Hurray! This week we started 3rd Module! And already understood what strategic place it will take in our student lives: Business Strategy, Corporate Strategy, Strategic Human Resource Management, as well as Corporate Finance and Sustainable Business… No wonder, that as a gift for our studies we will receive Summer Break in July! To motivate my classmates, I would like to post some photos from Easter Break, which ended only a month ago ☺ And inspire summer vacation plans: Berlin is in heart of Europe – choose any destination you like and start your journey!

 

Monica, Ketan and Shweta in Köln

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gerardo, Ian and Bettina in Egypt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naty in Petra and Jerusalem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adeline in Hogwarts? And at Easter Eggs Exhibition in London

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Svetlin sent us photo from Bulgaria

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gerard from Verona

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kunal and Steven travelled to Poland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, Berlin is the place to be: Mukesh, Aditya, Ajat, Virginie, Manisha and Shubham

How many energy saving tips can you name right now? And how many of them can you start doing immediately and at no-cost?

I can help you: air dry dishes instead of using your dishwasher’s drying cycle, wash only full loads of clothes, check that windows and doors are closed when heating or cooling your home or office, take showers instead of baths, and of course turn things off when you are not in the room (lights, TVs, computers etc.).

Sounds simple, but do you really remember and follow these simple rules? Now we do!

Thanks to Angel, Kunal and Soledad – who brought one of the Social Impact Club initiatives into life – we have these nice and cute reminders in every study room.

Recently Social Impact Club had Lunch Discussion with representatives of Accenture Sustainability Services: Balkan Cetinkaya – Manager of Accenture Sustainability Services DACH Sustainable Supply Chain Lead, and Mihai Streza – Manager of Accenture Sustainability Services DACH Electric Vehicles Lead.

We could ask all questions we had about sustainability services offered by company, motivation of clients to be sustainable and how this can have impact on society and environment, can sustainability be measured and linked with profitability, and of course evaluation of current business approach towards being sustainable while facing economic crisis challenges.

And certainly Mr. Cetinkaya and Mr. Streza shared with us their vision of Accenture Sustainability services and how future MBA candidates can become part of it.

Crossing the first hurdle (Module 1) was a relief and it was time to let the hair down. That’s when BergFest came in. BergFest is an occasional event, organized by MBA students, when students and staff of ESMT gather to have fun; fun includes music & dance, food & drinks. Social Impact Club took the initiative to organize 2013’s first BergFest. It was themed ‘Latin’.

The event began with a solo guitar performance (Javier) and dance tutorials (Natalia) in salsa.
Social Impact Club also called for donations and generous people opened their pockets.

Ajat was behind the camera.

One of the last sessions of Introduction to Marketing course Professor Sumitro Banerjee devoted to simulation. Everyone acted as an executive for manufacturing company: finally we could take “the driver’s seat” after all classes and try our knowledge. I spent half of my weekend to get more points in simulation choosing different strategies and trying different concepts learnt in class.
I should guiltily admit that before starting marketing classes I was really sceptical about it: I never worked in this field and supposedly I will have no opportunity to do so, as I am completely in love with Finance:), I always thought that marketing is all about fun and advertising.

I am really happy that very practical teaching approach and case studies gave me opportunity to see the beauty of marketing, and I am now completely fascinated by tools and techniques, which help to measure efforts and performance of marketing teams and campaigns.
Simulation was a real moment to check how theory works and how strategy chosen from the very beginning can affect company performance.
At the moment I am already envying next year MBAs, as they will have very inspiring journey through marketing. I really hope it will be a spellbinding captivation as well.

Why are you here? I asked myself this question a couple of times during these past few months of MBA. It’s clear that a sudden sense of lost of the comfort and safety I use to have is blurring my view and makes me forget why I took the decision in the first place.
Everyday assures me more and more I’m in the right place, at the right time. Everyday is a learning experience, far beyond what is taught inside the classroom. The true learning is continuously pouring from the diversity of such a great group of kind, intelligent and succeeded people, coming from more than 20 different countries. This diversity gives me some meaningful learning almost everyday.
Therefore, I don’t even have to look for the answers to the question I started this writing with. The answers keep approaching me all the time. I just need to grasp them all and thus take the most out of the experience.
As I particularly perceive now, it’s probably not so meaningful to state a point of view as either right or wrong, as what really distinguishes one’s opinion is how it can be arguable or not. It’s probably not so meaningful to weave (in a glimpse) any judgment about whomever, as what often makes the difference is just how willing we are to better know the person.
These impressions may look rather trivial, but are now gaining a different perspective to me.

I recall one graph shown in one of our first class sessions. It described the motivation cycle of a regular full time MBA student throughout the year. It started with a high enthusiasm that plummeted somewhere during the 3rd or 4rd month and then gradually rebounded towards high levels during the whole last quarter. When I first saw the plot I immediately though – hey, this is not me! I’m totally out of this behavior! I’ve never felt such a high enthusiasm! But I know I’m living a steadily upwards motivation curve though, and it will take me towards the same level of motivation and fulfillment, typical of such a rich experience as this one.
Hence, regardless of how you live the MBA experience, as long as your main goals – it doesn’t necessarily mean the only ones – are to get out of your comfort zone, to be challenged and to grow as a person, the result will be highly rewarding and fulfilling.
And more than two months are already gone. It’s amazing how fast the time is passing by (and It will be even faster from now on, as the snow is hopefully about to melt, thus welcoming a real springtime .

Best wishes of a nice spring break to everybody.

Cheers
Hugo

Last month Social Impact Club organized first “Lunch Discussion Table”.

Virginie Bonnell invited Director and CEO, Ecologic Institute, Berlin Andreas Kraemer to present Institute and share his ideas on sustainable development with members of MBA 2013 class.

We started with a film „Tour through a Knowledge Garden – Ecologic in five minutes,“ then proceeded to current projects initiated and supported by Ecologic Institute.
We really hope, that all students will support this initiative, and we are all waiting for the next “Lunch Discussion Table”.

All of marketing is a battle of perception, not products! More specifically, marketing is about positioning the product or service in a positive light in the minds of the consumers that each company wants to reach. Because consumers are bombarded with so many messages on a daily basis, they routinely sift through the “noise.” According to the “Selective Perception Marketing”, consumers actively block or modify messages that conflict with their values and attitudes.
If we take two people who witness a single event and ask them about what happened, they will likely give different stories according to their values, ideas, attitudes, thoughts, roles and statuses. In other words, people selectively perceive what they expect and hope to see. Colgate very successfully applied this finding in its advertising campaign in order to promote a new product. At the image everybody observed the food on the teeth of the man and nobody observed that the woman has 6 fingers! The purpose of this campaign was to persuade the consumers that a problem at somebody’s teeth is more observable than anything else. Due to the nature of the product (dental care) everybody expected to see a brilliant smile and for this reason, they focused on the mouth without paying attention at the whole image.
That’s why creativity makes the difference!

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“Most people live…few exist” – Oscar Wilde

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Just now I had been informed that a new batch started today the full-time MBA program at ESMT.  A group of 50 students – the largest ever and growing.

A warm and dear welcome to all of you.

Today reading the news I had to laugh at this picture posted on the online version of one of Berlin’s newspapers and could not refrain from sharing this with you – our new MBAs – with the hope that you have fun (don’t panic that often), that not many tears flow (cannot guarantee they will not), work hard (this is a must) and be fair (so fairness comes back to you) on those 70+ hours weeks to come.

Looking forward to many bergfests : )

Sincerely,

Maria Vázquez

MBA, ESMT Alumna 2008

Source: Tagesspiegel, “Gezettelt in Berlin”, 13.Jan.2013