TAKING AN OVERVIEW

Take a view of global activity.

How many executives flying to how many meetings?

How many decisions made by jet lagged brains?

How many ulcers?

How much fuel consumed?

How much carbon emitted?

How much food eaten?

The most comforting thing is that we can look at it from our dispassionate cloud and smile.

So if you have a minute take a look.

Our Skies...

This is a 24 hour observation of all of the large aircraft flights in the world, (recorded by the 'plane flight transponders, via Geo-stationary orbital satellites), patched together and condensed down to about a minute. (viz. what you see is 24 hrs duration compressed into 1 minute).

From space we look like a beehive of activity. You could tell it was summer time in the north by the sun's footprint over the planet. You could see that it didn't quite set in the extreme north and it didn't quite rise in the extreme south.

We are taught about the Earth's tilt and how it causes summer and winter and have had to imagine just what is going on, now the "tilt" is visible.

With this 24 hour observation of aircraft travel on the earth's surface we get to see the daylight pattern move as well across the face of the planet.

SPEND YOUR MONEY ON COACHING YOUR PEOPLE

JWT have just published, as ever from that excellent agency, a beautifully crafted paper on why you should spend money on advertising in a recession.

I don’t get the “spend-your-way-out-of-disaster” argument that JWT and Gordon Brown are putting about.

I prefer the McKinsey argument which simply says – whatever else you do survive; this is not a time for dogma; it’s a time for do-what-it-takes and looking after the cash.

And I should add to this looking after your customers – present, past and potential so as to avoid massive revenue fall-off.

Simply coach your people to be brilliant at customer service.

Make people feel good about you and your product.

There’s never been a more important time to coach your own people to help you survive.

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?

Just how big is the problem we face?

Arguably it’s a presentation issue. If only we could find a simple way of showing how big this issue was then we could do something about it.


Too many noughts may have dulled the brain so try this.



What does one TRILLION dollars look like? All this talk about "stimulus packages" and "bailouts"...A billion dollars...A hundred billion dollars...Eight hundred billion dollars...One TRILLION dollars...What does that look like?


I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like. We'll start with a $100 dollar bill.


Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slighty fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go. A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.



Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet...

And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...

Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about.


What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros. You ready for this? It's pretty surprising. Go ahead...Scroll down...Ladies and gentlemen... I give you $1 trillion dollars... (And notice those pallets are double stacked.) So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars"... that's what they're talking about.

DON’T EXPECT RESEARCH TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS

The late Dame Anita Roddick said “trying to use research to manage your business is a bit like driving using the rear view mirror”.

In the current world situation many people are reflecting on the sheer impossibility of forecasting. Anatole Kaletsky thinks we live in a world without radar. So good luck Chancellor.

At the end of March the RSA have a table of experts debating the following at the Encyclopaedia Britannica/RSA debate on “The Economic Crisis and the Age of Uncertainty” in which panel members will discuss the crisis if confidence in our previously trusted sources of knowledge.

So the left brain has let us down and it’s over to the intuitive entrepreneurs who have dreams, visions and insights.

These are people who do not use research in the conventional sense.

Look at the link below and you’ll see why.

Produced by an innovation company in the States it deals a mortal blow to old fashioned market research.

And about time too.

http://frontendofinnovation.blogspot.com/2008/03/old-idea-evaluation-habits-die-hard.html

YOU CAN'T SIT THERE HOPING FOR THE BEST

Making something happen rather than moaning has always been good advice.

Here’s one way.

Every Panasonic employee has been told to go out and buy a Panasonic plasma TV – that’ll get sales momentum going.

Back in the ‘90s in a recession every employee was sent out on the road to sell whilst in Japan they did door to door calling on consumers to sell product and to change light bulbs and fuses for free.

What have you done today to make something positive happen?

PRESENTING WELL HAS NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT

I believe in professionalism

I believe presenting has never been more important than in the current business climate.

More judgements are made on the basis of a presentation than ever, whether it is to a bank, a stakeholder, your peers or a boss. And the quality of a presentational performance is as important as its content.

Whatever do you look like? It’s inconceivable that you’d go along to an important meeting wearing a crumpled, shiny blue suit, a jazzy green and red kipper tie, scuffed shoes and a curry stained shirt (or if you are a woman that you’d wear a crumpled dress with laddered tights).

Yet the Les Pattersons of the presentation world abound. People who have no shame in having poorly produced, overly complex slides and a badly thought through, crumpled argument. They are going to suffer in a world that is getting more demanding.

Spot the difference

Whilst you don’t want to be remembered as a punk presenter nor do you want to be forgotten as someone who has done a completely unmemorable presentation. In a world where PowerPoint bullet point slides have become a well understood business-language it is your job, in the world of presentations, to stand out from the throng. Not as an eccentric but as someone who is mainstream with a little more polish and accomplishment.

The medium is the message

Marshall McLuan coined this phrase forty four years ago. He described the style of a piece of communication as a piece of juicy meat a burglar carries to distract the watchdog of the mind. In other words great presentations lull people into agreeing.

If you are going to do a presentation the harsh reality is a professional slide maker will do a better job than you, an amateur. This does not mean you have to spend a fortune; just an appropriate sum for an important message in an important medium. Because does this, as an alternative, sound clever to you?

“The interview went brilliantly until it came to the presentation.”

OK. I’m sold

It is becoming increasingly common for anyone being interviewed for a job to be asked to do a presentation. I’ve sat on interview boards hearing an excellent candidate – good CV, impressive credentials and skills losing to a weaker candidate on the strength of their presentation skills.

Quite simply many interviewers make their judgements on the sales and presenting skills of a candidate on the day in question and not based on their lifetime of learning. Presenting well is the difference between success and failure and between employment and unemployment.

This is showtime. We are not talking about a quick haircut here. We are talking about making sure we understand all the components of a good presentation and that we have them all in balance.

What is the context of the presentation, what is the key argument, what are the powerful words, phrases and messages that will “sell” the argument, how will we give special and memorable colour to the communication, how will the slides look professional and have stand-out but without being too slick and how can we perform the presentation so it is remarkable and compelling?

In today’s world being “good enough” at presenting is just not good enough.

JIM ROGERS THE POUND

Jim Rogers went to Balliol so he can’t be all bad.

But last week he told the world that sterling was finished, to sell the pound and that Britain was bankrupt.

It was all rather depressing.

Especially as Jim’s an exceeding rich and successful person and a one time colleague of George Soros.

So he should know.

Yet apparently this is the man who told us a couple of years ago to invest in Zimbabwe.

This piece of news about him cheered me enormously.

Britain is not finished but some of its aspirations are and thank heavens for that.

1. We are not a Premier League country any more.
2. Britain sounds great without the Great
3. Can we stop giving our money away to Overseas Development – we don’t have much left
4. Can we have a sensible conversation about the Olympics?
5. Can we invest in a 21st century manufacturing/innovation economy?
6. Can we stop trying to keep the terminally ill companies alive that have no future?
7. Can we get an SAS economic squad together to resuscitate the ones in peril that we need to keep by taking smart people out of retirement if necessary to help them?
8. And can we stop paying stupid fees to advisers? I heard about a consulting firm who claimed they had to charge large fees as their overheads were so high. Ironically their first name is “Price”.

Britain will be fine.

All it needs is for us to be resourceful, innovative and energetic and – this is the real key – stop listening to the doom mongers….Jim Rogers is wrong (again).