A nation of hedgehogs

So finally it is confirmed that the Germans do have feelings. I do have to say that I do love their attitude... http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18635834 It's very unfashionable to like the Germans and Germany, but I was never really that fashionable at the best of times....Hats off to them and I will look forward to seeing them again in the world cup in two years time...

Moneyball Plus

It's been a busy week - Paris on Tuesday, Brussels briefly on Wednesday, and then back to Paris for Thursday. In the past the diary had been full of pre-arranged meetings. Clearly we've moved into a different phase of my new role - no longer do I put anything formal into the diary, but that doesn't prevent me from being called into various conversations starting at 8AM and finishing late in the evening. I now need to think about how I can carve out time to do some proper thinking to keep up the momentum that we've gathered thus far. Despite everything that is going on (it is the last week in the quarter of course for those of you who don't live in the wonderful world of publicly quoted companies and stock markets!), one of the articles that stuck out for me this week was the following http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670059/moneyball-20-how-missile-tracking-cameras-are-remaking-the-nba particularly interesting because at work we struggle to tell easy to understand stories about "big data"....

Bilbao and Bacon Butties

I went back to Newcastle this weekend for a get together with 30 or so of my schoolboy friends. It did me a lot of good. On Saturday morning as the train made the final approach over the River Tyne it felt good to be “home”. When I stepped off the train at Central Station a few minutes later, the next thing I thought was, bloody hell it’s cold here….and to think we used to play football with an orange ball in the snow not so many years ago. Over the last couple of years I have started to wonder whether or not the only reason you spend time with certain friends in the evenings and weekends is because they happen to have children of a similar age. This weekend reminded me that life and conversation is all the easier with the friends who you grew up and shared so much with for so long – it’s all so natural, even if we hadn’t seen each other sometimes for 2 or 3 years. What was even better was being back in the traditional North East environment – I stayed at an old friend’s house and the thing that finally woke me this morning was the waft of his wife’s homemade grilled bacon sandwiches. Even better was when I asked for the iron to sort out a t-shirt for the journey home, his wife just told me to give it to her without even batting an eyelid – no negotiations or conversation required! I just laughed as I got out of the shower and found it hanging perfectly on a coat hanger outside my room. Now that’s all wonderfully relaxing, if only we hadn’t got to bed at 3.30AM.

The other big benefit of a trip to the UK and Newcastle was that I could actually go into a travel agent and book our family holiday for August. Sandie and I made a forlorn attempt to do it together earlier in the week but we quickly realized that it was quickly becoming a certain cause for divorce, so I offered to do it myself at the weekend (obviously Sandie gave me a long list of strict criteria to which I had to adhere – everything from suitable flight times and interconnecting rooms to baby crèches and airport transfer times). Thankfully I stumbled across a very patient young girl in Thomson’s holidays on Saturday afternoon, and 90 minutes later we’d cracked it with Ryanair flights from Bilbao to Gran Cranaria, a Tuesday to Tuesday check in, and a guaranteed sea view. Sandie received the information, was allowed to lodge any key objections before a 12 hour cooling off period for overnight cogitation. Then this morning the deed was done! Finally, a family holiday for a week in August in a Spanish speaking country. Now let’s just pray for warmth and sunshine!

The fox and the hedgehog

An interesting read... http://www.ianbell.com/2009/05/19/the-fox-and-the-hedgehog-which-one-are-you/

9 days and counting

It's been 9 days since the last post but it feels like a lot longer because work continues to be very busy. It's now been 12 weeks since I started the new role and the initial signs are very positive - the teams and the other departments in the company all seem receptive to what we are going to try and do. Each of the five different countries is slightly different, but all are heading in the right direction. Last week it was Paris and Amsterdam. Next week it is back to Madrid and then Switzerland (Geneva) on the Tuesday. The downside is that the levels of fatigue are high, and that's not helping the horse riding, any other form of sporting activity or blogging. Thankfully today was a fairly relaxed day at Maxime's School Fete with the end of the school year fast approaching. Whereas I can normally more or less organise teams of adults, I have to confess that I impressed even myself today by being able to orchestrate 15 young children who were playing on a half inflated bouncy castle this morning. I didn't win the "guess the weight of a Bayonne ham" competition, but it was a nice day all in all. After a day at school I readily recognise that looking after and educating 35 Maximes for 8 hours every day must be extremely tiring. Although that line of work isn't my lot in life, I do also have to say that I am definitely looking forward to the summer which will include 3 weeks of holiday and a week of intensive Spanish lessons.

3 Cities, 3 Stitches

After a couple of days in Paris last Wednesday and Thursday, Brussels, Zurich and Madrid are on the agenda this week (I am currently sitting in my 7AM plane to Zurich waiting to take off). Yesterday’s meetings with the EMC country manager and the CIO of a Belgian bank have gone well. However any end of day optimism was definitely tempered when Sandie rang on her way to hospital with Gaston whose head was pouring with blood. He had been pushing a stool which had overturned, which he then fell on top of. After some drugs to calm him down he received three (expertly executed) stitches just about his eye. Not being home for that type of thing is definitely one of the major downsides of this type of job.

Equine Highs and Lows

On my return from Las Vegas I was off to see the horse as soon as Maxime had been put to bed for his afternoon nap. The intention was to get back into the saddle ahead of a big three day show jumping competition over the Pentecost weekend. That session on the Friday went badly (no surprises really after 19 hours in a sardine tin), but at the end of it I felt that I had understood something and that I knew what I had to change (Ordre, Equilibre, Ecarte mains, Reins, Monter le virage, Attendre, Jambes). I was delighted to see that when I did change things the next day, it resulted in a clear round…another three clear rounds followed over the next two days which resulted in a ninth place finish (out of 120 horses) with only two horses going clear over all four rounds. I was feeling quite happy with myself that is until I went to the next show jumping competition last weekend in Pau. The wheels most definitely fell off as things deteriorated over the course of the three days culminating in the ignominy of a fall and elimination on Sunday. Not the way to start the week. I think I’m going to take up triathlons instead….

Bright spark big brother

Something that has struck me recently, mainly during a series of conversations in Vegas with one of our pre-sales guys who is a serial entrepreneur, is that having good ideas isn’t the real challenge. It’s how to take those ideas and make them a reality e.g. it is not hard to see how combining face recognition, social media and video surveillance technology at big gatherings in real time could give you the possibility to reunite parents and lost children quickly – and I am sure there are more than enough people who are prepared to pay for that. Trick is, how does one get from the idea to the prototype stage quickly? That’s what I don’t know enough about today.

Sweet Nothing

I’m now long back from Las Vegas. I first went to the US when I was 21 to do my initial training with Andersen Consulting in Chicago. Apart from losing my voice in the plane going there (my first ever intercontinental flight), I remember being amazed at the scale of everything and the “customer is king” culture which everybody seemed to buy into. This US trip was different. For the first time I really found the US to be a small minded and officious place (I’m not sure how much this perception is due to the fact that I’ve lived in “pragmatic France” for the last 10 years or so). There seemed to be an excessive adherence to petty rules, and the whole idea of complete strangers trying to make your life easier and better had completely disappeared. I was most disappointed. However that said, even if you had given me the happiest and most helpful hotel, security and restaurant staff, I doubt whether I would be banging my drum to go back to Las Vegas anytime soon. The weather was lovely and warm, the skies a beautiful clear blue, but the casino atmosphere and “Venice in a box” reconstruction complete with indoor gondolas, didn’t really float my boat. As for the content of the EMC World meeting? It was useful to see the full breadth of what EMC does (much of which I don’t profess to understand), and to see a conference of 15,000 people executed ruthlessly (the catering was a military-esque operation in itself), but the real utility of the event was me being able to take some time with a selection of senior people to get their buy into what I am trying to do following my recent role change. It was just ironic that 95% of this group of people were European and that we had to go to the west coast of America to get some time together. One other thing that struck me during this trip to the US was that anyone who manages to remain thin deserves immense respect; one morning I went for breakfast to McDonalds. I chose the healthy fruit salad option. Apart from it being the smallest meal on the menu by far, when I peeled back the lid, I was shocked to see layer upon layer of sugar suffocating a handful of helpless little strawberries and raspberries. God bless America and its heavily overworked heart surgeons.