For the prospective MBAers readers: Every student that you ask will tell you more or less the same about their school, “our community is great, people are amazing, collaborative environment, etc…”.

Sometimes it is very difficult to tell appart the shark-culture schools from the others. And students telling you that “the community is great” are telling you the truth, most top schools have a great culture and that person loves being at school. One of my frustrations while shopping around B-schools was how difficult it was to get specific examples or data.
So for your convenience, I will provide a datapoint. I want to share with you a simple example of the community at London Business School. A short history that fills me with happiness:

I have the bad habit of removing my wrist-watch while typing. Last week, I successfully forgot my watch at some PC. Alone I left him, lying by an unkown cold keyboard.

Of course I did not realize until a couple of hours later. Or maybe a day (there are watches everywhere nowadays), because it is not the first time that I leave the appartment without the watch. Assuming I left it at home, I did not care until last WE, when I was unable to locate it at home.

I panicked, it is a very special watch, not only a beautiful gift from a very important person, but a thin titanium designer beautiful watch (pic on the right!). After a big deal of frustration, I assumed the unavoidable: Too bad, no idea where I left it, someone has found it and made it theirs, I will never ever see it again, no idea where I might have forgotten it.

Long story short, I thought that maybe I had lost it at London Business School. And yes! Lucky me! Some caritative soul picked up the lost watch, gave it to campus security and (once I described it properly) security gave it back to me!

Isn’t life wonderful? People are really nice around here!

Of course this might happen in many other places, and maybe some other people might have chosen to keep it… yet it happened

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.”

The danger of assumptions! And prejudices, of course

WE travel session starts at my MBA. Actually it was a long planned week-end, but still it felt great. Not that I am anywhere tired of London (I have visited little else than the School-Home area these two months).

Last weekend in France was great. A little intense -woke up at 3am both on Saturday and Sunday- with many hours en route, but no one said getting to l’ÃŽle d’Oléron was an easy task. Went there for the wedding of our friend Laet, the bride, who was beautiful, charming and inspiring, and I had the opportunity to meet the groom, which I approve of (quite a big deal, because I always wanted the best for my friends and if I know them before they get with their partners, I am always wary about them!). Great time at the wedding, nice to see many friends again

France is still a funny place: Food is great, service sucks, etc… but the novelty is a certain general depression of living in a Paradise Lost coupled with a vigorous blamestorming. The feeling goes like this, with multiple variations: “Someone (preferably our political and business class) has done something wrong or evil and therefore they have eroded our privileges as inhabitants of a great nation”. It is a surprising perception for a foreigner, because…

1. No matter how you look at it, France is one of the richest countries on Earth, and living standards are very high.
2. The country’s intelligentsia and population do nothing proactively about the increasing interconnectedness of economy. This globalisation thing is evil, therefore let’s do another strike and close borders. I’m exaggerating, but as Thomas Friedman would put it, “France is playing defense, not offense”. And it is nowhere near keeping its benefits by playing defense, quite the contrary.

Change is a matter of life, and trying to resist it only brings frustration. A final quote, just to close this post:

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Aldous Huxley

Fresh out of our “Effective Writing Seminar”. Thanks to Burak for sending me the picture!

In the image, you can see a “mind map” of what 5 of us consider the key DOs and DONTs of effective emailing, group by subject. I found it useful and, in a way, very beautiful.

By the way, if interested, here is a list of useful “Mind Mapping Software Tools”

I love my adventures, I love my trips,
the plane ticket in my hand
go and my horizons expand,
wandering without scripts.

 Yet there is always one thing I miss.
what a cruel deprivation,
my favourite publication,
the one most foreign kiosk simply dismiss.

Now I am paying London’s high rent,
and I got my healing prescription.
I renewed my subscription
and to my home is weekly sent!Â

What I am trying to say here is that I am extremely happy, because now I have a flat and because every Friday I receive the economist to my door. I love this magazine. It is THE SOURCE of information. I love the way they put forward facts, then analyze them and then make recommendations. And they are also funny as well.

I am so happy to be subscribed. In some countries it is virtually imposible to get it. In Ecuador, for instance, it is not sold anymore as the distributor went burst.

Read the economist, it will change your life for the better!

PS: I got some help for the rhymes from www.rhymezone.com

At the risk of losing a significant share of my readers, I have a clarification to make…

But before, let me thank all of those who read me, all of those whom I have met the last couple of weeks, all of those classmates that mentioned that “Yes, I remember your name, you have a very nice blog”. Thanks! It feels good to know someone reads you (because very few people actually comment!).

And I want to thank you also for a critical piece of feedback… After saying “You have a very nice blog”, 50% of my classmates mentioned that they thought Patxi was a girl and a girl’s name while the remaining 50% had serious doubts on my gender, based on my name. Interesting, I thought!/p>

No worries, no ofense taken, but I have decided to put the record straight.

Let me dissapoint all of you who were reading these posts believing this was the blog of a hot and smart MBA woman. Sorry people, I am a boy. Patxi happens to be a boy’s name, the equivalent of Francisco/Frank in Basque language.

And let me give you a free piece of advice. Next time you hesitate on a name’s gender, use Google and search for it on images. It can provide you with interesting information. Check it out: