It’s the last day of July. I carved out a few minutes this morning to put the finishing touches on my July playlist. My favorite new song on the playlist is “I Used To Live In England” by Supermodel* (Spotify | YouTube). It’s a catchy summer bop and the current front runner for my song of the summer.
I, too, used to live in England.
Specifically, London. I completed a mid-career MBA at Bayes Business School. It was just two years ago that I was commuting to Finsbury Square on the Victoria Line (or the Overground) for lectures and meetings with professors and classmates. I was wrapping up my coursework at the end of my program. And I was deep in the weeds of my MBA capstone project, writing a 14,000 word, rigorously researched paper about opportunities for small marketing agencies.
There were two significant reasons why I chose Bayes, with its location in the heart of London for my MBA:
- Cities are where great things are happening in business. The sheer number of people, ideas, and opportunities in a world-class city like London are unparalleled.
- I wanted a different perspective. There is a quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw: “the US and the UK are two nations separated by a common language.” There are many cultural, academic, and professional differences between my American background and what I experienced in London. I wanted that friction. I saw it as healthy. I used it to open up my aperture of the world.
It was that project about marketing agencies, and my MBA experience on the whole, that gave me the push to start my own marketing agency.
I’m off for the weekend. Enjoy the tunes. See you next week.
++ Brett ++