Opportunities in Uganda

I have just spent 8 - 9 days in Northern Uganda and have seen that there are many business opportunities throughout the country. Do NOT write to me and ask me for a job, however: what I mean is that there are many gaps in the labour market and they need to be filled. Talk to any businessman you know and get him to invest in Uganda: there are examples of where investment on a massive scale has taken place so why not think a bit smaller and do your bit? Duncan Williamson

Peter Cochrane's Business Philosophy

I heard Dr Peter Cochrane speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme just now and at first I was irritated by his Americanised language but once I had explored his web site I thought I would share his business philosophy with you. I think Dr Cochrane would agree that his philosophy is not entirely his own but it is still well worth sharing:

"Another three failures followed until I learned a most valuable series of lessons:

Make sure every single facet of any business you wish start is in place and fit for purpose: technology, design, product, plant, production, market, marketing, sales, delivery, support, aftercare, people, finance etc must all be 100% at the same time. If any one element fails then so does the whole.

• Never assume people understand 100% anything you say.
• Never assume people do anything 100% you ask of them.
• Never believe or trust a customer 100%.
• Never believe or trust a financier 100%.
• Never neglect (4) & (5): they both need care and attention.
• Identify all your competitors: and their state of play.
• Look out for oblique threats from outside your immediate sector.
• Don't be blinded by enthusiasm for a technology or idea - especially if it is yours.
• Don't let pride get in the way.
• It is never too late to shout stop!
• It is never to late to rip it all up and start again.

By late 1998 I had learned a lot through the school of hard knocks, losing my own money; and the companies listed below started to emerge as the cream of the crop from a diverse number of directions. Things started to go right at last and at last I coined Cochrane's Law of start ups, as follows:

Any new company in which I participate and invest enjoys a success that is inversely proportional to my involvement.

This turns out to be an obvious and a self fulfilling law in that if I don't pay attention to the above, then I spend all my days trying to engineer a fix, or mounting a defence, later.

If I get it all right from the start, then I have to do almost nothing, the business largely looks after itself."
See: http://www.cochrane.org.uk/nav/start-up-experience/ 

DW

Back Home Again!

I returned from my latest trip but not in the rudest of health. I have fallen victim to air conditioning and I am hot and weak! I slept all morning and have come back to bed already ... It's only 18:18 but I feel comfortable with my bedside cabinet full of fluids.

DW

Do it right first time!

I went to the internet last night to download a large database of accounting data. I found the data and duly downloaded the data.

When I downloaded the data, it didn't paste in Excel very nicely. No problem, I can cope with that and did so with only a little difficulty. The two graphics below show the before and after. For the before work sheet I needed to copy from the web page and then Paste Special, Text but even so the result was a bit of a mess!

I moved things around and got the following, tidy result:

However, part of the way through my initial analysis of the data I noticed a feature of the data that I hadn't spotted before. I was torn: do I go through each of the eight thousand cells or do I go back to the web site and download the data and start again ... after all, I had cleaned the original database without copying and protecting the original work sheet.

Cut a long story short, I wasted some time last night with the first option, inspecting each of the eight thousand cells. This morning I had a rethink, went back to the web site, downloaded the data again and cleaned the data again ... the better solution.

The Moral of the Story

When downloading and copying data, keep the original data safe and unchanged somewhere: the father and son principle.

Duncan Williamson

Top Down Mathematics, Bottom up Reality

Please take a look at this lengthy article from today's Financial Times. The article concerns the quantitative financial model building taking place in the engineering faculty at University College London. I find it a little odd that this is taking place in the engineering faculty but not surprised that it is happening.


Years ago I wish I had followed the thought that I had in which I believed that mathematicians, physicists and other scientists and engineers had a lot to offer the accounting and economics profession. I have been proven right and in this article there is a telling insight into what I believed but did not know. 


"Mirghaemi was hired by BNP Paribas last summer. A few months later, her boss – a trader for 37 years – mentioned that he could never work out the simultaneous price and position of a trade. On the spot, Mirghaemi wrote down a cosine formula from physics useful for measuring electromagnetic waves. “He was just looking at it,” she said. Mirghaemi emphasised her respect for her seniors at the bank but she said that she felt different. “I think I come from the new generation,” she said, “looking at the finance, the economic, the engineering, the computing altogether.”"


The article can be found here and forgive me if you have to subscribe to read it: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0664cd92-6277-11e1-872e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1o3Mb7dBx

Duncan Williamson