One More Night to Graduation

What an incredible feeling. Few more hours and the day of our graduation has come. I am speechless and it is an amazing feeling. I am just working a little more to finish my second last assignment due tomorrow (Business Plan) and one more essay to go after graduation and I am done!!!! Finally!!!

This is the agenda for tomorrow in case you have missed the emails and notices.

Graduation Day on Friday 26th March .

Please find below the order of the day:

Location: Garden of ESADE BUSINESS SCHOOL, floor A next to Career Services.
Av. d’Esplugues 92-96

Agenda

11.00-11.30 Reception
11.30-12.00 Welcome Speech
12.00-13.30 Brunch

You are also invited to a Mass given by José Gette on the same day. It will be held in room A012 at 10.00.

Casa Llotja
18:45: FT MBA Class 2010 Graduation Ceremony.

Ceremony Location: Casa Llotja, Passeig d’Isabel II, núm.1- the main entrance is located on Pla de Palau, not Passeig d’Isabel II.

Enjoy and make sure that you charge your camera battery ;)

Barcelona Europe’s next entrepreneurship capital?

Barcelona has a clear vision: Becoming the entrepreneurship capital of Europe. That is quite an interesting vision and marketing strategy for a city. Being able to say that you are the start-up capital is quite a titel however will not be easily achieved.

Considering that Barcelona is one of the most liveable and attractive cities and hosts two of the top-ten business schools in Europe, this could however be strategy that might actually work. ESADE’s strong focus on entrepreneurship and ESADE’s business incubator “Creapolis” definitely goes well along those lines.

In fact there is a number of developments, events and institutions, like Barcelona’s Activa, that push for this development, that I would like to highlight. The previously mentioned serial entrepreneur Christopher Pommerening for example has recently been asked by the “City of Barcelona and the “Plan Estratégico Metropolitano de Barcelona” to promote and create a special Advisory Committee for Entrepreneurship, in order to improve the services and infrastructures for Entrepreneurs”, as stated by the website “Barcelona Entrepreneurship City”.

The February 2010 edition of the  “Entrepreneurial Event Aggregator” (here) provides you again with a good overview of all the Entrepreneurial Events happening in Barcelona…

Host: ENB
Topic: TBC
Date: 4th of February, 19:15h
Location: Hotel Casanova, C/Gran Via de les Corts, 559
Confirmation: info@networkbarcelona.com or here

Host: ESADECREAPOLIS
Topic: XIII Foro de Inversión del CEI
Date: 9th of February, 17:00h – 19:00h
Location: ESADEFORUM. Av. Pedralbes 60-62. Barcelona
Confirmation: here

Host: ESADE
Topic: Business Angels Network
¿Qué es un Business Angel? Características y datos claves, con Luisa Alemany, Manuel Martos, Carlos Hernández
Date: 9th of February, 19:30h
Location: ESADEFORUM. Av. Pedralbes 60-62. Barcelona
Confirmation: ESADE Alumni

Host: Camera de Comercio de Barcelona
Topic: The day of Silicon Valley: Business opportunities and new trends
Date: 11th of February, 8:30h – 11:00h
Location: Viver de Glòries de Barcelona Activa, c/ Llacuna, 162
Confirmation: gperarnau@cambrabcn.org or here

Host: Gild International
Topic: Networking Lunch
Date: 11th of February, 13:30h – 16:00h
Location: Gild International, Passatge Permanyer 5, 08009 Barcelona
Confirmation: gildinternational@gildinternational.com or at here

Host: ACC1Ó
Topic: Emprenedors que inverteixen. Sector Internet
Date: 16th of February, 8:30h – 10:00h
Location: Hotel Gallery, C. Rosselló, 249
Confirmation: here

Host: Barcelona Activa
Topic: Growth Academy, Fourth Edition
Performing a process of strategic and growth planning using as a tool the application on-line PEC
Date: 17th of February, 9:00h – 19:00h
Location: Viver – Incubadora d’Empreses. Llacuna, 162 Barcelona Tel: 934019666
Confirmation: here

Host: Gild International
Topic: Webcast: Strategy with Jeff Jarvis
Date: 18th of February, 18:00h
Location: Gild International, Passatge Permanyer 5, 08009 Barcelona, España
Confirmation: gildinternational@gildinternational.com or here

If you want to find out more about Barcelona’s Entrepreneurship City click here. Good luck with starting your own business.

MBASA event: Flamenco show + dinner (06.02.10)

A message from MBASA for the first cultural event of the year:

Dear ESADE MBAS

Don’t miss out on getting your ticket TODAY, for our first cultural event of the year… happening next week!

Event: Flamenco show and 3 course dinner (price all inclusive)
To clarify the questions that many of you asked me yesterday: You will not be asked to dance or dress up in traditional flamenco outfits :)

Date: Saturday, 6th of February, 21.00 – late

Venue: El Tablao de Carmen in Pueblo Español (close to Montjuic).
Deemed the most authentic show in Barcelona !!!
http://www.tablaodecarmen.com/

Special Esade offer: € 38 including show and three course dinner
(the regular price is € 69 !!)

Tickets will be sold outside the cafeteria on level 2 from 13.00 – 15.00.
We need to collect the money in advance to take advantage of our special offer, so please let us know asap if you would like to attend put cannot make it tomorrow at those times!

Contact: Rachel K., Sharon Y. or Karolin K.

MBASA

Wifi Cafés in Barcelona

Considering that we spent so much time on ESADE campus anyhow I have always liked to break out and work in cafés with free wifi. I figured that it might help you to know there are whole lists with wifi cafés around town, which I am slowly discovering. Wifium.com for example provides a whole set of cafés with wifi (website here, list in .pdf).

Usually I go to Bar Lobo in the Hotel 1898 near Ramblas (Metro: Liceu), which is very stylish however a little expensive. The advantage of Bar Lobo however is that it is quiet, has great wifi coverage with fast internet.

Many Starbucks have free wifi however it is limited to 90mins. In case you like the Starbucks coffee and don’t mind the noise, the network is fast! Note that not all Starbucks cafes have internet access.

Which ones are you using?

Graduation: FT MBA Classes of 2010

After there has been a lot of confusion and different dates floating around concerning the graduation I verified today. The date of the graduation for the Full-Time MBA and the One Year MBA Class 2010 is:

Friday, the 26th of March, 2010

Note down this date and forget all other tentative or rumour dates.  I hope that all your families and friends can make it on this date.

BarcelonaSinLadrones.org – Initiative against Barcelona’s pickpockets

Hello everybody,

after starting the Facebook Group and talking to many people it seems there is a strong interest among the community to assist in the fight against Barcelona’s pickpockets and thiefs. Since we have launched this website even more people have been robbed, and in incident the thieves have also been arrested, so the trend continues.

In order to extend the reach of this initiative I have set up a website called http://www.barcelonasinladrones.org to gain more public access. Please sign the petition here to show your support and once we have more critical mass we can publicity from TV Channels and newspapers to some of which I have already spoken. However to get their support we need more subscribers. The ESADE MBA has already become the official sponsor of this initiative.Please contact me if you want to become an official sponsor as well.

Let’s show unity, spread the word and let’s fight the cause!!!

Looking forward to seeing your support!
Best regards
Tobias
http://www.barcelonasinladrones.org

Start-up Weekend in BCN: iWeekend (20.-22.11.09)

The worldwide phenomena of start-up weekends has reached Barcelona. iWeekend is taking place in Barcelona on the weekend of the 20th until the 22nd of November 2009. This event was mentioned in the entrepreneurship aggregator I posted a few days ago but I would like to emphasize this particular event a little further:

Start-up weekends are events for entrepreneurs, who meet over an entire weekend, with the goal to have developed a business concept by the end of the weekend. This is similar to an un-conference or user generated conference that leverages the drive, motivation and creativity of the users. On Sunday night hopefully the result is a start-up with like-minded people.

This is definitely worthwhile experiencing and you should check it out here! Happy creations!

Source: iWeekend.org

My ESADE MBA: Statistics and insights

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Update: This article made it to the 6th most-read article in a few hours and today the blog has received the largest amount of visitors in one day, exceeding the record by 22% reation!

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After having written 99 articles and having had 4000 visitors (October 1050 alone) since March 2009 I was thinking that it might interest you to find out some statistics about the blog.  The following are the 10 most read articles of my blog, which should give you an idea of the topics people are most interested in:

1. About My ESADE MBA
2. The Economist – FT MBA Ranking 2009
3. Good luck for the first exam!
4. Barcelona – Insider Tips
5. My ESADE MBA: Statistics and insights
6. Accomodation – ESADE Entrepreneurship
7. Recommended Pre-MBA Readings
8. MBA Career Portals
9. Subjects & Seminars
10. Pre-MBAT Soccer Match: ESADE vs. IESE

The following are the 10 most searched terms on the My ESADE MBA search engine:

1. entrepreneur
2. esade mba
3. esade
4. esade mba blog
5. esade blog
6. esade entrepreneurship club
7. esade student blog
8. my esade mba
9. esade good at entrepreneurship?
10. esade marketing career

I have received an increasing amount of personal emails, questions and enquiries about ESADE, the MBA and myself. A few issues keep popping up and I wanted to share my thoughts about some of these with you:

• Many people are enquiring about entrepreneurship and marketing, which highlights the fact that ESADE is still famous for these, which also reflected in the statistics.
• Yes, ESADE is focusing increasingly on Finance and Consulting
• Yes, the fact that ESADE is famous for producing entrepreneurs makes it complicated to score on the salary-related aspects of the MBA rankings because usually entrepreneurs don’t earn that much at the start-up phase.
• Barcelona plays an important role for people chosing ESADE
• Why did I chose ESADE over IESE, IE and LBS? I will dedicate an article about this soon. Bear with me
• What is the quality of the teaching, professors and course material?
• Who is writing this blog, why and whether I have a link to ESADE? I would like to refer to the page About MYESADEMBA and reinforce that I have NOT received a scholarship from ESADE for writing this blog and I am free what I post here. To(un)bias-ed ;)

I wanted to thank you all for your support, comments and readership! I  hope that I keep helping you in answering some of the questions that you have been asking yourself about ESADE and the MBA. Please don’t hesitate to spread the word about the blog and happy reading :)

To: Dear motorbike-riders of ESADE

I would like to post this article again because now there are even more unexperienced motorcyclists buying and driving scooters and motorbikes.  There is a hardly a more liberating feeling than cruising around on two wheels and it is definitely a passion of mine, although I don’t currently ride a motorbike here (yet). However not many are very familiar with riding motorbikes and think that it is as easy as riding a bike, which definitely is NOT true.

I peronally have reasonable experience in riding motorbikes and therefore I would like to just quick remind you of the key issues when riding a motorbike, which the majority of students and friends are disregarding as I can see everyday:

1. When you drive fast and then fall the first thing that touches ground is your chin!!!! Open-face helmets, like the MOMO-Design helmets, might look cool but losing the face from the nose downwards and scraping off the bottom jaw is not cool. I got to see accident photos of that and it is awful to be disfigured for the rest of your life because you wanted to look cool. Buy a helmet with chin protection!
2. When you are “lucky” the second body part that touches the ground are your hands! One of our classmates learnt about this the hard way! Wear leather gloves, ALWAYS!
3. The third body part touching ground usually are your feet and you will be amazed how easily those toes are ripped off! Wear proper shoes!
4. The most difficult driving is driving in walking pace and not full speed. Practice it!
5. Secondly knowing how to breaking is key! It requires a lot of training for the wheels not to lock up.
6. Keep the front tyre straight when breaking because the main braking force is on the front tyre. When you front wheel is not straight it will twist and when it twists it will bring you to a “grinding” stillstand, on the ground!!
7. On the road the positioning in the lane is very important and make sure that you always drive in either tyre track and not in the middle. The middle collects dust and dirt. Secondly you have to defend your lane in order not being pushed off your lane by cars. When you are not determined you can easily follow steps 2 – 6 if you are not careful.
8. Never break on road markings because they are extremely slippery otherwise you will follow steps 2 – 6 if you are not careful.
9. I have noticed an increasing amount of seats being cut open, bikes stolen and bikes being pushed over. Park at a place where not a lot of people are walking past but at the same time it is still in the light so not hidden somewhere. LOCK IT!

Enjoy Barcelona on a two-wheeler but don’t be stupid and dress properly! You wonder what this has to do with a MBA? How do you think most people drive to the school?!?! Drive carefully!!!

Entrepreneurship Events in Barcelona (Nov’09)

The Barcelona Entrepreneurship City has launched its Entrepreneurial Event Aggregator. The following are the upcoming events for the entrepreneur scene of Barcelona in November 2009. See you there?

Host: Global Entrepreneurship Week
Topic: Entrepreneurship for everybody
Date: 16th-20th of November,
Location: Everywhere in Barcelona
More information here

Host: Gran Foc – The Founders Lounge
Topic: “Boost your business with Twitter”: learn how to get the most out of Twitter with tips on personal branding, value-based relationships, increasing your audience and important do’s and dont’s. Join the microblogging age with trainer & media specialist Tom Hayton.
Date: 17th of November, 20:00h
Location: Gran Foc, Roger de Lluria 28

Host: Barcelona Activa
Topic: Barcelona Networking Day: Una jornada de networking con todas las plataformas y redes que forman el espíritu emprendedor y de innovación de la ciudad Barcelona.
18’00-18’30 : Acreditaciones y registro.
18:30-19:00: Presentación del Networking Bazaar por parte de todas las redes.
19’00-20:30: Sesión plenaria con André Vanyi-Robin, fundador de Bestv, Adecq Digital, Conseguir financiación: Luis Martin Cabiedes, principal business angel de internet en España y otros ponentes a confirmar
20:30-21’30: Dinàmica de Networking multisectorial entre las distintas comunidades de emprendedores.
Date: 18th of November, 18:30 – 21:30h
Location: CCIB, Rambla Prim, 1-17 Barcelona 08019
Confirmation: here

Host: Bioagora
Topic: Un espacio de encuentro entre inversores y científicos-emprendedores
Date: 19th of November, 10:00h
Location: Hotel Hespera Tower, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat
Confirmation: http://www.bioagora.cat/

Host: iWeekend
Topic: Weekend es una experiencia pionera en España que reúne a profesionales y emprendedores con talentos diversos para seleccionar una idea, desarrollar un producto y lanzar una startup de base tecnológica ¡en sólo un fin de semana!
Date: 20th – 22nd of November
Location: TBC
Confirmation: here

The Facebook Group of the Barcelona Entrepreneurship City Meta Community has more information. Check it out and join here.

Salon del Manga

The 15th Salon del Manga is happening this weekend at L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. The event started on October 29 until today. If you are a Manga fan you should definitely check it out because the number of exhibitors is large and many people dress up as well.

It is particularly interesting for those that the went to the Halloween party last night and who don’t want to have to do much today ;) To find out more click here.

Cinemas in Original Language (V.O.S.)

There are many cinema fans among us however not everybody speaks fluent Spanish or Catalan to watch all the movies in Spanish. Therefore I have aggregated a small list of cinemas that also show the movies in the original language with Spanish subtitles. When you are looking for movies in the original language you have to look for the abbreviation V.O.S., which stands for the original versions of the movies.

Cines Verdi (5 screens)
Street: C/ Verdi, 43. Metro: Fontana
Tel: 93 238 7990

Cines Verdi Park (4 screens)
Street: C/ Torrijos, 49. Metro: Fontana
Tel: 93 238 7990

Icària Yelmo (15 screens)
Street: C/ Salvador Espriu, 61. Metro: Ciutadel.la – Vila Olímpica
Tel: 93 221 7585

Renoir-Les Corts (6 screens)
Street: C/ Eugeni d’Ors, 12. Metro: Les Corts
Tel: 93 490 5510

Filmoteca de la Generalitat
Street: Av. Sarrià, 31-33. Metro: Hospital Clínic
Telephone: 93 410 7590

Cines Casablanca-Kaplan
Street: Passeig de Gràcia, 115. Metro: Passeig de Gràcia
Telephone: 932184345

Cinemes Melies
Street: Carrer de Villarroel 102. Metro: Urgell, Universitat
Telephone: 934 510 051

Cines Maldà
Street: C/ Pi (Ciutat Vella) 5. Metro: Catalunya
Telephone: 934 813 704

Enjoy the movie!

Event: ‘Meet the Serial Entrepreneur and VC’

The entrepreneurship club hosts the guest speaker Christopher Pommerening (blog, twitter) Founder and Managing Partner of Active Capital Partners S.L. today.

I will let him introduce himself:

“I started my professional career in Spain in 1998 co-founding AutoScout24 Spain as CEO and member of the Board of Directors. AutoScout24 is part of the Scout24 Group, Europe’s leading operator of virtual market places. I was appointed Managing Director of Scout24 Spain in 2001. While preparing the internationalisation (FriendScout24) of the Scout24 Group , I also created B24 Networks (Boot24.com), a Europe wide market place on the internet for the yachting sector.

In 2002 I decided to join my friend and partner Philipp Schroeder at our already established venture catalyst company VCMORE GmbH and devote myself full time to Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship by offering consulting and investment services to start-ups through our contact network in Europe and the US of consultants, business angels and industry specialists. Alongside the latter, in 2002, I co-founded EO Spain, the Spanish chapter of EO Entrepreneurs’ Organization, being one of the largest entrepreneur organisations in the world, and in the same year I co-founded Active Capital Partners.

In 2006 my fellow EO Members elected me to be the Ambassador for EO Europe, in order to foster Entrepreneurship in Europe and grow the organisation in 10 different countries.

In 2007 I created the terminology for Venturepreneurship and Venturepreneurs and together with my partners we created the concept for the Venturepreneurs’ Organisation.

In 2008 I initiated the Global Entrepreneurs Week in Spain and I founded the Barcelona Entrepreneurship City Community, in order to promote Barcelona to become one of the leading Hubs for entrepreneurship in Europe.

Currently I’m a member of the Board of Directors of Vinus & Brindis , Polymita Technologies, BuyVIP and Non Executive Co-Founder and Advisor of Linqia.”

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The details of the event are:

Date and time – Friday 23 October 2009 from 1.00 pm to 2.00 p.m
Venue – room A012

Source: Xing

The ESADE Fun Regatta

The ESADE Fun Regatta is ON! On the 24th of October there will be a regatta with 40 feet boats in front of the Port Olympic, Barcelona. This regatta is aimed at people who like to sail but have not necessarily sailed a regatta before. Of course if you have sailed regattas before, then this event is also for you.

Each boat will fit a team of 7 plus a skipper supplied by the boat rental company. But he doesn’t need to be the skipper during the regatta, whatever his role it’s up to you and your team. He is just there for safety and to help bring the boats into port after the event. So quickly form up your team of 7 people and come and join us for a fun day of sailing.

We will start sailing at 11 and head into the sea. We will have some practice sailing so everybody gets familiar with the boats and then we will have two regattas. The best of both races will be the winner of the day.

The price of 460 Euros per boat also includes the skipper. As mentioned, you can fit up to 7 people in a boat (that would be a total of 8 including the skipper) so the price per person will be 66 Euros.

The schedule will be the following:
10:00 Arrival at the meeting point
10:30 Captain’s Meeting and boat distribution
11:00 We start heading out to sea
11:30 Sailing practice and team building (get your team ready for the regatta)
12:00 First Regatta
13:30 Second Regatta
14: 15 Boats head back to the dock
15:00 The event ends

ESADE dances Salsa

Hola students,

With the return of the Salsa season, we would like to inform you of some activities that will help you relax and make the most of your MBA experience.

First of all, everyone is welcome to join the club on Facebook here.

Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or expert, we can arrange Salsa classes for all levels and negociate discount prices for ESADE students. There are several schools in Barcelona. So far we have been training at “Buenavista” next to Mojito club (carrer del Rossello, 217, metro Provença).

Should you be interested in Salsa, please fill out the following spreadsheet to indicate your experience level and provide your contact information here.

A new president will be elected in November to run the club as well as select and prepare a team for 2 major Salsa events: “Spring Fling” (a sport competition organized by IESE in Barcelona – March 2010) and MBAT (MBA Tournament, organized by HEC in Paris – May 2010).

Last year, the ESADE Salsa club participated to the MBAT event in Paris, and our performance can be seen on YouTube here and hereto below.We hope that ESADE will present a team for both Spring Fling and MBAT events next year.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me and I will forward it to David from the ESADE Salsa Club.