When my friends at BusinessWeek asked me to contribute an article to an issue they were planning on the role of optimism in business I was happy to oblige for two reasons. First I believed that I had an important case to make that growth in the number of professionals in the developing world (and Read More

It’s a while since I’ve written a serious piece in this blog about business or technology strategy so I thought I would make amends below. After this dry piece the few remaining readers of this blog will probably wish that I go back to soccer and sauna – at least subjects that I know something Read More

Every year our family spends 10 days or so at our lake house in Finland. This is not a random choice as my beautiful wife Maarit was born and grew up in this watery land of thousands of lakes. (She also reads this blog from time to time so I will earn some serious Brownie Read More

My son Walter’s spring soccer season ended today – under the rain. It’s as if we never left London. Now I understand how prescient these kids were to name themselves the “Aqua Dominators” at the beginning of their blue-shirted season. The good news is that Walter age 9 really learned how to play the “beautiful Read More

I recently participated in a series of video interviews with an innovative online service called big think www.bigthink.com. The site describes itself as "a global forum connecting people and ideas." In a wide-ranging interview I discussed my thoughts on managing risk in an uncertain and volatile operating environment and avenues of growth in professional information Read More

A couple of weeks ago some old friends and I headed out to the Meadowlands Izod Center to hear The Dead. Not exactly The Grateful Dead of old as Jerry Garcia can never be replaced but a reformed and worthy sequel. Rather than seek some pale American Idol simulcra of Jerry the remaining original members Read More

So in Part One I explained why I began to blog and said why I continue to do so was a story for another day. Fortunately a bunch of you took the pregnant hint and requested Part Two of the story. For a change I will lay out the answer in top 10 list format: Read More

I often get asked why I decided to write a blog. The answer unfortunately is not that I felt I had anything so important to say that I needed to share it with my 10000 closest friends. Rather the reasons were quite selfish – I wanted to learn. I write a blog for the same Read More

I spoke recently at an interesting monthly gathering of smart switched-on tech and media leaders in Brooklyn organized by the very talented Sam Lessin – also known among friends of his accomplished father Bob as “Lessin 2.0.” The salon is called Y+30 and challenges its presenters to discuss a different industry each month focusing on Read More

Having just watched the tender movie Marley and Me about the irrepressible blond Labrador I realized that our dog Luna is the only one of our “children” who has not figured prominently in this blog. Luna does not get taken to the museum or on ski trips; she does not have a weekly soccer practice Read More

Some of the readers of this blog have requested that I discuss the current financial crisis and resulting recession. As I shy away from subjects too close to the business of Thomson Reuters in part to avoid 20 pages of risk factors in each post I will respond here only in general terms. As we Read More

With Bernie Madoff locked-up in the Manhattan Correctional Center better known to New Yorkers as ‘the Tombs” (a fitting place for him to enter prison life never to return) I thought I would share one of the odder thoughts (or mental hyperlinks) I have had. Although the victims of this enormous fraud deserve our help Read More

Following our recent Night at the Museum (see separate blog entry below) and thanks to a bad flu in the family Mariana and I found ourselves on a long holiday ski weekend that turned into another father-daughter outing. Clearly part of Mariana’s pleasure at this turn of events was the delicious ten-year old thought that Read More

A couple of weeks ago my daughter Mariana and I spent a night at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Just as in the eponymous movie we slept (actually not much) surrounded by dinosaurs stuffed grizzly bears and Teddy Roosevelt. When I signed us up for the event through Mariana’s school some Read More

In his now famous 1989 essay The End of History Francis Fukuyama argued that the spread of Western liberal democracy represented an end of history in the Hegelian sense that the progression of history towards an ultimate goal had in fact been reached with the fall of communism. My impressions from several sessions with Chinese Read More

But journalism is alive and well. Lionel Barber of the FT masterfully moderated the 2009 installment in the long-running Davos debate on the health of the media entitled "Fragility in the Fourth Estate." Joining me on the panel were Steve Forbes of the eponymous magazine; Jonathan Nelson of Providence Equity Partners the media-focused buyout firm; Read More

One of the privileges of being Chief Executive of Thomson Reuters is that I get to meet some very interesting people and have access to events and places that I don’t flatter myself into believing would be available to me otherwise. One such event was an invitation to lunch this past Sunday with Gordon Brown Read More

We have hosted a lot of important visitors at Thomson Reuters headquarters. Over the years we have had Prime Ministers Heads of State Royalty Chancellors and Treasury Secretaries Central Bank Governors the Secretary General of the UN Ambassadors and a steady stream of valued customers and partners. However none has been as important as the Read More

Unsurprisingly my prior Obama post (Obama and The City on the Hill) attracted significant comment. I agree with the reply that "Obama is colorless." This is what is truly historic. America has advanced to the point at which an African American can be elected because he is the most qualified candidate and not because of Read More

It is a new America to which I return after a long election week’s trip to Asia. This is not a political opinion but a historic one. For those of us who grew up in the 1960s even grew up white in America it was the decade of the epic civil rights struggles. Dr King Read More

Those who know me well know that my reading list infrequently departs from fiction as I find literature provides a healthy and spiritually fulfilling counterbalance to a professional life deeply rooted in business prose. When I do so depart it is usually into some realm of science (see blog post Strange Loops). For those interested Read More

"Well here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into Ollie." So might Stan Laurel summarize the position of the average citizen in the global financial crisis. In a similar vein government officials legislators and regulators around the world are busy pointing the finger reminding us of the terribly important speech they gave three years ago Read More

Unsurprisingly there has been a lot of comment on my post "The Great Repricing." Since the original post Congress has now passed the rescue bill and there are some signs of stability appearing in the banking world (viz Wells Fargo’s unsupported bid for Wachovia); however the credit markets remain all but closed and I believe Read More

Although our family recently moved from London to New York one aspect of my life has remained constant: Pacing the sidelines at my son’s weekend Soccer games. I don’t know about Sarah Palin’s family but in mine and most of the others I see each weekend on both sides of the Atlantic the Soccer Dads Read More

Running Thomson Reuters provides me a ringside seat on the global economy. A huge proportion of the world’s trading in stocks bonds foreign currencies and other instruments pass through our systems every day. In addition our 2600 journalists provide not only a running account of market movements but also provide the context and analysis behind Read More