Growing and shrinking

One of the unexpected side-effects studying for my MBA is having for me, is that it keeps on growing and shrinking my world. Back when I was still working and merrily minding my own business, life was settled and fairly predictable. I was aware of the whole world out there, but that's exactly where it was: out there. Being here in London has expanded my physical and mental world beyond my wildest dreams. I'm learning about subjects, jobs, countries and markets that I couldn't even think up in my wildest dreams. And having a ball finding out and learning. And at the same time my world is shrinking. Subjects that seemed far off are all of a sudden incredibly relevant. Nuclear crisis in Iran affects me 'cause I now know someone from Iran and can discuss it with him. The FT all of a sudden is an interesting read, not a day goes by without finding an article about exactly the subject we discussed in class earlier that day. And I'm slowly but surely discovering that my passions can be turned into jobs, exciting me so much I can at times hardly contain myself.

Last Tuesday, some friends and I went to see and hear Oliver King speak at the British Library, which was interesting. Oliver King works for the Engine Group, a service design company (again one of those things I never knew existed, designing services? I always thought they sort of just happened), and his slide deck was definitely one of the most impressive I've ever seen, he used iconic images and only or two words on his slides (one image is worth more than a thousand words). He talked about invention and innovation and gave some insights and do's and dont's of innovation. His talk neatly tied in (although I'm sure that wasn't deliberate) with this week's Marketing Class about product development. Key takeaway from that Marketing lecture: many ideas are better than one idea.

On Wednesday night the Marketing Club hosted a panel of 2006 students who did an internship in marketing last summer. They talked about what exactly it was they did and where (ranged from American Express to Mattel, Discovery Networks to a startup bag designer), how they got their jobs (network your a**s off), and how they liked it (seemed a bit of a mixed bag, some clearly loved it, some didn't as much). The key things I thought were useful were:
* Network, network, network.
* Prepare well for typical Marketing interview questions (what is your favourite brand and why?).
* Be willing to work for less or nothing if an interesting opportunity presents itself.
* Know what you want to learn and get a good feel for if that particular internship will offer you those opportunities.

Yesterday the Programme Office held a session on the Exchange programme, and now I'm getting all excited about leaving London (seems like such a short while ago I was all excited about coming here!). There are 35 schools in the Exchange programme, ranging from the top-name US schools, to schools in Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Australia. I'm not sure what school I want to go to, so I'm diving into my research, which will also come in handy when writing the essays we have to hand in for each school we want to go to (you can only go to one, but you can apply for up to 3 schools). I'll keep you posted!