Hello world!

My first ever blog as UK returnee, that’s what people like me are called out here. Throw into that my work life and business life, its been an eye opening week. I have drifted into a new world here, I am now into art, culture, development work and value creation. It’s a fascinating departure from teaching global marketing strategy! But I am relishing the prospects of what is in store in both lives. I am getting to grips with working with limited amounts of very expensive internet, pay as you go calls, $2.55 tins of Heinz Baked Beans and $11 for 500g of Kerry Gold butter. The trip to the shops was a proper “shit just got real moment”. Actually that trip explained why nearly all fridges I open here are just water coolers!

But, from a business perspectives the prospects are seemingly unlimited. It’s just a matter of how innovative one is in identifying projects, financing them and planning that could be a limiting factor. Innovative and creative solutions to problems are few here. This market is very short term in its outlook, pricing is unrealistic with every business looking to make as much money as possible today. I feel its unsustainable in the long term especially if a new player enters the market with a different pricing strategy. It will take a shift in culture across all sectors to steer businesses towards a different perspective.

And the politics keeps everyone guessing but I suppose the less said about that the better, there is a lot of guessing to keep everyone entertained without me adding to the rumour mill! We all wait patiently, what other option do we really have? What is more fascinating for me is how politics influences areas that I had never thought could cause discomfort to the political agenda of the day! I have so much to learn here.

As for now I am sitting in a hotel room watching a TV on mute and listening to music as I write. This is going to be the hardest part of the transition, the darkness of the night consumes daylight by 1715 and time drags on slowly until morning. I have 13 channels of nothing I would like to watch and BBC iplayer seems to have been told I moved from England because it now says I am not allowed to watch stuff I have missed! I might need saving from myself soon!

The premiership is back, Arsene Wenger and Ivan Gazidis are lucky to be living in country where the people and regimes are tolerant, if it were a different country someone would have been shot by now. I will have more on everything next week, albeit from a different hotel room!