camp diary

TUESDAY 26.4.

On tuesday morning we learned about nature and identification of opportunities and managerial aspects of entrepreneurship. On afternoon sessions we learned about Contextual dynamics and search for entrepreneurial opportunities.

What I learned of this day, was that the subjects were familiar from earlier studies, but the atmosphere was much more motivating. Reasons for this were existence of experienced MBA students who were discussing about subjects and another one was that our professor Lambert had interresting way to teach. Third reason was that the classroom was built as a triangle, that allowed everyone to look other people’s eyes, and not backs.

WEDNESDAY 27.4.

On Wednesday we had lessons about business models. I realised the importance of business models, and that companies need to change it when going abroad. Good example is Wal-mart which is biggest hypermarket chain in US, but till now it has failed in Europe. Company’s need to think locally!

Wednesday afternoon we had a professor from Cambridge, Charles Hampden-Turner. He taught about paradox and dilemma. What left in my mind, was that every succesful team has to have different members – team doesn’t work if there’s only leaders or only thinkers. What impressed me, was Charles’s story of good leader. He told an example about japanese man, who wanted something and he worked for it every day and didn’t loose his will even there came many missfortunes. When the man succeeded finally to do what he wanted, he saw it and was killed right after that. The lesson was that good leader never looses hope and faith and humbleness.

THURSDAY 28.4.

Thurday morning we had also Charles Hampden-Turner who gave us three real life succes stories: Richard Branson(British), Anita Roddick (Italian immigrant) and Gordon Edge (Cambridge).

Branson, funder of Virgin is person, who has understood the importance of people.

“Employees come first, customers come second, owners come last, not in importance but in TIME”

Thursday afternoon we had another guest lecturer, Michael Rogosin. He mentioned key trends on innovations, which are:

- mass customization

- mass collaboration

- co-creation – prosumers

- open innovation

- permission marketing

- focus on new business models

- customer experience

FRIDAY 29.4.

On Friday morning we had Charles Lumbers who spoke about implementation dynamics and on afternoon we spoke about patents, trademarks and ipr. We had Rick De Zeeuw and Nadège Lumbers (Charles’ daughter). I found the lesson very interresting and all the hings were new for me.

SATURDAY 30.4.

Saturday was a huge day for us because we had an opportunity to present our business ideas for 3 business angels, who came to EDHEC only for us. I haven’t ever been as nervous, but it went quit well, and I’m glad I had such a great opportunity to improve presenting and investor pitching.