A Geneve, la ville de l'arc-en-ciel éternel ...















So long... well I'm in Geneva now, after my brief stay in Frankfurt, thanks to Reuters (yeah! the news agency,... but also the financial data vendor behemoth).

I'm also currently learning french, so since this blog was initiated as a way of improving my writing skill in other languages than my mother tongue and I'm taking french lesons now I decide to break the silence with my awful french...


Je serai a Genève jusqu’a décembre, et depuis qui sait ? Mais oui j’ai aucun idée, aujourd’hui j’ai envoyé mes applications et pot être Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore ou Tokyo.

Mais premier un peu prés de la Suis, Ou-la-la la beau et riche Suis !
C’est vrai que est un pais avec beaucoup de la nature … les montagnes, les prairie, ...


..., les lacs, les glaciers, ...

les parcs, les Festivals de musique …

C’est aussi vrai que il y a beaucoup d’argent … les banc prive, les montres, les organisations internationaux, les répute « business schools », les immense château, …















Mais il y a quelque chose que n’est pas bon, que ne marche pas, il y a un vide intérieur que ce n’est pas facile d’expliquer. Pot être que la perfection est imparfait, que on a besoin des défauts, autrement … Quoi encore reste per être fait ?

Philosophie aparté, la Suis n’est pas comme la Suis d’avant. Les rues sont sales, la gent se bagarre al tram, mendiants déambulent devant la porte du centre commercial avec un bouteille d’alcool, la vélo de un ami est dérobe, …

Donc, je pense que toujours il y a beaucoup per faire encore, heureusement le monde idéal n' existe pas encore ;-) ... a plus tard.

Windows gegen Linux, die Debatte ohne ende

Dies ist mein erster Artikel auf Deutsch, kurz und ohne Wörterbuch, so bitte keine harte Kritik...
Heute habe ich dieses Interview (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4834.html) gelesen.
Endlich benutz jemanden mikroökonomische Theorien um zu bestätigen was ich und meine Freuden in die letzen fünf Jahre gesagt haben:
„Piracy may even result in higher profits to Microsoft!“.

Aber nicht nur für Microsoft, wie könnte Playstation so schnell auf den ersten Platz von die Spielkonsolen angestellt werden! Vielleicht weil alle die Spiele man leicht in einem normalen CD brennen könnte.

Aber was wirklich mir gereizt hat, ist wie schon HBS Professoren erzahlen und demonstrieren was überall bekannt ist. Ich meine das ehrlich, so kann man ohne Problem irgendein überzeugen und das ist einfach sehr wichtig (aber nur wenn der andere nicht einschläft).
Es war auch sehr schon zu wissen dass der Mitverfasser des Artikel ein Katalane ist.

Ben fet Ramon!!!

Another term passed by in MBS

A long time ago since the last blog... the term in Mannheim has finished. I could repeat myself saying that it has been so hectic that I did not have time to post anything, but you already know that, innit?

Actually it's been neither worse nor better than the other two terms, einfach Differenz.

The WM was here and Spain went home earlier than expected to not lose the habit.
But there I was to see it...



We had many BBQs with lots of Wurst und Bier.



And when the weather gets really schwuel ... what can be better than expending a weekend in the refreshing Alpen?


I also had time to go to two weddings (Muchiiiiisimas felicidades Ruben&Marta Alessandro&Julieta), visit some cities, celebrate many 30th anniversaries, and enjoy the awesome, and almost unpronounceable for me, Neuschwanstein.


I started this blog as a way to improve my english while doing my MBA. Well, not sure to which extend it's been successful, but I consider the task complete since now the language I have to urgently improve is German to strengthen links between the Spanish and German speaking communities. So the most sincere of my excuses for those who will not be able to follow from now on but ey! you can also start learning it, it's a wonderfull language (ehem ;-).

Nach fünf Wochen wird das Programm zu ende. Jetzt mache ich das Abschlussprojekt bei Bilfinger Berger mit Ceccon und Klink in der bereich Finanzen (nach ein 1.3 in International Finance bin ich sicher dass wir es schaffen ;-).

Aber die wichtigste Angelegenheit ist jetzt gleich die Suche des perfektes Jobs. Ich will in Bereich Beratung bleiben weil ich glaube dass es die Beschäftigung mit größten Herausforderungen ist. Inhouse Consulting wäre Super sein, weil trotz mein Wunsch einen verzehrenden Job zu haben, will ich auch Zeit am Wochenende für meines Privatleben haben. Weil ich hier in Deutschland bleiben will, muss ich auch mein Deutsch perfektionieren, was ich genau brauche ist das tägliche Businessdeutsch üben.

Das war alles für Heute, wir werden sehen wie alles läuft.

The term in ESSEC has reached its end, and once again luggage up and down, for the last time? who knows? everyday I feel I know less and less about everything. Anyway...

I had great food and wine


great parties and friends

great culture outings


not so great french system but in the end an unique experience.

Mannheim here I am...

Business astronauts
or how to hype your weaknesses

I got the astronauts concept from these two Joel’s great articles: “Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You” and “Are the Groove Designers Architecture Astronauts?”.

Actually I use it a lot in my everyday life because it describes so graphically the whole scene when people suddenly realise that they’re saying something smart and then they start to build on and on, their heads inflate and inflate and you see them going up and up until the gravity (common sense) leaves them and they wind up finding themselves out in the space and there’s no oxygen and no pillar (reasoning) to sustain them, so either they asphyxiate or they fall from a great high.

Today’s price for the business astronauts of the year goes to … openBC, not only because they’re Germans (and we all deep inside hate them, don’t we? Ok, not me personally but some does it, either because they started two world wars or because they manufacture the most awesome cars in the world, who knows? ;-P). Neither because it is a Yet Another Social Networking site (I still have some hope for them, even after reading this great paper). But just because of this email I received today:

Estimado Sr Ruiz,

Probablemente sabrá que Skype es el servicio gratuito de telefonía en Internet, mensajería instantánea e intercambio de archivos que está experimentando el mayor crecimiento en la actualidad.

Al igual que openBC, Skype le permite interactuar, consolidar su red de contactos y comunicarse con sus compañeros, colaboradores y clientes a lo largo de todo el planeta - en todo momento, desde cualquier ubicación y de forma gratuita.

Por este motivo, openBC y Skype han unido sus fuerzas, openBC es la primera plataforma de networking con integración comprensiva de Skype. Como usuario de openBC, puede descargar ahora la última versión (2.0) de Skype directamente desde la plataforma para complementar su herramienta de networking y facilitar enormemente el mantenimiento de su red de contactos.

[… following instructions about how to download it and a list of features …]

[For the whole English version history, please go here]

I will start with the second sentence in bold “OpenBC and Skype have join forces”. I don’t really think Skype wins anything in all this, ok it is true that OpenBC has one million users but how many of them were actually using Skype before, even OpenBC mention this in the email, and let’s be fair how many people knows Skype? And Open…what?
I just wonder what eBay managers and investors have to say about this new strategic partner they now indirectly have thanks to the Skype's German Market Manager. What could have been the deal between Tim von Toerne and Lars Hinrichs?

The nicest part is the first sentence in bold “The same as OpenBC, Skype allows you to”. Yeap, you got it, and you didn’t need to assist to Strategy & Management class with professor Karamanos. “The same” as in the same services with the same functionality and features though much, much, unbelievably much better. “The same” meaning that it’s a substitute product for half of the things we provide to our premium members. “The same” like if the establishment of this new close partnership with our nemesis was an armistice. Delusions of grandeur or just plain bullshit?

It is crystal clear that they have followed the classical “If you cannot beat them then join them” but they have even improved it because reading the press released it looks like Skype contacted them because of their valuable pool of business users. Do business astronauts think that people are foolish? Ok, sorry, stupid question, of course they do believe that, but it’s time to change, remember Nigel Piercy’s model of the new customer.

Not happy with that they have followed at the same time the savvy advice of one of my dear former bosses, and still friend Frank Bergmann, about big impact with minimum effort. Which in its essence means to spend very little time developing some simply and nice feature that works, to gain more time for the guts of the beast which is real hard work.

Piece of code necessary to add a link to the Skype download page:
<a href="http://www.skype.com/go/getskype">Download Skype</a>


(Although they just uploaded the file into their system, not too smart if you want to instantly offer the last version of Skype to your clients on the next release)

Piece of code necessary to initiate a Skype call / chat inside a webpage:

<a href="skype:name.of.your.contact">Call name.of.your.contact</a>
/
<a href="skype:name.of.your.contact?chat">Chat with name.of.your.contact </a>

So, to sum up, total amount of work: 1 hour/man (ok if Toni does it only 5 minutes ;-P records a la penya de Vic!). While to design and developed the internal message system is about 5 days/man (I had to do the estimation when designing a new version for the www.ehrms.com site and I’m a damn fast developer, ok well I _was_ a damn fast developer)

Brilliant move you may think, so now all the CEOs of SMEs over the world should make a great song and dance about their close partnership with Amazon (just for placing a link to Amazon to sell their own books), Google (when you use its free webSearch) , Yahoo (when you create a new yahoo group to share all pictures with your colleagues) or even with every single company that is showed in your page through adWords. They are really good partners because they give you two thinks you would kill for: prestige and state-of-the-art functionalities.

Who knows, maybe the next step in OpenBC strategy is to create a new alliance with Google for the site’s search engine. The thing is that Google is so damn good that maybe one can retrieve the desired contacts much better than using the advanced search filters available only for premium users.

But no, they are not that silly, their business is to offer access to friends of my friends with the hope of finding your future partner, employer or employee within a trusted group of people bigger than your own contacts’ network. Not a bad idea if it wasn’t because “trust” is a word too big to cage it in a computer server and because strong relationships are developed in your house living room or in the closest pub not in the matrix. This fact degrades them to the Yet Another Employment Website where competence is even much more fierce.

However they can always take the luxury path because some people still would like to be a premium member just because of the social status that this gives them. In the end is the same reason why people buy Louis Vuitton, Burberrys, Gucci, etc and also why something like the Master in Luxury Brands Management here at ESSEC exists. And the same reason why in come countries is so foo expensive to play golf while now here I’m taking classes for 7,5 EUR per hour.

I just read the OpenBC blog about the , I love this part from Bill Liao: “I have to say Tim von Toerne from Skype Germany has been working overtime to make it work”.
Lol lol lol … the only reason why I still like them it is because they support FON.

Once again I will appreciate your comments about this article. It is not real fun if there is no one to argue with ;-)

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

I couldn’t avoid humming that song during my last days in Warwick…
So many things in such a short time, it’s amazing, however now when people ask me to tell them some histories I don’t even know what to say, I guess is still too soon or maybe it’s already too late…

Everything in this life has an end and thus my time in Warwick. I really believe that each student of the FTMBA class 05-06 has something really especial, so if the company you want to work for don’t see it, it’s simply because they don’t deserve you. I don’t believe in this networking trend (like sending presents to the children of your desired target, for God’s sake!), but in keeping in contact with people you know and value. Therefore I will be pleased if someone sends me and email and ask for anything he or she thinks I may be useful. They know how to search for my name in the wbs address book.

Five words that come to my mind:

Muda (and its variants kaizen, kanban, poka-yoke, the five Ss, the four Vs, …)

It depends (valid for accouting and behaviour moels)

Customer value (and also its variants customer focus, 5forces, 4 Ps, …)

Iperoha (is it possible that I cannot remember any swearword! Cazzo!)

DOH! (yeah, it is a word)

I just hope the MBA is more than just that ;P

It is always kind of sad saying goodbye but ey, as Humphrey Bogart would say: We'll always have Paris. Thought it is true that it has been so intensive that some part of myself rests now on the shire (Warwickshire) and it will rest there forever...

Thus he died
Nom the Wise
Lord of the caves and friend of man
Fair, and noble
Most beloved of the Noldor race
Paid the price, he redeemed the oath
Farewell my friend, farewell