UCD Smurfit MBA Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Getting involved’

I visited Blackrock this week. My first view in a while of the long dipping main street strewn with highbrow establishments such as The Wicked Wolf and the wafting of shampoo fumes from one of the twenty one hairdressers burning my eye balls – I must say it was a delight to be back. As a 2010 / 2011 MBA graduate of Smurfit, the waft of cash burning a hole through the pockets of my D&G carrot chinos while I waded over the slew of board chairmen shouting job offers at me outside Supermacs on Blackrock main street did give me a little reminder that I am pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to business in Ireland. And then I walked into a pole and woke up.

The last few months have been interesting. I have met some amazing people, in marketing, retail, sales, manufacturing, product design and event management. These people are getting on with it. They are making the best of a crippled market and using innovative thinking and creativity to get ahead.

The most impressive individual I have met is a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in probably five years, Gavin Downes. Gav, a marketing graduate of Smurfit from back in the day is a director at Modern Green, one of the most advanced Experiential Marketing agencies in Europe. Their award winning campaigns for O2 and Heineken have ensured that they attract serious talent and have an absolute blast while doing it. Their pool table, turntable, vinyl records, dog friendliness, barber on a Tuesday, fun office is a joy to visit and the welcome everyone gets is part of who they are. Modern Green are open to ideas and dedicated to turning these good ideas into measureable brand experiences for clients.

As a converted experiential marketer I have had the fortune to engage MG recently to partner with me on approaching a major international brand about what I saw as their ineffective brand strategies in Ireland and to impress on them the need to change them. You see, Experiential Marketing (XM) allows customers to engage and interact with brands in sensory ways that provide the icing on the cake of providing information. Personal experiences help people connect to a brand and make intelligent and informed purchasing decisions. People remember experiences, and this drives sales. Gavin has a great saying, “it’s like telling someone who has never tasted chocolate what chocolate tastes like and expecting them to appreciate the experience.”

The growth of XM is very important. Last week I attended Experiential Marketing Ireland’s (XMI) first session. It was a mix of Ted Talks, a gig and a Damien McLoughlin lecture -very interesting and entertaining. About 100 agency and media people attended. It was hosted by GD, and there was some cool stuff discussed around billboards that communicate individually with consumers, Jay Z’s staggering multimillion dollar book launch, Bud’s weather thing that polarised the panel and innovative thinking by Brando.ie. The main point from this symposium was, value your own work. Ireland is one of the top media and marketing nations in the world. We have the most creative and innovative people working in marketing in Ireland, all of whom are only a phone call away and we should be proud of them and proud of ourselves.

So there is hope, keep positive, keep bashing out ideas, all you need is one.

Cheers,

-  Colin Barry, FT MBA 2010/2011

(PS I’m promoting this Macklemore and Ryan Lewis gig on the 21^st of October -buy tickets and come, there is a Smurfit MBA connection with one of the performing artists!!).

Follow Colin on Twitter

We started the MBA journey a few weeks ago and ever since day one I’ve been intrigued with the diversity of our class. With 55% of our students hailing from 10 different countries outside Ireland, you’re guaranteed to get a different perspective during lectures, workshops or bootcamps, whether the subject is Financial Reporting, Competitive Strategy or Strategic IS. This is especially true when you consider the large range of professional backgrounds also present. You’re always going to get a lightning bolt from somewhere when you throw Vets, Barristers, TV Producers, Professional Gamblers, Bankers, Traders, Lawyers, Engineers, Scientists, IT and Telecoms Professionals, Digital Journalists, Marketing Executives and a former Tank Commander into a room!

What’s fascinated me most during the last 19 days however, is the outrageously diverse range of perspectives that my new class have on life outside of the classroom. I already have countless examples which have opened my eyes to how different many of my new colleagues are in terms of outlook on life and life experiences. This is true on numerous levels. I’ve learned how sometimes Reiki is preferred to traditional medicine, reading tarot cards is favoured over blind fate and reading a persons’ energy as a means of judgingtheir personality is chosen over, well… the more old school ‘getting to know them’ technique.  It was apparent to me that this year was going to be interesting for a whole rainbow of reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Day one of the MBA in Smurfit Business School is done and dusted and what a whirlind of a day it has been!

This morning, as I stepped into the entrance hall which was brimming with almost one hundred new MBA candidates, I couldn’t help but feel excited about the possibilities that lay ahead.

It began with a brief introduction from the MBA faculty who gave us a comprehensive overview of the School, the support available to us and the workload that lay ahead.

While I expected a heavy volume of academic work, I was impressed by the commitment of the MBA team to develop the potential of each MBA candidate. We were told about the extensive Personal Development Programme (PDP) available to us throughout the year which includes personal coaching, leadership and other personal development tools.  It seems to me that the Smurfit Business School has struck a good balance between academic riguour and the leadership/personal development requirements of the next generation of MBA’s.

Networking is a crucial part of the MBA, and business in general, and so the first coffee break provided us with an ideal opportunity to hone our skills. In the end, it wasn’t very difficult. Everyone was very friendly and within a nano-second, people from all backgrounds – engineering, non-profits, business, technology and finance, were engaged in deep discussion. One of the benefits of the MBA is the diversity of the group which helps you see business challenges  through the eyes of someone with a different perspective than you, which can be invaluable.

One of the sessions today was entitled ‘Getting Things Done’ and we were given an insight into best practice in terms of becoming more effective managers of our time and of ourselves. While I had always sworn by a daily ‘to do’ list, what I took away from the session was the importance of deciding on what was really important and what was less so, and of taking immediate action on the important tasks. It seems simple but how often do we get caught up in the small stuff?

After lunch, Prof. Niamh Brennan brought her no-nonsense approach to the class in her report writing session. We had been asked to prepare a five page report in advance of the first day and to critique each other’s work. Critiquing the report of someone you had just met was a little daunting. However, it soon became clear that there was much to learn. While I waxed a little lyrical in my report, my colleague provided an engineer’s perspective and proposed key structural alterations that vastly improved my work. I was able to make some good suggestions for his report too.The key take-away’s for me were the importance of preparation, of clear and concise communication and of continually critiquing your work and seeking to  improve it on a continuous basis. I think the Japanese call it Kaizen.

In the afternoon, Emma Ledden of MTV fame and now a highly regarded communications consultant, along with her business partner gave us an overview of the Communications Bootcamp. For some of us, it meant the unexpected news that we would have to deliver a presentation at 7.45am the following morning with our new groups. We were told about this at 3.30pm and also that the full presentations had to be submitted by 5.30pm that evening…. They don’t call it bootcamp for nothing!

- Conor O’Donovan, EMBA City Centre Yr 1

Women of the MBA 2011: (Left to Right)- Nargiza Kalmamatova (Kyrgyzstan), Blonde Beauchamp (Boston/Haiti), Yvette Grave (Germany), Anh Pham (Vietnam), Lindsey Keefe (Boston), Gemma Ginty (Ireland), Megan Molloy (Washington), Megan Hayward (New York), Amneet Jhiete (India), Toan Do (Vietnam). There in spirit, Diana Vincent (India), Tham Nguyen (Vietnam) and Barbara O’Beirne (Ireland).

As part of the MBA we did a course in Negotiations where we learned about expanding the pie and creating ‘win win’ situations. As a final gesture towards the meeting of minds and cultures, the MBA women of 2011 translated this idea into the ritual of creating a dish and sharing it together at the table.

Thirteen may be considered unlucky, but in this context we are thirteen extremely skilled and confident women who have just qualified with an MBA. We certainly feel lucky to be in this position and with the world at our fingertips.

For us, this small but unique microcosm represents the world and it’s differences. The table acts as a common ground no matter what our religions or nationalities. For each of us, the act and art of making food gave us an opportunity to represent who we are and where we’ve come from and we did this with pride. Our menu ranged from Vietnamese fried spring rolls and chicken fried rice, Kyrgyz beef noodle, American brie in pastry and macaroni cheese, German potato salad, Haitian Curry, and Irish apple tart.

The ‘table’ represents the symbol of engaged exchange. In the future we will gather around different tables dotted around the world developing strategies, designing products, managing teams and deciding our own future. Although we will be in different contexts, we will continue to bring the same enthusiasm and creativity to our future challenges as we brought to this table.

As a unique group of Smurfit MBA graduates, we recognise our differences but also realise our future experiences will be similar, dealing with the challenges as young woman in business. These will range from our family expectations, stereotyping of our roles, how we fall in love and how we fulfil our dreams. We will also need to balance how society dictates how we should live, how we should behave, what our remuneration should be as business women, and how we will cope with raising children and doing the work that drives us to be successful.

We have promised each other we will meet again at another table in ten years’ time. But before we re-unite with our stories of work and life, it would be great to keep the idea of the metaphysical table intact, where we could advise and support each other as we meet our individual challenges. As we look to the future we hope to bring the same enthusiasm and engagement to our future tables, as we brought to sharing this last meal together as Smurfit 2011 MBA students.

-Gemma Ginty, FT MBA 2010-2011