Instead of going to school, children living in Soweto, with absent fathers and other family problems go to the train station to jump on trains and perform daring stunts. They get limbered up by drinking alcohol and smoking weed. Then, urged on by their girlfriends, they get on the roof of the train and duck under high-voltage cables which the train passes at 40 km/h. One guy gets out of the train while it’s cruising along and hangs underneath it. One false move and he’d get killed. Kids do get killed. Sometimes they misjudge one of the cables and get thrown off the train. This was the subject of a documentary scripted, filmed and edited by a young guy from Soweto, Muzi.
Muzi, aged 23, showed us his film this morning. It was originally put together as a story for his class. One of his teachers put him in touch with George Mazarakis, producer at Carte Blanche, and the film ended up being screened on national TV. He was shy and nervous but was keen to share the story with us.
Everything is not as rosy as it seems on the surface. In some quarters there is a lack of hope and not a lot is being done about it. In Soweto there are no real opportunities for these children and a lack of role models. To escape their problems and to get a high, to feel good about themselves, they put their lives at huge risk. They don’t care if they die. Surfing the trains, they are the centres of attention, revered by their girlfriends when they succeed, insulted when they get injured: forgotten when they die. Muzi’s film has persuaded some children to stop and raised awareness of the issue but it still continues.
Soweto now has its first shopping mall, which we saw a couple of days ago. The development has encouraged economic activity and benefited the local people. Yet nothing has been developed for the youth and it seems nothing is being done to deal with the fundamental social problems that mean the children lose hope.
Muzi is now working on his next project, a film about gangland funerals and how the young, impressed by the image the gangsters give off, want to join their ranks.
Showing posts with label IMD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IMD. Show all posts
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
Sunday, 15 April 2007
European Business Schools Case Challenge 2007
It was an unlikely crew that stepped onto the train to Fontainebleau on 12th April. Ramyani Basu, Greg Davis, Fumi Ota, Henry Zhang and Alex Guest were simply picked out of the hat to participate in the ECCH European Business Schools Case Challenge. Some of the other schools, which included IESE, INSEAD and LBS, had gone through rigorous selection procedures and one or two of the teams spent half their time on the road at other inter-school challenges. Well, rumour had it that our classmates’ expectation of success were low.
We had lunch a few weeks beforehand with Benoit Leleux, MBA programme director, to get some advice on preparing for the competition. We were thinking about extra case study sessions in our ‘spare time’. His advice: “don’t prepare. Enjoy it. Be creative.” We took this fully to heart.
Getting to Fontainebleau around 11.30pm, we chose to walk to our hotel rather than wait for a taxi to pass, with Ramyani telling us how much she enjoyed walking. So a short trip took forever as Ramyani tottered along refusing to give up her amazingly heavy luggage to any of her companions.
We missed the class’s session at the UN on Friday. Instead, we were presented with a long case about one man’s dream to turn the car industry on its head. Hugo Spowers, who worked at Morgan, had come up with a concept for the ‘OSCar’, designed around a hydrogen fuel cell, with a much reduced weight compared with current vehicles, far fewer components, sold on a lease basis. All the time, the design was to be ‘open source’. We were to imagine that we were a group of investors with €1m to invest. How much would we invest in this enterprise?
While other teams spent hours working on NPV calculations 30 years hence, we debated at length about whether there was anything in fact to invest in. No spreadsheets from us, then. We just kept talking and talking, writing things up on the flipchart. With 45 minutes to go, we got started on our long report, sharing out sections amongst us all. We’d decided that we wouldn’t touch OSCar with a bargepole, unless some massive changes were made, including a new CEO. We didn’t know that we’d be meeting Mr Spowers the following day.
Saturday morning, up early and into the auditorium for a case teaching. Everyone’s heart was beating a little faster in anticipation of the short-listing at lunchtime. We’d have happily spent the afternoon relaxing before the evening’s party but IMD was called to the next round. Having shot the OSCar concept to pieces in our investor report, we now had to play the part of the OSCar senior management. In typical MBA class style, we had just 1 hour to prepare a press conference in response to a new (fictitious) EC Directive. This time we were all enthusiastic about the emissions regulations and Greg delivered a great tub-thumping speech.
Dinner at a chateau. Beautiful setting, champagne, canapés, exquisite dinner. Yet at the back of our minds, the whole time, was the result. Having put in the effort all the way to the end, it would be nice to get on the podium. That feeling would not abate while the photographer, the ECCH staff and some of the other teams kept telling us they reckoned we were on to a winner. The third prize went to Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany and we began to doubt our chances. The second to Smurfit, Dublin. So that was it, then. Until we heard first place to IMD!
We can’t say how proud we are to be the first IMD team to win the competition. We know that we were lucky to be part of the team that went there and we feel as though our success was that of the whole class against all the other schools.
We had lunch a few weeks beforehand with Benoit Leleux, MBA programme director, to get some advice on preparing for the competition. We were thinking about extra case study sessions in our ‘spare time’. His advice: “don’t prepare. Enjoy it. Be creative.” We took this fully to heart.
Getting to Fontainebleau around 11.30pm, we chose to walk to our hotel rather than wait for a taxi to pass, with Ramyani telling us how much she enjoyed walking. So a short trip took forever as Ramyani tottered along refusing to give up her amazingly heavy luggage to any of her companions.
We missed the class’s session at the UN on Friday. Instead, we were presented with a long case about one man’s dream to turn the car industry on its head. Hugo Spowers, who worked at Morgan, had come up with a concept for the ‘OSCar’, designed around a hydrogen fuel cell, with a much reduced weight compared with current vehicles, far fewer components, sold on a lease basis. All the time, the design was to be ‘open source’. We were to imagine that we were a group of investors with €1m to invest. How much would we invest in this enterprise?
While other teams spent hours working on NPV calculations 30 years hence, we debated at length about whether there was anything in fact to invest in. No spreadsheets from us, then. We just kept talking and talking, writing things up on the flipchart. With 45 minutes to go, we got started on our long report, sharing out sections amongst us all. We’d decided that we wouldn’t touch OSCar with a bargepole, unless some massive changes were made, including a new CEO. We didn’t know that we’d be meeting Mr Spowers the following day.
Saturday morning, up early and into the auditorium for a case teaching. Everyone’s heart was beating a little faster in anticipation of the short-listing at lunchtime. We’d have happily spent the afternoon relaxing before the evening’s party but IMD was called to the next round. Having shot the OSCar concept to pieces in our investor report, we now had to play the part of the OSCar senior management. In typical MBA class style, we had just 1 hour to prepare a press conference in response to a new (fictitious) EC Directive. This time we were all enthusiastic about the emissions regulations and Greg delivered a great tub-thumping speech.
Dinner at a chateau. Beautiful setting, champagne, canapés, exquisite dinner. Yet at the back of our minds, the whole time, was the result. Having put in the effort all the way to the end, it would be nice to get on the podium. That feeling would not abate while the photographer, the ECCH staff and some of the other teams kept telling us they reckoned we were on to a winner. The third prize went to Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany and we began to doubt our chances. The second to Smurfit, Dublin. So that was it, then. Until we heard first place to IMD!
We can’t say how proud we are to be the first IMD team to win the competition. We know that we were lucky to be part of the team that went there and we feel as though our success was that of the whole class against all the other schools.
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Wrapping up February
At 5.30pm, I stood up from my seat and picked up my name plate. Tomorrow the class changes seating plan, as it does at the start of every month.
To close off the month, this afternoon we had two talks from distinguished businessmen, 'executives-in-residence'. One of them is the former CEO of Tetra Pak, Nic Shreiber. He was an IMD MBA about 30 years ago and a former partner of McKinsey. A very unpresupposing man, he earned the class's genuine respect, not just that of a captain of industry.
I took 3 lessons from his talk. First, harmony in your career. It's ok to work flat out 24/7, so long as you understand that 24/7 doesn't leave a lot of hours for anything else. If you want to have a family or any personal pursuits, bear that in mind.
The second lesson for me, was that power is increased inversely to its use. Or, if you like, using power diminishes it. The CEO of a $10bn company should rely on more subtle leadership - and we've spent a lot of time learning about that subject over the past 8 weeks.
Finally, in paradoxes lie opportunities. For example - and this is not one he gave - how can you save energy and increase the temperature of your home? Easy, insulation. Ok, now apply it to everything else in life. The paradox, not the insulation.
February made the course increasingly 'real'. Already we've had a number of graded projects and papers. The first was the Leadership paper, exploring the dynamics of the study groups we've been working in. Next, the Industry and Competition Analysis project. Finally, an individual paper on predicting, explaining and influencing the behaviour of individuals within organisations. With tight deadlines, it's hard to concentrate on devoting a lot of energy to our start-up projects - real companies in need of business brains.
Amongst all this, there's been a tiny bit of skiing and walking in the mountains. The first of a series of Sunday night films - Blood Diamond - screened in the auditorium. The broad theme running through them all is Africa in advance of the Discovery Expedition in June to South Africa. This coming Sunday we'll be seeing My name is Tsotsi.
Then there's the MBA Olympics. Well, the event, held at HEC in Paris, is not until May but I agreed to join the organising committee headed up by Ole (Danish), along with Tom (German) and Paul (Canadian). I'm responsible for sports. In other words, of the 90 people in class, plus however many spouses, I need to pull together teams for all the various sports. Sounds easy. You haven't seen my spreadsheet. But I'm grateful for the effort of the team captains.
What else?
Well, it's been a year since I left my job in Maidenhead. I'm still not regretting it. We had a session on power naps and other ways of sustaining your personal performance. I was picked out of the hat, along with four others - Henry from China, Fumi from Japan, Greg from Australia and Stéphane from Canada - to go to INSEAD in April for 3 days to compete in the European Business School Case Challenge. Careers planning is underway with draft number 783 due in soon; plus I had an online chat with a potential employer at the MBA Online Career Forum: he happened also to be an IMD MBA, from 1994. And... Perrine and I are still together.
Tomorrow is the start of the 48-hour graded integrative exercise, pulling together everything we've learned so far. Next week we have projects to hand in for Marketing and Economics. The week after we have a day-long Finance exercise. A few days later, the final version of our Leadership papers are due. There's also an Operations project; and an Economics 'quiz'. Then revision and exams. No doubt some surprises along the way, too.
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To close off the month, this afternoon we had two talks from distinguished businessmen, 'executives-in-residence'. One of them is the former CEO of Tetra Pak, Nic Shreiber. He was an IMD MBA about 30 years ago and a former partner of McKinsey. A very unpresupposing man, he earned the class's genuine respect, not just that of a captain of industry.
I took 3 lessons from his talk. First, harmony in your career. It's ok to work flat out 24/7, so long as you understand that 24/7 doesn't leave a lot of hours for anything else. If you want to have a family or any personal pursuits, bear that in mind.
The second lesson for me, was that power is increased inversely to its use. Or, if you like, using power diminishes it. The CEO of a $10bn company should rely on more subtle leadership - and we've spent a lot of time learning about that subject over the past 8 weeks.
Finally, in paradoxes lie opportunities. For example - and this is not one he gave - how can you save energy and increase the temperature of your home? Easy, insulation. Ok, now apply it to everything else in life. The paradox, not the insulation.
February made the course increasingly 'real'. Already we've had a number of graded projects and papers. The first was the Leadership paper, exploring the dynamics of the study groups we've been working in. Next, the Industry and Competition Analysis project. Finally, an individual paper on predicting, explaining and influencing the behaviour of individuals within organisations. With tight deadlines, it's hard to concentrate on devoting a lot of energy to our start-up projects - real companies in need of business brains.
Amongst all this, there's been a tiny bit of skiing and walking in the mountains. The first of a series of Sunday night films - Blood Diamond - screened in the auditorium. The broad theme running through them all is Africa in advance of the Discovery Expedition in June to South Africa. This coming Sunday we'll be seeing My name is Tsotsi.
Then there's the MBA Olympics. Well, the event, held at HEC in Paris, is not until May but I agreed to join the organising committee headed up by Ole (Danish), along with Tom (German) and Paul (Canadian). I'm responsible for sports. In other words, of the 90 people in class, plus however many spouses, I need to pull together teams for all the various sports. Sounds easy. You haven't seen my spreadsheet. But I'm grateful for the effort of the team captains.
What else?
Well, it's been a year since I left my job in Maidenhead. I'm still not regretting it. We had a session on power naps and other ways of sustaining your personal performance. I was picked out of the hat, along with four others - Henry from China, Fumi from Japan, Greg from Australia and Stéphane from Canada - to go to INSEAD in April for 3 days to compete in the European Business School Case Challenge. Careers planning is underway with draft number 783 due in soon; plus I had an online chat with a potential employer at the MBA Online Career Forum: he happened also to be an IMD MBA, from 1994. And... Perrine and I are still together.
Tomorrow is the start of the 48-hour graded integrative exercise, pulling together everything we've learned so far. Next week we have projects to hand in for Marketing and Economics. The week after we have a day-long Finance exercise. A few days later, the final version of our Leadership papers are due. There's also an Operations project; and an Economics 'quiz'. Then revision and exams. No doubt some surprises along the way, too.
Friday, 9 February 2007
Dark circles
Two hours' sleep and I crowbar myself out of bed. This morning at 8am is the culmination of the Industry and Competition Analysis project. 6 teams - each a pair of study groups totalling up to 16 distinct nationalities - present their analyses of a wide range of industries.
The night was spent refining presentations, rehearsing and preparing detailed industry reports. Naturally, the burden of the latter task fell principally on native English speakers. It's fortunate there are enough British and North American students to go around.
The skies were clear at 4am and the stars and the half-moon were shining bright. This morning the skies are blue and the sun is beaming into the auditorium. My attentions is divided between Brad's (American) and Dimitris' (Greek) slick slides on the oil and gas industry; the blue skies outside; and the darkness behind my eyelids. Whichever the choice, I feel sick from lack of sleep. I'm short of breath, my muscles are achy and my stomach, fragile.
Some time during Sean's (American) presentation, I inspect the back of my eyelids. A little too long, as I don't recall too much about the fascinating topic of shipping ports. Ming Teck (Malaysian) brings a change of pace in talking about renewables, quoting Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani:
Brazil, it turns out, is the world's lowest cost producer of ethanol biofuel. I wonder what the correlation is with the destruction of the Amazon jungle. Brazilian Francisco chirps up to answer my question: "people have to eat" he tells me! We took a short break in which a Brazilian mob insisted that the world wants to protect the Amazon because Europe and the US destroyed their forests many years ago. And anyway, people have to eat.
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The night was spent refining presentations, rehearsing and preparing detailed industry reports. Naturally, the burden of the latter task fell principally on native English speakers. It's fortunate there are enough British and North American students to go around.
The skies were clear at 4am and the stars and the half-moon were shining bright. This morning the skies are blue and the sun is beaming into the auditorium. My attentions is divided between Brad's (American) and Dimitris' (Greek) slick slides on the oil and gas industry; the blue skies outside; and the darkness behind my eyelids. Whichever the choice, I feel sick from lack of sleep. I'm short of breath, my muscles are achy and my stomach, fragile.
Some time during Sean's (American) presentation, I inspect the back of my eyelids. A little too long, as I don't recall too much about the fascinating topic of shipping ports. Ming Teck (Malaysian) brings a change of pace in talking about renewables, quoting Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani:
"The Stone Age did not come to an end because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will not come to an end because we have a lack of oil."Deep!
Brazil, it turns out, is the world's lowest cost producer of ethanol biofuel. I wonder what the correlation is with the destruction of the Amazon jungle. Brazilian Francisco chirps up to answer my question: "people have to eat" he tells me! We took a short break in which a Brazilian mob insisted that the world wants to protect the Amazon because Europe and the US destroyed their forests many years ago. And anyway, people have to eat.
Sunday, 4 February 2007
A typical IMD weekend
We were all looking forward to Saturday night. Last week a few of the guys had found a decent nightclub in Lausanne so now the plan was to check it out en masse. Before that, however, was all the other stuff that gets in the way of sleep around here...
A morning of working on my slides for our group industry analysis project - drugs and disease management in the US diabetes market. Then a meeting for a couple of hours: nothing like a good fight over one word - ‘delivery’ - to set you up for the afternoon.
Next, my plan was to spend some time on my leadership paper, an investigation about what has really been going on in our groups. How is the group operating? what are the real reasons for the interactions? what ‘fish’ are lurking under the table, causing a stink? But instead, I made myself some lunch. I can do the paper later or tomorrow.
So off to the White Horse to meet some of the other Brits - Laura (English) and husband Kevin (Scottish), Alistair (Scottish) and wife Clare (English), Jonathan (Orkney) and Mike (Kiwi) partner of Anna (Kiwi). The first game of the Six Nations pitting English determination versus Scottish flannel. The Scots weren’t singing any more after half time.
Did I return to my paper? nope. Made myself some dinner and took a quick nap before heading out to meet the guys at Café Louis around 22.30. Just one cheeky mojito before walking up the road to Red. And there I remained, dispensing relationship advice and making up with my study group after today’s little argument, until 05.30 when we were encouraged to leave.
I set the alarm for 09.00. I get up at 12.30. There goes my morning’s leadership paper writing schedule. I get to work after some breakfast then feel a hangover kicking in around 15.00. I need to make real progress - I’m meeting my study group at 18.30 to press on with the industry analysis project. We agree on most things! quickly!! so I get away early enough to make dinner, make a couple of phone calls and settle down to write at 22.00. Four hours later, I’m done. I think I’ve done a passable job. I email the paper and password with 6 hours to spare before the deadline and head for bed. Tomorrow it’s micro-economics for four hours starting 08.00.
A morning of working on my slides for our group industry analysis project - drugs and disease management in the US diabetes market. Then a meeting for a couple of hours: nothing like a good fight over one word - ‘delivery’ - to set you up for the afternoon.
Next, my plan was to spend some time on my leadership paper, an investigation about what has really been going on in our groups. How is the group operating? what are the real reasons for the interactions? what ‘fish’ are lurking under the table, causing a stink? But instead, I made myself some lunch. I can do the paper later or tomorrow.
So off to the White Horse to meet some of the other Brits - Laura (English) and husband Kevin (Scottish), Alistair (Scottish) and wife Clare (English), Jonathan (Orkney) and Mike (Kiwi) partner of Anna (Kiwi). The first game of the Six Nations pitting English determination versus Scottish flannel. The Scots weren’t singing any more after half time.
Did I return to my paper? nope. Made myself some dinner and took a quick nap before heading out to meet the guys at Café Louis around 22.30. Just one cheeky mojito before walking up the road to Red. And there I remained, dispensing relationship advice and making up with my study group after today’s little argument, until 05.30 when we were encouraged to leave.
I set the alarm for 09.00. I get up at 12.30. There goes my morning’s leadership paper writing schedule. I get to work after some breakfast then feel a hangover kicking in around 15.00. I need to make real progress - I’m meeting my study group at 18.30 to press on with the industry analysis project. We agree on most things! quickly!! so I get away early enough to make dinner, make a couple of phone calls and settle down to write at 22.00. Four hours later, I’m done. I think I’ve done a passable job. I email the paper and password with 6 hours to spare before the deadline and head for bed. Tomorrow it’s micro-economics for four hours starting 08.00.
Friday, 2 February 2007
Getting a career off the ground... or a business
It’s only the second day of February, 10 months from graduation day, but at 8am Careers Services have us in the auditorium for a 4-hour session to think about getting a job. The intention is to start working out what skills and experiences we have to offer and what our ideal jobs are.
If we contemplate what we really want to be doing, it’s often a far cry from we’ve been doing. For example, I’ve been doing marketing in the financial services industry in the UK. What I’d like to do - possibly - is to set up a business serving the tourism industry in Argentina. What’s the link?
Well, it’s a bit like the theory of six degrees of separation between you and anyone else in the world. Except in this case, it’s only 3 steps. Maximum. So, one option is to do the whole stretch in one leap. It’s more advisable, however, to get at least one common area, be it sector, role or region.
This afternoon, we have a class on entrepreneurship where we investigate the case of a MBA candidate (from another school), who presented his business plan for his entrepreneurship elective, thinking of commercialising the idea in an industry he had at best little knowledge of. He was torn to shreds by the panel. The point is, that Venture Capitalists are more interested in the team than the idea. Clearly, the opportunity must be fairly attractive but the VCs will not buy into the best money-making concept in the world if the wrong person is doing it.
So our MBA went off to get experience at a big name software company, learning everything he needed, while thoroughly re-writing his business plan. This time he attracted the funding he needed and got the company off the ground.
Well, it would have got off the ground if it hadn’t been for a French postal service strike lasting 2.5 months, in which 80% of his catalogues were forever lost. Unable to deal with the backlog, the postal service simply burned all commercial post stuck in the system! The business was all but dead. The money spent. No customers.
But the first 10% of catalogues had got through and produced great results. So he managed to get the same investors to plough another few million to relaunch. The long and the short of it is that there were other critical moments in the history of the company but that today it is listed on the NASDAQ and it’s worth several billion dollars. Our professor of entrepreneurship was one of the original investors. Well, it took 12 years to get a return but it was a huge gain.
If we contemplate what we really want to be doing, it’s often a far cry from we’ve been doing. For example, I’ve been doing marketing in the financial services industry in the UK. What I’d like to do - possibly - is to set up a business serving the tourism industry in Argentina. What’s the link?
Well, it’s a bit like the theory of six degrees of separation between you and anyone else in the world. Except in this case, it’s only 3 steps. Maximum. So, one option is to do the whole stretch in one leap. It’s more advisable, however, to get at least one common area, be it sector, role or region.
This afternoon, we have a class on entrepreneurship where we investigate the case of a MBA candidate (from another school), who presented his business plan for his entrepreneurship elective, thinking of commercialising the idea in an industry he had at best little knowledge of. He was torn to shreds by the panel. The point is, that Venture Capitalists are more interested in the team than the idea. Clearly, the opportunity must be fairly attractive but the VCs will not buy into the best money-making concept in the world if the wrong person is doing it.
So our MBA went off to get experience at a big name software company, learning everything he needed, while thoroughly re-writing his business plan. This time he attracted the funding he needed and got the company off the ground.
Well, it would have got off the ground if it hadn’t been for a French postal service strike lasting 2.5 months, in which 80% of his catalogues were forever lost. Unable to deal with the backlog, the postal service simply burned all commercial post stuck in the system! The business was all but dead. The money spent. No customers.
But the first 10% of catalogues had got through and produced great results. So he managed to get the same investors to plough another few million to relaunch. The long and the short of it is that there were other critical moments in the history of the company but that today it is listed on the NASDAQ and it’s worth several billion dollars. Our professor of entrepreneurship was one of the original investors. Well, it took 12 years to get a return but it was a huge gain.
Thursday, 25 January 2007
Return on MBA Investment
This morning Corey Billington, in our first Operations class, shared his experience on reducing Inventory Driven Costs, a term he coined while at Hewlett Packard. It became clear to me while I pondered the effect of time on cost that IMD candidates must be particularly economically rational. Unlike MBAs at other schools, we like ‘pain’. Our pleasure is not in dining in chateaux, like our contemporaries at Club Med, Fontainebleau. But it all makes sense.
At the start of the course, somebody claimed that we were paying CHF 25 per hour for the pleasure of being here. I guessed that this figure had been arrived at by dividing the cost of the course by 8 hours of lessons per day, 365 days the year. If we deduct the days when we are officially on holiday, it comes to CHF 31. So to derive the best return on our investment, we need to work as many hours as possible. Working for 365 days, 24 hours a day, gives us a very reasonable cost of CHF 8.56 per hour.
So it is that, after completing a set of annual accounts for a fictitious manufacturing company, it’s 10pm and we’re just about to launch into discussing the case of a bearings manufacturer in preparation for the marketing class tomorrow morning.
What’s not clear is if the sleeping heads in the front row this morning were suffering the results of working late or…
At the start of the course, somebody claimed that we were paying CHF 25 per hour for the pleasure of being here. I guessed that this figure had been arrived at by dividing the cost of the course by 8 hours of lessons per day, 365 days the year. If we deduct the days when we are officially on holiday, it comes to CHF 31. So to derive the best return on our investment, we need to work as many hours as possible. Working for 365 days, 24 hours a day, gives us a very reasonable cost of CHF 8.56 per hour.
So it is that, after completing a set of annual accounts for a fictitious manufacturing company, it’s 10pm and we’re just about to launch into discussing the case of a bearings manufacturer in preparation for the marketing class tomorrow morning.
What’s not clear is if the sleeping heads in the front row this morning were suffering the results of working late or…
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Winter hits IMD
In a quick break from this morning’s class on ‘leading people in organisations’, where I’ve discovered that my main motivation is ‘Power’, followed closely by ‘Autonomy and Growth’, I’m taking the opportunity for a quick update...
The storm that struck northern Europe a few days ago has finally reached Switzerland. At last, the snow is coming down. My car this morning had about 10cm of snow on it. It’s really winter now and the temperature is dropping. Fast. Minimum forecast temperature in Geneva for Friday is -21C! About -10C during the day.
This is great news for the many ski resorts in the area. It’s clear that the Christmas holiday season was bad for all the businesses whose livelihoods depend on 4 or 5 months from December to April. With little snow on the slopes, many people chose to cancel their trips to the mountains. Many of the pistes have been brown for much of the last month. For day trips, it’s fine. We’ve been up to Verbier a couple of times over night and found enough decent snow to have a good time.
Tonight I’m meeting the start-up company that I’ll be helping over the next 5 months . I’m not sure what they do - other than that it’s a hi-tech company looking for US$5m - are what they want from our little group. However, they are going to get some 500 hours of help from 5 IMD MBAs. For free. We have about 35 years’ experience between us across a number of industries and disciplines.
The start-up project, just one of the assignments keeping us in the ‘Dungeon’ every night till midnight (or so), was one of the main reasons why I chose to come to IMD rather than take up one of the other offers I received. The school’s strapline is Real World. Real Learning. It’s cheesy but true and a clear differentiator.
The storm that struck northern Europe a few days ago has finally reached Switzerland. At last, the snow is coming down. My car this morning had about 10cm of snow on it. It’s really winter now and the temperature is dropping. Fast. Minimum forecast temperature in Geneva for Friday is -21C! About -10C during the day.
This is great news for the many ski resorts in the area. It’s clear that the Christmas holiday season was bad for all the businesses whose livelihoods depend on 4 or 5 months from December to April. With little snow on the slopes, many people chose to cancel their trips to the mountains. Many of the pistes have been brown for much of the last month. For day trips, it’s fine. We’ve been up to Verbier a couple of times over night and found enough decent snow to have a good time.
Tonight I’m meeting the start-up company that I’ll be helping over the next 5 months . I’m not sure what they do - other than that it’s a hi-tech company looking for US$5m - are what they want from our little group. However, they are going to get some 500 hours of help from 5 IMD MBAs. For free. We have about 35 years’ experience between us across a number of industries and disciplines.
The start-up project, just one of the assignments keeping us in the ‘Dungeon’ every night till midnight (or so), was one of the main reasons why I chose to come to IMD rather than take up one of the other offers I received. The school’s strapline is Real World. Real Learning. It’s cheesy but true and a clear differentiator.
Tuesday, 28 November 2006
Six weeks to go
A relatively early start today. After Perrine leaves home at 8.20 to get to work late – as is customary for employees in the final week – I find myself unable to get back to sleep. Luckily I’m up and dressed when the doorbell rings a few minutes later.
Our Eurostar tickets have arrived. These are for the penultimate trip before it all gets real and it’s fast sinking in how little time is left and how much is going to happen in the next few weeks… Eurostar to Paris, TGV to Lille, back to Paris, flight to Cape Verde. Back a week later, take the van to London, collect stuff, head to Lausanne. Back to London for Christmas, drive to Champéry for the ski trip, picking up Perrine in Paris on the way.
So this morning I call UBS and make sure that I can still get my account all sorted this week, if I send all the necessary documents today. Yes, I’ve left it late but it can be done.
Last night I got an email from my mother offering me a financing option, which is very tempting. It involves something a little complicated as well as my little brother, so I discuss it with him. He seems keen. We’ll see how it pans out.
This afternoon, I intended to settle down to some nice financial management but the sun comes out while I’m having lunch and decide instead to head along the canal by Little Venice to take some pictures. Plus there are some workmen in my bathroom tearing out the shower floor, which has cracked and is leaking water through to the flat downstairs. Or at least I thought there were. They departed quietly, without saying word, leaving the front door on the latch. I begin to understand my mother’s lifelong frustration with builders etc.
So I finally get down to some nice financial ratios when I’m consumed by the urge to look at the MBA diary. The whole year, it seems, has been about transition for the class but in these final few days it’s about transitioning from a period of transition to stability. Something similar is happening to me. After nearly a year out of work, travelling, discovering places, peoples and myself, it’s fast coming to the time to switch to a different phase, yet it’s all still about shifting from where I was about 3 years ago to where I’ll be in 2008.
And all that thinking about life gets me thinking about writing about thinking about life. So here it is...
Our Eurostar tickets have arrived. These are for the penultimate trip before it all gets real and it’s fast sinking in how little time is left and how much is going to happen in the next few weeks… Eurostar to Paris, TGV to Lille, back to Paris, flight to Cape Verde. Back a week later, take the van to London, collect stuff, head to Lausanne. Back to London for Christmas, drive to Champéry for the ski trip, picking up Perrine in Paris on the way.
So this morning I call UBS and make sure that I can still get my account all sorted this week, if I send all the necessary documents today. Yes, I’ve left it late but it can be done.
Last night I got an email from my mother offering me a financing option, which is very tempting. It involves something a little complicated as well as my little brother, so I discuss it with him. He seems keen. We’ll see how it pans out.
This afternoon, I intended to settle down to some nice financial management but the sun comes out while I’m having lunch and decide instead to head along the canal by Little Venice to take some pictures. Plus there are some workmen in my bathroom tearing out the shower floor, which has cracked and is leaking water through to the flat downstairs. Or at least I thought there were. They departed quietly, without saying word, leaving the front door on the latch. I begin to understand my mother’s lifelong frustration with builders etc.
So I finally get down to some nice financial ratios when I’m consumed by the urge to look at the MBA diary. The whole year, it seems, has been about transition for the class but in these final few days it’s about transitioning from a period of transition to stability. Something similar is happening to me. After nearly a year out of work, travelling, discovering places, peoples and myself, it’s fast coming to the time to switch to a different phase, yet it’s all still about shifting from where I was about 3 years ago to where I’ll be in 2008.
And all that thinking about life gets me thinking about writing about thinking about life. So here it is...
Sunday, 29 October 2006
Madrid Part 2
It was hot Saturday afternoon and, under the sun’s glare, the alcohol seeping through my sweat glands was bubbling on my skin. I could have flambéed a pancake on my forearms. Fortunately the terrace of our lunch spot was fully taken and we were forced to seek shelter indoors.
The glare of the waiter as we all traipsed in was as potent as the sun’s. By the end of lunch, though, he was laughing a little and taking pleasure in mimicking Sophia’s Portuguese pronunciation of six and my Argentinean pronunciation of vanilla.
Back out in the square, Javier informed us of an occasion when a hotel on one side of it had a certain room curtain left open in the early evening so that all could see in. It would, however, be inappropriate for me to repeat the details of the allegation.
OJ and Thomas went on a recce mission to see if the said hotel - now fully refurbished - had a roof terrace on which to enjoy a siesta. Thomas came back first and informed us it opened at 9pm. A few minutes later OJ reported that there were people on the terrace and so we headed up.
Greg made full use of the new white cushions to catch a nap, while Paul went to order some champagne. A lot later, 3 bottles arrived. And only a few minutes after we’d filled our glasses and taken the obligatory photos, the bar manager told us to leave and go back downstairs because the terrace was closed. Roland was quick to point out that we’d enjoyed the best part of the afternoon up there and the sun was starting to dip.
So we continued to drink champagne in the bar downstairs. Then caipirinhas. Then around 9pm we headed to another little tapas place for a couple of beers and some pre-dinner ham and cheese. I got to learn a little more about the business activities of my future classmates. Ivica is an equipment manager for the Croatian U19s women’s football team, specialising in balls. Thomas is an undertaker. Jonathan, in fact, is a vicar from Orkney, preaching in Ireland; or was it Irish vicar on a mission in Orkney? Paul, meanwhile, is an air steward for a defunct airline. So it was that I, a fashion photographer for plus-size catalogues, was now feeling at ease amidst this company.
Our dinner appointment was set at 10.30pm, nice and early to give us time to enjoy the nightlife later. Javier had once again pulled strings to obtain a booking for 21 at a restaurant that is such good value and good quality that reservations are not taken. You simply have to turn up and queue.
Finally, sitting down to dinner together, at three tables, I knew to expect a good, intellectual debate about pertinent economic issues. And so it was. Jorge, a madrileno who works in Zurich, joined the group now at this happy hour and was clearly drawn-in by Greg’s instincts for online enterprise. His ideas on interactivity and the use of avatars is surely ground-breaking. For some, it might even make the earth move.
So then, back up to the roof terrace to drink mojitos and watch the clocks go back an hour at 3am. Then, as it was starting to freshen up a little, we set off to a basement bar led by Jorge, where Thomas demonstrated his negotiating skills to get us in without queuing. Well, to be precise, some went back to the hotel, others to the bar and the rest remained with OJ’s compatriots.
The basement was packed full of young revellers plus the man with the widest grin in the world flinging his arms manically on the stage. It was some feat of engineering, surely, that kept his limbs attached to his meagre body as he flailed wildly. Still, nice to see young people turned out immaculately in a suit and tie of an evening. Perhaps he was connected with the man from Brazil that Paul had once met.
A Heineken later, it was time to savour a more upmarket place and so we waddled off to the Palacio Gaviria. Thank you to Ming Teck for supplying the photo with the name so that at least I know the name of one of the places we visited during the weekend. Well, some more dancing and a couple of drinks later, it was time to head back to the hotel. Another 7am finish.
I felt fine when I got up at 11am, joining Ivica and Thomas for coffee downstairs. After checking out, we then joined Javier, Alison, Bianca, Jonathan and, later, Ming Teck and Paul in the Parque Retiro for a drink of water in the shade. This is a really fun park, with lots of activity: puppet shows for kids; shiatsu specialists; rowing boats on the little lake and cafés offering drinks at reasonable prices.
After the rest had gone, Ivica, Ming Teck and I went to find lunch. A veritable feast of ham, cheese, salad, tomato bread etc and a couple of bottles of wine. With just enough time, we grabbed a taxi to the hotel, picked up our stuff and headed on to the airport to catch our flights to different European destinations.
The glare of the waiter as we all traipsed in was as potent as the sun’s. By the end of lunch, though, he was laughing a little and taking pleasure in mimicking Sophia’s Portuguese pronunciation of six and my Argentinean pronunciation of vanilla.
Back out in the square, Javier informed us of an occasion when a hotel on one side of it had a certain room curtain left open in the early evening so that all could see in. It would, however, be inappropriate for me to repeat the details of the allegation.
OJ and Thomas went on a recce mission to see if the said hotel - now fully refurbished - had a roof terrace on which to enjoy a siesta. Thomas came back first and informed us it opened at 9pm. A few minutes later OJ reported that there were people on the terrace and so we headed up.
Greg made full use of the new white cushions to catch a nap, while Paul went to order some champagne. A lot later, 3 bottles arrived. And only a few minutes after we’d filled our glasses and taken the obligatory photos, the bar manager told us to leave and go back downstairs because the terrace was closed. Roland was quick to point out that we’d enjoyed the best part of the afternoon up there and the sun was starting to dip.
So we continued to drink champagne in the bar downstairs. Then caipirinhas. Then around 9pm we headed to another little tapas place for a couple of beers and some pre-dinner ham and cheese. I got to learn a little more about the business activities of my future classmates. Ivica is an equipment manager for the Croatian U19s women’s football team, specialising in balls. Thomas is an undertaker. Jonathan, in fact, is a vicar from Orkney, preaching in Ireland; or was it Irish vicar on a mission in Orkney? Paul, meanwhile, is an air steward for a defunct airline. So it was that I, a fashion photographer for plus-size catalogues, was now feeling at ease amidst this company.
Our dinner appointment was set at 10.30pm, nice and early to give us time to enjoy the nightlife later. Javier had once again pulled strings to obtain a booking for 21 at a restaurant that is such good value and good quality that reservations are not taken. You simply have to turn up and queue.
Finally, sitting down to dinner together, at three tables, I knew to expect a good, intellectual debate about pertinent economic issues. And so it was. Jorge, a madrileno who works in Zurich, joined the group now at this happy hour and was clearly drawn-in by Greg’s instincts for online enterprise. His ideas on interactivity and the use of avatars is surely ground-breaking. For some, it might even make the earth move.
So then, back up to the roof terrace to drink mojitos and watch the clocks go back an hour at 3am. Then, as it was starting to freshen up a little, we set off to a basement bar led by Jorge, where Thomas demonstrated his negotiating skills to get us in without queuing. Well, to be precise, some went back to the hotel, others to the bar and the rest remained with OJ’s compatriots.
The basement was packed full of young revellers plus the man with the widest grin in the world flinging his arms manically on the stage. It was some feat of engineering, surely, that kept his limbs attached to his meagre body as he flailed wildly. Still, nice to see young people turned out immaculately in a suit and tie of an evening. Perhaps he was connected with the man from Brazil that Paul had once met.
A Heineken later, it was time to savour a more upmarket place and so we waddled off to the Palacio Gaviria. Thank you to Ming Teck for supplying the photo with the name so that at least I know the name of one of the places we visited during the weekend. Well, some more dancing and a couple of drinks later, it was time to head back to the hotel. Another 7am finish.
I felt fine when I got up at 11am, joining Ivica and Thomas for coffee downstairs. After checking out, we then joined Javier, Alison, Bianca, Jonathan and, later, Ming Teck and Paul in the Parque Retiro for a drink of water in the shade. This is a really fun park, with lots of activity: puppet shows for kids; shiatsu specialists; rowing boats on the little lake and cafés offering drinks at reasonable prices.
After the rest had gone, Ivica, Ming Teck and I went to find lunch. A veritable feast of ham, cheese, salad, tomato bread etc and a couple of bottles of wine. With just enough time, we grabbed a taxi to the hotel, picked up our stuff and headed on to the airport to catch our flights to different European destinations.
Friday, 27 October 2006
Madrid Part 1
Way back in August, I’d read a thread on the IMD MBA 2007 web forum about a get-to-know-your-classmates weekend in Madrid, organised by Javier Asensio. With some Airmiles to burn, I thought I’d take full advantage of the opportunity. This was going to be a serious weekend, with Javier pulling strings at the Prado for a private tour of the museum’s special collection.
OK, I exaggerate a little. Still, I knew in advance that the people I’d be meeting were not run-of-the-mill: these are the business leaders of the future. After all, IMD bills the MBA class as 90 exceptional people who will shape the future of business. Hmm.
So when I got an email from Greg Davis to meet up in London last Sunday, I gratefully accepted, partly so that I wouldn’t be too overwhelmed meeting everyone at the same time. Greg managed to bring Amir Ahmad, Chief Simplification Officer of mobile telecoms to internet company Txtfo. Perrine and I were also glad to meet Greg’s wife, Jodie, and Michael, the partner of another of our classmates, Anna, who coincidentally is in Ghana right now.
....
Greg and I happened to be on the same flight but didn’t spot each other until we arrived in Madrid airport. In the taxi to the hotel, I was ashamed to admit that I’d let him down by not bringing my running gear, as I’d promised back in London. He eased my conscience by telling me he probably wouldn’t go for a run. Except that as soon as we’d checked in, around 6pm, Greg went for a run and I went with Ivica Pavic, with whom I was sharing a room, to join some of the rest of the group at a tapas bar. I imagined they were having coffee in the last of the sunshine and a shot of caffeine would do me some good.
I didn’t realise, however, that I was out for the evening, that we’d be heading to dinner from there and that my first drink would be beer. I had the privilege of meeting some of the finest young business minds around Europe: Caroline Hamrit, Thomas Buss, Bianca Chinescu as well as Paul Gabie.
We had a couple more beers before taking the scenic route to the next tapas bar via the Plaza de Espana and the Royal Palace. By the time we left the second bar, the rest of the group had joined, we’d consumed several bottles of wine and a lot of beer. I had also gorged myself on a small piece of bread with a lump of tuna mix on top - dinner.
Another bar and OJ got to know some of his compatriots.
If the next paragraph appears to be in note form, it is because my recollection is in note form. A little walk and a long-ish queue to get into a small bar with a dance floor downstairs and a balcony upstairs. Some dancing and drinking. The world’s fastest/shortest dance act ever performed on the miniscule dance floor while the many punters were shoved into the tight corners to allow the performers to show their skills. Very impressive. Some actividades incontroladas. OJ got to know one of his compatriots even better. Some people stayed longer, some left earlier. I think it was late when I took my leave. Well, it was some time after 7am when I got to bed.
Meanwhile, Goncalo and Sophia, having driven from Porto, at 4.30am were busily trying to check in to their room at the hotel, except that between Ming Teck and Paddy Jansen, the couple’s room had been occupied. I’m not sure I’d have been quite as jovial as they were about it over breakfast.
Breakfast, actually, was a quick coffee and croissant in the hotel café, around 1.15pm, before the scenic route to lunch. With just a little dinner and a lot of alcohol, even my rarely hungover constitution was performing below par. But I gave up regretting drinking excessively some time ago.
OK, I exaggerate a little. Still, I knew in advance that the people I’d be meeting were not run-of-the-mill: these are the business leaders of the future. After all, IMD bills the MBA class as 90 exceptional people who will shape the future of business. Hmm.
So when I got an email from Greg Davis to meet up in London last Sunday, I gratefully accepted, partly so that I wouldn’t be too overwhelmed meeting everyone at the same time. Greg managed to bring Amir Ahmad, Chief Simplification Officer of mobile telecoms to internet company Txtfo. Perrine and I were also glad to meet Greg’s wife, Jodie, and Michael, the partner of another of our classmates, Anna, who coincidentally is in Ghana right now.
....
Greg and I happened to be on the same flight but didn’t spot each other until we arrived in Madrid airport. In the taxi to the hotel, I was ashamed to admit that I’d let him down by not bringing my running gear, as I’d promised back in London. He eased my conscience by telling me he probably wouldn’t go for a run. Except that as soon as we’d checked in, around 6pm, Greg went for a run and I went with Ivica Pavic, with whom I was sharing a room, to join some of the rest of the group at a tapas bar. I imagined they were having coffee in the last of the sunshine and a shot of caffeine would do me some good.
I didn’t realise, however, that I was out for the evening, that we’d be heading to dinner from there and that my first drink would be beer. I had the privilege of meeting some of the finest young business minds around Europe: Caroline Hamrit, Thomas Buss, Bianca Chinescu as well as Paul Gabie.
We had a couple more beers before taking the scenic route to the next tapas bar via the Plaza de Espana and the Royal Palace. By the time we left the second bar, the rest of the group had joined, we’d consumed several bottles of wine and a lot of beer. I had also gorged myself on a small piece of bread with a lump of tuna mix on top - dinner.
Another bar and OJ got to know some of his compatriots.
If the next paragraph appears to be in note form, it is because my recollection is in note form. A little walk and a long-ish queue to get into a small bar with a dance floor downstairs and a balcony upstairs. Some dancing and drinking. The world’s fastest/shortest dance act ever performed on the miniscule dance floor while the many punters were shoved into the tight corners to allow the performers to show their skills. Very impressive. Some actividades incontroladas. OJ got to know one of his compatriots even better. Some people stayed longer, some left earlier. I think it was late when I took my leave. Well, it was some time after 7am when I got to bed.
Meanwhile, Goncalo and Sophia, having driven from Porto, at 4.30am were busily trying to check in to their room at the hotel, except that between Ming Teck and Paddy Jansen, the couple’s room had been occupied. I’m not sure I’d have been quite as jovial as they were about it over breakfast.
Breakfast, actually, was a quick coffee and croissant in the hotel café, around 1.15pm, before the scenic route to lunch. With just a little dinner and a lot of alcohol, even my rarely hungover constitution was performing below par. But I gave up regretting drinking excessively some time ago.
Wednesday, 12 July 2006
On to Keta
There are two ways to get to Keta from Ada Foah. You can back track along the road to Sogakope and cross the Volta there over the bridge; or you can - on market days only - catch the ferry across the mouth of the river to the little village of Anyanui. Market day is once a week, on Wednesday, and it just so happens that today is Wednesday.
The ferry is due at 8.00am and the people at the hotel advised me to checkout by 7.00am to make sure I get to the boarding point on time, apparently a 10-20 minute walk away. Checkout takes 20 minutes, in the end, with manual writing of receipts and VAT invoices, credit card authorisation etc. I decide to skip breakfast. $10 (USD) for a paltry-looking buffet just doesn’t seem worth it. I plan to eat something on arrival at Anyanui.
It actually only takes 5 minutes to walk down a dusty track from the Manet Paradise Beach Hotel to the shore in the fishing village of Azanzi. En route I get a lot of attention from kids heading to school: "hello!", "how are you?" and, of course, "obruni!". I wander along and miss the turning to the boarding point. A girl of 14 or thereabouts comes up to me and asks where I’m heading. She then guides me to where I should be. An older woman sitting outside one of the mud huts jokes that the girl has found herself a white husband.
With chickens running about at my feet, I sit on a bench by the water’s edge next to a colourful wooden fishing boat, alongside a house where young children are getting ready for school or playing about. The oldest of them begins to ask me questions. She says she likes my backpack and then asks who’s in it. I tell her it’s just "clothes". She asks me: "who’s clothes?". I understand "whose clothes?". I say "my clothes". She persists: "who is clothes?". Ah! of course, sacks on backs are for children in Ghana and are usually carried by women. So I say "clothes" and indicate what I mean by touching my t-shirt sleeve. "Sheds!", she says. I can see how the word has come to have that meaning: shed your clothes, hence just sheds. "Yes, that’s right", I tell her.
Then shes says "Give me something!" and I begin to lose interest as does she when I flatly say "no".
A small group of men come and check out the morning’s attraction. They’re eager to know who I am, where I’ve come from, where I’m going. They reassure me the ferry will arrive at 8.00am. I receive a text message - yes, even on the shore of a remote fishing village, courtesy of areeba. I take my phone from my pocket and they are awestruck. What a beautiful phone! (it’s the Motorola V3i aka RAZR).
They ask me if it can take pictures so I duly oblige. They gaze at it strangely as I take the picture and the image is less than flattering. They ask how much it costs. I decide it’s best if they don’t know that it’s about twice the annual GDP per capita of Ghana. So I say it was a gift and don’t know. That way they won’t try to barter for it.
As the ferry approaches, they help me to the actual boarding point, 20m away, where some live chickens and various other bags and boxes are waiting to be loaded and taken to the market at Anyanui. The ferry, the MS Sogakope, according to the Bradt Guide to Ghana, can carry about 250 passengers and is already crammed with market goers carrying tomatoes, smoked fish and all sorts of other goods. I clamber up the narrow gangway and take my seat on the upper deck, where it’s a little less crowded. The ticket costs me 3,000 cedis, around 20 pence.
On the way, we stop at a number of small villages on little islands that have no other means of communicating with the world other than the ferry once a week and the little boats - canoes, essentially, sometimes with sails - that we pass, taking children to school and others to whatever place there might be nearby.
Anyanui has a tiny landing point and long canoes full of passengers, either just heading off or arriving, are crammed around it. Right by the water are large piles of wood, big sticks in big bundles piled high in to cuboid towers that are being taken apart and reassembled precariously on to small trucks and vans. Some men call to me "where to?" and they direct me to the tro-tro that will take me some of the way to my destination.
A tro-tro is essentially a mini minibus that ought to have about 8 passengers but in reality carries 14 or 15. I got a seat at the front, next to the driver, which gave me a little more space, to load my rucksack, camera bag and tripod on top of me. A local chief gets in next to me and I have the impression that the front seat is usually for white people and people of rank.
I have no chance to get any food or drink, which I’m in need of now, at 9.00am, two and a half hours after getting up. I manage to squeeze off a couple of pictures through my telephoto lens and hope that they might capture some of the sense of colour and movement.
These tiny little battered cans hurtle along at unmeasurable speeds. Unmeasurable because the speedo doesn’t work. They feel like they could topple over at any moment and apparently have a knack for it. I’m glad that I can use my luggage as an airbag, should the need arise. The tro-tros seem to race each other so that they can pick up the next people waiting along the route. These are private vehicles and the idea is to make as much money as possible, even if that means having the ‘conductor’ hanging half out the door as we dash along broken roads.
At a small town, we jump off and I’m guided to the station, where another tro-tro (they actually call them cars here, preferring the english approximation) will take me on to Keta. Again I’m sat at the front with a chief next to me holding his staff. It’s hot and humid now but I’m largely oblivious to the discomfort.
On reaching Tegbi, in the Keta area, I jump out at Lorneh junction and walk half a mile down the road towards the beach to Lorneh Lodge, the hotel where I’m hoping to stay. I settle in and go to the poolside for brunch and a swim. I get a club sandwich and after a very quick swim head back indoors. It’s extremely hot now and I think I’m going to blister if I stay out any longer.
I meet an American in the grounds of the hotel. Charlie is a baptist ‘worship pastor’ (his business card says) from Tampa, Florida, USA. There is a cult, he tells me, that involves sexually abusing children, who after a certain age are simply abandoned. Their parents don’t want them back and they are outcasts from society. His goals are to educate people against becoming involved in this practice and to buy land to build an orphanage for the abandoned children. He seems to be doing other things too, like providing medical assistance while he’s around and a whole series of ‘workshops’.
He offers the services of his driver, George, to take me into town. I’m not sure what I’m looking to see but I’m thinking of just wandering about. But George tells me it’s not safe and so I settle on being dropped off at Fort Prinzenstein, an old slave fort built by the Danes and sold to the British in the late 18th century.
Actually, the Brits were relatively late to the whole slave-trading bonanza. The Portuguese had got here 300 years earlier and the Dutch and Danes had been at it for perhaps 200. Staggeringly, there were 42 slave forts in West Africa, of which 38 were in Ghana.
The Brits cottoned on to the idea of improving the conditions of the slaves, while banged up in the forts awaiting deportation to the Caribbean or wherever else. But this was not out of altruism. Quite simply they realised they’d make more money by keeping the slaves alive and that enlarging the windows to allow air to circulate around the cells was a good idea. It was a Brit too, William Wilberforce, who pushed for the abolition of slavery by 1832. However, the records at Fort Prinzenstein show that trade continued for another 60 years.
I enjoyed this visit far more than my visits to Elmina and Cape Coast castles in 2004. Although the buildings there are far more impressive, the guides were thoroughly politicised and moralising, as though the tourists standing in front of them were personally guilty of the rape of female slaves and the barbaric conditions in which they were all kept.
The story is more complicated and happened more than 100 years before my birth. The guide at Prinzenstein tried to keep things factual. Yes, the Europeans committed this and that outrage. The local chiefs, however, were complicitous and aided the Europeans in kidnapping people in return for guns so that they could wage war against their local enemies. It’s a sad period of history from which not too many people come out well.
Later we talked about English and Ghanaian football and our marital status. I was guided to the road where I could pick up a tro-tro back to Tegbi and he and a friend wait with me until it arrives, to make sure I’m safe. Again, I get a front seat.
I walk on to the beach to see what activity there is and take a couple of pictures. Not too much to see at this time but I’m assured that tomorrow morning is the best time to have a look.
As I walk back up to the hotel, I get a text from Will. He’ll be joining me in Ho on Friday morning. In the meantime, IMD have called and want to offer me a place on next year’s MBA!! Woohoo!!
The ferry is due at 8.00am and the people at the hotel advised me to checkout by 7.00am to make sure I get to the boarding point on time, apparently a 10-20 minute walk away. Checkout takes 20 minutes, in the end, with manual writing of receipts and VAT invoices, credit card authorisation etc. I decide to skip breakfast. $10 (USD) for a paltry-looking buffet just doesn’t seem worth it. I plan to eat something on arrival at Anyanui.
It actually only takes 5 minutes to walk down a dusty track from the Manet Paradise Beach Hotel to the shore in the fishing village of Azanzi. En route I get a lot of attention from kids heading to school: "hello!", "how are you?" and, of course, "obruni!". I wander along and miss the turning to the boarding point. A girl of 14 or thereabouts comes up to me and asks where I’m heading. She then guides me to where I should be. An older woman sitting outside one of the mud huts jokes that the girl has found herself a white husband.
With chickens running about at my feet, I sit on a bench by the water’s edge next to a colourful wooden fishing boat, alongside a house where young children are getting ready for school or playing about. The oldest of them begins to ask me questions. She says she likes my backpack and then asks who’s in it. I tell her it’s just "clothes". She asks me: "who’s clothes?". I understand "whose clothes?". I say "my clothes". She persists: "who is clothes?". Ah! of course, sacks on backs are for children in Ghana and are usually carried by women. So I say "clothes" and indicate what I mean by touching my t-shirt sleeve. "Sheds!", she says. I can see how the word has come to have that meaning: shed your clothes, hence just sheds. "Yes, that’s right", I tell her.
Then shes says "Give me something!" and I begin to lose interest as does she when I flatly say "no".
A small group of men come and check out the morning’s attraction. They’re eager to know who I am, where I’ve come from, where I’m going. They reassure me the ferry will arrive at 8.00am. I receive a text message - yes, even on the shore of a remote fishing village, courtesy of areeba. I take my phone from my pocket and they are awestruck. What a beautiful phone! (it’s the Motorola V3i aka RAZR).
They ask me if it can take pictures so I duly oblige. They gaze at it strangely as I take the picture and the image is less than flattering. They ask how much it costs. I decide it’s best if they don’t know that it’s about twice the annual GDP per capita of Ghana. So I say it was a gift and don’t know. That way they won’t try to barter for it.
As the ferry approaches, they help me to the actual boarding point, 20m away, where some live chickens and various other bags and boxes are waiting to be loaded and taken to the market at Anyanui. The ferry, the MS Sogakope, according to the Bradt Guide to Ghana, can carry about 250 passengers and is already crammed with market goers carrying tomatoes, smoked fish and all sorts of other goods. I clamber up the narrow gangway and take my seat on the upper deck, where it’s a little less crowded. The ticket costs me 3,000 cedis, around 20 pence.
On the way, we stop at a number of small villages on little islands that have no other means of communicating with the world other than the ferry once a week and the little boats - canoes, essentially, sometimes with sails - that we pass, taking children to school and others to whatever place there might be nearby.
Anyanui has a tiny landing point and long canoes full of passengers, either just heading off or arriving, are crammed around it. Right by the water are large piles of wood, big sticks in big bundles piled high in to cuboid towers that are being taken apart and reassembled precariously on to small trucks and vans. Some men call to me "where to?" and they direct me to the tro-tro that will take me some of the way to my destination.
A tro-tro is essentially a mini minibus that ought to have about 8 passengers but in reality carries 14 or 15. I got a seat at the front, next to the driver, which gave me a little more space, to load my rucksack, camera bag and tripod on top of me. A local chief gets in next to me and I have the impression that the front seat is usually for white people and people of rank.
I have no chance to get any food or drink, which I’m in need of now, at 9.00am, two and a half hours after getting up. I manage to squeeze off a couple of pictures through my telephoto lens and hope that they might capture some of the sense of colour and movement.
These tiny little battered cans hurtle along at unmeasurable speeds. Unmeasurable because the speedo doesn’t work. They feel like they could topple over at any moment and apparently have a knack for it. I’m glad that I can use my luggage as an airbag, should the need arise. The tro-tros seem to race each other so that they can pick up the next people waiting along the route. These are private vehicles and the idea is to make as much money as possible, even if that means having the ‘conductor’ hanging half out the door as we dash along broken roads.
At a small town, we jump off and I’m guided to the station, where another tro-tro (they actually call them cars here, preferring the english approximation) will take me on to Keta. Again I’m sat at the front with a chief next to me holding his staff. It’s hot and humid now but I’m largely oblivious to the discomfort.
On reaching Tegbi, in the Keta area, I jump out at Lorneh junction and walk half a mile down the road towards the beach to Lorneh Lodge, the hotel where I’m hoping to stay. I settle in and go to the poolside for brunch and a swim. I get a club sandwich and after a very quick swim head back indoors. It’s extremely hot now and I think I’m going to blister if I stay out any longer.
I meet an American in the grounds of the hotel. Charlie is a baptist ‘worship pastor’ (his business card says) from Tampa, Florida, USA. There is a cult, he tells me, that involves sexually abusing children, who after a certain age are simply abandoned. Their parents don’t want them back and they are outcasts from society. His goals are to educate people against becoming involved in this practice and to buy land to build an orphanage for the abandoned children. He seems to be doing other things too, like providing medical assistance while he’s around and a whole series of ‘workshops’.
He offers the services of his driver, George, to take me into town. I’m not sure what I’m looking to see but I’m thinking of just wandering about. But George tells me it’s not safe and so I settle on being dropped off at Fort Prinzenstein, an old slave fort built by the Danes and sold to the British in the late 18th century.
Actually, the Brits were relatively late to the whole slave-trading bonanza. The Portuguese had got here 300 years earlier and the Dutch and Danes had been at it for perhaps 200. Staggeringly, there were 42 slave forts in West Africa, of which 38 were in Ghana.
The Brits cottoned on to the idea of improving the conditions of the slaves, while banged up in the forts awaiting deportation to the Caribbean or wherever else. But this was not out of altruism. Quite simply they realised they’d make more money by keeping the slaves alive and that enlarging the windows to allow air to circulate around the cells was a good idea. It was a Brit too, William Wilberforce, who pushed for the abolition of slavery by 1832. However, the records at Fort Prinzenstein show that trade continued for another 60 years.
I enjoyed this visit far more than my visits to Elmina and Cape Coast castles in 2004. Although the buildings there are far more impressive, the guides were thoroughly politicised and moralising, as though the tourists standing in front of them were personally guilty of the rape of female slaves and the barbaric conditions in which they were all kept.
The story is more complicated and happened more than 100 years before my birth. The guide at Prinzenstein tried to keep things factual. Yes, the Europeans committed this and that outrage. The local chiefs, however, were complicitous and aided the Europeans in kidnapping people in return for guns so that they could wage war against their local enemies. It’s a sad period of history from which not too many people come out well.
Later we talked about English and Ghanaian football and our marital status. I was guided to the road where I could pick up a tro-tro back to Tegbi and he and a friend wait with me until it arrives, to make sure I’m safe. Again, I get a front seat.
I walk on to the beach to see what activity there is and take a couple of pictures. Not too much to see at this time but I’m assured that tomorrow morning is the best time to have a look.
As I walk back up to the hotel, I get a text from Will. He’ll be joining me in Ho on Friday morning. In the meantime, IMD have called and want to offer me a place on next year’s MBA!! Woohoo!!
Friday, 30 June 2006
MBA Interviews - IMD
I had an idea of what to expect from IMD. Their typical interview schedule is on their website. Unlike IESE, INSEAD and LBS, they refused me the option of interview in Buenos Aires but allowed me instead to postpone it by 3 weeks so that I didn't have to return early. Well, with the mini ordeal they put you through, it would have to take place in Switzerland.
I was due at the IMD MBA Admissions Office at 8.30am. First interview at 8.45. She questioned everything I've ever done, my motivations, my reasons. Wasn't it a bit risky to give up my job without an MBA programme to go to? Why hadn't I worked overseas? How confident am I, on a scale of 1 to 10? I felt like I'd made a whole series of bad decisions in life. I could tell nothing from her body language or responses as to whether she liked what I had to say.
Straight out and into 30 minutes to prepare a presentation. The topic: you've been given a new mobile telecoms licence. What would be the first services offered? How would you work out your market penetration? Who would your customers be? What is the price structure? What is the cost structure? 3 or 4 slides on overhead projector.
Then into the presentation. 5 minutes max followed by questions. And out of nowhere 3 minutes to think about and give an answer to "what would be the headline and article of your life story?". Thanks for that.
A short break to share the pain with a couple of the other candidates. Then a short interview with one of the admissions officers. This one much more straightforward. What other schools had I applied to? What offers? How did I feel the GMAT had gone? etc
Then lunch in the restaurant, outside on the terrace. Beautiful. A full buffet with a fantastic desert table and an icecream stand. This comes free to the students every day. So they don't waste time off-campus fetching lunch.
Finally, the case study discussion with one of the long-standing professors. Four candidates discussing the 17 pages of material we'd been emailed a few days before. This was less painful. Actually enjoyable, even.
There was supposed to be a fifth candidate. He'd booked on to the last easyJet flight the night before and it was cancelled. He didn't make it to Lausanne until we were already in the discussion.
At the end of the day, we needed to go and have a beer.
I tried to get an earlier flight home. I'd booked the last flight back to London since I didn't know what time the day would finish. The woman at the ticket sales desk told me I'd bought the cheapest ticket and couldn't change. I said I understood but since there were seats free, there would be no loss to British Airways. Well, she said, they might sell them in the intervening period. Theoretically possible, although the flight was due to depart in an hour. So I checked in and decided to go to the gate and see if I could get on just before the plane takes off.
Well, all flights to London were delayed about an hour. I sat and watched Argentina get cheated out of the semi-final. Then went to the gate. First response: no seats. I told the guy I knew there were seats. So the girl says yes, there are, but she'd have to check my ticket type. Once again I'm told I can't get on. I tell her the seats will go empty. She tells me I'd need to buy a new ticket. There was no point reasoning.
I didn't know whether to be annoyed with British Airways or with the Swiss mentality of order and precision. I went to find some food but it was all sold out. So I sat grumpily awaiting my delayed flight, which was full to the rafters. Perhaps, if I'd gone on the earlier flight, there'd have been a spare seat on the last one to sell to someone else...
I was due at the IMD MBA Admissions Office at 8.30am. First interview at 8.45. She questioned everything I've ever done, my motivations, my reasons. Wasn't it a bit risky to give up my job without an MBA programme to go to? Why hadn't I worked overseas? How confident am I, on a scale of 1 to 10? I felt like I'd made a whole series of bad decisions in life. I could tell nothing from her body language or responses as to whether she liked what I had to say.
Straight out and into 30 minutes to prepare a presentation. The topic: you've been given a new mobile telecoms licence. What would be the first services offered? How would you work out your market penetration? Who would your customers be? What is the price structure? What is the cost structure? 3 or 4 slides on overhead projector.
Then into the presentation. 5 minutes max followed by questions. And out of nowhere 3 minutes to think about and give an answer to "what would be the headline and article of your life story?". Thanks for that.
A short break to share the pain with a couple of the other candidates. Then a short interview with one of the admissions officers. This one much more straightforward. What other schools had I applied to? What offers? How did I feel the GMAT had gone? etc
Then lunch in the restaurant, outside on the terrace. Beautiful. A full buffet with a fantastic desert table and an icecream stand. This comes free to the students every day. So they don't waste time off-campus fetching lunch.
Finally, the case study discussion with one of the long-standing professors. Four candidates discussing the 17 pages of material we'd been emailed a few days before. This was less painful. Actually enjoyable, even.
There was supposed to be a fifth candidate. He'd booked on to the last easyJet flight the night before and it was cancelled. He didn't make it to Lausanne until we were already in the discussion.
At the end of the day, we needed to go and have a beer.
I tried to get an earlier flight home. I'd booked the last flight back to London since I didn't know what time the day would finish. The woman at the ticket sales desk told me I'd bought the cheapest ticket and couldn't change. I said I understood but since there were seats free, there would be no loss to British Airways. Well, she said, they might sell them in the intervening period. Theoretically possible, although the flight was due to depart in an hour. So I checked in and decided to go to the gate and see if I could get on just before the plane takes off.
Well, all flights to London were delayed about an hour. I sat and watched Argentina get cheated out of the semi-final. Then went to the gate. First response: no seats. I told the guy I knew there were seats. So the girl says yes, there are, but she'd have to check my ticket type. Once again I'm told I can't get on. I tell her the seats will go empty. She tells me I'd need to buy a new ticket. There was no point reasoning.
I didn't know whether to be annoyed with British Airways or with the Swiss mentality of order and precision. I went to find some food but it was all sold out. So I sat grumpily awaiting my delayed flight, which was full to the rafters. Perhaps, if I'd gone on the earlier flight, there'd have been a spare seat on the last one to sell to someone else...
Thursday, 11 May 2006
Buenos Aires: the first few days
My knees are knackered. I need to take a break. But what I really want to do is go running round the park in Palermo, right by Expedition HQ (parents' flat). The weather is unseasonally beautiful. T-shirt weather. So I take it pretty easy the first couple of days. Just wandering about, catching some sun in the park and taking advantage of the great exchange rate to make some cheap purchases. CDs, especially, are a steal. New releases, almost up to date with UK, are just 30 pesos. That's £6.
My PC is also knackered. Picked up a nasty spyware thing in the UK, which I thought I'd sorted out. Spyquake looks like a legit programme but it installs itself onto your machine and is very hard to remove. I had to do a ton of stuff to stop it blinking up on my screen telling me to pay up and upgrade. Eventually I succeeded. Seems it was hiding something else, though. My PC won't boot now. It doesn't detect the hard drive. Ouch. That's a serious problem, which I'll deal with when I'm back in London. All my contacts are on it. A lot of my work, including CV etc. Fortunately my MBA applications are on a USB stick.
I went round to see my grandmother for the first time in who knows how many years and my aunt, my mum's sister. It's great being able to reconnect finally with this side of the family.
And I also went to the cinema one night, at midnight, of course. Nothing happens early here and I've plugged straight into the way of life here. I'm not sure how Proof was received in the UK but I wasn't too impressed, A Beautiful Mind for chicks, basically.
All the time, I'm planning, planning, planning. First, making arrangements for my interviews with IMD and INSEAD. IMD is now postponed to June 30th. I'll be taking a short trip to Lausanne for a day-long interview. INSEAD gave me two contacts in the UK for the interviews but are now sourcing alumni in BA instead. Anyone who thinks we're not plugged into a global, wired world should look at my experience of applying and setting up these interviews. I've submitted applications in a number of different forms (asp, word, html online entry) from places as far apart as London and Ushuaia. The interviews, meanwhile, I'm coordinating through a mixture of email and phone, making the time difference almost an irrelevance.
Second, the rest of the trip. Well, basically, 3 destinations, I've decided. West: Mendoza; NW: Salta and Jujuy; NE: principally Iguazu Falls.
Did a few touristy bits, like taking a look at the Casa Rosada... think the White House but pink. Puerto Madero, the BA docklands, is great, with appartments apparently fetching US$500,000. And unlike the London Docklands, it's very easy to get to and there are lots of places to eat and drink so it stays alive at night and through the weekend. The cow exhibition that passed through London is now here. But to be honest the tourist attractions don't do all that much for me. I want to get to know the city more like a porteño, someone from BA, not a tourist passing through. And for that I have largely have the benefit of Leo, the friend I made in Ushuaia...
My PC is also knackered. Picked up a nasty spyware thing in the UK, which I thought I'd sorted out. Spyquake looks like a legit programme but it installs itself onto your machine and is very hard to remove. I had to do a ton of stuff to stop it blinking up on my screen telling me to pay up and upgrade. Eventually I succeeded. Seems it was hiding something else, though. My PC won't boot now. It doesn't detect the hard drive. Ouch. That's a serious problem, which I'll deal with when I'm back in London. All my contacts are on it. A lot of my work, including CV etc. Fortunately my MBA applications are on a USB stick.
I went round to see my grandmother for the first time in who knows how many years and my aunt, my mum's sister. It's great being able to reconnect finally with this side of the family.
And I also went to the cinema one night, at midnight, of course. Nothing happens early here and I've plugged straight into the way of life here. I'm not sure how Proof was received in the UK but I wasn't too impressed, A Beautiful Mind for chicks, basically.
All the time, I'm planning, planning, planning. First, making arrangements for my interviews with IMD and INSEAD. IMD is now postponed to June 30th. I'll be taking a short trip to Lausanne for a day-long interview. INSEAD gave me two contacts in the UK for the interviews but are now sourcing alumni in BA instead. Anyone who thinks we're not plugged into a global, wired world should look at my experience of applying and setting up these interviews. I've submitted applications in a number of different forms (asp, word, html online entry) from places as far apart as London and Ushuaia. The interviews, meanwhile, I'm coordinating through a mixture of email and phone, making the time difference almost an irrelevance.
Second, the rest of the trip. Well, basically, 3 destinations, I've decided. West: Mendoza; NW: Salta and Jujuy; NE: principally Iguazu Falls.
Did a few touristy bits, like taking a look at the Casa Rosada... think the White House but pink. Puerto Madero, the BA docklands, is great, with appartments apparently fetching US$500,000. And unlike the London Docklands, it's very easy to get to and there are lots of places to eat and drink so it stays alive at night and through the weekend. The cow exhibition that passed through London is now here. But to be honest the tourist attractions don't do all that much for me. I want to get to know the city more like a porteño, someone from BA, not a tourist passing through. And for that I have largely have the benefit of Leo, the friend I made in Ushuaia...
Sunday, 7 May 2006
The End of the Patagonian Adventure
My last day/night in Bariloche and Patagonia. I was determined to make it a good one. I was going to take Nico (F) up on his suggestion of going up to Refugio Frey for the day, enjoy the short trek and have a look around. As it happened, the weather was grey this morning, so I decided to skip it. It cleared up in the afternoon, so I had a bit of a wander around enjoying the sunshine.I popped down to the internet place to check up on emails and found that while I had been up in the mountains, both IMD and INSEAD invited me to interview. Woohoo! Definite celebrations tonight!
Later, I went back to the hostel and sat down in the common room chatting with some of the guys there. A young lad from Dorset, Brandon, challenged me to a game of Scrabble... he'd lost just yesterday to a Dutch guy, so I didn't think too much of it. Rightly so. He then got beaten by the Dutch guy again.
Getting lateish, Brandon and I went down to the supermarket to get dinner. He was on a tight budget tonight so opted for some crappy food. I went for a prime cut of steak etc and a nice enough bottle of wine, a Norton Roble Malbec. That went down a treat.
We decided to head out for a few drinks later, along with the Dutch guy and one of the two Germans. Given that nothing happens before midnight at the earliest, we sat down to watch Terminator 2.
12.30, we moved out to El Jarro (means something like 'the tankard'). What a great, little place! Almost entirely full of Bariloche locals plus a couple of Italians in the corner and someone claiming to be from Buenos Aires behind us. An old chap was sitting at the front strumming his guitar, singing Argentian folk songs. This isn't Morris dancing pap. And he was very good. Later, he was replaced by a couple of slightly younger guys playing the same kind of music. Well, the night flowed on, so did the Quilmes and when the munchies came on, we starting ordering rounds of delicious meat empanadas.
Brandon revealed possibly the most ridiculous tatoo ever. He claimed it was a joke, the result of some bet: plastered across his belly, in gothic characters was 'Extreme!!'. He turned out to be anything but extreme, flinching at the slightly warm empanadas. By 2am, he was under the table and crawled home.
Around 4am, 3 Argentian guys came in, one wearing a River shirt. Along with Boca, River is one of the two top football clubs here, based in BA. They sat at the table next to us and we were soon chatting and taking the piss out of River, just because he was wearing the shirt and his friends were too. Soon enough we were best of mates. Mr. River was talking away to the German guy, both of them fully aware that he couldn't understand a word of Spanish.
They ended up paying for nearly our entire bar tab plus a whole load more empanadas. The night cost us around 30 pesos between us. At some point after 5am, the music finished and we headed out. On the way back, we decided to drop into a nightclub. I was walking ahead of the Belgian and German, with the 3 locals. When we got to the door, the doorman turned us away. We walked on, then turned and noticed the two other guys walking into the club. So we went back and asked why they'd been let in... apparently locals weren't allowed. I managed to get in after that.
I have no idea what time we got back to the hostel. It was light, so after 7am.Needless to say, I woke up late. About 1.45pm. My flight was 2 hours later. Quick shower, pack, pay and jump into taxi to the airport. Familiar story.
That's it for me and Patagonia on this trip. Sniff. Onto other adventures. Buenos Aires, next.
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