Where London leads Birmingham follows…..

So, I was in the centre of Birmingham last night, planning to attend a social event that I run at Scruffy Murphys pub in Dale End. I had been seeing convoys of police vans blues and twos going for a couple of hours when at 19.45hrs I got a phone call from a friend who I was meeting advising me to look at twitter and maybe think about not being in town. Out came the trusty Blackberry and a quick shuffty at facebook, twitter and tumblr brought me to this site which has subsequently been providing me with information on the ongoing situation. Having seen the trouble in London over the past three nights it came as no surprise that opportunists would see a chance to do a bit of free shopping in the second city. The decision was taken to tactfully withdraw from the city centre and wend my way home instead. I got out just before the public transport network shut down.

It is quite an interesting situation, in that it appears that the city centre was over-run by multiple gangs of youths intent on looting rather than rioting, and that the looting was organized to the extent that mobile phone messaging appears to have been used to co-ordinate activities. Reports suggest that the police deployed mobile phone jammers in some areas, and that the network providers and Blackberry were working with the police to limit use of mobile devices and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if message logs weren’t subpoenaed and used in evidence, and if you don’t think that is possible, think again. It was probably a consequence of shutting down the mobile network that led to the looting of Maplins Electronics, not a natural choice I wouldn’t think, but useful if you have a sudden need for, lets say, two way radios and scanners. Just a thought.

With the police otherwise engaged in the centre of Birmingham, trouble flared in the usual hotspots of Lozells, Handsworth and Perry Barr as well as more unusual areas like Walsall and Wolverhampton. It appears that the worst of the trouble was in Handsworth but this has always been a bit of a tinderbox. The next twenty four hours are, I think, crucial. We need to see if this blows over, or if there is more trouble tonight. It may be quite hard to track as it appears that the media are under at least a partial D notice with reporting limited to occasional mentions on the main news networks. This is understandable to an extent, but doesn’t really help in terms of confidence in our boys in blue or in our political leaders.

The next few days will be interesting I think…..

Growing and nurturing strength and confidence....

Running a business can be a challenging process, rom controlling the finances, to driving sales to chasing payments to maintaining creativity and developing the business strategies, to managing staff and client requirements and so on. In order to draw all of the strands together and make the business cohesive and effective, I would argue that one of the most crucial pre-requisits of a business owner is to have the strength to drive the business, and the confidence to make quick and effective decisions in often difficult and pressurised situations. This may sound obvious, but personally I feel that it can be one of the biggest challenges to any business owner. Let us take a hypothetical situation. You are running a business and you discover that a staff member, who you had considerable confidence in, has been commiting fraud against both your business and your clients. Obviously this is unacceptable, and there can be no question that this warrants instant dismissal for gross misconduct.

However, this employee has been with the company for 10 years and apart from this one lapse in standards has been the rock around which the company has grown. The implications of his or her actions have not changed, the decision should also not have changed, but the decision is not such an easy one. Now lets add in the information received from the employee that the reason for the fraud was because they felt so under pressure from you as an owner that they felt they had no other choice but to act in that manner. In fact they felt that they had your implicit approval for the fraud even though you know that they didn't. Already the complexities become much more difficult to weave between. It should be noted that this is not an uncommon situation by any means, and is one that can become much more complicated still. The employee could be desperately trying to support a dying relative, the stress of that situation clouding their judgement at work, just as an example.

In terms of a business decision this person has still acted in a way that could leave the company liable to legal consequences, and has also breached trust to such an extent that their position is not tenable, but you can see that the decision is not going to be necessarily a straight forward one. The decision must still be made however, and the original decision is still the correct one, probably.....

Business is a part of life, it is subject to the same complexities, the same challenges, the same ethical considerations as any other part of life, and this is where developing ones confidence and strength to make the tough decisions is absolutely crucial....

The power of the media.....again....

Over the past couple of days we have seen the press pack reporting on the financial situations both in Europe and America in quite dark terms. There have been stories of the difficulties faced by Italy and Spain and how the cost of their borrowing has risen and the damage that is potential being done to the whole of the Euro zone. We have seen the reports coming from America on the hammering that the financial markets have taken over the last few days. What is interesting from my point of view as an external observer of the financial sector - I try to avoid having any direct contact with it - is that the markets tend to respond to media speculation just as much as to trader speculation. My concern is that we seem to have a disconnect between the reporting of the situation and the reality of the situation.

I think it is pretty clear to most observers that we are still in the depths of a financial crisis and will be for at least the next five years. Our situation is precarious and the measures that are currently being taken by our political leaders are at best applying a sticking plaster to a gaping wound. The banks are all in trouble and are pulling in their horns, companies are extremely wary of increasing much needed investment. The consumer marketplace is significantly compromised by the reduction in available credit and by the reduction in disposable income, and the level of confidence throughout the system is low. This situation has not changed radically in the last two years, nor is it likely to significantly change, and yet we have a media reporting the current round of difficulties as though they were earth shattering news.

I understand that there is a need within the media industry to sell papers and television advertising slots, and that the reporting of "news" plays second fiddle to scaremongering and hyperbole. It was ever thus, but I feel that in the current climate some level of restraint would perhaps be a better way forward. A frank and open policy of reporting and open-ness from our political and industrial leaders would allow for a more constructive approach to seeking resolutions to the problems that we face, rather than rushing headlong into panic and the poor quality of decisions that that mindset invariably brings.......

Pleasant surprises and dispelling misconceptions....

There has been a tremendous amount of media coverage both from journalists and economists and industry experts bemoaning the state of British industry and the decline of our manufacturing sector and the rise of the service industry. Personally I work in the service sector for my day job, creating copy for clients websites, generating news stories and articles and press releases, and generally creating a buzz around client businesses, but what is interesting is the number of manufacturing companies that I am working on behalf of. Given the negative press that the sector gets, when I started doing what I do, I fully expected to be producing work for service sector firms, but that just isn't the case. I think what we are seeing is an undoubted decline in large scale industrial processes particularly in terms of the car industry or shipuilding, but a transferance of those industrial processes into a vast number of small industrial firms, all contributing to a significant overall whole.

What is intersting to the historian in me is that this is a similar position to my home city, Birmingham, at the dawn of the industrial revolution a couple of hundred years ago. Birmingham used to be the city of a thousand trades, and it feels to me that we are returning to that situation with a great number of small firms starting to work collaboratively so that networks of entrepreneurs get together to share ideas and skills and talents to create wonderful products. It is fascinating to see how small gaps in the market are being exploited in new and interesting ways to generate significant economic contributions. Once you start to drill down into what these businesses do, and start to get to know the people who run them and work within them you get a real insight into just how much creative talent there is in our business communities.

We should celebrate more the entrepreneurial spirit of our small manufacturing and engineering companies, both those who have been established for a hundred years and those who are only just starting out. Rather than bemoaning the fate of our manufacturing sector, I would strongly suggest that our political leaders get out and about, start talking to the people who are going to be the long term saviours of our economy, not just on the high profile enterprise parks, but in the industrial back streets and alleys, and they might just be surprised at what they find.....

Teamwork is the key to successful business.....

......and communication is the key to successful teamwork. Within any organisation in a modern business setting it is pretty much impossible for one person to do everything. As the business grows and succeeds and becomes busier the ability to delegate and to allocate tasks becomes increasingly crucial. This leads to a potential issue. People have certain ways of doing things, and certain ways that they like things to be done. This can be expressed in timescales, work ordering, aesthetics, designs all sorts of ways, but if tasks are allocated and not done in that same way, or are not done to the same timescales this can cause friction. As with so much else in life there is a requirement for understanding and compromise, but more than this there is a requirement for communication. If the message of what jobs need doing, in what order, and to what timescales is correctly conveyed, and vice versa if any reasons why these cannot be accomplished are also conveyed back up the chain of command, then things tend to run more smoothly.

This sounds like fairly simple common sense, but you may be surprised at how difficult it can be to effectively convey information. Ask anyone who has stood in front of a class of schoolchildren giving a talk but who isn't a teacher. Ask someone from a business background who occasionally gives lectures to University students. There is a reason that it is considered that an ability to teach is a talent. It is because teaching is all about conveying information in a way that is understandable. The same is true in the business world when disseminating information or tasks. Let me give you an example. If I ask you, dear reader, to upload a website onto my company hosting using my ftp account login you may or may not know how to do that. If I assume that you do, I am making a mistake. Do you have the necessary login details and passwords? Do you have the necessary technical skills? Do you have access to the files you need? You may, but you may not. If I don't clarify exactly what I need you to do, how I want you to do it, and give you the tools you need to do it, I am in trouble.

Being able to communicate effectively is a skill that everyone should learn. It should be fundamental to our education system, both verbally and in writing. It is at the core of successful relationships, both personal and professional, and it is what keeps us, as a society moving forward with some kind of goal or dream in mind....

Fraternity and Sorority and developing a strong sense of group identity....

Not too long ago I was priviledged to be invited to a stag party for a very good friend of mine. I was going to be officiating as high priest at his fandfasting (a pagan wedding) and as such the stag weekend took on additional signifcance, the animistic principles inherent in the event name having specific relevance to the beliefs of those involved. as a group we took ourselves off to the Welsh Gower coast to an area of woodland. We were going to spend the weekend in the woods being taught by a local outdoor pursuits company to build shelters, friction fire light, nap flint, fish and track game. We arrved and began by setting up a camp adjacent to a range of caves that archaeological investigation has revealed to have been in occupation for about 15000 years. The sense of place and history was almost overwhelming, and as we began to gather firewood and prepare shelters, and the group began to work together with clearly defined common aims we began to get a sense of purpose and achievement.

I come from a grammer school background, a single sex boys school where there was a strong focus on team sports, particularly rugby union and I must confess to missing the sense of team spirit and bonding that came from a game well played. I enjoyed winning and the school team was successful, but I more fully embraced the ethos of playing to the best of ones ability and drawing the best from the team-mates around you. I was also at this time in my life heavily involved in the equestrian world working at livery stables and exercising and competing peoples horses. The equestrian world is heavily female dominated and as such I found that I was quite happy in all male, predominantly female and fully mixed groups in a working environment, but the only one I really miss is the all male group setting. Having spoken to female friends who have a similar background I have found that they have similar feeling, missing the sense of sorority and community, that they had at school.

Of course, I am seeing this with rose tinted glasses. As a high achiever, and what my American friends would call a "Jock" I was held in some regard by my peers and probably had a better time at school than many, but even allowing for this bias, I feel that the strength of the bonds I built at school take some beating. So, given that I miss that fraternal bond quite significantly, what am I doing to address this? I considered joining the freemasons, both as a means of recapturing that sense of belonging and brotherhood, but the associations with the ceremonial side of the magic that I practice (many of the forerunners of the ceremonial magic movement of the late victorian era were masons and many of the rituals that we practice have a masonic flavour as a consequence) so I decided to look for that same feeling through experiential paganism, establishing a strong group of male pagan intellectuals specifically to practice as a male coven group and to discuss the deeper male aspects of the pagan paths.

So far it seems to be working, but only time will tell if it is successful long term....my guess is that that depends on the egos of those involved.....

Social responsibility is crucial....

As we, here in Britain, face unprecedented cuts in public sector spending, both on a national and local level with budgets being cut in health, education, defense, the arts and pretty much every department there has never been a more crucial time for people to develop a sense of community and the attitude that we must look after each other. We have seen of late an attempt by the coalition government to trigger this response by creating "The Big Society" but personally I am disinclined to engage with this project for a number of reasons. I feel that attemptng to drive people from the top into acting in a society focused manner is a non starter primarily because it smacks of passing the buck, particularly when the people at the top doing the directing are mistrusted by the populous in general. We have, for a while now, been in a position where our political leaders are seen as at best ill-advised and at worst corrupt, and this is not a strong enough position to encourage people to help out.

The only way to really engage people in community action is to lead by example. If you look at the community projects that have enjoyed a measure of success, such as on the estates of Tower Hamlets and deprived areas of Birmingham and Manchester we see time and time again that it is someone within the community in question, generally not someone who is initially seen as a "leader" but who carries that mantle well, but someone who is a driving force, leading from the front by consitent example, creating a buzz within the community with their energy and enthusiasm, often in the face of strong opposition and apathy.

These movements are almost invariably bottom up, grass-roots movements, formed out of a sense of desperation and a knowledge that things can be made better and driven by the strength of character of someone who has successfully struggled through life. By trying to turn this process on its head I feel that the government runs the risk of alienating and dis-enfranchising the very people that it needs to better support and work with. In the main, these people at grass roots level find their strength in independence and in a can-do attitude that is seriously limited by outside interference. Far better for our dear leader to understand this and to get out and about into the communities that are most in need of help, and not for photo opportunities but to actually engage and interact with those who are at the sharp end of the cuts that are coming. This will involve talking to people properly, and talking to real people rather than a selected handful of supporters picked by the local political party. Unscripted, unrehearsed, uncontrolled interaction with the voters.....question is, does Mr Cameron have the cojones to actually take this step, without entourage, without media and with little chance of praise or thanks. Or are we just going to get more of the same until we are forced to take action ourselves, thereby allowing him to take the credit for a system that has worked in spite of rather than because of his big society idea?