Amazing things have been happening around my project…

And I have had not time to write. But I will. First, Joe Pine was here at Aalborg University three weeks ago. It was a very good presentation. I’ll tell about it. Also 4 days ago, David Plouffe, the chief campaign manager for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and other interesting leaders, presented in in a business leader seminar. They told me it was outstanding, I missed so much I did not go.

Anyways I just want to put a video here about a new upcoming event in Frederikshavn. Perhaps it’s not that exciting as the other two, only perhaps. It’s about the yearly Blues Festival of Frederikshavn. They just put it online.

I have not written here as I have been busy teaching, writing and preparing my study abroad for Spring 2010.

Twitter

Some days ago I opened a Twitter account. Everyone is talking about it, so I thought I’ll have to give a try. They say that everyone who does not have a Twitter account thinks that is just another way to waste time. I understand this, as this is what I though not long ago. I guess you can waste time, and this is not something I have too much now, with various serious deadlines and a newborn in the family. The reason to open it was to follow some authors I like that are in this software network. So my idea is not to write more than a couple lines a week, I just want it more to help me to get info I like.

There is an application where you can find who of your contacts are using Twitter, and out of 1300 contacts I have in Gmail, only 20 are subscribed and only 3 update it.

Economic Sense; Addressed To The Innovators Of Business & Commerce

A couple of weeks ago I got via Google Alerts (Fox News), the release of the 2009 declaration of Pine and Gilmore. It’s actually Gilmore and Pine, but one has been to used to refer to them as in the first form.

It has the date of 4th of July, and it has the apperance of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

This declaration, can be found here at the website of their consulting company: http://www.strategichorizons.com/thinkaboutinvites/2009/EconomicSense.pdf 

I think this was done with the purpose of celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the book “The Experience Economy” and especifically to promote the conference they’re organizing in Philadelphia, next month. If it weren’t 2500USD$ to register I would not mind to cross the Atlantic.

The basic idea in this declaration is that we’re in this economic crisis because businesses (and the private) have not really focused on offering experiences. Then they came up with very good perpectives for the private sector. I have to say that I always enjoy reading these guys. They’re really innovative and they come up with cool things.

Unfortunately, as good conservative Americans, I think they have been too influenced in the current political debate. In the last paragraphs they condemn goverment support to healthcare and higher education. I still don’t understand this part of the declaration. I guess is my European perspective. They say that public support to education and healthcare hinder The Experience Economy, but they don’t say anything about other public spending in endless wars, bail outs to corporations, or evasion to tax havens. Maybe they’re right, but I think this is a debate they should not have got into. Maybe it’s me who I should not get into this debate…

Macroeconomics… perhaps not that useful…*

My good friend Ana Luiza was talking today about the article “What went wrong with economics” published in the always interesting The Economist. She mentioned that it was a good analysis of the situation. She’s one of the best economists I know, so I listen to her.

The articles starts powerfully “Of all the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself.” Something worth it to put in the recently open my quotes page. I enjoyed reading the whole thing. The only thing that I didn’t really agree is when he says “Macroeconomists, especially within central banks, were too fixated on taming inflation and too cavalier about asset bubbles.” I think central banks in the U.S., Spain and many other did not care at all about real inflation. We have to remember that the housing prices (which many say that this is what brought us here) , which is by far the highest expenditure of the families was rising around a 15% yearly, I did not see the central banks really calling for an action on this issue, like for example a tax on an empty house/apartment to avoid speculation.

Anyways what I found interesting is the quote of my man Paul Krugman. Last month at the London School of Economics (!!) he argued that much of the past 30 years of macroeconomics was “spectacularly useless at best, and positively harmful at worst.”

A Professor teaching economics

I was never a fan of macroeconomics, so, obviously this assertion makes me feel really good. I remember in 1998, in my first year at the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales (Economics and Business School at Universidad de Alcala, Spain), we were going over Mankiw’s textbook on micro and macro, and after a few classes we started questioning our Professor (sorry I can only remember his nickname). I remember raising my hand in a specific example about the labor maket and saying, “but, this does seem to happen in reality”, and he answered “well, you have to learn the theory, even if it does not happen in reality”. Later in class I wondered with friends why in the world we should learn something like the theories of flying pigs. Anyways I was happy to learn about it, but probably less hours on subjects like these would be good.

This non-sense long studies in the mainstream economics studies, among other reasons, was why I probably found Ana in the masters program at the Business Department of Aalborg University in 2005.

“Economic Crisis” in Denmark and in the USA (II)

6 months ago I looked at how many times the term “economic crisis” and “økonomisk krise” were mentioned in the most popular newspapers of the USA (New York Times) and Denmark (Jyllands-Posten) respectively. I’m proud of this entry because it’s one of the most visited. So this summer I was kind of interested to see a comparison looking at the first 6 months of 2009.

It is important to notice that I have multiplied times 2, the corresponding figure for the first half of the year. So the 2009 “result” will actually be the final result, if they mentioned the term exactly the same times between and July and December, as they have done from January to the end of June.

So this is how it looks the agreement of both newspapers. Comparing it with the 1994-2008 graph You can draw your own conclussions.

Now I’m really busy, trying to write a paper for a journal before my wife gives birth in the next days, but whenever I need a break from the paper, I will add the consumer confidence chart.

End of Economic Crisis? You choose

From the U.S. we have some numbers and various interpretations.

reported unemployment figures for every month since begining of recesssion

National Public Radio | July 5 2009:
Is The Worst Over? Most Economists Say Yes

Nouriel Roubini | Jul 2, 2009
U.S. Job Report Suggests that Green Shoots are Mostly Yellow Weeds
“The June employment report suggests that the alleged ‘green shoots’ are mostly yellow weeds that may eventually turn into brown manure…”
(I read this quote and I started laughing)

Anyways as I mentioned, and the same Paul Samuelson (Nobel Prize in Economics and key figure in neoclassical economics) admitted last year: “What we know about the global financial crisis is that we don’t know very much.”

The Festival of Tordenskjold 2009

In my last post I said I was going to the Festival of Tordenskjold. Here is a little more about who was this guy Tordenskiold. I have to say I had a great weekend. I found it very interesting because I have been following the preparation for several days. I have talked to over 40 people and learn many things about their networks and how they work. I aim at publishing the results if you’re interested.
I calculated myself in the three days and I think there were 35.000 visitors, but I don’t have the official data. But I know there were around 1000 volunteers, the majority of them dressed for the occasion in 18th century clothes.
Here is me and great Tordenskjold, I (and my wife, now shown in picture) were dressed as peasants.

Tordenskjold and me at the end of Friday's play

Here are more pictures of the festival. In photo doesn’t look that big, but the big boat a replica of the time, was really impressive. At least for a non-ocean guy like me.

Can a festival save you?

Yesterday I spent the day doing some qualitative research in Frederikshavn. They’re preparing the Tordenskjold Festival. I think it’s going to be pretty cool. I will be there. I interviewed and talked to a dozen of people. People love this city project. It’s the whole community engaged. I might give you a summary next week. For this 12th edition, they expect 40.000 visitors.

Looking at other numbers, the picture does not look that good. We all know that tourism figures all around the world are doing bad. Here the thing seems to come in the worse moment. Since 2003 the tourists coming by ferry (most Norwegians and Swedish) has been declining from 3.545.000 to a around 2.000.000, with a steady yearly decrease. This year will probably be the worse.

A worker in a downtown restaurant was telling me that the last year they made, 35-40.000 dkk (5.000 €) a day. Now they’re down to 7.000 dkk a day. That’s quite a thumping. Needless to say, they’re quite excited about the Tordenskiold Festival starting tomorrow.

1st Year Presentation

At Aalborg University PhD students are required to give a 1 Year progress report. A professor (different from the supervisor/s) acts as opponent. A discussion about the project usually follows with other professors and students. In my case there were 15 people and I obtained critical feedback for my project, from professors and students. For these I’m very grateful.

Here it is my presentation, not all slides were presented as I didn’t want to surpass the 25 minutes. I had some technical problems, but of course with presentations, we always have to count on Murphy’s Law.

Anyways, I welcome any other idea.

Economic crisis… blame the MBA’s?

This week I listened to an article on NPR (American public radio) which suggests that the MBA’s were highly implicated in this economic crisis (click on “listen now” 7 min. article). If you consider that all CEO’s, CFO’s, economic planners, and many influential politicians (including presidents) had earned their MBA’s from these prestigious schools, have they not been infected with some type of hard core capitalist virus? Have they not been thinking about making profits instead of creating real wealth for the society?
Of course, the professors of business schools declare in their interviews how stupid it is to put the blame on them. Actually for me, it does not make a lot of sense to blame their education to what has been happening all around the world and all types of industries. However I would say they are guilty of something.
First of all, I should say I probably have a bias. My background is in business studies and economics, however I mingle with many economist, who having been disenchant with the mainstream economic have entered the realm of Economic Geography. When I could have done an MBA in United States or Spain, I preferred to go to Scandinavia to do a Masters of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, with a good dosage of Evolutionary Economics.
Where I think they’re guilty is on not having told their student enough about economic cycles (see my previous post to get an idea). That businesses and economies come and go, surge and plunge. I have several friend in the US and Spain with MBA’s, I know their classes and I believe this is somewhat missing. I mean, it’s something really basic. You don’t grow in a linear way. Economic growth, should be more understood as Economic evolution. You can’t make a business plan of how a business it’s going to evolve. Stories that have been told for ever (the 7 fat and 7 lean cows anyone?) were discontinued. This never ending economic growth mentality, not only happened in the mentality all across the industries, also happened with the Goverments, and the majority of the citizens.
So NPR’s article while is wrong, goes in the right direction. However, many blame the economists for having created all this bubble, and not having predicted it. But I actually believe the problem is that we don’t have, in our business schools, society and government, enough real economics.