Archive for July, 2009

Reminder: The Good Entrepreneur – Deadline 31.07.09

July 30, 2009

A quick reminder that tomorrow, the 31st of July 2009, the application process to the Business Plan competition “The Good Entrepreneur” closes as mentioned earlier. This event is organised by CNBC and is looking for the entrepreneur whose idea can change the world.

Quite a few of us, particularly members of the ESADE Entrepreneurship Club, had planned to participate in this very interesting competition but the final exams have made it almost impossible to deliver something sound that can compete with other European innovators and entrepreneurs. Maybe next time…

The Good Entrepreneur

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“The World is Flat” and “OpenCourseWare”

July 28, 2009

During the preparing for the Management Information Systems (MIS) exam on Thursday I was wondering whether I should/have the time to really read the recommended book by Thomas Friedman “The World is Flat”. Then I made two interesting discoveries and his title fits well to the discoveries I made: the world is really flat!!!

1) Why read the book if you can watch the video about it. It is incredible that almost every reading has somewhat been “videomized”. We are truly living in digital era. Thank you for the tip, Romit!

2) I also tumbled over a very interesting consortium/website, called “OpenCourseWare“. This consortium basically provides the course and lecture material of all participating universities. This is somewhat similar to the initiative “AcademicEarth“, a portal with course videos (my article about Academic Earth is here) however the OCW seems much larger. The Spanish universities are well represented (view list here) and maybe ESADE should also join and start publishing course material. As we all know transparency ignites a lot of productive competition.

In case you want to watch the presentation of Thomas Friedman, check it out here.

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ESADE Student Blogs

July 28, 2009

There are a few students blogging about the life and studies at ESADE and ESADE has created a short list of them on their blog. Recently my blog has been added to the ESADE blogroll which I am very happy about :) Check out the list of blogs here.

Morgan Witkin’s blog would have to be most famous as it has been quoted in some major journals, such as Times of India and BusinessWeek, but I am working hard on gaining traffic and momentum.

Did you know that ESADE has a MBA Admissions podcast? Find out more here..

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Final Exams – OY MBA 2010 class

July 25, 2009

This week the final exams are taking place so  I will be more quiet on the blogging front. The exams are in Corporate Finance 2 (Valuations and Portfolio Theory), Management Information Systems and International Business Law and we have to hand in the papers for Organisational Management (Group- & Individual Assignment) and Marketing (Individual). This will be a week that I am definitely not looking for.

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Asia Investment Banking Conference(AIBC) 2009

July 23, 2009

A message from the Entrepreneurship Club:

Dear Members,

We have received an invitation from the Singapore Management University for their event – “Asia Investment Banking Conference 2009“, a conference co-organized by the Singapore Management University (SMU) and the London School of Economics (LSE).

The AIBC, where its main focus would be on investment banking and the Asian Market, will be held in Singapore at the SMU Campus on the 23rd and 24th of September 2009. So far, they have invited senior bankers from major financial institutions such as UBS, Goldman Sachs, Normura, the Blackstone Group, Temasek Holdings, Lazard, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, The Carlyle Group, Linklaters, Clifford Chance, PwC, Ernst and Young, Oaktree Capital, Bain Capital and McKinsey and Co.

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15th of August – Festes de Gràcia

July 21, 2009

Message from Mary G. from the Admissions Team:

Greetings to everyone from Barcelona – welcome to those of you who are on your way or have already arrived!!


August 15th is the first day of a week-long (August 15th – August 21) neighborhood party in Barcelona called “Festes de Gràcia”, in which the Gràcia residents decorate the streets and organize music & events in their famous squares. For the past 4 years, we have organized a welcome dinner for incoming ESADE students, also open to current students in town for the summer, as well as some members of the Admissions team, to kick off the Festes de Gràcia.

Information/pictures from the 2008 event can be found here.

Usually a number of ESADE students, alumni and staff meet before the dinner to take a walk around the decorated streets, and often then find ourselves in the middle of a parade…to later meet the rest of the group at the restaurant. We will keep you posted here at MyESADEMBA.com.

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Posted in Barcelona, Event, Spain | 1 Comment »

My ESADE MBA: tagcloud

July 20, 2009

Thanks to Donal Q. I just found this little software that generates tag clouds: Wordle.net

Thes are two sample tagclouds for My ESADE MBA. I love it and it is a great software for presentations as we saw today during class for the VW presentation :)

Version 1

MyESADEMBA tagcloud

Version 2

MyESADEMBA tagcloud

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Consulting Club and Career Services Event

July 16, 2009
A message from the Consulting Club:
The Consulting Club and Career Services would like to invite you to attend a Q&A session with Mr. Darek Tasak, ESADE ’06, about his interaction with Career Services during his (recent) time at ESADE and how he managed to secure his first job out of ESADE, at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

We hope you can all attend this informal Q&A session to learn more about what we should all expect once we start looking for jobs starting in September.
When: 6:15 pm – 7 pm (after class tomorrow)
Where: TBD
++++++++++++UPDATE+++++++++++++++++
When: 6:15 pm – 7 pm (today)

Where: Room B21
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Agenda:
- ESADE & Career Services
- Expectations & Reality of the job market
- Management Consulting Opportunities after ESADE
- Q&A
Thank you,
Maneesh

Quick Overview of Mr. Tasak’s background:
Tech Data, Barcelona, Spain
Director of Productivity and Efficiency, EMEA
- Designs and implements productivity improvement initiatives, identifies cost saving opportunities and drives related projects in various European business units (17 countries)
- Processes, organization, streamlining, automation, portfolio management, shared services

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Barcelona, Spain
Business strategy consulting firm
Senior Consultant
- Advises clients’ top management on improving their companies’ business performance, identifying, understanding and evaluating growth options and strategies, developing action plans
- Elaborated commercial strategy, budget and operation plans for a Spanish broadband division of a major European telecom operator. The plan resulted in double digit client base growth
- Developed strategic plan for a Spanish regional fix line provider (mobile / fix line convergence)
- Counseled a leading media group in launching its expansion into digital media formats
- Optimized back-office functions of an industrial manufacturer through the use of ERP technologies
- Prepared international expansion of a real estate group into Eastern Europe and Latin-America

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Japanese food for our Japanese friends

July 11, 2009

One of the most important and often most difficult aspects of living abroad is the food and cuisine. There is good news for the Japanese students and those that love Japanese cuisine: TOKYO-YA.

Tokyo-ya is a Japanese food specialist where you can get all the important ingredients you need. Check it out for yourself:

TOKYO – YA, S.A.
Carrer Girona 199
08009 Barcelona
http://www.tokyo-ya.es/tienda/catalog

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Posted in Barcelona, ESADE | 3 Comments »

Barcelona – MoleskineCity

July 8, 2009

For the Moleskine fans among you there is a MoleskineCity for Barcelona. I have one of these city notebooks and I am writing my own city guide with my own recommendations, addresses, sites, etc. The Moleskine also has city center maps and a Metro map, which is very useful. Check it out here.

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Entrepreneurship Club – “How to write a Business Plan”

July 7, 2009

The “Entrepreneurship Club” invites the ESADE MBA students to attend the “Business Plan class” today, 7th July 2009, 16:00 -19:00 hrs. The class will be taken by Professor Jordi Vinaixa and provides an in-depth analysis of how to write a Business Plan. This class will be very interesting for those people joining the competition “The Good Entrepreneur” of CNBC, which I have mentioned earlier.

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Posted in Clubs, Entrepreneurship, ESADE, Event | 2 Comments »

Barcelona on two-wheels!

July 3, 2009

Quite a few of you are considering renting or buying a scooter or motorbike during your time here in Barcelona. There is a hardly a more liberating feeling than cruising around on two wheels and it is definitely a passion of mine, although I don’t currently ride a motorbike here (yet). However not many are very familiar with riding motorbikes and think that it is as easy as riding a bike, which definitely not true.

I peronally have reasonable experience in riding motorbikes and therefore I would like to just quick remind you of the key issues when riding a motorbike, which the majority of students and friends are disregarding as I can see everyday:

  1. The most difficult driving is driving in walking pace and not full speed. Practice it!
  2. Secondly knowing how to breaking is key! It requires a lot of training for the wheels not to lock up.
  3. Keep the front tyre straight when breaking because the main braking force is on the front tyre. When you front wheel is not straight it will twist and when it twists it will bring you to a “grinding” stillstand, on the ground!!
  4. When you drive fast and then fall the first thing that touches ground is your chin!!!! Open-face helmets, like the MOMO-Design helmets, might look cool but losing the face from the nose downwards and scraping off the bottom jaw is not cool. I got to see accident photos of that and it is awful to be disfigured for the rest of your life because you wanted to look cool. Buy a helmet with chin protection!
  5. When you are “lucky” the second body part that touches the ground are your hands! One of our classmates learnt about this the hard way! Wear leather gloves, ALWAYS!
  6. The third body part touching ground usually are your feet and you will be amazed how easily those toes are ripped off! Wear proper shoes!
  7. On the road the positioning in the lane is very important and make sure that you always drive in either tyre track and not in the middle. The middle collects dust and dirt. Secondly you have to defend your lane in order not being pushed off your lane by cars. When you are not determined you can easily follow steps 2 – 6 if you are not careful.
  8. Never break on road markings because they are extremely slippery otherwise you will follow steps 2 – 6 if you are not careful.

Enjoy Barcelona on a two-wheeler but don’t be stupid and dress properly! You wonder what this has to do with a MBA? How do you think most people drive to the school?

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Posted in Barcelona, Social Activities | 2 Comments »

Wedding Wishes to Andrea and Javier

July 1, 2009

I have the honor to announce the marriage of Andrea Roa and Javier Sanchez, our fellow MBA student, and we would like to wish you two all the best for the future.

Andrea and Javier got married on the 19th June 2009 in Sant Boi de Llobregat, a small town 10km outside Barcelona. The civil ceremony was conducted by the mayor of the town himself in one of the picturesque gardens of the City Hall. They make a lovely couple as you can see!

We wish you all the best for your future together and we hope you get to enjoy as much time together as possible!! Enjoy the much deserved honeymoon in the break of August!!

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