MBA Tournament

I wish I got a chance to post on here more often, but I have been unusually busy and lets be honest, Caroline is a much better (and devoted) blogger than I am.  However, today I wanted to take some time to talk about what has been going on with me lately.

Currently, I have three major 'pillars' in my life as a student.  I am taking elective courses at HEC - 8 in total - focused mainly on marketing.  One of the most interesting classes I have is a class on marketing and strategy in luxury goods, which is taught by Vincent Bastien.  He is former CEO of Louis Vuitton and has basically 'written the book' on luxury marketing.  He has a wealth of interesting real life experience to share with us and while I do not have much interest in pursuing a career in luxury, it is extremely interesting to see how luxury strategies can be applied to almost every good or service you can imagine (and in most cases already have been).

Literally...he wrote the book

The second pillar is my new internship at a small French research firm.  I am working part-time as a consultant and it has been interesting to get experience at a French company.  Contrary to popular belief, they actually do work hard - the staff is generally in the office until 21:00 or later (thats right, I write in European time now) - and they generally eat lunch at their desks!  However, all the rumors about vacation are true.  The office is basically closed for the month of August and everyone is encouraged to use all of their vacation.  Unfortunately, I cannot say much about the work I am doing on the blog, but it has been interesting and I am enjoying it so far.

Finally, the third pillar of my life, and the topic of this blog, is the annual MBA Tournament (MBAT) that is held at HEC this weekend.  We are hosting 1,500 MBA students from around Europe for three days of sports (and parties).  I have been helping to organize the sports portion of this event since October and have been fully focused on it for the past 3 weeks.  Along with a number of my classmates, I have been working on preparing all 24 events that will be held on campus this weekend.  It has been a lot of work, but a rewarding experience and as is the case with most large projects, we are scrambling to finalize the details this week.  I am also playing rugby, which should be interesting.  I have not played in about 6 years and my body does not take (or give) punishment like it used to.  Even Caroline is getting involved and will be leading one of the HEC petanque teams.  Petanque is similar to the Italian game of Bocce and involves a bunch of people standing around drinking pastis and throwing balls around a dirt court (obviously there is more to it than that, but those are the essential details).

There is also an 'Official MBAT Video' that was created to market the event:

So there you have it.  Working on MBAT has been an interesting experience (and hopefully looks good on my resume), but I cannot wait for it to be over so I can have my life back and continue enjoying our new life in Paris.