tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43701492294788548372024-03-19T03:23:40.901+00:00Tim WrightSocial Media, Knowledge Management, intangible assets, CSR corporate social repsonsibility, ManagementTim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-62657890651506467622020-04-16T11:12:00.003+01:002021-07-20T14:51:57.713+01:00Keir Starmer is Right - We Need to Know When Lockdown Ends<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><i>The Dangers of Lockdown and Why it Needs to End… Soon!</i></b></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Keir Starmer may just be scoring political points but he is actually spot on in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52287920" target="_blank">asking for a plan to end the</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52287920" target="_blank"> lockdown.</a></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-5a4126fb-7fff-1c52-d787-d7b4455cf479" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">For the past few weeks, I have been bending folks ears (those within earshot at least) about the very </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">real threat that lockdown presents to the economy and the danger that a prolonged lockdown presents to the country in the long term. I hear a lot about science deciding when lockdown will be eased but where is the economics, and where is the ear to the business community below the big players?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">It is odd to find myself in agreement with Professor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Muscatelli" target="_blank">Anton Muscatelli </a>University of Glasgow. He and I </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">crossed swords at a debate hosted by Glasgow Chamber of Commerce on the merits and opportunities,</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> in my view, of BREXIT. The Professor disagreed and we debated it for an hour or two before an </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">audience who I hope were entertained.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But on this occasion, the Professor and I are in violent agreement <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/were-heading-to-economic-armageddon-but-must-avoid-the-road-to-austerity-58nnkjrlb" target="_blank">predicting catastrophic declines in the</a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/were-heading-to-economic-armageddon-but-must-avoid-the-road-to-austerity-58nnkjrlb" target="_blank"> Scottish economy</a> as a result of the actions taken in response to Covid-19. The <a href="https://obr.uk/coronavirus-reference-scenario/" target="_blank">OBR agree</a> for the </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">wider UK economy, and it is all self inflicted.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The Government has certainly set out some extensive measures aimed at mitigating the short term </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">impact of the lockdown. But there are many ongoing debates about their suitability for smaller firms. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The fact that there is the ongoing adjustment to accommodate businesses that have so far not been </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">thought of in the provisions is good. But it speaks to the knee jerk nature of the response and as to how</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> poorly understood the richer economic reality is in Government. It is a point reinforced<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/only-one-in-60-small-businesses-get-coronavirus-rescue-cash-5rc7032l3" target="_blank"> by the lack of </a></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/only-one-in-60-small-businesses-get-coronavirus-rescue-cash-5rc7032l3" target="_blank">uptake.</a> The provisions are not appropriate for many and the mechanisms of delivering them are </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">inadequate.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I also hear from my clients and contacts that small firms once ineligible for bank finance suddenly find </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">the bank offering them a product which they miraculously suddenly qualify for. Of course more </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">expensive than any Government-backed option but also immediately rendered ineligible for a great deal</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> of government support</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But my real concern is for the smaller businesses, and particularly those in rural or more sparsely </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">populated areas.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Having spent many years dealing with these small firms in their efforts to raise finance I know that even </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">in the good times there is an aversion to debt. So why would they take it on now with such uncertainty?</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I think that many will simply, quietly close up. Many are lifestyle businesses, small operations, many are </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">founder owned who have struggled with how they might sell or transfer it. My expectation is that many </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">will simply cut their losses.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Why does this matter so much? It matters because these form an essential part of the ecosystem that </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">supports other businesses. Most economies at a local level are highly integrated and a disruption of the </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">kind we now are wilfully inflicting on ourselves can be catastrophic. I remember vividly years ago when a</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> local steelworks closed the whole town were it was located closed with it. The shops shut, the people </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">moved out and a generation was wasted. Whole estates were boarded up. The council resorted to giving</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> houses away to try to attract folks in.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In Scotland, where I live I fear for the fragile fabric of the economic ecosystem in the more rural areas. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">It is quite a fine material and a few good rips will ruin it for a generation. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">As a result, the ecosystem to sustain normal business will be gone. Tourism is often a significant </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">contributor to sustaining the communities and supplement other undertakings. Without the little cafes, </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">B&Bs and other parts that oil that sector it will grind to a halt. With it the other rural business subsidized </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">by it as well. Many of the operators of these small businesses use them to supplement otherwise </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">marginal occupations, so the failure of the supplementary income will have evermore profound effects, </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">it won’t be possible to “social distance” these businesses to prevent contagion. The end result will be </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">that the rural patches will recede into economic malaise for a long long time, young people will leave in </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">even greater numbers and the downward spiral will accelerate.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">As someone said to me the other day “It’s going to be like the Clearances all over again.”</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">On the demand side, I also know how much our economy is underpinned by us taking on unsecured debt</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> to buy crap we generally don’t need. But it has kept the wheels on a consumerist model run on insanely </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">thin margins and dependant on volume to survive. The slightest adjustment is curtains for many in retail </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">work. We are already seeing many struggles and go to the wall. Of course like the Covid-19 victims many</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> of these businesses had “underlying health problems”, but this is just three weeks of lockdown.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">If we stop taking that debt on because either, we can’t buy anything because the shops are shut, the </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">interest rate goes up (nowhere else it is able to go really) or, most likely, we are out of a job or seeing a </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">20% reduction on salary as we are furloughed, the whole roundabout fails. So the prospect of a V-shaped</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> bounce driven by conspicuous spending is pretty slim.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">So, what is the solution? </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Well, quite simply, end the lockdown. A three week holiday might be just about survivable. Similarly, </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">explain the process of ending it. Trust people, give them the opportunity to plan. I don’t buy the idea that </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">by sharing such a message we loosen peoples behaviours re social distancing. Quite apart from the fact </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">that<a href="https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/08/has-sweden-got-it-right-on-coronavirus/" target="_blank"> the evidence is far from conclusive</a> that it is working, or that the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/11/german-scientist-predicted-european-epidemic-calls-end-lockdown/" target="_blank">cost is worth it</a>, I just have much </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">greater faith in people’s wisdom generally.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">If the lockdown continues, here are one or two suggestions, instead of propping up business, get them </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">into suspended animation, firepower to wake them up again. Target funds directly at the population not </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">through the business, temporary UBI. For the small companies get on to Companies House and HMRC</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> to track any micro-businesses winding up and mothball them. Bring in a debt jubilee to free folks up to </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">spend. Use the capacity of crowdfunding through targeted interventions to give us all the stake in the </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">recovery.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The idea that we are knowingly creating an economic catastrophe worse than the Second World War </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">speaks of monumental miscalculation and horrendous overreaction. It can be stopped, and it should be </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">stopped, by quickly announcing the mechanism and timetable to end the lockdown.</span></div>
<br />Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-28131235041649995582020-04-13T14:51:00.003+01:002021-07-20T14:48:29.964+01:00What Will Really Change as a Result of Covid-19?<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><b>Let’s Hope it is a Reassessment of China.</b></i></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-9399f0a2-7fff-6a50-8458-d3ef3a525099" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">There have been a great many pronouncements that the world “will never be the same again” after the </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">end of this period of derangement. “Everything will change” I hear.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I doubt it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">In 2008 I heard the same sage predictions as banking collapsed onto life support and the cashpoints </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">came within an ace of closing. For myself, I would have liked to see some close but that is a debate for </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">another day. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">The end of capitalism was widely predicted - radical change was afoot. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But apart from the misery of austerity, the drudge and scourge of joblessness and poverty what did </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">really change? Structurally practically nothing. Behaviorally practically nothing. Longer-term some </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">political developments might have traced their routes to the shock of the banking crisis - but that is </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">how politics work. B</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But as to the general manner in which we do business very very little change.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">At the time I blamed a failure of vision, leadership and imagination from the Left - I still do. The </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">opportunity had finally arrived and they flunked it.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">So what behaviourally and structurally will change this time round? </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Very little I expect. There are the eco acolytes who think it will, but it won’t. Quite apart from the fact that</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre;">their enduring electoral failures demonstrate that they are nowhere near as popular as they might think,</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> except amongst the chattering classes. More importantly, the period of lockdown, constrained travel </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">and soviet-style government intervention in the day to day minutia of your life will, I am certain, convince</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> most folks that the medieval vision of the more radical eco crusties is not something we aspire to. No, </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">we will return to foreign holidays and a bit of excessive drinking and conspicuous consumption to </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">celebrate emerging from the lockdown and before you know it we will be back where we were, </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">behaviourally that is.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But, if there is one change I hope just might come about then it is this one. I hope that more folks </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">question the role of China in the world.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">I have never been under any illusion about the malign and corrosive role of China and have told those </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">who were prepared to listen. It is a ghastly repressive regime that habitually steals IP, manipulates </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">it currently and abuses human rights. It should NEVER have been admitted to the WTO. But it has been</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> the crack cocaine of manufacturing CEOs and University Chancellors for far too long. Eternally happy</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> to bend the knee, turn a blind eye and with weasel words, half-truths deny their addiction to the lure of </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">easy supply and assert it is a victimless crime.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">It reminds me of the miners’ strike in the UK when arguments were made that we could “buy coal</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> cheaper from South America” Well sure if you are content it is mined by 14-year-olds with poor or no </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">safety equipment. Cheaper in monetary terms much more costly in every other way.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">So my view hasn't changed. It is why I despise companies like Apple who have happily offshored </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">manufacture to China. Charge top dollar, rake in huge margins and do it off the back of lying down </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">with dogs. Steve Jobs always had fleas in my book. Their response in 2008 when they had $Billions </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">sitting in the bank was risible and I can’t help but smirk at how Apple loving “progressives” reaped </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">their own whirlwind in 2016.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But now we cannot deny the danger of chasing cheap manufacture to ever more remote countries with </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">dubious regimes.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">For me, I hope this means that we can rejuvenate our manufacturing, return it home but to do so </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">through the widespread adoption of automation and AI. Of course, it will take investment but now we </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">know the cost of not doing it now. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">It was always going to be the future but we have tended to take the easier route, the cheaper route. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Now perhaps, finally we might be encouraged to make the change. Maybe this will be the important </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">intervention from Government to reshape things for the betterment of mankind that should have come </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">before.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Ultimately competition will not be determined largely by price, as the opportunity to find significant </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">incremental advantage through mass manufacture will be so widely available that the market will </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">differentiate itself in other ways</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">Idealism? Maybe. Perhaps, as I say, nothing structural or behaviourally will change, just more drudgery,</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"> austerity and recession. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;">But, if there is one change, let it be that one.</span></div>
<br />Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-77544211398041369202020-01-31T16:06:00.000+00:002020-01-31T16:06:50.669+00:00Bye Bye EU<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In the early months of
2016 I was attending a couple of crowdfunding events in Europe. One
in Amsterdam I remember particularly well for the conversations
outside of the sessions and at the networking events. Lots of people
asked me, being one of the few Brits there, what I thought would
happen on the BREXIT referendum.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There was general
surprise and disbelief when I told them that I fully expected the UK
would vote to leave. At first they mocked and played along with what
they thought was a joke on my part. The idea that the UK would vote
to leave was completely unbelievable to this predominately young
crowd who, when engaged with the UK, tended to do so via London and
the metropolitan views so commonly expressed there which would have
simply echoed theirs.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As it dawned on them
that I was serious they at first thought I was crazy. But as I spoke
to them about why I thought it would be the case the reaction moved
to one of apprehension and, in some cases, fear.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As it turned out my
prediction was correct.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Later in the year I was
in Europe again at another fintech event and was told in no uncertain
terms by some German EU reps that inspite of the vote that it,
BREXIT, would never happen. The UK would never leave they told me and
that I simply did not understand how these things worked. It seems I
did know my country better after all.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I make this point today
for two reasons.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Firstly there is an
important lesson for anyone involved in the crowd economy, beware of
confirmation bias and be sure you are listening widely when you try
to engage with the crowd.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The second reason for
mentioning it is because today we do begin that journey away from the
strictures of the EU and for this I am wholly thankful as the
regulatorily interventionist, bureaucratic and civic code model of
the EU stands four square against the opportunity and promise of
crowd economics.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
For me the two points
are in a way related. As it happens I not only managed to call that
referendum, but the US presidential, two general elections and a
Scottish independence vote pretty much spot on, much against the
prevailing wisdom of pollsters and predictors everywhere. I am also
not a fan of the EU.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
How so?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As someone with
numerous degrees, having lived and worked over seas for many years,
being married to an immigrant I am by most estimations a “citizen
of nowhere” by Goodharts rules and should in all probability share
the prevailing pro EU views of such demographics and been wholly
undone by finding pout that my iphone chatter was so out of step with
the electorate.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But, I also failed my
11+, have trade tickets as a welder and bricklayer and have done more
than my share of terrible soul destroying jobs to understand that
real pressure is working back shifts in a foundry as casual labour
worrying about making the rent. It is not sitting in a swanky office
working hard as a well paid management consultant deciding who might
get fired at a clients business.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As a result I have
always managed to retain connections from people through out my life.
I have good ties to both ends of societies spectrum White collar,
gilded collar and blue collar and so I seem to have a reasonable feel
for a broader swell of feeling than perhaps those that have a a lens
dominated by social media and a group of like minded followees at
that.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
No, I have seen what
has happened to my once proud little home town and not in the
slightest surprised they said “enough” to politicians who seemed
to despise them and hid behind the excuse of Brussels to not act in
their interests.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This is, I think, an
important lesson for anyone in the crowd economy. Social media is not
the real world and it is, in large part, a low touch relationship.
Use it as a barometer at your peril.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But my antipathy to the
EU (not Europe I hasten to add – two very different things) runs
deeper than simply the decline of my home town. No I think their
instincts are all wrong for the crowd economy so freeing ourselves
from that approach is a cause for celebration in my opinion.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
When I was invited to
debate the merits, or otherwise, of Brexit with an eminent Economics
Professor and vice principle of Glasgow University last year, you
will not be entirely surprised that we didn't see much eye to eye.
Apart, that is, from the fact that we both agreed that to that point
the negotiations had been very poorly handled.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Professor was
unwilling to engage with the dreadfully inaccurate predictions made
by other eminent economic advisors to the Bank of England or the then
Chancellor ( apparently he hadn't read them). Similarly he had no
answer to why it was that Europe was not leading in the fintech arena
or indeed how it had singularly failed to great a Microsoft, Facebook
or Google. One wag suggested in the audience that a large American
market to build from might have something to do with this, to which
my counter was “so much for the much trumpeted single market eh?”</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
No the answer is, in
large part, interventionist regulation. English common law has
allowed the regulated aspects of crowd finance to flourish here in a
way it hast under a civil law model. Similarly it is the EU's
instinctive Luddite fear of allowing technologies liberating aspects
to flourish which gives us bureaucratic failures like GDPR and “the
right to be forgotten” and the disastrous copyright directives
which we will thankfully be ignoring here in the UK.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
No I wont lament our
departure from the EU and I shall continue to use it as a real
example of both the risk of narrow consultations, and the dangers of
poor ill considered regulation in a world where innovation runs ahead
of old protectionist regulatory models designed to favour incumbents
and not to embrace the opportunities we could, and should, be looking
forward to.</div>
<br />Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-11820604970688930332014-04-24T17:17:00.001+01:002014-04-24T17:17:57.981+01:00Why Vince Cable is Wrong About the Impact of Excessive Pay<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-737d9df6-9480-fb73-6816-5645a7cd5575" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Vince Cable warns firms on the dangers of “excessive executive pay” by highlighting the dangers to their firms of a “loss of public trust” but it seems they and, more importantly, we don’t actually care enough for that threat to hold water. Until we do nothing will change, but what if anything will spark that revolution?</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I like Vince Cable. I find myself more in agreement with him than disagreement but <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27119454" target="_blank">his recent pronouncement about the dangers presented by “lost public trust”</a> through excessive pay settlements at large corporates - notably Banks - will fall on deaf ears. The truth of that is entirely apparent. If Banks, for example, really did believe a loss of trust was in any way a threat to them they would have acted long ago to actually enact meaningful change to address it. Trust was destroyed in Banks and financial institutions a number of years ago when their giant ponzi scheme and unfettered hubris caused the meltdown in a financial farce that we have all suffered the consequences of. I see no evidence that trust has recovered in any shape or form since. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But we didn't act back then. The opportunity to truly make a change was then and despite the activities of the Occupy movement, some street protest and and much vitriolic comment our actual appetite to suffer the inconvenience of bank failure, loss of savings, and a more radical form of unrest coupled with a monumental lack of vision, courage and leadership from the left meant that the chance to bring about radical change was missed. The threat of a loss of trust to banks passed. There is, and never has been, such a thing as “too big to fail”, its just a matter of your stomach for the consequences and challenges of surviving that failure. Of course politicians have little appetite for it and, so it seems, neither do we anymore. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Since then we have seen a prolonged attritional period in which the more lowly bank staff, along with many others, have lost their jobs in order to reinstate the system that produced the problem in the first place. This year bonuses on Wall Street are reaching pre crash proportions, Barclays are awarding themselves huge bonuses despite a massively under par performance despite being called (accurately) “Greedy Bastards” by one investor at their last AGM and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27137764" target="_blank">tokenistic vote by Standard Life</a> to not support the bonus award this year. The parting on the left has indeed become a parting on the right</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And why do we not act? Why do we not desert banks? Why do we continue to buy the products and services from firms with ghastly levels of inequality in their pay structures between the self serving and mutually self justifying stratospheric pay club of these serialy failing top executives hoping from one corporation to another, and the shop floor? </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Well in part we are lazy and unwilling to be as courageous as Samson and push the pillars aside and brave the falling masonry.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another reason is a our willingness to embrace debt. Debt makes us slaves which is why the institutions, banks - and particularly the Governments love us to take it on. Debt encumbered wages slaves are much more passive and far less troublesome. Marx described religion as the opium of the poor. Well debt is the cudgel.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am also of the view that many of us are disengaged from the reality of this inequality, thinking that these excesses exist a long way from us whereas in fact they are in organisation that we encounter and transact with every day. To that end I believe in total wage transparency at every employer so that everyone knows how the money gets spread around. At a stroke it would enable us to identify and address gender inequalities in pay, but also it would expose the monstrous them and us distribution in even mid sized firms and make us clamour for a fairer share.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There is also in many cases a lack of alternatives - but that may be changing.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think Vince knows that his threat of “loss of public confidence” rings hollow as the rumbles of potential other legislation to tackle the situation. It may be more of a threat to him than the business he aims it at, </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">No the answer lies with us to act and until we do nothing will change</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Being of a certain age I am perhaps more wedded to the notion of revolution than a modern western generation. And having grown up under the shadow of nuclear conflagration I have always embraced the possibility and prepared for the process of starting again in the ashes of a post apocalyptic world.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But maybe I am un reconstructed and perhaps the brighter future is less born in fire and more in triangulation. The empowerment of social and collaborative publishing and sharing technologies provide us with mechanisms to by-pass institutions by constructing alternatives, and it brings the possibility of greater transparency. And so it is that we see new digital currencies emerge, crowdfunding democratising investment and releasing new capital, and wikis transforming how we create and share information and I am proud to play my small part in using these tools for change and helping these ideas to develop.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If we can perhaps couple this change with the growing interest in circular economics and collaborative consumption models we can perhaps look to a less debt ridden, consumption dependant future where the corporate monolith and bank dependency is reduced. Here we may not have to desert them we simply never engage with them.Then perhaps a loss of public trust might truly have an impact and focus minds. But, till then, I think Vince is wrong. </span>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-8699914837632409972014-03-07T18:09:00.000+00:002014-03-07T18:12:04.657+00:00A Question of Trust<b><i>I am not surprised by the “revelations” of the Ellison Report and the activities of the “secret” police unit the SDS. I am not surprised by the revelations of Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Nor am I surprised by the information that Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden released. I grew up in the 60’s on the left. But if scales do begin to drop from others eyes the question of “Who do you trust?” becomes very real.</i></b><br />
<br />
I have never believed that the state operates in my own personal interests. I believe it operates in its own interests and will happily justify and defend inequality and vested interests, habitually distort subvert and undermine its own rules and laws and to do that all on the basis of a “necessary evil.”<br />
<br />
Its probably part of being a child of the 60s and growing up with a left leaning mindset. I remember so well attending left wing meetings back in the 1970’s and Special Branch, or similar, standing outside taking down the numbers of cars in the car park. When challenged why they were doing this the excuse was usually parking issues, roadworthiness checks or something similar but strangely enough the local Conservative Club car park remained unpatrolled.<br />
<br />
So the revelations about GCHQ stealing webcam pictures, bugging hacking and surveiling our online world is not a surprise to me. Frankly I always assumed that this was the case. I also assumed that any competent terrorist or foreign intelligence service also knows about it or assumed it was happening and so would take the necessary measures to avoid it. If not they were not really much of a threat really. No, I always assumed that the excuses trotted out by the state to justify its habitual intrusion on legitimate activates was simply a cover for suppression and anti democratic, and as soon as a politician trots out that they are undertaking some inherently illiberal act on the grounds that it will help prevent “paedophiles” eating our children or something similar, you know they are simply dog whistling away like crazy. As Pit the Younger would have it “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”<br />
<br />
I am sure that there are some foot soldiers in the various agencies that still do drink the koolaid and believe this is all good and well intentioned but, to quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn, - who knew a thing or two about state intolerance – “in order for men to do great evil they must first believe they are doing great good.”<br />
<br />
But, the state does what it does purportedly by the notion of consent and the fabric of our society is bound by trust.<br />
<br />
Of course whilst it was probably a minority of folks like me that worried about this kind of stuff back then and the habitual bogey man then was the threat of the “red under the bed”, such a small number of “concerned citizens” wasn’t really an issue for “the authorities”<br />
<br />
But as the light progressively shines on the workings of those seeking to defend their privilege and power perhaps more will join my view and, in so doing trust will gradually erode. The moral high ground of our institutions is increasingly seen to be built on sand, and their hypocrisy rings ever more hollow.<br />
<br />
Trust is one the key currencies in the socially collaborative world we increasingly live in and it is why so many organisations driven by irretrievably deceitful marketing campaigns are finding it difficult to adjust.<br />
<br />
But it is exactly why the fearful state being so intrusive in this realm is so dangerous.<br />
<br />
A progressive decline in “respect” for institutions” or even the rule of law and the trust that binds is for some a scary prospect, for others it heralds revolution.<br />
<br />
But the question asked ever more frequently is “who do you trust?” and if you don’t trust how can you, I, we and they work to rebuild it?Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-26942992189651104742014-02-26T15:17:00.002+00:002014-02-26T17:15:54.210+00:00The Value of Crowds<a href="http://twintangibles.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/TWcrowd2-230x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1993" height="300" src="http://twintangibles.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/TWcrowd2-230x300.jpg" title="TWcrowd2" width="230" /></a>A little while back I was asked by the <a href="http://www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com/" target="_blank" title="Chamber of Commerce">Glasgow Chamber of Commerce</a> to provide the closing keynote to the inaugural CROWD conference. The purpose of the event was to reinforce the value of a community like the Chamber and how that crowd of entrepreneurs can assist one another. To draw the threads of a really practical event together I thought I would engage in a bit of an examination of three key assets in a crowd and some one or two main ideas on how one can begin to generate value from a CROWD.
Firstly we looked at the role of a crowd as a source of distributed cognition, or collective wisdom. This is where the group can offer a considered view which when aggregated can be very insightful both for the collective insights available from the clusters and grouping of views but additionally through the existence of outliers and their novel perspectives. This can be translated into value through the activities like brand perception exercises, validation and diligence work, to horizon scanning and weak signal detection.
Secondly we considered the role of the notion of a crowd as a talent pool, and the reach that it provides to individual point of deep insight. This is distinct from collective approaches where you are concerned with groups and deviations from it. Here we are looking for individual occurrences of specialized knowledge and insight so its value typically comes in crowdsourcing exercises, innovation, crisis management and problem solving.
Finally we looked at a crowd as a third asset - a mechanism for collective action, where we work as a group to create a groundswell that is irresistible and brings about change. Here we can see value through activities like crowdfunding, campaign and major project delivery.
What is common to all, but is often overlooked, is that to work effectively crowds of individual autonomous agents need to be managed, and simple rule sets are needed to establish a framework within which we can create value. Without them we have chaos. To demonstrate this point we spoke of mexican waves and the wonderful examples of murmurations. This type of flocking has a simple rule set that can deliver extraordinary emergent happenings, and if you haven't experienced one try <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNqhi2ka9k" target="_blank" title="Murmuration">this one</a> out courtesy of the film makers <a href="http://islandsandrivers.co.uk/" target="_blank" title="Islands and Rivers">Islands and Rivers</a>.
What is particularly pleasing to learn is that <a href="http://dontapscott.com/" target="_blank" title="Don Tapscott">Don Tapscott</a>, Global curator of <a href="http://socialmediaweek.org/glasgow/" target="_blank" title="SMW">Social Media Week</a> used a similar example in his <a href="http://www.ted.com/" target="_blank" title="TED">TED</a> talk in Edinburgh this week. Nice to know that we see eye to eye on this!
How has a crowd been valuable to you?<br />
<br />
<b><i>This article was first published on the <a href="http://www.twintangibles.co.uk/" target="_blank">twintangibles</a> blog</i></b>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-20159880330487732642013-12-31T17:32:00.000+00:002013-12-31T17:32:55.594+00:00The end of year and maybe the end of banks?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:ApplyBreakingRules/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]-->
<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Jenkins" target="_blank">Antony Jenkins, CEO of Barclays</a>, thinks that banks lost their way by
becoming too focused on short term profit and now need to reconnect with long
termism. Perhaps banks did focus on short term profits but the fundamental
problem is their misunderstanding of their purpose and the environment
the operate in. Consequently, in an individually empowered world, they are in
danger of being bypassed.</b><br />
<br />
I am a great fan of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z" target="_blank">BBC Radio 4 Today programme</a>. It both infuriates and entertains
me, but the now annual Yuletide happening of inviting in guest editors can be
doubly interesting ( I cant wait for PJ Harvey on Thursday!). Today's Today
editor was Anthony Jenkins CEO of Barclays and a man who, it seemed to me, was
on a mission to try to present a human, reconstructed and penitent face of
banking. Getting into the detail of how well that was achieved and how much it
was heartfelt or so much flummery would take too long so I won't begin to
try here. However, in the course of the programme he introduced the idea that
the primary issue with banks and, by extension, the root of the collapse of
2008 was an obsession with short term profit. This, he appeared to argue,
blinded the banks to risk and incentivised immoral behavior - I paraphrase of
course.<br />
<br />
It’s a convenient and not unreasonable assertion, and one that is commonly
advanced post crash. I am a constant critic of shortermism but on this occasion
I think he has missed his mark.<br />
<br />
Its not that I don't believe short termism was/is present and that it is
very corrosive its just that, for me, the key underlying issue with banks is
the decline in there understanding of what they are there to do. Banks are a
service and they asses risk and this is a complex undertaking with a mutual power
relationship between the banks and those they serve.<br />
<br />
On a personal and business level I deposit my money with them and instruct
them to disperse it as I see fit, when I see fit. For that they can, and
should, charge me a fee. I use their service because, in theory, it frees me
from having to guard my money personally, and it is convenient. I may also
borrow and I pay for that too. These are mutually beneficial and supportive
relationships but it is also a complex relationship.<br />
<br />
Banks thought this was purely transactional and a simple or complicated
relationship. They commoditised the transaction to drive down cost, used money
to make money to no particular end (still do), and we each became a number -
not a person. In commoditising the transactions they introduced unnecessary and
new risk and the lack of autonomy for local decisions meant they had no ability
to make sensible logical service driven exceptions. The relationship was broken
and unequal.<br />
<br />
I have little doubt that this approach was aggressively promoted by
consultants who did binary sums showing how by systematising things they could
strip out cost. The banks drank freely of the koolaid and bought all the
hardware that the consultants could sell.<br />
<br />
But as Peter Drucker and others have pointed out there is a world of difference
between complex and complicated and ability to truly judge risk was gone, as
was the visibility of the risk. We all know the outcome.<br />
<br />
But the problem for the banks is that changing back takes a lot of time. The
reintroduction of "relationship managers" does not change it. They have
neither the necessary experience nor heuristics and they are lacking in autonomy
being bound by the same system let strictures that have cost billions to put in
place and cannot be undone by bankrupt banks.<br />
<br />
No doubt the banks hope our appetite debt will hold us and buy them some time.
I wont get into the issue with our relationship with debt at any length here
but suffice to say whilst I accept that some debt is some circumstances may be
necessary debt does make us slaves and both governments and banks encourage us
to have it in order to pacify and chain us.<br />
<br />
However, times are changing. The digital revolution is founded in the notion
of empowerment for the individual and alternatives are emerging and some are
already well established. Alternative payment schemes like Paypal, stripe, Google
wallet and Bitcoin are operational and increasingly accepted. Alternative
finance options exist with the emergence of crowdfunding in its various forms
and particularly P2P lending.<br />
Of course the institutions and vested interests will close ranks to defend
their pals and endeavour to reign these innovations in, no doubt on the
nefarious excuse that "criminals might use them". It’s a line harder
to hold when not only have criminals both robbed and used banks, but all the
more hollow when we know that some banks have been/still are operated by
crooks!<br />
<br />
But the global and virtual nature of the digital and crowd empowered economy,
and the trust bonds that pervade it, means that a new generation is developing
a taste for a world without retail or merchant banks, so hold onto your hat Antony
- you might need that shipping forecast job after all.<br />
<!--[if !mso]><img src="//img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" />
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
</style>
<![endif]--><br />
Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-57495360535146075462013-10-31T18:06:00.000+00:002013-11-01T08:47:42.950+00:00Sad Mad and Bad - or why the FCA is wrong in its crowdfunding proposals<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-716b0d94-0fa2-4e46-3e9a-7244946107a8" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I have said for a long time now that one of the greatest problems bedeviling crowdfunding is a lack of understanding, beyond the superficial, of the fundamental principles that underpin it, and that its greatest threat is in the fact that vested interests and institutions are some of the least informed around. <a href="http://www.fca.org.uk/news/cp13-13-regulatory-approach-to-crowdfunding" target="_blank">The FCA proposals for the regulation of crowdfunding</a> have unquestionably proved me entirely correct and whilst in some cases it can be nice to say “I told you so” I take no pleasure in that on this occasion.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are many pieces I would take issue with in the consultation paper and I shall be participating in the response process - although I have limited hope that it will make a whole lot of difference. But, in the interests of brevity let me just point out a couple of the really truly idiotic aspects of their proposals, those being the notion of gating equity crowdfunding to only “sophisticated investors” and promoting the mediation of “financial advisors.”</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Why is the constraint of participation wrong? Well it’s wrong on a range of counts but for a starter it kills the supply of capital. One of the guiding principles of crowdfunding, in fact its greatest offer, is the democratisation of capital and that is delivered by allowing people to participate who have previously been excluded. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">By constraining participation you constrain capital flow. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This flow must be maintained otherwise crowdfunding does not bring additional capital into the marketplace and without that crowdfunding is not expanding the offer to businesses and addressing a need. A need, we should remind ourselves, that was greatly increased by the failure of the traditional “sophisticated” investment market to run itself very well. In fact it did it so badly that it needed to be saved by significant contributions from the "unsophisticated".</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the same time lowering barriers to participation is a fundamental principle that underpins the transformational nature of the online world. It by passes gatekeepers, it embraces innvoation, it is a force for equality of opportunity, and it allows people to re imagine themselves into roles that have previously been denied to them. By applying constraints you curtail that transformation and reign in freedoms.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Secondly, what constitutes a sophisticated investor? I had an interesting chat with a financier the other day who proudly described himself as a sophisticated. However he was one that clearly had no real understanding of crowdfunding and seemed unconcerned when I pointed out that Lehman Brothers were considered pretty sophisticated in the time before they took a multi billion dollar fall from their sophisticated heights.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One of the fundamental criteria used to define oneself as a “sophisticated investor” is individual wealth and income. It makes no distinction as to how this wealth is acquired and, I have to say, based on my experience the holding of wealth has never been a good indicator of either sophistication, intelligence or judgment. One outcome from the proposal would, of course, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">to help ensure those with wealth have the best chance of retaining and increasing it.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A key idea behind crowdfunding is that, by opening up participation, it brings in a much more broadly based set of evaluation criteria and, importantly, a breadth of different motivations to invest. This means that the traditional investors with their existing lense, often aggressive expectation of return, short termism and limited motivations can continue to turn their gaze away from investments they do not consider suitable, and this is fine. But by stopping new participant from engaging it threatens to prevent those same opportunities from being considered by investors with a different set of criteria who may find something of value in the proposition and invest in an idea that would otherwise have stalled. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The availability of this alternative assessment model is absolutely imperative at a time when banks - the major source of business investment in the UK - have systematically deskilled themselves in this area. I would, and have, argue this is to the extent that they are largely incapable of making suitable decisions at a local level now and frankly lack the level of local autonomy to change that arrangement in the short term anyway.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Of course making retail investments of the type offered through crowdfunding brings with it risks for the investor, but so do all investments. And it’s not as if the track record of our sophisticated investors is infallible.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To suggest that people are so dumb that they don't recognise the risk to their investment is patronising in the extreme. Amazing though it may seem to the FCA but to the best of my knowledge pretty much everyone in the local branch of betfred (other betting shops are available) seem to understand that their little flutter on the 3 o’clock at Aintree is not a sure thing and they don't ask for their bet back when their chosen nag comes in last. Of course drawing such an analogy to the attention of the FCA - as I have - tends to get the lame response of “we are not responsible for regulating the horseracing industry”. My response would be THANK GOD FOR THAT! They are not responsible for house purchasing either and it seems entirely possible to make the largest investment in most people's lives without the intervention of a regulated body - estate agents famously aren't of course - and to even own that asset without insurance.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My point is that I have greater faith in people to make the sensible choices than the regulators it seems but, more importantly, the introduction of alternative evaluation criteria is key to the crowdfunding model and by gating participation to only “the usual suspects” you are removing one of its most important characteristics. I also believe this is because the FCA don't recognise the value of, or understand, this concept.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lets consider the second point of issue - easier participation for those who take financial advice. The lunatics really have taken over the asylum on this one. These would be the financial wizards that advised so many people take out the hopeless endowment mortgages, or advise on those those ISA or pension investments that have performed so catastrophically recently.To take our horse racing analogy a little further it seems the message is better not invest more than 10% of ones net investible protfolio down the bookie mate - unless of course you happen to have a quick chat with Arthur Dayley first of course. I have no issue with people taking advice that wish to but to actively encourage it, no lets re phrase that, to actively favour those that do is barking.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The arrogance of their stance is that what they are tacitly saying is that you should not be allowed to lose your own money, you have to give it to a “sophisticated” fool to lose it on your behalf! If the financial crisis taught us anything it was that the financial emperor really did have no clothes. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The conspiracists amongst you might think they, the FCA, have been got at by lobby groups on the part of a financial industry bruised and threatened by a new upstart. For what is worth I love a good conspiracy but this one I don't buy. I hear lots of voices from traditional finance huffing and puffing but I don't believe they feel threatened, and nor should they. No, this is a case of a body given a task to which they are either unsuited, unwilling or unable to apply themselves effectively.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For all the ideas around secondary markets (which I heartily endorse) and other froth to squarely challenge the most fundamental principle of crowdfunding - lowering the barrier to participate - is a case of the most monstrous vandalism of a growing asset and an appalling misjudgement.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It is deeply ironic that the uniqueness of the light touch approach that has allowed crowdfunding to thrive in the UK to now and establish this country as the leading exponent of the form is now being reigned in by group of dullards on little evidence of anything being wrong whilst at the same time other countries are clamoring to liberalise their rules in order to access a resource we already have. Sadly this would have us destined to coalesce in the middle and the parting on the left will simply become a parting on the right.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As a historian by training I look at this as reminiscent of the journey of the great emancipation and reform acts of the 19th Century. The rigid resistance and arrogance of anti reformists then read, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">from todays relative freedoms,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> like the ravings of lunacy , and the FCA might one day go down with with unrepentant pomposity of a Viscount Sherbrooke declaring that “we must educate our masters”. But be sure of this - we will mount the barricades, we shall overcome, and financial emancipation will come - one day!</span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-28227432086662508752013-02-26T11:36:00.002+00:002013-02-26T11:36:54.634+00:00Italy - A vote for change?<span id="internal-source-marker_0.07348650165134918" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Being
part of an Anglo Italian company means I get to speak to a lot of
Italians. No surprise there. But what I have found surprising and
saddening is the sense of resigned despair that has affected so many in
recent months. Last nights results in the Italian elections however give
me some cause for optimism.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
Over the years I have visited Italy and been subject to its
frustrations, its bureaucracy, its crime and corruption and indulged in
all the cliched and prejudicial chat which pretty much goes along the
lines - “well what do you expect, its an Italian tradition!” I remember
distinctly sitting in a restaurant in the far south listening to a
learned friend describe a significant aspect of the local economy being
what he referred to as “factory farming”. This was not chickens in large
numbers but the proliferation of empty factories and buildings
springing up across the dusty countryside, empty and redundant and with
no more purpose than to access funding and grants that supported their
construction, and of course many groups would take their cut. Whilst a
lot of the banter we had was good humoured and my Italian friends in the
main would josh along but defend their corner well. But later last year
I noticed a change. It seemed that many of the educated, intelligent
and eloquent Italians I met in Rome were articulating views about
Italian institutions being broken, corrupt and hopeless, only this time
they really meant it. Worst of all no one could see an answer. There was
a hopelessness I had never encountered before and it made me sad. But
maybe, just maybe they have begun to find a way to resolve it.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
results from yesterday's election and the success of Beppe Grillo and
the Movimento 5 Stelle, or Five Star Movement, is simply not a surprise
to me at all. Nor is the lack of support for Mario Monti. The continued,
albeit reduced, support for Berlusconi should not surprise us either -
even if it may depress me profoundly.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Whilst
we hear expressions of surprise at the success of Grillo and his fellow
candidates, described in the UK in hushed tones as “political
novices”, this is entirely what one should expect when the established
parties have demonstrated to the populace that they are incapable,
untrustworthy and inept - surely much more damning than being novices.
One can forgive novices their errors. I would be particularly interested
to see the demographic of his supporters of Five Star. I would bet they
are younger, significantly so, and this is for me cause for hope
because it represents a vote for change unencumbered by consideration
with convention.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As
for Monti - apart from being the architect of Italian austerity and
thereby almost inevitably unpopular - he represents a profoundly
undemocratic imposition by European and global institutions and vested
interests seeking not to change a system that is patently flawed, but to
prop it up. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Those
inside and perhaps importantly outside of Italy that are fearful of
the inevitable instability that will follow this muddled election
outcome are in many cases those that typically do not want change,
espouse the idea that there is no alternative because they do not wish
to see one, and hope for a return to a “stability” that will see them as
winners.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Manuel
Castells suggests that as traditional institutions, be they banks,
legislatures, retailers, are increasingly seen as failing the people
they purport to serve that those same people will now more readily
embrace and supply alternatives. And importantly now in our networked
world people are increasingly empowered to bring about those changes and
create those alternatives and take ownership of the issues because
technical tools allow us to collaborate and act with so much greater
ease than previous generations. Increasingly they are disinterested in
the fate of established institutions and do not seek to reform them,
they simply bypass them. So why bother trying to change a bank from the
outside by buying a share and attending the AGM? Simply ignore it and
build an alternative one. Why stand for a political party or
legislature in hock to vested interests and lobbyists? Ignore or it or
start a new one.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
carry no torch for Five Star or any of the Italian parties, I am not
closely enough engaged to cast a vote. Nor do I know what the outcome of
this particular period of confusion might be. But what I find hopeful
is that whilst some are scornful of the idea that a vote for a comedian
as an anti vote I can see it as a very positive act. That is a vote for
change even if you don't know what that change might be. So oddly and
perhaps counter to what many might feel, I consider the outcome a
positive one.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Today's result is a wake up call to the Italian political institutions, and the
wider European and Global ones so unnerved by this outcome and so
concerned what this impasse might mean to “markets”. Reform yourselves
now, from the inside or you may well just be by passed by those that
care nothing for your traditions. We the people are now empowered to
ignore you.</span>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-15916740523259994692012-08-01T09:15:00.000+01:002012-08-01T09:15:14.848+01:00Does IP law really help creativity?<b id="internal-source-marker_0.6920156851410866" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yesterday I attended the Glasgow edition of “<a href="http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/topstories/2011/Sep/great-britain/" target="_blank">Business is Great Britain</a>” - a ‘Global Business Summit on Creative Content’. The event took place in London byu I attended one of the satellite events in this case the Glasgow arm organised by the <a href="http://www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com/" target="_blank">Glasgow Chamber of Commerce</a> where we were treated to a streamed version of the London event. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As it championed all things creative in Britain I couldn't help be struck by the irony of an event that began with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Stringer" target="_blank">Sir Howard Stringer</a>, Chairman of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony" target="_blank">Sony Corp</a>, extolling the importance and centrality of intellectual property and copyright protection to the on going success creative industries and then to sit for at least two session in the morning when the content couldn't be broadcast from London to Glasgow “for copyright reasons”.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was harder to imagine a more striking demonstration as to how unsuited intellectual property law is to the digital age. And we see it everyday. I have yet to find anyone who can give me a cogent argument as to who benefits from the truly ridiculous Samsung v Apple tit for tat. The only beneficiaries as far as I can see are the lawyers, the fees for whom will be truly eyewatering and simply passed on to the consumer (that’s you and me by the way) whilst the disputed features that are supposed to benefit us are withdrawn, suspended and generally messed about with to become ultimately useless.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But Sir Howard was clear in his own mind that protecting IP to preserve “long term” revenues was what it was all about. And I think it is on that point that I could not disagree more.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His argument was this ability to lock up the revenue generating potential of an invention for the long term is what underpins creativity and without it creativity simply withers and dies. To demonstrate the historical significance of this (and the UKs historical role is establishing this core principle) he pointed to the ancient formation of copyright law, and cited the example of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Wedgwood" target="_blank">Joshia Wedgewood</a> as an exemplar of a creative who successfully commercialized his creative genius and in so doing generated an enduring national legacy. The later part I would agree with but this was a tale of the early industrial era, one has to ask how appropriate is it now? I was tempted to scream at the screen that the interrupted show we were watching would not be possible without that marvellously open piece of software called LINUX. The irony became deeper, although less apparent to Sir Howard, when he championed the creative genius of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee" target="_blank">Sir Tim Berners-Lee</a>. Hmm? Yes that would be the Sir Tim Berners-Lee who enriched our lives by....not protecting his invention. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the case of LINUX and WWW we have seen billions of pounds of value created by endless creativity that would not have been unleashed had those two geniuses of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds" target="_blank">Torvald</a> and Berners-Lee not had the vision, grace and generosity to free their creativity to be shared with the world to build on.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another example quoted of creativity was Stephen Hawking. Now I can’t be sure but as far as I am aware he is not a multi patent owner, but I am pretty confident that his insight and wisdom are shared academic ammunition that have been built upon by others without constraint.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting no protection, but our desire for a simpler more appropriate mechanism of managing this, it seems to me, is writ large in the wide adoption of Creative Commons.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However my main point is this. In a world of extremely rapid iteration ( the “pivoting” and fast fail to which Sir Howard refered) long term locking up is surely a recipe for stagnation. For the industrial era of large corporations maybe it worked ( although I have reservations about that) But in a highly collaborative, agile and responsive development environment shorter protection would surely be much more appropriate. In a world of creativity, where the freedom to build readily in others ideas more rapidly releasing invention to be extended and developed must win. Similarly I think the returns would be more equitably spread and the incentive would be there to keep inventing, keep creating.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am old enough to remember “Home Taping is Killing Music” with an accompanying Skull and Crossbones being stamped onto the inner sleeves of just about every LP I borrowed and taped. It seems with hindsight ( and I said it at the time too) that it didn't, and I think calls to preserve the old order because it served us well in Joshia Wedgwoods day is not an argument for its unreformed retention today.</span></b>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-14741259009362034752012-07-23T08:48:00.000+01:002012-07-23T09:56:12.337+01:00What can we learn from Wiggo?<b id="internal-source-marker_0.36761673470027745" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chapeau Wiggo! An extraordinary success, a long time coming. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love cycling and have for many years and for many reasons. Its extreme demands, its rich unwritten rules, its cruelty and its sense of honour and fair play, its history and its characters. But as a follower it’s noticeable how the sport has moved from a solitary sport to very much more a team sport. The advent and ubiquity of team radio has accompanied the rise of coordinated team led approaches to winning major Classic stage races like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France" target="_blank">Le Tour</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giro_d'Italia" target="_blank">Giro</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuelta_a_Espa%C3%B1a" target="_blank">Vuelta</a>. Long gone, it seems, are the solitary predators like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Merckx" target="_blank">Eddie “The Cannibal” Merckx.</a></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So as we celebrate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Wiggins" target="_blank">Bradley Wiggins</a> success we also celebrate a team success and the mastermind behind <a href="http://www.teamsky.com/" target="_blank">Team Sky</a> is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Brailsford" target="_blank">Dave Brailsford</a> and what can we learn from that for our teams?</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Known for his attention to detail and the “aggregation of tiny margins” Brailsford has managed to craft a team of powerful individuals each with deep reserves of self will, stubbornness and, in some cases, ego into a unit that works and in this case was unbeatable. Of course we must never over simplify or seek to commoditise how this is done. No doubt there will be some interesting revelations about rifts and conflicts that have been kept undercover for the duration of the race. </span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But for all that I find the team rules set out and agreed by Team Sky to be an interesting statement of togetherness and intent, and the process of agreeing a set of boundaries and understanding of high performing teams and crews can be a lesson for us. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rules, written on the side of the bus - or Death Star as is often referred to - are:</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<ul>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will respect one another and watch each others backs.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will be honest with one another.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will be on time.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will communicate openly and regularly .</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we want our helmets cleaned, we will leave them on the bus.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will pool all prize money from races and distribute it at the end of the year.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Any team bonuses from the team will be split between riders on that race.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will give 15% of all race bonuses and prize money to staff.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will speak English if we are in a group.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will debrief after every race.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will always wear team kit and apparel as instructed in the team dress code.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will not use our phones at dinner - if absolutely required, we will leave the table to have the conversation.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will respect the bus.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will respect personnel and management.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will ask for any changes to be made to bikes (gearing, wheel selection etc.) the night before the race and not on race day.</span></i></b></b></li>
<li><b style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We will follow the rules.</span></i></b></b></li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A fascinating mix of the cycling specific and the team, respect bonding and trust oriented.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What would be the rules you would sign up to?</span></b>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-51699462816932974872012-06-26T08:14:00.002+01:002012-06-26T08:21:13.658+01:00The Abiding Myth of the “Frontline”<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In these days of soundbites and the
pervasive creep of vacuous management speak into news and the media
generally we have become familiar with the use of the expression
“frontline services” as a way of making a distinction between
those deemed important and the also rans. I have always said that
this expression is a divisive falsehood and the recent débâcle at
<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18575932" target="_blank">Natwest</a> is very much testament to that.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
At its heart the notion of “frontline
services” seeks to draw a distinction about the relative importance
and centrality of particular functions within an organisation,
generally seeking to pretend that there will be no impact if we
decimate the “back office”. It seeks to assign differing value to
functions and to create the impressions that the individual parts of
the organisation exist in isolation and can easily exist without one
another. This is a foolish and simplistic notion of how organisations
are constituted and operate, but is popular because, if we accept it,
then it makes it both possible and acceptable to outsource, downsize
and sideline components and treat organisations like machines rather
than a much more complex body. As someone once remarked you cannot
divide a horse in the way you can a machine – you just get a bloody
mess.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The term “frontline” has a
militaristic tone but in that context it simply describes where the
edges of the conflict exist. Sensible generals have understood that
wars cannot be won at the front line alone. It wasn't for nothing
that Napoleon reputedly said an army marches on its stomach or that
dig for victory has such enduring resonance.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In a business context the perpetuation
of this notion of relative value has corrosive and dangerous
possibilities with functions being variously described as
“operational” “administrative” “non-core” and other
euphemisms that permit them to be ignored, downgraded and generally
de motivated.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I distinctly remember discussing with
the partner of a professional services firm their head count and his
casual unthinking reference to “people”, meaning fee earners and
a class of “non-people” meaning everyone else.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Drawing these false distinctions is
fundamentally unwise, and wholly inappropriate in a social business.
A social business recognises that each element has an integral role
to play, and requires a voice. Interestingly the balance and mutual
dependence of elements in an organisation are embodied in frameworks
like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_7S_Framework" target="_blank">7s</a>, its is just sad that these are often used to divide rather
than unite.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This does not mean that every section
or department or division is the same. Nor does it mean that they all
require the same depth of skills or that the expertise and competence
required in each is the same or as easily replaced.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But it does point up that organisations
are not simplistic machines easily divided or neglected without
unpredictable and damaging outcomes. The experience of RBS and
Natwest underline the centrality of what would often be described as
“non frontline” services and how neglecting and side lining these
can have catastrophic consequences.</div>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-37228406401218355212012-04-27T10:55:00.002+01:002012-04-27T10:55:30.740+01:00Social media is breaking the law. Good!<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: 'DejaVu Sans', sans-serif;"><span style="background: transparent;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br /></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">Breaking
the law is a good thing. I make a habit of it. Any laws that
exclude me, laws that say it cant be done, or “it must be done this
way” all shout a message to me that says “Why?” Social
technology can be very very useful in breaking the law.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
power of social tools is that they challenge established convention
by providing mechanisms to by pass or lower the barriers or accepted
or embedded behaviours that have served to create our very own “iron
cage”. People can re imagine themselves into new roles, become
things that seemed previously unthinkable. They can make connections
and links that were once unlikely or impossible. They can collaborate
across geographies and hierarchies. This means we can use them to
innovate in ways we once never could, and liberate resources that can
generate value that were once eternally locked up.</span></span><br /><br />Of
course this can be unsettling or uncomfortable but still<span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">,
in my book, breaking the law is, on the whole, worth trying and a
good thing.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">Breaking
the Law is another matter and you should be aware that social tools
make this easy as well.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
the past few days we have encountered some serious breaches of the
Law - notably through the use of twitter. I don't propose to debate
the merits or demerits of the cases, simply to point out that it is
incredibly easy to fall foul of the Law with social tools. Sometimes
it is the fact that the Law has yet to catch up with changed
behaviours that are now considered acceptable and mainstream. I look
forward to fun that will be had with the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17838885" target="_blank">absurd rules around the useof images on social channels from the grossly commercial Olympics</a>.
</span></span><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sometimes
it is the international nature of these network that can be part of
the issue, both for and against prosecution.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">A
lawyer recently opined that it is stupid, or unthinking or reactive
tweeting that is often the cause of people falling foul of the Law.
Its so easy to quickly speak ones mind and in so doing create a
public record of a potentially illegal view, or breach long held
confidences. Either way, when we become alarmed by the behaviour of a
few individual numpties on line lets not get too carried away. As they say hard
cases make bad law. We should stand firm against those that would use
these examples as a justification seek to surveil and constrain the
social networks and mass behaviours it enables. Social is by
definition challenging the anti social conventions of the past two
centuries. For me it is a positive. In the week we celebrate the
anniversary of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout" target="_blank">Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout</a> lets not forget
there are many noble examples where mass off line actions have
challenged bad Laws for the benefit of all.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;">So
breaking the Law has its place too.</span></span></span></span></span></div>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-79972015566052665952012-02-07T16:59:00.006+00:002012-02-07T17:16:40.038+00:00There No Success Like Failure in a World of Iteration<div><b id="internal-source-marker_0.5170046100392938"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">Having spent a few weeks in New Zealand I had the double pleasure of being on holiday with all the opportunity that that state brings, and in addition to be re acquainted with The Listener.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">The Listener is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listener_(magazine)">described by wikipedia as a defunct magazine published 1929 - 1991</a>. I remember it well and loved it, and like many (though not enough apparently) was sad when it closed its doors. In the readers defence I have to say it was cruelly dumbed down in its later years - a decline properly described in the wikipedia entry where you can also read about the fateful blocking of Richard Gotts editorship, lest we forget!</span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">Imagine my surprise then when, a few years ago, I did a bit of a double take when what looked like a copy of that fine magazine was sat on a newsagent shelf in New Zealand. Now it can take a while for periodicals published in the UK to make it to NZ, but given that this was in this millennium it seemed unlikely that this copy had taken some 10 or 15 years to get there. So I took a closer look and discovered that this was in fact a copy of <a href="http://www.listener.co.nz/">The New Zealand Listener</a>, a magazine of similar content, branding and style to the version I was familiar with, but published in New Zealand and aimed at the good people of the Land of the Long White Cloud.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">It was a great discovery and since then my father-in law will dutifully collect a few copies for me before I arrive on holiday. It keeps me quiet no doubt and goes some way to reinforce the case as to why I should relocate from the land of the long black cloud o more sunnier climes.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">Having the luxury of time to read is a joy and I found a fascinating article in the September edition a fantastic article on “The Power of Failure - how it creates success” Written before the <a href="http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/">Rugby World Cup</a> final the article includes a good deal of passing reference to the performance of the All Blacks - frankly almost all discourse in New Zealand does at some point make reference to the All Blacks! But it has a good deal of sensible insight into the importance of being able to have safe failure. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Snowden">Dave Snowden </a>often describes the necessity of creating an environment where we can experience safe failure rather than trying to create a fail safe environment. He is right of course as we can generally learn so much more from our experiences of failure, to the extent that if it leads to subsequent success it is arguable that, when considered in the round, it is a failure at all. <a href="http://timharford.com/">Tim Harford</a> and his book <i><a href="http://timharford.com/books/adapt/">Adapt: Why success Always Starts With Failure</a></i> is referenced a good deal, and he makes the distinction between these small managed failures and those that occur complex “tightly coupled” systems. My response to that would be that generally these systems exist in complex environments but have been applying approaches that are applicable in the simple or or complicated domain making them vulnerable to tipping into the chaotic domain and bearing out the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin">Cynefin framework’s insights</a>. It’s also a sensible reminder for us to shout very loudly at people - notably politicians who accept that things get “too big to fail” but do nothing to amend this circumstance.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">I was also interested to read about the work <a href="http://www.theicehouse.co.nz/">The Icehouse</a> an Auckland based incubator that has a somewhat more sanguine attitude to failure, and an anecdote about the early efforts of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Yunus">Muhammad Yunus</a> being less than entirely successful before he developed the micro finance principles that led to the <a href="http://grameen-info.org/">Grameen Bank's</a> success. </span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">The point of all this? Well apart from the inherent wisdom of the article and the reminder to keep trying it serves to remind us that we can now operate in an environment of rapid iterations where the capacity for accelerated learning through microfailure is enhanced. With sensible reflective learning approaches the capacity to source a crowd of insight coupled with the ability to launch micro initiatives with the help of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing our capacity for innovative advance has perhaps never been better.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; "></span><br /><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; ">If only I had time to read the October editions....</span></b></div>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-12559075511138752382011-11-09T08:55:00.005+00:002011-11-09T09:06:14.532+00:00I am the 99%<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">I am a great fan of the <a href="http://www.occupytogether.org/">occupy movement</a>. I love it. I particularity like the way the great diversity of opinion and lack of coherent, single issue, manifesto leader led style confounds and confuses the vested interest groups that are unnerved by it. It is like a group expression of teenage rebellion, that hormone driven maelstrom of pooled discomforts that grump and grumble as a rumble of scowls that hates ….. well …. stuff! Its not a single issue thing its juts a groundswell of discontent at more or less everything and that its not fair and it all being stacked against you while everyone else parties.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">The absence of a single agenda and specific manifesto means that the usual defence tactics of the vested interst groups – the 1% - cant directly challenge and unpick it so it confuses them. Yiou can almost see th frowns and thoughts of “How can this be? Our usual media management techniques of vacuous words and supposedly rational argument about this is the best and only way – dont work.” <a href="http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/post/10726713295/i-am-the-99-percent">Here we have the 99%</a> saying we the majority state the systems broke. You the 1% with the levers to change it must change it even if its harms your privileged position. Physician heal yourself or else.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">There is undoubtedly a younger demographic very much embracing this. Many would say the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y">Gen Y's</a> (I hate the labels) You hear many in that group declare that what has brought them to this is action is the fact that the promises made to them have been broken in that they were promised opportunity and told to aspire and now its all been taken away.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">I would say – as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby-boom_generation">baby boomer</a> / <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X">Gen X</a>er ( The fact I could be either shows how daft the terms are) twas ever thus. Its not that is is not true it just we have all been there. We all have dreams and ambition. We are all told to aspire, that things are possible, the world is your oyster, the good and honest prosper etc etc, only to find that actually it aint so. We discover life passes quickly, that the things we are told we should have require taking on commitment and debt and that the need to service this demand means holding onto dreadful jobs with hateful organizations that exploit and degrade you because you need them more than they need you. Liars and charlatans often get on and lying is a necessary evil. Of course none of this needs to be so but the system sucks you in and grinds you down and soma to deal with this deep disappointment is the council of “Well its life. That’s the way it is. Its growing up.” Some console themselves with that other opium, religion – it will be better in another life. But even that seems to be unravelling as “grown ups” in the privileged west come to understand that the whole edifice is not as sounds as it seemed.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">Personally I never bought that “growing up”idea. Inequality and lies still leave me angry. So I say to the disgruntled youth – your experience is not unique. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">What is unique however is that we have a real opportunity to genuinely challenge the “status quo”. Never before have the 99% had such possibility to rapidly come together, organise articulate and act in concert to bring about change. The appetite to do it has always been there, but now we have to tools. Lets make the change actually happen.</p>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-55172748715688055742011-10-28T08:17:00.004+01:002011-10-28T08:30:48.619+01:00Change is coming - hopefully<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">If you needed a more telling indication of the absurdity of our current global arrangements look no further than the eurozone ”bailout”. Apart from the fact that this is not a solution but merely a cobbled together postponement we have the ghastly spectacle of Europe’s barely chastened leaders sending their envoy, cap in hand, to an appalling totalitarian regime to beg for cash to help them out of a utterly self imposed crisis. The supreme irony is that the money they hope to secure was once their own but was happily handed over in exchange for cheap goods produced in poor circumstances with an artificially subsidised exchange rate at the expense of their own citizens jobs. And the bargaining chip? We will criticise less your human rights record and maybe make you a market economy. So much for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahrir_Square">Tahrir Square</a> I haven’t forgotten <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7020744172733544165&pr=goog-sl">Tiananmen Sq</a>.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">And that this ridiculous sticking plaster onto a gaping wound should happen on the 25<sup>th</sup> anniversary of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(financial_markets)">Big Bang</a> – that monument to greed and selfishness - and the announcement that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15487866">UK Directors have seen their remuneration package expand vigorously</a> at a time when others are forced to tighten their belt in “austerity measures” only makes the situation more repulsive.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">Now we have Nicolas Sarkozy finally saying what many of us said all along that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15487269">Greece shouldn’t have joined the Euro</a>. But then Europe loves making rules that it can then simply ignore. Perhaps Mr Sarkosy might want to turn that new found sharp economic insight onto getting the EU accounts audited and signed off for the first time in umpteen years – but that might open up another can of worms of fudge, fraud, graft and greed.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm">However – there has to be hope and I find some comfort in <a href="http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2011/10/26/empowering-change-through-collaboration/">Don Tapscotts challenge</a> and vision that mass collaboration can change things and turn long held assumptions on their head. As the printing press played a role in bursting open the corruption and vested interest of religious institutions, and lit the fire of many a revolution so too must mass collaboration liberate us from our tired and broken institutions. Unlike Don I don’t think they have or do serve us well – hasta la vicotria siempre!</p>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-25032795607983981292011-10-08T16:55:00.003+01:002011-10-08T17:13:04.641+01:00Land of the long white flops<div>So England are on the plane home after another world cup failure this time in rugby as they <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/15210221.stm">fall to France in Auckland</a>. And rather like the exit from the Soccer World Cup (and yes it is soccer) a couple of years ago it is both no surprise and to be honest a bit of a relief and, as before, there are lessons to be learned from the defeat.</div><div><br /></div><div>In South Africa for me it was clear from very early on that they would not progress as it was quite apparent that this was not a team – it was a group of individuals. As if to underline the point it was exquisitely demonstrated by their reaction when a mistake by Rob Green the goal keeper <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIn-FVZd_xA">led to a soft goal</a>, not a single player took the time to go back and speak to him. They left him swinging in the wind, compounding and accentuating the scale of the error in a wholly destructive way. As my old Rules coach used to say (yes that’s Aussie Rules) “A champion team will always beat a team of champions.” Lack of leadership too - where is the captains example?</div><div><br /></div><div>And so to Auckland. IMHO it has been apparent to me that this team has lost its ability to reflect, consider and to be self critical. They are self absorbed but that is not the same as being self critical. They have lost humility, they have lost a sense of responsibility and, let’s be frank, lost touch with reality. They are smug. How do I know this? Simply witness their reaction to the criticism levelled at them for their behaviour and “antics” in the last few weeks. They believe the criticism is unjustified, a storm in a tea cup, exaggerated, and their responses in interview have been chippy, smirky, the demeanour of schoolbullys. </div><div><br /></div><div>Hmm? Well I think they have forgotten the privilege and responsibility bestowed on them. Well guys don’t forget there would be no criticism if you behaved yourselves and as for storm in a tea cup, the behaviour in the Dunedin hotel would see you very much departing most normal jobs these days so why should we tolerate it in national representatives? Get some perspective and learn some respect. </div><div><br /></div><div>For those that say this is the way with modern sports men I say “Erm? not so!” and offer <a href="http://www.walesonline.co.uk/rugbynation/rugby-news/2011/10/07/mervyn-davies-sam-warburton-must-keep-wales-captaincy-going-forward-91466-29558135/">Sam Warburton </a>of Wales as a much better example of behaviour attitude and, at this time, success.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the most telling indicator is the penalty count. Now it really doesn’t matter if you agree with the interpretation of the referee or not. I have major issues with how the Southern hemisphere officials referee the game and yes I am a qualified Rugby Referee. However if you are shipping penalties it is no point saying you don’t agree, the guy with the whistle will keep blowing it and you need to adjust and adapt. This means taking a long hard look at what you do and admitting it’s not going right and adjust. England’s penalty count has been lamentable and costly and they simply haven’t LEARNED. Lack of leadership both on and off the field.</div><div><br /></div><div>I take nothing away from France who were, as they can be, magnificent – <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFHcKqh4i4">believe me I know being married to a Kiwi!</a> But the inability to be humble, lack the honesty and self awareness to be critical and examine performance will defeat you regardless of the opposition because you defeat yourself.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don’t lament the defeat such moronic national representatives don’t deserve to wear the jersey, best to have them home. And as for the <a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01963/shirt_1963023c.jpg">black jerseys</a> and the state of the RFU – don’t get me started.</div><div><br /></div><div>So why am I writing this apart from the need to get it off my chest? </div><div><br /></div><div>Well the lessons are the same in business. I recall joining a consultancy firm and having <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Teams-High-Performance-Organization-Essentials/dp/0060522003">“The Wisdom of Teams” Katzenbach and Smith</a> – thrust into my hand as I walked into the first day induction, and it is a fine message, and fine text that has served me well.</div><div><br /></div><div>The ability to be self critical is essential too. Review and adapt and learn. It is not an admission of failure it’s an acknowledgement that nothing we do is perfect but we should constantly strive for it. Coaching is of no value if you can’t learn – knowledge is a verb.</div><div><br /></div><div>As for leadership - well that is a post on its own. Lets save it for another day.</div>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-23617004580012107572011-06-05T10:40:00.000+01:002011-06-05T10:41:13.643+01:00Oh Lord! You Dannatt know the law.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Lord Dannatt – former chief of the defence staff keeps telling us that deploying Apache helicopters to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Libya</span><span lang="EN-GB"> isn’t an mission creep its an “escalation”. He also rattles on about it being entirely legitimate to takes sides in a civil war and look to regime change because Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama published articles saying that was their intent. I must have missed the meeting where regime change was</span><span lang="EN-GB"> made legal and that by politicians printing things in the papers makes it okay. </span></p>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-54376387758467055092011-04-26T18:53:00.003+01:002011-04-26T18:56:41.235+01:00Social KnowledgeOne of the ongoing debates in the world of KM is the ever controversial “collection or connection” classification. It neatly defines the two most common wings of the discipline, one emphasising an information or artefact driven approach, the other endorsing the essential role of the human context or, as I would say it, the application of the Mk1 Brain. As someone who describes knowledge as a verb not a noun in order to break with the information managers of this world and to reinforce the necessity of action to create value I think you can guess where I sit on this one.<br /><br />However the argument neatly highlights the problem with KM. KM is hard. Its hard to define, hard to demonstrate ROI, counter cultural, long term, and yet it promises so much. Because it is hard it is easier to characterise it as information on steroids because people can “get” that and can task someone to go away and do it – problem solved. It gives management the secure warm feeling that they are “doing KM” because they have neatly pigeon-holed it under something that is somehow familiar. The problem is that this isn't KM and it is in fact something of a dead end.<br /><br />In a way the the debate has found an echo in the Social Media domain. Creating value from Social Media is much more complicated than simply starting a Facebook page. There is familiar debate about the value of curation as opposed to creation, a debate about ROI, and we have an over emphasis of seeing Social Media through the lens of Marketing because once again people can “get” that and task someone to do it. But again that really isn't the whole story by any means and again is something of a dead end.<br /><br />But curiously enough there is an area where we can find some progress and value by bringing the two together. Social Media is underpinned by a mindset rooted in collaboration and sharing, iteration, evolution and tearing down barriers to participation. This mindset is coming from outside the boundaries of the organisation and shaking the traditional structures and practises as it permeates its way in. The challenge is for organisations to embrace that and create value from it through new approaches, new business models and new thinking – in a word innovation.<br /><br />KM is rooted in the same insight but has come from the other end of the telescope in that it has sought to to create that environment within organisations and push it outwards.<br /><br />We can now go beyond this and by bringing these insights together and we can create tremendously rich possibilities for organisations by bringing together the elements of curation, collection, connection and most importantly applications that can operationalise these elements in to action and value generation. We call this Social Knowledge.<br /><br />Of course it takes planning, analysis, and a strategy but it can be done and a good deal of my work at <a href="http://www.twintangibles.co.uk">twintangibles</a> is taken up with thisTim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-59733198040109814202011-04-22T09:39:00.001+01:002011-04-22T09:41:22.497+01:00How refreshing - "Let me think about that"How refreshing to hear someone in the public eye say I need to give it more thought. In our world of all at once ness, instant communications and sound bite opportunistic politics we have become accustomed to public figures having a view on everything and an instant response for any question. What it often leads to is very shallow polarised debate, an expectation that celebrities have an answer to anything, or even the trite and vacuous media speak that coach those put on the spot to say something that means nothing and leads to the development of execrable phrases like “going forward”!<br /><br />So how refreshing when someone asked a question has the courage to say – “Actually I will give that a bit more thought.” Now David Cameron is not a chap I see eye to eye on a lot, nor do I have much in common with him but credit where credit is due that is what he said yesterday when questioned about the privacy debate currently going on regarding judges awarding gagging orders to public figures whose privacy is alleged to have been invaded. The debate I will leave for another day, but Cameron said he was uncomfortable with the situation but added that he needed to give it a bit more thought and for that alone he has earned my respect as it is a rare quality.<br /><br />Archbishop Rowan Williams – another man I have little in common with – I don’t even have a beard – did much the same once when being interviewed on the radio. He was asked a question and asked for time to think before answering. Now this is a chap who is very sharp so it wasn’t that he was struggling its just that he felt a need to consider. It was such an unusual thing to hear that it struck em at the time and has stayed with me since and for all my considerable distaste for organsiaed religion I have to say that this episode causes me to have respect for the Archbishop as a thinker and a man of refelction and probably principle.<br /><br />I have always used the same method when interviewing, be it recruitment or other occasions. It seems to me that offering an opportunity for an interviewee to consider their response, or respect their request for time to think, will generally produce a much more insightful contribution that the panicked platitudes and buzz words that a flustered candidate might produce.<br /><br />So lets hear it for consideration and reflection and the application of the Mk 1 brain – it is after all the essence of knowledge as a verb!Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-82334824410383441232011-04-08T10:20:00.002+01:002011-04-08T10:23:28.242+01:00Portugal - old pal - its like this mate......Portugal is sometimes described as “England’s oldest Ally.” Given its current predicament it is a pertinent to ask what that ally should do. I, as an Englishman, have written and spoken a fair bit about the financial crisis and the commoditisation of banking obscuring risk. I have also been pretty forthright in saying that our personal and corporate and national appetite for debt is misplaced and unsustainable. So I have to say again bad debt is bad debt, no matter how you try to repackage it. Already Greece and Ireland have or are in the process of renegotiating their bailouts – guys it will not go away. There has to be, IMHO, a fundamental readjustment of the models we have been using and so I think for all concerned Portugal should default so as an ally we should ...let it happen. Tough love as they say. It would be tough on Portugal – however its a mess of their own making - politicians blaming the markets wont cut it, you made the calls to play them guys. It would also hit the lenders - so be more careful next time. The resulting double whammy might also shake the tree sufficiently to finally get action to address the underlying problems that mean 2008 will happen again and it will be worse next time.<br />Sorry Portugal sometimes a friends job is to give you the bad news no one else will.<br />And if you want to know - yes AIG should have been allowed to fail to.Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-78605733930892034682011-04-05T08:15:00.002+01:002011-04-05T08:19:58.919+01:00Ambridge Extra - the Stealth attack!Now call me cynical.........I haven't heard it yet but........I have a prediction about the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/the-archers/content/ambridge-extra/">Ambridge Extra</a> which is due to go to air on <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4extra/">BBC Radio 4 Extra</a> this morning. Now the Archers, for those that don't know, is “an everyday story of country folk” charting the lives of a variety of characters in the fictitious village of Ambridge. Whilst it is not in anyway a true reflection of country life, they do go to some lengths to have strong farming story lines and point up some of the challenges that people in rural locations face.<br /><br />However, what it doesn't have is a cast of characters that are reflective of a London Centric Metropolitan demographic. This has clealry always rankled with the London Centric Metropolitan powers that be at Auntie and they have tried to introduce characters and story lines that are more in keeping with their dinner party friends. This has generally been met with a resounding raspberry from the programmes loyal followers who have endured this to make it the longest ruining radio soap in the world.<br /><br />The recent 50th anniversary “shocking” death of Nigel Pargetter was, in some people view an effort to make the characters less “posh”. The programme has become increasingly “yoof” focussed with increasing emphasis on younger characters and their rather trite stories which has done it no favours – but it is still just about bearable<br /><br />Well I will take bets on the fact that the Archers Extra is going to be a stealth attack on the show by the metropolitan snoots in the upper reaches of Auntie. The show will, I predict, unremittingly “yoof”, peppered with a much more”diverse” group of characters and will be the long game to make the main show that way to. The promise to focus on the minor characters lives that don't get the attention in the main show will - I suggest - be exclusively under 25.<br /><br />Now I wonder if there will be incidental music too? :o)Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-10431528638780446912011-02-23T22:14:00.001+00:002011-02-23T22:15:23.347+00:00Douglas Alexander you are a complete *rse<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Is it any wonder that people despair of the political process and politicians in general. Opportunistic, self serving, disconnected, greedy, lazy, vacuous, choose what you will and apply liberally. . For myself I am getting a bit long in the tooth to want mount the barricades and seldom do I get exercised about them – far too much to do to be bothered. Generally I can just tut and shake my head at the generally parlous state of politics. You would have thought that the expenses scandal might have been a watershed and we could expect better now. However it seems that we still have at least a few who have so lost sight of principles or beliefs that they cannot ever become more than chattering empty heads spouting ridiculous mantras of spin and knee jerk froth. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">One such raised his head today and frankly I can only condemn the broadcaster for giving him the space to belch out such stinking halitosis. His name, Douglas Alexander that pathetic excuse for a ventriloquists doll – not capable of a thought of his own but more than able to make a noise when a hand is shoved up his behind. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Instead of being critical of<span style=""> </span>a government visiting the middle east with a bunch of arms dealers in tow, excusing their <span style=""> </span>selling of arms and tear gas to repressive regimes on the basis that this wasn’t the tear gas in use at the time, Douglas Alexander criticises the tardy supply of a plane to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Libya</span><span lang="EN-GB"> to airlift British nationals. Of course we want our our nationals safe and home but really!!! Well Douglas your right it wasn’t quite as quick as the one that carried your former leader to shake hands and kiss the but of the same despot who is now merrily killing civilians, or indeed as fast as the plane that took him to a buckshee holiday courtesy of a neighbouring despot, or even the one that took him to the arms of the ghastly fascist of Italy. Didn’t hear you speaking up about that </span><span lang="EN-GB">Douglas</span><span lang="EN-GB">. Lost your voice then did you? You always have been and always will be a non entity as shallow as pavement spit and with a lot less integrity. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">God help the lot of us if this is the best our politicians can manage at a time of hope being won at intolerable cost by courageous people sick of being under the heel of monsters supported and endorsed by our government on the basis that they may be sons of bitches but they are at least our sons of bitches. </span></p>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-25667075370619327292011-02-14T18:53:00.002+00:002011-02-14T18:55:00.366+00:00Big Society - Big HeadacheYou know I have a bit of sympathy with David Cameron and the Big Society challenge he faces. Now my sympathy has nothing to do with my view of either the Big Society initiative or, for that matter, David Cameron. My sympathy is with regard to the challenge of communicating a philosophy to a diverse audience with diverse agendas and an audience more used to sound bite communications and an appetite for the more binary or concrete.<br /><br />Why should I sympathise? Well anyone that has been involved with Knowledge Management should be able to empathise with him because a constant refrain to the ears of those seeking to bring KM to an organisation has been “I don’t know what KM means”. Now the reasons for “not understanding” were in some cases intentional, manufactured and considered as well as in others ones of genuine confusion. The reasons for this variety range from those who sought to discredit the initiative because it wasn’t in their interests so a feigned misunderstanding; through to the advocates of KM not really understanding the philosophy themselves or being un able to articulate it.<br /><br />To expand on that a little I mean this. I always knew what the philosophy of KM meant and I also knew that, when applied properly, it challenged many of the Taylorist management traditions that persist to the detriment of business and to the benefit of a few vested interests. So it was in the interests of some to discredit any KM initiative and a simple but effective method for this was to pretend to not understand. An alternative approach was to directly misrepresent the philosophy of KM into a service based model so that it compartmentalised any initiative and emasculated the practitioners.<br /><br />By the same token it was misrepresented by those who sought to ride on its coat tails – I am thinking particularly of software vendors who rebadged their database products as KM product – which of course they were/are not. It was in their interests to make it something that suited their ends regardless of whether that was an accurate representation or not. They could “de mystify” KM and sell a product at the same time. Management could either use the procurement as a representation of their “doing KM” or as a constrained and manageable project – whilst business as usual was maintained.<br /><br />You may call me cynical but believe me its true.<br /><br />And so to the less Machiavellian but no less challenging causes of misunderstanding. For some KM is and was a difficult thing to grasp as it went beyond their management experience and the advocates were unable to encourage the opening up process. Notably for some it was a challenging concept to grasp because it was a philosophical stance to managing an organisation that did not offer a simple recipe based or system based approach with best practice or rules to be followed – or even coloured belts to wear! For some, who genuinely understood its flexibility of application, this in itself was problematic as that liberty can be scary.<br /><br />And finally there were those who advocated it but either didn’t understand it or could not articulate it with sufficient clarity and so the audience was genuinely confused.<br /><br /><br />There is no simple solution to the “communications” and “understanding” challenges but it remains an un resolved problem for KM and has, in my view, caused it to under achieve as a management style.<br /><br />David Cameron will face the same challenges because he will face those with an agenda to oppose or subvert, and those that truly find it difficult to embrace a somewhat nebulous concept, and the limits of the communications generally in an anti thinking sound bite based world.<br /><br />Wonder how it will go?Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4370149229478854837.post-26494289113525022312011-01-06T10:30:00.004+00:002011-01-06T10:36:49.475+00:00Bannatyne, Budgets and Public Sector Bodies<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Duncan Bannatyne (<a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/DuncanBannatyne">@DuncanBannatyne</a>) started a bit of a Twitter trend today when he asked, in a sense of outrage, if Sir Andrew Cahn should repay £1million pounds to the tax payer. But I would say this Duncan, whilst I have sympathy with the sentiment the revelation that Cahn instructed staff to spend £1million because of a budget underspend at <a href="http://www.ukti.gov.uk/">UK Trade and Investmen</a>t comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever held budgetary responsibility in the public sector or has worked with the public sector. Its common practice.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I remember my astonishment at encountering this type of mind set when working with and for public sector bodies. The argument advanced is generally termed – use it or lose it – and you are generally regarded as completely bonkers for not spending every penny of an annual budget </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Having private sector experience of budget building and management I had become accustomed to being given a pat on the back for underspending, smart procurement, driving down costs through innovation. Being informed that such things were not only unnecessary but actually unwelcome was a bit of a shock</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It does make one wonder why this is the case. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Well I offer two fundamental problems that I believe underpin it. One is the typical budget building approach in many public sector bodies. In essence the starting point for your budget is essentially determined by what has gone before as a starting point. Hence the “use it or lose it” idea. There is almost an assumption that these costs are somehow fixed costs. A major failure of knowledge management in my view. Such rigid formulaic or unquestioning of assumptions demonstrate a lack of Knowledge Aware Management.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This can in part be addressed by introducing different budget strategies in an environment where trying different approaches is encouraged, where no numbers are sacrosanct and assumptions underpinning figures are reexamined. Zero Based Budgeting as some of my counting friends might have it. Of course Social Knowledge principles have a role to play here as drawing on the collective insight and wisdom of the organization and its partners can surface opportunities to innovate and reduce costs.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Another contributory factor is the culture that suggests size of budget is one of the most important benchmarks and confers status in an environment where status is of greatest import rather than effectiveness.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Of course this is challenging issue to overcome, but again Social Knowledge approaches have a role in helping to reveal the true metrics of success of the client group, and for exposing them to the organization as part of an effort to break that inwardly focused and rigid mindset.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">However in the meantime should he repay it – of course – but he wont.</p>Tim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17264532253510372430noreply@blogger.com0