Blog
17 april 2010, a glorious, glorious day
The sun just makes everything better - and today is marvellous. Been in buxton. Left my other half working on her photographs and took kids first on some errands (with a match attax album solving so many problems) and then a glorious drive through the peaks to its capital, and then long hours lolling around one of our favourite parks, replete with miniature train, adventure playground, trampolines, decent cafe, endless paths to bike on and lashings and lashings of glorious sunshine. Manchester united pipped city in the last seconds to breath life into a very exciting title race, and - the double whammy - motivate tottenham who are beating chelsea as I write. When I turn on my phone, it reads "head for the sun", designed to make me feel a little guilty about living in the grey and never forget the wonders brightness brings...
14 april 2010, what part of "never" don't I understand ?
With a majority conservative government still the most likely outcome of the british general election next month, their manifesto is worth a second look on europe. On the euro it seems clear: the party will "never take the UK into the euro". I'll be asking ken clarke about that next week. Manifesto commitments though come and go, not least with milton keynes' dictum, "when the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? ...". It bears out a consistent vision of staying in the eu, but one that looks much more like the (much less binding association of states) eea. Much of what the party aspires to is simply not do-able, as all other members states would need to agree and won't. It's also though relatively fuzzy, and would only lead to a breach if the party wanted one. The last thing a government in an excruciatingly difficult fiscal position will want is a fallout with the eu. On the contrary, in the coming years the eu may finally begin to appear as more of a solution, as it was in the 1970s. In the short term its new (2013) budget offers a boost; in the medium-term amplifying a weakened UK's voice on the world stage; in the longer-term offering the crutch of a stable global-reserve currency to rely on...
13 april 2010, emotional intelligence
At a daniel goleman "masterclass" today, which is a posh way of saying lecture series. His book though, "emotional intelligence" is revelatory, and shows your natural instinct, at home and at work, of "fight or flight" when faced with difficult situations. Conquering, controlling and positively channeling this emotion is as important as iq for getting on in life. Ok, this may sound like management crap, but it touched a real nerve with me, the more so hearing daniel in the flesh. We can all be "emotionally hijacked" and learning to control that impulse can make many situations much better. The main point of the day was leadership and finding the sweet spot between boredom and stress, leading not following, but through visioning and coaching and providing a safe space for charges to grow and experiment in. It's all a bit brain 2.0 really...
Attached File: danG.pdf
12 april 2010, hungarian elections
As expected fidesz, the centre right, won hands down and should now form a strong government, not that they will be in a position to do much different from the previous leftist government, which was forced by the dire economic situation to dispense bitter medicine prescribed by the imf. The treatment is working though, and vickor orban, the new prime minister ought to gradually benefit if he keeps a steady ship. To his far right now is "jobbik", a truly horrendous paramilitary nationalist outfit, which won 16% of the vote, although less than many had expected. Orban's flirtations with the street must take some of the blame for this (see the perfect storm). With 7%, the voice of sanity is a new liberal-green outfit, born from the old jewish-inspired szdsz. Hungarian politics is never dull and ever worrying.
31 march 2010, complaining at birdsong
Another step today on the road to manchester becoming a first-in-the-nation "combined authority", essentially (anoraks on !) its ten local councils moving their intensive collaboration into a much stronger statutory framework. Good little video on the city in the guardian, with a former resident of a very run down area (hulme) complaining that in this awful "new" environment you can hear birdsong rather than the neighbours' sex pistols at full blast. It's a case of my totally disagreeing with everything said, but being happy to defend his right to say it. Give me clean and creative over mouldy and momentous any day of the millennium.
30 march 2010, bad banks
A national elderly care scheme was dismissed today as its cost, some 2 billion pounds, was far too much for the public purse to bear. I am sure that many people had a sharp intake of breath at this, given the more than 800 billion spent "saving" the banks, in the uk alone. Somehow, huge profits after the seminal events of 2008/9 just aren't the same as before. Surely a rubicon was crossed - or at least it should have been. Somehow though, the current framework of capital's critical mass, buttressed by our perceptions of globalisation and our very real need for that same capital from those same gatekeepers has meant that we have not, in any way, forced anyone across any such line. We remain in the banks' thrall. There is surely a rich political prize for the alchemist that can turn this perversion into a through-the-looking-glass philosophy that brings about control change without bringing down the amphitheatre.
29 march 2010, the not so grand finale
Great piece of journalism bookending the new labour era through a pastiche of gordon brown's marvellous 1997 independence-for-the-bank-of-england rabbit-out-of-the-hat, which is contrasted sharply to alistair darling's "whimper" reprise of 2010. This was top drawer, not least for calling an end to an era - whatever the result of the election: tommorow's labour flavour has a distinctly different tilt. The party's heartland election strategy mirrors and anticipates this: gambling that although core vote strategies haven't worked before, these days of low turnout and vote balkanisation might make it different. That may sound cynical: but it's the team with the most points that wins the league, not the one that plays the most beautiful football.
28 march 2010, data, data everywhere...
Drove to Luton airport today, taking a ticket from the machine as we glided through the car park barrier. Astounded that the ticket had our car's registration printed on it, I walked back to discover a camera, that in a split second had "captured", processed and presented this data. Wal-mart captures more than 1 million customer transactions every hour; facebook has more than 40 billion photos; in 2003 it took ten years to analyse the 3 billion bits of data it took to unlock the human genome - the same can now be done in one week. Today, it is not getting hold of but managing and analysing data that is all important - the real skill is to understand it and provide an accessible narrative. Crucial in any big business of the future is the CIO - chief information officer, the key to the problems of "big data". I want one.
19 march 2010, look who’s in the economist
Excuse me if I slip into media luvvy talk for a moment, but the mother of all uk things to get an article in is the economist: that's what can set the news agenda for a week. And so the team can all justly be "well proud like, our kid" of this excellent (though not uncritical) article. The manchester independent economic review of course gets a couple of mentions, as does our pipping of frankfurt and acquiring of "city region" status. Worth a read...
Attached File: economist.pdf
13 march 2010, election looming
Nick clegg, leader of the uk's 3rd party (liberal democrats) was on the radio this morning, restating that whilst in the 1951 election only 2% of voters (actually I think it's 7) did not opt for either of the main parties (the conservatives are centre right, labour centre left, but both very broad churches) by the last (european) elections this had risen to over 65%. Even at the last (2005) general election, it was already 30%, and this is likely to rise further on 6 may. The local elections would be on the same day, probably bad news for the 3rd party, who usually benefit from hardier supporters turning out for the locals, meaning they may be squeezed locally by higher turnout from traditional labour and conservative voters turning out for the bigger general election. Nationally, the two parties' leakage is also due to both nationalists in scotland and wales, and single-issue parties, like the greens, ukip (leave the eu) and the british national party. The first group are likely to do better than ever in may; the latter unlikely to win a seat, although the greens may yet surprise everyone in brighton. Good luck to them and the diversity they represent.