Only two days
Some say imagine how bad work is that they have to pay you to do it… But joking aside, the good news is that at times there are things you do at work, and people you meet, that you would anyway, just for the sheer pleasure of it. Shooting this video, and meeting IE Law School Intellectual Property Prof. Pedro Letai, was one of those times.
I don’t know how good a professor he is, but I heard his students love him, and I can also say I thoroughly enjoyed reading his poetry book “The Great Buffalo”. The book is in Spanish, but we’ve translated a couple of poems just to give you a taste. Expect more surprises in the video!
Prof. Letai is also a literary critic, columnist, and novelist. His first novel is coming out any day now. As a matter of fact the day of the shooting he was expecting his editor to send him the first copies, so I’ll keep you posted!
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!!!
Mitsouko
Mitsouko sounds like the kind of name that would belong to a goddess. Actually it’s a perfume created by Jacques Guerlain in 1919 which is still on sale in shops today. But more importantly, it’s also the name of Vincent Doyle’s dog.
When I first contacted IE business media and cultural studies professor Vincent Doyle, he suggested that we center on his dog to illustrate his field of research. He’s concerned about how minorities like immigrants, LGBTs, etc., are treated. Apparently, greyhounds like Mitsouko are their own particular kind of minority among abandoned dogs.
It’s always a pleasure to speak with Prof. Doyle, be it about dogs or anything else …
The Zócalo
The Zócalo is what locals call the main square in Mexico City, although its real name is Plaza de la Constitución (Constitution Square). It wasn’t named after any of the Mexican constitutions that have governed the country, but rather after the Cádiz Constitution signed in Spain in 1812. It came to be known as the Zócalo because plans were made to erect a column there as a monument to independence, but only the base, or zócalo, was ever built.
According to IE Business School Prof. Manuel Bermejo, family businesses form the base of any economy. He tells us that oddly enough most of the big companies we all know are still family businesses.
As IE Law Prof. Justin Swinsick says in the introduction to this video, Prof. Bermejo speaks from experience because he himself was born into a family business. He’s always on the lookout for opportunities to generate value, and he’s one of those people who speaks passionately about what he does, a true champion of family entrepreneurs.
Harmony Busker
If, as some say, they are only two kinds of people in this world, namely realists and dreamers, International Relations Prof. Daniel Kselman would be the quintessential dreamer. Mind you, he’s a dreamer who still believes in sincere and effective political action!!!
He says that as a musical species we are inspired by harmony, by the joining together of individual notes and lines into something that is more graceful and complete. And, as you’ll see, he has no problem busking in his search for harmony!
P.S. Prof. Kselman holds a PhD in political science from Duke University, where he also did a Masters degree in Economics. His research focuses on the consequences of political parties’ organizational structures for a variety of important phenomena, including the incidence of political extremism…
