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.

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).