Clearly time is not the essence for everyone.

Joyeuses Fêtes!

Does the way we think influence our language?
Think french!

Sailing in Canada,

on the rocks!

Captain Truman Seymour, ..

.. a lean, introspective Yankee ...

Nespresso Variations

... like swimming in the collective thoughts of both Roald Dahl and Tim Burton.

(T. Blair)

We have lovely bathrooms!!

Monday, 1:30pm, interview with Nespresso Canada! Quoi d'autre!
I'm excited, look at this!

Think about your (next) job.

Is it offshoreable?

Perhaps the most acute need, given the long lead-times, is to figure out how to educate children now for the jobs that will actually be available to them 10 and 20 years from now. Unfortunately, since the distinction between personal services (likely to remain in rich countries) and impersonal services (likely to go) does not correspond to the traditional distinction between high-skilled and low-skilled work, simply providing more education cannot be the whole answer.

As the transition unfolds, the number of people in the rich countries who will feel threatened by foreign job competition will grow enormously. It is predictable that they will become a potent political force in each of their countries.

...

Large-scale offshoring of impersonal-service jobs from rich countries to poor countries may also bear on the relative economic positions of the United States and Europe. The more flexible, fluid American labor market will probably adapt more quickly and more successfully to dramatic workplace and educational changes than the more rigid European labor markets will.

Alan S. Blinder, 2006

Ever heard of a brand terr...ier?

Hit it, Dave!
And fasten your seatbelts!

Measure of the day: GDP

absolute vs. per capita & against life expectancy

Hopp Schwiiz!

Today: Final Exam!

Budgetary Control.
Cost Allocation, Transfer Pricing, Investment Centers, Balanced Scorecard.
EVA, ABC. MBA.

-----

Last weekend, I went to Toronto. But I didn't go to Toronto like any of you people would got to Toronto. I made a Budget. ... I'm an accountant ;)

Part of my budget was about how much I would spend on gas, so I looked up the distance and I multiplied that with my mileage and I came up with a number. And I said to my wife "look, that's how much I'll spend on gas this time".

Along the way to Toronto I saw a plate "Kingston". And I said to myself "Kingston is a fun place, let's stop there and have lunch". And there is that big university and a bunch of people I know...

I never went to Toronto that weekend.

After I returned back home, the first thing my wife asked me was "how much did you spend on gas?" ... and that was exactly the question I was hoping for ;) I'm an accountant..

Alexandre Mersereau

Today: Two Final Exams!

'Statistics' vs. 'Organisational Design and Processes'.

Fuzzy Stuff ;)

Today: Final Exam!

Macroeconomics.

A rise in TFP increases labour demand.
And the ultimate reason for inflation is money being printed, banks using seignorage as revenues.
Sky is the limit.

Corporate B.S.

is art.

The pressures of the workplace ..

.. hardly encourage thoughtful action. Managers need to slow down and reflect.

Henry Mintzberg

Rather than rejoicing ..

.. in great improvements in health, Americans seem to be emphasizing how far away they still are from immortality.

Peter Drucker

A good manager and a good father..

.. have much in common, I believe.

For those interested in MBAs ..

London, Ontario

The Ivey Business Plan Competition

If this sounds strange, ..

.. then look up the next time a flock of geese flies by in V formation. The leadership changes periodically, as the goose in the front gets tired and falls back. No doubt all the other geese find the one in the lead greatly empowering, perhaps even terribly charismatic - for a while.

If geese can rotate their leadership, and bees can work vigorously without having to be empowered by their Queen (which is our label, not theirs), then surely we human beings can achieve such levels of sophistication.

Henry Mintzberg, Managing.

The Uncertainty Principle of Cost Management

... a continuing concern in the design of control systems should be whether behaviour induced by the system is consistent with the strategy.

By Govindarajan and Shank.

link of the day

VBL

Today: Two Final Exams!

'Being a Manager and a Strategist',
hopefully capable of speaking
'The Accounting Language'.

Not too sure about the grades this time..

Period 2, I'm coming!
OMG, it starts all over!

Today: Final Exam!

'Models and Decision Making'.
Everything less than 94% would be disappointing.

Today: Final Exam!

'Managerial Economics'.
I don't feel too bad, hope to reach 80%.

Old accountants never die..

.. they just lose balance.

No second chance

.. to make first impression.
Allow Montréal to make it in autumn.

Future is that unpleasant situation in period 3.

It's as simple as that.
See you in the near future!

full moon

If you come home after a 14-hour day, had just two muffins and a couple of vanilla-hazelnut coffees, work for another three hours and end up blogging because you still have too much energy to go to bed, you might have had an inspiring interview with an Entrepreneur from Montreal.

Yet it might also be the coffee ... ;)

ps: if you lose the big picture now and then, try VirtuaWin.

the mot juste

.. yet another dictionary!

According to A. Zaleznik ..

My personal selection from 'The human dilemmas of leaderhip'.

• True humility is marked by the person who thinks his way through problems, is willing to be assertive, realistic enough to encourage assertiveness from others, and willing to acknowledge the superiority of ideas presented by others.
• Selectivity implies the capacity to say no without the sense that one has lost.
• The effective utilization of energy seems to involve a rhythmic pattern of alternating between quite different modes or cycles of response. The prototype of alternating modes is probably best found in the comparison of wakefulness and sleep. Wakefulness suggests activity, conscious attention to problems, and the tension of concentration and action. Sleep is the epitome of passivity in the adult as well as in the child; here concerns are withdrawn from the outside world to a state of inner bliss. In this passive state the organism is rejuvenated and made ready for a new cycle of activity.

tout le monde

espace monde

Day 12: Tout que manque c'est la pratique.

Hello world,
in terms of French I'm still a complete illiterate, too good for HEC's 'French on Fridays' though. I'll now turn to Concordia. ..becoming a real Quebecois, having studied 3 Universities ;)

By the way, for german-speaking ears, 'pratique' would be pronounced 'bra(e)-dsiegh' in this country. Oh yes, with a fairly flamboyant S in the middle. I start to like it..

I'm more and more happy with the MBA, probably because I can (start to) hope to be able to manage it all. Still I think they teach something that cannot be taught. The course content itself is not extremely demanding, but at the same time the courses are becoming the smallest part.

I'm still waiting for the real stuff to come, tough nuts to crack, but I haven't yet come across any. At least in an MBA I expected some. ..probably I would even have been able to study maths ;)

However, let's get started, with a sunny view to southwest, over some HEC sportsground.

Autumn has come, by the way..

ps: the local mobile phone world

Day 9: .. the lore to see the difference.

I lost a lens this weekend, a Tamron 17-55 2.8. Simply left it behind, on a table on a public parking spot, in bright afternoon. I still can't believe it.

Forgetting, leaving behind, loosing, missing, searching, ... I want to move on in life, but the constant hassle with the ordinary keeps me busy.

To change what I can change,
to leave what I cannot change,
and the lore to see the difference.

However, there is no use crying over spilt milk.
The MBA advances and I'm trying to avoid falling behind right from the start.

Looking forward,
Mike

Day 3: Essentially, all models are wrong.

But some are useful.

Manager and Strategist vs. Models and Decision Making. Two teachers at the very extremes of the scale!

I realised I might sometimes have been a little bit too fast when teaching Excel; from a students point of view it might be hard to follow. Even for MBAs, quite astonishingly.

Today the MBA got a little bit easier. Let's try to make use of the potential time saved..

Breathe..

Day 2: Starting off with Courses..

Today's Menu:
'Management Skills' and 'The Accounting Language'.

Papers, group assignments, readings, preparation, mid-term presentations ... time management is becoming an issue here. I'd better go and get the management simulation hand-ins done ;)

Day 1: 100%

Day one.

Highlight was the Information Session, held by the director of the programme. Bottom line: give your best, then we'll do our best to support you. Try to find the equilibrium though, some work-life-balance. The trick is to keep breathing ;)

I think this is going to be a amazing experience.

Day -3: 11 %

Hello world!
'Day minus three' of my MBA @ HEC Montréal.

I decided to blog about my MBA and I think it's time to get started. After finishing the so-called intensive week I think it's a goofy idea, though.

The intensive week is a team-competition on a management simulation called Globstrat. Target is to maximise the share value of a company after a 6-year period, crunched down to 3 days. Competitive, exhausting, fuzzy. The winner did 255%, we had some 11% :(

However ... this is it. Here we go!
See you tomorrow..

ps: must have lost my bank card just two hours ago. This is terrific start ;)