अमेरिकन Business

Godan dayin keneri,

one of the things about being alone in a foreign land is that you suddenly find that you have hours of spare time that simply aren't available at home. So what do you do with all that life that suddenly lands in your lap with no commitments to fill it?

I guess that depends on what you are made of and what is pre-occupying you at the time.

For some it involves beer, fags and a canoodle in a dodgy bar filled with ex-pat oil workers and lady boys. For others there is the opportunity to go shopping with abandon. Then again there are the solitary types who hike mountains and masturbate frantically in the privacy of their sleeping bags. Yet again there are others who take the opportunity to go sight seeing and absorb some local culture.

This time for me it has been a voyage of discovery; a vertitable orgy of indulgence; I have finally read some new books.

However, it's not all good. As is often the case I picked up the tomes ta Heathrow in the Borders shop there and not being inclined to read Jeffrey "plagiarist" Archer I decided to try and fill in the gaps regarding doing business in the modern world.

As you may know there are a plethora of books that claim to teach you how to make millions or fix companies or manage networks or any of that other corporate crap when in fact they all have one thing in common: one idea expanded and reiterated ad infinitum.

It's kind of interesting that most of these books ignore what they purport to tell us. I mean how many Internet marketing books are there? Book - Internet...? Some dichotomy there I think.

Then there are the enticing quotes on the gate folds - "brilliant.. A masterpiece .. every CEO should read this book..." etc. All total bullshit. These little nuggets are the synopsis of a book and of an entire ideology. The ideology of instant gratification.

I want to tell you that they do not and will not work for you or your organisation. They are simply another pile of pulped paper that would be better used in art classes for 5 year olds.

Take for instance the last one I read - THE TIPPING POINT by Malcolm Gladwell. The bullet points on the cover say, " fascinating" twice, nay thrice! whilst the reality is that the entire thing is dedicated to trying to justify a spurious theory that fads are akin to epidemics. He has three new terms to pontificate about and an interminable analysis of Sesame Street and Blues Clues - I kid you not.

Now that may be fascinating and relevent to the makers of kids TV but it has not the slightest bearing on how anyone else does business - although he does try tp make Hush Puppies some kind of uber-brand.

So I guess what all that means is that most of the stuff you read is totally irrelevent and/or useless.

Sadly there are sufficient numbers of graduates in big companies who rely on these kinds of books so that they can impress their bosses with the new ideas. Unfortunately the bosses are too damn busy to read them for themselves so experience is subsumed in a wave of "modern" thinking which is 99% useless.

Which brings me on to the basis of this rant and that is that American / Western business practises are about to be dealt a body blow by the East.

In the past few days in Singapore I have read a lot of stuff about various markets that I have little knowledge of and I have to say that I am massively impressed with what I have come across.

Did you know for example that Singapore, The Philippines, Malaysia and India are all in the middle of huge property booms? Singapore has more than doubled in the past year alone.

Now there is a great deal of action by foreign companies here - Citibank - HSBC and so but there is an equal amount of action going the other way. Did you know that the ousted PM of thailand is trying to buy an English soccer club? Just like the Americans are doing? Perhaps that will be the battlefield where the lines are first drawn - America v Russia v Asia using African and S American troops. Sounds ominously like 1984 to me!

The difference I have seen on my many visits to Asia is that people here are ready and willing to learn about how we Westerners think whilst Westerners are almost all in the dark when it comes to figuring out what makes Asians tick. That is a legacy of empire and the unwavering belief that we are right.

We aren't. At least not always.

So the business school models that teach us all about profit and loss and corporate legacy and so on are going to have to change and change quickly. Much as Microsoft will loose out to Linux and ipods so will Citibank fall to the claws of an emerging and dynamic asian tiger where longterm planning take over from short term gain.

You can already see it in the UK where the richest man is Mr Mittal - an Indian, followed by 2 Brits and a Russian, and an Iraqi Jew and 2 more Indians. Pretty soon you will be amazed to find that 7-11 in downtown Montana now sells shells made in Amritzar, beef jerky from Phnom Phen and the latest Chinese chart hits for download on your Tawaniese made cell watch and nano computer. (wanc for short - made by the wanc corporation of Dubai).

America and the West have an unflinching belief in their systems and methods but I can't see why. they don't even work in the home states so why on earth would they translate across continents?

There is a definitive list of certainties in this world and it is this:

DEATH
TAXES

I would also like to add one more vital element to this combination; shit.

You will die; you will be taxed; and you will continue to shit until it is all over and even then you will probably manage to squeeze one more turd from the passage of time.

All else is maleable and transient.

So before you get too concerned about your career and life aspirations take these items as the basis of your creed and try to adapt to the new world. It could be better than you think and I for one would rather eat a curry than a Big Mac anyday - even if the last turd before my passing requires a loo roll in the fridge.

see you in paradise parishioners.