The large questions in life

Life comes down to a small number of really big questions. Questions that will define the direction of the rest of your life. Questions that will be so large in nature that under no circumstance do you want to rush things. One of them involves a question, which at first brush seems pretty irrelevant. But it is not, and it really should not be underestimated. The question is as follows: If you were spending three days and two nights in London, what jacket would you wear?

The three alternatives (from left to right), along with their respective motivations, are as follow:

1. The brown, single-breasted jacket with two buttons and a single back vent with tapered sides. Combined with jeans, brown leather shoes, and a crisp white shirt it would be an absolutely perfect combination for having breakfast in. And yes, I am aware that a gentleman never wears brown in town. And because I said that, it means that I'm allowed to break the rule. Naturally.
2. The really dark blue, single-breasted blazer with two buttons and side vents and slight tapering. Can match with anything, and combined with tan trousers, a blue and white striped Sea Island cotton shirt with nice cufflinks would be a brilliant outfit for having a drink at the airport and just lounging around town on a weekend.
3. The really dark gray, Italian, single-breasted suit with two buttons and a back vent with some tapering. Would be very nice for contrasting with the British cuts and perfect for going out in the evening.

All three have their purposes, yet due to my policy of trying to avoid having to check in luggage I'm right now very much constrained space-wise and am only able to take a jacket that I'm wearing, so it has to be very versatile. And the keyword here is indeed versatile, and this means that now everyone will already know what the conclusion is. I'm not even sure I should continue this entry, since it would be stating the obvious. But because I know how embarrassing it is to ask the obvious, I will spare the (hopefully) few people who have not figured out that it was the butler and answer the question set forth at the beginning...

Out of the three choices, the most versatile, hands down, is the blazer. You can dress it up, you can dress it down. You can wear it with jeans or you can wear it with trousers. You can wear it with shirts, turtlenecks, or t-shirts and knitwear. You can absolutely do anything with it and always get away with it.

(And for those who are interested in it, a jacket should have four cuff buttons. Not three or two or one or none. Those are too few. Nor should it have five, since that makes it too cluttered, and I don't care whether Paul Smith does it or not. Four is the perfect number. It's not too many, it's not too few. It gives weight to the cuff, but does not clutter. And as for lapels: notched. Not peaked, as they should be reserved for more formal clothing as well as double-breasted suits. And on the topic of double-breasted suits: if you're not nearing retirement, stay well clear of them, unless you know precisely what you are doing...)

Networks and whatnot

As part of the remaining school work, I've been reading a bunch of articles on a rather broad scope, but basically everything has been related to management theories, etc. An interesting thing is that all of the different facets seem to be the "most important point of view" while other parts are obviously subordinate. Tonight I was reading about how marketing may be impacted by the increasingly networked economy, and without going into it in too much detail, one conclusion was that marketing as a field will evolve and change and is a lot more central to companies than it was before. That everything should be viewed through the lenses of the marketing world. I guess Kotler & Keller have at least discussed about this as "strategic marketing" (and that is actually another funny aspect; just add "strategic" to anything and it's automagically really cool).

Amusingly enough, at the same time elsewhere some other people are advocating that in the modern world it's technology that drives most of the disruptions in the world. And that we should actually focus on managing technologies and so on. Marketing is one part of the set. A tool for cultivating and growing new technological innovations. And then there's the logistics crowd. Logistics is incredibly important and a central to the success of a company and that sometimes it can even be a really core competitive advantage and that logistics should be supported by other fields.

And then there is the strategy crowd. In the corporate world I guess there are essentially two types. The guys from BCG/McK/Bain axis and then the guys who previously belonged to this first group but are now employed by their former clients directly. And of course they do the Strategy stuff, and everything is subordinate to them. Or something like that.

Interestingly enough, however, it would appear that all this is pointless. Everything's networked and hierarchies are falling. And I would even go so far as to argue that for the people with slightly failing eyesight (like me), the whole network looks like one big lump. Sometimes I don't even really make a distinction anymore. Everything, in the end, aims at competitive advantage. They just approach the same goal from different angles, but they're not necessarily competitors. More like complementors. Now, what was the point that I was trying to make? I don't really know; at this point I'm just finding this very amusing as the marketing crowd has been writing really nice papers with really big and fancy words which I don't even understand and all the while advocating that they're in the center. But according to contemporary understanding about network economies, the center is dumb and the magic happens at the edges of the networks. So yes, feel free to be in the center, for all I care...

Form and substance

In Finland, at least, when you're working towards your driver's license, one of the key things to remember is to always explicitly show the instructor that everything you do is intentional and that you are on top of things. It doesn't matter if you don't really check whether or not a bike is approaching as long as on a shallow and superficial level you let the instructor see that you made a gesture. It is funny, but that's how its done. A good driver will automatically start acknowledging things without actually thinking too much about it, but for some odd reason it's not enough that you don't crash into anything during training, but you have to formally demonstrate that you know how to survive.

Similar situations arise at work and at school. Especially at school. Substance is, more often than not, a secondary issue, as long as the form is good. You can write papers and as long as you cite the right authors and structure the paper in a seemingly intelligent way, you can pretty much say whatever you want and nobody will care too much about it. At work it is again slightly different, but the same elements are present there. This may be how a cynic views the world, but I firmly believe that there is an element of truth behind this; you get points for form and only then, if at all, for the substance.

I've also recently figured out what was one of the really annoying parts in my previous serious relationship. There were many different things, but one aspect was that I didn't see the regret in her actions. I'm sure she felt bad for whatever it was that she had done, but she didn't clearly communicate or show this. Granted, I might not be a person who is approachable at all when I'm in a seriously foul mood; in fact, I'm quite convinced that if I'm seriously ticked off, it might just be better for other people to head for the hills. But regardless, I didn't see the effort in righting the wrongs. There was no effort on a superficial level, nor was there any in the substance level. The message, as I interpreted it, was that "Well, this sort of stuff happens, deal with it. Oh, yeah, I guess I'm feeling sort of bad or something." And because the name of the game is forgiving people, that didn't help the situation all that much. How can you even try to forgive someone who does not even appear to be regretting her actions.

But this actually illustrates one funny aspect of us humans; we are incredibly easy to manipulate, regardless of whether or not we admit it. As emotional beings, all you have to do is understand ever so slightly what the other person needs and then just play along. Some people are better at playing along in some situations than others. I guess the general consensus is that I'm not the most emotional of people (and then again, those who know me know the exact opposite), but that is mainly because my issue is with expressing the emotion. It's the superficial side that I should work on. It's what the Americans are so good at: acting. And acting isn't as bad as it sounds here; it just means that if there are the two levels that were previously argued, substance isn't very much without form, and acting is the form. The connection is symbiotic, in fact. Form without substance is unfortunately very much present in the corporate world, where endless Powerpoint slides and lots of expensive suits and seven-fold ties have replaced the actual substance.