Fran is blogging, biking, marketing and MBAing. Another London Business School blogger hits the scene. Leave him a comment (comments are the fuel of bloggers, remember that!).

Visit his website, and don’t be scared of the attached picture. He is a great guy, and among many other talents, an online marketing guru.

Following the “tips from the battlefield”, I received an email of an acquittance asking for tips about flat hunting. Here they are, use at your own risk!

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Dear XXXX,

I am happy to give you a couple of suggestions. In our case, we had one month of corporate housing before moving, so we were more relaxed on searching.

My suggestions:
.1. WHERE? Survey the area you want to live with a photocopied map and mark with colors whether you want to live there or not. As everywhere, one street might fit your criteria and the next one not (noisy or whatever reason). We spent the first weekend surveying the area and we define the boundaries of what was acceptable and what was not. Take pictures of street and their names, it will help you remember.

.1.a. While walking, write down (or take a digital picture) of all the small real estate agents you could find and where are they located. Small agents have access to local apartments. Worth contacting them, normally have slightly better deals than big names (foxtons, etc…), but it requires more work on your side to reach them.

.2. HOW? Same for the place: For us, ground floor was a no-no, and we wanted a 1 bedroom with integrated kitchen. Knowing what you want is very important. In general, the market is very liquid and you should be able to find what you want, but it’s expensive, of course.

.3. SPECS and VISIT: Prepare a “specs list” of what you want in a sheet of paper: Include a map of where you want it, how you want it and how to reach you. Go to small agents and big alike with spare copies. Ask what they have that fits the specs, leave them a copy of the specs in case something comes up. Deny visiting flats that do not match the specs.

In the case of many of my classmates, the “horror stories” of 50 flats visited normally correlates highly with being clueless about what they wanted. That’s a waste of time both for you and for the R.E . agent. I visited 6 flats only, but probably denied visiting about 40-50 of them. The six of them matched what I wanted. It’s quicker

By the way, to find estate agents, walk around, but also use google maps.
Example: http://tinyurl.com/ys9kxc

.3.a. If only one of you is going to visit the appartments, I suggest to bring along the camera and also to fill in some sort of template of “things to check”, so you can share it with the other with more data.

.3.b. Try all the plumbing equipment in the house. Every single tap, both hot and cold water. Some properties have appalling installations.

.4. DECISION MAKING: Finally, decide quickly, but don’t rush. The market moves very fast, and most properties stay available for days, 2 weeks top. If you find something that fits what you want, waiting can mean losing it. But also, do not hurry into a place you don’t like, because at the end, you will be living there for a year!

To figure out what you want (in terms of equipment, etc…), I’d recommend using foxtons webpage. Their properties are on the expensive side and their sales people redefine what “pushy” means, but the website is incredibly information rich, with pictures to look at and decide what is important for you.

.5. SMILE: Finally, try to keep good humor and smile. The process can be stressing, but it’s not worth depressing about!

And that’s all I can think about now. At the end, everything worked well for us, and we are very happy with our one bedroom apartment.

Peaches are one of those summer little pleasures. I just had the first one of this summer. It was pure pleasure, skin and everything. Oh fruity glory!

Next stop: I need to figure out where to get muscat grapes in London…

Summe is a fantastic time of the year, specially when the sun shines, but also because of old’summers remembrance, being away from school, holidays, etc…

For me, now summer is also becoming a period of change. It was summer when I started my first full time job, summer when I moved positions to Santander in northern Spain, summer when I returned, summer when I left the company to travel and move to the USA, summer when I moved to London and started the MBA, etc…

Tomorrow, Aug 3rd, will be a full year since we arrived to London. Plenty has happened since. The anniversary is a perfect moment for reflection. What has happened during the last year? What does it mean? What’s next? What do I want to do with my life? Where is the future? Should I keep blogging at all?

All are fundamental questions, that I always consider, but I consider more during anniversaries!

A reader of the blog, Manoj, asks for advice about visiting LBS. For the benefit of all the readers, I post my reply here.

Hi Patxi,

Trust you are doing well. My name is Manoj XXXX, and I am a potential applicant to LBS. I’m a big fan of your blog and a regular reader, although I have never commented on it. It’s a fun blog, and extremely informative.

While I’m originally from India, I’m currently in London on work and will be here for a few months more. Naturally, I plan to visit the School as many times as possible while here. I know you are extremely busy, what with school and all, but I was just looking for some sort of advice on what, if anything, I need to take or be prepared with prior to visiting. I’d also love to hear any tips you might have for me about LBS and B-school in general.

Hope to hear from you soon. And keep blogging!
Cheers,
Manoj.

First, apologies Manoj for the delay in responding. But my inbox is full and my calendar too.

Specific advice: Take advantage of the visit to discover those elements that are more difficult to be discovered by distance. How?

1. Try to picture yourself attending the school. It’s all about imagining. Would you fit in there? This is the most fundamental question you need to answer yourself. Plus, answer Why would I fit in here? Two years is a long commitment (plus a huge opportunity cost) if you just want to ticket punch. I recommend picking a school where you would fit, and know why. In addition, that is extremely helpful for the application process.
2. Discover what the school is about. All top schools have similar brochures, and all have great programs. But the highlights are different. And not only the highlights… Do they have specific strong areas? E’ship in LBS is fantastic, but you would not necessaraily guess it from the print material. My point is that all top schools are great, but with different spins. To do a car simil: BMW, MB and Audi are all great german mass luxury car manufacturers. But they all have different personalities. Drive them before you pick them. Same with B-school. Visit them all!
3. Try to go to a lecture, and talk with as many students as possible. This might be difficut during summer time. But is one of the best ways to discover the school. How is the people? How is the mix? How are their interactions?
4. Would you have fun in there? If you have fun, you will also learn more and take more advantage of it.

And these are my pointers. In my opinion, if you understand the place (which you can improve by visiting), you will choose better and also enjoy it better.

I hope this helps!

The World at Night (via Digg) one of my favourite images ever. It trult shows the wealth distribution of the world. Enjoy!

I was browsing through some books in amazon.com, when I discovered that the magical powers of Harry Potter have hacked the website. Normally, when I browse through a book, I always look at the section “What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing this Item?”

I find it very useful to gain insight on alternatives, and I eventually end up buying different books. Well, today, HP7 is on every single alternative list. See two examples (click to enlarge):

Try it for yourself. Pick a book, and give it a try at www.amazon.com So, what happened: Hack, magic or numbers?

Probably the later (I know, what a dissapointment!). Given the millions of copies sold, it’s no wonder that, no mater which book you pick, someone who has seen the webpage for the book… ended up buying her copy of HP7.

I found it funny, for a second (and until the effect wears off) it seemed that HP had hacked amazon!

Note to self: Always install  BlockSite, the Firefox extension that allows you to block domains of your choice. Fantastic to block all those timewasters as digg.com and others. Highly recommended if you want to use Firefox for work only. The anti-online-procrastination tool!

I installed it on the new mac. The rationale is simple: If I have the extratime to go waste at digg… I’d rather take a walk or something even better! But I might go there as an automatic distraction. With blocksite, I can’t get there! So I don’t waste my time, plus end up going for the walk later down the road!

Found via digg.com in Bad Gods | MMBRPG (click on link to see full version). I love the final square.

A big THANK YOU to  J.K.Rowling for her fantastic books. The Harry Potter story has come to an end, and I feel grateful for having enjoyed it live as it was unveiled and published for all to see.

Some time in the future, I’d like to read again the seven books, because there are so many hints and ideas about what is going to happen since book one, that I’ll amuse myself finding all the relationships and reference, now that I know how it ends.

A final note goes to all those who have not read the books yet: Make yourself a favour and give them a try. I did it when I catch a VP of my previous company reading them, circa 2001. Amused, he explained me that the books had unplugged his kids from the Play Station, without any parental intervention, and he wanted to know what they were reading. I thought to myself that an item powerful enough to unplug kids from a Playstation was something worth paying attention to. I am so glad I did.

Thanks J K Rowling!

Interesting article by Jobacle.com BLOG about 5 career tips you could learn from JK Rowling rise to stardom. Interesting read, especially if you are just anxiously waiting for the final book to come out.

The tips are explained in  detail in the link, they are quite unconventional.