Calling all Bloggers!

As a Media Club member, I just joined the organization of one of the most important LBS events: the London Media Summit. I just couldn't miss this great networking opportunity! Besides, it will allow me to join this event for free ;-) and maybe go to the pre-conference dinner in London. That would be fantastic!

The Media Club is a thriving organisation with over 300 current students and 650 alumni, and one of the most active professional associations on campus. The Club provides an engaging forum for students interested in all aspects of media. We bring together television, radio, film, music, games, publishing, and new media firms with the talented students interested in these fields.

I was really surprised with the quality of the confirmed speakers. You can get this info from the event's website but, for now, here's who they are:
- Luke Johnson, Chairman of Channel 4.
- James Purnell MP, Minister of Creative Industry and Tourism (what a cool ministry!! :-)) )
- Victoria Barnsley, CEO, Harper Collins UK.
- Thomas Hoegh, CEO, Arts Alliance Media.

My job is to organise a panel (one moderator and 3 to 5 panellists) to discuss 'Organising User Created Content'. And this means blogging (eheh!), podcasting, posting pictures to websites, mobile internet sites, etc. Not my favourite media subjects (which are film and music) but still very cool. I may even get some nice contacts for the dreaded Shadowing project. For now we're thinking to contact companies like last.fm, google (blogger.com), apple (itunes), Emap, podshow.com, etc...

So.... to all the bloggers out there, and to all the readers of this blog, if you know someone who works in those areas and is UK-based, then please drop me an email or leave a comment! Every advice will be extremely valuable.

Elvis has left the building

After yesterday's funny episode, promptly, but not that accurately blogcasted by my fellow KV (you cannot believe in everything you read ;-) ), today was the big day:

Jack Welch was coming to the school.

I mean... he's the man! Everyone talks about him around here! To be honest, I've never heard of him before coming to London Business School. But then I got curious and read his autobiography. This old geezer is definitely the kind of leader you would like to work for, or ultimately you would like to be like.



And, what did I learn from today's speech? Here it is:

1) Never give up. As a true portuguese, I always believe that there's another way to get things done, a backdoor. So, after NOT receiving an invitation for today's event (I was one of the unlucky one who did not get an invite through the ballot), I still went there. First, because I wanted to have his book signed; second, because I wanted to take some photos of the dude; and third, to try and sneak in the event. It turns out that I was lucky! I was just telling some friends that I was waiting for the event to start to see if there were any empty seats, when a lady from the organization heard me and said "Do you want to get in? Ok, what's your name?". Gets her phone and says "I'm sending a student. Let him in.". Niiiice!

2) Jack hates bureaucracy. Way to go, dude!!! Me too!!! :-)

3) Always choose a team to lead made of people smarter than you. Keep learning with those around you. Do not try to be the smart guy. It'll get very boring.

4) We now have a great brand behind us. So we have to grab the world by its ass and take it! :-) Jack's words. And how funny those words were!

5) Try and choose an industry that will most likely be dominant or develop a lot in the next few years. An example: biotechnology.

6) Candour. One of the most important virtues of a true leader. Be honest, straightforward, avoid discrimination, accept your mistakes, show sense of humour.

7) Jack is not that fond of business schools! :-) Although it was funny hearing him say that, it was not a surprise for me. "Too much strategy classes, too much marketing. Leading people! That's what you'll do in a few years. That's what you have to learn. Leading teams". Bravo to the man!

Yesterday we had a presentation from the Media club. I would love to work on the music and film industry! However, I am a bit afraid that this kind of career change is not that plausible. It turns out that it is realistic! When of the guys that spoke during the presentation was a former IT consultant and, however, just finished an internship at Sony. Cool!

So... here's a career plan. Internship in the music or film industry. Permanent job after the MBA at a consulting firm, but dedicated to the media industry. 2 or 3 years after, jump to a good job in the media itself. Sounds great! Is it doable? Yes. But... an even more difficult question: is it what I really want? Maybe. Hmm... 'maybe' is not enough. Hope I can define my career strategy as soon as possible!

PS: KV, you have to start saying something during classes! I want to post something about you too! Revenge is sweeeeeeet!

And the core courses haven't even started...

Things have been pretty hectic these last few days. This is a really busy life! God! And I'm paying for it?!?! :-))

So... I'll try to describe how the last few days were. I'll make a topic for each day. That seems a nice framework for this post (I'm already gettting the b-school jargon all over me!! arrrghhh!!!!).

Thursday, 8th September: Away Day
What a fantastic day it was!! It consisted of some sport/radical/puzzling activities. Main purpose: test your limits and improve your team-work. And it's amazing how by the end of the day we really were a nice, consistent and friendly team! It was nice to see it developing throughout the day. Activitities involved Indiana Jones-like puzzles (lots of ropes and imagination involved), climbing walls, going up poles and jumping to a trapeze, eating, eating and eating).

And we did beat the stick!! ;-)

Friday, 9th September:
GLAM in the morning and afternoon. The afternoon part was really interesting. It was a group meeting with a personal tutor/counsellor/psychologist. It was very insightfull and revealling. We were supposed to end at 5pm, but left the room at 7pm instead. Nice way to learn our own strengths and weaknesses.

At night, some fellow students decided to give a party at their place. They were expecting something like 30 or 40 people, but I guess we were more than 80!! Great party, lots of drinks, wild dancing. I got home safe... but I don't know how.

PS: I met my third flatmate this morning. He arrived the day before but was already sleeping when I got home. So... when I woke up there was this completely unknown guy in my kitchen. Weird stuff. But he's a great guy!

Saturday, 10th September:
Basketball at 12pm. That one is really tough!! Besides the fact that the last time I played was like 7 years ago, the night before didn't help at all! Mental note: have to stop smoking (but keep on drinking...)

During the afternoon I did lots of online supermarket shopping with my flatmate. And at night went to a portuguese restaurant to watch some football. FCPorto is back on the tracks, it seems!

Sunday, 11th September:
Relax.
Come to school and prepare the classes for monday.

Monday, 12th September:
We started with the Ethics course. Although my divine fellow blogger disagrees with me, I found it really boring. It's too theoritical for my engineering mind. It's so easy to read a case about an ethical issue and say how would should behave. But when you're really living the situation, that IS hard. Do you defend your moral principles and put your job/career/family on stake? Tough question.

During the afternoon I had a study group meeting to draft our Team Contract. Yes! That's right! We have a contract to say how our team will work and behave, the goals to achieve and how resolve conflicts during the next year. Every team has one. I think this is funny, but interesting anyway. My favourite goal: 'to build everlasting friendships'. That's cool.

Tuesday, 13th September:
GLAM in the morning. One-to-one sessions with the counsellor. Again, it was really good. Good advices being given there.

The rest of the day was pretty much relaxed. By the evening we met at the bar (MBAr) to watch the Champions League games. FCPorto lost!!! Damn!!!! But at least the beer was just for 1
pound a bottle...

Wednesday, 14th September:
STATS!!!!!!!!!!!
ALL DAY!!!!!!!!!!!
HELP!!!!!!!

Anyway... it wasn't that hard. I found out that I still remember most of the things from college. I did even remember out to work with normal distribution tables!! :-) I felt a major geek.

The professor was great, though. Very funny and always trying to change a boring subject into something interesting. And I just love that icelandic Bjork-like accent! So cool!

During the lunch break we had a presentation from the Entrepreneurs club. It was nice, but not too informative.

Thrusday, 15th September:
UGM in the morning (Understanding General Management).
Now... that's what I'm here for!!! Give me management knowledge, dude! Great class. The professor was really good and we had a very interesting case to discuss (the rise of Honda). Next session will be about Apple. How cool is that??

Afternoon was the... boring Ethics. I definitelly don't like it.

By the end of the day with attended an event with a guy called Nigel Andrews. Former LBS student, former consultant and former GE employee. He worked with Jack Welch!!! And the passion he uses to talk about those times are amazing. Important advice he gave: choose a new job with an exceptional boss/mentor. That's probably the best way to learn great leadership skills. The guy now is a director of dozens of companies, is a venture partner in another one, and has his own private equity firm. Nice life, it seems...

And now... I'm going to the birthday party of the fantastic Miss N!! Why am I still in here blogging?!?

Oh my! More free time!

Man! Things are starting to get busy! And core courses haven't even started yet!

Ok, there's many things to write about, but I'm a bit lazy today and there's no need to repeat information. So, I would suggest reading the excelent posts from the not less excelent DivineMissN, KV and Futureguru.

I do agree with KV on the CV workshop. It was great! And, at least theoretically, the whole process is amazing. Here's how it works: on that workshop we received 4 hours of advices on how to tweak our CVs; now, we'll have to submit our CVs until next tuesday to a specialist company hired by the school; they will read our CVs and submit feedback on how to improve it; after another review we'll sent it again to the same company which will then arrange some one-to-one appointments with us, in order to settle on a final CV version. This is cool! Bear in mind though, that this CV will probably not be used for every job hunting. We will have to make some changes in order to target different industries/sectors/companies.

Note: GMAT score should be included on the CV only if above 750. Damn! Count me out of that one!

Today I had my first GLAM session (Global Leadership Assessment for Managers) and it was great! The purpose of this course is to 'develop an awareness of the knowledge, skills, and attributes necessary to succeed in the global business environment' and 'identify key interpersonal and teamwork skills in successful global business management', 'share feedback'... well, the works.

Funny thing is, we received the results of a survey we did on summer, called NEO Professional Delevopment Report for Individual Planning (the name says it all). Here are some highlights of my scores (and personality):
- Calm, relaxed, carefree (eaaaasy dude!)
- Reserved, distant, cool (I prefer the cool part)
- Gregarious, prefers company (parties! bring them on!)
- Adventurous, daring, pleasure seeking (no more comments)
- Abstract, creative, imaginative
- high-self interest (you can't imagine how low my score was in terms of 'consideration for others'!!!! I'm the real SOB.)
- Arrogant, conceited (I don't agree with this one, though...)
- Outgoing, active, enjoys leadership roles (yeah! and money!!)
- etc...

Conclusion: I'm a relaxed arrogant proud MF who likes to enjoy life. Cool! :-))

Tomorrow we'll have an Away Day. That means some sports activities somewhere in the woods and another opportunity to meet everyone and socialize. Big problem: the bus leaves at 7am from school!!!!

Well, time to go home.

I'm tired!

I just got a few free minutes to blog about London Business Scholl (not LBS!!! ;-) ).

Saturday morning I moved to my new place. How I missed that good feeling of being in your own room, with your stuff stored in its place, clothes, books, laptop, cds, shoes, etc... I'm still waiting for a reply from my goddam landlord, though, regarding the furniture. I'm sleeping in a single bed and I want to change it to a double bed (I need space...). However, the landlord wants to see what kind of bed I want, to approve (or not) the kind of furniture. Well, I hope he likes cheap IKEA stuff!

On monday we found out which streams we were allocated to (our 326-students class is divided in 4 streams). I got the A-stream, together with my fellow blogger KV. We're not in the same group, though. The 57 different countries represented in the 2007 class is permanently amazing me. It's so overwhelming! Just as an example, my study group has: one indian accountant with a tea family business, one australian management consultant from Sydney, one IT-consultant from Washington DC, one pharmacist-turned-physiotherapist-turned-investment-banker from Boston, one all-finance japanese from Tokyo... and me, the portuguese engineer. Now... this is going to be great fun!!! :-) I know that the US schools usually get the top ranking places, but there's no way they can be as diverse as LBS!

Thursday and Wednesday were filled with presentations, brain-washing sessions, and some really really good speaches. And I mean, reaaaaaally good! Mainly (and I bet all my classmates will agree with me, given the fantastic ovation at the end) from a guy called... Mohan Mohan Mohan. That's right, 3 times. A retired Procter&Gamble general manager, 64-years old but with such an AMAZING energy! I mean, I'm not half his age and the guy has much more energy than me!! :-) This is the kind of people who can inspire others. What a great leader he must have been. Brilliant character.

Today we're having a Career Services presentation, followed by another session with '3-times' Mohan. I'm looking forward to that. Later in the evening, we'll have a networking event with MBA allumni and... of course, drinks.

Drinks... We've been having pub crawling every night! I think I've never drank so many beers as in these last few days. Beer, beer, beer, beer and beer! It's beer everywhere!! Man, I need a whisky!!

PS: By the way, there's a Single Malt club in the school. I think I'll join them.