Saturday, January 24, 2009
Study Abroad - Berlin, Germany
I’m now back in Urbana and, after a long week of classes, have finally had a chance to post the remaining blog entries from the Study Abroad trip to Berlin. I really enjoyed myself in Berlin and greatly appreciate the opportunity to have visited such a unique place. Our hosts at the Freie Universitat were very gracious and our accommodations at the Best Western Premier Hotel Steglitz International were great. I hope you all have enjoyed the blog!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Study Abroad - Berlin, Germany
01-17-09 (Saturday)
This morning I took my time getting ready. It’s Saturday so there was no class to worry about. CH and I are staying until tomorrow morning, while most of the students are leaving today. I know of one other group of part-time MBAs who are renting a car and driving to Poland to see the Auchwitz memorial. CH and I are not so adventurous to rent a car and drive 5 hours to Poland, but we did visit the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.
The Holocaust Memorial was nothing short of sobering. There are four main rooms in the memorial, each one more heart wrenching than the last. Perhaps the hardest exhibit to deal with contained excerpts taken from diaries or letters of victims of the Holocaust just days before they were killed in one of the Nazi concentration camps (I have included a picture below of this exhibit). The memorial, although very hard to deal with, is worth seeing if you have the opportunity to visit Berlin.
After visiting the Holocaust Memorial, CH and I had some lunch and decided to explore the area a bit. The Holocaust Memorial is near the Brandenburg Gate and the nearest U-bahn (subway) station is Unter Den Linden. Unter Den Linden is also a major street in Berlin and leads up to the Brandenburg Gate. While walking around we noticed a very strong police presence and they seemed to be preparing for an event of some sort. There were barricades being set up and streets closed off; something big was in the works but we had no idea what. So we walked around for another 20 minutes or so and finally decided to ask someone what was going on. The person told us that it looked to him like a protest of some sort. No more than a minute later the first of about 2,000 Palestinians began marching by us in protest of the Israeli attacks in Gaza (rather ironic considering that we spent the first part of the afternoon at the Holocaust memorial).
Considering that Israel and America were the objects of the protest I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. CH and I were probably the only Americans on the block and while I could probably pass for a German, it didn’t ease my tension much. The demonstration, however, turned out to be fairly peaceful.
After leaving leaving the area where the protest took place, we headed back to the hotel for some rest. Later we got dinner at a traditional German restaurant called Schildkrote (where the waitress drank more beer than we did) and on the way home were harassed by a sketchy Russian at an intersection trying to convince us to visit the cabaret down the street. All in all, it was a pretty eventful day.
This morning I took my time getting ready. It’s Saturday so there was no class to worry about. CH and I are staying until tomorrow morning, while most of the students are leaving today. I know of one other group of part-time MBAs who are renting a car and driving to Poland to see the Auchwitz memorial. CH and I are not so adventurous to rent a car and drive 5 hours to Poland, but we did visit the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.
The Holocaust Memorial was nothing short of sobering. There are four main rooms in the memorial, each one more heart wrenching than the last. Perhaps the hardest exhibit to deal with contained excerpts taken from diaries or letters of victims of the Holocaust just days before they were killed in one of the Nazi concentration camps (I have included a picture below of this exhibit). The memorial, although very hard to deal with, is worth seeing if you have the opportunity to visit Berlin.
After visiting the Holocaust Memorial, CH and I had some lunch and decided to explore the area a bit. The Holocaust Memorial is near the Brandenburg Gate and the nearest U-bahn (subway) station is Unter Den Linden. Unter Den Linden is also a major street in Berlin and leads up to the Brandenburg Gate. While walking around we noticed a very strong police presence and they seemed to be preparing for an event of some sort. There were barricades being set up and streets closed off; something big was in the works but we had no idea what. So we walked around for another 20 minutes or so and finally decided to ask someone what was going on. The person told us that it looked to him like a protest of some sort. No more than a minute later the first of about 2,000 Palestinians began marching by us in protest of the Israeli attacks in Gaza (rather ironic considering that we spent the first part of the afternoon at the Holocaust memorial).
Considering that Israel and America were the objects of the protest I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. CH and I were probably the only Americans on the block and while I could probably pass for a German, it didn’t ease my tension much. The demonstration, however, turned out to be fairly peaceful.
After leaving leaving the area where the protest took place, we headed back to the hotel for some rest. Later we got dinner at a traditional German restaurant called Schildkrote (where the waitress drank more beer than we did) and on the way home were harassed by a sketchy Russian at an intersection trying to convince us to visit the cabaret down the street. All in all, it was a pretty eventful day.
Study Abroad - Berlin, Germany
01-15-09 (Thursday)
Today we made another corporate visit, this time to Deutsche Telekom’s (T-Mobile in the USA) T-Labs. T-Labs is basically the experimental technology lab for Deutsche Telekom and was probably the best of our corporate visits. Our guide was great and he showed around the very technologically advanced office and also showed us some of the projects that were being developed. One project worth noting is the “Kitchen of the Future” (that’s my name for it, I can’t remember the actual name). The “Kitchen of the Future” is a high tech kitchen where all of the appliances are networked together (they are also networked with TVs throughout the house) and everything is voice activated. It was pretty cool to see.
After visiting the T-Labs, we went back to the university to take a test. Note: If you are a prospective student or a current student considering going to Berlin for Study Abroad next year make sure you prepare for the test! It is not easy and requires more than a quick glance over of the materials from class (I wasn’t the only one who figured it would be easy).
Following the test we had a class about the German economic system and then had a guest speaker. The guest speaker was an Illinois MBA alumnus named Robert Hein. Mr. Hein is from the USA, but lives and owns his own business in Germany. He spoke to us for about an hour and a half and talked about how he got started with his business in Germany. He also discussed the differences between doing business in the USA and in Germany. It is also interesting to note that he has recently employed a handful of current Illinois MBA students and they are helping him to possibly bring his business stateside. He seemed excited to continue to have a strong relationship with the Illinois MBA program and is just one example of some of the great alumni the program has produced. A link to his company’s website can be found below.
http://www.004gmbh.de/en/
Later on we met up with some master’s students from the Freie Universitat at the Gaffel Kolsch for dinner and then went with them to Trompete Discotheque. It was an interesting experience as the discotheque was crowded with patrons dancing to American hits circa 1980. I had Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” playing in my head for the rest of the night.
Today we made another corporate visit, this time to Deutsche Telekom’s (T-Mobile in the USA) T-Labs. T-Labs is basically the experimental technology lab for Deutsche Telekom and was probably the best of our corporate visits. Our guide was great and he showed around the very technologically advanced office and also showed us some of the projects that were being developed. One project worth noting is the “Kitchen of the Future” (that’s my name for it, I can’t remember the actual name). The “Kitchen of the Future” is a high tech kitchen where all of the appliances are networked together (they are also networked with TVs throughout the house) and everything is voice activated. It was pretty cool to see.
After visiting the T-Labs, we went back to the university to take a test. Note: If you are a prospective student or a current student considering going to Berlin for Study Abroad next year make sure you prepare for the test! It is not easy and requires more than a quick glance over of the materials from class (I wasn’t the only one who figured it would be easy).
Following the test we had a class about the German economic system and then had a guest speaker. The guest speaker was an Illinois MBA alumnus named Robert Hein. Mr. Hein is from the USA, but lives and owns his own business in Germany. He spoke to us for about an hour and a half and talked about how he got started with his business in Germany. He also discussed the differences between doing business in the USA and in Germany. It is also interesting to note that he has recently employed a handful of current Illinois MBA students and they are helping him to possibly bring his business stateside. He seemed excited to continue to have a strong relationship with the Illinois MBA program and is just one example of some of the great alumni the program has produced. A link to his company’s website can be found below.
http://www.004gmbh.de/en/
Later on we met up with some master’s students from the Freie Universitat at the Gaffel Kolsch for dinner and then went with them to Trompete Discotheque. It was an interesting experience as the discotheque was crowded with patrons dancing to American hits circa 1980. I had Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” playing in my head for the rest of the night.
Study Abroad - Berlin, Germany
01-14-09 (Wednesday)
This morning we had another corporate visit, this time to Siemens AG. Siemens AG is a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering, operating in the industry, energy, and healthcare sectors (I got this description from their website. I probably would have never thought of the “global powerhouse”
adjective on my own). We got a two hour tour of their facilities and they were very impressive. Our tour guide was a retired Siemens employee and was very informative. He also told us exactly what he thought in response to our questions (some of his answers were not so politically correct, but in a refreshing kind of way). Our guide took us through several different buildings including the manufacturing and testing buildings. The testing facility contained equipment capable of simulating a lightning strike (I didn’t know that was possible). Each building we saw was remarkably clean and the employees all seemed to be very involved in what they were doing. Overall it was a good experience.
After leaving Siemens Brad, CH and I followed our classmates to the U-Bahn (subway) and got on the train. Before leaving Siemens the three of us had decided, since we had a few hours to eat lunch and then get back to the university, that we would get off at a random subway station and find somewhere to eat. We forgot to mention it to anyone else though, so you can imagine the looks of confusion and panic on some of our classmate’s faces when we exited the train ten stops before we were supposed to. Anyway, we found our way to a mall near the subway stop and had lunch at a food court inside the mall. I don’t quite remember the name of the restaurant, but it was German fast-food. I had currywurst on a bun (basically a pork sausage, a hot dog in this case, with curry sauce...see the link for more info) and it was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I ordered another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst
We arrived back on campus at 2:00PM and had two classes. The first was Marketing, Media and Consumer Behavior in Germany and the second was People Management: Balancing Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations. The first class was very interesting as Prof. Dr. Alfred Kuss discussed Germany’s unique marketing situation after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The second class, however, was even more interesting. Prof. Dr. Antoinette Weibel, an Austrian with a strong resemblance to my girlfriend’s mom, discussed the psychology of pay for performance. Spoiler alert...while most companies think pay for performance is great, the data shows that it only serves as positive motivation for people working certain types of jobs, mainly those that include simple and/or boring tasks. For jobs that include complex and/or interesting tasks, pay for performance tends to reduce performance. There’s more to tell, but I’m hoping the teaser will cause you to look into it yourself because it’s a lot to type.
Our day concluded with dinner at a restaurant called the Rathaus Cafe. Word to the wise, do not order salmon from a German restaurant. Do, however, order a Schofferhofer Grapefruit Hefeweizen Mix beer. Admittedly, it’s not a very manly beer, but it is delicious. Below is a picture of the Alexanderplatz U-Bahn station near the restaurant.
This morning we had another corporate visit, this time to Siemens AG. Siemens AG is a global powerhouse in electronics and electrical engineering, operating in the industry, energy, and healthcare sectors (I got this description from their website. I probably would have never thought of the “global powerhouse”
adjective on my own). We got a two hour tour of their facilities and they were very impressive. Our tour guide was a retired Siemens employee and was very informative. He also told us exactly what he thought in response to our questions (some of his answers were not so politically correct, but in a refreshing kind of way). Our guide took us through several different buildings including the manufacturing and testing buildings. The testing facility contained equipment capable of simulating a lightning strike (I didn’t know that was possible). Each building we saw was remarkably clean and the employees all seemed to be very involved in what they were doing. Overall it was a good experience.
After leaving Siemens Brad, CH and I followed our classmates to the U-Bahn (subway) and got on the train. Before leaving Siemens the three of us had decided, since we had a few hours to eat lunch and then get back to the university, that we would get off at a random subway station and find somewhere to eat. We forgot to mention it to anyone else though, so you can imagine the looks of confusion and panic on some of our classmate’s faces when we exited the train ten stops before we were supposed to. Anyway, we found our way to a mall near the subway stop and had lunch at a food court inside the mall. I don’t quite remember the name of the restaurant, but it was German fast-food. I had currywurst on a bun (basically a pork sausage, a hot dog in this case, with curry sauce...see the link for more info) and it was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I ordered another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currywurst
We arrived back on campus at 2:00PM and had two classes. The first was Marketing, Media and Consumer Behavior in Germany and the second was People Management: Balancing Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivations. The first class was very interesting as Prof. Dr. Alfred Kuss discussed Germany’s unique marketing situation after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The second class, however, was even more interesting. Prof. Dr. Antoinette Weibel, an Austrian with a strong resemblance to my girlfriend’s mom, discussed the psychology of pay for performance. Spoiler alert...while most companies think pay for performance is great, the data shows that it only serves as positive motivation for people working certain types of jobs, mainly those that include simple and/or boring tasks. For jobs that include complex and/or interesting tasks, pay for performance tends to reduce performance. There’s more to tell, but I’m hoping the teaser will cause you to look into it yourself because it’s a lot to type.
Our day concluded with dinner at a restaurant called the Rathaus Cafe. Word to the wise, do not order salmon from a German restaurant. Do, however, order a Schofferhofer Grapefruit Hefeweizen Mix beer. Admittedly, it’s not a very manly beer, but it is delicious. Below is a picture of the Alexanderplatz U-Bahn station near the restaurant.
Study Abroad - Berlin, Germany
01-13-09 (Tuesday)
This morning we had our first field trip/corporate visit to the Daimler (formerly DaimlerChrysler) Building near Potsdamer Platz. We also found the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall!
With regard to the our corporate visit, two gentlemen from Daimler’s Society and Technology Research Group gave us a two hour presentation about their group and its role in the company. The group is made up of individuals from a very diverse range of disciplines including, philosophy, math, psychology, economics, and many more. Its main function in the company is to analyze the role of the automobile in society and to serve as a guide for the company to incorporate new technologies into its line of vehicles. It was a very interesting presentation.
After the presentation we found our way back to the university and from 1:00 to 4:00 attended a class called Relationship Management in Business to Business Marketing. The class was taught by Prof. Dr. Michael Kleinaltenkamp and was not unlike our Marketing class at the U of I. He spent the first part of the class lecturing and then we discussed a case dealing with relationship management in business to business marketing.
After class we went back to the hotel to rest and then went out for a bite to eat. After dinner Brad and I (roommates for the trip) read the materials for Wednesday’s class and had a two hour discussion about politics and North and South Korean relations.
This morning we had our first field trip/corporate visit to the Daimler (formerly DaimlerChrysler) Building near Potsdamer Platz. We also found the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall!
With regard to the our corporate visit, two gentlemen from Daimler’s Society and Technology Research Group gave us a two hour presentation about their group and its role in the company. The group is made up of individuals from a very diverse range of disciplines including, philosophy, math, psychology, economics, and many more. Its main function in the company is to analyze the role of the automobile in society and to serve as a guide for the company to incorporate new technologies into its line of vehicles. It was a very interesting presentation.
After the presentation we found our way back to the university and from 1:00 to 4:00 attended a class called Relationship Management in Business to Business Marketing. The class was taught by Prof. Dr. Michael Kleinaltenkamp and was not unlike our Marketing class at the U of I. He spent the first part of the class lecturing and then we discussed a case dealing with relationship management in business to business marketing.
After class we went back to the hotel to rest and then went out for a bite to eat. After dinner Brad and I (roommates for the trip) read the materials for Wednesday’s class and had a two hour discussion about politics and North and South Korean relations.
Study Abroad - Berlin, Germany
01-12-09 (Monday)
This morning we had a very cold walk to class at the Freie Universitat (Free University). The whole campus was covered in snow and ice, so the university wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as I had imagined it would be, however I could see its potential. The link below contains pictures of the university (probably taken in the summer) that do it far more justice than my frozen hand pictures do.
http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/tour/galerie_neu/index.html
The history of the university is quite interesting. In short, the University was founded by German students after the Second World War with the help of the United States. The link below contains the details.
http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/tour/geschichtsausstellung/index.html
We had four classes today including a class called German-American Negotiating. The class was taught by Prof. Dr. Rudi Bresser (the Germans are very formal hence both Prof. and Dr. titles) and was, in my opinion, the most interesting class of the day. Prof. Dr. Bresser discussed prevailing American stereotypes of Germans and vice versa and then talked about ways to overcome these stereotypes in order to negotiate more effectively with one another. The list below shows the main differences (according to Prof. Dr. Bresser) between German and American negotiating styles.
American Negotiating Style:
Informal negotiating style
Negotiate only with decision makers
Straight and to the point
Lay all cards on the table
German Negotiating Style:
Formal negotiating style
Have limited authority
Long winded
Tend to withhold information
In order to be an effective cross-cultural negotiator, Prof. Dr. Bresser discussed some helpful skills people should possess (see list below). For what its worth, I would argue that these skills apply to any cross-cultural situation, not just negotiations, and that we all should work to incorporate them into our lives.
Skills for Cross-Cultural Negotiation:
Tolerance for Differences
Open-mindedness
Non-judgementalness
Tolerance for Ambiguity
Flexibility/Adaptability
Communicativeness
Curiosity
Empathy
Sense of humor
Warmth in human relationships
Strong sense of self
Ability to fail
Our day in class concluded at 5:00PM and we then had the night to do as we wished. Brad, CH and I decided to try to find the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall. Although we had a basic understanding of where the pieces were, we weren’t exactly sure. In addition, our track record of finding things over the past few days has been pathetic at best (it’s a good thing we don’t have to read maps for our classes). So, as you might have predicted based on my foreshadowing, we didn’t find it. We did however, get our first glimpse of the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial and had our first real German dinner at a restaurant in the same area.
This morning we had a very cold walk to class at the Freie Universitat (Free University). The whole campus was covered in snow and ice, so the university wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as I had imagined it would be, however I could see its potential. The link below contains pictures of the university (probably taken in the summer) that do it far more justice than my frozen hand pictures do.
http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/tour/galerie_neu/index.html
The history of the university is quite interesting. In short, the University was founded by German students after the Second World War with the help of the United States. The link below contains the details.
http://www.fu-berlin.de/en/tour/geschichtsausstellung/index.html
We had four classes today including a class called German-American Negotiating. The class was taught by Prof. Dr. Rudi Bresser (the Germans are very formal hence both Prof. and Dr. titles) and was, in my opinion, the most interesting class of the day. Prof. Dr. Bresser discussed prevailing American stereotypes of Germans and vice versa and then talked about ways to overcome these stereotypes in order to negotiate more effectively with one another. The list below shows the main differences (according to Prof. Dr. Bresser) between German and American negotiating styles.
American Negotiating Style:
Informal negotiating style
Negotiate only with decision makers
Straight and to the point
Lay all cards on the table
German Negotiating Style:
Formal negotiating style
Have limited authority
Long winded
Tend to withhold information
In order to be an effective cross-cultural negotiator, Prof. Dr. Bresser discussed some helpful skills people should possess (see list below). For what its worth, I would argue that these skills apply to any cross-cultural situation, not just negotiations, and that we all should work to incorporate them into our lives.
Skills for Cross-Cultural Negotiation:
Tolerance for Differences
Open-mindedness
Non-judgementalness
Tolerance for Ambiguity
Flexibility/Adaptability
Communicativeness
Curiosity
Empathy
Sense of humor
Warmth in human relationships
Strong sense of self
Ability to fail
Our day in class concluded at 5:00PM and we then had the night to do as we wished. Brad, CH and I decided to try to find the remaining pieces of the Berlin Wall. Although we had a basic understanding of where the pieces were, we weren’t exactly sure. In addition, our track record of finding things over the past few days has been pathetic at best (it’s a good thing we don’t have to read maps for our classes). So, as you might have predicted based on my foreshadowing, we didn’t find it. We did however, get our first glimpse of the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial and had our first real German dinner at a restaurant in the same area.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Study Abroad - Mexico City
I have safely returned to Illinois and have had a chance to reflect on the last week. It was truly an amazing and wonderful experience and opportunity. I have learned, in one short week, so much about Mexico and its people. It is a wonderful country and, in my opinion, has yet to fully capitalize on the opportunities that are available to it. Its rich heritage and great people are two tremendous assets. I hope that Mexico can continue to grow and succeed in the coming years. Like the United States, there will be challenges and difficulties, but I believe both countries will emerge stronger and better than before.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the University of Illinois MBA program for making this trip available to me and my colleagues. In addition, I owe a huge thanks to IPADE Business School, its staff, students, and faculty. They made us feel at home and welcomed us to their country with open arms.
If you have any individual questions, please don't hesitate to email me at lefriedm@illinois.edu
Best wishes to all.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the University of Illinois MBA program for making this trip available to me and my colleagues. In addition, I owe a huge thanks to IPADE Business School, its staff, students, and faculty. They made us feel at home and welcomed us to their country with open arms.
If you have any individual questions, please don't hesitate to email me at lefriedm@illinois.edu
Best wishes to all.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
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