Skoda going places

I have a confession - I don't know how to drive a car. In car-crazy Singapore, where I live today, that's a anachronism. I have my reasons for this state of affairs, reasons that might surprise you if you knew, but let's just leave it at that. This doesn't stop me from being an observer of cars, which reminds me of an Eastern European make called Skoda. When it first debuted in Singapore, it was very very cheap, compared to the rest of the competition. It was also very very, lets say, flimsy. It looked like an undercarriage which just happens to have a body covering of tin metal. It reminded me when Honda first came out with sub-compact cars that ran on motorcycle-sounding type engines that could seat two Asian-sized passengers - a third or fourth if they could squeeze into the back seat. It was said that the car's body was so flimsy that the car will be crushed completely, like paper, in an accident. Japanese cars have made quantum leaps in terms of power and design of their cars since.

Well, back to Skoda. It looks like it has also grown up since the first time I saw a Skoda about 15-20 years ago - at least in Europe. Strategy+Business has a case study article on this in its current Fall 2005 edition. The entire article is available online here. Prior to reading this interesting article, I didn't know that Skoda has had a long and illustrious history. It is now owned by Germany's Volkswagen, and under its management, it has emerged from its communist days to become a world challenger in car design and performance. It is so successful that its parent, Volkswagen, felt threatened by its designs. How did this happen? Read the article and find out.

P.S. You need to register with S+B, but the registraton is free of charge.

Ships that Cunard sailed

As a young boy, I was given an assignment to write on the topic "My ambition". I was then in primary school (that's elementary school in some other parts of the world). Without much hesitation, I penned a short essay on being a sailor when I grew up. There was much to commend about this ambition.

First, you get to see the whole world. I was at an age where you long to see something outside of your home and school. Second, sailing evoked adventure, and that's what every boy likes, especially when he has been fed on story books such as R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island, Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Alfred Hitchcock's tales of adolescent mystery and suspense. And did it help that I was staying in the British Naval Base (Dockyard) in Singapore at that time? Watching large man-of-wars was within walking distance from where I lived.

But that's the world of fantasy. Fast forward to Cunard - a name that brings to mind large large ships that sailed across the Atlantic, and occasionally, the world. What's more, you also hear that these ships are luxurious and probably only the rich and famous can afford to sail in them. At that time, I had yet to hear of the Titanic. I wasn't rich nor famous and therefore never stepped onto a Cunard. I could only read about them.

Cunard is still very much around, and it has been so for the last 165 years. Recalling my adolescence, and still not yet rich nor famous, I picked up the book "Cunard - A Photographic History" by Janette McCutcheon to re-live its glory years. This is a table-coffee book of 96 pages. Something light to hold in your hands while you sip your coffee. It is full of pictures to dazzle your eyes and bring back memories of bygone years. Its an easy read too, although the narrative seems a bit halting, but this is to be expected. The pictures are, after all, the main attractions. The narrative informs the reader about the history and significance of each picture in the book and about the social and historical context. Every page is filled with photographs of the various Cunard ships from the time when Samuel Cunard first built his Royal Mail ships that, by the way, also carried passengers. Divided roughly into three parts, the book traces the history of the company from its founding to the First World War, the years between the world wars and period after the Second World War till the present.

At the end of it, you get an appreciation not only of Cunard's history, but also of how circumstances and inventions of the day can affect the prosperity or survival of a company. For example, after World War II, Air travel by Jet became popular and that took away Cunard's ertswhile business of ferrying passengers across the Altantic. It eventually had to focus on the Cruise Liner business, for which it is best known today, at least for the holidaying crowd. However, you will want to read about its shipping business from the early days, and look at the marvellous ships it once used to own, including its Carpathia, which picked up 705 passengers from the sinking Titanic in 1912 and the Lusitania, Mauretania and the Aquitania - the fastest and biggest ships of its days.

Best free journal on the web

Strategy+Business" (s+b) is a quarterly print journal/magazine from Booz Allen Hamilton. Its a great magazine targeted at business leaders, academics, and anyone else interested in what is happening in the world of business today, and possibly what will happen tomorrow. The content is varied and, best of all, its freely available on the World Wide Web. Unlike its rival, The McKinsey Quarterly (MQ), all content that are in print is available without charge on the internet at the same time that the print edition is out.

MQ used to offer all its content for free on the web too, but switched to providing premium content for a fee. Some content remains free, but you feel crippled when you can't pursue an interesting topic that is featured because the content is considered premium. I used to refer to MQ quite a lot when I was pursuing my Masters degree in Technology Management a couple of years ago. Needless to say, it was then free of charge on the web.

In any case, s+b is just as good and its still free on the web. You can also get it to send you e-mail updates as and when a new issue is available. You won't miss an issue like that.

Highly recommended.

T-shirts economics

Here's a good book to sink your teeth into. Published in 2005, "The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy" is an unlikely sounding text on International Economics, but that's what it is, and more. Its about international trade, politics, history and even travel, weaved around the theme of the economics involved in the global textile and apparel trade over three hundred years!

In developing the narrative, the author, Dr Pietra Rivoli of the Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, first traces the beginnings and development of the cotton industry in the US and England. In particular, she englightens us on the reasons for the longevity of the cotton industry in the US and how, even today, the industry that grew from this basic commodity - apparel and textile - still has a strong, albeit wanning, presence in the US. In weaving together a masterful account of the history, politics and economics related to this essential industry, Dr Rivoli has managed to entertain with wry observations and personal anecdotes garnered from her travels to research and write this book.

My favourite part of the book is where she describes how technology, research and development has extended the dominance of the cotton industry in the US through 200 years. Now, one would expect that a country or any organisation would lose its competitive advantage in a product, service or skill after two or at most, three generations, but for 200 years? Amazing!

Written in non-intimidating language with little trade jargon, its an easy read. Yet its full of insight spanning a whole gamut of topics and disciplines. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

You have to read it too.

Its available at Amazon.com for about US$19. The price will vary depending on whether you are getting first-hand or not. But then again, this book is quite recent.

Blogging crap

Blogging is writing about yourself, your experiences, your life. Some have adapted blogging to venture on writing on highly specific areas and have thus created wonderful resources on blogs. But I must say that I agree with one commentor to this blog that a lot of the blogs you find in Blogger.com (and perhaps most other purpose-built blogging portal) is just crap.

Some, after securing a good blogger address, write nothing worthy of that address. For example, see http://writer.blogspot.com. (sorry Mr Bray). Some write garbage, and worse, repeat that garbage over several days' blogs - and they write nothing else. Its the worst form of bad writing - 'spamming' their own blogs.

I ask, "Why bother in the first place?" You can't invite people to view your blog because you'd die of embarrassment, you can't publicise your blog because you'd be viewed as vacuous, you can't even make a cent out of it because Google Adsense has more sense than to let you have their codes.

So why do people do it? I really cannot figure it out. I can only guess.

Maybe having a blog, whatever that blog has or does, is not important. The satisfaction lies in the fact that you have a blog address.

Maybe other priorities in life have distracted you from your blogging ambitions.

Maybe you are suffering from writers' block, and its been blocked for the last 3 years!

Maybe you are just not interested anymore, but don't want to delete your blog, or cannot be bothered to, or don't know how to(?)

Maybe one day, the blogger may resume the activity. I don't begrudge such ambitions, but either start writing something or release those blog addresses!

Purpose of this blog

My tastes in the written word are rather eclectic as much as my interests are wide. I have always loved reading - anything that I can lay my hands on. But you get selective over time, because you know that you cannot possibly read everything that has ever been written and printed.

Of late, my interests are in technology, management, information systems, e-business/e-commerce development economics, history, some politics, Christian literature, retail management, etc. Some of these areas interest me because they contribute to my rice-bowl (i.e. my professional interests), others because I have had an abiding interest in them - something of a hobby that helps me de-stress and know something more about the world that we live in at the same time.

Whichever the case, I read a lot. Because I have access to very current books and writings, I thought I might share my views about them in this blog. Of course, older books are just as important, but I suspect much has already been written about them anyway. Another reason for this blog is personal - often, I have forgotten what I have read over the years. Since I spend a lot of time reading, its a big part of my life that is missing in my memory. When you get older, you become more concerned about remembering. Nostalgia increasingly becomes an important part of life.