A bit of what I heard in Bristol

If I talk about going to a harmonica convention and having lots of fun there, I imagine that many people might think this is at least a bit curious.
To give a better impression of what I heard there, I am posting the following link to a sound clip.

• Brendan Power in Bristol

This is Brendan Power, one of my favourite harmonica players ever, playing a set accompanied by an accordion player. I found this file floating around in the internet, and, although its quality is not the best, it has captured the moment well and is fun to listen to. So be my guests, enjoy!

The whiteboard

Scribled during a syndicate group meeting. You like it?

Real life stories

Our own FTMBA07 blogosphere has become official: at the page "real life stories" from WBS recruitment team, my colleagues at the right and myself have been linked to show prospective students a bit of how life at WBS might be for different people.
Since one of the aims of this blog has always been to be a resource to folks thinking about doing an MBA, I really liked this. And Flo X seems to be a nice person.
Now it is back to economics.

Portuguese speaking break

I did talk for at least half an hour with my father in Portuguese yesterday, but it was really nice to chat for 5 minutes with the Brazilian cleaning lady here at my flat at Lakeside. She is friendly and young, really nice to talk to. From her I learnt the the Soccer World Cup will take place in Brazil in 2014. Maybe I'll be there?

Exam update

Marketing gone. I did manage to write a nice essay with introduction, development, conclusion and end, so I should be fine. I also mentioned key phrases like "customer value", "smart customer", "mutating market", "value definition" and "learning organization" in a sensible way, so this should put me in a better position still. I hope that the teacher grades the tests, cause I did try to emulate his discourse and even humour. But, with 82 people writing 2 to 4 pages essays, I don't believe that he will do it all by himself.

In the afternoon we have organizational behaviour, which I believe is the exam I am worst prepared for, and will do some last minute studying during lunch break. Just hope that I can take advantage of the beautiful, though cold, weather outside.

Midterm exams and a little bit more about Bristol

These are the two reasons I haven't been too active around here, besides the two thumb messages below.

On week 5 of the first term of the full time MBA we have the midterm exams. So it is a whole week with exams, accounting on Monday (gone!), marketing and organizational behaviour tomorrow, economics and operations management on Thursday. Lots of things to read and re-read, little time for e-mails and blog.
These exams account for only 20% of the final grades, but are a good way to measure your position in the course and, if you want distinction, every bit of the grade is important, so you do work hard.

But I tried not to get too stressed about all that and even did something which some of my colleagues considered academic suicide: I travelled during the weekend, departing on Friday to Bristol and coming back on Sunday night. Needless to say, my OB book travelled with me, but saw little use, if any.
In Bristol we had the annual convention of the National Harmonica League. I must admit that I love these harmonica gatherings and always have a good time. And this time it wasn't different. It was great to meet new and old friends and to hear great music all around.
There were a couple of things to learn from this experience:

• a scooter is quite handy, but keep your distance from drunken youngsters
• check in at your hostel early, don't leave it until 2:30 a.m.
• having good friends saves you in desperate situations like the one above
• be passionate about what you do and things will happen easily. I had a great time doing the workshops on harmonica maintenance, and got really flattering feedback
• there are good opportunities if you choose to work with the passion of people. I gotta figure out how to keep the harmonica business in my future plans

I will try to post some videos (the hotel lounge and bar full of harmonica players is hilarious!) or pictures soon, but the priority is low due to the exams. I also owe some material on the Spitz! punk blues festival, I know.

But now let's go to sleep. Tomorrow the day starts at 6:30 a.m.
And we have only 2 hours time difference between São Paulo and Coventry.

Thumb messages 2: Bristol - Coventry

Bristol Coventry, coach. Just found out that it would have been possible to book the trip to campus, instead Coventry. But this is not advertised, as it makes the trip longer. In fact, the driver asked not to tell anyone. Question: would it be too egotistical too book it anyway, knowing that you are making a whole busload of tired people get 20 min later at their destinations?

Thumb messages 1: Birmingham - Bristol

Thumb messages are quick notes I typed or tapped in into my cellphone while waiting bored somewhere. I later transfer them via bluetooth to my computer, and post them here. This is the first one.

Waiting at the birmingham coach station for the bus to Bristol which is already late. It seems to be the norm, so I write this article T9-tapping on my phone. I hope to get on time for the jam, I haven't played since London, has been a while.
Coach arrived, but still not boarding. Anyway, this weekend promises to be fun. Meeting some known friends, getting to know new ones. Meeting the people from Seydel, seeing what news they have. Workshop on Saturday, will be fun. Lets see if I'll apply any of the presentation techniques: practice! Next week we have the first exams, so, actually, I shouldn't be travelling. But this is not only about studying. And the bus is broken down, and I an still in Birmingham, 7:20. I'm gonna play some harp.

Well, didn't get to play at the jam session, the bus departed with over 2 hours delay. I also got to the hostel only at 2:30 in the morning to find out they had cancelled my reservation and were fully booked. But this is for another time.

MBTI: ENTP

Ok, a short coffee break blogging session today again. And I already started with lots of letters thrown seemingly meaninglessly together.

So yesterday we had the visit of yet another presenter from the Sykes Fairbank company, the same guys from team building and the Everest expedition. This time, we talked about the different personality types as studied by the MBTI technique, which I will not explain here, but rather give you a link to wikipedia.
We have done such an analysis in Mannheim already, but, to be honest, it was a very poor and superficial analysis compared to the exercise yesterday. Jonathan had also some pretty neat ideas in dividing the class into the two different sides for each indicator which showed the differences quite clearly, making them quite memmorable.
Thus, during the first part of the morning, we learned about the types and decided which characteristics we mostly tended towards. In the end we got a result from an online questionnary we had completed last week to reinforce what we had practiced during the session.
I must say that I was surprised by the reinforcement that my formal test gave to what I found out during class. And I am happy to tell you that I seem to be what they call an ENTP guy. Slightly different result from what I found out in class, ESTP, but quite in tune with the way I have come to think about myself in the last year. And the difference, to be quite honest, is not that big, since I felt in my self assessment that I was really quite in the middle between N and S.
The interesting thing on this results is that I was not supposed to be that kind of guy. I always believed that I was the typical engineering guy, liking logic, systems, wanting to know how things work, wanting to plan and act according to plans, being rational and reliable. But I have been watching in the last months that I am actually quite different from that. And I will explore this later, as class is starting again.

Falling asleep

It is hard. And I knew it would be. To stay awake during afternoon classes. It has always been a problem with me, I'm a morning person.
The big pot of cold coffee did not work. The lecture is interesting and important, last Accounting session before midterm exams. But even so, it ain't easy.
So I took a walk. Drank some water. Refreshed myself in the lou. And wrote this.
Maybe it was the gnochi with mushroom sauce, chicken nuggets, bean sprouts in soya sauce and salad which I was so proud to have prepared today.

Bajofondo Tango Club

Viranthi's birthday party

So I was invited to Viranthi's gathering at the Varsity pub on Friday. I stayed for a short while, but had a good time and enjoyed it. I also stocked up my suply of condiments and sauces.

Trossingen again

Well, Chris asked, so I felt compelled to explain.
Trossingen is a small town between the Alb and the Black Forest in southern Germany, about an hour or so from France, Switzerland and Austria. I lived there for 2 and a half years.
And I have proof that it is freezing there:

Winter? Not here yet.

But in Germany. While we are having a quite sunny day with mild temperatures around 15°C, Trossingen is already freezing around 0°C with the occasional snow.
And there is an ice cream car making noise outside the residence.

Cross-culture: Nigeria's satelites

Nigerian Space Program: "Space is one of the smartest micro-investments a developing nation can make."
Interesting article on developing technology strategies.

The tap issue

OK, we are in Britain, have I mentioned this? Diferent country, different culture, different habits. At least the language is understandable. Sometimes.
But those faucets, man, those faucets! I just can't get it! And so can't the Brits themselves, it seems.
I have already tapped into this subject before (no pun intended), but I'll elaborate: it is common in the U.K. to have two taps on a sink, in the bathroom or in the kitchen. One for hot water. One for cold water. Steaming hot. Ice cold. On. Off. No in-betweens. The digital water system! Arrrgh!
"There must be a logical reason for that. Or at least a historical one." I thought. And I guess that I am right about the historical one, although nobody was able to confirm it to me.
It is quite clear that you are expected to block the drain hole, pour some hot and cold water into the sink into the temperature mix you want and use the pooled water for whatever use you have.
Yeah, right. That must have made sense 70 years ago when a mixing faucet was really expensive, but nowadays? Doesn't convince me, as I see this arrangement in places where the investment in mixing systems would have been definitely covered by the construction budget.

But it is also frustrating when they try to solve this problem by actually installing a water mixer. Like in the kitchens of Lakeside 4. I was delighted to see a mixing water tap in kitchens there. "How lucky they are" I thought. Well, not that lucky. If you take a closer luck at the photo below, you'll see why.
Note that there are two streams coming out of the tap. And yes, you guessed it, one stream is hot, the other cold. In theory, they should mix in the air, and all would be fine. In practice, it doesn't work that well. So, even if they try to solve the problem, it doesn't really work!

So one has to take the matter in his own hands, and be inventive. And really, it is not difficult. All it takes is a PET bottle, a Swiss army knife and 3 minutes, and the problem is solved a bit more satisfactory. No, it doesn't look great and yes, it is a bit fiddly to work with, but, so far, no one has burnt their hands under the hot water any more.

Make it personal

It is impressive to watch how the participation level of the class improves if the teacher uses specific examples and ask people familiar with the circumstances to comment on it.
Just 10 minutes ago, we were discussing no frills airlines. As soon as the talk went into the differences between the consumer behaviour in Hong Kong and Europe, many people started contributing to the discussion. It was clear that everybody here is proud of where they come from and proud that they are well informed (and should be) of the situation in their countries and have this special competitive or almost privileged information.
So, as soon as the opportunity arises, they will make a point of spilling out this special information to the benefit of the class. Of course they are showing off (who doesn't like to speak to an avid and attentive audience?), but you also fill their desire to inform the class about their special context. And this is great, I just learned a lot about how people from Hong Kong value their free holiday time (they only have 10 days a year).
I heard before coming to the MBA that I was supposed to take more advantage of such informative situations than of the actual content of the classes. I might have been a bit (or a lot) arrogant before, because I considered myself a very well informed person with no need to learn too much else about all this intercultural chit chat.
But today I just enjoyed it immensily and learned a lot (now I know how to sell a trip to people from HK) and am eager to grab the next opportunity to talk about my country and show off a bit myself.
I personally also feel the need to straighten out some of the prejudices and preconceptions people have about my country and I believe that this is als a great driver for many of us. We do experience a lot of these badly formed conceptions still floating around in the class.
As long as nobody asks me or Cristiano about football, we should be fine.
Judging from the noise outside, coffee break is over and I have to get back to class.

News from Canada

So today I got a request from Canada to choose the electives for next term. Cool, have to take a closer look at the offers, but I think I will go for the courses in Innovation and Entrepreseurship. The course below caught my attention because of the name (it is tricky to use the word "problem" in a name) and the format. But I'll decide later what I am going to do.

Finally, MBAS 881: The Consultant as Problem-Solver will be delivered using an innovative teaching style known as Problem-Based Learning. This pedagogical technique has unique scheduling requirements: first, classes are delivered every other day, and second, enrollment for this course will be capped at 13. Consequently, you will note that the course spans Blocks A (during which the first six sessions will be held) and Block B (during which the final four sessions will be held) to accommodate the less-condensed class schedule.

Foo Fighters in the morning

My cousin Michael recommended the CD and I got it to check out. Really a great album, I must admit! I am enjoying it quite a lot and decided to see if I could catch them live somewhere.
And they will be playing in London soon! But the website says that the concerts are all sold out. Great for them, bad for me. But I guess this is a sign that the music industry is very much alive, despite of what the big labels want to make us believe.

Echoes, Silence, Patience And Grace

Fawcets and room

I promisse I will elaborate on the fawcets (or taps) theme later on. Meanwhile, take a look at Maina's description of our accomodation and her pictures (including the taps), which show very well how I live here in Lakeside.

A text for the day: no e-mail fridays

I don't usually simple post links to interesting texts here; I like to try to make this personal. But maybe I am just an arrogant writer who pretends not to like to take other people’s ideas.
In any case, I have been advocating for some time now that e-mail is clearly not always the best form of communication. It might take days to solve a question with e-mails which could be solved with a 3 minutes phone call. And often people don't realize it.
One of the things that I instituted at Hohner was to try to answer letters and e-mails we go from consumers by phone, if the info was available. It takes less time, the customer gets impressed (wow, a product manager actually called because of my e-mail!) and I could tick the task off knowing that I wouldn't get a reply with more questions.
So meet the e-mail free Fridays. Some companies are telling their employees not to use e-mail on Fridays. Other are stressing the importance of an e-mail free weekend (which has always been my policy towards work e-mail).
An excerpt and a link:

Managers complain that rather than confronting problems, employees use email to avoid them by passing issues back and forth in long message strings, like a hot potato. Email reduces face-to-face contact among co-workers and clients; terse, poorly phrased messages further strain those relationships. And it is spilling into weekends, chaining employees to computers when they should be relaxing.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119205641656255234.html?mod=blog

LatinNight

After Nicholas' Workshop and some OB reading, some of us went to the LatinNight in the Students' Union building. The music was good, there was a guy to show us some steps and all the tiredness that we thought we felt was forgotten. If the day started well, it surely couldn't end better.

I was guilty of the infamous fire drill this morning at 7:14!!!

Or so I thought. I wasn't, really. But I only found that out when it was already too late: I was walking with hundreds of half naked, bleary eyed, wet, scraggy, grumpy, dazzled, dizzy, uncombed, barefoot, cold students towards the Scarmann House parking lot, wearing nothing more than my nice, long, warm, woolen overcoat. And my keys in the pocket.
I was in the middle of my morning shower, having woken up bravely at 7, when the alarm went off. I almost didn't hear it because of the noise in the bathroom, but it was for real. The alarm had gone off and it was coming directly from the inside of my room.
Great! I had been trying to figure out how to regulate the temperature of my shower, which generated more steam than usual. Although my bathroom door was closed as instructed, I also suspect that the exhaust in the bathroom wasn't working, and got really scared that I had caused a fire alarm which would upset many people and bring direct consequences to me (big brother is watching you, the induction talk in the Arts Centre was scary enough).
Anyway, out of the shower, grabbed the towel, started to dry myself while opening the curtains to be able to open the window to let the steam which I wasn't seeing but was sure to be there to get out of the room and make the alarm stop. Outside my room, which lies exactly beside the dorm's entrance, people watching my struggle with the two layers of curtains, towel and window lock. I don't mind people seeing me naked, have nothing to hide. And if somebody doesn't like, shouldn't be looking into one honest guy's window.
Dropped the towel, opened the closet, grabbed my long, warm, woollen overcoat, tried to slip into my leather shoes. No way, feet too wet. Dump the shoes, opened the door and locked it open (for the suspected steam to go out the room), out! Forgot my keys, back inside; there, on the table!
Everything less hectic now, everybody directed to walk the path to Scarmann Road. Scarmann Road?? Yeah, the fucking Scarmann House parking lot, just opposite the Business School, almost 10 minutes away. And the frigging pathway is covered with small and sharp gravel, reminding that I haven't walked barefoot in years. Very sensitive soles, I should be ashamed.
But I wasn't. Things around were too interesting for me to be ashamed, and I wasn't even in the worst state. There were girls who were barefoot, in shorts and tops, hurting their feet and shivering. And another guy had only his pyjama pants on, also feeling quite cold, it seemed. Ah, my long, warm, woollen overcoat.
Back to the room, into the hot shower as quickly as possible. I was (and am) afraid of making my flue get even worse.
Out of the shower, alarm again. But faint, in the distance. Lakeside 3 and 4, this time. But they don't have to walk all the way to Scarmann House. Oh, this unfair world! I dressed myself properly this time, took my camera and went out in plunder mode; I wanted to document the misery I was subjected to in other people's faces. But it seems I am too nice a guy and didn't take any pictures. Or maybe I was afraid of the possibility of being lynched by a furious mob of half naked students.
At least the whole operation secured me a nice breakfast. Not a bad way to start the day at all.

P.S.: Chirs has also written about it, of course. But he wasn't that positive about the whole thing.

A bit of Autumn colours on campus

 

 

 

 

Images from far away: Mannheim

It seems that Stephan has been having lots of free time on his hands. On the other side, he has also been quite busy taking pictures. Combine both, and you have his photo albums online:



The photo above was taken during our Kick-Off Week in early September. Click on it.

He also took loads of pictures during the Official Graduation in the Mannheim Palace's Grand Hall.

Enjoy.

Whatever gets the job done!

Got my scooter on Monday. And it was a really good acquisition, I am using it often. It is at least 40% quicker than walking, and more fun too.
I know I look silly on it. But I do prefer to spend the little spare time I get doing things instead of walking.

WBS Telecom Forum

The Allumni Association organized a forum on Telecom on Monday. I wasn't going, but went. Good company and I am here to expand my horizons, right?
I am glad I did.

 

We had 3 presenters, and the first one, Gabriel Solomon, did an excellent job of downloading a huge amount of information in a very short time. A couple of seconds per slide, that was it. It was maybe even a tiny bit too fast, but I surely liked it and time flew by, great style.
But not only the style of the first presentation was interesting. Actually, I found that the whole discussion was highly interesting for me. And the data Gabriel provided was very relevant.
They were talking about the situation onf the mobile phone market and infra-structure in Africa. This is not information you get served on a silver plate on a daily basis.
It reinforced my wish to study more about the economics when you are dealing with the poorest. There is lots of good things to do getting the majority of this planet economically involved, and there is money to be earned while doing it.

The book fair

This is a post for the future, as the book fair has already happened on Saturday.
Every beginning of term the Students' Union (SU) organizes a not-for-profit used text book sale in the end of week 1. It surely is a great place to get the books that you need for a very good price.
Below some observations that I made:

• Arrive early. I arrived at 9:50, and this was good. I was one of the first 50 people to have their pick. The fair opened at 10:00 and by 10:20 the best offers were gone. By 10:30 there were thousands of people queueing.
• Cheapest books are on top. You will find different tables with piles of the most popular books. In those cases, the ones on the top are the cheapest, so it is easy and quick to grab what you need. If you want a book in a good condition, grab a bit lower in the pile.
• Take cash with you. Only cash accepted.
• Make a list of what you need and prioritize. You won't have much time to decide.
• Be prepared to get an older edition. I got two books, both of them are not the newest edition, but one before. But, for 5 and 3 pounds each instead of 45 or 50, it was really a no brainer.
• Be prepared to spend more than the bargains described above. If you get a book which costs 45 pounds for 25, it is still a win-win situation for you and the seller.
• Take a strong bag with you.
• I hear that we are going to have something similar this week at WBS.

• Ah, yes, very important: take good company with you.

Well, that's it for now. Let me grab my new (usede) Accounting book and do some work.

071007 Leamington Spa: The Two C(h)ristian(o)s Birthday

Cristiano and Chris had their birthdays this week and this was enough excuse for us to get out of campus. And the sandwich was even kind of nice.

From 071007 Leamin...

The way back was also peculiar, with negotiations with a taxi driver going on and, as a result, the defection of a big number of our group from the bus stop. Later negotiations didn't work very well, so we saved some money waiting for the bus. Below a picture of part of the remaining contingent. Now I can say that I have Srilankan friends, something quite new for me.

From 071007 Leamin...

Video in class

Continuing the observation on the high tech infrastructure available at WBS, it is impressive to see how video has crept into the structure of the classes administered here. We have seen videos in the obvious case of Market Analysis (or simply marketing, if you wish), but also in Practice of Management (PoM) and Operations Management (Ops). It has been used during the induction week and I am probably forgetting some of the other times video was used.
In any event, it is there. We have seen advertisements, we saw how lettuce is harvested by Polish undergraduates in Cambridge, we saw the result of the PoM project of a group from last year (with 2 Mannheimers, yeah!).
This is, of course, only possible because the lecture room is very well equipped with computer, audio and video systems.



And this is taken for granted in such a measure that we wouldn't be able to imagine class without a simple powerpoint presentation. Well, it wasn't too common where I come from.

Leamington and Pizza

Singean insisted, and we broke out from campus yesterday, to Leamington Spa. It was a very enjoyable evening with a very enjoyable group of people, we deserved the break.

From 071005 Leamin...

From 071005 Leamin...

Pitty that we underrated the taxi fare and things got a bit more expensive than they should. But this is our learning cost, so it it is accounted for.

Best consulting firms to work for

Well, Indian Blogger, from Queen's MBA published again a really interesting link and earned his space in the MBA blog links section of this site at the right.
Bain & Company is considered the best consulting company to work for by this magazin.
Good to know, as we are having our first company event this afternoon. And it will be about consulting.

The oficial class photo

Now you can see the professional results. It is a good pic, lots of energy.

New professor of enterprise

I think that I will choose Enterprise courses for my electives in the next terms. But it won't be possible for me to take advantage of this new teacher here in Warwick. But sounds promising, nonetheless.

A hub of activity
Early in the summer, a whirlwind of activity arrived at the Centre for Small & Medium Sized Enterprises in the form of Roger Mumby-Croft, who has taken up the post of Professor of Enterprise. ...

He has already spoken at WBS Alumni Association events on business sustainability, and is planning a series of Start-Up Weekends for alumni on how to start a business and make it successful. ...

On the teaching side, he hopes to create more enterprise education modules for undergraduates. He's already taught two MBA electives, where he achieved resoundingly high student feedback scores. ...

Read more.

Indian humour?

My colleague Deepak draw this during the class today. I don't know which one, but might have been the Organisational Behaviour. I know that one of my challenges will be to stay awake during certain classes.


I would link to his blog, but he asked me not to, due to SEO reasons. I know that I am having lots of fun with my first contacts to the Indian culture.

High tech infrastructure

WBS does offer us a great learning and studying infrastructure, with a completely new building, great integration of computers and projectors in the class rooms, study group rooms with computers and a big number of computers, among other features.

The picture above shows the two class rooms with individual computers. They have a movable dividing wall which has been opened to transform both spaces into one big lecture room with about 70 workstations and 2 projection screens. Pretty impressive, I would say.
And I have yet to go to the university's learning grid, which is supposed to be this high tech as well.

Societies

We do have strong students' unions in Brazilian universities, and they do support or host a fair amount of groups and clubs. But I haven't seen nothing similar to what we have available here at Warwick University: 250 societies and 70 sports clubs! One gets dizzy just to think about all the possibilities and how easy it will be to spend far too much time doing fun stuff instead of preparing for classes.
Well, to help sort out what to do and when, here a bit of useful information:

• The societies fair
  At the Students' Union
  Wednesday the 3rd of October to Friday the 5th
  
  
• An introduction to societies and clubs
  http://warwicksu.com/news/article/Sign-up-for-Societies-and-Sports-clubs/
  
  
• The societies portal
  http://warwicksu.com/societies/

I promise that I will join only one. Maybe two. Maybe... it is tempting!