During our last few days in Barcelona, I had a bit of an existential crisis. There were so many new experiences on our trip that it all sort of hit me at once. I was overwhelmed, but I couldn’t really explain what I was feeling. Furthermore, our last presentation was by Maite Malet, a representative for Sphera Healthcare, and I resonated with what she said about her time studying abroad. To give a brief synopsis, when she came back to Spain after a few years in the United States, she noticed her friends doing the same thing, over and over again. They would still go to the same restaurants, buy the same clothes, go to the same clubs, and for the most part it was like she never left. And now that I have had a couple days back in Minneapolis, I completely understand what Maite was talking about at Sphera.

My Experience Went Beyond the Site Visits

While I thought that our abroad experience was fantastic by learning about the different companies and tourist hotspots in Spain, I think it had an even bigger impact on my attitude towards life in general. Specifically, my earlier blog posts and business practices speech was super strict in terms of its tone and content. I mean I go to a business school, so I have a business cut-throat attitude towards any aspect of my life. After experiencing Madrid, Barcelona, and some other historical cities of Spain, it made me more empathetic towards others. There were multiple instances of the “polychromatic” time we researched before the trip, and I was definitely frustrated when it happened. But everything was alright. Sure we lost a couple minutes here and there, but does it really matter at the end of the day?

We’re all humans on the same earth, and it’s so hard to comprehend how small you really are. Relative to my Global Intelligence, I think I grew the most in terms of my self-awareness, empathy, and overall worldview. Additionally, I was fortunate enough to read a book called Meditations by Marcus Aurelius while being immersed in a foreign culture. I’ll leave my final words to a quote from the book:

“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”

 

It’s now been a few days since our flight back to MSP, and I think enough time has passed to give a reasonable review of our trip managed by CIEE. Overall, I really enjoyed the trip and I thought seeing Spain was a fantastic experience. There were a lot of unique companies that were able to visit, and Paco and Ray were great resources for any questions about the cities. However, I would recommend some improvements to make next year’s trip even better.

The CIEE Classroom was Depressing

After talking with some of my peers, I think it’s safe to say that JohnRyan and Recyclia were the low points of the trip. The guest speakers were really nice people, but the content and delivery of their presentations was mediocre. Regardless of the language barrier, it was sad to see so many of my classmates treat the lectures like a scheduled nap time. I’ll be honest, the ‘principles-first’ Spanish style and poor audience interaction even made me lose attention half the time. I didn’t know what the Recyclia representative was talking about until the final 5 minutes. There was only so much the presenters could do, and I think any sort of corporate site visit would be more interactive and fresh for the students. It’s an understatement to say that there was a mutual dread when we walked up those 6 flights of stairs in the morning.

The Corporate Site Visits Could Have Used Improvement, Too

Even beyond the classroom, relative to the rest of the business visits, it seemed like there was a general lack of preparation. For instance, we sat around in the HP Barcelona lobby for a decent 25 minutes before anything happened, and I thought it was a dry presentation on top of that. Tetuan Valley was supposed to be presented by the CEO, and we didn’t even go to Castellet Castle like it said in the pre-departure scheduling. For the logistics and planning of the program, I would recommend venturing out to site visits as much as possible, and communicating with future representatives what has worked and what hasn’t in the past. Again, while Paco and Ray were great guides for herding us around the city, it was obvious that we weren’t as much of a priority to CIEE as originally planned.

The lectures weren’t lies; there was a plethora of cultural differences between Minneapolis and Spain. In particular, I noticed the interactions we had were definitely focused on the relationship aspects between people. We can use Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map as a guide for our abroad experience.

El Corte Inglés Emphasizes Relationship-Building in Its Stores.

During our site visits, I think it was obvious to see this cultural difference between the USA and Spain. We can look to our very first tour over at El Corte Inglés as a prime example. During the Q&A section, the presenters gave more honest and less-scripted insights into how the stores are operated. Just like any retailer, El Corte Inglés has to compete with Amazon, and they offer a full-on experiential visit to any customer. We saw numerous examples on our walk-around, like the Personal Shopper service, the number of friendly, multilingual employees standing next to merchandise, or the tapas restaurant at the top of the store. Conversely, while there are plenty of retail workers willing to help in the American malls, most customers that walk in the door say, “I’m just looking” so that they can shop on their own.

 

The Cultural Differences are Prevalent in Younger Generations.

I also found this cultural aspect of relationship-prioritization prevalent in the activities that our group did with our free time. My teammates and I took a day-trip over to Segovia to see the aqueduct and check out a new city. The bus was full, and I ended up sitting next to a local Spaniard for the trip. In typical American fashion, I plugged in my earbuds and stared at my phone deciding which playlist I wanted to listen to for the next hour. After a minute or two, the guy sitting next to me started talking and we conversed. We talked about normal icebreaker things, and I was able to hear first-hand what he thought about the cultural differences. While this isn’t a direct dimension that Erin Meyer or Hofstede wrote about, David Garcia talked about the superficialness of American relationships when he studied over in California for a semester, just like your lecture back at Carlson. We ended up becoming facebook friends with each other, and David Garcia joined us for a drink after our trip to Toledo on that Monday. David created our relationship out of thin air, and it was nice to talk to someone outside of the Carlson clique while we were abroad.

Some good things do come out of civil war. In Spain’s case, the Barcelona City History Museum (MUHBA for short) is one of them. The museum was inaugurated and opened in 1943 under francoist regime. MUHBA is unique by having multiple heritage sites spread all around the city, and most of them are archaeological ruins of ancient Rome.

I’m Eager to Learn More About Barcelona’s History of Conquest

There’s a rich history of outside influence in modern-day Spain. Most notably, the ever-expanding Roman empire and Moorish conquest still impacts the culture of Spaniards today. While it’s one thing to read about the information at my computer at home, I think it will be a great experience to witness architecture and infrastructure built by fellow humans over 2,000 years ago.

The Barcelona City History Museum Offers an Extensive Tour Throughout the City

There’s an official tour associated with the Barcelona City History Museum, and it gives people the opportunity to walk through Barcelona’s history in a chronological order. The best part is that the tour is spoken in English, so there’s no need to worry about bring a pocket dictionary. It starts underground with surprisingly well-preserved Roman ruins, and continues on to other medieval sites and exhibits. The museum and tour give practical insights as to what daily life was like for citizens throughout history.

There are Multiple Tours Running Throughout the Summer

The normal operating hours of the Museum are Tuesdays to Sundays, 10am – 7pm. It is closed on Monday. It’s also a cheap way to spend the afternoon, as normal tickets to the museum are just €7, and the walking tour is €18 for over 2 hours of exhibits and experiences.

The Museum’s Main Exhibit is Within Walking Distance from Hotel HCC Montblanc

Fortunately, the museum is a mere 500 meters away from our hotel in Barcelona. No transportation would be necessary to get to the site. There is also free admission with the Barcelona Card.

More information can be found at these links:

• Museum details
• What the Barcelona Card is and why it’s beneficial on the trip

Recognized as the founder of Silicon Valley, Hewlett Packard has big plans across the pond, most notably with their presence abroad in Spain. The Fortune 500 company has an extensive portfolio of printing, IT infrastructure, and software services, and its Barcelona office is home to world-class graphic-arts solutions.

New Talent for New Development

The HP Barcelona workforce consists of over 2,000 people. To no surprise, nearly 75% of the employees have Spanish nationality. The rest are mostly European, with 3% of the staff from the United States. Francois Martin, the head marketing director at HP Barcelona, describes the workforce as young and agile. The average age of an employee is 34 years young. With it being the “nerve centre” of printing activities, the office is a hub for research and development.

Hewlett Packard Provides a Diverse Set of Graphic-Arts Solutions

Through the company’s core technology, HP has two specialty printers. The wide-format Scitex series and the large-format DesignJets are widely used for anything printing-related. The products focus on a variety of things such as direct mail, label printing, high-resolution photography, CDs, and DVDs. HP’s worldwide market share was hovering 65% as of 2008. The Barcelona office also offers a Graphics Experience Center. It’s a showroom for prospective clients that can learn about HP’s technology and materials and view unique print jobs. Hopefully our visit will include that tour, as well.

HP Delivers Value to Customers by Continuous Innovation

Printers aren’t immune to normal consumer demands. It’s a competitive market, and customers want low prices and high quality. HP’s print quality has improved by adding diverse colors, more than the standard magenta, cyan, yellow, and black. Furthermore, HP Barcelona is developing and using cutting-edge sensory technology to drastically improve quality and efficiency of its printers. The densitometers allow HP’s products to self-calibrate and automatically adjust ink inputs.

These new technologies keep the firm ahead of the curve and maintain its market share. Even as the world becomes more digitized, Hewlett Packard understands the market trends, and will continue to provide value to its shareholders and customer base for years to come.

Questions for the Site Visit

• How will Brexit impact business for HP here in Barcelona?
• How do you see the future of printing services?
• Who would you say are your biggest competitors?
• What motivates you to come to work every day? What does HP do differently?
• Since the printing industry is dependent on paper, does HP Barcelona incorporate any environmental/green pledges into their business?