Strange and exciting times
My friend Bruno Guissani quit blogging. He cites time issues and the fact that the blog "not the right tool to develop and explore" some of his new ideas. I understand him. I love the concept of a blog and I urge all my clients to start one yet I find myself more and more challenged to post regularly. This past month has been dominated by bookwriting (my book, tentatively called "Invisible Trends", is out in September 2009 on Cyan Communications), parenting and lots of travelling: Düsseldorf, Moscow, The Maldives and Istanbul. Here are some quick insights from the last three locations:
Moscow: I spoke at a large agricultural exhibition and shared the stage with an ex-communist minister of agricultural machinery. He made the point that Russian agricultural production volumes are way down from the peak in 1970 and that this is a bad thing. He got wild cheers. As did I every time I mentioned the "financial crisis" (go figure...).
The Maldives: Spread across 1400 kilometres and thousands of archipelagoes, The Maldives is most people's idea of paradise. It's in fact really, really dull. Unless you enjoy watching couples holding hands or being in a hand-holding couple yourself. I had a great session with the people of PADI so I had an excuse.
Istanbul: It was time for the annual Marketing Conference again and this time I was the chairman. We had Chan Kim (of Blue Ocean Strategy fame), Don Sull and many others in the house. Despite the sluggish economy, we had a full house for both days.
Thank you to Mikael and SXL for making very interesting posts. Surely a lot of people will agree with you at the moment. The times we live in are as strange as anything I've ever seen. However, any hopes/dreams/thoughts/opinions about the demise of capitalism is a gross overestimation of what we're going through. Bubbles have always popped. I counted at least 18 severe downturns in the global economy in the past century (if we include milder ones, the figure shoots up to over 50). Every single time, a number of newspapers, thinkers, writers and politicians talked about the demise of "the free market" or of "capitalism and its cronies". Every time, they returned. Often stronger than ever. The secret, I believe, lies in aging. Two decades from now, when we're due for another go-around in the crisis carousel, most of today's top managers and politicians will be long gone. They'll be sitting somewhere remote saying "I told you so" while a new cadre of people have entered the stage for whom the current downturn, however sharp it may be, will be a distant memory. Many people are also forgetting that even in the most severe downturn, most people keep their jobs and a majority of firms keep on doing well. The decomposition of the GDP and the stock market index reveals the many upsides of turbulence.
