes to mind is the one of a roller coaster. If you have ever been on one of those crazy high roller coasters, you know the feeling where you rise up up and up, and it seems like you are on top of the world just to be screaming and going doooooown the next moment. Similarly, MBA career search too has a lot of ups and downs. And the first time you go through one of these downs, your get a shrinking feeling in your stomach. You think to yourself: Was it the right decision to spend $100 grand on the MBA, or maybe I should have listened to my family!<br /><br />So here I was at the end of September, I found myself with no job and at a bit of dead end in my initial industry of choice (consulting). I was at a crossroads; I could continue my career search in consulting, targeting more boutique firms and ultimately lowering my career expectations. Other option would be to decide that despite my initial decision consulting wasn’t the right “fit” for me and move on in my career search. As a bit of side note, I believe human beings are naturally prewired for continuity, from the infancy majority of us seek comfort in routines and familiar environments that we are accustomed to. That in turn makes life predictable and comfortable. Moreover, to make life even easier we create a mental picture of our environment, a map of sorts to help simplify the everyday life. One of the hardest realizations at least for me has been to admit to yourself that your map is wrong and needs fixing. For an instance you realize that you are in conflict with yourself, and you have to tell your old self that she was wrong and that hurts. It does sting your pride but none the less you have to take the “plunge” and just move on.<br /><br />And plunge I did take…<br /><br />First of all I decided not to be closed minded to any job posting that comes up on school’s internal job posting website. While trying to look at those posting as objective as I could. That was the wide part of the “deep and wide” strategy. As the result I ended up interviewing for Product Management at Google, Project Executive at IBM, Leadership Development program at Eli Lilly and Company (Pharmaceutical) and a couple of other ones that I would have never considered just few short months before. The only promise that I made to myself was to be honest with interviewers about both myself and what I was looking to get out of the next job. That way I was hoping to make the job search process more collaborative, enlisting employers to help me land an ideal job. I took the principles that at least in theory should make you a more successful entrepreneur and applied them to my job search. Those were an almost unlimited faith in success and the willingness to push yourself forward towards your goals despite people around you telling you it won’t work.<br /><br />The months of October through February I was going wide, doing as much research on my own as learning in action through interviews. I kept actively reaching out to alumni to meet with them and to understand new industry niches that appeared as a good “fit” for my skills and future career aspirations. At the same time I started to better understand the rules of the game: understand your strengths, realize your weaknesses and look for jobs where there are jobs. Let me elaborate: Strengths and weaknesses help you realize some of the constraints that you are going to be operating under in your job search. And looking for the jobs where there are jobs is a “no-brainer”!<br /><br />I took a clean piece of paper, and I wrote my direct work experience, so out came the experience with Wealth Management industry, Product Management experience with Technology and finally some Sales experience. Then I started thinking about my other interests, such as Project Management, Leadership and Finance. Then I wrote down my weaknesses, but I’m not going to tell you those ;)<br /><br />And finally after months of searching, BINGO!! One of the things that I accidentally got involved in at school was a helping to put together a transportation conference. The purpose of the conference was to bring together majority of stakeholders for the upcoming Québec – Ontario transportation corridor and to get process moving on public policy framework for this project. One piece of the project that I found of great interest was the use of public private partnerships (P3s) to help finance and build the infrastructure. On top of it, the more I researched it the more I was getting convinced that this is the perfect thing for me. I thought that this industry will not only let me leverage my experience with Public policy and project management but also be a perfect fit with my interest in Finance. Lastly, talking to alumni and doing research made it sound as if there’s a lot of potential for growth in this industry thus creating a lot of potential opportunities.<br /><br />Now it was time to go deep…<br /><br />I spend the next three months doing exactly as planned: strategically trying to hammer at the P3 market here in Canada. I reached out to major organizations such as Infrastructure Ontario, Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (now Metrolinx), banks, and contractors, basically you name it. And things were going great. I’ve applied to a job at a major player in the Ontario P3 market. I spoke to their CEO, HR and couple other people. I felt that the prospects of me getting the job were good. I even had people trying to help speed things up internally. Now let me bring you back to my roller coaster analogy at the beginning of this post. It felt as if I was on top of the world and could smell and touch that P3 Job. But fortunately for me I would get a chance to experience that again couple of times during the summer. Did I mention that I love roller coasters? So needless to say the P3 job never happened for me.<br /><br />Next on the list was an international career. I spend significant part of my life in Moscow Russia and speak the language fluently, so I thought why not look for a job there. Furthermore, the job situation in Canada and North America has been deteriorating significantly throughout the year leading to a recruitment freeze on both Bay and Wall Streets. Again working my contacts and alumni I was actually able to come quite close to getting an internship in Moscow Russia with European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). And again up I went on that roller coaster getting all excited at the prospects of joining EBRD and helping them put together a policy framework for micro financing in Russia with potential for a permanent job after the 6 month internship. But you guessed it, at the last minute EBRD cancelled the position as they didn’t get enough applicants. All I could do at that point was to smile and think that this all felt too much like a déjà vu over and over again. How can one operate if even such a basic thing as the lucky three rule has failed you ahaaahah (consulting, P3, and now EBRD)? I knew though that instead of putting my hands down now was the time to push it even harder.<br /><br />But what I didn’t know if that my luck was about to finally take a turn for better.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-59578952045700342872008-09-15T21:53:00.000-07:002008-09-15T22:17:29.633-07:00The art of luck and the science of success when it comes to an MBA job search.<span style="color:#000000;">First of all I want to Thank all of you who directly or indirectly asked me about my MBA job search and wished me luck. It’s been quite an involved process and I’m glad to report to you that I have landed my dream job. Sorry to keep you in suspense, now I can finally write to you about the MBA career management and job search at Ivey. I’m planning to do it over a couple of separate posts so stay tuned.</span> <div><p>Let me start off by making sure that we are all on the same page, I write this post with an underlying assumption that the objective of the majority of people pursuing an MBA is to get a better job, myself included. It typically happens either through landing a position of increased responsibility in their existing firm/career path or through switching into a totally new industry upon graduation. I say majority as there are always exceptions to a rule, and there might be people who are either looking to start new businesses, are working in a family business setting, or just decided to do it for fun (don’t laugh I met people who have done just that). </p><p>MBA is no doubt a hyped-up degree, at least at this point. And with it comes a warning: use with caution as a targeted career advancement tool. Just like a surgical scalpel it’s not a universal tool and is only as good as the hand guiding it, you being the hand in this particular analogy. So one has to not only have a good idea of what you want to get out of the MBA but also be realistic about one’s own skills going into the MBA. On the flip side it’s also seemingly hard to believe whether there’s actually any real content behind all that hype, and if it is worth investing perfectly good $100,000+ into the MBA when Porsche Cayman might seem like a pretty good investment at least in terms of a subsequent gain in popularity.</p><p>Consider the following though, I did a rough first year Return on Investment (ROI) calculation couple of days ago, using the numbers from my new job. I also compared that to the ROI from my undergraduate computer engineering degree. Turns out that the undergraduate first year ROI for me worked out to be in the order of 10-12% while ROI for the MBA is at least four times as much. Not bad… Having said that, there are number of conditions that might affect your MBA ROI, for example you being in right place at the right time; level of salary going in and the condition of a general economy upon the graduation. </p><p>Let me now rewind the clock a year and a half back and take another look at my expectations going into the MBA (and whether they were entirely realistic)</p><p>At the time, my view of the MBA world was shaped by the information I gathered from MBA portals on Business Week and Financial Times websites, student blogs and school placement statistics. Moreover, in the beginning the recipe seemed unbelievably easy: add three magical letters (M, B and A) behind your name and your salary doubles or even triples, what can be easier, right? Then came the question of why does it cost $10,000 to get an MBA at some schools while at others it’s a cool $100,000+ for the same three letters. Maybe you get those letters in “gold”, joked I with my friends back then. The answer is of course as with any other <span style="color:#000000;">product the final price is a combination of variety of factors. Brand premium is certainly there for a top tier schools as you are paying for prestige of attending a school that has distinguished history. There are a lot of tangible things though that you get at a top tier MBA School, such as:</span></p><ul><li><span style="color:#000000;">ability to forge strong connections to your classmates who are bound to have a future multimillionaire or two amongst them </span></li><br /><li><span style="color:#000000;">access to the responsive alumni network that has a lot of senior decision makers amongst it’s ranks (read people who can hire you or back your next business venture)</span></li><br /><li><span style="color:#000000;">there’s also the quality of recruiters that the university is able to attract </span></li><br /><li><span style="color:#000000;">and finally, the higher quality of education (although it’s becoming more of a plain vanilla component with a lot of lower tier schools able to provide at least as good of education)</span></li></ul><p>With the top tier MBA program you get all the high quality ingredients, while with the third tier program you might get a great education but that alone might not be able to propel you forward in your career by as much. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4RtIaLZ2frOYVW-VeWBNprN2777-fZ07PQzf_Eicamvmq5Nh81mBUXS2aI-f2lVdo6pSfLpnM3ScbdDD7s_ODZGuCg071BpBoZd3N-bDslfrG5OO4J_Gta4oA1U02VEtFOyi8QonGboAO/s1600-h/MBA.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246482596556452402" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4RtIaLZ2frOYVW-VeWBNprN2777-fZ07PQzf_Eicamvmq5Nh81mBUXS2aI-f2lVdo6pSfLpnM3ScbdDD7s_ODZGuCg071BpBoZd3N-bDslfrG5OO4J_Gta4oA1U02VEtFOyi8QonGboAO/s200/MBA.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><p>So to come back to my initial expectations, I though getting into one of Canada’s top business schools pretty much guaranteed that are you will become rich by the age of 30 i.e. get a great Consulting or an IBanking (CIB) job with a top tier firm (plus the associated competitive compensation package). In retrospective, that was obviously a bit of an overestimation on my part. Allow me to elaborate: on the first day of classes I realized that I wasn’t so special in my preference for the post MBA career, meaning that pretty much all of my classmates wanted to also get some flavor of a CIB job. That presented me with a bit of a pickle as there was only a limited number of spots available at the top consulting firms, in past years top tier consulting firms combined took five – six people from of each MBA class. So having 40 people compete for those 5 available spots did start to sound like a bit of competition. None the less I was quite confident in my abilities to prove to a top tier consulting firm that I was the right guy for them. </p><p>To be honest, at the time I was completely blinded by those highly desirable CIB jobs, and simple logic worked wonders: if everybody else wants it means those CIB jobs are great. It was clearly the case of “group think” where we all wanted those top tier jobs and thus it made it so much more desirable to get them. For me it translated into good three months of research as well as endless hours of interview practice getting ready for those tough consulting interviews. </p><p>As far as the school initiated career activities go, less than a month into the program we started getting a constant stream of visitors from consulting, finance and industry. Each trying to shed a bit of light on exactly what they did in their day to day jobs. Furthermore, two months into the program we had a career week in Toronto, where there was a selection of top firms lined up for us to meet. Full days of various industry information sessions, company hosted info and mingling sessions, mock interviews, and one-on-one meetings. It was then when we first started to get a real sense of what different industry jobs are all about, and how they stack against the CIB jobs.</p><p>And then came September, the month that majority of top tier CIB firms do their hiring (a year in advance). I had a couple of first round interviews and that’s as far as it went for me in consulting. Ouch… I being rejected?! Of course I was initially somewhat disillusioned and disappointed, although the more I thought about it the more I realized I was relieved deep down, as right around then I was starting to doubt that consulting was really the place for me at this point in my career. I figured, on the bright side those consulting interviews are really rigorous at testing whether you are going to be a good “fit” with the firm’s culture. Based on their extensive experience firms have a pretty good idea if you’d do well in their consulting environment. That in turn saves everybody unnecessary pain and suffering of discovering two months down the road that you hate your new job and want to quit. </p><p>If you are considering Consulting you have to really ask yourself if you are ready to work 70-80 hours a week, IBanking is more along the lines of 100 hours. Granted the pay for either stream is quite competitive at mid $100s for the first year, including year end bonus. Furthermore, IBanking is used to be a steeper climb after the first year vs. Consulting. The Subprime meltdown in 2007 in US might change that. </p><p>One of the most common MBA student traps is that students typically equate those top tier CIB jobs with all the future glamour. Seeing their peers get those sexy six figure jobs early on makes people naturally think they missed out on a one in a lifetime opportunity and now it’s much less likely that they will land any kind of a decent job. And taking a look around I saw that my situation wasn’t all that unique and there was a large number of my classmates that didn’t get those dream (or so I thought at that time) jobs. </p><p>October was a month when one could sense some tension in the air at school... The question of the month in October was whether MBA was the right decision for me. I mean here you are having invested big chuck of your net worth into your MBA education, going knee deep in debt and it turns out you can’t get the job that you wanted so much, it sucks! to say the least. Furthermore, the question that lingers on your mind at that point is: So what’s next?</p><p>From the information sessions earlier in the year we saw that Industry and Corporate Finance (ICF) jobs have their own very tangible set of benefits. You not only get the hands-on experience of seeing your ideas through but you also maintain your quality of life (relatively of course). Despite the initial impression the compensation is actually also competitive, especially if you consider it on a $ per hour basis. Furthermore, those ICF jobs are not as volatile as the CIB jobs, which are highly related to how well economy is doing at the given moment. </p><p>More about my job search in the next post…<br />George<br /></p><br /><br /><div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-71984391313166979482008-07-23T13:54:00.000-07:002008-07-23T13:55:34.424-07:00Ivey’s China Teaching ProjectWritten by: Rebecca Liu, MBA 2008<br /><br />In recent years, the business world has been eyeing China with great interest as untapped opportunities continue to emerge. The Chinese capital, Beijing, is known for its rich culture and extensive history, preserved in its many landmarks such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. The world is also counting down to the August 8th start of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. You can imagine how honoured I felt to be part of the team to represent Ivey for one month to teach an undergraduate course at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University for their School of Economics and Management (SEM).<br /><br />You can find the full post on the Ivey MBA Business Week blog (<a href="http://iveymba.mbablogs.businessweek.com/">Click here</a>)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-67218501453427237422008-06-23T12:34:00.000-07:002008-12-09T06:16:55.809-08:00KEY MARKETING TRENDS FOR 2009What does one do when you have a bit of free time on your hands after finishing an MBA? The answer is of course simple: you put together a prediction of key marketing trends for next year!<br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215169314000288978" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQzLzn7Vq5RwLCPc70xnTTyEP0kmPagwv97zgA4n1mMI5J5CrrD43IvaM6GfiUSle-ArPwge4iMlAKlP3XjAF6dt_sm0CYm8wThkHTLLmCnvSUNSUrKJS5cWUV1543LGSZGIEwVUwoKqwY/s320/trend.jpg" border="0" /><br />I bet that the top three marketing trends that will impact how Canadian marketers do business in 2009 will be:<br /><br /><ul><li>Mobilization</li><li>Personalization</li><li>Greenification</li></ul><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-YhthwwnIbNDEsdRNWMhsuHA0ywXn0gOHyrh4TG3bmVEP-6a1XNm7oTlVw59e8W6pfeC3ImsUG_zyxvDRd_Di6XfNNTmVIcksBKjWWijiieVI1itpzFJG0OCfItwKsHu9Fw4NhYC83864/s1600-h/1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215165133763857698" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-YhthwwnIbNDEsdRNWMhsuHA0ywXn0gOHyrh4TG3bmVEP-6a1XNm7oTlVw59e8W6pfeC3ImsUG_zyxvDRd_Di6XfNNTmVIcksBKjWWijiieVI1itpzFJG0OCfItwKsHu9Fw4NhYC83864/s200/1.jpg" border="0" /></a>With the cell phone technology becoming more advanced, marketers need to dial into a new wave of mobile linked promotions. Apple has been leading the trend in this area, with their iPhone, which is going to be launched in Canada July 2008.<br /><br />Second version of iPhone is going to be equipped with a new generation of location-aware software created in collaboration with Google Inc. Furthermore, expected to retail at a price of $199 (under a 3 year contract), iPhone is going to be quite affordable compared to other Smartphones on the market today. What does that mean for marketers in Canada? It means that with the increased popularity of the iPhone marketing spending on mobile medium is likely to receive a significant boost; in particular companies are going to start investing more into mobile advertising and building their mobile presence.<br /><br />There are already services in US that allow promotional coupons to be sent to user’s cell-phone once they are in the vicinity of a particular registered business, maximizing the potential for lead generation and conversion. Combine that with the fact that new generation of Smartphones will likely allow for a far more granular measurement of marketing ROI and there’s a real possibility that mobile marketing dollars are going to be the biggest growth area next year.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXgOOi2yWqlm3gfgnmT8wygJj9IFV5PwMDnBVirjyqkJsWd9WVO4h-sFulVfygC0qyZj3n_URXjR8bAcBBxTJ2G2lkXJDj-Gv04XGLlgBxm72Zw_y_NkyQv1CHJR5-b_u_0gZlkdISXo3/s1600-h/2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215165269915537202" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXgOOi2yWqlm3gfgnmT8wygJj9IFV5PwMDnBVirjyqkJsWd9WVO4h-sFulVfygC0qyZj3n_URXjR8bAcBBxTJ2G2lkXJDj-Gv04XGLlgBxm72Zw_y_NkyQv1CHJR5-b_u_0gZlkdISXo3/s200/2.jpg" border="0" /></a>As Canadians increase the use of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS technologies available in majority of new Smartphones, their mobile experience will become more personalized. Prior to these technologies such level of personalization was only available sitting in-front of the computer. With the mobile personalization, depending both on their location and preferences users would be receiving selected promotional information on their mobile phones that could be made much more relevant and appealing to them. This also lessens the traditional gap of time and distance between when a consumer sees an ad and when they can actually buy the product which in turn would increase the effectiveness of promotional activities.<br /><br />Furthermore, as marketing dollars continue transitioning towards online medium, social networking sites will start to play an even more important role in 2009. Websites like Facebook and MySpace as well as other niche players will increasingly help marketers to deliver their message effectively through the clutter to their target audiences. This will be made possible through the abundance of personal preference data that users willingly share on those sites.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7hQ9iEdV_qt9QVJUH2TOtzbxONRImhTWt3s0w-5Zlp9bY3SxjMbBlt3201DK9D384UgJ5nr9Y8Fi1l1XBQsAbAb1iGHPj-l7CmESgkn_YBTlu3-WCk5RxvwBA-C9Q4ZBfFWUNtxyF_G3c/s1600-h/3.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215165385144120002" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7hQ9iEdV_qt9QVJUH2TOtzbxONRImhTWt3s0w-5Zlp9bY3SxjMbBlt3201DK9D384UgJ5nr9Y8Fi1l1XBQsAbAb1iGHPj-l7CmESgkn_YBTlu3-WCk5RxvwBA-C9Q4ZBfFWUNtxyF_G3c/s200/3.jpg" border="0" /></a>Gas prices have skyrocketed over the last three years. Last year alone the price of gas shot up 31%. As gas prices increase, the topic of energy starts to occupy greater share of consumer’s mind and so does the related topic of environment. Hence, Greenification is becoming another hot topic. As companies continue to attempt differentiating themselves in consumer’s mind being the Greenest is finally starting to pay off real dividends. Therefore metrics measuring how Green is the company perceived by its target segment will provide an additional insight of potential sales driver in 2009. </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>Now we'll just have to wait a year to see how close I really was ;)</p><p>George</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-50494276316713479182008-06-12T21:20:00.000-07:002008-12-09T06:16:56.168-08:00McLoving it!<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211218439537366098" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_loqABouLHveWhljSxgysltVAPPMyoHH_JrmBWAyXs3XQn0iKvpMK987tlKpeSqAAWOi7jrZczvWfDFd5r-L9wvB_ZRPpZanepu0h9t1C2J9B_r5jewrIO3lFsV0RAnz3GczwoIWLR8lp/s200/mcd_lovin_it__clr%255B1%255D.jpg" border="0" />Who would have thought following two words could be found in a same sentence:<br /><br />1) McDonalds™ and Love<br />2) Subway™ and Pizza<br />3) Me and MBA-grad<br /><br />None the less McDonalds marketing slogan is "<em>i'm lovin' it</em>". Subway, which is a major sub chain in North America, has recently added 90 second pizzas to their menu (maybe they should also think of changing their brand to Sub + Pizza way = SuPway). And, YOU GUESSED IT: I’ve graduated from the Ivey MBA! Big Yay for George!!!<br /><br />It has been a challenging year with its fair share of ups and downs, lots of learning not only about variety of business topics but more importantly about myself. Comparing MBA to my undergraduate experience I’m tempted to say that the undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering taught me how to research a narrow topic in-depth while MBA taught me how to think broadly about business problems.<br /><br />Lots of people ask me if I’m happy about my decision to pursue the Ivey MBA and if I had a chance to go back would I still do it. The answer is resounding YES! Now let me elaborate a little bit about what I mean, it will also help to explain the ups and downs that I’ve mentioned in passing above. Interesting nature about Ivey is that it stretches you to the limit and then some, and that’s what really helps to build your capacity to succeed. Not only does it do that, it also trains you to think like a good manager by looking at problems broadly.<br /><br />Combination of a case teaching method and large number of brilliant professors has been two real highlights about my experience at Ivey. Cases are real situations that managers are faced with in their everyday activities. It trains you to recognize patters of problems analyze those situations systematically and act accordingly to resolve them. After a year of Ivey it feels like you’ve been in a management role for at least 5 years based on the number of management problems that you’ve seen and collaborated as a team to resolve.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQkxil6PLbfjveyFBtusXHcE30uwN6-RZ2F9TJx0omS2xD_LQkCwVlJ3vEgl1yMYi8DxvkEj-bWiVhSuEBBXjDzx1tOD4aMRsm7ZjtAYubeDppjLABPeiAYl-thC45bKrAEDB_gyPHo86/s1600-h/Helmetdiagram.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5211217931910452034" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQkxil6PLbfjveyFBtusXHcE30uwN6-RZ2F9TJx0omS2xD_LQkCwVlJ3vEgl1yMYi8DxvkEj-bWiVhSuEBBXjDzx1tOD4aMRsm7ZjtAYubeDppjLABPeiAYl-thC45bKrAEDB_gyPHo86/s200/Helmetdiagram.jpg" border="0" /></a>As anticipated, it turned out to be one expensive year. The final number is hovering close to a cool $95,000 including living expenses and an optional trip to China, and excluding lost wages. I’ve also told my family to forget buying me a watch as a graduation present and instead to get me a sturdy helmet to safeguard my head which now officially is the most expensive asset that I own!<br /><br />The other day I was pondering a question whether I could have lasted another year if Ivey still had a two year MBA program? The answer is a simple NO. First of all my finances are stretched to the limit with the one year MBA. Second, going back to life of student has been fun for the first 4 months, but I’d like to go back to having an income, rather than just living off student loans. Finally, talking to alumni from the two year program it sounds like it was fairly tough to keep the same level of focus on education over the span of two years.<br /><br />I want to thank everybody for following the blog over my year at Ivey. One last part of my Ivey experience that I want to share with you is the whole career search process at Ivey. I’m planning to write it once I accept a job offer.<br /><br />Cheers,<br />GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-44398236127725228602008-04-24T15:21:00.000-07:002008-04-24T15:32:56.863-07:00Book recommendations from my favorite Ivey prof<p class="NoSpacing"><span style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Following is the list of book recommendations from </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nourse"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Robert Nourse</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, my all-time favorite professor at Ivey. Bob taught Entrepreneurial Manager elective for us. It was truly amazing to have somebody with his </span></span><a href="http://www.inc.com/magazine/19931201/3818.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">level of experience</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> sharing insights and knowledge with us. Bob founded Bombay Company and grew it from one store to 432 stores; he was named </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">1993 Entrepreneur of the Year</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> by </span></span><a href="http://www.inc.com/magazine/19931201/3818.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Inc. magazine</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></p> <p class="NoSpacing"><span style=" "><a href="http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/06/the_art_of_the_.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Guy Kawasaki</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">,</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span></span><u><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-Hardened-Starting/dp/1591840562"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested Battle Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything</span></span></span></a></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">, (</span></span></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">New York</span></span></span></st1:state></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">: Penguin Group, 2004)</span></span></span></span></p><span style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">One of the early pioneers at Apple, Guy Kawasaki is the founder of the venture capital firm, garage.com. He’s down to earth, humorous and practical.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">You should, at minimum, read something he’s written.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">If you like this, you’d also enjoy his earlier book, </span></span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Rules for Revolutionaries.</span></span></u></span></span></span></span></span><p></p><p></p> <p class="NoSpacing"><span style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Fareed Zakaria,</span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span></span><u><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Post-American-World-Fareed-Zakaria/dp/039306235X"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The Post American World</span></span></span></a></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">, (</span></span></span><st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">New York</span></span></span></st1:place></st1:state><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">: Norton, 2008) </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-style: italic; font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="NoSpacing"><span style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-style: italic; font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">This book won’t be out until the first week of May, but it’s widely-anticipated and, because Zakaria speaks extensively, its content is somewhat known.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">A naturalized American of Indian descent, the author is the editor of Newsweek International.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">He’s a brilliant thinker and you’ll find his insight into the rise of </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">China</span></span></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> and </span></span><st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">India</span></span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, and their impact on the advanced economies of the West, fascinating and thought-provoking. His earlier book, </span></span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Future of Freedom</span></span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, was a New York Times bestseller.</span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="NoSpacing"><span style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Collins and Porras</span></span></span><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">, </span></span></span><a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Built-Last-Successful-Visionary-Companies/dp/0060516402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209075386&sr=1-1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies</span></span></span></a></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> (New York: HarperBusiness, 1994, 1997)</span></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">This is certainly not a new book and, technically, not one that deals exclusively with entrepreneurship.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">But the authors, who are Stanford researchers reporting on a six year study of 18 successful companies, have a lot to say about what makes a visionary company and vision is an important ingredient of any entrepreneurial venture. That’s why I like it.</span></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="mso-fareast-;font-family:Calibri;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Lewis, </span></span></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Thing-Silicon-Valley-Story/dp/0393048136"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The New New Thing</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> (</span></span></span><st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">New York</span></span></span></st1:state></st1:place><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">: Penguin Books, 2001</span></span></span></span></u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">)</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Different than other books on the list, this is a biography.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">It looks at Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">and Healtheon.</span></span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">There was an earlier hardcover edition, but this is the paperback.</span></span></span></span></span></p> <p class="NoSpacing"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">_________________________</span></span></p><p class="NoSpacing"><span style=" "><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Enjoy!</span></span></o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />George</span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-77819993701865389422008-04-02T18:00:00.000-07:002012-07-10T07:22:13.383-07:00Is there a best time to start an MBA?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXFqt6pxQPLkiL1-SmsY76zVkkWfJmtZMgb4iwIU3TM-cPMt6V1kMM8lr2HLID2atb9MghqXofSYGzAnbfqpD3IAARExy4ml6ZbubRufhyphenhyphenn8FbJ-vEcbfmn6v2Xb0tAIK2UDaMl251ZPJ/s1600-h/recession.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5192899480638086146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXFqt6pxQPLkiL1-SmsY76zVkkWfJmtZMgb4iwIU3TM-cPMt6V1kMM8lr2HLID2atb9MghqXofSYGzAnbfqpD3IAARExy4ml6ZbubRufhyphenhyphenn8FbJ-vEcbfmn6v2Xb0tAIK2UDaMl251ZPJ/s200/recession.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
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By: <em>George</em></div>
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So it’s been a long road but you’ve finally made the decision to pursue an MBA. Congratulations! Now there are a couple of things you might want to take into the consideration when making the next decision about when you actually start your future MBA. As usual, please keep in mind that following are just my personal subjective thoughts and may or may not work for you and are definitely not meant to act as <em>de facto</em> rules.<br />
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In this blog post I will discuss couple of potential factors that <u>might</u> affect the ROI of your MBA investment. In particular I will focus on those factors which are associated with the timing of an MBA: such as current economic conditions, your age and years of experience.<br />
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Following discussion is going to based on a 12 month MBA program format as that’s the type of program I am currently attending here at Ivey. You might also find it interesting that one of the reasons why I chose Ivey was because it is a bit easier to plan around since it’s only a one year program. Shorter program means lower probability that economic conditions are going to shift drastically while I am at school affecting my career search strategy.<br />
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First, let’s talk about global economic conditions or at least economic conditions of a country that you are planning to start your post-MBA career at. Even though I was not able to find any empirical data to confirm this, one can probably sense that the type of jobs that a brand new MBA grad would be going after are a bit tougher to find during a period of economic recession as compared to a period of prosperity. It is especially true for the high paying consulting and investment banking jobs; those types of jobs are highly correlated to the GDP growth. Having said there are still all kinds of jobs available during a recession. Industry jobs are usually much less dependent on the economic cycles (See following <a href="http://www.financialpost.com/working/story.html?id=319838">interview</a>). What the economic slowdown or a recession means is that MBA grads would typically have to be much more proactive in their job search, orienting their search towards the hidden job market. Unfortunately, there might be some unforeseen consequences associated with graduating during the tough times: "<em>A growing body of research on both MBAs and undergrads suggests that graduating into an economic downturn will substantially reduce lifetime earnings" (BusinessWeek).</em></div>
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Furthermore, I’m going to take a subjective view that Canadian economy is still <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=21619.0">tightly coupled closely to US</a> economy (good thing that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund">IMF </a>agrees). If you combine that with the fact that US economic recessions has lasted on average <a href="http://www.fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/7962.pdf">11 months with longer ones taking up to 16 months</a> to unwind and are typically followed by an average of 57 months of economic expansion. The logical conclusion would be that the best way to start your Ivey MBA would be within a year or two after a recession has passed. That appears to be the best way to capitalize on ones investment if that would be the only factor that you are looking at. (<strong>Recipe 1</strong>: Add a one US Recession, wait for it to cook for 11-16 months, and then add the Ivey MBA within a year or two)<br />
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To make it a bit more fun, there are a couple of other factors that get added to the mix. Years of experience appears to be another good one to look at. This one is particularly interesting one for me personally, as I only have three years which is on the lower end of the curve for Ivey. Talking to number of people in the industry and <a href="http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/recruiting/mbahome.htm">Career Management</a> team at Ivey, the optimal number of years appears to fall in the range of 3-5 years. You would get the biggest % boost to you salary. Lets assume that the average salary for 4 years of experience would fall somewhere around $60,000 per year and even if you get the average $85,000 salary upon graduation that’s a 42% boost to your salary. Not bad! However if you wait another 3-4 years and you are already making around $75-80K/year, the starting salary might not be that much higher than what you had going in. I also know couple of people that came in expecting pay cuts right after the MBA, hoping that MBA will ultimately act as a strategic tool which will help to increase the longer term salary ceiling. 4-5 years of experience in would also allow you to take the full advantage of the learning opportunity available at Ivey. (<strong>Recipe2:</strong> add 4-5 years of solid experience and the Ivey MBA, mix well)<br />
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The last thing I’m going to mention is role of one’s age. I will be honest; being on either extreme of the age spectrum has its potential challenges. For one, it might be a bit harder to “<em>connect</em>” with your classmates. Having said that there are enough people with diverse backgrounds and in various age groups that there’s always opportunities to socialize and form life-long friendships. (<strong>Recipe3</strong>: Be yourself and respect others, age matters not)<br />
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So let me quickly recap this post: Years of solid work experience is probably the single most important factor contributing to the high ROI of an MBA. Graduating during a recession – a bit more stressful but doable none the less. Those are universal factors that might affect you ROI in Ivey, there are certainly variety of other factors such as personality, ability to learn, etc that also affect ROI as well, but they are much more individual, and therefore I can’t speak to those. </div>
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Having said all of this, keep in mind that there are always exceptions to every rule, as correctly pointed out by an Anonymous reader of this blog. The example that comes to mind is the one from our Venture Creation elective class when we had a chance to talk to couple of Ivey grads who founded a successful business right after their graduation (<a href="http://www.policeprep.com/">PolicePrep</a>).</div>
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I hope you found info in this post useful.<br />
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Till next time,<br />
George </div>
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P.S. Here's an intersting collection of thoughts from BusinessWeek magazine about <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/special_reports/20080404graduatingi.htm?chan=bschools_bschool+index+page_top+stories">Graduating into a Recession</a></div>
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P.S.S. For those of you wondering, I did not end up buying the Asus Eee laptop. I had horrible experience trying to purchase it online at The Source by Circuit city which totally screwed up my online order loosing it in the process, so I’ve decided to hold off on that purchase until I can find an easier way to buy it (read not involving <a href="http://www.thesourcecc.com/">The Source</a>)</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-12352271482101625522008-03-22T07:47:00.000-07:002008-03-22T07:53:45.230-07:00One MBA Woman’s Perspective: on doing the 1-year Ivey MBAGuest writer: <em>Rebecca Liu</em><br />Date: March 22nd, 2008<br /><br />I feel fortunate to be a woman in this day and age. It was only a few decades ago that women excelling to management positions, let alone studying for an MBA, was considered rare. These days, the business community not only welcomes more women in the senior management ranks but even encourages it. The issue is whether enough of us women are willing or able to answer this call.<br /><br />My class is perhaps somewhat unique. There is typically a 30% composition of women per cohort, yet mine started with 17%. Understandably, it’s a big commitment to step away for a year. There are women in our class who have husbands and children. I come from the dynamic world of IT consulting yet even I considered whether it was worthwhile to study in London, Ontario for a year. Yet I feel that this has been the best personal decision I’ve made in my life – at least so far! I would definitely encourage any woman who wants to understand management and/or get to senior management to do her MBA. Ideally, it would be after about 3-6 years of work experience, as this gives you enough work experience to fully grasp the concepts and enough to leverage the greatest impact in your career, and probably the best time for minimal disruption in your life. However I firmly believe there’s no time limit for when to invest in your own education.<br /><br />Now the other question may be whether the high male to female ratio has hindered me while in the program. And my answer would be a resounding no. Being a woman has not stopped me from being elected to the Ivey MBA Association executive team as VP Internal. It hasn’t prevented me from participating in the activities that I truly wanted to be part of, such as the Ivey China Teaching Project or Community Consulting Project. There’s also a club for Women in Management, run by Ivey students. In the past, senior executive women have been asked to speak to us, including our own esteemed Dean Carol Stephenson. But keep in mind that there are times when there is only one woman in a team of 6. This could be reflective of what teams are like in the professional world as you start advancing in your career but it’s better for women to learn how to deal with these situations now. As a woman, the key is to leverage it as an invaluable learning opportunity within a safer environment than the professional world. You’d be surprised how much learning you can get out of it and even more rewarding, how much of a positive difference you can make.<br /><br />I’m looking to take the greatest opportunities that life can offer me regardless of my gender. The rewards that I’ve gotten have far outweighed any challenges I’ve had to face in the program. These past 11 months have taught me to manage my time much more wisely. And it’s allowed me to reflect on who I really am, and what my greatest strengths and areas of improvement are. It has ultimately steered me into understanding what I truly want and need from both professional and personal standpoints. I’m confident that the Ivey MBA will enable me to more effectively seek and more quickly achieve all that I want.<br /><br />Cheers,<br />Rebecca<br /><br />P.S. Dean Carol Stephenson has written a wonderful article on how a diverse board that includes women has benefited organizations. Check this Ivey Business Journal article out at: <a href="http://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/view_article.asp?intArticle_ID=507">http://www.iveybusinessjournal.com/view_article.asp?intArticle_ID=507</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-12010369810495082542008-03-11T13:31:00.000-07:002008-03-11T15:23:14.648-07:00Effectively leveraging Public-Private Partnerships to meet Canada’s growing infrastructure needs + Ways to get involved @ Ivey<p>Today I'm going to try a different approach, instead of making this a monologue about a general MBA topic I'm going to write on the specific subject of private-public partnerships (P3). Moreover, I have a twofold goal in mind for this post: first, I want to illustrate one of the numerous opportunities to get involved in extracurricular activities here at Ivey as well as to give you a backgrounder on P3s and using them to make Canada more competitive. </p><p>Lets start at the start: having expressed my interest in "getting involved" to a member of teaching faculty back in September, I was right away contacted by the director of <a href="http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/lawrencecentre/">The Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management </a>here at Ivey - <a href="http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/lawrencecentre/new_cunningham.htm">Dianne Cunningham</a>. After chatting to Dianne I was sold on the idea of volunteering my time to help organize the upcoming <a href="http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/lawrencecentre/transport/">Transportation conference</a>. The conference had a mandate to focus on policy recommendations for making the ON-QC transportation gateway a reality. The piece of the conference that was of particular interest to me was the consideration for private funding, operation and maintenance of the continental gateway infrastructure.</p><p>Having finished the three day conference earlier today, I can say it was a truly amazing experience and I'm really glad that I got involved with Dianne. It not only gave me a great deal of insight into the way government thinks about private sector but also supplemented nicely my previous knowledge about P3s. Moreover, I was really surprised to find out that parts of Canadian government are actually quite dynamic. In particular, I was really impressed by the forward thinking that exists at the very top of such organizations as <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.metrolinx.com/">Metrolinx </a>(former Greater Toronto Transportation Authority) and <a href="http://www.ic.gc.ca/">Industry Canada</a>. </p><p>Having singled out the conference experience as an example, I want to stress that there are various other opportunities to get involved @ Ivey. You can pick the flavor and level of commitment that fits you interests best. Those opportunities include but are not limited to the MBAA, Leader Project, China Teaching Trip, Ivey Connects and the list goes on.</p><p>So now lets talk about the exciting stuff: the concept of P3s, or the emerging multi-billion dollar opportunity like I like to refer to it. The concept is based on the fact that there are different areas that public and private organizations excel at. A partnership between public and private entity allows for the transfer of risks to parties most qualified to handle those risks. For example a private company operating a public highway will likely be better qualified to handle day to day risks which translate into a lower cost of operation while government would still carry the overarching set of risks associated with the variability of demand for the highway. <br /><br />Recently, there have been an increasing number of success stories associated with the use of public-private partnerships in various infrastructure projects around the globe. UK has been a pioneer in using the partnership approach and has illustrated to the rest of the world potential rewards which can be achieved through a smart use of public-private partnerships.<br /><br />As the result of its efforts UK is seeing an increasing level of private investment in its infrastructure renewal and its brand new infrastructure projects. Currently between 10 and 13 percent of all public infrastructure investment in UK is originating from private financing initiatives helping the country to significantly narrow its existing infrastructure gap.<br /><br />There has also been a number of public-private partnership successes right here at home. BC has taken a leading role in the use of public-private partnerships while other provinces are following its path, including such successful partnerships as Highway 407 and Royal Ottawa Hospital in Ottawa. (Not to say that those haven’t faced their own fair share of challenges)<br /><br />Due to a number of significant successes of Canadian projects, public opinion has started to gradually shift towards support for these types of initiatives. Moreover, there has been upswing of interest and increased public investment into public-private partnerships in Canada. Various stakeholders are starting to quickly realize that the public-private partnership approach is one of the most effective ways to bridge the widening infrastructure gap that Canada is currently facing, which by some estimates has already reached $125 billion. However, care needs to be taken to satisfy the need for the continued education of Canadian public about advantages and successes of using P3 approach to ensure that Canada continues on the path of progress towards wider adoption of P3s as one of the key considerations for future infrastructure projects.<br /><br />It is really encouraging to see that the Government of Canada has finally made a significant commitment to the “winning combination of transportation and public and private partnerships”. Furthermore, by supporting their investment of $33 billion into Canadian infrastructure with a $1.26 billion national fund for public-private partnerships, as well as allocating additional $25 million over 5 years to set up federal P3 Office the Government of Canada has created a clear path to success by allowing businesses an opportunity to what they do best, increase Canadian competitiveness. As a future business leader I see this initial step as opening a great potential for Canada to bring our infrastructure back up to the world standards and increase our country’s competitiveness in the global business environment. <br /><br />Public-private partnerships will allow for a significant value building activities. It will not only help to create new growth opportunities for a number of Canadian businesses but it will also allow those businesses to gain the necessary expertise in time to enter emerging public-private partnership market in U.S. Our neighbor to the south of the border has been slightly lagging behind in adopting public-private partnership approach which might spell a great opportunity for those Canadian businesses which can figure out successful models of structuring partnerships and working with public institutions to build value for their host countries. <br /><br />More interesting yet, is the fact that a single dollar invested in public-private partnerships is likely to have a multiplier effect for both Canadian infrastructure and our economy. It will do so by attracting additional investments from both businesses and private investors. It will also have positive effect on Canadian economy by helping to create net new jobs as companies look to build their internal capabilities to take relationships with public institutions to the next level of collaboration. <br /><br />Furthermore, partnerships will help to unleash the true potential of the public infrastructure through a combination of a long-term focus on efficient construction and operation of those assets. Depending on the model of operation chosen, public-private partnerships might also be able to help better align the costs associated with use and maintenance of the transportation assets with the particular users who are directly benefiting from the use of those assets. For example, through a system of tolls for users of Highway 407 its current operator is able to maintain high quality of maintenance and service for that highway, users are in turn benefiting directly from a more efficient transportation infrastructure which 407 is able to offer them. One challenge associated with near monopolies<br /><br />However rosy the recent picture, the initial support for public-private partnerships can rapidly reverse if not enough care is taken to ensure string of successful projects. Therefore, to reinforce current public support, it is absolutely imperative to work close with private sector on early projects to not only ensure that businesses have the capabilities necessary to deliver a project, but also that both private and public partners are absolutely clear on the roles, responsibilities, rules, as well as the nature of risks and additional commitment that this new partnership structure involves.<br /><br />Finally, as with any new approach, public-private partnerships have their fair share of risks and potential challenges. However, all those risks fail in comparison to potential benefits to Canadian economy that can be gained through this innovative partnership approach. </p>Till next time,<br />GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-12512731854268787932008-01-26T06:09:00.000-08:002012-07-10T07:23:25.291-07:00Globe module and electivesIn this post I will briefly describe our MBA journey at Ivey starting from where I left it off last time (month 4 of 12) up to our current point in the program (month 9 of 12).<br />
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After we finished module 2A (Finance, Strategy and Accounting) at the end of August and wrote our 48 hour report we had a first week of September off for our recruiting efforts. During that time there were number of self organized groups of students that went to London UK, Calgary, Toronto, and New York to meet with alumni and potential recruiters.<br />
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Just to put things in prospective, the main recruiting cycle for consulting and finance falls on mid September. That resulted in at least 20 job postings for each consulting and finance with couple of new postings coming up every day. With recruiting in the full swing we have entered our first elective cycle with an option to choose one or two out of the following three courses (Financial Strategies for Global Success, Competitive Analysis and Negotiations).<br />
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Electives are quite an intense experience, with three hour classes for each course running for two consecutive weeks. You get immersed in the course material to that degree that you start having dreams about it… which is kind of scary; especially if it’s an accounting elective :) In my experience electives don’t feel rushed but they do fly by in a blink of an eye, just imagine, you do the whole course in only two weeks.<br />
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I definitely recommend Bob White’s course, Financial Strategies for Global Success, as a must have for people going into finance. It’s generally considered one of the harder electives with a lot of material packed into it. That is also the course that really separates the future investment banking gurus from us mare mortals.<br />
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After those two weeks of electives we had the last week of September off for consulting and finance job interviews. Interesting fact to note: by the end of September close to 15% of students in the class have already landed jobs.<br />
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October 1st marked the return to the core MBA material, this portion of the course is called Globe module. The purpose of this module was to expose us to issues facing a global manager. Although we have covered fascinating topics ranging from Corporate Governance to Environmental impact of doing business it still didn’t feel like the module accomplished everything that it set out to. That was a bit unfortunate as we had some great professors teaching in this module. The nice part about it was that the time during this module felt quite relaxing (we had every Friday off for recruiting purposes) and I was able to put some quality time into my extracurricular activities and catching up with friends whom I’ve ignored for the past couple of months.<br />
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Following Globe we had another intense cycle of electives in which my personal favorite was Corporate Financial Reporting with Rick Robertson. Here’s an amazing professor and one of the very few people who can energize you about accounting for an 8am in the morning class. Simply amazing!<br />
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Two days after finishing the second cycle of electives large part of our class went off to an optional 10 day China study trip (CST). More on that in one of the future posts. <br />
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Finally, on January 7th we’ve started our current, pre-final leg of the Ivey MBA journey. This is module 2B and we are coming back to the core material. Our current courses are Marketing, Operations, and Managing information technology. I have to say that Marketing classes with Niraj Dawar have been an eye opening experience for me. I will admit, in the past I thought of marketing as a bit fluffy, but our time with Niraj has totally changed that perception. I guess the fact that Niraj is one of the top professors in his field doesn’t hurt neither.<br />
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Till next time,<br />
GeorgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1586587307388896325.post-23208568840289973452008-01-07T21:28:00.000-08:002012-07-10T07:24:11.120-07:00To Fall or not to Fall?<strong>And if to fall than when?</strong> (Figuratively speaking of course)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYMPXV5Vu_0pLb2eRoaxSKVSV8oUyuqeywDI4vD9hufUL0YjBSExvdBa48AD9NhawgA8BwQGYZ_o7zhjwc90HCgApzEWtBJaa-DxqHXb9fd8hIqZS1Y7-hkr1DLH94WSiPuaqJg3oCtv7/s1600-h/800px-Uwo_during_Fall.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5152974004385276674" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYMPXV5Vu_0pLb2eRoaxSKVSV8oUyuqeywDI4vD9hufUL0YjBSExvdBa48AD9NhawgA8BwQGYZ_o7zhjwc90HCgApzEWtBJaa-DxqHXb9fd8hIqZS1Y7-hkr1DLH94WSiPuaqJg3oCtv7/s200/800px-Uwo_during_Fall.jpg" style="cursor: hand; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a>I have been repeatedly asked by potential students the following two questions: What is the difference between the two cohorts Fall (starting in September) and Spring (starting in May)? And is there an optimal time to start the program? I will try to answer the first question in this post.<br />
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I am myself a member of the Spring 2007 cohort, so I might be a bit biased towards our cohort. Spring cohort is advertised to be specifically geared for people interested in getting into the consulting and finance jobs. The main reason Spring cohort is positioned that way are the so called historical recruitment cycles for those two industries. If you think about it, those same employers are actively recruiting from major MBA programs all over North America and are therefore doing it in the beginning of the second year of the typical two year program, which incidentally falls on months of September and October. Those are pretty much the only two industries that recruit a year in advance, meaning that those students who are recruited into those firms would start their jobs in the fall of the following year.<br />
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The tricky bit comes from the fact that if you are a member of the Spring cohort you are competing for the same jobs with every other major MBA school in North America. While members of the Fall cohort are flying solo as there are no other major schools that function on the same schedule (at least to my limited knowledge).<br />
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Furthermore, from what I understand about finance and consulting jobs, if you are a good candidate you will get hired no matter when you are applying to them. Having said that members of the Fall cohort might have to put in some more proactive work to connect with the firms, and in return will enjoy lack of competition from their peers at other schools. If you ask me, it’s actually not a bad trade-off.<br />
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Theory aside, our cohort has tracked much stronger when it comes to finance jobs while the previous Fall cohort enjoyed a good track record when it came to consulting jobs.<br />
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In addition there are couple non recruiting differences between cohorts: Spring appears to have a higher male/female ratio (more guys) as well as quite a competitive spirit. It’s probably due to the nature of jobs that people are going after in our cohort. In general there wouldn’t be as many women who are going after the Investment banking and Management Consulting jobs as those types of jobs typically don’t mix very well with a family. Fall cohort has a Health stream mixed into it, meaning that there are 4-5 PhDs and M.D.s in the class, which makes for a very interesting class dynamic. While Spring class shares part of the curriculum with an AMBA stream (Accelerated MBA’s are students with an undergraduate degree in business from University of Western).<br />
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Fall cohort starts at the same time as the main university so they get a chance to do a lot more social fun stuff at the onset of their program. Spring cohort, on the other hand, starts when the main university finishes in May and majority of undergraduate students leave the city for the summer. So Spring cohort gets to do a lot more outdoor sports stuff instead.<br />
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Overall, jokes aside, there’s no clear advantage of picking one cohort over the other. To figure out if one cohort “fits” you better than the other you might want to consider coming down for an actual visit, sitting in both classes and talking to students from both cohorts.<br />
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In the next post I will try to share my thoughts on whether there is a best time to do an MBA.<br />
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Till next time,<br />
George </div>
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