Vitis Pre-ICIS 25th April

Wednesday 25th is the day of the visit to the Pre-ICIS sites. The day starts early with a meeting at the Concorde la Fayette hotel and metro to ESSEC in Cergy.
Maybe at the beginning the atmosphere was a bit cold - try yourself to start a working day in Paris at 8 :-) - but during the day everybody relaxed and we managed to see all the sites we needed to even including some last minute changes requested by Dov.
At my arrival I gave Pete, Linda and Dov a document with the detailed schedule of the day. The document is a repository of all the activities of the day. The document would help clarify the activities, transportation, people, ect. that we had to see, meet, do, during the day. Pete and Linda were very happy about it.
In the morning we went to ESSEC and met Dominique there. We saw the new building where the DC will take place and Pete and Linda were very impressed by the facility. I would like just to mention at least one cool thing in this building: the small meeting rooms do not have a projector but - hear hear - TWO plasma screens :-) ... I take my hat off for ESSEC.
We then went to the Novotel and visited the rooms and. meeting facilities. According to Pete the Novotel had the minimal facilities to support the DC so we did not go to the Premier Class as they did not have facilities for organizing dinners and social events.
We then went to ESCP-EAP where we met with Bernard and discussed the different local arrangements.
At this point Dov left for the airport.
We had lunch offered by Bernard ... nice cantine :-)
We than toured the facilities at ESCP. They are willing to give 8 amphitheatres and a large meeting area. My idea is that we can have multiple Pre-ICISs and the coffee breaks and lunch in the common space. Way nicer that the usual food court :-).
Sylvain has been extremely helpful and very prepared and the tour went really well.
We then went back to La Defense and we visited the ESSEC facilities at CNIT. These are also amazing facilities and the local administrator – Salym – has been very helpful and prepared.
We were offered at this point a very helpful coffee by Salym :-)
We spent some time looking around at La Defense which is impressive even for Americans.
Finally we went to Dauphine where we met Ana Drumea – secretary of CREPA. She was extremely available and she showed us around the rooms that Henri had specified.
We finished the day perfectly on time to be at the Concorde by 5 as scheduled however Pete and Linda offered to sit go to a bar to have a drink to conclude the day … offer that I accepted with pleasure.

All in all the day went really well. I made my job to make it run as easily as possible and do not make it freel too complicate. We never got lost which is an achievement in itself :-)

One thing is sure ... I know all the metro lines in Paris now.

Cheers for now,
Andrea