Leaving for Manila Monday morning for the week. A very full schedule, meeting with lots of insurance companies and companies that could be involved in distributing micro insurance. Meeting with the newly appointed Philippine ambassador to the US. He also happens to be a Wharton alumnus, as is my traveling companion. A mini Wharton reunion in Manila. Not taking my laptop, one less thing to haul along, but I will try and do facebook postings from my Droid. (again my sincere thanks to AJ who set up the Droid for my travels).
As I pack my suitcase, and anyone who knows me, knows that I am the most excellent packer, I realize I am itchy to travel. Since arriving on January 22, this is the longest time I can remember when I have not been on a plane, living out of a suitcase. But of course, I AM LIVING OUT OF A SUITCASE, I have to remind myself. Actually 2 suitcases and a carry on, but still. I am anxious to learn more about the market and demand for micro insurance in the Philippines, the structures that already exist and what needs to be built and generally to get to know the culture. The LeapFrog team has great relations in the country and I'm armed with a lot of background material for building the base of a program.
Had my last sailing lesson and bridge lesson this week. Now I need to practice, practice some more and then practice a bit more. I'm all thumbs in sailing and there are long pauses as I add, count and struggle to remember things in bridge. My sailing course allows unlimited times on the water if they have an empty seat on the J24 boats that go out and there are also discounted practice sessions at bridge. I may consider buying a bridge software package to play as well.
Went to the zoo, see the pictures on Facebook, had breakfast with a friend from AFS and wandered around the Rocks, the old, original part of Sydney and in the evening went to the Olympic Park to see a Rugby game on Saturday. The Rocks has nice markets, a few winding streets and little pubs to explore. Reading David Hill's book 1788, about the First Fleet. Finished GOLD, by the same author on Australia's gold rush. I didn't know that England was using the American colonies as a dumping ground for convicts but was forced to end that practice when the US declared our independence. The British searched about for another dumping ground, Africa was one, but they finally settled on New South Wales, (Sydney).
Before I left, JS and I were laughing that I might miss my two incredibly ugly but lovable dogs more than anything. I do miss them but I really miss my husband. It is so nice to be married for almost 29 years and still miss and love him so much. Thanks goodness for the free calls from gmail to any land or cell phone in the US and of course skype as well. The calls help but I miss his friendship and our long discussions on the state of the world.
The harbor is calm tonight and there is almost no wind so most sail boats have packed it in. A quiet Sunday night.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
One month- a quarter gone
I've been on sabbatical for a month. This first month will be like no other. My travel starts in a week, a trip to the Philippines, then the end of March a 10 day trip to South Africa, K arrives, then another trip to the Philippines, more family arrives then L comes. There will be time in March to practice my sailing and bridge and maybe even gain a bit of proficiency or at least lessen the confusion in both, but this first month was special because of the newness and aloneness of the time. I'm not lonely, although I am getting a little tired of eating most of my meals alone, but the aloneness for this extended period of time is a gift and also challenge.
I met a friend of the head of LeapFrog, a very successful CEO, who is on a break, looking for his next challenge and he talked about the freedom to allow the mind to wander, to think and not to have to focus on outcomes. It's harder than it seems. In true fashion I wrestle with the guilt of not wanting to waste this time and still being luxurious in letting my mind wander. Whenever I mention how decadent it feels to leave the office at noon for a sailing lesson, I'm reminded by AK that I should substitute deserved for decadent. Doesn't everybody deserve to have this kind of freedom to think and wander? I'm pinching myself to make sure this is real, thinking how lucky I am to be on this sabbatical. What a gift. The gift of time and space.
Got a wonderful lesson on "how to talk about LeapFrog" from the founder. It was more about how can micro-insurance play a role in breaking the cycle of poverty. If we can visualize the world's wealth in a pyramid, with the top being most people living in western countries, the very bottom the extreme poor who live hand to mouth, every day, the rest are in a cycle of moving out of poverty but being one event, one illness, one death away from going back into poverty. A Lloyd's study reported the number of people in that category is between 1.5 and 3.5 billion people. What would happen if something could be created and provided on an ongoing basis that would support the families so that the event, illness or death wouldn't send them back to hand to mouth existence. That is what micro-insurance, insurance for the masses is all about.
The greatest need is health insurance. And it is also the hardest. If the US can't figure out how to provide health care for the masses, it is daunting to think of doing this for the 4 billion in the world outside of the US who really need it. Australia has a national health insurance, Medicare, that is similar to the British system and I am constantly asked how the US can possibly have so many people in our country uninsured and why there is such a battle on the topic. They don't understand and nor do I.
Thinking also a lot about the distribution of insurance for the masses, the role of technology and training. Are mobile phones the answer? Do we need to train a group of agents who can gain the trust of the poor? Whoever solves this issue will win big. Both in market share and the social goal of reaching the next billion.
After last weekend's two plays and museums, I decided this weekend to focus on sailing and swimming. Took the ferry to Manly yesterday and walked to Shelly Beach. K and I visited this spot 25 years ago and the restaurant was still there. I think it might be the perfect spot for my sister's birthday when she visits the end of April. I swam, sat in the sun (with my 30+ sun screen) and later had a nice lunch at a little cafe. I have been so virtuous in my eating of healthy food, that when the fries were delivered with my seafood salad, I inhaled them. I guess the body does crave junk food every now and then.
Lots of folks were snorkeling but I forgot both my mask and camera on this trip. I remembered my sun screen, water, hat, sun glasses, reading glasses, maps, ferry tickets, phone, keys, book to read.... but forgot my camera. Next time I'll post pictures. The Australians have a great expression on avoiding sun burn. Slip (on a shirt) Slap (on 30+ sunscreen) and Slop (on a hat). The sun is brutal.
What is is about water that makes people do stupid things? Coming back on the Manly Ferry which was packed on a sunny Saturday in the summer, we passed a 30 ft. yacht with about 12 men in polo shirts and shorts, drinking beer and the lone woman stood up, topless and waved to all on the ferry. The men on the ferry waved back with abandon and the guys on the yacht smiled. Not to be outdone, after changing ferries at Circular Quay (pronounced key) and heading back to my home port of Double Bay, there was a party boat packed with guys and two were standing on the roof of this boat in their BVDs, dancing and having a good old time. The party boats, lights, music blaring and shrieks are a fixture on the bay until past midnight these summer weekend nights.
A cool front is coming in, or so says my sailing instructor. I am getting a handle on the C to F conversion. Basically double the C temp and add 30. Close enough. The Queen Mary and QE2 are to arrive in Sydney Harbor early Tuesday morning. They will sail right by my balcony and I promise pictures. Until then.
I met a friend of the head of LeapFrog, a very successful CEO, who is on a break, looking for his next challenge and he talked about the freedom to allow the mind to wander, to think and not to have to focus on outcomes. It's harder than it seems. In true fashion I wrestle with the guilt of not wanting to waste this time and still being luxurious in letting my mind wander. Whenever I mention how decadent it feels to leave the office at noon for a sailing lesson, I'm reminded by AK that I should substitute deserved for decadent. Doesn't everybody deserve to have this kind of freedom to think and wander? I'm pinching myself to make sure this is real, thinking how lucky I am to be on this sabbatical. What a gift. The gift of time and space.
Got a wonderful lesson on "how to talk about LeapFrog" from the founder. It was more about how can micro-insurance play a role in breaking the cycle of poverty. If we can visualize the world's wealth in a pyramid, with the top being most people living in western countries, the very bottom the extreme poor who live hand to mouth, every day, the rest are in a cycle of moving out of poverty but being one event, one illness, one death away from going back into poverty. A Lloyd's study reported the number of people in that category is between 1.5 and 3.5 billion people. What would happen if something could be created and provided on an ongoing basis that would support the families so that the event, illness or death wouldn't send them back to hand to mouth existence. That is what micro-insurance, insurance for the masses is all about.
The greatest need is health insurance. And it is also the hardest. If the US can't figure out how to provide health care for the masses, it is daunting to think of doing this for the 4 billion in the world outside of the US who really need it. Australia has a national health insurance, Medicare, that is similar to the British system and I am constantly asked how the US can possibly have so many people in our country uninsured and why there is such a battle on the topic. They don't understand and nor do I.
Thinking also a lot about the distribution of insurance for the masses, the role of technology and training. Are mobile phones the answer? Do we need to train a group of agents who can gain the trust of the poor? Whoever solves this issue will win big. Both in market share and the social goal of reaching the next billion.
After last weekend's two plays and museums, I decided this weekend to focus on sailing and swimming. Took the ferry to Manly yesterday and walked to Shelly Beach. K and I visited this spot 25 years ago and the restaurant was still there. I think it might be the perfect spot for my sister's birthday when she visits the end of April. I swam, sat in the sun (with my 30+ sun screen) and later had a nice lunch at a little cafe. I have been so virtuous in my eating of healthy food, that when the fries were delivered with my seafood salad, I inhaled them. I guess the body does crave junk food every now and then.
Lots of folks were snorkeling but I forgot both my mask and camera on this trip. I remembered my sun screen, water, hat, sun glasses, reading glasses, maps, ferry tickets, phone, keys, book to read.... but forgot my camera. Next time I'll post pictures. The Australians have a great expression on avoiding sun burn. Slip (on a shirt) Slap (on 30+ sunscreen) and Slop (on a hat). The sun is brutal.
What is is about water that makes people do stupid things? Coming back on the Manly Ferry which was packed on a sunny Saturday in the summer, we passed a 30 ft. yacht with about 12 men in polo shirts and shorts, drinking beer and the lone woman stood up, topless and waved to all on the ferry. The men on the ferry waved back with abandon and the guys on the yacht smiled. Not to be outdone, after changing ferries at Circular Quay (pronounced key) and heading back to my home port of Double Bay, there was a party boat packed with guys and two were standing on the roof of this boat in their BVDs, dancing and having a good old time. The party boats, lights, music blaring and shrieks are a fixture on the bay until past midnight these summer weekend nights.
A cool front is coming in, or so says my sailing instructor. I am getting a handle on the C to F conversion. Basically double the C temp and add 30. Close enough. The Queen Mary and QE2 are to arrive in Sydney Harbor early Tuesday morning. They will sail right by my balcony and I promise pictures. Until then.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Contrast
I'm an early riser, always have been and continue that practice here. There is a big construction project right next to my apartment and the banging begins promptly at 7 am which is a big motivator to get moving but even without that I'm awake at 5 or 6. The BBC radio is on before 7 so I can lie in bed and get caught up on the news of the day, or is it yesterday from our perspective down under? I arrived in Australia on January 22nd. The same day the protests started in Egypt. So while I have been fiddling around here, learning the protocols of the office, figuring out bus and ferry schedules. hauling groceries home and playing tourist, Egypt and the world as we all know it has been shaken and turned upside down.
UE has done a great job of keeping track of what our members are doing to safely evacuate students and faculty from the turmoil in Egypt. The scale and scope of what is happening there and how it changes the chess board of diplomacy is hard to get my head around. I rely on the BBC radio for audio news and although I promised myself not to check news from back home, I have cheated and log onto the NYT web site to get some US perspective. It is a close tie to decide which is the worst news source here; Australian radio, TV or the newspapers. All three are really bad. As I visitor I don't want to be snarky about the news media, or anything, here but it is underwhelming. This is of course Mr. Murdoch's birthplace. I turned the TV on my first afternoon as I wrestled with hooking up the wireless internet in the apartment and haven't turned it on since. Bill Bryson in his 2000 book on Australia commented on the poor state of Australian TV and seems like things haven't changed. As for the radio, and I admit to be devoted ( addicted) to NPR back home, but at 7 am, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) radio show READS THE HEADLINES AND ARTICLES FROM THE AUSTRALIAN PAPERS. It is almost reminiscent of a SNL sketch. But real. I'll post a link to the Sydney Daily Herald on my facebook page.
On to other issues. Still haven't been on the water yet for sailing, the wind has a magical way of disappearing when I appear for my lessons. I'll try again Sunday morning. Finished my second bridge lesson and I think I can understand why Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are crazy about the game. It is a pretty cool, challenging and fun.
Very engaged in the work of LeapFrog. A lot of thinking about what should be measured. UE has values that guides all interactions and work of our staff. Teamwork, Integrity, Quality, Innovation, TIQI, and although the measurements are subjective and we are looking for objective measurements of social investments, we think there are ways to measure the effectiveness and efficacy of social impact investing. There are really smart people here who's life work it is to think about and launch these products and it's terrific to be a small part of this process, even for such a short time. The UE staff will laugh but I am also using The Ultimate Question and the concept of Influencers, Promoters etc. for some work here. Maybe we have a source for those books yet!
Starting to plan some trips for when family visits. OZ is amazingly huge, and although there are only about 22 million people in the country, there are so many things I want to see. Should we go to Tasmania, it will be chilly there in April but everyone I talk to says it is very special and the walks are really amazing, maybe up to the Daintree, Cape Tribulation and upper part of the GBR, but will "stinger season" be over? What about Uluru and the Olgas? Maybe Kangaroo Island? Melbourne of course and some folks say Canberra has a wonderful art museum with the best collection of Aboriginal art and although the capital city is much maligned, others say it is a really nice place to visit. Canberra was a compromise after Federation when both Melbourne and Sydney wanted to be the capital of the new country. In the spirit of compromise, half way between the two, Canberra was built. After all DC was a planned city, built on a swamp as the US's new capital. At least Canberra wasn't built on a swamp.
I will be traveling to South Africa at the end of March for a meeting of LeapFrog investors and partners and booked two nights at a game park at the end of the meeting. I haven't been to SA in over 25 years so I am really looking forward to seeing how much it has changed. I'll travel with a colleague to the Philippines at the end of this month and anxious to see the country, or at least Manila.
Heading into the weekend, will follow events in Egypt closely, go to an independent theater production, "Speaking in Tongues" tonight and Dr. Zhivago, Saturday night. May go to the zoo or maybe a market in Paddington, and of course try once again to get on the water for a sailing lesson.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Settling in
The end of the second week of "work". Getting more of a feel for the group. The team is is working from four time zones, Sydney, South Africa, Scotland and DC. There are two regularly scheduled calls each week to compare notes and discuss. So while one team is eating breakfast, the other may be calling from home, putting their children to bed. I am taking bridge lessons and Thursday night I ran home from my first lesson to join the call at 9:30 pm Sydney time. Some of the team were on video conference and I was glad I could lie on the lounge (sofa) and listen to the discussion in the dark.
This group is working with multiple cultures, in multiple times zones, on multiple deals, in multiple countries and wanting to change the world. They just might do it too.
In addition to bridge (no idea why I signed up but it was cheap $39 for four lessons plus practice sessions and convenient, right around the corner from the office), I signed up for sailing lessons. As I write this I am at a table on my balcony overlooking Double Bay with about 40 sail boats out this Friday evening. I think I was a bit jealous of these sailors. Also, RJ took sailing lessons on his sabbatical so maybe he started a UE tradition.
I showed up for my lessons, just 3 blocks from the office, hoisted the sails and with my instructor, a young woman the age of my daughter, we headed out to the bay. For the first time since arriving in Sydney there was no wind. Nothing, nada. We sat there for about 10 minutes and decided to drag the boat back in and try again another day. Next lesson is Monday. Which is also the day of the Super Bowl game. I plan to join the American Australian club to watch the game Monday at 10 am. They will serve hot dogs, bacon sandwiches, wedges and fries and beer. I'll be sure to write after the event. My brother-in-law asked me, since we are a day ahead, to tell him who wins the game to he can place bets on Sunday. You gotta love him.
Thinking a lot about measuring the "impact" of the investments in micro-finance, micro-insurance and all of impact investing. Been able to dig in and read dozens of academic articles on measuring the impact. These are similar to the issues we face at UE, how can we measure the impact of our risk management, the work that we do, and that we are lowering our members' total cost of risk. Thinking hard about this.
Weekend plans include a visit to a growers' market which show cases local food. Yasi, the category 5 cyclone hit the banana growing region this week and bananas are expected to rise in price 5x. But I am officially addicted to passion fruit, eating it every day, twice a day and will be interested to see what other local produce the market has. Going out to Bronte beach for "tea" and a swim on Sunday and maybe a make up for my sailing lesson.
One UE staffer made me promise not to come back speaking like an Aussie. So I won't end this the typical Aussie way of...Cheers and yes go Steelers!
This group is working with multiple cultures, in multiple times zones, on multiple deals, in multiple countries and wanting to change the world. They just might do it too.
In addition to bridge (no idea why I signed up but it was cheap $39 for four lessons plus practice sessions and convenient, right around the corner from the office), I signed up for sailing lessons. As I write this I am at a table on my balcony overlooking Double Bay with about 40 sail boats out this Friday evening. I think I was a bit jealous of these sailors. Also, RJ took sailing lessons on his sabbatical so maybe he started a UE tradition.
I showed up for my lessons, just 3 blocks from the office, hoisted the sails and with my instructor, a young woman the age of my daughter, we headed out to the bay. For the first time since arriving in Sydney there was no wind. Nothing, nada. We sat there for about 10 minutes and decided to drag the boat back in and try again another day. Next lesson is Monday. Which is also the day of the Super Bowl game. I plan to join the American Australian club to watch the game Monday at 10 am. They will serve hot dogs, bacon sandwiches, wedges and fries and beer. I'll be sure to write after the event. My brother-in-law asked me, since we are a day ahead, to tell him who wins the game to he can place bets on Sunday. You gotta love him.
Thinking a lot about measuring the "impact" of the investments in micro-finance, micro-insurance and all of impact investing. Been able to dig in and read dozens of academic articles on measuring the impact. These are similar to the issues we face at UE, how can we measure the impact of our risk management, the work that we do, and that we are lowering our members' total cost of risk. Thinking hard about this.
Weekend plans include a visit to a growers' market which show cases local food. Yasi, the category 5 cyclone hit the banana growing region this week and bananas are expected to rise in price 5x. But I am officially addicted to passion fruit, eating it every day, twice a day and will be interested to see what other local produce the market has. Going out to Bronte beach for "tea" and a swim on Sunday and maybe a make up for my sailing lesson.
One UE staffer made me promise not to come back speaking like an Aussie. So I won't end this the typical Aussie way of...Cheers and yes go Steelers!
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