R.I.P.

"a comic written and poorly drawn by john campbell."

thanks to Marjorie for the cartoon.

The Whistleblower

Arguably, it's not a great time to be a British politician. You cannot fail to have noticed the press coverage surrounding the publishing of politician's expenses and in particular the misuse - abuse of the second homes allowance. David Cameron announced today that some of the more excessive conservative claims will be paid back, totalling £250,000. It's a sorry tale of vibrating leather chairs, flat screen tvs, duck house constructions and moat cleaning. The Daily Telegraph has left no stone unturned in fine combing the expenses detail. You name it, they've analysed it: biggest claims, worst cover ups, best quotes. In particular we have the opportunity to 'compare and contrast'. It has published the full, unabridged version, prior to the black felt tip pen. The embarrassment has been tangible and heads have rolled. We now have a new Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow. Later on, we may well look back on this period and see that these revelations have had the same seismic effect on UK politics as the Washington Post did on US politics with its revelations over the Watergate affair. The video below is interesting as it is an interview with the very man who gave the information to the newspaper, former SAS member, John Wick. He explains why he chose to be a whistleblower. As usual the BBC has come up trumps with a clear and easy to follow FAQ to help shed some light on the furore behind the revelations and show just how opaque the system can be. It also provides a European perspective on MP's pay packages.

Boom Bam a Bam

Girl in tutu groped by green sequinned Spiderman; stripper in oversized hamster wheel, towed by sequinned Roman centurions; woodland nymphs, cruise entertainers, the odd howling banshee, celebrity lookalikes, an over enthusiastic wind machine, lots of dry ice, masses of hair and oh did I mention the sequins? Yes it's that time of the year again.... Moscow will explode onto our tv screens tonight in an orgy of kitsch with this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Apparently, they've thrown so much money at the event, it's being called the Beijing Olympics of Eurovision. The other rumour doing the rounds is that western Europe is starting to take the event very seriously after some humiliating capitulations to Eastern Europe entries over the last few years. France is fielding international selling artist, Patricia Kaas, the UK is fronting Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Israel has slipped in Noa. Whilst they undoubtedly have musical talent, they also show too much good taste and I fear this will be their downfall as tacky, kitsch and bing bang a bong lyrics are vital prerequisites for validating this particular module. Germany makes a valiant attempt with a Dita Von Teese look alike, wearing the obligatory sequins and falling out of her corset to mindnumbing lyrics: skiddly, skiddly bo, dip dip de de.. etc. For anyone wanting a run down of all 25 candidates, David Sim in the UK Daily Telegraph provides an excellent tongue in cheek photo analysis. I'm looking forward to seeing Armenia, now they look scary.....

More Tea?

Given the current media frenzy on swine flu, you'd be forgiven for thinking that nothing else is happening in the world. However, there are important elections going on at the moment. India has launched a month long election for the Lok Sabha (lower house) and is using a plethora of digital marketing techniques to inform and encourage Indians to vote. Tata was probably the first, back in 2007 with its tv ad, Jaago Re for Tata Tea, "Don't just wake up, Awaken!' for as we all know, tea cuts across all social boundaries. It then joined forces with NGO Jonagrahaa to educate on the voting process. Since then, Facebook, You Tube, blogs, Twitter, Games, you name it, they're all being used to discuss ideas, encourage 'social awakening' and the use of a basic human right, the right to vote. It's an interesting take on internet use and moves us on from the Obama days. Indiavoting in particular is worth a view. News, discussions, cartoons, music, maps, my favourite is the games section: I batted but was bowled out pretty quickly. One can also download the Big Fat Democrazy, an e-book edutainment approach to the elections and voter awareness. Different page layout, but same goal, Engage Voter includes voting trends, profiles, forum, videos and a build your own dream cabinet. For a background to the election, check out this BBC analysis or click here for a profile of the key players and likely future Prime Minister

Personal Branding

Interesting article about social media in today's Telegraph. Having always wondered what the definition of Barcamp was, I'm delighted to be henceforth a bit more geeky. Volunteer driven, open sourced and user generated, what makes it interesting however is how ungeeky a barcamp actually is. We have had two now at the ESC Lille campus , both based round social media, new technologies and lately, developing your own personal brand via digital identity and I'm amazed by the level of enthusiasm and 'normality' of the event given my limited knowledge about all things geeky. Ah geeks or should that be geemiks, those happy, sunny people, both staff and students who pull together to share time, knowledge and experience, sharing all of this with the outside world in real time via blogs, web conferences, Twitter etc. Being goal driven but coming at ideas and problems from a different angle allows them to come up with some unusual ideas ...It's like being a perpetual student, getting excited and creating things... surely that's what learning is all about? One such creation it this e-book which brings together experts, students and head hunters to share their advice and experiences on cultivating your own personal brand/digital identity and so shape your career path. The book is designed to evolve over time and nail the what, why and how questions.

Open publication - Free publishing - More youontheweb

When glocal goes global

It's not really the Mexican wave we're used to. For those looking for a few basic facts concerning the current outbreak of Swine Flu, the BBC has a good FAQ page. The World Health Organisation too has its own guidelines for surveillance of the influenza epidemic. I have a special though for our own finance specialist, Dr Roberto Santillan who mailed me yesterday from Monterrey as well as Imim students out there as part of our academic exchange programme. All are well, in good spirits and rightly stoic about matters, despite today's earth tremor.

G20 : Crisis What Crisis?

Here's another comment on the G20 summit from Imim finance professor, Dr Roberto Santillan. Based in Mexico, Roberto was over early April and alongside Marjorie Van Halteren, he provided us with a clear insight into the challenges facing Obama and his administration. This is his view on the summit and the likeliness of a global economic recovery.

On April 2, 2009, at the end of a three day meeting, the G20 leaders made public a communiqué in which they draw the broad lines of action that will be followed to create the necessary conditions to avoid a more serious global depression and reinitiate growth.
The meeting was unprecedented in more than one way, but maybe the most dramatic was that the world’s largest economies, independently of their ideological affiliation, agreed to work together towards a common goal. One should also pay attention to the sheer size of the financial resources that the G20 members pledged to the cause, in the order of 1.1 trillion dollars; to the explicit intention to reform regulation and supervision in order to eliminate perverse incentives, moral hazard and ratings misguidance; to the emphatic statement that there is no longer room for “bank secrecy”, thus no more “fiscal havens”; to the enhanced role to the IMF in delivering the resources needed to avoid a contagion effect among emerging countries, etc.
There is some hope that the G20 meeting will help rebuild confidence but the beneficial impact of the announced policies may take longer than many believe. Also, there are reasons to think that while the first signals that the recession is over may appear by the 4Q of 2009 or the 1Q of 2010, the more fundamental imbalances in the world economy may take many more years to be corrected.
At a country level, the most difficult challenges that need to be addressed by the Obama administration are: an excess consumption pattern among US citizens, in contrast to a much more frugal population in China, India, the EU and Japan that results in huge and permanent current account deficits for the former country; a large fiscal deficit aggravated by both the bailout of large sectors of the economy (banking, automakers, insurance, just to mention the most visible) and the war of Iraq and Afghanistan; but there are many more. The United States is at a crossroads and the choices are not easy; but the new leadership of the country and the pragmatic approach to the immediate problems it has adopted are favorable omens.
Europe and Asia must also take their share in the reconstruction effort because only a fine-tuned coordination of the major economies of the world will achieve a successful recovery. It is not only fiscal stimulus nor lax monetary policies that will be necessary. China can not permanently maintain an undervalued currency; Europe needs to modernize a number of sectors and move ahead towards integration of the 27 in a more comprehensive way, specifically in what refers to the financial industry, but in many other sectors as well. Japan needs to finally solve its banking sector problems and re-launch economic growth.
In the meantime, while the socially painful effects of the recession are already present in most industrialized countries and grow by the day among the emerging countries, the profound transformations that are expected to take place in response to this historical economic catastrophe will hopefully make the longer term evolution of the global economy more sustainable and less risky