OXFORD Revisited

I’d visited Oxford several times before. The first visit, about 12 years earlier, was part of a BBC course to orientate World Service newcomers about Great Britain and the BBC. We visited famous colleges like Christ Church and St John’s--- all of the touristy, pretty parts of the town. But to their credit, the tour organizers made sure we saw the deprived parts such as Blackbird Leys, so that we did not go away with a one-dimensional, prettified view of Oxford.

There is real poverty, particularly in northern pockets of the town. So while on Friday nights the streets are awash with late-teen children of the great and good of Great Britain learning to get drunk on cheap lager, there are other, life-toughened children from poorer families who already know how to.

It’s a striking contrast. Henry will leave Balliol College with the self-confidence that the well bred and well educated have, and take path to sure success, probably in the City or at the Bar. Henry from Blackbird will tread his own, predetermined path. There are exceptions, of course, but it’s a terrible indictment on the British schooling system that there aren’t enough.

Anyway enough of this downbeat stuff. Oxford is a very beautiful, historic town. As Andrey and I walked back to Saïd after registering at St Anne’s College, Andrey, a Muscovite, kept shaking his head and laughing. “It’s like out of a fairy tale”, he said. Up to a point, yes. Oxford can do grungy and filthy with the best of them. But the green, open spaces of some of the college grounds are magnificent.

EMBA 6 has really taken to Oxford. Colleges are a unique part of life in old university towns like this one and Cambridge. Scarves with the college crests were bought. Barbara rather ostentatiously flaunted her distinct green and white Jesus College scarf. She allowed me to wear it for a while.

We quickly sussed out the watering holes— special mention must go to the indefatigable Warren. The catalyst for much of the social activity after class, and sharp, focused, properly read and prepared next morning.

Just past Trinity College on the other side of the road is The Turf, the famous pub. It’s like a labyrinth— a maze of cozy little rooms. Quaint. Old. Very English. Some good lagers and bitters there, and sign boasting that this was the pub where Bill Clinton famously did not inhale. My favourite bitter is Village Idiot.

OXFORD Numbers game

I took the GMAT in November. There was blood on the exam room floor. Mine. It's not like conventional tests--- the computer adjusts itself to your answers, and gives you questions according to how well you're doing. A machine sizes up in no time how much you don't know. How chastening is that?

My score was actually decent considering the fact that I was in an above average percentile, hadn’t used algebraic concepts in more than two decades, and had had only 3 days preparation. No matter. Afterwards I felt like I'd gone 10 rounds with a sprightly lightweight.

I hit ball out of the park for the verbal stuff. But I got mugged by Maths. Decision Science, Module 2 at Oxford, should be interesting.

I did study Mining Engineering as an undergrad many moons ago but I'd always felt I made a mistake not choosing to major in History. Don't ask. Let's just say I found my way back to something I liked and to which I felt well-matched: journalism.

A world-class management degree makes sense at this stage. It'll hopefully help make the next managerial step a significant one. Besides, it's not like I haven't been on speaking terms with the quantitative stuff all these years. I'd had budget responsibility as a manager, particularly at the BBC, so I knew basic accounting and balance sheets.

The relationship has deepened since I decided to launch myself as an independent media and training consultant, actually won contracts, and had to learn quickly the rudiments of running your own business.

Besides getting my pads on for the academic game feels great. There are some seriously bright people here. The brain wattage in the room could light up Manhattan for a week. The quality of the classroom teaching is high too. Think I'll enjoy this.

OXFORD EMBA's profits

Finance lecturer Alan Morrison was teaching a class on Finance, Rationality and the Profit Motive, and made reference to the AOL/Time Warner merger. Then he asked in a by-the-way sort of way, “anyone here familiar with this merger?”


A cool California drawl came from the back of the class. “I worked with AOL/Time Warner”. Bob, an LA man with close ties to film and music industries and one of the quiet men of class, spoke knowledgably about the effects of the merger in back and forth with Alan for a few minutes.


Later the subject of Vodafone-Mannesmann came up. Again, the question. “Anyone here from Vodafone?” Ahmed put his hand up. “I work for Vodafone”. Ahmed was from Egypt, had worked in Italy, and his frequent trips negotiating partner deals for Vodafone took him virtually everywhere east of Beirut. Again, a knowledgeable dissection of the merger. From the class.

That’s when I knew I’d made the right decision— to go Executive MBA and not the MBA. There are solid arguments for going MBA.


One year instead of nearly two

Singular focus on an academic year out of work, instead of mixing work and study


The small difference of £15K or so
 


The advantages of the EMBA were

Not having to give up the job completely

A more manageable programme for people who’d not performed at an academic gig for a long time

Experienced classmates who’d done a lot professionally--- who could credibly talk the talk

Listening to Bob and Ahmed in class just confirmed what was already clear— there was some serious mental and professional firepower in the room, and not all of it was Alan’s.


There are robust and incisive contributions. Adrian from Romania is regarded as our resident capitalist. A former hedge fund manager, you listen when he talks about financing or capital-raising.

When he or Clive (Cuban consultant) put their hand up and tell the lecturer, “I don’t agree”, the teacher knows that his position is going to undergo some serious examination. Those interactions are priceless--- except when they delay the coffee or piss break.

Alvar, Estonian/American and a whiz at finance, is easily one of the sharpest guys I’ve ever met anywhere. Matt, a Houston lawyer, probably knows more about copyright law than some lecturers. He rarely talks in class. Invited by the instructor to explain an intellectual property case, he’ll do so with dazzling clarity. As will Barbara, South African/Greek/Polish corporate lawyer.

I might learn something if I shut up and listen.

OXFORD First Impressions

I first set foot in Saïd Business School in November for my admissions interview. Stephan Chambers, Executive MBA Director, was my sole interrogator. It was a tough interview: he was sharp and had prepared well. I’d had an easier time with interview panels of three. He gave me a hard time about the BBC's funding model--- something I would come across again from professors who had clear ideas about income generation, profit and loss. Not a lot of sympathy for the public, license fee funding model, nor the fact that the BBC did not have to fight for ad dollars in a recession.

Stephan eventually homed in two things I myself had reservations about: my frequent travel for work— how would I successfully navigate the demands of the programme? Most of my recent work related travel had been to the US to cover the primaries and general election, and now that that was over, I said, I’d be doing far more studio presentation.

The second was how I’d cope with the demanding quantitative component, seeing that my barely used engineering background was a long time in the past. I allowed that I was preparing for GMAT and getting a good sense of where I stood on algebraic matters.

I came back to Saïd Business School later that month, to cover the Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford event. I’m a techie, and had done technology pieces for and presented the World Service’s technology programme. Talking with the guys like Biz Stone, the founder of Twitter and Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn, was like giving a greedy kid the keys to the chocolate shop.

I liked what I saw at Saïd.

The quality of the lecture theatres was first-rate. I’d looked at some other schools in London and at Columbia in New York, and Saïd’s teaching facilities were as good as any I’d seen.

I like the aesthetics of the building— brick, pale wood and glass modernism and high ceilings along the lecture theatre corridor.

The stone courtyard and the amphitheatre above look inviting. I had the feeling that as the days grew longer and, especially in the spring and summer, I’d really enjoy being at there.

Some people hate the building, as I’ll show more fully in a later post. That muted mood lighting in the evening may look great along lecture theatre row but it doesn’t quite work for the library at night. MBAs and undergrads, who spend a longer time at Saïd Business School than we Executives do, find it wholly inadequate. And Saïd is at the ugly end of town.

Still, I like the look and feel of the building and facilities. I hope we get an open air class in the amphitheatre in the summer. Never taken classes in sunglasses.

AMERICAo8 Final dispatch

This article was published by the Barbados Nation newspaper on Monday 17th November,2008

Changes of power can be brutal. In our countries there’s no meaningful transition period. You lose the election on Monday and you could be out of the official residence by Wednesday. Your winning opponent is sworn in it seems before you’ve properly cleared out your desk.

America’s two-and-a-half month transition is understandable. With all due respect to Thompson and Arthur it’s a much bigger job than running Barbados.

Another difference is term limits. Two was all that Bush could have, so he’s been mentally prepared to go for a long time. Bush’s job is bigger and harder, but the jolt to Arthur will arguably be greater.

The long transition means that Barack Obama like his predecessors will have a chance to build his team, to get detailed, top-secret intelligence briefings on the country’s gravest security threats and to formulate his policies.

From a Caribbean point of view, three things need to happen.

The first is that Caribbean leaders need to get in his face. Obama, half-Kenyan who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, is an internationalist by reflex, and in theory should be receptive to engagement. I haven’t seen any signs that the Caribbean is part of his thinking.

It could, if as is widely being speculated, he makes Hillary Clinton his secretary of state. The Caribbean’s friends on Capitol Hill, representatives Charles Rangel, Yvette Clarke and Gregory Meeks, were strong Clinton supporters during the Democratic nomination process and not close to Obama.

They would have Hillary’s ear. Clarke has been pushing the argument that the Caribbean islands are an extension of the homeland, and that they should be part of Homeland Security reckoning. America is safer, she argues, if more is done to close the drug shipment corridors, and to bring more stability to Haiti.

An unstable Haiti means more illegal immigration, a greater chance of becoming a narco-facilitating state and makes for a more porous southern frontier.

The second thing that needs to be done is to get the Caribbean on America’s development radar. The problem with the Caribbean is that it’s not poor or underdeveloped enough--- Africa is considered more deserving of American and other international aid; rightly so according to the usual measurements like per-capita income.

I don’t hear too much talk from the Caribbean these days of a “vulnerability index”, as I did back at the Barbados Small Island Developing Countries Summit (SIDS) in 1994. Yes, we’re rich relative to Sub-Saharan Africa, regional policy makers had argued, but that prosperity could be wiped out in an instant by a natural disaster like an Exxon Valdez (oil spill) or a hurricane.

Ivan in Grenada is a prime example. My experience of asking hard questions after hurricanes is that the normal reflex is to underplay the scale of damage to protect the tourism industry. It is a reflex that should be resisted, not just with disasters, but the credit crisis that is biting hard in some countries.

Obama is busy bailing out Wall Street and Detroit and money is tight but again, the argument could be made that a secure Caribbean (financially and otherwise) means a secure America.

Can Caribbean leaders get their face-time? Obama is the most globally popular US incumbent in living memory. Everyone wants a sprinkling of the O-stardust. They’ll have their work cut out.

Third, Obama will have to close the Guantanamo detention centre quickly to avoid early disappointment in his presidency by supporters. A Harvard trained former law professor, he has been a consistent critic of Guantanamo, detention without trial, and approved torture methods like waterboarding.

Those on the right argue that once Obama sees the intelligence, he’ll realise that some of the men being held at Guantanamo are very dangerous terrorists.

Others on left counter that if you know they’re so bad, you shouldn’t have a problem convicting them in civilian courts.

Obama will have to upset one of them. The greater harm to his reputation would be upsetting his supporters who expect him to end a practice they think has damaged America’s legal and diplomatic standing in the world.

Finally a word on George W Bush. His national and international approval rating is low, but in some countries in Africa, Bush is credited with doing a great job in fight against AIDS. I’m one of those (in the minority it seems) who don’t buy the notion that he’s unintelligent.

He’s sharp (I’ve heard at first hand from people who have met him) with an easy charm, if dismissive towards those who don’t share his point of view and grammatically muddled. By many accounts he possesses the utter certainty of the privileged, elite school educated--- a certainty unencumbered by actual facts.

Bush’s presidency is mostly being judged a failure by the commentariat. I’m going to leave his policies for others to assess. I think that Bush, MBA Harvard, failed in management. He has damaged two main Republican claims. Iraq undermined the first that they’re the party of sound management, and the financial crisis and national debt the second--- that they’re the party of fiscal prudence.

AMERICAo8 Election day

This article was published by the Barbados Nation newspaper

I'd have had to have a heart of stone not to feel choked by the moment. I'm here to tell you that my ticker is in good working order.

As we watched on Tuesday night, the result of the US presidential election was not in doubt once Barack Obama had been declared the winner of Pennsylvania. Clearly, mathematically, there was no way back for John McCain, but once the decisive California result came in at 11pm Eastern Time, the power of the announcement that Obama had crossed the line hit like a punch in stomach.

I reported the endgame from New York. This great city heaved electric anticipation. It'd easy to look back nearly a week later and think Obama's election was inevitable, but it did not feel that way earlier in the day.

Yes the polls showed a comfortable lead, but there was a strong sense here that John McCain could win, regardless of what the pollsters were saying. Caution ruled. There were a lot of people who were, like novelist Terry McMillan would say 'waiting to exhale".

Hundreds of thousands gathered in Harlem, at Rockefeller Plaza and Times Square. African students at Columbia University, Obama's alma mater, gathered around a TV screen. At Nyati Lounge, a Kenyan bar in nearby Jersey City, patrons knocked back beer while watching the returns on TV. It felt like New Year's eve, the millennium and the World Cup finals rolled into one.

Walking down to Times Square afterwards, there was still a crowd there at 1am. People of all colours were wearing Obama buttons, hats, caps and t-shirts and waving US flags.

The results scrolled by on the giant ABC news billboard. A giant image of Obama's beaming face filled the giant screen. People cheered as if they were hearing the results for the first time. They waved flags at passing cars. Drivers honked their horns back.

A young white guy draped me in a giant US flag and told me that I could have it. I told him I couldn't possibly take his prized possession.

These dispatches from the campaign trail have tried to be objective, and I hope you think that they've succeeded. Yet I have to report what I see and feel, and in my election night reaction I was not alone.

Juan Williams, an analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News, is not an Obama sympathizer. A prominent Black reporter and a tough and consistent critic, he'd said before that he "gets beat up because I treat Obama as a politician as opposed to the rock star image. People think you should be a fan"

But reacting to the announcement in the heat of the moment, he was choked and fighting it.

"I don't care how you feel about him politically, on some level you have to say this is America at its grandest, the potential, the possibility, and what it says for our children."

Jesse Jackson marched with Martin Luther King. He'd crossed swords with Obama this campaign, once threatening to rip out his manhood. All that was forgotten Tuesday night. The TV pictures him with tears streaming down his face were heartrending. It was hard to watch and keep your composure.

It was a global event, and as I've said here before, if the rest of the world had a vote, Obama would win in a lopsided Communist landslide.

He's riding a wave of unprecedented global goodwill, and that could be a problem. Expectations in America and abroad are high, probably too high. Colin Powell said he had the potential to be "transformational". He already is. His even, unflappable temperament, judicious decision-making and his evident intellect, are signs that he could in time be regarded as a great president.

But we'd all do well to remember the experience of Britain's Tony Blair. His election in 1997 felt like Christmas to Labour supporters.10 years later he'd become one of the most loathed figures on the left because of his support for Bush's war in Iraq. Few of the people who danced at his election were sad to see him hand over to Gordon Brown.

Comparisons are imperfect, and Obama's world view suggests that his chances of selling an unpopular war are low. But the point here is that expectations of him are high.

He's doing the world's hardest job and will inevitably make compromises. He will get things wrong. He WILL disappoint. And those who will feel that disappointment most acutely are some of his most fervent supporters now.

And when that happens, the likes and me and Juan Williams won't be pulling our punches.