Meet the Strongest!

From left to right:

Smiggy (Paul Scholes): Skipper. Very fast on the right hand side of the pitch.

Barker (Ricardo Carvalho). Center and right back. Good at individual marking, was top scorer last season. Before you know it, he will be in front and asking for the ball to shoot.

John (Joe Cole). Middle fielder and multi-tasking player, he likes to corner his opponents. Good leader to organise the team when we are not losing.

Will (bit of Tony Adams, John Terry and Rio Ferdinand). The central nerve of defence. Good at anticipating and supporting attack. Unknown record of injuries.

Ray (Paul Robinson or Pat Jennings?). Very consistent goal keeper, good leadership and encouragement. Hull City FC fierce supporter (his nails have grown again after City's last match)

Me (Arjen Robben with Harry Potter's glasses). Getting fit so far, score good goals. Swear in Spanish when needed. Moody.

Not in the picture (they did not turn up for the match):

• Russell (David Seaman, Gattuso?). Forward and goal keeper. Prefers to play on the left hand side for short periods of time, but this has nothing to do with fitness.

• Nick (Harry Kewell). Mid fielder, nice passess. Please give me the ball, quick!

• Harry (David Beckham). Forward, good goals, or should I say good mathematical equations?

• Lee (J. Carrick, or J. O'Shea with long hair). Mid fielder, fights hard for the ball. A man of a few words and a lot of energy!

• Bryant (Cuatemoch Blanco). Fast in the crossing, very inventive.
  

The culture of 'value'

Western society (and perhaps beyond) seems to be increasingly interested in understanding the meaning of the word 'value'. We talk about clashes of civilisations, clashes of cultural groups, new management practices to deliver better 'value' to customers, changes in values in society, etc. All these seemed to generate a personal interest to talk about the meaning of value.

An Oxford dictionary defines value in three terms: 1) The 'worth' of something (presumably to be exchanged by other things like money); 2) A moral standard o professional code of conduct; and 3) a quantity or number.

In all these, an issue is to try to find a meaning we all agree, possibly an exact and accurate representation of the value(s) we discuss. Not surprisingly, since the Greeks this issue has been discussed. We have disciplines that aim to work with values, and somehow try to elicit answers to questions related to values. Ethics and morality, economics, mathematics, etc. All they seem to work towards such elicitation, understanding, leading possibly to get some wisdom.

Nowadays we have marketing to help us finding the value that customers put into products. And we have activities of conflict resolution, justice and democracy which help us accommodate different perceptions, different values. Perhaps the most successful are those which link technological development to assign value to electronic information and its management.

I thought that as discipline, systems thinking was different, but nowadays I find myself that when we say we work with complex problems, that we look at a situation from different perspectives, that we reflect on potential consequences of decisions, we are trying to elicit different values from different people and work with them. We might be doing this out of a moral commitment to the betterment of society (good!), but why do we claim we are trans-disciplinary?

Perhaps we need to look at our own understanding of the meaning of 'value', and how we can work with other understandings.

Au jour d'hui, je me sense tres content, parce que j'ai reservé deux chambres pour passer trois jours en Rennes. Je ai parlé en Francais!

Maria Mar in London - Old friends Meet Again!

My good friend Maria Margarita (Maria Mar) and her husband Juan Carlos came to the UK, and we managed to meet in London. Spent the day crossing the Thames river from the Embankment, went to London Eye, the Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Whitehall.

We then landed in Trafalgar Square, and took the tube to go to London Bridge, and found Tito's (Peruvian Restaurant). Both Maria Mar and Juan Carlos enjoyed the food, the Peruvian beer (Cusqueña) and even paying the bill (we paid but still they would not let us go!)

Back to the Thames, we saw Shakspeare's Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern Gallery and the Millenium Bridge. They knew that Norman Foster's architectural design did not work at first, so they were a bit weary of crossing this bridge. After the bridge, St Paul's cathedral was waiting for us. We ended our tour in Kings Cross station, and they were looking for platform 9 1/2.

As with old friends, we were able to catch up on how we are doing (Maria Mar is doing her Phd in Computer Science, or Artificial Intelligence to be more precise). She and Juan Carlos enjoy living in Valencia, and I hope to visit them some time soon.

They remembered me of myself an my wife a couple of years back, being adventurous, enjoying walking, saving some money and not worrying too much about big plans (i. e buying a house). We the academics seem to go to very interesting stages in our lives, and perhaps the worries are magnified or minimised through time.

My next worry? Buying a house!!

The Tour Guide in London

Why studying business?

If memory does not fail me one of the first accounts we have had about travellers is that of Marco Polo. He and his father were merchants, looking to bring new products to the West. They were based in Venice.

Looking for alternative routes for travel, they encounter the people of the Emperor of China, and then are invited to visit him. From then on, their lives change, they become ambassadors of the West, and are able to appreciate new cultures, and write about them.

Marco Polo would write about his adventures many years later when he returns to Venice.

Businesses, if we know about them, they can become a passport for new worlds.

The world has changed, now people talk about New York, Shanghai, London, Tokio as places where businesses develop. Old Venice is still with us, and still there are businesses developing. In a changing world, studying businesses involves looking at how countries are doing (i.e. economics); how organisations operate internationally (international business); how we need to manage resources efficiently (i.e. finance); and how to project concepts, images and ways of life through our products (i.e. marketing).

We also need to know ways of solving problems in organisations (management systems), and care for the most important resource of all: people (human resource management).

So, why study businesses? It is a way of getting an international passport, who knows, we might visit China someday!