Evaluation, statistics and OR

Red Tail Lights

Currently everyone is obsessed with the movements of stock exchanges, exchange rates and oil prices.  Each news bulletin seems to start with the latest percentage fall in the FTSE, the Dow or the Cac40.  We are able to monitor the changes in near real time via feeds from the BBC, BFM or CNN and can feel close to the action and depressed or elated accordingly.  But is this a good thing?

I remember being at an Operational Research Society conference a number of years ago, and listening to another delegate commenting on the phenomenon of slowing traffic and stopped traffic on Britain's motorways.  His view was that there was a phenomenon of brake light traffic jams, where a car slows using its brakes, and the one behind slows as well using their brakes and as the phenomenon goes down the line of drivers, the effect magnifies until traffic comes to a halt for no obvious reason than weight of traffic compounded by someone using their brakes about 15 miles and 15 minutes ahead of you.  In areas where there is little traffic, you don't get the same effect.

Now I can't help wondering if an element of the current fall in share prices isn't following the same form of phenomenon.  Despite the extra funds being pushed into banks and the support from the IMF, at the moment (to be VERY precise as these things change by the hour - so 10:36am GMT on Monday 27th October) the main European exchanges are all showing falls of between 3.64% on the Dax, through 4.81% on the FTSE to 6.18% on the Cac40.  But they are following the lead or the red brake lights of Tokyo and Korea who fell overnight.  We need one of the indices to not show red, so that others can take their feet off the brakes and let the rescue packages do their thing.

Of course the fly in the ointment is always those who decide, once there has been some growth again, to take their profits, which can push things back again.  We do need to stop seeing red all the time however, if any sort of confidence is to develop.

Skills Implications of Financial Crisis

The world financial crisis is at the front of every one's minds currently - hardly surprising with 10% drops in stock exchange indices over breakfast, and international summits at every turn.  The Alex cartoons in the Daily Telegraph have been a joy, showing a possible view inside the institutions that are losing our pension funds.  But what will it mean for skills?

At one level, you think that with a chance of a global recession, having skills and experience will be valuable, and if not, welcome to the dole queue - but isn't that the case at any stage of the economic cycle?  Certainly, during a downturn is when it is more important than ever to have every one in your organisation clear on corporate goals and how to reach them in a cost effective manner - Investors in People should be selling like hot cakes currently. 

There is no slack in the system, so you have to ensure that every resource you have is working to its maximum potential, and that means keeping people upskilled.  On that basis, it should be boom time for providers who can do training targeted to the needs of the company, not to the needs of qualifications systems.

My first reaction was that the National Skills Academy for Financial Services could see a tough period ahead, but actually, there could be a need to ensure staff are skilled to communicate difficult or bad news and explain clearly options to client.  I'm not sure if that sort of thing is on their current syllabus, but I am sure it will be in demand.

With money tighter and individual's spending power reduced, there should also be a demand to learn the skills our mothers and grandmothers took for granted - cooking with leftovers and cheaper cuts of meat, darning socks, knitting, crocheting, tatting rugs, growing vegetables, and making jams and preserves.  Adult education groups and community groups should therefore be seeing a revival in interest, if not in funded from external sources.

Finally, and a bit tongue in cheek, there could be a bunch of people out there who need to learn how to live in the real world, not the world of massive bonuses.  It would be a good market niche to be in perhaps, particularly if tax deductible for the learner, although difficult to keep schadenfreude to a minimum for the tutor I suspect.

All in all, the crisis should not be an excuse for not taking an interest in training and improving skills - reducing or removing training budgets at this time would be a false economy, while for individuals, gaining and reinforcing skills has never been more important.  It isn't a bear market for everyone!