George Lee Cuts His Losses

Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that George Lee has cut and run.   Too often in life people stay in careers, relationships, and investments that are going nowhere. As a respected economist he may have  had a better insight than most into the fact that markets do as they please and when things go south it’s time to get out instead of hanging around and hoping that things get better.  George could possibly see that the reality of his situation in Fine Gael, under the leadership of Enda Kenny, wasn’t going to improve anytime soon and while he may have hoped that it got better he was a realist and decided to push the button.   He may be doing them a big favour.

George Lee

Nine months after resigning as RTE’s economics editor for a career in politics George Lee has quit Fine Gael and the Dáil.  This is a major embarrassment for Enda Kenny who in the eyes of Fianna Fail seems to be “a gift that keeps on giving.” How did he cock this one up?

Vincent Browne was bang on the money in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post when he wrote “Look at George Lee…He has been missed in RTE’s coverage of economics and financial affairs.  Lee has disappeared into the thickets of the Fine Gael backbenches.  You expect him to emerge on a high-profile RTE documentary some night to tell us how lonely he is, and how much he wants to come home.”

Poor Design

Who is the genius that designed, or approved the design of a kettle switch that is going to snap the next time it hits the side of the sink? Obviously everyone on the design team at Breville uses a jug to fill their kettles.

Robert McKee On PowerPoint Presentations

Ever been convinced by a PowerPoint presentation of over 50, 40, 30, 20 or even 10 slides? Didn’t think so.  I’ve seen guys go into presentations with over 100!  Screen writing coach Robert McKee doesn’t like them either and instead advocates telling a good story.

In Praise of “The Bald Barista”

Buzz Fendall does a mean Americano, and from what I hear he does a mean everything else too (Coffee that is)!  Simply put, he’s the Jimi Hendrix of coffee.

I came across his café, The Bald Barista (part of the Avalon House Hostel), earlier on in the week, as I was doing a course up in the Camden House Hotel. It had been fifteen years since I was in the Avalon House, an old college haunt, and I dropped in as I had some time to kill.   Buzz, who hails from New Zealand, made me the best cup of coffee I’ve had in years.

Buzz loves his coffee, but he seems to love the people who come into his café even more, and therein lies his secret. It’s hard to get good service in Dublin these days, and it’s even harder to find people who are passionate about giving their customers a meaningful experience that genuinely connects with them.  Buzz understands how to do this instinctively.

If you think you’ve lost the connection with your customers, or never had one at all, no matter what business you’re in, go in and watch The Bald Barista at work.  Not only will you get the best coffee you’ve had in yonks, you’ll learn alot too!

Design Thinking: A Ghoulish Example

Alan Furst’s excellent Night Soldiers provides a rather ghoulish example of Design Thinking showing that in times of scarcity and need people are at their most creative. 

“…the reality of the war called for hundreds of thousands of simple death machines to be placed in willing hands.  The OSS, in a perfection of that logic, manufactured the Liberator, a single shot pistol with one bullet and cartoon instructions overcoming literacy and language barriers, then spread thousands of them throughout occupied Europe.  It was the perfect assassination weapon, meant for the man or woman whose anger had outdistanced caution to the point where he or she would kill up close.”

Quote Of The Month

This quote, from Bill Bonner in today’s Daily Reckoning, was too good not to share and is for those who have blind faith in our wonderful leaders to get us out of this mess.

“Economic problems, meltdowns, and crises can be caused by politicians; there is not a single example in the historical record where they have cured these problems. (The only exception is when they stop doing damage… temporarily, like a boxer who lets an opponent get up from the mat before slugging him again.)”

Bill McLaren (1923-2010)

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis

Oh Yes!

Alastair Campbell and Samuel Beckett

Today’s Sunday Business Post profiles Alastair Campbell on the back of his appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry. It includes this gem…

“Alastair Campbell has always seen himself as a proud Celt.  He grew up in Burnley and Leicester, the son of Scottish Gaelic-speaking parents who taught him how to play the bagpipes.  He won a scholarship to study French and German at Cambridge, but felt like and outsider there, and has described himself as “a chippy kid who drank too much and got into too many fights”.

On one occasion, he was woken from a drunken stupor by a friend who excitedly told him he had uncovered the true meaning of Samuel Beckett’s work.  The two undergraduates promptly made an overnight journey to Paris, where they found the great Irish writer at his favourite café in the Latin Quarter.  He heard them out, told them they were talking complete rubbish, and invited them to “fuck off”.”

Thankfully Alastair didn’t request that my brother  do likewise when he asked him for a photo outside the British and Irish Lions’ team hotel in Wellington before the second test against the All Blacks in 2005.  “Why do you want a photo with me?” exclaimed Alastair,  “Nobody likes me!”