(Post) MBA Blog

My lord,

One little blizzard and this country grinds to a halt. To be fair, it's crazy outside. I stepped out for 10 minutes and got the brunt of it, and it was brutal; I couldn't even ride my bike.

I had to pick today to sign up with the dentist and visit the doctor. Of all days, today!

Man, no wonder the British Empire spread across half of Africa and Asia - the Brits just wanted to warm up a bit!

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Kings hosted the black tie dinner for the 50K entrepreneurs competition on the 16th. I went along, with 3 entries at stake, and not a hope of winning any of them.

Worse, I completely forgot to invite Nathan along, even though he was my wing man on one of the entries. I felt really bad about that, but then tucked into my melon starter.

Amazingly, I won...nothing. I'm getting surprisingly used to losing on this MBA. I've lost every squash match (2), every football match (10) and every entrepreneurial competition (1) I have taken part in.

Tim got through to the next round, teamed up with Jeremy. Shu also got through. I nearly chocked as his team's new CEO walked up to accept the prize; Shu had asked me to be his CEO about two weeks earlier and I had politely declined. Nilimah got through; I had started her off by photocopying some fluff about writing business plans. Seems it worked. Greg got through, even though I had spent the best part of ten minutes explaining to him why his idea wouldn't work.

Anyone of a cynical dispossition might call me a loser.

Seperately, just as I was starting to develop a cynical dispossition, my team won the WHO knowledge management project, which was being contested internally by another MBA team. Hardly the Oscars, but at least it's ended my losing streak.

Bring on the Table Tennis!

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Last Friday was the highlight of the season - The Magdalene Ceilidh (mad Scottish dance). Dinner with Sarah, Erik, Valerie and Jorge, then joined another 20 MBAs for the dance, largely because I had told them nobody knew the steps. I wasn't far wrong.

I had given Erik, Val and Jorge a super hard time earlier...

Me, glasses lowered, social diary opened "So, Erik, I see you put your name down for the Magdalene formal?"
Erik, excited "Oh yes!"
Me "There are lots of names down. You do know that?"
Erik, worried "Oh, yes"
Me "You do really want to go, don't you?"
Erik "Oh yes, yes!"
Me "Hmmm......"

(appropriate dramatic pause)

Me, smiling paternally "Okay, you can come"
Erik "Oh YES! YES! YES!"

And so it went, with all the other dinner guests. For one brief moment, I held their very happiness in my hands, and I was utterly smitten with the power. Please, don't ever make me president, not matter how much you want to.

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This is it, the one we've all been waiting for people!

So it didn't snow at Christmas, we can forgive that. Cambridge has finally come through for us with 4 inches of the powder overnight.

Cycling in was equal parts superior technique, luck and fine balance. I didn't get killed once! I was amazed.

I stopped about 5 times to take photos of the colleges and photos of the dozens of people taking photos of colleges. Heck, some were probably taking photos of me taking photos of them!

Ran into my flatmate James, hauling his tripod and SLR across the courtyard of Magdalene, just as I was done with my old, digital brick. We 'swapped' tips and moved on, searching for the next hit. Man, his are going to come out so much better than mine!

Got a few of Kings (didn't everyone?!), the Cam and Trumpington St. Ran into Emmanuel on the way, who rather annoyingly managed to effortlessly pick out great shots for me to snap. He didn't even have a camera!

I would have got there in the end though! Was nearly late for the coach taking us on our factory tour. If you've never seen a factory from the inside, it's a lot like a supermarket (shelves, stackers, trolleys, bored faces, conveyers), just with more screwdrivers.

Now there's a (shallow) thought: to what extent are supermarkets merely retail factories where we do all the work, and pay for the privilege?

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One of the nice things about an MBA is that - if your school is any good - you get to study a case and at the end of the class: lo and behold! it's one of the main characters from the case sitting there at the back, listening in.

That's pretty much what happened to us after cracking a case on Channel 4 (upmarket UK TV channel). We were invited to question him afterward in the main lecture theatre. At some point I decided to give him a hard time. I think it was The Charlotte St Connection; that's where Channel 4 used to be based, and where I used to hang out as a philosophy undergad at UCL, and finally, where I broke up with a very special lady, all those years ago...

I think what really triggered it was the three corporate slogans he showed us, something like:
1 Make trouble
2 Do it first and
3 Enact change

Him"who are our main competitors"
Me "channel 5"
Him "why"
Me "because they make more trouble than you and do things first, and if those are your core-competencies, then you're in trouble"
Him: silence

Hmmm, not sure I wanted that job in media anyway, becasue I'm certainly not going to be offered one now.

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