James Drogan

Managing the Business is a paper I submitted to and was accepted by the Third Annual Conference on Cutting Edge Issues in Shipping, Maritime College, February 1, 2008.

Abstract

The ebb and flow of global business and the compression of time converge to present a business environment of increasing complexity and uncertainty. Prior management principles and practices are continually battered by the global forces at play.

Transportation cannot escape these pressures inasmuch as it is a derived demand, the golden thread upon which the world relies for the free, fast, reliable worldwide exchange of items of value such as goods and services; money; information, ideas, and news; and culture.

This paper examines ideas for contending with these global forces.

I have been struck by a couple of articles that I have read over the last few days.  Struck in the sense that first, "Somewhere over the rainbow" from the January 26th - February 1st issue of The Economist, represents a view of state of the world that seems to be dramatically at variance with the view that one would form from reading and listening to MSM (main stream media).

"In a week of financial uncertainty we look behind the headlines to a world that is unexpectedly prosperous and peaceful"

This view is, and perhaps I'm too cynical here, not what sells newspapers and gets listeners to tune in to the talk shows.  In a sense, MSM is becoming little more than a sophisticated set of fire engine chasers.   That's not what we need.  We need to better understand the world and MSM is not very helpful in that regard.

Second,"Waving Goodbye to Hegemony" in the  January 27th New York Times Magazine postulates a useful, in the sense that it should stir thinking and discussion, alternative future.

'Just a few years ago, America’s hold on global power seemed unshakable. But a lot has changed while we’ve been in Iraq — and the next president is going to be dealing with not only a triumphant China and a retooled Europe but also the quiet rise of a ‘‘second world.’’'

This also seems to go against the grain of MSM thinking. 

Reality bites (as those who have dabbled in synthetic investments are discovering), but must nevertheless be dealt with.  Wishing doesn't make things true.

What is and will be true is function of the quality of one's ability to sense, interpret, decide, act, and learn.  The responsibility for these abilities is increasingly falling to the individual.

From Boing Boing comes "Library of Congress dumps a ton o' pix on Flickr," a brilliant example, I think, of harnessing knowledge through the 'net to create a greater level of understanding.

Kudos to the Library of Congress. 

The photos can be found here.   They are from the WW II era.

From Greg Mankiw's blog comes this article, repeated here in its entirety.

"NY Times columnist David Brooks writes:

One of the best pieces of career advice I ever got is: Interview three people every day. If you try to write about politics without interviewing policy makers, you’ll wind up spewing all sorts of nonsense.

Brooks was not talking about economists in particular, but this piece of wisdom can be taken as a critique of much of the economics profession. Many economists who write about policy rarely, if ever, encounter actual policymakers. Instead, they prefer to sit in the comfort of their ivory tower offices. (I know I do.)

I wonder how different the economics profession would be if economists were expected to do a year of service outside of academia or, at the very least, if university hiring committees rewarded a year of real-world experience as the equivalent of, say, a couple of academic publications. My conjecture is that the profession would be less creative but more useful."

It's not just the economists that need a taste of the real world on a regular basis, but all policy makers and, beyond them, all teachers.