Frontenis
Operations Management Prof. Felipe Quintana is one of those rare people who love frontenis. I say rare because being a tennis player myself, it’s hard for me to understand how anyone can like frontenis!!! Even more so when the person in question has been a tennis champion, as Prof. Quintana has… Well, he just says that he loves being able to smash the ball the way they do in frontenis!!!
Prof. Quintana is an industrial engineer with extensive corporate experience. He has worked for overseas companies such as LVMH and Robert Bosch and is currently working for Aguas Minerelas de Firgas (leader in the mineral water and soft drink sector in the Canary Islands).
Here Prof. Quintana draws some interesting comparisons between lean operations and frontenis. I can’t help saying that I would’ve preferred him to play tennis…! In any case, I have to admit that it’s great to watch him really smashing the ball with his racquet!!
Celebration
IE Business School operations professor Luis Miravitlles is one of those people who gives off instant good vibes. Although he didn’t actually say it, I can picture him going around saying “So far, so good…!”, because he believes that just the fact that we’re alive means we have a lot be happy about.
In this video entitled “Celebration” he tells us a nice personal story centered around famous architect Antonio Gaudi. Apart from all that, Prof. Miravitlles is a consultant, a regular article contributor, and, more interestingly, a ghost writer…No, he didn´t tell me who for…Sorry!!!
Toledo: a city of three cultures
Operations and finance professor Alber Sabanoglu Segura comes from Turkey, and he is also a Sephardic Jew. Hence we decided that there was no better place to shoot this video than the ancient Jewish quarter in Toledo. When the Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, they headed for many different countries, and his family ended up in Turkey.
What this basically means is that Prof. Sabanoglu Segura is a true world citizen. He was born in Turkey, lived in the States for a while, and now lives in Madrid. He is fluent in many languages, including Ladino, the old Spanish spoken by Sephardic Jews.
Moreover, he is a critic and writer of short stories, not to mention the fact that he also sings in a group. I hope you enjoy his video, if only because he was such good company while we were shooting it!!!
Citizen Neringa
When I first talked with Qualitative Methods Professor Neringa Kalpokaite about shooting a video for the other side series, she explained how she uses qualitative methods to evaluate quantitative surveys. Hence it seemed natural to talk about politics and the way we vote.
For my part, once again I found myself drawing on the Orson Wells –Joseph Cotten partnership for inspiration, not only because they did such great things together, but also because Joseph Cotten happened to be married to one of my grandmother’s cousins, Patricia Medina, an actress too. That’s why it seemed so fitting to have Citizen Kane as a mental backdrop for this video. Shouldn’t we all try to be good citizens? You have to agree that if we were all conscientious citizens we would be much better off…
Professor Kalpokaite studied politics and has developed a model for regime transitions based on the Spanish transition from dictatorship to democracy. She is young, knowledgeable. and most of all good company.
Spelunking
Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems, while speleology is the scientific study of caves and the cave environment.
Well, spelunking is what we did with Operations Management Professor Fabrizio Salvador, exploring the Valporcuero Caves in Leon, Spain. He says that nobody would like to live a life where everything is known beforehand. Uncertainty allows us to learn and opens up opportunities. It can even be fun – if managed properly!
I fairly battled my way through the cave while Prof. Salvador used the experience to blithely offer a great explanation of how the job of operations management is to specify how we go from A to B with the resources at hand.
I have to confess that the filming of this video, although very interesting, was goddamn tough!! Jumping, diving, rappelling, climbing etc., while filming and trying to make sense of everything… It was all I could do to keep myself from slipping down some rocky slope!!!
P.S: If you want to experience spelunking, try naturocio.
