Lessons in attitude for the talented (or Ricky Ponting gets his just desserts)

Regular readers of this blog will know that many of the contributors are passionate cricket fans. (For our American readers, that’s the mysterious game that, in its purest form lasts five days and can end in an exciting draw!) Our fanaticism for the game is shared by at least 1 billion Indians. The world’s largest democracy has just had an unprecedented auction for international cricket stars, for the newly formed Indian Professional League. In the league, a number of Indian provincial teams get to “buy” international super stars to play with them. Each team can only have a maximum of 4 of these stars on the field at any time. They must also have four players under the age of 22 from India in the teams. The rest of the team is Indian. The bids in the auction will be paid to the player as a salary (I think I saw correctly that the Indian players in each team will be paid the same as the top paid international super star in their team). The contract is for three years.

Nice idea. It’s for 20-20 cricket, so will be a great spectacle too. I can’t wait.

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The Most Expensive Oil

Today the world wakes up to the most expensive oil ever. Those who believe in market dynamics of supply and demand will have an interesting time explaining this. The problem with oil is not that there isn’t enough oil around, but rather to do with where the available oil is to be found.

Of course, supply and demand does have something to do with the record price. High growth rates around the world, in places as far flung as China, India, the Middle East and Africa, have seen demand for oil grow as their economies fly. At the same time, oil firms, in particular Western oil firms, are struggling to increase production – mane still producing at the same levels as they did two or three years ago. That has left little spare production capacity and, in America and other countries, dwindling stocks. Whenever storms brew in the Gulf of Mexico or chaos erupts in the Middle East or Africa, or Russia talks nasty, jittery markets push prices higher. Part of this has to do with speculators, rather than customers.

But there are other reasons for the higher oil prices, and the lack of supply.

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Just Good Business

In The Economist on 17 January 2008, this article on corporate social responsibility, “Just good business” appeared. It is one of the best summaries of the current state of play in the CSR world. A must read. See the original article, or read an edited version below.

IN THE lobby at the London headquarters of Marks & Spencer, one of Britain’s leading retailers, the words scroll relentlessly across a giant electronic ticker. They describe progress against “Plan A”, a set of 100 worthy targets over five years. The company will help to give 15,000 children in Uganda a better education; it is saving 55,000 tonnes of CO2 in a year; it has recycled 48m clothes hangers; it is tripling sales of organic food; it aims to convert over 20m garments to Fairtrade cotton; every store has a dedicated “Plan A” champion.

The M&S ticker says a lot about the current state of what is commonly known as corporate social responsibility (CSR). First, nobody much likes the CSR label. A year ago M&S launched not a CSR plan but Plan A (“because there is no Plan B”). The chief executive’s committee that monitors this plan is called the “How We Do Business Committee”. Other companies prefer to describe this kind of thing as “corporate responsibility” (dropping the “social” as too narrow), or “corporate citizenship”, or “building a sustainable business”. One Nordic executive glories in the job title of director, accountability and triple-bottom-line leadership. All this is convoluted code for something simple: companies meaning (or seeming) to be good.

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Getting a generation out of debt

The Fast Company magazine of Dec 2007 ran a story that combines some of my favourite topics: young generations, technology and personal finance. It was called “Easy Money”. Read the full story here.

Here is a summary:

Americans under 35 spend 16% more than they earn, on average. College graduates leave school with an average of $20,000 in student loans and almost $3,000 in credit-card debt. This demographic, in sum, is sorely in need of an easy-to-use solution to their ample money woes. “There’s this dull throbbing sense of guilt that we should be doing something, but where do we start?” says recent Stanford grad Ramit Sethi, who draws more than 150,000 readers a month to his blog Iwillteachyoutoberich.com.

In the past six months, a slew of free online services has popped up to answer this question, offering widgets for budgeting, automatic bill pay, mobile alerts, and social networking. All are fighting to be the anti-Quicken. Although Intuit’s venerable personal-finance software commands 70% of the market, its $30 to $100 price tag, hundreds of features, and required hour or two a week of data entry are unlikely to appeal to a generation raised on Halo and diagnosed with ADD. Sure enough, Quicken’s 15 million users have an average age of 47. If personal finance for most folks is like personal hygiene–an unpleasant chore motivated by necessity–Quicken is Old Spice.

Meanwhile, the Axe Bodyspray of personal finance–cool, fresh, and even sexy–is an upstart named Mint. Its unique features, wrapped in an exceedingly clean and appealing design, are winning tech-industry plaudits and brisk traffic. …It signed up more than 40,000 users in the two weeks after launch. So has Mint cracked the code on getting Generation Debt to buckle down and take responsibility for its finances?

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Greenopolis

I was sent this PR release today. I signed up immediately – looks like fun!

People band together online to date, discuss politics or lose weight. Now a US website called Greenopolis has created a community whose members help each other live in a more earth-friendly manner. After registering on Greenopolis, which is still in beta, visitors complete an online survey that analyses their daily activities to determine how ‘green’ their lifestyle is. Based on the survey findings users receive a coloured badge, which shows other members just how much of a friend to the earth they really are. Orange badge holders need to clean up their environmental act, and solid green badge holders are on the right track.

By participating on the site, users are awarded points, which are displayed for other members to see (sometimes, peer pressure can be used for good). More points—and corresponding changes in badge colour—show that they’re becoming more environmentally responsible. Plus, when the site officially debuts, points can be used to receive discounts on sustainable products. Greenopolis founders also want to make the badges portable, so that members can post them on their blogs and social network pages.

Is Google getting it right?

Here’s an article I’ve just finished reading, written by Nicolas van der Meer a 2nd year TOPP Trainee at Standard Bank)

He takes a look at today’s companies and their people practice, their people opportunity and uses Google as a company to look at as a beacon of light in the new, but seemingly never ending War for Talent.

Read the entire article

Click here to get someone else to do this work

Pfizer has recently launched a wonderful new initiative for their most talented staff: the outsourcing of the drudge work associated with most jobs. It’s quite a simple concept, really – top end, talented staff spend a fair proportion of their time doing admin or dreary work that does not best utilise their talents. If you could someone else to do that work for them, you’d free up your top talent, keep them focused (and excited) and get more out of them. Nice.

Here is a report from the latest Fast Company magazine. Read it here, or below.
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Office 2.0 Database

I’m a great fan of so-called Web 2.0, and what it’s going to mean to our way of interacting and doing business.

Today I came across a wonderful database of Office 2.0 apps nicely arranged into useful categories. For those who are dabbling in this world, or would like to, you need to take a look at this database.

About the Office 2.0 Database:

The Office 2.0 Database is developed and maintained by Ismael Ghalimi [LinkedIn], a passionate entrepreneur and fervent industry observer, founder and CEO of Intalio, creator of BPMI.org, initiator of Office 2.0, and author of IT|Redux. Ismael is an advisor to several high-tech companies, including AdventNet (a.k.a. Zoho), EchoSign, EveryTrail, Open IT Works, ThinkFree, and 3TERA.

Emerging market art

The latest Economist has a short note on an interesting trend: the massive increase in selling prices of artworks. This has been a great investment trend over the past few years. But, now, the trend has hit emerging markets, so to speak. Russian and South African artists, in particular, were singled out in the article (read it here, or below).

Irma Stern was a white South African woman of Jewish heritage who was able to evoke wonderful images of Africa. Read more about her here. Over 40 years after her death, her art is internationally recognised, and due to fetch remarkable prices at upcoming auctions around the world.

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