Progressive Learning :-)

Well, the class of Real Estate Investments revolved around discussion of the Golden Opportunities case, which we were supposed to work on until today and for which we had to submit answers to five questions sent to us by Prof. Cristina.

Today, Prof. Cristina took us through each question. As the discussion unveiled, I figured out that I have done a part of analysis right and part of it is missing. It was good to know each it of the analysis as it came together towards helping us to determine the valuation of this property we were told to refer to.

I found this class of today particularly useful because the MBA learning methodology that we were told at beginning of our classes, helped me perfectly in today's session. I had done some analysis and submitted my answers last night, which was part of my individual analysis and learning. Then, I also discussed the case with Hitesh later, which helped me to think about even more aspects, giving me benefits of the group learning. And then, Cristina provided additional insights in the class today, elevating the learning experience even further.

Spent the rest of today working on group work that I have to complete for the International Business Strategy and Modeling Class. I will also have to write answers to the individual questions soon, but that I will do some other day. Today, sleeping a little early, and planning to wake up early and complete the final assignment of Real Estate Investments by afternoon :-)

That final Lap of Deliverables :-)

Yes, two weeks, five deliverables, one presentation - that is what stands between me and the final exam now. So, today began a marathon of completing deliverables, one last time. I mean yes, there will be work for the final exam/presentation, but that's just one case to be done in five days, whereas currently its the final deliverables of different term five classes.

My work group for International Business Strategy and Modelling met for five hours today to define, discuss, and distribute the work amongst us. It was a fruitful exercise as we came up with some really innovative ideas for our group work. Feeling excited to work on this one.

Later in the day, spent some time completing the Real Estate Investments exercise due for tomorrow.

There is still the student presentation to be given finishing touches, but then the night is still young, so I am sure I will complete that tonight as well.

Didn't feel like a Sunday, this one - as it was spent mostly in MM31 :-)

Almost time to hand-over :-)

However scary it may seem, its time to admit that we are in the last phase of the MBA - but then, this very fact can be used in a good way for advantage of others - like providing useful tips to the incoming batch of MBA students - to share all the wonderful experiences with them and to answer their queries.

So, I have volunteered for a student presentation that will take place next week, where-in I will go to a class of new intake and spend an hour with them presenting my experience so far.

After taking care of all the chores by afternoon, came to MM31, to work on preparing this student presentation. Also, did some readings needed for classes on Monday, as I know that tomorrow is going to be spent working in the International Business Strategy and Modeling work group :-)

Good rest, completion of chores, some study, some initiative: Not a bad day for a Saturday, I would say :-)

Anniversary de Madrid

Well, when I started to come for Madrid last year, I lit the Holi in my courtyard, offered my prayers and sat in our car to be driven towards Mumbai. That day was 27 th March. However the fact that I left on night of a festival has stayed in minds of my family members so strongly, that they spoke of this to me last week, when there was Holi being celebrated in India.

But then, as per British calendar I landed in Madrid on 28th of March. This is the day I complete a year here, a year that has been a roller coaster ride.

Call it a coincidence or a destiny, I spent the early half of today preparing a presentation of exactly this roller coaster ride for the new April intake - yes, I am going to talk with them during their orientation week, as planned by the IMBA team.

Later today, I suited up myself to attend the McKinsey BTO presentation, which  a couple of us followed up by a round of drinks at boring with the speakers.

Planning to spend th rest of this evening with Hitesh and other friends, leisurely at my place. Happy anniversary Madrid - today is the day my love affair with this city started :)

And its a Wrap-up :-)

With six sessions scheduled today for International Business Strategy and Design, it was the longest class in my IE history.

Today, in the morning, we had our group presentations - Well, company my group selected was airbnb, and we suggested a few improvements to the current strategy of the company :-)

Next it was time for the two cases of the day - the Ron Santa Maria case, where we saw how the owner is helping the surrounding gang members to rehabilitate and have jobs, and then the Starbucks case about the whole Starbucks experience.

Prof Jaime Alonso also gave us our final exam and questions that we are needed to answer in our groups.

As the session concluded, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I enjoyed this Seminar from Prof Jaime Alonso. I think the expectation that I had set, based on hearing him at the IE Social Responsibility Forum for five odd minutes, were exceeded for sure.

Not to mention, I can clearly see myself using many of those adjectives and adverbs that Prof Jaime Alonso used so many times in his seminar to describe a situation, or a personality or just to create that humor or sarcasm in the story  - examples? "Improvable", "Entrepreneurial activity", "Intellectually bored", "Intellectually insulting" and so many such phrases, which I am sure that everyone in this class will remember for sure :-)

Going for another photography freelancing tonight - at opening of one of the start-ups. Should be fun :-)

What to look for in Leaders of tomorrow

frankly, there have been the organizational behavior class we took and the talent management class after that, but I was more impressed by the guest speaker that came to our International Business Strategy and Modelling Class of today, in terms of information he shared regarding what practices companies are following, what are the challenges, what do companies look for while hiring for executive level positions, etc

Prof. Jaime Alonso had invited Dr. Alfredo Jacobo, VP and in-charge of the Global talent development at Coca Cola as a guest speaker today. Dr. Alfredo Jacobo has a rich corporate experience, a PHD, and also academic experience. And his communication skills - amazing !!

The one hour for which he was interacting with us - he talked about so many aspects ranging from hiring practices at coca-cola to the nature of work he does, all the way to what future leaders will look like, in terms of attributes and skills and talents, of course.

Prof Jaime Alonso also discussed some further examples of how the 5 Ps - People, Profit, Planet, Prosperity, and Peace - if included in the business strategy can help not only a business but also the ecosystem around it.

This has been an interesting class, making us think about so many things - things that can make a difference.

After finishing at 8:30 PM, our group met for finalizing the presentation that we were preparing since morning 10:30 AM [apart from the time spent in class] and finally when we have something close to final version at 10:30 PM in the night, I am spending some time to write this post of the day.

Another long, busy and fruitful day :-)

Optimal or Viable

Well, the seminar on International Business Strategy and Modelling continued today. What was discussed yesterday was summarized to start with and then Dr. Gomez also provided us a couple of examples of a good business model design, which is helping multiple parties including the bottom of pyramid population to prosper.

We also saw some insights about Apple as a company, and then discussed the different elements of business models of all HP, Dell and Apple, comparing them to one another.

One of the important messages that Dr. Gomez gave today was that in real world, there is never a optimal solution possible, but there can be many viable solutions. He did tell us a couple of stories around this concept.

We also started to work as a group today for assignments of this class. We have a lot of group work in this class - in fact, almost everything is to be done in groups - one presentation, two case analysis executive summaries, and a final exam - all to be done in groups. This is another thing that I will be experiencing for the first time here at IE - the final exam in group I mean :-)

Lets us how it goes - for today, I am happy about another good class :-)

Executive Decisions

Morning started with the Corporate Governance class at noon, where Prof Nieves took us through the need, history, composition, regulation, pros and cons of an audit committee.

We also discussed how effectiveness of audit committees can be measured and can be improved. It was a good class to learn more about how the boards of directors and the audit committee they are a part of, can help to maintain discipline in the company affairs.

After this was the Real Estate Investment Class, where we did a breakdown of the market value of real estates and what criteria can be looked at before making investment decisions.

While, this may be considered as not exactly an executive level decision, what followed next was all about being C-Suite executives in firms, and most of the times, thinking like the CEO of companies.

Dr Jaime Alonso Gomez started with his International Strategy and Business Modeling Class yesterday. And he laid out two rules of engagement - that we will comment in a concise manner considering ourselves in a board meeting, and acting like a CEO; and that we will get a break after every 70 minutes, to take care of whatever we need to take care using the electronic gadgets.

And then, the seminar, as Dr Gomez likes to refer this class began. From 4 PM until 8:20 PM, we spent time learning about various aspects of different changes that took place over time at Dell, and at HP, and also ventured into different discussions around bottom of Pyramid markets, blue ocean strategies in action, what were the reasons for various transitions in Dell and HP and were these correct or needed, all the way up to - what is moral and what is legal.
Yes, there were a few elements of philosophy, as well as there were a few personal experiences shared by Dr. Gomez that were both business related and emotional in nature. And yes, participation in this class, for first time here at IE, is by Dr Gomez calling upon one of us to answer as directly as possible, the questions he poses. And these questions were such, which really made us think, and demonstrate our judgement of things and our values.

All-in-all, a day spent around how executives work, and what goes behind the decisions they make. A day spent discussing and understanding the executive decisions :-)

[Followed by a nice Italian dinner at Maruzella :-) ]

Cases, Cases, Cases

Well, came to MM31 at around noon and then did 3-4 cases with Hitesh for some time. Today was a day spent doing case practice, reading cases for tomorrow and uploading photos of yesterday on Facebook.

A quiet day spent working at our own pace for enhancing our skills during job search and interviews. Will sleep early today as tomorrow is going to be a looooong Monday :-)

A Day of Initiatives turned Crazy

Well, in the morning I came to MM31 for some case practice and then at around 1 PM went back home to get ready for Retiro. Today, as part of talentree.net initiative, I was going to conduct the first ever photography training session - DSLR basic photography session.

Reached Retiro at 2:55 PM, and then waited for students to join until 3:!5 PM. By this time, 4 of them showed up - so decided to get started. While there were a few folks moving around Retiro with flags, when I was explaining the concepts to everyone in the session, at around 3:45 PM, we started hearing a lot of sounds - of people, firecrackers and drums. When we looked around, there was a huge crowd of protestors passing by. We could not resist our curiosity and went near the Retiro compound to see what it is all about, talk with the people and take their pictures. Came to know that they have gathered from all around the Spain, and some from outside Spain as well, to protest against the recent tax increase. It was a really big crowd, at least 100,000 people I would say, or even more.

After a while, we came near the Retiro lake to practice what I had explained and while we were busy with this, a guy started dressing himself in a ladies swim wear and then without any notice jumped in the lake. Damn !! What a crazy day - he lost his breath half-way and his friends then called a nearby boat for help, jumped into it, and went to the guy to get him out of water.

By this time, some more friends joined us at Retiro and we then spent some time roaming around in Retiro and finally headed towards Sol. Met a lot more protestors and too many cops on the way. It was a sort of crazy adventure.

Spent some time at a nice restaurant near Gran Via while my friends went shopping, and later had a nice Indian dinner at Sagar with all my friends.

What can I say - it was a day when I wanted to proudly state about how I took the initiative to teach photography, as it turns out - I was more excited abut all the crazy things happening around :-)

SOL, SOL and SOL

Well, why the three SOL?

Firstly, the risk management work we are currently doing, as part of my fellowship with Prof. Alvaro - considering that we have to analyze the Security, Operations and Legal risks of various crowd-funding platform, I came up with the acronym - SOL framework in our meeting today, and both Alvaro and Manan liked it.

Before this meeting at 11:30 AM, I woke up early today to go for my Regreso appointment which was scheduled at 9 AM in Aluche - around an hour's distance from my place. And that also means, that after a long time, I slept only for 3.5 hours today between 3 AM to 6:30 AM. Of course, the reason was not the work load at school.

Our Chinese Dinner last night went on til late and when we were done, the girls decided that they need to A) digest the food, and B) make up for their walking quota for the day. SO it was that at 1:30 AM [call it late night yesterday or really early morning today], we all started walking all the way from SOL to our places around MM31. It turned out to be around 40 minutes of walk - not that I haven't done this walk before, but not at this hour of the night. So, that is the other SOL in today's highlights.

And then, despite all the busy schedule in morning, I had to do something today - I had to prepare the material for talentree training that I am giving tomorrow - this time it is about DSLR basic photography and we will be conducting this around Retiro and SOL. Came up with around 20 slides, and I think I have covered all concepts and practice examples for anyone to feel comfortable using his or her DSLR. Plan is to have a 2 hour training tomorrow and in case you missed it, this is about the third SOL in the subject line.

At 8:55 PM finally, this day, which started early morning at 7:30 AM is finally going to conclude and I am going to do nothing more than have a good night's sleep as soon as I put up this post for today :-)

Have a great weekend readers :-)

A day to run errands and day of aloo parathas

Well, apart from a meeting at 4:30 PM near school, there was nothing on agenda for me today. So, I decided to take care of all the pending work and errands today.
Completed the remaining bit of fellowship work to be discussed in meeting tomorrow, went to the bank to pay the taxes for my regreso appointment, created copies of documents required for regreso, collected my new debit card from the bank, stocked up grocery in the house, sent a contact email to couple of head-hunters, did some research on basic photography concepts.

And before I knew, it was already time for my 4:30 PM meeting. Well, the meeting was just an informal coffee with Jana to talk about different things, me and my class have been doing in the past, in terms of videos and photos and outings, etc. So, enjoyed this talk :-)

After the meeting, spent some time to work further on fellowship at Manan's place. Highlight of the work was chance to have some delicious Aloo Parathas that Manan's mom had sent from India. Life can't be better when you get home made food out here in Madrid.

And yes, plan for the evening is to go have some Chinese food with a couple of friends.

A good day, a busy day - taking care of many different things, which although little were necessary.

Waiting for the D-Day of Saturday now when I will conduct a basic photography course for talentree friends :-)

Let the Corporate Governance framework unwind ..

Well, say it with respect to the Coca-Cola case, or the industry trend in general, or in terms of the structure of the theoretical concepts discussion, today, we saw how corporate governance structure gradually matured and has reached its current forms.

Prof. Nieves also provided us some additional information about the current day situation in Coca Cola.

We also discussed the concept of dual boards, and different models with respect to the common law and civil law countries.

Overall, today's double session was a good introduction to the way corporate governance influences and monitors the board of directors for any company given the context of discussion.

Later in the day today, after having a brief siesta, I came back to school to work on my fellowship work and continue with the job hunting.

Not a bad day for a Wednesday, I would say :-)

Corporate Governance, Coca-Cola and the ebrary :-)

Well, I had no class scheduled for today, so spent the day to have some nice Indian lunch with friends, did some experiments in photography [], and did the readings for corporate governance class of tomorrow as my own leisurely pace, today.

Having said that, the readings turned out to be really interesting. One of the readings for today was a chapter from one of the corporate governance related books. Up until now, whenever a professor has given us chapter readings, it has always been a PDF file with only that chapter extracted out of the book.

Prof. Nieves however introduced us to the ebrary. Well, not that I had not heard of ebrary - the online book library here at IE, and I have registered myself for this one, and downloaded a related app - but to tell you the truth, I had never used this one until today.
And I was amazed after using this tool - it gives an interface very similar to Google books page, where I can have a preview [with zoom-in, zoom-out, and other features] on the left hand, a chapter summary and index on the right, with a wide variety of other options to help me read, download, print, browse and interact with the book in a better way. I must say I am impressed with the interface.

This feeling of delight was soon topped by feeling of amazement. After doing a chapter reading, and a technical HBR note reading, it was time for me to read the Coca-cola case for tomorrow.

While I had the usual expectations that I have developed about the Harvard cases on major corporations, after I started the reading, I could not stop - this case is almost out of some fiction book - and the most memorable part - how most of the coca-cola management for almost 60 years was actually the decisions taken mainly by one person, a person who took up the leadership at Coca-cola at an age of 33 and retained it until an age of 95. I am not sure how corporate governance looks at this, but if you ask me, i would love to be that man :-)

Why the Core is the Core :-)

Today was another session of Real Estate Investments class, and Cristina took us through the concept of Market Value, what is the importance of it, when is it used, and what can be the different ways to find this value.

Slowly, as the class moved towards these different ways of finding the market value of a real estate property, I could not help realize the fact that this is just a special application of what can be regarded as the classical investment analysis.

And, I am seeing this more and more often, at least in the finance related classes. Yes, there are some specific concepts that we learn, but those concepts are just the drivers to take us towards the basic modeling that we learned in investment analysis class - during the core term.

So, whatever queries I had regarding why a class is scheduled to be in the core terms is now answered, as I gradually take my electives. Ultimately, a core is a concept, a foundation upon which many layers or electives can then be built. Feeling glad about this discovery of the day :-D

Chores, Readings, Write-ups and just like that a Sunday is gone :-)

Today being Sunday, I spent some time doing my weekend chores from cleaning to laundry to grocery shopping. And then, I had to do some research and write a few things for my fellowship project. After doing that, when I also finished my readings for tomorrow, it was already night and the day was gone, without me realizing about this - of course, when the day starts around noon, after a long sleep, it has got to be shorter, ain't it :-)

Cases, Coverletters, Photos, Documents :-)

A Saturday spent to do some case practice, write a couple of cover letter formats, look for some jobs, edit the photos of IE Venture Network Vertical, prepare some documents to apply for my Certificado de Regresso and have some good meal :-)
It was a day spent to do a lot of ad-hoc tasks, but all of them kept my Saturday occupied anyways :-)

And yes, those curious about the photos taken durng the IE Venture Network Verticals pitch slam this week, here is the flickr link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94951116@N04/sets/72157642384472563/

I hope you enjoy the pictures and join the upcoming events by Venture Network team :-)

When the Vendors arrive :-)

Today, Prof Jose Curto had invited vendors from Jaspersoft and Analytika to our class. CubeNube was another vendor that was supposed to come, but had to cancel last minute.
It was interesting to know about these vendors from their own folks, and the sequence of talks was just perfect. First the Jaspersoft rep talked about Jaspersoft, and his presentation revolved more around the concepts, the architectural elements, and applications of Jaspersoft as a BI/BA tool. And then, the rep from Analytika explained us about a specific product that they use in banking domain for credit/debit card users. It was an interesting way to use their platform, create network effect and involve large banks to be an integral part of their platform.
Interesting way to conclude a session I would say :-)

Big Data: the 3Vs of it

yes, there was business analytics tools existing before and yes, there were business intelligence tools existing before. MS Excel is in fact promoted as the most widely used Business Intelligence tool.

But then, what is so different about Big Data. It's the three Vs: Volume, Velocity, Variety :-)

With that and more, Prof. Jose Curto today took us in to the world of Big Data, discussing various elements of it - from vendors to applications to architecture to the future of it.

And yes, if the processing capacity and memory utilization trends continue as they are predicted to do, there will soon be a time, when today's "Big" data becomes just data of tomorrow :-)

Today was also my fellowship meeting after a long long time, and we decided on further work to be done for our research on risk analysis in crowd-funding platforms.

And them the second free-lancing experience in IE, when I took some photos for the IE Venture Network Verticals - the first ever event where Venture Network focused on a single industry - this time it was travel :-)

Photos coming out soon. Stay tuned :-)

Business Analytics: Cracked the case :-)

Well, while the last night was long, it was fruitful for sure. Today morning, we met at 9 AM again to resume our work and mostly to give finishing touches to the report and presentation.

Class of today started with our presentation, I am happy to say that we were probably the only group that could find the discrepancy in data that was seen in the case facts - looks like we cracked the case. This was also commended by Prof. Jose Curto Diaz, towards the end of our discussion. We managed the QnA session quite well as well.
All-in-all, I don't feel exhausted about the looong day yesterday anymore :-)

In the Corporate Governance class, Prof Nieves Carrera today took us to the double agency problem that arises in dealings between shareholders, board of directors and the management of corporations. We discussed various aspects of why the moral hazard occurs, what are the various aspects and forms of it, and what measures can possibly prevent these scenarios.

One such measure in form of Shareholder activism was a new concept that I got introduced to, today. In fact, the ongoing activism by some of the Apple shareholders, right at this point of time, was an interesting news for me, and I am still wondering how I missed this entire story in my recent news readings.

Anyways, had a short siesta in the afternoon and then did some readings for the class tomorrow. Going home much early today and will have a decent sleep before a new day starts tomorrow :-)

A day for Business Analytics

So, today I had only one class - that of Business Analytics and I was thinking that it would be a relatively shorter day - of course I did not remember of tomorrows's presentation while thinking all of this.

And as you might have guessed, myself, Hillary and William met in the afternoon today, and worked past mid-night to get that report and presentation in good shape. Second day of the term and I am already stretching my schedule !!

While I did my readings for the class in morning, as class was to start at 10:30 AM, today we discussed the case on Sysco and implementation of BA at Sysco.

all-in-all, the entire day from 9 AM in the morning until 1 AM in the night was spent working for Business Analytics class. What can I say? There are days and there are days :-)

The Birth of a Corporation

It's interesting how every class I take here brings in something new!!
Today was the first day of term five, three classes in a row with ten minutes of break between each of them - a busy and full schedule for a Monday.

The day started with a class on Business Intelligence for Analytical Decisions. Yepp, that thing which everyone is talking about :-)
Jose Curto Diaz, our professor for the class, started the class with his own introduction in different forms and patterns from a simple bullet list items type collection of information to a graphical view to a timeline view of his career and academic profiles. Interesting way to get the class of big data and analytics started, i would say. Although this class is only five sessions, it would have a group presentation and we have this class everyday of this week. So, a lot to talk about it this week. And the take-away from today's class for me was the frameworks and process of business analytics implementation in companies, that was discussed in class today, which creates a competitive advantage to the firm. We also saw a few reasons why firms fail in BI implementations and also why some companies shy away from this incredibly useful tool. For this class, I am part of the group that is going to present a case on Wednesday, and I know that this class is going to keep me busy for next five days.

Next was the Corporate Governance class by prof Nieves Carrera. Although belonging to a finance background, Prof Nieves is doing her research in the field of Corporate Governance and hence offering this elective to share her understanding on the matter. This was another great class, where we talked about different aspects of Corporate Governance from what we think it is to what the books have to say about it and from why it is needed to how it affects the corporations. And on that point, I would like to highlight the biggest discovery of the day for me - Prof Nieves showed us a short clip from a film, which shows how the Corporations of modern day took their shape - the origin of corporations. It was interesting to know that the 14th amendment that was introduced in the US for giving equal right to all citizens of US, was eventually exploited by the corporate lawyers to turn those rights towards corporations, after succeeding to assign a "person" status to the corporations. Yes, that's right - first it was made sure that a corporation gets considered as any other person in the country, and then it was made sure that it gets all rights and privileges as that of a person - thus avoiding liabilities for the actual owners of the corporations. Interesting history to know about.

And then, the day concluded with first of another five session class on Real Estate Investment. I am not sure why exactly I took this class - whether it was the fact that this class needed a certain mandatory GMAT score or a certain GPA in Investment Analysis class, and that gave an elite status to this class; or whether the fact that my dad runs a construction business back home attributed some familiarity to the matter and I wanted to know more about investing correctly in real estates; or whether it was just to ensure that I have at least one finance related class in this term - either ways, today was the first day of this class, in which our prof. Cristina Olmedo gave us some basic layout of how the real estate markets work - for rental spaces, for real estates that are treated just as any other asset, and for buying and selling of the real estate. Factors from micro and macro economics, to finance were considered today while discussing these matters, and it was a good start to a course that I am sure will equip me better for any prospective real estate investments that I may make :-)

Getting ready for that one last lap

Yepp !! the term five begins tomorrow. Three Classes, a regular routine until afternoon, and a lots of pre-reading to do already :-)

So, apart from trying to look for some jobs and spending time on facebook responding to comments received for yesterday's picnic pictures, today was spent reading the cases and technical notes and online materials for tomorrow's classes.

I guess it was a day to get ready for that final lap here at IE - the final term which will wrap it all for us real soon :-)

Picnic Picnic

Sunny Madrid weather, some Indian snacks to go along, some Pasta, some Sangria, a couple of friends and family, and a big park to roam around - what else does one need on a Saturday afternoon anyways :-)

So, around 2 PM today, me, Hitesh and his family and Manu went on to Retiro Park for a picnic. Hitesh had made some pasta, while I had prepared Bhel and Aloo Chat, the Indian Snacks to have during the picnic. And, we had some Sangria to go along. The day was spent relaxing in the park, enjoying the sun soaked view around and doing nothing other than relaxation.

Came home walking around 8 PM, and before I edit the pictures taken during the day and have some light dinner and sleep, just sneaked in to my laptop for a while to write this post of the day. Enjoy the rest of this weekend folks. Cheers :-)

TGI Friday :)

Waking up at 1 pm, visiting school just because there is a tripod that needs to be returned on time, having a relaxed lunch with 3-course menu, browsing through internet - just for fun, visiting Facebook every 15 minutes, making plans to do something special in the evening - Friday has its own luxuries, specially the one which is already a part of vacation week.

Today I was in two-states of mind. On one hand, I felt bored that the day is so relaxed, and on the other hand, I wanted to do nothing other than relaxing and enjoying a restful day. Odd combination I would say, but who cares, because TGI Friday ;)

IE Photography club comes to life

So, after a lots of announcements and posts and resolutions, finally the IE photography club came to life today with its first photo taking event in recent times ( at least since I am here). Plan was to do night photography at locations in the heart of Madrid. So we got together in launch pad at around 6 pm, and then headed towards Gran Via, went to a rooftop of Circulo de bella ar there and then I tried the time lapse photography for the first time. Basically it involved taking a lot of pictures after a set interval of time, and then combining these pictures into a single video - much shorter in length as compared to the time lapse that was used to take the pictures. Thanks to Sebastian the passionate photographer amongst us to drive this one.
And then Abhishek helped me when I was struggling to take good pictures of frozen street lights, as the sun had not set fully.

hBy the way, Here is the video link for the time lapse movie, and the frozen lights picture is on my facebook wall :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XerbKIFVkA

Event was fun as it was about photography, and it also allowed me to network with some more people from IE who have similar interest as me, in photography.

Hope these outings continue and increase in number.

As for the rest of my day, I spent it lazily today, trying to soak in the sun that is shining bright in Madrid this week, and lying around in my bed watching some recent movies.

For a day, I was enjoying my holiday to its full extent today :)

If you have forgotten: Accounting is Sexy, Accounting is Fun :-)

So, as part of the preparations phase that I am going through currently, I thought that it would only be better if I not only try to solve some cases, but also revise my finance concepts.

And here it is, today after a relaxed morning, and a heavy lunch, I went back in time, fetched notes from Garen's Financial Accounting class, and began reading through them. Thanks to all the usage of accounting terms so far, I could read the notes at a rather quicker pace, much quicker than what I remember when I did it during term one.

And yet again, I got a chance to read those headers and footers that Garen has spread all over his notes, from the "if you are printing this, SHAME on YOU" to the "Never Forget, Accounting is sexy, Accounting is fun" :-)

Life has its own ways to bring those little moments of smile, and reading these lines now, and trying to remember our struggle with accounting, just did the trick for me today :-)

When the previous day never ends :-)

Well, I had come home early last night, and I had my dinner early, and had gone to sleep early. But then, while I was still awake, I began thinking of this facebook-whatsapp deal, that I was trying to get a justification for, since it was announced. One thought led to another, and soon, I had a blog figured out in my mind. All that was needed was to do some numbers to support the theory I was trying to put forth.

And so, around mid-night I could not help but to get myself out of my bed and soon I began typing my thoughts and also did all the number crunching in next couple of hours. I then refined these thoughts using some basis for actual revenue, stock prices, etc kind of data from google finance and financial times websites.

Finally, around 3 AM, my blog was ready and live :-)

As you can imagine, if you have slept at 3 AM after "working" during your "vacation", there is no reason for you to get up early the next day - at least there was none for me to get up early today.

So, without further ado, this here is the link to my blog that explains details of facebook-whatsapp deal, and provides related numbers as well:
http://mba-and-me.blogspot.com.es/2014/03/facebook-and-whatsapp-deal-applying-mba.html


And yes, as for today, spent most of the day preparing cases, revising cover letter, and preparing for behavioral interview questions :-)

Concluding the freelance experience - Iberian PE conference photo released :-)

Ever since I had been to the amazing Iberian Private Equity Conference, that was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Madrid, my schedule was full of classes, presentation, group work and exams. Finally, this weekend gave me some free time to crop and convert the pictures taken.

After spending the entire morning on these snaps, finally, I have them in my flickr. A good use of the day I would say, although it also means that I need to spend some time in the evening to continue preparing cases.

Feeling good about the whole photography thing for it gave me an opportunity to accomplish three things: firstly, a chance to try my photography for some official and important event; secondly, a chance to help a club of IE business school viz, IE private equity club which was helping to organize the conference, and thus create a positive impression for IE, and lastly, a chance to be in all panels and opening, lunch, closing keynotes of the day, and hear to some amazing speakers holding prominent positions in the private equity industry.

And for those readers who wish to browse through these snaps, here is the flickr link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/94951116@N04/sets/72157641805344634/

Cover Letter ready. It's time for the cases :-)

Waking up at 12:30 PM, having a relaxed time to get ready, and reaching school at 4 PM, has its own soothing effect on oneself - and then, after spending some time editing pictures taken at the Iberian PE conference, and browsing, I got down to the real work - to prepare the basic format Cover Letter.

Today is only the first draft though and as I progress into next week, preparing cases, etc, I am sure the final version of cover letter will come out good :-)

CV final version - done :-)

Yes, after three rounds of updating and reviewing, finally, today my CV looks good. Its now ready to be sent and uploaded and forwarded to contacts and HR personnel and recruitment executives. Tomorrow is the day for a basic cover letter format preparation, which I can build upon and tailor as per different applications.

They say that this is a vacation time for me, and I am relaxed. Well, yes I am relaxed as I am driving things at my own pace, but I don't want to be idle in next week. I have to get started with preparation for case interviews, and job search, and there can be no better window of opportunity to start with all of that than this next week.

Planning to spend some time with friends for a nice dinner in the evening. Have a good weekend everyone :-)