OK, so I checked out BusinessWeek's slides on the top non-US business schools, knowing very well that Queen's School of Business had grabbed the first place for the third time in a row (2004, 2006 and 2008). My surprise was to see the banner on the top of the page:

Mannheim is investing quite a lot in marketing. We have seen them on Facebook, I have seen them on the schedule leaflets on the ICE trains to Mannheim and now, BW.
I guess that all is good, after all, the better the Mannheim name is known in the business world, more valuable my Mannheim MBA degree gets.

Thanks to Sascha, MBS FTMBA08, now there is a network for the Mannheim Business School on Facebook.

If you have an e-mail @mba-mannheim.com, you can join. 

Go to:

• Settings
• Networks
• Type "Mannheim Business School" in the "Newtork name:" field
• Fill in the details
• Click on "join network"
• Check your MBS e-mail for a confirmation link

That's it. 

BTW, I highly recommend you to send an e-mail to the IT guys and ask them to forward your MBS e-mail to your personal account. I use it with Gmail, it works like a charm.

Jalal just posted this:

It was fun!

Last year we were not able to attend the graduation ceremony of the Mannheim FT MBA 2007, as we were already scattered around the globe, having the first subjects of our own course.
This year things are somewhat different, and we have students staying in Mannheim for their complete MBA. So they were able to attend our ceremony and even our party afterwards. It was cool to meet them by chance yesterday and see them officially for the first time today. It is a pity that this will also probably be the last time that the two classes meet in such big numbers, but I am happy to say that they are a really cool bunch of guys. And there is even another Brazilian to make things a bit more fun!

 

Welcome guys and girls and all the best for your MBA! Don't forget to learn how to row, go the the Schneckenhof parties, check out the Hafenstrand bar in the summer, eat takeout food from Mr. Chang, watch videos in the classrooms in N2 and go to the Pfalz for some wine tasting.

And the ceremony was really nice, the "Rittersaal" at the Mannheim University Palace was a great place to celebrate it.

 

And the party afterwards was even nicer! I am still coming down from the thrill of it, I had a blast and was very happy to meet new people, enjoy the company of good friends and have my cousin representing my family.

 

All groups have handed in their dissertations (as you can see in the picture) and most of the groups have done all their presentations too. So, this week is dedicated to finishing things in Mannheim. My group still has to prepare the results for the company (we'll meet one last time next week in Hanau), but most people are going after their own things: job search, apartment search, vacating the apartments in Mannheim, buying dresses and shirts for the graduation ceremony, receiving relatives who have already arrived for the party on Friday, etc.
We are also slowly saying our goodbyes. Yesterday we had a nice get-together at Markus' place, on Sunday I even went rowing one last time, tomorrow some people are meeting in Frankfurt, Thursday is Hafenstrand and Schneckenhof double party night and Friday is Friday.
Personally, I am moving to Darmstadt first and have 3 or 4 interviews scheduled in the next 10 days. There is so much I want to do, but I seem to have too little time. Nonetheless, I am still able to "waste" time reading a book or surfing the internet, when I should be concentrating on work. So let's try to do the latter.

It is done. It's just not printed yet and B is going over it one more time, but the version I have on my USB stick is already very, very good (IMHO).
This was the last step of the MBA and it is done. Now tons of paper will be expelled to recycling and I and our team room 3.3 will be cleaned. For the first time this week, my computer will be taken home.
BTW, great infrastructure here at the new learning center at N2: good internet connection, air condition (sometimes too cold), great chairs, tables, white boards, flip charts, printer & copier, water coolers and even a kitchen. I lived here for the last 3 or 4 days, just going out to buy food (scattered all over the room at the moment), eat at the mensa (cafeteria)or go home to sleep.
B and T are creating the final PDF of the thesis now, the printer will start working in a few minutes.
And I will unplug now. I am not a bit sleepy, but tired as hell. It was a great week, and it hasn't ended yet.

So this is what I found while surfing my colleague's Facebook pages for productive, thesis related purposes.
I would be really interested to learn how Facebook advertising is performing for Mannheim Business School. In Canada we had a presentation of the founder of www.redflagdeals.ca who said that his results with Facebook had been very disappointing.

My blogging Warwick friend Chris is also feeling the end closing. But he has already started saying his goodbyes, this hasn't really started for us, although we have seen some of our own leave for good (to get cute little babies, for instance).
I haven't felt the sadness yet and the party at N2 yesterday was more of a celebration. But go check Chris' impressions out.

We had the final presentation of our thesis today at the Heraeus site in Hanau, and all went really, really well. Heraeus is an interesting German, family owned high-tech company and it is not everyday that you have the opportunity to present and discuss your findings to the two most senior managers of a company with 12 thousand employees in over 70 countries and a turnover of more than 11 billion Euro. Yeah, billion.

Our academic supervisor, our project sponsor (head of corporate development) and a great team!

The presentation went smoothly and was actually fun. I was very happy with the results of the team and so were the professor and the company, I had the impression. It was an intensive 2 months of work, getting ourselves into a very new subject for us, but the conclusion we got were solid and useful for the company. And we learned a lot, especially from the 10 or so interviews we conducted with senior managers from important corporations.
But not all is over, we still have 50% of our thesis to be written this week and, after that, we all will be MBAs, deservedly.

But tonitght we have decided to commemorate a bit. And I should go back to where the music is playing.

Hi all,

I understand that some of you are already arriving in Mannheim around the 10th of September. My plan is to see how I can bring you and the FTMBA 2008 students who are still around together. One of the great things of the MBA is to meet new people, and this should be fun. And useful for you, you should feel free to ask us any questions you have.

Until the 5th of September, none of us 2008ers will have much time, as we are all working on our thesis. On the 12th of September we have our graduation ceremony. So between the 10th and the 15th of September we should have several chances to meet.

Let me know your plans and we will work from there. You should also forward this message to your other colleagues and tell them to get in touch with me. I'll be happy to organize this.

Now let me go back to my project presentation slides.
All the best,
Fernando

Yesterday we had a group of WHU MBAs visiting for a rowing event and get together. As I had observed in Berlin, the Spanish speaking croud (5 to 6 people) quickly came together. I do understand Spanish fairly well, but have a bit more trouble speaking, which makes me quieter than I would usually be in a conversation in German, Portuguese or English. Besides that me being quieter might be a good thing, It made me ponder that Brazil and Brazilians would be better off if the oficial language was also Spanish. Communication, especially with our neighbours, would be so more simple, with positive effects in all fields.
Brazil stands as the biggest and only Portuguese speaking in Latin America. I wonder if the unique language has some value as a differentiating factor. I am not sure, curious to see what others think.

 

Thats us working on the master thesis at the new Mannheim Business School facilities at the Dalberg Platz, N2.

Sandeep, who is planning to start an MBA here in Mannheim soon, sent me this question which I thought I wuld answer on the blog.

From: sandeep jain
Date: Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 21:24

Hi Fernando

How are you doing?

I am sure you must be at a half way to complete your year end company project.

Fernando had a few questions regarding the Internat and mobile technology in Germany.
How about internet at home (provided by Mannheim) is it free of cost or payable. Is it wireless or we have to arrange for the internet on our own?
Mobile technology. Which is the technology used in germany GSM or CDMA. Are mobile services expensive there? Is it a viable option to use for connecting with family in emergencies?

Thank you .......Sandeep Jain

If you are staying at one of the apartments organized by the Mannheim Business School, like I am, then broadband internet is included. In my case, I have a LAN socket and a very long cable in my apartment, which works very well. In other buildings I hear they have wireless LAN connection. So no worries there.
Furthermore, you have wireless LAN connection all over Campus, either through the university's WLAN or through the b-school's own. Some places in Mannheim also offer free WLAN, like the Star coffee shop on N7.

Germany is GSM country, which is very practical, as you can change operators by simply changing SIM cards, as long as your cell phone is not locked. You can either buy a contract (usually 2 years, gets you a free handset for a fixed monthly price plus extra expenses. You might be able to cancel the contract uppon departing Germany, but you have to make sure of that before signing) or, as I prefer, pay as you go or pre-paid plans.
I am a happy customer of Symio, a pre-paid provider based on the internet. Their plans are simple and the prices are good, so far I am happy, even though there was a great deal of confusion when I decided to change from GPRS SIM card to a UMTS one.
This means, of course, that I use my cell phone for internet on the go: maps, e-mail, twitter, reading, news, train schedules, IM, etc. Works pretty well on my Nokia E61 and the Symio internet price is unbeatable: 0,24€ per MB. That means that my weekly internet bills are usually below 2€, even with daily internet use.
Call prices are 0,09€ per minute any number in Germany. To Symio number it is even cheaper, but I have no idea who of my friends also use Symio. And SMS is also 9 cents.
For international calls, I use Skype Out. Other alternatives are the several call shops available downtown and near the train station. rAtes are just cents per minute, if I am not mistaken.
Now let me put a link in this post and continue our project work.

Just delivered the last assignment for the GIM class 30 minutes ago.
That means that, apart from the Global Supply Chain Management assignment due on Monday, I am done with MBA classes.
I wish I could continue to have classes indefinetely. I like classes. I like to learn, to ask, to discuss. And I like the feeling of beeing worry-free, as the only thing you are supposed to do is pay attention.
ButI need to find a job and to write a thesis. So it is good to be finally able to concentrate on that from now on.
Pity that this last module was, in my humble opinion, way below the level of other modules, so it wasn't very enjoyable. And I was (am) sick.
They are having a reception with champagne and snacks in the next room, I should join them. But I think that my health won't allow me to drink or eat much. That also the reason I am missing out on the Hazmat Modine concert in Stuttgart in an hour. But I should be fine tomorrow.

There is a kind of an institute in Stuttgart aimed towards start-up companies which has a series of interesting events for those who want to learn a bit more about the venture capital industry in Germany.

I am going tomorrow to the following event, if everything works out:

bwcon: Business Roundtable „Was macht ein Business Angel? – Unterstützungsansätze für Technologieunternehmen am Beispiel der FUZZY! Informatik AG“

I have this week free, as I am not taking the EC Law course at Mannheim Business School and the activity tomorrow is part of my job search. I hope to learn some and meet interesting professionals, let's see how it goes. But all this has costs:

• I will not be able to attend to the company presentation of Deutsche Börse AG at MBS and
• I will invest almost €100,00 in the event, which, at the moment, is a considerable sum for a student with a bank loan like me

But it should be worth it. No pain, no gain.

We had yet again another nice get together at the Villa, this time to watch the soccer games.

From Mannheim Business School News:

The Handelsblatt magazine “Junge Karriere” attested the Business School of the University of Mannheim a “remarkable distance” to the university in second place. In the estimation of 57.8% of the German HR managers, the best business students are educated in Mannheim. The authors describe the school and the whole university as a “trendsetter in internationality”. They mention the international semester times and the increasing number of exchange programs. “Of course, such distinguished conditions do not remain hidden from HR managers in business.” As a further plus point, the magazine points to the practical orientation of the business courses at Mannheim.

The Handelsblatt ranking is already the second piece of proof in 2008 of the exceptional status enjoyed by the University of Mannheim in the field of Business Administration. A few weeks ago, it had already received the best rating in the ranking of the prestigious German CHE (Centre for Higher Education Development) and was the only institution in the German speaking countries to receive top places in all five categories.

Some of you know that I use to twitter (that is, when its servers are up). And I do comment on the MBA course. And it was exactly one twit on the global supply chain course that got the attention of BearingPoint's Interactive Marketing team in the US. They twittered me back and asked if I was interested in writing an article on GSC. And so I did and you can see the result at the New Thinking BearingPoint blog:

http://newthinking.bearingpoint.com/2008/06/04/global-supply-chain-the-next-frontier/

I guess you will recognize the picture there.

BearingPoint is a company I want to apply for, so I am happy for the contact that I have had with them so far. During the GSC course we had a one day workshop with Sven Martin, a manager working in Switzerland, I have had the chance to talk to other consultants during career fairs and now this online collaboration. Way to go.

Check it out here:
http://picasaweb.google.de/ferbress/080530BBQVilla

Below some preview pics for you.

From 080530 BBQ Villa

080530 BBQ Villa