CEMS Gala Dance 2010

It has been my tradition to describe major CEMS socializing events of the semester. The spring semester 2010 should not be any exception. Although I am not student anymore...sadly for me...I stil enjoy attending these events. CEMS Gala Dance was organized by CEMS Club Prague already in April but as I was going through my posts and pictures tonight I realized that evidence of this event has been missing on my blog....so here it is :-). Cool stylish evening with buffet, drinks and dancing lessons, nice meetup of cemsies on top of that of course.

Barcamps...an interesting meeting hub of internet, social media, startup fans and geeks

Hi, after attending the second barcamp with my boyfriend, I decided to post something about those events on my blog because it has been always a very interesting and enriching experience. In January 2010, we were on the first barcamp in CZ which was organized in Vsetin by local entrepreneurs and internet fans. It was a great meeting of interesting people and I really enjoyed the whole weekend of presentations and talks. I was in particular astonished by the high ratio of people having Macs and iPhones. I learned about a lot of interesting websites, intiatives, projects and after coming back from this weekend, I have established my twitter account as well (@olinkany). After-party in Vsetin was really nice as well :-).

 My second barcamp experience was last weekend in Vienna where we went with Lukáš to try out an international barcamp. Everything was in German which again refreshed my vocabulary and speaking a bit and we attended just few sessions about coworking, social media usage and own branding, fashion on internet and web-analytics. It was again Apple paradise, the only difference was, people were also using iPads there :-). Since the weather was nice, we also enjoyed some sightseeing in Vienna City Center. I love this City, not as much as Prague, but similarly :-) ... because it brought me a lot of nice memories during the semester I spent there in winter 2007/2008.

Speech from My Graduation Published Online

Greetings to everyone. I have finally uploaded the speech from my graduation ceremony for those who were interested to listen but could not attend on March 12. I hope you will enjoy it.

http://vimeo.com/11994877 

 Just a little reminder, the speech is in Czech.

Edinburgh calling

On the first weekend of May I arranged a trip to Edinburgh in Scotland to visit my friend Lucy. I flew with a friend of mine Martin and our both flights went ok despite the recent activities of the Islandic volcano whose name is so hard to write or pronounce.

The temperature in Edinburgh was around 10 degrees lower than in Prague but that has not discouraged us from exploring beauties of the Scottish capital. We were impressed mainly by the crowds in and atmosphere of local pubs. In the restaurant called "Standing Order", you order and pay your food at the bar and tell the waiter the number of the table and in few minutes, they would bring you the meal. Interesting and quite efficient pub supply chain :-). Well, I am just joking.

Edinburgh has for sure a lot to offer. I was most impressed by the really green lawns and grass, plus at this time of a year, flowers and trees in parks are blossoming and the city looked perfect with old British houses around. There is great view from Calton Hill where we spent Friday evening observing and ancient fire festival tradition.

On Saturday we visited the coast and the beach. It was probably the coldest weather at the seaside which I´ve ever experiences but I found some huge shells which improved my mood very much. Then we had a small lunch in a nice restaurant near the beach.

A funny story ended our Saturday evening when I pronounced the name of our street totally differently to the taxi driver and he took us on other side of the city. So ok, the drive cost us a bit more :-). Lucy likes it in Edinburgh very much and I do not wonder about it. It is a nice place if you don´t mind bit of rain and cold wind...:-). Although when we landed back in Prague on Sun evening, it was raining while it was sunny before the plane took off from Edinburgh.

My recent activities...

Hello again after some time. I am getting used to my new assignment at Cisco Emerging Markets Partner Organization while undertaking other activities in my leisure time....well, as usual :-). The team in my initiative is growing and I am learning fast every day which is good.

I have again attended some CEMS events during the last few months, including traditional CEMS drinks, CEMS Team Building in Krkonose, CEMS Gala event. One special piece has been the CEMS Theatre, a play called Happy Prince from Oscar Wilde, performed by CEMSies. The video from this world first premiere can be seen right here . I have contributed with little piano accompaniment.

Apart from this, I am trying to be in close touch with my family. The last two months were full of big anniversaries when my mom celebrated her 50th birthday and my grandmother her 75th. After me celebrating my 25th this year in August, this big chain of our anniversaries will be over :-).

I am meeting my friends often and we have spent some nice moments together within last weeks, including this one:

Last but not least I spend a lot of time with my bf Lukáš who is great support of my out of work life and brings balance into everything around.

I am also trying to upload the speech from my graduation ceremony to be available for preview. However it is not ready yet and should be done in a short time.

Graduation Ceremony at VŠE, Prague

I really enjoyed both my graduation ceremony as well as the speech on behalf of graduating students. In addtion to that, my sister had her prom ball in the evening, so March 12 was a busy day and I am sure it has made our parents proud of us.

New full time job, new destination...Cisco Systems

On Monday, February 8, 2010, I started my first full time assignment after finishing the Master´s degree. I have chosen this job because it offered me to gain a lot of experience in starting a new worldwide initiative within the large American IT corporation. Actually, I like this company, because it is nearly as old as I am. Cisco was founded in 1984 at the Campus of the Stanford university by two students who invented the first switching system enabling interoperability of multiple operating systems. 

Cisco is betting on collaboration and that is definitely something I like about working there because I can make use of their own collaboration tools also internally.  The scope of my work is very international which is good, given the fact I studied International trade and International Management :-).

My position is called Program Analyst and I am responsible for monitoring a new incentive program for Cisco´s partners in the Emerging markets. So far I have been enjoying revealing complexity of another big corporation. Let´s hope I will keep up doing my job well and in sufficient pace.

Work hard, organize yourself, enjoy your free time and do not loose your motivation.

With this post, I would like to encourage all colleagues, friends and students in their career efforts. The time when you end your studies and decide about the course of your future steps is a critical period. Often we dream about some particular job. This ideal one does not have to be available on the job market at the time when we search for it. And then we have to compromise and find something else. It is important not to loose the motivation. We have to use all our credits, strenghts and knowledge. I went through some rough decision time in the past few months, dozens of interviews, tests, applications... I thought a lot about everything. My decision time is over, I am starting at my new destination on Monday.

P.S. Prague in winter is really beautiful.

Ing. Olga Nýdlová

So this is it...the end of my university studies...everything is finished, passed. I successfully defended my master thesis elaborated in cooperation with T-Mobile and Nokia.

There were some attempts to stop me from my success but fortunately they failed to succeed. In June on the way to my final exam, my tram hit a police car. This January when I went to defend my master thesis, my tram stopped because another tram in front of us had some unknown accident. So the result: I came always little bit later but in fact always in time :-).

The Graduation ceremony is scheduled to March 12, 2010 and I am preparing to be the student speaker.

Well, the 27 January, 2010 was a big day. Olinka becoming ing. CEMS MIM, celebrating 2 month anniversary with the new boyfriend, and Apple published its brand new iPad device :-). This is just ......wait for it....legendary.

Between Assignments...

I am one month and half back to Czech Republic and Prague.
And at the time, when our country celebrates 20 years of life in freedom, I am thinking about all options where I would use my potential, motivation and thrill for making my life and lives of others better.

My great supply chain master thesis is almost finished. Now it is time to ask where my steps will be heading in the next phase of my life. In the mean time, few other events with my friends from university kept me busy.I attended this year´s Gala Casino night organized by CEMS Club Prague, our CEMS year organized a visit to a Moravian wine-cellar again and last weekend I spent 3 nice days in Budapest at CEMS Career Forum and met international CEMSies again.