1st showing

We showed our condo the first time this week and it went pretty well! The couple recently got married and a little older, so they should have no problem with the condo price. They were pretty impressed with the space and the best condo they've seen so far. So it's time for us to just buckle down and wait. Hopefully we get more bites now that we listed our condo on MLS (multiple listing service).

With the real estate market still pretty depressed, it has been a bear for sellers and a bull for buyers. Since we want to sell and nothing to buy, we are in a challenging situation. There is always the option to rent out, but that would mean managing the property from afar.

I'm visualizing the sale and I hope readers send out some positive energy to make this happen!

A time to reflect

I've been following the 2010 students on the IMD Blog and it's been fascinating to live vicariously through their posts. Summer vacation is almost over and they head to South Africa on Sunday, as they head into the 2nd half of the year. I feel their sense of excitement while realizing that the program is a little more than halfway done. I feel some really complex emotions as I put myself into their shoes: apprehension, excitement, calmness, sadness, happiness, melancholic... Deep down, I also prepare for a quick year, but also reminding myself to savor each moment. The over-night assignments, hanging out with my classmates, the lunch buffets, and dates with my wife over the 11 months next year .

I sense a common theme in the blog posts. It's apparent that the MBAs have already transformed quite a bit after a couple of months at IMD. I'm more excited than ever, to learn, to transform, to experience.

Good luck applicants and see you soon future classmates!

Ouchy Ouchy Ouchy

We've reserved an apartment on Ouchy street, and have received the lease contract. We will have to pay about 4000 CHF up front as a deposit. I guess it's not that bad, a little less than 3 months rent. I don't really have a sense of how this compares in other European countries, but we have no choice.

On another note, more and more students are being admitted and the class of 2011 is slowly forming, it's been fun looking at the sitebuilder webpages and facebook profiles of my future classmates. Our condo is currently on sale and hopefully we will get some bites, but in the mean time, we are selling items and lightening our load as best we can. December will come very soon!

our humble home - up for sale!

GEM #4

An absolute awesome read, Scott Bedbury gives his learnings at Nike and Starbucks which, under his watch, became one of the most well known brands in the world. He goes through 8 crucial and distinct principles to achieve brand leadership, but I will yet again condense and give you my top three learnings.

GEM #4: A new brand world

My top three ideas from the book
1. Support innovative products with emotional branding as emotional connections last longer (safety, love, affection, belongingness, esteem and self actualization)
2. Brands are defined by a lifetime of collective experiences and actions... so are WE!
3. Fight for brand stewardship with a CBO (chief branding officer) that will control all aspects of customer experience at every single touch point to ensure brand consistency both internally and externally

Passed round 1, now for round 2

Received an exciting email this morning on my ipod touch, I've made it past IMD's review of the Business Week blogging candidates and was given the go ahead to send my entries to BW. I've now gotten into the habit of checking my email right when I wake up using my alarm clock (ipod touch), anticipating any kind of emails from IMD or the relocation folks.

So it will be in the hands of BW now as I prepare my application to be submitted before June 30th. Successful applicants will be notified in September. It seems that BW only selects a couple of students a year, so hopefully IMD will be represented!

Time to go take a decent photo of myself...

2 essays, 60,000 CHF

Talk about pressure to perform. I have never written anything or much less do anything in a single sitting that can potentially make $60,000. I'm talking about the two IMD scholarships that I am eligible to apply for.

1. IMD MBA Future Leaders Scholarship
- Essay on "Leadership in an era of Globalization"
- 750 words

2. IMD MBA Alumni Scholarship
- “As a business leader, which issue would you set as your first priority to address in your region / country? Why would you choose this issue? How would you, personally, address it?”
- 1000 words

So here it is, $34 a word to help finance an IMD MBA. It's going to be fun, well it WILL help lighten the debt load obviously, but definitely a great challenge!

visas

The visa situation is a little complex. Alison is a US citizen and I'm a Singaporean Citizen. The swiss consulate website that we were referred to is quite complicated. There were the required forms available, but we had no idea what documents to send, how to send the payment, what is the payment, who needs to send forms...

It turns out that Singaporeans do not need any visas, either short term or longer than 3 months. All I need to do is to show up at IMD and they will take care of the residence permit. Apparently I will need a residence permit for long term stay. Alison, however will need a visa for stays longer than 3 months. After several email exchanges with the consulate in Chicago, we got an idea of what to do. Alison will fill in a "family reunification" visa, and along with it, submit our marriage certificate, her passport, my passport, my permanent residency card and a letter of enrollment from IMD. At least we have an idea now of what to send. They estimated a turn around time of up to 12 weeks.

As we start the process to obtain our visas,  I will post a more definitive entry on how we obtained our visa.

Wish us luck!