CD of the Week (3)

Marillion: Season's End

This was the first Marillion album after the departure of Fish (who will be in Lisbon in a fortnight, by the way), raising questions as to whether the group's music could survive the departure of its muse. 18 years on, the answer is an emphatic yes!

This 1989 album reflects important issues of the day such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the armed struggle in Northern Ireland and global warming.

As ever, the band knows how to use musical textures and timings to support the lyrics and their messages - musical capabilities sadly lacking in 99% of modern pop. In fact, that must be the main reason that the CD has been in the car now since September 24 while other music has been swapped out.

Apparently the band will be coming to Lisbon in April 2007. I'll be there.

People & Business

Why does anybody read People & Business? Because it's free and delivered to their door.

Why is it free? Because everybody who is anybody in Portuguese property development advertises in it. Oh, and because if you don't buy the space, you don't exist.

It's a good scheme. Over the years, the editor has managed to establish such a wide web of contacts that he is invited to everything, with his photographer, publishing the awful photos of tipsy property boffins to fill the space between adverts and endorsements. It's a society magazine, nothing more.

I'm told, by somebody who should know, that the same editor has a value-added publication, which has to be paid for and contains useful research and statistical data on the Portuguese property market. If so, it's very strange that P&B has no adverts for that service.

Yes, I do read it, though it makes my skin crawl. The best part of the October issue? No photos of the editor's hat!

Worst Portuguese Ever

RTP has created an uproar with its poll of the greatest Portuguese, mostly because of the names missing from the list of candidates. It's a tough choice for any nation, especially remembering that great statesmen and reformers have the human trait of getting senile or just plain unpleasant in their old age. After only 16 years in Portugal and with my studies of Portuguese history only up to studying Year 8 with my elder son, I am going to abstain.

SIC's reaction was to launch a poll to discover the worst Portuguese of all times. That's easier for me. After all these years of observing incompetent, obnoxious public figures raking in millions for themselves without giving a damn for the public who put them there, there is one who stands out from the crowd: Pedro Santana Lopes.

Peter Drucker

Pela mão da Accenture, recebi uma biografia portuguesa de Peter Drucker, "o pai da gestão". Homem que não gostou de ser chamado "economista", preferindo ser considerado como intérprete da história, acabando por estar entre os maiores visionários do século XX.

O livro retrata a vida e trabalho de um homem humilde mas brilhante, através da história da sua vida, das suas obras e por relatos de diversos portugueses que o conheceram e/ou foram por ele influenciados profissional- ou academicamente. Por esta diversidade de fontes e estilos, o livro é, por vezes, repetitivo, mas os autores, Jaime Fidalgo Cardoso e Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues, procuram mostrar cada influência, cada citação, no respectivo contexto, abordagem correcta face à escala da tarefa em mãos, de condensar 70 anos de produção de um "workaholic" em 230 páginas.

Terei que reler uma boa parte do livro, para reencontrar as muitas citações relevantes para a vida, não apenas empresarial, mas pessoal e social, que se escondem nas suas páginas. Em particular gostei de:

"Saiba gerir-se a si próprio. O departamento de recursos humanos não é responsável por cuidar de si."

"Os falhanços são sintomas de oportunidades de inovação. Dedique-lhe, pelo menos, a mesma atenção que aos sucessos"

Ainda faltam pelo menos 98, muitas das quais demasiado relevantes face à minha situação actual para aparecerem aqui.

Em suma, um livro útil sobre um homem extraordinário cuja visão de longo alcance temporal o tornou o "pai da gestão".

Impressions of Rome

Despite being a 3x Inter-Rail veteran, I hadn't been to Rome before. It's an impressive city, especially as concerns:

• history: roman, medieval, renaissance, modern, all on show and one on top of the other (often literally) - Paris and Athens eat your heart out.
• buildings: truly massive structures, built over the centuries. Even today there would be logistical difficulties in transporting many of the columns and beams.
• pedestrians: despite the chaotic traffic, crossing the road is not that difficult. Just get out into the traffic and drivers will slow down enough not to hit you. Don't expect any nice lines of waiting cars at pedestrian crossings though.
• scooters: tens of thousands, parked in their allotted spaces and just about everywhere else.
• dirt: street washing teams clean the roads, but not the buildings which are generally very dirty. Pollution has apparently improved but cleaning facades is apparently not a priority.
• good food: considered fast-food elsewhere, pizzas are taken seriously. Pasta is the best part, with many shapes and varieties, sauces with a huge range of subtle tastes. "Bruschetta", toast with a variety of toppings as a starter, are considered a speciality in their own right.
  
• Awful beer, of the expensive, weak, German variety, but good wine at reasonable prices.
• Churches: not usually my cup of tea, the number and variety of churches is exhausting, all with some detail worth seeing. I was in sensory overload after three days.
• Tourists: if anybody can give me the visitor statistics, I'll go back when there are fewer tourists.
• Low-Tech: non-standard electric outlets even in 4-star hotels and wireless internet only if you pay for it.
  

Foot in Mouth

Quote from a Radio Renascença football commentator last night during the Sporting - Bayern Munich match, referring to a Bayern forward:

"This guy's good. He can shoot with whichever foot comes to hand"

Classic!

White Rabbit Syndrome

No time for anything at the moment! No blogging, no studying, no life! Aaaaargh......

Three days in Rome last week, on business I hasten to add. Some of the pics are already up on flickr.

Now for economic theory of the week: every day off work requires the equivalent amount of overtime to be worked in the weeks before and after that day. The theory applies to holiday, business trips but, strangely, not to sick leave.

So I'm stuffed. Just another quick post and then I'll be off to study, sleep a little, get up early to face the traffic in the rain on the way to my 9.30 meeting. YUK!

Rapid Reaction

After the bank raid and hostage situation in Setúbal on Wednesday, TVI's Thursday news stated that the would-be robber produced a gun in the bank at 2.30 p.m. The police were alerted immediately. Half an hour later the PSP arrived, followed soon after by the "rapid reaction team".

Half an hour! How big is Setúbal? It can't take more than 20 minutes to cycle from one side to the other. And if he had shot someone, how long would an ambulance have taken? As I have previously said, it's better not to need the UK level of policing, but this is ridiculous.

CD of the Week (2)

One of the first CD's I bought, back in 1983 when CD's were young, was this classic recording of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", played and conducted from the piano by Leonard Bernstein, perhaps the greatest American musician of the 20th century.

That well known piece is followed by the Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story", Bernstein's landmark musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set in 1950's New York. While possibly rather pretentious, creating Symphonic Dances from a musical movie soundtrack, the dances are more developed, musically, and much more satisfying to listen to than the original, with its purposely untrained singers.

And who better to conduct them than the composer himself, with his favourite Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra.

Management Objectives

It's good, once in a while, to be reminded of the fundamental principles of our day-to-day jobs, which we often have no time to reflect upon because we are too busy resolving immediate problems.

The principle that came up this week was "Management's fundamental objective is to maximise the value of the company". Rather obvious! Very easy to apply to the cases we are studying, involving investment decisions on discrete projects, but how to apply it to a company as a whole?

Imagine that, as the series of projects and initiatives that comprise the company's activity move forward, management identifies obsolete assets and under-performing staff. For the assets, just sell them off. But the staff? That brings into play management's business philosophy: is a company a social phenomenon or merely an economic one? And if the company falls into a recession cycle for its product.

Investment analysis is the easy part of management. Knowing when and how to disinvest, while maximising the company's value, is much harder.