So David Cameron has vetoed the latest plan to save the Euro and is being lambasted as the man who gets Britain ejected / ejects Britain from the EU. Perhaps the opposite is true?

If he had agreed to the changes then he risks the very real possibility of triggering a referendum in the UK on EU membership. Can anybody really expect the British electorate to vote in favour of remaining in the EU at this time. Note: I ask whether anyone can really expect the majority of the voting British electorate to vote this way and not whether or not it makes sense to actually do so.

After a recession caused, in part, by a housing bubble which was caused, in part, by excess borrowing which was caused, in part, by excess demand for housing, do you a) implement measures to further increase demand and secure this demand with taxpayers’ money or b) implement measures that actually address supply?  People don’t want to buy houses at the moment because they’re too expensive.  Let prices settle and demand will return without straining families with crippling mortgages at ludicrous multiples of their salaries and without forcing taxpayers to guarantee other people’s borrowing.  With lower prices, banks are able to lend sums of money to buyers that are more affordable, bringing decreased defaults and lower risk.  Lastly, falling prices will discourage property hoarding by acquisitive investors.  Falling returns on property investment would lead to dispersal of property portfolios and the re-introduction of a supply of houses back into the market.

The “dream of home ownership” should be a dream of owner occupancy, not one of property portfolios, investment returns and profiteering. What we need is a curb on multiple ownership and a slap in the face for every person who thinks that having vast equity in their house is a good thing.

If you blog and nobody’s reading, does it make a sound?

It’s 6 months since I’ve written anything on here and this is the best I can come up with.  Oh dear!

I’m thinking about the publicity that has surrounded Google’s UK StreetView launch. Do companies factor a negative initial public reaction into their product launch plans? If so, how?

The Guardian reports today that Ewan McGregor has been forced to issue a statement telling his fans that sites on MySpace and Twitter allegedly reporting his every move are fakes and nothing to do with him. See the full story here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/09/ewan-mcgregor-fake-twitter-feed

Other celebs, including Leonard Nimoy and Eddie Izzard have also issued similar statements after finding online impostors making up stories about them.

This made me wonder what someone would write about in the fake version of my life? Dashing and heroic or dull and boring?

I reckon I’m probably going to be flown out to the West Indies by the England cricket team as a behavioural change management consultant to advise them on how to shift from a mindset of mediocrity to a winning attitude. On arrival, I’ll find that they’re a man short for the 20Twenty International match and will selflessly leave my laptop behind, dust off my pads and step out into the middle.

OK, that’s not a very good story. I can do better. The fake version of my life is sure to be more interesting. Keira Knightly would surely be involved….

So what’s going on in the fake version of your life right now? Post here. Let me know about the real (fake) you!

From dreamland

JW

I’ve had my Twitter account for about a week now (username @johanvee if you’re interested) and I think I’m finally starting to see the point.

I have only met one of the people who I’m following in person but I’m already beginning to relish the prospect of hearing what’s Paul’s up to and to viewing my updates from various technology related microblogs.

A couple of examples:

The Guardian newspaper technology section tweets about 10 times a day with all manner of technology related articles - well worth a read. I also follow the updates from the CTO of Cisco Systems. Why on earth is she tweeting 4+ times per day?

I refuse to follow Stephen Fry, MC Hammer or Demi Moore - that’s so yesterday!

I still have absolutely no idea how Twitter could ever be monetised but from a user’s perspective it’s a load of fun. Tweet me and let me know what you’re up to. Go on - give it a try!

From the Twittershpere

JW

Last week, the renowned philosopher Brian O’Driscoll (captain of the Ireland Rugby Union team for those of you who don’t know) spoke in a press conference before the international match against England. He commented that, ‘Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is remembering not to put it into a fruit salad.’

Wise words, when you think about them, and very relevant to my time here at LBS. For 15 months I have absorbed more knowledge than can I could ever have imagined but I wonder whether I’m any the wiser for it?

Over the New Year break I evangelised to a friend about the merits of an OB elective that I took before Xmas. I talked about the core reading, the debates in class and the quality of the guest speakers.

His reply to me was, ‘What were the key takeaways?’

I was lost for words. I couldn’t put my finger on anything specific.

Since then I have tried to maintain a focus on the practical implementation of knowledge from school. What is the real world application of what I am hearing / seeing every day?

Maybe that makes me a little bit like Brian O’Driscoll….. except that I’m not Irish and I’m nowhere near as good as him at rugby.

Maybe I’ll finish up a little wiser at the end of this course though. That would be good enough for me.

From London

JW

On Friday a couple of us popped into the Annual Technology Summit after lectures. We were too late to hear any of the speakers but had heard that Microsoft had brought one of their Surface machines in for people to take a look at and we fancied checking it out.

So what happened next?

Option a)
We spent 45 minutes playing with a machine that delivered visually stunning performance, we zoomed and spun our way around the globe, flew in and out of skyscrapers in Manhattan like Superman and leafed through a virtual fashion magazine. Cool!

or

Option b)
We didn’t meet with Microsoft and chatted with one of their partners instead, 50% of the applications that we looked at on Surface either didn’t run at all or crashed at some point during demonstration and many of the other applications offered a long way of achieving something that could either be done by hand or on a regular PC.

The answer is, of course, both.

To me, Microsoft Surface is really just a technology demonstrator at this stage. I wasn’t able to see the ‘killer app’ that would make this 85kg beast a must-have tool. My question today is whether big, rich companies like Microsoft should be working on building applications without an obvious need or instead should be concentrating on developing tools that meet the current requirements of the customers? Is innovation like this a requirement for technological advancement?

Over the past few weeks, many of us who are new to the world of blogging have bemoaned the slow demise (or certain death, depending on your dramatic license) of the traditional printed media.

We have also spent a significant amount of time learning about the rise of Google and the way in which they, and others, have changed the information provision playing field forever.

I read this weekend that Google have now entered into an agreement to purchase land from a paper mill in Finland, effectively replacing paper production with search result production (and the occasional ad dollar too, of course).

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/12/google_buys_defunct_paper_mill/

I initially thought that this was all a bit tough on the paper millers but, on reflection, I find it hard to shed a tear for an industry that’s based on ripping up and pulping trees. I won’t ponder too long on the relative impacts of deforestation vs. Internet search as there are surely proponents on each side who could show me ‘conclusive’ figures about the devastating effect of each.

I simply wonder how the mill bosses felt when they found out that is was actually Google who wanted to buy their site? Just good business, I guess.

From London

JW

In addition to the the picture postcard sights in the garden when I woke up this morning, today’s snow has also caused chaos across the country.

Those of us who have seen snow in London before are used to the paralysis of the overground parts of the tube network and the difficulties with all other parts of public transport.  The surprise this morning was the problems that we had getting information about the operation of the transport infrastructure over the Internet.   At 6:30 am, the Transport for London website was fine but that doesn’t show details for the train operators.  The South West Trains website was completely down and nationalrail.co.uk was running some sort of skeleton service.  An hour later and more of the major websites had packed in, presumably due to excess demand.

Clearly it’s impossible to foresee Internet demand spikes for some events (e.g 9/11 or 7/7) but heavy snow has been forecast for this morning for a few days now so high demand for transport and weather websites was (with hindsight) predictable.  From what I can see, the problems this morning were caused by server overload rather than site access problems - i.e. servers were visible but not returning useful pages.  I guess that it’s harder for these companies (or public service organisations) to just increase server capacity just to meet these particular events.  I don’t know enough about it but perhaps this is where some form of cloud computing will step in in the future to fill these temporary supply gaps?

In the absence of any public transport in my part of town I’m going to start walking to school shortly.  If I don’t post anything before next Monday, I’ve probably got stuck in a snowdrift or been kidnapped by a Yeti.  Please send a rescue party.

From snowy South West London

JW