Day 14 - Goodbye friends, goodbye Mechelen

Sadness was in the air. All the fun, all the experiences... done. That's it. The last party was over and we woke up late in the morning. Even before we got up some groups have already left the city. We enjoyed our last breakfast and also began to gather outside to go to the railroad station. After saying goodbye to the friends who did not leave yet we started our way back home. But we learned by frustration that walking to the railroad station is very uncomfortable so we ordered two taxis to bring us to the station. Like all the other days we were to early, far too early! So we had almost one hour for chatting and taking the last pictures. We left Mechelen around 11.30. The trip back to Germany felt somehow longer. The most students were looking forward to get home but some were sad, too. We arrived in Ulm at the evening. At the end it was unspectacular. We said goodbye to each other and everyone disappeared to get home.
The experiences we gained are fantastic and unique. Everybody learned some much about communication, group working and of course technologies. But for me the most important thing is that we had the opportunity to get to know a lot of very different people from completely different countries. I loved to find out the little details which revealed our different origins.
But also the german group learned much about itself. Today we are more open to each other and have a better team spirit.

The whole project was a wow-event. If you have the possibility to participate on such an event: DO IT!

Thanks to Marc who took care of us! =)
Thanks to our professors C.K. and R.v.S. who made this possible!
And thanks to Hans who arranged this project and impressed me a lot!

Day 13 - The final party

Then it was the last day. Some have looked forward to this day, some felt a bit sad that this was our last day in Mechelen and some of us were afraid (Mitch, Alexa, Wolfgang, Roman anyone?), because this poor dogs had to hold their final presentation again in front of all the participants and some guys from RESOC.

But at first we all met one last time in the Mechelen Hogeschool in the morning so that the presentators could prepare their presentations for their last performance. Then we went to the big Auditorium, where "punishment" took place. But our buddies from germany performed very well within their groups. Of course ;-)

After that we had our last -as every day we guess- fine lunch and then we met in the Mechelen Hogeschool for one last time. There we evaluatet the whole IP-Project and listened to some concluding words from our "Master of the Universe" Hans.

As this was done, we had some leisure time until the BBQ in the evening. Some used this time for sleeping, the girls went shopping in Mechelen city and the the others started drinking beer in the Hostel to get prepared for the evening.

A few helpful people (including some of us Ulmers) went to the BBQ-Location at about 6.30 pm to help the organisators to prepare the BBQ.The BBQ itself was really great, the food was amazing, the taste as well as the amount of food of course. And, oh yeah, the beer was for free, too!
Hans spoke once again some final words to us and received from larry and some dutch people presents from all participants, what obviosly touched him more than he wanted to admit.

After this BBQ, most of us went to our second home, "De Planeet", to let the last party begin. Even our Profs followed us to celebrate this Project with all the great experiences we made.Somehow, one meter of beer after another hit our table (finally, it felt like at least half an kilometer) and the party got really....incredible!

After a lot of beer, dancing and "partying", the night ended at about 5.00 am, when most of us fluctuated across the street in their beds.

Enough said.

Mitch & Andi

Day 12 - the great elections

This day started again with a heavy workload. We had to complete a task about Key Performance Indicators from the day before. And we were still working on a technical task: We tried to build a scorecard with important KPIs using the new BI-functions in Excel 2007 connected with our database.

And, finally, we also prepared our final presentation about the hole two weeks. After lunch the final presentations were held before a audience containing our professors and selected members from other groups. There were always two presentations simultaneously, what saved us a lot of time. After this the professors selected four premium-presentations – these fortunate groups were supposed to hold their presentations again the next day in front of all students and the stakeholders. This led to some kind of class society: The ones who were able to enjoy the evening and the others who brushed up on their presentations in the evening (there were even some very eager groups who tried to improve their slides).

At about 7 o´clock we expected our professors to join us again in Mechelen. We (the Germans) met them at the groote Mark were we started with Hans our stroll through the alleys of Mechelen – in hope to find a restaurant big (and cheap) enough for us. We finally succeeded and entered a very nice Irish pub which offered really delicious dishes. So we ate for example a very tasty Irish burger and drunk of course some Belgian beer.

After the dinner we decided to show Mrs. Prof. Kocian our favorite, legendary pup – de Planeet! We´re sorry, but on this part we can´t give you an insight, because we both decided to go to bed early in order to perform well in the morning (yes, our two teams were ones of the best!).

Alexa und Roman

Day 11: A busy day

This Wednesday morning was surprisingly normal. The cantus evening before didn’t claim as many victims as expected. Almost everybody was up and (partly) awake. Did we finally get reasonable?

The work at the “Katholieke Hogeschool” started as always at 9am…well actually 9:15am with a lecture on Scorecarding/KPI by Rien Hamers a lecture from the Netherlands. Even though the presentation itself was actually pretty interesting you could now see which group(s)/person had the longest stamina the day before (heads down on the table).
After this lecture we had 2 hours to define some Key Performance Indicators for our projects and getting an idea on how to implement them in our system.

In the early afternoon a guy from Microsoft hold a presentation for about one hour. He gave us a overview on their products for BI and how they work in Best Practice (SQL Server, Office etc.).
From 3 o´clock in the evening our groups were back at work. One of the busiest afternoon of this project began. We had to a) complete our Data Mart / Cube b) implement the KPIs c) create some calculated fields in a strange program language and d) start to develop the final presentation for tomorrow. So the most groups had to stay in the “Hogeschool” for much longer than usual.

As a result of it the evening was mostly used to take a rest in the Youth Hostel. Some of the students play their favorite card game “UNO” (it was actually the only one available) others studied and some tried to relax with some drinking games.

Day 10 - Cantus

the report is still missing... (Alex, where are you?)

Day 9 - presentations and pool evening

On Sunday we all recharged our batteries for the last week of IP MISS LOGO. So Monday we all began motivated by presenting our immediate results of the first week. Every group showed current status of its work in a 30 minutes presentation. Thereby every group member had to talk one part in front of two other groups and some lecturers. The best two groups were the lucky ones to present their great work to the hole IP MISS LOGO participants in the afternoon.

Afterwards all students could enjoy a lecture on Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) by Ilse. She gave us exemples of business intelligence technologies like COGNOS (data warehouse and data mining) which are necessary for our next steps in building a balanced scorecard (BSC). Especially for business students this presentation provided an insight into information technology.
In order to practice our theoretical knowledge about OLAP we got an introduction of how to build a cube by Hans. To fullfill the task we first had to install a virtual machine, which made the most work on this afternoon.
To finish the working part of the day the german group decided to practice their song (Auf de schwäb’sche Eisenbahn) for “Cantus” – an evening programm which is planned for Tuesday. Even after a hard working day of 8 hours our voices were in good order.
On this evening the intercultural exchange of skills went on by a pool tourney. To figure out the best pool player we build teams of two persons. On 10 tables the IP participants could prove their skills in playing pool.
The match was a very interesting experience for all of us, because almost every countrie has its own rules to play pool. Therefor we first had to define general rules. After some small discussions we still could enjoy few very uncomplicated and nice games and get even more in contact with other cultures.
Unfortunately it was not possible to finish the pool contest and figure out one winner. Some participants were “very” tired and the nice evening was cut off short. So on this day we arrived earlier as the days before to the hostel, especially because we found out that the taxis in Mechelen are really cheap. This information will definetely help us on our last day when we will have to carry our baggage to the railway station.


Ramona & Vera

Day 8 - finally a day of

On Sunday we had finally some spare time. Maybe the tight schedule during the first week was the reason why we were really looking forward to this Sunday.

We started this precious day with a visit at the washing saloon – of course after the sleep of a good and long night. Apparently some guys underestimated the need for clean clothes. Actually I think the nights at the pubs were responsible for the extensive need of clothes (note: in Belgium smoking is still allowed). But in the end we succeeded in this task and went home with a full and nice smelling case of clothes.

After we went back to the hostel it stopped raining and we decided to visit Antwerp – which was a really rewarding decision.

Antwerp has a very picturesque city center and a lot of very interesting spots like the cathedral, the Grote Markt with the 16th-cetury Guildhouses and the city hall – even the railway station was really extraordinary: a mixture of very old components and new architecture. We also were roaming through the wide, diverse and amazing pedestrian zone in order to get to the sights. Unfortunately most of the shops were closed, what made the shopping for the girls not possible – lucky for the guys. So in the whole day they just gathered some postcards (what took just 30 minutes).

Also a big advantage was the fact, that all the sights are located in a central and relatively small area what made exploring per pedes very comfortable and enjoyable. Thus we also managed to take a look at the shelde and the harbor. Which is playing a important role regarding the diamonds, trade and other industry.

After a visit to the Belgian pendant of McDonalds – called QUICK quality burger restaurant – we were getting on our way home. When we arrived at the hostel we were all very tired although it was our first free day. So we decided to have a very calm and relaxing evening in order to have a fresh start in the new work-filled week.

Alexa und Roman