Where ideas come from

by | Nov 24, 2010 | Influence and networks

…according to Seth Godin:

  1. Ideas don’t come from watching television
  2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
  3. Ideas often come while reading a book
  4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
  5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
  6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
  7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
  8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner’s mind. A little awareness is a good thing
  9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
  10. Ideas come from trouble
  11. Ideas come from our ego, and they do their best when they’re generous and selfless
  12. Ideas come from nature
  13. Sometimes ideas come from fear (usually in movies) but often they come from confidence
  14. Useful ideas come from being awake, alert enough to actually notice
  15. Though sometimes ideas sneak in when we’re asleep and too numb to be afraid
  16. Ideas come out of the corner of the eye, or in the shower, when we’re not trying
  17. Mediocre ideas enjoy copying what happens to be working right this minute
  18. Bigger ideas leapfrog the mediocre ones
  19. Ideas don’t need a passport, and often cross borders (of all kinds) with impunity
  20. An idea must come from somewhere, because if it merely stays where it is and doesn’t join us here, it’s hidden. And hidden ideas don’t ship, have no influence, no intersection with the market. They die, alone.

Are developed economies the risky bets now?

by | Nov 22, 2010 | Economics and development, Global system

The FT’s John Authers was asking a pretty seminal question last week:

Do we have the emerging markets all wrong? When money goes into China, Brazil and other hot destinations in the emerging world, traders call it a “risk on” trade. Whenever investors feel comfortable about taking risks, the emerging markets benefit.

But could the emerging world now be a destination for those looking for security? That is what the credit markets say. Either they are wrong and emerging market credit is in an incipient bubble, or we need to turn received wisdom on its head.

Credit default swaps put a precise number on the risk the market attaches to default by different countries. This is expressed as the percentage cost of insuring a country’s debt against default within five years. So, for example, the chart shows that insuring against a sovereign default by the UK in the next five years will cost you 0.6 per cent of the principal. For Spain, caught up in a crisis of confidence, this will cost you 2.56 per cent: so the market views a Spanish default as much more likely than a UK default (and does not think that either is very likely).

What is fascinating is the market’s comparative judgment of the risk in emerging markets. Insuring against a default in China is exactly as expensive as in the UK – 0.6 per cent. The list of countries deemed safer than Italy (1.82 per cent) includes Mexico, Brazil and Chile, Russia, and even Indonesia (1.39 per cent).

A long way from lofty Lisbon

by | Nov 20, 2010 | Conflict and security, Global system

 

Karzai and NATO agree on a four year transition plan for handover of security. Source: NATO

 

Here in Lisbon at the 2010 NATO summit, President Karzai and NATO leaders today agreed a transition plan that will transfer security responsibility to Afghan security forces (ANSF). 4,000 miles away, the Afghan public are doubtful that the ANSF will actually be ready to assume this responsibility by 2014.

In a survey published yesterday by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), 61% of respondents in Helmand and Kandahar believe the ANSF will be unable to provide post-transition security. The survey interviewed 1500 Afghans in southern and northern Afghanistan, and reports that 56% believe Afghan police are helping the Taliban and 25% believe that police end up joining the Taliban.

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