The Practice of Practice Weeks through the Eyes of an Outsider

Practice Weeks!? I have been hearing Business School students and staff discussions in the background on this rather new to me concept for quite a while. I have never had the chance to attend any of the Practice Weeks due to other arrangements up until now, when I was invited to support the PW team and 2nd year BA Business Management students on one of their practice sessions in Bedford. I have to admit that I am not directly engaged with this project and my discussion is thus following an outsider perspective.

Socks, notes and fluff. Is Evernote falling into a strategy trap?

Being both technologically literate and highly organised many of you will be well aware of Evernote. You will have downloaded the app and enjoyed the ease with which you can manage data; organise appointments; share across many platforms etc. etc. Soon you will be able to sit in your office chair organising your life and enjoying the comfort of a pair of socks made by ....Evernote. You could stuff them in your bag made by.... Evernote. You could write about the experience in a notebook made by... yes you've got it by now.

What a two and a half year old can teach us about Strategy

Those of us who have children well remember the thrill of hearing them utter their first word. It is something that we had anticipated for a long time and signals yet another astonishing phase in their development.  You will probably also be familiar with the next phase a parent goes through which is "why can't they shut up!" as the child reveals its mastery of language by constantly asking 'why?' and 'how?'. Unless your child is Einstein whose first words (at the age of four) were allegedly "this soup is too hot", then you will recognise this all too clearly.

Do you aspire to have a strategy?

I listened to a piece on the radio earlier today about the UK’s electricity generation strategy, or lack of it. One expert’s view was that we had a strategy in the sense of an aspiration but we had no plan. Although I understand what she meant in relation to energy policy, we need to be much clearer in relation to strategy itself because we mustn’t think of it as “aspiration” at all if we want to come up something useful.

It’s hard teaching strategy, particularly to anyone without much work experience, because they generally have no conception of what it is and nothing much we can relate it to. One route is to consider what strategy is not and “aspiration” is one of the things on the “not” list.

Why are you reading this?

I’m gradually working my way through a reading list from Ha-Joon Chang, reader in Economics at Cambridge, which was promoted by Heffers bookshop last summer. It’s an odd time to take up reading about economics as it is a discipline under some pressure at the moment. Behavioural economics has for a while been eating away at the rationalist principles underlying much of micro-economics. More recently the financial crash and subsequent recession continue to challenge macro-economics. I decided it was time to explore how thinkers in this field are responding to the challenges and remedy my own ignorance at the same time.

Is there any strategy?

It was amazing, when I read the news in November last year that Emirates have placed an order for an additional 50 Boeing 777-300 ER" planes, in addition to 20 Boeing 777-300ER as an option. This order was the single largest dollar-value order in Boeing's history.

According to emirates Group chairman ‘Emirates is financially strong enough to fund the purchase of new aircraft as part of ongoing expansion plans by one of the world’s fastest growing airlines. Emirates made net profits of Dh827 million in the first half of 2011, confirming its status as ‘one of the fastest growing carriers’.

In the current recession scenario when many airline companies are in either loss or debt what’s made Emirates so different from other airlines?

Will the boat sink the water?

I don’t have the temperament to do a PhD but if there is a me in a parallel universe who is patient, meticulous and detailed she’ll be doing a dissertation on protest and political unrest in rural China.  So even in this universe I’m interested that a protest in a village in Guangdong province is now making international headlines.

Wukan villagers claim that the local government confiscated land for development. This is in one of the wealthiest provinces in the whole of China so the gains from development are enormous. This is not an isolated incident. Skimming off the gains from the sale of land is one of many temptations to poorly paid local government officials and one of the main aggravations to farmers.

What's the point of HS1?

I don’t mean the rail service itself. I understand that bit. I used High Speed 1 to go to the Folkestone Triennial festival this summer and the journey was smooth, comfortable and, as you would expect, fast. It was particularly comfortable as the train wasn’t exactly crowded. The extensive sound-proofing along the route is unfortunate from a passenger’s perspective as you lose views of some beautiful Kent countryside but never mind.

What I mean is that I don’t get the point of the company HS1. I was listening to their CEO, Nicola Shaw, on The Bottom Line on BBC Radio 4 recently and I didn’t get it at all. They don’t own or maintain the track (that’s Railtrack). They don’t run the trains (train operating companies, TOC’s, do that). The key word seemed to be “liaison” and I think that was the problem.