Patchwork for everyone

Hi all! Today's word is patchwork and therefore I want to present you a new webpage that's shaking the market: La cabaña de troncos.

Their secret: High quality handmade products where you can choose both fabrics and models and make it completely personalized!

You can find them in street markets in Alicante city or through their blog. Have a look and choose between a finished product or a new one. It's up to you!

What do we love to do?

Hi all!  I've been quite busy these past days and the quantity of publications in the blog has decreased, but here I am again!

Yesterday the spanish football league finished and therefore, some teams stay one more year in the first division, some go to european competitions next year and of course, some of them go into the abyss of the silver category.

Happiness and pain, two curious feelings both present in players' and coaches' hearts these days.

I can't imagine these football coaches and players spending all their lives working hard, training everyday, studying strategies, watching matches and so on without a complete devotion to the sports' world.

So, why there's some people that work on what they love and so many people working on what they hate. Why these people complain continously because they dislike their jobs? Why they don't choose any other job?

For sure, we all are good in some fields due to our education and experience.
I've just read in  Expansión.com a really interesting article. One of those articles that make us think twice about our role in the game of life. What do we love to do?
Maybe the answer to this question will lead us to establish a new path in our life and try to work in the same field we're good at, and make our passions our way of life.

A buyer's choice

Crisis, time to change, time to evolve, time to buy a new car. Yep! That's what my father's doing right now, visiting all the car dealers in Alicante region in order to find a suitable car.

And now comes the choice: diesel or gasoline?

Diesel engines costs around 1200 € more than their equivalent in gasoline, so the question is, how many kilometers should I do till I cover the investment?

If you want to know it: it's around 40.000 km. So diesel is the best choice if you want to save money on fuel. On the other hand, repairs are more expensive on diesel engines than in gasoline ones. But anyway, you'll be saving much more money on fuel than on repairs, God willing.

Repsol YPF - The final solution

Yesterday, April 16th, the president of Argentina announced the expropiation of Repsol oil subsidiary YPF, with a estimated value of 8,000 million Euro.

The spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has developed a new plan to force Argentina's government to come back to the dialogue table.

As far as I can see, that's the best solution to the YPF crisis.

Inert matter, living matter and intelligent matter

Matter, as the Oxford English Dictionary says, is a physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit. We can separate the matter in three different kinds: inert matter, living matter and intelligent matter.

What's the significant difference between living matter and intelligent matter? Maybe there's just a slight difference. Maybe some of the animals and plants we see as just living matter are also intelligent. Maybe viruses and bacterias are intelligent. And maybe not everybody is intelligent.

The General Strike (2012) by P. Almodóvar

7 years ago I was given a collection of  9 silent films as a birthday present. One of them is called "Stachka" (trans. Strike) and was made 87 years ago, in 1925,  by Sergei M. Eisenstein.

The film shows a strike in a russian factory in 1903 and their fatale end.

I ask myself if any spanish film director is planning to make a new film about the spanish general strike of 2012...

Can you imagine Mr. Toxo and Mr. Méndez in an Almodóvar film?

A world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

At the end of the WWI, Europe was plunged into a wave of pesimism and a faith crisis. By that time, a new cultural and intelectual movement had resurged: the regenerating humanism.
Nowadays, I feel the same. We, almost one century after the WWI, feel the same. We see a world of greed, a world with lack of humanism. And without humanism, mankind will be lost.

The following words came from the film The Great Dictator, from the final speech.

"Greed has poisoned men's souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge as made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. [...]

[...] Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness."

...A world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Nice words. =)

Here comes the sun

There's been 22 days since my last post in the blog. Springtime holidays, as I like to call it. A time to breath deep, put the ideas in order and start with a new mood the next season.
Unfortunatly for me, but fortunatly for the blog, I'm back, sat down on my chair and  starting to write again.

Enjoy the spring time!

Size and productivity

I want to share with you this interesting graph about regulations in employment market and the disadvantages it carries when talking about productivity and economies of scale.
How can we be more productive while dealing with national regulations regarding to company's size?

Why are Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain in trouble? Well, as you can see, there are some reasons appart from public debt. The atomisation of the market in these countries is literally killing them.
In the third graph we can see that the added value per employee is twice in big companies than in small ones.
This is not just due to economies of scale, but to the whole system.
As you can see, the regulation in France, as it happens in other countries, makes specially difficult to have companies with more than 50 employees. This fact, joined to the structural atomisation of PIGS's market, makes almost imposible to an average company to compete and paints in dark Europe's future.

The new 'Beer Gates'

I was reading today's newspaper and... what a surprise! My friend Eduardo Sacristán leads the cover page of Diario Información and therefore, I cannot do less than write this small article in order to let you know what he has done.

Eduardo Sacristán started his own beer company (Cerveza Artesana Sacristán) a few months ago and now it's a complete success! As Google founders' Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Sacristán started his company in a family garage where he produces monthly 900 liters of premium high quality beer 'Amber Ale'.

Hard to believe, but true. I had the opportunity of tasting the beer months ago, when it was just an idea and If I were asked to put money to support the excentric idea of founding a new beer company I would have said 'no' but fortunatly someone did.

Congratulations, my friend!

Living in America

Ellis Island, 1909.

As you probably remember, The Godfather II starts with the early day of young Vito Corleone in Sicily and his move to America. It was the year 1909 and like him, thousands of Europeans moved to the United States of America seeking for the american dream.

The American Dream, as they like to call it, is the reflection of a capitalist society, where everybody, no matter where you come from, can become rich. But the dream is over. We are now in the XXI century and as it happened in all the previous changes of century, the leading empire declines and a new one arises. It's time for China.

How long are they going to try to sell us the idea of the American Dream? Shall we start to think about the Chinese dream?

The Urban Proletarian of XXI century

Charles Dickens was a fierce and devoted critic of poverty, unregulated market speculation, inefficient institutional apparatus and social stratification of English Victorian society. But Charles Dickens lived in the 19th century and now we are in the 21st century. How many things have changed?

During the last years I saw the birth of a new class of workers in the Spanish society of  21st century. Some of the characteristics of this new age of urban workers are the following:

Urban proletarians:

They are well educated young professionals, squeezed by companies and qualified as A+, 1+ or outstanding, as a way to offer a promising future in the company and make them work more hours.

They live in single rooms rented for around 400 € in the biggest industrialized cities.

The follow the same routine from monday to friday: home - job- home. There's no time for anything else.

Weekend wasters:

Saturdays is time to go to the supermarket, and Sundays is time to tide the room and have a rest.

Some weekends, they take the car and drive 200 km to see their families. On Sunday they come back.

In the nights, they drink and go out, looking at alcohol as a cheap way to turn off penalties and forget a horrible week.

Proletarians 2.0:

They have no time for friends during the week, but have more than 500 friends, contacts or follwers in social media.

They are 2.0 proletarians, they have no social life but all of them have a Tablet and a smartphone.

They don't watch TV, but follow twitter news and other RSS.

They don't go to the cinema, but watch film premieres through the internet.

Dressing code and stratification:

Stratification and clasicism through the dressing code: Blue collars and white collars.

The tie is business men's handcuff as foremen with wips were for roman slaves.

Money & Life conciliation:

No one is waiting for them at home. The sleep alone.

They don't enjoy the life, although they earn good money

The most desirable value is freetime, but companies give money instead of holidays.


Maybe you see yourself indentified with some of them. Maybe it's time to think about what's really important and change.

How to write, by David Ogilvy

I've just read Sincrono and found a curious 'how to' from David Ogilvy. You can follow the link back to read it in Spanish or keep on reading this post.

What you're going to read is an extract of a memo entitled 'How to write', written by David Ogilvy and sent to his employees on september 1982.

(Source: The Unpublished David Ogilvy: A Selection of His Writings from the Files of His Partners; Image: David Ogilvy, via Ogilvy & Mather.)

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well.

Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.

Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing*. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning—and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10. If you want ACTION, don't write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

David

World's exponential growth

Probably the most interesting video I've seen this month and by far this week is just about the arithmetic of Ln2.
I know it sounds a little bit boring, but maths, applied with common sense and in the right way changes a simple figure into reliable data and predictions to the future.

The correct use of Ln2 provides the user the ability to predict when a figure is going to double if it grows with a constant rate, let's say e.g. 5% per year.

The arithmetic is very simple: nº years = (Ln2)/(5%) = (100*Ln2)/5 = 14 years

You can do the arithmetic in your mind easily due to 100*Ln2 = 70. Also 70/5 = 14

That means that a figure that grows 5% per year would double in 14 years.
If the growth is 7% a year, it would double in 10 years. (nº = 70/7 = 10)
If the growth rate is 10% it would double in 7 years and so on.

So, why is this so important? Let's see what's going to happen in the World in the next years.

GDP Growth rate

China and India's GDP grow at a rate of 10% per year and Brazil's GDP at a rate of 7.5%. Germany's GDP growth rate just at a rate of 3.5%.
That means, and figures and arithmetic don't lie, that China and India will double their GDP, and therefore the market value of all final goods and services produced in that countries, just in 7 years: 2019!
Brazil in 10 years: 2022! And Germany, which growth rate is the biggest in EU, at a constant rate of growth, will double in 20 years: 2032.

Population Growth rate

That's another important figure for The Earth's future. In the 80's the World growth rate was 1.9% per year (we were 5,000 million people in the World). Now we are 7,000 million people (40% more just in 25 years) and our growth rate is 1.1% per year. That means that aproximately in 2080 we'll be 14,000 million people. I know that's imposible cause there aren't enough resources for everyone so something is going to happen before 2080.



Maybe it's the WWIII, maybe is just an illness like the Black Death or the Great Famine (killing more than 300 million people in 14th century).

Fortunatly, the biggest and advanced countries in the world are reducing their birth rate and converging to small families with 1 to 2 children per woman, which will ensure the equilibrium between people and resources.

Unfortunatly, there are still some countries with more than 2 children per woman (which are experimenting the highest population and growth rates), and that tradicionally had health problems and high mortality but now, due to health care systems and medicines, the mortality rate is improving sometimes faster than we're changing those people minds about having small families.



Ahmadineyad stick his finger in our eyes (again)

Yesterday, Iran's president Mahmud Ahmadineyad jeopardized world's economy by spreading the rumour of reducing Iran's fuel exports. Although the rumour was finally not true (just included a few more clauses like not to use force majeure is case of contract termination), the government of Iran shows its claws again and make the energy problem a headline in today's news.

Can we support a world based on fuel when fuel is held by those countries?

Shall we hurry up to change into green energies?

What's going to happen when the new Arab Spring runs to South Middle East and the Arab countries: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, ...?

Hopefully, Saudi Arabia's king Abdullah Al Saud is still young (just 87 years old) and his son Mutaib Al Saud (59 years old) ensure the continuity of Arab-Western relations for a long time. =)

The times they are a changin'

Don't know why, but cannot keep out of mind Bob Dylan's song The times they are a changin' . Maybe that's because we're living a new age of changes: Arab Spring, China's world leadership, end of the capitalism as we know it, ...  "Not a age of changes but a change of age" as Juan Carlos Cubeiro says in his blog: Hablemos de Talento (Let's talk about Talent, only in Spanish).

Enjoy the song.

And here I go again...

And here I go again, preparing my next trip to Spain. Hopefully, with a better professional horizon than when I left. But, who knows?

Nerver surrender, never retreat. Just keep walking, keep moving forward. 

Be Happy. Be Audacious

Two days ago, I was in the train from Cologne to Hannover and I read the following words in the HBR magazine:

Now is the time for audacity, not austerity.

It's curious to read these words from a HBR editor, but Scott Berinato pointed out the key point for those who watch these days the news: Should Europe focus more on promoting innovation and employment or keep on with deficit's corrective measures?

I know it's a difficult question but making the wrong decision could change the future of the European Union as a whole, and therefore, the future of those who live under the 12 golden stars' flag.
What's going to happen? What are Europe's goals for the next few months? And for the next 5 years?

Looks like we cannot link our professional future to those decisions related to european and national policies, so what can we do?
"Be Happy. Be Audacious" are the words from Adi Ignatious, HBR's Editor in Chief. (HBR, Jan-Feb 2012), and probably reflects perfectly the philosophy of this Blog.
I'm not sure if "audacious" is the right word but under the economical perspectives of these times we're living, we should look back and read the Eneida, from Virgilius (70 b.C - 19 a.C), and its wonderful statement:

Audentes fortuna iuvat. (Fortune favours the bold) 

Good luck!

Spain's Cultural problem

One of the biggest problems of Spanish economy is employees' mediocre mindset.

Against the thought of some experts, the problem isn't just the Crisis, in which I include all the 'small' crisis we have at the same time: real state crisis, the public debt crisis, the financial crisis or the labour market crisis, but people's behaviour under some extreme circumstances.

Since 35 years ago, Spain's been a modern and democratic country, where all the society moved to become equal in rights and duties. But for the past few years, Spain has lost the spirit to improve and learn. From school to the job market, through high school and university, Spanish people join the mass, feeling safe in the knowledge that behaving like the others, you become part of them and noone is better than other. We've been waving the flag of democracy and equity, but forgeting that being equal is not a result, but a starting point to grow and become better and why not, set differences between people.
Now is time to change our minds and support these young people with willingness to improve and learn, instead of laughing at them if they try to speak better english or get better marks in maths. 'Nerds' are not anymore 'Nerds'. They are well educated people with knowledge and capacity to be better day by day. 'Nerds' are the future and present of a society that has been for too much time leaving them out.

Fight Always for what you want - Even under water

Source: google.com via Chris on Pinterest

History of world's GDP

Interesting graph published by The Economist.

It shows the percentage of all the goods and services (what economists' call GDP) produced in history that was produced in each of the 21 centuries.

Interesting to note that 55% of history's GDP was produced in the XXth century. But perhaps more interestingly, 23% of the goods and services produced through history were produced during the LAST 10 YEARS!!!

Finally, it is also interesting that 28% of the person-years lived through history were lived in the XXth century (reflecting both the increase in population and the increase in life expectancy) and only 6% of years lived were lived in the last 10 years. Of course the implication is that the income earned by the average person has increased exponentially. Another example that our economic system is not as bad as many want us to believe!



Text directly quoted from: Xavier Sala i Martin, http://salaimartin.com/random-thoughts/item/205-history-of-worlds-gdp.html

How to become US Vicepresident

A few days ago I read an article written by Al Gore. The article's content doesn't  matters, what it really matters is the picture that follow the article. In the picture (that I post here) we can see Al Gore's Office in his home in Nashville, TN (Time Magazine).

Look at it!  Al's Office is a mess! With tons and tons of papers here and there.

It looks like your room, probably.  It looks like my home office!

So don't worry about how is your office, you can succeed in life even with a mess all over the table.

Have a nice day.    

Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development (FIELD)

In these times of global recesion and lack of employment, creative minds should take the initiative and move on self-employment.

 

If you are a Tiger and you feel that now, in your city, region or country you feel you cannot give your best, probably it's time to think twice about self-employment.

 

Just have a look on what Harvard Business School is including in their MBA programme:

 

“Learning by doing” will become the norm, if a radical overhaul of the MBA curriculum succeeds."

"The 900 students arriving in Boston this summer for their two-year course were told they would be guinea pigs. The new practical addition to HBS’s curriculum is known as “FIELD” (Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development)"

"...students will be given eight weeks, and seed money of $3,000 each, to launch a small company. The most successful, as voted by their fellow students, will get more funding. "

via economist.com

8 weeks and 3,000 $... Can you do the same with 3,000 € in your city?

If you feel now like a tiger in jail, with no future in your actual brand or if you're unemployed, think about it.

Entrepreneurship as a need

The time is over: XX century managers have shown themselves they aren't up to date to the new century. The last few years are the prove they cannot adapt themselves and their organisations to the new business model and therefore, create jobs and be competitive with emerging economies.

We, as young and well-prepared professionals, have the need to become entrepreneurs and stop waiting for an employment position in a brand.

What are you going to do?

The Year of the Dragon

Wherever you live, probably you can see there are hundreds of chinese people preparing themselves for the new year: The Year of The Dragon.

Chinese mandataries look at this year with hope and fear at the same time. As World's number one exporters, they fear the recesion in the tradicional buyer, which probably leads to a reduce in chinese production and increase of unemployment rates. Furthermore, the real state prices in China have decreased in 52 of 70 main cities and the new home prices in the nation’s four major cities of Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen have declined for a third month. Looks like Spain in 2008-2009!

But Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Primer Minister Wen Jiabao aren't worried about that. They hope that the Year of the Dragon it's going to be the year of Chinese World's leadership: Presidential Elections in USA and debt and political crisis in Europe have prepared the field for Chinese new year in World Leadership.

Should we start to learn Chinese?

Religion Inc.

I know that in these times of recesion and crisis, people need support and comprehension. We need help and guidance. I don't know how is the actual Church helping in these matters but what I know is that there are a huge amount of people that are atheist and don't believe in Church's doctrine so they don't have the way to get these benefits. Is there a way for these people to get it?

I think that in these days of need and 2.0 technologies, there is a posibility to combine these two topics and create a new religion but without the doctrines of common religions. Just with moral rules and guidance to improve and have a better life. All of it mixed with a touch of 2.0 tech.
Can we make it maybe with a daily Tweet?  Please, comment.

Innova vel mortuus est

"Renew or died" is a maxim for all companies these days, no matter what's your business.

As part of my lecture about Competitive Innovation, I carried out a research through the Oxford English Dictionay about the real meaning of Competitive Innovation. 

" Innova vel mortuus est "

 

Competitive Innovation:  to make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products in order to become as good as or better than others of a comparable nature (our competitors).

Innovation from Latin innovatio(n-), from the verb innovare

noun

[mass noun] the action or process of innovating:

innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any organization

Innovate (in¦nov|ate)

verb  

make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products:

the company’s failure to diversify and innovate competitively

competitive (com|peti¦tive)

adjective

As good as or better than others of a comparable nature:

a car industry competitive with any in the world



How is german fiscal health? Good question, indeed.

Just read Xavier Sala i Martin Tabú question: How is german fiscal heath? Good question, indeed.

Here you can read the whole article.

"La pregunta Tabú en Europa, la que nadie se hace por miedo a que le den una respuesta es: ¿cómo está la salud fiscal de Alemania? Todo el mundo da por hecho de que Alemania es el garante último de todas las deudas de Europa y que su AAA está garantizada para siempre. Los mercados siguen pensando que Alemania es el país más seguro y sacan su dinero de los países periféricos (Grecia, Italia, España, Portugal e Irlanda) para invertirlo en Bunds alemanes com un rendimiento minúsculo de menos del 2%. 

Pero la deuda alemana como fracción del PIB supera el 80% (en este sentido es MUY superior a la española, que no llega al 70%!) y todo indica que ese nivel de deuda va a empeorar, y mucho, en un futuro no muy lejano por la gran cantidad de compromisos explícitos e implícitos que Alemania ha hecho o se va a ver obligada a hacer.

Primero, la recesión económica que vive la periferia de Europa ya ha llegado al norte. Hasta ahora, Alemania se ha salvado de la crisis pero la cosa está empezando a cambiar. A medida que Alemania se hunde en su propia recesión, sus cuentas públicas se van a deteriorar porque sus ingresos fiscales van a caer y sus gastos por desempleo van a aumentar. Esperemos que Merkel no cometa el error de intentar solucionar su crisis con políticas keynesianas de demanda ya que eso solo empeoraría la situación, cosa que pueden atestiguar hoy sus amigos españoles (si es que los tiene).

Segundo, la población alemana está envejeciendo rápidamente y los babyboomers ya están a punto de jubilarse. El impacto fiscal de ese tsunami demográfico es gigantesco no sólo por las pensiones que van a cobrar sino por el gasto sanitario que una población tan anciana va a representar. A pesar de que Alemania exige reformas de pensiones y recortes en la sanidad de los países periféricos, no hay indicios de que ellos estén introduciendo esas reformas o practicando esos recortes.

Tercero, Alemania ya ha comprometido varios cientos de miles de millones de euros al fondo de rescate de Grecia, Irlanda y Portugal (unos 400.000 millones de momento entre todos los países del Centro). 

Cuarto, a medida que la crisis se expande a países más grandes como Italia y España, las necesidades de dinero público alemán aumentan. Grecia necesita unos 200.000 millones. Italia y España necesitan 1,4 BILLONES de euros para financiarse SOLO EN LOS PROXIMOS TRES AÑOS!

Quinto, pero la crisis no se expande solamente a Italia y España. Es un secreto a voces que Francia está a punto de perder su status de AAA y lo mismo pasa con Bélgica. Las primas de riesgo de esos países empieza a dispararse. Eso quiere decir dos cosas. La primera es que esos países están dejando de ser países del Centro (con capacidad de garantizar y financiar la deuda de los de la perder). El Centro se queda cada vez más pequeño. La segunda es que al dejar de ser países del Centro pasan a ser de la periferia. Es decir, no sólo no aportan dinero y garantías a los fondos de rescate sino que pasan a necesitar dinero y garantías. A medida que el Centro pierde países miembros y la periferia los gana, nos acercamos a un mundo en el que sólo hay un país que paga: ¡Alemania! No hace falta decir que esa situación generará un agujero fiscal en Alemania de dimensiones cósmicas.

Y sexto, todo apunta que la solución que se está gestando durante estas últimas horas en Europa es la expansión del fondo de Rescate (EFSF) con dinero de verdad (no con apalancamiento, que es lo que burdamente intentaron los líderes europeos en su último conejo de la chistera). Ese dinero vendrá de Estados Unidos, del FMI, de Alemania, de los BRICS y, sobre todo, del Banco Central Europeo (BCE). Parece que se va a llegar a una cifra de 600.000 millones para España e Italia, lo que permitirá dar un respiro de un año y medio (no se llegará a los 1,4 billones que se necesitan para un programa estable de 3 años). El problema es que, como no hay garantía de que Italia y España vayan a hacer los deberes (de hecho, nadie sabe exactamente cuales son las propuestas de Rajoy o cual va a ser su equipo económico), existe la posibilidad de que ambos países no sean “solventes pero sin liquidez” sino que sean “insolventes”. Si son insolventes, el BCE se quedará con una cartera de bonos basura que puede acabar llevándole a su propia quiebra. Si el BCE quiebra, alguien va a tener que recapitalizarlo. ¿Quien? Lo han adivinado: ¡Alemania!

Resumiendo, los compromisos fiscales de Alemania para los próximos años son enormes. Tan enormes que parece mentira que nadie en Europa se haga la pregunta tabú."

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/fah7k1

Happy new year

During last month I ate, walked, travelled, enjoyed and slept hours and hours - truly holiday time with the family -. But after these weeks of inactivity. I come back with more opinions and articles, comments and interesting facts of daily life.

As a small sum up, that is what happened in the world:

USA |  Mitt Romney has beaten his Republican rivals and looks to be the new candidate to be President of United States. He's charming and a political animal with more than 25 years of experience in management consultancy companies, making them more efficient and making a lot of money.

Europe | 2011 Germany data: 3% of growth and around 6% of unemployment. For sure the best place to find a job in Europe. We'll post about this topic in the following days!

Innovation | Next Thursday 19th January will take place in Göttingen (Lower Saxony, Germany) the Innovation Day. Highly recommendable!