Journey beginning

Tad has just got admitted to UMBS after a truly marathon exercise in applications. Fifteen drafts for a single set of essays? With that kind of dedication he's going to sail through business school.

Just don't forget to take time out to smell the flowers Tad. No sense spending the whole year working. Whens the next time you'll be your own boss?

Media Watch

Ever since Vietnam when an uncensored press corps wrecked domestic morale governments have been very careful about who says what about their troops. According to this piece from the BBC the present UK philospohy is to pretend they're not really there. By contrast the US army is happy to show off their bombs and bullets - presumably a response to very different domestic public opinion in the two countries.

Eminem versus The Streets

With revision suddenly underway in earnest I took time out yesterday to buy a few new CD's, so I'm now the proud owner of The Eminem Show by Eminem and Original Pirate Material by The Streets. Its all 'white rap music', but while Eminem is straight outta Detroit with raging paranoia and a whole bunch of issues too scary to mention The Streets barely make it out of the door of their London council housing before deciding it looks too much like trouble and they'd best smoke something before going back to bed.

Thats possibly a little harsh on The Streets, who seem to like going to the pub and a bit of cockney duckin' and divin' as well but the contrast is huge. Eminem rants and rages at the world, which is great when you agree with him, and in places its hard not to. Taken with his last album he's turning out one of the most coherent critiques of the problems of fame around. He wants to shout, scream and mouth off, he didn't ask to be a role model, and anyone who believes he's driving kids to violence is missing a whole chunk of other explanations for the problems of ghetto youth. On the other hand when he goes off on one about gays, bitches and ho's again you just wish he'd shut up, see a good psychiatrist, patch things up with his wife and go play with his daughter. (If Eminem has a redeeming feature its his solid commitment to looking after his daughter - I still reckon she'll loath him for his music when she's 16 though.)

In contrast The Streets have no bigger fish to fry than moaning about the governments stance on drugs, and avoiding some of the scary geezers who populate their world. Along the way we have a blokish mixture of women as objects 'don't mug yourself' and romantic heartbreak 'its too late'. Some of the social commentary is a bit grating 'Geezers need excitement' (sometime in the next year some Oxford mockney is going to say something very stupid to me and justify it with "common sense, simple common sense" and I'll go off this record completely)

All in all two very different takes on being a bloke. It makes you think, Detroit isn't that much scarier than the wrong ends of London. Is it just the constant presence of guns that fuels the paranoia of Eminem, Dre and all the rest? Or is it that there's something else in UK culture which has done a better job of standing up to macho posturing in music?

Hey ho, and to think I went out to buy the Miss Dynamite album. Who should in no sense be thought as having anything to do with the cartoon at Miss Dynamite.com which I found by accident and is guaranteed to offend pretty much everyone in equal measure. (the cartoon that proves terrorists have humour too, you have been warned)

Telling stories?

Todays FT carries a piece about Google going public, splashed all across the back page. Its remarkably similar to a piece I read a few weeks ago on the same topic. The basic gist being that Silicon Valley is looking to a Google IPO to restart the money machine. This is wierd becase to my knowledge Google has made no plans to go public and certainly hasn't put out any press to that effect. So what's going on?

Well possibly Google is building support for an IPO by stealth, or more likely perhaps an investment bank is trying to talk Google into letting them handle the IPO.

According to the FT they've got revenue of $500m and a 30% margin. If we assume constant margins and a growth of 25% p/a for five years and then steady performance into the distance (and this is a very conservative estimate) Google is worth $3.8bn, (discounting at an arbitary 10%). That is one enormous pile of money, especially for a firm with only 600 employees.

But Google could have cashed in a while back, any time in the last five years in fact. And if they can hang around long enough to ride the next tech boom instead of trying to start it they'd be worth a lot more. Going public would also expose Google to the rigours of a stock market that simply wouldn't understand them. There would be takeover risks, and a pressure to do something with all that money. I'm not sure Google could spend all that money, I'm not sure its founders would care about it that much. Seqouia Capital would probably love the money, and could probably do great things with it, but they probably appreciate that right now holding makes far more sense than selling.

So, am I wrong and where are all these stories about a flotation coming from? Someone knows, but its not me.

A world of ends

The latest contribution from the cluetrain authors - well two of them - is world of ends, an interpretation of what the internet means, what makes it good and perhaps more importantly what you should do to exploit this. The assortment of recommended reading here is impressive as well.

About time too

Tom Watson is the MP for West Bromich East and he's about to be much better known than he is now. Why? because he's the first MP to run his own blog. Its got to be worth a mention in the Guardian at least.

Just read it, the guys real, he's human. He writes about stuff. Christ, he even posts to newsgroups. Its probably Alistair Campbells worst nightmare, imagine if they all did it. This ladies and gentlemen is good for democracy.

I'm doomed

I've barely got the last one out of my system when they go and bring out not one, but two new versions. I swear if I hadn't spent so much of my youth playing wargames and reading history this might be an easier habit to kick, but its not. In some ways this is the game I've wanted to play ever since I was old enough to run around on Hadrians wall and imagine I was defending it...

Oh well, at least the marketing plan I'm writing for Heritage Theatre is now coming together. They're not DVD's, they're books. Trust me on this, I know they're round, flat and the pictures move but they're books. Once you think of it like that you're onto a winner.

Do blogs have celebrities

Well how you define celebrity is interesting. Yesterday I read Doc Searls on the Raging Cow story. Then I read Tim at Bloggerheads on the same thing, so I speculatively mailed Doc and pointed him to Tim's website. Doc blogged Tim and me, this is Tim's rather restrained response

"Cannot. Cope. Level.. of... coolness.. (*choke*) Rising!"

Odd thing is how approachable bloggers are. Don't think I've ever written to one and not got a reply. I put this down to what I'm going to vaingloriously call Lloyd's first law of networking, which is "If you say something interesting you will get peoples attention". Its recently been suggested that whenever we have a networking event I'm the one who ends up talking to X, Y or Z. This is not entirely luck, the trick is to think of something person X is interested in, tell them what you think of it and invite a response. Compared to the people saying 'I really like your book', 'I'm a huge fan of yours' or 'what did you have for breakfast' this is going to get results.

But getting assigned the seat next to Hermann Hauser last night was just a fluke. One I was subsequently asked to trade to someone who had a real reason to talk to him, so I made do with chatting over drinks and just enjoyed the food instead.

More schmoozing

Dinner with Hermann Hauser last night. Hermann is one of the figures behind the silicon fen phenomenon in Cambridge. In particular he's involved with ARM and most of Cambridges other billion dollar companies. Back in the day he was cofounder of Acorn computer which unleashed the BBC Micro on a generation of school kids.

His goal is to turn Cambridge into a 'first division' hi tech cluster and he seems to be making progress. The business school has much the same idea here, and both sides are making progress. Both have 1500 - 2000 local hi-tech firms, world class research universities and so on. What's missing is the entrepreneurial culture and the money - both of which are slowly starting to appear. Certainly SBS and Judge should go a long way to addressing the entrepreneurial thing.

At the other end of the education spectrum

There's often a tendency to think that people are harking back to some ill remembered good old days when this kind of stuff comes out, but I don't think they are. This is really depressing stuff, in twenty years time will our economy be stuffed not because we messed up some part of basic competitiveness, but because we forgot to teach our children to speak?

Imagine a future nation of bloated illiterates, the fast food uneducated nation, a land blissfully unaware of the contempt in which the rest of the world holds it, and indeed the pace at which the rest of the world is catching it up. If I was Prime Minister I'd worry about this kind of thing far more than pretty much anything else. Will the west lose its dominance through apathy? In fifty years time I reckon that may be exactly what happens.

Bush Administration orders spying on UN delegates

Last one today folks. Honestly, if this had happened in a hotel it would have been a scandal, might have even rated one of those 'gate' extensions, UNGate or diplomatgate or something. Instead it seems noone really cares that UN delegates in New York are subject to aggressive surveillance by the NSA.

I mean, I know its hardly shocking, but now we've caught them shouldn't they at least apologise?

Yet more on Google / Blogger

Shamelessly cadging this link from Tim at Bloggerheads here is the FAQ on the Google / Blogger merger. Now, normally when two companies merge you get a bog standard press release, some waffle about synergies and some statements to the effect that 'our future plans will make us the rulers of the world' or at least 'the darlings of the stock market'. This doesn't read like that, is is also ten times more believable.

One day all companies will be honest, speak like real people and enjoy the trust of their customers. For now though Google and Blogger can make hay while the sun shines.

Letter from my MP

I have to say, this fax your MP service works wonders. Type a quick message and get a reply from your MP within days. This time I've got a standard looking letter about the war with Iraq in return (signed with his own rubber stamp) - which is fair enough as I imagine he's had hundreds of the things to write. On the other hand when I wrote about the extension of the RIP act I got what seemed to be a fairly well researched response which at least suggested I made my point to his researchers.

So, what does the Right Honourable Andrew Smith have to say about the war? Well his letter makes persistent references to both government policy and acting through the UN which may or may not be the same thing. Reading between the lines (he's a diplomatic chap this Andrew) I reckon he's one of those who will be ok with things as long as there's a second resolution, but probably at least considered joining the rebels last week. He's also attatched an FAQ from the Foreign Secretary, which contains this rather interesting entry.

Q. Is not this issue really about control of one of the world's largest oil reserves?
A. In the event of military action, Iraq's oil fields would be protected from environmental terrorism, and the revenue generated would be used to benefit the iraqi people. If oil were the issue, it would be infinitely simpler to cut a deal with Saddam.

Now leaving aside the difficulties of stopping Saddam blowing the oil fields up - how are we going to stop him? Airstrikes? This looks like a pretty sound argument. On the other hand pre Gulf War I Saddam was a signed up member of OPEC, which he got himself chucked out of by invading Kuwait. Since then he's been something of a pariah and even our noble leaders couldn't really have done a deal. Perhaps the real issue is that ever since he fell out with the west its not been possible to do a deal with Saddam, and before that he'd realised that Iraq would make a lot more money from its oil by staying in OPEC. Of course this wasn't necessarily money the Iraqi oil moguls were going to share with their people but still...

Anyway, thats my latest update for the increasingly political MBA Experience website. If you want to know how the course is going well its been work, work, more work and now, revision!

Bloogle, first new service

blogspot is a service offered by blogger for people who don't have hosting set up for their blogs. In exchange for showing banner ads on your material you get free server space. The first side effect of the Google / Blogger takeover to be seen is the appearance of targetted advertising instead of the random stuff Blogspot carried previously.

Take a look at the MBA focused adverts on Tads website or this one to see what I mean.

Its the tip of the iceberg, but its a simple thing that has probably just pushed what used to be Pyra Software into cash positive mode for the first time in its history.

How can I refuse?

"I was expecting to hear about the google-blogger acquisition on your site already. I was hoping for a business slant from you as you know a fair bit about this stuff. For some bizarre reason, I'm actually starting to rely on your blog for commentary :) well not that bizarre; what you say is normally pretty insightful, and you do have the inside track in many respects.

C'mon dude, your public awaits!!"

Oh my god I have a public! Cool. I will now stop looking like some nervous starlet, dazed by the snapping of papparazzi flashbulbs and resume my normal posture of controlled ranting and carefully timed dribbling.

The Blogger thing. For those who don't know Google now own Pyra labs, which is the technology that I use to run this website. This was announced at the Live from the Blogosphere event in a typically blogcentric manner. (Pictures), (Words). There is nothing particularly remarkable about the Blogger technology, the core is probably a dozen lines of ASP that takes what I type into a form and turns it into HTML, its not difficult. Of course what Blogger really has is a big idea and if not a business model then at least its a communication model. Big Ideas are ideas that change the way we behave and for a significant number of people Blogger does that. For some blogging is social discourse, it keeps us in touch with friends down the street or over the water. It puts us in touch with likeminded souls or just people in similar situations.

In a way some blogging is like reality TV, but its a reality shot from inside the protagonists head with themselves as a director. Blogs are used for academic debate, as bully pulpits as seeding grounds for ideas. Journalists use them as sources and leads, clued in readers use them to bypass journalism and pretty much everyone uses them to express opinions. They are the number one illustration of the cluetrains contention that markets are conversations. As you can probably tell I like Blogs, they're cool.

Google is also cool, and Google has a mission. "To catalogue and make usable all the worlds information". That ladies and gentlemen is the biggest mission in the history of the modern corporation. Google is staffed by people who want to use technology to improve the condition of mankind. At any rate thats what Raymond Nasr told me, and he works there, and he has an honest face. So is there a tie in between Google and Blogger? I think so.

A while ago Google changed their search algorhythms in a way that seemed to downplay the importance of links from blogs. Bloggers, who'd had all kinds of fun with Googlebombing and other search engine manipulation up till then were disappointed. Google base their rankings on links, which webpages effectively use to vote for each other. Blogs are absolutely stuffed with links, so they're a great source of fresh information. When Google changed their methods they didn't stop looking at Blogs, I suspect they just worked out how to put a more appropriate weight on them.

So I think there is a huge advantage to Google in having direct access to a few hundred thousand individuals who scour the web for fresh interesting content, link to it and then describe it in a way that by and large tells people what it is. No other search engine has a workforce like this.

That however is probably small potatoes compared to whatever Google have come up with. I know they're hugely interested in looking at all the data they have in aggregate, spotting patterns and trying to understand them. Blogger is in some ways probably a huge reservoir of research material and an experimental lab all in one nice shiny package. Google would have been nuts not to buy it, the genius is in the fact that we only think so after they've done it.

Finally, as Ev, the guy behind Blogger put it. Google, Blogger, just look at the names. There's clearly some shared DNA there.

Why isn't Michael Franti more famous?

If this was the 1960's Michael Franti would be a mega star. On a good day he sings like Marvin Gaye and Raps like Chuck D. He writes articulate lyrics that range from tenderness to fury. His last album had a guest appearance from Woody Harrellson and the cover notes featured quotes from Bono. If this was the 60's he'd be up there on a stage with Hendrix at Woodstock. I've played some of his recent stuff to many of my friends and the general response is 'that's damn fine music'.

Back when ICE T and Dr Dre were urging us to try a little cop killing, or maybe just fuck the police Franti brought out HipHoprisy is the Greatest Luxury, with a band called 'The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy'. It was a blistering condemnation of the first iraq war, environmental standards, the american justice system, racism and the entertainment industry. It went nowhere.

Michael Franti's most recent album is a protest against the death penalty. It's called Stay Human, and its a pretty impressive call for tolerance, brotherly love, the legalisation of marujauna (sp?), an end to genetic manipulation and greater spirituality in life. Its also got some of the best soul and disco tunes laid down in the last ten years. It didn't do that well either.

Of course by now you already know why Michael Franti isn't more famous.

"Being kicked in a closed mouth, or smiling with no teeth,
they're both choices yes, but its impossible to eat"

Digression

My last post about homeland security generated a fairly vitriolic response from one classmate. Here is a chunk of my response, which I hope puts what I have to say in context. It is worth pointing out to my American readers that coming to study in Europe will expose you to opinions far more extreme than mine. (I'm mainstream centre-left here, a good 30% of the nation is to my left). Another American colleague tells me he was approached by demonstrators over the weekend asking him to sign a petition in support of the Intfada (he's Jewish). If dealing with this sort of thing (whatever your political views) is likely to send you off the deep end then European life may not be for you. Anyway, on to the explanation of why I feel justified in having a go at http://www.ready.gov , the US governments paranoia production engine.

>>

Like everyone else in this country of my age I have lived with terrorism all my life, including IRA bombing campaigns and threats from ETA when we go on holiday in Spain. The sad truth is that ninety nine days out of a hundred you forget about it, and on the hundredth day you evacuate your school for a bomb scare, or your tube is abandoned or you hear about another shooting on the news.

Like almost every other UK citizen I was horrified to see terrorism reach the America's in the most terrible way possible. Differing responses does not mean indifference.

Sadly I was also then left to witness one of the world's great nations throwing away so many of its virtues - tolerance, understanding and respect for individual freedoms. These are of course not gone, but as the constitution is swept aside, prisoners detained without trial and military tribunals convened one cannot see anything other than the American soul being tarnished. The administrations call for every American family to duct tape themselves into a coccoon is not about protecting them, it is about sustaining public interest in a coming war.

Its at times like this that I'm glad someone at the Washington Post agrees with me. Hell, if I'm as Anti-American as Aaron McGruder I'm down with that.

Even better. Here's a guy whose American Loving credentials are pretty damn impeccable. Apparently he's seen the Elephant - whatever that means. Anyway, read and think.

Under Control?

At times this term has felt like it had completely got away from me, I'm behind on the reading, the Oxford Business Forum demolished any chance of getting serious work done for my New Business Project in the first month of term and ... well it just mounted up a bit.

Now I'm not so sure. I'm just about OK with the reading (should point out I try to read all the compulsary material, a significant minority of the class reads nothing and makes do with the lecture material), the New Business Project is still suffering, but with the Oxford Business Forum out of the way it's the only thing that's likely to eat time. Of course exams are now only three weeks away, so revision has to start soon.

Oh, and my jobhunt really should start. This was meant to be the term I really made an effort sent out the CV's and lined up the interviews. Maybe next month...

Beyond belief

I really, really, really do not understand the American government. So far the only attacks on American soil were pretty hard to avoid for anyone involved. Now however we have this. Don't be afraid, be ready? Judging from this the American nation looks bloody terrified. How about websites describing how not to get shot in school, how to avoid wearing the wrong colors and getting shot in the street, websites giving health and safety advice for nightclubs and....

It just looks like scaremongering to me

Better idea. How about a website for Iraqi civilians telling them how to avoid becoming collateral damage in the event of a US onslaught. Advice about the kind of buildings they should stay away from and how to say 'don't shoot I'm a civilian' in English for when half a dozen scared, nervous and heavily armed US Marines kick in the door to your home unsure as to whether or not yours was the building they were being fired on from.

Guerilla Politics in Action

Over at Bloggerheads Tim's campaign to get Tony Blair to adopt a publically accessible email address may finally be heading for a breakthrough. He started out with a set of reasonable demands, he got his MP to help him then there was a campaign of hostage taking followed by a massacre of the innocents and finally blackmail.

Now it seems that maybe, just maybe we'll be able to email our dear leader sometime soon, thanks to a direct approach to his wife.... (scroll down for the content)