I have become a huge fan of this software: Writeroom. What does it do? Basically, it allows you to write without any distraction. When you open the software, it’s only about writing.

All other distractions disappear: background, icons, notifications, other windows, bouncing icons, etc…

It’s the author and the text! One on one typing action!

In a way, it’s like returning to WordPerfect for MS-Dos. And it’s fantastic. In an era where thousand stimuli encourage attention deficits of all sorts, this program is a godsend for good focused writing.

So if you are struggling to get the words right with that report, project or application, just go to your room!

Oh! And there is a  Windows clone too, called DarkRoom.

PS: Metaphysical bonus: It always amazes me when the top technology goes back to imitate the old. In this case, my powerful laptop with 1Gb of memory and all the bells and whistles gets software to replicate a text editor that would run in a 1985 PC.

It reminds me the first time I saw a “real sound” mobile telephone, circa 2001. You know, instead of sounding like a synthesized tune, they can reproduce WAV and MP3 sounds, like voice or noises, as ringtone. I found it fascinating, not because of the technology by itself, but because its proud owner had selected a ringtone that copied the bells in the very first telephones of a century early! What a fascinating technological oxymoron!

ROTTEN TOMATOES: 10 Reasons Why We McLove Superbad
1. We’ve all been there…high school.

Anyone who doesn’t remember high school as an awkward vortex of hormonal angst is perhaps a bit too well-adjusted for Superbad (directed by Greg Mottola, produced by Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson), but the rest of us know exactly what Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are going through.

[…]

I went to watch Superbad the other day and I found it to be one of the best movie in a lot of time (probably since “The Incredibles”, but they’re difficult to compare). I couldn’t stop laughing for the whole movie. And relating to the awkwardness of high school too… I am so glad I am not a teen anymore!

If you want to revisit you teenage years, I can’t imagine any more candid and fun movie. Not suitable for grownups or children!

Which B-School is good for me? You are probably asking yourself that question. Or you are asking me and other student and alumni that question.

I was facing that conundrum two years ago and it’s frustrating: Everyone I asked from a top school kept telling me: “My school is awesome! This is fantastic! Come join us! Best decision I’ve ever made! You won’t regret!”

And I was there, thinking… “Thanks for your enthusiasm, but this is not helpful”. The answers I was looking after were comparisons: How is LBS vs Stanford? In regards to entrepreneurship? And international-wise? And how does Harvard compare to Columbia? … all looking for the ultimate answer: “Which is the best B-school for me?”

It turns out, no one can answer this sort of comparisson. And the answer is quite simple: No one I know has ever done two MBAs. Therefore, comparissons are tricky. Unless one experience it, it’s very difficult to compare. My analogy to think about choice is simple:

Top B-schools are like luxury cars: You can’t go wrong, yet all have a different character. I still have to find a luxury car driver that tells me… “You know, I don’t enjoy my car!” Regardless of brand, these are fantastic machines.

Same thing with MBA: No matter whether you go to LBS, Insead, Harvard, Stanford, or Columbia, you get a fantastic MBA. Everybody is happy with their top MBA! Fantastic MBA! Fantastic experience!

But then, you might want to get into the character of all these cars: Do I prefer a sporty BMW/Ferrari/AM ? Or a more refined Bentley/MB/etc? How flashy do I want it?

You get the idea, and the same applies to MBA programs: How international? How leadership focused? How experiential? How rigorous in teaching? How case-based (or obsessed)? Where is it located?

So the moral of the story is that top MBAs are as fantastic as top luxury cars. Relax, you can’t go wrong! Do your research and pick the one that suits you best, but you can’t do a bad choice.

Warning: This post is based in an analogy. Don’t force the analogy too far…

This post is a list of the series, please read my disclaimer: I don’t need you to apply to LBS

I discovered Henry Moore visiting Washington DC’s Smithsonian museum, four years ago, and loved it. Last Saturday, I went to Henry Moore At Kew and I had the time of my life. It’s a must-see exhibition, not only because it covers some of the most fantastic sculpture works of the XXth century, but specially because it’s SO BEAUTIFUL. Discovering the scultpures it’s just moving.

Remembering my visit, I get the goose bumps!

So if you have a couple of hours free, get there! I thoroughly recommend it!

As I mentioned in CV updating, the chore of updating CVs is boring beyond belief. I am happy I am done. And it’s available online.

My freshly updated CV

Yesterday I had tons of fun during the LBS MBA information session. I must tell you, the thing that amazes me the most of these sessions is how many alumni are drawn to attend. Last evening there were about 80+ prospectives and applicants, 2 students (class mates are either working or on holiday at the moment), and 8 alumni. Two years ago, when I was in the San Francisco presentation, the numbers were even more impressive, specially given the lesser numbers of alumni in the Bay Area.

And San Francisco brings me to the point of this post: I am starting a new series on my blog. Thinking about the last two years, it has been a fantastic evolution from being a clueless prospective to a 2nd year student (wow! the MBA is ending soon…)

So after talking to so many applicants and prospectives on Monday, I thought that some of my applicant wisdom (that’s why the picture) could be  of interest to other readers.

In the oncoming posts (descriptively labelled “Prospective and Applicant MBA series”) I will reproduce some of the conversations that exemplify many of the questions that matter to prospectives. But before that, here is my full disclaimer:

My only motivation is mainly helping out people who is in the same situation as I was two years ago. I am in debt to those who helped me, and I hope I can pass it forward. Please don’t try to second guess me:

I don’t need you to apply to LBS. I have no interest at all in influencing prospectives and applicants into applying here. If I get a message saying: “Patxi, thanks to your post, I realized that WXYZ Business School is my choice, not London!” I will be happy, because someone out there made an informed decision. Good to her!

In case you didn’t notice, LBS (maybe for the school’s tradition on openness and diversity?) broadcasts a myriad of perspectives on the MBA. For reasons beyond my understanding, probably a cosmic coincidence, we not only have the LBS official blog, where student tell it like it is, but a myriad of blogs about the school. I copied the list from RusGirl’s blog,  and it’s impressive.

Angel Angie (LBS 2008)
Genie in a bottle (LBS 2008)
Sebastien Nuttinck (SEMBA 2008)
Edward Starr (LBS 2008)
Africa Club (LBS 2008)
FM (LBS 2008)
Karlitos (LBS 2008)
Vasconcelos (LBS 2008)
Wheels (LBS 2008)
Natasja (alumnae)
Al Martine (alumnus)
Fahran Lalji (EMBA alumnus)
Ricardo (alumnus)
Gaurav Rekhi (alumnus)
Hobbes (alumnus)
Future Guru (alumnae)
Thiri (alumnae)
Guillaume Rigal (alumnus)
Karibu (alumnus)

So I hope you get my point: I wish you all the best, I wish you make the best decision for yourself, and I hope you can take advantage of some of the modest knowledge I have distilled over these two years.

Now let the series begin… Stay tuned!

BBC NEWS | Technology | Facebook ‘costs businesses dear’
Workers who spend time on sites such as Facebook could be costing firms over £130m a day, a study has calculated.

Ok, so that is the headline. Stay with me for a second while I calculate the impact of facebook over a year…

130 GBP milion/working day * 200 working days/year = 26 000 GBP million/year

that is 26 GBP billion or 52 USD billion (approx.) of ‘facebook cost’ per every year.

Now given that, according to the CIA World factbook, the UK’s GDP every year is

GDP (official exchange rate): $2.346 trillion (2006 est.)

are you telling me that the facebook is costing the UK companies

$52bi / $2346bi = 2.2% of the yearly GDP

Seriously, I can’t believe that… The government should regulate it! The ministry of economy! Someone! Now you have an explanation why there is a crisis, it’s not because of the subprime mortgages in the USA. In fact, the GDP doesn’t grow… because of facebook… right.

So facebook has a cost of ‘over’ 2.2% of the GDP! Come’on, who did the study? A bored consultant, an intoxicated blogger or an executive from MySpace?

Today I got a message from Sergio, an applicant, asking a very Spanish centric question about the application process. (Due to its nature, I believe the question is not relevant to most applicants, so I will not copy my answer here)

However, this just serves to illustrate that quite often, through the contact page, I get plenty of questions from applicants.

In general terms, I am truly happy to help applicants that contact me. I am in debt to all those friends that helped me through my process, and the best thing to do is to pay it forward. If it’s something I can help, and I have a minimum of bandwidth, I am happy to oblige. Keep in mind, though, that crafting messages according to what The Divine Miss N says in “The 5 things you should know” increases dramatically your chances of success.

And this is a post to all my audience that has ever found something useful here: When you become  a student of a “Master of the Universe in Ham & Cheese Sandwiches” (a.k.a. MBA), please remember when you were an anxious applicant, and do your best to help others. It really means a lot to someone else, and it will make you feel good about yourself.

So, in short, if you use something from this blog, please pay it forward to another applicant.

If you read the comments on Martin Varsavsky’s recent post about some wealthy person robbing Martin’s iPhone (Los Ricos también Roban in Spanish) you will witness one of the most depressing characteristic of my native Spain.

In the comments, many people display how they believe that business is always a zero sum game, and a dirty game at that. The idea is as follows: “If someone is rich, (s)he must have stolen from the poor”. This idea is quite widespread across the country, and many of the comments suggest that, “of course all business men are robbers”, and “Martin you are naive because among business people you are among robbers, of course someone stole your iPhone”

I am not naive enough to believe that ALL rich and/or business people are natural do-gooders, a flock of angels; but a majority of them are good hard working ambitious people. And, of course, there are the occasional bad apples, as in all groups in society.

Unfortunately, these attitudes are quite bad news for the country and for anyone who loves business like I do, who enjoys it, and who believes it is a fundamentally positive force in today’s society. It creates multiple negative outcomes:

* Many talented people prefer to stay away from business. Few in Spain agree with the view that “business is good for society”, specially at a younger age, and few smart people choose a career in business.

* People, in general, display a passive-aggressive attitude towards business. “We consume your products, we want a good job at a stable organization, we love the low prices, but businesses are fundamentally evil!”

* In consequence, many people working in business have a passive-aggressive attitude towards their work.

* Because business is seen as dirty, many people don’t know much about how they work, therefore remain financial illiterates and do not upgrade their skills (”why? to learn more and do more evil?); this affects the country’s productivity (EU15’s lowest productivity per hour) and because of illiteracy, all business news are portrayed in a negative light in the media.

* In my view, the previous passive aggressive attitude to work, creates a vicious circle of low motivation and the preponderance of the “ugly manager”, whose work is to “scare/force people into work”; this promotes bad managers and bad management practices and reinforces the negative views. But the fact is that a “positive reinforcing manager” might not generate as many results, because some people don’t want to work per se… (Good news MBAers: Leadership skills are sought after in Spain!)

* Businesses and business-people have a bad social reputation. Who wants to be labeled as a rogue robber? Therefore many successful business people try to stay as anonymous as possible. No Forbes or Fortune equivalent in Spain!

In all fairness, the situation is not as bad as I am describing (and quite a bunch of comments on the original blog just show support to Martin). But comparing attitudes with other countries (US, UK, Scandinavian, Germany) the differences are shocking! So many Spaniards are anti-business despite the fact that they work at them, buy at them, etc…! Businesses are a fundamental part of people’s life, and Spaniards’ attitudes show a fundamental mismatch between the reality and their ideas!

I guess this post explains pretty well why I am ambivalent (read reluctant) to return to Spain. In the USA, an entrepreneur is a hero, a creator of jobs and wealth! In the UK, a good corporate citizen (as long as she is green and CSR compliant). In Germany a pillar of the community. In Spain,… … Well, a “rogue robber” is a mild way to put it.

So why should I return to Spain? It must be the food and the sun, because to be seen as a rogue robber… Not for me, really!

Firt summer weekend! This past weekend had clear skies and bright sunny days, and temperatures above 25ºC (80ºF). It was the first summer WE in London this season. It was hot, I could wear a t-shirt without freezing, even sweating a little bit, we went to the swimming pool (note to self: use the swimming pool more during the 2nd year), and strolled in the sun.

Beautiful.

The spell only lasted for Saturday and Sunday, today it’s cloudy again. Good thing to get working.

PS: By the way, if you missed it, or are dubious about what that burning yellow sphere suspended in the sky was, it’s all a natural process. You might not recall it, but it’s true, it’s called summer, and it happens every year, especially in more temperate climate. True! I am not pulling your leg, Check it out:  Summer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia