Action!!

Here's an action shot of me presenting the LAS business plan.

The worst part, is my team was last to present and it was tough keeping their attention. So I used some of my previous training and used an attention getting step to start the presentation. That consisted of Yelling "Just one more, so please pay attention a little longer!!"

It seemed to work for a while anyway. As you can see from the slide, it's from the beginning of presentation. The slide says "Introduction" in large letters!

This is what I came to Instituto de Empresa for: learning how to develop a business idea. It's been worth it. I may not pursue a start-up, but these things help put making money into perspective. It doesn't just appear in your wallet...

r_m

The LAS Team

So if you've seen my last post, I promised to talk a little more about my entrepreneurship project. So here's a picture of the team. It took a some time to find the right project but I think in the end it's a matter of doing what you know.

With that said, I was the project management expert, Sergio (in the middle) is the fish farming expert, and Jiong (on the Right) is a CFA and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems expert. Together we developed a business plan to open an ERP consulting company for small-to-medium enterprises in the fish farming sector of Chile.

None of us are from Chile, but the beauty of that country is the openness to foriegn investment. The laws there allow a company to be incorporated with no local ownership. Plus, it's the most stable country in Latin America politically and economically.

After all the research, it turns out that this idea is entirely possible. The problem is that none of has ever installed one of these systems. Even though in theory we have the right expertise, we just lack the experience to have the kind of credibility to get contracts immediately. Although our marketing plan acknowledged this, it's a tough sell. Latin America is a high relationship business enviornment, with the vast majority of the business family-owned, so they aren't going to look at the numbers and just say "Let's do it!"

At any rate, I think we did well and the presentation was as good as we could expect. Let me know if you want to start up a business, I have ideas!!

r_m

Our Start-up

It's been exactly a month since I have posted anything. This is the symbol of the business my team and I have been working on for the last two months.

The business is called LAS, it stands for Latin American Services.

I'm very proud of this logo because, well, I created it. I used MS Visio, a relatively easy to use CAD program.

So you must be wondering, "What is the business about?" Ahh, that's the Million Dollar question isn't it? What have we been working on all this time that kept me from giving you all the latest insights into the life and work of a student at the prestigeous Instituto de Empresa Business School?

Here's the short version: an IT consultancy for ERP Implementation for SMEs in the fish farming sector of Chile.

If you are thinking, "Huh?" Well, you'll just have to give yourself added-value by leveraging your strategic synergies through a paradigm shift in your operational competencies.

All clear now?


r_m

Spring Fling

This past weekend was spent in the lovely city of Barcelona. It was quite a shock for a number of reasons. One of them was the fact that all the signs were in Catalan as opposed to Spanish.

By the way, there are several languages spoken in Spain. Catalan, Basque, and Galician are some of the others. So no one in Spain speaks Spanish. They speak Castellano (what everyone else calls Spanish, which is from Castille) and some other language, usually.

Anyway, this was somewhat disconcerting as Catalan is different enough to be unintelligible to an English/Spanish-only speaker. (Although for me, Spanish-speaker is rather generous!)

We came to compete in the annual Spring Fling MBA Tournament with several other schools in Europe. It is hosted by IESE, which is in Barcelona. I was able to meet people from ISEAD, ESADE, HEC, and a host of others. All I can say is "WOW." They are not like us and we are not like them...

It's strange to see people living the same MBA fantasy life that we are and how different that experience is for them relative to us. I know I chose the right school!

As for the tournament, we participated. I was in the Tug-of-War competition, we ended second overall in that event. In the picture is where the Tournament took place. It was in the Parque Montjuic (imagine an umluat over the "i"), the site of the 1992 Summer Olympics. I thought this needle was quite impressive. From the picture you can really get a sense of the scale fo this place, enormous. There's a little bit of the city in the far background.

We, or more properly my roommate Ulrike, drove the 6 hours to a fro. I suspected I would get sick from this trip, but it did happen until Thursday. So I'm taking this opportunity to blog about my adventures whilest I recuperate. Stay tuned for more!!

r_m Instituto de Empresa current student Madrid

I'm Here to Study?

One of the advantages of living in a city like Madrid is some of the coolest things on earth happen here.

My buddies Guillermo, Esteban, and I went to a PlayboyTV event on Wednesday last week. They had been building this thing up for about a week so the pressure to go was building. I typically don't like to go out before Thursday, but as I came home from the gym that night, all I could think was, "Are you crazy, you need to see this!" So there we were waiting for the show to start. In typical Madrid fashion, things started late, around 1AM. We were there at midnight so we took our places right next to the stage.
As the show was going, there were many thoughts going through my mind. One of them was, "I came to Madrid to study??" Needless to say, after the show we left. Mainly because the male to female ratio was extremely bad!

Strategy

In May, I'll be heading to France to compete in the annual MBA tournament against some of the other fine business schools in Europe.

Among some of the events that we can compete in: rugby, basketball, rowing, and many others. And yes, CHESS!

This is probably the most demanding and perilous events of the entire tournament. To the winner goes Conquest and Glory for all Eternity...

Okay, maybe not.

But that's what I'm competing in. So I got together with chess event lead, Kapil. He introduced me to the website GameKnot. It's a free chess site and greatly speeds up chess-by-correspondence.

One of the side effects of this has been my renewed interest in the game. Now, it's much more interesting than when my uncle first taught me all the moves when I was very young. My uncle incidently, is rated at the Expert level. He played chess by mail for many years and there a separate Champion for chess-by-mail.

So I'm learning the Ruy Lopez, the King's Gambit, and something called the Hippopotamus Defense (very obscure by chess standards). Anyway, check it out, maybe you'll get hooked too.

WIKI WIKI

In my Information Systems class we were assigned to write a paper on a disruptive technology. It was assigned randomly and it was the one I wanted. We got wikis.

Some of the other choices: RFID, XBRL, WiFi, and few others. If you don't know what these are, GO FIND OUT! Seriously, these are going to shape the future of business and life in general.

In the course of finding information about wiki technology, we came across the origins of the name. So here you have it: Wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian, so wiki wiki means "super quick." This is a picture of the wiki wiki buses that drive or used to drive around Honolulu Airport. My team and I thought this was the funniest picture.

And we learned a whole lot about wikis in the process!

r_m

What we're here for!

Okay, so I've been away for awhile but I had to get into this a little bit.

I came to business school to learn about, well, how to run a business. One of the things about IE is that you have to submit a business plan in order to graduate.

Thankfully, it doesn't have to be the next Google or Ebay, but the business plan needs to be rigorous from a research and business perspective.

It is possible that some of those business ideas will be pretty good.

In the picture, it's Masayuki (I hope I spelled it right!) and my roommate Miguel. They are doing a real estate site called Unvistazo.com

It's been running for some time now and there's some pretty sweet places available all over Spain. These are for rent and to buy. What's cool is Miguel wrote the engine that supports the site. Anyway, a little free advertising never hurts right?

For now it's a free site for all, but soon that will change. And that's when the big bucks start rolling in!! Well, for these guys anyway...

r_m

Work Does Happen!

Okay, so I've put a bunch of pictures of me having all this fun with all my friends in Madrid. But I do actually work here. I'm in business school after all. So as proof of this, here's a picture of my workgroup caught in the act of: working! Well, we're not really working all that hard.

This is our morning meeting. Depending on what section you're in you may meet in the morning or midday. For us, good or no, we meet in the morning. Inevitably, there is always someone late, sleepy, unprepared, or just doesn't show up. So in this picture, we're missing one person, you know who you are! That's okay because sometimes that guy is me.

Clayton in Madrid...

So after about two and a half years Clayton decided to make his way back to the US. And he took the most circuitous route possible. Via Bali, Thailand, Germany, Spain, and Canada.

Living in New Zealand all this time, Clayton and I were never able to hang out. So he took the opportunity to come to Madrid and see what in the world I was up to here. He certainly got more than he bargained for!

I guess the Kiwis just don't get down like this but after we brought in the New Year in Gran Via/Sol we headed over to Pacha.

Pacha is a branded club, you'll find one in Barcelona, NYC and a few other select cities. Basically, it's THE hottest club in Madrid.

A special shout out is in order for my friend Mike B. for setting us up at Pacha with the table, bottles, and for being just a cool dude all around. New Years was so much better for it!

As for Clayton, he found out that in Madrid, the party doesn't even start until 2AM. It was great to finally spend time with my friend from college. Since we keep up on emails there wasn't much to catch up on, but time together has always been tough living on opposite sides of the Earth and all. I took Clayton and my other two friends through the wringer in Madrid: clubs, bars, museums, Retiro, the endless walking, the Metro. They even got a short tour of IE. Just so they can't say they hadn't been there!

So for all of you who think I'm out here just having a good time and carousing with my friends, well, you're right!

The New Year in Madrid

Passing the New Year in Madrid was terrific. We tried to do the traditional Spanish thing and go to Puerta de Sol in the city center but that was not to be. By the time we finished our dinner and walked there is was too crowded. At any rate, we came as close as Gran Via, a stone throw away, and watched the fireworks and ate the grapes as the bells tolled. Although Fabrizio, my classmate on the far right, had already ate his! I doubt that will change anything for the coming year, but I know we both have a hell of a time coming up in the second period of the IMBA at IE.

In this picture we have an interesting mixture of people from all over, again. On the far left Caesar and Shane, friends of mine from San Antonio. In the middle is Giaciamo, a friend of Fabrizio from Italy. And of course I'm in there too.

This was taken BEFORE all the debauchery began. More on that later.

The other thing you can't see in this picture, you're supposed to wear red underwear for the Noche Vieja. I don't know why. I can confirm that I was NOT wearing red underwear but I can not say with ANY certainty about the others, nor did I inquire...

Catching Up - Part II

Since starting the IMBA at IE, I have not had too many opportunities to really go out with my fellow students. I did go out, but only to some small get-togethers, or just a couple of us at a time. And I certainly have no documentation, read uncriminating evidence, from those outings.

So here we have another picture of my classmates living it up in Madrid, and there is no shortage of diversity although I think in the case of this picture there is only one person from Europe, the blond girl, she's Croatian. The rest are New Worlders, I think. There's two Mexicans, the other girl is from Trinidad and Tabago and the other guys I think are from various Latin American countries. Sorry guys, I don't know you're names. At any rate, we were at this place called Lolita near the Real Madrid football (soccer) stadium.

Since we had a holiday on thursday, Friday was the Bar of the Week day. The negotiated prices make a real difference in how much your wallet gets beat up! Flash that IE student card and the prices drop like a rock! The other strategy, followed by many, is of course the pre-game.

Also, one of my classmates has started a Friday poker game that's a pretty good time. For the sake of security I can niether confirm nor deny that I have taken part or if the game actually exists, but according to my sources it is a good time!

More to come, stay tuned!!

Catching up- Part I

So it's been a while since I posted but here goes. This is a picture of us at the Team Building workshop at the Estudiantes gym. The Estudiantes basketball team is famous in Spain. Our coach and trainer was a team member of a champion team and was a professional player in the Spanish leagues. It's not the NBA, but he did get paid to play. There aren't too many people that can say that.

It was a great experience because it made the week shorter and I got a chance to spend some time with my teammates outside of a work enviornment.

My team is in Blue in the picture. We called ourselves the IE Bouncers, not the best name but I liked it. We did fairly well in all of the events. I have to say it actually made us a better team.

Speaking of teamwork, it's not the easiest thing in the world! There was a real crisis in our group over our performance in some of our classes. But I'm lucky with my teammates. They are all over 25 with real work experience, that gives them a professional outlook on things and makes us much more effective. This is not the case with everyone. I have a friend with the opposite, only one of the team is over 25. Lucky for me I have my team until the end of the second term. Well, lucky for now. The workload is supposed to increase substantially and there are some issues to be worked out as the time gets crunched.

In addition to the increased workload, we also lost a team member. He got an offer he couldn't refuse from his employer, so he deferred to next year. Good luck buddy, he owes us all jobs!

r_m