Taxi! Get me out of here

As if 24 hour hours of travel wasn't enough, when I finally got out of Las Vegas airport I was then confronted with an hour long taxi queue. The audio edition of the Economist on my iPhone helped pass the time. Thankfully I was taken to a beautifully modern, clean, fresh casino free hotel. Or not...I was more than happy to call it a day at 9PM. Things have started a bit better this morning - I escaped the dingy hotel and went out for an hour long run under a wonderful clear blue sky. Las Vegas reminds me of Singapore but it is less crowded and its layout is much more linear, or American, rather than the European randomness of the penned in city state. The hotel where the conference is also wonderful...happily they've found a spare room for me here tomorrow and Wednesday. Off to register now and hopefully to enjoy a few of the key note speeches...

Smash Vegas

I decided to be sensible last night and only watch the first half of the Champions League final between Chelsea and Munich…so clearly I missed all the action there. Despite my best efforts at avoiding unnecessary fatigue, I was woken by Maxime at 3.45AM who had wet his bed. After sorting that out I got a quick shower and then left home in Biarritz at 4.55AM to head to Pau to catch the 7.20AM flight to Paris. Given that the day started so well, I suppose it’s only normal that I’m now sitting in an airport lounge in Los Angeles because of a two hour delay on the final one hour leg of my journey to Las Vegas. In between the start of the journey and now, I had a 90 minute drive in the pitch black in driving rain, a 75 minute delay on the runway at Paris, a suitcase falling on my head in flight, a wireless connection which stubbornly refuses to send the 81 emails I wrote during the 11 hour 40 minute flight (they were long emails), and then an awkward game of “avoid the colleague” played when you spot a co-worker who you are just too tired to talk to in the lounge. So even despite my managing to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Slumdog Millionaire in the plane, it’s not been the best day on record. Indeed even the All American, “how are you sir have a nice day sir” only raised my spirits so far…What’s worse is that I am not expecting a great deal more from the rest of the week; we’ll see, but I’m pretty convinced that I’d much rather be back at home in Europe with the family (wet mattresses and all).

Hollande, Consulting and South Ken

Maybe one of the key reasons why having external consultants has its merits is illustrated by this interesting critique of the current troubles in the Eurozone in the American publication the New Yorker... http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/05/07/120507taco_talk_gopnik  although don’t tell that to the 21^st arrondissement…. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/globalbusiness/9261905/High-earners-say-au-revoir-to-France.html

Bust Lip, Split Head

Gaston is the pretty boy of the family. People will literally stop Sandie in the street to comment on how beautiful he is with his blue eyes and Swedish blonde hair (a distinct rarity in the Basque country you understand). I am increasingly convinced that our financial future rests not so much on his shoulders, but on the attractive head that is perched on those shoulders. As a consequence, after the events of the last 10 days I am thinking about changing a few house rules; firstly I am going to ban myself from ever trying to cut his hair (last week’s first attempts to shave his head with some shears had to be aborted half way through the operation leaving a rather odd looking “end” result), secondly by buying him a rugby scrum cap to prevent him from walking into tables and splitting his head open (this has the added advantage of hiding any efforts I have made to cut his hair), and thirdly, and most importantly, banning him from going within 10 meters of Maxime….On Saturday Maxime decided to use a mattress to create a little slide for Gaston. This worked wonderfully well until Maxime decided that the slide could move midway through any particular ascent or descent, even when in use by his little brother. The disappearing squidgy mattress was unfortunately replaced by a rather more solid wooden bed. Gaston’s lower lip didn’t appreciate the change. Whilst they tell us we won’t see anything in a week’s time, it’s not looking too good at the minute. Maybe I should start investigating appropriate insurance policies…

Parenting 101

Read the following article. Read the last two lines really slowly. If you ever wondered what it was like being a parent, now you know. http://www.economist.com/node/21553479

Hannibal’s Cigar

When I was growing up one of my favourite TV programmes was the A-Team http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_A_Team.  I was always a big fan when Hannibal would proudly proclaim towards the end of the show that he loved it when a plan came together. The champagne is still very much on ice, but the initial feedback is very positive, and I am in the process of talking with some great people, both internally within consulting, elsewhere in the company, and also externally as potential new people to bring into the business. We’re not out of the woods yet (as my P&L indicates), but I think I see a way forward for our consulting business in each of my countries. I’m currently on my way to Amsterdam to meet the country manager here, before heading back to Madrid for a similar meeting on Thursday.  It’s all very exciting really. The trick now? How can I convey that excitement to the team, get them to understand that they have a role in actually making this a reality, and how can we do all of that faster?!

The Laffer Curve of Acquaintance

For some reason the Laffer curve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve) is one of the few economic theorems that I remember from Oxford, particularly the quote, “one potential result of the Laffer curve is that increasing tax rates beyond a certain point will be counterproductive for raising further tax revenue”. As we start five, no doubt glorious, years of Socialist leadership in France, this idea sprang into my mind again today…. It also got me thinking that maybe there is a parallel in terms of meeting people. I blogged recently that I think that despite the advances in technology you still need to meet people in person. Then I thought that before the advent of the internet, people met their colleagues on a daily basis (many still do of course). I wonder then that if I believe that you can’t maximize the effectiveness of your business activities without having met the other person, then maybe having too much face to face contact with them is actually detrimental to professional success? Maybe I should ask my Finnish friends who tell me that they prefer to send an SMS to their office colleagues rather than actually having to talk to them “live”.

Self awareness and the markets

At the age of 3 Maxime thinks that he is already capable of going to the bathroom and cleaning both himself and the toilet afterwards all by his little self. As I cleaned a rather dirty toilet brush and holder this morning under a cold shower I can indeed confirm that this is not the case. I think my eldest lacks a certain degree of self awareness. I wonder if the same can be said for the French population who today voted in a Socialist president - something tells me a cold shower with an excrement laden toilet brush may well be a good harbinger of what the next 5 years in France is going to feel like. For the record, Maxime's day ended with a homemade haircut using his Papi's shears. The end result brought tears to his mother's eye, but I wonder if something similar might happen to Francois Hollande courtesy of the markets and ratings agencies…