Everyone is talking about how things will be. How will they be? I have no idea. What I do know is that people are afraid, which makes them very hungry. Some also feel the need to explain why they’re not following the usual courtesies. Some observations made today, Day 7 of the pandemic:
A man scanning the empty aisles of our largest neighborhood grocery store, “I guess I better come early in the morning. They clear the shelves by afternoon.” Indeed, all the raisins are gone. Ditto the Goya beans, my favorite. Ah! I snag a box of golden raisins, pushed to the back of the bottom shelf. Who are “they,” I wonder, and where are “they” putting all of this food?
Is insatiable hunger a symptom of Covid-19? (Lauren Canterberry/Community Impact Newspaper)
Pet food, fully stocked. Should I worry about the cats and dogs? My staple Earl Grey tea, all brands. Gone. And I thought I was surrounded by coffee drinkers.
The checker at the same grocery store. He’s about 18. I try to make him laugh by asking where all the groceries were going. I get a smile as he shakes his head. “I don’t know. Don’t they know things go bad?” Together we wonder when we’ll all settle down, perhaps to a very large shared meal with lots of beans and raisins.
A woman opening the door of the UPS Store with her elbow as I approach sheltered behind a 36-in by 36-in box (the lamp my sister has rejected which I couldn’t return to the store which had closed overnight from the day I called to see if they were open): “I’d open the door for you except for this coronavirus thing.” The door closes just as I reach it. I’m impressed that she explains her actions to me.
Is it time to shop online? Should I worry about the environmental implications of paying Amazon Prime $13/month to bring me tea and raisins instantaneously? What about all those young delivery people who have no health insurance? Perhaps a victory garden in the flower pots on my balcony would work.
Like Scarlet O’Hara, I vow to think about it, not tomorrow, but next week when I run out of greens.
Take care. Be safe, and yes, if at all possible, stay home.
Five business leaders walked onto the stage of the Texas-EU Summit to talk about managing transatlantic businesses. Two run European units based in the United States; two developed European units of U.S. practices; and one has done it all. Four wore stilettos.They didn’t have much time, and they had something to say. Not one wanted to be called out for her gender, and not one considered that remarkable.
(L to R) Ana-Barbara Llorente, partner, Pendas International, moderator; Belen Marcos, president, Cintra US; Cristina Silingardi, Austin managing director, VCFO; Sharon Schweitzer, founder and principal, Access to Culture; and Liz Wiley, partner, Grable Martin Fulton PLLC and honorary consul of France
The hardest thing: Finding and keeping talent
Without question, the biggest challenge confronting a European company in the United States is finding and retaining talent. “Americans’ resumes look great, but you have to train them,” said Belen Marcos, president of Cintra US, one of the world’s largest private developers of infrastructure. Marcos, an engineer by training, noted that in Europe educational credentials are paramount. Americans job-hop more than European hires. They tend to specialize and resist working in areas outside their specialty.
“Europeans are generalists. They expect to do many different jobs.”
Belen Marcos, president, Cintra US
Navigating European statutory regulations
Disruptive business models challenge both business and cultural norms. Consider the vacation rentals that have turned many traditional neighborhoods into latchkey hotels. Cristina Silingardi, a Brazilian with deep finance experience, helped Austin-based HomeAway successfully navigate the sticky process of integrating acquisitions in both Spain and Brazil.
“Understand the statutory regulations before you do business … It went off without a hitch.”
“Contracts are part of the law in Europe,” said Liz Wiley, an attorney and partner, Grable Martin Fulton PLLC. who specializes in intellectual property.
“Very little if anything can be negotiated (in Europe). Expect negotiations to take much longer.”
Belen Marcos, president, Cintra US
Marcos knows a thing or two about the subject. Her company Cintra is part of the Spanish infrastructure provider Ferrovial. She and her team negotiate the construction and long-term management of roads, airports and concessions, many of which are public-private partnerships.
Belen Marcos (holding microphone), president of Cintra US, negotiates infrastructure contracts in Europe and the U.S.: “It takes longer in Europe because of statutory regulations.”
Codes vs. negotiation. Consider privacy.
Europe is not a monolith. Both EU and country-specific regulations come into play when determining who owns what. For example, “the EU has the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but France has its own data protection authority, the CNIL, which handles GDPR complains and defends the French position with GDPR-related issues,” said Wiley
“The United States is not a code country,” commented Wiley, “We make our own deals.”
Liz Wiley, partner, Grable Martin Fulton PLLC
Wiley, whose practice includes both French and American startups, recommends first filing for U.S. patent protection, then filing in other countries to ward off infringements.
Soft skills matter
“When in doubt, err on the side of formality,” advises Wiley. And in the hurley-burley world of entrepreneurs, she recommends oral presentation training for cautious French startups that compete in the winner-take-all American pitch culture.
Sharon Schweitzer, principal, Access to Culture
Sharon Schweitzer’s company, Access to Culture, cross trains business people to be effective in other cultures. Recounting an incident where two older Czechs silenced their giggling younger colleagues with a steely glare, Schweitzer said the significance of a seemingly minor incident caught her by surprise.
But do high heels also matter?
The specter of political change is everywhere. Here too, dress is brand. This year’s Yellow Vest protests revealed the deep divide between France’s privileged class and rest of their country. As I’m writing this, on the other side of the world, young people in Hong Kong wear black and mourn a man in a yellow raincoat.
Remember Mark Zuckerberg’s testifying before Congress, stripped of his signature t-shirt and uncomfortable in a blue suit? Melania Trump in a white pussy-bow blouse and sky-high heels? Dress is political, and high heels stand unrivaled as a symbol of gender and power. Flip flops may reign in U.S. youth and tech enclaves, but search “business women” and you’ll find women in power in wearing heels — because they choose to.
In another culture where talent and a diverse work force weigh heavily on its future competitiveness, Japanese women unsuccessfully petitioned their government to ban gender-based dress codes (#KuToo), and specifically high heels. My guess is there’s another shoe to drop there.
In 1869, men in the Wyoming Territory needed wives. Politicians in Washington needed more voters in the Western territories. So Wyoming gave women the vote. John Morris wrote to a national magazine promoting women’s suffrage:
It is a fact that all great reforms take place, not where they are most needed, but in places where opposition is weakest; and then they spread.
John Morris, following the Wyoming Territory’s decision to give women the vote
“To be sustainable, change takes time,” Wiley noted. Would this panel have happened 30 years ago? 20? Maybe.
With that thought, I’m pulling out my high heels to wear sometime soon.
Hats off to Ana-Barbara Llorente and Pendas International, for sponsoring the panel, and the World Affairs Council of Austin for hosting.
A young performer challenges me to build alliances, broaden my associations with people who are not like me; to be active in pushing for change.
In late July of 2017, I pushed my way into an airless warehouse-turned performance space to be part of an enthusiastic audience for this year’s “Sixty by 60,” the annual fundraiser for the Fusebox Festival, a not-to-be-missed series of glorious international art, dance, opera and all-round inventiveness that happens every Spring in Austin, Texas. For free.
Fusebox’s 60×60 gives performers 60 seconds to say what they want to say.
The piece I remember most vividly featured a young African-American woman wearing a white t-shirt that read in bold, black letters, “Be Nice.” A small woman, standing in the middle of the stage, she invited the 200 of sweating her sweating audience to pick up the white t-shirts she’d placed on their chairs and wave them over head, joining her in shouting “Be Nice!” to loud music.
The reference to the iconic New Orleans R&B queen Irma Thomas’ white handkerchief was there: Put your backfield in motion, even when your audience waves Confederate flags.
But 2017 brought us a new president, Travis Kalanick, Harvey Weinstein, shootings by and of policemen, fake news, children gunned down in churches, and more. There is a lot of material to work with during 2018.
Though if it were up to me, a woman raised with the same words, I would make it BeNice2.0 to make it clear we’re done with the old “nice at a price.” We don’t need enemies. We need collaborators, supporters, friends, critics who are willing to listen.
The other thing I like about BeNice2.0 is that it takes us beyond “be kind,” unquestionably a necessary and admirable life rule. To me, BeNice2.0, suggests a more active, engaging stance. Ask for what you need, point out unfair behavior, propose better approaches. Be active; #BeNice2.0
Somehow in the hurry-scurry of the new year, I missed Kristin Dombek’s beautiful piece in last Sunday’s NYT, “Retrograde Beliefs, In defense of magical thinking.” Read it if you haven’t because Mercury takes it first 2015 trip backward starting next week. I know this because one of my A-priority New Year tasks is to block out on my calendar the four times a year it happens. I draw a thick yellow line through those 16 (give or take a couple of) weeks so I’ll know not to get frustrated, to finish incomplete projects and not start new ones. To neither sign contracts nor make big commitments.
The stars’ secret influence is only one thing we try to control. Illustration by Javier Jaen, courtesy of The New York Times.
Dombek nudged me with her graceful, faintly scientific reminder: Jousting with Mercury is a mortal stab at codifying mystery. Forget it. Alas, for us planners and plotters, Mercury is just the tip of the iceberg.
In 2008, on the brink of the Great Recession, I buried a St. Joseph statue in the front yard of a house I wanted to sell. I bought the statue under false pretenses, telling the cashier at the religious supply store that it was for my mother, who collected Nativity sets. That was true, but I had a distinct feeling I would be punished for fudging on the larger truth.
There were specific instructions for burying the saint. I researched the procedure and measured the distances carefully – so many steps to the east of the front door, so many steps from the street. Even so, when the house sold and it was time to dig St. Joseph up, I couldn’t find him.
This worried my mother, the collector, who’d put Mary and baby Jesus on the shelf beside her chair, awaiting the carpenter’s arrival.
“Where’s Joseph,” she asked.
“He’s on a business trip,” I answered. “He’ll be back.”
But he never returned, and Mary remained a single mother, much to my mother’s distress.
I’ve wondered about the unintended consequences. The house I sold is still occupied by the family that bought it, but I’ve moved every couple of years since then.
Then there’s the blog I started following a series of family deaths. It was an exercise in catharsis, and when it was over, I’d had I enough. I deleted my connection to the content, but I couldn’t delete the content itself. It’s out there, like a piece of floating debris or an orphan planet. Sometimes I want to reclaim it, but I can’t. The posts dangle in the ether, that great celestial dumpster.
There’s a scary freedom in this lack of control, like releasing a captive wild thing, and a reminder that I’ve never been, nor will I ever be in control. Which is the point. It is a mystery.
I’m still reeling about Lassie. That the scion of a loyal, courageous, elegant line of war heroes (The Courage of Lassie) has been re-positioned as the “Kate Middleton of animals” is more than I can bear.
Lassie, enduring her rebranding as a product pitch dog. (Courtesy of The New York Times)
Granted re-branding is tricky, as are brand extensions. Should this young Lassie have been a brand extension instead of a re-brand? Can Lassie come home?
Case in point: I’ve been admiring a new extension of a venerable local brand as it’s come together over the last several months. The new building is adjacent to the original, so the relationship of mother-to-child is obvious. Of course, this is not Hollywood, but we’re getting close to it here in Austin, Tex.
The original, Fonda San Miguel, is a gorgeous place filled with a world-class art collection, food and drink. A welcoming, elegant restaurant with adjacent gardens.
It’s the kind of restaurant where you go to curry favor.
Here’s the extension. It’s unannounced, unopened but rumored to be a tapas bar. Perfect, no?
The child of the grand Fonda San Miguel, just across the garden in Austin, Texas. A bit of hipster funk.
The brand extension works because it contrasts with the original while maintaining the flavor. It’s unexpected, but it makes sense. (I sound like I’m at a wine tasting, don’t I? But you understand what I’m saying.)
A lesson for Dreamworks? Don’t tamper with an icon. Did anyone ask Marilyn Monroe to lose weight? Well, probably, but that’s another conversation.
Is it presumptious to compare a Hollywood icon to a local institution? Perhaps. But then again why not, if something is to be learned?
Maybe Lassie’s great-great-great offspring should have been renamed “Lasi” and positioned as a fashion blogger?
What I want to know is this: Who engineered the comeback of brussel sprouts? Did I miss the tweets? Because the humble vegetable of my childhood, grey and waterlogged, has morphed into a supply side challenge.
Can farmers keep up?
Was it Mark Bittman and those classy NYT spreads? Some trendy chef in upper New York state, or even here in what was once a comfortably populist ATX (Tex Mex or a steak, anyone?)?
There’s been no humiliating name change (bruss?), as prunes have had to endure (dried plums?). They look the same: little cabbages, hard and round. No labor-saving innovations; still a somewhat tedious process that requires a colander, trimming, cutting, and unless you’re a roaster, a two-step cooking process.
They still, sauces and marinades aside, taste (and smell) like cabbages.
Was there a blog? A reality show (an island, 20-somethings, a case of brussel sprouts and lots of conflict?) Opeds?
Did Dr. Oz endorse them for their digestive qualities? Was it the source-agnostic but ever-purist French?
I came of age during the dawn of the fashionable slouch. Despite my mother’s admonitions to keep my shoulders back, I conformed to the preferred silhouette: the pelvis forward, knees bent. It has not served me well.
An array of bad choices, courtesy of Susy Russell Posture + Physical Therapy
Millennials, take heed. The long-term effects of gravity are not to be denied. If you start slumped, you may end up standing with your nose touching your knees. Be forewarned: Stilettos and brilliant leather bags that weigh as much as a mid-sized dog give home-court advantage to the earth’s pull. Downward. Full disclosure: I did my time tramping about Manhattan in Bruno Magli heels. I’ve reformed: Forget about sex appeal. Opt for good sense.
Bad posture is insidious. It’s formed gradually over hours, days, years hunched over one device or another, a lunch or dinner table, leaning forward, elbows on the table. These are habits — bad habits that constrict our breathing and crumple our digestive tracts. No good will come of it.
Then there’s sitting — and air travel. I recently took a flight to California thinking I was prepared. I’d torn an article out of the New York Times on in-flight yoga poses. The challenge proved to be miniaturizing them for coach class – a physical, spiritual and social exercise. I mastered one — raising my legs. The others are going to require more practice, and less concern about my seat mates. Perhaps they will want to practice alongside me.
It’s taken me eight years of yoga classes and relatively diligent practice to be able to recognize what it feels like to breathe. It happens when you stand on flat feet, weight balanced and your spine reaching upward (new muscles!). While I wish I’d started sooner, I’m grateful to have finally figured it out.
Summer is a good time to not just think about this but to do something. The air is bad. It’s hot. There’s more exposed skin. All good reasons to look the world straight in the eye, take a deep breath and breathe.
If you feel in need of a good, healthy slap in the face, I recommend Andrew Solomon’s brilliant Far from the Tree, a page turner of a book about those among us who are born different — the deaf, dwarves, homosexuals, children of rape. It’s required reading for the 21st century, especially for people like me who whine when we fall short of (fill in the blank).
Stop worrying about being perfect. Start improving.
Solomon’s Tree gives those us blessed to be born in the middle of the bell curve a benchmark with which to measure our own silly self-preoccupations, among which I must say, perfectionism stands out as a colossal waste of energy.
Fortunately, thanks to Brene Brown, population explosion, social media and the first amendment, perfectionism has fallen out of favor. Witness the snarky comments about the talented, drop-dead gorgeous Anne Hathaway. We don’t like to be shown up.
So, quick, while perfection is not trending, let’s try to figure out how to put all the energy we spend worrying about future outcomes into actually trying to make both ourselves and the future better. Case in point: public speaking has never been easy for me. I can suffer insomnia, panic attacks and temporary amnesia prior to giving a talk. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put that effort into preparing? Wouldn’t it be logical to just talk about what I care about rather than trying to sound like I have it all together?
Ever listen to “From the Top,” the radio show about young musicians? These kids spend four and five hours a day practicing their art and seem to thrive on the process. They’re focused, fun and innovative. They don’t whine. I hope they’re the future. Out with suffering artists and tortured, overly competitive achievers!
On a community level, here in Austin, which has always been a high-volunteer/low donation city, “I Live Here, I Give Here” program sponsored Amplify Austin, a day-long donation marathon, sort of like “1,000 Points of Light” meets Kickstarter. The result? $3 million for non-profits. What an improvement over whining!
The point is that making things (and oneself) better takes a lot of work, but not necessarily self-torture. Even moving forward is hard. But consider the alternative.
The other thought is — and this is a separate post — there’s a trick to weaving a story — about oneself, a client or colleague — that makes the process a lot easier — and more fun. It worked for Jane Austen (who doesn’t want to be Elizabeth Bennet?) and Scheherazade. Why not us?
So, let it go. Take a minute and do a little jig. Recite “The Owl and the Pussycat.” Go make something better.
I stopped into my favorite charity shop and watched a volunteer pull one of those grow-tomatoes-upside-down kits out of a bag. A botanical reinvention built on the premise that plants — like people, corporations and planets — can be reinvented to instantly adapt in ways that are painless, prompt, productive and profitable.
Reinventing the tomato plant — upside down.
Yes and no. Reinvention is systemic. It’s metric is survival. That tomato, for example, knows it’s supposed to grow up, so you’ll find it straining to turn itself upside upside down to be rightside up. This can be distressing to watch if you have rigid ideas of how things should be, but that’s the trade off.
I’m a boomer, raised on pap spun out by that evil genius of happy endings, Walt Disney. Did he know he was shaping an entire generation’s psychology? All those fairy godmothers, princes and ball gowns? I would have loved to have seen him locked into a joint script-writing project with the Brothers Grimm. The result would be very 21st century.
When Plan A and indeed B and C don’t work, I try to give myself a break. I realize I’m tapping my foot in anticipation of a fast, inside-out extreme makeover — fewer wrinkles, better real estate and clients who hang on my every word. Fascinating opportunities are out there. We just have to trash the old script — and pen a new one.
So, heave ho. We know what to do. Read the pundits. Keep moving forward. Cheerfully. It’ll soon be tomato season.
Everything was set up to start spring cleaning, and this little guy stuck his head out of an abandoned sparrow nest nestled between the rear window and an outdoor shade. Okay, so I’m a little late on the cleaning.
It’s an anole lizard, a charming little reptile — sometimes green, sometimes brown — seen darting across rocks, fences and buildings in warm weather (just about all year in Austin).
A reptilian squatter, seen through a (dirty) window.
The little guy (it may be a gal) is homesteading. I can tell it thinks big — it’s taken over the entire foot-long nest. Anolis lizards are fiercely protective. When I pointed the hose, it girded its loins, as the ancients used to say, and made ready for battle.
Nature vs. woman – one of the life’s four basic conflicts. The compromise? Abandon the project and am work out an accommodation. I mean, what if it’s a single mom?
Austin’s kind of like that: thinking big and figuring out how to accommodate record growth. There are lots of out-of-state license plates on packed roads. Housing is getting harder to find. All of which goes hand-in-hand with excitement and energy — and a nexus of talent, energy and resources.
Does growth have to be Darwinian? The anole reminded me to pause and make way. To make room for those of a different stripe and enjoy the expansion.
The disputed territory — can the anole and I accommodate one another?
Chrysanthemum Marketing 