Flashback - February - Man City football match

I swung up through Manchester in February to visit a buddy of mine, Sunil, with a couple of classmates. We took the opportunity to go to a football match and see Manchester City. This is one of the top teams in football - definitely in the top 4-5 in England. They played Arsenal, which is another top-10 team. And we had front-row seats. We didn't even pay that much - just got lucky. The experience was great (in spite of the constant rain/sleet/snow), but the match wasn't very good. It ended in a 0-0 ("nil-nil") tie, with Arsenal back on its heels trying to play for a draw from the very beginning. I gave it a shot, and I did enjoy the World Cup, but the average football match is just going to put me to sleep.

Flashback - February - West End nightclub

This is a friend of a friend who flew in from California to celebrate his birthday. And also a 2,000 GBP order of champagne with firecrackers stuck in the top. It's obscene! But not entirely untypical for the kind of thing you see in West End nightclubs. There is a lot of wealth in London due to all the finance that's based here, and people like to party hard.

Clubs are "the thing to do" on a Friday or Saturday night, if you can afford it. This one is Jalouse, I believe. If you look at the ceiling in the video, you'll see that it's covered with lights that normally light up and change with the music.

Flashback - January - MBAT

In January I traveled to HSBC (just outside of Paris) for MBAT. This is an annual tournament for all the MBA schools in Europe. LBS, naturally being one of the largest schools, was a perennial winner and 5-time-running champion.

Well, until we broke the streak. But who can blame us? HSBC has started recruiting athletes, and gives academic class credit for exercise (effectively like taking a PE class in high school). I don't disagree with the idea, though - it seems to have created a shared bond within the school, a commonality for everyone to rally around. LBS is probably 4x larger but we were beaten in most of the sports we competed head-to-head in. Basketball was no exception, but it was a thriller - it came down to literally the last shot / possession.

Marrakesh - final pictures

I wanted to share two final pictures from Marrakesh. The first one has a story. I passed a small arcade in a shop while I was walking around the city. Some boys were playing foosball, so we joined in. They were pretty good! One kid (probably sensing opportunity) took us under his wing and led us to the city sites. We had been lost, and in all honesty, his guidance was immensely helpful. Afterward he led us through some winding streets that functioned as a metal-working district for the city and eventually to his family's shop. They dye scarves in beautifully rich colors and then the women embroider thread into them. The kid led us to the rooftop of his house where we hung out for a bit to watch the sun set. Scarves were hung to dry on everything - even the TV antennae. This pic reminds me of that whole experience, but has beautiful colors in its own right - the rich, deep blue against the skyline and the sunset.

The final picture is of graffiti, which I love to photograph and I find to be radically different from culture to culture. The wear-and-tear on this picture just adds to its character, and the lighting is perfect. The swan-like figure is dressed, has teeth, wears a comically small hat, and shields its eyes from something - in this picture, it seems to be hiding from the light. The childish figure seems very emotive, and a bit ominous.

Marrakesh - street scenes

The streets of Marrakesh have a very distinctively look to them. The colors are all muted reds and beiges, with red dust hanging in the air. The architecture recalls better times, when kings ruled and had built up palaces and giant walls in their capital city. It is slowly crumbling today and lacks the funding to be maintained.

Children are ubiquitously running about and playing games. People wear muted colors that match the buildings around them, with bright flashes of color in the occasional scarf or shoe. Women are all covered from head to toe, though a full muslim burka is a rare sight. People here are used to tourists and are very friendly, but are shrewd negotiators.

I love both of these pictures - they capture the people, and the action, that you see in every Marrakesh street. The top picture is especially beautiful, with the rays of light shining through into the alley, and vitality of the alley.

Marrakesh - Jardin Majorelle

I went to Marrakesh for a weekend in January with three classmates. It was a great trip - very relaxing, warm weather, great meals, and all the prices were at a steep discount to London.

We didn't spend much time in the Jardin ("Garden") Majorelle, but the color in these pictures came out stunningly well, so I wanted to share them. It was a beautiful place - I've been to dozens of gardens, but never a tropical garden that had figured out a way to showcase bamboos and palm trees so uniquely. Interestingly it's owned/maintained by Yves Saint-Laurent (the company), and Yves Saint-Laurent (the person) chose to be buried here when he died in 2008.

The Tube

The London tube. I think it's fair that this picture (dead of morning - first run of the tube) is the only time you'll ever see it this empty. During rush hour it's packed like a sardine can - and some people have body odor, let me tell you.

I used to ride the tube on occasion - maybe the weekends - but now I'm a regular commuter. I travel to work twice a week. The tube is a wonderful source of transportation; I would never own a car in the UK. But the tube lines are often delayed ("person under a train" means suicide, FYI) or shut down completely. If the tube was more reliable, and/or ran 24 hours per day (it stops at 12:30am), it would be perfect. I find that riding the tube is a good way to become proficient at iPhone games.

Europe's finest nightlife

Only in Europe...




And no, I do NOT know him.

Santa pub crawl - December

I realize that it's March - but! - it has been a very busy semester for me. Next semester may be even more so. Classwork has proved to be easily manageable, but my internship is a big drain on my time. I really enjoy the work so I'm not complaining. But I am a busy, busy bee.

These pictures are obviously a bit dated. But I wanted to share them anyway, because this was a blast. One of my school's biggest social traditions is the Santa pub crawl that we do right before our December exams. Hundreds of people dress up in Santa suits and walk around London - from the tube, to an amusement park, to bars and eventually a nightclub. It's chaotic! It pretty much stops traffic / pedestrians / everything as people stop and gawk at us going by. Oh, and naturally, we're singing carols.

"The Local"

A common expression in England is, "my local," or "the local." It is inevitably a reference to the pub that is closest to you, generally within just a few streets, and that you patronize on a regular basis. It's cultural here that you go to the pub regularly - and almost expected that you'll support your local business.

For me it's almost too easy. The Hobgoblin is just 100 yards away. I can always find a free seat (sometimes it's downstairs) and the beer prices are fair. But the big thing - and the real reason I go so often - is the Thai food. A Thai family has set up shop downstairs and cooks fantastic food at super-cheap prices. They can bring your food upstairs to the pub or you can get it as take-away, which me and my roommate often do. At 6-7 pounds per entree, it's a price and convenience that can't be beat in my neighborhood.

Culture! Class!

This is just a quick post to say, yes, I am getting my share of proper London culture in. This is a pic from a trip I made to watch the Kensington Philharmonic Orchestra play in the Chelsea old town hall. My friend Genevieve is both a Masters in Finance student at school and a musician in the orchestra, so she got a bunch of us some discounted tickets.

Even more impressive was my more recent trip to the Royal Opera House for a performance of La Boheme. I had awesome seats on the left hand side in the lowest balcony. Ok, so this is obviously a stock photo - but you get the idea. It wasn't really a "take lots of flash photography" kind of event - in fact, no pictures are allowed during the performance.

La Boheme is the most popular opera of all time. I think this is largely attributable to the fact that it is truly funny. I laughed out loud on a regular basis. And it's a little ribald, which reminded me of Shakespeare. I guess if you want to stand the test of time, you have to appeal to the masses, and to our lewdest sense of humor.

The opera was wonderful - it ran three and a half hours but felt like it ended too early. The actors/singers were amazingly talented - what else could you expect from a ROYAL opera house? I can't wait until I can go again.

The Christmas Spirit in London

London gets REALLY dressed up for Christmas! Far more than Atlanta ever did. This holiday season saw a remake of Disney's A Christmas Carol, an animated movie voiced by Jim Carey. Which also happens to be modeled after a British book by Charles Dickens. So there was a natural tie-in for them to sponsor Christmas decorations all over Oxford Street, a major shopping and nightlife area in London. It was great!

But it was Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park that really put me in the Christmas spirit. It was a HUGE winter carnival. I had never heard of a winter carnival before, but it's very much like a normal carnival, except there are more bratwursts and hot chocolates and mulled wines. I had a thick hot chocolate with a shot of Bailey's in it, and enjoyed it next to a fireplace; absolute perfection on a cold day.

Strategy Exam

Strategy was one of the tougher exams that I've taken, bar none. It took 12 hours. Yeah, that's right - it was a scheduled 12 hour exam. We went from 9am to 9pm.

It was also a group exam. I took it with my 7-person study group, some of whom are pictured above, celebrating the end of the exam. From left to right: Steve (Korea), Beto (Mexico), me, and Natalya (Russia). Sheena (Singapore) took the picture, and Anais (Italy) and Robustiano (Argentina) also weren't pictured.

We had the case (on Zara / H&M / the Gap) ahead of time, but didn't know the questions. Even so, we were able to do some prep work in advance. And thank goodness; we wouldn't have finished in 12 hours, otherwise. During the exam we split up the work into sections and charged ahead. We took turns editing / reviewing each other's finished sections. In the final hour we cobbled everything together. We all got along well, which was great given the stressful conditions, and our final grade was a solid A.

In the end, our school bar was full of fellow MBA 2011's ready to celebrate the end of Strategy.

Patriots-Buccaneers American Football

The fact that I'm blogging about this betrays how behind I am on blogging (you could check your NFL schedule). But it's Christmas break, which should give me plenty of time to catch up.

I went to the game! This will end up being my only game of the year, and in pure football terms, it wasn't a great one. The Bucs were seriously outmatched by the Pats. The Bucs will end up winning 3-4 games this year. But it was SO good to see a football game live. It's one of my favorite things to do. I was so caught up in the moment and the excitement that I don't know if I could tell you a single play that happened. I remember that the Patriots won!

Another bonus: my roommate knew one of the Patriots players. And now I know a few, as well. We got to sit in the Patriots' team seats for free, and then we went out drinking with the team after the game. It ended up being one of my favorite - if not my absolute favorite - nights out on the town in London. The players were all great guys. R down to earth, normal people. I know that the Patriots' head coach, Bill Belichick, recruits "high character" guys. It definitely shows.

Business school speakers

One of the untold value-adds of the MBA are the ton of speakers that come through. In any given week there are 4-5 speakers/companies at least. Since we're in London, which is a central hub for European business, a lot of executives are swinging by anyway. So we get access to lots of CEO's and VP's and the like, and hear what they think is the latest stuff in their given industries or companies.

Sometimes I attend because I want to go work for XYZ company. But more often than not, it's just intellectual curiosity. Last week I attended a panel of speakers on the video gaming industry - one of the speakers had sold his company the week before for $75M but STILL kept his speaking appointment at our school, and was a really sharp guy. This week I'm attending two lectures by different companies about consulting to private equity (very educational).

The pics above and below are a good example. General Mills came through school and talked us through a marketing case for one of their product lines; in this case, Old El Paso. In general, the students benefited from learning, and General Mills had the opportunity to raise awareness at our school and hopefully attract some top talent. Fascinating stuff! No, really, it was.

In a nutshell, Mexican food didn't exist in the UK about 5 years ago. And over that course of time, it has risen to be - let's call it relatively well known - to 70% of the population. And they don't have the benefit of Mexican restaurants to help raise awareness. But it didn't happen overnight - they had very flat adoption, then a huge spike after a successful new tv commercial, then flat for a while, then a huge spike after the next marketing promotion. They were really smart about it, and they could measure the impact of each incremental thing they did.

Last pic is their "afterparty" / networking session - free champagne and haagen-dazs (another General Mills brand).

New Internship, New Career?

I left TRX with the objective of getting an MBA, then going back to work in the upper echelon of a technology company's management, quite possibly in travel, and quite possibly in product management, with the goal of becoming a CEO asap. And that's still in play. But I started to question my original plans, which I think is a healthy exercise now that I'm free and clear of the working world.

Is travel a good industry? It's one of the least healthy industries in the world, it's cutthroat competitive, and has tight margins. The clearest proof may be that I had to leave the industry to go for an MBA to expand my opportunities. So maybe I should reconsider travel.

What about tech companies? Well, I actually really do like high-tech stuff. I worked in two high-tech firms (telecom and software development) and enjoyed both. They were both relatively dynamic, and I embrace change and ambiguity. I follow news on cutting edge gadgets and technologies just because it all fascinates me. And good opportunities seem to go hand-in-hand with technology. So I seem at home in tech; it just suits me.

What about product management? What I've read about it still sounds quite interesting. Product managers control a product, setting marketing strategies, and recommending / requesting (depending on the degree of authority) product changes. It's basically a mini-CEO role, but over a single product within a company that has several products. Sounds great - but it turns out that those roles don't go to fresh MBA's in Europe. You have to start a few rungs lower and work into the job. So I still like the idea, but it isn't the immediate "CEO path" I thought it might be.

At school, I've learned more about management consulting. Consultants are hired by a company to give advice to senior management on its biggest issues. And since they get practice with top management issues, they are often recruited to become corporate executives (read: CEO!). So, maybe I should become a consultant? But often, and especially lately, the issues they handle are "ugly" problems - cutting costs in a warehouse, downsizing a company, etc. Imagine consulting a carpet manufacturer in a village in Eastern Europe for 6 months on how to reorganize its factory. Not my style, even if it does add a ton of value.

But then I learned about boutique consulting firms - relatively smaller firms that focus only on a specific industry - like technology, for example. And I thought, "Aha!" This might be another path to the same destination, and might be an even quicker path to the top. And maybe along the way I'll decide that I love consulting, and might just stick with that.

The big news is that I have an internship lined up with a Technology-Media-Telecom consulting firm that works exclusively on really cool strategy projects. It has a great, convenient office at an exclusive location amidst the tailors on Savile Row. I start in January. This is exceptionally rare for an MBA; I would say that in our class of 400, maybe 10 of us will be interning during the year. I couldn't be happier, and quite frankly, am way ahead of the curve for MBA's. Now back to studying - I've got finals in a couple days!

College Game Day

Football! Over here, that generally means something different - "soccer." But on rare occassions, I get to view (and celebrate) the great American pastime that is real football. A couple of my friends here went to USC and they have a Huuuge alumni community here in London. Go figure, right? A bunch of people from sunny California would decide to move to cold and dreary London? But from time to time I get to join them out at Sports Cafe. We generally don't get college games on TV here, but we do get 1 NFL game per week. A couple weeks ago we had the Colts-Pats game - hopefully you caught it, because it was one of the best games I've ever seen!

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum

It was inevitable that I would go. I live less than a 5-minute walk from the legendary (and totally touristy) Madame Tussaud's was museum. It was worth the price of admission. As you walk around the crowds, you might bump into someone and apologize - only to realize they're made of wax. The figures all look quite realistic.

I also found the morbid history to be really interesting. Madame Tussaud got her start in taking "death masks" made of wax from famous people that had been beheaded during the French revolution. Those masks still exist, and are on display - including Marie Antoinette, and the actual guillotine blade that killed her.

Riding the bus

I've become proficient at riding London's big red buses, which is a big step towards becoming a Londoner. Three of my friends (Lee, Molly, Mia) are pictured.

During busy hours you want to stick with the Tube (subway) because the roads have bad traffic. But otherwise, the buses are the way to go.
1. They are cheaper; 1 pound vs. 2 pounds for the tube, or 5-10 pounds for a taxi
2. You can see where you're going as the bus travels, giving you your bearings
3. Buses travel to more exact locations, places that tubes do not, so there is less walking
4. Buses run 24 hours, while the Tube closes around 11:30pm - 12:00am
5. Buses are often faster for short trips, since changing trains and all the station stops add a lot of time

Today I too a bus to meet up with someone I haven't seen since high school! Colleen seems to be doing great, she is a guru at helping out with business pitches. And we had Spanish tapas which were, at least I thought, pretty good. Though my opinion is not harmed by the three chocolate desserts that we split! Good times.

Eloquent!

We had a debate in Ethics recently, and just got back some feedback. I did pretty well! The point about French was part of my rebuttal.

"...Peter French (and nice reference, by the way)... Joshua in particularly made an eloquent argument."

- Josh