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Silicon Valley with IE Business School: Part I

November 18, 2011 by Newton Campos

Since 2010, with the arrival of more people dedicated to improve everything related with Blended Education at IE, changes have been occurring to a number of programs and processes. Some important changes where the change of the second face-to-face week of the Master in Digital Marketing (MDM) from London to the Silicon Valley. The other one was the possibility of Global MBA (GMBA) students to join the MDM group as well as some MDM alumni.

I decided to join the group to see this new “feature” of these programs but also to meet some friends in the Bay Area and to look for activities in the Online Education and the Online Media industries. Almost 50 people formed this nice group of students, all with that ”crazy taste” of diversity that characterize all IE groups. They had some classes on Monday and Tuesday so I joined them on Wednesday, for the first series of visits to companies and players throughout the Silicon Valley. We started by visiting the famous Google Plex (see picture), where we were received by one of the many IE alumni working in the company: Marco Marinucci (International Executive MBA, 2004).

Marco is in Google since 2006 – a long time for the industry standards – and showed us the installations and the history of the Silicon Valley. After that, we got into an important review on the latest trends on mobile advertisement, with the Head of Gomo (Go Mobile). At the end I stayed with some key sentences from this visits: “Innovation is about what’s going to be next”, “Talent + Money + Creativity = Innovation” and “you cannot plan innovation, all you can do is try hard to be in the right place and prepared”.

Newton at Google Plex

But the day was just starting. We still went to EA, previously known as EA Sports. It is an amazing company, now struggling to quickly identify small innovative players to either acquire them or work with them, all over the world. From that visit I got with the sentence: “Videogames = Math + Art”. Where “Art” is the unpredictable variable.

Unfortunately I missed the last visit at Symantec where students were going to discuss about security systems. Overall I considered this first day a great welcoming day to start feeling what was the Silicon Valley about. I confess I knew a lot about it from my previous visit to the region and from many years of studying the subject, but still, it was a great day.

Posted in 2.Entrepreneurship | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

I need a Theory of Social Relativity!

October 7, 2011 by Newton Campos

I have been looking for a nice and well-rounded theory of social relativity for years and couldn’t find anything yet. If anybody knows anything about it please, let me know. I came up with this name on purpose, inspired by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (check up on Wikipedia to refresh your memory). Just to make it clear, I am not talking about Relativism in here (check it out too). Neither about Old or New Institutionalism (if you have not heard of it, don’t worry, Institutionalists are becoming an institution by themselves).

Since Max Weber, I think social scientists pretty much understand already how conventions are naturally established by humans and other animals to gain effectiveness in our actions and use of our brains (we tend to sit in the same seat, follow the same way back home and these kind of things). Take a read on Berger & Luckman’s “The Social Construction of Reality (1966)” for a nice introduction to that subject.

I am talking about a theory that can gather Einstein’s suggestions and combine its consequences with every social aspect of our lives, a theory that can make us to rethink the role of any kind of “constant” social behavior and physical condition.

Let’s think about it: the Earth attracts us to it, just like the Sun attracts the Earth to it. You may not have thought about it but we also attract the Sun and the Earth to ourselves with a tiny force derived from our masses and therefore we also distort space and time by our individual existence just like the Sun or any other mass in rapid movement. I won’t enter into the question about where those gravitational forces come from because then we would get too philosophical (some people believe that gravity is the closest thing we know to God).

In any case, my weird correlation is: just like every mass interact with each other in the universe distorting each other’s physical reality in different degrees, we humans also distort each other’s perceptions on ourselves due to the relativity of all our conventions that are merely based on unreliable and imprecise social definitions and physical evidences that should not be perceived as truth ever (and I think we should have been told that when we were young).

The Persistence of Memory, 1931

The Persistence of Memory, 1931

Words gain meaning with time, individually to each one of us, changing according to the use we give to them and the experience we have with them over time. I can assure that the meaning of the word “love” for you is different from the meaning it has to me. Moreover, the meaning of the word “love” for you today is different from the meaning you will give to it in 5 years. And even the way the word sounds is affected by the wind and the air chemical composition (like humidity).

The values of gold or money are also just conventions that mean nothing more than some kind of physical representation of certain local social power; especially under this “social game” we have been playing called capitalism. The Incas had a completely different relationship with gold, for example. Besides, the weight of an ounce of gold also varies according to the position you are in the planet since we now know that the force of gravity is not constant around our not-so-rounded Earth.

How about the time? Besides the distortion caused by all other masses surrounding us, our planet and solar system, we now know that not every day lasts a day and not every year lasts a year, so our “sacred” seconds, minutes and hours are all mere simplistic representations of a time that is not so fixed as we wished. Consequence: don’t worry if you arrive a minute late to a meeting. Nobody knows the exact time anyway. :-)

Gosh! Everything seems to be so complex! And I am not saying that in the Parsonian sense of the expression :-) but in a social-physical angle that apparently nobody dared to merge yet. I don’t know why, but Dali’s “Persistence of Memory” came to my mind while I was writing this. Perhaps because I am living in Spain and I do think that the Mediterranean people have been facing these complexities with a pleasant sense of disdain that amuses me. Olé!

Posted in 1.Capitalism, Other thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Who is afraid to die?

September 29, 2011 by Newton Campos

About two months ago I bought a motorcycle. Most of the people who found out about it told me I was unnecessarily putting my life at risk. Since then I had to hear a lot of stories about how their friends got hurt or lost their lives riding motorcycles. This is she:

Well, I have some news for you: we all are going to die, one day or another. We end up so alienated towards death because we naturally don’t want to die, so we just forget about it. We are not capable to get use to the fact that life and death are just two sides of the same coin. I faced death 3 times in my life and I can assure that if it is quick you won’t even notice.

Today we are here, your eyeballs read these characters in your screen, written by my fingers, and tomorrow maybe your eyeballs or my fingers will be rotting like any lifeless meat would do. Who cares? Some relatives, few friends… It doesn’t really matter actually. Only few things that you did will be left behind: a document, a table, some money, a child perhaps. Still, it doesn’t matter anyway because even the Earth is temporary.

So what is life for? Again, unfortunately, nobody knows. Maybe is to appreciate death? Or maybe just to play with her? I may be sounding too pessimistic, apocalyptical or just non-sense but in fact it is precisely this brevity of life that amuses me every single day. Not like paranoia, but like a strange luck that makes me feel “hungry and foolish” everyday (like the Steve Jobs’ famous “do-what-you-love-to-do” speech, below). After all, learn how to ride a big motorcycle over roads and mountains ahead of you is amazing.

Posted in Other thoughts | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

Bus rides, from a Blackberry…

August 29, 2011 by Newton Campos

I’m in a bus, traveling from Galicia to Madrid, in Spain, a 6 hour road trip (about 500km). Now is 2 in the morning, and everything is great although I’m not very sleepy. Connected to the “world” via my smart phone, I’m taking the opportunity to test this WordPress application for Blackberry that I never used due to my constant lack of time.

The trip itself reminds me about the countless bus trips I took during my youth, including some unforgettable ones throughout Brazil, Morocco and India. When you remember those trips after so many years, it looks like they were much more pleasant than they actually were, a phenomenon certainly caused by this weird “aging” effect I’m suffering at the age of 35 (in the recent past, I still could list every single new year’s eve I had in my life, now they are starting to get all mixed in my mind).

Well, still, I have very good memories about those trips. I like bus trips, I can almost feel the tires touching the road, and this makes me feel more connected to our apparently vast planet Earth.

In Brazil, I remember a 500km bus trip I did from Corumba to Bonito, all within a single Brazilian State called “Mato Grosso do Sul” (and this was just like a third of the State!). That was “pure” nature… During the trip you could feel the Pantanal’s warm and humid air while seeing al sorts of animals around the empty bus.

In Morocco, I remember two increadible trips: one from Madrid to Marakesh (!), a 30 hour “non-stop” bus trip that would make anyone sick (curiously, the “border” between Spain and Morocco was inside the ferry boat our bus embarked). And another 10 hour bus trip to the Sahara desert directly followed by a 6h camel ride at night simply unforgettable, with one of the clearest sky I think anyone can see in the world.

In India, the experiences were not that “easy”. I couldn’t skip the city buses of Kolkata, were chickens, passengers and inconvenient stops for refuel inside the buses (with people smoking just steps away from the gasoline) would make anyone feel like being inside a surreal Spanish movie. More shocking indeed was a 30 hour trip from Kolkata to Siliguri (in Sikkim) in a bus with rows of 5 seats packed with people and luggage enough to make the place almost airless. I swear I felt I could die that day. In fact, me and some colleagues got really sick for 2 days after that trip.

This Spanish ride is so calm and comfortable that in 10 years from now I won’t probably remember this bus trip, but I will certainly remember the peaceful period I lived in this wonderful country.

Posted in 3.Travel, Other thoughts | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Fool’s Gold

August 16, 2011 by Newton Campos

In my last day of vacations I took a moment to update the songs I am collecting in my Spotify account. If you have an account there too, take a look later at this never-ending but enjoyable work: http://open.spotify.com/user/newtonmcampos.

During this process, I found a Brazilian artist I liked a lot during my adolescence: Raul Seixas, an old pop icon in Brazil. For those of you who have heard of Paulo Coelho (the famous Brazilian writer), bear in mind that the they worked together creating some of the most amazing songs of that time. Just as a curiosity, I found a video of them during a trip to the US in the 70′s (that is interesting only if you’ve heard of Paulo Coelho before):

Well, the song I found more interesting to hear again and explore was this one, “Ouro de Tolo” (Fool’s Gold), one of the first musics composed by Raul Seixas, inspired by Bob Dylan, that talks about the “perfect job” promised by the Brazilian government under the dictatorship installed to assure the development of capitalism in the country during the cold war. I suggest you to listen to the song and read the lirics and its free Google translation. It is very interesting and made me think about this interesting moment of my life:

Eu devia estar contente porque eu tenho um emprego
I should be happy I have a job
Sou o dito cidadão respeitável
I’m the so called respectable citizen
E ganho quatro mil cruzeiros por mês
and I earn 4 thousand cruzeiros a month

E devia agradecer ao Senhor
And I should thank the Lord
Por ter tido sucesso na vida como artista
for having achieved success as an artist
Eu devia estar feliz porque
I should be happy because
Eu consegui comprar um corcel 73
I managed to buy a ’73 Ford

E devia estar alegre, satisfeito
And I should be happy, pleased
Por morar em Ipanema depois de ter passado fome
for living in Ipanema after having starved
Por dois anos, aqui, na cidade maravilhosa
for 2 years, here, in this marvelous city (Rio de Janeiro)

Eu devia estar sorrindo e orgulhoso
I should be smiling, proud
Por ter finalmente vencido na vida
for having finnaly succeeded
Mas eu acho isso uma grande piada
But I find it all a great joke
E um tanto quanto perigosa
a rather dangerous one

Eu devia estar contente por ter conseguido
I should be happy I got
Tudo o que eu quis, mas confesso
everything I always wanted, but I reckon
Abestalhado que eu estou decepcionado
stunned that I’m disappointed

Porque foi tão fácil conseguir
because it was so easy to get
E agora eu me pergunto, e daí?
And I ask; so what?
Eu tenho uma porção de coisas grandes pra conquistar
I have many great things to achieve
E eu não posso ficar aí parado
And I can’t stay stand

Eu devia estar feliz pelo Senhor ter me concedido
I should be happy the Lord gave me
Um domingo pra ir com a família no jardim zoológico
a Sunday to go to the zoo with my family
Dar pipoca aos macacos
give popcorn to the monkeys

Ah, mas que sujeito chato sou eu
oh, but what a bore guy I am
Que não acha nada engraçado
I can’t find fun
Macaco, praia, carro, jornal, tobogan
Monkeys, beaches, cars, newspapers, tobogan,
Eu acho tudo isso um saco
to me they just suck

É você olhar no espelho
You look at yourself on the mirror
Se sentir um grandessíssimo idiota
You feel like a great idiot
Saber que é humano, ridículo, limitado
Knowing you are human, limited
Que só usa dez por cento de sua cabeça animal
and you use just ten per cent of your animal head

E você ainda acredita que é um doutor
And you still believe you are a doctor
Padre ou policial que está contribuindo com sua parte
A priest or a policeman doing your part to contribute
Para o nosso belo quadro social
to our beatiful society

Eu é que não me sento no trono de um apartamento
I don’t sit on a couch in an apartment
Com a boca escancarada, cheia de dentes
with my mouth open, full of teeth,
Esperando a morte chegar
waiting for death to arrive

Porque longe das cercas embandeiradas
because far away form the decorated fences
Que separam os quintais
that separate yards
No cume calmo do meu olho que vê
at the calm peak of my seeing eye
Assenta a sombra sonora de um disco voador
there rests the shadow of a flying saucer.

Just for curiosity, I attach Raul’s own translation of “Ouro de Tolo”, in a version of the song in English:

And also the history of the song told – in Portuguese – by journalist Ana Maria Bahiana: http://soundcloud.com/factoide/historia-de-ouro-de-tolo-do-raul-seixas

Posted in 1.Capitalism, Other thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The infinite growth problem

July 23, 2011 by Newton Campos

One of the things that annoy me most in our days is this compulsion for economic growth everywhere at any time and cost. I was having lunch with an IE alumnus last week and we entered in those typical talks about career development based on countries’ and market’s growth.

This thing was in the table for discussion because this alumnus was considering moving with his wife to Brazil just like many other current MBA students and alumni worldwide. Why are they considering it? Obviously because of the economic boom the country is facing and foreseeing. Most of them know that whoever gets there first, have an enhanced possibility to succeed professionally in the medium or long term. My argument to question this perception is that Brazil, just like any other country in the world, won’t grow forever (especially when anyone can see that most of the assets are already priced at international levels). The issue of growing or not growing per se couldn’t be sufficient, during these times we live, to make somebody consider living in another country.

But getting back to the issue of growth itself, how people expect the world to be when everybody gets their basic things for living? Japan, Europe and the United States are already starting to face this challenge. How many more cars an American must have to feel happy? How many sofas, beds and TVs? How many more bottles of good wine or luxury bags Europeans need to be happy? When the world population starts to decline by the second half of this century, there will be far more houses than people to live in them. Water is there, food is there, roads are there, schools are there, and almost everything is basically available to large parts of the population in these so-called developed countries (although the concept of “almost everything” obviously changes from region to region and from people to people).

Venus Project: example of a town

Venus Project: example of a town

But this is not the problem. The problem is to see that there aren’t many people studying real alternatives to this critical dead-end street we are moving toward. Initiatives like the Venus Project are exciting but in my opinion too unrealistic to be implemented in a large scale yet in this century. And we have to hurry up if we don’t want to see Karl Marx‘s predictions on “capitalism consuming itself” to happen. For me, together with Max Weber, Marx was one of the greatest people in “recent” history that really spent time to understand what capitalism was about. Whatever people did in his name afterwards (in Cuba, Russia, China, Venezuela, etc) simply did not represent his thoughts neither valid attempts to put in place improved human social, political and economic structures at all, in my opinion.

I think a more realistic approach for us to start solving this problem is not only via pressures for more sustainable development but mainly through the reconceptualization of overall governance indicators for private and public organizations. A new accounting science has to emerge soon, one that not only measures physical assets but mainly and more important things that are important for people and ecosystems to live in peace.

Posted in 1.Capitalism | 1 Comment »

My first research findings

May 15, 2011 by Newton Campos

The second part of the interview I gave last week (please see lat post).

Reporter: What were the findings?
Newton Campos: The main conclusion was that the social context, in this case “Latino”, had more importance in the process of enterprising than the level of economic development of countries and their institutions. That is, the incentives and obstacles that innovative entrepreneurs obtain from their networks in these countries are relatively similar, regardless of the country’s level of development, when comparing entrepreneurs who started from similar social classes.

The view from my window at the hotel in Campos do Jordao where I spent about 14 weeks (in about 12 trips) in order to have the dissertation done.

Reporter: Why considering the work relevant?
Newton Campos: Because it might enrich the global knowledge about the initial process of innovative entrepreneurial success in Latin countries. That is why I decided to follow a specific methodology that enables future comparison between entrepreneurs from different countries, and wrote the dissertation in English. Thus, a Chinese, Mexican or Indian could replicate the study for their region or compare their findings with ours. A proper debate on this process in emerging and developing countries is still starting.

Reporter: What was the theoretical contribution?
Newton Campos: In addition to confirming that the “social” is more important than the “economic” also in the Brazilian and Spanish context, as previously mentioned, I think it was the opening of a new line of research, the one I’m working today. This theory argues that the obstacles to entrepreneurs may be as important as the incentives that governments around the world relentlessly try to bring down today. These governmental bodies and universities should also be identifying obstacles that will generate truly innovative entrepreneurs in their regions instead of thinking only in breaking down barriers and even erroneously encouraging the emergence of new entrepreneurs who contribute nothing to the sustainable development of the world.

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