Opportunity knocks

I got a mail today from a great friend in the UK who among others helped bail me out when things got really rough here.  You need the occasional reminder of just how cool your real friends really are.  And how much you owe them beyond just cash.

In replying to him though, I began to list the opportunities I have in the pipeline and I was rocked by how good it all looks compared to even a month ago and if looked at in the light of, say, last Xmas then it's a stunning advance.

I have some paying work.  Enough to keep the wolf from the door at least by the looks of it.

But more importantly there are deals in the pipeline that are real and solidifying fast.  If 20% come off then all my financial and legal problems go away.  If 10% come off I can eat and put a roof over my head for a year.

We're establishing a slew of new businesses - consulting and training oriented, trading and broking and even the manufacture of a simple product in Malaysia.  There's even an investment fund in there if we can get our act together.  If effort were a measure of success...well eat your heart out Bill Gates. 

We have a strange economy here in Dubai.  There's massive government interference in licencing and bureaucratic nonsense but little actual regulation.  It's a pretty much free market economy - largely unfettered capitalism.  If you don't make it as a business you fold.  If you owe people money you go to jail.  Generally - unless you're a local of course.  Or the Government who are the worst payers and biggest debtors...but that's a whole other issue.  The important thing though is the  activity in our local market reflects the world as a whole pretty much unfiltered.  And it's getting better.

New businesses are starting and old ones recovering.

Real estate and hospitality are still a mess and real estate in particular is probably in for worse yet.  Hotel rates are still falling but more slowly and peak season is kicking in.

Rents have a way to fall yet.  I'm glad I don't depend on rent from apartments for my living!  I have a friend whose current rental income doesn't equal the service charge from the developer - Nakheel, a government entity in deep shit who doesn't understand that screwing over the landlords is destructive to its long term survival.

Final assessment?  Recovering but government needs to respond more openly and stop protecting its collective arse.  Help the economy as a whole and you'll all benefit.

Well...people are kinder than you expect.

And it shows in little things.  My phone ran out of credit while I was at the airport today and I couldn't buy any more till I got home.  But I did have free wi-fi.  So I whined about my running out to a friend by email.  And she promptly stuck some credit on my phone for me from a distance and demanded a call back cuz I sounded 'down';-)  Cool friend.

The staff at the hotel where I stayed recently greeted me one morning with a breakfast plate and asked me to try it before they offered it in the restaurant the next day.  Why?  Because they said if it was horrible I would tell them truthfully but not yell at them.  And if it was nice I would be appreciative;-)  Made my day.  It was good btw and will be on the menu from tomorrow.

Eid brings on philosophy

I'm good at people though I don't like them very much.

I love the wilderness though I live in the city.

I'm fond of the ice but I crave the sun.

I make money though I am unable to keep it.

I don't believe in Gods but I admire their creations.

I've been working on a project to re-brand a hotel cum apartment block.  And it's been a disaster of total misunderstanding between the consultants and the clients.

So, to us the branding is a deep thing.  It represents everything the business stands for and it covers how people think, how they behave, how we approach the guests and residents, how we make decisions, what we do to make them feel good, how we decorate the building, what kind of restaurants we put in the building, what kind of uniforms we put the staff in, even the age and cultural mix of the staff, how we greet the guests, what we do differently for guests or residents, what words we use in our communication,s what colour we paint the walls, what kind of signage we use and where we put it and so on and so on through every detail of the operation and communication and interaction with staff and guests. 

It's a mix of psychology, semiotics, graphics and financial analysis.  It's where art meets behavioural science meets interior design meets accounting.

To the client it means a new logo and some new headed notepaper.

So to the client it's an exercise in quick and dirty graphic design.  We the consultants spend a great deal of time thinking and planning and looking at every detail.  One is fast and trivial.  The other is slow and complex.

There's a cultural difference too.  We've been concentrating on getting every detail right and setting into place processes to make sure it happens.  They've been going with the flow and mixing and matching and buying at the lowest possible price at every opportunity.  Value equals cheap.  Quality means cheapest.  Best means cheapest.

We've been talking 'Green' and 'Sustainable' and they've been buying polystyrene cups.

It's going to be a total train wreck.  And it will be our fault.  We're the consultant.  We're the professionals.  We should be able to find a way to get out ideas over to the client.  We knew for ages they were lying to us but we let it ride.  Now it's all going to come crashing down.

And who will suffer?

The Guests and residents.  That includes me:  I live there too.  Shame.

Customer comes first?

We've had to engage with a solicitor in the UK of late.  This is no mean feat since we live in the UAE and have a 3 hour time difference as well as different local working hours.  So while our working day begins at 0730 here I can't speak to anyone in the solicitors' office before 1200. 

So this means if I want to get anything done I need to be able to work fast and in what amounts to 1/2 a day.  And of course Friday is a weekend here and Sunday a normal working day.  Not so in the UK.

You'd think they would understand.  It's not hard. 

So I wonder why they NEVER return calls.  Why they always disappear to lunch and leave no means of contacting.  Why they don't make files available at least for their assistant so someone can tell you what's happening.  Why they won't share their mobile number with anyone. I wonder in fact if they don't have their corporate head up their corporate fundament.  Or maybe they just hate me.

They are the ones who offered to do this work on a contingency basis; I didn't ask.  So they get nothing if they don't sort it out. 

And I sit here thousands of miles away fuming.  There's not a hope in hell I'll ever give them my company business now or point a client of mine at them.  In fact I'll tell anyone who'll listen ant every opportunity what I think of them and why they should be avoided.

Gaahhhh...they make me unfeasibly cross and all it would take is to return calls when they promise and perhaps once or twice be a little pro active and not wait for me to chase and hustle!

Cultural differences or just inconsiderate...

It's Friday.  In the Muslim world that's the core day of rest when almost everyone is off work and many go to the mosque and spend the day with their families.  There's a lie in and no morning rush hour.

And yet for the last two Fridays the building site next door has chosen to begin work at 0530 as it is just getting light and has also chosen to concentrate on installing the air-con ducts.  Which means steel saws, grinders and hammering on the ductwork.  Some of the loudest and most penetrating noises on site at anytime.

Now there are real cultural differences between Western Europe and over here - even in the realm of noise.  Apart from anything else people simply talk more loudly.  And use of the horn in the car - which admittedly given the driving quality is very necessary - is hardwired in the brain and surfaces at very odd times.  Including at the local shops and cafes where it is the accepted signal for staff to come outside and serve you in the car. No one leaves the comfort of their air conditioned car if they don't REALLY have to.

But steel saws, grinders and hammering at 0530 on a Friday?  That's plain inconsiderate.  And illegal - but complaining is hard and by the time you reach some sort of agreement with someone who can do something about it the moment has passed.  For half an hour.

Still the cafe next door has some advantages beyond fine tea.  Today a local police traffic patrol pulled in for their early morning break.  And the grinders started up on the building site.  Just as the cops were setlting down for their tea break.

The sergeant was not happy.  Words were exchanged (and paperwork) with the site foreman.  The grinding has stopped and the truck from the air-con company has left the site.  Ahhh...peace.  It's 0645 now.  I'm going back to bed for some more zzzzz's.  Let's hope my snoring doesn't disturb the next patrol.

A message from Him/Her/It

If - and it's a big IF - I were the supreme Deity there'd be a few guidelines and a (VERY) few rules:

Rules:
1  Do nothing in my name unless you have a solid gold tablet in triplicate with my signature on it and countersigned by at least two other supreme deities from other parallel universes.  And generally not even then.  If fact... probably for the best just to do NOTHING in my name ever.  I'm cool with that.

2 Do not deliberately hurt people or kill them.

3 If you're of the carnivore persuasion you can eat to survive.  But no killing or hurting animal life for fun or sport.

4 Be prepared for smiting  if I find Rule 1 being ignored.

Guidelines:

I'm omnipotent and omniscient.  There is no contradiction here because I say so.  OK?  So no half arsed philosophising on how that works.  It just does.

I do not need your protection.  If people are rude to me and I'm pissed off I'll smite them myself.  You are not required to do it for me.  See rule two above for further guidance.

Actually I rather like dissent.  It suggests you've been thinking even if you turn out to be wrong.  It's why I gave you both Free Will and Brains.

Speaking of Free Will...if bad things happen it's either because you screwed up or because stuff happens in a self-organising universe like the way I designed it.  It does not mean you're evil/bad or that I'm displeased.  You should feel sad and probably annoyed.  But do whatever you can to make it better.  Or don't.  Your choice.

I have commanded no particular actions and demand nothing of you beyond Rules 1-4 above.  Everything is down to Free Will - including ignoring the Rules if you want to.

Some of the Churches from places like the the Middle East have rules about what you can eat and what you can't.  These made some sense when you were nomads living in the desert with little water and no technology.  Shrimp goes off real quick in the heat and pork is a bugger if you don't cook it properly.  but these days...well just use the fridge and wash your hands carefully and heat things up properly.  You'll be fine.

Btw on the subject of food.   Macdonalds is nothing to do with me.  You did that to yourselves though I've no idea why.  Which is hard; on account of my being omniscient...

I quite like other religions but I really do not like Churches.  If you were to use that big brain and the Free Will thing you might seriously consider disbanding all the churches and distributing their wealth to good causes.

If you must have Churches and priests and stuff for goodness sake let 'em marry and live lives like normal people.  After all that's what they are.  They don't deserve any particular reverence  but they don't deserve any particular harshness either. 

And invest in heating/air-conditioning for churches and padding for the seats.  A lot of people who like to go to churches are old or frail or poor and deserve a bit of comfort. 

And while we're on the subject of Churches...I don't have a dress code or any desire to have you mutilate yourselves for me.  See Rule 1 above.

Go check out Wikipedia - that's a really cool human invention; way to go Free Will and Big Brain - and read about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  And check out the "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts"  They work well for anything I've missed.

Bill & Ted's Movies had it down pretty well to.  I never understood why they didn't do better.  "Be Excellent to each other" pretty much covers it.

Toodles//G

On cold air and clean transport

Summer's coming.  It's 0100hrs and 32C here.  It hit 41C earlier today.  Though the humidity hasn't kicked in yet so it's bearable still.

But you can feel people slowing down.  It really does drain it out of you and you lose all inclination to move at all if possible.  Or, you turn up the aircon in the apartment or office or car and live in a cold cocoon.

I was pondering this because I recently saw a demo of an air-powered car.  A neat new design using multiple cylinders so that compressed air powers the first cylinder but is still somewhat compressed so it is shunted to a second and then again a third to extract the maximum power per shot of compressed air.

And what comes out the other end?  Icy cold air - in this case at -10C.  But that's all.  Then when it ran low on fuel it stopped at a local gas station and refilled the tanks  - at least with enough to get the car back to base where it would receive a safe full fill from it's very own compressor in the garage.

100km on a single charge in two smallish SCUBA sized tanks and pennies in electricity needed to refill.  It's by no means a panacea.  Electricity needs to be made somewhere but it is cleaner by far than battery power - no heavy metals or nasty mining waste or transporting iffy materials round the world to build the tanks and compressors - and cheaper to maintain.  I've got a compressor in my garage at home in the UK that's not much off 100 yeas old.  Not many batteries last that long...

I hope we can raise some investment to go to the next phase.  This is a great idea that has huge potential if fully developed.  Got a whizzy new and extra efficient compressor design using similar concepts to launch too.

Sometimes a salary looks good...

When I first came to the UAE I was strictly speaking, a salaried employee but my status and security were such that I might just as well have been a contractor.  Gone on a whim and at a moment's notice with no comeback.  Our labour laws here make employed expats little more than indentured servants and most would in fact be better off on freelance contracts - except the local laws make that hard and the business culture doesn't understand paying for time.

I've been back freelancing for two and a half years now.  It's much tougher than in Europe and I'm barely making a long term living.  I had one serious contract from a British client but the work for locals has been unsatisfying to say the least.

We have no insolvency laws here but we do have very strict laws about getting into debt and passing bad cheques.  You will go to prison.  And since the recession many have.  So how is it clients continually get away with incredibly slow payments and invariably never paying you in full?  Government and official organisations are the worst of all delaying for a year or more and then short paying.  You have no practical comeback.  So you build it into the price and take a lot of your money upfront.  Of course that makes it harder to get work.  And puts prices up since you need to allow for the costs of collections in your price.

But then what's the point of doing work and not getting paid? And no one seems ashamed.  It's near universal.

It wasn't always thus.  It seems wealth has made the current generation of local business people not just more stand offish but more arrogant and self centred.  Perhaps that's the penalty for being in a tiny minority in your own country.

If so it is even more important to look to a future not so dependent on cheap imported labour.  Time to embrace technology; a hard work ethic; a willingness to build and not expect to start at the top; and adopt a culture of learning not using.

Communications

I have always thought of myself as a professional communicator.  I'm good at it and I'm good at people.

And yet I keep getting it wrong.

Today I've been working with one of my business partners on a document we're preparing for a potential big new client.  I was totally sure we had agreed on the process after some back and forth commentary by mail and by phone.

But when it came to doing the work we were off down different tracks like scared bunnies.

Now we're friends as well as business partners so it doesn't cause real friction - more self mocking on my part and knuckling down to it on his and the end result is better for it.

The thing is ...we're professionals, trained and experienced.  Yet we make communication errors like this everyday.  How much harder is it for non-professionals who have to make communications work just as much?  Without our toolbag.

It really brought home to me today how much skill is involved in good management and how rarely I give people credit for that. 

Sorry.