La Fiesta San Fermin

Share

My apologies to family and friends for a long absence in updating my blog. Classes, studies, and lots of fun have kept me from my duties. I’m sure however that you’ll forgive me for that.

As a special treat for your gratuitous pardon, I have provided a video link where you can see me run for my life away from bulls. This was Pamplona, La Fiesta San Fermin.

(look 1 min 59 sec, lower right on the screen)

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=Z12VM9T7

Immediately after the run, with fellow classmates in the bullring

That was a special opportunity for me. A great many people include ‘Running with the Bulls’ in their bucket list, but so few have the opportunity, while still young enough, to actually do it. For me this with a “must” during my time in Spain and I am glad I did it.

That said… don’t ever ask me to do it again! For that matter don’t even imply or joke that I should consider doing it again. I will tell you no and then I will punch you in the face (kidding of course, mostly).

Running with the bulls consists of the following: 45 minutes of fearful waiting packed in narrow alley with hundreds of people and then 3 minutes of sheer terror running. Twice I had to climb the walls to escape chasing bulls. Alas when you’re finally done and quite happy to be alive, you find yourself trapped inside a bull ring with younger bulls bounding about, tossing people with their horns into the air. This goes on for maybe an hour.

Yup. Once is quite enough for me. Thank you very much!

Aside from all that, the Fiesta is the biggest party you've ever seen that doesn't stop for 168 hours strait. You can see I enjoyed this part as well :)

World Cup Quarter Finals

- Please excuse the brevity and typos. Posting from my iPhone

4th of July event at the US embassy in Madrid

Me at the American Embassy 4th event



Simon at the event - thanks for the invite bro!!



The ambassador Alan Solomont presenting the stars and strips, and welcoming the invitees



"Lets party!"- closing remarks by Alan Solomont, US ambassador to Spain



Rock & roll and blues all night long, and some inspirational USA images to accompany



The ambassador dancing with his lovely wife - they are clearly having a great time


- Please excuse the brevity and typos. Posting from my iPhone

Location:Calle de Serrano,Madrid,Spain

First final down, and a good one!!

Final exam for Information Systems was today.



The professor (Enrique Dans) actually brought in the founders of the business case tested (spotCRAFT) to answer our questions.

VERY COOL!


- Please excuse the brevity and typos. Posting from my iPhone

Tesco Loyalty

Amongst loyalty programs, Tesco’s Club Card is considered to be the gold standard. The Club Card loyalty program is more than ten years old now and serves as a huge competitive advantage for Tesco. The brains behind Tesco’s Club Card program is an outside contractor – Dunnhumby.

What Dunnhumby did for Tesco was new for the industry, but not an entirely new concept all together. The idea of “loyalty programs” previously existed within the airline industry, however never before had a robust loyalty program been established for an industry with such frequent purchases as grocery. This allowed Tesco to obtain an enormous amount of information about its customers.

Soon after testing began on the Club Card program, Tesco's then-Chairman Lord MacLaurin, said "What scares me about this is that you know more about my customers after three months than I know after 30 years." The value of the loyalty program quickly became clear: loyalty programs’ competitive advantages exist in marketing intelligence.

With this new marketing intelligence Tesco was freed to engage with customers in new, personalized ways. Customers were offered discounts and coupons customized to their buying habits and also offered different discounts to encourage them to explore new products and categories. With this type of personalized marketing, soon loyalty to Tesco emerged within the UK market. If shoppers weren’t shopping at Tesco they were missing clear opportunities to save money.

Day trip to IE University Campus in Segovia

The next cover of the IE University Magazine... I'm sure of it!



Segovia from a distance











Only the best Roasted Suckling Pig in the world, served in this restaurant for over 250 years.

_____________________________________
More pictures...













































- Please excuse the brevity and typos. Posting from my iPhone

it's in the making of a decision

If nothing else an international MBA is a series of decisions. It is an intense training in decision making in a multi-cultural framework. There is very little structure in the academic program (which can be a shock because the huge cost of tuition seems to warrant structure in learning). Choices are negotiated and delegated amongst peers of diverse and disparate backgrounds.

This is not exclusive to the classroom. Imagine an event as basic as a dinner reservation with classmates. This is your crash course in negotiation and patience. Participating in a decision as simple as what to eat: with 100% A-type personalities with 100% confidence in their opinions with no common culture and no common native language – though we all want to eat, we will all suffer a short famine as we struggle to understand the meaning behind each others words and body language.

This is nothing like living in another country. This is nothing like learning another culture. This is dozens of countries and dozens of cultures all adapting to each other simultaneously. The actions of an Egyptians interacting with an Israeli can hardly represent the actions of that same Egyptian interacting with a Lebanese. With time you learn to separate the cultural differences from the personality differences. We separate the daily changes in mood from lasting personality, and we translate it through cultural frameworks. All differences in cultural fade away with time. We see that culture is only one data source amongst many.

My decisions, the dozens I make each day, are no longer consciously factoring in the cultural differences of the people around me. At some point the various cultures we all bring with us dissipate within the singular culture we create amongst us. We have our own culture. It has no nationality. No place of origin. It was created in real time, by real people, with real opinions. Our culture is the first of it’s kind and it will likely be the last of it’s kind.

We make decisions now based on OUR cultural framework, not on the framework we brought with us to Madrid. We make our decisions differently now. We make them with a different perspective. And we are all hoping to make the right decisions. At least I am hoping to make the right decision.

Share