When A Bank Dies, Who Thinks About The Children?

The crash of the DSB Bank makes painfully clear how easy it is to bring down an institution. It's a crisis in pocket-sized form. Just tell everyone at the bank that their money isn't safe/profitable/is getting stolen, and if more than a critical mass of people believe you, the bank is a goner.

I think at some point some economics undergraduate will make a thesis on calculating the critical percentage of bank capital for it to survive. It probably already exists, but will have to be updated with this new business case. Seriously. It only took one news article and a television interview to bring the house down.

Strangely enough the imminent foreclosure of the bank first brought attention to the athletes (ice skaters and soccer players) who were sponsored by the bank. Like they were hurt most.

The athletes were given more attention than the 2000 people who are about to lose their jobs.

Hell. The bank owner's dog got more attention than the bank employees.

Running out of colours

It seems every major illness has its own colour now. We've got red for AIDS, we've got yellow for cancer, we've got pink for breast cancer (actually those coloured ribbons already seem to have divvied up the spectrum).

And you can't just pick up new colours either, because green is for the environment (or maybe blue is the new green, I'm not fully up-to-date).

And then you've got all kinds of black label, white editions, gold and platinum... at some point all the major colours are going to be taken. (Actually they already are.) What if you have a worthwhile cause to promote, but no major colour to promote it with?

You end up taking some weird shade like Periwinkle.

Fail.

8 Observations From Japan

• The Japanese know how to cook. They know their food, and they know how to do it well. Their cuisine is one of the best in the world, they've got more Michelin stars than the French for crissakes. But why do they persist in making all these weird Kitkat (and here) and Pepsi Cola flavours?
• Everyone (under thirty) has either a Nintendo DS, a Sony PSP or a mobile phone in their hands at all times. They don't talk much.
• Every single baseball player on the home team has a song. If you're in the away section, every player from the away team has a song (the same song). If the home team sings, the away team is quiet, and vice versa.
• The politeness that the Japanese exhibit is hurting my neck (...from all the bowing).
• Japanese guys are shy. They tend to hide themselves in make-believe computer games, or in their work. No wonder Tokyo seems to have a serious women surplus. No wonder also that the Japanese population is declining.
• Pertaining to the previous point, quite a few women do know how to dress to impress. Yet the men don't notice (or can't show it). So now the women turn to cosplay, and dress up as maids or playboy bunnies or lolly popsicles.
• You'd think that after so much time with tourists and such, Tokyo might actually employ some competent English-Japanese translators for their signs. Currently these are way to funny (In restaurant: "Don't Pl(r)ay on the floor"; on escalator: "Don't hang baggage or children over the escalator.").
• J-Pop and Japanese party music is really too funny. It's also very child-like, but then again, the alternative is that we have to listen to Dutch folk music again.

Embarrassment will get you somewhere

Some people get embarrassed easier than others. Some don't mind walking around naked in public (usually in places like the Cote D'Azur), or don't mind being in the immediate vicinity of one. Some people will gladly try everything once, likely fail and fall flat on their faces, and get a great story out of it. Others take offense to everything that is uncomfortable to them, and get embarrassed just by you walking into their home with your shoes on.

It seems to me people who don't fell embarrassment at all are the ones with the greatest stories, and often the greatest successes. They just seem to take so many more actions, that others would simply not do. These are the opportunists, the positivists. But if you lean towards the other end of the scale, that's great too. People who are easily embarrassed are also people who tend to do what you ask, for risk of losing face. They will also not stab you in the back, for fear of getting caught.

In a sense, when I have to assign a financial post to someone in my team, I pick the person whose culture endures the most shame, and who is most easily embarrassed.

The right to complain

You know the people who just incessantly complain for the sake of it? That they have not enough money to take far away trips, that they have too many meetings, that they don't get the promotions they desire, that traffic is terrible, that the neighbour's cat is pooping all over the place...

Complaining does have a point. At some point you need to make clear what you think about a situation. And you can do it once. Maybe twice. But after the third time it just becomes a repetitive record player. The point of giving out the signal, is that something is done about it. Otherwise, complaining is just for the sake of it, irritating the hell out of everyone else.

If you've done nothing to improve upon a situation to complain about, if you didn't fix the car you've broken; if you were basically underperforming, so you didn't earn that promotion; if you complain about you fitness, but didn't exercise... you have not earned the right to complain about it. Complaining should be justified.

However, in the absence of complaining, it should not be inferred that you like the situation. It is merely tolerable. Last time I checked, tolerance does not equal love, want or even interest. I don't complain about the weather. That doesn't mean I want to be a weatherman, or that I wouldn't prefer the climate in the tropics. Not complaining doesn't equal liking.

Tell The Truth And Run

Funny how that works. You know what's wrong, and at some point you have to own up and bring the bad news to the fore. Unfortunately that means you play the bearer of bad news. And you know what happens to that messenger...

The answer to all your problems...

So apparently the way these employees are dealing with tough times in their company... is actually not dealing with them at all. Just fling yourself off the balcony from a ten story building.

It did however give pause to management of France Telecom, and its drive to push forward with reorganizations, layoffs and cutbacks. In short, if you don't agree with how things are going, then slit your own wrists in the company toilet. The downside of course then is, that you're dead.

Don't Touch My Stuff!!

What's with the hate (here and here for example) all of a sudden? Did women start using their men's razors to shave their armpit hair or something?

There's bound to be something in the water (or in this case, the "energy drinks"), otherwise I can't imagine these 6-foot plus, 250 pound guys suddenly putting the hurt on sub-5-foot, sub-100 pound girls, for seemingly no good reason.

Rearranging rationales

Funny observation.

Sometimes stuff happens. Natural disasters. Robberies. Missed promotions. The economy. Playoff losses. Cancer.

When it occurs to you, you have to deal with it. However, few people have a thought or an opinion about negative things happening to them. So when those things actually occur, you tend to rationalize these after the fact, you know, after the emotions have died down.

The more time passes, the more socially acceptable the rationalizations become. At first you're like: "Bitch quarterback couldn't throw a dent in a pack of butter." Later you're more like: "The Patriots gameplan for the defense did account for his off-pace passing game." And even more later, "It's just a game. There's more important things in life than a Super Bowl..."

And yet, this line of reasoning isn't really how we feel. We deserve the right to be angry or upset. We reserve the right to be unhappy. That's how the best songs get written.

How original DO you need to be

It's always difficult to say something to the next of kin when a loved one passes. You might end up with some cliches, because they tend to work somewhat. But after some time even such overuse will miss the intended effect... a level of comfort, a sense of support.

Then again, if you end up saying something truly original, is that what you really intended to do? Mustn't you actually utter a cliche ion the first place, just to get along? Would the bereaved actually notice a genuine thought actually entering their ears?

G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra

Truly the meek shall inherit the earth... or at least everybody who was a kid in the 1980s. With Transformers and G.I. JOE hitting the big screen, it's a wave of nostalgia that washes over us now. And I like it.

Case in point: Rise of Cobra. Definitely a loud, brash, action movie that will never win a lot of Oscars or awards of any serious kind. However there's some good fun to be had. Still I've had some thoughts during and after the movie:

• G.I. JOE adheres to the cardinal rule in Hollywood movie making: "when thou cast a black actor, he shall be either a big, bald tough guy, a suave muthafuckin' playa', or a comedy sidekick." In this case G.I. JOE had all three. God forbid an American movie has an actual black character with two dimensions.
• Forget about all the hi-tech weaponry (accelerator suits? WTF?). Just put hot women in skin tight leather outfits, or leave ample room for cleavage, and you'll win 9 out of 10 wars. And in the one case it's going to be girl-on-girl anyway, so everybody wins.
• Rachel can leave this hair color on for a while.
• In fact did they really have to make the sole female heroic character athletic, nerdy, independent, strong AND smart? That stuff is obviously written in fantasy, dude.
• Also because of the recession Peugeot, Citroen, Renault had a lot of cars still left in stock. And in order to bring the inventory levels back under control, the powers that be sold a shipload of them to G.I. JOE... to get destroyed.
• [SPOILER] Ehm... did the script writers lose track of time, and submit the screenplay to X-Men 1 instead? They should have let the bad guys escape, and unless they come up with an ingenious way for the Baroness to come back under Cobra control, and break out Destro and Cobra Commander, the dear writers put themselves in a bind I fear. It also means we're going to have a battle near Hoover Dam in the sequel, see Scarlet or Ana get swallowed by water. And we'll have the Last Stand in part three, after which we'll get treated to the obvious Snake Eyes spin-off (which would be freakin' awesome, apart from the fact that you can't really make a movie nowadays where the main character is a mute).
• Why doesn't Rex just use the nanomites on himself? He must be the biggest self-righteous prick that he only experiments on others. [END SPOILER]

Like Transformers 2, G.I. JOE is good enough for the Blu-ray treatment. But definitely not the special edition... unless the special edition contains Rachel Nichols in lingerie, and a hotel room reservation that is.

My New Favorite TV Show

There's one show on television... actually it's a full on channel, that just goes on and on for 24 hours a day, 5 days a week (because on Saturday and Sunday nobody does any trading)...

CNBC is great. You can have it on in the background, and seem like a true businessman. It's not so omnipresent, that you have to pay attention all the time. The ticker at the bottom will always keep you up to date with the latest, so you're never out of touch. And occasionally they will show an item that actually interests you.

As an added bonus the presenters are almost all gorgeous women. In fact, they are a bit distracting to say the least. You don't really pay attention to what they say anymore.

Anyway... watch it. Love it. Leave it on.

The Latest Hype in Management Country

Lately the MECE principle has been propping up a lot more in arguments and feedbacks in consultancy. For those of you who haven't been acquainted with the principle yet: it's an acronym that says Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. In my day job, people use it to give feedback on all kinds of decisions. As in:

"This memo is not very MECE."

"I think your analysis of these two options must follow MECE."

Of course when you first hear about this principle from your manager, you feign you know what it's about, but immediately you start looking for the wikipedia page, when he's not looking.

Then you read the page, and try to use what it says: when you present a collection, you must present attributes that are exclusive and exhaustive. In this way you keep the argument clear, pertinent and precise.

Unfortunately, when applied to consultancy, MECE as a principle is fundamentally flawed. The goal of the principle is to avoid ambiguity, but if anything, a consultant thrives on this. A consultant can be as exclusive and exhaustive as he wants to be. In fact the MECE principle in consultancy has more to do with political exclusivity and exhaustion, rather than logical.

I'm sure the MECE hype will blow over, once the consultant confront his manager with a MECE-approved memo, which proves to be unreadable, extremely difficult to follow, and ends up leading people to the wrong decision.

What happens in Pyongyang, Stays in Pyongyang

It has to be the feel-good story of the week, the two American journalists have been released from North Korean custody and have made it back to the USA. All it took was a visit from an ex-president, a dinner, and some conversation between old men.

But despite the official press release, I am quite interested in knowing what happened behind closed doors. Was money exchanged? Were any favours granted? Did they play a game of poker for it? Did Clinton promise Kim the new Apple iPod or something? Perhaps the last remaining tape of a Michael Jackson concert? Did Big Bill go all GI JOE on K-Jizzle?

Come on guys, WHAT HAPPENED THERE THAT CONVINCED KIM JONG IL TO FINALLY GIVE THOSE WOMEN A BREAK!!?? PEOPLE NEEDS TO KNOW!

Next they are going to send Clinton to the Gaza Strip to solve the crisis there over lunch, then fly him back over to Iran to settle the elections once and for all, and have him back in time for breakfast to automagically whistle the economic crisis away.

Now you're just being practical

The phrase 'being practical' gets banded about so many times it's ridiculous. Especially when things tend to look difficult, complex, time-consuming or just plainly a lot, this phrase gets thrown onto the table as a substitute for actually doing work, or actually taking hard decisions.

I propose we take the phrase back, and use it in its intended case... taking a common sense-stance, when none seemed appropriate.

The folly of having a sportscar in Holland

Driving a sports car is one of my favorite things to do. Big growling engine, exhilarating speed, and everyone around you looking jealous. Too bad those cars are hugely expensive.

Not too mention that owning one proves to be more of a headache than you realize. You can't just park it anywhere... well, you could, but you would spend a ton on fixing scratches and bumps. I couldn't just leave the car anywhere without it getting broken into. The gas prices are ridiculous, and if you would drive one economically, that would defeat the purpose of having sports car in the first place.

You can't drive a sports car really fast in Holland either. There are few roads that you can really drive fast on, and even if you can, you would have to bob and weave between all the traffic. Just pushing the pedal a little bit, puts you somewhere to the back of a truck.

And if you consider renting instead of owning... well, it's pretty much like paying for sex. You know the car has been driven around before, you pay an insubordinate amount of cash for thirty minutes, and when you're done, you're left broken by the car's stiffness.

Is it still called iterative, when you're treating it like a project

People have gotten used to working in projects, with a defined start and a definitive end. You would start off by deciding what to do, how to do it, and then plan accordingly. At the end of the project the results would be known, and given to the client. The client would then be happy... hopefully.

However it is more likely that as the project progresses, you will find that the desired results will not be met. Or that the client has changed his mind, or that the market environment has changed. Anyway it means your project has to face a tough schedule to still make the original deadline.

The promise of iterative project frameworks is that you will be able to act earlier on such changes. You have a mandate to change course and replan each iteration, because the project is scheduled as such.

And still these kinds of projects (or at least projects which are presumed to be of this kind) can fail to the very same problems iterative frameworks are supposed to solve. I've found these failures to have some common characteristics:

• Iterations are handled as if they were small, individual projects. Instead of having one big problem, people make several small ones. That in itself is not an issue, but...
• No feedback and no interaction between iterations means that a failure in one iteration reverberates in subsequent ones. There's no learning curve, because each iteration is self-contained.
• The client of a project is hardly involved in the iteration at all. Just at the very end. It places higher importance on the end of each iteration to meet its requirements each and every single time. What you end up with, is just a series of deadlines of similar status as if you would have one big deadline at the end of a non-iterative project.
• The organization, the company that the project is contained in, is not flexible enough to deal with the changes after each iteration. Sometimes people, tools, hardware and software need to shift each time. If the acquisition cycle for these is longer than the iteration itself, an iterative project framework will always fail.

As far as I can see people have difficulties understanding projects in the first place, let alone shifting mindsets to iterative working. It is a definite sea change, and people would just rather fall back into things they know (or think they know). That's why people make the same mistakes all over again, even when they think they're trying something new.

White out - In case your Facebook status is not good enough

It's the same old story. Boy meets girl. Girl teases boy. Boy and girl play around. Boy and girl say they like each other. Boy and girl go steady. Girl asks boy to stay the night. Boy sneaks out in the morning the first few times. Girl buys more expensive lingerie. Boy stays around longer. Girl finds a home for the two to live in. Boy and girl go to the bank to secure a mortgage. Boy and girl sign for a mortgage. Boy and girl live together in the house they bought together. Boy and girl start irritating each other. Boy and girl start fights. Boy doesn't come home anymore. Girl and boy break up. Girl whites out boy's name from the doorsign.

Standards

So we finally get around to getting universal chargers for mobile phones. However what do we do in the meantime with the old phones then? Are they going to offer me a universal adapter on the phone, which by the way won't be universal? Or should I get a new phone completely?

I do hope Apple joins the club, or will everybody hop on the iPhone/iPod charger trail?

Typical example of good idea, worse implementation.

Naivete, or the art of trust and respect

Having grown up in the city I always lock up my home, my car, my bike, OCD-style. I'm not always open armed to strangers and beggars. I even expect people around me to act the same.

Now when I move to more rural areas, people actually are nicer, and more open, and more welcoming to strangers. I even find it weird when they do so, without demanding or expecting something in return.

But when they move to the city, they really can't afford to act like home. If they do, they get robbed, stabbed, ripped off, thrown out and kicked to the kerb. However, they are not in the wrong. Their way is the right way. It just doesn't work anymore in a different environment, where values have gone south... or west... somewhere else than back home, out in the country.

Sad really. For us.