Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Spring? or something

Well today was the first day of our last official term of classes. Amazing how fast an intensive, 1-year programme goes by. But now that we head into the final 5 months, I can say that I do not regret choosing a one-year programme at all. It seems the perfect amount of time to spend going back to the books, learning about the world from classmates, undertaking interesting projects (and not having an income!). It was plenty of time to bond closely with many of our 104 classmates, and I know already that I have made friends for life. (Also great for international travel as they have their roots in places ranging from Argentina to Canada to Portugal to Nigeria to Jordan to Australia etc etc).

Anyway a new term began today, and from here on out we have Corporate Governance class, in which we discussed the downfall of Enron and all of the implications post-Enron, and 4 electives each. I am taking Capital Markets, Marketing Communication, Social Enterprise, and Global MacroEconomics.

This is the first term we've had without full, 9-5 packed days of lecture, so the attitude is more relaxed. I am looking forward to more time to go to the gym or run errands since I'll have at least a few afternoons off a week. Everyone is enjoying re-uniting after a month off doing MCP projects, and we're planning a welcome back BBQ at our house on Saturday. If the rain stays away that is!! Despite some great glimpses of spring, this week is drizzly and dreary...

Friday, April 22, 2005

3AM pizza, fondue & raw food... consultant style

I am writing in a state of relief and exhaustion, having just finished our final presentation to ABB in Switzerland. Our MCP (Major consulting project) took place over the past 4 weeks, of which we spent 2 in Cambridge and 2 in Zurich working with ABB headquarters.

To put things into perspective, my teammate Kuoshen summarized our thanks to ABB and our experiences on the project through saying "we've learned a lot about electronic invoicing and corporate projects, and we've also learned that the security cards distributed to us still work at 3am...." ah the life of a consultant.

So if anything I write now is not coherent, excuse the sleepy brain cells trying to compose thoughts in the wake of dreaming about how to structure our presentation and challenges of electronic invoicing implementation from a corporate level.

The project overall was quite interesting, especially compared to the initial perceptions I had. As one of the project sponsors put it, "electronic invoicing is probably not the sexiest project...." What I did like about it was the broad reach of issues touched on, and the relevance of the technology challenges to any business. We dealt with issues including outsourcing, fragmentation/decentralization of business and IT infrastructure, cross-border transactions, Sarbanes-Oxley and accounting standards, finance efficiency, resistance to change, and corporate culture.

So what am i on about with regards to fondue and raw food? oh just a few memories from our Swiss whirlwind... our first night there, we were determined to be authentic and sampled an over-abundance of cheese, fondue, raclette... no more! It will be a long while before I have that desire again.

Then we had an ongoing dichotomy in the group with Munmun loving raw food, and Kenny loving well-done food. This was a challenge to convey to the German-speaking waiter when ordering meat; he became so confused with the gestures and attempts to convey the desired meat temperature that at one point he resorted to acting out the idea of a cow...in case we weren't sure what we were ordering!

The struggle continued as Munmun was determined to get sushi for Kenny, and when he asked the Japanese waitress if the sushi rolls were cooked, she told him "oh no we don't cook the cucumber" in a concerned voice. Sampling of carpaccio (thinly sliced raw beef) was part of the trip, along with conversations about Asian delicacies that practically run off the plate. We also tried ostrich, lots of lamb and veal, and seafood including octupus and squid (new for Kenny). And had plenty of asparagus; they seemed to be obsessed with it in Switzerland....

as for consulting, while I loved the adrenaline, the challenge, the problem-solving aspects of it, I am pretty sure the lifestyle is not for me!! I doubt I had a night where my dreams were not filled with electronic-invoicing and ABB for instance.

I did love Switzerland though...hmmm, food for future thought...

Thursday, April 21, 2005


Fondue as described! (munmun and kenny) Posted by Hello

Thursday, April 07, 2005


ABB offices Posted by Hello

Monday, April 04, 2005


check out these professionals! (Ryan, Kenny, Kuoshen) Posted by Hello