Alive and kicking, just

Mr. Wall is still with us despite his being home alone this weekend as the whole family trundled off to Barbaste for the first major show jumping event of the season. A good weekend was had by all. Sandie even suggested that it was an excellent competition (through gritted teeth) and that it was very do-able from a small child perspective. On top of that the horse jumped really well. A clear round on the last day was very satisfying and just shows what happens when the rider applies himself properly (two small errors in the two previous rounds had blotted my copybook). Maxime needless to say very much enjoyed both the aperos in Michel's truck on Saturday night and also pushing his little sister into a door. She now sports a lovely black eye and Maxime a red handprint on his bottom. No sooner as I was at home I was packing a suitcase to head to Paris this morning. The day has gone well although I am tired....tired enough to go to the wrong hotel. I comforted myself with two pancakes before jumping in a taxi and going to the correct Crowne Plaza. I now need to get to bed sharpish before an 8AM flight to Amsterdam tomorrow....I'm already looking forward to getting back home on Wednesday for a full 8 hours night of stilted sleep.

Welcome Mr. Wall

Thanks to the generosity of our neighbours Franck and Beatrice, we are now a real family…we have our first family pet; a goldfish named Mr. Wall. Mr. Wall will reside in a rather splendid aquarium in my office (which has a mantelpiece high enough out of reach to prevent small children from trying to see if Mr. Wall can survive outside a shattered tank and 5 litres of spilt water). In my day, goldfish languished in a simple glass bowl – I suppose this must be the fish equivalent of our own “Generation Y” and constantly increasing expectations. Given the copious amounts of food on offer and the luxurious surroundings in which Mr. Wall lives, life expectancy is looking good (for him). The feeding of Mr. Wall will now actually be integrated into Maxime’s bedtime routine (which seems to be getting longer rather than shorter. It is currently; bath, food, pi-pee, teeth, nappy, wrapped up like a sausage in his quilt, prayers, lullaby routines, granting of iPad, removal of iPad, kiss from Mum, kiss from Dad, leave the door open, close the door but leave the landing light on). Anyway, a new chapter of the O’Brien family has started, and it is infinitely more palatable than a fourth baby – Mr. Wall comes fully house trained and he rarely cries, vomits or punches his sister.

And they’re off

A clear round in the preparation class, one refusal in the vitesse and a horse that jumped sublimely all day signaled a decent start to the show jumping season yesterday. While there was one notable blot on the copybook (a turn too sharp which was my fault), it’s nice to see that the three months of hard work over the winter paid off. The only downside was the cold, wind and rain that meant that family and friends couldn’t stay longer to enjoy the day. Not to worry, there’s another competition this weekend in Barbaste that’s on the cards – Sandie is particularly motivated because of the hotel which also boasts a swimming pool and spa – I suspect she’ll not be seeing much of the horses next weekend either!

The Council Will Meet

It’s been a busy few days (why do I keep finding myself writing that)…Within EMC I have become the executive sponsor (read owner, organizer and facilitator) of what’s been labeled as a technology council. Last Thursday and Friday saw the first meeting of that group. I had planned to make things as easy as possible on myself by ensuring that the gathering took place in Pau. So far so clever. However a plane, train and automobile (taxi) strike in Paris and the South West of France made things inordinately more complicated on the Wednesday as people battled to arrive from London, Amsterdam, Munich, Rome and Stockholm. Oodles of credit have to go to that group because we managed to get everyone together only one hour after the original rendezvous for the opening dinner on the Wednesday evening. The meeting itself was a success as we covered a lot of ground and got a lot clearer on what we should and still need to do. It was most refreshing because we were essentially cut off from the connected world (i.e. no internet and therefore no emails), and because we were talking about topics that we don’t normally have the time to talk about, it really felt like we were in some sort of vacuum which enabled everyone to focus and concentrate. These days, a meeting without people multi-tasking and doing their emails at the same time as supposedly listening is most definitely something noteworthy!

He's a regular Twitter

Excerpt from a mail I received this morning (spot the deliberate mistake)..."(Company X) is going big time in the social network. The CIO is a regular twitter. They hired a guy in marketing simply because he had 8,000 followers in twitter." Seems like an Oxbridge education and good work experience is no longer required. This is the new world we now live in...

Beau comme un camion

In English we would say “as good as new”. The French equivalent is “as beautiful as a lorry”. After having lived in France for over 10 years I don’t think their articulated trucks are any prettier than the average British hauler, but in any case after having cleaned both cars this weekend, inside and out, I thought it was an appropriate title for a posting. Sacrificing two afternoons to such a menial chore had some rather unexpected side effects – it allowed me to find the USB port in the Nissan Qashqai, to get up to date with the audio edition of last week’s Economist, to increase my collection of random pens (4 across the two cars), to find a previously mislaid set of house keys (which meant I could now, finally, get last week’s mail out of the mailbox), and to successfully relocate Sandie’s missing credit card holder (so why hadn’t they been cancelled a month ago?). Apart from car cleaning, the rest of the weekend included a pretty dreadful meal out on Saturday night, a fun family outing watching some eventing on Sunday morning, the departure of Jane the au pair from New Zealand, and Maxime turning purple and coming out in an all over spotty rash….he’s now back on antibiotics for the next 6 days. So just another normal weekend going into just another normal week, he says, sitting in his favourite hotel in Brussels.

WMD and Aidan's Chinese Revolution

A recent leader in the Economist caught my eye (http://www.economist.com/node/21543537). I enjoyed reading about the late Deng Xiaoping’s “southern tour” in 1992 which set the country on the path to reform that underpinned the success they have seen over the last 20 years. The article went on to say that China’s future success relies not taking more control, but actually on releasing their steely grip on power; “China’s bloody past has taught the Communist Party to fear chaos above all. But history’s other lesson is that those who cling to power end up with none….for China to succeed it must move away from the formula that has served it so well”.

I think I am at the start of my own little Chinese revolution. After the EMC Big Data day, the Fantastic Tavern event in London last month, and the realization of the last 2 to 3 years of the benefit of slowing down to achieve more; my eyes are being re-opened to the need to spend time thinking, thinking, and to open myself up to the real world and the new ideas and trends around me. I think I need to unpick at least part of the last decade of conditioning by Accenture methodology, process and ruthless execution. Maybe I’ve been too successful in reducing complexity to small tasks which are then executed by a team of highly conditioned analysts, consultants and managers eager for professional success. Maybe I need to start realizing that we live in a VUCA world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity) which is also a consumerist world populated with weapons of mass distraction (WPD) – just check out https://www.lsnglobal.com/.

Maybe all of this means that I need to think differently about how best to achieve a positive and lasting impact on real people and real companies rather than delivering just another large scale, contractually successfully project that doesn’t really fundamentally change the way a client’s business is done for the better…