Happy 2008!

Wish you all a good start into 2008!

Thesis Live-Ticker

Short update this time. After partying twice till 5am on wed and thu, helping packing a friend who moved on friday and going back home, I finally managed to sit again on my thesis. I literally hit the keyboard and the output of this weekend has been 9 pages arriving now at page 44. So, only the part about IBM, the reflection of the methodology and the conclusion to go - on max. 16 pages. Finally seeing an end of the tunnel :) Merry xmas! Over and out...

X-am time

One week is left till it's christmas. Two weeks are left, till 2007 changes into 2008. And one month is left till I'll leave to Rotterdam. And I didn't realize any of this yet. Isn't that strange?
Well that's probably how students life is gonna be in the future. You study before christmas, you study during christmas and you study afterwards. Anyway, I'm glad that's it's the last time for me. But I'm somehow glad as well that I have some packed weeks behind me and that I never had the impression to throw a "joss stick"-party, to put a candle in the wind or to go shopping on sundays together with all those "65+"year-old who never have time during the week :)
I finished the interviews for my master thesis last week, handed in my term paper last week, had an exam on friday and one today - no more exams left in 2007. But does that mean that I have time again? Don't think so. Tomorrow I have to finish our report for the praxis project, then in the middle of Jan. I have my last exam in St.Gallen and of course my lovely thesis. I already picture myself during the next two weeks. My best friend: my laptop. Family is trying (!) to sing xmas-songs - Simon is writing thesis under the christmas tree. After having drunk to much wine on christmas - Simon is trying to write on his thesis. New years eve - Simon is spoiling the glass of champagne over his notes and his laptop. Anyways, we'll see if this is gonna be reality. I don't hope it. But hey, there's a good thing to. Everytime when I get bored with celebrations or when there's some work to do I can try to excuse myself as I have to write on my thesis :)))

So on this note, merry christmas! Enjoy it if you can!

The post without a title

Some time ago I wrote here, that there are some actions needed to make it a happy ending here in St. Gallen. Well there's some action going on indeed, but it's a colorful mix of ups and downs. For example in the last two weeks I conducted 6 interviews for my master thesis, I more or less wrote my term paper, we had our group presentation in the "sustainability" lecture, we progress with our practical project and I started last week with studying for my two exams in approx. 1.5 weeks.
The problem is that there are always setbacks. I called today 4 of the 5 clients Hilti gave me to contact for my master thesis interview. 2 asked me to send it by mail because they don't have time for an interview. One told me to call another day but not at 9 o' clock in the morning because they go to coffee break then. And the fourth one doesn't want to help because they don't have time. And Hilti didn't inform them yet that I'll contact them. Then I had a setback with my term paper as I couldn't find case studies. At least this is solved now, was successfull yesterday :)
Then there are group projects which sometimes drive you crazy. I especially liked my people who wrote in the document "we should do this and that" instead of actually making it. Or the one who changed small things in the first half and then wrote a comment that she won't do it for the second half as we should first take a group decision whether we want to change that or not! Aaargh!

Anyways, I have a bit more than a month left to try to finish things here in Switzerland. The ingredients for this time are:

1 thesis to finish
1 paper to hand in
3 exams to take
1 group project to finish
1 day moving my stuff to Bern
1 room to find in Rotterdam
1 nst-transition to make (if i ever get a successor)

and of course

22 days not getting burned by candles
5 days not getting hit by a christmas tree
3 family christmas events to survive
3 times not drowning during different bashes
1 time not falling between 07 and 08

And again at the end of the post, the complaining part is much longer than the celebrating part. what an optimistic person I am :)

Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad,
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you're chewing life's gristle,
Don't grumble
Give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best

Comedy? Horror? Drama?

Let me tell you a story I experience since last wednseday. I'm not quite sure to which genre this story belongs to. Is it a comedy? Or rather a horror story? Or a drama?
Anyways it all begins in August 2007, when one of my flatmates moves out and fills in this form to forward his mail to his mom's address. By mistake he writes my name on it as well because he beliefs he has to indicate someone who will be living in this place afterwards. Then, 3 months (!) pass by and nothing happens.
Now last wednesday my ex-flatmates mom calls me and tells me that she always gets my mail and she can't give it back to the postman because he refuses to take it cause this is my new address in their system (and I don't get any mail since around 2 weeks). We agree that she'll send it in a new envelope to my address and I'll pay the post office here a visit. I did that on thursday and the lady there after some blablabla writes down my name, address and my ex-flatmates name on a blank sheet and tells me she will proceed that as a customer complaint.
Today, one hour ago I get another call from my ex-flatmates mom and she tells me that it has been sent back once again to her. Ok, already a bit pissed off I decide to go to the post office here again. And now the real story starts:
I explain the employee on the counter the situation and first thing she answers me: "that is not our mistake" - yeah, well sure but who cares, I don't give a damn about that, I was actually there to make it change and not to blame anyone. Ok, then I tell here that she needs to change that in the system: "oooh, we can't do that, that can be done only by those upstairs" (who are of course not there on a saturday). ok, then she says something that the postman has to get this info. I tell her that it must be a mistake in the system because my name is still on the mailbox. And that it was quite strange because suddenly my name on the mailbox was crossed and I had to put a new "name tag". "Ooooh, but postmen are not allowed to do that, I must have been someone else" - yeah sure, someone else, coincidentally scratches my ex-flatmates name (the one who moved out) and mine with the same blue pen and didn't cross the names of my other two flatmates - probably this mysterious "someone" was one of my current flatmates... anyways, what could we do. fill in a form, of course - that's what you always do in such situations. it took her ages to fill it in because she didn't have a clue about that form neither did her colleague from the next counter. And in the end she finally says "Ok, let's hope it's gonna work like that!" - Excuse me? Hope? Noooo, now it has to work otherwise it will definitely be your mistake :)

Now key question for students like me who study marketing and always hear stuff about alignement of words and action: Does this experience support the following, very nice statement Swiss Post has on their website?

We think and act in a customer-oriented manner

Customers are at the heart of our every thought and action. Our company recognizes their needs at an early stage and acts correspondingly.

Hopefully not to be continued!

Action required!

These days it's getting dark outside at 5 pm already! These days it's snowing the whole day! If you have a look on a calendar these days, you see an 11. These signs are clearly indicating to me, that everythings coming to an end! The year, the term, the time in St. Gallen, the studies take a bit longer but the end is visible, the time in AIESEC as well. But on the other hand, I have the impression these days, that the time is running out! I see a mountain of work to overcome but the clock keeps ticking. Everything makes it clear, decisions have to be taken, action is required! Now!
This might sound, that I get somehow depressive, stuck in the winter blues with cold grey days and even colder dark nights. But nooo, actually I feel content right now. Why? Because I have the feeling that I'm making progress and acomplish something:

DO-IT
Do-it was last weekend and after some difficult days of planning and organising, re-planning and re-re-planning the conference finally took place. It was a special conference in different ways. First of all, It was my first (and probably only) conference as track responsible and faci. But the Alumni Track was running somehow apart from the rest of the conference. Ok, it a part was because of me, but some other decisions were not mine! And although I belonged to the faci team, I didn't feel like being part of it. I met some old friends from @ time which is of course very cool as well, but you get a bit ambitious over the years and if you don't really meet new people...
Concerning our track itself, not everything turned out as we planned or hoped but there have been developments during the track which I didn't expect at all. Alumni started the discussion where they could be involved and what should be changed. And they insisted to make this happen! On the first glance it looks like a lot of work for us (or better: for our successors:) and it sure is! But if you have a closer look, you can say, that they actually gave us, the NST Alumni Relations bargaining power. Bargaining power we need to negotiate with MC and LCs to finally get them doing something concerning Alumni Relations!

Studies
Concerning studies there is still a whole lot to do and if it doesn't happen now, I don't know when to do everything. For my exchange term in Rotterdam I finally made up my mind and decided which courses to take! Decision taken, acted as well! For the courses I'm taking this term there's still several things to do although we just handed in a case study today. There's a presentation about water problems for households in switzerland coming up in 1.5 weeks. And it's quite difficult for our group to have a presentation about that if guest speakers keep telling you that everyone else will have water problems except switzerland! Then, there is the report for our pracitcal project we have to hand in in a month - yes at the same time I'll have two other exams and all the courses are mandatory for our masters. What great planners those universities are...
On the other hand there's still my master thesis. I was worried the last weeks but now, I think it's getting ok. I have to shift my expectations and try to get all the interviews done before leaving to Rotterdam. But the interview with the first company I had last monday and the one with the second company I'm supposed to get next week. I probably leave it with those two and will interview only their clients but won't try to get another one and hope the brands of those two will outshine my work. I don't thank them yet as work is not finished, but I'm still excited to have Hilti and IBM on board!

busy days

I'm quite busy these days with blockseminary at uni, preparing sessions, migrating data to my new laptop and of course now our internet connection is not working. i'm glad that there are still some unsecured wlans around:) the picture below shows my multitasking with aiesec-email and session preparation for do-it...

Questioning

My life is full of questions at the moment. Some are more important than others of course but I have the impression all of them should be answered immediately.
Why is it impossible for some companies to maintain a proper communication management? I know a student who want to write a master thesis is not the most important task, but still, I think it can´t be possible that the head of a department for business partner in switzerland (of a very well known company) is not able to answer (himself or through an assistant) on an email in 5 weeks, a phone call in 3 weeks and a second phone call in more than a week. How should you be able to get in touch with such people?
Why do universities always say they want to encourage mobility for students but act otherwise? They introduce a bologna-system but let you prepare applications with tons of material if you want to switch, then tell you that you have to do additional courses and complain in the end that they have an additional workload. Or they adapt starting and ending dates of terms but only so much, that it´s not enough to go abroad without any problems. Then they complain that the profs. can´t go to fall holidays with their families anymore. And they won´t let you take an exam earlier if you want to go on an exam term. Question is now, should I stay till the exam and then go or should I go and have to come back to take the exam and then go again...?
What kind of courses should I take in my exchange term? Too many options for criterias: Rather the interesting ones? Rather the ones with not too much workload? Rather the ones with exams or the ones with papers? The ones which offer long weekends or the ones with classes on monday and friday?
And then there are other ones like how should you design an alumni track with mostly very recent alumni? how should you promote something very emotional like a screw? Is the questionnaire for the master thesis gonna work? Is the whole thesis gonna work? And so on. but for now it´s time to go back to work and figure the answers out...

Vocabulary

I´m not really inspired at the moment to write something in my blog. I therefore collected some expressions to help you enhance your vocabulary in the meantime. Today it´s about words you definitely have to know if you´re working in an office... :)

Beepilepsy - The brief seizure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.

Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Chainsaw Consultant - An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Egosurfing - Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one’s own name.

Glazing - Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”

GOOD job - A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Irritainment - Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them.

Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end.

Seagull Manager - A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Uninstalled - Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.

Visiting Blacksocks

Today me and a friend visited Samy Liechti founder and owner of Blacksocks in Zürich. We interviewed him for a case study in our course Leadership/Entrepreneurship. Blacksocks is selling a subscription for socks as a core business but extend lately to underwear. It was really intersting to have a chat with Mr. Liechti.
First I´d like to describe the environment. We arrived in front of the house, Blacksocks was supposed to be in, but there wasn´t any indication of a company. There was no sign, the house looked more like a detached house. But the number indicated that we were at the right address. We went to the second floor and even there was no indication or sign. Only because he told me beforehand that we should come to the reception in the second floor passed the door and entered. Inside it looked more like an art gallery than an office. But we were at the right place and the reception lady indicated us the meeting room we could go in. After he arrived as well in the room he offered us coffee and served it himself - in plastic cups, the ones you usually buy in the supermarket for family celebrations. It was a very sympathic ambiance!
Our intervied finally was about the innovation and how they founded a company, characteristics of an entrepreneur and so on. I don´t to reproduce everything but only some things:

• They started back in 1999 to sell on the internet, at a time where only a small part of people already had access to the internet. There were not so many doing this already, that´s why Blacksocks and LeShop were the ones always mentioned as swiss examples for e-business.
• In the first years they were very motivated and euphoric. Everything was going well, there was a hype for the Internet. On 10.9.01 they were almost celebrating, because they got a 4 min. coverage on CNN and they could see live how there sales were increasing. But the day afterwards it hit them as well like many others, but maybe even a bit more. There whole infrastructure for the US market was in the WTC...
• The factors of success he thinks are passion, bravery, simplicity and not being status oriented but loving what your doing and doing it because you like to implement an idea. Simple they still are - most of the stuff they outsource or lease and rent, even the table and the chairs in their meeting room is rented and not their property!
• His best moment with Blacksocks he says, was when they won the Copernican Award in New York and he was standing with this heavy, ugly thing on 5th Avenue (by the way Flickr was on the 2nd place:)

To summarize it was really interesting and I think it would be more fun for students to do more such things than sitting in classes... Aaaand next time you need socks or underwear check out www.blacksocks.com - they might have something for you!

Cheap Miss?

I went today to Coop Ryfflihof in Bern and when I entered there was a huge crowd in the section of the beauty products etc. I wondered what kind of promotion attracts so many people, cause I only saw those 20% discount ceiling hanger. But when I passed I saw the real reason of the crowd: The new Miss Switzerland was signing autographs. But still the questions remains: Is she a cheap Miss or was it just a coincidence?

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

The past

It´s almost a year since I changed university and came to St. Gallen. And it´s more than a year since a came back to Switzerland. In this year several things happened. I got used to studies again, I “got over” my time in Stuttgart, I met new people at a new university, I passed 13 exams, projects or papers, I got selected to go abroad again to Rotterdam for an exchange term and I started “my job” as NST Alumni Relations in AIESEC. Finally I spent 1 week in Slovakia, 1 week in Croatia and 3 weeks in the bunker. When you just look at it, it seems to be packed. But it didn´t feel as intense as my time abroad! Anyway I wouldn´t change the decisions I made...

The present

These days I’m not so much in the mood to do a lot for my studies. I do things for my different courses from time to time, I feel that I´m as well busy with doing other stuff but I get distracted easily and I have the impression of making no progress at all. And I´m certainly not good at planning at the moment. I don´t know where to start, I don´t know which should be the next step and I even don´t know where I´ll spend next week. St.Gallen or Bern? Somehow I´m stuck…

The future

A common question is, “where do you see yourself in a year”? Well, at the moment I see the following: I´ll have to finish my thesis and pass some exams here in St.Gallen. Then I´ll spend some months in the Netherlands studying and hopefully travelling and enjoying life a bit. During this time I should start to look for a job. But I still don´t know yet when I should start to work. There are several options. 1) Starting to work as soon as possible, that would mean on 1^st of June. 2) Have some holidays and enjoy Euro 2008 in Switzerland, this would lead to a starting date on 1^st of July. Or 3) the one I prefer at the moment is, enjoy Euro 08 in June, then go on a language course (would be probably French) for 3 months and start on 1^st of October. Anyway, answer to the initial question: In one year I see myself working my a** off, in a department related to marketing. But until then:

You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it

U2 - Stuck in a moment

The future is bright...

...the future is orange! Why? I finally got my last grades today for the exams I had almost two months ago - and I both passed them without being brilliant. But this doesn´t matter at all. One of those was french, professional communication, a language exam. I knew from the beginning of my studies in St. Gallen that I have to proof two foreign languages in order to get my degree. But for almost one year I didn´t care at all, until, in June when I had to register for exams I somehow had the idea that I´ll take the french exam this summer. After being registered I knew that I should study a bit as well, and finally around two weeks before the exam I did that but I was bored very soon afterwards - so I didn´t study too hard. Anyway, on the day of the exam I felt completely unprepared. Not because I didn´t study. But when we entered the room I went to my place, took my water bottle, my pens and my markers out and sat down. Then when I looked to the right, to the left, in front and behind me everyone had this Micro Robert (which has around 1000p,) french-french dictionary with them. Back then I had the impression that I was probably the only one who didn´t take the french preparation course for this whole year. But as a joke I told one of my friends in there, that I will do a little freestyling and apparently it worked. So, I´m glad I didn´t spend a whole year learning french, when I could do it in around a week :)
The second exam I had to take was kind of strange as well. It didn´t interest me as it was business law, I couldn´t go to classes as I had master classes at the same time, I had to write it in the gym hall, the whole exam was multiple choice and the grade won´t count for my average. BUT, it was very important at the same time. Without passing, I wouldn´t get a degree and without passing it NOW I couldn´t go abroad. But luckly, I don´t have to worry about that anymore. The future is orange - Rotterdam here I come. Ik studeer nu en beetje Nederlands...

Time to laugh about yourself

On the day I was born...

... those were the top 5 music singles. No comments needed, just enjoy :))

No.1


No.2


No.3


No.4


No. 5

On the sidewalk...

...around 20m from my flat in SG and I pass it everytime I leave home or go back!

Newbies!

Today when I went to the library to bring back several books and to get another one. I passed a group of newbies. It´s their introduction week that´s why they had this guided tour through the library and I heard the sentence of the day when I passed! them The guide said:

"This one is the site plan. It´s really important when you´ll be looking for books!"

It was really hard not to start laughing because I realized I´ve never had a look on a site plan of a library since I started my studies in ´02! Hmm, how did I manage to get this far...?
Anyways, welcome to University Newbies! Welcome Class of 2012!!! *lol* or how did Dr. Kelso put it in the pilot to scrubs:

"Son, do you not realize, that you're nothing more than a large pair of Scrubs to me?"

Politics

Look at earth from outer space

Everyone must find a place
Give me time and give me space
Give me real, don't give me fake
Coldplay - Politics

Do you recognize the person on the picture? No!? Well it´s me! It´s always about me (here) ;) No seriously. Elections are coming up so I did this questionnaire smartvote.ch some days ago and the result you can see above.

Here are some figures from this questionnaire: The maximum match I got with an candidate was 73.3%. The worst 39.4%. I can elect 26 persons for Nationalrat (with 400 candidates). From those 26 there would be 9 women. Average age of the wanna-be´s I should elect would be 33!! And the party I should support is JF or FDP... And my godfather is in one of the top positions! I´m glad we have a 65.2% match and I can elect him because of rational aspects :))) And what´s interesting as well is: First person of my really, really, really favourite party, the SVP, UDC idée suisse ;) is around position 100. And I´m wondering why this guy is on the J-SVP (young) list with an age of 40! I mean other parties have people on their regular list with an age of 21! Anyway, that´s just the figures! It´s a good indicator but I won´t elect according to this list only...
And while I was jogging today I thought that the following song suits the topic quite well :)

Let me apologize to begin with
Let me apologize for what I'm about to say
But trying to be genuine was harder than it seemed
But somehow I got caught up in between

Let me apologize to begin with
Let me apologize for what I'm about to say
But trying to be someone else was harder than it seemed
And somehow I got caught up in between

Between my pride and my promise
Between my lies and how the truth gets in the way
And things I want to say to you get lost before they come
The only thing that's worse than one is none

Let me apologize to begin with
Let me apologize for what I'm about to say
But trying to regain your trust was harder than it seemed
But somehow I got caught up in between

Between my pride and my promise
Between my lies and how the truth gets in the way
The things I want to say to you get lost before they come
The only thing that's worse than one is none
The only thing that's worse than one is none

And I cannot explain to you
And anything I say or do or plan
Fear is not afraid of you
But guilt's a language you can understand
I cannot explain to you
And anything I say or do
I hope the actions speak the words they can

For my pride and my promise
For my lies and how the truth gets in the way
The things I want to say to you get lost before they come
The only thing that's worse is

Pride and my promise
Between my lies and how the truth gets in the way
The things I want to say to you get lost before they come
The only thing that's worse than one is none
The only thing that's worse than one is none
The only thing that's worse than one is none
Linkin Park - In Between

Observing the library

I started to write post earlier tonight but thought it was crap and didn´t save anything. But now, as I´m bored but can´t sleep I start to rewrite it…

I´ve spent quite some time at the library these past days trying to write my thesis, digging through several (sometimes 10 at a time) books just to get the proof somewhere for a thought I wanted include in my thesis - and of course to add another source to my bibliography… :)

Seriously, the main concept for this theoretical part of my thesis has been already in my head for some time. But putting it down is sometimes not as easy as it seems. And sometimes I know I´ve read something but I can´t remember where and I don´t want to write just without knowing that it´s true. Anyways from time to time I arrive at a point, where I know what I want to write next but I struggle with the phrasing - not like this post where I just write down what pops into my head - like the last sentence might indicate! Ok, while thinking about how to write things down I start to observe the library, which is quite interesting from time to time. And I don´t mean those countless shelves with tons of books, where I don´t know how many of them would be actually worth to read. No! I´m referring to those interesting characters sharing our lovely library with me. There are not so many left although it´s still exam period. But still, it´s quite fun to analyze them. So here comes a quick categorization - and of course a solutions as I am a solution-oriented person:))

• Group A: Students spending countless hours in the library with their huge books. Maybe you should spend a bit more time to think about, whether law is the right thing for you and learning ZGB or OR by heart is a successful approach?
• Group B: Students spending countless hours in the library but getting disturbed every 5 to 10mins by a) friends passing by or b) friends sitting next to them. Maybe you should start to re-evaluate your friends? Could it be that they just want to disturb and keep you from studying in order to be better in the aftermath? I mean, we´re here at very evil Uni St.Gallen where people stick at nothing…!
• Group C: Students who try (or pretend) to write a paper a) without any book next to them or b) with a huge pile of books but not bothering to have a look at them. Ok guys, question: Isn´t there a reason why the library has so many books? And how can you explain, that there are actually people writing books about how to reference?
• Group D: Students sleeping in a very uncomfortable position. The solution: Either change the flat if your neighbours (or flatmate) keeps u awake the whole night or start to study something which actually interests you!
• Group E: Students - sorry to use stereotypes - but female and blond who are more interested in their finger nails and hair than in their books! Ok I can imagine that it must be quite tough for you that you´re not allowed to participate at Miss Switzerland elections. But are you sure that hanging around at an university is the right thing for you to spend the time until the application for next year opens?

Ok that´s it sofar, maybe I´ll observe some other characters soon. And don´t be bothered about the randomness of this post - it was intentional!

Update:

• Group F: Students using library, research computers to do some "research" on facebook or studivz instead of studying. my advice: keep going, open new "if this group doesn´t get ..... members facebook/studivz will shut down" groups and if you´re luck you´ll get a social network responsibility award at ur graduation as a bachelor(-ette?) of arts in studiz- and facebook management!
  

I got it from my mama

I really like sophisticated lyrics like this one! Is it possible that it can get even worse in the future?

Time flies by

Strange thing happened last week. No I don´t mean the exams I had to write! I came back to Bern on wednesday and met a friend while passing through the mainstation and she asked me: "How was your holiday?" And my first reaction was (thinking) "Which holidays?" I mean, I was in Croatia about 3.5 weeks ago and spent an awesome week. But just after returning I had to start studying for my exams and I started to suppress my memories about that and now I´ve the feeling that it´s strange (sad, frightening whatever you´d like to call it) how much you can forget if you´re quite busy. And it´s the nice stuff you forget and the useless/boring stuff you have to remember!
Anyways, now I still have the feeling that time is flying by. I finished most exams last week (an oral one left this friday). But since my exams last week I´ve been busy with NST stuff and today I finally started to write the first pages of my thesis. At the moment I´m a bit tired but satisfied as well. At least I managed to write the first 3 pages of my thesis today - more than I expected. If I could continue like that, I´d be done with it in 3 weeks :)) But that´s of course only a dream but not reality! Let´s see how it´ll develop the next few weeks... My goal is that the theoretical part is finished by the start of the new term (mid of sept.) and to hand it in by the end of the year. But it really depends if I managed to get some companies willing to participate in the empirical part soon...

Random update

I´ve experienced many cool moments in the last weeks. First I´ve been to Croatia for International Summer Programm organised by AIESEC in Split. We´ve spent an awesome week in Split, Trogir, Sinj, Imotski on the island Brac, in Krka National Park on a boat, different beaches or just swimming in the sea. The marvellous landscape, croatian natural beauties (that´s at least what the tourist guy called it) :), the amazing weather (days with approx. 35° nights with around 22°) and the nice people we met made this week a truly special experiences and a great week of summer holiday. There would be so many things to tell, my blog would probably explode… Just look at the pics on facebook or studivz and you´ll probably get what I mean!

The second amazing thing happened yesterday. I decided to go once again to a soccer game in Bern, watching my favourite team YB playing against Basel. And it was a hell of a game. One of the best I ever saw! In the end we won 5-1 and there was a I spirit I´ve never seen in Bern sofar. Hope it´ll go on like this…

Now I´m back in SG because I have exams next week! I´m trying to focus on my studies for the moment, but it´s tough. Still, the show must go on…!

Isn´t it ironic... don´t you think?

My first exam period for this summer ended last thursday. So, officially I´m on holiday. It´s more like a time without lectures for me right now cause I´m not quite sure if i´m not doing more for studies right now than I did before exams... i´m trying to develop questions for my empirical part of my master thesis, i read like 50 pages a day of corporate governance, compliance and business law stuff. i should start to learn french again because i have an exam soon in that too. in between, while taking a break from studying i prepared the training for tonights swimming session, i think about ideas for the NST transition on friday and so on... isn´t it ironic? to have the feeling to work more on holidays than before?

On friday, my first day of "freedom" i helped my sister moving from St.Gallen to Zurich. As there were only three places in the van I went by train and took my sisters bike with me. But what happened? I drove to mainstation in St.Gallen locked the bike and went to buy a ticket for this bike. It took me like 3 minutes. When I come back there´s a flatfoot on the back wheel. I really don´t know why. I take next train to Zürich and try to figure out on the train ride which will be the fastest why to bring back a book at the library and then go to albisriederplatz with a bike you can´t ride. I decide to take the bike to central, leave it there go up and back with the tram, take it again into another tram. but is this a smart solution. friday around 4pm, some hours before zürifäscht starts? well i managed to find an empty spot for me and the bike in a tram. at some place i hear a voice announcing that the tram is not going to the indicate station but to another one. and people who wanna go there should switch to the tram which is just behind us. well, very nice to quit a crowded tram, move quickly through the even more crowded station and get in into another tram and all with a bike. i mean it was the first time i took a bike with me in a public transportation and of course they had to make this switch at this very moment...

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
Life has a funny way of helping you out

Priorities

It´s saturday evening, 22:45 and I´m sitting at home on my laptop writing this just after watching a movie. But why am I here? Why do I do this? I could be at Openair St.Gallen listening to Kaiser Chiefs right now. I could be partying on a boat on lake constance at tanzschiff. And I could be in Bern together with many ppl partying at mc transition party. But I´m here, because I set my priorities. Because I have exams on wednesday and on thursday and my priority is to pepare myself as good as possible in order to be satisfied with myself after exams and to know that i did the best i could. My priority is in this very moment my grades, my studies, my future!
But why am I writing this? Yesterday we had the presentation of our term project at university. When presentations were over and after commenting on our presentations he asked us, why almost no one showed up last wednesday at barbeque for marketing master students which has been organised by the university for US. Well we told him that for some ppl it had been communicated too late and it was too close to exams next week. And what was his reaction? He got pissed off, told us that it´s something for us and there is apparently something wrong if THEY had to organise this. And that´s it´s about setting PRIORITIES!! Yeah right, priorities! So, what should be priority then one week before exams? Going on bbq or doing once something for studies? Am I setting priorities now wrong? Should I party all the time instead of focusing of what seems important to me in at the moment? Should I get wasted instead of believing in me and my experience i got in my past 7 terms at 2 universities?
I´m not really sure what annoys me most at the moment? Studying for exam? University itself? Or the fact that I´m not at the openair, transition party or tanzschiff?
A friend just wrote me lately, why I want to quit uni asap - it´s such a cozy life the life of a student. And I have to say: No! I´m getting fed up more and more. And that´s why I would set my priorities the same way I did sofar. And I will do it in august as well as for the whole next year! But only in order to finish asap without sacrificing the time afterwards...

Look - it´s a phone

Is it the beinning of a new era in mobile phone industry or only a storm before the calm? Fact is, Apple is introducing today the new iPhone in the US market, AT&T the exclusive carrier refused their employees to go on holiday and temporarily hired additionally 2000 employees. Not many people have seen it sofar and even less could test it. But still, there are people queuing since the beginning of the week.

Experts are skeptical about the product. The camera is apparently not the best. There´s no connection to UMTS networks and the costs are relatively high (500-600$). And Apple denied AT&T to sell it with discount prices although customers have to buy a 2-year contract of the phone operator. Apple´s target amount of sold pieces till end of 2008: 10 Mio. Nokia sells this amount every 10 days...
Still, it might not be a superior product but Apple has enourmous competencies and knowledge in Marketing. And as the trend in Marketing is not anymore on a product or even brand perspective, but on a community perspective it could still be a successful product for Apple. Simply, because Apple products have at least since iPod a high social value. From my perspective, mobile phones are a highly publicly consumed good which supports the idea of a status symbol and symbolization of consumption. Or as our profs call it: the link is more important than the thing... in europe by the end of the year

Open Season - The exam period

I´m preparing once again for the hunt. But once again I´m not the chaser, I´m the hunted! Soon professors start to shoot questions at me and I better be prepared.
Preparation means again being busy. Finishing our practice project and prepare for the final presentation in 1.5 weeks. Learning stuff about Communication management about communities, about brands. And about media and communication management in order to prepare for my exams in two weeks. At the same time proofreading my sisters master thesis and while doing that wondering what the "öffentliche hand" actually looks like and where she´s hiding (cause I never saw one in reality)...
Thus, I´m pretty well occupied. Won´t use the term stress because I´m writing a paper about work-related stress as well at the moment and know now a bit better what it is. Therefore I´m not stress, I only get pushed to my performance peek.

What keeps me happy at the moment?
While studying I enjoy listen to music on my ipod (connected to my stereo which makes the sound quality better). Keeps my mood up! I even started to do a song-diary last weekend, where I select one song per day. They can be stuck in my head, can catch my mood, a part of the lyrics which can be linked to an event of the day. Sofar there are the following songs:

Boten Anna by BassHunter for Sat 16.6.07
Forever by Papa Roach for Sun 17.6.07
Don´t tell me by Hoobastank on Mon 18.6.07
Running up that hill by Placebo on Tue 19.6.07
Raining again by Moby for Wed 20.6.07
In Between by Linkin Park for today, Thu 21.6.07

Apart from the music the fact, that I´ve been selected for NST Alumni for the upcoming term keeps me still happy as well. And of course making fun of people who were a bit too thirsty at unifest... :)

Swiss culture

When I was preparing my „swiss-culture“ mini-session for the world-cafe at xps I found a very interesting book called "When culture collide - managing successfully across cultures" written by the british linguist Richard D. Lewis. In one part of his book he describes different cultures. About Switzerland he writes among other things the following stuff:

“In terms of cultural collisions, Switzerland is a prime candidate for polarisation among its inhabitants, since its citizens speak four languages belonging to four diverse cultural groups, which, during the course of history, have not displayed any particular affection for each other.”

“Switzerland is the most mountainous country in Europe, with the result that most of its people live in deep and often isolated valleys. They are suspicious of persons who live in other valleys…"

“Some may argue that there is no such thing as a Swiss - one writer described them as a collection of sedated Germans, over-fussy French and starched Italians, all square like their national flag.”

“Time is not seen as money, in the American sense, but as an important tool in organising your daily life and society. Swiss don´t rush you, but they don´t waste time either. Their accurate sense of timing enables them to predict and forecast events better than most nationalities."

“The Swiss are good at making you feel that you get what you pay for. If you try to bargain with them too hard, they stiffen as if you have made a shady proposal. They are straightforward negotiators who honestly try hard to see matters from an opponent´s point of view. One cannot call them inconsiderate – they are quick to make helpful suggestions when it does not hit their pocket.”

“The Swiss are rather heavy drinkers (ninth in the world) and inveterate smokers (sixth). They also are third in drug offences, although this figure may be artificially high due to the efficiency of the national police administration.”

“You don´t have to be exciting to make a Swiss like you; they are looking for solidity and reliability in the people they deal with. You should show that you are in good control of your emotions, private life and financial arrangements.”

Swiss Values
Polite, clean, tidy, punctual, cautious, worrying, over-serious, dull, hardworking, proper, law-abiding, god-fearing, honest, frugal, saving, environmentally sensitive, family oriented, disciplined, pragmatic, perfectionist, obsessed by security, neutral, keen on training and preparation, suspicious of all foreigners and anxious to control

Visiting your hometown

Have you ever visited your own city? I mean the city you would call hometown? I actually did it on saturday, when I was showing a friend around. It was somehow a strange feeling. We arrived with the train from St.Gallen and I showed her the old town, the Bärengraben, Rosengarten, Mattequartier and via Kirchenfeld we went back to the city centre. She took pictures all the time, I was carrying my sports bag and we were talking in "proper" german together. It somehow made me feel like a tourist too. On the other hand I understood of course what people were talking. I knew how the city lives, how the patterns of bernese people are, how they behave. Together it was a quite strange experience... And maybe because I´m not living in Bern anymore, that´s what I´m becoming slowly, step by step: A stranger in my own home??

The wall

In the last two months I´ve done quite a lot of reading and researching for my master thesis. Everytime I stumbled over something useful I wrote it down on a piece of paper in order to collect sub-topics, ideas and so on. To keep an overview and see the ideas most of the times I started to create a wall (seems that I got somehow internet-addicted and copied the facebook concept to real life ;-)

Anyway I start to like this way because each time I want to get into the topic (again) I just can have a look at the wall, if I remember that I wrote down something I don´t have to search for it in my messy pile of papers and if I have a new idea I just can add it to the old ones and it mentally says Simon wrote on his own wall ;-)) Still, I have to be careful that I don´t overuse it and write down everything without filtering it. Otherwise it just gets another post on the wall or a wallpaper.

My wall

Marina di Massa

As already mentioned before, I´m quite busy these days. After Kick-off I spent only two days back in St. Gallen - one was for relaxing and the other for studying. On Wednesday evening me and some friends from my club left Switzerland and headed to Italy. We spent 4 marvelous days in Marina di Massa, a town in Tuscany between La Spezia and Pisa. On the beaches and in the sea we trained for around 6 hours a day our skills in Surf Lifesaving containing swimming, surf ski, surf board or running on the beach. As you can imagine I was pretty tired from the trainings and the travel back to St. Gallen when I arrived on sunday 11pm.

For all those who are interested in what you can do in lifesaving sports, you can check out these two sites:

Swiss Surf Lifesaving
Australian Surf Livesaving

Unfortunately there was no time for me to relax or even recover because the course which occupies me this week started already at 9 am on monday. The topic of the course is Emotions in Organizations and is an interesting topic. Though I´m facing classes from 9 am till 5 pm for four days in a row which is pretty exhausting. I´m just glad that it´s a mixture of lectures and case studies and not only lectures otherwise I might fall asleep...

Back from the OC

A lot was going on the past few days and will go on in the upcoming weeks. Since last wednesday I´ve been in Fiesch for Kick-off where I worked again for the organizing commitee. It was again a lot of work, not so much time and even less sleep.
To sum up there was a mixture of different feelings and emotions. There were cool moments like most of the time together with the OC. There were annoying moments, like during official dinner and awards night. There were tiring moments like driving through the whole Valais and back to get some inkind. There were relaxing moments like sitting with the laptop and some music in the sun while waiting for people showing up for coffee break.
There were hurting moments like when you just woke up after only 2.5hrs of sleep and move still a bit sleepy to breakfast and delegates telling you (as a joke for them) that you should work and not sleep. There were challenging moments like setting up several external workshops at the same time combined with room reallocation and there were stupid moments like fixing beamer problems because the beamer was attached to one extension cable meanwhile another not linked extension was put to the power supply.
There were disgusting moments like cleaning up in the morning after global village. There were funny moments like playing CSI with some OC members. And there were just great moments like when a delegate honestly and directly acknowledged our worked and thanked for it! And there were of course some really amazing individuals around!

Life in Cartoon Motion

Yesterday when I played around with photoshop I found out something I didn´t know yet.
After some learning about it I decided to do a post about some beautiful and / or important places I visited or lived in lately. And it´s somehow in cartoon motion...

St.Gallen, 2007

Bamberg, 2006

Venezia, 2006

Berlin, 2006

Stuttgart, 2006

Barcelona, 2007

Heidelberg, 2005

A part of my family story

Today in an article of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung about the election of the new federal canchellor one of the representatives of my family was mentioned. He - Johann Ulrich Schiess - was the first federal canchellor in Switzerland and the NZZ said the following about him:

Der erste Bundeskanzler, der Ausserrhoder Johann Ulrich Schiess, garantierte während einer Amtszeit von 33 Jahren Kontinuität im Wechsel der Regierungsmitglieder. Bereits in den Konflikts- und Kriegsjahren von 1847/48 hatte der damals 35-Jährige Kanzleiämter inne. Wie einer Dissertation von Simone Iten zu entnehmen ist, war es Schiess zu verdanken, dass sich die Bundeskanzlei zu einem mustergültigen Apparat der Bundesverwaltung entwickelte. Der äusserst exakte Bundeskanzler verlangte von seinen Untergebenen allerdings grosse Arbeitsdisziplin. Schiess stellte sich jeweils neben der Kanzleitür auf und verabreichte jedem, der zu spät kam, einen tüchtigen Klaps. So viel zur guten alten Zeit.

Apparently he had a very intersting managing style, especially when it came to management of his employees. I don´t know yet whether this style is in our genes or not. Probably I can say more when I got to a position where I´ll be responsible for some employees...

No friends? - !

Today when I finally signed in in studivz as well (why do we need 2 platforms for the same thing??) I really got a shock! This anonymus, computer-controlled thing told me the following:

I´m really depressed and feel very, very, very lonely ;-). At least I have a laptop which is still my friend and does what I want :-)))

Under construction

For the second time in around one week, the website where I uploaded pics for my blog-template somehow lost my stuff. Therefore I went back to a regular blog-template. And finally I managed to solve all technical problems which came along...

How much celebrity is in me?

Among others, there were the following matches as well ;-)))

• David Hasselhoff 63%
  
• John F. Kerry 58%
• Freddie Prinze Jr. 55%
• Colin Farrell 54%

Try it out here

What a wonderful world

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world

Random announcements

Announcement 1: Participated in the Train the Trainer Seminar this weekend. It was a really cool, intensive but funny experience as well. My official press release can be read on AIESEC Bern Blog.

Announcement 2: I´m definitely gonna be at kick-off 07 (which is surprisingly my first and probably last kick-off at the same time). I´ll join once again the extended OC! Just hope I don´t have to put on my "Phorensics" Jacket again because of TSI - Trash Scene Investigation ;-)

Announcement 3: I´m a bit disappointed at the moment because I didn´t get the tickets for Euro 08 I applied for. I really hope that people who got tickets are real fans and not just fashionistas!

Master thesis - topic is set

I just arrived back from a meeting with one of my profs here at university. We discussed my master thesis topic and finally decided to officially register it at the uni. For all those who are interested I´ll shortly describe what I´ll plan to do. And I hope I manage to write it in a way that people who´re not familiar with that business stuff understand it.
I´ll start with the title. Of course like each thesis, it needs one of those fancy titles ;-). My topic is called Brand perception in Business-to-Business: Impact and Instruments

Brand perceptions: Brand perception says something about a how a company, a product or a brand is perceived by it´s customers, it´s investors or the society for example. It´s what people think of a brand, it´s the attributes, the benefit they link to a brand. For example why do many people choose coca cola instead of pepsi? Because they perceive that coca cola is something different, something better than pepsi - btw. I did the test lately. There IS a difference and I could tell which one was which, but I couldn´t say that I like one more than the other.
Business-to-Business: B2B is that part, where one company´s customer is another company. This customer uses the products of the first company as components for their own products. One of the best known b2b-brands is probably Intel. Intel sells it´s chips to computer manufaturer eg. HP. HP needs those chips in order to sell their own product, a high-quality computer. Intel as an example is very famous to many end-user, because they did advertisement not only to computer manufacturere but to end-users as well. And those manufacturer can now use "Intel inside" as a quality label for their own sales.

Now, what I actually like to do in my thesis, is comparing the customer and the company side. To analyse what brand signals and attributes, values etc. b2b-companies are sending out (or how they like to be perceived) and what signals arrive at the b2b-customers side (or how they actually perceive the brand). And then combine it with an analysis about which communication instruments, channels they actually use for that.
At the moment I´m just at the starting point. I really have to start with basic work, because at the moment everyone is just stating that branding in B2B is important but "almost" no one did something about it. Then I have to find companies who´re willing to participate (if someone is interested or knows someone who might be interested please let me know and we´ll see...) and I have to think of a certain method to analyse that in the practice (as well here, if someone has a good idea about that please let me know).
So as you can see, a lot of work - but hopefully interesting work - lies ahead of me in the next months.

Proud to be Single?

Are you one of the species "I´m Single and I´m lovin´it!"?? Then this might be something for you...

Of blogging and branding

Lately I´ve been quite involved in a certain sub-topic of my studies: branding. I´m searching books, browsing journals and reading tons of articles because I´d like to write my thesis in a branding-related area. After I tried to storm my brain for some new ideas, I visited a blog called branding & marketing which I found through another blog called modern b2b marketing. On this branding and marketing blog I found an interesting post about marketing tips for recent college graduates, which was basically the start to this post here as well. The mentioned post has linked some posts in other blogs concerning branding yourself as a person and communicating this eg. through a blog. I dug a bit deeper and read some pretty interesting stuff I´d like to share.

Did you ever reflect why you´re keeping a blog? Is it because you want to entertain your readers, is it because you want to keep your friends updated about your life, is it because you want to keep a publicly available diary but basically just writing entries for yourself or do you even want to do sort of business with your blog? And how do you choose topics you´re blogging about, how much do you think about which picture of you or a friend of yours you want to upload? In the online world it´s pretty easy to stop by in your blog, read your posts, get to know you (or at least an image of you, you´re maybe unconsciously providing) and leave without being noticed. So, who - except the ones who´re leaving comments - is actually reading your blog then?

I raised a lot of questions now, but I think they might get important at one point or another to every blogger out there. And for me as a student who´d like to graduate soon maybe sooner than later. As stated in several blogs, companies are checking your online profile and perform web searches for your name in case you apply for a job. If they find positive stuff about you, it´s perfect but there might be some negative stuff as well and if they don´t find anything it might almost count as negative. Several bloggers write that you should actively use your blog as a tool to present yourself to the world, to create your own brand and to distinguish yourself. Some even go a step further and say that you should record a video of yourself and put it on youtube or the way you sign comments on other blogs affects your own brand.

I know, this sounds totally reasonable for people like me entering the business world from a marketing or generally spoken a business origin. And I´m convinced that people who want to apply for a job in this area, should actively check their online profile and keep a proper image. By proper image I mean the same image they´re providing in the real world as well. And yet, I believe that it´s not only important to people in the "business area". Although there might be less effects in other professions, I still think that the content of your blog or the way friends post about you, can affect a potential employers decision heavily. I mean if you´re always blogging about sun, fun and nothing to do and your friends upload all nasty party pictures they find of you, i don´t know if the company or organisation might trust you if you´re presenting yourself as a hard-worker at the job interview. And this is probably as true for companies as for NGOs or governments...

For those who´re interested to read some more about the topic. Here are some links for a start:

• Brand you with a blog
• Branding for Twenty Somethings
• Do you brand yourself in blog comments?

Snowboarding!

Some impressions from a marvelous day. I was on Belalp near Brig for snowboarding. It was truly amazing. Sun, snow and few people (we didn´t have to queue!). Now I´m just tired but happy...

Easter special

Ever wondered what the true story behind Easter is? Well, people believe that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus after being crucified. But where´s the link to rabbits and the easter bunnies? Why do people color eggs? Why has the easter basket to be hidden? And how got the chocolate industry into this?

There are probably more questions than answers around. But don´t worry, in case you can´t find a logic explanation to all this, you´re probably not alone. But now, I found some evidence which might tell the true story! It seems, that Dan Brown was somehow involved in this as well ;-)

Watch the evidence!

A beautiful day

On such beautiful days like today or yesterday, I can´t just stay inside the whole day. So, there were two options. Either, grab a book (of course study-related), sit in the sun, read and doing something reasonable. But being bored and not able to concentrate comes along with it. OR grab my bike, put some music on and head in a direction and decide on each cross-road where to go next until you´re tired and decide to go home. I chose both days option two, cause I should do certainly more sport than the last months.
And it´s so nice at the moment outside. The sun is shining. We have around 15° C. Flowers are prospering. Birds are whistling. People are outside again, walking, cycling, inline skating or just sitting outside, maybe playing games with their family. And everyone is smiling.
And while I am cycling, I can let my mind wander. Remembering nice experiences and moments. Being excited about what´s coming. Getting new ideas. Making plans for the future. And at the same time listening to music I like. My playlist today was the following:

Fortress Europe, Ch-check it out, Crazy in love, Song 2, You know my name, Maneater, Invincible, Tubthumping, What´s your number, I want rock, Shake your tailfeather, Take a look around, Till I collapse, Femme like you, Sorry, Hot in herre, California, The seed 2.0, A little samba, Big city life, Say it right, What comes around goes around