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

ERP Systems - to implement or not to implement?

Ok, this is not my (nor any sane person’s) favorite topic to write about, but here it is.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems SHOULD be the backbone or nervous system of every scaled multinational organization. They SHOULD be an asset, a competitive advantage, and a go-to storehouse for organizational history and long-term memory. This is what they SHOULD be… but the question is how often ARE they these things?

Companies like Oracle, Accenture, Sage & SAP secure their business models with the sale and promotion of all encompassing ERP systems. Since the “Y2K” scare, masses of consultants and programmers have built customized ERP systems on every continent, charging licensing fees and billing hours totaling in the billions of dollars every year. And yet with all this investment it is a real challenge to find someone with a positive ERP implementation story.

So, is the solution for organizations to avoid ERP systems all together? Well clearly not, as organizations require enterprise wide systems to function more efficiently. But it is to say that in practice the dream of a fix-all system that will solve problems rooted more realistically in communication, organizational design, and corporate culture is folly. ERP systems should be relayed on no more than individual employees – they have advantages and disadvantages and they will work for your firm for only a finite amount of time.

More pictures for The Canary Islands

The Canary Islands Crew


















Yup, that light blue dot is me in the middle of the lava field, heading up the mountain in flip flops



































































Building our own cairn on the Cairn Beach at night

Customer Service in the Blogger Era

What can a company do to influence and lead public opinion?

In the past the answer was bit more simple than today. In the past a company might engage with key contacts in the media and provide content to journalists, thus shaping the message and shaping the conversation. Well in the current era with countless bloggers holding substantial authority with consumers, shaping these conversations becomes a bit more challenging.

Back in 2005 a disgruntled customer of Dell Inc. began to blog regularly about his negative experience with a lemon computer. The “Dell Hell” that Jeff Jurvis created with his blog soon jumped to the top of Google results for “Dell”. This is clearly a problem for Dell’s PR and brand image, but what can be done in this type of situation? Well if I take my former employer as an example, two things should be considered.

Starbucks is a PR lightning rode. Whether because the company naturally emanate a socially responsible image or simply because it is a top 50 brand, Starbucks has consistently been a target for PR attacks. In response the company has done two things well:

-Engage with critics
-Structure the organization to promote conversation

Engaging with critics is relatively simple. Starbucks PR dept spends a significant amount of time romancing individuals with influence and a propensity to criticize. Starbucks Melody is one such example. This Seattle-based blogger has substantial influence and a very independent voice. In order to avoid future PR mishaps Starbucks has worked hard to establish an open relationship (or at least as open as possible) with individuals like Melody.

However it is my belief that Starbucks will benefit greatly in the coming years from smart restructuring of the org design. The Seattle-headquarters has been restructured now to foster a customer-centric marketing organization. Social media representatives interact with customers, bloggers, tweeters, and journalists on the web everyday. A high degree of autonomy is granted to these individuals in order to retain a sense of authenticity and transparency. Through this two-way conversation Starbucks becomes a more active and engaged partner in finding solutions to the issues customers raise.

It is my opinion that in an attempt the avoid saying the wrong thing many organizations avoid the difficult conversations all together. This is of course short sighted. When an organization strives to and aligns resources to engage more in two way conversations with all stakeholders, the organization can gain a valuable asset in customer service.

A few pictures from the Canary Islands

Top of De Tiede volcano on Gran Canary


















The island goes from mountains to sea just like that


















Having your head in the clouds is not such a bad thing after all - maybe having your head above them is just a bit better


















The last bit of snow remains on the north face of the volcano even now in June. Impressive since this island sits at the same latitude as Orlando or Houston


















A moonscape where a cable car will take you out of this world








































Thanks to a b-school friend we stayed at a 5 star resort on the south end of the island, Dream Hotel Gran Tacande - not a bad place at all (Carlos, thanks bud!)


















A beach transformed into a forest of cairns (stacked stones)

Share

Go ahead and have one too many

It’s a good idea to plan your Friday or Saturday night. As a general rule you would be smart to consider your options as your day develops. By 9:00pm or 10:00pm you should have a good idea of what you would do with your social life…

…that is if you are NOT in Madrid.

If you ARE in Madrid you would be far too responsible to start planning this early. Better would be to wait until the population of crazy maniacs around you start discussing plans at around mid-night or 1:00am. “Maybe Fortuny at 2:00? No, let’s consider Gabana at 2:30? Wait, let’s go to Pacha… but anyone who is anyone won’t show up until 3:30. Ok, Pacha at 3:30 but if it’s not hot lets bounce to 69 Petalos by 4:30am.”

Are you freaking kidding me? My god, you are going to START the night at 3:00, 4:00, or 5:00?!? I am trying to get a buzz on at 9:00pm and I can’t meet my friends for another 7 hours? Oh god, I am going to die.

“Perdoneme waiter, I would like another RedBull por favor.”

Fine, when in Madrid, right?… Ok so it’s 3:00am and I’ve been drinking like a fratboy during Greekweek for five hours and now you want to go to a club?! Good, I hope you enjoy carrying me there on your back. Wait, you ACTUALLY carried me on your back?! Oh god, you people are insane… I hate you.

Wait a minute… is that Beyonce I hear?! Fist pump fist pump!!!

Share

Facebook

In retrospect it’s actually difficult to believe that I initially resisted Facebook. For a while I refused to set-up a Facebook account and it actually took a friend setting up an account for me to get involved. This was only 5 years ago and now I can’t imagine my life without it.

My Facebook account began as a glorified storage place for photos, random disjointed comments, and party requests. Now my Facebook account is a relatively accurate representation of me as a person. My “friends” now include buddies, classmates, travel associates, ex-girlfriends, future girlfriends, and workmates (yes, I folded to the pressure and combined my work and personal life!). My photos are both flattering (tagged by me) and unflattering (tagged by others) and show many of the interesting and not so interesting places I’ve visited. Even my past status updates serve as a history of my thoughts, feelings, and impromptu & all-too-often inappropriate humor.

Just over 2 years ago Facebook became a mobile part of my life. This was the point when my Facebook transitioned from a simple jeff.com to a real living archive integrated with my life. This is when the connectivity of photos, comments, updates, requests, and events moved out from behind my computer screen and into real time life, every hour of everyday.

In the past two years Facebook has become integral to the way I live. I can only imagine how much more integrated and representative of my life my Facebook will be in 2+ years.

I have a teen crush on Google

Ok, I must admit that when it comes to a subject like Google I feel like I felt back in middle school admiring the popular girl. “She is SO pretty. She is SO popular. She is SO stylish”

It’s pathetic I know, but I really have a teen crush on Google.

Of course I haven’t told her this outright. No, I’d be far too timid to just come out and tell her, but honestly I think she knows already. I mean look, I gaze at her several times everyday. She must have noticed me by now. I write her often exposing my deepest thoughts and most guarded desires. I make it all so obvious to her. She hears all I say to my friends about her and what my friends respond with as advice.

How could she not know? Of course she knows that I love her. Of course she knows my true feelings. She knows exactly what I am thinking, everything I am doing, and where I am doing it. Of course she knows. She knows everything about me.

My love, I know you are listening. I hope you are good at keeping secrets.

Share