AWESOME!!

BREATHTAKING!!

SPLENDID!!

REMARKABLE!!

AWE-INSPIRING!!

TREMENDOUS!!

HUMBLING!!

Words cannot describe the sheer beauty of the Big Island. My four day stay was amazing; I have never had such an incredible vacation in such a short period. As I previously explained (Aloha!), the trip’s primary purpose was the wedding: A very beautiful and fun experience, and my first American wedding. Outdoors (quite shocking! very beautiful, at sunset :D), nondenominational Hawaiian ceremony with elements from Catholic and Jewish tradition, lots of dancing. My only disappointment: Unlike in the movies, the officer never said the famous line “If anyone objects to this union, talk now or…” Apparently, that line is only for the movies :p

Important data point: Time difference in Hawaii with my hometown is 12h. Just the opposite side of the globe! Sunrise in Hawaii happens when the sun sets in Spain. Technically speaking, I’ve already been in more remote places (Australia comes to mind), but the complete opposite of the globe and the fact that nighttime in Hawaii was daytime in Barcelona got me thinking on how different my life and future prospects is now vs some of my childhood friends. Like day and night.

The wedding was at an impressive resort, probably the best hotel I have ever stayed at, with superb location and architecture. The first time in my life that I miss the place when I get back home. After a couple of days at a hotel, I always long for my return, even when I was at other beautiful locations. Not this time, what a strange and slightly depressing feeling. I long for the hotel! I long for Hawai’i! A first for me!

Other than the wedding, I visited every major attraction in the Island. One of the more interesting particularities of the Island is the number of different climates in a 100×100 mile piece of land: Desert, Mediterranean, continental, alpine, subtropical, tropical rainforest… In the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, a must see, an active volcano (Kilauea) is open for visit and one a mile away tropical forest grows wild. I also witnessed the entrance of lava into the sea, boiling huge amounts of sea water into steam. At night I saw the red glow of the lava in the steam.

Dear reader: Maybe you read my blog for tips on LBS admissions, maybe you want to know better a future classmate, or maybe you want some inspiring insights on business. But if you want to take just one thing with you from this blog, take this advice, 100% guaranteed:

Visit Hawai’i Big Island. You will want to stay forever!

Great holidays! I got my batteries recharged, now I am ready for my final sprint before I leave my job!

My friends Dan and Kim are getting married this weekend and I am going to be there for sure! And they are not getting married just around the corner or down the street, but on the beautiful Hawaii’s Big Island. GREAT!

What a beautiful opportunity to discover Hawaii. This is one of the rare WE getaways of this year. It’s been incredibly busy! With the applications, work, some night courses I took at Stanford, crazy schedules, www.mbainternacional.es, etc… last WE away was… … well, it was… I can’t remember! … Business-related Seattle escapade in February!? And that was not even for fun! Maybe… it was the days I spent for Christmas in Spain! WOW!

It’s not been all work, there has been tons of social life, a few day trips, but I have slept at home day after day for one too many months! I want to get away!

So I am all excited about this long WE (Monday is Memorial Day [W]) and really looking forward to unwind, relax, enjoy the wedding and daydream in Hapuna Beach. If I get lucky, some lava will be flowing at the National Park, and I will be there to watch it flow. Amazing, isn’t it?

Athough there was No Admits Weekend for me, some of my friends emailed me with news and my blogfriends are actively blogging about it. Check it out:

Do not miss the pictures on angel angie in London: Admits weekend in London! and some of her comments too:

I had a really good time, was seated between a guy from Amsterdam and one from Madrid, with a girl from India, a girl from the Philippines and a guy from Australia opposite me.

I love the international scope of London Business School. This is it! I am there in a few months!

This weekend was really helpful for me; on the one hand I’m even more excited about moving to London now, on the other hand I felt so inspired by all the people I met that I think I have the strength to work hard for another 5 weeks now, from now on time is going to pass like crazy!

I am glad the WE was inspiring for Angel Angie. KV blogs about it too (MBA 2008 Admits Weekend Recap) and, after admitting to

licking a temporary LBS tattoo on one of the girls from the MBA admission’s team

posts a very funny disclaimer:

Overall I think the event was a total success; however, I want to point out that not everyone at LBS is a total partier. There are many people who are actively involved in various clubs at school and hardly come to any social events.

This is so funny! I hope more ’07s and ’08s will post images and blog about it soon!

PS: Lost Weekend can be translated into Spanish as “fin de semana perdido”, which means also missed weekend. I loved the image when I saw it, very appropiate for the post. But maybe some of you might wonder what this post has to do with Billy Wilder’s 1945 movie. The answer: Nothing actually.

For the past months, I have been inmersed in the development of a new nonprofit venture: www.mbainternacional.es, the networking space for Spaniards with MBA degrees earned abroad. Until now, to reach a London Business School MBA was very difficult and cumbersome for a Spanish Stanford MBA. There was no easy link and previous networking solutions were not optimized for this public. There was an unmet need.

The founders (check that link out if you want to see a picture of me) of www.mbainternacional.es saw the need and we created an organization to fulfill it. This is a community with many common interests (experiences abroad, MBA degrees,…) and will certainly benefit from this tool.

For me, it has been a unique opportunity to learn. This has been the first time I am involved in an entrepreneurial activity. As the saying goes…

“I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.”
— Confucius

This Confucius guy was smart! I am learning so much from doing it. A few lessons I take with me:

• The creative part of the process has been explorative most of the time, like a toddler learning to walk. At the begining, there was just an intuitive idea. Now there is a whole new organization. The process in the middle is anything but straightforward. And that is the way it needs to be.
• Just launch! It is very difficult to get the right mix from day one, so keep on improving. The recipe is simple: Launch a small beta and get feedback. Improve. Redo process until ready.
• Implementation with scarce resources is an art: Many hours have been put into the project. I have coded all of the site, some of my partners have done most of the written content. Everyone has argued for an against functionalities. Little money spent, many hours invested.
• Positive motivation of others and the self is very important in any project. In a nonprofit, even more.
• Values and vision are key ingredients: Otherwise, it is impossible to advance. Given the high levels of uncertainty, values and vision are the only way to make decissions.

However, if you are reading these, you cannot take the lessons with you, as Confucius says. If you are thinking on being an entrepreneur, the only advice I have is:

• JUST DO IT. And learn on the way. Think about a project you can create, lead and develop. Own it. Enjoy it. Learn from it.

By the way, if you come from a country without such a networking invention and want one for yourself, contact me and let’s explore how to cooperate.

———–

If you are not an Spaniard, the post ends here. If you are a Spaniard with an MBA degree earned abroad, you might be interested in www.mbainternacional.es’s value proposition (in Spanish):

¿Qué te ofrece MBAInternacional.es ?

• Zona de Network: Herramientas de network para poder contactar con alumni y estudiantes españoles de programas MBA fuera de España. Podrás contactar con los MBA españoles de las otras escuelas (Stanford, Harvard, London Business School, Wharton, Insead,…). Se fusionan así los networks españoles de las diversas escuelas extranjeras.
• MBA-Info: Información aportada por los integrantes de la asociación sobre temas de interés común. Información sobre las escuelas, durante el MBA, búsqueda de trabajo, después del MBA…
• Foros de discusión: Para fomentar el diálogo y el intercambio con otros españoles que han cursado un MBA fuera de España.

Good CNN Money article on 5 ways to start a company (without quitting your day job) - May 1, 2006

Executive summary:

1. Use Your Salary as Funding
2. Turn Common Complaints Into a Business Plan
3. Make Your Boss a Beta Tester
4. Take Advantage of Your Company’s Reputation
5. Convert Your Employer Into a Business Partner

Roses are red,
violets are blue.
I love my smart junk filter
’cause no spammer can beat it!

I love this cartoon, displaying it in my blog is the main goal of this post. I am the guy who just wants to read his email! Thanks to my very smart filter I get all this useless stuff out of my way. Seriously, don’t you think that 600 spams per month is way too much? I am not used to receive that much junk mail.

I guess that if there are still spammers in this world it is because they make money. I wonder which is the click ratio they get. Who is clicking and buying in those horrible unrequested publicity? Are they alone and bored of life?

Actually, I would enjoy checking spammers metrics and the profit and losses of these internet polluters. Do they make significant money? Out of curiosity, how much is a spammer’s price tag for selling their internet soul?

Manufacturing SMEs (less than 250 employees) are an incredibly interesting sort: They have drive, flexibility, knowhow and a vision for the long term. I know because I have worked with them and they are amazing. Some of the entrepreneurs behind them are some of the more brilliant guys I have ever met, incredible business-savy.
On the other hand, due to their smaller sizes, some expenses become too burdensome for them: they have to face some formidable challenges in terms of assymetry of information, financing their operations, education of the workforce and technological innovation.

The SME is a field where more profesionalized management and services could have a great impact, and there is plenty of opportunities in Spain and all of southern Europe, with a big percentage of SMEs accounting for the total of the production.

If any of you is interested in the Spanish scenario and want to read some interesting material in Spanish, I encourage you to check this paper I read yesterday:

INSTRUMENTOS Y OBJETIVOS DE LAS POLÍTICAS DE APOYO A LAS PYME EN ESPAÑA
Autor: Antonio Fonfría Mesa, Profesor de Economía Aplicada. Universidad Complutense de Madrid

The author reviews the restrictions in SME (called PYMEs in Spanish) development (the best part of the paper for me), and then evaluates the coherence of insitutional support for SME in Spain by different institutions (the goal of the author).

For an entrepreneur-to-be (me!) getting a review on the difficulties of SMEs is a very interesting read. Very interesting! If you know other recommended material, please leave a comment.