Friday, July 24th, 2020
Developing a strategy for an entire business in five days with a team of four is proving to be an exhaustive exercise. I have spent countless hours now on a deck and MS teams meetings and working on the slides while we discuss them. I enjoy strategy work, but five days is tight, especially given our largely defunct MIS, which does not allow us to get even the most basic portfolio numbers (how many projects per unit, volume of projects, staff per unit) in a consolidated format. It is frustrating, especially since this is for the license to operate for an entire business.
Everything else has taken a backseat to that, including my handbook on application of digital technology in supply chain finance which is in the home stretch and I needed to edit chapter 3 and 4 of the layout version. I know those forty or so pages will take a good day to go through as this is the last chance for major edits before I get to vet the final version. I am now three weeks behind my schedule on that. And I was going to write a thought piece on the future of SME finance – what it will look like in 2030 – the deadline for which is July 31st. Not sure when I will get that done since I do not even have an outline in my head.
Not tonight – the brain is fried. No sail no swim today either.
At least we have some pleasant weekend plans, Aikido practice in the morning followed by a swim slot at the Glenmont pool and later in the afternoon a Braai with friends from South Africa/ Istanbul who have a pool! Tonight, I think is going to be a glass of wine on the patio accompanied by a TV show and maybe some Tinder swiping, though this whole dating business is hard work at the best of times and the virus does not make it any easier.
My brilliant friend thinks he can hack my systems in less than three hours and find all sorts of data on me with Sherlock. I dare him to do so. I doubt he can get into my home WiFi, much less into my work IT. I am curious to see though what he may turn up with Sherlock, beyond my LinkedIn profile that is. I wonder if Sherlock will link me to this Blog, he knws this of course, but Sherlock should not.
Out of 15.6 million confirmed cases today 4.2 million can be attributed to the US. Every eight minutes a human dies Florida of COVID-19 Nationally +1000 die every day, so roughly one American dies every minute of the day due to COVID-19, just let that sink in.
While shutting down again and starting over would be the right thing to do, I somehow do not see that happening. In fact, my greatest fear in March, April and May had been that this country does not have what it takes to stop the spread, would open up to early and then no one would have the appetite to start over. And here we are.
Lessons from California’s reopening suggest that there was too much too fast. The most interesting take away is the length of the phases, which in hindsight were too short. This makes me hopeful for Maryland, which is still in phase 2 and by the looks of it will remain there for a while to come.
These insight of course do not stop the administration from advocating for a reopening schools, threatening to defund those which do not. Despite all the guidelines put out, no matter how watered down they are, schools will not reopen. Forget it. Most districts have come out with as much already and really should not be defunded because they keep students and staff safe. Giving money to the parents is just preposterous. And I f people in Georgia’s county with highest infections are so keen to send their kids back to school, why not? It would make for a very interesting national experiment. Scientists could monitor in real time how children, parents, grandparents and teachers get infected and what happens then. Will children die? It would take about six to eight weeks to see results. So if Georgia goes back to school in early August we could have enough evidence for States only going back after Labor Day to make educated decisions. Being extremely cynical here! Looking at Texas and Florida, it seem though only disaster can convince, not science! So aim for disaster.
To end on a funny note: here is an excerpt from the cognitive test the president took!