A Week in December

I managed to escape to my dear friends on the Algarve for Christmas, luckily slotting in through the snow via Luton Airport on Christmas Eve. Given the ex-pat, transient nature of the community down there, everyone I met had been directly or indirectly affected by the weather - delayed or cancelled flights and train journeys, road accidents - some friend or family member was missing from every festive gathering. I came home yesterday, delayed, landing and driving through a blanket of thick fog as the temperature was rising and the snow melting. Accustomed as many of us are to regular travelling, I think we forget just how complicated, inter-linked and cleverly managed the whole international journey process usually is and that most of the time, it is robust enough to withstand what's thrown at it. Not much comfort, I expect, when you've just spent the night on the floor at Heathrow. And I'm glad not to be flying again, for a few weeks anyway.
When I was away, I thought Sebastian Faulks' 'A Week in December' would be a timely read. Goodness, it was grim! Unlike the Daily Telegraph, I did not find it 'hilarious' though it certainly was 'clever and compelling'. What did make me smile was the description of the Auction House Gala on Dover Street, with its prize exhibit, the £4mill Cash Cow made of sterling bank notes and lutetium, which could be viewed for no longer than 30 secs by each fabulously wealthy guest. Vicious satire, indeed. I shall think of it next time I venture to a contemporary art exhibition - market manipulation par excellence.

Adaptive resilience

I recently returned from a 'management retreat', so called because myself and a small group of arts sector folks were closeted away for 3 days in the delightful setting of the Moller Centre in Cambridge - well, as much as you can be these days, accompanied by our Blackberries and iPhones. Distant from most of the distractions of daily life, we concentrated on the lastest best practice and business models in organisational development, business planning and change management. It was fascinating, stimulating and , the minute I got home, exhausting!
Amongst the various business tools and frameworks we worked with, the one that most resonated with me was the 'spider's web' assessment tool, designed to explore how 'resilient' an organisation might be. As the arts and cultural sector enters an era of unprecedented cuts and changes, it won't necessarily be the strongest or most intelligent that survives but, as Darwin said, the most responsive to change. As introduced to us by the ex-Arts Council guru, Mark Robinson, 'adaptive resilience' is described as "the capacity to remain productive and true to core purpose and identity whilst absorbing disturbance and adapting with integrity in changing circumstances". So this isn't about 'sustainability', it's more proactive and empowering than that.
The assessment chart plots an organisation's strengths and weaknesses against a number of key characteristics of 'adaptive resilience' such as innovation and management of vulnerabilities. And then, of course, the real work starts: intelligent leadership coupled with a determined, creative team of people, all sharing a common goal. Then enough of all this business school malarkey - let's roll up our sleeves and get cracking!

Action rich or action poor?

I revisited St Paul's Cathedral last week. It is always a beautiful and inspiring place to visit at any time but on this occasion I was keen to try out the new touch screen multimedia guides. A year or so ago a colleague and I worked together on an interpretation development plan for the Cathedral and these newly installed hand-sets are part of that programme. The tours are very well researched with an excellent balance of facts and story telling and great 'zoom in and see' details. I tried out the family tour too and enjoyed the quirky quizzes. Like any audio guide in an historical attraction, whether simple or sophisticated, they are all intended to increase and deepen the visitors' engagement and enjoyment of the building. A good audio or multimedia guide will not detract or spoil the sensory or spiritual impact of the experience but enhance it in a way that the visitor can personally time and control. In my opinion, the new kit at St Paul's does just that.
I was therefore somewhat alarmed just a few days later to read in a Future Foundation report (The Future of Freetime, April 2010) that a new generation of young people are emerging who will reject 'real' leisure and travel experiences in favour of social networking and 'always on' media. Brought up on a diet of constant gaming, communication and stimulation, these so-called 'go-nowhere-gamers' will find out of home experiences too action-poor. They will prefer to live their lives completely at home, playing computer games, watching interactive 3D TV and chatting on line. Maybe I just don't 'get' this virtual world stuff but my heart sinks at the thought of what these youngsters will be missing. But what I do 'get' is that the challenge to make real life experiences in the world of arts and heritage even more interesting and engaging for this generation in the future is just getting even harder.

TV Times

This summer I managed to make just one of this years record breaking Proms concert season which had audiences of over 300,000 for the first time. I heard the BBC Philharmonia play Schubert and Mozart symphonies as well as a new work by Robin Holloway, a 'reharmonisation' of Schumann songs entitled 'Reliquary: Scenes from the Life of Mary, Queen of Scots'. I must admit to being a bit doubtful about the latter but was actually blown away by the achingly beautiful song cycle. I should have known better as I have often before enjoyed clever Proms programmes of new commissions combined with popular pieces. So although I only attended one concert, together with over 12 million others in Britain, I watched more on TV as the BBC broadcast more concerts than ever before. To quote Michael Henderson of The Spectator, together with the Chamber Proms at Cadogan Hall and the pre-concert talks at the next-door Royal College of Music, the Proms "amount to nothing less than an Open University course, with the tuition fees paid". Not quite for free though, as we do contribute via the licence fee. The BBC subsidises the Proms to the tune of (ha, ha!) £5million. With threatened cuts to the licence fee from 2012, I wonder how the Proms will be affected.
Meanwhile, the BBC recently announced another TV watching statistic, that 93% of live TV watching still takes place in the living room. So despite the rise of catch-up or on-demand viewing taking place on laptops or on TVs around other rooms in the house, we still all want to be together to share dramatic moments of news, sports and 'X Factor' finals. It seems that tribal instincts still compel us to gather together for broadcasts of reality events. Yet whilst I believe that the presentation of the Proms on the TV this year was better than ever before, you can't beat actually being there. I wouldn't describe my own experiences there as ever being tribal but communal listening in a packed Albert Hall is always such a thrill.

A wee dram

I've just spent a week in Scotland, firstly staying deep in the glen beside Loch Voil and then in Helensburgh, close by Loch Lomond and its fabulous golf course. Unlike most of the country it seems, we were blessed with good weather - the air was clear and soft and when it did occasionally rain, the showers moved quickly away. It's a long time since I visited the glorious Scottish countryside and this year I was happy to byepass the Edinburgh Festival for an equally dramatic experience. The surrounding lush, deep greeness was in stark contrast to the baked yellowing parks and gardens I'd left behind in London.
As part of my visitor experience, both my hosts introduced me to their local whisky, for which all that lovely Scottish water is an important constituent. Firstly, Deanston Single Malt from the distillery near Callander. Their water comes from the nearby River Teith and whilst the distillery uses unpeated malted barley, the water contains enough peaty traces in itself to create what was described to me, happily sipping away, as a 'slight smokey note' in the finished whisky. Uniquely at Deanston they are producing organic whisky and in a few months will be releasing their first ten-year old malts for which even the casks had to be de-charred, re-fired and re-assembled.
Not far from Helensburgh is the Auchentoshan Distillery, situated at the foot of the Kilpatrick Hills. Their water comes from Loch Katrine, used uniquely in a triple distilling process which creates a particularly smooth and delicate malt whisky. Having personally examined the stills, I reckoned I was fully prepared for my tasting session and learned how just the merest splash of water magically releases all those amazing flavours.

The Big Society

The new 'Big Society' idea that was conceived and launched by the Tories in opposition in March is now beginning to take shape. Nick Clegg and various ministers recently met a number of civic society chiefs to debate the Big Society Programme and David Cameron last week announced details of the 'Big Bank' which will use dormant account monies to 'fund social projects across the country, creating opportunities for social action and social involvement'. The Big Society Programme is billed to 'create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a Big Society that would roll back big government, bureaucracy and Whitehall power'. Crikey - I really hope it works but somehow, it doesn't feel quite so new to me. I reckon that the Church of England, for one, has been doing pretty well on the Big Society front for years. Hundreds of parishes all over the country work hard with scant resources every day, offering support, advice, space, training, comfort and shelter to all types of people of all sorts of faiths and creeds - masses of 'little societies', quietly getting on with their own local parish business. And so many local and regional museums and galleries would simply cease to function without their teams of trusty volunteers, again already 'actively contributing to their local community'. I worry that by putting a political label on what's largely happening already, the Government is in danger of losing the support of potential new contributors. I'm still hoping for the best ......

Are you sitting comfortably?

I heard on the R4 Today programme the other day that the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford had commissioned its new theatre seats not from a trusty UK supplier but from an Italian manufacturer called Poltrona Frau which, amongst others, designs the seats for Ferrari and Alfa Romeo. As it happens I drive an Alfa, albeit a rather old one now, and the seat is comfortable but hard and so, like Mr Naughtie, I was puzzled by the RSC's choice. It seems that in their new, thrust stage auditorium the Company is determined to keep audiences alert and 'on the edges of their seats', literally. Not for them the lush armchairs much beloved by many luxury cinema goers.
This is what I enjoyably experienced last week when I went to see 'Sex & The City 2' (escapist nonsense but a great girls' night out) at the Lexi Cinema in Kensal Rise. Formerly an Edwardian theatre, this privately owned venue is now an intimate screen space with deep, well spaced chairs and armchairs, plus a bar and cafe. Friendly, easy-going and with a great programme, the Lexi covenants all its profits to a sustainability charity in South Africa so lots of reasons to go again.
By contrast I sat on the plastic grass verge of the Royal Festival Hall last Saturday, listening to 'The Fishermens Friends', folk singers from Cornwall, part of Richard Thompson's Meltdown Festival, enviously gazing up at those lucky enough to have nabbed the deckchairs. And as if my bottom hadn't suffered enough, the next evening I sat on the floor of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, listening to a Salon Series debate about the justification for investment in art and performances in public spaces. I'm afraid that I wasn't sufficiently engaged by the observations of the panel to be distracted from the numbness of my bum, despite the provision of a flat, foam Tate cushion. Let's hope that the new sporty seats in the RSC auditorium do a better job.

Settle down now !

Just a few weeks since writing my last blog, and since May 6th Election Day, I had genuinely expected life to have settled down a little. But, no - having just got to grips with a skillfully constructed, new coalition Government, and a new 4-handed Dept. of Culture and Media, this weekend has seen the unseating of David Laws who, only days ago, was 'dominating the Commons' according to Simon Hoggart in The Guardian. As the Government regains its balance today, BP loses the plot with its spewing oil disaster and BA tailspins on with its UNITE collision course.
Next week, I'm looking forward to some recreation and inspiration at the ITT conference, this year in Spain. But all I hear on the radio is how the 4th largest Eurozone economy is having just as difficult a time as Greece and Italy.
And so, thank goodness for Lambeth Palace Library! Just 2 weeks ago, based on the strength of advance bookings, the prospect of a successful 400th Anniversary exhibition looked rather uncertain. Having worked on the project for well near a year, it was hard to maintain confidence as opening day beckoned. Now 2 weeks in and all our efforts have been rewarded. The response of the media and of the public has been amazing and so far at least, we have a success on our hands. So that's one major uncertainty settling down at least. I can sleep more soundly now.

Uncertain times

The world feels unusually unsettled of late with crises and disasters of both personal and professional impact for me. The horrendous earthquake in Haiti in January was only 3 months ago yet it seems longer and of course, is now lost from media coverage. Last month came the Islandic volcano eruption - the ash crisis shut European skies for an unprecedented 6 days and left 10 million passengers without flights. Fortunately I'd recently returned from a short break in Poland so wasn't stuck in Eastern Europe but several colleagues and friends were forced to battle their way home from holidays or business trips or were frustratingly stuck in London, missing work deadlines and family commitments. Then, just a week after returning from Poland, came the tragic air crash which killed the Polish president and over 90 of his fellow countrymen and women. Having just visited the stunning beautiful St Mary's Basilica in Krakow, I felt terribly sad watching scenes there from the funeral ceremony on TV.

This week now another disaster - 4000 square miles of oil slick spilling across the Gulf of Mexico - with potentially catastophic environmental and commercial impact. No-one yet knows how bad this will be. And just today, a car bomb discovered though made safe, in Times Square, New York. And the financial melt-down in Greece looks likely to result in more strikes and unrest. What further jitters will follow in the travel and tourism industry now, I wonder?

And all this as we approach the general election, generating a seemingly endless stream of surprises and disasters, especially for a Labour party member like me. As a regular news junkie, life has never been quite so stimulating but I look forward to more settled times - my nerves can't take much more.......

Brand Tiger

Much in the press this weekend of Tiger Wood's eagerly awaited comeback at Augusta this Thursday. And later this evening, along with thousands of others, I too will be logging on to see how he manages the tournament press conference, the first open press interview since he plummeted down the sporting pedestal last December. It seems that we should expect his regular style of bland and unimaginative answers, no matter what the press ask of him. Tiger was never one to speak out of turn, adding safe value to many of his hitherto lucrative sponsorship deals.
In fact, it's the consideration of 'Brand Tiger' rather than 'Golf Tiger' which interests me, with the two being inextricably connected, of course. According to Lawrence Donegan, writing in The Observer yesterday, Tiger has lost an estimated £26m of annual sponsorship earnings, largely from the withdrawal of Accenture and AT&T. I wonder whether those monies are to be re-invested in alternative corporate branding work or thankfully returned to internal coffers? Meanwhile Nike, EA Sports and Upper Deck continue to 'keep the faith' and according to Forbes, the Tiger brand still has sufficient financial clout to make him the top athelete brand in sports. Expected to still be the world's highest paid athelete in 2010, his brand is worth an estimated $82 million, exceeding that of some of the biggest names in the sports world combined - including David Beckham, Roger Federer and National Basketball Association stars. LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.
And I think it's this aspect of the 'human brand' that makes the Tiger Woods phenomenon all the more extraordinary - an actual human being who represents 100% of the values, imbued meaning and differentiation in the field in which they compete. I cannot possibly comprehend the pressure that that must put on one, as we now all know to be, all-too-human individual.
So it's back to the golf course for Tiger, where his super-human brandness resounds and where he can once again play amazing golf and for the sake of both himself and his sponsors, rehabilitate Brand Tiger.

A treat on the doorstep

I have to admit that although it's only Monday, I'm already somewhat weary because I've rather overdone it on the culture vulture front these past few days, as well as managing the day job! My down town feast included: the Queen Elizabeth Hall for an evening of amazing jazz/rock by a Swedish combo called Tonbruket, including a surprise support set by a Korean jazz vocalist which was eerily beautiful; to Wilton's Music Hall for the Doris Day story - always great fun there; the fascinating Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Britain; and late evening at the V&A for their stunning new Medieval and Renaissance galleries.
But the real revelation was much closer to home. I live very close to Syon Park and for years have regularly visited the garden centre and have even enjoyed the gardens but have never taken that extra time to visit inside the house - shame on me! Thanks to a friend who now works on site, I was fortunate enough to be treated to a private tour last week as the house has just re-opened for the 2010 season. What a treat! The London home of the Dukes of Northumberland, it is full of glorious Robert Adam interiors with lots of fabulous original furniture and furnishing, all tied together with the story of the young Princess Victoria. Highly recommended, wherever you live!

Let it shine!

Last month I was thrilled to be nominated for a Shine Award, an awards programme which, since 2004, has been 'recognising and celebrating the achievements of outstanding women in the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism sector'. The paucity of women in the top jobs in this sector is something that, perhaps shamefully, over the years I have simply become accustomed to. But it came as something of a shock to learn that, from research carried out by People 1st, whilst over 60% of the sector workforce is made up of women, only 6% of board director positions are filled by women. So now, in order to support the development and retention of good women in this male dominated field, I'm adopting a new mentoring role. Whilst I have informally mentored many young women in my time as a manager, director and consultant, my skills and experience are now about to be tested in a more formal fashion. From next month, my mentee will be a French post-graduate student, studying for a Masters in International Tourism Management. I'm due to meet her soon to begin our mentoring journey together. I'm sure we both have much to learn and I hope to report back on progress in a future blog - a bientot !

Everyone's a fruit and nut case

My Mother used Persil washing powder and Fairy washing-up liquid her whole life. Loyally, I do the same. For me, the brand association is cleanliness combined with motherly love. And no matter what the price difference is between them and other brands, I always buy the same.

The Cadbury brand, omnipresent in the news these days, is also close to my heart. When I was a little girl, my Father would come home from work on a Friday night with a paper bag of treats. I didn't realise at the time but Friday was pay-day and on his way back from work, he'd stop off at the newsagents to pay the paper bill, buy his weekly cigarette supply and treat us all with a bag of goodies. There was always a couple of quarters of boiled sweets, such as Everton Mints or butterscotch, a few bars of Fry's Turkish Delight or Mint Cream or maybe Walnut Whips and for, Dad himself, a large block of Cadbury's Fruit and Nut Dairy Milk. That was his favourite and remained so for the rest of his life.

So like thousands of others, I reacted with horror to the prospect of a Kraft takeover that seemed to threaten even the very memory of my Father, such is the nostalgic power of the Cadbury brand for me...... ridiculous, isn't it? Once the battle cries had died down, reading recently more measured press commentary, it seems in many respects that Cadbury might just be on to a good thing. Kraft will lead them into global markets that they otherwise would not have reached and and production will still be based in Britain. Long live sharing and giving, and long live Cadbury Fruit and Nut!