Beauty of "El Parque del Retiro"

The Retiro park is the one I most visited in some sunny weekends afternoons. Most of time, it is never a quiet place for reading, you always see kids chasing around and non-stopping drum performance every corner, folk magician performance, dancing, puppet theater...but it is these elements that make Retiro so ALIVE, it is a place for everyone...


Some pics of Retiro...The 1st one is Retiro lake at 10pm in summer, the 2nd around 4pm in autumn.



The 3rd kids watching live puppet theater performance. Usually one performer plays two or three different roles at one time, and always funny stories with happy ending. Simply standing there feeling the atmosphere has already been delightful experience...from time to time, kids shout out of surprise or burst into laughters by the stories of small characters on the stage, they just take so seriously for each single plot...lovely innocence of young hearts...



The 4th pic a common Spanish family...The little girl standing next to the bike in the pic suddenly found that I was taking her pic, she immediately called on her parents, I was so embarrassed and simply ran away...stupid foreigner, jajaja!

Nordic Christmas Bazaar

This is an annual pre-Christmas Bazaar held in central Madrid by Nordic people. Theoretically stuff in this Bazaar should all come from Finland, Norway, Iceland (there are not many people from Iceland living in Madrid though), while in fact most of stands are run by Germans. Oh, actually we only saw one Finnish stand serving some hot wine (I never thought red wine can be drunk hot and still taste good!) by an old Finnish lady. Putting Emilia's comments, "well, Germans are more organized", her pretending-to-be serious tone combining with her cynical facial expressions had really funny effect. I couldn't help laughing...It was a great late afternoon!

The pic left above was outdoor area which almost accounted for half space of the Bazaar, most people there were having German sausage and bread though.

The church on the right side looked really nice with vendors for Christmas gifts, candies, books, toys...some traditional stuff...

IE Business School 2007 Graduation Ceremony Prologue

Dec. 21, 2007, our graduation ceremony with all international programs including IMBA, Executive IMBA, Masters in Management (Master of Telecom & Digital Business, Master of Marketing, unfortunately Master of Finance already left in July).

Graduation Day

When receiving school mail informed of the graduation ceremony event, my attitude was totally aloof: anyway the master is over, attending an event only for the sake of celebrating its being over seems not needed at all. BTW, the graduation ceremony means many of us are leaving Madrid, perhaps, for ever...and many of us will not be able to see each other again, making me feel sad and subconsciously declining facing the fact...And I don't like seeing people drinking around showing happy faces saying congratulations for your finishing the master...Oops, too cynical again :p

Overall studying in IE is my most wonderful experience so far in my life...I'm deeply proud of myself being part of IE community, the keynote speech is not that awesome as expected though, I felt my emotional ups and downs during the ceremony...

Ok, a few pics during ceremony...

张爱玲

原来张爱玲的小说是写给成年女子看得。。。。

Listen to this FACEBOOK song

I couldn't believe it! Facebook has a song!

Apple Mac OS X Leopard---Quick Look

My god, I feel my "dinero" is bouncing around in my pocket...

Admiring--Purchasing--Possessing--Belonging

I love this concept of "Cult" to describe a community where people share the similar values, interests, and even display the same behaviors just for the sake of showing their dedication to that community, or we say being afraid of being left out. In marketing communication, we call this process fostering customer loyalty by establishing customer relationship through different marketing events. Don't you think the former concept sounds more tangible?!

Find Yourself

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.

~ Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

Popular Race 5km

Well, again my first time to run with about 5,000 people, 5km.

My objective was to "run" the 5km distance without single stop. I made it!

And I was surprisingly comfortable and relaxed, just enjoying all the scenes throughout the whole process. I saw the fountain surrounded by fresh flowers in the center of the intersection, I saw one couple kissing, I saw one girl wearing very shot skirt in that early morning (and I guess she must be cold), I saw friends taking pics for their running friends, I saw some passengers stopped watching the big group of people running... It occurred to me another 5km jogging I had in May of 2004 with my workshop colleagues, it was our trainer Warden who reminded me that always enjoy the process while fighting for the objective.

My final grade was 34 minutes, ranked 2,500. As you can see from the pic above, of all the boys from left to right, the first was Javier, ranked 2,100, 32 minutes; the 4th one was Alex, ranked higher, 30 minutes. I know there's guy only ran 18 minutes, well, that is totally out of my picture, jajaja...

European Energy Challenge

Well this meeting European Energy Challenge was initiated by IE Business School in homage to the former Vice-President of the European Commission, Ms. Loyola de Palacio, who had cancer and passed away not long time ago. Loyola actually is sister of one of the board members of school, well, I guess that's the very important part for us to hold this event. Anyway the event was quite influential, apart from Spanish national media, about 22 international media participated the event, among those are Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Reuters, Dow Jones, CNN International, etc. Just give you some idea, here are pictures from an amateur's perspective.

Vincent Van Gogh: Last Days in Auvers-sur-Oise

"Well, my own work, I'm risking my life for it and my reason has half foundered because of it."

This was from a letter of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo Van Gogh in July 23rd, 1890. When I read it and looked at over 70 paintings and 30 drawings he produced during his last 70 days in Auvers-sur-Oise, a small village 35km away from Paris, where he could escape from noisy crowd and seek a tranquil life, I was so touched by his passion for life & the artist's anxious expression of beauty, yet so pathetic for the cruel ending he put himself to.

In his last 70 days in Auvers, he was excited, happy, satisfied, he was so productive, hardworking, he was like a moth to the flame, exhausting his whole body strength plunging the final light---his own way to tell the world he had been there...

"He himself wanted to die when I was sitting with him and told him we would try to cure him and that we kept hoping he would be spared this sort of despair, he said:'sadness will last for ever.' I understood what he means. Shortly afterwards, he gasped for breath, and a moment later closed his eyes. He found tremendous peace, and didn't regain consciousness." ---From Theo Van Gogh to his sister Elizabeth in Aug.5th, 1890.

I show my full respect for Vincent Van Gogh, not because he was a famous artist, but because of his passion for what he pursuits & his persistence for that.

I also love his paintings, esp. these landscape paintings, the wheat fields, the con fields, the path & sky of the countryside, the thatched roofs...They were hilarious even if the artist was in deep sorrow, the brush stroke on the canvas was so strong that you could almost feel the artist's inner scream...

Well I don't want to sound too pathetic anymore...hehehe

Linkin Park is going to Shanghai

Linkin Park is going to hold a concert this Nov. in Shanghai. Their first song I listened was Numb, and my personal interpretation is being yourself; afterwards, What I have done, which I feel was quite "U2", advocating social responsibility, world justice, human right... Well here it is, just to have some old memories.

iPod Touch Guide

After I watched introduction below, I wonder:
First, when can I have this cool thing?
Second, by the time I can afford it, there might be another new released version.
So, my advice is: focus on videos :p

Internet People

Van Gogh

Women in Film

Pretty cool connection!

If you are going to San Francisco...

Well this is a must-add old post...One week stay in San Francisco and visits to hi-tech world's central server Silicon Valley drew was definitely our most unforgettable time during our Master. But for me, the impact of this trip was far beyond the business workshop; rather, I breathed the freedom in the air, I was amazed by its huge, fast, powerful, pervasive commercial culture, and moreover, the rooted-in entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley.

May 12th, 2007.

Our first picture after officially entering into land of The United States. Not surprisingly, we were "friendly" reminded by certain customs officer that the place where we took the photo was not for tourist sightseeing. Oops.




May 14th, 2007. Cisco campus in San Jose.

We were so lucky to have a real-time video conference with its London-based management team. The audio/visual experience was so real and spontaneous. Hopefully Cisco guys will soon make huge money out of it.

Comparing with all visited companies, Cisco is my favorite. It has been in the valley quite a long time, but still maintains very nimble moves in new product development and very innovative in managing people (I am very impressive on its "open space" office layout). People in don't look as young as Google's, but they seem quite comfortable about their job. My comments for CISCO: open-minded & down-to-earth!


May 15th, 2007. Sun Microsystems.

Every visited company in Valley is so proud of themselves, well, they have reasons, but some are becoming outdated, and losing curiosity to the new guys playing around. They shouldn't.



May 16th, 2007. Google @Mountain View.

As a group formed of Tech geeks, Google is absolutely the most exciting company we've dreamed for so long time. We've done Google projects both on Corporate Strategy & HR Management; besides, my life is totally surrounded by Google, read my previous post "Living upon Google"



Google @Mountain View is completely a university campus. To live there, you've got to be genius or nerd :p It's amazing because you can just go there and settle down, bring your laundry, walk your dog, play the basketball at 10:00am, and take free food from everywhere...but you've got to be really smart and crazy to achieve hight performance. As we are not allowed to take pictures inside, hope these outdoor glance could satisfy your curiosity for the moment.



May 16th, 2007. Hewlett Packard

HP is well known in China for its family style management, that day I also saw it from its "Digital Living Room". The idea is to enable the whole family to play together with the integrated entertainment devices, such as its touch screen tea table. I was also enticed by its new transparent "box" designed to allure professional gamers---just look at the way of those complicated crossing wires and chips and circuits, isn't it sexy? Oops, really, I don't know since when I've becoming so INTO "tech" stuff :p. Thanks to my GEEK classmates.





May 17th, 2007. EA Games.

Well if you happen to be a gamer, just name any famous title now occuring to your mind right now! No wonder, they are all from EA Games :P
The company's lobby is a place where your audio & visual senses are fully activated. It is a heaven of digital entertainment.




May 17th, 2007. IDEO "Innovate through Design".

@IDEO's 5-hour innovation workshop, we experienced an intensive brainstorming & prototyping process of developing the original idea to real world product. Once again, the power of creative commons, the team work, the pressure handling...Well I'd say what I've learned from the Business School makes sense :p.



Apart from above...
The following was my first intimate touch with my STREET SMART Mac & Apple's flagship store @San Francisco. Thanks to DivDiv to catch the sweet moment, Javier as my Mac counselor, Alex to supply the desk :p

Now as a Macintosh user, I realize that most complaints about Mac are actually from non-Mac users, because only after you use it, can you really know what is "user-friendly" and what a Personal Computer should be like :X For those wanting to know more about Mac, read my post "15 Reasons to Get a Mac"



Well, for more "official" report about our trip, visit our program director's blog "Our Week in San Francisco I-IV"; for "fun & non-main-stream" opinions, visit my peers' reports "San Francisco & Silicon Valley" as well as "Silicon Vally, not alley anymore...".

Business Opportunities through YouTube

Have to rent an apartment? Hmmm, trouble indeed! Regisger in different renting sites, fill in never-ending forms, compare the price, choose the neighborhood...of course, you also have to be smart enough to tell which statements by landlord are exaggerated :p Finally you are exhausted, only to hope this process ends ASAP, so you make the appointment with the landlord. BUT BUT BUT once you are there, you just don't like it.

Well in this Craigslist and YouTube Make Great Roommates, the NYC broker got his target customer by simply showing his video clip on YouTube. The room layout, the environment...everything is there, you don't need to say more. Isn't much better than picture and text? And you can do it just with your mobile phone camera. As stated in the article, some hire people to do more professional video show and drive the shooting into business.

Inspirations?
* You can make a fortune only if you put yourself into customers' shoes!
* Technology is never a problem, because tech-geeks are continuously growing :p)
* Cultivate your acumen to identify & implement the right technology ahead of rest of the world

My First Meeting with Anil de Mello

What I'm really curious about entrepreneurs is their drive to make things happen. The ambition, the interest, the passion, the energy...the confidence to conquer whatever comes to their minds, the inner desire to win...well, might be.

Anil has had several business in different parts of the world, and so far the rate of success vs. failure has been 50% vs. 50%. When I asked him about those failed experiences, his comments was pretty short: "well, this is life!" ---Exactly! You fail, you learn, the journey is long, at the end, you are only racing with yourself.

Madrid Learning

Technically I've just spent ten months in Madrid, but it has been a long journey for me in terms of being mentally independent, knowing myself, interacting with multicultural people, stress handling, and courtesy of decline...Well the following are a few points I'd love to share with all of you.

1) The worst thing is not making mistakes, but doing nothing.
2) Have faith in yourself, but make sure you've tried your best so that it won't go to another extremes of arrogance and blind mind.
3) Be imaginative and keep trying new things, the world is full of opportunities.
4) Don't waste time worrying about things out of your control; focus on must-dos and figure out can-dos instead.

One Chance

"To sing opera!"
Yes, everybody gets a chance, the differences are HOW BADLY you want it.

Miss China...

Chinese movie Hero (2003)
The story is so so, but the picture, the action, the special effects are gorgeous!!!


Chinese movie Turn left, turn right, this is its main song.


Well usually people at my parents' age love this song a lot, maybe recently I miss home too much, when listening to it now, I just love it!!!
And it just occurs to me that whatever the government has done to Tibet, for which politicians can always find good excuses, average people are good people, they love kindness, beauty, peace...


Jay Chou, my younger brother's favorite pop idol B-) But usually I can't tell what he is singing, seems like very word is swallowed :p The whole song only discusses why usually we should follow mum's advice :p

Times of Innocence

Korean movie The Classic
The story is a little bit long, but if you want to have a view of pure pure pure Asian love story, here it is...



Korean movie My Sassy Girl, with mixed elements of fun, sorrow, and romance...

My new peer blog "Steve Jobs thinks differently" launched

Well below is my 1st post on my new blog Steve Jobs thinks differently
From now on, all my posts related to Steve Jobs will be written there...And I hope "the journey is the reward"...



This thought of creating something about Steve Jobs has haunted me for quite a while, and to be honest, except that I bought a Mac from his Apple store in San Francisco this early May, I hardly had much idea about him, all my surprise and enthusiasm about everything related to Apple actually only came after my newly acquired Mac. I decided to do this because---

It is a great company with remarkable innovation---not only in the sense of great user-friendly functionality, but also with great design of beauty! It is really not just being cool, it actually liberates you from the machine to live a "human" life!

The man in the picture is great with incredible loyalty to his passion putting decades of hardworking, persistence, creativity, and still in process of writing his "sweet stories"...

The 1st Chinese Company Using YouTube for Advertising

The actress in this video, Xu Jinglei, is one of the most famous young generation actresses, a nascent director of feminine movies, and one of the best popular bloggers in China.

My Dinner Season

Dinner II
Event: Post-final-exam dinner with all mmtdb2007 guys
Where: Sagrario flat
Highlight: For the first time in my life I prepared and cooked totally 11 dishes for 16 guests...
Well below are my DEAREST guests who are EXTREMELY brave and nice to APPRECIATE my dishes...:-)



Dinner I
Event: My birthday dinner with Divya, Javier & Alex, and Sagrario girls.
What: That day for the first time I experimented Chinese-Japanese barbecue which was extremely simple and fast :p
How: Just put butter, salt, spice on the iron plate, put whatever food you like (could be chicken, beef, mushroom, even beans), then wait for a few minutes, then eat!

Two videos explain how iPhone works!

Only to those non-geeks & non-techies!

Reflection upon Steve's Sweet Announcement for iPhone in WWDC2007

This is a 33-day-delayed post, hooooo...

But it is a perfect complement for my last post "wireless freedom" as Steve gives a most simple & direct demo about how iPhone works "gracefully" based on Safari web application, almost a perfection piece of wireless internet connection, the impact of which will be comparable to Blackberry's "push" e-mail function!

Apart from this, I'm personally attracted by Steve's presentation style. No doubt he is a born public speaker, a natural marketer and communicator. If iPhone is a "sweet story" of Apple, Steve has always been the hero writing that "sweet story"...

Embrace a Perfect World with Wireless Freedom

Dear FCC and Congress,
The iPhone has set the stage for the future of mobile Internet — but bad policies allow companies like AT&T and Verizon to shackle great gadgets to their closed networks.
To free wireless Internet, the FCC and Congress must use the 700MHz spectrum auction to create an open network that gives consumers:
1. The freedom to use whatever device we want on any network.
2. The freedom to choose among many providers in a competitive wholesale marketplace.
3. The freedom to access any content or services we want through our devices.

Well I am definitely in even though I'm only a Mac user so far.

How Social Network Works

A simple and straightforward plain expression of how social network works.

The Future of Interfaces Is Multi-Touch

Window-displaying? Advertising? Designing? Marketing? New presentation tool? etc.
For many times, the scientific fiction technologies displayed in Steven Spielbergs' movie Minority Report first released in year 2003 have seemed to be reality now. This Multi-touch screen is one of them.

Day of the Long Tail

As the program is going to finish, I feel guilty if not publish this famous video of Day of the Long Tail.

Time Warner's Conviction in Digital World

Time Warner's Conviction in Digital World!
Keywords: brand, digital universe, user flexibility, digital rights management, active advertisement, content.
What is missing here is USER-GENERATED CONTENTS

Talented Sprint Commercial

Yes! The most valuable assets for companies are TALENTS!
Very creative way of expressing digital convenience and flexibility through on-the-go mobile content consumption.

Anirudh@IE By Group C

Well again this is my group's project for Digital Media. Yes, I know the video's quality is a little crappy, but what we are selling is the "idea"! as we can see "Video Blog" is actually quite new for most business schools as a way of marketing promotion. From content creation, packaging, to distribution (mainly through virtual social network or maybe SL), plus shooting and assisting tools, as well as participants, the total cost is almost zero. But the potential impact on web2.0 world will be huge, assuming that we get budget from IE and use better technical tools.

Here is the rough costs we made for this video:
Scripts written by Group C ---free
Content editing ---Windows Movie Maker: free
"Labor" ---1 director, 1 assistant, 1 performer ---all work for free
Nokia N73 Mobile ---thanks for Nokia Spain: free
Music ---free
Light effect ---done by common light flashes
Rent ---study room, classroom, bathroom: free
Distribution ---internet: free

Unforgetable MMTDB2007

This is one final project by Group B for one final project for the subject "Digital Media", the idea is to use digital media to come up with one marketing promotion for Instituto de Empresa.

About Group B: Group B is a warm Group comprised of Alvaro, Divya, Imad and Rajesh. Three of them have been in the same group for two terms, but surprisingly they are still not get bored with each other and extremely commited to MMTDB2007 as

Sound of Madrid: Weekend Jazz

People said last Friday was the longest day, luckily I was right in downtown Madrid that night and close enough to the delightful weekend Jazz...

Almost half of the small cafe y restaurante was full of tourists like me and the rest couples at their 50s or 60s...this was a very different experience from what I had in shanghai where live Jazz was "spoiled" usually played in fancy night clubs or five star hotels with dressed listeners, making me wonder--- what is more important--- the Jazz? or the place?

The play continued for two hours, the resonance was strong, I could feel all the beats from the performing stage; people were enjoying, sending applauses spontaneously from time to time; I love their improvisational part most, the call and response between piano and saxophone, the polyrhythms, and the swing...

Mad World

Well this is one demo clip I first watched during visit of Cinegame, I just love this song Mad World and the hero running through the darkness fighting for the glory...

Cinegame: Create new game playing joy at cinema

"Revolution" might be too big for this innovative change for video game playing, but with all of the on-spot effects like lights, smoke, seat vibration, 3D theatrical sound resonance, bunches of people playing the same game at the same place and the same time...isn't there anything beyond your expectation?!

If you are going to San Francisco...

Well this is a must-add old post...One week stay in San Francisco and visits to hi-tech world's central server Silicon Valley drew was definitely our most unforgettable time during our Master. But for me, the impact of this trip was far beyond the business workshop; rather, I breathed the freedom in the air, I was amazed by its huge, fast, powerful, pervasive commercial culture, and moreover, the rooted-in entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley.

May 12th, 2007.

Our first picture after officially entering into land of The United States. Not surprisingly, we were "friendly" reminded by certain customs officer that the place where we took the photo was not for tourist sightseeing. Oops.



May 13th, 2007. San Francisco city tour. Museum of de Young, Golden Gate Bridge, Pier 39.




May 14th, 2007. Cisco campus in San Jose.

We were so lucky to have a real-time video conference with its London-based management team. The audio/visual experience was so real and spontaneous. Hopefully Cisco guys will soon make huge money out of it.

Comparing with all visited companies, Cisco is my favorite. It has been in the valley quite a long time, but still maintains very nimble moves in new product development and very innovative in managing people (I am very impressive on its "open space" office layout). People in don't look as young as Google's, but they seem quite comfortable about their job. My comments for CISCO: open-minded & down-to-earth!

May 15th, 2007. Sun Microsystems.

Every visited company in Valley is so proud of themselves, well, they have reasons, but some are becoming outdated, and losing curiosity to the new guys playing around. They shouldn't.




May 16th, 2007. Google @Mountain View.

As a group formed of Tech geeks, Google is absolutely the most exciting company we've dreamed for so long time. We've done Google projects both on Corporate Strategy & HR Management; besides, my life is totally surrounded by Google, read my previous post "Living upon Google"

Google @Mountain View is completely a university campus. To live there, you've got to be genius or nerd :p It's amazing because you can just go there and settle down, bring your laundry, walk your dog, play the basketball at 10:00am, and take free food from everywhere...but you've got to be really smart and crazy to achieve hight performance. As we are not allowed to take pictures inside, hope these outdoor glance could satisfy your curiosity for the moment.




May 16th, 2007. Hewlett Packard

HP is well known in China for its family style management, that day I also saw it from its "Digital Living Room". The idea is to enable the whole family to play together with the integrated entertainment devices, such as its touch screen tea table. I was also enticed by its new transparent "box" designed to allure professional gamers---just look at the way of those complicated crossing wires and chips and circuits, isn't it sexy? Oops, really, I don't know since when I've becoming so INTO "tech" stuff :p. Thanks to my GEEK classmates.




May 17th, 2007. EA Games.

Well if you happen to be a gamer, just name any famous title now occuring to your mind right now! No wonder, they are all from EA Games :P
The company's lobby is a place where your audio & visual senses are fully activated. It is a heaven of digital entertainment. The last picture shows all of its game titles produced. And I believe they have more.


May 17th, 2007. IDEO "Innovate through Design".

@IDEO's 5-hour innovation workshop, we experienced an intensive brainstorming & prototyping process of developing the original idea to real world product. Once again, the power of creative commons, the team work, the pressure handling...Well I'd say what I've learned from the Business School makes sense :p.



May 17th, 2007. San Francisco Dinner & clubbing.




Apart from above...
The following was my first intimate touch with my STREET SMART Mac & Apple's flagship store @San Francisco. Thanks to DivDiv to catch the sweet moment, Javier as my Mac counselor, Alex to supply the desk :p

Now as a Macintosh user, I realize that most complaints about Mac are actually from non-Mac users, because only after you use it, can you really know what is "user-friendly" and what a Personal Computer should be like :X For those wanting to know more about Mac, read my post "15 Reasons to Get a Mac"

Some happy moments @airport, bus, Hooters...





For more "official" report about our trip, visit our program director's blog "Our Week in San Francisco I-IV"; for "fun & non-main-stream" opinions, visit my peers' reports "San Francisco & Silicon Valley" as well as "Silicon Vally, not alley anymore..."