First Quarter Update

 

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

 

I had written fifteen or more pages chronicling the first 81 days of 2006, but they vanished on a train, somewhere between Rotterdam and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on March 24, along with my briefcase and its other contents, including the digital camera I use to add color to this journal.  But an angel was with me that day; she reminded me to remove my passport and tickets from the briefcase as I rode tram #7 from Erasmus University to the Rotterdam train station.

 

The material losses are being quickly replaced.  But I lost a lot of words that day, locked away in my laptop; and words are my stock in trade.  As you see on the website, I’ve posted a few pictures from early March – the Gore Range of Colorado, and others.  And I’ve borrowed a picture Jack snapped on his spring break.  Some kids head to Cancun or Padre Island, others to slopes in the Rockies; Jack rode a bus bound for the major centers of the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s – Jackson, Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham, Memphis, and Little Rock.  It was quite a journey.

 

Still in the digital camera were some very cool snaps from a day earlier.  On a bright blue day, I spent several hours in Delft (first visited two years earlier on a howling-gale day; click March 2004 on the site).  The coolest image was from the top of the bell tower of the 14th-century New Church, 378 steps above the ground, I saw what the birds see: orange tile roofs, canals, brick streets.  The picture will remain in my head, but I wish I could share the scene with you.

 

So here’s a quick summary of the quarter’s travels, with a few highlights:

 

January 8:  Linda and I visit our new nephews, Sam and Ed, born to Linda’s brother Mike and wife Melissa in early November.  Those lads were too cute!  And it’s truly cool to be Uncle Rob, even at my advanced age.

 

January 13-15:  Linda and I return to the Arts Recognition and Talent Search weekend in Miami, where we are surrounded by the awesome artistic ability of 125 high-school seniors from all over the U.S.  American Airlines are the wings for almost all of these kids. 

 

January 22-26:  To London for three lectures on arrival day, to a New York University London program and the annual visit to Sir Geoffrey Owen’s strategy class at the London School of Economics.  Then to Vancouver for a oneworld alliance meeting.  Then home, recovering from a rare flu bout.

 

January 27:  Day trip to Norman, Oklahoma, where I introduce OU advertising students to the fun world of airline promotion.  It was good that it was Friday.  It had been a busy week.

 

January 30-31:  Annual visit to Prof. Anne Coughlan’s MBA marketing classes at the Kellogg School, Northwestern University.  Joining me in front was friend Gary Doernhoefer, former AA lawyer and general counsel for Orbitz.  After teaching, we had a beer at the venerable Berghoff restaurant in downtown Chicago, which closed a month later.

 

February 8-9:  Teaching at the Rotman School at the University of Toronto; into winter.  Lunch and dinner on day two with old friends, Lorne Salzman, a lawyer who has represented American in Canada for many years, and Jeff Angel, former PR chieftain for Canadian Airlines and British Airways, recently turned headhunter.  And the chance to read the inscription on Soldier Tower on the U of T campus:

 

Their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives.

 

February 15-18:  Guest appearance at the Waseda Marketing Forum in Tokyo and meetings with AA’s Japan marketing team.  Sightseeing highlight was Tadao Ondo’s spectacular Omotesando Hills shopping mall (pictures on the website).  Plenty of Japanese food.  And a fun ride home with two young parents from Atlanta, who had just picked up their new daughters in China.

 

February 27-28:  Two lectures at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.  It was good to be in on the West Bank again, close to my academic roots. 

 

March 2-5:  Out to Celebrity Ski at Vail, with Linda and the speedy Robin – and a bunch of famous folks, all focused on raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  High point was some fast runs and great lift rides with Robin.  Low points were the insides of my ankles after two days on brand-new boots.  Gotta get some orthotic insoles.

 

March 15-16:  A quick hop back to Vancouver, to the land of the big trees, and my first teaching gig at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.  It was also my first time teaching with fellow transport geeks, rather than marketing or strategy profs.  A quick but really fun trip – they were “my people.”

 

 

Detail resumes, with trip notes from my PDA, which was not stolen . . .

 

On Wednesday, March 22, I flew north to Chicago, then climbed on a 767 to Brussels.  My seatmate was an interesting person, a children’s-book publisher from San Diego, headed to the annual kids’ book fair in Bologna.  It sounded like a fun place to be.  We yakked about Jack’s and Robin’s favorites (Strega Nona, the Stupids, and others), about her growing up a military brat all over, traveling in Europe, and more.  I said ciao and sprinted through Zaventem Airport and down to the train station.  The Belgian Railway is not known for punctuality, but I somehow made my connection in Brussels North Station, and soon was rolling through a landscape alternately rural and densely urban, past new lambs trotting alongside their moms, a new youth hostel, disused factories.

 

Just before Roosendaal, we entered the Netherlands, and the landscape became more orderly, signs clearer, surfaces freshly painted.  There is a difference between the two countries, visible even to the casual observer.  We crossed the Rhine, and soon were at Rotterdam.  I walked out of Centraal Station and down the street to the #7 tram, riding 20 minutes east to Erasmus University.  Along the way, we passed large and small canals.  Just beyond one was a construction-project sign headlined “Waterplan;” the same words in Dutch as in English were a good reminder that Hollanders know a lot about how to manage water.  Their diligence contrasts mightily with the Katrina fiasco; in fact, they’ve offered to share their expertise, but are we willing to spend what it takes?

 

At Erasmus, I walked a few blocks further to the Novotel in the suburban office complex called Brainpark (one feels brighter just walking through!).  Worked my e-mail, changed clothes, and headed back out.  On the elevator, I pushed the “1” button rather than zero, and the hotel bellman smiled and reminded me that I “gotta get Dutch.”  We laughed about differences, and he added “here you can smoke weed, but no guns.”  I rode the subway and train to Delft.  Two years ago when I visited the first time it was pelting rain and howling wind, but it was a lovely day, and I had a good look ‘round, including a walk out to Oostpoort, the place where Vermeer painted “A View of Delft.”  Europeans are good at finding new uses for old places: the 19th-century De Roos windmill is now a pet-food store, the 15th-century Meat Hall is now a youth club (ooh, snapped a nice pic of the stone cattle and sheep’s heads on the façade, gone), and the Beestemarket, which Franciscan monks established in 1494 is now a pleasant park with sidewalk cafes. 

 

Had a beer at the oldest bar in town, the Bierhuis de Klomp, opened 1652.  Headed back to Rotterdam.  I was tired, so to revive I laced up and ran for 20 minutes at dusk.  With new energy, I set out for dinner at Dewi Sri, an Indonesian restaurant on the wide Maas River.  Indonesia was for centuries a Dutch colony, and their restaurants serve rijstafel (rice table), collections of many small dishes.  For €22, I tucked into about 15 small dishes, mostly spicy, and all yummy.  There was free wi-fi in the port area, and before and after dinner I worked a bit of e-mail on my PDA; ah, technology!  Took the subway and feet back to the hotel and clocked out. 

 

Was up early on Friday, to breakfast.  While waiting for my Rotterdam School of Management host, Gerrit van Bruggen, I noticed plaques in the hotel lobby, commemorating Operation Manna, 29 April-8 May 1945, when British Lancaster bombers were the bread trucks, dropping needed food to the starving Dutch in the last days of Nazi cruelty.  The airplane has been a useful device during its first 102 years.

 

Back-to-back lectures to Master’s students went well.  I said goodbye to Gerrit and rode downtown, pausing to take (lost) pictures of a memorial to the May 1940 Nazi bombing that essentially flattened Rotterdam.  I caught an earlier train to the airport, the one that the thief also rode.

 

When I discovered the ripoff (my briefcase was tucked between the back of my seat and a bulkhead, not easily accessible), my language was pretty raw.  Ten minutes later, I was sitting with Inspector Hollenberg of the Dutch Railway Police.  The report completed, I asked if there were any point in remaining in the kingdom.  He said no, so I decided, as in the circus, that “the show must go on”, so I headed toward my next lecture in Warsaw.  Flew BA to London, called the office and home, got things stabilized.  “Must see this as opportunity,” I said aloud to no one in particular.  Thanked the man scrubbing the loo on hands and knees.  Be nice, I thought.

 

Flew to Warsaw, hopped a bus to the Hotel Mercure, called the office, and slept really hard.  A long day.

 

At eight on Saturday, I met my friend Marian Geldner for breakfast.  Marian and I have served for six years on the advisory board of the Umeĺ School of Business and Economics, and years back he invited me to speak at the Warsaw School of Economics, Poland’s best B-school.  It took awhile to find dates that worked, but here I was.  By nine we were in a classroom with two dozen weekend-MBA students, emblematic of Poland’s remarkable economic rise over 15 years. 

 

After the lecture, Marian continued with the students, and I peeled off with Marek Gruszczynski, another prof at SGH, as the school is known in Polish.  Marek, an economist a few years older than me, arrived at the school in 1966, and has stayed on, through the big change of 1989-90.  We had a good yak during the next three hours, toured the school’s buildings and the Old Town (wished I had my camera), and had a big Polish-Jewish lunch (beet borscht, sole, potatoes) at Pod Sansonem in the Old Town.  Marek apologized for his doctor’s appointment at three.  He drove me back to the hotel via his neighborhood, pointing out the building where his family lived for 20 years, and the new place where he and his criminologist wife have lived for the past 5. 

 

I changed my clothes and wandered across the street to an Internet Pub, where you would tipple and surf.  I had no beer while working my e-mail to near zero (Microsoft Outlook in Polish presented some challenges!).  I stopped in a supermarket to buy some razors, then walked to the nearest Metro station.  You buy tickets at convenience stores, so in I went to use my Polish: “Bilety Metro?”  A nod.  “Bilety Dobowe.”  “Thank you, djiekuje.”  I hopped on a new southbound train, then jumped on the #18 streetcar north, back to just west of Old Town.  Walked toward the church I spotted earlier, but a Baroque beauty across the street, where the 5 p.m. mass was just starting.  This was St. Jacek’s, built 1711. 

 

The church was packed with Lenten worshipers.  All seats taken.  No heat – during the homily we could see the priest’s breath.  Not the U.S. style of low mass, we were there 80 minutes.  The sight of elderly Poles falling to their knees on the stone floor and rising effortlessly was remarkable.  The only words I uttered were “Amen.”  Took communion, prayed, and departed renewed.  This was faith raised to an exponent. 

 

I ambled south to Browarmia, a brewpub I spotted on the Internet.  Had a large mug of stout, took some notes, and walked back to Old Town.  After surveying a number of dinner venues, I settled on Staromiejska on Zamkowy Square, opposite the orange Royal Castle.  The palace bells tolled the sound of Europe at eight, as I tucked into white borscht, carp (first time!), and beer.  Yum.  Ambled back to the hotel in light rain, back briefly to the Internet pub, then to sleep – Europe moves to daylight time a week earlier than we do, so I lost an hour.

 

Was up at 5:30, walking south to #175 the public bus, which hauled me back to the airport for 75 cents, along with a few tourists and airport workers.  Flew BA back to London, American to O’Hare, then to DFW.  Lacking car keys, Linda picked me up and dropped me close to my car.  I was able to pound out 15 miles on my bike before it got dark.

 

Was at the office Monday morning at the usual time, delighted to find a replacement laptop waiting for me, identical to the one that was now being hacked at somewhere near The Hague.  I logged in, connected to a remote “network drive,” and was delighted to see that the files I backed up last September were still there.  Losing six months’ of words was bad, but not too bad!  The big loss was a half-year of PowerPoint presentations to B-schools, but by the end of day many of my requests to academic colleagues resulted in a dozen lectures returned and stored. 

 

That afternoon, I scrambled to re-create an ad update for internal audiences (no one at AA had saved one of the many shows I delivered last fall or this winter), and at 4:30 left the office to fly to JFK and deliver a promised update the next morning.  That show, to about 50 flight attendants, went smoothly enough.  Finished about 12:30, ate lunch, and met Matteo Pericoli, an Italian architect and artist who we have commissioned to produce a 300-foot mural – blending images from New York and other cities, to depict how our Silver Birds shrink distance – above our check-in counters at our brand-new JFK terminal. 

 

I met Matteo last summer, and it was good to see him again; he’s energetic and creative.  I feel a lot of ownership of the project, having sold it to executives who preferred a bland wall of clouds or massive advertising panels; I’m also using my knowledge of townscapes to help Matteo find a mix of iconic and typical buildings from San Francisco, Santo Domingo, Sydney, and sixty or so other places.  The original will be about four feet long, and will be scanned, enlarged, and printed on vinyl – wallpaper, basically.  We had a very good meeting, yakking not only about the mural, but also about health care in the U.S., student protests in France, and, most important, the pending arrival of Nadia, their first child.  I flew home at four, arriving about seven, after a nice yak with one of American’s captains.  Time for another bike ride.

 

The yo-yo continued the next morning, off to Miami, and a presentation to AA sales managers from Latin America and the Caribbean.  Went well.  Worked e-mail in between.  High point was dinner at an Argentine-Italian neighborhood restaurant in west Miami – plenty of Malbec, lots to eat, and good conversation with my friends from the south.  As I’ve written before, these meetings have more hugs and kisses than a typical wedding!  Back at the hotel room, surfing the ‘Net, I closed in on a replacement digital camera – a very sweet Panasonic Lumix.  I ordered it online, hoping for an arrival before the next long trip the following week.

 

Flew home the next morning, in time for a 10:00 talk at the agency entitled “What Clients Want from their Agency?”  Whew.  Time to sit at the desk for a few days.  And that was the first quarter of 2006.

 

Where do you want to go?

Top

Home

 

To Previous Update <<

To Next Update >>