Admits, work, London, BCG, and drinks!

A lot happened since my last post. 

We had our first local admits get together and it was a lot of fun. We are all equally anxious to start our adventure and we all want to share this year with likeminded individuals. I discovered that most of my countrymen & woman are consultants. I also discovered that most of them have decided to start in Singapore rather than in France. I guess that we'll just have to wait with our national week for a while ;-)

This week marked my last days at work. It was actually quite strange to give my last presentation and to then clean up my stuff. I look forward to my farewell party and the chance to say goodbye to many great colleagues and friends at work. In a way the last few weeks have been a long period of goodbyes. If you don't like goodbyes, don't work too long in one place, don't go to business school, and don't leave your company... on the other hand, this period makes me reminisce many good moments...

I just came back from a two day trip to London, hosted by BCG. I met many admits from INSEAD, LBS, Stanford, Kellogg. It was good to see that INSEAD led the pack in numbers and in spirit. The interaction at BCG gave me a good picture of consulting in London, eventhough I still have some questions and I also wonder about one or two things that I heard from the recruiters. I'll get back to that in a next post, need to get my head around it first. The interaction with the other school's admits was great. Diverse backgrounds and good conversation partners. After the event I went to Picadilly with 2 INSEAD'ers. We had beers, good food, and got to know each other a little better. 

Tomorrow will be Angela and my "goodbye and thankyou" party for friends and family. 'Goodbye' for the obvious reasons; 'thankyou' for all the support, help, attention, and patience that they had with me during the long preparation period. GMAT preparation, GMAT tests, essays, more essays, another round of essays, and yet more essays... So while I'm at it, also a big thankyou to Angela! She suffered the worst... 

So what's our party going to be like? Wakeboarding, waterskiing, hopefully good weather, and lots of free drinks!!! Kampai!

'Just in Time' timing...

The 27th (10 days from now,) I'll have to make my second payment to INSEAD of € 29.000

We secured an MBA-loan some time ago, luckily, but we need to visit a notary for the funds to be released. Wednesday will be the first possibility to do this, which will leave us exactly one week to make the transfer.

Talking about 'just in time'...

Weber Super Sunday

"To enjoy slow cooking, good weather, fine drinks, and great company"... that's the mission of the Weber Smoke Club.

Our club got together last Sunday for a splendid day of smokin'. Last year the club was founded after a day of BBQ lessons from chef Reitse Spanninga. Vegetables, fish, poultry, and red meat, along with fresh herbs, homemade oil, and the best custom marinade were our ingredients for the smoker. It was great Goov, thanks for hosting it this time! Next time the Fonty forest will be the setting for a Smokin' day in the truest Napoleontine tradition.

For an impression, follow the link to the Club's website.

Recognition of European MBA's in the US

Amazed, an American MBA applicant told me that he had only recently discovered INSEAD. Until that moment he had never even thought of looking outside of the US for his selection of b-schools. He simply believed that the only worthwhile options for doing a good MBA were American schools. What surprised me is that he had decided to apply to only INSEAD in the end.

How can this be?

Look at the MBA rankings from the Economist, FT, and other research units. Europe and recently also Asia (CEIBS ranks 11th on FT's 2007 listing) have some of the best b-schools with names up there with Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Yale, and Wharton. With star-faculties, and super-international student and alumni communities, I believe that European schools have often a lot more to offer than many absolutely-less-international US schools.

London Business School, right in the Financial heart of Europe; the prestigious IMD in Switzerland; and what about Spain with 3 top b-schools (IE, IESE, and ESADE.) It is quite a while ago that Spain only attracted Latin oriented students. Nowadays Spanish b-schools are on the wish lists of many students from all over the world. I personally love the ESADE case on creativity featuring my favourite Spanish chef 'Ferran Adriá.'

I see many signs of the strong brand recognition of INSEAD in the USA:
- The last time I looked at my class' citizenship map the American (co)nationality was the largest amongst the class' population with 59 students, about 10%.
- INSEAD students get the opportunity to spend 2 months at Wharton, but many decide not to do it even though they may at one time want to spend some time in the USA
- INSEAD alumni find their way around the world, including the USA!
- (in all modesty:) This fairly new INSEAD MBA blog has been viewed by as many Americans as by people from other countries!

Unfortunately not everybody in the Far West is yet aware of what Europe and Asia have to offer. To cut this story short, the message that I want to share with any American MBA applicant who is still deciding where to go to, is: keep in mind that there are many international alternatives to the best US business schools for you to choose from.

...these were my 2 cents on "options"

Back to the ESADE case: chef Ferran's food laboratories are most avantgard-ish and innovative. Unfortunately his restaurant is already fully booked until the end of 2007! Wouldn't it be great to spend a weekend in Barcelona and then end it with a great dinner at El Bulli, right before starting my MBA in Fonty? Check out www.elbulli.com


"Don Ferran, seguro que ahora merecemos una invitacion para una cena en su restaurante en Cala Montjoi, no es verdad? no deje de mandarnos un mensaje"
:-) :-) :-)

Business Foundations and BCG

Today I confirmed my attendance to the pre-MBA cocktail of The Boston Consulting Group in London. I got a great deal with Easyjet and an even better deal with the Thistle Victoria hotel. I look forward to finding out more about Strategy Consulting in London, and to meeting more of my new class mates. Dinner, networking with recruiters, meeting people, and probably clubbing in a trendy place after the cocktail. The best part of it is that the MBA hasn't even started yet!!

I also received more info about my Business Foundations week at INSEAD. This week is tailored for those of us who don't have a Quant or Finance background. The programme consists of Financial Accounting, Finance, and Quantitative Methods. Good job that I just completed my Six Sigma Green Belt certification, I bet that all the statistics and analysis will come in handy with the Quant part. INSEAD is very serious about this programme, which I believe is fantastic. We even get star professor Jake Cohen during this pre-MBA week to help us get a strong foundation. I'd better intensify my Finance pre-reading now, and be prepared...

Preparation rumble

So what does one need to do when one decides to dramatically change one's life for a year...

At work it's easy, since with 3 or so weeks left to go, everything revolves around handovers to successors. 

Then there's the other aspects...
- Insurance (Med, Travel, Legal, other?)
- Financing
- Bank and Creditcard accounts
- Car sale
- Shipping stuff to France and Singa
- Pre-reading of study books
- Participation in 2nd life events?
- Housing
- CV preparation
- Ending subscriptions
- Cocktails & Recruiting events
- New gadget selection
- Priorities & choices...

Sorting out our insurance needs is boring, yet very important. It's just not easy to figure out what exactly we need, it's costly, and in general also time consuming. Sounds like just the job for a rainy Sunday...

Luckily, we already found our place to live in Fonty (Fontainebleau.) We will share a great villa with many other students from around the world: very international, very INSEAD-ish. The great thing is that we will have our own privacy in the house, and at the same time spend time together with classmates. There will be many diners, parties, joint study time in the garden, and in general a lot of fun.

Housing in Singa is a different story. Prices are high, and it seems harder to find a good apartment as compared to France. Since most students look for the same type of accommodation, I don't see rental prices drop any time soon. I guess we'll just have to bite the bullet.

Now setting priorities is the tough bit. Yesterday, there was a great MotoGP race. The weather was good and Vale won the race after a fantastic chase from the 11th position. With many things to do, we decided to stay home and take care of business, rather than to jump on our bike and head down to the TT. I saw a fantastic race on tv, so I'm still smiling and happy! MotoGP is fantastic this year with many ace young riders like Stoner and Dani, and pros like Rossi, Hayden and Edwards. Good competition, good racing, much fun!!

Taxes! excellent stuff...

No really, it's true. 

Going to INSEAD means paying truckloads of money. A year full-time study, so no income either (unless you're one of the sponsored 8% or so.)  

So why am I so happy about taxes then? Well because the Internal Revenue dept will prove to be a major sponsor by providing prepaid tax deductions. Students from the current intake with my nationality, and a very helpful tax lawyer have been great at giving many good tips and advice. Thank you, thank you.

Sure it won't all be easy, since taxes are complicated material, but still I stand with my title. 

This year the tax department will be on my 'favourites' list!

Great Kendo videoclip

I will post more about Kendo in the future.

Even though I have been too busy for proper practice lately, I intend to haul my bogu-bag and shinai around to see if I can find some practice time. I saw on NetVestibule that there are a few other kendoka at INSEAD, so who knows we may end up crossing our shinai :-)

The following cool videoclip has been produced with Belgian Kenshi from the Gent dojo, enjoy!

A new beginning coming up...

After a weekend of partying, I quickly went through some MBA blogs and just read Zanat0s' post on graduation. It's so bizarre. Somebody whose blog we've been reading since I was preparing for admissions, is now getting ready to graduate and finish at INSEAD. With less than 2 months until Business Foundations class starts in Fonty, I'm getting ready for the same ride he is about to complete.

Thanks Zanat0s, DomoDomo, and other 2007 bloggers, for some great tips and most valuable insights in your experiences! Take care!!

Young ORANJE wins the EC under 21

Yesterday night, a Dutch show of force took place at the Groningen football stadium. The European finals under 21: Holland vs Serbia. The young ORANJE team played an excellent match and won 4-1. It's not only the winning that was superb, it was the whole prelude to the finals, and the entourage.

Coach Foppe de Haan had quietly and seriously prepared a great strategy to get his group of young talents ready for their second European title. He engaged group psychologists, PhD candidates who studied the behaviour of penalty takers, and winning speed-skating coaches, during his team trainings. He also tossed in a few non-conventional ideas of his own, my favourite being the prohibition of iPods during the training camp and team travels, to encourage team bonding instead of individualism. The Dutch junior soccer players showed that a good team that plays with passion and enthusiasm is all you need to be victorious. In my opinion this should be a good lesson for their seniors in major national selections, who eventhough composed of great talents, often lack the spirit and motivation to excel as teams. Perhaps the result of too many large egos and too much attention. For soccer and Holland, though, I would say that the future is promising!

The party ended with fireworks, clapping for the Serb team and their supporters, concert-quality sound from the world famous top trance-DJ Armin van Buuren, and Michel Platini who handed over the Cup to a multicultural Dutch team wearing Surinam flags (a small issue that caused an interesting debate in the media), Orange banners and Dutch colours.

Top stuff, too bad I wasn't there to see it live!

Speedreading and Mindmapping

I just finished a speedreading course. I'm absolutely sure that this wil prove to be one of the best investments in time: a two-day course in mindmapping and speedreading.

What an eye opener this has been. I can actually understand more of what I read, concentrate better on boring material, and finish it faster by applying a handful of reading and eye movement techniques. I love it, am using it to get through my pre-reading material and it's quite rewarding and fun. If you’re not yet familiar with speedreading techniques, I strongly recommend investing in a speedreading course before going to b-school. It will help a lot with the tons of books we’ll have to go through.

Some figures about my reading speed in words per minute:
- Start of course: 342 wpm at 80% understanding = effective 274 wpm
- End of course: 671 wpm at 90% understanding = effective 604 wpm
- Max speed: 1450 wpm @ 60% understanding

As for mindmapping, it’s an excellent approach to organise one’s thoughts and to recall what it was all about some time later. Cool stuff, believe me! The key to retrieving stuff from one's memory is to associate, and that's exctly what mindmapping is about; making visual associations of information that we store in our heads. Mindjet Mindmanager (also for Mac) is a great tool for this purpose.

Just another MBA blog...?

So here it starts, 2 people about to embark on a wonderful journey...

I quit my job, paid the first installment and started preparations for my MBA at INSEAD. Angela is getting ready for a fantastic time as an INSEAD partner. She’ll work in Singapore, relax in Fonty, start studying for her CFA, and meet many cool people.

‘futurefusion’ is us: our past, our present, our future. We’re in this together, so we believe that it makes sense to also write our blog together. During this busy year we’ll do many things on our own, along with others, and together by ourselves. Expect to read entries written by two different characters with their own thoughts, opinions and views on many subjects.

This is our first blog, we’ll keep it to share our stories with family, friends, classmates, INSEAD alumni, MBA applicants, and anyone else interested in our great and challenging year.

Enjoy, return frequently, subscribe to our posts and do leave a (nice) comment every once in a while!

Best, Omar.

DISCLAIMER:
Nothing that we write is intended to offend, but please remember: INSEAD students don’t necessarily need to be politically correct, so controversy is welcomed on this site!