P3 is the busiest period here at INSEAD, and it promises to end with a big bang! This week, I have four papers due: IT on Monday, Macroeconomics on Wednesday, Investments on Thursday and Politics on Friday. And at the same time, the social calendar is completely full too: Tuesday is Cabaret, Wednesday is Section Dinner and Thursday is Montmelian Party.
Why I am still blogging then when I should be working, you ask? I guess I am addicted …
A couple of weeks back, I bumped into a former colleague of mine from Trilogy, the enterprise software company I used to work for in 2000/2001. The meeting was pure coincidence – he is currently working in the IT department of INSEAD as a freelancer.
He came up with the idea of a Trilogy Alumni reunion in Paris, and it worked out quite well. So last Wednesday evening, nine of us had dinner, and it was good to see so many familiar faces after all these years.
Laurent M., Matthieu, Pascal, Emmanuel, Raphael, Kamal, Conan, Laurent G. and myself (f.l.t.r.) at the Trilogy Alumni Dinner in Paris
Except myself, all of them are still based in Paris, although one is about to start his PhD in Finance at Princeton. Current employers of the people at the table ranged from Koalog and Lombardi to Salesforce.com and – of course – Google. The big G seems to be in major hiring mode at the moment, as an ever growing number of my friends (especially ex-Trilogians) have joined their ranks lately.
BTW, we went to Les Deux Canards in the 10th arrondissement, and although the waiter was highly entertaining, I was disappointed with their food. The foie gras we started off with was too oily for my taste, and the following canard aux miel d’orange, supposingly their signature food, was a bit bland. I expect more at this price level.
Update: If you are willing to spend (quite) a bit more, have a look at this review of Paris restaurants by Chris Keene who taught my “Venture Opportunities and Business Models” class here at INSEAD.
Categories: English · Paris · Trilogy · dinner · restaurants
Last Sunday evening, a couple of my classmates organized the Love Cruise. They got a big boat to ship us up and down the Seine river through Paris while we were partying away on the deck.
Besides drinks and sandwiches, we also had groovy music on board. In short, we all had a blast – I wonder why nobody had ever thought of this before. And I still can’t believe I missed those strippers …
Categories: English · Love Cruise · party · pictures
As promised a while back, here are some pictures from the INSEAD Summer Ball, which took place on May 27 in the Château de Courances. The weather was gorgeous, and so were my classmates, all dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns.
About 1,500 students, alumni, faculty and staff were there. Unfortunately, the catering company did not anticipate their aggregate demand, so we ran out of champagne even before midnight. Despite this misfortune, everyone kept up the good spirits and danced until the early morning hours – a night to remember.
Categories: English · INSEAD · MBA · Summer Ball · pictures
Spirits are high here in Fontainebleau – not least thanks to the German Team after their victory over Costa Rica this afternoon. Yes, the defense needs to get much better for us to reach the final, but the offense made us cheer from start to finish – well done Philipp, Miro and Torsten!
Moreover, I finally secured an internship for the summer – I will be working at Yahoo! Germany in Munich in July and August. My interview with their Vice President for Central Europe last week went really well, and now I am looking forward to get an inside view into one of the most established Internet brands. Last year, Yahoo! had a global reach of almost half a billion unique users per month across its highly diversified product range.
On a similar note, Yahoo’s main competitor Google recently graduated yet another interesting service from their labs: Google Spreadsheets, an online Excel clone with an AJAX interface. Combine this with one of their latest acquisitions, Writely, and one can see that the rumours about an online competitor to Microsoft Office may no just be rumours after all. Interesting stuff!
Categories: English · Google · Soccer · World Cup · Yahoo! · internship
This is the blog of Michael Ohr, an MBA alumnus of 