Thought provoking blog on a range of subjects
Sex might be a three minute time commitment, but parenthood is a lifetime commitment. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Bribery is a form of price inflation, with all the drawbacks of inflation. Worse still, it’s not even reported in the inflation statistics for a country.
Progress – it’s always darkest before the norm.
Scratch a sharp design, find the legacy of passion beneath. Scratch a sharp designer logo, find the loss of magic beneath.
If Scotland votes YES to become independent (and then starts the EU joining process), while Britain votes NO in a forthcoming referendum about remaining in the EU, will future EU migrants who see still the UK as a land of safety and opportunity all flock into Scotland instead of South East England?
Unchecked immigration is like allowing an unlimited number of shipwreck survivors to clamber into the same lifeboat.
Will the future wealth of the 1000 UK Rich List start buying up ever-increasing numbers of properties in London, until whole streets and boroughs are owned outright? Like famous impressionist paintings, if the supply remains finite, the investment value heads in one direction.
In London, the middle value property prices will likely continue to be set based on the underlying land value. Its value is set by the prices of the elite properties, unless mass Council Estate building is undertaken.
It sometimes takes an analytical person using right brain activity (creative problem solving) to solve a left brain problem.
Try to avoid the business planning process taking 13 months of effort, for a 12 month forecast period.
One of today’s senior job applicants jumping through the hoops of the interview process could well be tomorrow’s interviewer (and agency relationship manager), on the other side of the table. If you’re the job agency appointed, you’d be wise to remember this in all your dealings.
Sometimes you have to do external benchmarking to raise internal standards of efficiency and quality.
Recruitment needs to be age blind. Older people don’t just have old fashioned experience, they also have long run perspective -they’ve seen the boom and bust times and most of the pitfalls in action. Organisations often hire fresh young blood with the latest technical skills, not realising their older employees can adapt what they know, to reach the same end point. Ironically the decision makers are often older staff themselves. See also blog post ‘Careers of Project Work Ahead’ on how long Generation Y workers expect to stay with their employer.
The more costly the costing system to build, the more cost savings (to a point) it creates elsewhere in the organisation .
Accountants gravitate to reporting on material items. Operations managers gravitate to seeking (immaterial) points of leverage. Accountants are supposed to be supporting the business.
Firstly, in a democracy, the values of a nation are arguably represented by its government and government policies. With various checks and balances hopefully in place to moderate the level of emphasis.
Democratic politics is fundamentally about a system of values, with some practical compromises in the delivery of government policy. If you don’t vote, then what does that say about your values – is it saying:
Strong governments can be positive in staying the course and delivering what they promise -hopefully effective and positive change. Weak governments are typically inconsistent, immoral or ineffective.
Perhaps unfairly, a government might also appear ineffective, if :
So are ‘British values’ really a ’chicken and egg’ situation?
Voters hold a set of values and the elected government translates (at least some of) them into action. Meanwhile, the government tries to influence public perception (adopt healthy lifestyles, save for a pension, be tolerant of other’s beliefs, be charitable to those less fortunate, live within your means, develop skills, be law-abiding etc) and thereby instil a strong sense of those values. Then the actual value-set then emerges, somewhere in the middle.
If this is so, perhaps the real challenge to ‘British values’ emerges, when some groups refuse to influence change through the parliamentary system and act directly (protest encampments, civil riots or terrorism). When that happens at a significant level, the top-down approach kicks in.
Values as the ‘Music’
Over the long term of a democratic nation’s history, there may be periods where top-down values dominate (in response to direct challenge from outside the parliamentary system) and more benign periods where voter values dominate.
Either approach could be argued as nothing more than ‘music accompanying the march’ of progress. The important point being that the musical style of the day, doesn’t hold up the forward momentum of the nation to achieve positive change for its population.
Perhaps what is most interesting is that as various nations align on the economic and technical progress they want to experience, the values must also converge. British values become European and Commonwealth values. And Western values align with United Nations values as a proxy for global values.
What will happen to Middle East peace when the World’s oil dependency runs out? Doesn’t that region of the World need to focus all their energy on building a highly skilled workforce, supported by state of the art infrastructure?
If the Sun gives us free solar energy and the ocean gives us free wave energy, why are we still paying energy companies for energy?
For a multi-national energy company, the grass is always greener over the fence, when you keep choosing to harvest old investments in fossil fuel production. As the innovation vehicle speeds up, organisational complacency and myopia become the first victims of road kill. Share price the second.
Protecting free goods like the air we breathe is one battle worth fighting. Another is converting free solar energy into free energy for society.
Market cabals are the dying breath of an obsolete club – real competition isn’t market equilibrium. It’s market revolution.
Why in the UK do we encourage begging in the streets (by giving money to beggars)? We give enough in welfare benefits, foreign aid, food bank contributions, disaster relief and charity donations already. If the beggars aren’t UK citizens, who lets them come here and effectively tax us, on top of the EU taxes we already pay?
Do parental suicidal attitudes translate into their teenagers’ suicidal actions?
When it comes to national innovation, thinking outside the box means not drowning in the treacle of tradition inside the box.
Personal comfort zones are footprints in a circle, that become one foot in the grave. Opportunity zones are footprints leading to the horizon, that leave one foot high ripples in a pond.
Trend mapping with a moral compass is the answer. What was the question?
Train hard, track safe. Train easy, train coming. Track dangerous.
Hope is like gravity. It anchors us to a great Planet, surrounded by people we can help. And those who will reach out to us, if we let them.
If you equip yourself with the right skills, retire early and enjoy the good life, without money worries.
Wealthy people are just philanthropists still in their wrapping paper.
The worst thing about prison is how inflexible the hierarchies are. The best thing about going straight is how many hierarchies you can choose to follow.
When you are lucky enough to love someone, who needs to win the lottery?
If love is so great (and it is, in my view), why don’t more people give it out?
Is sibling rivalry just siblings trampling on sibling love, to get parental love?
Do we need separate words to describe step-parent love, grandparent love, pet-owner love, or gadget love?
Is there a difference between ‘new adopters’ who have a love affair with ground-breaking technology (who might hate shopping) and shopaholics who have a love for new season collections and new fashion new designs, who hate new technology?
Is lust still one of the seven deadly sins, if it’s for your partner that you love?
How come so many people love watching (office) politics, especially if involving intrigue and bitchiness, but so few people love politicians in general?
The most beautiful thing in the Universe – a mother’s love for her offspring?
There’s just one virus we want to go global and infect as many people as possible – the love bug.
Banking isn’t supposed to be completely self-serving. That’s *anking.
Modern is like modern art – it means different things to different people. If you want others to embrace modern, make sure it’s a big leap forward, not one leap forward (healthcare, connectivity, UN resolutions) and one leap back on others (pollution, inequality, injustice).
How do we go from a few super-models that everyone aspires to look like, to a World full of people who are super-models on the inside?
The quiet dignity of old people should be the quiet dignity of everyone.
Would the amount the World spends on vanity products each day cure World hunger for a week? Would the amount the World spends on defence each day prevent child suffering for a week?
I read an interesting preview on the ‘Recruitment Grapevine’ website, based on a recent London Business School survey of Generation Y work attitudes.
In it, the London Business School says 90% of Generation Y employees do not plan on staying with one employer for more than five years – with 37% planning to stay less than two years.
Richard Hytner, Adjunct Associate Professor of Marketing at London Business School says that “The job market can respond by better casting people to very specific projects, very specific assignments, very specific opportunities – multiple opportunities – in order to keep talent developed, stretched and hungry.”
Does this mean in the skilled labour market that we’re moving increasingly to project jobs that involve people working on multiple projects concurrently and on a stream of projects in sequence?
Will job agencies that operate in the skilled labour market, evolve into brokers between project tender issuance and project tender submissions?
Will Gen Y (generation cynical/generation rent) manage their own careers as a portfolio of income streams (involving client project work that is less than five years long, possibly from multiple concurrent clients), rather than as one ‘permanent role’ salary from a ‘permanent’ employer?
Lastly, will many future white collar management jobs evolve into project management roles instead?
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