Confirmation that I am the ladies choice

Great news! I finally have irrefutable evidence that Ilube is the ladies choice.

I know many of you have thought this for some time, but now there is hard evidence to back it up.

Okay, perhaps that's not the same Ilube. Mind you, it's cooler to be the ladies choice than to be a lubricant for dry eye conditions.

Having said that, I prefer being an eye lubricant than a biomass project in Slovakia or a socio-linguistic research project. But I guess I don't get to make these choices. If you've got a name that lends itself to a wide range of products and services, you get used to it. But for the avoidance of doubt, let me explain where the name ILUBE originally comes from.

To do this, I need to tell you a story that goes back to the tail end of the 19th Century. A young lad in what is now Nigeria, West Africa was hard at work under the hot sun, clearing bush to plant his seeds when he was "seized" by warriors. He was kidnapped, taken hostage by warriors from a rival tribe and taken into captivity.

The boy was dragged off to Urhobo land in modern day Delta State (which reminds me - if any of my Urhobo friends are reading this WILL YOU PEOPLE PLEASE STOP KIDNAPPING MY ANCESTORS!).

The young lad grew up amongst these Urhobo people as a captive/servant and he eventually married a local Urhobo/Itsekiri woman called Inene from a town called Okpara Waterside.

The couple's first three children were born there. Their second child, and first son, was a boy who was named, Oritseritseilubeye, which is an Itsekire name. Snappy name I know, and for day to day use it was shortened to ILUBE - a ha!

The couple settled down and engaged in fishing and trading commodities (not as in "BUY GOLD, SELL OIL" on the international markets but "buy fish, sell bananas" in the local market). At the time Inene was pregnant with their third child.

However, one day the captive lad who was now a grown man was at the market in Abraka when he overheard some traders speaking in his own language, Emai, that he had not heard for many years. After several months he plucked up courage to cultivate their acquaitance and eventually disclosed his true identity and how he came to be in this strange and distant place so far from "home".

This is now the first half of the 20th century and British Colonial administration was gradually creating an environment that made it more conducive for displaced persons, refugees, prisoners of inter-ethnic wars and slaves to migrate back to their ethnic areas.

Our hero determined to try to gain his release from his captors and make his way home. With his wife heavily pregnant, the local "Oracles" were consulted and revealed a surprising insight. The Oracles claimed that the unborn child would refuse to be born until a solemn promise was made that the child would be taken to its father's land.

This caused much panic particularly amongst Inene's family and in the circumstances Inene and her people, after a number of family conferences, eventually gave in and agreed that after the child was born, the family would be allowed to leave. The child, Itakhor, therefore agreed to be born and everything went smoothly.

However about 6 months after Itakhor's birth there was still no sign of the captors releasing the man and his family and Itakhor fell ill and refused to respond to the usual medication.

The Oracles were again consulted and not surprisingly the unfilfilled promise was quickly identified as the root cause for the child's illness. Rapid arrangements were made and, as the Oracles predicted, the child quickly recovered, so the family set off on the epic trip on foot through dangerous terrain back to Emai land. The baby Itakhor was strapped on to Inene's back, as is the custom, and young Oritseritseilubeye sat astride his fathers shoulders. The family set off at a pace set by the little daughter and oldest of the three children, Uledikun, on a dangerous journey that took several weeks, following a route and directions obtained from the Emai traders.

Years later Oritseritseilubeye or Ilube for short, now settled back in Emai-land, had children of his own and as is sometimes done, his sons decided to take his first name as their surname, thereby establishing the Ilube family. One of his sons is my father and you may not believe it but I actually met the lady Inene when I was very young and she was very, very, very old, blind and simply terrifying.

So now you know the origins of the name Ilube. Mind you, that's not to say that I was wrong in my starting assumption. Oh yes, I'll say it again for the hard of hearing. I am indeed the ladies choice :)

Talking to strangers

Internet security types, like me, are always advising people to be wary about who you are talking to on the Web. We advise parents to tell their children not to talk to strangers, and rightly so. In particular we try to advise teenagers about "stranger danger".

So, why was I not surprised when I was told about a fairly new site, set up by a teen for teens that is sweeping across that generation like crazy.

Enter Omegle - tagline "Talk to Strangers". Yes, it's a site that encourages you to chat to strangers on the web immediately without any controls, restricitions, nanny-words about being safe etc. Just dive straight in and chat to strangers about nothing. Waste hours chatting to strangers.

At the same time as being slightly "creepy" it is a great lesson in targeting customer needs, if you are thinking of creating a start up. Start with your customer, in this case teenagers, and think about their requirements. Two stand out. One - Annoy your parents by doing the exact opposite of what they tell you to do. Two - achieve this whilst wasting time in an entirely non-productive way.

It's wierd and compelling and apparently loads of kids use it in an idle moment. Sitting near your computer and mind wandering? Reach over to Omegle, click the button, chat to a stranger amongst millions somewhere in the word. If it gets boring, disconnect and carry on staring at the lightbulb. Brilliant ! And spooky! No wonder its so popular.

It's interesting to see how kids use it too. They are quite brutal. If the conversation is threatening, wierd or boring they just press the "disconnect" button and start another chat with a new stranger. Perhaps there is some useful learning going on here on how to deal with annoying strangers online - you disconnect them without a second thought.

I was explaining it to some of my technical colleagues and they were dubious. They said they think you are not chatting to a real stranger. They think you are chatting to a robot, a piece of simple artificial intelligence software that is able to engage in a fairly believable conversation by reflecting comments back to you. So I thought I would put this to the test. Here's what I got (I am YOU and the stranger is STRANGER).

Omegle conversation log

2009-07-27

Connecting to server...

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

A word of advice: "asl" is boring. Please find something more interesting to talk about!

Stranger: hi

You: hi, are you a real person or a computer?

Stranger: i'm a real person u idiot! :)

Stranger: female or male?

You: yeh, that's what a bot would say

Stranger: haha

Stranger: okay then how are u doing?

You: i'm doing wednesday, u?

Stranger: not so much really..... what is wednesday?

You: i'm pretty certain you are a computer program

Stranger: okay then i dont want to talk to a person who thinks that i'm a computer program!! see u

You: hey don't go!

Stranger: why?

You: i am from the future

Stranger: haha! u are not funny

Stranger: are u a male?

You: sometimes, but only after 6am and on green days

Stranger: are u sure u are okay?? because it doesn't sound like that to me..... call a doctor!!

You: i am a doctor

Stranger: yeah..... how old are u... doctor?

You: the square root of pi minus the height of the moon

You have disconnected.

So, was I talking to a person or a Bot? I think it was a person but I'm still not 100% sure. Have a play with it and let me know what you think. Horrific or harmless fun? And if you get arrested for grooming teenagers don't blame me!

Bojangles Birthday

Somedays you must focus. Focus on the business, the fund raising, the revenue, the cost base, getting the PR right, wrestling with the technology.

Other days you focus on one thing and one thing only - yourself. Nothing else matters. Wake up selfish, be selfish all day and as midnight creepes towards you, let your selfish head rest on your selfish pillow, breath out and relax.

That day is called your birthday and today was Bojangles Birthday.

I woke up late and slowly opened my pile of presents. I love opening presents. It doesn't matter what they are, I just love opening them. I take my time. Prod them, rattle them, sniff them and then slowly unwrap them.

I wander off for a mid-morning breakfast with my wife. Full English and a steaming hot mug of tea.

I arrive at work just a few minutes before lunchtime and disrupt everyone by telling useless jokes and generally behave like a naughty schoolboy. Then I wander vaguely off to lunch with a couple of my favourite Professors and my Chairman. Sitting in a French cafe overlooking the River Thames in leafy Richmond, I laugh and joke with my mates until its time to drag ourselves back to the office.

I arrive back in the office in time for my two - yep, two - birthday cakes to be lit and then I settle down to an afternoon cuppa and a couple of slices of cake. A big piece of chocolate and an slice of the jam sponge one. By the time I had finished that it was nearly time to go home.

Got home in time to prepare to go to dinner with the family. A great turn out - it was going to be just the four of us but over twenty turned up. My mum, brothers and sisters and the kids turned out in force and we had a jolly time, taking over a restaurant that usually only gets about four diners on a typical evening.

Finally, I get home, make myself a jasmine tea, take a look at facebook, smile at the "happy birthdays" people have sent me and then settle down one last time for the day to listen to my old friend, Sammy Davis Jr, singing my tune - Mr Bojangles.

"He said his name was Bojangles, then he danced a lick
Right across the cell
He grabbed his pants, took a better stance, jumped up high
That's when he clicked his heels
Then he let go a laugh, Lord, he let go a laugh
Shook back his clothes all around

That was Mr. Bojangles, Mr. Bojangles
Mr. Bojangles, Lord, he could dance"

Today was my birthday and it was all about me :)

Play up! Play up! And play the game

Strategic planning for start ups is just a game. Literally, in our case. We don't do long term, 3 or 5 year strategic plans. We create a "Game" and then we play it full on. Play up! Play up! And play the game.

A lot of companies produce sophisticated 3 year plans, full of precise detail and copious spreadsheets. Business schools churn out battalions of MBAs capable of producing a 3 year plan at the drop of a hat.

But our approach is different. We define two things. One is the "Enduring Purpose" and the other is "The Game".

The Enduring Purpose gets defined once and never changes. It is a statement of why the company itself exists, what its ultimate purpose is. It is a single, clear, carefully thought through sentence and it is aspirational. You may never achieve it but that doesn't matter, it serves as a guiding light that you are constantly working towards.

The Game gets defined frequently. It typically has a 12 month timeframe, but it can be shorter (Garlik's current Game is a 6 month game) or longer. However its best to think in terms of 12 months.

The Game starts with a sentence, usually along the lines of "By the end of 2010, we will have...." and it needs to be a clear step towards achieving the Enduring Purpose.

Underneath the sentence or two that defines The Game you will write some Conditions of Satisfaction. There may be 3 to 5 conditions of satisfaction and these are the statements that make it clear how you will know whether you have "won" the game.

For example, if you are running an environmental company, GreenCo, then...

Enduring purpose..."GreenCo will change the world by giving families real power over their impact on the environment around them and inspiring them to reduce the harm they cause."

The Game..."By December 2009, GreenCo will launch its GreenHome online platform to consumers across three continents and establish itself as the leading player in consumer green issues".

Conditions of satisfaction....

a) GreenHome will be launched in USA, UK and India by December 2009
b) GreenCo will acquire a critical mass of users by December 2009
c) GreenCo will be recognised in the environmental industry as a thought leader in the USA

This whole structure should fit onto a single side of A4. If it's much longer than that then it probably isn't clear or focused enough to be useful. Underneath each condition of satisfaction, you will list 1 to 3 "measures" that make it absolutely clear what you mean by "critical mass" for example or "recognised in the ... industry".

The final step is to allocate accountabilities to each condition of satisfaction. Whilst there may be several people involved in each item, you need to give someone (including yourself) the primary accountability to hit that CoS.

The process of putting this together should take you 2 to 3 days of debate and discussion and plenty of flipcharts and if you can you should tackle it off-site so that you can clear everyones mind of the hassles of the day to day. In fact you might want to start off by having some discussions that help people to get their immediate angst out of the way.

As you get into the debate, you and your leadership team should test each word to make sure it says what you mean it to say. Words are important here because you need to get clear on what matters to you. There may be some debate amongst the team about the wording so remember that ultimately the Chief Executive gets to decide and the rest of the team aligns behind the CEOs decision.

But what about years 2 and 3 I hear the MBA's chant. Don't worry about them. Play your Game full on for the short period you have defined and as you get to the end of that period, define the next Game, consistent with the Enduring Purpose, for the following period. Nothing matters except The Game.

So, Play up! Play up! And play the game, and everything else will look after itself.

Leo Sayer made me do it

Over the past 3 years we at Garlik have put a lot of effort into building a state of the art semantic technology platform. We raised millions of pounds from hard nosed VCs, hired brilliant software engineers, bought bucket loads of servers and developed some pretty impressive software.

And then last week, we took the core bit of technology (something called an RDF store for the geeks amongst you) and GAVE IT AWAY!

Yes, we released that software, 4store is it's name, as open source software, free for anyone, anywhere to download and use for whatever they want.

Why one earth did we do that? I hear you ask (not dissimilar to my investors reaction). Simple. Because Leo Sayer told me to. You see, I'm just a boy, giving it all away.

Actually, the real reason is that we want to help the semantic web grow by encouraging as many businesses and other organisations as possible to publish their data in the right way, so that it all links together into one huge web of linked data - the next generation of the web. They need tools to do this, we have those tools, so why not give them away and see what happens? That's how the web itself grew after all.

Within the first 48 hours, thousand people from all over the world have visited 4store.org and projects are springing up using the software. It's exciting. It makes me feel like dancing.

Sometimes when you do stuff like this, you can feel like a one man band. Nobody knows or understands. Is there anybody out there wanna lend a hand?

p.s. for those of you old enough to remember Leo Sayer, here's a bit of trivia for you. When he was a huge British pop star in the 70's he lived in Richmond...and my grandad, Maurice Christian, used to tune his piano! There, feel free to use that. It may come up in a pub quiz one day.

Who the hell are you, my friend?

Facebook and other social networks have highlighted a troubling social phenomenon that is causing people like me a real problem – “Asymmetric Memory Retention” or AMR.

AMR is the situation where you interact with someone who has a shared experience with you, but whereas one of you has a clear recall of what happened, the other has no memory of the event or even the other person at all. I’m not talking about a vague and distant recollection. I mean no trace at all.

Whilst AMR has existed forever, in the past the likelihood of you meeting someone who you had completely and utterly forgotten was very remote. But with the advent of Facebook, twitter and all the rest it is becoming increasingly common. We’ve all had that friend-request out of the blue from someone saying “Hey, Tom, you old rogue, remember that day with the red bowtie and the halibut?” But how are you supposed to handle that situation? What are the social norms of interaction when you are a victim of AMR?

To gain some insight into this, I turned to the academic literature on AMR. This turned out not to be very fruitful because I have only just this second invented and named the concept of AMR so no-one has actually studied it yet. However, I am confident that before I finish typing this blogpost, a Professor of AMR will emerge to challenge outdated notions of AMR treatment and present their own theory, along with a best-selling book entitled “Who the hell are you, my friend?”, on how to embrace the joys of AMR for fun and profit.

The issue popped up for me recently because I came across an ancient photo album containing scenes from my distant past – nearly 40 years ago. The picture above is me back then with my great friend, Raymond (who I do remember very well of course), aged about 9 or 10 I think. Some of these pictures I look at and remember exactly, in a very deep way. I couldn’t tell you the date, perhaps, but I remember not only the event but exactly how I felt. In fact when I look at them I am not observing them from the outside, I actually feel as if I am experiencing the events again. I looked at one and tears immediately welled up in my eyes, as the painful emotions I felt at the time reappeared.

However, there were some photos that I looked at as if I was a stranger. I could see my younger self standing there looking back at me, but I had no recollection at all of being there. That’s a very odd feeling.

It is even odder when you are contacted by someone who was in the photo, who knows you really, really well but you remember nothing at all of them. The face draws a blank however hard you stare. The name doesn’t ring the tiniest bell, the events are a complete mystery. You have no idea whether they are just lying or whether your memory has been wiped clear. We call this Deep AMR. I say “we” but I mean “me” as no-one else has heard of AMR, yet.

I am wrestling with just such a Deep AMR problem. I have a message and a friend request from someone that I have absolutely no recollection of, but they clearly know me very well so we must have hung out together at some point. Mind you I was a bit distinctive in my youth – I think I was the only “dark glasses with 5 inch afro, poncho and clog wearing physicist” hippie in West Africa at the time, so perhaps more people remember me than vice versa. But what is the correct social etiquette in this Deep AMR situation?

Do I come clean and say “sorry, old bean, I appreciate that you know me well but I have zero recollection of you, so we will have to start again as if we are complete strangers” Or do I bluff saying “hey, you old dog, how’s it hanging homie? Remind me about the good old days again” and hope that some glimmer of a memory of him returns.

It’s quite unsettling really and no doubt someone will tell me it’s the beginning of the onset of altissimo (I say “altissimo” because I tried to spell that word beginning with A that means you lose your memory but I mangled it so badly that the spell checker offered me altissimo instead and I liked the sound of it). But I don’t mind it. I find it fascinating and I’m wondering if I am the only silent AMR sufferer out there or whether Facebook is inflicting this previously hidden problem on loads of us.

The importance of being lazy

I was at a dinner a couple of weeks ago sitting next to a high powered Washington executive when a young investment banker came up.

"How's it going?" the Exec said. The young banker excitedly said "It's going great. I haven't had a single day off work for the last 6 weeks. I've worked straight through, including every saturday and sunday."

"Excellent" says the Exec. "My staff never go home before midnight. The other night I said goodnight to them at 3am and they just laughed and said "do you mean goodmorning, boss?".

They then both looked at me expectantly. "Ooooh", I said "Well, erm, well, sometimes I do up to 2 hours of productive work a day. On a good day of course". Phew, just listening to these two was wearing me out.

You see, I discovered something interesting a few years ago. It turns out that a lot of what we do at work is a complete waste of time. I reckon that if you work for a large corporate then 60% of what you do makes no difference to anyone anywhere and if you work for a start-up it's more like 40%. Fortunately your corporate competitors probably waste 70% of their effort so your 60% of non-productive effort is pretty good going.

You can do lots and lots of this timewasting stuff in the hope that if you do lots of stuff then you are probably doing a bit more useful stuff. Or you can try to figure out what the useful stuff is and just not bother to do the rest. That's what I try to do.

My strategy is to try to do ONE really high impact thing each day. One critical decision, one cut through phone call, one killer email, one transforming conversation. I know in myself when I've done something that really makes a difference and once I've done it, I relax. Sure, I'll do a few other things but knowing that I've done that ONE BIG THING is enough for me to declare that day a good day's work, even if it only took me 5 minutes.

Mind you, this strategy doesn't work if you kid yourself about whether the thing you did really was a high impact thing. You need to sit down, look at your To Do list and see whether there is anything on it that will make a real difference. If there isn't then prepare yourself for redundancy! You can hid behind "being busy" for a while but it will catch up with you. Come on, is there really anything on your "To Do" list that makes a serious difference? Then, do it.

The other important thing to making this approach work is not to feel guilty, once you have done your ONE BIG THING. If your boss comes around the corner and you are relaxing with your feet on your desk, sipping a cup of cocoa, are you sure the ONE BIG THING is big enough to stop the top of his head blowing off? If it is, then sip away my friend, you've earned it.

I like to think of this strategy as a "Tai Chi" approach to business verses the standard hard-form Karate style of business. It's a soft power approach. If you enjoyed Chinese films in the old days, then you would have loved it when the muscle bound young man attacks the old, blind begger with his powerful karate blows and kicks, but the old man uses his relaxed, almost nonchalant tai chi style to block all the blows, whilst calmly eating a bowl of rice, before causing his over-enthusiastic opponent to punch himself in the head.

Actually the principle I am interested in is that of "Wu Wei", the art of doing things "without action". So, you run around if you want to, hustle, bustle, put those hours in, show those bosses that you've got what it takes. Me, I will think carefully about my objectives, I'll do my ONE BIG THING each day as effortlessly as possible and then I'll relax and cheer you on with my feet up. Good luck!

Sports day in Cape Town

Today the World Economic Forum in Cape Town was all about sports, well for me at least.

This afternoon I joined delegates on a trip to Greenpoint Stadium that nestles between Table Mountain and the Atlantic ocean.

When we arrived we were met by a barrage of photographers and journalists. I knew we were important but not that important, surely? It turns out I was right because after we collected our hard hats and sat in the auditorium for a briefing on the stadium, we were asked to stand to welcome President Jacob Zuma and various other eminent personalities, including the Secretary General of Fifa. Zuma was there to kick off the one year countdown to the first match of the 2010 World Cup.

The President literally kicked off the countdown, as we all went out onto the pitch (I can claim now that I have stood on a World Cup football pitch). In front of what must have been several thousand construction workers, Jacob Zuma spoke more eloquently and fluently than I had heard him in front of the WEF audience, then as we counted down, kicked a ball into the stands.

I did enjoy the fact that, after signing disclaimer forms and donning hard hats, in the middle of the massive construction site, standing under cranes as high as the sky, the South African national anthem was played and we all, including the President, immediately took our hard hats off and held them to our chest. That must have been the health and safety officials worst nightmare!

Later on that evening, I attended a soiree in honour of the 800 WEF delegates, in the presence of President Zuma and a number of other African Heads of State. Again the whole thrust of the evening was the 2010 World Cup. There is such enthusiasm building up here, it is going to be one HUGE party and I am definitely going to come to Cape Town in 2010 to be a part of it.

I thought I had done enough sport when I finally got back to the hotel at about 11pm, only to find all the hotel staff wearing British Lions shirts over their uniforms, because the Lions had just checked in to the hotel that I am staying at. I can see a group sitting round the pool now and I can hear some gentle rugby songs wafting upwards. I have a feeling that this hotel is in for a lively time over the next few days!

African Flavour

This week I am attending the World Economic Forum on Africa event in Cape Town, South Africa. WEF events are remarkably similar, whether they take place in Davos, China or Africa but this one has a definite African flavour.


Mind you, it's a subtle aroma rather than a full blown, assault on the senses type of flavour. Rather like Cape Town itself. I met an English couple in the hotel this evening and the wife said "this is my first trip to Africa". I felt like saying "Lady, you think Cape Town is Africa? You ain't seen nothing yet".

On the surface this WEF event is identical in look and feel to the others I have been to, whether in Switzerland or China. The "WEF Welcomes You..." banners at the airport, the meet-and-greet staff who direct you to the WEF branded mini-buses. The 5* hotels chosen, the shuttle buses to the conference centre, your WEF bag with the participants book on registration, the security badge are all identical from country to country. Inside the conference centre they have literally lifted up the whole of the Davos look and feel and plonked it down on a different continent thousands of miles away.

However just below the surface there are a couple of differences. Not many, but one or two that give it that slightly distinct flavour.

For example, at WEF events the dress code is business casual. That usually means open necked shirt and jacket, or even shirt and no jacket, particularly amongst tech guys. But at WEF Africa business casual means smart suit and tie and properly polished shoes. In fact it means exactly the same as business formal. When you are going to a business meeting in Africa, if you want to be taken seriously you wear a suit and tie and that's that.

Interestingly, out of the 800+ delegates here from all over Africa not one man (so far) is wearing traditional African attire. Everyone is in Western suits and ties. That's quite unusual really and tells me two things. One is that the delegates are not entirely comfortable with the environment. They don't "own" it. They are guests at this event on their own continent. Secondly it tells me that there are not many Nigerians here, because if there was a strong Nigerian contingent you would see the brightly coloured flowing agbada's being worn with pride. Nigerian's "own" wherever they happen to be at the time, they wear what they like, they will talk as loud as they like and if you don't like it "you can go to hell, blorry idiot".

Some of the women are wearing traditional outfits though, the most notable being Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Bank Managing Director (pictured above) who ALWAYS wears her traditional outfits with pride. Ngozi is a very impressive lady. I have seen her speak on several occasions and she is a match for anyone. Today she shared the stage with the likes of President Jacob Zuma and Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN, and she more than held her own.

The other African thing that happens here is that the audience applaud after every speaker makes a comment, however short. This is traditional African respect - you are in the presence of your "seniors" and betters, so if they honour you by speaking to you then you should show your appreciation. African's are quite formal, you know. This is something that is not well understood by non-Africans, but the formalities of greeting correctly, showing respect to your elders and knowing your place are deeply ingrained in African culture.

This can sometimes prove an unexpected problem in a Western setting. For example, a young man brought up within a mildly traditional African family will show respect for an older man by looking down rather than looking him straight in the eye, shaking hands carefully, sometimes with two hands and generally transmitting a tone of subserviance. The younger man doesn't actually feel particularly subservient but that's how you treat your elders. Now if that young man goes for a job interview in London, where you are supposed to stride in, hand outstretched looking your interviewer in the eye and talk to someone 30 years your senior as if you "are mates", well he just doesn't stand a chance.

Greetings are all important too. The more junior person greets first and then there can be a lengthy to and fro of greetings that can quite easily take 5 minutes, before any real conversation starts. For example, in my father's area (Afuze, Owan East Local Government Area, Edo State, Nigeria) it will go something like this

Ah hello Sir

Hello boy

How are you sir?

Ok

That's good. How are you Sir, still fine I hope?

I am still fine boy. Nothing has changed since we last spoke

That's good news Sir. And the wife Sir, how is she, Sir?

She is fine, boy

The wife is fine, Sir? That is good. Fine is she, Sir?

Yes, boy, she is fine

Good, good. And you Sir, you are fine?

Yes boy, fine

Good. Anyway, I was just passing and thought I'd say hi, Sir

Ok, boy

(silence ensues for a few minutes)

Anyway, Sir, I will be going

Ok, boy

But before I go, I just wanted to ask, how you were Sir?

Fine, boy

And the wife

She's fine too, boy

Ok, Sir, I will be going

Ok boy

(this can go on for several days until one or the other of the participants faints with hunger, allowing the other to sneak off, unless someone else arrives in which case it starts all over again)

So, this WEF event in Africa has a definite if subtle African aroma. It's sort of in Africa but not quite in Africa. It's more "on" Africa than "in" Africa. But that's okay, at least the challenges that the continent faces are getting some attention by an influential group of people and that's got to be a good thing.

In a diplomatic bubble

I attended a quite unique dinner at the Dorchester, London last night. It was in honour of the Diplomatic Corps and I found myself in the company of 128 Ambassadors and High Commissioners, 19 Lords, Ladies and Barons, 24 Sirs and an assortment of Professors, Bankers, Diplomats, Field Marshalls and political and media folk.

I found myself sitting amongst a small group of political observers, including Adam Boulton of Sky News (he left early and when I got home and turned on the TV, there he was again, reporting live outside Downing Street!), Michael Prescott (former political editor of the Sunday Times) and Anji Hunter (Tony Blair's former spin doctor, who I have since realised is married to Adam Boulton, which explains what I thought was a level of over-familiarity not entirely appropriate for such an event). There was a flurry of excitement and chattering amongst these folk when news filtered through about another Ministerial resignation.

You can always rely on a good speech from senior diplomats and we were not disappointed. The Ambassadors all laughed at the standard joke told at such occasions about the definition of an Ambassador being "an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country", turning to each other to say with perfectly straight faces that that was possibly the funniest joke they had every heard.

We were a bit more confused when the senior diplomat appeared to say "I really believe that we are an honest and corrupt nation". We tittered politely. Did he say that? Did we miss-hear? Perhaps he said "honest, uncorrupt nation" but that's a strange phrase too.

Much of the main speech was about the power of new media, blogs, twitter, youtube and so on. This is an interesting challenge for the Diplomatic Corps who are in the business of controlling communication, not letting it rip. These social media give mere mortals a direct view inside the diplomatic bubble and the senior diplomats will have to move quickly to get on top of them. In fact I heard of a new concept, a "digital coach" who apparently works one to one with a senior executive coaching them through the world of social media (isn't that sort of like a paid grandchild?). I enjoyed tweeting about diplomats talking about tweeting.

This piercing of the bubble by social media will be very interesting, because that world really is a bubble. For a few hours one is dinning with over a hundred senior diplomats and other guests in one of London's best hotels and you are completely disconnected from the everyday world outside. Then at the end of the evening, we go our separate ways. The Ambassadors step into their long, black limos with uniformed drivers (picture a hundred cars all with number plates like "COUNTRY 1" parked in 3 rows on Park Lane) and stay in the heart of the bubble.

Mere mortals, like me, wander off to our parked cars, rip off our bow-ties, stick on some roots music and zoom off back to reality.

Me vs My Belly

How we laughed. How we laughed. It happened when my father entered his forties and suddenly from being a tall, slim fellow, he became a tall fellow with a podgy belly. It seemed to happen almost overnight much to my and my brother's amusement and we immediately christened him "The Fat Man" (not to his face of course and please don't mention it to him if you see him).

I think the idea for the name "The Fat Man" came from Sydney Greenstreet in that classic 1942 film Casablanca. Which is odd because I have never watched the film, but I know that there is someone called The Fat Man in it.

So there we are, chortling away, year after year at the fat man, when all of a sudden something terrible has happened. I am harmlessly going around in my mid-40's, I happen to glance down and - shock, horror - there right in front of me is a huge, podgy belly !

How did this happen? Who put it there? My children thinks its very funny. They have taken to calling me The Fat Man, after a film that they have never seen (not to my face of course, but I know what goes on behind my back).

But I am determined not to give in so easily. After all, I have proven in the past the sheer strength of will, of mind over matter, and I will defeat this creeping blubber.

For example, years ago I used to smoke. You didn't know that did you? I smoked through my late teens in to my twenties. I even used a cigarette holder, like The Penguin. In those days I had an iron will. If I wanted something to happen, I made it happen, whatever stood in my way. So when I decided to stop smoking, I didn't agonise about it. I didn't get counselling, apply patches, seek hypnosis. I just stopped. And two weeks later I started again! That was amazing. I looked at myself with a mixture of amusement and disgust. How dare my body try to dictact to my iron will. I laughed in the face of my body's pathetic resistance, bent my will to the problem and crushed the life out of my smoking addiction.

About ten years ago I decided to give up drinking alcohol. I think I must have been drinking for about 30 years, but one day I decided enough was enough and it was time to stop. I stopped overnight. Immediately. No questions asked. Just stopped. Never touched a drop since. Hah!

So, now I'm the Fat Man, eh? Fat Man 2.0. Well, I can deal with this. I just stop eating. Well, I don't mean stop eating completely, but stop eating the pies, the muffins, the sugar, the popcorn, the butter, the full fat milk.

But somethings going wrong. My iron will seems to be wilting in the face of my jelly belly. Yesterday, I was watching the telly and suddenly found I had slipped a slice of cake into my mouth without even noticing. Today I convinced myself that cracker biscuits don't count, so I ate about ten of them.

Am I getting old? Is my will fading? Or is this dieting thing a whole new level of challenge? I am rapidly developing a newfound respect for people trying to diet.

But I'm up for the fight. I'm not ready to be Fat Man 2.0 yet. Me vs My belly. Let battle commence.

(oh, by the way, if anyone's got any advice, I'd love to hear it)

Grokking Pizza

Are you familar with the term "grok" ? If you are, then go back to your code hacking and read no further.

Yesterday I made a pizza for my daughter. I was showing off, because the day before I had managed to assemble pasta with some sort of sauce and salad which was greeted with a positive sounding "Hrummph". Flushed with success I thought I would up my game and go for the pizza.

When I say "made a pizza" I am perhaps stretching the definition of "made". What I mean is that I took a packaged pizza from the fridge, read the instructions and carried them out. The instructions were crystal clear - remove packaging, place on tray, set oven to 220 degrees for 12 minutes. All these things I did, exactly as instructed.

Imagine my surprise therefore when the oven beeped after 12 minutes, I opened the door and, hey presto, there was the pizza BURNT TO A SMOKING WRECK!

This has happened to me before. Not with pizza but with other things. I burnt tomato soup because the instructions said to put it in a saucepan over the heat for 5 minutes and when I came back the soup had vanished completely apart from an accusing stain around the edge of the pan which I had to throw away as I couldn't clean it. I once boiled an egg so hard that I was able to bounce it off the wall.

There is something about following cooking instructions that just doesn't seem to work for me. This, I have come to understand, is because I don't "grok" cooking.

I mentioned the pizza fiasco to several people and they immediately said "ah, fan oven, knock a few minutes off the time". I rechecked the instructions. Nowhere did it say to knock a few minutes off the time for a fan oven. I checked my oven. Nowhere does it say "I am a fan oven and I will burn your pizza to a crisp unless you knock a few minutes off". How am I supposed to know these things?

Apparently I should just "know". People who cook just "know". A pinch of salt? They "know" what I pinch of salt it. When I put in a pinch of salt it immediately renders my food inedible. A "dash" of whatever? They "know" what a dash is.

To "grok" something is to "know" it in such a fundamental way that it becomes part of you. The knowledge seeps into your bones. It's way, way beyond learning something. It just "is".

You can "grok" all sorts of things. I used to "grok" maths, in school that is. I never seemed to have to learn it, I just knew it and I couldn't understand why other people seemed to struggle their way through it step by step - until I got to university and suddenly had to learn some maths. Boy, did it feel odd. I still got decent marks but I knew deep inside that I didn't grok it anymore. Something was gone. It was quite sad in a way. For a while I rediscovered this feeling of really "grokking" something when I was an Assembler programmer in the mid-80's. That's long gone now.

I can and do learn new things. I learn the Wu-style Tai Chi long form and I practise it over and over. But when I perform it alongside my Tai Chi master, whilst to the untrained eye we probably look identical, I know that I have just learnt it and he really "groks" it.

I wonder if I will ever get that grokking feeling again. That complete immersion in something where you know it and it knows you as if it was part of you. Beyond intuition. Perhaps I will. Perhaps I do in some areas but don't realise it.

However I can assure you that cooking is one thing that I will never grok. I remember the day we launched the internet bank, Egg plc, back in 1998. We had a long day and I decided to make myself something to eat before the evening's launch activity really kicked off. I put my microwave meal in the machine, pressed the buttons and got on with my work. Next thing I know the fire alarms were screaming, a fire-engine arrived and the whole building was cleared of several hundred angry people, hard at work trying to get everything lined up for launch.

As we stood around outside, shivering, the head firefighter came out with a weary look on his face "No panic" he says "it was just some idiot who had warmed up his dinner in the microwave for 40 instead of 4 minutes". Grok that!

Kim Jong-il, Beyonce and me

Kim Jong-il, Dear Leader of North Korea, Beyonce, the bootylicious singer and me - who's the odd one out?

Yes, it's me and for one obvious reason. I am the only one of the three of us that does not have a body double able to stand in for me. Kim Jong-il has long been suspected of having a double (see picture). In fact the latest rumour, repeated in the Times no less, is that he died in 2003 and the country has been run by a double ever since! Beyonce's double managed to fool an art gallery into believing she was the real thing.

The reason I want a body double is that by some quirk of timing, I find that I have eight external meetings, presentations or conferences to attend next week and on Tuesday alone I am speaking at three separate events. I just wish I could send my doppleganger along to some of these and spread the load a bit.

Monday evening I am speaking at a gathering of potential donors to highlight the progress we are making with the Academy that is being built in Hammersmith.

Tuesday morning kicks off for me as a speaker at an event on "Biometrics and Young People" at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Then I move on to speak at a workshop organised by the IAAC, being held at the British Computer Society. The day rounds up with me being "guest entrepreneur" at an event organised by Cityzone.

Wednesday sees me getting in to network security discussions at the Technology Strategy Board and then on to a conference entitled Private Data, Open Government at the QEII Conference Centre, Westminster.

Thursday has me delivering a speech to the National Archives, Kew on data retention in the digital age.

And on Friday I head up to Manchester as a keynote speaker at the huge Futuresonic conference that takes place every year.

So you can see why I wish I had a double to stand in for me and share the load. Actually I think there might be two of me somewhere. Last week I received an email saying "Dear Tom....You are invited to an event to meet Tom Ilube....RSVP....Pay £xx". I have of course registered for this event and paid as I am very keen to hear what I have to say.