One man show and you get the job

I attended today the most amazing company presentation of all my MBA experience!!! It took place in the Mendelssohn Theatre, the theather of Michigan League, with 640 seats (the Michigan League is one of the student union building of the University)... There was not a crowded attendance (we were maybe 50...)but the absents were badly wrong.... The company in question is a worldwide leader in pharmaceuticals, medical devices and customer care products (one band-aid for the one who guess which company I am speaking about..). They imposed us a video presentation about their worldwide presence and leadership... well... classic and boring... Just interesting to confirm that a French person speaking English is distinguishable even in a worldwide company video propagande... (I sink biiiiiiiiiiiiiiip iz ze compani where your drimz come true)

Then, a new key-note speaker was introduced and we were then learnt that this guy, after a career in the Marine Corp, became Vice-President of Diversity of this company. Tall,slim... looks like a former strict military guy... what the hell is he doing in that Diversity job????

It was at that moment that the guy started a one-man show... litteraly. Between 2 jokes, he presented the company so nicely that the common cliches become relevant... the usual slogans we tired to hear about in those presentations took a real sense... I believe that actually that guy is a pro entertainer, who acts as VP of the Company... anyways, whoever he is he made a good job... I dropped my Resume... and many did so...

US FOOTBALL : LET'S GO BLUE!!!

Done... I went to the Michigan Stadium this afternoon and Wolverines (Michigan) beat Wisconsin 27-13. More familiar with amazing Brazilian Soccer games Flamengo-Vasco and much more passionate by futebol, I was wondering if this experience would not be too “American” for me... What kind of interest could have a sport where two gangs of Robocop specimens are fighting violently so as to send one of them to the other side carrying a rugby ball?? And where are the delirious fans, the street vendors, the violent cops and the complete disorganization surrounding the stadium, as it happens usually to be at Maracana stadium??

It is another sport, another country and another attendance. People coming quietly to the stadium, singing several odes to the Blue… ha! At least one common point: both ingurgitate huge quantities of beer. The sport itself is maybe more interesting than Rugby... When a team touchdowns, the movements are generally really amazing... each player has a specific duty and the guy who is penetrating in the so-desired area is only a mere element of a collective effort... well, at least it was my perception..

Around the game, Michigan fans keep on singing and crying "Let's go Blue" and other canticles I cannot remember. There is no insult against the opponent or its fans… no animosity, no violence… far different from the stupidity equally widespread among soccer team partisans… I observed also the excellence of the Michigan orchestra which had a tremendous success by imitating dead zombies of Michael Jackson's movie clip "Thriller" as they were performed this music while half-time. I just found the cheerleaders less exuberant than expected...

Generally speaking, everything seems to be choreographically too much prepared... even the spontaneous reactions of the attendance. Maybe the most amusing interaction of them with the game was during the key-times… literally, before all decisive moments of the game, fans take their keys and shake them and that creates a general noise of keys in the stadium... inventive... it's really key-time!

Comparing to soccer, well! I won't be heretic... and will continue to pray in my primitive church where Pele is one and eternal Lord, Maradona is His Son and Ronaldo the Holy Spirit ... Sorry dudes... I prefer the non-educated and disordered torcidas singing their indecent canticles, eleven vs eleven and fuck the referee, his mother is a bitch!!! ... But I enjoyed the moment and will certainly come-back for other Wolverines wins...

Last hilarious detail: at the entrance, I was not authorized to get in carrying my umbrella... I had to drop it and I decided to leave it on the top of a letter box... "as it may rain... well at least it would save somebody's hair brushing...", I sadly thought... almost three hours later, when the game was over, it started raining... and I found my umbrella at the very same place I dropped... weird... it is a samsonite umbrella... 30 dollars, manufactured in the US... valuable... Weird… well, it's America... (encore?)

Resumes, interviews and... lottery

Ross Business School MBA provides many and many opportunities to meet companies, apply for the job of your dreams and resume your career in promising bases. Since the beginning of the year, I attended 4 company presentations - Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group, Booz Allen Hamilton and General Electric, but there has been a lot more. From those I attended, I enjoyed the good food, especially during the Microsoft BCG events (The wine BCG served was excellent). There are at least 100 companies which will organize a presentation until the end of the Fall Semester. The preferences of the MBA students are similar to those of other MBAS: consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) and investment banking... But worldwide corporations like GE, Microsoft, HP, Dell are also very active and offer many occasions to meet their staff and generate the interest of potential candidates.

In this crucial moment of my MBA, I have to prepare my resumes and cover letters. The resume made in US are completely different from those usually built in France. Here, you must show how much impact you had in your previous experience. So it is not rare to read "have reduced 40% of the cost of my department by reengineering the purchasing sector"... "increase the sales by 80% by opening new international markets".... Each MBA is a prospective Clark Kent bound to become Superman once hired by an employer. It is maybe the most challenging part of the application process for me... but when at Rome do as the Romans...

Then, I am applying for the consulting companies, having selected different geographic offices (Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Chicago..). I am also applying for electronics industries and IT companies. For the moment, the warm up time... interviews are scheduled only in october...

What surprised me was the alternative provided by Ross School of Business to get an interview even if you are not shortlisted by the companies after the resume screening. There is an aunction system they put in place. By instance, you wanna be interviewed by General Motors. General Motors announces that they will interview let's say 50 candidates... 80% of which from the closed list they will constitute on the resume screening. And you happen to know that you've not been shortlisted by GM... Time to get suicide or apply to Ford? No... because Ross gives you your last chance... merci Ross...

20% of the seats are still available for those who have not been selected ... retaking my example, of GM, 10 seats will be available and be attributed to the best offer... Ross School of Business provides each student with 1,000 points for the whole year... and you have to bid part of all the points to get a chance to secure that seat... I was told that best offers could reach 500/600 points for a seat in the hottest aunctions. I am wondering if there is a "marche noir" to sell and buy points... How much is the value of the point for the interview bidding???

Anyways, weird process... but dont forget that we are in America...

Hollywoodland... Superman... Zorro... and me...

Yesterday night, I went to "Michigan", one of the oldest cine theater of the United States. Constructed during the silent film era when films were shown with live musical accompanimentis, the place still resists in this era of multiplex and pop-corn cines. The movie was "Hollywoodland" about the the life and mysterious death by suicide of George Reeves, star of the television series "Superman" in the 50's. The Superman in question is interpreted by Ben Affleck (pas mal!) and Adrian Brody is the detective who investigastes the case. George Reeves became famous thanks to this role but as he cannot take off for other more credible compositions, he get depressed, broke with his mentor and torrid lover (the MGM boss' wife wonderfully interpreted by Diane Lane) and started an affair with a younger aspiring starlet. And suddenly, he died. Needless to say that I can't tell more.

At the end of the movie, I was thinking of two combined curses : the first consists in having a very popular role on TV and be unable to do something different in your career. I had my hero when kid : Zorro!!!! Well before Alain Delon (la classe!) and Antonio Banderas (nul!), the real true Zorro was an actor named Guy Williams... (see picture above) who became one the most popular actor in the late 50's in Hollywood. For those who were kids in the 80's in France, the serie was on air at 9:00 on saturdays at Disney Channel... I never missed one chapter. Like George Reeves, Guy Williams was recognized only for the role of his biggest career break. Worse : as he had to make his living, he performed a couple of serie B movies in Europe... "Captain Sindbad" and "Damon and Pythias"... two forgotten daubs... and made then some appearances in TV series (Bonanza and ... Lost in the Space) but for everybody, he was out..

Then he went to Argentina, made some money at a certain moment in a circus acting as Zorro (ohlala! what a decadence!) and died mysteriously sometime between April 30 and May 6, 1989 in his apartment in Buenos Aires. Many people wonder why his death went undiscovered for several days. Maybe another good scenario for an inventive studio in Hollywood... You see the curse!!!

The other curse is about Superman featured in comics, TV or movies... Well, be prepared.. it's a long-list...

• Georges Reeeve had this tragic death... (see above)
• In 1963, US President Kennedy's staff approved of a Superman comics story in which the hero touts the president's physical fitness initiatives, and Kennedy was shot and killed.
• Richard Pryor starred as a villain in 1983's Superman 3 , was drug addicted. Three years later, he announced that he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
• My idol Marlon Brando, who played Superman's father in Superman 1 underwent various personal tragedies later in his life: his son Christian killed the lover of Christian's half-sister and was sentenced 10 years prison. Cheyenne, depressed, committed suicide in 1995 and Brando died almost broken in 2005.
• Christopher Reeeve who played Superman (1,2, 3, 4) throughout the 1980s was paralyzed from the neck down after being thrown from his horse. He died on 2004 due to heart failure...
• C'est pas fini...
• Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane opposite Reeve suffered from intense bipolar disorder. In 1996, she went missing for several days and was found by police in a paranoid, delusional state...
• In July 2006, Brandon Routh who plays Superman/Clark Kent in Superman Returns fell off his motorcycle, catapolting over the handle bars.

Conclusion : Watch out Banderas... (Alain Delon is dead no?)

What the Hell are you doing in Ann Arbor???

Many ask me "what the hell are you doing in that small city I've never heard about before". It is cold like Greenland and you lived 7 years in Rio de Janeiro, there is nothing culturally impacting around and you grew up in Paris...Ok! ok! Ok! Ann Arbor might not be the place "where the things happen", to paraphrase Goldoni, BUT you should not be stick to this first impression. I am sure that by telling you the unknown (and sometimes virtual) story of this city, you may rush to http://www.lastminute.com/ buy a ticket, come and join me.

For your cultural enrichment, please notice that Ann Arbor began with the original founders John Allen and Elisha Rumsey. Their wives' names were Ann and Anna. And naturally, those settlers decided to name the city honoring their beloved beings.... as it recorded in the official files.. But my personal researches evidenced another reality. It is reported that both founders had a love affair with a French "dame galante" who came to the city as dancer for a French cancan troop few days after the opening of the first "saloon". Both founders immediately fell in love and had a long affair with her. Her name was Suzanne Harbourg. In her honour, they decided to name the city Suzanarbor... but they immediately thought about the stability of their respective matrimonial status. And ho! Coincidence, all the women of their life had a similar name... Ann, Anna and Suzanne... Ann Arbor happened then to be the consensus.

What happened in Ann Arbor ever since? Many incredible events actually! So many things that much more space would have been necessary to tell all the secrets of this incredible place. Another dancer made an impact in the city as dance major of the University of Michigan in the late 70's... well at that time, she was a little bit fat and awfully dressed... her name? Louise Ciccone... most well known by its second name: Madonna... Another former student of the University became famous all around the world. And a major event that happened at Ann Arbor changed radically his life. That is the story of a former Football player, quarterback of the "Blues". One day he lost his position in the team and spent the entire season on the bench. His substitute - called Nixon - became famous in the School, took all the girls of the former star who was relegate to the most profound indifference. He solemnly pledged to take one day his revenge. His name was Gerald Ford, who became later Vice-President of another Nixon...Richard Nixon... and then the Watergate and Gerald Ford became President of the United States... who told you that we know all the details of the Watergate??? The truth is somewhere else...(but not in this thread)

So, to sum up: love, envy, lust, jealousy, success, ambition, celebrities... the History of Ann Arbor is all about that... Make up your mind... this place is definitively where the things do happen (if you have enough imagination)... And the last word is: if you want to visit me, here is my house and me and my best friend... I know you cannot wait now... See you soon!

The text in bold is merely the result of my pathetic imagination... sorry for the family of those involved.

9/11/2001 - 5 years...

Everybody born in the 40's or 50's may remember exactly what they were doing on 22nd November 1963 when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas. It was a profound commotion all around the world. And after this event, this world became less safe and more complex to understand. Those who cherish the memory of JFK consider that it was because of his death that the US intervened massively in Vietnam, that the country lost its innocence and then happened the Watergate, and the diverse crises of the 70's...

Everybody of our generation may also remember exactly what they were doing when they learnt about 9/11/2001 attacks. Personally, I was at my office in Rio de Janeiro, preparing to go for a business travel at Sao Paulo. I paid attention to one weird news on the net : "Plane crashed in the WTC"... Nothing else about the size of the aircraft, the casualties... well it should be a helicopter or something else, I thought... Poor pilot! Then, I called my sister as I was walking to the domestic airport... Hello, happy birthday! I said.. (She was born a 11th september..)... Oh! It is a day like other else... she said... And at that moment it wasn't anymore...

In the airport, I remembered I took the same plane as Pedrinho... nobody knows Pedrinho and it's normal. He is a Soccer player and he was playing at Palmeiras (Sao Paulo)... You surely dont care, but I remembered this stupid detail... and I will always think "I took the same plane as Pedrinho the 09/11/2001...Everything was quiet in Rio... cloudness day as it was in NYC... Beautiful as no other place in the world can be...

Just the opposite of what I found in Sao Paulo. I took a cab and the driver was panicked : "They bombed New York, nothing left"... That's how I learnt what I supposed to be a mere helicopter was actually 2 Boeings that went in the WTC. Impossible! I thought... It should be caused by a tragic error from the Air Traffic Management of one airport of NY. They are giving wrong instructions of landing to the planes... congratulations guys, YOU LOST YOUR JOB!!! That's why both had the same fatal trajectory. The reported crash of an additional plane in the Pentagon convinced me that this theory was wrong and as I arrived at my business lunch (Restaurant Red, Avenida Paulista - this restaurant doesn't exist anymore), I was at least aware that a infame tragedy was happening in the US.

At the lunch, we did not talk about business, partnership, synergies... we kept watching TV. We understood that we were in a new world, less safe for those who thought it was. It was 5 years ago... And today Bin Laden is still free, George Bush, Tony Blair are still on duty. Even Jacques Chirac remains at his office. After NY, terrorists hit Madrid, London, Mumbai, but also Turkey, Morrocco and everyday Iraq...

Tomorrow will be a day of mourning in the US... Half a decade passed. I am sure that in decades, everybody who assisted the attacks on TV, in NY, in Washington, anywhere, everybody will remember what they did when they know about.

I arrived last sunday and it seems that I am in another world and another MBA Program. Everything is here huge, well organized and operational. I almost miss the familial atmosphere of HEC even if I am glad to take advantage of the many resources of the University.

The classes are for the best of the ride. I took almost only courses of Strategy but unfortunately I cannot enroll for that of C.K. Prahalad, one of the most eminent specialists of the academic world. I managed nevertheless to enroll to "Business Strategy in Latin America" for the next term. The teacher waives me the requirements previously set for students before enrolling. Due to my professional experience and Strategy classes I took at HEC, I get my direct ticket! I know I am already aware of that context but I am expecting a lot from the external vision of the professor who has been working at the World Bank.

I am also really excited with the courses I've been currently following. "Intellectual Property and Competitive Strategy" shows all the importance of patenting, copyrights, trademarks and the other set of legal protections companies can request in order to safely innovate and keep competitive advantage. I am glad to observe that the matter is not considered only by the US-centric point of view. By instance, is it fair to break patents in pharmacy when it is a question of life-saving?? Big pharmas - a majority of US and European companies - may say no. Because of the cost of development, etc etc... but rapid developing economies like Brazil, South Africa or India may argue that they cannot afford stratospheric prices set by those international companies. And they have the determinant argument of life saving to counter the IP legal shield of those companies. Who is wrong and who is right? Is the WTO the only judge able to decide on? Those questions have been raised by the class and it is nice to see that a MBA can also consider different points of view.

Now it is my first week end at Ann Arbor. Tomorrow, my first Football game (US Football bien sur) and sunday, a picnic with international students and my first Soccer game. Good opportunity to prepare the next week : many company presentations, resumes and cover letters to prepare... My God!!! I remember one detail : I need to find a job asap ... in january my second student life will be over... Ouille!