Je suis arrivé au Brésil.

Temperature at 9 o' clock in the morning.


At my uncle's in the middle of São Paulo. Yes, it's true.


Tomorrow, the beach! See you in 2009.

Last day at DHL

I spent the last 3 months in Brussels, Belgium, working in the finance department of DHL Service Parts Logistics, in Vilvoorde.

If there is something that I am taking with me from this experience, besides what I learned about billing and invoicing, is the openness and friendliness that I found in this company.
I also have rarely seen such an international ambient, where each one was accepted because of their skills, regardless of origin. The number of countries represented in this office of 150 or so people certainly rivals what I have seen at my MBA term in Warwick, and that was already extreme!

It was a good time to put things into perspective and I am glad I came. Now I just have to pack and wait for the plane to Brazil tomorrow.

A good MBA reference site in Germany

I just received another newsletter from the http://www.mba-channel.com/ website. It is a relatively new website, started this year, and it has developed nicely.
What I like most in that website are the reports they write about different topics with a very critical view. From time to time they actually critic or put some school in check, which I think is very healthy.

One of the things that I found out during the MBA is that there is MBA reality and what I call the MBA "media hype". MBA schools are very clever in using the media for publicity. Of course. Positive reports go hand-in-hand with paid advertisements, as is usual in any industry. This gives MBA candidates a skewed impression of how an MBA develops, what one can expect of it, the job market reality afterwards. This gets reinforced by the fact that those owning an MBA title, like myself, will very seldomly critique the title and its institutions in a negative way. After all, we don't want to diminish the value of our degrees, do we? We have to care for our brand.
I continue to be extremely happy with my MBA experience, don't get me wrong. I met a lot of great people, visited interesting places, learned a lot, had lots of fun and, all going well, will double my salary in February.

Anyway, I just though of writing quickly to endorse the mba-channel.com website, which has also an English version.

Ah, they also tried to build an MBA community, which is commendable, but it hasn't really picked up yet. Maybe it is because they are offering features like blogs, photo albums, polls, etc., that people already use in other sites which are not MBA-specific. Maybe, instead of trying to create a whole new community environment, they might focus on getting content from elsewhere together, or focusing user interaction around their best features: their specialised stories and information.

Mannheim, Queen's and BusinessWeek

OK, so I checked out BusinessWeek's slides on the top non-US business schools, knowing very well that Queen's School of Business had grabbed the first place for the third time in a row (2004, 2006 and 2008). My surprise was to see the banner on the top of the page:

Mannheim is investing quite a lot in marketing. We have seen them on Facebook, I have seen them on the schedule leaflets on the ICE trains to Mannheim and now, BW.
I guess that all is good, after all, the better the Mannheim name is known in the business world, more valuable my Mannheim MBA degree gets.

The consultant's suitcase

I am looking for a new suitcase for next year. Being a management consultant living 5 days out of 7 in a hotel will certainly be a new routine for me. And, since it will be quite a tough routine, I am doing some research to get the basics right.
But it is not that easy to find out what I'll need, consultants don't seem to blog too much (with the exception of Paul Dunay, maybe, but social media is his speciality). And, surprisingly, luggage manufacturers don't seem to have models aimed at the 4+1 management consultants, which indicates that, just maybe, this is a niche which could be filled. At least it gives food for thought for the future of this blog.
I decided that, for a 5 day stay away from home, I would need the following:

• an extra suit (jacket and pair of trousers)
• 4 or 5 shirts
• at least one t-shirt, if not more (have to figure out if I should wear undershirts)
• 3 or 4 ties
• a pair of jeans for the evenings
• an extra pair of shoes, just in case
• underwear and socks
• one pullover, possibly
• a pair of shorts for sports. If the hotel has a pool, speedos
• toiletries

I used the tip to start with half of the suit jacket, fill the case with the rest and then flap the other half of the jacket over the other clothes. This should avoid getting the jacket creased across the middle, it makes sense.

Surprisingly enough, I found out that all of the items above fit in my carry-on (inflight) trolley. I wasn't very confident it would, but suspected it. That's why I did this small experiment. It worked.

Next week I'll take this trolley with me and look for a substitute. After all, althought it is still in good condition, its looks aren't what they once were. But it has served me well since 2004: China - Brazil - Germany - Brazil - Germany - Moscow - Germany - Brazil - Germany - England - US - Canada - Germany - Belgium. Not too bad for a case that cost me around 15 dollars, if I am not mistaken.
I am also talking to some of my consulting colleagues to see what their experiences are. What has worked for you?

Defeat of purpose

This is for my college media and design professor Luli Radfahrer, who posted a similar picture after a trip to Holland. The picture above comes from the same country, from Utrecht, and is a counter-example of good design. The flies, btw, are stickers, not originally placed by the manufacturer.

The MBS Facebook network

Thanks to Sascha, MBS FTMBA08, now there is a network for the Mannheim Business School on Facebook.

If you have an e-mail @mba-mannheim.com, you can join. 

Go to:

• Settings
• Networks
• Type "Mannheim Business School" in the "Newtork name:" field
• Fill in the details
• Click on "join network"
• Check your MBS e-mail for a confirmation link

That's it. 

BTW, I highly recommend you to send an e-mail to the IT guys and ask them to forward your MBS e-mail to your personal account. I use it with Gmail, it works like a charm.