SPLENDID ISOLATION

Presumably this shows why the debate in Brussels was so important….incidentally Paris came 24th
 The top twenty financial centres in the latest index (GFCI 10) which was published in September 2011 are:

	GFCI 10 Rank	GFCI 10 Rating	GFCI 9 Rank	GFCI 9 Rating	Change in Rank	Change in Rating
London	1	774	1	775	-	-1
New York	2	773	2	769	-	+4
Hong Kong	3	770	3	759	-	+11
Singapore	4	735	4	722	-	+13
Shanghai	5	724	5	694	-	+30
Tokyo	6	695	5	694	+1	+1
Chicago	7	692	7	673	-	+19
Zurich	8	686	8	665	-	+21
San Francisco	9	681	13	655	-4	+26
Toronto	10	680	10	658	-	+22
Seoul	11	679	16	651	-5	+28
Boston	12	678	12	656	-	+22
Geneva	13	672	9	659	+4	+13
Washington DC	14	670	17	650	-3	+20
Sydney	15	669	10	658	+5	+11
Frankfurt	16	667	14	654	+2	+13
Vancouver	17	661	22	626	-5	+35
Melbourne	18	656	24	621	-6	+35
Beijing	19	655	17	650	+2	+5
Montreal	20	652	26	615	-6	+37

HOW SPLENDID IS ISOLATION?

We all get a warm feeling being elected to a club or being picked to play in a cricket or football team. It’s good being wanted. Winning the struggle to get a good job because they prefer you to the other guys or quite simply being a popular person matters.

Don’t be embarrassed.

We all want to be liked.

So what happened in Brussels last week was very uncomfortable. We were cast out. Like Judas. We were the lonely 1 out of 27 - although I do wish that David Cameron had swaggered more instead of looking apologetic and sorry for himself. He needed to look as though he was right and they were wrong which for month after month they have been.

Trouble is it keeps on happening to us. A few months ago it was FIFA kicking dust in our face with Sebb Blatter asserting his corrupt right to rule and now this.

But the 5th biggest economy in the world is Germany, followed at joint 6th by the UK and trailed by France at 9th and Italy at 10th. Yes we are that important.

So the real tragedy here is for the EU who, in not wooing and, yes, making concessions to the UK, the second biggest economy in greater Europe, and thereby persuading us  to play a big front of stage part in solving the Euro-crisis, has now almost certainly led to the crash of their doomed currency. Especially as France who seemed pretty pleased about (as they saw it) seeing off Britain, are rumoured to be likely to lose their triple “A” credit rating this week.

It’s important to realise that Europe contrived to exclude us not vice versa.

You will gather I am not an entire fan of France but to be fair their President has just four more months before elections that look likely to unseat him and he’s tried to play the “see how I beat Britain” card as a desperate political stratagem.

But it still feels lonely and rancorous for us today. It’s not nice being blamed and being told, as Paddy Ashdown did, that forty years of foreign policy had gone down the plughole in a single night and being told off by the Lithuanian Prime Minister.

But how isolated will we be in the end?

The last words on that go to Terry Smith CEO of Tullett Prebon the broker…
“…as isolated as somebody who refused to join the Titanic just before it sailed”.

A MANDATORY ODE TO JOY

It seemed a normal enough Wednesday with Prime Minister's Question Time being run by Nick Clegg (again), the Prime Minster having been called to an emergency G20 meeting in Brussels to discuss the Spanish crisis. England had lost to South Korea in a friendly at Wembley. Inflation was rising as was unemployment. The Coalition Government were described in the Times as “doing an excellent job in the circumstances.”

It was in the wine bar “Four Green Bottles” that a few us decided these were weird times and rather sad ones too. Private Eye had just been successfully sued for libel by Rupert Murdock and suddenly was no more. Mervyn King had suddenly resigned for personal reasons and been replaced by Michael Sherwood head of Goldman Sachs UK as Governor of the Bank of England. John Humphrys had been killed in a hit and run outside Broadcasting House and Police Chief Bernard Hogan-Howe saying it was suspicious, apparently warned BBC newscasters to be careful about what they said. BBC responding announced as a duty of care they were appointing a temporary Director of Screening – Alistair Campbell to oversee all news coverage. And sterling was weakening daily. “We’re doomed” I laughed as I ordered four more Riojas – “blimey!” I said when this came to £35 “we won’t be doing this too much longer”.

Later that evening a news flash appeared on the giant Siemens flat screen above the bar. It was David Cameron. We paused laughing about Wayne Rooney’s three missed penalties the previous night to listen. “I spheak to you from Paris” he said – “he sounds drunk” whispered Ian. He went on about partnership and looking after the interests of the world and never succumbing to tyranny and why being together represented strength and being alone was lonely and dangerous. “Very drunk” muttered Ian.

“Which is why tonight we are joining the Euro – sad to lose the pound but really no choice and I shall be standing down as Plime Rinster and goodnight”.

A BBC newscaster appeared and soberly said “in a move welcomed throughout Europe and the world Britain has joined the Euro. A new Euro-Council of three ex heads of their respective states will handle all transitional arrangements. They are Angela Merkel, Nicholas Sarkozy and Anthony Blair.”

My friends looked at me and said as one “get another two bottles fast.”

This work of fiction is provoked by the increasing appointment of unelected bankers to run our affairs and a sense of being led down a path of no one’s choosing.

This piece has not been passed by the newly appointed Director General for UK Media (DGFUKME). 

Please delete after reading.

WHO'S IN CHARGE NOW?

It used to be so easy.

There were people who were in charge and there were those who obeyed them. Think of school. Think of work. Think of society. Society was neither big nor was it small; it was just a perfect triangle of rulers at the top and the ruled at the bottom - kings and subjects.

And then, following the American model of checks and balances, we had the executive, the legislature and the judiciary and, added to that, the free press. Remember Watergate, that moment when all rulers trembled. Followed by a period when through processes of consultation in companies, concepts like referenda in politics, abnegation of decision making to others (“this one has to go to Brussels for a ruling”) and an over eager use of market research,  the tree of ruling has been damagingly shaken. We have delegated the decision making process and those whom a one-time gardener of mine used to grimly call “the authorities”,  are now no longer in authority or, more to the point, have any authority.

And it’s been, happening again and again and again. Dictators, Party Leaders, MPs, Police, Media have all lost their influence and next? It’ll probably be the judiciary because it’s time for the biters to be bitten as the always wise Matthew Parrish put it.

I don’t know about you but I’ve never had a greater sense of power. If I don’t like something that’s been done or the way it’s being done I shall complain and kick up a fuss. That’s what social media can help me do but beyond that the so-called authorities are running so scared that any blip on their political or publicity radar will make them fumble with their bone china strategies.

Which brings me to marketing. I’m rewriting my book Brilliant Marketing for its 2nd edition. Since 2008 when I first wrote it much has changed. As marketers we used to practise mass-marketing, what Seth Godin calls “interruption marketing” and power-marketing…telling people what to think and do. Marketing was once a baseball bat of a weapon where we stunned consumers first and then left it to salesmen to finish them off (closing the sale we called it), now we are using conversation, irony and gestures of friendship. We are building relationships not inducing transactions (or we should be.)

Most of all, we, the customers, are in charge. Let’s hope we use this better than the ones that went before us.