I cannot believe it

Robin Söderling managed to outplay Rafael Nadal (the worlds #1 tennis player) and is now on to the next stage in the French Open, I cannot believe it!
> The Times
> Svenska Dagbladet

Going to dinner at Anders place

I have been invited to Anders today - a friend from my years in Copenhagen. Its going to be a very nice to see him after bot being able to see him over the last couple of months. So, drink some beers and take it easy. I havent really been able to do some school work today, unfortunately. What I have done is that I have talked to my sister in Paris.

Going to Stockholm next week for market research purposes for our gas-project. Interesting to see how that will work out. Now i have to run to the metro.

The weather..

The weather is getting better and better in Oslo, and the program is slowly coming to an absolute end. It feels weird but good at the same time.. I handed in my last individual hand-in 30 minutes ago, which feels great. Hope that the grade i receive will be 'ok'. Over and out from Oslo.

Sunday evening.

I am currently in Stockholm taking it easy (well). I am writing on my final thesis on Management Control System and it is definitely a task not to underestimate. I have chosen to write about something called "RAMP UK", which basically is to assess the riskiness of a music festival. It feels as if the case has a lot of nice small "tricks" in it. The models that I am using are the following:

• Strategy map (example)
  
• Top 7 risk matrix
• Risk response matrix

And then I have write approx 5 pages of text regarding the risks.. I have read it.. but quite not finished with choosing the risks. Hopefully, Ill have a draft tomorrow.

A funny Dilbert

I got an email from a colleague of mine - Dilbert short.. i think its quite funny and i think you have to click on the picture to actually read it..

Wine tasting turns into MBA accident

We had a nice wine "tasting" event with the class.. after a glass of wine everyone turned (well, including your truly) into drunks.. so nice to let of some steam [Bennet]

The end is close

I went to bed at around 4 o clock, AM today.. finishing up an assignment in multinational finance. This is actually the final hand-in for this week, which really marks an end of an insane period in school.. we have had three weeks of constant hand-in's which has made life here very rough and hard. It is therefore nice to get a weekend where I dont have to be up until 2-3 in the morning hammering on cases. Im so so tired, and I need to do some nice laundry.

Additional postings to my blog

The reason why I havent really posted anything the last couple of days is because of the pressure in school.. it has simply been too much to handle while blogging. Soon, after this week is done, ill have more time.

In the mean time: Alex Tabarrok and how the current crisis resemble the crisis back in 1929

Seeing the actual end of an era

Well, I think I am a bit overdramatic, but we are definitely seeing the end of the fourth module in our MBA program. It feels good, and weird.. Soon, we are done, and I have yet another degree that hopefully will help me in my day-to-day activities in my work-place. We had a great discussion with Mark Kriger today - about Porsche, and the introduction of the 928 and the 944. It was a fairly old case, and it was used as a base of discussion rather than analysis. We also received feedback from our solution of Google, which was very very nice, especially the Exhibit. Well, Im thinking about going to a friends house, grab a couple of beers perhaps and then head home and watch some tv, my mother is coming tomorrow - which means that I have to be in good shape.

Old video with Malcolm Gladwell

I found this great video with Malcolm where he discuss the notion of spaghetti sauce tastes - its very interlinked with Blink.

Visit from Google

We had a visitor in todays class, the Norwegian CEO of Google came to class and we had a discussion about how Google managed their international business. It was very very interesting and I asked a question about how they perceive a lot of the critisism that they have taken - foremost in the Swedish press - about their alleged cannibalization on news sources. I got an answer that said that the reason why they often are accused of that is because they often choose to link their news back to the original source. The example that Jan (the CEO of Google Norway) came up with, was that if VG (a Norwegian tabloid) write about some obscure occurrance in Northern Norway, then Google News often generates a lead to the original story, often depicted in a local newspaper. Hence, many of the smaller news providers around in Norway has increased the traffic to their web pages to their websites. I cannot judge if this is "fair" or "not fair", but I use Google News all the time, and I think its a great tool.

Breakthrough with Google

We have finally been able to get a break through with Google and it feels fantastic. Im heading out to get some food with Laura, Filipe and Rafa, and then Im heading home to Slemdal to finish off the Exhibit. Hopefully, Ill be able to finish off the hand-in in "Negotiations". Saw a documentary about Ebbe Carlsson on SVT yesterday - it was good.

The final count down

Its now friday night and tomorrrow - hopefully - we can start finish off the case on Google and start our collaboration on the new case in Management control systems. When I say "we" I mean the group.. well, it feels weird to soon end the program... now its off to bed.

Looking at Google with fresh eyes.

So, tomorrow is labour day here in Scandinavia, its approximately 00.50 in the night (and its officially labour day). I have now finished preparing for a case discussion tomorrow about Google, which is a very hard case to "crack" so tomorrow ill meet up with my group mates and discuss. Me and Laura also received some very good feedback on our hand-in with Apple.. which felt really nice. Soon off to bed.