tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:58:06 +0000http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/noreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)Blogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-4684060030718869474Wed, 28 May 2008 03:03:00 +00002008-05-27T23:17:27.075-04:00Another 9 months without blogging here - taking care of the new wonderful addition to the family, sending pictures and clips to the family and friends. I just decided to start playing with Twitter on which I opened an account a while back : 387 days ago apparently after an afternoon in Bondi Beach - it feels like another life! I'll probably use that more than the blog to just share some links/http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2008/05/back-in-blog.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-3643958740266906973Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:37:00 +00002007-08-13T01:42:18.106-04:00A quickie from the not-so-quiet (driling, fire alarms) "quiet lounge" in Dubai airport on my way back to Sydney, just before boarding. I have spent a great two weeks in Europe working from the London office and then spending one week in Oléron with the family (amazingly with enough wind to windsurf most days). I always like to blog from airports, don't know why. I have loads to tell but a planehttp://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/08/dubai-dubai.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-2551556237972168073Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:18:00 +00002007-07-24T10:32:33.166-04:00"One year..." I have been telling me this a few times over the last couple of weeks. One year since graduation. One year since all the good stuff that happened around graduation (desorientation, capstone class, summer ball...) And today it's been one year since I joined American Express. I don't want to sound nostalgic but these 2 years at London Business School and UCLA were clearly good http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/07/one-year.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-9183438080478617461Wed, 23 May 2007 12:00:00 +00002007-05-23T02:43:17.698-04:00I just spotted this new "badge" on the Apple website a few days ago: "A Greener Apple". For once, it isn't about a new product but more about old ones. The page being linked to is a memo from Steve Jobs in response to allegations that Apple doesn't do its fair share to be eco-responsible: Apple has been criticized by some environmental organizations for not being a leader in removing toxic http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/05/steve-jobss-granny.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-6141339408279116618Fri, 04 May 2007 02:23:00 +00002007-05-03T22:29:53.787-04:00 May The 4th Be With You! I just received this joke by email. Hilarious it is, and resisting I couldn't.http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/05/may-4th-be-with-you.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-4164145492288829486Sun, 22 Apr 2007 16:33:00 +00002007-04-22T12:41:38.334-04:00While waiting for the first estimates of the first round of the French presidential election, I found this fascinating article by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes on the BBC website about Russian billionaires suburbs. Pot-pourri of the best parts: Ever since I arrived in Russia I've heard tall stories of a secret city deep in the forests outside Moscow where the rich indulge their fantasies in sprawling http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/04/live-from-zillion-city-russia.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-3000599191126440631Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:56:00 +00002007-04-10T10:36:36.870-04:00"Mr Robot, give me a job". That's what you'll need to sing using the air of "Mr. Sandman" to get a job at Google and other large companies pretty soon. I found this article published in January in the New York Time burried deep in my Factiva feeds by cleaning up this week-end: Google Answer To Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm! In short: Have you ever made a profit from a catering business or dog http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/04/mr-robot-give-me-job.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-3603168093565497391Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:33:00 +00002007-04-02T10:43:05.993-04:00Well, my last post was about Lovemarks. Let's go on with a bit more on Saatchi's CEO, Kevin Roberts - not that I'm looking at a job there... Interesting post on Mr. Roberts' blog about a speach he gave at a Youth Marketing event. The "10 things [he] said about the future young people are creating" make for an interesting view of a quite entrepreneurial tomorrow, including: 6. The future is http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/04/future-velocity-is-new-black.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-8127072699436348060Mon, 02 Apr 2007 14:10:00 +00002007-04-02T10:29:41.217-04:00I was visiting Lovemarks,Saatchi & Saatchi's CEO pet project, sometime last week and noticed Blogger wasn't on there. Even though I sometimes write bad things about Google on this blog, I would find the Internet pretty much useless without Blogger and Gmail! So I nominated the big orange rounded-corner square with the odd 'B'... ... and my entry has even been picked up in the Lovemarks Top-5 andhttp://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/04/thats-official-i-love-blogger.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-3712324816601117217Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:09:00 +00002007-03-30T08:19:30.664-04:00One of the best classes I took at London Business School was Brand Management with Mark Ritson whom I mentioned a couple of times in this blog (here, here and wow! here). One of the things Mark tells his class which amused me and is so true is that the best exercise in branding is the blue curtain that separates the first class from the rest of the cabine on an airplane. Mark's theory is that http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/03/blue-curtain.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-6329671087936004119Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:26:00 +00002007-03-20T08:04:47.105-04:00In case you care about the French language, aujourd'hui c'est la 12ème Journée de la Francophonie (12th Day of the Franch Language). So you might want to check what's hapenning near you - maybe some wine and cheese tasting? ;) I had planned to go to see a French movie to celebrate, taking advantage of the French Film Festival here is Sydney but unfortunately, Raquel wasn't feeling well... http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/03/france-uk-importexport.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-5834247754784744859Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:50:00 +00002007-03-30T09:09:53.036-04:00Interesting article yesterday from the FT Online stating that "Wall Street seems to be losing patience with how long Google 2.0 is taking to build – and how expensive the project is turning out to be." My suggestion? It's time to rush some services out of Beta and into 2.0 mode, ready with juicy cash-flows. I'd guess Gmail makes for a decent share of Adsense eyeballs and still... it's in beta http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/03/google-time-for-beta-to-20.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-3449415769870121856Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:22:00 +00002007-03-18T09:29:52.651-04:00I have finally found some time this week end to put together all the things I had been preparing (layout, pictures, some posts) with the help of Raquel and as a result... TADA! inOZ has now been officially launched! And so you can follow our (small) adventures and life in Sydney... with pictures!* * courtesy of Google - I was always reluctant to do so but I have installed Picasa for the http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/03/in-oz-our-adventures-in-australia.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-563428915917196243Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:26:00 +00002007-03-15T10:14:59.388-04:00 Unlike Virgil Starkwell, the main character of Woody Allen's flick "Take the Money and Run", I think some entrepreneurs got away with a lot. Namely, YouTube's founders. According to Business Week (see p.2): YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen received more than $300 million each in Google stock when their company was acquired. Nifty. Isn't it? At that time Google execs decided http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/03/take-money-and-run.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-1476447399774535876Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:52:00 +00002007-02-09T04:50:31.083-05:00In between two beach visits, Raquel and I managed to see Dreamgirls at the cinema downstairs. Or to be true, I let her convince me that since it had some Oscar nominations, it should be worth a try. Some parts of the dialogs are actually songs so I thought “hey, that’d make quite a nice musical”. And the end credits revealed it is based on a musical so it all makes sense – yep, sorry, I missed http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/02/dreamgiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirlz.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-4169580481045617524Fri, 09 Feb 2007 09:42:00 +00002007-02-09T04:49:05.764-05:00Nope, this post isn’t about me babbling on Mark Wahlberg and its Amex Centurion – I have no access to customer information or that kind of gossip at Amex anyway. By the way, I saw one of his last movies (Invicible) on the plane between Heathrow and Bangkok… and it was not too bad, even a tad inspirational. Back to the topic today: I have come across a recent article by Marketing bad boy Mark http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/02/marky-mark-and-black-card.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-7906764524587393509Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:43:00 +00002007-02-08T08:00:00.654-05:00Well, I guess that a 5-month silence is more than enough to declare a blog legally dead. Yet, I'm back. So, as with good friends whom you haven't seen in a while, let's catch up as if only a few days had gone by. Starting with the highlights of the post-MBA life since my last post in August - in no particular order: Seeing CEO Ken Chenault and then spending 1 hour with CMO John Hayes on the http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2007/02/five-months-after.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115706367138831618Thu, 31 Aug 2006 21:29:00 +00002006-08-31T18:35:23.363-04:00The marketing department (of which I am at Amex ICSS Europe) had its FUN DAY today, which means we headed to the countryside for a winery/vineyard visit and wine tasting this afternoon. Back in town, I changed into my super crazy marketer outfit in a phone boot (yes, marketing has its super-hero, ready to save fresh MBAs from selling their souls to Finance powerhouses). In a Paul Smith suit / http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/08/schmoozing-day.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115706263375162157Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:16:00 +00002006-08-31T18:17:13.753-04:00Just saw the first episode of what is announced as the second US season of The Beauty and The Geek on E4. It’s so funny that I had to post a few words about it. The show is about matching prom queens with 160+ IQ lab rats for various activities and possibly flirting/kissing/fighting/crying, all with the best intentions in mind (i.e. keep us watching the show, well and perhaps inner-beauty / http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/08/of-geeks-and-tv.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115706274137474078Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:18:00 +00002006-08-31T18:19:01.376-04:00Raquel and I headed to Twickenham this Tuesday for the 2nd Rolling Stones date in London. I got half-price tickets through Amex which is the official partner of their Bigger Bang tour and we had a great time, especially as we had good seats midway between the main stage and the central stage (the one the Stoned use to perform a few old songs midway through the show). That’s been the third time wehttp://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/08/twickenham-honky-tonk.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115706250373570133Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:14:00 +00002006-08-31T18:17:42.426-04:00One of the necessary perks of working with a multinational company – or any company in fact – is a nice laptop. Two hours after joining just one month ago, I was assigned the ultimate executive PC: a brand new IBM Thinkpad. And funnily, while I found the Thinkpads ugly a few years back and would have put them at the bottom of my list (I am a VAIO guy), I proudly confess that I find my T43 is a http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/08/love-my-thinkpad.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115633889618264564Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:04:00 +00002006-08-23T09:19:13.813-04:00Having a (great!) regular job is keeping me away of the web and blogosphere both as a reader and a blogger (which is maybe a good thing) but I still have time to read my fav blogs and I have to share this great post by Paul Kedrosky with you. Paul is spot-on on the Web2.0 bubble. Building companies for a supposedly fast-growing market without significant numbers of people getting stupidly http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/08/spot-on-20.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115547070757312281Sun, 13 Aug 2006 12:01:00 +00002006-08-13T08:53:51.573-04:00 Whoa. I finally take the time to blog. Not that so much has happened in the past two weeks but enough though to keep me away from my laptop at home. Or should I say, NEW home as we have now moved to our place for the next 6 months south of Victoria Station and a 10-min walk from the office. That makes us resident of the Pimlico area which is a quite French area a bit like in “Passport to http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/08/passport-to-pimlico.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115444185448242371Tue, 01 Aug 2006 14:15:00 +00002006-08-01T10:17:44.370-04:00I was interviewed by Clare Davidson from BBC News a few weeks ago about the reasons why so many among French youth come settle in London. Well, Clare didn't end up quoting my most insightful remarks but that's life. While I don’t remember saying "The best brains in France end up working for the state", I say so many stupid things that I trust her, I must have said that. :) The meaning here is http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/08/french-who-misses-his-cheese.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12730377.post-115381236790001720Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:15:00 +00002006-07-25T16:01:28.240-04:00Quick note before I leave for Day 2 about the highlights of yesterday. I met a lot of great people, including my "superiors", a fellow London Business School MBA2006 graduate and two girls who are pioneering the Marketing Rotation Program at Amex like me, including a Wharton MBA graduate who has the same rotation schedule. Of course, a great part of the day was dedicated to administrative http://www.aroundthedot.com/mood/2006/07/perfect-day-1-at-amex.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Guillaume)