Simply a Decision Away… Nicholas Bate

Another beautifully compelling thought from Nicholas Bate: a mojita in a Havana bar, a Bellini in Venice, mouth-watering, smoky speck and rye bread on a Tyrolean summit… 

Technorati Tags: Nicholas Bate,Strategic Edge,Organisational Humanity,Sovereign Professional

Panflation–The Devaluation of Everything – Economist

(Catching up on a backlog of interesting things to share).

The Economist, two weeks ago, had this excellent leader about the pernicious effect of the continuing inflation of titles, ratings, exam results, sizes and anything that has any suggestion of scale or hierarchy.

Some examples are laughably familiar: why is Starbucks’ smallest coffee “Tall”?  Why do some hotels no longer have Standard rooms but a froth of grades beginning with “deluxe”.  Similarly, six and seven star hotels abound while even some five star hotels offer surprisingly pedestrian service.

Other examples are shocking and poisonous in their effect: a study by Durham University finds that an A grade in today’s English A Levels is equivalent to a C grade in the 1980s; in American universities 45% of graduates now get the top grade compared with just 15% in the 1960s.  Neither mollified stupidity nor obscured intelligence is well served by such inflation.  No-one now truly believes in what was once England’s gold standard in education.  Employers struggle to sort the seed wheat from the gilded chaff of over-graded applicants.

Similarly, while 75% of Americans and 60% of Britons are overweight, the Economist finds that today’s size 14 trousers (UK women’s size) is equivalent to a size 18 from the 1970s; a size 10 is a 1970s’ size 14.

A lot of this inflation is linguistic (in the UK, it sometimes feels as if everyone is a Director of something, ideally something suitably obscure) and it’s an area that writer Matthew Stibbe rails against with regular eloquence (try here or here, for example).

As writers and marketers, we need to use words with care, sparingly and with accuracy.

Technorati Tags: Economist Style Guide,Panflation,Matthew Stibbe,Starbucks,Durham University,Grade Inflation,Size Inflation

The Economist on Scottish Independence

This week’s Economist, sadly, makes – rather than reports – the news.  Alex Salmond and his SNP colleagues have been quick to decry the paper’s “sneering condescension” announcing that it will “rue the day” it published this week’s front cover.

The Economist has done itself a disservice with a somewhat tacky, tasteless cover that detracts from a balanced and informed article.  And, of course, some 1,500 comments to the online version of the article reveal a depressing level of ignorance and bigotry on both sides of the argument that seem to stem from the cartoon cover rather than the facts.

In reality, the article (The Scottish Play) and related Leader (It’ll Cost You) address some serious issues for a potentially independent Scotland: yes, currently oil revenues roughly offset subsidies from central Government; but what of a future where diminishing reserves become ever more expensive to extract?  What of the substantial liability to decommission redundant oil facilities?  Of an unproven renewables industry and a damaged financial sector?  Whether adopting the Euro or maintaining the Pound, a newly sovereign nation would have no sovereignty over fiscal policy.  Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain suggest that can be a difficult course.  And, even in the best of climates, a new, small country should expect its international credit rating to be lower, and borrowing costs higher, than the UK’s.  All of these issues deserve and demand serious consideration.  The Economist piece goes a long way to inform the head over heart aspect of the independence question.

(Image Source: The Economist)

Technorati Tags: Scotland,Scottish Independence,The Economist,Alex Salmond,SNP

The History of Work

To anticipate the future, we should learn about the past.

I’ve just finished reading Richard Donkin’s wonderfully crafted The History of Work.  Well-researched and beautifully written, it should be essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand work and its future.  We talk a lot about the New World of Work or the Future of Work and bandy around buzz-words for conceptions of what could or should be, but those can be shallow ideas unless you understand how we got to where we are; how work came to be, and to mean, what it is today.

The Industrial Revolution, of course, was responsible for many of the patterns and norms that we believe to be essential to today’s world of work but Donkin reaches back even to prehistoric times to understand the real nature of work, and to raise some interesting questions.  When, and why, did work become equated with something onerous?  If “primitive” tribes managed to limit their hunting to two to three days a week – or a couple of hours a day – why does modern civilisation struggle to contain itself to 40, 50, 60, 100 hours a week?  And does that matter, it we enjoy our work?  If we don’t enjoy enjoy our work, why not?

Originally published in 2001 as Blood, Sweat and Tears, the book has been updated and extended to embrace the huge change of last decade that has enabled so much that was anticipated in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Very highly recommended.

Technorati Tags: Richard Donkin,History of Work,Sovereign Professional,freelancing,Portfolio career,Organisational Humanity,Strategic Resourcing

Listening to Joseph Campbell – @Gapingvoid

Sometimes Hugh MacLeod’s work just hits the nail on the head.

Between Jung and the current interest in story-telling structures (see here, here and here) sits Joseph Campbell.

Technorati Tags: Gaping Void,Hugh MacLeod,Writing,Joseph Campbell,Carl Jung,Storytelling.

Bad Meetings: Time, Money, Paper, Soul – SalesCrunch

Everyone hates bad meetings but too often corporate life consists of back to back meetings from 9 to 6.  You fit in your real work in the evenings and early mornings.

This neat infographic from SalesCrunch gives some numbers that should give pause for thought to meeting-junkies: $1,100 per hour?  10 hours to create a deck that 75% will never read?

Powerful, persuasive stuff…

(Hat-tip to Prospero’s World for flagging this)

Technorati Tags: Organisational Humanity,SalesCrunch,Meetings,Prospero’s World,Infographics,Effective Meetings

The Guardian’s Ill-informed Jihad

The Guardian, presumably sensing sales in popular outrage, seems determined to pursue an ill-informed Jihad against freelancers.

Following its attacks on …

• interim managers at the ONR (24th February)
• consultants in local authorities (17th February)
• the health department (16th February)
• and the Student Loans Company (1st and 2nd February)

… the Guardian’s latest target is the BBC which apparently “pays 3,000 freelancers through personal service companies”.

Whilst there may well be cases of abuse amongst these (where individuals who would otherwise be seen as “permanent employees” have been allowed to route their earnings through a personal service company), the vast majority are independent professionals who provide their knowledge, skills, experience and expertise to client organisations on a short-term, project basis.  Such individuals are operating as small businesses, using their abilities to generate  revenue from a range of customers (either concurrent or consecutive).  They incur business costs, bear business risks and pay business taxes.  I wrote a fuller description of the business model here.

In turning its attention to the media world with the BBC, the Guardian bumbles onto increasingly thin ice.  The arts and media world, like the press, has long-used independent, freelance individuals.  The project nature of much work in these fields is ideal for an expertise-on-demand model and many independents, especially in the world of television, will have invested heavily in their own equipment.  A freelance sound-editor will move from project to project, sometimes having too much work to cope with and at other times funding their way through lean periods. 

By using freelancers, the BBC – like any sensible organisation – avoids carrying expensive, talented individuals on its books when there is no work for them (something that we tax and license payers should be grateful for).

The personal service company is not a tax dodge, it is a perfectly valid, arguably the most valid, arrangement for these small businesses. 

Media and creative arts is an area the UK excels at and is a growth area for the UK’s economy.  Freelancing, as a model of individual choice, is also growing  (34.8% over the last ten years). 

The Guardian, as its Three Little Pigs ad suggests, would do better to feed informed debate rather than vilify those who are leveraging their expertise to build successful small businesses and, along the way, contributing to a thriving, flexible economy.

Exposing abuse should be more about surgery than slaughter.

Technorati Tags: The Guardian,Ben Dowell,personal service companies,freelancing,interim management,organisational humanity,portfolio career,sovereign professional,strategic resourcing