Thursday, June 26, 2008

Because Women Play too

It is fantastic to see that this market segment is now being more dutifully addressed. Games is a fantastic platform from which to offer a ready audience with more targeted resources, including greater freedom of educational resources. There remain large groups of women, distributed throughout the World, who are not granted equal access to Education. It is well overdue to change this situation.

link: womengamers.com

...and whilst mentioning handy websites, take a peak at :
the Telegraph Top101 websites

Monday, June 16, 2008

smile, it is only a 'new paradigm'

With a year of hearing this ever so frequently at b-school, it made me smile when I read the title of a Financial Times article: "When you hear ‘new paradigm’ head for the hills" (ft.com). The content was a little different, which lent onto the lending problems in the financial markets. The expression, though, has become one of those over-used "sentence-stretchers".
Back to basics please: KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Monday, June 09, 2008

Business School Businesses

When it comes to one of the most prestigious public services, the railways often comes high on the list. It is also one that creates resentment in the user community (cost, poor service, delays...) which is particularly evident in the face of increased fuel costs and government gobbledygook about the need to become more green.

Additionally, following my London Underground experiences (mainly 1998-2002, 2006-2007), I often found myself contemplating a model to enhance the various functional and stakeholder requirements. For example, building additional track with a backup locomotive might ease problems when a train breaks down. The options should be quite feasible to model, taking into account resource deployment and costs.

So it was with considerable joy that I learned about a logistics project at RSM Erasmus University in Rotterdam, supervised by Professor Leo Kroon, a specialist in Quantitative Logistics. The project sought to offer an enhanced scheduling rota for the Dutch railways!

The results? Passenger demand up 15% on some lines. Passenger satisfaction up. More trains arrive on time. Netherlands Railways profits rose by €40m ($61.8m, £31.6m) in the first year of the timetable, with more profit growth expected down the line.

Read the article on ft.com




Talking of smart business school activities. I pleaded with Tanaka Business School (Imperial College, London) to establish a consulting arm of their MBA activities, with idea of creating a pipeline of projects on which students could contribute but also one which they could, in turn, use to obtain (cheaper) consulting when alumni establish their own businesses.

One particular idea was quite different. To create a company that the students would run, not just to learn the theory in the MBA classes - but to apply it and act as custodians of a real operating business. This might be a fund management, or even a niche management consulting group. At Imperial College there already exists an external company for knowledge transfer for start-up companies and licensing (Imperial Innovations), and there is a project management/resource hiring company too (Imperial Consultants); so a distinction would be needed between this MBA-student activity and that which already exists.

...so again, it was not a surprise to read that the School of Finance and Management in Frankfurt, Germany, has established a novel financial company spun out of academia. It is positioning itself as a niche player in "the esoteric but growing world of microfinance to speed economic development in eastern Europe". So it is benefiting from the opening up of eastern Europe, together with access to special funds for East and South-East Europe. Smart people: they get funded research, train their paying students, deploy the students to manage assets, prepare the students to take on roles in developing zones... and the cycle might continue through re-investment options. Smart people - yes, I already wrote that. Shame Tanaka could not stomach the concept.

again, their exists an Ft.com article for you to read



...then again, there exists the loan system "by Alumni for Alumni" : prodigy finance
Insead showing how to instil alumni networking and profit sharing!
They claim to have methods of determining risk associated with future income, perhaps significantly influenced by the data collection from the rather large volume of students who pass through the Insead system each year... something that works in their favour, but is still remains an easily replicated venture - particularly when coupled with an institution with a risk management research group (such as Tanaka, hint hint - perhaps protègé-finance will be coming to a business school establishment near you...)

Friday, June 06, 2008

Noise Maps

Thanks to one of those EU decisions (EU Directive on Environmental Noise) you can now get a visual view of the noise in your neighbourhood : http://noisemapping.defra.gov.uk

Nb: UK only

Technology brought to you by IBM - who else?
...using Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) - what else?
...delivered in line with the Common Architectural Approach (CARA) infrastructure - what?

CARA is a Defra methodology for sharing common components to achieve economies of scale

- - -

Desire something different?
Wimbledon starts soon. The relationship between IBM and All England Lawn Tennis Club dates back to 1990. Take a peak at the official website, www.wimbledon.org
There is a little application you can install on your computer to help you keep track of live scores, this year it comes with an interactive map widget...

Sunday, June 01, 2008

No regrets, but IESE strikes a chord once more

IESE logo
Why is it that there are interesting events going on at IESE, seemingly all the time?

most recently I read of their Entrepreneurship discussion with well-presented attendees, each reinforced my perspective that I do not strike to make money - indeed my MBA was not intended to be point for salary negotiations. Far from it! instead I am seeking the roles and responsibilities that engage me on my personality and capabilities. It may well be the case that such roles will be remunerated well - but it is not my focal point.