This short article simply posts the contradicting theories of Friedman. I researched this yet again because I read the book of Paul Krugman (summarised here ), who is an advocate of keynesism.
In what way is contradicting Friedman Keynes' theories? His main concept is that the government should not intervene in the markets. He had many theories, but probably this is the one that opened a lot of debate. One of his other more famous policies was the monetary one. Based on the equation (MV=PT), he deduced that an increase in the money supply will result in an increase in prices. He is also famous for this phrase: "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon."
Now, I think that inflation is not really a disaster. On the one hand, it helps labour market respond to the economy and on the other hand, it is a sign of progress.
Friday, 14 January 2011
Thursday, 23 December 2010
14th World Business Dialogue
In what follows, I will be talking about what the World Business Dialogue is, about the topic it brings forward this year and finally I uploaded a short video about myself.
What is the World Business Dialogue? Well, they present themselves as "the world's largest student-run business convention. Here, 60 top-class personalities from economy, science and politics enter a discussion about economically and socially relevant, future-oriented topics with 300 international students and just as many executives, notably from German companies."
Why is it relevant? The website answers this question as well: "The World Business Dialogue's singularity and relevance are supported by a large number of well-known speakers that have participated in past conventions; among these are Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and Michael Bloomberg, governing mayor of New York, who made use of the convention as a platform for discussion and exchange and appreciated the student's commitment."
What makes the World Business Dialogue different from the regular conferences aimed at gathering students and employers? From what I´ve seen and read, there are three main things: its relevance in the economy, the international aspect that it promotes and the professionalism with which everything is managed.
As far as its relevance in the economy goes, this year´s topic is "Managing Complexity". I was positively surprised to find out about this. I think that this is a particularly relevant topic, as the world and alongside businesses evolve to more and more complex structures. People passed from interchanging goods to having services outsourced and goods produced in dozens of countries. What this involves is a complex network and a necessity of managers that can deal with it. Therefore, I am highly interested to find out what economists think about this.
I have never considered attending a conference outside the country where I lived/studied/worked. Why? Because I felt that domestic participants were preferred over foreigners and I believed that the conference itself wouldn't really help my development as a professional and thus my career, or at least not more than the local conferences that I already had the chance to attend. However, the World Business Dialogue is different. It aims to the most international participation as possible, offering equal opportunities for the candidates. The networking events are incredible and the speakers that attend the event are highly respectable.
Finally, professionalism. I could feel this from the very beginning, when filling in all the information from the application form. While answering the questions about complexity, I can say that I truly stopped for a moment and started thinking about what it actually means, why it is so relevant and what I can do to prepare myself for complex situations in the future. That is to say, I managed to analyse the concept and form an opinion. This application was another brick to the development of my views. However, I am still interested in polishing this brick, with the World Business Dialogue paint.
With best regards,
The Girl that Wants and Needs a Sponsorship
What is the World Business Dialogue? Well, they present themselves as "the world's largest student-run business convention. Here, 60 top-class personalities from economy, science and politics enter a discussion about economically and socially relevant, future-oriented topics with 300 international students and just as many executives, notably from German companies."
Why is it relevant? The website answers this question as well: "The World Business Dialogue's singularity and relevance are supported by a large number of well-known speakers that have participated in past conventions; among these are Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank, Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, and Michael Bloomberg, governing mayor of New York, who made use of the convention as a platform for discussion and exchange and appreciated the student's commitment."
What makes the World Business Dialogue different from the regular conferences aimed at gathering students and employers? From what I´ve seen and read, there are three main things: its relevance in the economy, the international aspect that it promotes and the professionalism with which everything is managed.
As far as its relevance in the economy goes, this year´s topic is "Managing Complexity". I was positively surprised to find out about this. I think that this is a particularly relevant topic, as the world and alongside businesses evolve to more and more complex structures. People passed from interchanging goods to having services outsourced and goods produced in dozens of countries. What this involves is a complex network and a necessity of managers that can deal with it. Therefore, I am highly interested to find out what economists think about this.
I have never considered attending a conference outside the country where I lived/studied/worked. Why? Because I felt that domestic participants were preferred over foreigners and I believed that the conference itself wouldn't really help my development as a professional and thus my career, or at least not more than the local conferences that I already had the chance to attend. However, the World Business Dialogue is different. It aims to the most international participation as possible, offering equal opportunities for the candidates. The networking events are incredible and the speakers that attend the event are highly respectable.
Finally, professionalism. I could feel this from the very beginning, when filling in all the information from the application form. While answering the questions about complexity, I can say that I truly stopped for a moment and started thinking about what it actually means, why it is so relevant and what I can do to prepare myself for complex situations in the future. That is to say, I managed to analyse the concept and form an opinion. This application was another brick to the development of my views. However, I am still interested in polishing this brick, with the World Business Dialogue paint.
With best regards,
The Girl that Wants and Needs a Sponsorship
Saturday, 11 December 2010
The Apprentice
After watching The Apprentice for years in different countries and at different ages, I can see a lot of difference in cultures, period of time and myself. This is what this short analysis is all about.
I have been watching this show since I was sixteen, seventeen. First, it's interesting how my analysis has changed throughout these five years and then, it's interesting how the show has changed. When I left to England, I started watching the British version and now I'm back to the American one.
When I first watched it, it was more entertainment, it was about people doing interesting things. When I got to England, it was about me understading how they do things, I think it was more the learning of different techniques, rather than anything else. Now? Now I analyse. I analyse behaviours, people, strategies. That is not to say that it's not entertainment anymore or that I don't find some ideas really innovative. It's just about the way my inner motivation to watch it has changed.
From my perspective, what Donald Trump is looking for has changed a lot, and so have the candidates. If now a more autocratic style is appreciated, in the first seasons, the participative one was more appreciated. This is very interesting. The autocrative style of leadership was the popular one before the participative style and now it seems like the employers and people are going back to the autocrative one. In the last season at least, this phrase has come out quite a lot: "You're the project manager so you tell me what to do". In my opinion, it's not the right approach. You are a team member, you should know what needs to be done as well. This is actually a surprising thing for me, because as China is becoming more and more powerful, i would expect a more delegative style to be popular. It is known that this is how Chinese work, they don't really digest the notion of leadership.
I would also like to talk about the personality that usually wins The Apprentice. Contrary to how a lot of participants are acting, it's never the agressive ones that win. It's the composed candidates, that do their job right, talk when they need to and express their opinions in a very substantiated way. Thus, Brandy in the last season.
As a final observation, I would also like to make a comparison between the same show in the UK and in the US. I prefer the British version. It is more businessy, people know how to behave themselves, it's not a continous circus and the candidates are supposed to make money on a lot smaller budgets, which is definitely harder than with a big one. On the other hand, The Trump Organisation does deal with a lot of money, so maybe Donald Trump is going for the kind of premium products strategy, rather than cost leader product one.
Finally, I would like to conclude with a little reflection about leadership. It's supposed to be focused on two aspects: task and people. The right balance of skills between the two is what makes a leader great. If a person is too much people-focused and is not a serious worker that can offer a direction and a structure, it will never be a good leader. On the other hand, if one is task-oriented, too autonomous, cannot take other people's opinion into account, cannot manage conflicts and cannot influence people, one won't be able to control the team. Where am I? Now, what would be the fun of that, if I'd tell you already?
I have been watching this show since I was sixteen, seventeen. First, it's interesting how my analysis has changed throughout these five years and then, it's interesting how the show has changed. When I left to England, I started watching the British version and now I'm back to the American one.
When I first watched it, it was more entertainment, it was about people doing interesting things. When I got to England, it was about me understading how they do things, I think it was more the learning of different techniques, rather than anything else. Now? Now I analyse. I analyse behaviours, people, strategies. That is not to say that it's not entertainment anymore or that I don't find some ideas really innovative. It's just about the way my inner motivation to watch it has changed.
From my perspective, what Donald Trump is looking for has changed a lot, and so have the candidates. If now a more autocratic style is appreciated, in the first seasons, the participative one was more appreciated. This is very interesting. The autocrative style of leadership was the popular one before the participative style and now it seems like the employers and people are going back to the autocrative one. In the last season at least, this phrase has come out quite a lot: "You're the project manager so you tell me what to do". In my opinion, it's not the right approach. You are a team member, you should know what needs to be done as well. This is actually a surprising thing for me, because as China is becoming more and more powerful, i would expect a more delegative style to be popular. It is known that this is how Chinese work, they don't really digest the notion of leadership.
I would also like to talk about the personality that usually wins The Apprentice. Contrary to how a lot of participants are acting, it's never the agressive ones that win. It's the composed candidates, that do their job right, talk when they need to and express their opinions in a very substantiated way. Thus, Brandy in the last season.
As a final observation, I would also like to make a comparison between the same show in the UK and in the US. I prefer the British version. It is more businessy, people know how to behave themselves, it's not a continous circus and the candidates are supposed to make money on a lot smaller budgets, which is definitely harder than with a big one. On the other hand, The Trump Organisation does deal with a lot of money, so maybe Donald Trump is going for the kind of premium products strategy, rather than cost leader product one.
Finally, I would like to conclude with a little reflection about leadership. It's supposed to be focused on two aspects: task and people. The right balance of skills between the two is what makes a leader great. If a person is too much people-focused and is not a serious worker that can offer a direction and a structure, it will never be a good leader. On the other hand, if one is task-oriented, too autonomous, cannot take other people's opinion into account, cannot manage conflicts and cannot influence people, one won't be able to control the team. Where am I? Now, what would be the fun of that, if I'd tell you already?
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Qantas, Airbus and Rolls Royce
This short article is my own reflection on the scandal that has Rolls-Royce as the main character. This sudden urge to comment on it came after finding out from here that Qantas begins legal action against the engine manufactuer.
I am going to start with a short synopsis of the event: Qantas had to land one of its Airbus aircrafts after one of the Rolls-Royce engines exploded on a flight. There were no victimes, apart from the reputations of some big companies. To be more precise, the aircraft in question is an A380 and the engine is a Trent 900, one of the best RR engines, if I may add.
First of all, I have no Engineering knowledge, but I am pretty sure that it is very ambitious to assume that it is possible to carry on a "double-decker" (the world's largest passenger airliner) "up to 800 people". I would personally think twice before booking a flight on such an aircraft. With that being said, I am going to restate that I have no Engineering knowledge and that this might be absolutely feasible and safe.
Secondly, the question here is: who is there to blame? Obvious answer: Rolls-Royce. Now, I admit that I might be a little bit biased given my experience with this company, but nevertheless I think they are not the only guilty ones. From my perspective, this is really a chain operation: firstly, Rolls-Royce tests the engines. I know for a fact that the company loses a lot of money by destroying completely the engines that don't meet safety requierements. Afterwards, it comes down to the aircraft to do its own checks and finally to the airline. Or at least, this is how it should be. Then, I understand that Rolls-Royce did not do its job properly in checking the engines, but neither did Airbus nor Qantas. This is not to say that the engine manufacturer is not the main one to blame, it's just that I believe that tougher checks should be made by the other parts of the chain (in this case Airbus and Qantas).
Here you can see a small engine testing example.
Thirdly, my main doubt now is in what way a settlement was not reached. Rolls-Royce is the main responsible and I as far as I read, they took responsibility for what happened. I am really curious to see how this will evolve, there will be later edits in accordance to the press.
Finally, I know that this will affect the image of Rolls-Royce, but I have to plant a question out there: would you prefer your aircraft to be Airbus or Comac? What I can say is that from now on I am checking the engine and the aircraft that I am flying with.
I am going to start with a short synopsis of the event: Qantas had to land one of its Airbus aircrafts after one of the Rolls-Royce engines exploded on a flight. There were no victimes, apart from the reputations of some big companies. To be more precise, the aircraft in question is an A380 and the engine is a Trent 900, one of the best RR engines, if I may add.
First of all, I have no Engineering knowledge, but I am pretty sure that it is very ambitious to assume that it is possible to carry on a "double-decker" (the world's largest passenger airliner) "up to 800 people". I would personally think twice before booking a flight on such an aircraft. With that being said, I am going to restate that I have no Engineering knowledge and that this might be absolutely feasible and safe.
Secondly, the question here is: who is there to blame? Obvious answer: Rolls-Royce. Now, I admit that I might be a little bit biased given my experience with this company, but nevertheless I think they are not the only guilty ones. From my perspective, this is really a chain operation: firstly, Rolls-Royce tests the engines. I know for a fact that the company loses a lot of money by destroying completely the engines that don't meet safety requierements. Afterwards, it comes down to the aircraft to do its own checks and finally to the airline. Or at least, this is how it should be. Then, I understand that Rolls-Royce did not do its job properly in checking the engines, but neither did Airbus nor Qantas. This is not to say that the engine manufacturer is not the main one to blame, it's just that I believe that tougher checks should be made by the other parts of the chain (in this case Airbus and Qantas).
Here you can see a small engine testing example.
Thirdly, my main doubt now is in what way a settlement was not reached. Rolls-Royce is the main responsible and I as far as I read, they took responsibility for what happened. I am really curious to see how this will evolve, there will be later edits in accordance to the press.
Finally, I know that this will affect the image of Rolls-Royce, but I have to plant a question out there: would you prefer your aircraft to be Airbus or Comac? What I can say is that from now on I am checking the engine and the aircraft that I am flying with.
Monday, 25 January 2010
About Physical Inventory
While reasearching techniques related to SCM, I came across this really funny description of Physical Inventory.
So it's the end of the year and the warehouse workers and all the salaried employees are gathered together on a Saturday morning to perform the annual physical inventory. The coffee and donuts help to put color into the faces and cover up the odors enveloping those who had overindulged themselves the night before. People are wandering around not sure what they should be doing, when the boss walks in with stacks of reports, cards, and colored stickers and says "OK here's how this is going to work." By noon it's obvious that less than half the warehouse has been counted and the pizza lunch has left everyone with an enthusiasm deficit. At two o'clock, one by one, people start approaching the boss with the reasons as to why they have to leave. Suddenly the pressure increases on those remaining to get finished. Five o'clock and the last of the counters are abandoning ship, there's an enormous pile of paperwork marked "discrepancies" and several piles of product marked "unknown," "what's this?" and "needs to be identified." The boss surveys the scene and instructs the people in charge of investigating the overwhelming pile of discrepancies to "just make the adjustments, we need to get out of here."
So it's the end of the year and the warehouse workers and all the salaried employees are gathered together on a Saturday morning to perform the annual physical inventory. The coffee and donuts help to put color into the faces and cover up the odors enveloping those who had overindulged themselves the night before. People are wandering around not sure what they should be doing, when the boss walks in with stacks of reports, cards, and colored stickers and says "OK here's how this is going to work." By noon it's obvious that less than half the warehouse has been counted and the pizza lunch has left everyone with an enthusiasm deficit. At two o'clock, one by one, people start approaching the boss with the reasons as to why they have to leave. Suddenly the pressure increases on those remaining to get finished. Five o'clock and the last of the counters are abandoning ship, there's an enormous pile of paperwork marked "discrepancies" and several piles of product marked "unknown," "what's this?" and "needs to be identified." The boss surveys the scene and instructs the people in charge of investigating the overwhelming pile of discrepancies to "just make the adjustments, we need to get out of here."
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Applied Taylorism
This is a very funny description of taylorism, I came across it whilst studying for Management and I actually think it's a good description of its application.
"Here is the way in which a literal minded industrial reported on a symphony concert. For considerable periods the four oboe players had nothing to do. The number should be reduced and the work spread more evenly over the whole concert, thus eliminating peaks and valleys of activity. All the twelve violins were playing identical notes, this seems unnecessary duplication. The staff of this section should be drastically cut. If a larger volume of sound is required, it could be obtained by means of electronic apparatus. Much effort was absorbed in the playing of demi-semi-quavers; this seems to be an unnecessary refinement. It is recommended that all notes be rounded up to the nearest semi-quaver. If this were done, it would be possible to use trainees and lower grade operatives more extensively.
There seems to be too much repetiton of some musical passages. Scores should be drastically pruned. No useful purpose is served by repeating on the horns something which has already been handled by the strings. It is estimated that if all redundant passages were eliminated the whole concert time of 2 hours could be reduced to 20 minutes and there would be no need for an intermission. In many cases the operators were using one hand for holding the instrument, whereas the introduction of a fixture would have tendered the idle hand available for other work. Also, it was noted that excessive effort was being used occasionally by the players of wind instruments, whereas one compressor could supply adequate air for all instruments under more accurately controlled conditions.
Finally, obsolence of equipment is another matter into which it is suggested further investigation could be made, as it was reported in the programme that the leading violonist's instrument was already several hundred years old. If normal depreciation schedules have been applied, the value of this instrument would have been reduced to zero and purchase of more modern equipment could then have been considered."
Genial!
"Here is the way in which a literal minded industrial reported on a symphony concert. For considerable periods the four oboe players had nothing to do. The number should be reduced and the work spread more evenly over the whole concert, thus eliminating peaks and valleys of activity. All the twelve violins were playing identical notes, this seems unnecessary duplication. The staff of this section should be drastically cut. If a larger volume of sound is required, it could be obtained by means of electronic apparatus. Much effort was absorbed in the playing of demi-semi-quavers; this seems to be an unnecessary refinement. It is recommended that all notes be rounded up to the nearest semi-quaver. If this were done, it would be possible to use trainees and lower grade operatives more extensively.
There seems to be too much repetiton of some musical passages. Scores should be drastically pruned. No useful purpose is served by repeating on the horns something which has already been handled by the strings. It is estimated that if all redundant passages were eliminated the whole concert time of 2 hours could be reduced to 20 minutes and there would be no need for an intermission. In many cases the operators were using one hand for holding the instrument, whereas the introduction of a fixture would have tendered the idle hand available for other work. Also, it was noted that excessive effort was being used occasionally by the players of wind instruments, whereas one compressor could supply adequate air for all instruments under more accurately controlled conditions.
Finally, obsolence of equipment is another matter into which it is suggested further investigation could be made, as it was reported in the programme that the leading violonist's instrument was already several hundred years old. If normal depreciation schedules have been applied, the value of this instrument would have been reduced to zero and purchase of more modern equipment could then have been considered."
Genial!
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Laws of project management
This is the way my precious Operations Management textbook was describing Project Management. Enjoy.
1. No major project is ever installed on time, within budget or with the same staff that started it. Yours will not be the first.
2. Projects progress quickly until they become 90% complete, then they remain at 90% complete forever.
3. One advantage of fuzzy project objectives is that they let you avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
4. When things are going well, something will go wrong. When things just cannot get any worse, they will. When things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
5. If the project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
6. No system is ever completely debugged. Attempts to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find.
7. A carelessly planned project will take 3 times longer to complete than expected, a carefully planned project will take only twice as long.
8. Project teams detest progress reporting because it vividly manifests their lack of progress.
(Slack et al, Operations Management, 7th edition)
1. No major project is ever installed on time, within budget or with the same staff that started it. Yours will not be the first.
2. Projects progress quickly until they become 90% complete, then they remain at 90% complete forever.
3. One advantage of fuzzy project objectives is that they let you avoid the embarrassment of estimating the corresponding costs.
4. When things are going well, something will go wrong. When things just cannot get any worse, they will. When things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.
5. If the project content is allowed to change freely, the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
6. No system is ever completely debugged. Attempts to debug a system inevitably introduce new bugs that are even harder to find.
7. A carelessly planned project will take 3 times longer to complete than expected, a carefully planned project will take only twice as long.
8. Project teams detest progress reporting because it vividly manifests their lack of progress.
(Slack et al, Operations Management, 7th edition)
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