I met some interesting people at last nights linchpin meetup in Birmingham one of who shared this presentation with me.  It’s a napkin style discussion about what motivates people which feeds from Maslow’s hierachy of needs and presents it in todays speak for todays economy.

If anyone can tell me who the narrator is there are extra points on offer.  I think the voice is very close to David Allen of GTD fame but I’m not convinced it’s him.

I’m attending the linchpin meetup in Birmingham tonight. The event is at the green room in the Arcadian Centre. If you’re going do say hi.

I’ve been working on my third aerospace contract for most of the last twelve months.  It’s involved living away from my family during the week, staying in rented accommodation in the North West of the country.  My brief was to stabilise the finance function of the business during a period of “business re-alignment” which has seen a significant restructuring of the company balance sheet and a material reduction in headcount to make sure the company is best sized to work within its future order book.  There is a little left to do, but the bulk of my work is now complete and a permanent Finance person has been appointed to head up the department.  In addition to the business re-alignment we have over the course of the easter weekend migrated the company’s MRP system from it’s old non integrated systems to SAP; a process which has involved many months of preparation and many hours of validation over the easter weekend.  The migration has been successful and the business is today manufacturing and transacting within SAP.

My client today issued a trading update which included the following comment on the business I have been representing:

In Aerospace Components and Structures, BHW has performed in line with expectations in the final quarter, benefitting from the cost reduction actions undertaken earlier in the year. Further rationalisation is planned to be undertaken in 2010/11 to eliminate existing losses of approximately £2 million and it is expected that the site will be operating profitably during the second half of that year. The cash costs of this rationalisation are not expected to exceed £1 million.

I have today served notice on my “oop norf” accommodation but shall miss the friends I made in Billinge (Between St. Helen’s and Wigan) and the surrounding area.  I finish my contract on  14th May.  I shall spend the next week with my family before I fly to Horta in the Azores to tick the box on one of my personal goals.  I’m joining the crew of a 65tf yacht for a passage of circa 1370 nm back to Portsmouth.  My ETA back in the UK is 6th June and I’ll be available for assignment from then.

ABOUT MARK HENDY

The very kind @charonqc a twitter friend of mine has donated this painting to me.  The painting is titled “Let there be greed”.  A veritable thank you to M’learned, @Charonqc who has declined my offer of payment for his work.

I stumbled across this and thought I’d share it here!

As a professional interim who’s been invited onto the board and operated with the senior management teams of many companies I’ve seen my fair share of mission statements and the process of deriving them.  For me the process can be somewhat frustrating as I sit listening to grot and nonsense corporate speak.

Take this:

The mission statement should be a clear and succinct representation of the enterprise’s purpose for existence. It should incorporate socially meaningful and measurable criteria addressing concepts such as the moral/ethical position of the enterprise, public image, the target market, products/services, the geographic domain and expectations of growth and profitability

Why should a mission statement incorporate socially meaningful and measurable criteria?  Unless it was created as a charity or as a state run social tool it makes no sense!  Most organisations are created with one purpose in mind.  Profit.  Profit is a good cause, not a bad one.  It’s a primary cause not secondary one.  Many businesses I’ve been involved with espouse all manner of socalistic stakeholder thinking, which violates and blurs the understanding of property rights and redirects managers toward working for a stakeholder collective rather than the actual owners.

Many businesses mission statements fall short because they ignore one basic tenet: A business has only one mission, to bring about economic profit. They produce profits through winning voluntary exchange (sales) because they produce the best alternative for individual decision makers inside their market and because in the mission statements they rarely speak of profits, but that is precisely why they were created. In order to obtain profits they must create things of value, thus, we see firms making products and going so far as changing industries as they continue to search for profits by converting raw materials, be they physical or intellectual, into valued goods and services.

One day, when historians piece together the collapse of Western civilisation, they will stand agog at the stupidity of one-world socialism.

From the unlikely Obnoxio the Clown

I’ve been a mobile broadband user for a few years using a 3g mobile device from Vodafone with my laptop. Until recently the device I was using was a PCMCIA device but in April I upgraded my laptop to the latest model which didn’t have a PCMCIA slot so I called Vodafone customer services and asked if they could send me a USB device. This is how the conversation went (paraphrased):

ME: Hi, I’ve just brought a new laptop and it doesn’t have a PCMCIA slot and I wondered if you could send me a USB device so I can continue to use the service.

VOD: Sure, and I notice you’re on our old tarrif, You’re currently paying £25/month and we can now do it for £15. Would you like me to switch you?

ME: Thats sounds great. Yes please.

Then I get my bill, which until then had always been £25/month month in month out but this time it came in at £58.74

So on 12th June I called customer services and spoke to William Lindsay at the Belfast office:

ME: Erm you’ve sent me a bill and its wrong.

VOD: No, you switched tariff and this is what it costs and by the way you agreed by switching tariff to another contract of 18 months

ME: I never agreed to any such thing, and your guy told me it’d be £15/month. I have an unlimited broadband service. No one told be it’d no longer be unlimited, but they did tell me it was a better tariff and it’d cost me £15/month rather than the £25/month I’d been paying. I’m not paying this bill until you get it right, and please cancel my account with immediate effect.

VOD: I can’t do that you agreed to a new contract

ME: Did I fuck! No I didn’t

VOD: Well I need to talk to the guy you dealt with to establish the facts. It’ll take a few days but we’ll call you back

ME: Call me on my Orange phone number. You’ve got that right?

VOD: Sure

That was 12th June. I’ve not had a call back since, but I have canceled the DD. Today 15th July I’ve had another bill, for £117.48. so I called customer services again. After connecting I could hear talking but no one spoke to me for a period of minutes. I was left shouting hello down the phone repeatedly until finally a guy called Ken again at Belfast came on the line:

ME: Hello, I spoke to you on 12th June and I’m telling you again I’m not paying this bill. No one has called me back since the last call.

VOD: Let me read the notes……OK, I need to speak to Chris Ward in the Banbury office. Is it ok if I put you on hold

ME: Sure

After holding for a few minutes the call was disconnected.

I’m so angry and frustrated with Vodafone that I’m not sure I could ever deal with them again.  If they persue me for the bills I shall defend and counterclaim.

++UPDATE++

Tom from Vodafone Webrelations has called me and cancelled the charges except for two months rental totalling about £30.  This was supposedly for the subsidised cost of the Modem which I had paid for, but given that I was already of the mind that the last months rental was due fair and square and that it would have been £25 I’m happy to have it resolved at that.  I have also cancelled the account and am no longer a Vodafone customer.

Business publisher Informa is the latest UK business to head for the departure gates.  It joins other major UK companies, including fellow business publisher UBM, advertising group WPP, pharma giant Shire, workplaces provider Regus and insurers Beazley and Brit Insurance. A number of foreign companies, including Google, have relocated their European HQ out of the UK.

The proposed changes to UK tax law, which take effect from 1 July, would have a ‘detrimental’ and ‘material’ impact on the group’s tax position, said Informa. The move will enable the company to keep its tax rate at 26-27% compared with 30-31% if it stays in the UK.

So lets have a slow clap for the UK Government who are driving business, tax revenue and jobs out of the UK.