OxBowBusiness: January 2006

31 January 2006

What would you do?

I said the other day that I am currently in Bucharest. Still here!

Last week we had a couple of power cuts.

Today I woke to find no water in the taps.

Question: what is contingency planning and what planning and action should I have taken?

My question has an in built assumption that I should have anticipated such problems ... is that a fair assumption?

What advice would you give to me then as my hair's a mess, I cannot shave ...

Duncan Williamson

PS Just after I posted the above the water came back on: here's what I got! Well it would be but Blogger won't upload any pictures at the moment. I'll tray later.

30 January 2006

OK so it's not original ...

... but it's funny don't you think?

Duncan Williamson

29 January 2006

Correlation ... practical view

I have put together a nice and straighforward page on how to understand and explain the meaning of the concept of correlation.

Sorry ladies but it uses a footballing example: based on the English Premiership and Championship Tables as at 28th January 2006.

The page is hosted on my own web site but none the worse for that!

Let me know what you think!

Duncan Williamson

Alternative views of business

I watch BBCWorld at the moment, given that I am living and working in Bucharest for a while. BBCWorld is generally a nightmage because the tape of news they use is only around half an hour long, meaning that I can see the same story over and over and over again in the course of any one day.

However, they do show other films and programmes in addition to the news and one of them is something that I find sometimes really useful from a business studies point of view: Earth Report.

In Laos there is an area where rice farmers found that their centuries old tradition of growing rice and then leaving the land fallow was breaking down due to the pressures of an increasing population. Crop yields were falling, life was becoming hard ...

In the UK and much of the rest of the world, the solution would be to fertilise everything back to life. We know that this strategy has failed in the UK and elsewhere and in any case is a very expensive solution.

In Earth Report on BBCWorld, they showed how the farmers changed the way they worked and prospered as a result. Rather than using fertilisers, leaving the area and moving to the cities or any other solution, they chose to work with their rice crops as before and also to learn how to manage their livestock better. They took part in a buy skinny, sell fat programme initially proposed and designed by an international consultancy.

All they needed to do was to take the animals they already owned and they grow forage crops for them. This forage comprised only seven different plants and it would feed the animals to make them big and healthy (one buffalo trebled in size under this scheme, for example). They would then sell the animals as a cash crop and move on to the next phase of their lives. That buffalo was sold for US$980 ... in context, a massive injection of much needed cash.

So, they kept their rice, they managed the land by crop rotation as before and they managed their animals as cash crops and raised large amounts of cash. All of this being done in a highly sustainable way that needs no major injection of resources from outside and that was entirely environmentally and culturally friendly.

The lesson for us? Just look at any business problem you face and see whether the answer to it is obvious or whether you need a fresh pair of eyes. For example:

many companies see a cash flow crisis and borrow money: changing the way way they do business is often a better approach
some companies produce and sell the wrong products so they close factories and shops and lay off their employees: a better solution could be to carry out better market research in the first place and redesigning products and services can be an even better solution

And so on. Open your eyes and think straight: there may be simple solutions to apparently impossible problems!

An excellent web site to accompany Earth Reports is Television Trust for the Environment (TVE)

Duncan Williamson

28 January 2006

Take a look at this Trading and Profit and Loss Account ebook and you'll see that it's not a bad experience ... except that the definitions of

cost of sales; and
expenses

are wrong.

Go and have a look and see whether you agree. If you do, tell us what they ought to be, if you don't tell me why I am wrong ... go on, post something why doncha!

Duncan Williamson

Whos kidding whom

Who’s kidding whom?

When pupils do little work they sometimes think this is a way of showing up their teacher. Maybe it’s a way of showing a rebellious streak. Maybe they’re trying to ‘put the teacher in his/her place’. They’re asserting themselves, showing their individuality…

No, they’re not. They’re just being idiots. If a pupil doesn’t work and does badly in the final exam, who is the fool then? Who has lost out on the university place? ‘Ah, but we really showed it to the teacher!’ they may exclaim – but is this really true?

If a teacher fails to motivate the pupils can the teacher necessarily be blamed? Why should pupils need much motivation? At Sixth Form level they are studying a subject of their choosing. They could have left the school at GCSE but they chose to stay on. So who is the loser if they refuse to participate? Who loses if they refuse to hand in work or ignore help from their teacher? If the teacher has any sense ‘s/he will be noting down all the help given and be keeping the Head of Business Studies informed. As long as the teacher is trying his/her best then he’s covered. If the results are bad (owing to the non-compliance of the pupils in the ‘learning experience’) then the teacher should not be blamed.

I mention all this as I have just read this:

“I have a Year 13 Business Studies class who just will not work. I get constant "But we're so busy" excuses and talk about how "There'll be time at the end to improve" 3 times I have taken in Year 13 Human Resources and 3 times I have given out grades below predicted grades to a number of pupils. I even clearly mark "YOU LEFT OUT CRITERIA E3" but then the next time they hand it up - Criteria E3 is still missing despite clear instructions on what to do.Nobody reads any of the hand-outs they get. I give suggested reading material to bring marks up and never see any of it in the assignments. The Head of Business is very supportive, but they seems to work for him but not me.I am new to the school and I think they see me as their replacement teacher. Their manner and behaviour is fine, but work ethic is awful. I can't wait for them to leave.”

Source: TES

I have taught classes where they don’t want to work, refuse to work, are hostile to all help offered. I just let them get on with it. Yes, I know, very unprofessional but soddit.

However, sometimes I have tried to think of ways to motivate, ways to involve, and ways to ‘cause learning to happen’. I am reminded by the Chinese proverb:

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

So I have sought to ‘involve’ the pupils. This I do by delegating the teaching. I explain that the best way of learning is by doing. I explain that they are going to prepare lessons once a week. I give 2-3 people a topic to prepare for the end of the week – whichever is the hardest lesson (usually Friday period 5). The pupils selected have no other homework for the week. If they prepare and deliver well, then fine. If they don’t then the next lesson is the most boring dictation possible.

When pupils complain that I am not ‘teaching’ I explain that teaching is the ‘art of causing learning’ and surely they are learning…

If it’s a disaster then we, as a group, examine why. Is it because the topic is too difficult? The resources insufficient? My input too little? (Tough if it is this) or is it because the pupils have ‘too much to do’?

If they try and pull the ‘too much to do’ malarkey, we talk about time management. We discuss their whole approach to study and how they’ll cope with university with the compulsory drugs, sex and drink – oh yes, and lectures too.

So far, though, this approach has worked. After the initial jolt when they realise they have to prepare a talk, discussion – anything as long as learning talks place (maybe even use magic to teach with – see previous blog) - pupils seem to learn a lot. Admittedly I have to think more and sometimes even prepare more as I always follow a ‘pupil lesson’ with a critique and analysis and copious hand-outs to develop what has been covered – but it’s worth it.

So what of the case above?

I’d give them a checklist of ‘things to be included’ in the material to be handed in. Unless each box is ticked you won’t even read it. If a box is ticked and the material is not included then you’ll stop reading at that point i.e. if section 1 does not include ‘X’ then you’ll not read section 2. If you keep on and on reading, advising, resubmitting, reading, more notes given out etc you’ll simply create a millstone for yourself. (I used to teach GNVQ and that is what happens. Hand in – rubbish. Hand in again – still rubbish. I explain. They write down. I interview. I write down their answer. It’s a pass.) Plus your pupils won’t actually learn much except that ‘if we don’t do the work the teacher will get the blame so in the end he’ll do it for us’ – and surely that is not a lesson you want them to learn?

Chris Sivewright

What do you subscribe to?

What do you subscribe to?

Occasionally I wonder what journals/magazines schools subscribe to. Whether they simply stop at magazines/journals dealing with A levels or whether they consciously endeavour to extend their pupils.

Take for example, the A level Business Studies syllabus. Do schools stop at Maslow, McGregor, Taylor etc or do they also encourage pupils to read about Drucker, Handy, Porter etc. How many pupils know about Ouchi, Alderfer – indeed how many teachers do? I was running a conference in the North of England a few years ago and the topic of cheating came up. I explained to the assembled group that though cheating was unethical sometimes candidates bluffed their way in the exams (Their teacher was not in the room at the time.) As an example I asked them whether they had heard of Theory X and Y. ‘Yes’ they said. ‘But what about Theory R?’ I asked.

No-one had heard of this theory.

‘Theory R is hands-on management,’ I said. ‘The R stands for Reiki which is a form of alternative therapy. Reiki evolved in Japan from the experience and dedication of Dr Mikao Usui (d. 1926). Dr Usui developed this healing system from ancient teachings after many years of study, research and meditation. Treatment usually consists of someone places their hands non-intrusively in a sequence of positions which cover the whole body. From this we get hands-on management. Therefore Theory R extols the virtues of this particular Japanese management style and directly lead to Management By Walking Around’

I was about to say, ‘And this is all complete nonsense. My description of Reiki is accurate but the rest I just made up’ when I realised that a teacher had come into the hall and had been listening patiently.

I paused.

The teacher then stood up and said, “Yes, we haven’t covered Theory R yet but we’re scheduled to do so next week’.

The hall erupted, the teacher was furious as my behaviour was ‘unethical’ etc etc. What I didn’t know at the time is that there genuinely is a Theory R Management which is to do with the need of the worker to be valued. Anyway, the point is that these pupils had been ‘drilled’ to follow the syllabus, and nothing more besides – and it looked like the teacher had too!

Take for example the two books on the Oxbow site about Drucker and Handy. These have been independently reviewed elsewhere and praised. The books are only £2.50 (though they are £25 elsewhere) and yet teachers/pupils are not exactly falling over themselves to buy the copies (all proceeds go to charity).

Perhaps they prefer to read only about Abraham Maslow and stick rigidly to the syllabus.

Which brings me back to journals and magazines. I wonder how many students/schools order the Financial Times. I am sure many buy magazines specifically for the A level – but what about reading and thinking outside the box? Take for example the February 2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review. This covers the following ideas:

Howard Gardner contends that the ability to synthesize information will be the most valued trait for leaders.

Dan Williams explores how body area networks can lower health care costs and improve safety.

William McDonough describes China as a seedbed for environmental innovation. Nitin Nohria and Thomas A. Stewart say the next frontier for business will be managing incalculable uncertainty.

Jeff Cares outlines the challenge confronting business as networks face off against networks.

Claire Craig reports how scientists are going beyond the lab and using the world outside as their petri dish.

Ted Halstead recommends that every newborn in America receive $6,000 as a down payment on a productive life.

Georg von Krogh warns that customer-collaborators are starting to demand a stake in IP.

Ged Davis envisions an OPEC-like organization to benefit consumers instead of producers.

Nancy M. Dixon describes a model for peer-to-peer leadership development.

Harris Allen and Sean Sullivan contend that investment in employees' health can pay for itself.

David Weinberger says that stores should imitate Web design.

Gerd Gigerenzer shows how a leader's personal rules of thumb influence employees. Zachary Karabell discusses the growing gap between nations' and companies' economic performance.

Paul Hemp tells why avatars make good customers.

Philip Parker explains why creating private labels for your retail customers is smart strategy.

Judith Samuelson and Claire Preisser describe how companies are combating short-term thinking.

George Stalk Jr. explains why many firms aren't benefiting from China sourcing. Michael S. Gazzaniga punctures inflated expectations about what neuroscience can do for business.

E.L. Kersten says employees shouldn't expect their jobs to provide meaning.

Source: Harvard Business Review

All of those topics fit into the A level Business Studies syllabus. However the way the articles are written may make it difficult for pupils to understand at the first reading.

But that’s not a reason not to try. Think about the levels at which you aspire to. If you read the Guardian/Telegraph/Independent every day so your vocabulary will improve. Then you could move onto the Financial Times. BUT if you stick to some of those textbooks currently around which have plenty of pictures and short sentences, sticking to a very narrow vocabulary then though the basic ideas may be imparted, how is this preparing pupils for university?

Take for example these business buzzwords:

Braggables

Buns of Steel

Cockroach problem

Drop your pants

Event horizon

Frictio-free capitalism

Fume date

Hedgehog concept

How many do you know?

True, they will not appear in any Business Studies syllabus but that does not mean they should not form part of any business pupil’s vocabulary!

I suppose it’s all to do with ‘results’ and ‘standards’. If you attempt to raise the standards of your pupils and truly ‘educate’ them then there is a possibility that exam results will not be as good as if you had focussed entirely on the syllabus, learnt the vocabulary in the syllabus, rehearsed approaches to extended questions, or thoroughly digested a story about Chinese Takeaways or Aromatherapists. Which pupil has been educated – and which one has simply jumped through the necessary hoops? You only have to look here to see for yourself how standards have fallen.

It seems to me that the school that actively pursues a policy of extending pupils, coercing them into reading widely (e.g. by setting homework based on Handy, Drucker etc) will still achieve good results because as A2 progresses, pupils will have the necessary tools to learn instead of relying on the teacher’s handouts (or commercial analyses). When the pupil leaves s/he will be thoroughly educated and have good results whereas the pupil who is given the picture-textbooks and where the teacher has chosen the easiest board to ‘up’ results, will leave with good results but no real ‘education’.

Chris Sivewright

Competing on Analytics

Sorry, this is a lengthy post: a very valuable one, however.

In a recent article for the Hardvard Business Review, Thomas H. Davenport (President's Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College in Babson Park, Massachusetts, the director of research at Babson Executive Education, and a fellow at Accenture) discussed how modern and successful companies are using maths and stats and modelling to conquer their world. This posting contains extracts of that article: there are no weird formulae to worry about and no advanced concepts. We just look at some examples of how business is using its databases more effectively than ever before.

You will see here examples of the kind of ratios that get business studies and accounting students an A grade and practitioners an advantage over their competitors: it shows a greater understanding of such things than merely repeating gross profit margin, net profit margin … when asked what ratios companies use in certain circumstances.

Anatomy of an Analytics Competitor

Over the past 20 years, Marriott International has honed to a science its system for establishing the optimal price for guest rooms (known as revenue management). Today, its ambitions are far grander. Marriott has expanded its quantitative expertise to areas such as conference facilities and catering, and made related tools available over the Internet to property revenue managers and hotel owners. It has developed systems to optimize offerings to frequent customers and assess the likelihood of those customers' defecting to competitors.

The company has even created a revenue opportunity model, which computes actual revenues as a percentage of the optimal rates that could have been charged. That figure has grown from 83% to 91% as Marriott's revenue management analytics has taken root throughout the enterprise.

Customers notice the difference in every interaction; employees and vendors live the difference every day.

Widespread use of modelling and optimization

Any company can generate simple descriptive statistics about aspects of its business: average revenue per employee, for example, or average order size. But analytics competitors look well beyond basic statistics. These companies use predictive modelling to identify the most profitable customers: plus those with the greatest profit potential and the ones most likely to cancel their accounts.

Leaders in analytics also use sophisticated experiments to measure the overall impact or "lift" of intervention strategies and then apply the results to continuously improve subsequent analyses.

Capital One, for example, conducts more than 30,000 experiments a year, with different interest rates, incentives, direct mail packaging, and other variables. Its goal is to maximize the likelihood both that potential customers will sign up for credit cards and that they will pay back Capital One.

Progressive [Insurance company] employs similar experiments using widely available insurance industry data. The company defines narrow groups, or cells, of customers:

· for example, motorcycle riders ages 30 and above
· with college educations
· credit scores over a certain level and
· no accidents

For each cell, the company performs a regression analysis to identify factors that most closely correlate with the losses that group engenders. It then sets prices for the cells, which should enable the company to earn a profit across a portfolio of customer groups, and uses simulation software to test the financial implications of those hypotheses.

With this approach, Progressive can profitably insure customers in traditionally high risk categories. Other insurers reject high risk customers out of hand, without bothering to delve more deeply into the data.

An enterprise approach

UPS embodies the evolution from targeted analytics user to comprehensive analytics competitor. Today, UPS is wielding its statistical skill to track the movement of packages and to anticipate and influence the actions of people: assessing the likelihood of customer attrition and identifying sources of problems. The UPS Customer Intelligence Group, for example, is able to accurately predict customer defections by examining usage patterns and complaints. When the data point to a potential defector, a salesperson contacts that customer to review and resolve the problem, dramatically reducing the loss of accounts. UPS still lacks the breadth of initiatives of a full bore analytics competitor, but it is heading in that direction.

A Spreadsheet Warning

The proliferation of user developed spreadsheets and databases inevitably leads to multiple versions of key indicators within an organization. Furthermore, research has shown that between 20% and 40% of spreadsheets contain errors [I have seen research studies that claim as many as 90% of spreadsheets contain such errors]; the more spreadsheets floating around a company, therefore, the more fertile the breeding ground for mistakes.

Some analytics competitors apply the same enterprise approach to people as to technology. Procter & Gamble, for example, recently created a kind of ciberanalytics group consisting of more than 100 analysts from such functions as operations, supply chain, sales, consumer research, and marketing. P&G can apply a critical mass of expertise to its most pressing issues. So, for example, sales and marketing analysts supply data on opportunities for growth in existing markets to analysts who design corporate supply networks. The supply chain analysts, in turn, apply their expertise in certain decision analysis techniques to such new areas as competitive intelligence.

The Right People

One consumer products company with a 30 person analytics group looks for what it calls "PhDs with personality": people with expertise in maths, statistics, and data analysis who can also speak the language of business and help market their work internally and sometimes externally.
"We are trying to build our people as part of the business team, we want them sitting at the business table, participating in a discussion of what the key issues are, determining what information needs the business people have, and recommending actions to the business partners. We want this [analytics group] to be not just a general utility, but rather an active and critical part of the business unit's success."

You Know You Compete on Analytics When ...

1 You apply sophisticated information systems and rigorous analysis not only to your core capability but also to a range of functions as varied as marketing and human resources.
2 Your senior executive team not only recognizes the importance of analytics capabilities but also makes their development and maintenance a primary focus.
3 You treat fact based decision making not only as a best practice but also as a part of the culture that's constantly emphasized and communicated by senior executives.
4 You hire not only people with analytical skills but a lot of people with the very best analytical skills: and consider them a key to your success.
5 You not only employ analytics in almost every function and department but also consider it so strategically important that you manage it at the enterprise level.
6 You not only are expert at number crunching but also invent proprietary metrics for use in key business processes.
7 You not only use copious data and in house analysis but also share them with customers and suppliers.
8 You not only avidly consume data but also seize every opportunity to generate information, creating a "test and learn" culture based on numerous small experiments.
9 You not only have committed to competing on analytics but also have been building your capabilities for several years.
10 You not only emphasize the importance of analytics internally but also make quantitative capabilities part of your company's story, to be shared in the annual report and in discussions with financial analysts.
© January 2006 Harvard Business Review

Extracts prepared by Duncan Williamson

27 January 2006

Cant keep a good guy

Can’t keep a good guy down!

Some readers may remember Alex Hobbs. He became quite famous a few years ago owing to his stunning success at Business Studies A level. Since then he’s been studying in America and trying to come up with various business schemes. Currently he is working for Delaware North Companies and their work at Wembley Stadium.

About 6 months ago he put a business idea to me. ‘You were supposedly Britain’s highest paid teacher – what do you think of this?’ he said.

I poo-pooed his idea saying it would never work.

Alex has just written to me saying:

“I also wanted to draw your attention to the following link. You remember when I was in the states and had the idea of businesses all working together to put a %age of their profits into a big pot to be shared out amongst charities. You know? The one you said wouldn’t work?!
Well guess what?
The idea I ROCK!!!”

This shows that you can have a good idea but without the necessary backing it may never happen …a useful place to start is startups.

That’s enough to make you think…

Chris Sivewright

Games People Play

Games People Play

Some people have recently been posting about classroom games in an Economics thread in a public discussion forum. Now, I was long ago thrown out of that forum (no need to go into why though I’ll happily say why if anyone emails). Nonetheless I try to keep the occasional eye on what goes on there. A few of the posters have been posting games that can be played to illustrate economic concepts. Bized have an excellent section on Economics games and there is also a site with experiments on that may then be adapted for an Economics lesson.

This whole idea of using games to illustrate concepts is excellent. Only last week I attended a Christian Aid Teacher's seminar as I hope to shortly become a Christian Aid Teacher. (Why don’t other teachers also offer their services – the more the merrier!) We played a trading game which is also available from Oxfam who sell it on behalf of Christian Aid.

Despite the initial confusion (you'd have to play it to fully understand that comment!) the game went very well and lessons were clearly learned. This game, in my opinion, would be ideal for a Business Studies class too and one day when I run a general conference rather than a specific one, I’ll play this game. Out of chaos, learning takes place!

The whole idea of using games instead of the ‘stand and deliver’ approach is to be welcomed but they take a lot of organising. For a start you have to have a willing class – not one that will wreck things at the earliest opportunity! Equally the class should be lively otherwise – certainly with the Trading Game – the game may fall flat.

In England the most famous ‘game’, more correctly called the ‘beautiful game’ is football though it does have its ugly side . Media speculation is at its highest as Sven is to be replaced this summer, after the World Cup. Alan Shearer (Newcastle) opines that the England manager need not necessarily have much experience at club level – and he points to the managers of Germany and Holland as examples. The type of leadership at national level is somewhat different to that where there is day-to-day involvement as with a club.

The same might be said with teaching. A good Business Studies teacher does not necessarily make a good Head of Department. If your first love is teaching i.e. extensive classroom time then you may not take too well with administration, departmental meetings etc etc. Certainly when I was offered the Head of Business Studies post at Claires Court School a few years ago I declined – and also resigned form my post as teacher there to concentrate more on activities in Oxford. My first love is teaching, not administration, not designing courses, not attending ‘strategy’ meetings. One-off courses and conferences are fine but not on a regular basis. I like being in a classroom exploring, discussing, arguing, debating, investigating … ‘living’ Business Studies/Economics rather than sitting around poring through courses, dealing with enquiries, parents, exam entries etc etc.

That does not mean I am a poor teacher because I have no desire to climb up the ranks. I know what I like doing best and I try to make sure that other non-teaching tasks are done by other people. Going back to Sven, as, it was once rumoured, Ulrika once did, he said he was looking forward to the day-to-day contact of club management. (Presumably at a £5m a year salary…now, when is Sir Alex leaving – or will the Real Madrid job become vacant?) Think of the good club managers – Graham Taylor, Glen Hoddle, Kevin Keegan – who somehow didn’t manage to repeat their success at international level. Only Bobby Robson and Terry Venables seemed to be able to make the leap from club to international management.
So, just because you know your level doesn’t make you any better or worse, but it sure makes you happier. People play many different games in life both in and out of the classroom, learning a few more to use in lesson-time is unlikely to do harm and may actually make a dismal subject interesting.

Chris Sivewright

25 January 2006

How do you discover

How do you discover your real purpose in life?
That is a thought that has occurred to me tonight. You see, I have just finished writing the book Lifestyle Plan which consists of a 20-day plan by which you can reform your life. Each day is split into Activity, Classroom Behaviour Management, Creativity, Exercise, and Losing Weight. It was in the Activity section that I started thinking about Spiritual Exercises, which of course, many of you will recognise as coming from Ignatius Loyola Exercises are all very well – on a spiritual, mental and physical basis, but will they actually help you define/understand your true ‘purpose in life’?
I was not so sure.
As with any mystery the simplest thing is to turn to Google. I typed in 'real purpose of life' and nearly 71 million hits showed up. Even allowing for 75% of the sites not really dealing with the ‘real’ purpose (instead just trying to sell you the ‘ultimate herb’ from an obscure Tibetan cave) that’s still a lot of sites giving you ‘information’. One site had on it an article about Mind Control from anti-Christians. Among other things, this site warned me:
“Regardless of the country in which you live, if you watch secular news or entertainment, you are submitting yourself to anti-Christian mind control and persuasion. The same is true of secular education.”
This seems a bit worrying as I am involved in secular education and I have enough trouble getting the brats, sorry, pupils/students to pay any attention let alone ‘control their mind’. Perhaps I have skills on a subliminal level?
I remember about 30 years ago going to a firm of Careers Analysts in London and they told me my ‘best’ job would be in Commerce or in Social Work. If you combine the two you have ‘teaching Business Studies’ (probably to underprivileged kids). So it seems the careers analysts were able to identify my ‘real purpose’ – for a fee of about £70 – which was quite a lot in 1975.
I know I did try the ‘best job’ when I ran evening classes at Peer's School in Littlemore, Oxford. The classes were free and you had to be either a student or unemployed to come along. The classes were quite successful, 100% pass rate for Business Studies after 1 year. (Full A-level, not just AS) When I ran the course again, for a second year, 75% took the exam in November. Again a 100% pass-rate, which was not bad after just 10 evening classes. Somehow this didn’t seem very fulfilling, though – and we had to stop the classes anyway as cars were being vandalised.
So how can people find their ‘real purpose’ in life? To continue my investigation I looked again at Steve Pavlina's site which I am fast becoming a regular visitor to. (I emailed him yesterday mentioning this blog – he’s been to have a look.) On his site he seemed to have the answer – I paraphrase but if you wish, why not visit the original article
“Here’s a story about Bruce Lee which sets the stage for this little exercise. A master martial artist asked Bruce to teach him everything Bruce knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups, both filled with liquid. “The first cup,” said Bruce, “represents all of your knowledge about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must first empty your cup of your knowledge.”
If you want to discover your true purpose in life, you must first empty your mind of all the false purposes you’ve been taught (including the idea that you may have no purpose at all).
Here’s what to do:

Take out a blank sheet of paper or open up a word processor where you can type (I prefer the latter because it’s faster).

Write at the top, “What is my true purpose in life?”

Write an answer (any answer) that pops into your head. It doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A short phrase is fine.

Repeat step 3 until you write the answer that makes you cry. This is your purpose.

Usually it takes 15-20 minutes to clear your head of all the clutter and the social conditioning about what you think your purpose in life is. But when the true answer finally arrives, it will feel like it’s coming to you from a different source entirely.
Here was my final answer: to live consciously and courageously, to resonate with love and compassion, to awaken the great spirits within others, and to leave this world in peace.
Source: Steve Pavlina
Perhaps that would be a way of finding out? If you’re in business and have strayed to this Blog then you may be more familiar with another remedy such as asking a Business Coach (probably trained by The Coaching Academy ) I tend to think a Business Coach is likely to give a ‘business answer’ – maybe the key is a visit to a Life Coach – certainly Lisa Ravenscroft has a very helpful site and an interesting Newsletter.
Maybe, though, the only way to find out is to ask yourself – as indeed Steve Pavlina did. Which brings me back to the Lifestyle Plan book I have just finished. In theory we could plan out our lives simply by getting closer and closer to Self – it’s just that sometimes we need a little help.
And that’s where teachers – of all kinds – come in and sometimes our most important function is just to help pupils listen...
Chris Sivewright

24 January 2006

Timetabling Sleep

Timetabling Sleep
I have been thinking about Polyphasic sleep According to Wikipedia: “Polyphasic sleep is a sleep pattern specification intended to reduce sleep time to 2–5 hours daily. This is achieved by spreading out sleep into short naps of around 20–45 minutes throughout the day. This is supposed to allow for more waking hours with relatively high alertness. The method uses natural human sleep mechanisms to maximize alertness when sleep time needs to be minimized.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like sleep. I like being in bed . I like waking up on a cold morning and reminding myself that as I am a Director of OSL, with the magic of phone diverts and email I can usually just roll over and have another couple of hours of sleep. Let someone else do the work. Surprisingly this sleep is often the most pleasurable – and I have the most lucid dreams – of all the hours I am asleep.
But what if I kept the sleeping time down and yet maximised its benefits?
Supporters of polyphasic sleep claim just that. Steve Pavlina writes in his blog that: “I’ve been delighted by the productivity boost this extra time has given me.  I’ve added much more content to the site this month than in previous months, and traffic and ad revenue are higher than ever. In fact, I’ve been getting complaints that I’m outpacing people’s ability to keep up, which I can certainly understand. “
Now what if we could apply that to work and/or the classroom?  According to Steve, you sleep 20-30 minutes six times per day, with equally spaced naps every 4 hours around the clock. So in the teaching day you could sleep at lunch-time and at 4pm. Perhaps also at 8 am if you came to work early. Of course the school would have to supply ‘sleep rooms’ which might be a little impractical (but independent schools being run as businesses might see it as an investment) but the benefits would be measurable because, as all teachers know, it’s a physically demanding job. Not only the stress and strain of trying to control/educate/manage a group of non-volunteers but also cope with management diktats, Government policies, parental persuasions etc.
Some of you may be old enough to remember TM or transcendental meditation which was very popular in the 1980s. That’s seemed to be a way of maximising your time, improving your health and increasing productivity – all in one go. Perhaps it works for you; perhaps you’ve never tried it.
The reason polyphasic sleep occurred to me, though, is that I have been looking at the timing of posts and emails between Duncan and myself. Duncan’s latest blog was at 4.33 am so either he is a very early riser or goes to bed very late or is a practitioner of polyphasic sleep.
Alternatively he may just consume large amounts of coffee – let’s hope he asks the right questions and gets it cheaply!  In my own case I tend to sleep at odd hours – sometimes I am up very late, occasionally all night – but then sometimes I sleep until mid-day. It all depends on what the schedule is for the next day. If I have a conference in Newcastle I’ll leave Oxford at about 1 am in order to start at 9.30 am. I then finish at about 6pm and have a sleep for about 1 hour before the long drive back. When I am writing books  - tonight I have to finish Lifestyle Plan  -  I guess that when you like what you are doing, sleep can (short-term) take a back-seat.
But then, as I said, I like sleep provided it’s sleep when I want it not when ‘it’s time for bed’. Which reminds me, I could do with a kip now before East Enders starts….
Chris Sivewright

The Misery Index

Ever heard of the misery index (MI)? The Economist reminds us (14th - 20th January 2006) that this index was invented by Arthur Okun in the 1970s and that it measures the sum of unemployment and inflation rates.

I remember saying four or five years ago to a band of economics and business studies teachers that given the UK’s performance at that time, the misery index ought to be reclassified as the happiness index.

What goes around, comes around and the Economist has presented the misery index for 1994 and 2005 in a recent article. The graph accompanying their short article shows that all bar two of the G7 countries’ MI has improved (we are happier by definition) than we were in 1994. Only the USA and Japans’ MIs have worsened … Japan has just about broken even whilst the USA ha increased its index from around 14 to around 18.

What has happened is that Okun had a good idea that was of its time. Now its outmoded but the metrics monsters can’t let go of it: a bit like the Phillips Curve that was only ever any good when it was invented but now it’s pretty well irrelevant and useless because it doesn’t work any more.

From the Economist article:

"The United States has the highest score [in 2005], ie, it has the most wretched economy among the big G7 countries, thanks to its huge deficits. In the 1990s ... its index was one of the lowest. The United States is the only country to have seen a large increase in its misery index over the past decade ...

Japan ... is now back to where it was in 1994 ...

The superstar that deserves to smile is Canada. Over the past decade it has seen the biggest reduction in its misery index of any G7 economy. It is the only country running both current account and budget surpluses ..."

Here is the graph from that article in the Economist: thanks to them for providing it too

Duncan Williamson

23 January 2006

Education Education

‘Education, Education, Education’

That used to be Blair’s cry. And now the Tories have a cry of their own: ‘Stability, Stability, Stability.’

Their leader, David Cameron, is quoted in today’s Financial Times as saying: “When it comes to the economy, I am absolutely clear that stability and responsibility come first, second and third as our priorities - and that they come before the commitment to cut taxes."

This will be the first election that the Tories have not pledged to cut taxes and represents a movement to the middle ground. This ‘middle ground’ has quickly become over-populated, though with the Liberals (or what remains of them) fighting with labour for the ‘centre’. Interestingly the Tories are looking at ‘flattening’ the tax system (and thus flattening Labour) which is an idea fully explored at the Adam Smith org

Economics students will already be familiar with the Rabushka–Hall Version but this would be new to Business Studies pupils. An interesting read…

Will this move to the centre ground lead, as Lord Tebbit said on Question Time recently, to a disenfranchisement of ‘Conservative’ voters? If so where will they go – if anywhere? Could the next election be characterised by the lowest turnout ever but this time the ‘no-showers’ being the older generation, not the younger one? If so will Politics become less funky, less trendy and more traditional in a move to encourage us older folk to get out and vote? Forget online voting, perhaps we will be encouraged to vote via the weekly insurance agent, or by sending in cut-out-and-keep forms on certain Typhoo-tea packs. To woo us maybe there will be subsidies on Grecian 2000 as Grecian 2000 Lotion 125ml is currently far too expensive at £6.99…
Some may find it odd that the Conservatives should emphasise ‘stability’ at the same time as launching an economic competitiveness commission because, as is discussed at Oxford Conferences, equilibrium is ‘death’…

Chris Sivewright

22 January 2006

Interesting parallel

Interesting parallels.

I see that the News of the World claim that Sven claims that football is riddled with corruption.
“And he and his agent Athole Still named THREE teams they suspect of links to the bungs scandal now rocking the Football Association. CLUB ONE is a struggling Premiership outfit whose manager Eriksson labelled "the worst" at taking backhanders. CLUB TWO is one of the country's most famous names whose boss Still accused of being involved in a big transfer "scam" . CLUB THREE is another leading side which allegedly paid over the odds for players in "illegal deals". “
Source: http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/
Interesting that the FA has finally started interviewing people such as Mike Newell when he too went public. But will they interview Sven? He has actually named the clubs – though the newspaper hasn’t. Will they make their full tape available to the FA.?
Or is it too important, in World Cup year to fudge it all and hope the official complainants (Newell, Holloway etc) rather than the unofficial ones (Sven) go away?
In the 1990s the education world was rife with rumours that Education was corrupt. Newspapers and the TV ran stories about Maths papers being sold on the streets. It was a standing joke among Economics teachers that ‘if you want to know what’s in the Economics paper then just go and look at School X’s mocks at Easter.’ I know of a school that always hires a particular Examiner to run their Easter Course. ‘Why him?’ I asked the Head of Business Studies. ‘Because he teaches what is in the exam in the summer’ was the reply. I remember a conference I ran at a school where, when I started talking about Europe a pupil said, “No need to do that. The Chief Examiner came a few weeks ago and he said not to bother, it was not in the exam”. The Head of Business confirmed this orally – but wouldn’t do so in writing. One year, I produced a revision booklet in which I dealt with telemarketing. A telephone call came from a teacher. “Why did you include this chapter? How did you know it is in the exam?” I replied that I didn’t know it was in the exam. “Well, anyway, it is’ he said. Other instances such as an Exam Board sending the exam paper out the day before the exam to various Examiners ‘for you to read through’ plus the oft repeated claim that ‘standards haven’t fallen’ and ‘standards are the same across the boards’ continued.
Was anyone ever interviewed? Despite all the private and public utterances made by me and others were any of us ever asked to explain or even ‘put up or shut up’?
No.
Hopefully the FA won’t make the same mistake.

Chris Sivewright

Metrics, numbers, data

So you’re studying Business, Accounting or Economics and people keep talking about metrics and statistics and data and numbers. “Why?” you are asking. Who cares whether people are playing FOOTSIE or not?

Well, we are not alone. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is worried about metrics too: they are trying to define the term planet. Surprised? So was I: how come after 4.5 billion years we still haven’t got a definition of the word planet?

Remember the episode of Blackadder, that smooth operating medieval to first world war political/royal/aristocratic schemer, in which they threw Dr Johnson’s dictionary on the fire that Blackadder and Baldrick tried to rewrite it over night?

Baldrick’s marvellous definition of the sea was, That big blue wobbly thing. So, a planet could easily be defined as a big round thing in the sky.

Daft? Not necessarily since roundness is a key feature of a planet for some astronomers.

Anyway, why am I saying all of this? Another key definition of a planet revolves around (that’s a pun) its radius … so we get to the metrics now. The latest seems to be that a planet has to include the radius of 1,000 kilometers otherwise the Earth will be demoted from being a planet to being a not so big round thing in the sky.

And my point is? Metrics are vital, they are the key to opening up standard definitions and in providing insights into a wide range of ideas and problems. Playing FOOTSIE isn’t always important but it’s often a good starting point.

Duncan Williamson

21 January 2006

Welcome to the OxBowBusiness Blog

21st January 2006

Happy new year everyone: just managed to say that in time I think.

This Blog is part of the wonderful new web site being created by Duncan Williamson and Chris Sivewright that is aimed at business studies students and teachers. Economics and Accounting students and teachers will find things of enormous benefit too.

Watch this site as it builds and grows and whatever else busy web sites do.

You must always feel free to contact us with your ideas and thoughts. Maybe there is something you want us to do for you that we don't currently do ... we're good that way!

Maybe we didn't express ourselves properly and you need to clarify something ... just ask.

Don't be shy.

Duncan Williamson
21 Jan 06

OxBowBusiness