28. 02.

Eliminating lousy Czech customer service...forever!

Have you heard about Conceptic?

Watch Conceptic CEO Adi Chitayat speak glowingly about the benefits of virtual ordering to the service-starved restaurant industry in the Holy Land.

26. 02.

The Prague Daily Monitor: Getting to Know Your Neighbours #1

Every so often I'll be featuring a "Getting to Know Your Neighbours" story.

That's right...the idea's to give you an "insider look" into the workings of the prominent players operating in Prague expat circles -- people whom you might not know about as you plough through your day. But considering that I know them well, now you will, too.

So, let's begin, shall we?

~~~~

The Prague Daily Monitor:

Given the wealth of already great Czech news WWWs out there (not to mention our very own CzechNews), you wouldn't necessarily hear about the "PDM" on your own. But it's been a going concern for the past few years now, believe it or not.

It's owned and operated by the able-bodied individuals at MonitorCE, steered in the right direction by prominent local and long-time American expats Bryn Perkins and Evan Mellander, and backed up by a bullpen of diligent editors, Czech translators, and various abstract writers.

Every morning at around 5:30, the PDM staff convenes at the paper's Prague 3 HQ to rifle through the various Czech dailies. It places particular emphasis on translations from Hospodarske Noviny, or "Economic Newspaper," a broadsheet -- which, despite its generic moniker -- is actually the CR's sole source of news which seems to hover high above the circus-like fray which otherwise passes for newsmaking in this cobbled town.

Then there are its various translations from the Schwarzenberg-family owned Respekt magazine, a PDM offering I'd highly recommend as well. (Apologies in advance to my readers from abroad for all the non-English links. Might I recommend the PDM's very affordable services as a solution, perhaps?).

From the moment they arrive at the office, PDMers -- as they are cutely known -- scour through the usual reams of sycophantic scribbles which passes for journalism here in the Czech lands to pluck out the choice bits which are actually newsworthy. They then translate these into English for mass consumption by all non-Czech speaking temps here in Prague. Non-Czech speaking because either they find our language too hard, too useless, or because they're unbelievably lazy and think that it's our responsibility -- all bloody 10 million of us -- to master their dominant tongue at the expense of our own. Not going to happen in this lifetime, though...

But where was I, the highlights, the highlights!

** every morning, at 08:30, expect a daily digest of yesterday's (and this morning's) breaking stories in your Inbox. In fact, as I write this post, my morning edition just arrived. It gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

** either in "abstract" format, or in its full article splendour, PDM news is comprehensive, diverse, and covers the wide spectrum of what passes for "news" in this country. PDM articles are short, punchy, and are edited by a competent staff of word surgeons who, in total, have over 53 years of editorial experience in other cities across the Pond. This eliminates over 50% of the usual crop of kiss-ass journalism which would otherwise make it into mainstream news channels, thank goodness. One of the main reasons why I think you should subscribe...

** The PDM breeds habitualization, making us into creatures of habit -- good for any alcohol-ailing nation, like ours. What's great about that is you don't have to go to a multitude of places to collect your morning inspiration. Sure, there are RSS and various other feed readers which can do this job for you -- which the PDM staff is actively working on to implement for oh-eight -- but the daily digest already covers this. Since it arrives like the Berlin train smack at half-nine, you don't have to look too far.

** In addition to news, you get editorial content as well. Like castaways congregating on an island paradise after a shipwreck, the PDM employs a master team of prominent one-time "expatriate" columnists, people like Kristina Alda, who opine on the latest happenings here in our Holy Republic. People who were once stars at their previous publications, but due to the machinations and pathetic insecurity complexes and proclivities of their former editors, they were cut off from their craft. Not mentioning any names now, m'kay? You knuckleheads already know who you are. (My handy advice to you: down the whole bottle of pills now -- not just one-by-one).

But what I like most about the Prague Daily Monitor are the people who actually make the magic happen, behind the scenes, like.

Unlike most beer-chugging, brothel-visiting, more-Czech-than-the-Czechs-themselves Western misanthropes who voluntarily chose to call Praha home -- either because they'd been roped in by the manipulations of a Czech siren, or were lured to these lands by the possibility of dating or wedding the total pushover known as the "Bohemian male" -- the men gripping the joystick at the PDM have a vision...a business model for the future which will become a going concern long-after the Czech Republic is absorbed as the 51st State.

And, that, BillyBob, is no laughing matter.

25. 02.

I (heart) Albanians

Some arguments "for" and "against" supporting Hashim Thaci's unilaterial Kosovar declaration of independence. Yep, I'm in an Albanian sort of mood today...

Since I'm getting e-throttled by my usual group of antagonistic e-barbarians (maybe I should begin naming them here?), I'll cut right to the chase on this one, friends.

Since I'm a democrat, I think everyone deserves a fair shot, so some days will be posts for our regular constituency (read: longer, deeper, more detailed, challenging, for people with advanced degrees and an open mind), and some days won't be, like today (read: bullet-y, short, thin, appealing to the lowest common denominator, staple food for the neanderthals). So today, my sweet oooga booga clan, I write concisely just for you.

~~~~

Pro:

** the US is totally pro Kosovar independence. Since we move in lockstep with the Americans on everything, so must we. The Americans are our sole partner in the region, the bulwark and protection against a potentially resurgent former Soviet Union.

** we are the captains of the middle -- the bulge in the centre -- the soft underbelly. The beer gut, in other words. If we support the Kosovars now -- like we do the Belarussians and their nascent democracy movements -- then when the time comes for investment our Kosovar friends will have long memories and invite us to put our monies where our mouths are. They will give us preferential MFN status for their markets, where we can ply our Czech trades and and implement our unique technologies, which are known for the world over. I call this the selfish, greedy rationale.

** supporting Kosovar independence will maintain KFOR in the Balkan region -- to act as a rapid reaction force, if necessary, in case our former Soviet friends become a little fiesty and decide to tip the continental balance of the peace. In the event of a total Russian onslaught, we'll require those KFOR troops as cannon fodder to plug the rolling tide of Russian army (aka Red Army) tanks and materiel rolling across Eastern Europe's borders, like cotton swabbing that occasionally clogs our drains. We'll need to stop them somehow. That's what KFOR is for.

** If we oppose the EU's support of Kosovar independence, we'll look like sticks in the mud, standing apart from our European confreres. That's just not neighbourly now, is it? We are not powerful enough, independent enough, politically mature enough, democratically developed enough, and furthermore, what does the Czech Republic know about the Balkans? Where were we when Yugoslavia was disintegrating? Sitting on the fence, likely, too concerned with our own Czechoslovak breakup and getting over the divorce. It happens...

** supporting Kosovo allows to repent for our previous cold passivity and complete inactivity in the region, making amends for our past misdeeds.


Con:

** supporting Kosovo before the EU does breaks ranks with our continental peers and directs unwanted attention our way, negative PR that will highlight our weaknesses, indeed for the wrong reasons. Are we politically mature enough to handle this? Not llikely, given the last round of shenanigans we've just been through up on the Hill.

** by supporting Kosovo, we ensure the continued militarization of the Balkans, a potential instigation to our former overlords, the Russians. By refusing to march in lockstep with the EU, we curry favour with the former Soviets, a force to be reckoned with.

** Prague's streets will become more rambunctious and potentially violent, as the population of local expatriate Serbs residing here continues to protest more stridently, as they recently did at Palackeho nam in Prague. Since we eschew violence and are generally passive, this will call into question our ability to actually defend the city against such mob behaviour. We've historically not been good at protecting our own interests for several decades now. Genetically-speaking, this might be an inherited trait, though it's not certain. Experts still disagree on the matter.

** by supporting what is considered a separatist movement to our friends further east, our generosity vis-a-vis the Kosovars could harm our economic interests in places with budding separatist movements of their own -- Slovakia, Romania, etc.

** we aren't politically mature enough yet. By having our government focus all its attention on a foreign policy boondoggle like Kosovo, the Czech government yanks attention away from the more structural problems that plague our baby-like democratic system. We need to focus on our problems at home first before we can begin preaching the Western-inspired politcal praisethelord gospel to our neighbours.

~~~~

Thank you for your time today.

--ADM

22. 02.

Collaborative tools for Czech "Generation Me"

We all remember that heart-wrenching Spielberg period drama from 1993, Schindler's List. The film told the true-to-life tale about the German superindustrialist Oskar Schindler, who succeeded marvellously in saving the lives of hundreds of WWII persecutees and concentration camp victims, those who were destined to perish at the hands of the dastardly Nazi cabal.

"These are mine!" Schindler would brazenly rage at the camp sentries and brownshirted subordinates, bellowing furiously as he stormed into the various compounds across Poland where Europe's perennial downtrodden and most famous, violently-persecuted minority were being held incommunicado, against their will. Until then, these were the most unsanitary, inhumane, unpseakable conditions known to man before places like Cambodia, Rwanda, Congo, and Srebrenica even came into the lexicon.

As the history books duly relate, Mr. Schindler was successful beyond his wildest aspirations. He set out to protect "his" people, preventing them from falling into the grinding jaws of the Nazi slaughter machine. He was posthumously declared a "Righteous Person" by the same people whom he'd saved.

All of this somehow reminds me of several collaborative tools I've been using of late on the web. Sites with names like YouFig, Tangler, and Twitter, a trio of dub-dub-dubs which I'll be sharing with you today.

Okay, starting from first principles:

I'm making my own bold Schindler-ian announcement to all those prehistoric neanderthals in our Czech midst -- yes, I'm speaking directly to our so-called "elected" representatives over at Parliament and the Senate: you will not touch my Czechs!

My Czechs, you ask?

I'm talking about the young generation of up-and-comers...those young Generation "C's" who are emerging freshly from Czech wombs, clueless as to the machinations of those stuffing their cakeholes up on our Gilded Hill. Those blue- and green-eyed innocent, aspiring, and open-minded babes. Those for whom the world's possibilities exist in spades in about the most interconnected planet known to man's short history.

Through successive waves of consciousness bashing, indoctrination, false nationalism, EU skepticism, an always-say-die attitude, and the potential poisoning of their dumplings and daily bread by evil parents, educators, and bureaucrats, our otherwise young stellar citizens of the Czech Republic are becoming pliable navel-gazing golems who walk the streets of Czech cities wondering what hit them.

But an antidote to all this exists! And I'm going to tell you where to find it:

~~~~

YouFig:

My team and I have been using this Middle Eastern-designed collaborative Web 2.0 tool for about a pair of months now. We've been enjoying quite a bit of success with it, to boot.

YouFig (short for "you configure" or "you figure it out" -- and I've been bugging the owners to insert a "please" in there for user-friendliness) acts as a central depot where various interest groups can come together -- temporarily or for the long-haul -- to share notes, documents, YouTube clips, to-do's, flames, and the like. A place where they can manage their invitee lists or even incorporate cutting-edge tools like Google Maps in ways that, say, Google Documents, cannot.

The company is helmed by those same godly people behind the creation of ICQ; so that's telling you quite a bit about what destiny has in store for this particular operation (notice the proliferation of the ICQ app in the Czech lands).

YouFig organizes all of its offerings into a concept known as the "workgroup." I've set up several of them -- under certain rubrics -- which my staff checks back with on a regular basis and which I encourage my team to use to contact me with feedbacks.

To be sure, it's a bit unnatural at the outset. But with good habits, YouFig will likely make its break into the Czech mainstream this year. As we all know, what works here will eventually trickle further east, as our neighbours bow in deference to our superior intellectual and US-supported power -- about the closest our 10 million citizens will come to that sobriety-slaying "superpower feeling."


Tangler:

This one's a beaut, kids.

It's run by a nice Australian girl by the name of Prabitha Rai down in Sydney and is actually one of the more effective discussion forums on the web today.

Tangler offers an easy way to kickstart a discussion about practically anything, keeping thread links about as organized as any other service you'll find online, anywhere.

To wit, we've got a few discussions up there at present about THE NATO QUESTION, which you'll of course have already covered at several large Czech news aggregators (I cannot name them here specifically as they are our competition). I encourage you to supply your answers to it as well, so feel free to chime in. (I can invite you if you email me offline).

I like Tangler, because it vaults over the typical command-and-control structures which persist in Czech work circles despite the more democratized nature of the web. Web tools -- especially "Web 2.0" tools -- are ideally supposed to level out the playing field, to allow young Czechs with degrees and honorifics "up the wazoo" to strut their stuff and introduce their innovative ideas to the world.

Sadly, the horror stories persist. Several of my Czech confreres tell me during Chamber of Commerce shindigs and the like that surreptitious attempts by certain Czech employers to undermine their staffs are alive and well, men and women who try to roll back the Czech progress clock to old "CSR-style" methods [ed.'s note: the former Czechoslovakia].

Tools like Tangler will kill that off. Tangler will strangle the Czech dinosaurs in their tracks, condemning them to the sandy depths as is their fate, to be discovered by prospectors centuries later as "black gold," those who hold the rest of us at ransom, like our Arab friends today of the Gulf and in Arabia.


Twitter:

Alright, and if you haven't heard about Twitter yet, then you're likely spending too much time at the hospoda/herna, at the the chalupa, or crossing tasks off someone else's priority list (which beggars the question -- whose time are you really serving anyways?!).

Twitter is for you "early adopters" out there (after the innovators), opinion leaders in your various communities.

People like you are known as trend setters and tempo-ists, whose word is taken as the closest thing to "gospel" in this land of 1000 church spires, yet where the Higher Power is derided and cursed as frequently as the Windows95 operating system once was.

Twitter answers the very simple question: "What am I doing?"

It's not chatting. It's not ICQ. It's not even email. Hell no! It's 140 characters of bliss.

You can choose to follow people of your liking and learn about the better tools to be found out there on the web.

You won't learn what I'm eating, how I feel, nor about the present traffic conditions in Prague's Inner District. What it will do, rather, is save you a mess of trouble tracking down those pieces of information you'd otherwise have to do plenty of rifling around to find.

For all of you marketers out there, here's a HOT TIP: follow Jeremiah Owyang.

~~~~

So my message today to those prehistoric creatures occupying our seats of decision-making power: Keep your meathooks off "my" Czechs! It's their pure minds, not yours for the robbing!

And since you won't listen a lick to what I'm saying, young Czechs now have:

YouFig
Tangler
and
Twitter

to pull the rug out from under you.


Hezky weekend,
Mejte se,
and as always, I wish you the very best of things,
ADM

20. 02.

Just get a job! ::: The new Czech ideal? :::

A great recent article by the outspoken Stefan Theil in Foreign Policy magazine -- reproduced in Canada's National Post newspaper and sent to ADM courtesy of his abundantly wise father from the land north of the 45th -- lays out some rather grim trends afoot in the French and German education systems.

Basically, it would seem that French and German high school curricula have become resident specialists in the curious neo-science known as "globalization-bashing."

Students living in those Western European powerhouses are being fed massive doses of purely anti-capitalist rhetoric on a daily basis, with horror stories from the post-Cold War transition period becoming regular fare for these young up-and-coming Western Europeans.

In France, the standard three-volume Histoire du XXe siècle is the dominant resource used by French pedagogues as part of their frequent railings against the globalization tide. To wit, the tome boasts the following peculiarities:

** Capitalism is described at various points in the text as “brutal,” “savage,” “neo-liberal” and “American.”

** Start-ups are described as “audacious enterprises” with “ill-defined prospects.”

** Entrepreneurs are linked with the tech bubble, the Nasdaq crash, and the mass layoffs across the [French] economy.

In Germany, it's even worse. Add to this the fact that it's happening in the world's third-largest economy:

** German textbooks are written often from the perspective of a future employee with a union contract.

** Bosses and company owners show up in caricatures and illustrations as idle, cigar-smoking plutocrats; sometimes linked to child labour, Internet fraud, cellphone addiction, alcoholism and, of course, undeserved layoffs.

** One 10th-grade social studies text titled FAKT has a chapter on “What to do against unemployment.” Instead of describing how companies might create jobs, the section explains how those without jobs can organize into self-help groups and join weekly anti-reform protests “in the tradition of the East German Monday demonstrations” (which in 1989 helped topple the Communist dictatorship). The not-so-subtle sub-text? Jobs are a right to be demanded from the government.

If this is happening in France and Germany, what are the prospects for young people in the Czech and Slovak Republics, whose secondary education systems are churning out hordes of graduates compelled to seek out little more than a steady salary and corporate fringe benefits?

I sometimes spend two to three hours standing in front of groups of young Czech university students and aspiring Czech entrepreneurs giving public speeches. Our sessions are generally highly-energized and exciting, and the exchanges following my bit are oftentimes very spirited and full of promise.

When I conduct the all-important follow-up to my speeches days later, the results are hardly as optimistic. These same youngsters, who only weeks before were full of promise for what the new economy might promise them, and how they might find their place in it, later seem deflated, listless, and completely without direction. Like a tragic former young colleague of mine -- talented beyond her years -- who still, I've been told, turns to the bottle every time she can't solve her personal problems; a phenomenon worthy of another blog post, to be sure.

Naturally, I'll try to find out where their problems emanate from.

I've determined that much of the blame falls squarely upon the shoulders of their parents and supposed role models.

Far too often, young Czech graduates and aspiring businesspeople are encouraged by their post-Communist elders, siblings and -- worse -- grandparents, to "just keep quiet and get a job." Their ultimate self-actualization, in the latter's opinion, should be to seek out that all-critical security blanket which comes courtesy of a regular (high) salary and benefits. They are never advised to seek out the more risk-seeking arena which is the cutting-edge of entrepreneurship.

As I mentioned yesterday, the lifeblood of any emerging economy is the small- and medium-sized entrepreneurial (SME) sector. SMEs are the engine that gets a national economy too heavily dependent on manufacturing, as is Cesko's, onto the 21st-century tech track, more tapped into what's happening on the rest of the planet via the Internet.

Is "just getting a job" becoming the new Czech ideal? I'm beginning to fear this is so.

I and some local colleagues have recently begun an aggressive hiring drive for our new Prague e-operation. How's this for a relevant selection of feedback from some of the interviews we'd recently conducted:

From a recent discussion with a potential Czech equity partner:

** "Yes, Mr. Mezei, but what you're talking about takes lots of money. Do you think you're going to be able to compete with the established interests in the city, who are likely going to make your life a living hell and set out to destroy and possibly harm you physically, even if you've got enough start-up capital to carry you through, and even if your practices are completely above-board?"

When interviewing a graduate from Prague's prestigious VSE, Vysoka Skola Ekonomicka/Economics University, for a possible position in our company, asking him were his career goals:

** "Well, I'd like to have a nice car, a nice home, and hopefully I'll make enough salary for a mortgage soon, because the banks are offering mortgages these days pretty freely, you know."

ADM: "But experts are claiming there'll be a recession soon, and the Czech Republic's not immune to this. You sure that taking out a mortgage is a suitable goal?"

Graduate: "Well, my brother's doing it, and so far he's okay."

ADM: "But that was five years ago...the financial and economic conditions have changed radically since then. You think the Czech Republic is immune from the subprime mortgage crisis in the US? Do you think that you're going to be able to afford a mortgage on the salary you're presently making, or that the bank is just going to give you a mortgage like that?"

::: Naturally, the grad had no suitable answer to this, since all that he had been spouting to me earlier was jargon. And that really wasn't him speaking, either...it was the countless bombardment of nightly TV Nova television commercials and ubiquitous advertising billboards and placards dotted around Prague's public transport network and tramcars advertising "instant mortgage and credit approvals.":::

Entrepreneurship is a decidedly a dirty word in this city.

I always like to ask my colleagues what they're reading at home or as they commute, because this is usually an apt indicator of how seriously they take their continuing education, and where they're likely headed in the future (I don't want to place a limit on how long the future is, to avoid anything smacking of cliche).

I'm also always curious about podcasting, and whether they own the required technologies like an iPod or portable .mp3 player to capture much of the educational radio and audio content so rife on the 'net these days.

My unscientific poll results -- I'm sad to admit -- so far are woefully paltry. More than 6 out of 10 people I informally ask don't even have a clue what I mean when I say podcasting (even translated into Czech), which is pretty revealing if you ask me.

Then if I ask them what they're reading, I get the usual Covey and Welch platitudes.

They have no clue about the overly popular:

TechCrunch

Fast Company Expert Blogs

or

EUX.tv.

My big question to all of you is, when will "just get a job" eventually become "just make a job" in the Czech Republic?

Because all the tools are presently out there at your disposal. You just have to jump in.

--ADM

19. 02.

iJump...do you?

Here's a nifty startup I recently came across, based in Auckland, New Zealand, called iJump.

It's got a sweet little business model which I thought you'd find really interesting, so I wanted to tell you something about its founders, husband and wife team Simon and Marie Young.

iJump is growing player the burgeoning field of social media coaching. The firm helps small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs planet-wide -- from its humble perch in the Pacific -- to leverage the massive power at their disposal of social networking on the web; more commonly known as "Web 2.0."

Among other tasks, iJump assists its clients to establish their online presence at popular sites like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Twitter, YouTube -- the usual suspects in the social networking pantheon. They demystify things like RSS feeds, podcasting, videocasting, and blogging for companies that don't have a clue where to start -- or, in their words, where to "jump in" -- by encouraging them to develop good social networking etiquette via fantastic proprietary innovations like "habitualization."

In any event, swing on by their site and have a look at things for yourself. iJump's videocasts are really sticky, and Simon and Marie have developed a comfortable, unassuming interviewing style which totally places their various subjects at ease. And they've also been interviewing some rather large players on the New Zealand media scene; a major kudo to them, for a startup, that is. All this is proof positive of the democratizing nature of 21st-century technology. Who would have thought this sort of thing possible 10 years ago?

I know Simon for about ten years now, and he's quite the legendary blogger. These days, he clocks in under the clever moniker of "Creative Instigator" at iJump, but as you'll notice, he does have other "alter egos," all painstakingly established during the decade or more that Simon's been involved with online business.

Then there's Marie, whom the camera positively adores. A charismatic kiwi Samoan lady, Marie hosts iJump's popular weekly videocast, JUMP IN. I'm also curious to know if Czechs will be able to grasp Simon and Marie's accent, because it's a great one and once you get used to it, you'll -- as me -- want to get your daily dose.

Why is iJump important for Czech small- and medium-sized businesses?

It goes without saying that the SME sector will be the main driver of the local economy once the Koreans, the French, the Taiwanese, and the Japanese uproot their physical plants and FDI bounties to Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Ukraine, and Turkey.

Sure, Bohemians, Moravians, Silesians, Czech-Slovaks, trans-Carpatho Rusyns, and Roma (collectively referred to as "Czechs") are living the lives of Riley today, but at some stage -- because such things are perfectly cyclical -- the wrath of Cain will rain down on Bohemian society courtesy of the lofty Economy Gods. We'll have to lurch along for a bit like an RAF Spitfire mottled with Wermacht anti-aircraft fire over the skies of Prague during WWII, like lepers, while our economy makes its eventual comeback.

But our fearless leaders (not to mention His Supreme Worship, Santa Klaus) are aware of this, taking every possible precaution to prevent such a calamity from ensuing. They have our best interests in mind, as always.

We need companies like iJump in Cesko because:

** Cesko, with its sparkling masterpiece of Prague, has demonstrated its potential as a CEE Centre of Excellence. Why not in the online services sector as well? Not just call centres, anti-viral software firms, and solar panel technology.

** corporations need to leverage their technological platforms to encompass more than just email, blogs (if any), and server-side applications.

** Czechs are a naturally gregarious people. The viral nature of social networking can be pressed into service as a revenue-generating business function rather than viewed simply as the dolce far niente waste of time it is today.

** the Czech economy needs to prepare for the eventual day when heavy industry doesn't dominate our GDP. We need to plan for this now, rather than later. And good plans are meant for fulfilling. Czech citizens shouldn't relegate this "ounce of prevention" to their so-called "leaders," (mostly) men who likely don't have the citizenry's best interests in mind.

** what works here, works further east. If we can establish a solid track record for CEE social networking, who's to say it's not possible to win markets in Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, the Baltics, and elsewhere?

~~~~

That's why we need to jump in.

In the words of the brillant Ike Piggot from Occam's Razr:

"If you think a blog is the only thing you need, then good luck cutting your steak with a spork."

07. 02.

Czech small business, rules!

And this couldn't be any truer here in the CR.

As always, Slovenia's EU Council Presidency website is the source material for these musings.

~~~~

Economy Minister Vizjak on the launch of the new business support network:
“Credit for European economic success is due chiefly to small and
medium-sized enterprises.”

Andrej Vizjak, the Slovenian Minister for the Economy, was one of the
keynote speakers at today’s conference on the launch of Enterprise Europe
Network - the new business support network. In his address, Mr Vizjak
emphasised that “small and medium-sized enterprises play a key role in the
European economy as major drivers of innovation, competitiveness, growth
and job creation”.
“For this reason, in recent years many new instruments have been
introduced in the SME policy area, but even more remains to be done. I
believe that the European Community and the Member States can coordinate
their efforts even better,” said Mr Vizjak and expressed his conviction
that the new business support network would be one of the chief mechanisms
offering continued support to European SMEs.
Mr Vizjak announced that the Slovenian Presidency would continue the
efforts in the area of SME policy. “We want, in particular, to focus
primarily on measures to promote SME growth. This will entail facilitating
access to financing, reducing administrative burdens and improving the
supportive environment for business,” he said.
The new business support network will be the main mechanism supporting the
European SMEs in their efforts for innovation and the achievement of a
higher level of competitiveness, combining Euro Information Centres and
Innovation Relay Centres. It will offer a varied range of additional
support activities, such as advice on business legislation, and
information on the principal policy initiatives and standards.
Mr Vizjak was invited to the conference by European Commission
Vice-President Günther Verheugen.

07. 02.

The Czech Green Building Society

It's oftentimes described as an immovable force meeting an irresistible object, but despite the best-laid plans of Western and domestic companies attempting to launch the green building movement in this country, the effort, it seems, is doomed in the short-run.

For those of you who don't know what the "green building" movement is, a brief primer courtesy of my good friend and green building maven Andrew A. Hunt, of Pittsburgh, PA, USA would suffice:

~~~~

Andrew A. Hunt:

"The basics of green building [in the US] are defined as a home that is healthy (with high indoor air quality), durable (made of quality construction/materials), and energy efficient ("tight" building envelope, insulation, HVAC).

Beyond that, it's all about material selection like recycled, local, low VOC -- volatile organic compounds, like off-gassing from paints and laminated woods, on-site power, water saving, and size (smaller is better).

The good news [ed. - about those new economies in Emerging Europe] is that you can sort of build a program to be flexible."

~~~~

Indeed.

Andrew and a group of local Czech collaborators are kickstarting a new Green Building Society for 2008 which will go right to the heart of the movement -- new home and new home developers.

This will run the gamut of:

** run-of-the-mill "production"-type builders, where one company buys the land and develops it into several hundred of individual home sites.
** custom builders, where homes are built to suit for nouveaux-riches buyers.
** or multi-unit rentals, which are smaller versions of the "run-of-the-mill" scenario (the "Nosovice Hyundai Auto Factory" model).

Andrew and I were having a game of pepper about this last night, where he'd spitball an idea and I'd fire back a rebuttal, playing devil's advocate.

For all of Andrew's great suggestions, I wanted to inject a healthy dose of Czech realism into the picture -- applicable to several of our post-Communist neighbours as well. His enthusiasm was simply contagious, yet like most Western businessmen who come, um...green, into the market, a little bit of prior knowledge about the workings of the local business culture separates the men from the boys here. What I'd call the a "Lonely Planet-plus" version.

The following is a summary of some of the advantages and disadvantages we'd discussed yesterday:

~~~~

Advantages:

** many citizens already own the very homes they live in, as payoff for the difficult years under the previous regime. As such, there are fewer regulatory hoops to jump through at the outset were people to suddenly wake up wanting to "go green." The establishment of a citizens' coalition -- much like the class-action suit currently in the Strasbourg pipeline regarding rent control -- is not an unattainable goal.

** Czech consumers enjoy trialling products and services. If a logical appeal can be made to this highly-sophisticated, skilled marketplace for the Green Building Movement, there are higher chances for uptake.

** what works in the CR will generally work further East. (I've mentioned this in several other places on this blog, but it's borne out by statisticians and regional trend watchers alike).

** with the masses of new building projects being slapped up across the Republic -- especially with high-polluting occupants like business tenants and the like -- the potential environmental windfalls from going green are readily visible.

** "La Combinacion Perfecta" -- no, not Llego El Sabor featuring the god-like Oscar de Leon and Jose Canario, which is a whole 'nother story. No, what I'm talking about here is when Czech scientific innovation comes up head to head with the green building movement. Think about the numerous gains: a pristine playing field for Czech process innovators, a better environment and international reputation, moreover, for Czech citizens (given Klaus' senile blatherings), and high revenues for builders who decide to get into the same bed as the Czech scientific community.

But like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (Will Smith) sang long ago, in their seminal hip-hop track, "Joy and Pain" (...it's like sunshine and rain -- c'mon, sing it with me now!). Every coin has it's two sides.

So here were the corresponding disadvantages:

** corrupt bureaucrats and other change-inhibiting Czech Tyrannosaurus Rexes and other assorted ooga-booga knuckledusters will erect roadblocks at every turn. These are the same people who reject everything which comes from "the outside." The same people who gobble-up their Head of State's shnook-like views on the environmental, suckling at the poisonous breast of Klaus' brand of Czech isolationism.

** green building is expensive. When developers from anywhere but the CR are making money hand over fist in this country, with low-cost flights now homing in on the regional cities like Pardubice, Brno, and Ostrava, is it any wonder that this whole discussion of "going green" is a moot point?

** who has a right to tell the Czechs how to live their lives or spend their newfound incomes? When the Americans started going industrial, buying up oil reserves and stockpiling them like they were going out of style, did anyone stand up and stop them? Ditto for the Chinese in this respect. Who has any right to tell the newly surging economies just how to behave? The potentially-splinter green building movement? Fat chance!

** Green building might not speak with a coordinated voice in this country, dooming it from the start. In a country with only 10 million souls, this could be potentially catastrophic. Equivalent to the threshold for election to the Lower House being 5%, which usually results in razor thin government majorities, the product of shaky coalitions between strange political bedfellows. There will be too many small Czech organizations seeking "green" glory. Without due oversight, the greenies will appear like a bunch of squabbling hippies.

** Resistance to outside ideologies and influences, which have doomed Czech society, especially since the late 1930s. Green Building will be looked upon as just another one of these "foreign influences" emanating form the superpower du jour, the U S of A. Even if it makes sense, it doesn't make sense for the Czech people.

~~~~

What do you think about Green Building? A hoax or a sensible new paradigm?


As always, I wish for you many good things,
ADM

06. 02.

Czech Returnees: the hidden goldmine?

Here's an interesting bit which recently arose in coffee conversation with a diplomatic colleague of mine during a recent confab: the notion of the Czech Diaspora, and returning Czechs. (And by the latter, we don't mean returning Czechoslovak exiles, which is a whole 'nother ball of wax!).

Being from a fellow European Union Member State, she got to comparing how the young people in her nation returning from stints abroad contribute to the upgrading of local skills and the boosting of her country's workplace and societal morale. That is, compared to the Czech Republic.

Since I'm a notorious list person, let's try this little exercise again:

1)

2)

3)

Name the Top Three things that returning young and middle-aged residents abroad returning to live in Cesko deliver to this country.

And you don't have to limit your response to the economic sphere, by the way.

All you've got to do is name the top three things you think those Czechs who spend a significant amount of time abroad deliver to their fellow citizens.

If you think that Czech returnees deliver nothing but critique and strife, then be sure to mention that too. If think nothing but boons, put that down.

As always, I wish for you many things.


Sincerely,
ADM

05. 02.

Disqualifying Svejnar?

There were some rather interesting comments recently posted at several previous entries. Rather than respond to them there -- where they would likely be obscured by thick sedimentary layers of others' random musings -- I thought it best to break everything out here as a wholly separate entry.

After reading the heated replies to this particular post, I was reminded of my late grandfather's expression for precisely situations like these: Mir darf os chillin', he would say. Loosely translated it meant, "cool it, bubba."

I'd like a clear explanation from someone precisely why Zdenek Svejnar's reputed collaboration with the former Statni Bezpecnost negatively affects his son's campaign for Czech Head of State?

I ask because if this is, in fact, the yardstick via which we measure his son's candidacy for Czech Presidency, then you can add the following prominent international statesmen to the list of supposed personae non gratae:

** Francois Mitterand, who was endlessly dogged by alleged Vichy-era ties during the latter part of his leadership in France. Apt for Cesko, since this would be yet another example of a noted head of state with potentially compromised relationships...and, friends, Mr. Svejnar is not (yet?) on the stature of a Mitterand (neither is Mr. Klaus, for that matter).

** Konrad Adenauer, first post-WWII German Chancellor. Here was a leader who did much to not only heal the Continental rift which had developed in war-torn Europe, but he restored relations with the then-nascent State of Israel, and cooperated magnificently with the Allied Occupying Authority in West Germany for a smooth post-War transition.

Adenauer was reputed to be a member of the Hitler Juegend (i..e Hitler Youth), but since the Americans were too busy outmanoevering Soviet spooks in Berlin at the outbreak of what was then to become the Cold War, no one messed around in Adenauer's closet. A tacit agreement was made: a certain threshold of former Nazis would be permitted to serve in the Bundestag as a "healing measure." For the same reason, Czechs shouldn't be mucking around in Zdenek Svejnar's dirty laundry, christ...

** take pretty much the entire Spanish government and cabinet in the post-Franco context, following the (re)ascendancy of King Juan Carlos I (de Borbon) of Spain to the Spanish throne. Is someone going to tell me with 100% certainty that first post-Franco PM Navarro hadn't a single relative that potentially had dealings with Spain's dreaded Guardia Civil?

** the famous scandal surrounding former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim, and his very questionable service in the war on the Eastern Front in the Wehrmacht and then in Northern Greece, as part of his service in the mounted core of the Stuerm Abteilung (SA). Talk of Waldheim's Nazi ties during his Secretary-Generalship of the UN in the '70s and '80s completely destroyed his reputation.

** the lustration madness taking place in our neighbour to the northeast, Poland. Have we become like them already (Heaven Forbid!)?


Allow me to remind you:

** we don't elect Svejnar, 280 Czech Deputies and Senators do!
** he's a figurehead president with very little legislative authority. And even if he is elected come Friday -- and Paroubek subsequently becomes PM -- guess who runs in the roost in that kind of configuration (wink, wink)? And this is a problem?
** how much higher will Klaus' hot air rise once he's nominated to a second term? If you think it's bad now, think of all the damage control we'd have to do then.

So it begs the question -- why is this Friday's presidential face off such a hot button issue for locals?

Instead of taking all your energy out on Klaus vs. Svejnar, how about grounding your roiling frustrations into the NGO or private sectors, to evoke more meaningful change (completely under your control)?

People, people, people...cool those heels, please!

04. 02.

Dear Poslanci and Senatori...

AKTUALIZOVANO:
www.anoprosvejnara.cz

Tisková zpráva; Představení občanské iniciativy ANO PRO ŠVEJNARA.

Dnes, v pondělí 4. února, proběhne v 16:00 v kavárně Krásný ztráty (Náprstkova 10, Praha 1) představení nové občanské iniciativy ´Ano pro Švejnara´. Nová občanská iniciativa se představí veřejnosti a promluví politolog a nakladatel Alexander Tomský.

Občanská iniciativa má za cíl podpořit prezidentskou kandidaturu Jana Švejnara v nadcházejících prezidentských volbách. Součástí představení nové iniciativy budou následující body:

-webová stránka www.anoprosvejnara.cz
-internetová petice ´Výzva volitelům KDU-ČSL: Odmítněte politický obchod´
-podpořte Jana Švejnara emailem svému voliteli
-diskusní fórum
-zajímavé články a odkazy

Iniciativu podpořilo již během víkendu několik desítek osob z veřejného a kulturního života.

Představení občanské iniciativy se koná v baru Krásný ztráty, neboť nezvolení Václava Klause by bylo ´krásnou ztrátou´ pro Českou republiku.

Bližší informace poskytnou:

Lukáš Sedláček.
lukassedlacek@hotmail.com, 776 043 773

Jiří Š. Cieslar
jcieslar@seznam.cz, 736 181 391

~~~~

Once upon a time in Ontario, Canada, a party leader by the name of Bob Rae became the premier of the country's largest and richest province. It was a magical election. Took the entire electorate by storm. "Dark horse?" An understatement!

I powered through this weekend's news material on the johnny-cum-lately "scandals" (ironic?) swirling about the Svejnar camp, and I couldn't help but think back to the year 1990 in Ontario. That was when New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Rae ousted the Liberal administration from power...a party which nearly had the automatic vote of the Ontario electorate if it voters didn't opt for the go-to Consevatives, the province's erstwhile Big Blue Machine.

It was a resounding majority victory. The NDP landed 74 out of the 107 seats up for grabs in the Legislature, and it was a message from the Ontario electorate to the ruling Libera and Conservative pashas that the time for their brand of politics had definitely run its course. As I remember it, it was a great year in Ontario.

What made Rae's victory so significant was that this was the first time a neo-socialist party had won a provincial election west of the province of Manitoba in Canada. The resounding NDP triumph baffled the NDP's most strident critics and pundits -- even Rae himself -- who wasn't expecting to do so well.

The later policies of the NDP during their five year reign completely changed the way politics was practiced in Ontario, and several of the programs enacted during their tenure are still on the law books to this day. (Have a look at the link above for some of the things they'd implemented during their half-decade run.)

A propos to Jan Svejnar and his CSSD backers here in the Czech Republic.

What is flying completely over the heads of most of the Czech electorate -- either deliberately, through manipulation, or inadvertently, through our perennial horse-and-blinders approach to ignoring the bitter medicines our society is forced to swallow -- those who have very little present influence in the matter, is that a nod for Svejnar will be so damn good.

It represents change. A change we desperately need.

It's precisely this fact which is making Klaus, Topolanek, and their various handlers perspire bullets, which is why the muck has started flying four days before the presidential tipoff. They've sent some junior ODS lackey down to the dusty StB Archives' cellars -- now housed in The Institute for the Study for Totalitarian Regimes (but really, all the files? Klaus doesn't keep any of them at home under his mattress?) -- to spend 18 hour days rifling through the files for some dusty folder which smears not Mr. Svejnar, but Mr. Svejnar's elderly dad!

Like LBJ said...there is no sin in politics for being immoral, only stupid.

Then, as Erik Best writes in his Final Word this morning, Topo did a yeoman's work by casting aspersions on just who is financing Svejnar's romp around Cesko during his recent Roosevelt-ian brand new "New Deal" campaign swing.

The net result is a double whammy against Jan Svejnar...enough to rock the political boat just days before the secret bicameral ballot, and just sufficient to convince any of the straggling on-the-fence Deputies or Senators that perhaps it's best for them to fall into line. An election for Svejnar might result in their being turfed out of office during the next round of regional elections. All that pent-up passive-aggressive rancour of their respective electorates who will passive-aggressively cast their ballots in strong opposition to the StB-collaborating Svejnar extended clan.

I know, all of this sounds completely ludicrous. I'm reading it as a write it, and I can hardly believe it myself.

But what is this truly saying about our electorate? It actually reminds me of the way I talk to some of the young people I meet as part of my professional work.

They'll get all excited about a particular idea, the words cascading out of their mouths faster than the ideas even form in their heads. But then, suddenly, some Bonobo monkey seated way back in the nose bleed section will plant just a single seed of doubt in his/her mind, and all of a sudden there's pin-drop silence. What happened, you ask?

I blame the control-freak teachers in the school system who have poisoned the minds of our young people -- who eventually grow up into working, contributing adults with families -- whipping them into submission, with minds much lesser than their students'. And then these same adults will pass it on to their kids. And the vicious cycle perpetuates...like the clap.

Dear poslanci and senatori: vote for Jan Svejnar because this is the only sensible choice. Be lauded for your uplifting of an entire young generation, instead of for the asphyxiating of yet another crop of our nation's future leaders, change agents, and creative instigators -- not for creating for shit disturbers and miserable folk.

Our young people are not yours for the exploiting, okay? And they certainly aren't your personal pension fund factories.

03. 02.

Stabbing copper beats the rap

Read it and weep, friends...from Radio Prague's evening news e-out, 02.02.08, Year of Our Lord:

========================================================================
Police officer who killed US man in Prague not taken in custody
------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Prague police officer charged with the stabbing to death of an
American man in the city on Tuesday night was not taken into custody. A
Prague court has rejected the proposal made by the state attorney's
office. The 27-year-old officer, who was drunk and off-duty when the
incident happened, reportedly attacked the 44-year-old American after a
fight broke out over they way the victim had parked his car. The
incident took place near the Sazka Arena in Prague 9.

~~~~

Is this sensationalism at its Czech journalistic best, or is there a deeper malaise in our criminal justice system?

Wait, I know the reason! The American guy provoked him!

::: slapping forehead :::

Of course, how silly of me!

02. 02.

The Czech $64,000 question...

I've been conducting this mini-debate with my native Czech friends and colleagues of late, and I've not received any satisfactory responses.

Here's what I do: I grab a napkin (if we're out somewhere), I whip out my pen, and I write down the following:

1)

2)

3)

Then I ask:

::: If it's on Skype, then it's similar. :::

This is what I recently received from one of my colleagues who's an insider at the Czech Ministry of Defence. She just returned from a mission to Basra, Iraq, as part of the Czech military contingent there, as a psychologist. Note, this is one of our senior functionaries representing our interests abroad:

1) our national history.

2) our national pride

3) our clever head and hardworking arms.

What are your top three?

01. 02.

Do we deserve what we're getting?

Fan mail came down the pike this morning, folks, so I'm going to share it with you here:

I can't help but be heartbroken when I read things like this. For the life of me, I can't understand why this is the case, either. In 2008?! Whatever happened to the Czech Famous Eights?

I, too, am a regular traveller on those same trams and metros (like this morning, for example), and I too am utterly dismayed by the paucity of laughter, the graveyard-like silence, and the wafting rank odour of alcohol so freakishly early in the morning.

And these are not old battle axes, friends.

These are young up-and-comers. The Beautiful People -- XX and XY chromosomal types both. The ones who will be representing the future face of this nation, when crusty old brontosaurus rexes like Vaclav "I Am Your Santa" Klaus and Jiri "Steal the Cheque" Cunek are long since gone, no longer able to foist their pet theorems onto a nation so blithely accustomed to acquiescing to commands from on high.

The Beautiful Ones. These are the types who will carry the Czech torch into the glorious future. The guardians of the Czech legacy, the trustees of the history of the nation which stretches back centuries. Not into the murk of isolationism, knock on wood.

Look, friends, I aim to increase the peace. So I'm won't sling sharp-tipped barbs your way this morning as I rail against the prevailing conditions in Prague society.

There's hardly any point in that, and you don't need a headache and stomach cramps as you sit back in your easy chair munching your third chocolate mini-danish (of the half-dozen in the doggie bag you snagged this morning from Paneria). It's Friday. You've worked hard. Let your sacroiliac slide. Do what you do best.

I often get mocked by my expat friends who've been here for more than a decade. I can of course name names, but best if you swing by the following link for a listen to some of these people. During "The Knowledge" project at the CR's largest portal for the English-speaking community, Expats.cz, I was often told by these same expats of the existence of a downward-slanting curve (not kurva). How their enthusiasm for wanting to make a positive, constructive change to the prevailing, sometimes dour, sometimes gleeful, conditions in Prague society by (Ghandi-like) "being the change [they] wanted to see" diminished with the more years they spent in the capital. Which is a right pity, if you ask me.

Yet, somehow, the optimist in me wonders whether things have changed since the '90s. Moreover, have things even changed since Y2K?

Think of the Man of Steel-like leaps and bounds we've made since May, double-oh-four. We're the envy of the region (look how many Bratislavans live in Prague, and how many Slovaks work in the CR, more generally). So much the envy that Uncle Sam has decided to make our ODS mandarins an offer they can't refuse, and we all know what I'm talking about there, don't we?

Here are some questions I would like answered, and these are hardly polyannaish on my part:

** Why are intelligent, highly-skilled, attractive (oftentimes female) Czech young people not maximizing their aptitudes to the fullest? I will not accept answers that go along the exhausted lines of: "...because their parents and grandparents grew up during Normalization, so they inhale the latter's putrid lessons by osmosis," or "...because they work in a company full of underachieving louts who constantly hammer down their loftiest ambitions." That's not on, kids, because those same young men and women are surfing the same Internet as I am. They are as globally mobile as I am. They can interact with the same internationals, just like I can. Why, one my close colleagues at Aktualne has even been places I only wish I could see! Why can't more be like him? Hi Pavs!

** Why does Czech society take only the choicest parts of the developed world's innovation, chucking those others which don't accord with its staid way of thinking? You know what I mean here, so let's take some indicative examples: Democratic institutions, but sans a strong non-governmental sector. Members of the EU, but you don't want those same Western European norms to apply to you. You want to be accepted as sovereign peoples with a gifted culture and a clever language, but you don't want to accord that same right to the newcomers in your midst. You want to master foreign European tongues -- Spanish, French, German, English -- but you hardly want those sorts of people to join your nuclear Czech family...the equivalent of "...yeah, sure, I've got black friends, but they're not coming into my house, m'kay?"

** Why are our most reputable news organizations rifling through the manure heap to grow their online audiences? Here's a winner for you -- I was reading Radio Prague's evening newsletter last night (31.01.08) and there was a full paragraph in prime e-real estate (smack in the middle of the page) devoted to how a Northern Bohemian veterinarian is being brought up on negligence charges for not treating a gravely injured dog. All because the police officer who delivered the ailing canine to his clinic works for the same municipality which towed his car last year. This rubbish is news?!

So, in response to the above question...do we deserve what we're getting?

You tell me, Frank.