Competitiveness and Its Implications For Saudi Arabia

This week my work in Riyadh was interrupted by the Global Competitiveness Forum - the fourth of its kind and a rather large event. The forum focuses on the global economy in the framework of competitiveness. To explain it in a sentence, competitiveness is attempting to make the pie bigger, as opposed to competition, which seeks to get each party a bigger slice of the pie (these terms may end up in [Jabberwocky]).

I was treated to some thought provoking panels on the economic recovery (including the CEO of Blackstone), a talk by Michael Dell, a lecture by Michael Porter and the celebrated appearance of Tony Blair (who stood us up the first time because he had a meeting with the King...):


All in all the Saudis proved gracious hosts and are doing very well in many competitiveness rankings (they've moved from 67 to 13 in "ease of doing business" over the past three years). Times they are a-changin. Maybe.

Welcome Back To Earth

I was lucky enough last weekend to help host the SFS-Qatar crowd's trip to Dubai. It really takes tourists to help you appreciate the ridiculousness of this emirate. One of my Doha friends ran the Dubai marathon, so we all went out to cheer him on and then partook in Friday Brunch.

Saturday we stood on top of the world after climbing Mt. Everest. Nope. After riding an elevator to the observation deck of the Burj Dubai.

You get in the elevator and there are two buttons:

Might as well say "Ground" and "Space". The elevator ride takes all of 30 seconds and before you know it you are looking north from the Burj out at Dubai:

You can then walk around and look south towards the Burj Al Arab and the Palm Jumeirah:

Yup. It's tall. And when you get back in the elevator and head down, the operator greets you with a hearty "Welcome Back To Earth."

Jabberwocky (I)

This post begins a new series exploring the muddled world of consulting jargon. Such slang is not particular to my company, though I hear dialects do form, but is common across many firms and business schools. Slang is particularly clever, and particularly useless, when borrowed from other realms of use.

In my first few weeks as a consultant, I came across a few phrases that I abhorred, or at least could not figure out. An example:

Jargon: "Let's bake it in."
Usage: "That's a great piece of research. Let's bake it into section 4 to complete the story."
Meaning: To use
Realm of legitimate use: Confectionary
Justification for using jargon: None

The spur for this post came from a conversation I had today about setting up a meeting. At no point was the word "meeting" used. Instead I was asked:

Person: "What's your bandwidth like tomorrow?"
Me: "What?"
Person: "Your bandwith? Tomorrow?"
Me: "I use DSL?"
Person: "When are you free tomorrow?"
Me: "Oh. 2pm."

To translate that conversation, let us use the framework from before:

Jargon: "Bandwidth"
Usage: "What's your bandwidth tomorrow? We've got a client coming into the office."
Meaning: Free time
Realm of legitimate use: Information and Communications Technology. Should not be used to categorize humans.
Justification for using jargon: None/To sound baller?

Oops, I've got to run. My bandwidth is limited tonight and I've got to bake this new deck into my workstream.

Quality of Life Index

International Living Magazine came out with its Quality of Life Index last week, ranking 194 countries on cost of living, culture, comfort, security and a few other indicators. Below are a few selected entries:

1. France - apparently France is awesome. I think it's unemployment handouts alone account for this ranking
2. Australia
3. Switzerland
...
7. USA
The OECD fills out the top 25.

Then things get a bit more interesting:
140. North Korea
141. United Arab Emirates

Looks like I should go vacation in Pyongyang.

*This ranking is a bit skewed for my situation. I'm sure the UAE fell due to poor freedom indicators and human rights abuses, most of which don't apply to me (see previous posts "Justice Fail" and "Justice Fail II". My quality of life is actually pretty good right about now. Although I'm stressing about whether I'm going to spend tomorrow at the beach or the pool...

Justice Fail II

...and this is where I live.

Apparently torture is cool, if you know the right people:

Justice Fail

not sure if i should be posting this..

but if you were thinking about visiting Dubai, here's one reason you may not want to.

PS: I don't read huffpost

MSFS Goes to Saudi

Some Gtown MSFS students are spending a week in Saudi and blogging about their impressions: http://saudiarabia2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/flight-arrival-in-riyadh.html

"After some awkward moments in the immigration line when we were allowed to cut in front of hundreds of people standing in complete silence..." they write as they get used to being first-class citizens. I bet by week's end they'll have a hard time remembering exactly why we value equality so highly...

What is Consulting?

I was peppered with this question whilst in the States. A good question, and one that I couldn't really answer. So, I decided to provide an illustrative example instead. I hope that the following "A Day in the Life" format will help you understand just what consulting is:

7:50 am - Consult alarm clock. Hit Snooze.

8:00 am - Re-consult alarm clock. Get ready for work.

8:25 am - Consult kitchen cabinet for breakfast options.

8:45 am - Implement action plan for arriving at work.

9:00 am - Research things.

11:00 am - Consultation call with team leader in Saudi Arabia.

1:00 pm - Lunch / Social consultations with co-workers.

2:00 pm - General consulting activities which can include but are not limited to: drawing on whiteboards, creating spreadsheets, the use of strategy frameworks.

5:30 pm - Create Powerpoint deck consolidating previous research and consulting activities. Add pretty colors.

7:15 pm - I make a really significant impact, and get home by 7:15.

I hope that was illuminating. For more on consulting, you may want to check out THIS INFORMATIVE VIDEO.

Back in the DXB

After an epic airplane adventure, I got back to Dubai a couple nights ago to find the Burj Dubai under attack! From bailout money. For months now we've been speculating as to what exactly Abu Dhabi got in return for its $10 billion gift to service Dubai World's debt. Rumors ranged from control of Emirates Airlines to a shift in the border between the two city-states. And when Sheikh Mohammed unveiled the Burj as the Burj Khalifa (named after Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE and ruler of Abu, we all knew. That's got to be a major blow to Sheikh Mo's ego. But it's still the tallest building in the world so he'll take it.

I wasn't sure what my reaction would be to being back in Dubai, after spending a couple weeks with so many old friends. But it's like being back to normal. I enjoy my 8-minute walking commute to work and like that my office is located on a college campus where there's always people milling about.***! And the cashier at the Indian place where I get lunch three days a week asked me how my break was and accurately counted the length of my vacation. I need to find more diverse lunch options...

I also came back to find that I have a case! I'm not yet privy to the level of confidentiality of the case so I'm not going to write anything about it just yet, suffice it to say I'll be spending the next two months in beautiful, sunny Maui! nope. Bali! nope. Saudi Arabia!

***!Our office is adjacent to the University of Wollongong Dubai. APPARENTLY this is the school in the UAE that our favorite would-be-terrorist-underwear-Nigerian-bomber-man went to school. I probably ate in the same food court as him. Blows my mind.