London Business School MBA 2012. Introduction.

It took me a while to accommodate in London and get used to going to school again. But here I am, a proud member of the London MBA class of 2012. Two months into the programme and I still do not know every student from my 400 strong class. The main theme of these two months on my mind was - diversity. Since one figure says a 1,000 words, here is a raw cut on the class statistics:
Number of students - 400
Average age - 28
Nationalities - 62
Non-UK - 89%
Before the classes begin, we are split into 5 streams. Every stream consists of 12-13 study groups. My first encounter with my study group was in August during the orientation week. There are a Brazilian banker, an Italian consultant, an American engineer, a British PR executive, an Israeli helicopter pilot-turned-entrepreneur, and last but not least, me, a Ukrainian businessman in the group. It is hard to think about more diverse melting pot of cultures we are thrown into. We all have different backgrounds and working styles. During the next year, until electives start and everyone will have to choose his/her own path, we will spend late nights working on assignments together, bond and party, and, as a result, get to know each other better.
I am looking forward to my MBA journey!

An idea that won't fly...

When I was shown into an unusually well filled AirBerlin plane to Düsseldorf this morning, I realised how it looks like when Lufthansa pilots go on strike. Lots of Lufthansa passengers who could not postpone their trips decided to opt for the competing flight.
Not a friend of unions, I was amused how a union action to call on a strike produced a positive impact on the environment, albeit unforeseen. Do not send two simultaneous planes where one will do!

Oranges and lemons in Ukraine

It was a title of a Financial Times article yesterday. Sadly, many international media misinterpreted the goals of the 2004 Orange revolution. With the recent election victory for Mr. Yanukovich, the past looser of the Orange revolution, some media claimed it a defeat to the Orange revolution.
What the media failed to recognize, the Orange revolution was not for Mr. Juschenko (who was ushered into the presidential office in early 2005) or against Mr. Yanukovich. The Orange revolution was against fraud and for democracy. And as a majority of independent observers attest today, the recent election was transparent and fair. I consider it the most valuable achievement of the outgoing president.

Missing out...

On the 8 December 2009, Economist Intelligence Unit in cooperation with Siemens AG published their European Green City Index of the 30 European city's in 30 countries.

Disturbing news for me was that Kyiv featured the very bottom spot in the overall rank and in 5 categories out of total 8.

The National Radio Company of Ukraine, one of the leading public news agencies, decided the news is not worth mentioning in Ukrainian prior to the general presidential election in January 2010 and only released it in German language.

Moreover, what I find even more appalling, is that the Agency's English web site managed to present the listing in the index as an achievement for the city, saying under the headline "Kyiv found among greenest cities in Europe": "...Kyiv is the only CIS city to have been inscribed into the TOP30 European Green City Index...".

The full report, can be downloaded here.

Authorities are waving the Google Wave off

The German Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) continued its bashing of Google's products in one of its late quarterly reports. The Google Mail, Docs, Calendar and other Google's online services were long criticised on data privacy protection grounds. This time the hyped Google Wave was in focus. According to the Federal Office, those who opt for using the Google Wave will lose control of their data that eventually end up being stored on the private company's servers.

From my point of view, this case reaffirms the need for discussion of the privacy issue. On one hand, the growing trend towards now ubiquitous cloud-computing takes a lot of headache off the internet users by providing web space, technology and free marketing in the sense of network externality effects. For example, I can use one of myriads readily available and free templates to easily set up a blog even without tons of knowledge about HTML programming (previously a prerequisite). Such and other conveniences lead to that ever more data are stored in the cloud.

On the other hand, it is true, that according to current regulation, opting for the cloud solution, I inevitably forgo the copyrights on my thoughts, videos, pictures. Occasionally, this might lead to awkward situations, should unwanted content make to such clouds. It becomes then extremely difficult to retrieve the potentially discrediting artifacts from the public display. At the times when every self respecting HR officer does a googling of candidates, many people would rather retain the ability to control their on-line brands.

Having never been at mercy of a cloud provider myself (thankfully), I still recognise that a debate over a new framework to regulate the relationships between the citizens and internet companies should be started. An upgraded global version should stipulate that those who create content or feature in it should have access and the power to amend or delete it. The Federal Office for Information Security is well positioned to become a catalizer of such change in Europe for starters. This would be a proud fact to mention in its future annual report along the lines where it praises itself for being of the same rank in the graduates' barometer with the likes of Siemens, Microsoft and ... Google.

Fine their way out...

At last the Ukrainian government found a solution to finance its way out of the current financial misery. And this is one of those odd moments when I support the initiative with one hand. Having raised fines for all sorts of traffic offense, our politicians want to discipline the drivers, make the roads safer and secure increased budget revenue.

Nevertheless, as an economist, I have my reservations regarding any monetary incentive. Since certain kind of abuse will be penalized relatively higher than others it is not clear if the law enforcement officers will not get biased to catch offenders in those areas, since this will crop them more cash. Other small offends that remain relatively low-yielding will be simply neglected.

Moreover, another area of concern is the monetary discipline of the government itself. In the recent past it wasn't famed for cool-headed decisions. Instead of investing in the long-term development and innovation, most of proceeds from the privatization, for instance, were handed out in a momentuous hope to win electorate simpathy, what eventually led to higher inflation.

I will support the reform with my second hand only after I see how the government spends the current windfall (which is likely to be temporary anyway).

Milestone 1

The first milestone in my personal project was accomplished on October, 15th. The next one is due in January, but I need to start preparing already now for it. It is not going to be easy to combine personal commitments with extensive travelling. For the next several months a small Swedish town, not far from Stockholm, will become my second home. The design phase is over and now we are getting down to business. I hope to learn from the first-hand experience, since this is my first international project of such a scale. Learning I will be also doing in Hamburg in November, since my company is sponsoring one week of highly demanding training conducted by the SAP.
My Swedish apartment is a show-room from IKEA shop. Even artificial flowers are from the retailer. In general all is very practical. Moreover, the location is really convenient. The flat is 15-minute walk from the office or 10-minute walk from the gym. The next thing I'll do - buy myself a membership card there. No hibernation this winter.

No love for the bailout

Breaking news from the financial markets was just aired on the CNN – the biggest single-day drop in DOW. Last time similar fall was in 1987, again long into republican presidency. I start to think it’s a tendency. On one side, the Republican Party ideology preaches avoiding government intrusion into market affairs because it sounds too socialistic - all the bailouts and nationalizations. On the other hand, can you trust the Wall Str. sharks can restrain themselves from any self-destructive action? I would argue the Darwin theory prevails. This is what the current crisis is proving.

Trip to Vietnam

This has been several weeks since we returned from our trip to South-East Asia and I decided to finally sort out our pictures and select a few for this post. Out of 2000+ photos I short-listed 250 and still not sure which ones I should upload here...

Here are a few for the record. More to come...

This one was taken in Hanoi from a roof-top-cafe at night. Delicious food, tasty beer and fabulous view...

This image was taken on a street in Hanoi. Viet Nam is relatively young country with average population age about 25 years. One third of the population is below 14 years old.

One of the places we visited was Ha Long Bay -- Bay of Rising Dragon. It is protected under UNESCO Wolrd Heritage Programme. The saying goes that once a Dragon landed here and defeated the Viet Nam's enemies. The rocks are the shells from dragon's eggs...

I will try to put my memories into a detailed report here. At the moment I am not sure when I will have time for it. I am working on an important project now and it is priority 1 for me.

Thán từ (Hello)

Soon-very-soon comes well earned vacation. I am really looking forward to it. Not only because it is summer and I am supposed to rest and refuel energy for cooler periods, but also because we are going on our annual trip. This time we are flying to South-East Asia and spending two and a half weeks in Vietnam and Cambodia. It's going to be my first trip to Asia, but considering how much I like Asian food, I wonder why I haven't gone there earlier.
I am eager to put our brand-new Nikon to test, eat freshly cooked food on the street, and sightsee.

Leaving Duisburg - 2

Nice to be back home!
Everything is familiar, you do all the things intuitively and can finally switch off your brain in the evening before going to bed.

What I enjoy in my project work is that we have around 10 nations working close together. It is fun not only to work, but also to go out with the colleagues. You find out something you never knew about different cultures:
1/ one Swedish mile equals 10 km
2/ in India selling alcohol is prohibited (disclaimer: at least in some parts of the country)
3/ not all Indians eat hot meal (personal observation)

Working with so many different nationalities offers you a good opportunity also to share your own culture and tradition of your country (I am definitely a minority in the project, being the only Ukrainian). So it is only natural for me, occasionally though, to use the pages of this blog to promote my cultural heritage.
To be continued...